The Incredible String Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1970-1971

I'm still not into the Incredible String Band, but here's another BBC album from them, due to their high results in the BBC poll I did a while back. This is a third volume of BBC studio sessions.

There's an official album of BBC performances by this band, but it skips a lot of music. This album is a case in point. The first four songs are from that album, "Across the Airwaves," but everything else remains unreleased. Also, those first four songs are from two different BBC sessions in 1970, while tracks 5 to 8 are from one 1971 BBC session, and tracks 9 until the end are from another 1971 BBC session. 

In the time period here, the band was still a foursome, with Mike Heron, Robin Williamson, Licorice McKechnie, and Rose Simpson. But that would change around the end of 1971. During this time, the band released no less than four studio albums: "I Looked Up" and "U" in 1970, and "Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending" and "Liquid Acrobat as Regards the Air" in 1971. 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Everything's Fine Right Now (Incredible String Band)
02 Raga Puti (Incredible String Band)
03 Ring Dance (Incredible String Band)
04 Long, Long Road (Incredible String Band)
05 You Get Brighter (Incredible String Band)
06 Jigs [The Bird that Lives on Rain - Yellow Flames of Whin - Jenny in the Mosshouse - Drunk] (Incredible String Band)
07 How We Danced the Lord of Weir (Incredible String Band)
08 The Actor (Incredible String Band)
09 The Circle Is Unbroken (Incredible String Band)
10 Sailor and the Dancer (Incredible String Band)
11 Tree (Incredible String Band)
12 Living in the Shadows (Incredible String Band) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xeM2CQYY 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/uwp1nSK4SfcXQKg/file 

The cover photo shows the band's two main singer-songwriters, from around this time: Robin Williamson with blonde hair and a beard and Mike Heron with dark brown hair. I believe I took this as a screenshot from a documentary about the band. 

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-31-1969, Part 1: Incredible String Band - Herbie Mann

It's time for me to tackle more of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. With this album, I'm beginning the second day of the festival. So note in the album title this is "8-31-1969" instead of the 30th, and thus Part 1 (again). 

I really wanted to have one musical act per album, but this is the one exception. I was only able to find 11 minutes of the performance by the Incredible String Band, and 14 minutes of the performance by Herbie Mann, so I put them together. I don't know if they played back to back, but the odds are low that they did. At least it's known they both performed on the second day.

All the music on this album is from a soundboard bootleg source. I'd guess maybe half or less of the total music from the festival has been made public with soundboard sound quality, but it's very strange how it sometimes is only parts of sets, as is the case both times here. In some cases, I've found an audience bootleg to fill in missing pieces, but not here. So something is better than nothing, I guess.

I've already posted some Incredible String Band albums at this blog, so I don't need to introduce them. Obviously, they must have played more than two songs, but I couldn't find any complete set list for them.

Herbie Mann (who died in 2009 at the age of 73) had an unusual career. He was a jazz flutist. What was unusual was that he managed to have some pop hits, and got enough of a following to be invited to a rock festival like this one. No doubt, he wouldn't have been invited had it not been for his album "Memphis Underground," released in April 1969. Recorded in Memphis with soul musicians, it fused jazz and soul, and went on to become of the best selling jazz albums of all time. 

In this concert, all his songs were instrumentals, with his jazz flute being the lead instrument. Just like the Incredible String Band, he must have played more than two songs, but these are all we have. Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Herbie Mann - Wikipedia  

Regarding the festival in general, the attendance dropped about in half on the second day. That was largely due to the negative media coverage. The front-page headline on the morning of the second day in the Dallas Morning News was "Drugs Mar Pop Fest!" The article told of "freak-outs" and "bad trips" suffered by at least thirty youthful "hippies" who'd taken mescaline or LSD, requiring treatment in the festival's first aid tent. One of the festival's promoters later told Rolling Stone Magazine, "The press hurt us bad. I could just see parents looking up from their papers at breakfast and telling their kids, 'You're not going out there.'" In actual fact, the percentage of people having bad trips was extremely low compared to the overall size of the crowd, something that Dallas Morning News article even acknowledged deeper in the article. But one has to keep in mind the cultural conservatism in Texas at the time. It's a wonder the festival was allowed to happen at all. In fact, a similar festival planned to take place that same summer in Oklahoma City was cancelled by the authorities at the last minute.

A bigger problem was that the festival was really hot. Many people were treated for heat exhaustion, and also for cut feet, due to going barefooted. Another problem was outsiders who continued to go to the lake next to the venue to ogle at naked people skinny dipping there. But other than that, the festival ran quite smoothly compared to other festivals of similar size in that era.

Here's the list of all the music acts on the second day, in alphabetical order, since I don't know the actual order they appeared:

Chicago
James Cotton Blues Band
Delaney & Bonnie
Grand Funk Railroad
The Incredible String Band    
B.B. King
Led Zeppelin
Herbie Mann
Sam & Dave
Santana 

In addition to this album, I'm posting the sets from Led Zeppelin, Sam & Dave, and Santana. For all the others, they also performed on either the first day and/or third day as well, and I have albums from all of them on those days. So, very luckily, nothing really important is missed from this day.

