Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 4: The Grateful Dead with John Fogerty

Here's the fourth and last out of four volumes of the 1991 Bill Graham memorial concert, called "Laughter, Love and Music." This one mainly features the Grateful Dead. However, there's a section in the middle where John Fogerty sang four songs while backed by the Dead. 

But there's more. Neil Young also showed up to sing lead vocals on a song, again backed by the Dead. He sang the Bob Dylan song "Forever Young." I believe the only other time he sang this song in concert was at the Bridge School Benefit that same year. Furthermore, John Popper of Blues Traveler played harmonica on one song. And for the concert finale, the Dead left the stage so Joan Baez could sing "Amazing Grace," with backing vocals by Graham Nash and Kris Kristofferson.

The Grateful Dead were extremely close to Bill Graham, from the very start of their career. He took control of the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1966, the first year of the band's existence. They would go on to play concerts managed and promoted by Graham probably hundreds of times.

In my write-up for Volume 1 of this concert, I mentioned a quote from Bob Weir of the Dead, who called Graham "the most important non-musician in music." Here also is a quote from band member Jerry Garcia: "Bill was our power guy, he's the guy that made rock and roll into an art-form. He loved dickering with agents and managers, that's what was fun for him. Bill himself was larger than life and an amazing guy. I've just missed the friend."

And here's a quote from band member Mickey Hart: "Bill always took great pride in everything he did. Whether it was The Fillmore or the Winterland, you could see him before the show, with his watches and his clipboard, making sure the chairs were right… He was a saloon keeper, he was a proprietor at the beginning – that's what his license said, 'saloon keeper.' He took great pride in bringing people into an environment, making them feel really great, then making sure they got safe. He was like a warrior promoter, and he really cared, he would sit up at night and dream this stuff. It wasn't like he just went to work and punched a clock; he was driven."

Typically, the Dead played whatever they wanted to play, without much thought about time limits or the specific circumstances of the concert. But for this concert, they came pretty close to playing an abbreviated "best of." They kept the overall length of their set short, compared to their usual standards of playing two or three hours, while skipping the usual long "Space" and "Drums" solos. And they played some of their best known songs. They even finished with "Touch of Grey," their sole Top Ten hit in the U.S. I'm not saying that was a good thing or a bad thing; I just think it's interesting.

The most memorable part about their set, however, had to be the songs sung by John Fogerty. In 1989, Fogerty sang a few songs backed by some members of the Dead, though it wasn't the full band. You can find that recording here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/in-concert-against-aids-oakland_19.html

That collaboration probably led to this one two years later, where he was backed by all of the Dead. These two concerts turned out to be the only two times Fogerty and the Dead played on stage together. (There were no more opportunities after Jerry Garcia died four years later.) This was also only the fourth time he played any of his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs at a formal concert after a long hiatus. Due to a legal dispute with his record company, he didn't play them from 1972 until 1987. After this, he began playing them on a regular basis. 

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

61 talk (David Graham)
62 Hell in a Bucket (Grateful Dead)
63 China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead)
64 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
65 Wang Dang Doodle (Grateful Dead with John Popper)
66 talk (Grateful Dead)
67 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
68 Green River (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
69 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
70 talk (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
71 Proud Mary (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
72 Truckin' (Grateful Dead)
73 That's It for the Other One (Grateful Dead)
74 Wharf Rat (Grateful Dead)
75 Sunshine Daydream (Grateful Dead)
76 talk (Neil Young & the Grateful Dead)
77 Forever Young (Neil Young & the Grateful Dead)
78 Touch of Grey (Grateful Dead)
79 talk (Joan Baez)
80 Amazing Grace (Joan Baez with Graham Nash & Kris Kristofferson)
81 talk (David Graham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/G1KUGAmb 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/S3aMhOemSjAIHE3/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. It shows John Fogerty in front, with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in back, with glasses and a beard.

Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge with Billy Swan - Sounds like Friday, BBC Television Studios, London, Britain, 9-29-1978

Here's a BBC concert starring both Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge, with one song sung by Billy Swan. It recently showed up at a bootleg sharing site in excellent quality, so I grabbed it and I'm posting it straight away.

I had never heard of "Sounds like Friday" prior to this, but it turns out it was a BBC TV show that only lasted for ten episodes in 1978 and 1979. Starting in 2017, the BBC had another TV show with the very similar title "Sounds like Friday Night," but it seems there's no connection. 

It made great sense to have Kirstofferson and Coolidge on the same show, because they were married to each other for most of the 1970s. They met in 1970, right when both of them were becoming stars, and got married in 1973. They had a child together, and recorded some duet albums. But they divorced in 1980. 

