Showing posts with label Hot Tuna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hot Tuna. Show all posts

Friday, September 18, 2026

Jefferson Airplane - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 9-14-1970

It's been many decades since what a consider a musical golden era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. You'd think that after all this time, all of the really excellent bootlegs would have either been leaked to the public or keep unaccessible in musician and/or record company vaults. But that's not so, and this recording is another good example. I found this on a bootleg site (Guitars101). It was made public there for the very first time as I write this in mid-September 2026. What's encouraging is the person who posted it said they'd recently gotten a bunch of recordings from a friend, and this is one of them. So hopefully there will be more like these. This is a really excellent previously unknown soundboard of Jefferson Airplane in 1970.

By the way, the people who posted this (David Minches and Charlie Miller) also posted a soundboard recording of Jefferson Airplane in the same venue the very next day, September 15, 1970. I decided to only post this one because they have very similar setlists. But you might want to download the other one at Guitars101. I picked this one because I had a slight preference for the few songs that were different. Most notably, this was the only one with a performance of "Starship."

In 1970, at the time of this concert, Jefferson Airplane was coming apart. They were using a lot of drugs, especially cocaine, and the band members were having increasing conflicts with each other. The drummer, Spencer Dryden, was fired from the band in February 1970, and was replaced by Joey Covington. More importantly, Marty Balin, a key singer and songwriter in the band, was increasingly estranged from the other band members. He would quit the band in early 1971.

The band didn't release a new album in 1970, the first time that happened since it got started in 1966. They only released a single, "Mexico" backed by "Have You Seen the Saucers," both of which were performed here. But their record company released a popular greatest hits album, "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane," so they were touring to support that.

However, the band had come up with a bunch of new songs that were unreleased at the time. Some of them were performed here: "Emergency," written by Balin, "Up or Down," sung by Balin but written by Peter Kaukonen, brother of lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, "You Wear Your Dress Too Short," a blues cover sung by Malin, "Whatever The Old Man Does (Is Always Right)" by Covington, and "The Man (The Bludgeon of the Bluecoat)," also by Covington. When the band finally released their next album, "Bark," in 1971, none of those songs were included. The Balin-sung songs weren't included because he had left the band by then. I don't know why the two Covington-sung ones weren't included. Maybe he wasn't important enough in the band, being merely the new drummer, or maybe they weren't deemed good enough. Either way, it's interesting to hear them here. 

Additionally, the song "Starship" performed here is from the album "Blows Against the Empire." It was released about a month after this concert. Technically, it was billed to "Paul Kantner and the Jefferson Starship." That the first use of the name "Jefferson Starship." The name would return into 1974, replacing "Jefferson Airplane." Although it was billed as a Kantner solo album, it also had lots of involvement from Grace Slick, who wrote or co-wrote some songs, and sang lead vocals on many of them. 

I noticed that there's a version of "Blows Against the Empire" with some bonus tracks. One of them is the exact version of "Starship." I think it's the only officially released song from this concert.

Also at this time, two band members, lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady, had formed their own spin-off group, "Hot Tuna." Since they were on friendly terms with other band members, Hot Tuna often served as the opening acts to Jefferson Airplane concerts, or there would be a Hot Tuna section in the middle. For this concert, the first four songs are effectively a mini Hot Tuna set.

As I mentioned above, this is an excellent sounding soundboard. However, I think I improved it still further. It had one problem that is common to excellent sounding soundboards: they record what happened on stage wonderfully, but don't get much of the crowd cheering. That was very much the case here. So I ran every single song through the MVSEP program, boosting the cheering dramatically at the end of each song. Now, it sounds like a normal concert, with the expected amount of audience reaction.

It sounds like the recording for about the first thirty seconds or so of "We Can Be Together" was wonky. I improved it a bit, but most of it was beyond my ability to fix.  

