Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Paul McCartney, White House, Washington, DC, 6-2-2010

I've recently discovered the annual "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" tribute concerts. Here's probably the best known one, because it honors arguably the most successful songwriter of all time, Paul McCartney.

This concert happened to take place during the presidency of Barack Obama. That was lucky, because he took more of a hands-on approach to concerts like this. He hosted this at the White House and gave McCartney's induction speech. I've seen from other Gershwin Prize concerts that I've found that Obama was the only president to get directly involved in them.

The concert started with a song by McCartney. Then a bunch of musical stars played his songs, with a brief stand-up routine by Jerry Seinfeld included in there. Then McCartney took the stage again. He performed "Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder, just as they did on the original version in 1981. Apparently, that was the first time McCartney had played that song since 1991. After an induction speech by Obama, McCartney finished the concert with a short set of songs.

This album remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I only had one problem. This concert was broadcast on TV. Near the end of "Hey Jude," there was a voiceover near the end of song, briefly mentioning the next TV show. In order to get rid of it, I had to edit out one round of "na na's," which is why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

By the way, I stumbled across a Time Magazine article about this concern from way back then. It concluded with the line, "The White House has never hosted a cooler evening." Here's the link if you want to read the whole thing: 

Sir Paul McCartney Performs for Barack Obama | TIME.com 

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long. 

01 talk (Paul McCartney)
02 Got to Get You into My Life (Paul McCartney)
03 We Can Work It Out (Stevie Wonder)
04 Drive My Car (Jonas Brothers)
05 talk (Jerry Seinfeld)
06 Mother Nature's Son - That Would Be Something (Jack White)
07 The Long and Winding Road (Faith Hill)
08 Blackbird (Herbie Hancock & Corrine Bailey Rae)
09 talk (Elvis Costello)
10 Penny Lane (Elvis Costello)
11 For No One (Emmylou Harris)
12 Celebrations [Instrumental] (Lang Lang)
13 talk (Dave Grohl)
14 Band on the Run (Dave Grohl)
15 talk (Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder)
16 Ebony and Ivory (Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder)
17 talk (Barack Obama)
18 talk (Paul McCartney)
19 Michelle (Paul McCartney)
20 talk (Paul McCartney)
21 Eleanor Rigby (Paul McCartney)
22 talk (Paul McCartney)
23 Let It Be (Paul McCartney)
24 talk (Paul McCartney)
25 Hey Jude [Edit] (Paul McCartney & Everyone)
26 talk (Paul McCartney)
27 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/awLAgw3Z

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/hwjtq0xoqe98Z4K/file

The cover photo of McCartney and Obama is from this exact concert.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: This Is Tomorrow, Royalty Theatre, London, Britain, 11-23-1986

I'm continuing to try to emphasize posting albums resulting from the BBC poll done a few months ago. So here's another one from one of the top vote getters, Elvis Costello. This is a full BBC concert from 1986.

In September 1986, Costello released the album "Blood and Chocolate," which was his ninth backed by the Attractions, and the last one backed by them for quite a long time. So naturally there are a lot of songs from that album. I believe there were nine.

Only three songs were cover versions: "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down," "Leave My Kitten Alone," and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."  

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good, though not great. 

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 Accidents Will Happen (Elvis Costello)
02 The Beat (Elvis Costello)
03 Tokyo Storm Warning (Elvis Costello)
04 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
05 talk (Elvis Costello)
06 Battered Old Bird (Elvis Costello)
07 Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind (Elvis Costello)
08 Temptation (Elvis Costello)
09 New Lace Sleeves (Elvis Costello)
10 talk (Elvis Costello)
11 Blue Chair (Elvis Costello)
12 Jack of All Parades (Elvis Costello)
13 Uncomplicated (Elvis Costello)
14 Lipstick Vogue (Elvis Costello)
15 Beyond Belief (Elvis Costello)
16 Clubland (Elvis Costello)
17 I Want You (Elvis Costello)
18 I Hope You're Happy Now (Elvis Costello)
19 Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head (Elvis Costello)
20 Lovable (Elvis Costello)
21 Leave My Kitten Alone (Elvis Costello)
22 Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello)
23 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
24 I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down (Elvis Costello)
25 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)
26 Poor Napoleon (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PPRBjSjJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/OfkSvKjjN8YlG9F/file 

The cover photo was taken in London on August 1, 1986.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Hammersmith Palais, London, Britain, 10-17-1983

Here's another album I'm posting due to the BBC poll. It's Elvis Costello in concert for the BBC in 1983.

In August 1983, Costello released the studio album "Punch the Clock." This is from the concert tour to support that. So it naturally included a bunch of songs from that album: "Let Them All Talk," "Charm School," "Everyday I Write the Book," "Shipbuilding," "TKO (Boxing Day)," "The Greatest Thing" and "The World and His Wife."

Unfortunately, this was not the complete concert, as the BBC edited it down to fit a certain time slot. You can see the entire set list here:

Elvis Costello & The Attractions Concert Setlist at Hammersmith Palais, London on October 17, 1983 | setlist.fm 

The sound quality is excellent, even though everything here is unreleased. Someone named EN already remastered it and made some fixes, so I just went with that person's work.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Let Them All Talk (Elvis Costello)
02 talk (Elvis Costello)
03 Possession (Elvis Costello)
04 Watch Your Step (Elvis Costello)
05 The Greatest Thing (Elvis Costello)
06 talk (Elvis Costello)
07 Man Out of Time (Elvis Costello)
08 Shabby Doll (Elvis Costello)
09 From Head to Toe (Elvis Costello)
10 Charm School (Elvis Costello)
11 Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello)
12 Shipbuilding (Elvis Costello)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 The World and His Wife (Elvis Costello)
15 Alison (Elvis Costello)
16 Clowntime Is Over (Elvis Costello)
17 talk (Elvis Costello)
18 Everyday I Write the Book (Elvis Costello)
19 TKO [Boxing Day] (Elvis Costello)
20 talk (Elvis Costello)
21 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DPvRnTN1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HDutL6pGwOhWLao/file

The only thing I know about the cover image is it was taken in New York City at some point in 1983.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1981-1986

In the BBC poll I conducted here in February 2025, Elvis Costello was tied for the third most votes. So here's something else from him. This is a collection of BBC studio sessions from 1981 to 1986.

