Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 2: Santana with Los Lobos

Here's the second out of four volumes of the 1991 Bill Graham memorial concert, called "Laughter, Love and Music." This one mainly features Santana. But they were joined by Los Lobos for two songs. Additionally, Bobby McFerrin sang a wordless solo on one song.

In my opinion, it was a must that Santana performed at this concert, because Bill Graham played a pivotal role in the band's career. In 1967, when Santana was starting out, they were based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Getting to play at the Fillmore, owned and managed by Graham, was essential for getting a larger following. At first, Graham banned them after they failed to show up for a concert on time. But, a few months after that, he saw they had improved and become much more professional, and he took the band under his wing. He became their manager from 1969 to 1971.

He pushed hard to make them famous. Most importantly, he was asked to help manage and promote the Woodstock festival in 1969. He only agreed to do it if Santana, then a totally unknown band, was allowed to perform. Santana did, and that concert was their big break. But Graham did much more, including getting them their first national T.V. appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show." He was fired from managing them around the time the band's original line-up broke up in 1971. But he still stayed close to the band and continued to advise them. As just one example, in 1977, he advised the band to cover "She's Not There" by the Zombies. They did, and had a Top Forty hit with it in both the U.S. and Britain.

Here's a quote from Carlos Santana about Graham, said shortly after Graham's death: "He really served people really well by giving people more than entertainment, so we're all very grateful to Bill Graham for your contribution to the arts, and we'll see you there when we get there. Thank you, Bill." 

This album is 53 minutes long.

34 Angels All Around Us - Spirits Dancing in the Flesh (Santana)
35 Somewhere in Heaven (Santana)
36 talk (Santana)
37 Peace on Earth... Mother Earth (Santana)
38 Third Stone from the Sun [Instrumental] (Santana)
39 Oye Como Va (Santana with Los Lobos & Bobby McFerrin)
40 talk (Santana with Los Lobos)
41 Bertha (Los Lobos & Santana)
42 talk (Santana)
43 I Love You Much Too Much [Instrumental] (Santana)
44 Jingo (Santana)
45 talk by emcee (Santana)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QfBQFec2

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/A1ZZVbu1I4Ng2wj/file

The cover image is taken from this exact concert. It shows Carlos Santana of Santana on the left and Cesar Rojas of Los Lobos in sunglasses on the right.

Various Artists - The Thrill Is Gone - A Tribute to B.B. King, Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 2-16-2020

The great blues legend B.B. King died in 2015, at the age of 89. I'm not sure what took so long, but five years later, there was this tribute concert celebrating his music. This is unusually long compared to most tribute concerts, at nearly four hours long. The vast majority of it was professionally recorded for a webcast, so the sound quality is mostly excellent. 

Note that I said "the vast majority" of this was professionally recorded, not all. That's because it seems a couple of performers didn't allow their songs to be included in the webcast. For those, I tried to find the songs elsewhere. I found a couple of the missing songs on YouTube, but the sound quality on those isn't as good as the rest. I couldn't find "You Shook Me" performed by Ann Wilson and Robert Randolph, as well as "Night Life" and "Take It Home" by Jamey Johnston. If anyone has those, please let me know and I'll add them in.

There was an impressive list of musicians who performed for this concert, including Buddy Guy, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, John Scofield, Ann Wilson (of Heart), David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos), Ivan Neville (of the Neville Brothers), Jimmie Vaughan (of the Fabulous Thunderbirds), Little Steven, Robert Cray, Robert Randolph, Shemekia Copeland, William Bell, and more.

Actually, this concert was performed two nights in a row, but only one night was broadcast. I don't know how different the other night might have been. 

The music here remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent, except for the few I took from other sources. Most of those are near the end, for instance "When Love Comes to Town" by Ann Wilson.

This album is three hours and 47 minutes long. 