This album is two hours and 19 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
02 Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (Jefferson Airplane)
03 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
04 New Song [For the Morning] (Jefferson Airplane)
05 Been So Long (Jefferson Airplane)
06 Hesitation Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
07 We Can Be Together (Jefferson Airplane)
08 Mexico (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Crown of Creation (Jefferson Airplane)
10 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
11 Whatever the Old Man Does [Is Always Right] (Jefferson Airplane)
12 The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil (Jefferson Airplane)
13 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
14 Emergency (Jefferson Airplane)
15 Come Back Baby (Jefferson Airplane)
16 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
17 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)
18 Wooden Ships (Jefferson Airplane)
19 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
20 Up or Down (Jefferson Airplane)
21 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
22 Have You Seen the Saucers (Jefferson Airplane)
23 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
24 The Man [Bludgeon of a Bluecoat] (Jefferson Airplane)
25 The Other Side of This Life (Jefferson Airplane)
26 Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane)
27 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
28 Greasy Heart (Jefferson Airplane)
29 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
30 You Wear Your Dress Too Short (Jefferson Airplane)
31 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
32 Freight Train [Instrumental Version] (Jefferson Airplane)
33 Starship (Jefferson Airplane)
34 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
35 3-5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds (Jefferson Airplane) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/g3L7yzZm

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iWjtOF0HNrB7dqw/file

The cover image shows a concert in Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan, on May 24, 1970. From left to right: Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, Grace Slick, and Marty Balin.

Friday, January 23, 2026

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-3-1971, Part 2: Hot Tuna

Here's the second set from the fourth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Hot Tuna.

If there's one band that should have taken part in this series of concerts but didn't, it's Jefferson Airplane. They were one of the most iconic bands performing many times at the Fillmore West. But the band was in the middle of falling apart in 1971. According to setlist.fm, they only performed four concerts that year. So, while that band is missing, at least we get Hot Tuna. It started as a side project for Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the lead guitarist and bassist for Jefferson Airplane respectively, but ending up dominating the rest of their music careers.

Here's the Wikipedia introduction for the band:

"Hot Tuna is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitar/vocals) and Jack Casady (bass). Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the years, the band's center has always been Kaukonen and Casady's ongoing collaboration." 

And here's the link to the full article: 

Hot Tuna - Wikipedia  

Sometimes, Hot Tuna played in acoustic mode, usually just Kaukonen and Casady, and sometimes they played in electric, full band mode. For this concert, they played as a full band, with fiddler Papa John Creach and drummer Sammy Piazza.

One song here, "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," was released on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Eventually, all of it was released as "Live at the Fillmore West, 3rd July 1971." But that's a "grey market" release. Meaning even though it's often sold in stores, the band didn't approve it and they don't get any royalties from it. 

This album is an hour and 40 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Hot Tuna)
02 That'll Never Happen No More (Hot Tuna)
03 talk (Hot Tuna)
04 How Long Blues (Hot Tuna)
05 Candy Man (Hot Tuna)
06 New Song [For the Morning] (Hot Tuna)
07 talk (Hot Tuna)
08 Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (Hot Tuna)
09 Uncle Sam's Blues (Hot Tuna)
10 talk (Hot Tuna)
11 John's Other [Instrumental] (Hot Tuna)
12 Rock Me Baby (Hot Tuna)
13 I Want You to Know (Hot Tuna)
14 I Know You Rider (Hot Tuna)
15 Been So Long (Hot Tuna)
16 Come Back Baby (Hot Tuna)
17 Feel So Good (Hot Tuna) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TsyTRqqz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/gzMujewRy9pf2J9/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from the "Fillmore" movie. It shows Jorma Kaukonen holding a guitar, and Jack Casady, the bassist, with his back to the camera.

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 5: The Band

The next act at the Woodstock '94 Festival is the Band.

The Band were one of the few acts that played both at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969 and at this 25th anniversary one. However, their popularity diminished somewhat in the intervening years because they lost two out of the five original members. Robbie Robertson, the band's main songwriter, left in the later 1970s. Singer Richard Manuel died in the 1980s. That left just singers Rick Danko and Levon Helm plus keyboardist Garth Hudson of the original five. Three new band members were replacements.

This is kind of a strange set because in my opinion it seems like a spot to put various acts from the original Woodstock era but weren't popular enough to have their own sets. Roger McGuinn joined in at least one song and sang lead vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Hot Tuna then took over and performed the famous acoustic instrumental "Embryonic Journey" by themselves. (They first did it when they were a part of Jefferson Airplane.) Then they collaborated on the song "Java Blues" with the Band. Later on, Bruce Hornsby joined for at least two songs, "The Weight" and "Willie and the Hand Jive." Note that it's very possible that these guest artists stayed to take part in more songs. But I was too lazy to watch the YouTube video of this set to check. Perhaps someone else can tell me.

