Joni Mitchell - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-23-1968

Here's the second out of six albums that I'm posting from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. This one features a short acoustic set by Joni Mitchell.

Note that while I'm posting all I have from this festival in a bunch, I'm not attempting to organize the albums into "Part 1," Part 2," and so on. That's because it was a three day festival, and I only have a couple of sets from each day. I also don't know the order of the performances. 

Joni Mitchell wasn't a big name yet in 1968, at the time of this concert. She was getting a lot of acclaim for her songwriting, and some famous musicians were already covering her songs. But she'd only released one album at the time of this concert, and that one, "Song to a Seagull," didn't make the charts. So it looks like she was only allowed a pretty short set. The official jonimitchell.com website has tons of good information. It has an article that reviewed her performance, which you can read here:

https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=603

According to that, she received a standing ovation, which was unusual for the festival. And the audience cheered for more, but she said she was only allowed to play five songs for 20 minutes. (Cleverly, it looks like she stretched that a bit by playing a medley of two songs at the end.) 

She only played one song ("Cactus Tree") from the sole album she'd released so far. Instead, three songs would come from her album "Ladies of the Canyon," one from "Clouds," and one from "Blue." 

This album is 26 minutes long.

01 That Song about the Midway (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
04 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 The Circle Game - Little Green (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/B2ibjhNE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ThztLxga4BOYSSw/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. However, the original was in black and white. I had to colorize it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Joni Mitchell - The White Swan, Leicester, Britain, 9-16-1967

I thought I'd found and posted all the Joni Mitchell bootlegs from the early part of her career with worthy sound quality, but I recently discovered one that I had missed. The sound quality was a little iffy, but I made some edits that make it sound as good as soundboards from this time period.

There are two things I especially like about concert recordings from Mitchell around 1967 and 1968. One is that she played a lot of songs that would go unreleased. That's the case here. Five songs from this set weren't released until decades later: "Come to the Sunshine," "Dr. Junk," "Eastern Rain," "Play Little David," and "Go Tell the Drummer Man." One more, "The Wizard of Is," still hasn't been released. That's because it's obviously heavily based on "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen, making it her least impressive original song, in my opinion. But still, even that one is interesting to hear.

The second thing I especially like is that she was very chatty between songs. She talked before most songs here, shedding light on her personality and her life at the time.

Now, let me get to the sound quality issue. The original recording was an audience bootleg, and those often have problems. When I found this, there was a certain amount of murkiness and echo on all the songs, as well as hiss. Happily, advances in audio editing technology often make fixing that sort of thing possible. I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program, using the "denoise" filter to get rid of the hiss. Then I ran all the songs through that program again, using the "reverb removal" filter. It's amazing what those filters can do. But the banter between songs was still hard to understand. So I ran all of those through Adobe's vocal enhancer program. 

In my opinion, these three fixes make this sound much better than before. Now, this sounds just as good as the 1967 soundboard concerts I have, in my opinion. It helps that she was performing in front of a small, respectful, quiet audience, so I didn't have to do additional work to get rid of crowd noise during the songs. 

According to the excellent jonimitchell.com website, Mitchell performed five concerts in Britain in August and September 1967. I believe it was the first time she performed outside of North America. Two of those were at this venue, separated by a couple of weeks. This was the second one. So it's likely some part of the audience was already starting to become familiar with her songs from the first one. (She hadn't released any records yet.)

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Play Little David (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Come to the Sunshine (Joni Mitchell)
04 talk (Joni Mitchell)
05 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
06 The Wizard of Is (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 Night in the City (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Song to a Seagull (Joni Mitchell)
13 Morning Morgantown (Joni Mitchell)
14 talk (Joni Mitchell)
15 Dr. Junk (Joni Mitchell)
16 Eastern Rain (Joni Mitchell)
17 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell)
18 Michael from Mountains (Joni Mitchell)
19 Go Tell the Drummer Man (Joni Mitchell)
20 talk (Joni Mitchell)
21 I Don't Know Where I Stand (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WS1cyn2o

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/7ZhcPpIHmzXuic8/file

I really like this cover. She looks so very happy. It was taken during her short tour of Britain in August and September 1967. It's taken in some street in London. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Cyndi Lauper - A Grammy Salute to Cyndi Lauper, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA, 8-29-2025

In recent years, the people behind the annual Grammy Awards have gotten in the habit of having a "Grammy Salute" concert each year that typically stars one musical act, but also has some guest stars. In 2025, the main star was Cyndi Lauper. So here's her concert.

At the time of this concert, Lauper was 72 years old. She had most of her commercial success in the 1980s. So she's not a spring chicken anymore. In fact, she announced that her 2025 tour would be her last tour. (However, she's not done performing: she plans on having a residency in Las Vegas in 2026 instead.) But despite her age, she still sounds great here. She had a voice that had a remarkable four-octave range, so even if she lost some notes, she has a lot of notes to lose.

The thing that makes this concert stand out from her other concerts are the many guest stars she sings duets with, especially Joni Mitchell, John Legend, SZA, and Cher. (It seems John Legend goes to every single tribute concert there is.) At the same time, she presented a kind of "greatest hits" from her career, while also throwing in some cover versions, like "Iko Iko" and "Carey." 

This show was broadcast as a special on CBS. A few days ago, a massive video file emerged of the show. I converted that to audio and chopped it into mp3s. Along the way, I cut out some unnecessary bits. For instance, an announcer often gave teasers of the musical acts still to come later in the special. I got rid of all that. And there were some spoken tributes to Lauper, including one by Brandi Carlile, that I cut out because they weren't part of the actual concert.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long. 

01 She Bop (Cyndi Lauper)
02 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
03 The Goonies 'R' Good Enough (Cyndi Lauper)
04 I Drove All Night (Cyndi Lauper)
05 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
06 Who Let in the Rain (Cyndi Lauper & Mickey Guyton)
07 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
08 Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper & John Legend)
09 Iko Iko (Cyndi Lauper with Trombone Shorty & Angelique Kidjo)
10 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
11 Sally's Pigeons (Cyndi Lauper)
12 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
13 I'm Gonna Be Strong (Cyndi Lauper)
14 Change of Heart (Cyndi Lauper)
15 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
16 Carey (Cyndi Lauper & Joni Mitchell)
17 Money Changes Everything (Cyndi Lauper & Jake Wesley Rogers)
18 Shine (Cyndi Lauper)
19 True Colors (Cyndi Lauper & SZA)
20 Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper & Cher)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xn6edwLm

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/GSo657YakBN1MrO/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I also used some promotional material for this show for the text at the top, including the colors, though I rearranged it a bit. Then I made some new text to match that style at the bottom.

Various Artists - An All-Star Tribute to Joni Mitchell, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, 4-6-2000

For a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the TNT TV network hosted a few annual "all-star tributes" to some music legends. I've already posted albums of such tribute shows to Johnny Cash, Brian Wilson, and Paul Simon. Here's another one, celebrating the music of Joni Mitchell.

