Various Artists - Dave Edmunds' All Star Rock 'n' Roll Revue, Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA, 4-7-1990

The world lost another musical great last week (as I write this in early December 2025). Lead guitarist Steve Cropper died on December 3, 2025. He was 84 years old. I wanted to post something to celebrate his music. But that was a bit tricky, since he was mostly a session musician and songwriter. While he did put out some album under his own name, that was just a small part of his musical legacy. And when he toured, he almost always was part of bands supporting other stars.

I looked around, and found this concert, which I'd never known of before. Cropper was part of the backing band, along with Terry Williams (ex-Rockpile), Phil Chen (ex-Rod Stewart), the Memphis Horns, and others, so he played on every song.

This tour probably happened thanks to Ringo Starr of the Beatles. In 1989, Starr put on the first of many "His All-Starr Band" concert tours. These consisted of Starr plus a rotating group of other musical stars who weren't big enough of their own to play big concert venues. But when they were packaged together, along with an ex-Beatle, they were. Dave Edmunds looked at that formula and immediately decided to try the same thing. He brought together Kim Wilson, former lead vocalist of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Graham Parker, and Dion. Each of them played about a half an hour set, with Edmunds playing both at the start of the concert and at the end.

The shows were successful, it seems. But Edmunds only attempted this for this one tour. In fact, he joined the "His All-Starr Band" tours in 1992 and 2000. Perhaps that's because Edmunds went into semi-retirement after 1990. He only put out one more album of new material, in 1994. And he only did one more significant tour, in 2007, before retiring from music for good in 2017.

This concert was the last show of the tour. I read that a double album of this exact concert was released, but only in Japan. However, if that's true, it would only be a minority of this recording, since this is a very long concert, at nearly three hours! This concert was also broadcast for the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, which is why we have it with excellent sound quality.

One last thought. A while back, I made two "Covered" album for Steve Cropper. So if you want to remember all the great songs he helped write, that's probably an even better way to do it. Here are the links to those:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-artists-covered-steve-cropper.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-artists-covered-steve-cropper_30.html

This album is two hours and 47 minutes long. 

01 talk (Dave Edmunds)
02 Last Night [Instrumental] (Dave Edmunds)
03 Fallin' through a Hole (Dave Edmunds)
04 Feel So Right (Dave Edmunds)
05 Closer to the Flame (Dave Edmunds)
06 Don't Talk to Me (Dave Edmunds)
07 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Dave Edmunds)
08 talk (Dave Edmunds)
09 Wrap It Up (Kim Wilson)
10 It Comes to Me Naturally (Kim Wilson)
11 Wasted Tears (Kim Wilson)
12 I Believe I'm in Love with You (Kim Wilson)
13 There Is Something on Your Mind (Kim Wilson)
14 Tuff Enuff (Kim Wilson)
15 talk (Kim Wilson)
16 Nervous Fella (Kim Wilson)
17 talk (Dave Edmunds)
18 Get Started, Start a Fire (Graham Parker)
19 Under the Mask of Happiness (Graham Parker)
20 talk (Graham Parker)
21 Local Girls (Graham Parker)
22 talk (Graham Parker)
23 My Girl (Graham Parker)
24 Slash and Burn (Graham Parker)
25 talk (Graham Parker)
26 Lady Doctor (Graham Parker)
27 talk (Graham Parker)
28 My Love's Strong (Graham Parker)
29 Soultime (Graham Parker)
30 Heat Treatment (Graham Parker)
31 talk (Dave Edmunds)
32 King of the New York Streets (Dion)
33 talk (Dion)
34 The Night Stood Still (Dion)
35 talk (Dion)
36 Ruby Baby (Dion)
37 talk (Dion)
38 Written on the Subway Wall (Dion)
39 Runaround Sue (Dion)
40 The Wanderer (Dion)
41 talk (Dion)
42 Abraham, Martin and John (Dion)
43 From Small Things [Big Things One Day Come] (Dave Edmunds)
44 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
45 talk (Dave Edmunds)
46 Ju Ju Man (Dave Edmunds)
47 King of Love (Dave Edmunds)
48 talk (Dave Edmunds)
49 Crawling from the Wreckage (Dave Edmunds)
50 Paralyzed (Dave Edmunds)
51 talk (Everyone)
52 [Sitting On] the Dock of the Bay (Everyone)
53 I'm Ready (Everyone)
54 Keep A-Knockin' (Everyone) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/w4EEsJQM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4B7YTBcfLApwM51/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Marlboro Blues Festival, in Chicago, Illinois, on March 24, 1990. From right to left: Steve Cropper, Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker, and Dion.

Dave Edmunds - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Freilichtbuhne Loreley, St. Goarshausen, Germany, 8-20-1983

I just posted BBC concert albums from Joe Cocker and the Steve Miller Band that took place on this same date and location. There was kind of a mini rock festival in Germany on this day, with sets by U2, Dave Edmunds, the Stray Cats, Cocker, and Miller. As I explained in those previous posts, all the sets were broadcast both on the German TV program "Rockpalast" and on BBC radio. So here's the Dave Edmunds set too.

