John Prine - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-4-1974

Here's a concert by singer-songwriter John Prine. It's one of many concerts I'm posting from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts.

I'm enjoying (and thus prioritizing) posting these Ebbets Field concerts for several reasons. 1) Most albums I post have issues, requiring a lot of tinkering to get things fixed to my satisfaction. That's much less the case with these broadcasts. That's probably a reflection of how well they were recorded in the first place. 2) Most of these are very rare and hard to find, with the exception of a small number. So I'm pleased to reveal these to a wider audience. 3) When I look at the concerts that took place in this venue, I'm really impressed. I find myself wishing I could have attended the vast majority of them.  I've long felt the late 1960s and early 1970s were a peak of musical creativity in general, so that's part of it. But I also think the people who booked the music acts for this venue must have had very good musical taste.

Speaking of how rare these Ebbets Field broadcast bootlegs are, I was only able to find this one on YouTube. So I converted it to audio and chopped it into mp3s. 

At this time of this concert, Prine had released three albums. He was touring to promote the third one, "Sweet Revenge." According to the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, that album gets the highest ratings of all his albums other than he debut. So this is a good point to hear a concert from him.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Spanish Pipedream (John Prine)
02 talk (John Prine)
03 The Accident [Things Could Be Worse] (John Prine)
04 talk (John Prine)
05 Sweet Revenge (John Prine)
06 talk (John Prine)
07 Illegal Smile (John Prine)
08 talk (John Prine)
09 Illegal Smile [Reprise] (John Prine)
10 talk (John Prine)
11 Donald and Lydia (John Prine)
12 Sam Stone (John Prine)
13 talk (John Prine)
14 Dear Abby (John Prine)
15 Rocky Mountain Time (John Prine)
16 Pretty Good (John Prine)
17 Hello in There (John Prine)
18 talk (John Prine)
19 Grandpa Was a Carpenter (John Prine)
20 talk (John Prine)
21 Christmas in Prison (John Prine)
22 Paradise (John Prine)
23 talk (John Prine)
24 My Mexican Home (John Prine)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/p8njoCMR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tzZABPasBonY6JS/file

The cover image comes from a concert at the Symphony Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 26, 1974.

Various Artists - Concert for a Landmine Free World, Point Theatre, Dublin, Ireland, 1-14-2002

I just found this the other day, and I liked it so much that I'm posting it straight away. I've posted a bunch of "Songwriter's Circle" BBC TV shows. This isn't from that show, but it follows the same format: several singer-songwriters sitting next to each other and taking turns singing their songs. In this case, there were four: Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Elvis Costello, and John Prine.

The concert was one of six concerts in Europe in 2002, all called "Concert for a Landmine Free World." This, in turn, was just one of several concert tours for that cause, which took place from at least 1997 to 2017. Most of them have been helmed by Emmylou Harris. However, I can't find much information about these tours. There was one official album containing some highlights from a 1999 tour, but it's very hard to find. Other than that, there are only a small number of bootlegs, and they generally are audience boots with sound quality too poor for my standards. 

This one concert is an exception though. This recording has been called a soundboard boot. I doubt that though, because one often hears clapping between songs from what sounds like people extremely close to the recording spot. I think it's more likely that it's just a very, very, very well recorded audience boot. Not all audience boots are the same. Every now and then, you can find one that sounds as good or better than a typical soundboard, if superior recording equipment was used, and the location was ideal, and the people nearby were quiet, and so forth. But whatever the case, this sounds good enough to be an official live album, so don't worry about the quality.

Of the six concerts in 2002, five of them also had Nanci Griffith in it. For some reason, in seems she couldn't attend this one. That's a bummer, but on the plus side it means we got even more songs from the remaining four stars, who in my opinion are all major musical talents. For the most part, each of them just sang and played guitar on their own songs. But later in the show, Emmylou Harris, who is kind of the queen of harmony vocalizing in the music world, sang backing vocals on some songs. And everyone joined in on two songs ("God's Comic" and "Paradise").    

This album is two hours long exactly. 