This album was rather tough to compile, because Costello performed for the BBC many times, both for TV and radio shows. This gathers together eight different appearances, most of them unreleased. The first song is from an appearance on "Jim'll Fix It" in early 1981, and is a duet with Glenn Tilbrook, lead singer of Squeeze. The next two songs are from a 1981 benefit concert that was broadcast on the BBC. One of them, "Psycho Song," was released on a very obscure official album of the concert, called "Fundamental Frolics."

Tracks four through seven are from a conventional BBC radio session, for the Kid Jensen show in 1981. The next four, tracks eight through 11, are from another Kid Jensen show, in 1983. Two them, "Danger Zone" and "Big Sister's Clothes - Stand Down Margaret," later appeared as bonus tracks for the "Punch the Clock" album. "Peace in Our Time" is from a 1983 BBC TV show. "Georgia on My Mind" is from a 1985 BBC TV show. That's quite an interesting version, because it was done as a duet with his father, Ross MacManus, who was a professional trumpet player and singer in jazz bands. (Costello's birth name is Declan MacManus.)

 

"Don't Get Above Your Raising" is a duet with Ricky Scaggs. It was part of a Scaggs concert broadcast by the BBC in 1986, which was later released as the live album "Ricky Scaggs: Live in London." That makes it the fourth and final officially released performance on this album. The last three songs are from an appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show in 1986.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 From a Whisper to a Scream [Edit] (Elvis Costello & Glenn Tilbrook)
02 Gloomy Sunday (Elvis Costello)
03 Psycho Song (Elvis Costello)
04 Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down (Elvis Costello)
05 Sweet Dreams (Elvis Costello)
06 Colour of the Blues (Elvis Costello)
07 Why Don't You Love Me (Elvis Costello)
08 Danger Zone (Elvis Costello)
09 Big Sister's Clothes - Stand Down Margaret (Elvis Costello)
10 Pills and Soap (Elvis Costello)
11 Shipbuilding (Elvis Costello)
12 Peace in Our Time (Elvis Costello)
13 Georgia on My Mind (Elvis Costello & Ross MacManus)
14 Don't Get Above Your Raising (Ricky Skaggs & Elvis Costello)
15 I Hope You're Happy Now (Elvis Costello)
16 Uncomplicated (Elvis Costello)
17 Leave My Kitten Alone (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sUcXKCFr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/PvXCJSalBkFgBtZ/file

The cover photo shows Costello in concert in 1982. I don't know the details beyond that.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Hope and Anchor, London, Britain, 5-14-1980

Here's a 1980 BBC concert by Elvis Costello with his backing band at the time, the Attractions.

Costello has had a long and great music career. But he probably was at the peak of his popularity around the time of this concert. His fourth album, "Get Happy!!" had been released earlier in 1980. Those four sold well, and still are his highest rated albums according to the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com. So this consists of nothing but solid songs.

This album is unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good, but maybe a tad lower than the usual BBC standards. 

Some of the songs here are covers: "Help Me," "I Stand Accused," "One More Heartache," "Little Sister," and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." A few songs are missing, all towards the start of the show: "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" (another cover), "The Beat," "He'll Have to Go" (yet another cover), and "(I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea."

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 talk (Elvis Costello)
02 Temptation (Elvis Costello)
03 Help Me (Elvis Costello)
04 I Stand Accused (Elvis Costello)
05 One More Heartache (Elvis Costello)
06 Secondary Modern (Elvis Costello)
07 talk (Elvis Costello)
08 Little Sister (Elvis Costello)
09 talk (Elvis Costello)
10 High Fidelity (Elvis Costello)
11 Lipstick Vogue (Elvis Costello)
12 Waiting for the End of the World (Elvis Costello)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 Don't Look Back (Elvis Costello)
15 Girls Talk (Elvis Costello)
16 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
17 You Belong to Me (Elvis Costello)
18 talk (Elvis Costello)
19 Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello)
20 Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
21 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
22 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rzsyqKKE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7c5f8DB1txuW9mb/file

All I know about the cover photo is it's circa 1980.

Elvis Costello and Friends - Village Music Birthday Party, The Sweetwater, Mill Valley, CA, 4-24-1989

This is a very special Elvis Costello bootleg concert, due to the "and Friends" part of the title, plus the sound quality. In short, after an opening acoustic set by Nick Lowe, then a longer acoustic set by Elvis Costello, other musicians from the audience came to the stage and took the spotlight, including Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, also of the Grateful Dead, blues legend Charles Brown, Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Sammy Hagar of Van Halen, Commander Cody, James Burton (who was lead guitarist for Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, John Denver, and many more), and others. The concert went on and on, with lots of jamming and guest lead vocals. 

So that alone is pretty cool. But typically for this kind of thing, we're lucky to get only a bad audience bootleg, if there's any known recording at all. That's especially true in a venue like the Sweetwater where this took place, which only held a hundred or so people at the most. But somehow, for this concert, we have a perfect soundboard bootleg recording of the entire thing! There's also video of it all that you can find on YouTube.

From the 1940s until 2007, there was a very special record store in Mill Valley, California, north of San Francisco, called "Village Music." Wikipedia has an entry on it, which states, "It was nationally recognized for its extensive collection of old, rare and specialty records." Costello, in his liner notes for his album "Kojak Variety," called it "may be the greatest record collector store in the world." Right next door to this store was a small club called the Sweetwater, or the Sweetwater Saloon. Twice a year, John Goddard, the owner of Village Music, held private concerts at the Sweetwater. Famous musicians from the Bay Area and beyond attended, and the sort of guest star turns as happened in this concert was typical. But while bootleg recordings of most of those concerts aren't publicly available, somehow we got lucky with this one. (Note that although the Sweetwater closed in 2007, another one with the same name opened up nearby in 2012 and continues until today.)