I consider myself fortunate to have found this bootleg when I did, because it's saved me from posting something else. I'd already posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" concert from Edmunds, which took place in 1982. I had a "Volume 2" ready to go, but it was a different 1983 concert. It was a "BBC Rock Hour" concert that took place in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, in July 1983. But that concert recording is inferior to this one in every way. It's shorter, only 35 minutes long. And basically all the songs are the same, except there were fewer of them. But most importantly, this one has noticeably better sound quality. So that one has gone in my trash and this is now "Volume 2."

Although only one year had passed since "Volume 1," Edmunds had released a studio album in the meantime, 1983's "Information." It had two medium hits on it, "Slipping Away" (written by Jeff Lynne of E.L.O.) and "Information" (written by Edmunds and a professional songwriter, and produced by Lynne). Those would be the last significant hits for Edmunds. Perhaps due to his declining sales, I don't know of any BBC concerts by him after this.

Billy Bremner, who was in the band Rockpile with Edmunds and Nick Lowe in the late 1970s, was in Edmunds' band at this time. Just as was the case with Rockpile, Bremner was allowed to occasionally sing a song. He put out his first solo album in 1983. He sang the main single from that, "Loud Music in Cars," which isn't on any Edmunds studio album.

As I previously mentioned, I plan on also posting the Stray Cats set from this concert (but not the U2 one because it's too similar to another one I've already posted). However, that'll be "BBC Sessions, Volume 3" for the Stray Cats, so I want to post Volumes One and Two first.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 From Small Things Big Things Come (Dave Edmunds)
02 Dear Dad (Dave Edmunds)
03 Sweet Little Lisa (Dave Edmunds)
04 talk (Dave Edmunds)
05 Loud Music in Cars (Dave Edmunds)
06 talk (Dave Edmunds)
07 Girls Talk (Dave Edmunds)
08 Don't You Double (Dave Edmunds)
09 talk (Dave Edmunds)
10 Queen of Hearts (Dave Edmunds)
11 talk (Dave Edmunds)
12 I Don't Wanna Be in Love (Dave Edmunds)
13 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
14 Trouble Boys (Dave Edmunds)
15 talk (Dave Edmunds)
16 You Ain't Nothing but Fine (Dave Edmunds)
17 talk (Dave Edmunds)
18 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Dave Edmunds)
19 talk (Dave Edmunds)
20 Information (Dave Edmunds)
21 Slipping Away (Dave Edmunds)
22 Crawling from the Wreckage (Dave Edmunds)
23 Ju Ju Man (Dave Edmunds)
24 Let's Talk about Us (Dave Edmunds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jpHZpG3w

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2FLmDkMHH0y3PUq/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I took it from a screenshot of a YouTube video.

US Festival '82, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 9-4-1982 - Day 2, Part 1: Dave Edmunds

The first act presented here from Day Two of the 1982 US Festival is a set by Dave Edmunds.

Before I say anything else, I want to make clear the sound quality of this set is not great. The vast majority of the sets from this festival are audio bootlegs, but some are better than others. This is one of the poorer ones. I still think it's worthy, but be ware.

Note that this was not actually the first act on this day of the festival. A Rolling Stone Magazine article explained it well:

"One of the advantages of footing the bill for a big rock show is that you can insist that your friends get on the bill. [Festival funder] Steve Wozniak clearly learned that early on, and day two opened with a couple of his own choices. First, there was Ms. Milk, who sang 'America, the Beautiful' to the accompaniment of a lone synthesizer, adding a few new lyrics along the way: 'America, America/It is our human right/To do our thing/To laugh and sing/Free from atomic fight.' Ms. Milk was followed by Joe Sharino, a Santa Cruz-based singer/songwriter who played at Wozniak’s wedding."

The attendance of Day Two was about 200,000 people, significantly greater than Day One. It must have been extremely strange to be either Ms. Milk or Joe Sharino on that day, because as far as I can tell, they had next to no musical careers aside from this one festival. (I found out there's one very obscure studio album by Joe Sharino that was released in 1984.) I couldn't find any recordings of either of their sets.

Dave Edmunds, by contrast, was a pretty big rock star in 1982. He had just gone back to fully focusing on being a solo artist after being one of the two lead singers in the band Rockpile for a few years. 

As usual for this festival, I did what I could to improve the sound, using both the UVR5 and MVSEP audio editing programs. But one can only do so much with the source material.

This album is 35 minutes long.

001 Crawling from the Wreckage (Dave Edmunds)
002 Dear Dad (Dave Edmunds)
003 talk (Dave Edmunds)
004 From Small Things [Big Things One Day Come] (Dave Edmunds)
005 Girls Talk (Dave Edmunds)
006 talk (Dave Edmunds)
007 You Ain't Nothin' but Fine (Dave Edmunds)
008 talk (Dave Edmunds)
009 Me and the Boys (Dave Edmunds)
010 Queen of Hearts (Dave Edmunds)
011 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Dave Edmunds)
012 It's My Own Business (Dave Edmunds)
013 Ju Ju Man (Dave Edmunds)
014 Let's Talk about Us (Dave Edmunds)
015 talk (Dave Edmunds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17497709/VA-1982USFstvlDay0201DveEdmnds_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dRtW5mUd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/B9H6TRcUuhB9CRN/file

Strangely, Dave Edmunds was the only major act of the festival where I couldn't find even a single photo of him performing at the festival. I wanted to have one album cover that showed just how huge the crowd was, so I chose a photo of the crowd. Now, imagine being someone like Joe Sharino who probably had never performed before more than a couple hundred people, playing to THAT crowd!