This concert actually featured Joni Mitchell herself, but she had a relatively minor role. At the very end, she performed one song and gave a short speech. Instead, the bulk of the concert consisted of famous musical acts performing her songs. Just look at the cover or at the song list to see the names. There also were some famous non-musicians who talked a little bit between songs, such as actors Susan Sarandon and Laurence Fishburne, and the main host, Ashley Judd. Plus, I never thought my music blog would have a track by Hillary Clinton, but here we are.

If I recall correctly, there was some more stuff to this concert that I edited out, such as testimonials about Mitchell's life and career, narrated by the likes of Goldie Hawn and Rosie O'Donnell. I kept the focus on the songs, and introductions to the songs.

The Stone Temple Pilots were also due to perform at this concert. However, the band's lead singer, Scott Weiland, blew his voice out by performing three full concerts the day before. They were due to perform the song "Woodstock." At the last minute, Richard Thompson stepped up to perform that song instead. That's why he's the only performer here to do two songs, because he also had been scheduled to perform the song "Black Crow." 

Note that the final song, "The Circle Game," faded out before it ended. Probably that's when the TV broadcast came to an end. I extended it a bit by repeating a chorus from earlier in the song and then fading it out. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

There's an amazing official Joni Mitchell website, www.jonimitchell.com. It has a webpage just on this concert, with lots of pictures and dozens of newspaper articles about it. Here's a link:

Joni Mitchell - 2000.04.06 | An All-Star Tribute To Joni Mitchell Hammerstein Ballroom | New York 

This album remains officially unreleased as an audio album. However, a DVD of it has been released. But this is about ten minutes longer. The sound quality is excellent. 

This concert is an hour and 18 minutes long. 

01 Raised on Robbery (Wynonna Judd & Bryan Adams)
02 talk (Ashley Judd)
03 Carey (Cyndi Lauper)
04 talk (Ashley Judd)
05 Woodstock (Richard Thompson)
06 talk (Hillary Clinton)
07 Chelsea Morning (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
08 Big Yellow Taxi (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter with James Taylor)
09 talk (James Taylor)
10 River (James Taylor)
11 talk (Ashley Judd)
12 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Wynonna Judd)
13 talk (Susan Sarandon)
14 Help Me (k.d. Lang)
15 talk (Laurence Fishburne)
16 The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines (Cassandra Wilson)
17 talk (Ashley Judd)
18 The Circle Game (Sweet Honey in the Rock)
19 talk (Ashley Judd)
20 talk (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
21 Amelia (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
22 talk (Ashley Judd)
23 Black Crow (Richard Thompson)
24 talk (Richard Thompson)
25 talk (Ashley Judd)
26 Free Man in Paris (Elton John)
27 talk (Elton John)
28 A Case of You (Diana Krall)
29 talk (Ashley Judd)
30 talk (Tony Bennett)
31 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
32 talk (Joni Mitchell)
33 The Circle Game [Reprise] [Edit] (Joni Mitchell & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/acNAjTY6

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/GVHWLt1ZTKXHMpu/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right, that's Joni Mitchell, James Taylor (in back), Cassandra Wilson, Shawn Colvin, and Elton John.

Joni Mitchell - Hejira - Acoustic Version (1976) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I previously posted acoustic versions of Joni Mitchell's 1974 album "Court and Spark" and 1975 album "The Hissing of Summer Lawns." Here comes an acoustic version of her 1976 album "Hejira." This is a Mike Solof guest post.

As usual, Mike has included a PDF file in the download with his own thoughts. So I don't feel the need to say more much here, since he says a lot there. But if you love Mitchell's early music yet had trouble with her jazzier albums, this is a good opportunity to hear this excellent album done in her earlier acoustic style.

The track order is the same as on the official album, but Mike threw on a couple of extra songs, "Jericho" and "Help Me," at the end.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Coyote (Joni Mitchell)
02 Amelia (Joni Mitchell)
03 Furry Sings the Blues (Joni Mitchell)
04 A Strange Boy (Joni Mitchell)
05 Traveling [Hejira] (Joni Mitchell)
06 Song for Sharon (Joni Mitchell)
07 Black Crow (Joni Mitchell)
08 Blue Motel Room (Joni Mitchell)
09 Refuge of the Roads [Early Mix with Horns] (Joni Mitchell)
10 Jericho [Rehearsal Version] (Joni Mitchell)
11 Help Me [Rehearsal Version] (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sdJh1pg4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/Eln5ixhya1FbRqa/file

Luckily for my purposes, there are some outtakes from the photo session for the cover of the "Hejira" album. I selected one of those, and replaced the image on the cover. I also made a slight change to the album title.

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns - Acoustic Version (1975)

Some months ago, I posted an acoustic version of Joni Mitchell's 1974 album "Court and Spark." Basically, that was the album when Mitchell switched from recording solo acoustic to recording with a band, so that version imagined that she just kept going with her original acoustic style. Recently, guest poster Mike Solof expressed interest in posting an acoustic version of her 1976 album "Hejira," which he likes quite a lot. Before, I post that, I thought it would make sense to create and post an acoustic version of her album after "Court and Spark" but before "Hejira," which is "The Hissing of Summer Lawns." So here it is.

For decades, there was a widely available bootleg called "Demos of Summer Lawns." It consisted of acoustic demos of most of the songs that would go on "The Hissing of Summer Lawns," though not all of them. Then, in 2023, the box set "Archives, Volume 3" was released. It contained most of the demos from the bootleg, though not all of them, and had previously unknown one.

I've put this together mostly using the demos from the box set. I rearranged them into the exact same order as the original studio album. However, I had trouble with a couple of songs. I couldn't find any alternate version of the song "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" anywhere. So I took the album version and edited it with the MVSEP program to remove the drums. That's why that's the sole song with "[Edit]" in the title. The demo of "Sweet Bird" wasn't included in the box set, but I was able to use the one from the Demos bootleg. For "Shadows and Light," I used a live bootleg version taken from the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. 

Finally, there's a bonus track of sorts. "Dreamland" was not actually included on "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" album. It wouldn't appear on one of her albums until "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" in 1977. However, a stripped down version was recorded in the spring of 1975, at the same time as most of the other demo versions here. So I included that one here as well. It has some drums on it, but it's still mostly acoustic.

