Roy Orbison & Various Artists - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-15-1974

Here's a special theme edition of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The show's emcee Wolfman Jack called it the show's third "solid gold" show. What "solid gold" meant was what people were already starting to call "oldies," meaning musical acts that had hits in the 1950s and early 1960s, but generally stopped having them by the 1970s. Roy Orbison was the show's host. But in this case, that was a nominal position. He got to perform four songs, while the other guest stars got three or two.

The other performers on this show: Drifters, Del Shannon, Jackie Wilson, Bobby Vee, Lloyd Price, Duane Eddy, and Tommy Roe. That's a pretty impressive list, if you were looking for stars from that earlier era. 

Listening to this sounds a lot like listening to an oldies radio station playing one classic hit after another, except everything here was performed live. And while their hit-making days were generally over, they were all still relatively young and still in full capacity of their musical powers. 

This show started and edited a little different than most shows. Typically, the show started with about a minute of the song "Midnight Special," performed by Johnny Rivers. (I usually try to edit that out.) But this one began with just a few seconds of comments by Wolfman Jack, then bang, right into the first song. It also ended differently, with some final comments first by Wolfman Jack, and then Roy Orbison. As Orbison talked, the "Midnight Special" finally started to play, and then faded out. I got rid of that, and replaced it with audience applause. So that's why that track has "[Edit]" in its title. 

As usual with this show, the music is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. Also as usual, I did a lot of editing to smooth over the gaps between songs by adding in extra audience applause. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long. I guess the usual format mentioned above allowed this episode to have slightly more music in it than usual. The show was an hour and a half long, but that included commercials, so this length is about as long as these albums from the show can get. 

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 Oh, Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison)
03 talk (Roy Orbison)
04 Up on the Roof (Drifters)
05 talk (Roy Orbison)
06 Runaway (Del Shannon)
07 talk (Roy Orbison & Del Shannon)
08 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Jackie Wilson)
09 talk (Roy Orbison)
10 Take Good Care of My Baby (Bobby Vee)
11 talk (Wolfman Jack)
12 Personality (Lloyd Price)
13 talk (Roy Orbison)
14 Rebel-'Rouser [Instrumental] (Duane Eddy)
15 talk (Jackie Wilson)
16 Dream Baby [How Long Must I Dream] (Roy Orbison)
17 Save the Last Dance for Me (Drifters)
18 Hats Off to Larry (Del Shannon)
19 talk (Roy Orbison)
20 Sheila (Tommy Roe)
21 The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (Bobby Vee)
22 Lonely Teardrops (Jackie Wilson)
23 Stagger Lee (Lloyd Price)
24 Running Scared (Roy Orbison)
25 talk (Roy Orbison & Wolfman Jack)
26 Everybody (Tommy Roe)
27 Ramrod [Instrumental] (Duane Eddy)
28 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
29 Keep Searching (Del Shannon)
30 Only the Lonely (Roy Orbison)
31 Jam Up Jelly Tight (Tommy Roe)
32 Devil or Angel (Bobby Vee)
33 talk (Wolfman Jack)
34 talk [Edit] (Roy Orbison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cSheycvb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/pFyuyT0alyzHswm/file 

The cover image shows Wolfman Jack interviewing Roy Orbison (in the sunglasses). It's a screenshot I took from this exact concert.

The Band du Lac with Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker - Wintershall Estate, Bramley, Britain, 6-11-2005

For many years, Eric Clapton and Gary Brooker (lead singer of Procol Harum) had a fun and little known tradition going on. From at least 1988 to 2011, they held a concert about once a year that would differ from their usual concerts. These concerts featured a variety of stars taking turns singing lead vocals and collaborating with each other. They went by a variety of names, but most often used the name "Band du Lac." 

Apparently, Clapton and Brooker are friends, and both live in the Bramley area of England. These concerts were generally private, attended mainly by the local upper class, and done for various charity causes. Most often they were held at the Wintershall Estate, a private property with a lake on it. That explains the band name, which in French means "band of the lake." Sometimes the band did two shows a year, and other times they went a few years without any shows. But maybe the tradition is over, since it seems to have been over ten years since the last concert.