This album is 26 minutes long. 

01 talk (Incredible String Band)
02 Waiting for You (Incredible String Band)
03 Black Jack Davy (Incredible String Band)
04 Tangier [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
05 Improvisation [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
06 talk (Herbie Mann)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Qcq67t43

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/m59CqMvUzhl3F6i/file

Both photos are from this exact concert. On the left, that's Robin Williamson, one of the two lead singers for the Incredible String Band. On the right, that's Herbie Mann. Both of the original pictures were in black and white. I used the Kolorize program to colorize them.

The Incredible String Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1969-1970

Here's a second volume of the Incredible String Band performing for the BBC. Like Volume 1, it consists entirely of studio sessions.

In 1967, the band consisted only of singer-songwriters Robin Williamson and Mike Heron. But by the time of this album, Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson joined as well, as you can see from the cover image. They released the albums "Changing Horses" in 1969 and "Looking Up" in 1970.

In 2007, the archival album "Across the Airwaves: BBC Radio Recordings 1969-74" was released. Seven of the songs here come from that, while the rest remain unreleased. Those seven are the first four, plus tracks 9 through 11. It's obvious that that album wasn't meant to be complete, even with sound quality considerations, because the unreleased tracks 12 and 13 are from the exact same BBC session as three that were chosen.

A bunch of the songs on this album had the lead vocals low in the mix. I fixed that for all the songs except the first four, which sounded fine. As usual, I used the UVR5 audio editing program to do that.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 Fine Fingered Hands (Incredible String Band)
02 All Writ Down (Incredible String Band)
03 Dust Be Diamonds (Incredible String Band)
04 Theta (Incredible String Band)
05 The Letter (Incredible String Band)
06 This Moment (Incredible String Band)
07 Gather Round (Incredible String Band)
08 Waiting for You (Incredible String Band)
09 Empty Pocket Blues (Incredible String Band)
10 Beautiful Stranger (Incredible String Band)
11 Won't You Come See Me (Incredible String Band)
12 Flowers of the Forest (Incredible String Band)
13 Dark Eyed Lady (Incredible String Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PEVAtdFC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/SHImL7mI3Tgkrfn/file

All I know about the cover photo is that it's from 1970.

The Incredible String Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967-1968

In the poll I conducted in February of new musical acts you'd like to see BBC albums from, the Incredible String Band tied for third place. So here's the start of a series of BBC albums by them. I found enough for seven albums.

Personally, I've never really gotten into the Incredible String Band. I know they were talented, and their style of psychedelic folk was unique and interesting, but their songs generally don't grab me. Still, the voters have spoken, so here you go.

The heart of the band were the singer-songwriters Robin Williamson and Mike Heron, with the two roughly doing about the same number of songs. In fact, for some of the time period of this album, they were the only two members of the band. However, in 1968, their girlfriends at the time, Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson, were also made band members. Happily, they were talented singers and musicians.

This band arguably peaked early, around the time period of this album. If you look at the crowd-sourced ratings of their albums on rateyourmusic.com, their 1967 album "The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion" and their two 1968 albums "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" and "Wee Tam and The Big Huge" are their highest rated ones. 

All the performances here are unreleased. The first four songs are from a 1967 appearance on the "Top Gear" radio show, hosted by John Peel. The rest all date from early 1968. Tracks 5 through 7 are from "Once More with Felix," a BBC TV show hosted by Julie Felix. Tracks 8 through 12 are from the "Night Ride" radio show, which was also hosted by Peel. The last two songs are from another appearance on "Once More with Felix."

Unfortunately, one song is repeated, "Painting Box." It's both the first song and the last song. And two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles because Peel spoke over the music a little bit. That was pretty unusual for him. I did the usual, using the UVR5 program to wipe the DJ vocals while keeping the music.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Painting Box [Edit] (Incredible String Band)
02 Mercy I Cry City (Incredible String Band)
03 Chinese White [Edit] (Incredible String Band)
04 Nightfall (Incredible String Band)
05 Three Is a Green Crown (Incredible String Band)
06 Geordie (Incredible String Band)
07 See All the People (Incredible String Band)
08 You Get Brighter (Incredible String Band)
09 All Too Much for Me (Incredible String Band)
10 Ducks on a Pond (Incredible String Band)
11 I Bid You Goodnight (Incredible String Band)
12 Won't You Come See Me (Incredible String Band)
13 The Half-Remarkable Question (Incredible String Band)
14 Painting Box (Incredible String Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kfLHempX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UmFrpOKn2L0yyJM/file

The cover image is from around 1967, when the band was only a duo. That's Robin Williamson with blonde hair and a beard and Mike Heron with dark brown hair.