In my opinion, "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" is an underrated album. If you don't like the increasingly jazzy style Mitchell was evolving into at this time, perhaps you'll like this acoustic version instead.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 In France They Kiss on Main Street (Joni Mitchell)
02 The Jungle Line (Joni Mitchell)
03 Edith and the Kingpin (Joni Mitchell)
04 Don't Interrupt the Sorrow (Joni Mitchell)
05 Shades of Scarlet Conquering (Joni Mitchell)
06 The Hissing of Summer Lawns [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
07 The Boho Dance (Joni Mitchell)
08 Harry's House (Joni Mitchell)
09 Sweet Bird (Joni Mitchell)
10 Shadows and Light (Joni Mitchell)
11 Dreamland (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aX8N9FYX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HMnoSnKqYxygRR8/file

For the cover art, I wanted to find something similar to the official cover, yet slightly different. I Googled the name of the album, and found an advertisement for it in a magazine. Indeed, it was similar but different. Note for instance the church on the far left in the line of buildings, which isn't in the official cover. There's also a line of text quoting a song lyric near the people carrying the snake. The ad was black and white, but I colorized it a bit to better match the official album, and I added the text at the top. 

Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark - Acoustic Version (1974)

Joni Mitchell's five studio albums from 1968 to 1972 were basically solo acoustic, with only occasional additional instruments added in. But her 1974 album "Court and Spark" was much more of a full-band recording, as she moved into a jazzier direction. The public responded very positively. It sold over two million copies in the U.S., making it her best selling album of her entire career.

There's no doubt that "Court and Spark" is a classic album that's great exactly how it is. But what if she'd recorded it in the solo acoustic mode of all her previous albums? If nothing else, that would make for a nice alternate listen from time to time. In October 2023, the rarities box set "Archives, Volume 3" was released. I realized that contained solo (or almost solo) acoustic demos of nearly every song from the album. So I resolved to try to make an alternate acoustic version out of that material.

I mostly succeeded. The only major problem I faced was that there was no alternate version of "Free Man in Paris" to use. So I used the album version. However, that has a full band on it. So, using the audio editing program UVR5, I removed the drums and bass, making a unique acoustic mix. Also, the songs "Down on You," "Car on a Hill," and "Same Situation" were all part of a medley. I did more editing to separate them out, so I could have every song here in the exact same order as the official album.

There are some prominent drums on the last song, "Twisted." But that's a very stripped down version, with drums being the main instrument aside from her voice. So I figure that's acoustic in nature, and I kept it that way.

This album is 37 minutes long. The original album is also 37 minutes long.

01 Court and Spark [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
02 Help Me [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
03 Free Man in Paris [Acoustic Mix] (Joni Mitchell)
04 People's Parties [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
05 Same Situation [Alternate Vocal Piano Mix] (Joni Mitchell)
06 Car on a Hill [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
07 Down to You [Early Alternate Take] (Joni Mitchell)
08 Just like This Train [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
09 Raised on Robbery [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
10 Trouble Child [Demo] (Joni Mitchell)
11 Twisted [Early Alternate Version] (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15987140/JoniMchl_1974_CourtSprkAcoustcVrsion_atse.zip.html

Since this is an alternate album, I wanted to make a cover similar to the original album cover, but somewhat different. So I used Mitchell's drawing, but enlarged it so it filled most of the cover. Then I rearranged her written words, and added the word "Acoustic."

Joni Mitchell - Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, CA, 3-3-1974

A few weeks ago as I write this (in November 2023), a third Joni Mitchell archival box set was released, called "Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975)." I don't want to post too much from that, because I hope if you're a Joni Mitchell fan that you'll go out and buy it. But I'm posting a complete concert that was included in it because I felt it had a big flaw that I was able to fix. Namely, the last four songs from the concert weren't included. Now, they are with this version.

Mitchell was probably at the peak of her popularity in 1974, releasing her best selling album, "Court and Spark," and then going on a big tour. So it's frustrating that there really haven't been any high quality complete concert recordings from that tour. She did release a live album from the tour, "Miles of Aisles," which also did very well, but that was a selection of performances from a bunch of different concerts, and I usually prefer full concert recordings, warts and all. But until now, the only high quality 1974 concert recording is the BBC album I've posted here from a London concert. However, that one is flawed because it's cobbled together from several different sources, and not everything sounds great. 

So this concert recordings is very welcome. It sounds even better than the BBC album. I'm really puzzled though while the last four songs were left off the box set. I found an audience bootleg from this exact concert with those four songs on it. Unfortunately, the sound quality was low. Instead, I decided to go with a recording done in Seattle about ten days later (March 12th) that sounded a lot better. It also is an audience bootleg, but it's probably the best sounding one from the tour. She ended all the concerts with the exact same songs, and no banter between them, so it's basically identical to the audience bootleg from this exact concert, except sounding better. That said, it's still a noticeable step down from the sound of the rest of the concert. But one gets the full concert experience this way.

This album is an hour and 49 minutes long.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 This Flight Tonight (Joni Mitchell)
03 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Joni Mitchell)
04 Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell)
05 The Same Situation (Joni Mitchell)
06 Just like This Train (Joni Mitchell)
07 Rainy Night House (Joni Mitchell)
08 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
09 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
10 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 People's Parties (Joni Mitchell)
13 All I Want (Joni Mitchell)
14 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 For the Roses (Joni Mitchell)
17 Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire (Joni Mitchell)
18 Blue (Joni Mitchell)
19 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell)
20 Trouble Child (Joni Mitchell)
21 Help Me (Joni Mitchell)
22 Car on a Hill (Joni Mitchell)
23 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
24 Raised on Robbery (Joni Mitchell)
24 The Last Time I Saw Richard (Joni Mitchell)
25 Twisted (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.imagenetz.de/iFRSK

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dr3CPS3b

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/omLWVOMzs8SjVO0/file 

The cover photo may or may not be from this exact concert. All I know is that it was taken at one of her concerts in Los Angeles in 1974. But she played Los Angeles six times that year. So there's a one in six chance.

A Conspiracy of Hope, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, 6-15-1986, Part 5 - Joni Mitchell, U2, & the Police

Finally, this is the last of five parts of the last concert from the 1986 "A Conspiracy of Hope" tour. The biggest name artists were saved for last.

Originally, Pete Townshend of the Who had been announced as one of the final acts for this concert. He hadn't played any of the other dates on the short tour. However, I saw the first one, in San Francisco, and I recall that a video of him performing "Won't Get Fooled Again" in solo acoustic mode was shown to the audience, to great applause. Unfortunately, he had to cancel at the last minute because his father, Cliff Townshend, became gravely ill (and in fact died later that month).

Townshend was replaced by Joni Mitchell. Although she'd had much critical and commercial success in the 1960s and 70s, the 1980s hadn't been good for her. Her talent was still undeniable, but her attempts to modernize her sound with synths and drum machines didn't work at all, and her sales plummeted. For this concert, she only played three songs, and she played them in solo acoustic style. Unfortunately, she avoided playing her classics and instead chose three musically complicated songs that very few people in the audience was familiar with. This did not go over well at all. She was booed and even pelted with objects. Rolling Stone Magazine at the time even called it the worst concert performance of the year.