Here's an interesting article about the club, with some photos from these private parties, including another one of Costello and Garcia from this concert:

'One of a Kind': Remembering Jeanie Patterson, Owner of Mill Valley's Sweetwater | KQED

Out of all the unusual guests in the concert, perhaps the most intriguing combination was several covers of country songs sung by Costello with Jerry Garcia assisting on lead guitar. It turns out both of them talked about this very concert in an interview with "Musician Magazine" about a year later. Here's the relevant section:

Costello: "Certainly a candidate for the world's greatest record store is Village Music, in Mill Valley. Every year John Goddard has a party for his friends and customers, and he always has a really good bill of people. So last year on the twenty-first anniversary, I did a show with Nick Lowe, and he invited James Burton and Jerry Scheff, who'd played with me on the road. I did my little set, Nick did his set, and then it was a free-for-all; Charles Brown did a piece, and people were getting summoned to the stage. I was standing in the corridor when I suddenly heard, 'Jerry Garcia to the stage!' And, emboldened by several margaritas, I decided to join him."

Garcia then explained: "Not only that, but it was one of those situations where I had the choice of playing either Elvis' guitar, which is low and it's stiff, and the strings are quite wide as well, and all this confusing script, or of playing Burton's guitar, which is strung with spider webs. I mean it's the absolutely lightest you can string a guitar and still get a sound out of it. I'd take Burton's and play a note on it and it goes "spack." So I opted to play Elvis' guitar as the lesser of two evils. [laughter] And I vowed I would never go to another one of those shows without my own."

Costello then continued: "It was a whole Three Stooges routine -- 'Here, you take my guitar,' 'No, I'll take your guitar.' I think I had Burton's old Telecaster for half a song, and James had my old Martin acoustic which wasn't cranked up so he couldn't solo - and Jerry's struggling with my guitar. But once everybody got settled, we managed to struggle through a couple of Hank Williams songs. Like any sort of jam thing it inevitably came to degenerate towards lots of blues. But we managed a few songs with changes."

Then Garcia concluded, "A pretty high level of jam-sessionry really, considering what it was. Really fun. And Elvis' solo set was phenomenal, I thought. That's one of those things that I can't do at all, just playing the guitar and singing. You're so solid with that, you don't miss a band. I always feel like I'm missing a band."

It's quite a challenge figuring out who was playing on what song, since there was an ever-changing line-up after the initial solo sets by Lowe and Costello. Luckily, there's the video footage of the entire concert which I mentioned above, and person named "grner1" went through the whole thing and carefully noted the exact musicians on each song. I've included the text file that person made if you want all the details. The song order is somewhat different in my song list since I put all the banter on individual tracks, but you can follow along by looking at the song titles. 

Because the bootleg already sounded excellent, I didn't have to do much. However, I did cut out some dead air between songs. I probably trimmed about ten minutes from the entire concert that way. And I boosted the vocals of some of the banter so it could be better heard. With my song list, I didn't attempt to list all the performers on each song, but just some of the more famous or prominent ones.

This album is two hours and 44 minutes long.

01 talk (Nick Lowe)
02 Without Love (Nick Lowe)
03 talk (Nick Lowe)
04 Refrigerator White (Nick Lowe)
05 Geisha Girl (Nick Lowe)
06 talk (Nick Lowe)
07 Rocky Road (Nick Lowe)
08 talk (Nick Lowe)
09 [I Wanna Build A] Jumbo Ark (Nick Lowe)
10 Bo Bo Skadiddle (Nick Lowe)
11 talk (Nick Lowe)
12 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Nick Lowe)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 Accidents Will Happen (Elvis Costello)
15 Brilliant Mistake (Elvis Costello)
17 talk (Elvis Costello)
16 Deep Dark Truthful Mirror (Elvis Costello)
18 Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
19 talk (Elvis Costello)
20 Poisoned Rose (Elvis Costello)
21 God's Comic (Elvis Costello)
22 [The Angels Wanna Wear My] Red Shoes (Elvis Costello)
23 New Lace Sleeves (Elvis Costello)
24 Pads, Paws and Claws (Elvis Costello)
25 Radio Sweetheart (Elvis Costello)
27 talk (Elvis Costello)
26 Jackie Wilson Said [I'm in Heaven When You Smile] (Elvis Costello)
28 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello & Nick Lowe)
29 talk (Elvis Costello)
30 The Big Light (Elvis Costello with James Burton)
31 talk (Elvis Costello)
32 Pouring Water on a Drowning Man (Elvis Costello with James Burton)
33 talk (Elvis Costello)
34 Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line (Elvis Costello with James Burton)
35 talk (Elvis Costello)
36 Leave My Kitten Alone (Elvis Costello with James Burton)
37 talk (Elvis Costello & Charles Brown)
38 I Stepped in Quicksand (Charles Brown with Kim Wilson)
39 talk (Charles Brown)
40 Driftin' Blues (Charles Brown)
41 talk (Charles Brown)
42 All My Life (Charles Brown)
43 talk (Austin de Lone & Nick Lowe)
44 One's Too Many [And a Hundred Ain't Enough] (Kim Wilson & Nick Lowe with James Burton)
45 Real Gone Lover (Kim Wilson with James Burton)
46 talk (Austin de Lone)
47 You Win Again (Elvis Costello with Jerry Garcia & James Burton)
48 The Bottle Let Me Down (Elvis Costello with Jerry Garcia & James Burton)
49 Why Don't You Love Me (Elvis Costello with Jerry Garcia & James Burton)
50 talk (Austin de Lone & Commander Cody)
51 Riot in Cell Block No. 9 (Commander Cody with Sammy Hagar, Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia & James Burton)
52 talk (Austin de Lone)
53 Going Down (Sammy Hagar with Jerry Garcia & James Burton)
54 talk (Austin de Lone)
55 C.C. Rider (Bob Weir with James Burton)
56 Turn On Your Lovelight (Bob Weir with Elvis Costello & James Burton)
57 talk (Austin de Lone)
58 Let the Good Times Roll (Elvis Costello with James Burton)
59 Loveable (Elvis Costello with James Burton)
60 talk (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GHKigDxL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Y6iW7I2AIpEdyVA/file

The cover photo of Costello and Garcia is from this exact concert.

Elvis Costello - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 5-29-1996

Here's yet another "VH-1 Storytellers" album. This one features British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello.

In 1996, Costello released "All This Useless Beauty," his seventeenth studio album. It wasn't a big seller, but it was critically well received. It was the last album done with his backing band the Attractions. However, this concert was basically done in a solo acoustic style, as he was only backed by keyboard player Steve Nieve.

Three songs performed here are from the "All This Useless Beauty" album: "Why Can't a Man Stand Alone," "All This Useless Beauty," and "I Want to Vanish."

