Every now and then, I randomly stumble across some really interesting concerts on YouTube. (If you do as well, please let me know.) It seems there are many "various artists" concerts like this, often tributes, that one can find on video sometimes but have never been converted to an audio bootleg. I've seen a bunch of country-themed ones, such as annual awards ceremonies, that are just okay. But this one from 1978 stands out as exceptional. It was a three-hour TV special celebrating the last 50 years of country music. Just look at the names of all the stars in the song list and hopefully you'll see why I thought this was worth my time to convert this and post it here.
I'm not quite sure why the producers considered 1978 the 50th anniversary of country music. It was never explained in the banter of the show. I looked it up, and the first country records were recorded in 1922 and 1923. But a pivotal moment was the "Bristol sessions" in 1927, when both future country music legends Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family were recorded for the first time. That's probably what they were referring to here, since the special contained mini-tributes to country legends Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Bob Wills, and Hank Williams, so obviously they were thinking of Rodgers and the Carter Family specifically.
As I mentioned above, this TV special was three hours long, but if you remove the time spent on commercials, that leaves you with two and a half hours. That was divided into third. Glen Campbell hosted the first third, Dolly Parton hosted the middle third, and Roy Clark hosted the last third. So the three of them prominently feature in this, not just talking but singing lots of songs. At the end, all three of them came together to sing a final Hank Williams medley.
There are a couple of frustrations to watch out for. One is that to cram in as many songs as possible in the limited time allotted on TV, frequently shortened versions of songs were performed, often just a minute or two. Another is that although Gene Autry was still alive (he lived until 1998), a recording of him in his prime was used instead of a live recording. Normally, I edit out that kind of thing, but I kept it in here since it was short and I wanted to keep the banter talking about him.
Generally speaking, the recording I found of this on YouTube was complete and had pretty good sound quality. However, there were some exceptions. One problem was that the song "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell got abruptly cut off after about a minute. I found another live recording of Campbell singing that song from the 1970s and I used that to patch in the missing portion. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, most of "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash was missing. Luckily, I found another YouTube video of that song from this exact concert, so I was able to fill that in. I ended up splicing the two versions together because the other version was missing some of the intro.
There were some other problems here and there. For instance, sometimes the overall volume would fluctuate. So I had to make fixes for that. Also, there usually were "coming up next" type teasers before commercial breaks. I got rid of all of those. And when there were commercial breaks, that often meant abrupt cuts. I carefully edited each of those, usually patching in some more applause to smooth over where there was a start and stop gap due to commercials.
On the plus side, in my opinion country music was a lot better back in the 1970s than it is today, with many legends still alive and even in their primes. Remarkably, this really is a pretty good history of fifty years of country music. Also, it's interesting for the duets and combinations, such as Glen Campbell singing a song with Ray Charles and Johnny Cash singing a song with Roy Clark. This special remains unreleased on video and audio, but it shouldn't be forgotten.
This album is two hours and 28 minutes long.
01 Stars [Edit] (Glen Campbell)
02 Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell)
03 emcee (Introduction)
04 talk (Glen Campbell)
05 Wabash Cannonball (Roy Acuff & His Smoky Mountain Boys)
06 talk (Glen Campbell)
07 I'll Get Over You (Crystal Gayle)
08 talk (Glen Campbell)
09 That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine (Gene Autry)
10 talk (Glen Campbell)
11 Back in the Saddle Again (Glen Campbell)
12 Southern Nights (Glen Campbell)
13 talk (Glen Campbell)
14 Louisiana Man (Doug Kershaw)
15 talk (Glen Campbell)
16 I'll Go to My Grave Loving You (Statler Brothers)
17 You and Me (Tammy Wynette)
18 Love Put a Song in My Heart (Johnny Rodriguez)
19 talk (Glen Campbell)
20 Take These Chains from My Heart (Ray Charles)
21 talk (Ray Charles & Glen Campbell)
22 Bye Bye Love (Glen Campbell & Ray Charles)
23 talk (Glen Campbell)
24 Gentle on My Mind (Glen Campbell)
25 Honey Come Back (Glen Campbell)
26 By the Time I Get to Phoenix - Wichita Lineman [Edit] (Glen Campbell)
27 Galveston - Country Boy [You've Got Your Feet in L.A.] (Glen Campbell)
28 talk (emcee)
29 Here You Come Again (Dolly Parton)
30 talk (Dolly Parton)
31 Blue Moon of Kentucky (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
32 talk (Dolly Parton)
33 Muleskinner Blues (Dolly Parton & Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
34 talk (Dolly Parton)
35 Our Love Is Home Grown (Earl Scruggs)
36 talk (Dolly Parton)
37 Walking After Midnight (Loretta Lynn)
38 Sweet Dreams (Loretta Lynn)
39 Back in Baby's Arms - Crazy (Loretta Lynn)
40 talk (Dolly Parton)
41 I Just Wish You Were Someone I Love (Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers)
42 The Cowgirl and the Dandy (Dolly Parton)
43 talk (Dolly Parton)
44 Keep on the Sunny Side - Wildwood Flower (Carter Family)
45 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Carter Family)
46 Hello Stranger (Carter Family)
47 talk (Dolly Parton)
48 If You're Ever in Nashville (Carlene Carter)
49 talk (Dolly Parton)
50 talk (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
51 Ida Red (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
52 talk (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
53 Faded Love (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
54 Roly Poly (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
55 San Antonio Rose (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
56 talk (Dolly Parton)
57 The Seeker - All I Can Do (Dolly Parton)
58 Jolene (Dolly Parton)
59 Two Doors Down (Dolly Parton)
60 I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)
61 talk (emcee)
62 Rocky Top (Roy Clark)
63 talk (Roy Clark)
64 In the Jailhouse Now - Jimmie Rodgers' Last Blue Yodel [Women Make a Fool Out of Me] (Ernest Tubb & the Texas Troubadours)
65 Waiting for a Train (Ernest Tubb & the Texas Troubadours)
66 talk (Roy Clark)
67 talk (Roy Clark & Minnie Pearl)
68 It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels (Kitty Wells)
69 You're the One (Oak Ridge Boys)
70 talk (Roy Clark & Mel Tillis)
71 Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town (Mel Tillis)
72 talk (Roy Clark & Charlie Rich)
73 Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich)
74 talk (Roy Clark & Johnny Cash)
75 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
76 One Piece at a Time [Edit] (Johnny Cash)
77 Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash & Roy Clark)
78 Ghost Riders in the Sky [Instrumental Version] (Roy Clark)
79 talk (Roy Clark)
80 Instrumental (Chet Atkins)
81 talk (Roy Clark)
82 Instrumental (Stoney Mountain Cloggers)
83 Hey Good Lookin' (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
84 Your Cheating Heart (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
85 Cold, Cold Heart (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
86 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
87 I Can't Help It [If I'm Still in Love with You] - You Win Again (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
88 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - I Saw the Light (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
89 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
90 talk (Roy Clark)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/VhNfssNn
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/LzjSJer5qXloFoA/file
The cover image is from this exact concert. I made it from screenshots taken from the last medley in the concert, when Roy Clark, Dolly Parton and Glen Campbell were singing together. However, the YouTube video I was using was very low-res. So I had to resort to taking close up screenshots of each of their heads, plus one of all three of them together, and then putting it together in Photoshop. I used the Krea AI program to help clean it up. That's a big portrait of Hank Williams on the wall in the background.