Dave Edmunds - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: BBC Rock Hour, Uncle Sam's, Hull, MA, 11-21-1982

Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe were the two main figures in the band Rockpile in the late 1970s. Edmunds and Lowe parted ways around the start of 1981, but both of them kept going strongly with their solo careers. When it comes to Edmunds' solo career and the BBC, I've only found enough for two albums, both concerts. Here's the first one.

The peak of Edmunds' popularity was probably the early 1980s, and that's when this concert is from. Earlier in 1982, he released his solo album "D.E. 7th," so naturally there are some songs from that, though less than I'd expected ("From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)," "Dear Dad," and "Me and the Boys"). 

Many of the other songs were performed by Rockpile. In fact, this is much like a typically energetic Rockpile concert recording, except without any of the songs sung by Nick Lowe.

The concert is entirely unreleased. The sound quality is up to the usual BBC concert standards.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 talk (Dave Edmunds)
02 Crawlin' from the Wreckage (Dave Edmunds)
03 Dear Dad (Dave Edmunds)
04 Your True Love (Dave Edmunds)
05 talk (Dave Edmunds)
06 Nobody (Dave Edmunds)
07 talk (Dave Edmunds)
08 From Small Things [Big Things One Day Come] (Dave Edmunds)
09 talk (Dave Edmunds)
10 Blue Moon of Kentucky (Dave Edmunds)
11 Girls Talk (Dave Edmunds)
12 talk (Dave Edmunds)
13 Queen of Hearts (Dave Edmunds)
14 talk (Dave Edmunds)
15 It's My Own Business (Dave Edmunds)
16 talk (Dave Edmunds)
17 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
18 Ju Ju Man (Dave Edmunds)
19 talk (Dave Edmunds)
20 Bama Lama Bama Loo (Dave Edmunds)
21 Me and the Boys (Dave Edmunds)
22 Down Down Down (Dave Edmunds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16531395/DVEDMNDS1982BBSssonsVlum1BBRckHurUnclSmsHllMA__11-21-1982_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey, on May 15, 1982.

Various Artists - Prince's Trust Rock Gala, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 6-5-1987

I just posted the Prince's Trust concert from 1986. This is the 1987 concert. It's the same basic idea, but many of the songs and performers are different. Both are very worthwhile listens.

Like the 1986 concert, this one started with some newer musical acts. With the benefit of hindsight, some were good choices, and others... not so much (cough cough, Curiosity Killed the Cat and Go West, cough cough). But if you don't like all the artists, that's okay, because none of the first few acts lasted more than a single song.

There were fewer big name artists in this concert than the 1986 one. Plus, the entire concert was about half an hour shorter. (If, in fact, this is the whole thing - I'm not entirely sure.) But on the other hand, the finale was probably even more impressive. I'll get to that in a minute.

First though, I want to point out that, like the 1986 concert, for many of the songs, there was a backing band made up of many stars. I don't know which songs exactly, because I can't find the full video of this concert on YouTube. But, for instance, when Ben E. King sang his song, his backing band included Phil Collins on drums, Midge Ure on rhythm guitar, and Eric Clapton on lead guitar.

But the big deal was the finale. In the 1986, the biggest star was ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. But the 1987 concert outdid that by having two ex-Beatles performing together: George Harrison and Ringo Starr! Harrison's appearance was a particularly big deal because he hadn't performed in concert since his 1974 tour (other than a couple of brief appearances in the finales of other artist's concerts). 

I randomly stumbled across a description of the concert's finale in a 2015 article in Guitar World Magazine. Here it is:

"On June 5, 1987, three of the five original musicians who appeared on the classic Beatles 'White Album' track 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' reunited to perform the song live at the Prince's Trust Rock Gala in London's Wembley Arena. George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Eric Clapton were joined in an all-star U.K. band, including Elton John, Phil Collins, Jeff Lynne, Ray Cooper, and... well, if you're wondering who that understandably happy bassist is, it's Mark King from Level 42. Harrison, Starr, and Clapton last performed the song live 16 years earlier at the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City. What most interesting about this performance is the fact that A., the normally Strat-happy Clapton is playing a beautiful Gibson Les Paul, just as he did on the original 1968 recording, and B., the also-Strat-happy Harrison joins Clapton in the extended guitar solo at the end of the song. The two guitarists trade solos and feed off each other's energy, and their intertwining lines are often pretty damn cool."

In addition to that, someone, I'm guessing Clapton, played a guitar solo for "With a Little Help from My Friends," a song that normally lacked any solo. It's a shame that Jeff Lynne apparently didn't sing any of his Electric Light Orchestra hits. But he sang backing vocals on all three of the Beatles songs at the end. Given that Lynne is a huge Beatles fan, this must have been the closest he ever got to a fantasy of being a part of the Beatles, getting to sing with Harrison and Starr, with Clapton on guitar for good measure!

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long.