01 talk (Emmylou Harris)
02 Red Dirt Girl (Emmylou Harris)
03 talk (Steve Earle)
04 Now She's Gone (Steve Earle)
05 talk (Elvis Costello)
06 Our Little Angel (Elvis Costello)
07 talk (John Prine)
08 Souvenirs (John Prine)
09 talk (Emmylou Harris)
10 Bang the Drum Slowly (Emmylou Harris)
11 talk (Steve Earle)
12 Hometown Blues (Steve Earle)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 Please (Elvis Costello)
15 That's the Way that the World Goes Round (John Prine)
16 talk (Emmylou Harris)
17 Michelangelo (Emmylou Harris)
18 talk (Elvis Costello)
19 God's Comic (Elvis Costello with Everyone)
20 Goodbye (Steve Earle & Emmylou Harris)
21 talk (Elvis Costello)
22 Shipbuilding (Elvis Costello)
23 talk (John Prine)
24 talk (John Prine)
25 The Other Side of Town (John Prine)
26 talk (Emmylou Harris)
27 Hour of Gold (Emmylou Harris)
28 talk (Steve Earle)
29 Tom Ames' Prayer (Steve Earle)
30 talk (Elvis Costello)
31 Alibi (Elvis Costello)
32 Sam Stone (John Prine with Emmylou Harris)
33 talk (Emmylou Harris & Elvis Costello)
34 Sleepless Nights (Emmylou Harris & Elvis Costello)
35 talk (Steve Earle)
36 Galway Girl (Steve Earle)
37 talk (John Prine)
38 Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (John Prine with Emmylou Harris)
39 talk (Emmylou Harris)
40 talk (Steve Earle)
41 Fort Worth Blues (Steve Earle with Emmylou Harris)
42 talk (Emmylou Harris)
43 Paradise (John Prine with Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/v18WJsJZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xWxX8iu7hB5JDuJ/file

I couldn't find a photo from this exact concert. However, I found one from a concert in Belfast the day before. It had two other people in it, including Nanci Griffith. So I carefully zoomed in and cropped them out. The quality is a bit rough, and Krea AI didn't help much in this case.

John Prine with Billy Lee Riley - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 1-6-1980

Here's another "PBS Soundstage" episode. This time, it's a John Prine concert from 1980. 

He was joined on two songs by Billy Lee Riley. Riley had a few hits in the 1950s, especially the song "Red Hot" in 1957. After that, he stayed in the music business for a while, working mostly as a producer. However, by the 1970s, he got a job in the construction industry instead. But in the late 1970s he made a minor comeback, and this appearance was a part of it. He died in 2009 of cancer after some more minor comebacks.

Bob Dylan was a big fan. Here's what he said about him in 2015:

"He was a true original. He did it all: He played, he sang, he wrote. He would have been a bigger star but Jerry Lee [Lewis] came along. And you know what happens when someone like that comes along. You just don't stand a chance. So Billy became what is known in the industry — a condescending term — as a one-hit wonder. But sometimes, just sometimes, once in a while, a one-hit wonder can make a more powerful impact than a recording star who's got 20 or 30 hits behind him. And Billy's hit song was called "Red Hot," and it was red hot. It could blast you out of your skull and make you feel happy about it. Change your life."

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Billy Lee Riley - Wikipedia

I don't have much to say about John Prine in comparison, because I figure a lot more people interested in this album will know about Prine than they will about Riley. A few months prior to this concert, Prine released his sixth studio album, "Pink Cadillac." It was different from his previous albums. Instead of his usual singer-songwriter style, he focused more on 1950s rock and roll, with about half of the album being covers of songs from that era, and the originals on the album being influenced by that style. We can see some of that in this concert, for instance his cover of the 1950s classic "Ubangi Stomp." And his involvement with Riley on two songs fits perfectly into that.

The recording of this unreleased concert is pretty good. However, I had some trouble with the cheering at the ends of songs ending abruptly. Probably, that was when the TV show quickly cut to commercial breaks. So I did a little editing to add a reasonable amount of cheering after every song. The last song, "How Lucky," had no cheering at all. It probably wasn't actually recorded in the same concert as the rest. But I added some cheering at the end of that one too to help it fit in.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 talk (John Prine)
02 Automobile (John Prine)
03 Spanish Pipedream (John Prine)
04 Fish and Whistle (John Prine)
05 talk (John Prine)
06 Angel from Montgomery (John Prine)
07 The Accident [Things Could Be Worse] (John Prine)
08 Ubangi Stomp (John Prine)
09 talk (John Prine)
10 Hello in There (John Prine)
11 Paradise (John Prine)
12 talk (John Prine)
13 No Name Girl (John Prine & Billy Lee Riley)
14 talk (John Prine & Billy Lee Riley)
15 Red Hot (John Prine & Billy Lee Riley)
16 Bruised Orange [Chain of Sorrow] (John Prine)
17 Saigon (John Prine)
18 How Lucky (John Prine)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/H5yZxxWz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Zr4FeU5LUFrPOfu/file

The cover image is a screenshot from a video of this exact concert.