01 talk (Wavy Gravy)
02 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
03 BB's Theme [Instrumental] (Tony C.C. Coleman)
04 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
05 You Upset Me Baby (Tony C.C. Coleman)
06 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
07 I Got a Mind to Give Up Living (Bob Margolin)
08 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
09 Let Me In (Bobby Rush)
10 talk (Bobby Rush)
11 Garbage Man (Bobby Rush)
12 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
13 Hummingbird (Val B. King & Frank Bacombe)
14 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
15 Let the Good Times Roll (Little Steven)
16 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
17 Beautician Blues (Southside Johnny)
18 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
19 Never Make a Move Too Soon (John Scofield & Ivan Neville)
20 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
21 Why I Sing the Blues (Kingfish)
22 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
23 Powerhouse [Instrumental] (David Hidalgo)
24 talk (David Hidalgo)
25 Need Your Love So Bad (David Hidalgo)
26 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
27 Please Love Me (Jimmy Vaughan)
28 talk (Jimmy Vaughan)
29 Woke Up This Morning (Jimmy Vaughan)
30 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
31 Blue Shadows (William Bell)
32 talk (William Bell)
33 Ain't Nobody Home (William Bell)
34 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
35 Paying the Cost to Be the Boss (Shemekia Copeland)
36 talk (Shemekia Copeland)
37 Call It Stormy Monday (Shemekia Copeland & John Scofield)
38 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
39 Three O'Clock Blues (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
40 talk (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
41 You Don't Know (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
42 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
43 So Excited (Warren Haynes)
44 How Blue Can You Get (Warren Haynes)
45 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
46 Ghetto Woman (Robert Randolph with Ivan Neville)
47 talk (Robert Randolph & Ivan Neville)
48 Don't Cry No More (Robert Randolph & Ivan Neville)
49 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
50 I Like to Live the Love (Robert Cray)
51 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Robert Cray)
52 When Love Comes to Town (Ann Wilson)
53 Sweet Little Angel - It's My Fault (Buddy Guy)
54 talk (Buddy Guy)
55 The Thrill Is Gone (Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks, Ann Wilson, Robert Cray & Shemekia Copeland)
56 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
57 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
58 Everyday I Have the Blues (Everybody)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YVLheabH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/90vA8uFEYrvrlzM/file

The cover photo shows an encore from this exact concert. In the front row, from right to left: Robert Cray, Warren Haynes, William Bell, Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, and (probably) Robert Rudolph.

In Concert Against AIDS, Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, CA, 5-27-1989, Part 1: Tower of Power, Joe Satriani, and Los Lobos

Here's another big benefit concert with lots of big name stars. It's another case where these kinds of concerts seem to have mostly been forgotten, so I'm trying to give them the attention they deserve. I found enough for four albums from this concert. Here's the first one.

In the 1980s especially, the disease AIDS was a big issue. There was a lot of misinformation and fear about it. Ronald Reagan, who was president of the U.S. from 1981 to 1989, didn't even mention AIDS in public until 1985, despite it being a big news story since 1981, and he didn't give a speech addressing it until 1987. Foolish people were saying AIDS was a punishment from God for homosexuality (though eventually way more non-homosexuals would get it), and that one could get it from toilet seats and kissing and the like (which was untrue). So this concert was meant to help raise awareness about to issue as well as raise money to fund non-profits that were working on the issue.

The concert was held in the Oakland Coliseum, which could hold about 50,000 people. But I've come across some articles from the time period. It turns out there was so much fear and misinformation about AIDS at the time that about 20,000 tickets were unsold, and the articles cited opinions that some people were staying away out of fear of AIDS. For instance, famous music promoter Bill Graham, who helped promote this festival, said at the time, "There are people who are staying away out of fear, and they need to be educated." As if you could get AIDS just by attending a concert about AIDS! Sheesh!

Anyway, this first album essentially contains the warm-up acts before the bigger names performed later. Los Lobos was already a pretty big name, especially after they had a Number One single in the U.S. with "La Bamba" in 1987, so they get most of the time here. However, it's possible the first two acts, Joe Satriani and Tower of Power, performed more songs. I don't know. I put these albums together from multiple sources, and none of them had everything, which increases the chances there are more pieces I couldn't find.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 Always with Me, Always with You [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
02 Surfing with the Alien [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
03 The Crush of Love [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
04 Believe It (Tower of Power)
05 talk (Tower of Power)
06 What Is Hip (Tower of Power)
07 talk (Los Lobos)
08 Evangeline (Los Lobos)
09 Don't Worry Baby (Los Lobos)
10 talk (Los Lobos)
11 Will the Wolf Survive (Los Lobos)
12 I Walk Alone (Los Lobos)
13 talk (Los Lobos)
14 The Giving Tree (Los Lobos)
15 talk (Los Lobos)
16 Let's Say Goodnight (Los Lobos)
17 talk (Los Lobos)
18 Someday (Los Lobos)
19 Georgia Slop (Los Lobos)
20 Shakin' Shakin' Shakes (Los Lobos)
21 I Got Loaded (Los Lobos)
22 Why Do You Do (Los Lobos)
23 talk (Los Lobos) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jXifNoFo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/P9BFcCIUhqeQ3SE/file