Nothing by this band has ever been officially released. I've found and listened to a handful of "Band du Lac" bootlegs. But generally speaking, the sound quality is good, since they're all audience bootlegs and there's only one concert to potentially record a year, if that, instead of entire tours. But recently I came across an excellent sounding version of the band's 2005 show on YouTube. What makes this one different is that a professional DVD was filmed and released of this show, called "One Night Only Live." I converted it to mp3s and broke it into individual tracks. In my opinion, it sounds as good as a typical official live album, and way better than all the bootlegs by this band, so this is the one to listen to.

Eric Clapton is probably the biggest name here, but Gary Brooker had a more important role in this show. He stayed on stage playing keyboards for virtually the entire show, and was the emcee that introduced the other artists. Clapton, by contrast, stayed on stage for about half of the show. I've included his name for the songs where he was involved. I was able to know for sure which ones those are, due to the video footage.

Generally speaking, the other stars in these concerts are the friends of Clapton and/or Brooker. For instance, Phil Collins played a lot of these shows, though he wasn't at this one. (Although, oddly, the last song was one if his Genesis hits, "I Can't Dance.") There tended to be lots of repeat appearances, but each year's show would have different artists, with different set lists. Ringo Starr probably needs no introduction - the drummer for the Beatles. If you don't know, Roger Taylor was the drummer (and occasional songwriter) for Queen. Paul Carrack was in Ace, Squeeze, Mike + the Mechanics, and had some solo hits. The Drifters is a famous soul group, though all the members from the band's classic years were long gone by the time of this concert. Chris Barber is a jazz musician most popular in the 1950s who helped launch the skiffle music trend that was pivotal in the development of rock and roll in Britain. Andy Fairweather Low was the lead singer of Amen Corner in the 1960s.

Katie Melua is the odd one out in this concert in two respects. For one, all the others are friends from an older generation. But also, many of them generally played on each other's songs for this concert. For instance, Andy Fairweather Low stayed on stage most of the time and took the occasional lead guitar solo. But for Melua's three song set, all the other musicians departed the stage and were replaced by Melua's band. I must say I'd never heard of her before (apparently she's bigger in Britain than in my country, the U.S.), but I liked her songs here.

This concert is one hour and 53 minutes long.

01 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
02 Tequila (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
03 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
04 Over My Shoulder (Paul Carrack with the Band du Lac)
05 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
06 Reconsider Baby (Eric Clapton with the Band du Lac)
07 Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton with the Band du Lac)
08 How Long (Paul Carrack with Eric Clapton & the Band du Lac)
09 Willie and the Hand Jive (Eric Clapton & Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
10 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
11 Crawling Up a Hill (Katie Melua with the Band du Lac)
12 talk (Katie Melua with the Band du Lac)
13 My Aphrodisiac Is You (Katie Melua with the Band du Lac)
14 The Closest Thing to Crazy (Katie Melua with the Band du Lac)
15 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
16 Glory, Glory - Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Andy Fairweather Low with the Band du Lac)
17 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
18 Say It's Not True (Roger Taylor with the Band du Lac)
19 These Are the Days of Our Lives (Roger Taylor with the Band du Lac)
20 I Want to Break Free (Roger Taylor with the Band du Lac)
21 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
22 This World Is Rich (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
23 talk (Ringo Starr & Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
24 Act Naturally (Ringo Starr with the Band du Lac)
25 talk (Ringo Starr with the Band du Lac)
26 Photograph (Ringo Starr with the Band du Lac)
27 talk (Ringo Starr with the Band du Lac)
28 With a Little Help from My Friends (Ringo Starr with the Band du Lac)
29 A Whiter Shade of Pale (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
30 talk (Gary Brooker with the Band du Lac)
31 Call It Stormy Monday (Chris Barber & Eric Clapton with the Band du Lac)
32 Under the Boardwalk (Drifters with Eric Clapton & the Band du Lac)
33 talk (Drifters with Eric Clapton & the Band du Lac)
34 Stand by Me (Drifters with Eric Clapton & the Band du Lac)
35 Cocaine (Eric Clapton with the Band du Lac)
36 I Can't Dance (Gary Brooker with Eric Clapton & Band du Lac)

https://www.imagenetz.de/foyUZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vSM5B5k5w3duNfI/file

For the cover art, I wanted a picture of as many of the band members as possible. I took a screenshot from the end of the concert, when many of the stars were on stage. The picture is dominated by the Drifters, who are the four guys in the red suits. But you can see some of the others if you look closely. For instance, Brooker is playing keyboards on the far left, and Clapton is in a purple suit behind one of the Drifters on the far right.