Ringo Starr & Friends - Ringo at the Ryman, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, 1-14-2025

Just a few days ago, a commenter (Brett Allen) suggested that I post the "Ringo at the Ryman" concert, which was broadcast on TV in early 2025. I had never even heard of this, but I went to check it out. I discovered this was a really excellent suggestion, so here it is already. Thanks again to Brett for making that suggestion.

In January 2025, Ringo Starr released a studio album called "Look Up." It was the first album since his very first solo album in 1970 that had a overt country sound to it. For his supporting musicians, he picked some of my favorite currently performing musical acts, like Larkin Poe, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, and Alison Krauss. They appeared for this concert (minus Alison Krauss), plus some other very well chosen guests, like Jack White, Sheryl Crow, and Rodney Crowell. I'm especially gratified to see the prominent role Larkin Poe had. I've been promoting their music for a long time now. It's nice to see them gradually breaking into the major leagues, despite the lack of obvious hit singles or hit albums, but just from building up a following through touring and being really talented.

Oddly, though, two famous guests only appeared on stage to help with the singalongs on the last two songs: Emmylou Harris and Brenda Lee.

Out of the four Beatles, Starr was the one most influenced by country music. This concert was meant to promote his latest studio album, for sure. But it also showed the country influence in his earlier works, including many country-influenced country songs. Starr sang and/or played drums on some of the songs. But for a majority of the songs, he let the guest stars sing lead vocals. About half of the time, he wasn't even on stage.

I was able to find a video file of this concert. Then I converted it into audio format and broke it into mp3s. So I don't think this has been shared as an audio bootleg until now. The music is all unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Matchbox (Ringo Starr with Jack White)
02 talk (Ringo Starr)
03 It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr with Sheryl Crow, Mickey Guyton & Molly Tuttle)
04 talk (Ringo Starr)
05 Time on My Hands (Ringo Starr)
06 talk (Molly Tuttle)
07 Octopus's Garden (Molly Tuttle)
08 talk (Jack White)
09 Don't Pass Me By (Jack White)
10 talk (Ringo Starr)
11 Thankful (Ringo Starr with Larkin Poe)
12 Honey Don't (Billy Strings)
13 talk (War & Treaty)
14 Without Her (War & Treaty)
15 talk (Sheryl Crow)
16 I Don't Want to Spoil the Party (Sheryl Crow with Molly Tuttle)
17 talk (emcee & Sheryl Crow)
18 Boys (Ringo Starr with Molly Tuttle, Sheryl Crow & Larkin Poe)
19 Have You Seen My Baby (Jamey Johnson)
20 talk (Mickey Guyton)
21 You Don't Know Me at All (Mickey Guyton)
22 talk (emcee)
23 Act Naturally (Rodney Crowell & Sarah Jarosz)
24 talk (Larkin Poe)
25 I Wanna Be Your Man (Larkin Poe)
26 talk (emcee)
27 What Goes On (Billy Strings & Molly Tuttle)
28 talk (Ringo Starr)
29 Look Up (Ringo Starr with Molly Tuttle)
30 Photograph (Ringo Starr with Billy Strings)
31 talk (emcee)
32 Yellow Submarine (Ringo Starr & Everyone)
33 With a Little Help from My Friends (Ringo Starr & Everyone)
34 talk (Ringo Starr)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7TRMtQ7z

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xe1onLDARTa363m/file

The cover photo is from the encore at the end of this exact concert. I can recognize some of the people, but not all of them. From left to right: unknown, Molly Tuttle, unknown, Jack White, Ringo Starr, Rodney Crowell, Brenda Lee (in front of Crowell), Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe, Emmylou Harris, Mickey Guyton, unknown, and Billy Strings. There were a few more people standing on each side that got cropped out, or otherwise everyone would have appeared considerably smaller.

Note also that I made some edits in Photoshop to the crowd at the bottom of the picture. In the original, a couple of people were holding their cell phones up high to take pictures, and I found that distracting. So I pasted in heads of more random people (taken from parts of the image cropped on either side) to cover up the cell phones.

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.

The Raconteurs - Acoustic (2006-2008)

A while back, I posted a stray tracks album of the Raconteurs, covering the years of their first period together, 2006 to 2008. (In case you don't know, the band is mainly led by Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, and Brendan Benson.) This album covers the same period, but consists just of acoustic versions of songs.

Nearly all the songs here are acoustic versions of songs from the Raconteurs albums in 2006 and 2008. But there are two exceptions: "It Ain't Easy," a song made famous by David Bowie, though it wasn't written by him, and a version of "The Seeker" done with the song's author, Pete Townshend of the Who.