However, in retrospect, there's nothing at all bad about her performance. In fact, these versions of her recent songs "The Three Great Stimulants" (from her 1985 album "Dog Eat Dog") and "Number One" (then unreleased, from her 1988 album "Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm") are drastically different from the album versions, and sound way better in solo acoustic format, in my opinion. It's just unfortunate that she didn't pander to the crowd's desire for better known songs. Plus, she only played three songs that lasted 15 minutes.

U2 hadn't done much musically since their 1984 album "The Unforgettable Fire." Their blockbuster album "The Joshua Tree" wouldn't be released until a year after this concert. However, their reputation had continued to steadily rise anyway. For instance, their performance in the 1985 Live Aid concert was widely considered one of the highlights. For this concert, they played a surprising number of covers, doing "Maggie's Farm" by Bob Dylan, "Cold Turkey" by John Lennon, "Help!" by the Beatles, and then finishing with "Sun City," helped by Little Steven (who wrote it), Lou Reed, Ruben Blades and Nona Hendrix. Their set was 28 minutes long.

But without a doubt, the most anticipated act of the whole concert was the Police. The Police were one of the biggest musical acts of the early 1980s, but they broke up in 1983, at the peak of their success. They attempted a reunion in 1986, but it didn't go far. Sting played the first three concerts on this tour as a solo act. Then, for the last three, including this one, he reunited with the Police instead. This particular concert would be the last time the Police performed together until 2003, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (They would have a reunion tour a few years after that.) One month after these concerts, they tried to record another album in the studio, but they couldn't get along. All they managed was a revised version of their hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me." Their set was 31 minutes long.

The Police were joined by Bono, lead singer of U2, for their last song, "Invisible Sun." When the song ended, they handed over their instruments to U2 for the finale, a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released," with everyone singing on stage. Bono put a lot of symbolic importance into the handing over of instruments, since the Police were considered the biggest band in the world at the time, and U2 would be considered the biggest band after their "Joshua Tree" album was released. Bono later said, "It was a very big moment, like passing a torch."

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

088 The Three Great Stimulants (Joni Mitchell)
089 Number One (Joni Mitchell)
090 Hejira (Joni Mitchell)
091 MLK - Pride [In the Name of Love] (U2)
092 Bad (U2)
093 Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
094 Maggie's Farm - Cold Turkey (U2)
095 Help (U2)
096 Sun City (U2 with Little Steven, Lou Reed, Ruben Blades & Nona Hendrix)
097 Message in a Bottle (Police)
098 King of Pain (Police)
099 Driven to Tears (Police)
100 Every Breath You Take (Police)
101 Roxanne (Police)
102 Invisible Sun (Police with Bono)
103 I Shall Be Released (Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iUvuykJF

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/VzAgTjpT2wCGk1R/file 

The cover photo, of Bono and Sting singing "Invisible Sun" together, comes from this exact concert.

Joni Mitchell - The Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 1-26-1995

I've posted a bunch of Joni Mitchell albums at this blog, but nearly all of them have been from the 1960s or 1970s. Although I've been trying to go chronologically through her career, more or less, I gave this a listen the other day and decided to post it. I think she had a pretty rough musical decade in the 1980s, but she bounced back very nicely in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, Mitchell put out three studio albums that were critically acclaimed and harkened back to her popular folky sound from earlier in her career. However, their sales weren't that good. I suspect one key reason for that was because she hardly ever toured and did promotion. This was one of only a handful of concerts she did to promote her excellent 1994 album "Turbulent Indigo." It sounds great because it was professionally recorded, in order to be broadcast on the radio nationwide. I suspect that she agreed to have a concert broadcast like that as kind of a substitute for touring.

The concert was performed in a solo acoustic style in front of an audience of only about 200 people, mostly music industry insiders and contest winners. The location was an unusual one: The Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, in Los Angeles. (It would later be renamed to The Autry Museum of the American West.) It was almost like a concert at home, because she was allowed to decorate the stage area with her artwork, musical instruments, and furniture (as you can see with the album cover). The Gene Autry setting also inspired her to talk at length about being a fan of another cowboy hero, Roy Rogers.

The website jonimitchell.com has some photos, videos, and articles about this concert, here:

Joni Mitchell - 1995.01.26 | Reprise Music Show Wells Fargo Theatre | Los Angeles

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Refuge of the Roads (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Sex Kills (Joni Mitchell)
04 Moon at the Window (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Night Ride Home (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 The Crazy Cries of Love (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 Yvette in English (Joni Mitchell)
11 Cherokee Louise (Joni Mitchell)
12 Sunny Sunday (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 Hejira (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 Just like This Train (Joni Mitchell)
17 talk (Joni Mitchell)
18 Face Lift (Joni Mitchell)
19 Song for Sharon (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15638699/JoniMchl_1995_GneAutryWestrnHeritgeMseumLsAngelsCA__1-26-1995_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any color photos from this exact concert. I did find one high quality black and white one though, and I used the Palette program to colorize it. I must say I'm really impressed with the result. I did make a few tweaks in Photoshop, but the vast majority of the colorizing happened automatically.

Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-27-1970 to 8-30-1970 - 8-29-1970: Part 2: Joni Mitchell

This is the start of August 30, 1970, the fourth day of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. By this time, the crowd was at its maximum size and virtually all the acts were big names. 

This album contains all of Joni Mitchell's set. John Sebastian's set was the first one of the day, and that has been posted here as Part 1. Between his set and Mitchell's, there were sets by Shawn Phillips and Lighthouse. (Lighthouse had played a set the day before, but did a second one.) Unfortunately, I can find no audio for either set, at any level of sound quality.

Mtichell's entire set has been professionally released on DVD as "Both Sides Now: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970." That means the sound quality is excellent overall. However, the vocals were a bit muffled for three of the songs. Perhaps something went wrong with her microphone. Whatever the case, I did my best to improve it using UVR5, but I could only do so much in this case.

When people say that the 1970 Isle of Wight was a disappointment, Exhibit A happened during Joni Mitchell's set. I'll quote Wikipedia to describe what happened:

"Following her performance of "Woodstock", a hippie named Yogi Joe interrupted her set to make a speech about the people at the festival in an encampment built of straw bales known as Desolation Row. When Joe was hauled off by Joni's manager, the audience began to boo until Mitchell interrupted her own set to chastise the audience and make an emotional appeal to "give us [the artists] some respect. ... After the crowd quieted down, Mitchell closed her set with "Both Sides Now" and returned to the stage for an encore singing two more songs for an appreciative crowd."

If you want to know more, here's a Guardian article about it:

Joni Mitchell, Isle of Wight 1970: the day the music nearly died | Joni Mitchell | The Guardian

Murray Lerner, who filmed the documentary "Message to Love" about the festival, later had this to say about the incident: "She decided to face-down the crowd, and was playing the piano, vamping, and almost crying. She said to the crowd: ‘We’ve put our lives into this stuff. ... You're acting like tourists.' That changed the whole tone of it. She called the crowd 'the beast' [afterwards, in private] and she decided to face them down. She had had problems with other places and had given in. But she decided in this case not to." 