This concert came at or near the peak of Coolidge's popularity. She had three big hits in 1977 and 1978: "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "We're All Alone," and "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," and she performed all three of them here. Kristofferson didn't really have big hits on his own (with one or two partial exceptions), but had a more steadily successful career as a songwriter. (Check out the two "Covered" albums I've made for his songs.)

Billy Swan had one massive hit, "I Can Help." It went all the way to Number One on the U.S. singles chart in 1974. But what I didn't realize until doing this write-up is that he was more than just a "one-hit wonder." He wrote a bunch of country hits for others (as well as writing his own big hit), and had a series of minor country hits as well. He was a member of Kristofferson's band for many years, as well as a friend, which explains his presence here.

Although this is billed as a Kristofferson and Coolidge album, the first half mostly consists of Kristofferson (and Swan for his one song), and the second half mostly consists of Coolidge. The two of them finally came together to sing duets on the last two songs. Both of those songs were written by Kristofferson, by the way, as well as the other songs sung by him, while Coolidge's songs were cover versions.

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

This album is 44 minutes long. 

01 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Kris Kristofferson)
02 Risky Bizness (Kris Kristofferson)
03 I Can Help (Billy Swan)
04 The Bigger the Fool [The Harder the Fall] (Kris Kristofferson)
05 Spooky Lady's Revenge (Kris Kristofferson)
06 Words (Rita Coolidge)
07 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Rita Coolidge)
08 We're All Alone (Rita Coolidge)
09 talk (Rita Coolidge)
10 For the Good Times (Rita Coolidge with Barbara Carroll)
11 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Rita Coolidge)
12 Help Me Make It through the Night (Rita Coolidge & Kris Kristofferson)
13 Me and Bobby McGee (Rita Coolidge & Kris Kristofferson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1xJSrcnB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/R8vqK04rTqK4fVZ/file

The cover imagine shows Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson at a concert in New York City at some point in 1978. 

Paul Williams with Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-29-1973

Here's another episode of Paul Williams on the "Midnight Special" TV show. This time, he was joined by Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.

I already posted an album of Williams hosting this show in 1973. That episode aired at the start of June 1973. Remarkably, he was back to host the show again at the end of June. I've looked over a lot of these show episodes, and I have yet to see another case of the host being the same twice in one month.

Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge were married from 1973 to 1980. During that time, they did a lot of musical collaboration, so it's not surprising they were both on the same episode of this show, even though they mostly did their own songs. I've included their songs because they joined Williams on a version of "Me and Bobby McGee," a song written by Kristofferson. In case you're curious, here are the other music acts on the June 29th show hosted by Williams: the Electric Light Orchestra, Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, King Harvest, and Brewer and Shipley.

All the songs here are from the June 29, 1973 episode, except for the last two. Those two are from an episode aired on July 19, 1974. Williams also hosted another episode in 1976, so I'll probably post that once it becomes available. And he performed two other songs in 1974, but I plan to put that on a different album where he was a guest of the Righteous Brothers, and sang a song with them.

As usual for this show, everything is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. I started with the YouTube video, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s. Then I added in audience noise between some songs to help link them together.

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 Someday Man (Paul Williams)
02 talk (Paul Williams)
03 talk (Paul Williams)
04 Loving Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Kris Kristofferson)
05 talk (Paul Williams)
06 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Rita Coolidge)
07 That's What Friends Are For (Paul Williams)
08 I Never Had It So Good (Rita Coolidge with Kris Kristofferson)
09 Out of Mind, Out of Sight (Kris Kristofferson)
10 My Crew (Rita Coolidge)
11 talk (Paul Williams & Kris Kristofferson)
12 Me and Bobby McGee (Paul Williams, Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge)
13 Look What I Found (Paul Williams)
14 You Know Me (Paul Williams)
15 Driftwood (Paul Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NzzyfFbw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BrjeHxt1qzKC38b/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took during the one song done with Williams, Kristofferson, and Coolidge. Williams is in the middle, and Kristofferson is the one with the beard.

Various Artists - Elvis: The Tribute, Pyramid Arena, Memphis, TN, 10-8-1994

Here's another interesting tribute concert, with loads of big stars. All of the songs performed were made famous by Elvis Presley. 

This concert seems to have mostly disappeared down the memory hole. An album of highlights from the concert was released, called "It's Now Or Never: The Tribute To Elvis." However, it's only 45 minutes long, containing just 15 songs. But the full two plus hour long concert was broadcast on TV at the time, so excellent sounding video footage of it exists.