01 Running in the Family (Level 42 with Eric Clapton)
02 If I Was (Midge Ure)
03 Misfit (Curiosity Killed the Cat)
04 Don't Look Down (Go West)
05 Invisible (Alison Moyet)
06 Through the Barricades (Spandau Ballet)
07 [Something Inside] So Strong (Labi Siffre)
08 Run to You (Bryan Adams)
09 Hearts on Fire (Bryan Adams)
10 Somebody (Bryan Adams)
11 talk (Dave Edmunds & Bryan Adams)
12 The Wanderer (Dave Edmunds & Bryan Adams)
13 talk (Eric Clapton)
14 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton)
15 Behind the Mask (Eric Clapton)
16 Stand by Me (Ben E. King)
17 talk (Phil Collins)
18 Reach Out, I'll Be There - I Can't Help Myself - Same Old Song (Phil Collins & Paul Young)
19 You've Lost That Loving Feeling (Phil Collins & Paul Young)
20 talk (Elton John)
21 Your Song (Elton John)
22 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)
23 talk (George Harrison & Ringo Starr)
24 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George Harrison & Eric Clapton with Ringo Starr & Jeff Lynne)
25 Here Comes the Sun (George Harrison with Ringo Starr & Jeff Lynne)
26 With a Little Help from My Friends (Ringo Starr with George Harrison, Eric Clapton & Jeff Lynne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/W4HtwzDd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6mOchiVwGJ0ZR4P/file

I searched the Internet pretty thoroughly for a color version of the group photo from this concert. All I could find was a black and white version. I tinted it blue. If anyone can find the color version, please let me know so I can upgrade this. There are way too many people in the photo for me to try to make a colorized version.

Heatwave Festival, Mosport Park, Bowmanville, Canada, 8-23-1980, Part 2: Rockpile

The second set I have from the 1980 Heatwave Festival was performed by Rockpile, a rocking foursome led by both Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds.

Rockpile played many concerts from 1977 to 1981, but Lowe and Edmunds were on different record labels, so they were only able to release one studio album, "Seconds of Pleasure," in 1980. That album actually came out two months after this concert, so none of the songs here are from it. But there are some songs from the most recent solo albums by Edmunds ("Repeat When Necessary") and Lowe ("Labour of Lust").

This album perhaps is a bit redundant, because two official Rockpile live albums were eventually released that are from 1980 concerts, "Live at Montreux 1980" and "Live at Rockpalast." But in my opinion, it's hard to have too much live Rockpile, at least when it has this level of sound quality, since this unreleased concert is from a soundboard source. 

There was a problem with one song, "Sweet Little Lisa." The sound balance was really off for most of the song, with the overall volume fluctuating and different instruments out of whack. But I was able to fix that in Audacity, so it should sound pretty normal now. This kind of thing sometimes happens with the first songs of concerts, while the sound mix was being adjusted on the fly.

This album is 55 minutes long.

Note that the song numbering continues from where the last album in the festival left off, in case one wants to hear all the songs from it in a row. Also, I have zeroes at the start of the track numbers because there were over a 100 songs in the festival.

023 talk (Rockpile)
024 Sweet Little Lisa [Edit] (Rockpile)
025 So It Goes (Rockpile)
026 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Rockpile)
027 talk (Rockpile)
028 Queen of Hearts (Rockpile)
029 Switchboard Susan (Rockpile)
030 Trouble Boys (Rockpile)
031 Girls Talk (Rockpile)
032 Three Time Loser (Rockpile)
033 talk (Rockpile)
034 You Ain't Nothing but Fine (Rockpile)
035 Crawling from the Wreckage (Rockpile)
036 talk (Rockpile)
037 Let It Rock (Rockpile)
038 Singing the Blues (Rockpile)
039 I Hear You Knocking (Rockpile)
040 They Called It Rock (Rockpile)
041 Ju Ju Man (Rockpile)
042 Down Down Down (Rockpile)
043 Let's Talk about Us (Rockpile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17315605/VA-HtwveFstivlMsprtPrkBwmnvlleCnda__8-23-1980_02Rckple.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/imXeAsYt

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. That's Edmunds on the left and Lowe on the right.

Various Artists - Heart Beat 86, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, Britain, 3-15-1986

Here's an impressive 1986 benefit concert with performances by the Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Robert Plant, George Harrison, Roy Wood, UB40, the Fortunes, and more. It's completely unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent.

The inspiration for the concert began with Bev Bevan, the drummer for ELO. He was inspired by the Live Aid benefit concert in 1985, and wanted to do something for his hometown of Birmingham, England. All the proceeds went to benefit the Birmingham Children's Hospital. The concert ended up having a unusual Birmingham focus, with the vast majority of the musical performers originally coming from Birmingham. Some acts that hadn't been in the spotlight for some time, such as the Fortunes and Applejacks, got back together for this concert.

The concert was massive, nine hours long. Big acts like ELO and the Moody Blues played sets that lasted an hour or so. However, this album only contains an hour and a half of that. That's because all I could find was the portion that was later broadcast on BBC TV and radio. Parts of it also was broadcast on MTV in the US, and two songs ("The Voice" and "Lucille") come from that, with slightly lower sound quality. If anyone has any more of this, please let me know so I can add it in. But while it's sad that so much of the concert is missing, at least what is here has excellent sound quality.

One big act to perform was Robert Plant. Although he was having a very successful solo career, he avoided that kind of music and played rockabilly covers with the backing band the Big Town Playboys instead.