Neil Young was at the festival, and he'd planned to join Mitchell for a duet near the end of her set. But he cancelled that idea when he saw the friction with the audience. In fact, he was so upset that he left the festival entirely before Mitchell's set even finished.

Although Mitchell's admonishment of the crowd calmed things down some, the situation was still tense. Tiny Tim, who was kind of a musical throwback novelty act, happened to be the act to follow Mitchell. Luckily, he put the crowd in a good mood again, and that mood lasted for the rest of the day. Lerner later commented, "The audience went wild for Tiny Tim! Because it was like a campy reaction. You would have thought he was the biggest star in the world."

Anyway, you can listen instead of just reading about this, because the Yogi Joe interruption and all the rest is captured well in the audio recording. And I'm pretty sure that's him shirtless in the photo on the album cover.

The good news is, even though this set may have been an ordeal for Mitchell at the time, musically, she still sounded great. In my opinion, she was at the peak of her musical creativity around this time. Her most critically acclaimed album, "Blue," wouldn't be released until 1971, but she played three songs from it, "My Old Man," "California," and "A Case of You," plus "Hunter," which was an outtake that didn't get released until decades later.

This album is 54 minutes long.

UPDATE: On November 8, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file because I removed the three John Sebastian songs in the beginning. That's because I was finally able to post the full Sebastian set. That became Part 1, so this was renamed to Part 2.

033 talk (Joni Mitchell)
034 The Gallery (Joni Mitchell)
035 That Song about the Midway (Joni Mitchell)
036 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
037 talk (Joni Mitchell)
038 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell)
039 talk (Joni Mitchell)
040 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
041 talk (Joni Mitchell)
042 My Old Man (Joni Mitchell)
043 Willie (Joni Mitchell)
044 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
045 talk (Joni Mitchell)
046 California (Joni Mitchell)
047 Hunter [The Good Samaritan] (Joni Mitchell)
048 talk (Joni Mitchell)
049 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
050 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15910653/IsleofWghtFestivlAftnDwnIsleofWghtBrtain__8-29-1970_Pt2_JniMtchell.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Joni Mitchell with Fred Neil - Save the Whales Benefit, Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento, CA, 11-20-1976

Here's a short but interesting Joni Mitchell concert. From 1968 to 1972, all of her albums had been acoustic. But by 1976, with her "Hejira" studio album, she was getting more into a full-band, jazzy sound. In this concert, she played acoustic guitar and was only backed by Jaco Pastorius on bass and Bobbye Hall on congas. So while it still had a jazzy feel, it was fundamentally acoustic. This allows you to hear songs from her "Hejira" era in very different arrangements than on album. 

It's a bootleg with near soundboard-level quality (even though it's actually just a really good audience recording). I cut out some rough bits between songs, like guitar tuning or excessively long cheering.

There's an added bonus in that the last song is a duet with Fred Neil. This has to do with the cause for the benefit concert, which obviously was near and dear to his heart. He basically retired from music around 1970 so he could work full time with a non-profit dedicated to stopping the killing and/or exploitation of dolphins worldwide. This benefit was to "save the whales," a progressive cause that was very popular in the 1970s. (Happily, the consumption of whale meat has gone way down since then and whale populations have increased, so the cause has declined in importance.) I read an article or two about this show, and it sounds like the organizers took the topic very seriously. There was a full day of speeches, films, and exhibits about whales before a concert in the evening. Fred Neil played a set, as did John Sebastian, Country Joe McDonald, and others. Unfortunately, I only have Mitchell's set. 

If you're interested, here's a Rolling Stone Magazine article about the show:

Joni Mitchell Library - Whale of a Benefit Concert: Rolling Stone, December 30, 1976

As that article notes, Mitchell's set started unexpectedly late, at one A.M., and she complained about being sleepy. But she sounded just fine, in my opinion. I don't know if the last song is from Neil's set earlier in the evening or if he came back to sing his song "The Dolphins" as a final duet with Mitchell. Either way, it's a nice version.

Also, the reason the show took place in Sacramento is because that's the capital of California. Jerry Brown was the governor at the time, and he seems to have been very involved in the event. He spent all day at the concert with his date, none other than singer Linda Ronstadt.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 Coyote (Joni Mitchell)
03 Shadows and Light (Joni Mitchell)
04 talk (Joni Mitchell)
05 Jericho (Joni Mitchell)
06 Jaco's Solo [Instrumental] (Jaco Pastorius & Joni Mitchell)
07 Edith and the Kingpin (Joni Mitchell)
08 Furry Sings the Blues (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 Song for Sharon (Joni Mitchell)
11 The Dolphins (Fred Neil & Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15522009/JoniMchl_1976_SvetheWhalsBenfitMemrialAuditriumSacrmntoCA__11-20-1976_atse.zip.html

I wanted a photo from this exact concert. I found several, all black and white. Since there are zillions of photos of Joni Mitchell out there, I chose one of her singing with Fred Neil. I used the Palette computer program to colorize it, then did some touch-ups.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Old Grey Whistle Test, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 4-24-1983

The previous four volumes of Joni Mitchell at the BBC all date from the first half of the 1970s. As far as I can tell, the only time she performed for the BBC after that was this concert in 1983. It was for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." I figured these are only selections from a longer concert, but I couldn't find the rest. I figure having some of it is better than nothing.

The 1980s were not a good musical decade for Mitchell. Like many musical greats who were big in the 1960s and/or 1970s, she tried to move with the musical trends of the times, but in retrospect, the 1980s production techniques on her albums haven't aged well and didn't really suit her music.

That said, she sounds great here. It actually doesn't have much to do with her 1980s music, because the BBC only selected two songs from her 1982 album "Wild Things Run Fast:" "Solid Love" and "Chinese Cafe - Unchained Melody." (And "Unchained Melody" is a classic ballad from the 1950s.) Otherwise, this concert sounds like it could have been from the mid-1970s. She played all the songs with a band, but it wasn't as jazzy as her late 1970s stuff.

The sound quality is excellent. At first, I thought the banter between songs was cut by the BBC. But I looked at a couple other concerts she did in 1983, and she barely had any banter in those concerts either, so I guess she just wasn't much for talking in concert that year.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Song for Sharon (Joni Mitchell)
04 God Must Be a Boogie Man (Joni Mitchell)
05 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
06 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
07 Carey (Joni Mitchell)
08 Amelia (Joni Mitchell)
09 [You're So Square] Baby, I Don't Care (Joni Mitchell)
10 Solid Love (Joni Mitchell)
11 Chinese Cafe - Unchained Melody (Joni Mitchell)
12 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15480061/JoniMchl_1983_BBSessionsVolum5OldGryWhistlTstWemblyArnaLondnBrtain__4-24-1983_atse.zip.html 

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (with Joni Mitchell) - Roosevelt Raceway, Westbury, NY, 9-8-1974

If you want just one full-length Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) concert recording, I would suggest this one. Although there was a lot of drug and ego trouble between band members backstage on their 1974 tour, the four of them were peaking in terms of songwriting and performance. And as a bonus, Joni Mitchell sang backing vocals on no less than nine of the songs.

