Neil Finn, Ryan Adams, & Janis Ian - Songwriters' Circle, Bush Hall, London, Britain, 10-21-2011

Here's another episode of the "Songwriters' Circle" BBC TV show. Like all other episodes of the show, it featured three talented singer-songwriters as they took turns performing their songs. This episode starred Neil Finn (formerly of the band Crowded House), Ryan Adams, and Janis Ian.

In my experience, many very creative people are assholes, though certainly not all. For instance, John Lennon could sometimes be a total ass, and he's one of my all time favorites. This episode was unusual in that it made a little bit of news due to Ryan Adams acting badly. That's not terribly surprising, coming from him, based on other stories I'd heard about him. For instance, not many musical stars have a section of their Wikipedia page called "Disputes with Fans and Other Artists," plus another section called "Harassment Allegations," but Adams has both.

See what I mean, if you're curious: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Adams 

Here's my understanding of this dispute. In each episode of this show, the three musicians sing their own songs. Sometimes, as a nice bonus, one or both of the others might join in with instrumentation or backing vocals. Then, at the end of the show, at least one song is sung by all three of them. That's exactly what happened in this episode. However, Adams apparently got annoyed whenever Finn and/or Ian tried to join in with his songs, so they quickly got the message and stopped doing that. 

Then, at the end, the plan was for all three of them to sing two Finn songs together, "Weather with You" and "Fall at Your Feet." One of those two songs would be chosen to be included in the broadcast. The performance of "Weather with You" went okay, with all three of them taking part. But when it came time to perform "Fall at Your Feet," Adams got out his cell phone and started bidding on some items on eBay, while still on stage in front of an audience! This annoyed Finn so much that he loudly asked Adams what he was doing and why wasn't he joining in with the song, as they had practiced before the show started. Adams blew him off, then packed up his guitar and left before the song was even over. Ultimately, "Fall at Your Feet" wasn't included in the show, due to this trouble.

I found an article from the Age, a major newspaper in Australia, that went into surprising depth about the controversy. It includes a lot of bickering comments from the days after the concert, mostly between Ian and Adams. Finn generally stayed silent, except for one sarcastic comment: "Well, 'Songwriters' Circle' on BBC will be interesting, watch out for lovely backing vocals on 'Fall at Your Feet' from Ryan." (That's a reference to how those expected backing vocals never happened.)

The back and forth between Adams and Ian is much more extensive and nasty. I'll just quote one section from Ian:

"Ryan Adams, meanwhile, is an extremely talented songwriter - beautiful, wonderful stuff - whose first words to us were that he didn't know why he was there. We heard numerous times that he writes 4-5 songs a day, that they just pour out of him, that he's 'the most unprepared person on earth' and likes it that way, and that he sells out any theater he plays in the UK 'in 30 seconds flat.' All of which was a little weird, from my perspective. I expect a certain amount of narcissism in performers. That's a necessity, part of our stock in trade. I don't expect complete and total self-absorption to the detriment of what was supposed to be three singer-songwriters enjoying each other in a collaborative environment. I do that a lot in Nashville, as you all know, and I've never in my life seen it go south like this did."

It's this sort of thing that has made me not interested to explore Adams' musical output, even though I've heard he's a talented songwriter. (The accounts of him sexually harassing women are especially upsetting.) If you want to make up your own mind, here's the link to the quite lengthy article:

Ryan Adams and Neil Finn fall out during TV taping 

Anyway, regardless of what may or may not have happened with this controversy, the episode is quite nice simply as a listening experience. If there was any unpleasantness, it was cleverly edited out, and it seemed as if they were all getting along fine. (Of course, as I mentioned above, the song with the main problem discussed above was completely removed, so that helped a lot.) The three of them even kind of spontaneously created a song together, which I've chosen to call "Center of an Oreo." (I find it strange that none of the bickering in the Age article mentions that.) And the music was very good, including the songs by Adams.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long. 

01 talk (Neil Finn)
02 Distant Sun (Neil Finn)
03 talk (Janis Ian)
04 At Seventeen (Janis Ian)
05 talk (Ryan Adams)
06 Carolina Rain (Ryan Adams)
07 talk (Neil Finn)
08 Don't Dream It's Over (Neil Finn)
09 talk (Janis Ian)
10 Society's Child (Janis Ian)
11 Oh My Sweet Carolina (Ryan Adams)
12 talk (Neil Finn)
13 Golden Child (Neil Finn)
14 talk (Janis Ian)
15 Bright Lights and Promises (Janis Ian)
16 Invisible Riverside (Ryan Adams)
17 talk (Ryan Adams)
18 Center of an Oreo (Neil Finn, Janis Ian & Ryan Adams)
19 talk (Neil Finn)
20 She Will Have Her Way (Neil Finn)
21 From Me to You (Janis Ian)
22 Come Pick Me Up (Ryan Adams)
23 talk (Neil Finn)
24 Weather with You (Neil Finn, Janis Ian & Ryan Adams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RvQFJVSq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/IfuuPmzYB9db6ky/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. From right to left: Neil Finn, Janis Ian, and Ryan Adams.

Blood, Sweat and Tears with Janis Ian - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 8-12-1975

Here's another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one is headlined by the band Blood, Sweat and Tears. But they also performed some songs with singer-songwriter Janis Ian on lead vocals.