I think the ELO set is particularly interesting. Normally, ELO concerts were big productions, with lots of orchestral instruments and backing tapes and so on. This was a much more stripped down kind of performance, but the band showed they could still rock. It also was the band's first concert in four years. They would only play an additional handful of concerts in 1986 before breaking up. I'd especially love to hear the rest of their set, because I don't know of any other concert recording by the original ELO from after 1978 with this level of sound quality.

The Moody Blues were the last big act of the concert. But then everyone from all the earlier acts joined them on stage for a finale. Three songs were played: "Lucille," "Money (That's What I Want)," and "Johnny B. Goode." Unfortunately, I couldn't find a recording of "Money." But probably the highlight of the concert was "Johnny B. Goode," because a very unexpected guest star showed up on stage: George Harrison. He sang lead vocals on part of the song. But just having him there was a big deal, since he'd been pretty reclusive for the last decade or so. Apparently, even most of the other musicians were starstruck to be on the same stage as the ex-Beatle. 

By the way, it was hoped that there would be a reunion of the 1960s band the Move, since two major figures from that band, Jeff Lynne of ELO and Roy Wood, were at the concert. Plus, this was all about highlighting the best musical acts from Birmingham, and the Move definitely were one of those. It was announced the Move would reunite for the concert, but band member Carl Wayne didn't show up for some reason, so the reunion never happened. This was the closest to a Move reunion ever. That is no longer possible since Wayne passed away in 2004.

Note also that Denny Laine performed a set. However, his set was plagued by sound problems, and none of it was included in the BBC broadcast. He did sing lead on one verse of "Johnny B. Goode" for the final encore though. Also, Dave Edmunds was at the concert, but only had a minor role, playing a guitar solo on the song "Lucille" during the encore. And Noddy Holder, the lead singer of Slade, was at the concert, but his only role was singing a verse of "Lucille."

One final note. The emcee, Oliver Spencer (formerly known as Roger Spencer), used to be a member of the 1960s band Idle Race, also from Birmingham. The BBC recording included some stand-up comedy he did between acts, but I cut most of that out, since it doesn't have the same relistening value as the music.

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Share It with You (Steve Gibbons Band)
02 B.S.A. (Steve Gibbons Band)
03 talk (Oliver Spencer)
04 Let It Be Me (Fortunes)
05 talk (Fortunes)
06 You've Got Your Troubles (Fortunes)
07 talk (Oliver Spencer)
08 See My Baby Jive (Roy Wood)
09 Are You Ready to Rock (Roy Wood)
10 talk (Roy Wood)
11 I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day (Roy Wood)
12 talk (Oliver Spencer)
13 I Got You Babe (UB40 & Ruby Turner)
14 Tell Me When (Applejacks)
15 talk (Oliver Spencer)
16 She Walks Right In (Robert Plant)
17 Come On (Robert Plant)
18 [Every Time I Hear] That Mellow Saxophone (Robert Plant)
19 He's in Town (Rockin' Berries)
20 talk (Oliver Spencer)
21 Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra)
22 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
23 Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra)
24 Rockaria (Electric Light Orchestra)
25 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
26 Hold On Tight (Electric Light Orchestra)
27 Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
28 talk (Oliver Spencer)
29 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
30 Question (Moody Blues)
31 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
32 The Voice (Moody Blues)
33 Lucille (Noddy Holder, Roy Wood, Dave Edmunds & Everyone)
34 talk (Oliver Spencer)
35 Johnny B. Goode (George Harrison, Denny Laine, Robert Plant & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oygUAcFT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ldz5LsvyWmzV42C/file

The cover photo shows Jeff Lynne and George Harrison during the "Johnny B. Goode" finale from this exact concert. The photo was originally in black and white, but I used the Palette program to colorize it, then made some additional changes in Photoshop. Note that Lynne and Harrison were just starting to get to know each other around this time. They would go on to become good friends, as well as band mates in the Traveling Wilburys.

Love Sculpture (with Dave Edmunds) - BBC Sessions (1968-1969)

I'll explain more in another post soon, but suffice to say that I plan on posting lots of BBC session albums in the near future. This is a collection of all the BBC sessions from Love Sculpture. If you haven't heard of them, you've probably head of Dave Edmunds, who had a long successful solo career, as well as being part of the band Rockpile with Nick Lowe in the late 1970s. He led this band in the late 1960s.

Love Sculpture has a fairly small musical footprint, because they were only together for two albums, plus a couple of non-album singles. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any live recording of them publicly available, either officially released or on bootleg. So this is probably the closest we'll get to hearing them live, as they played live in the BBC studios.

This is a bootleg, but the sound quality is excellent. Furthermore, we're lucky as it seems the BBC DJs didn't talk over any of the music.

This collection also adds significantly to their small discography, because some of the songs here were otherwise never released by them in any form: "Do I Still Figure in Your Life," "Sweet Little Rock and Roller," "Promised Land," "Evening Blues," "The Inner Light," and "Great Balls of Fire." And yes, "The Inner Light" is a version of the obscure Beatles B-side, though done in a very different (and quite interesting) arrangement.

Edmunds went solo in 1970, and immediately had a hit with "I Hear Your Knocking." As far as I can tell, he never did any studio or live BBC sessions as a solo artist, at least not until years later with Rockpile. I also didn't find any instances of them performing on TV or something like that. So this is everything that fits.