The Raconteurs are a rocking band, so some of the versions here are fairly rocking too. Some of them have bass and drums. But they still use acoustic guitars, and there's a general acoustic feel, so I'm including them on this album anyway. Plus, this album is a good way to gather up all the various B-sides and other random tracks that I didn't include on my other Raconteurs album.

Everything on the album has been officially released, except for "The Seeker" and "Yellow Sun." But both of those were put on the Internet by official sources, so the sound quality is high all the way through.

01 Broken Boy Soldier [KCRW Session] (Raconteurs)
02 Blue Veins [KCRW Session] (Raconteurs)
03 It Ain't Easy [Live] (Raconteurs)
04 Steady, As She Goes [Acoustic Version] (Raconteurs)
05 The Seeker (Raconteurs & Pete Townshend)
06 Old Enough [Bluegrass Version] (Raconteurs with Ricky Skaggs & Ashley Monroe)
07 Carolina Drama [Acoustic Mix] (Raconteurs)
08 You Don't Understand Me [Acoustic Version] (Raconteurs)
09 Many Shades of Black [Acoustic Version] (Raconteurs)
10 Yellow Sun [Acoustic Version] (Raconteurs)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15182058/TRacontrs_2006-2008_Acoustc_atse.zip.html

The album cover art uses a photo of the band playing at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. I picked this one because it prominently displays the band's leaders White and Benson playing acoustic guitars.

The Raconteurs - Keep It Clean - Non-Album Tracks (2006-2008)

Just a few days ago, the Raconteurs released a new album, "Help Us Stranger." If you don't know, the Raconteurs are a group led by singer-songwriters Jack White of the White Stripes and Brendon Benson. It's their first album since 2008. I was disappointed with White's last solo album, but I think it's a strong return to form. I hope he keeps going with the Raconteurs, since his talents and Benson's complement each other.

To celebrate this new album, I thought I'd post something else by them. Up until their new activity, they really only existed as a group from 2006 to 2008, although they had an occasional concert since then. So I divided all the stray tracks I had from two into two, and came up with this album, of full-band material, and another album of acoustic stuff.

The vast majority of the songs here are covers. There are only three that are not: "The Band Rendition," which was a B-side and bonus track at the time of their first album in 2006, and "Open Your Eyes" and "You Made a Fool Out of Me," which were leftovers from their second album in 2008, and were released as a single in 2012.

I must say, the covers run a very wide range, from Howlin' Wolf ("Little Red Rooster") to Sonny and Cher ("Bang Bang") to the Undertones ("Teenage Kicks") to Gnarls Barkley ("Crazy"), and a lot more. Some of them are mainly sung by White, and others are mainly sung by Benson. The vast majority were done live in concert. I then tried to erase the audience noise as best I can, as I often do, to help those songs fit in with the studio tracks.

This album is 52 minutes long.

UPDATE: On May 31, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. A kind person finally found the missing song I'd been asking for, a version of "Send Me a Postcard" by the Shocking Blue. So thanks to that person for that.

01 The Bane Rendition (Raconteurs)
02 Heading for the Texas Border (Raconteurs)
03 A House Is Not a Motel (Raconteurs)
04 Floating (Raconteurs)
05 Bang Bang [My Baby Shot Me Down] (Raconteurs)
06 The Christian Life (Raconteurs)
07 Crazy (Raconteurs)
08 Send Me a Postcard (Raconteurs)
09 Who Do You Love (Raconteurs)
10 Teenage Kicks (Raconteurs)
11 Open Your Eyes (Raconteurs)
12 You Made a Fool Out of Me (Raconteurs)
13 Little Red Rooster (Raconteurs)
14 Keep It Clean (Raconteurs)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UrdiYtzL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/kHfWbeO62kPhAKv/file

For the album cover, I found a photo of the band from 2006. I also found a concert poster that I didn't use, but I took the unusual lettering of the band name from that.

The White Stripes - Conquest - Non-Album Tracks (2007-2008)

This is the fifth and last album of stray tracks for the White Stripes that I've made. Generally speaking, there's one of these for each studio album they put out. This one corresponds with 2007's "Icky Thump."

It's nice how so often I manage to bundle stray tracks like these into coherent collections that fit into one album's length of music, which I would consider roughly 35 to 50 minutes long. But it doesn't always happen that way. In this case, there's really only 22 minutes of White Stripes music. That's more like an EP than an album.

I've managed to flesh that out a bit by adding three Jack White solo songs from 2008 and 2009 that don't fit anywhere else. (He was fully involved with his new band the Reconteurs at that time. His first solo album wouldn't be released until 2012.) Even with those songs, it's still rather short at 32 minutes. But I'd rather keep it short than pad it out with lesser material.