The cover image is a screenshot taken from a video of Los Lobos performing at this exact concert. It's a bit low-res, but it was the best I could find. I tried to use the Krea AI program to increase the detail, but in this case it didn't seem to help much.

Los Lobos - Bare Necessities - Non-Album Tracks (2005-2009)

Here's another in a series of stray tracks album for the band Los Lobos.

Most of the songs have been officially released. The three exceptions are the first track, "Who Do You Love," and the last two, "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" and "Whittier Boulevard." Those three come from concert bootlegs, but soundboards with high sound quality.

Many of the other songs come from various artists compilations, including tribute albums to Sublime, Queen, and Fats Domino. One song, "Border Town Girl," was from a new best of collection.

Three of the songs come from the band's 2009 studio album "Los Lobos Goes Disney." I consider this a poor album that was pushed on the band due to the fact that the Disney corporation owned their record company. I found a quote on the Los Lobos Wikipedia page from a book on the band called "Los Lobos: Dream in Blue." It states, "Alas, the band's collective heart was clearly not in the making of the awkwardly titled [album]." So I've taken what I consider the three best songs from it, which are tracks seven though nine.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Who Do You Love (Los Lobos)
02 Pawn Shop (Los Lobos)
03 Sleeping on the Sidewalk (Los Lobos)
04 Canto a Veracruz (Los Lobos)
05 Border Town Girl (Los Lobos)
06 Billy 1 (Los Lobos)
07 The Fat Man (Los Lobos)
08 Not in Nottingham (Los Lobos)
09 Bare Necessities (Los Lobos)
10 The Ugly Bug Ball (Los Lobos)
11 All Your Love [I Miss Loving] (Los Lobos)
12 Whittier Boulevard [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262579/LosLbs_2005-2009_BareNcessities_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows the band at an awards ceremony in 2006.

Los Lobos - Graffiti's, Pittsburgh, PA, 9-29-1992

Los Lobos has put out a lot of quality music over the years of their long career, but in my opinion they peaked in 1992 with the album "Kiko." That album generally got their best critical ratings for its inventiveness and diversity, and for good reason. So when I wanted to listen to a Los Lobos concert recently, I went looking for one from 1992.

I found one, which I'm posting here. It's a long concert, nearly two hours, with a well chosen song selection. And critically, it's a soundboard, so it sounds great.

That said, I listened to it a few times, and something seemed a bit off. I wasn't going to post it due to sound quality issues. Then I realized the problem was a bad mix. Although it is a clear soundboard, so much so that there isn't much audience heard at the ends of songs, the drums were too loud, the guitars too quiet, etc... I used the audio editing program Spleeter to break the different instruments into different tracks, then boost or lower their volumes, and then recombine them. So I thought this would be an easy concert to post, but it turned out to be a pain in the butt for me. 

But the end result is most likely the best 1992 bootleg from the band. I think it sounds much better than it did before, after fixing the mixes. In fact, if one were to pick just one concert of theirs to listen to, I'd challenge any fan to find one that beats this one.

There were a couple other issues I fixed. The volume levels wandered all over the place in the first two songs. That almost certainly is due to the person manning the board making adjustments. So, on top of the remixing editing mentioned above, I had to do more work on those two songs. But they sound pretty good now. Also, the talking between songs was at a low volume, so I boosted those bit up. Plus, I cut out a fair amount of dead air between songs, such as tuning up.

This album is an hour and 55 minutes long. A big chunk of that is the last song, a cover of the Grateful Dead song "Bertha" that jams for 16 minutes.