This was the last night in the U.S. of CSNY's ill-fated 1974 concert tour. They only did one concert in 1974 after this, in London, Britain (which was their only appearance in Europe). Due to the troubles mentioned above, the four of them nicknamed this the "Doom Tour" amongst themselves, and they ran wild with 1970s superstar lifestyle excess. But despite all that, they had many good nights on stage, and this clearly was one such night. They played in front of 80,000 people as part of an all-day concert with Jesse Colin Young, the Beach Boys, and Joni Mitchell as opening acts.

The fact that Mitchell was an opening act helps explain why she joined in singing on a bunch of songs. I believe she did the same for the Wembley show, where she also was an opening act, but I don't think she did that on the other dates in the tour. By the way, the day of this concert, American stuntman Evel Knievel attempted to jump across Snake River Canyon in Idaho on a rocket-powered motorcycle. That happened to be broadcast on pay-per-view TV during Mitchell's set, and she actually took a break from her set to watch it for a few minutes, telling the audience that she was going to go watch some idiot commit suicide. (Knievel survived, but landed at the bottom of the canyon short of crossing the river.) Neil Young made a comment about the Knievel jump before one of the songs he played.

Unfortunately, I looked for the opening sets, but could only find this bootleg with worthy sound quality (or, in most cases, any versions at all).

This is a soundboard recording, and the sound quality is excellent. There were only a couple of snags. For one, a tiny section in the middle of "Deja Vu" was missing, but it seems it was only a few seconds long. It was during an instrumental passage, and I edited it so the missing bit won't be noticed. Also, the last part of "Black Queen" was missing, probably a minute or two. This was more difficult. But I used the version on the album "CSNY 1974" to bring it to a conclusion. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Speaking of the album "CSNY 1974," that's an official album released in 2014 that features highlights from this tour. It was a big triple album drawn from ten different concerts, but none of those concerts happen to be this one, so I'm pretty sure everything here is still officially unreleased. Personally, I usually prefer listening to entire concert recordings instead of live albums drawn from lots of different shows. If you feel the same, I'm pretty sure this is the best show from the tour, as the few other soundboards are incomplete or have other flaws. (For instance, there's a soundboard recording of the Wembley show too, but it was considered a disappointing performance.)

As with all the shows on this tour, the concert was broken into three sections. CSNY was backed by a full band for the first part and the last part, while there was a big acoustic section in the middle. The acoustic section is roughly from track 16 to 36. Each member got to do their own solo spot. Weirdly though, Crosby only did one song, while Nash, Stills, and Young each did three songs. But the solo songs weren't always really solo, others often joined vocals, including Mitchell on a few.

By the way, Mitchell's participation is a bit odd in that I didn't hear any banter between songs thanking her or even mentioning her. It's very possible that banter like that got cut out. (This also was the day that it was announced that President Ford pardoned former President Nixon for his Watergate crimes. Crosby told that to the crowd during the concert, and the crowd booed. But that's not on this recording, so at least some banter got cut.) But what also is a bit unusual is that she came and went from the stage at least seven different times. I figure that she only sang on the songs that she knew well and had something to contribute on vocal harmonies, and those were randomly scattered throughout the long concert. I find it particularly interesting that she helped sing "Our House," since that song was written by Nash about her when they had a romance around 1970.

This is quite a long concert. This album is three hours and nine minutes long.

01 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
03 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 Immigration Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
05 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Helpless (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
07 Military Madness (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
08 Johnny's Garden (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Walk On (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
14 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
15 The Lee Shore (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
16 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
17 Time After Time (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
18 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
19 Southbound Train (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
20 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
21 Another Sleep Song (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
22 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
23 Our House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
24 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
25 Hawaiian Sunrise (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
26 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
27 Long May You Run (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
28 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
29 Ambulance Blues (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
30 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
31 Old Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
32 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
33 Change Partners (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
34 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
35 Myth of Sisyphus (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
36 Word Game (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
37 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
38 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
39 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
40 Deja Vu [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
41 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
42 First Things First (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
43 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
44 Don't Be Denied (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
45 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
46 Black Queen [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
47 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
48 Revolution Blues (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
49 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
50 Pushed It Over the End (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
51 Pre-Road Downs (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
52 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 Carry On (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 Sugar Mountain (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
56 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jeKeG

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6rMMex7V

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/f9nB9iMAMIHIH8U/file 

The photo used on the cover is from the CSNY Wembley concert a few days later (September 14, 1974). I couldn't find any good color ones from this exact one. I used this particular photo because it has Mitchell there with CSNY, and I thought it was particularly neat to see all five of them together. Neil Young's face was blocked by two microphones, but I did some tweaking in Photoshop so one can now see his eyes.

Also note that I found a concert poster for this exact concert. I based some of the cover art on the poster. However, I inverted the bright and dark bits to better match with the black background of the photo. I'm including the poster here, in case you want to see it. Note that the sketch in the middle was drawn by Mitchell, and was also used for the cover of the band's best of collection "So Far."

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honors Joni Mitchell, D.A.R. Constitution Hall, Washington DC, 3-1-2023

Last month as I write this, in March 2023, Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell was awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. A TV show of this event was filmed and broadcast a few days ago. That's why there now is an audio recording of it in excellent quality.

Mitchell is 79 years old as I write this, and she isn't in the best of health. In 2013, she had a brain aneurysm and nearly died. She had to relearn how to sing and play guitar from scratch. The good news is that she had made a remarkable recovery. She played a set at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022, and she's scheduled to perform a full concert in June 2023. However, for this show, she only sang for two songs at the end. The rest features other musical artists performing some of her best known songs.

I edited this down a bit. I kept all the music, but I cut out some extraneous material between songs. For instance, there were some extra testimonials about Mitchell by people who didn't actually perform any songs. Garth Brooks was one of them. As another example, there was a brief interview with Mitchell filmed at another time in which she was asked her opinion of jazz musician Wayne Shorter, who had died recently. There also were speeches and introductions by various people, including a bunch of US senators and other politicians. I cut all that out, and only kept comments by artists that were relevant to the songs they were about to play. I also included Mitchell's acceptance speech, which appears to be surprisingly brief, less than a minute long.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

UPDATE: On August 24, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same. However, I changed the title slightly and used a new cover image. This is so the album look could fit in with other albums in the Gershwin Prize series.