Note that there are two songs at the end by Dave Edmunds solo, after Love Sculpture broke up. Thanks to a commenter named Marley, I was able to listen to all of Edmunds' songs played for the BBC in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, most of them turned out to be identical to the album versions. That makes sense, because Edmunds didn't have a band at the time, and recorded all the instruments and vocals for his songs in his home studio. But "I Hear You Knocking" was different, and "The Three Armed Poker Player Liver Rat from New Orleans" is a song that was never released by him in any form anywhere. Presumably that was another one he did at home but gave to the BBC. 

This album is 52 minutes long.

UPDATE: On December 4, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I found a song I'd previously, missed, "The Rebel." It had some BBC DJ talking on it, which is why I edited it, leading to the "[Edit]" in its title. 

01 Brand New Woman (Love Sculpture)
02 The Stumble [Instrumental] (Love Sculpture)
03 River to Another Day (Love Sculpture)
04 Do I Still Figure in Your Life (Love Sculpture)
05 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Love Sculpture)
06 The Rebel [Edit] (Love Sculpture)
07 Wang Dang Doodle (Love Sculpture)
08 Don't Answer the Door (Love Sculpture)
09 Promised Land (Love Sculpture)
10 Sabre Dance [Instrumental] (Love Sculpture)
11 Evening Blues (Love Sculpture)
12 The Inner Light (Love Sculpture)
13 Farandole (Love Sculpture)
14 Great Balls of Fire (Love Sculpture)
15 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
16 The Three Armed Poker Player Liver Rat from New Orleans (Dave Edmunds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/84SjchMP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ezu8a7OkFmnBkKD/file

For the cover art, I used a promo photo from 1969. The colors seemed off, with their skin looking inhumanly pale, so I made some tweaks in Photoshop to hopefully improve that.

Rockpile - The Bottom Line, New York City, 10-24-1978

I love Rockpile, the late 1970s band with Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds. They had lots of great songs, and they could really rock. It's a shame they never got their due, in my opinion largely due to the fact that Lowe and Edmunds were on different record labels, so Rockpile was only ever able to record one studio album, right when they broke up.

Rockpile definitely excelled on stage. It's too bad they never released a live album while they were still together. One was released decades later, but that's a concert from 1980. This show is from 1978, with a significantly different song list. This concert from The Bottom Line in New York City is a great one. It was played live on the radio, so the sound quality is as good as a professionally recorded live album. Just listening to it, I can almost see and smell the sweat from a tightly packed crowd dancing to the relentlessly energetic songs. If you like good ol' rock and roll, give this a listen! 

There were some issues with the bootleg recording that I had to fix. The music was just fine, but sometimes things got a little problematic with the applause after some songs. In two cases, a DJ for the radio station recording and playing the concert over the radio spoke over the applause to remind listeners what station they were listening to. I removed those. In a few other cases, the applause at the ends of songs was missing or cut short. So I did my usual trick of patching in applause from the ends of other songs.

There are two notable things about the last song, "Let It Rock," a Chuck Berry number. First, it features Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones as an additional lead guitarist. Two, it's not actually from the concert in question. But, it's from the very next night, at the same venue. The recording of that night is also excellent. The set list was the same with the exception of this one song with Richards, so I've only included that song at the end.

By the way, Lowe once wrote an interesting account of Richards playing "Let It Rock." It's probably from the appearance that is included here, though it's possible he played with the band more than one. Lowe claims it was at the Bottom Line, but in 1979, but he could have the timing wrong. Anyway, here's the link to the short story:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/keith-richards-meets-rockpile-1979.86634/

The concert is 59 minutes long, including the extra song with Richards. If you own listen to just one Rockpile concert, I recommend this one, even over their official album "Live at Montreux 1980."

01 Down, Down, Down (Rockpile)
02 So It Goes (Rockpile)
03 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Rockpile)
04 talk (Rockpile)
05 Deborah (Rockpile)
06 talk (Rockpile)
07 I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass (Rockpile)
08 talk (Rockpile)
09 No More Mr. Nice Guy (Rockpile)
10 Trouble Boys (Rockpile)
11 It's My Own Business (Rockpile)
12 talk (Rockpile)
13 Never Been in Love (Rockpile)
14 Love So Fine (Rockpile)
15 Promised Land (Rockpile)
16 talk (Rockpile)
17 I Hear You Knocking (Rockpile)
18 They Called It Rock (Rockpile)
19 Heart of the City (Rockpile)
20 Ju Ju Man (Rockpile)
21 Here Comes the Weekend (Rockpile)
22 Let It Rock (Rockpile with Keith Richards)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697075/ROCKPLE1978_BottmLneNwYrkC__10-24-1978_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo features just Nick Lowe (left) and Dave Edmunds (right). I could have used a photo with all four band members, but I liked this one the best. It's from a concert in New York City in August 1979, probably the Palladium.

Rockpile - Rip It Up - Non-Album Tracks (1980)

In 1980, the band Rockpile released their one and only studio album, "Seconds of Pleasure." Keep in mind that Rockpile basically was a musical alliance between Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. This is the fourth of four stray tracks albums I've put together of Rockpile performances that don't include performances from Edmunds or Lowe solo albums, even when they were backed by all four members of Rockpile. I also didn't include any songs that were also on the "Seconds of Pleasure," whether they were the exact same performances or not. Yet I still was able to find enough unique songs from that same year of 1980 to fill up an album of stray tracks.