For these Storytellers albums, I'm assuming that everything is officially unreleased. But for this one, the performance of "Just a Memory" was released. It was included on a various artists compilation of the Storytellers series.

All too often, these episodes started in the middle of the first song. That was the case with this one, "Accidents Will Happen." But in this case, I was able to find another version from the same year to fill in the missing portion.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Accidents Will Happen [Edit] (Elvis Costello)
02 Just a Memory (Elvis Costello)
03 talk (Elvis Costello)
04 Why Can't a Man Stand Alone (Elvis Costello)
05 talk (Elvis Costello)
06 Mistress and Maid (Elvis Costello)
07 talk (Elvis Costello)
08 Veronica (Elvis Costello)
09 talk (Elvis Costello)
10 Alison (Elvis Costello)
11 talk (Elvis Costello)
12 Almost Blue (Elvis Costello)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
15 talk (Elvis Costello)
16 All This Useless Beauty (Elvis Costello)
17 talk (Elvis Costello)
18 I Want to Vanish (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17157456/ELVSCOSTLLO1996StrytllrsStrytllrsStdoNwYrkC__5-29-1996_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PS5UZf6r

I couldn't find a good photo from this exact concert. So instead the cover photo is from a concert in Switzerland some time in 1996.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1977-1980

British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello has performed for the BBC many times over his long music career, and nearly all of it is unreleased. I have long wanted to start posting his BBC albums, but there was a problem: many of his early BBC sessions sounded pretty bad. However, I did a little more digging recently, and I discovered that while my versions had poor sound, there were other versions out there that sounded much better. I've fixed this for nearly all of the songs that concerned me, and now I'm ready to post.

Costello burst onto the music scene in 1977 with his classic debut album "My Aim Is True." He followed that with three more classic albums in the next three years. That's the exact time frame for this album of BBC studio sessions. All the songs here are from BBC shows hosted by famous DJ John Peel. The first four are from a 1977 session. The next four are from an early 1978 session. Then there's four from a later 1978 session. The last four are from a 1980 session.

When I first put this album together, I included two songs that were from other TV or radio shows, but not the BBC. However, later on I decided to keep this strictly a BBC thing, so those two songs got the axe. But what the heck, I'm still including them here as bonus tracks. "Hoover Factory" is from a Capitol Radio studio session in 1977, and the acoustic version of "Watching the Detectives" is from a 1977 Swedish TV show.

01 [The Angels Wanna Wear My] Red Shoes (Elvis Costello)
02 Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
03 Blame It on Cain (Elvis Costello)
04 Less than Zero (Elvis Costello)
05 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)
06 [I Don't Want to Go To] Chelsea (Elvis Costello)
07 You Belong to Me (Elvis Costello)
08 The Beat (Elvis Costello)
09 Radio, Radio (Elvis Costello)
10 Stranger in the House (Elvis Costello)
11 I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself (Elvis Costello)
12 Really Mystified (Elvis Costello)
13 Beaten to the Punch (Elvis Costello)
14 Possession (Elvis Costello)
15 B Movie (Elvis Costello)
16 High Fidelity (Elvis Costello)

Hoover Factory (Elvis Costello)
Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16527216/ELVSCSTLLO1977-1980BBSssonsVlum1_atse.zip.html

All I know about the cover photo is that it was taken in concert around April 1978.

Heatwave Festival, Mosport Park, Bowmanville, Canada, 8-23-1980, Part 6: Elvis Costello

The sixth album from the 1980 Heatwave Festival features Elvis Costello with his backing band at the time, the Attractions.

As I mentioned in my write-up to the first album from this rock festival (the Teenage Head set), the Clash were billed as the headline act, but they cancelled at the last minute for some reason. Elvis Costello became the headliner instead. (However, one more act did come after, as I will explain in the next post.) Costello must have been aware of the problem with the Clash, because after playing the first song he jokingly introduced himself by saying, "Hello, we're the Clash!"

At the time of this concert, Costello's most recent album was "Get Happy!!," released in early 1980. It was his fourth. His next album would be "Trust," released in 1981. Not surprisingly, most of the songs here are from his first four albums. But he did four songs from his still to be released "Trust" album: "Shot with His Own Gun," "You'll Never Be a Man," "Lovers Walk," and "Clubland."

Like the other sets from this rock festival, this is professionally recorded, though still unreleased. However, the others generally had no problems. This one did have a few. For one thing, I couldn't find a single complete version, so I put this together from two different versions. But luckily both sources are soundboards (and probably ultimately different parts of the same recording). Additionally, there were some glitches. I didn't mark them with "[Edit]" as I usually do, so I don't remember the details. But I do remember there was a bad section of a chorus of "Alison" that I patched up by using another portion from a different chorus. And there was another problem like that with at least one other song.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

093 Shot with His Own Gun (Elvis Costello)
094 talk (Elvis Costello)
095 Accidents Will Happen (Elvis Costello)
096 The Beat (Elvis Costello)
097 talk (Elvis Costello)
098 Temptation (Elvis Costello)
099 Green Shirt (Elvis Costello)
100 talk (Elvis Costello)
101 You'll Never Be a Man (Elvis Costello)
102 [I Don't Want to Go To] Chelsea (Elvis Costello)
103 Secondary Modern (Elvis Costello)
104 Lovers Walk (Elvis Costello)
105 Less than Zero (Elvis Costello)
106 Big Tears (Elvis Costello)
107 talk (Elvis Costello)
108 High Fidelity (Elvis Costello)
109 talk (Elvis Costello)
110 Alison (Elvis Costello)
111 Lipstick Vogue (Elvis Costello)
112 talk (Elvis Costello)
113 Clubland (Elvis Costello)
114 Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello)
115 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
116 You Belong to Me (Elvis Costello)
117 talk (Elvis Costello)
118 Radio Radio (Elvis Costello)
119 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)
120 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
121 Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
122 talk (Elvis Costello)
123 I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17315606/VA-HtwveFstivlMsprtPrkBwmnvlleCnda__8-23-1980_06_ElvsCstllo.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wi2TdgWd

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Tower of Song - A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen, Centre Bell, Montreal, Canada, 11-6-2017

Leonard Cohen died in 2016 at the age of 82. Exactly one year later, his son Adam Cohen put on a memorial concert. Leonard had specifically asked that such a concert be held in Montreal, Canada, so that's where it happened. It was broadcast on Canadian television and radio through the CBC, and later sold as a DVD, but it has never been released as an album. But it was professionally recorded thanks to the broadcasts, so it sounds great here.