This concert took place in 1994 despite the lack of any big anniversary or other important timely reason for it. Instead, the Elvis Presley estate decided that Presley's music was being forgotten by younger generations, so the concert was meant to help bring his music back into the spotlight.

As you can see from the album cover or the song list, a great many music stars performed in this concert. A few more - Jon Bon Jovi, Jeff Beck, and Cher, at least - backed out at the last minute. I found that mentioned in a newspaper article, though it didn't give a reason why. 

I used two versions of the video files of this concert, converted them to audio format, and broke them into mp3s. During that process, I cut out some material. There were several sections of a few minutes each that consisted of short films highlight different aspects of Presley's life. I removed all of those, plus their intros, since they were meant mainly to be seen, not heard. I also edited out some more talk by the announcers. However, I kept all the intros relevant to the songs. Plus, of course, I kept all the music.

The concert was mostly hosted by Karen Duffy, an MTV DJ, and singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson. But actor John Stamos introduced a few acts, and TV host Phil Donohue introduced one, and sometimes one act introduced the next one.

Occasionally, I had a little trouble with the edits at the starts and ends of songs. For instance, there were quick cuts to or away from TV commercials, as well as the short films I mentioned above. I tried my best to smooth things out, but occasionally the transitions between tracks is abrupt.

Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana, James Burton, and the Jordanaires didn't have any performances on their own. However, all of them were key backing musicians or singers for Presley. From time to time, they backed up some of the other music acts. 

All of the performances were live from the concert, with two exceptions. I think "Too Much" by NRBQ actually took place before the TV broadcast began. But I slotted it into a logical spot in the concert. And U2 didn't show up for the concert, but sent video footage of their performance to be broadcast instead.

By the way, if you want to know more about the concert, I found a New York Times article of it from the time. Here's the link (I think you have to click on Option 2 to see it):

RemovePaywall | Free online paywall remover 

This album is two hours and three minutes long.

01 talk (Karen Duffy)
02 Good Rockin' Tonight (Sammy Hagar)
03 Too Much (NRBQ)
04 Baby, Let's Play House (Michael Hutchence & NRBQ)
05 talk (Kris Kristofferson & Karen Duffy)
06 talk (Chet Atkins)
07 How's the World Treating You (Chet Atkins)
08 talk (Karen Duffy)
09 Mystery Train (Dwight Yoakam)
10 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
11 Don't Be Cruel (Marty Stuart with the Jordanaires)
12 talk (Marty Stuart)
13 All Shook Up (Cheap Trick)
14 talk (John Stamos)
15 That's Alright Mama (Kris Kristofferson)
16 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
17 One Night (Billy Ray Cyrus with the Jordanaires)
18 talk (Karen Duffy)
19 Lawdy Miss Claudy (Travis Tritt)
20 talk (Karen Duffy)
21 Blue Moon [Edit] (Chris Isaak with Scotty Moore & D.J. Fontana)
22 Love Me (Mavericks)
23 talk (John Stamos)
24 talk (Carl Perkins)
25 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins with Scotty Moore & D.J. Fontana)
26 talk (Carl Perkins)
27 Rip It Up (Iggy Pop)
28 Memories (Mac Davis)
29 talk (Mac Davis)
30 talk (Bryan Adams)
31 Hound Dog (Bryan Adams with Scotty Moore & D.J. Fontana)
32 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
33 Always on My Mind (Sam Moore)
34 talk (Karen Duffy)
35 Heartbreak Hotel (John Cale)
36 talk (Karen Duffy)
37 I Want You, I Need You, I Love You (Ann Wilson)
38 talk (Karen Duffy)
39 Teddy Bear (Tanya Tucker)
40 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
41 Trouble (Paul Rodgers)
42 talk (Phil Donahue)
43 [Marie's the Name] His Latest Flame (Scorpions)
44 Can't Help Falling in Love (U2)
45 talk (Kris Kristofferson & Karen Duffy)
46 It's Now or Never (Wet Wet Wet)
47 talk (Mac Davis)
48 Love Me Tender (Tony Bennett)
49 talk (Mac Davis)
50 Young and Beautiful (Aaron Neville)
51 talk (Mac Davis)
52 Jailhouse Rock (Michael Bolton with Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana & Carl Perkins)
53 talk (Karen Duffy)
54 Tryin' to Get to You (Faith Hill)
55 talk (John Stamos)
56 See See Rider (Jerry Lee Lewis with James Burton & NRBQ)
57 Kentucky Rain - Suspicious Minds (Eddie Rabbitt & Mavis Staples)
58 talk (Karen Duffy)
59 Burning Love (Melissa Etheridge)
60 talk (John Stamos)
61 Amazing Grace (Billy Ray Cyrus & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GWnJSkKo