Then, from what I can tell, the Band left the stage and were replaced by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, along with bassist Rob Wasserman. But as far as I could tell, this was essentially a separate set led by Weir with the Band no longer there until the final song, even though it wasn't billed as such. So I've made that portion into a separate album. 

This portion works as a complete concert without the Weir and Wasserman part. In fact, at nearly two hours, it was one of the longest sets of the festival. I believe only the Santana and Aerosmith sets were longer.

This album is an hour and 49 minutes long.

01 talk (Band)
02 Caldonia (Band)
03 talk (Band)
04 Remedy (Band)
05 Blind Willie McTell (Band)
06 It Makes No Difference (Band)
07 Atlantic City (Band)
08 Rag Mama Rag (Band)
09 Caledonia Mission (Band)
10 Crazy Mama (Band)
11 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Band)
12 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Band & Roger McGuinn)
13 talk (Band)
14 Embryonic Journey [Instrumental] (Hot Tuna)
15 talk (Band)
16 Java Blues (Band & Hot Tuna)
17 talk (Band)
18 The Weight (Band with Bruce Hornsby)
19 Mystery Train (Band)
20 talk (Band)
21 Stuff You Gotta Watch (Band)
22 Stage Fright (Band)
23 Ophelia (Band)
24 Life Is a Carnival (Band)
25 talk (Band)
26 Willie and the Hand Jive (Band with Bruce Hornsby)
27 The Shape I'm In (Band)
28 The Genetic Method [Instrumental] (Band)
29 Chest Fever (Band)
30 talk (Band)
31 [I Don't Want To] Hang Up My Rock 'n' Roll Shoes (Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vJf18nYn

I don't know all the people in the cover photo, but that's Roger McGuinn in glasses on the left, and Rick Danko of the Band on the right. It's from this exact concert.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Jorma Kaukonen - Shelter Coffee House, San Jose, CA, 6-25-1964

Occasionally, I'm amazed that a bootleg of a concert from a certain era of an artist's career exists at all, then I'm doubly amazed that the sound quality is so good. The 1963 Jackie deShannon concert I've posted here is one example, and the 1967 Grass Roots concert I've posted here is another. This concert also falls into that category.

I mean, who would expect to find a Jorma Kaukonen concert bootleg from all way back to 1964?! I didn't even know what he was doing musically prior to joining Jefferson Airplane in 1965. It turns out he played acoustic blues in folk clubs for a few years, starting in 1962 or earlier. He doesn't seem to have been very popular at that time. I found a couple of playbills with his name on it from those pre-Jefferson Airplane years on a Hot Tuna website. His name was way down in importance, in small letters. (By the way, at that time he was going by the name Jerry Kaukonen.) 

Yet here we have a full concert recording from him, an apparent soundboard in excellent sound quality! I just happened to stumble across it a couple of days ago. I consider myself quite lucky, because it's an extremely obscure bootleg. I literally only found three or four Google search results, but one of them had a link to download the full show. Hopefully by posting this, I'll help to give it more prominence. I figure few Jorma/ Hot Tuna fans have ever even thought to search for bootlegs from before his Jefferson Airplane days.

What I find most interesting about this is how fully formed his musical vision was then. Many of these songs were later done by him as part of Hot Tuna or as a solo artist, often in very similar versions. You also get the future Jefferson Airplane song "Good Shepherd." He already had an obsession with the music of the Reverend Gary Davis, something that's continued for the rest of his career. Virtually all of the song are blues or gospel covers ("Mann's Fate" is an original), and a handful were written by Davis.

The bootleg I took this from is over half an hour longer. This comes from two sets, and I removed all the duplicates: "Hesitation Blues," "San Francisco Bay Blues," "Follow the Drinking Gourd," "Death Don't Have No Mercy," and two versions of "Candy Man." I also cut out most of the guitar tuning between songs, of which there was quite a lot.