This album is based on the CBC radio broadcast, which had great sound quality. (The DVD misses a bunch of songs.) However, there was a big problem with that broadcast, in that someone did a voiceover to talk over all the applause between songs, usually to introduce the next performer. This was very annoying since it was clearly added later and not part of the actual concert. Worse, the voice sometimes went over to the start of the next song. So thank God for audio editing programs like UVR5. I was able to use that to wipe out the voiceover which keeping the underlying applause and/or music. This means there are no verbal introductions of the performers. I don't know if that was the case in the actual concert or not. But you can just look at the song list here.

I also had a few problems with some missing music. Two songs weren't included in the radio broadcast, for whatever reason: "Tower of Song" and "Everybody Knows." That's when the DVD came in handy, because those ones happened to be included. But there was a problem with another song that I couldn't solve, "Closing Time." This was the last song of the concert, and it appears the radio show ran out of time, because it cut the song off before it ended. To make matters worse, the DVD didn't include that song. So there was nothing I could do. I added a chorus to the end of the song so the ending wouldn't seem so weird (which is why it has "[Edit]" in the title. But I didn't have a way to give the music a proper ending after that, so I still had it fade out.

Now, let's get to the performers. I really like the list of performers, including some big names, like Sting and Elvis Costello. But one has to put a kind of asterisk next to the performance of "Tower of Song," with no less than Willie Nelson, Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel, Chris Martin & Leonard Cohen all singing lead vocals on it! That was prerecorded elsewhere, probably due to those artists not being able to attend the concert in person. And note the involvement of Cohen on that song. I'm guessing a recording from a concert before his death was used and cleverly edited in to go with the other voices. A similar recorded performance happened to Cohen's voice on "A Thousand Kisses Deep."

Note that I wanted to keep the focus on the music, so I cut out some non-musical bits. For instance, there was a long speech by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. I removed all of that. However, I did keep the recitation of a poem by actor Seth Rogen, since that was an interesting poem by Cohen.

If you're a fan of Cohen's songs at all, you really should give this a listen. Pretty much all the performances were solid, though I think k. d. lang was the highlight with her version of "Hallelujah."

This album is an hour and 57 minutes long.

01 Dance Me to the End of Love (Sting)
02 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Feist)
03 Who by Fire (Patrick Watson)
04 I'm Your Man (Sharon Robinson)
05 Democracy (Lumineers)
06 A Thousand Kisses Deep (Leonard Cohen [Recording])
07 Suzanne (Ron Sexsmith)
08 The Future (Elvis Costello)
09 Famous Blue Raincoat (Damien Rice)
10 So Long, Marianne (Adam Cohen with the Webb Sisters)
11 Hallelujah (k. d. lang)
12 Tower of Song [Recording] (Willie Nelson, Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel, Chris Martin & Leonard Cohen)
13 Sisters of Mercy (Sting)
14 Chelsea Hotel No. 2 (Lana Del Rey & Adam Cohen)
15 In My Secret Life (Bettye LaVette)
16 Everybody Knows (Courtney Love)
17 Field Commander Cohen [Poem] (Seth Rogen)
18 If It Be Your Will (Borns with the Webb Sisters)
19 The Partisan (Coeur de Pirate, Adam Cohen & Damien Rice)
20 Bird on a Wire (Elvis Costello)
21 Anthem (Sting)
22 Coming Back to You (Adam Cohen & Basia Bulat)
23 Closing Time [Edit] (Basia Bulat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HzFNUjt2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uEEd4BXXEU8yal8/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/aJCqE

The cover is the poster for this concert. However, I had to make some changes to get a rectangular poster to fit into a square space. I repositioned some things using Photoshop. I also updated some of the artist names at the bottom to better reflect who actually performed at the concert. For instance, it had mentioned Phillip Glass, who didn't show, and failed to mention some, like Ron Sexsmith, Courtney Love, and Bettye LaVette, who did show.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 2: Spandau Ballet, Elvis Costello, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Sting, and Phil Collins

This is the second part of the London portion of Live Aid. The British concert was shorter than the American one, only about five and half hours of actual music compared to about eight hours in the U.S. So I've made only five albums for the British portion compared to seven albums for the American one.

Spandau Ballet was the first act for this part of the concert. They were always much bigger in Britain than the U.S. For instance, at this point in their career, they'd had fourteen Top Forty hits in Britain compared to only two Top Twenty hits in the U.S.

Next up was Elvis Costello. I must say I'm disappointed that he was only allowed to play one song. Consider for instance that he had eleven Top Forty hits in Britain at this point in his career, compared to the fourteen Spandau Ballet had. But Spandau Ballet got to play four songs and he only got one. It seems a lot of this was just how much organizer Bob Geldof and his friends liked you. Anyway, Costello surprised by not playing any of his hits. Instead, he did a cover of "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles, which he introduced as an "old Northern English folk song."

Nik Kershaw was next. He isn't that well known today, but he was hot in 1985. At the time, he'd put out two albums and had seven Top Forty hits in Britain. But after Live Aid, he would only get only one more Top Forty hit, later in 1985. (Again, it seems odd he was able to play four songs, and Costello with more British hits, only played one.)

The band Sade was up next. Lead singer Sade Adu was born in Nigeria, making her the only Live Aid star actually from Africa. However, the rest of her band was British, and she'd lived in Britain since she was a toddler. Sade was especially big in Britain at the time. They had only released two albums at the time, but both of them went multi-platinum in Britain. Surprisingly, she didn't perform her biggest hit and signature song, "Smooth Operator."

As with the Philadelphia concert, the fame of the musical acts grew bigger as the concert went on. But there may have been an exception in this part, due to Phil Collins flying on a plane across the Atlantic Ocean to perform in Philadelphia later in the day. He was so famous at the time he probably would have been one of the last acts. 

This part of the concert ended with Sting and Phil Collins. Both of them were big stars at the time, and they were introduced together. But in fact Sting performed two songs by himself, then Collins performed two songs by himself. Only then did they perform two songs together. Apparently, this collaboration was spurred by the fact that Sting sang on the song "Long Long Way to Go" on Collins' most recent studio album. It was particularly fitting to the purpose of the concert, so they performed it together.