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/cqa2ziePj3VTmo8/file 

The cover image is a pretty weird one for this concert, but bear with me for the explanation. It depicts Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley (the daughter of Elvis Presley). They had recently gotten married at the time of this concert. (Their marriage only lasted from 1994 to 1996). The weird thing is that neither of them performed at this concert. However, they did attend it. At one point near the end, you can hear the announcer mention their names, along with those of Janet Jackson (Michael Jackson's sister) and Priscilla Presley (Lisa Marie Presley's mother). All four of them briefly stood up and waved to the crowd. 

The main reason I chose them for the cover is because this was the only decent photo from the concert that I could find. The mere fact they were at the concert made news, especially due to the fact that they had just been recently married. I think the image shows the two of them backstage before or after the concert. Even this picture was rather low-res and rough, but I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality. 

Various Artists - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 2: 1974-2009

I just posted Volume One for the "Covered" series selections for country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Here's Volume Two already. 

As I mentioned with Volume One, Kristofferson died two weeks ago as I write this in October 2024. He was 88 years old. 

He had a long and successful music career. He didn't have big commercial success - only two of his 18 studio albums even reached Gold sales (meaning 500,000 copies sold), and he never sold at the Platinum level (meaning a million). But he had a lot of critical acclaim, and he'll probably be best known for the thousands of cover versions of his songs.

His biggest impact undoubtedly was in the early 1970s, which was dealt with on Volume One. A few of the songs here also were first released in the early 1970s, but I preferred versions that came out later. But he continued to write and record quality songs until nearly the end of his life. (His last album of new material came out in 2016). For instance, Johnny Cash said "Here Comes That Rainbow Again" was his favorite song of all time. (The version of that song included here is by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup consisting of Kristofferson, Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.)

Since I'm not deeply familiar with Kristofferson's entire musical output, if there are any covers of great songs that I missed, please let me know and I'll consider including them.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Why Me, Lord (George Jones)
02 The Junkie and the Juicehead [Minus Me] (Johnny Cash)
03 Prone to Lean (Donnie Fritts)
04 Stranger (Billy Swan)
05 Rock and Roll Time (Roger McGuinn)
06 Something They Can't Take Away from Me (Roy Orbison)
07 You Show Me Yours [And I'll Show You Mine] (Willie Nelson with Amy Irvine)
08 One Day at a Time (Christy Lane)
09 If You Don't Like Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.)
10 They Killed Him (Johnny Cash)
11 Lovin' Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Tompall & the Glaser Brothers)
12 Here Comes That Rainbow Again (Highwaymen)
13 Jesus Was a Capricorn (Diana Darby)
14 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Emmylou Harris)
15 Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends (Joan Osborne)
16 The Silver Tongued Devil and I (Dick Van Altena)
17 Closer to the Bone (Kris Kristofferson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230520/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1974-2009Volum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UTXAJDeQ

The cover photo dates to 1977. There were some issues with the original, so I used the Krea AI program to improve it a bit.

Various Artists - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 1: 1968-1973

In the past couple of weeks (as I write this in October 2024), I've started fixing some cover photos that had some issues with the recently released Krea AI program. Probably the covers that needed the most work were the ones for my "Covered" series, albums that highlight the best songwriters in popular music, especially those who didn't have lots of success with their own versions. I hadn't posted any Covered albums in a long time, but I actually have over a dozen different songwriters (or songwriting teams) ready to go. One thing that held me back though was the cover art, since some of these songwriters have barely been photographed at all. But now that I'm using the Krea AI program, I'm excited to see if good cover art can be made. So I'm going to make an effort to get a whole bunch of these Covered albums posted in the near future.

The logical place to start with this new effort is Kris Kristofferson. That's because he died about two weeks ago (September 28, 2024, specifically) as I write this, so this could make a good way to remember his musical legacy. He was 88 years old when he passed.

Kristofferson was one of the great songwriters for country music, but he wasn't blessed with a great voice. Thus, he was frequently covered by other musical acts, and he had only a few hits of his own. That works well for my Covered series. I only have a few of his albums in my music collection, mostly his most critically praised ones from the early 1970s. But in the wake of his death, there were a bunch of newspaper articles listing what people thought were his best songs (usually top ten lists). So I went through those, and made sure all of his most praised songs were included. 