01 talk (Marcus Mumford)
02 Carey (Marcus Mumford with Brandi Carlile & Lucius)
03 talk (Brandi Carlile)
04 Both Sides Now (Annie Lennox with Brandi Carlile & Lucius)
05 Help Me (Angelique Kidjo)
06 talk (James Taylor)
07 California (James Taylor)
08 talk (Brandi Carlile)
09 Shine (Brandi Carlile with Lucius & Celisse)
10 talk (Ledisi)
11 Big Yellow Taxi (Brandi Carlile, Angelique Kidjo, Cyndi Lauper, Annie Lennox, Ledisi & Lucius)
12 talk (Cyndi Lauper)
13 Blue (Cyndi Lauper)
14 A Case of You (Graham Nash)
15 talk (Herbie Hancock)
16 River (Herbie Hancock & Ledisi)
17 talk (Diana Krall)
18 For the Roses (Diana Krall)
19 talk (Joni Mitchell)
20 Summertime (Joni Mitchell with Brandi Carlile, Lucius & Celisse)
21 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/woAWCFJo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/l2HX4nYfqsqWpla/file

The cover is a photo from the TV show.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Old Grey Whistle Test, New Victoria Theatre, London, Britain, 4-22-1974

In 1974, Joni Mitchell arguably reached the pinnacle of her commercial success. She released the album "Court and Spark" near the start of the year. It reached Number Two in the US and sold a couple million copies. For all her previous album, she'd generally stuck to a solo acoustic sound, whereas this one was rocking, with a full band. For her next few albums she would turn more towards jazz, so this was the closest she got to a conventional rock sound. 

Towards the end of the year, she released a live album, called "Miles of Aisles," which was recorded in August 1974. It was a good time for a live album for her, allowing her to do her earlier acoustic songs with a full band. However, it only contained one song from her hit album "Court and Spark," and it was "People's Parties," which wasn't one of the album's hits. Furthermore, there was almost no banter recorded between the songs.

Unfortunately, there are almost no truly excellent sounding bootlegs from her 1974 concert. In fact, the only one with a soundboard level quality that I know of is this one. However, there are problems. About 45 minutes of this show was broadcast on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." I think more of it was broadcast for BBC radio. Three of the songs seemed to have not been bootlegged at all. Ditto with the banter between songs. 

So I've had to cobble this together from different sources. The "Old Grey Whistle Test" songs all sound great. But they were selected as highlights from throughout the show, rather than being a bunch. The rest generally sound almost as good, but there are some exceptions. There were some sonic flaws here and there. For instance, for the last song, "Twisted," there were about ten seconds that were all messed up, so I patched that with a version with a lot lower sound quality. Also, there was no applause at the end. So again I patched in a different version for the very end, allowing me to include all the cheering after the song. I had to do a similar patch for "(He Played Real Good) For Free." That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. There are a couple other spots with minor problems that I decided not to fix, since using a lower quality patch probably wouldn't sound any better.

I also decided to do something about the three songs that didn't get bootlegged:  "This Flight Tonight," "Woodstock," and "Jericho." For those, I used the best alternate versions I could find, which was a concert in Ambler, Pennsylvania, in August 1974 for the first two, and one in Seattle, Washington, for the last one. For the banter, I used additional bits of the concerts from Ambler and Seattle. But I listened to several bootlegs of her 1974 concerts, and there just wasn't that much banter.  For instance, for most of those concerts, she played the first six or so songs without any talking at all between songs. So this recording reflects that, with banter only before some of the songs. But she did talk extensively in a few cases.

I expect that in the next year or two, Mitchell will release her third "Archives" box set, which will include this time period. So hopefully we'll get a full version of a 1974 concert. Until then, this is the best version out there.

This concert is an hour and 47 minutes long. That makes it significantly longer than "Miles of Aisles," which is an hour and 18 minutes long.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 This Flight Tonight (Joni Mitchell)
03 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Joni Mitchell)
04 Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell)
05 The Same Situation (Joni Mitchell)
06 talk (Joni Mitchell)
07 Just like This Train (Joni Mitchell)
08 Rainy Night House (Joni Mitchell)
09 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
12 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 People's Parties (Joni Mitchell)
15 All I Want (Joni Mitchell)
16 talk (Joni Mitchell)
17 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
18 talk (Joni Mitchell)
19 Jericho (Joni Mitchell)
20 talk (Joni Mitchell)
21 For the Roses (Joni Mitchell)
22 talk (Joni Mitchell)
23 Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire (Joni Mitchell)
24 Blue (Joni Mitchell)
25 [He Played Real Good] For Free [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
26 Trouble Child (Joni Mitchell)
27 Help Me (Joni Mitchell)
28 Car on a Hill (Joni Mitchell)
29 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
30 Raised on Robbery (Joni Mitchell)
31 The Last Time I Saw Richard (Joni Mitchell)
32 Twisted [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.imagenetz.de/files/b7373b6fffb53f0562198d681bed3edb.zip

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/N5zVuRJf

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jPjrQiMPwyIs5yk/file 

The cover photo actually comes from a Joni Mitchell concert at this exact venue in April 1974. But apparently she played there a few nights, because the photo is from two days earlier, April 20th.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Sounds for Saturday, London, Britain, 5-19-1972

I just posted a revamped and renamed version of a 1970 Joni Mitchell BBC concert I'd posted before, so I could get to posting this one. It's a BBC concert she did in 1972, before the release of her next album "For the Roses" later that year.

This concert remains officially unreleased, though hopefully that could change when the "Archives, Volume 3" box set comes out. So far, much of this concert has been bootlegged, but not all of it. It is known the songs "A Case of You" and "Both Sides Now" were also played, and the order they appeared. So I found other versions of those from a different 1972 concert and added them in. The recording of concert, from the Troubadour in Los Angeles in December 1972, is an audience bootleg, but the sound quality is roughly comparable to the rest of this show.

Many of the songs are from her previous albums, but she plays a few from "For the Roses," which would get released about six months later: "Electricity," "Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)," "See You Sometime," "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio," and "For the Roses." Some of those were only played in 1972. And according to setlist.fm (which is sometimes incomplete), this was the only concert performance of "See You Sometime."

This album is 43 minutes long. It seems to be the complete show, according to Mitchell's official website, jonimitchell.com.

01 This Flight Tonight (Joni Mitchell)
02 Electricity (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Judgement of the Moon and Stars [Ludwig's Tune] (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 See You Sometime (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Carey (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 For the Roses (Joni Mitchell)
17 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/54Jq1w6y 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/user/files/CnKez21CF2AsolX/file

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. But if my memory is correct, I colorized it.