The heart of this album are the first four songs, which make up the "Conquest" EP, released in 2008. The song "Conquest" is a cover made famous by Patti Page in the 1950s. A version of that appears on the "Icky Thump" album. But this is the "acoustic mariachi" version. I believe all the other songs on this album are originals.

Although this is my last album of White Stripes stray tracks, I do have one more album of theirs to post, which is a collection of acoustic versions of their songs. I'll post that some other time.

01 Conquest [Acoustic Mariachi Version] (White Stripes)
02 It's My Fault for Being Famous (White Stripes)
03 Cash Grab Complications on the Matter (White Stripes)
04 Honey, We Can't Afford to Look This Cheap (White Stripes)
05 Baby Brother (White Stripes)
06 Tennessee Border (White Stripes)
07 White Moon [Solo Piano Version] (White Stripes)
08 I Fought Piranhas [Solo Electric Version] (Jack White)
09 Another Way to Die (Jack White & Alicia Keys)
10 Fly Farm Blues (Jack White)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701102/TWHITSTRPES2007-2008_Cnqest_atse.zip.html

I believe at least three different covers were made for the "Conquest" EP. I picked the one I like the best. I didn't make any changes to it. The White Stripes apparently made the decision not to mention their band name on the cover, so I've stuck with that.

The White Stripes - Walking with a Ghost - Non-Album Tracks (2004-2005)

A couple of days ago, I accidentally posted a White Stripes stray tracks album I'd posted already. Luckily, The_Lighthouse noticed this right away, and I deleted it. This is the album I'd meant to post instead.

The White Stripes pretty much have an album of stray tracks for each studio album they released. This is essentially the companion album to their 2005 album "Get Behind Me Satan." About half of the songs here are officially released, with four of those from A- or B-sides, and another from an EP. There also is a Jack White solo song ("City Lights"), and two more songs related to a Loretta Lynn album he was heavily involved with at the time ("Van Lear Rose" and "Portland, Oregon,") "Whispering Sea" is a Lynn song from around 1960.

The unreleased songs that make up up the other half of this album generally come from concert bootlegs. I think more than any time before or since, the White Stripes in 2005 played a wide variety of cover songs in concert. I listened to several dozen rare songs played by them then. Unfortunately, I had to eliminate most of them due to sound quality issues, since they often played a song just once or twice, and the odds were it would only get recorded on an average sounding audience bootleg. Also, many times they would only play a minute or so of a song instead of the full thing, so I eliminated those too.

Happily, I was still left with a handful of songs. Generally speaking, they were the ones the band played a dozen times or more, enough so there was at least one well recorded version. Most of these are old blues songs drastically transformed into the White Stripes style, like Bob Dylan's "Outlaw Blues," or Son House's "Grinnin' in Your Face" or Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway." "Small Faces" is a 1968 song by the very obscure garage rock band "Public Nuisance." "Jack on Fire" is a 1980s song by the Gun Club. "Jack the Ripper" is from 1963, by Screaming Lord Sutch.

There are many more songs I wish I could have included, but didn't due to the sound quality issues I mentioned above. But I picked what I consider two of the best of these and added them as bonus tracks. "I'm Sorry" is a Bo Diddley song and "You Belong to Me" was a big hit in 1952.

01 Outlaw Blues - Jack the Ripper (White Stripes)
02 Walking with a Ghost (White Stripes)
03 Shelter of Your Arms (White Stripes)
04 Top Special (White Stripes)
05 Whispering Sea (White Stripes)
06 Though I Hear You Calling, I Will Not Answer (White Stripes)
07 Grinnin' in Your Face (White Stripes)
08 Van Lear Rose (Jack White)
09 Stones in My Passway (White Stripes)
10 Jack on Fire (White Stripes)
11 Portland, Oregon (Loretta Lynn & Jack White)
12 Small Faces (White Stripes)
13 Folk Singer (White Stripes)
14 City Lights (White Stripes)

I'm Sorry (White Stripes)
You Belong to Me (White Stripes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701097/TWHITSTRPES2005_WlkingwthGhst_atse.zip.html

The cover is the cover to the "Walking with a Ghost" EP, with no changes whatsoever.

The White Stripes - Who's to Say - Non-Album Tracks (2003)

The White Stripes were a prolific band. Usually, for every album they released, they'd have another album's worth of stray tracks.

This is a case in point. In 2003, they released the album "Elephant." All of the songs here are also from 2003. Four of them come from B-sides. But that also was the year Jack White had some songs on the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack, so I've included those. The rest are unreleased, generally live songs with the audience noise removed. Three of those come from a rare (for the time period) solo concert by guitarist Jack White.