I found enough material for two solid albums. This is the first one. As I usually try to do with this series, I emphasized cover versions. Only one song (on the second volume) features Kristofferson singing one of his own songs (though there's also a song performed by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup he was a part of).

In the past with these Covered albums, I've written a lot about the artists and the songs. From now on, I'm going to cut that short, so I'll find it easier to post a lot more of these albums. If you want to know a lot more, I suggest reading this Wikipedia page about him:

Kris Kristofferson - Wikipedia

But here's my short version of his career is like this. Kristofferson burst onto the country music scene around the year 1970, when loads of country music stars started covering his songs. Probably the best known cover was "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, which hit Number One on the U.S. single chart in 1971. But there were others. For instance, in 1970, "For the Good Times" was a Number One country single for Ray Price, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was Number One country single for Johnny Cash, and "Help Me Make It through the Night" was the same for Sammi Smith. At the time, country music was pretty formulaic, with relatively simple melodies and lyrics. Kristofferson wasn't a big groundbreaker for melodies, but his lyrics really shook up country music with their eloquence and emotional intelligence. One might say he brought a Bob Dylan level of songwriting to country music.

Kristofferson kept his own music career going, while still having his songs frequently covered by others. However, he only had one big hit on his own, "Why Me (Lord)," which reached Number One on the country singles chart in 1974. At the same time he kept a music career going, he also was very successful in the movies, starring in dozens of films, many of them with a country theme.

As usual with this Covered series, I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of only including one version of any given song. So, for instance, I was torn between the Ray Price and Al Green versions of "For the Good Times." The Price version was a massive hit in 1970, but I liked the Green version better. I had to make many other decisions like that. For instance, dozens of famous musical acts have covered "Help Me Make It through the Night." I also tried not to have more than one song per performer. But I decided to only make that a loose rule. Note for instance two songs done by Johnny Cash here. All the songs are in order of the year these versions came out. Consult the mp3 tags for details on that.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Jody and the Kid (Roy Drusky)
02 From the Bottle to the Bottom (Billy Walker)
03 Sugarman (Sam Baker)
04 Darby's Castle (Roger Miller)
05 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
06 Help Me Make It through the Night (Sammi Smith)
07 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
08 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
09 Me and Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)
10 I've Got to Have You (Carly Simon)
11 The Taker (Waylon Jennings)
12 Casey's Last Ride (John Denver)
13 For the Good Times (Al Green)
14 Nobody Wins (Lynn Anderson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230517/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1968-1973Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m2XxamgZ

I'm not entirely sure where the cover photo is from. But it looks like it was taken in the early 1970s. The original had some issues, so I used the Krea AI pic to fix it up a bit.

Various Artists - An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, 4-6-1999

I've previously posted "All-Star Tribute" concerts for Paul Simon and Brian Wilson. I discovered they were part of a short-lived annual tradition at the TNT TV network. There are only a couple more, so I plan on posting them too. Here's the next one, an "All-Star Tribute" to country legend Johnny Cash.

In 1999, Cash's health was in serious decline. He wouldn't die until 2003, at the age of 71. But by 1999, he rarely gave public performances. As he mentioned in his stage comments here, he hadn't performed on stage in the past year and a half. After this, he would only make about half a dozen additional musical performances, none of them full concerts. So although he did sing at the very end of this concert, maybe with his health in mind he only sang two songs.

The rest of the concert featured an impressive roster of musical stars singing songs made famous by Cash. It should be noted that the biggest stars, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and U2, weren't actually there but videotaped musical performances that were played at the concert. 

Unfortunately, one person who couldn't sing at this concert was Cash's famous musical daughter Rosanne Cash. This concert happened to take place during a three-year time period in which Rosanne was unable to sing due to a polyp on her vocal chords. She did, however, give a brief speech.

Most of the concert was emceed by actor Jon Voight. However, some of the other banter was by singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin, actor Kevin Bacon, and actor Tim Robbins. There were some additional parts that I cut out. These were narrated video tributes to different stages of Cash's life. I cut those out because they were mainly meant to be seen, not heard.

Like the other "All-Star Tributes" in this series, this concert remains officially unreleased. I found the video of it on YouTube, then converted that to audio. The sound quality is excellent throughout.

This album is an hour and a half long.