024 talk (Andy Peebles)
025 Only When You Leave (Spandau Ballet)
026 talk (Spandau Ballet)
027 Virgin (Spandau Ballet)
028 talk (Spandau Ballet)
029 True (Spandau Ballet)
030 talk (Andy Peebles)
031 All You Need Is Love (Elvis Costello)
032 talk (Tommy Vance)
033 Wide Boy (Nik Kershaw)
034 Don Quixote (Nik Kershaw)
035 The Riddle (Nik Kershaw)
036 Wouldn't It Be Good (Nik Kershaw)
037 Why Can't We Live Together (Sade)
038 Your Love Is King (Sade)
039 Is It a Crime (Sade)
040 talk (Noel Edmonds)
041 talk (Sting)
042 Roxanne (Sting)
043 Driven to Tears (Sting)
044 talk (Phil Collins)
045 Against All Odds (Phil Collins)
046 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
047 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
048 talk (Phil Collins)
049 Long Long Way to Go (Phil Collins & Sting)
050 Every Breath You Take (Phil Collins & Sting)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15748941/LveAidJFKStdiumLondnPA__7-13-1985_Part2.zip.html

Like the other albums in this series, I split the cover into four so I could have pictures from the concert of more of the musical acts. That's members of Spandau Ballet on the top left, Nik Kershaw on the top right, Sade Adu, lead singer of Sade, on the bottom left, and Phil Collins and Sting together on the bottom right. There were five albums in this part, so I had to leave one out. I excluded Elvis Costello, since he only performed one song.

Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 12-26-1979 to 12-29-1979: Day 4: Elvis Costello, Rockpile & Paul McCartney

This is the fourth and final part of the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, featuring music from the fourth night. Like the two previous nights, there were three music acts: Elvis Costello, Rockpile, and Paul McCartney. Technically, McCartney was billed as "Paul McCartney and Wings." This was the last Wings concert ever. Also, Robert Plant was the guest lead singer for one song in Rockpile's set.

As with the previous parts, I've only included the songs with what I consider worthy sound quality. I got lucky with those parts in that I found a decent amount of music from each of the acts. But I wasn't so lucky this time. I was only able to include two songs by Elvis Costello and three by Rockpile (including the one with Robert Plant). I couldn't find any more, not even with terrible sound quality.

I also didn't do that well with McCartney's set. I found a bootleg with all of the songs from his set, but most of it comes from an audience bootleg with poor sound quality. I didn't deem any of that worth keeping. (If anyone has any of the missing songs, please let me know. I saw some mentions that some more songs by McCartney exist in good sounding versions, like "Getting Closer," but I couldn't find them.) 

As a result of that, everything here sounds very good, but this is the shortest part out of the four. The other three parts are all at least an hour and 10 minutes long, with one of them being an hour and a half long, but this one is only 48 minutes long. The first track here is track 68, in case you want to put all four parts into one folder and play this as one massive concert.

The sourcing was pretty much the same as for the previous two parts. I relied on the official double album, long out of print, and a bootleg of high quality outtakes that had been considered for inclusion to the double album. One song by Elvis Costello, two by Rockpile, and six by McCartney are from the official album. Most of the rest are from that bootleg. But I believe I found McCartney's "Hot as Sun" elsewhere, since it was in the movie of the concerts but not the album. I also found some of McCartney's banter from the poor sounding bootleg of his set. Those talking bits didn't sound bad. I suspect some of them came from the movie, because they sounded a lot better than the other songs and even other banter.

The last three songs were performed by a rather curious McCartney-led "supergroup" called "Rockestra." McCartney had previously gathered lots of big names to play on two songs for his 1979 album "Back to the Egg," including the "Rockestra Theme." Most of those reprised their roles for this concert. Some who played in this version of Rockestra for the concert included: Pete Townshend, Gary Brooker, John Bonham, John Paul Jones, and Dave Edmunds. But in my opinion, it was kind of a waste of all that talent, because they only did three relatively short songs, all led by McCartney, and they pretty much sound like the other McCartney songs.

As mentioned above, this album is 48 minutes long.

68 The Imposter (Elvis Costello)
69 You Belong to Me (Elvis Costello)
70 Three Time Loser (Rockpile)
71 Crawling from the Wreckage (Rockpile)
72 Little Sister (Rockpile with Robert Plant)
73 Introduction [Instrumental] (Paul McCartney)
74 Got to Get You into My Life (Paul McCartney)
75 talk (Paul McCartney)
76 Every Night (Paul McCartney)
77 talk (Paul McCartney)
78 I've Had Enough (Paul McCartney)
79 Hot as Sun [Instrumental] (Paul McCartney)
80 talk (Paul McCartney)
81 Twenty Flight Rock (Paul McCartney)
82 talk (Paul McCartney)
83 Coming Up (Paul McCartney)
84 Lucille (Paul McCartney & Rockestra)
85 talk (Paul McCartney & Rockestra)
86 Let It Be (Paul McCartney & Rockestra)
87 talk (Paul McCartney & Rockestra)
88 Rockestra Theme (Paul McCartney & Rockestra)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362756/VA-ConcrtsfrthPeplofKmpchea1979Day4CstelloRckpileMcCartny_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/E9X4FPne

The cover photo is from the Rockestra portion of this show. From left to right in the front is Denny Laine, Pete Townshend, and Paul McCartney. I improved the pic using Krea AI program.

Elvis Costello & Flip City - The Red Cow, London, Britain, 11-30-1975

"Flip City" is the name of Elvis Costello's first band, before he started to get famous with his first solo album in 1977. Back in January 2023, I posted an album of Flip City demos, with nearly all of the songs sung by Costello. You can get that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/01/elvis-costello-flip-city-flip-city.html

Around the time I posted that, my musical associate MZ had the idea of also posting the sole decent sounding (bootleg) concert recording by Flip City, which took at a small venue called "The Red Cow" in London on November 30, 1975. I wasn't that keen, because the sound quality is merely decent, and not up to my usual standards. However, MZ was keen, and he utilized his editing skills to make the recording sound better. I then also helped a bit, boosting the lead vocals with the UVR5 audio editing program. The sound quality still isn't fantastic, but it's improved. So what the hell, I'm posting it here. If you like this, mainly thank MZ for making it happen.