Unlike many bootlegs from the 1960s where the tape recorder was turned off between songs to save tape, this appears to be the full show of two sets. The best evidence of that is all the guitar tuning (that I often removed). So although there isn't much banter between songs, I think it's safe to say that's because he simply didn't talk much instead of those bits getting lost. Whenever he did talk, his voice was rather quiet, so I boosted the volume on those parts to help you hear what he was saying.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long. If you're a fan of his music, I highly recommend you get this. It's interesting to hear the early versions of songs he would often play later. But I think it's even more interesting that about half of these songs are ones he apparently permanently dropped from his repertoire once he joined Jefferson Airplane.

01 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
02 Come Back Baby (Jorma Kaukonen)
03 Move to Kansas City (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 Worry No More (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (Jorma Kaukonen)
06 Follow the Drinking Gourd (Jorma Kaukonen)
07 Keep On Truckin' (Jorma Kaukonen)
08 Always (Jorma Kaukonen)
09 Nine Pound Hammer (Jorma Kaukonen)
10 Search My Heart (Jorma Kaukonen)
11 Mann's Fate [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
12 Good Shepherd (Jorma Kaukonen)
13 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
14 That'll Never Happen No More (Jorma Kaukonen)
15 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
16 Death Don't Have No Mercy (Jorma Kaukonen)
17 San Francisco Bay Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
18 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
19 Lullaby [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
20 Late in the Evening Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
21 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
22 Hesitation Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
23 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
24 True Religion (Jorma Kaukonen)
25 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
26 Candy Man (Jorma Kaukonen)
27 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
28 Trouble in Mind (Jorma Kaukonen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TUMKVJeM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5g3U3Q9soCaeTjl/file

When I decided to make this an album I would post on my blog, I went looking for a photo of Kaukonen from 1964. I must say I thought the odds of actually finding one were between slim and none, but I felt I had to at least look. To my surprise, I actually found a photo of him playing in a club in 1964! The only snag was that it was in black and white, so I colorized it. In 2026, I upgraded the image detail with the use of the Ask Gemini program.

Between this music and the photo, I'm quite amazed at what one can find on the Internet these days. :)

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Jorma Kaukonen - Home Concerts 4, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH, 5-23-2020 to 11-21-2020

This is the last home concert of Jorma Kaukonen. Unfortunately, even though he's been playing home concerts pretty much every week from the start of the pandemic until now (sometimes alone and sometimes as part of Hot Tuna), he tends to play the same songs over and over again. For the three previous volumes, I avoided repeating songs. With this one, the unique songs basically ran out. These are the songs he didn't play in a few months of previous home concerts, so they're generally his rarities. As such, I find this volume the most interesting one.

There isn't much else to say. He's been very consistent with playing at the same place using the same set up for all his home concerts, so the sound quality is uniformly excellent. Also, as I did with previous volumes, I've cut out most of the between song banter except for the bits that are directly relevant to the songs he played. He's typically done long question and answer sessions with questions sent in by fans, so if I included that it would be a totally different thing, with tons more talking.

I don't know why, but I've made the albums in this series rather long, at over an hour apiece. This one is especially long, at an hour and forty minutes. If he ends up doing a handful of unique songs in 2021 home concerts, I'll probably add those and break this in two. But, for now, it is what it is.

I've added one song as a bonus track, "Yes Blues." This cover of the Beatles song was done for a John Lennon tribute concert in October 2020, so it doesn't exactly fit the home concert format. But it's a performance in the same solo acoustic blues style as most of the other songs, so I figure it fits enough to be a bonus track.

01 Broken Highway (Jorma Kaukonen)
02 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
03 A Walk with Friends [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 Corners without Exits (Jorma Kaukonen)
06 Roads and Roads and (Jorma Kaukonen)
07 Izze's Lullaby [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
08 Ode for Billy Dean (Jorma Kaukonen)
09 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
10 Song from the Stainless Cymbal (Jorma Kaukonen)
11 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
12 What Are They Doing in Heaven Today (Jorma Kaukonen)
13 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
14 Blues Stay Away from Me (Jorma Kaukonen)
15 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
16 Follow the Drinking Gourd [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
17 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
18 That'll Never Happen No More (Jorma Kaukonen)
19 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
20 Folsom Prison Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
21 Great Divide Revisited (Jorma Kaukonen)
22 Soliloquy for 2 (Jorma Kaukonen)
23 Uncle Sam Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
24 Serpent of Dreams (Jorma Kaukonen)
25 Second Chances (Jorma Kaukonen)
26 Blue Railroad Train (Jorma Kaukonen)
27 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
28 West Coast Blues [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
29 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
30 I'm Free from the Chain Gang Now (Jorma Kaukonen)
31 You and My Old Guitar (Jorma Kaukonen)
32 Vampire Women (Jorma Kaukonen)
33 Yer Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vooaS69z

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/S8oixIZTCB2Cc8o/file

The cover art photo is a screen shot from one of the home concerts during this time period. I don't recall which one.