Joni Mitchell with James Taylor - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 10-29-1970

Note that I've already posted this concert back in 2018. But I'm posting it again because I realized my original post has an accuracy problem. I took that from a bootleg that presented the concert as a joint one between Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, with both of them singing some of their own songs. However, it turns out that's not actually how the concert really was. Some of those songs were taken from other concerts around the same time, giving Taylor a larger role. I've decided to keep that version, for those who just want a good listen and aren't that interested in the accuracy. If you want it, it's still at this link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/07/joni-mitchell-james-taylor-in-concert.html

But for those who want this concert exactly as it happened, I'm presenting this version. Taylor was present, but it was mostly a Mitchell concert. Taylor played and sang backing vocals on a few of her songs in the second half of the show, but he only sang one of his own, "You Can Close Your Eyes," done as a duet with her, with her vocals arguably more prominent.

The BBC must have really loved Mitchell in 1970, because she did a BBC concert in September 1970, which I've just renamed as "BBC Sessions, Volume 1. You can get there here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/11/joni-mitchell-in-concert-bbc-television.html

Yet she was back two months later with this concert, playing many of the same songs. Perhaps the reason they had her again was the added appeal of having Taylor join her for some songs. In any case, they're both concerts worth hearing, with excellent sound quality. This is arguably the better one, not only because of Taylor but also because it's about 20 minutes longer. She was very talkative between songs, and there's some good banter between her and him.

This full concert has been officially released as part of the "Archives, Volume 2" box set. That's how I noticed I had some songs added in from other sources.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 That Song about the Midway (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 The Gallery (Joni Mitchell)
05 Hunter (Joni Mitchell)
06 talk (Joni Mitchell)
07 River (Joni Mitchell)
08 My Old Man (Joni Mitchell)
09 The Priest (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 Carey (Joni Mitchell)
12 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
14 California (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
16 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
17 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
18 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
19 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
20 You Can Close Your Eyes (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
21 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
22 talk (Joni Mitchell)
23 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376018/JONIMCHLLJAMSTYLR1970BBInCncrtParsTheatreLondnBrtin__10-29-1970.zip.html

I wanted to use a color photo of Mitchell and Taylor playing music together for the cover. Unfortunately I couldn't find one, but I found a black and white one that's the cover of a bootleg for this show. I kept most of the design and just changed some of the text. Then, months later, I figured out how to colorize it. The photo was taken at a concert in Queens College in New York in December 1970.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, BBC Television Centre, London, Britain, 9-3-1970

Yesterday (November 13, 2021) was a very good day if you're a Joni Mitchell fan, because the archival box set "Archives, Volume 2" was released. It deals with the years 1968 to 1971, and is entirely previously unreleased material.

What I'm posting here is a bootleg from that time period, but sadly, only one of the songs performed here was included in the box set, "All I Want." That's because this concert took place shortly after she wrote that song, and the lyrics weren't finished yet, so they're significantly different to the final version. But the whole concert should have been released, not just that one song, so I'm posting it here.

What sets this concert apart from others of hers around that time period is the sound quality. This was recorded by the BBC for a TV show called "In Concert." As a result, it's professionally recorded, and sounds excellent. In fact, she did another show for the BBC less than two months later, and that one was included on the box set, probably because James Taylor had a prominent guest role in it. But I've compared the sound on this bootleg compared to that concert on the box set, and I think this actually sounds better.

There was only one snag with the sound quality. For a couple of the songs, especially "Hunter" and "The Gallery," there were quite a few inexplicable clicking noises through the songs. Luckily, I've recently gotten into using the sound editing program Spleeter, and I was able to reduce or lessen more of those clicks. But some were so baked in that I couldn't completely remove them. Also, there's a stray click here and there on a couple of the other songs near those.

But those are just some minor hiccups. Overall, this is a must have for any Joni Mitchell fan. In addition to playing many of her most popular songs up until that point, she played three songs from her "Blue" album, which would be released in 1971, plus "Hunter" which was a "Blue" outtake that didn't get released at all until decades later.

This concert is 48 minutes long. According to jonimitchell.com, one more song was played, "Willy," but it wasn't broadcast so it wasn't bootlegged.

UPDATE: On January 24, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I didn't change any of the music. However, I've discovered more of her BBC sessions, so I've renamed the album "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." That way, other albums can be "Volume 2" and so forth. I also redid the artwork and mp3 tags with the new name.

01 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
02 Hunter [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 The Gallery [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
05 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
06 My Old Man (Joni Mitchell)
07 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell)
08 talk (Joni Mitchell)
09 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 All I Want (Joni Mitchell)
12 talk (Joni Mitchell)
13 California (Joni Mitchell)
14 talk (Joni Mitchell)
15 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
16 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376015/JONIMCHLL1970bBBSssonsVlum1InCncrtTlevsionCntre__9-3-1970_atse.zip.html

The video footage from this TV broadcast can be found on YouTube. I made the cover art out of a screenshot from one of those. I also used the same font and color for the text as the titles that appeared at the start of the TV show.

Joni Mitchell - Mississippi River Festival, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL, 7-7-1969

Just minutes ago, I posted the Arlo Guthrie set from the 1969 Mississippi River Festival. If you want to know more, you should read what I wrote there. In short, Guthrie and Mitchell were co-headliners on one night of the festival, and their complete sets happened to be recorded for a public TV show. As a result, professional quality soundboards exist of both sets. So here's the Mitchell one.

In recent years, Mitchell has finally gotten interested in compiling previously unreleased archival material from her long music career. As I write this in early November 2021, she already put out "Archives, Volume 1," and "Volume 2" is due to be released in two weeks. That one deals with the years 1968 to 1971. I had been reluctant to post anything here from that time period, for fear that it would end up there. But I've checked out what's going on "Volume 2," and none of this show is included, despite its excellent sound quality. So here it is for you.

As with the Guthrie set, Mitchell's set was introduced and sent off by famous TV personality Steve Allen. I've left his comments in for the same of completeness, even though I could easily do without them. Guthrie played with a small band, but Mitchell was all on her own, playing some songs on guitar and others on piano.

Also like the Gutrhie set, I though the sound quality was generally excellent, except for some hiss. I didn't have a problem with the hiss during the actual songs, since the music drowned it out. But I used some noise reduction and other tricks to reduce the hiss for the banter between songs.

This concert is 55 minutes long, including the Steve Allen remarks.

01 talk (Steve Allen)
02 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
03 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
04 Night in the City (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Marcie - Nathan La Franeer (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 Rainy Night House - Blue Boy (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Let's Get Together (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 The Fiddle and the Drum (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
17 talk (Joni Mitchell)
18 I Think I Understand (Joni Mitchell)
19 talk (Steve Allen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256321/JoniMchl_1969b_MississippiRivrFestivalSouthrnIllinoisUniversity__7-7-1969_atse.zip.html

As I was saying for the Guthrie set, there's a 20-minute-long video on YouTube that has some songs by both Guthrie and Mitchell from this exact concert. So I used that to get a screenshot of Mitchell. And as I did with the Guthrie cover, I added the 1969 festival logo to the upper left corner.