Back when this concert took place, in 1975, "pub rock "was still a popular musical genre. It basically would get forgotten thanks to the rise of both punk rock and disco around 1977. But at the time, Nick Lowe's band Brinsley Schwarz was the best known pub rock band, and Flip City definitely was following in their footsteps. Costello's songwriting was still a work in progress, so the vast majority of the songs here are covers. I believe the only Costello songs here are: "Sweet Revival," "Radio Soul" (which is an early version of "Radio, Radio"), "Imagination [Is a Powerful Deceiver]," "Pay It Back," "Miracle Man," and possibly "Flatfoot Hotel." (I couldn't find any info about that last one.) So maybe six out of the seventeen songs here.

Still, in addition to hearing these early songwriting efforts by Costello, it's interesting to hear him sing the covers, many of which he would never sing in public again. By the way, I think the sound quality starts off extra rough, but getting better a few songs in, so please stick with it.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Don't Lie to Me (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
02 Sweet Revival (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
03 You Win Again (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
04 Before I Grow Too Old (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
05 Bring It on Home to Me (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
06 Another Saturday Night (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
07 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
08 Radio Soul [Early Version of Radio, Radio] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
09 I Love the Life I Live (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
10 Third Rate Romance (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
11 Gone Dead Train (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
12 Pay It Back (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
13 One More Heartache (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
14 Imagination [Is a Powerful Deceiver] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
15 On the Road (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
16 Flatfoot Hotel (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
17 Miracle Man (Elvis Costello & Flip City)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363132/ELVISCSTLLO1975FlpCtyRedCowLndnBrtin__11-30-1975_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qSrSNzdF

There are very few good color photos of Flip City, but I managed to find a decent one. This is from the Stepney Festival in 1974. Costello is on the left in the red shirt.

Elvis Costello & Flip City - Flip City Demos (1974-1975)

Yesterday, I posted about Sting's music before the Police, which I think is surprisingly good. Now it's time to look at Elvis Costello's music before his first album in 1977, which I also think is surprisingly good. Everything here is still unreleased. But it's all studio recordings with excellent sound quality, and the vast majority are songs written and sung by Costello that haven't appeared anywhere else (with the exception of "Imagination (Is A Powerful Deceiver)," a version of which appeared as a bonus track for the "My Aim Is True" album). I'm surprised this music hasn't gotten more attention.

When Costello started his music career, he was heavily influenced by the pub rock sound, especially the band Brinsley Schwarz. For a few years, from 1974 to 1976, he was a member of the pub rock band Flip City. Although they played concerts, they never released any records, not even a single. But they certainly tried. The songs here come from three different studio sessions. 

The first one took place in 1974. It was recorded at a BBC studio, but it wasn't intended for BBC broadcast, since the band was so little known at the time. It was simply the case of the band having a connection that allowed them to briefly use BBC facilities to record some demos. The first song is the only one from that session here. They also recorded "Exiles Road" and "Radio Soul," but I haven't included them because they did later versions that I have included that are slightly better.

The other two sessions were done in the attic of a pub called Hope and Anchor in 1975. The owner of that pub was trying to get into the music business producing and selling records, so that person had built a recording studio there. They were searching for a potential hit single. They settled on the cover song "Third Rate Romance," since it was breaking as a hit in the US by the Amazing Rhythm Aces. But in the end, it never got released. The band broke up around the end of 1975. Costello won a record contract for a solo album in 1976, and the rest is history.  (At this point, he was still going by his given name, Declan McManus - he would get his new music name after signing the record contract.)

There are a few covers here. In addition to "Third Rate Romance," there's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan, as well as "Packin' Up," and "You Win Again" by Hank Williams. "On the Road" was written and sung by Flip City guitarist Steve Hazelhurst. A couple of the originals would later get re-written and put on Elvis Costello albums. "Baseball Heroes" is an early version of "Miracle Man," and "Radio Soul" is very similar to "Radio, Radio." Also, "Imagination (Is a Powerful Deceiver)" is a distant relation to "Alison," though it's hard to tell.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Baseball Heroes [Early Version of Miracle Man] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
02 Imagination [Is a Powerful Deceiver] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
03 Pay It Back (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
04 Radio Soul [Early Version of Radio, Radio] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
05 Third Rate Romance (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
06 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
07 Packin' Up (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
08 Please Mister, Don't Stop the Band (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
09 Exiles Road (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
10 Wreck on the Slide (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
11 On the Road (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
12 You Win Again (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
13 Sweet Revival (Elvis Costello & Flip City)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363117/ELVISCSTLLO1974-1975FlpCtyDmos_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EEgxbvww

There are very few photos of the band Flip City. I picked the best one I could find. That's Costello singing into the microphone.

Various Artists - Grace of My Heart - Extended Edition (1996)

Here's something different than the stray tracks collections or concerts I usually post here. This is the soundtrack to the 1996 movie "Grace of My Heart." Normally, I wouldn't post something like this, because I assume the soundtrack is still in print. But, for various reasons, some really good performances were left off the official album. I've found about 20 more minutes of music not on the soundtrack that should have been, which I think is enough to justify posting this here.

"Grace of My Heart" is a very good movie, in my opinion. It currently gets 75 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. But I think that number would be higher for you if you're a big music fan. The story is closely based on the life of singer-songwriter Carole King, though there's a section where she gets involved with a Brian Wilson figure that never happened in reality.

None of the songs were actually written by King, but a bunch of very talented songwriters wrote songs in her style for the movie, including Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, Jill Sobule, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., and Gerry Goffin (who was King's main songwriting partner for most of her 1960s hits). Normally, I'm not big on movie soundtracks, which are usually instrumental mood music or a random collection of  hit songs, but I make an exception for this one. The songs do a great job of recreating the sounds of the 1960s and 1970s, and they stand as good songs of their own.

Unfortunately, there were a bunch of songs that were featured in the movie that didn't make it onto the soundtrack. Most of these have never been made public in full, so the only way to listen to them is by getting the audio from the movie. I did exactly that for five of them. One more, "How Can I Get through to You," appeared in full as a bonus feature on the movie DVD. For the five I took from the audio, there was nothing I could do to fix things if there was movie dialogue over the songs. Luckily, there was very little of that for those. But the downside is that each of those songs are relatively short, sometimes just a minute or so, because things have to move quickly in a movie. In the case of "Heartbreak Kid," I had to piece together a song out of two separate snippets. I then repeated the chorus, to make a song that's still only a minute long.