01 Jackson - Orange Blossom Special (Sheryl Crow & Willie Nelson)
02 talk (Jon Voight)
03 I Guess Things Happen That Way (Chris Isaak)
04 Get Rhythm Intro (Chris Isaak)
05 Get Rhythm (Chris Isaak)
06 talk (Jon Voight & John Carter Cash)
07 talk (Willie Nelson)
08 I Still Miss Someone (Willie Nelson)
09 talk (Jon Voight)
10 talk (June Carter Cash)
11 Ring of Fire (June Carter Cash)
12 talk (Jon Voight)
13 Train of Love (Bob Dylan)
14 talk (Jon Voight)
15 The Man in Black (Mavericks)
16 talk (Jon Voight)
17 The Ballad of Ira Hayes (Kris Kristofferson)
18 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
19 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Trisha Yearwood with Kris Kristofferson)
20 talk (Larry Gatlin)
21 Ghost Riders in the Sky (Brooks & Dunn)
22 talk (Jon Voight)
23 Tennessee Flat Top Box (Lyle Lovett)
24 talk (Lyle Lovett)
25 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
26 Give My Love to Rose (Bruce Springsteen)
27 talk (Jon Voight)
28 Flesh and Blood (Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
29 talk (Kevin Bacon)
30 Delia's Gone (Wyclef Jean)
31 talk (Jon Voight)
32 talk (Dave Matthews)
33 Long Black Veil (Dave Matthews & Emmylou Harris)
34 talk (Jon Voight)
35 talk (Rosanne Cash)
36 talk (Marty Stuart)
37 Belshazzar (Marty Stuart with the Fairfield Four)
38 talk (Jon Voight & Bono)
39 Don't Take Your Guns to Town (U2)
40 talk (Jon Voight)
41 talk (Tim Robbins)
42 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
43 talk (Johnny Cash)
44 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VysgekNb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FO4eXOKBVGBjELk/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/dmd9S

The cover shows John Mellencamp with Johnny Cash at this exact concert. Curiously, Mellencamp didn't appear in any of the songs. Perhaps he had a song or two that got cut out of the TV broadcast, or perhaps he had a non-performing role, I don't know. But I thought it was a good photo to show how Cash was honored.

Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-27-1970 to 8-30-1970 - 8-27-1970: Terry Reid & Various Artists

This post is the start of something big. I've decided to post all the worthy music from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, and there's a heck of a lot of it. 

There were dozens and dozens of big rock festivals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But the vast majority of them are fading from memory because there's no audio or video to help remember. The 1970 Isle of Wight Festival is an exception. Apparently, ALL of it was professionally recorded. Furthermore, because it was a five-day long festival, all the big acts had plenty of time to play, often playing the equal of a full concert they would have performed somewhere else. Many of these professional recordings have remained in the vaults. But a whole bunch of official albums from individual artists have been released over the decades. Furthermore, some or all of some of the other sets have been leaked to the public. My goal was to post all the music that had soundboard-level quality, in chronological order, with all the sonic flaws fixed. And it turns out there were many, many sonic flaws. 

The end result is nearly 20 albums, which I will post here over the next few days. I'm even posting the officially released stuff, because I think it's important to have all of this music easily accessible in one place, so one can hear the concert in its full glory. On purely musical terms, I think it's the equal of Woodstock or any other festival from that era.

The 1970 Isle of Wight Festival has had a pretty poor reputation over the years. It was the largest festival of its era, with about 600,000 to 700,000 people attending. The hope was that it would be seen as the British version of Woodstock. But there were some bad vibes, often related to conflicts between the promoters, who wanted to make money, and the audience who often expected everything to somehow be free. It didn't end up a total disaster like Altamont in 1969, but it wasn't an unabashed success and cultural milestone like Woodstock either.

You can read the Wikipedia page about the concert here:

Isle of Wight Festival 1970 - Wikipedia

I'll write more about the concert in general in later posts. But I want to mostly focus on the music in this particular album. The concert was five days long, but the fame of the artists steadily grew from very low on the first day to very high on the last one. 

Here are all the performers from the first two days of the festival:

Judas Jump
Kathy Smith
Rosalie Sorrels
David Bromberg
Redbone
Kris Kristofferson
Mighty Baby
Gary Farr
Supertramp
Andy Roberts’ Everyone
Howl
Black Widow
The Groundhogs
Terry Reid
Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso

I'm guessing that you've never heard of most of those. Kris Kristofferson and Supertramp had just started their music careers and only got famous later. The Brazilian musicians Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso were popular in Brazil already, but little known in Britain at the time. So this was basically two days of little known and unknown artists while the massive crowd slowly arrived.

Perhaps somewhere in some vault, recordings of the full sets of all these acts still exist. In retrospect, it would be great to hear some of them, such as Supertramp. But in terms of publicly available recordings with worthy sound quality, this mostly consists of Terry Reid's full set, since that had been officially released on album, plus a few other songs here and there.