The vast majority of songs here are fun cover versions, often of famous songs. Nearly all are unreleased, and come from live performances. But there are a couple of suggestions. "Loud Music in Cars" is the name of a minor hit by Billy Bremner, Rockpile's other guitarist who occasionally sang lead. The single came out in 1981, but this is a very similar demo version that was done in 1980. Also, in 1979, Edmunds had a solo hit with the song "Girls Talk," which was written by Elvis Costello. In 1980, Rockpile released "Boys Talk," which was cowritten by Lowe and Edmunds and has no similarity to "Girls Talk" except for the very similar title. It was released as a B-side.

Regarding the live performances on this album, the problem with some of them is the sound quality. Some of these were done only rarely in concert, so we only have versions from audience bootlegs, which can sound rather rough. The two roughest, "Hey Baby" and "What Did I Do Last Night" have been demoted to bonus tracks. But frankly, a couple of the others don't sound a lot better, in terms of sound quality. But I think the sound quantity issue is more than made up for by the musical performance.

01 Sweet Little Lisa (Rockpile)
02 Baby Ride Easy (Carlene Carter & Rockpile)
03 You'll Never Get Me Up in One of Those (Rockpile)
04 Loud Music in Cars [Demo] (Billy Bremner)
05 Singing the Blues (Rockpile)
06 Cry, Cry, Cry (Rockpile)
07 Big Blond Baby (Rockpile)
08 Boys Talk (Rockpile)
09 Rip It Up - Ready Teddy (Rockpile)
10 The Wanderer (Rockpile)
11 Don't Fight It (Rockpile)

Hey Baby (Rockpile)
What Did I Do Last Night (Rockpile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266546/Rockpl_1980_RpItUp_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mNPFm8UL

The cover art photo of the band comes from 1980.

Rockpile - Let It Rock - Non-Album Tracks (1979)

This is the third of four stray tracks Rockpile albums I'm posting. It's kind of an imaginary alternate history, pretending that Rockpile put out an album every year while they were still in existence.

Rockpile, as you may know, was basically a musical alliance between guitarist Dave Edmunds and bassist and songwriter Nick Lowe, with the two of them talking turns being the lead singer. It was a strange situation, because from 1977 to 1980, Rockpile never put out a studio (or live) album until 1980, because Lowe and Edmunds were on different record labels. Yet during those years Edmunds and Lowe always toured together as part of Rockpile.

As with the other albums in this series, I have avoided using any of the studio tracks from Edmunds or Lowe, when they were usually backed by all of Rockpile. Instead, this is entirely made up of live versions of songs Rockpile did in concert.

Edmunds put out an album in 1979 called "Repeat When Necessary." Three of the songs here are versions of songs from that album. Lowe also put out an album in 1979, "Labour of Love." Four of the songs here are versions of songs from that. That counts for seven of the 13 songs. The others are generally cover versions that never appeared on album, such as versions of the classic songs "Let It Rock" by Chuck Berry and "Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis Presley.

Note there's one kind of strange song here, "Little Sister." What's unusual about it is that the lead singer is actually Robert Plant, while he was still part of Led Zeppelin. This is because in 1979 there was a benefit concert known as the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. Rockpile played, and Led Zeppelin didn't, but Plant joined them as a guest for this one song, which is a cover of an Elvis Presley hit.

That song, plus another one from that same concert, "Crawling from the Wreckage," were officially released as part of a live album for that benefit. The rest are all officially unreleased. But the sound quality is generally very good for the unreleased songs too. Most of them come from a concert that was professionally recorded and played live on the radio at the time. The last song, "What Looks Best on You," clearly comes from an audience bootleg and is rougher sounding than the rest, but it's still very listenable.

01 Rockin' Little Angel (Rockpile)
02 Girls Talk (Rockpile)
03 Cracking Up (Rockpile)
04 Switchboard Susan (Rockpile)
05 Queen of Hearts (Rockpile)
06 Let It Rock (Rockpile)
07 Jailhouse Rock (Rockpile)
08 Born Fighter (Rockpile)
09 Cruel to Be Kind (Rockpile)
10 Little Sister (Rockpile with Robert Plant)
11 Crawling from the Wreckage (Rockpile)
12 Three Time Loser (Rockpile)
13 What Looks Best on You (Rockpile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266516/Rockpl_1979_LtItRock_atse.zip.html

The photo for the cover art was taken in Chicago in November 1980. I'm using it because I was able to find lots of good photos of the band in 1980 but none in 1979.

Rockpile - Fool Too Long - Non-Album Tracks (1978)

Some days ago, I posted an album of stray tracks from Rockpile, the band where Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds joined forces from 1977 to 1980. During those years, Lowe and Edmunds generally put out solo albums every year or two, and they usually were backed by all four members of Rockpile for those albums. The challenge I've given myself in this series of albums is to not use any of the performances from those albums, since I listen a lot to those albums anyway.

Instead, I'm using versions of songs from those albums as well as other songs Rockpile did that didn't make it onto any of those albums. The vast majority of these performances come from concerts, since there is very little studio material available from the band other than those albums, yet they toured frequently while they were together. I believe three of the songs were not recorded in different versions on any of those solo albums: "Fool Too Long," "Let's Eat," "Stuck in the Fog,"

Two of those exclusive songs - "Let's Eat" and "Stuck in the Fog" - have been officially released. All these rest come from concert bootlegs. Luckily, there are enough bootlegs for me to find versions of these songs with good sound quality, even though some of them are from audience recordings, not soundboards. As I often do, I removed the audience noise to make these all consistently sound like studio tracks.