On top of that, there's a couple of other extra songs from other sources. One weird thing is that Joni Mitchell wrote the song "Man from Mars" for the soundtrack, and her version of it appeared on it for the first week the album was on sale. But the soundtrack was produced by Larry Klein, Mitchell's husband, and they were going through a divorce right when the soundtrack came out. I guess some dispute between them led to her version being yanked and replaced by a version sung by Kristen Vigard, an actress who also is a really good singer, and who did the vocals for all the parts sung by the Carole King-esque main actress. Mitchell put "Man from Mars" on her next album, but that was a totally different version. I've included her original version here, as well as the Vigard version.

I also have two versions of "God Give Me Strength." This song was co-written by Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, and led to the two of them making an entire album together two years later. The soundtrack featured the version performed by Bacharach and Costello, but in the actual move it was sung by Vigard, who did a great version of this excellent song. So I've included both versions of that as well.

Costello also wrote the song "Unwanted Number," but a version by the retro soul group "For Real" was used on the soundtrack instead. Costello didn't put his own version on a studio album until 2018. He did play the song in concert in 1996, in a solo acoustic format, the same year the movie came out However, the sound quality isn't great on that one. So I've included the 2018 version as part of the album, and the 1996 version as a bonus track.

Thus there are three songs with two versions (including three versions of "Unwanted Number," if you could the bonus track). But those are all especially good songs, and the different versions are done by different performers, and they're all worth hearing.

Hopefully, a deluxe version of this soundtrack will be released someday, with complete versions of all the songs. Most of the songs I grabbed from the movie audio should have more complete versions without any talking over them. But also, there are another four or five songs that I couldn't include because there was so much talking and other noise over them. In particular, there were three more songs by "For Real" that I couldn't salvage. So an official version of everything would have a lot more to offer than what I'm presenting here.

Oh, one other thing I did that seems like a no-brainer to me is that I ordered all the songs, released and unreleased, in the order that they appeared in the movie. The official soundtrack had them in no logical order that I could see. The only exceptions to this ordering are the songs with two versions. I put the versions that didn't appear in the film at the end.

01 Hey There (Kristen Vigard)
02 In Another World (Kristen Vigard)
03 Blues Ain't Nothin' but a Woman Crying for Her Man (For Real)
04 In Another World (Portrait)
05 Born to Love that Boy (For Real)
06 Unwanted Number (For Real)
07 I Do (For Real)
08 Heartbreak Kid (Williams Brothers)
09 My Secret Love (Miss Lily Banquette)
10 Love Doesn't Ever Fail Us (Williams Brothers)
11 Truth Is You Lied (Jill Sobule)
12 God Give Me Strength (Kristen Vigard)
13 Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (Boyd Rice & Tiffany Anders)
14 Groovin' on You (Juned)
15 Take a Run at the Sun (J Mascis)
16 Don't You Think It's Time (J Mascis)
17 How Can I Get Through to You (Juned)
18 Man from Mars (Kristen Vigard)
19 Between Two Worlds (Shawn Colvin)
20 A Boat on the Sea (Kristen Vigard)
21 God Give Me Strength (Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello)
22 Unwanted Number (Elvis Costello)
23 Man from Mars [Piano Version] (Joni Mitchell)

Unwanted Number (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701197/VA-GrceofMyHertSundtrck_1996_atse.zip.html

Since I changed this album so significantly, I decided it needed a different album cover. I used the cover of the DVD as the basis. But that was rectangular, so I made some changes to get it to fit into a square space. Also, I removed a list of the actors in the film. That left a big black space. I filled that by adding in a photo of Kristen Vigard, since she had such a prominent role as vocalist.

Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello - The McCartney-Costello Demos (1987)

Before I continue posting more Paul McCartney stray tracks albums, I need to make a detour. And what a lovely detour it is! I think these demos McCartney did with Elvis Costello in 1987 are a highlight of both of their careers. If you don't have this album yet, you should get it now.

As I mentioned previously, McCartney was very disappointed at the critical and commercial reception to his 1986 album "Press to Play," and he vowed to redouble his efforts for his next album. A key part of that involved him make his most serious attempt to co-write songs with someone else since his songwriting team with John Lennon. It was a great match, because McCartney was often considered to be strong at melody and relatively weak at lyrics, while it was the opposite for Costello.

The two of them wrote a bunch of songs together that were much better than anything either of them had done on their own since the early 1980s. Unfortunately, they decided against putting out all these songs together, and instead they trickled out here and there, with most going to McCartney's next album ("Flowers in the Dirt") and Costello's ("Spike"). I suspect they were daunted by the comparisons between their collaboration and the legendary McCartney-Lennon songwriting team. It's even more unfortunate that they didn't continue their collaboration in later years.

So although there never was a McCartney-Costello late 1980s album, at least we have these acoustic demos. They existed on bootlegs for ages, but the vast majority of them were officially released as part of a deluxe edition of Flowers in the Dirt in 2017. Three co-written songs that were left off that (because the demos didn't feature both McCartney and Costello singing) have been released as bonus tracks to other albums.

Note that in 1988, McCartney and Costello recorded full-band demos for most of these songs. Those also have been officially released as part of the Flowers in the Dirt deluxe edition. That's an interesting listen, but I love acoustic music, so I actually prefer these recordings.

01 The Lovers that Never Were (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
02 Tommy’s Coming Home (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
03 Twenty Fine Fingers (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
04 So Like Candy (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
05 You Want Her Too (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
06 That Day Is Done (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
07 Don’t Be Careless Love (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
08 My Brave Face (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
09 Playboy to a Man (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
10 I Don't Want to Confess (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
11 Shallow Grave (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
12 Mistress and Maid (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
13 Pads, Paws and Claws (Elvis Costello)
14 Back on My Feet (Paul McCartney)
15 Veronica (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15158819/PaulMcCElvisC_1987_TheMcCartnyCostlloDmos_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I had a hard time finding a color photo of McCartney and Costello together. I resorted to using one of them playing together in a 1999 concert.