Apparently, David Bromberg was the highlight of the first day of the festival. But only one song of his is here, because it was featured in "Message of Love," the movie about the festival. It seems to be the only song here from the first day, August 26, 1970. So for simplicity's sake I only have August 27, 1970 in the album title.

I would be especially intrigued to hear the full set of Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. Both of them were in exile in Britain at the time due to the fact that a repressive dictatorship was in charge of Brazil. Frustratingly, all there is here is about a minute and a half of music, not even one complete song. They were experimenting with writing songs in English at the time, and this one is in English. I figure it's better to have this little bit than nothing at all, if only to remember their involvement in the festival.

By the way, Rolling Stone Magazine reported this about the Gil and Veloso set: "With 13 pals, 11 of whom clapped and sang along, from within a gargantuan party-sized red plastic dress, they beat half an hour’s beautific bossa nova. One by one those in the red dress shed it, naked, but coyly avoiding full fronted exposure as they swayed off stage, leaving behind a delighted audience."

By 1970, Kris Kristofferson was already making waves as a talented country music songwriter, and he later would become quite famous. But his first solo album had only been released two months prior to this concert, and it had sold poorly in Britain. By all accounts, his set was a disaster. The crowd wasn't keen on country music, and apparently he really lost them with the song "Blame It on the Stones." The song was a satire, and he was actually defending the Rolling Stones, but just judging from the chorus, the audience thought he was attacking the Stones. To make matters worse, there was a problem with the sound system at the time, so the audience could barely hear him. 

Things went so badly that he was given another time slot a couple of days later in the festival. That went much better. But chance has it that we have three songs from his first set, and none from his second set. Even though he was practically booed off the stage, you can't really tell from the audio here, other than some of his banter between songs.

I know for a fact that his entire set is publicly available, and with the same excellent sound quality as the three songs here. However, it's very rare. I tracked down one person who commented about having it in a social media post, but that person wasn't willing to share it with me. If any of you have it, please share, so I can add it in. I also found reference to the full Sly and the Family Stone set from later in the festival being publicly available, but very hard to find. I'm lacking the first three songs ("Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," "M'Lady," and "Sing a Simple Song"). So if anyone has that, or anything else I'm missing in worthy sound quality, please let me know!

Anyway, most of the music here is from Terry Reid's set, which is complete. Around this time, Reid was seen as a very talented lead vocalist who could also write songs and play guitar. He seemed poised for stardom, but it never happened. Most famously, in 1969, Jimmy Page asked him to be the lead singer of his new band, which would later be known as Led Zeppelin. But Reid had to decline, since he was already booked as the opening act for two tours. Reid told Page to consider another singer, Robert Plant, and the rest is history.

By the way, a member of Reid's band in this concert was guitarist David Lindley, who would go on to have a long and successful music career of his own.

Although Reid's set was officially released in 2004, in my opinion his lead vocals were still low in the mix. So I boosted them using the audio editing program UVR5.

There are three more songs after Reid's set. Two of them are by the British band Gracious. I'd never heard of them prior to putting this album together, but they put out two albums, in 1970 and 1972, that are very well regarded by prog rock fans. It's a shame there are only two songs here. But they never released an official live albums, and I couldn't find any bootlegs by them, so this may be the only live versions of their songs publicly available. 

Finally, the last song is by the band Great Awakening. I looked them up, and it seems the only record they ever released was a single with a mostly instrumental version of "Amazing Grace" on the A-side. And that's the song performed here. 

Note that this album is kind of a strange one, with a bunch of different artists often with only a couple of songs. But the vast majority of the Isle of Wight albums to come will feature one set per album, usually full sets. Taken as a whole, if you're a fan of the music from this era, it has to be one of the greatest concert recordings of all time. 

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Mr. Bojangles (David Bromberg)
02 Introduction (Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso)
03 Shoot Me Dead (Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso)
04 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
05 Blame It on the Stones (Kris Kristofferson)
06 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Kris Kristofferson)
07 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
08 Me and Bobby McGee (Kris Kristofferson)
09 talk (Terry Reid)
10 Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace (Terry Reid)
11 Things to Try (Terry Reid)
12 C'mon Mary (Terry Reid)
13 talk (Terry Reid)
14 Silver White Light (Terry Reid)
15 July (Terry Reid)
16 Without Expression (Terry Reid)
17 Dean (Terry Reid)
18 No Good Situation (Terry Reid)
19 talk (Terry Reid)
20 Rich Kid Blues (Terry Reid)
21 To Be Alone with You (Terry Reid)
22 talk (Gracious)
23 Super Nova (Gracious)
24 talk (Gracious)
25 Once on a Windy Day (Gracious)
26 Amazing Grace (Great Awakening) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Nys3GA6m

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4BYrRVOkuhTccM5/file

The cover is a photo of Terry Reid taken at this exact concert.