As I've said before, one of the things I like most about this TV show is how it often encouraged collaborations by having the main musical act supplemented by a guest act. Let me explain why I think Ian was chosen.

Blood, Sweat and Tears was extremely popular around 1970. But their popularity soon declined. One problem was the lead singer with a distinctive voice, David Clayton-Thomas, left the band for a solo career in 1972. But his solo career didn't have much success, and the band's popularity went further down without him. So, in 1975, he rejoined the band. The first album with him back in the band was called "New City," released in April 1975. One of the songs on that was "Applause," written by Ian. So I think that's why Ian was chosen.

Meanwhile, Ian had a big hit in 1966 with "Society's Child," when she was still a teenager. But she didn't have much success for quite a few years after that. But that changed in July 1975, when she released "At Seventeen" as a single. It caught fire, and made it all the way to Number Three in the U.S. charts. 

I don't know the exact timing of this concert. It's possible the August 1975 date in the title is the broadcast date, not the date the concert was recorded. It would be interesting to find out, due to Ian's popularity surging in the middle of 1975. It would also be interesting if Blood, Sweat and Tears helped her with the guest spot before her resurgence began.  

This concert began with several songs just performed by Blood, Sweat and Tears. The heavily relied on songs from their new album at the time, "New City." Tracks 1, 4, 5, and 7 are from that album. But for tracks 5, 6, 7, and 8, they were joined by Ian on vocals.  

The last song, "At Seventeen," isn't from this concert. Or at least this version isn't. I strongly suspect there are a couple more songs from this concert that I don't have, because these episodes were an hour long (without commercial breaks), and this one is more than ten minutes short of that. If anyone has more of this concert, or at least just knows the songs played, please let me know. But I thought it was kind of weird to have Ian in concert in 1975 and not include her big hit from that year. So I added in an unreleased performance of "At Seventeen" done on the "Saturday Night Live" TV show in September of that year.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Got to Get You into My Life (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
02 Yesterday's Music (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
03 And When I Die (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
04 Ride Captain Ride (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
05 Applause (Blood, Sweat & Tears & Janis Ian)
06 In the Winter (Blood, Sweat & Tears & Janis Ian)
07 I Was a Witness to a War (Blood, Sweat & Tears & Janis Ian)
08 Hallelujah (Blood, Sweat & Tears & Janis Ian)
09 At Seventeen (Janis Ian)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rPWqF6Zg

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/caOBVkVtix43iAB/file

The cover is a screenshot of Blood, Sweat and Tears lead singer David Clayton-Thomas, from this exact concert.

Newport Folk Festival, Festival Field, Newport, RI, 7-25-1968 to 7-28-1968, Part 9 - Janis Ian & Tim Buckley

This is the ninth of ten albums of the 1968 Newport Folk Festival. This was part of the festival's last day, July 28, 1968. There are two sets here, one from singer-songwriter Janis Ian and the other from singer-songwriter Tim Buckley.

Ian was quite young at the time of this concert, just seventeen years old. She'd had a surprise hit the year before with the song, "Society's Child (Baby, I've Been Thinking)," which dealt with interracial romance. The same month as this concert she released her third album, "The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink." It was a bad time in her life. She was doing a lot of drugs to cope with her fame, and even attempted suicide. You wouldn't know that from her performance here though, which was fine.

Tim Buckley has become something of a music legend, in part due to dying young (in 1975) as well as having a famous musical son, Jeff Buckley, who also died young. As a result, there's a demand for his live recordings. So this is a very welcome addition to his discography. The sound quality is excellent, like everything from this festival. And it took place at an interesting time, when he was moving from folky material to more experimental and jazzy material. 

His first song, "Buzzin' Fly," wouldn't be released until a year later, on his album "Happy Sad." The next two songs were covers. He played them a lot in concert, but he didn't put them on any albums at the time. "The Dolphins" would be released on a studio album, but not until 1973. His final song, "Morning Glory," was from his most recent album at the time, "Goodbye and Hello."

This album is 45 minutes long. The Janis Ian set is 23 minutes long, and the Tim Buckley set is 22 minutes long.

116 talk by George Wein (Janis Ian)
117 Janeys Blues (Janis Ian)
118 Pro-Girl (Janis Ian)
119 Society's Child [Baby, I've Been Thinking] (Janis Ian)
120 New Christ Cardiac Hero (Janis Ian)
121 My Land (Janis Ian)
122 talk by Oscar Brand (Tim Buckley)
123 Buzzin' Fly (Tim Buckley)
124 Wayfaring Stranger (Tim Buckley)
125 talk (Tim Buckley)
126 The Dolphins (Tim Buckley)
127 talk (Tim Buckley)
128 Morning Glory (Tim Buckley)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17205348/VA-NEWPRTFLKFESTIVL196809JnisIan_TimBuckly.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TPusZM62

The cover art shows Janis Ian on the left and Tim Buckley on the right. Both are from this exact concert. It's a shame I had to edit them down to get both to fit. If anyone wants me to post the full versions, or of any of the others from the concert that I had to split in two, let me know and I'll post them here too. 

UPDATE: On October 5, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.