Various Artists - Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine, Home Concert, 6-11-2020

Singer-songwriter John Prine passed away on April 9, 2020, at the age of 73. He died of the coronavirus. It pains me to admit that I never got into his music, even though I could tell he was a very talented songwriter. The problem I've had is his voice. It just doesn't appeal to me, for whatever reason.

Given that, I've been keen to find instances of other musicians covering his songs, because he is such a top-notch songwriter. So I was very pleased to learn about a home concert on June 11, 2020, entirely dedicated to his songs, featuring lots of well-known musicians, such as Bonnie Raitt, Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile, Vince Gill, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, and many more. Most of them sang just one song, but a few sang two. There's no location for the concert per se, because the various artists performed them in their own homes and then sent in video recordings.

This concert is an hour and 17 minutes long. It contains all the musical performances, but it's far from complete. That's because there was a lot of talking between songs that I cut out. There were a number of famous friends of Prine's who gave spoken tributes as well, such as Bill Murray, Billy Bob Thorton, and Stephen Colbert. While interesting, I don't think those had much repeat listen value, so I edited them out. There also were some snippets of Prine himself talking from when he was younger, but I cut those out as well, for the same reason. There were a few bits of him singing, but only snippets of songs, not complete songs, so those got the axe as well.

I still left in some talking though, when musicians spoke a little bit before playing their songs. I also left in a few cases where Prine's wife, Fiona Whelan Prine, briefly introduced some of the performers. Strangely, she did that for some and not for others, so not every musician gets an introduction.

Anyway, if you're a fan of Prine's music already, you should enjoy these excellent versions. If you're not yet, this could be a good introduction, including most of his best known songs.

As far as sound quality goes, it's variable, based on the recording conditions for each artist. Some are a bit rough. For instance, the Secret Sisters recorded outside, and one can hear birds chirping the whole time. But overall, the sound is pretty good.

01 talk (John Dickerson)
02 Hello in There (Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires)
03 Clocks and Spoons (Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires)
04 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
05 Burn One with John Prine (Kacey Musgraves)
06 talk (Kacey Musgraves)
07 Spanish Pipedream (Kacey Musgraves)
08 talk (Kacey Musgraves)
09 All the Best (Margo Price & Jeremy Ivey)
10 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
11 Caravan of Fools (Dan Auerbach, Pat McLaughlin & Dave Ferguson)
12 talk (Brandi Carlile)
13 Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore (Brandi Carlile)
14 Mexican Home (John Dickerson)
15 Far from Me (Kenneth Blevins, David Jacques, Fats Kaplin, Jason Wilber & Sara Watkins)
16 talk (Vince Gill)
17 Some Things Never Get Old (Vince Gill)
18 talk (Jody Whelan)
19 Paradise (Jack Prine & Tommy Prine)
20 talk (Secret Sisters)
21 Souvenirs (Secret Sisters with Ricky Rogers)
22 Illegal Smile (Todd Snider)
23 In Spite of Ourselves (Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick)
24 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
25 Summer’s End (Rita Wilson)
26 talk (Sturgill Simpson)
27 Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (Sturgill Simpson)
28 talk (Eric Church)
29 She Is My Everything (Eric Church)
30 Crazy as a Loon (Kurt Vile, John Paul White, Jim James, Pat McLaughlin & Courtney Marie Andrews)
31 Unwed Fathers (Kelsey Waldon)
32 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
34 Angel From Montgomery (Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701223/VA-PictreShwTrbuteClebrtingJhnPrineHmeConcrt__6-11-2020_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo of John Prine that was included in the promotional material for this concert. For the text, I copied and pasted from more promotional material, then added the line about the home concert plus the date.