01 So It Goes (Rockpile)
02 Goodbye Mr. Good Guy (Rockpile)
03 I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass (Rockpile)
04 It's My Own Business (Rockpile)
05 Fool Too Long (Rockpile)
06 Trouble Boys (Rockpile)
07 Never Been in Love (Rockpile)
08 Let's Eat (Nick Lowe & Rockpile)
09 Stuck in the Fog (Billy Bremner)
10 Here Comes the Weekend (Rockpile)
11 Love So Fine (Rockpile)
12 Deborah (Rockpile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697074/ROCKPLE1978_FolTooLng_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos from 1978. This one was taken in Toronto, Canada, in 1980. I used Photoshop to move the two band members at the bottom higher up.

Rockpile - A Mess of Blues - Non-Album Tracks (1977)

I'm very happy to present this album. I really love Rockpile, and I think this is great music that really rocks. You should check it out.

I should explain a bit about Rockpile, because they were a band with a rather unusual history. They basically were the merger of the careers of Dave Edmunds (on vocals and guitar) and Nick Lowe (on vocals and bass), with Billy Bremner (on vocals and guitar) and Terry Williams (on drums) rounding out the group. Edmunds would sing about half the songs and Lowe the other half, with Bremner getting to sing a song every now and then.

What made them unusual was that the band was together for about five years, and yet they only put out one studio album, near the end of their time together. This is because Edmunds was on one record label and Lowe was on another, and both wanted to pursue solo careers. So Rockpile was the backing band on all the songs for one of Lowe's solo albums and two of Edmunds', as well as backing some songs on their other solo albums. But while that was going on, neither Lowe or Edmunds did solo concerts. Nearly all their concerts from 1977 to the end of 1980 were done with Rockpile. Such concerts were billed as "Rockpile" despite the band not having any albums or even singles released. I guess word of mouth spread who Rockpile really was.

I've made four stray tracks albums for Rockpile; this is the first one. It would have been easy for me to simply collect the performances from the various Edmunds and Lowe solo albums and put them together to make Rockpile albums. But I didn't do that, because I think all those albums are really good as they are. Instead, I limited myself to everything else I could find. Since Rockpile was a very active live band, that mainly meant using recordings from live shows.

All the performances here are from 1977. About half the songs are different versions of songs from either Edmunds' or Lowe's solo albums at the time. Three more songs are versions of songs from Edmunds albums in 1970 or 1972 ("Down, Down, Down," "The Promised Land," and "I Hear You Knocking").

That leaves four songs. "A Mess of Blues" is a cover of a song made famous by Elvis Presley. "Downtown Hoedown" was recorded by Billy Bremner right before he joined Rockpile, but not released until many years after the band broke up. "Annie's Back - I Need Love" are a medley of obscure covers sung by Bremner. And "As Lovers Do" was the B-side to a Edmunds single. I've included it because it was a duet with Lowe.

01 Heart of the City (Rockpile)
02 Ju Ju Man (Rockpile)
03 Down, Down, Down (Rockpile)
04 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Rockpile)
05 Back to School Days (Rockpile)
06 They Called It Rock (Rockpile)
07 A Mess of Blues (Rockpile)
08 I Hear You Knocking (Rockpile)
09 Downtown Hoedown (Billy Bremner)
10 The Promised Land (Rockpile)
11 Let's Talk about Us (Rockpile)
12 Annie's Back - I Need Love (Rockpile)
13 As Lovers Do (Dave Edmunds with Nick Lowe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266518/Rockpl_1977_AMssBlues_atse.zip.html

I haven't been able to find lot of good color photos of Rockpile in color. For the album cover, I found a cover of a Rockpile bootleg that looked great. So I used it with only minor changes. I don't know where or when the photo is from.

Rockpile - Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers - Expanded Version (1979)

This is a fun little thing. In August 1979, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds of Rockpile played an session for the BBC with just the two of them and their acoustic guitars. They must have been in a big Everly Brothers mood, because they played five Everly Brothers songs in a row, then two of their own songs, then two other old cover songs. They jokingly called themselves the "Beverly Brothers."

A year later, Rockpile finally released a studio album (Seconds of Pleasure) after backing each other's solo albums for a few years, and they included four of the Everly Brothers covers from this session as a bonus EP. But the other songs were never released, except on a bootleg that didn't include the released songs. Here are all of the songs, together and in the order they were performed. They're short songs, so it's only a 22 minute album, but it's a fun one.

01 Problems, Problems (Rockpile)
02 Take a Message to Mary (Rockpile)
03 Crying in the Rain (Rockpile)
04 Poor Jenny (Rockpile)
05 When Will I Be Loved (Rockpile)
06 What Looks Best on You (Rockpile)
07 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Rockpile)
08 Blue Moon of Kentucky (Rockpile)
09 The Race Is On (Rockpile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266508/Rockpl_1979_SingEvrlyBrthersExpnded_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on the EP cover, but I made some changes. (The original specifically mentioned four song titles, but that doesn't work anymore when there's nine songs.)