Friday, January 15, 2021

Jorma Kaukonen - Home Concerts 3, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH, 5-2-2020 to 5-16-2020

It's already 2021 as I write this, but I still have some 2020 home concerts to post. So here's another from Jorma Kaukonen of both Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna fame. Since the pandemic began, he's been holding a concert at his home once a week, sometimes solo and sometimes as part of Hot Tuna. He continues to do that most weeks.

I think Kaukonen is underrated as a songwriter. I also think he relies too much on a small number of blues songs by others that he plays over and over again, especially those by Rev. Gary Davis. So this contains the songs he hadn't played in previous home concerts up till this point, minus those overplayed blues covers. The result is mostly originals, though there are a few covers here, such as "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" and "Nine Pound Hammer."

Also, note that his home concerts have often had as much talking as music. Typically, his wife has asked him questions from fans, and he would answer them at length. I've removed pretty much all of that. However, I've kept the comments he made that are relevant to the songs he's playing, so there's still a decent amount of between song banter.

I think the songs here are particularly interesting, because the songs he plays the most generally appeared on the first two albums in this series. These are the lesser known ones. But in my opinion they're generally very good just the same.

01 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
02 Letter to the North Star (Jorma Kaukonen)
03 Do Not Go Gentle [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 From the Land of Heroes (Jorma Kaukonen)
06 Mann's Fate [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
07 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
08 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Jorma Kaukonen)
09 In My Dreams (Jorma Kaukonen)
10 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
11 River of Time (Jorma Kaukonen)
12 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
13 Living Just for You (Jorma Kaukonen)
14 Song for the High Mountain (Jorma Kaukonen)
15 Trial by Fire (Jorma Kaukonen)
16 Song for the North Star (Jorma Kaukonen)
17 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
18 Another Man Done a Full Go Round (Jorma Kaukonen)
19 A Life Well Lived (Jorma Kaukonen)
20 Day to Day Out the Window Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
21 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
22 I'll Let You Know Before I Leave [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
23 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
24 Hamar Promenade (Jorma Kaukonen)
25 Nine Pound Hammer (Jorma Kaukonen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2TCnjbPW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1tlDTZ7HA2zmJwG/file

The cover art is a screenshot taken from one of the YouTube videos of the songs on this album.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Jorma Kaukonen - Home Concerts 2, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH, 4-18-2020 to 4-25-2020

As I posted yesterday, I had a hard drive crash and a lot of data I had is now permanently lost. Thankfully, my music collection is stored on a different hard drive. This close call has given me a new appreciation for my music blog. If I did have a disaster and lose my music collection, at least a good portion of the unique parts of it would be here on this blog. So I'm going to focus even more on trying to post the music that hasn't been collected in the way I've collected it elsewhere.

This album is a case in point. Jorma Kaukonen has done a ton of home concerts since the pandemic began, usually once a week, sometimes solo and sometimes as part of Hot Tuna. He's still at it. But those concerts have included long question and answer sessions, as well as guest spotlights, neither of which I'm interested in. Plus, he tends to play a lot of the same songs. So this blog is probably the only place were you can find his home concerts boiled down to just the essential music and banter, without song repeats.

As a personal quirk, I've gotten bored with many of the covers he does, especially his covers of religious Rev. Gary Davis songs. So I've cut way down on those, and focused more on his original songs. I think he's underappreciated as a songwriter. There is the occasional cover song here, such as "Parchman Farm" and "I Know You Rider," but the vast majority are originals.

