Leo Sayer - BBC In Concert, Bristol Hippodrome, Bristol, Britain, 5-29-1988

Here's a BBC concert by singer-songwriter Leo Sayer. It's the only BBC one I've ever come across by him.

I've gotta admit, just like the last musical act I've posted (Death Cab for Cutie), I'm not particularly keen on the music here. But musical friend Progsprog recently shared some of his music with me, and I noticed this concert. I also took notice of how very obscure it is. In all my digging for BBC material in recent years, I've never come across even a mention of it. So I figure it's kind of my duty to help share this sort of thing. I may not been excited about it, but Sayer has sold a ton of music, so no doubt there will be some people who will enjoy hearing this.

Sayer had a decade of hits, from 1973 to 1983. In the late 1980s, his career took a commercial downturn. In fact, he didn't release a studio album between 1983 and 1990. But when this concert took place in 1988, he still was only a few years from his hit-making era. Plus, this concert has the advantage of being a full one, instead of edited down to an hour or less, like many BBC concerts. So pretty much all of his best known songs can be found here.

The music here is unreleased (and very rare - thanks again to Progsprog for sharing), and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 35 minutes long.

01 Leave My World Alone (Leo Sayer)
02 Wonderworld (Leo Sayer)
03 Moonlighting (Leo Sayer)
04 One Step (Leo Sayer)
05 talk (Leo Sayer)
06 Don't Wait until Tomorrow (Leo Sayer)
07 Giving It All Away (Leo Sayer)
08 Orchard Road (Leo Sayer)
09 One Man Band (Leo Sayer)
10 You Make Me Feel like Dancing (Leo Sayer)
11 The Show Must Go On (Leo Sayer)
12 Working Man (Leo Sayer)
13 Easy to Love (Leo Sayer)
14 More than I Can Say (Leo Sayer)
15 Endless Flight (Leo Sayer)
16 talk (Leo Sayer)
17 Sally (Leo Sayer)
18 How Much Love (Leo Sayer)
19 When I Need You (Leo Sayer)
20 Something New (Leo Sayer) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ajnRVmej

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0gdQ4mkfUqdeFUZ/file

The cover image is from 1987. That's all I know about it.

Various Artists - A Tribute to Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 6-29-2000

Unfortunately, I'm all done posting Gershwin Prize and MusiCares tribute concerts, at least until more of them become publicly available. But there are other similar tribute concerts out there. This one is so similar in format that it's basically the same as the other two kinds of concerts. This concert honors the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. 

In fact, there was a Gershwin Prize concert in 2012 honoring these two songwriters. But I'd argue this one is superior. For one thing, its twice as long. But also, it has more big name stars, especially Dionne Warwick, who is widely considered the top singer of Bacharach-David songs.

I'm not sure of the exact reason for this concert, be it an anniversary or something like that. But I suppose it doesn't matter much. But I do know the profits from the concert went to support the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy non-profit. And it was broadcast on TV at the time, and later released on DVD. That's how I have it here in excellent sound quality, since it's never been released on any audio format.

By the way, I know Hal David was there, because of photos of him there, including the cover photo I selected. But there's no sign of him on this recording. I suspect he gave a speech near the end of the concert, just like Burt Bacharach did, but his speech got edited out of the TV show (and thus the DVD) since Bacharach is the much more famous one out of the two. 

This album is an hour and 42 minutes long. 

01 talk (emcee)
02 Wives and Lovers (Kenny Lynch)
03 talk (emcee)
04 One Less Bell to Answer (Lucie Silvas)
05 talk (emcee)
06 Don't Make Me Over (Lynden David Hall)
07 talk (emcee)
08 Reach Out for Me (Brian Kennedy)
09 talk (emcee)
10 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Yazz)
11 talk (emcee)
12 You'll Never Get to Heaven (Shola Ama)
13 talk (emcee)
14 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Sacha Distel)
15 talk (emcee)
16 This Guy's in Love with You (Paul Carrack)
17 talk (emcee)
18 A House Is Not a Home (Petula Clark)
19 Wishin' and Hopin' (Petula Clark)
20 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Petula Clark)
21 talk (emcee)
22 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me (Leo Sayer)
23 talk (emcee)
24 Alfie (Sumudu Jayatilaka)
25 talk (emcee)
26 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Brian Kennedy)
27 talk (emcee)
28 What's New Pussycat (Brian Conley)
29 Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa (Brian Conley)
30 talk (emcee)
31 I Just Have to Breathe (Teish O'Day)
32 talk (emcee)
33 Make It Easy on Yourself (Edwin Starr)
34 talk (emcee)
35 The Look of Love (Linda Lewis)
36 talk (emcee)
37 Elvis Costello (talk)
38 I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself (Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach)
39 talk (emcee)
40 Walk on By (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
41 I Say a Little Prayer (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
42 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
43 Anyone Who Had a Heart (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
44 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Dionne Warwick & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6Ec9rngv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mrGkAfgvmiFeA5M/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's Bacharach on the left and David, wearing glasses, on the right.

Leo Sayer - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 10-24-1978

Another "PBS Soundstage" episode. This time, it's a Leo Sayer concert from 1978. I can't say I'm much of a Sayer fan, but he has enough quality music for me to post this. Besides, there are virtually no live recordings of him from his prime, so it's good to get this out there.

Sayer was a pretty big star in the late 1970s. He wrote most of his own songs, and even co-wrote most of the songs on the first solo album by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey in 1973, including the hit "Giving It All Away." His biggest success was in 1977, when he had two huge Number One hits, "You Make Me Feel like Dancing" and "When I Need You." However, his success declined a lot in the mid-1980s, when he suffered a bunch of personal problems and legal and financial problems related to bad management and record company woes. You can read his Wikipedia entry here:

Leo Sayer - Wikipedia 

I found an audio bootleg of this concert, but it had lots of issues. The person who recorded it off the T.V. at the time apparently missed the start of a couple of songs due to turning the recording off for commercial breaks. Those two songs were "In My Life" and "The Show Must Go On," which is why they have "[Edit]" in their titles. I found other versions from that era to fill in the missing sections. For "In My Life," the version I found, from a 1976 concert, had a drastically different pitch, so I hope the result here is decent. That song also seemingly broke into a different bluesy instrumental song in the middle in a way that I'm not sure was actually what happened on stage. But I'm not sure, so I kept that.

I had to make some other minor changes here and there. The sound quality is good, but not great, probably due to it being taped off the T.V. in the 1970s.

Also note that I added a bonus track at the end. I was very surprised that maybe his biggest hit of all, "When I Need You," wasn't included, despite it being released a year before this concert. So I added that at the end, using a version performed on "The Midnight Special" TV show in 1980.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 One Man Band (Leo Sayer)
02 How Much Love (Leo Sayer)
03 In My Life [Edit] (Leo Sayer)
04 Train (Leo Sayer)
05 You Make Me Feel like Dancing (Leo Sayer)
06 Dancing the Night Away (Leo Sayer)
07 Raining in My Heart (Leo Sayer)
08 Thunder in My Heart (Leo Sayer)
09 Long Tall Glasses [I Can Dance] (Leo Sayer)
10 The Show Must Go On [Edit] (Leo Sayer)
11 When I Need You (Leo Sayer)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jsRH96r2

alternate: 

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

The cover image is from a different 1978 concert. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any video or photos from this exact concert.