By the way, "Cold Brains" is a song by Beck, and "Hear My Train A-Comin'" is a song by Jimi Hendrix. Anybody who covers both Beck and Hendrix is okay by me. ;)

In short, if you like the White Stripes, you should like this.

01 Black Jack Davey (White Stripes)
02 Good to Me (White Stripes)
03 Who's to Say... (White Stripes)
04 St. Ides of March (White Stripes)
05 Wayfaring Stranger (Jack White)
06 Never Far Away (Jack White)
07 Great High Mountain (Jack White)
08 Everywhere I Go, I'm Always There (White Stripes)
09 Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues (Jack White)
10 Cold Brains (Jack White)
11 Fragile Girl (Jack White)
12 Mr. Cellophane (White Stripes)
13 Hear My Train A-Comin' - Ball and Bisquit (White Stripes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701099/TWHITSTRPES2003_WhostoSy_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I took a 2003 concert poster, cropped it, and changed some lettering to add in the album title.

The White Stripes - Boll Weevil - Non-Album Tracks (2001-2002)

A few months ago, due to a request, I posted an album of White Stripes stray tracks from the earliest part of their career. A lot of people know the band put out a lot of singles in their first few years, and that's what that post mostly consisted of. But the band actually had a lot of stray tracks throughout its entire career. I've made a series of albums for them, and here's the next in that series.

Many of the songs here are covers. That includes two Dylan songs ("Love Sick" and "Isis"), a blues song best known from a Rolling Stones cover ("Stop Breaking Down"), a traditional blues song that was made into a 1960s pop hit ("Boll Weevil"), and a campy song from the 1960s spy spoof TV show "Get Smart" ("99").

The album ends with a demo of one of the greatest songs of all time, "Seven Nation Army." I'm not sure where it comes from since it's unreleased and a one-off, but it's definitely a legit demo.

01 Rated X (White Stripes)
02 Baby Blue (White Stripes)
03 Boll Weevil (White Stripes)
04 Love Sick (White Stripes)
05 Goin' Back to Memphis (White Stripes)
06 For the Love of Ivy (White Stripes)
07 Isis (White Stripes)
08 Red Death at 6;14 (White Stripes)
09 Stop Breaking Down (White Stripes)
10 99 (Jack White with Beck)
11 Seven Nation Army [Demo] (White Stripes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701098/TWHITSTRPES2001-2002_BllWevil_atse.zip.html

I made the album cover using a 2002 White Stripes concert poster for the artwork.

The White Stripes - Let's Shake Hands - Non-Album Tracks (1997-2000)

A couple of weeks ago, someone posted a comment here suggesting that I gather up all the early stray tracks by the White Stripes. To be honest, there aren't a lot of rock bands from the last 20 years or so that interest me as much as those from the 1960s to 1980s. But I definitely consider the White Stripes worthy. So this is the first of several albums from them.

The songs here actually start before the White Stripes even existed. The first three songs are by a duo called the Upholsterers, made up of future White Stripes frontman Jack White and Brian Muldoon of the band Muldoons. They only released three songs, which came out in 2000, but actually were recorded in 1997. But don't worry, these songs sound exactly like early White Stripes songs.

The other songs here are mostly A- and B-sides. But I was very careful to make sure there was no overlap between any of these songs and the songs on the official White Stripes albums. I also did a deep dive and found a couple other interesting songs, such as a live version of the classic soul tune "Love Potion No. 9" recorded at the White Stripes' very first public performance.

There are 17 songs here, which normally would be a lot, but they're all pretty short, so this only totals 39 minutes of music.

01 Apple of My Eye (Upholsterers)
02 I Ain't Superstitious (Upholsterers)
03 Pain [Give Me Sympathy] (Upholsterers)
04 Love Potion No. 9 (White Stripes)
05 Signed D.C. (White Stripes)
06 I've Been Loving You Too Long (White Stripes)
07 Let's Shake Hands (White Stripes)
08 Look Me Over Closely (White Stripes)
09 Lafayette Blues (White Stripes)
10 Candy Cane Children (White Stripes)
11 Hand Springs (White Stripes)
12 Red Bowling Ball Ruth (White Stripes)
13 Jolene (White Stripes)
14 Lord, Send Me an Angel (White Stripes)
15 Party of Special Things to Do (White Stripes)
16 Ashtray Heart (White Stripes)
17 China Pig (White Stripes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701096/TWHITSTRPES1997-2000_LetsShkeHnds_atse.zip.html

Thanks to The Lifehouse for the cover art.