I have a few more in this series to post, especially if he continues to play more home concerts. This album is an hour and nine minutes long. I'm not sure why I made all the albums in this series over an hour long, but I did. It's been months since I made these albums, so I forget my reasoning, but I must have had some reason for it. ;)

01 Too Many Years (Jorma Kaukonen)
02 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
03 Parchman Farm (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 The Terrible Operation (Jorma Kaukonen)
06 Flying Clouds (Jorma Kaukonen)
07 Watch the North Wind Rise (Jorma Kaukonen)
08 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
09 Reenlistment Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
10 New Song [For the Morning] (Jorma Kaukonen)
11 I See the Light (Jorma Kaukonen)
12 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
13 Ain't in No Hurry (Jorma Kaukonen)
14 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
15 Third Week in the Chelsea (Jorma Kaukonen)
16 Bar Room Crystal Ball (Jorma Kaukonen)
17 Wolves and Lambs (Jorma Kaukonen)
18 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
19 Things That Might Have Been (Jorma Kaukonen)
20 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
21 I Know You Rider (Jorma Kaukonen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Rm937wUz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gJLYzqaa4s3W39H/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from one of the YouTube videos of the home concerts contained here.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Jorma Kaukonen - Home Concerts 1, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH, 4-4-2020 to 4-11-2020

Some musician have been quiet in terms of public musical activity during the coronavirus lockdown, and others have been very active. Jorma Kaukonen has definitely been one of the active ones, putting on one lengthy home concert a week since the lockdown began. In case you don't know who he is, he was the lead guitarist for Jefferson Airplane in the 1960s, then has been part of the blues-based duo Hot Tuna ever since then, along with bassist Jack Cassady, also formerly of Jefferson Airplane. Since the 1970s, he's put out a mix of solo albums and Hot Tuna. Frankly, they don't sound that different to me, because he's the sole songwriter and lead vocalist on both.


Ever since leaving Jefferson Airplane, Kaukonen's recordings have been heavily influenced by the blues, most especially the acoustic blues of the Reverend Gary Davis. Since that time, he's done a lot of covers of blues classics, especially Gary Davis songs. But he's also written many of his own songs. And although they're informed by the blues, they have a distinctive style of their own.

This is the first of several albums of his 2020 home concerts that I plan on posting here. But I have to admit I've done something you might consider unexpected, if you're familiar with his music. To be frank, I'm kind of burned out on his covers of blues classics, especially his covers of Gary Davis songs. I feel like I've heard him do songs like "Death Don't Have No Mercy," "Candy Man," and "True Religion" a million times. I much more interested in his original songs. So, for these albums, I've pretty much just selected his originals (with occasional exceptions).

I've made some other significant omissions. For his home concerts, he typically has his wife select questions that have been asked by fans, and then he answers them between songs. I cut all of that out, and lots of talking besides. If I didn't, it would be nearly as much talking as music, and it's not the kind that lends itself to repeated listenings. If you want to hear all that, check out the YouTube videos of the full concerts. I did keep some between song banter, but generally just the bits that relate to the songs being played.

Furthermore, for each of his concerts, he typically has some guest musicians who sing their own songs. They're usually Myron Hart and/or John Hurlbut, neither of whom I'd heard of before. I'm not really interested in their stuff, and I want to keep the focus on Kaukonen and his original songs, so I've cut all their songs out as well, even though Kaukonen joins them on guitar.

Because I've cut out a bunch of stuff, this comes from two concerts instead of just one. It's an hour and seven minutes long. I hope this helps people appreciate what a talented songwriter he is, as well as being well known for his guitar playing. I could be wrong, but I think the only songs here he didn't write are "Good Shepherd" (which he did with Jefferson Airplane) and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime."

01 Heart Temporary (Jorma Kaukonen)
02 Been So Long (Jorma Kaukonen)
03 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 Barbeque King (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 Sea Child (Jorma Kaukonen)
06 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
07 In the Kingdom (Jorma Kaukonen)
08 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
09 Good Shepherd (Jorma Kaukonen)
10 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
11 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime (Jorma Kaukonen)
12 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
13 Water Song [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
14 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
15 Ice Age (Jorma Kaukonen)
16 Living in the Moment [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)
17 Sleep Song (Jorma Kaukonen)
18 Genesis (Jorma Kaukonen)
19 What Are They Doing in Heaven Today (Jorma Kaukonen)
20 Embryonic Journey [Instrumental] (Jorma Kaukonen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KDjYZWV5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UPbj2lQT0o6e17R/file

The cover art is a screenshot from the first concert featured here.