Kris Kristofferson - Boboquivari, KCET-TV Studio, Los Angeles, CA, 1970

The musical career of country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson has had its up and downs. But in terms of albums, he peaked early. His 1970 album, "Kris Kristofferson," and his 1971 one, "The Silver Tongued Devil and I," are his most critically acclaimed. Around that time, many other musicians discovered his songwriting talent. There was a rash of covers of his songs that became big hits, including Ray Price with "For the Good Times," Johnny Cash with "Sunday Morning Coming Down," Gladys Knight and the Pips with "Help Me Make It through the Night," and Janis Joplin with "Me and Bobby McGee."

As a result, my interest in his music is the highest around this time, when he shook up the whole country music world with his songwriting style. So I was very delighted and surprised when I randomly found this recording from 1970 on YouTube the other day. 

There are two things about it I really like. One, the sound quality is absolutely fantastic. It was recorded for a short-lived public TV program with the odd name "Boboquivari." If you track down the video on YouTube, you can see there were a couple dozen people in the audience at most. They were totally silent during the songs, so it's not far from a concert in a studio. 

The second great thing is that the performance was acoustic. Kristofferson played acoustic guitar, and he was backed up by a bassist and keyboardist. No drums. If you've been following this blog, you probably have noticed I have a special love for acoustic performances, so this is right up my alley.

The one downside is that the concert is relatively short, at only 30 minutes. But it is what it is. I thought about augmenting it with some other live versions from that time, but the only ones I could find were with a full band. I think it's better to keep the acoustic vibe.

By the way, this concert aired in August 1971, but apparently it was recorded some time in 1970. If anyone knows the exact recording date, please let me know so I can update that information.

UPDATE: On February 18, 2021, I updated the mp3 download file. I stumbled upon a solo acoustic BBC session Kristofferson did around the same time. There was some overlap with the songs, but I added the four that were different. Luckily, these include two songs he wrote that became big hits for others, "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Help Me Make It through the Night."

01 Billy Dee - The Law Is for the Protection of the People (Kris Kristofferson)
02 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
03 Jody and the Kid (Kris Kristofferson)
04 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
05 Loving Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Kris Kristofferson)
06 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
07 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Kris Kristofferson)
08 For the Good Times (Kris Kristofferson)
09 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
10 Casey's Last Ride (Kris Kristofferson)
11 The Lady's Not for Sale (Kris Kristofferson)
12 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Kris Kristofferson)
13 Me and Bobby McGee (Kris Kristofferson)
14 To Beat the Devil (Kris Kristofferson)
15 Darby's Castle (Kris Kristofferson)
16 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
17 Help Me Make It through the Night (Kris Kristofferson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376570/KRISKRSTFFSN1970BobquivariKCETTVStudio__1970_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a screenshot taken from the video of the exact concert featured here.

Norah Jones - Sleepless Nights - Non-Album Tracks (2004-2005)

Once again, I'm impressed at how much better Norah Jones's stray tracks are compared to the songs on her official albums. The music is more spirited and varied. If you haven't this side to her career, what are you waiting for?

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: I'm much more impressed with her sultry singing voice and general musical style than I am by her songwriting. On stray tracks albums like these, she excels by covering great songs. I haven't closely checked every song here, but all or nearly all of them are covers, and many are all-time classic songs.

There's not much else to say, except that the Foo Fighters collaboration sounds nothing like the Foo Fighters one hears on the radio. It's a cool song, but it has a bossa nova feel, of all things.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Sleepless Nights (Norah Jones)
02 Virginia Moon (Foo Fighters with Norah Jones)
03 She (Norah Jones)
04 Transport, Part 1 (Suphala with Norah Jones)
05 Any Other Day (Wyclef Jean & Norah Jones)
06 Dear John (Ryan Adams & Norah Jones)
07 We're All in This Thing Together (Norah Jones)
08 Home of the Blues (Norah Jones)
09 Guess Things Happen That Way (Kris Kristofferson & Norah Jones)
10 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & Norah Jones)
11 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Norah Jones)
12 Tennessee Waltz (Bonnie Raitt & Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15848826/NorahJ_2004-2005_SleeplssNights_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I found the cover I liked of an obscure live EP, apparently called "Norah Jones and the Handsome Band." It was something that was only released to radio stations in 2004, apparently. All I did was crop it, remove some text, and add the album title.