01 talk (Los Lobos)
02 Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio [Edit] (Los Lobos)
03 talk (Los Lobos)
04 I Got to Let You Know [Edit] (Los Lobos)
05 Kiko and the Lavender Moon (Los Lobos)
06 talk (Los Lobos)
07 Let’s Say Goodnight (Los Lobos)
08 One Time, One Night (Los Lobos)
09 My Baby’s Gone (Los Lobos)
10 Short Side of Nothing (Los Lobos)
11 talk (Los Lobos)
12 Just a Man (Los Lobos)
13 Dream in Blue (Los Lobos)
14 Wake Up Dolores (Los Lobos)
15 talk (Los Lobos)
16 Anselma (Los Lobos)
17 talk (Los Lobos)
18 Los Ojos de Pancha (Los Lobos)
19 talk (Los Lobos)
20 Carabina 30-30 (Los Lobos)
21 Wicked Rain (Los Lobos)
22 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Los Lobos)
23 I Can’t Understand (Los Lobos)
24 talk (Los Lobos)
25 Georgia Slop (Los Lobos)
26 Peace (Los Lobos)
27 Jenny’s Got a Pony (Los Lobos)
28 talk (Los Lobos)
29 Evangeline (Los Lobos)
30 Will the Wolf Survive (Los Lobos)
31 Don’t Worry Baby (Los Lobos)
32 talk (Los Lobos)
33 Marie, Marie (Los Lobos)
34 talk (Los Lobos)
35 That Train Don’t Stop Here (Los Lobos)
36 talk (Los Lobos)
37 Bertha (Los Lobos)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V3wi7mXF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iCoI1gvhNGqRarX/file

I didn't find any really good photo of the band in 1992. This one is captioned "circa 1990," so who knows, maybe it's from 1992. At least it looks close. Unfortunately it only highlights two band members, but those are the two singer-songwriters (Cesar Rosas on the left and David Hidalgo on the right).

Los Lobos - Ride This: The Covers - Alternate Version (2004)

In 2004, Los Lobos released "The Ride," a studio album of all new material. Around the same time, they released "Ride This - The Covers EP," which, as it says, is an EP of cover versions. This album starts with the songs from the EP, then adds more cover versions to turn it into a full album.

The original EP is fairly long as far as EPs go. It's seven songs and 29 minutes, which is longer than some albums. Some big name guests appeared on "The Ride," and most of these extra songs have Los Lobos pay their respects to those guests. For instance, Richard Thompson played guitar on the album track "Wreck of the Carlos Rey," so they played his song "Shoot Out the Lights" as one of the EP tracks. That was also the case with Ruben Blades, Tom Waits, Dave Alvin of the Blasters, Elvis Costello, Bobby Womack, and others. Note that "Marie, Marie" (originally by the Blasters) is a live version that actually dates to 1999.

On top of that EP, I've added five more cover versions that all date to 2004 or 2003. Three of them come from various artists collections. One, "Mexicano Americano" is a song by Runel Fuentes that was recorded in 2004 but came out as part of the "Acoustic en Vivo" album one year later. "Baby What You Want Me to Do" is an unreleased live version, but it's from a soundboard bootleg and sounds just as good as all the other songs.

With the added songs, the album is now 47 minutes long instead of 29. Personally, I feel that, by 2004, Los Lobos's songwriting had declined since their 1990s "Kiko" peak. But they still were an excellent band, so of course they do a great job here.

01 Jockey Full of Bourbon (Los Lobos)
02 More than I Can Stand (Los Lobos)
03 Uncomplicated (Los Lobos)
04 Patria (Los Lobos)
05 Shoot Out the Lights (Los Lobos)
06 It'll Never Be Over for Me (Los Lobos)
07 Marie, Marie (Los Lobos)
08 Baby What You Want Me to Do (Los Lobos)
09 Never Take the Place of You (Los Lobos)
10 Mexico Americano (Los Lobos)
11 On a Night like This (Los Lobos)
12 Voodoo Music (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262580/LosLbs_2004b_RideThsTheCovrsAlternte_atse.zip.html

I used the exact cover of the "Ride This" EP... almost. For that cover, the words "The Covers EP" was written on the lower part of the image of the cassette tape. I edited and rearranged that slightly to just say "The Covers," since it's no longer an EP.

Los Lobos - Teresa - Non-Album Tracks (2000-2001)

I love Los Lobos' original songs in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, I think their 1992 album "Kiko" is a five-star album, and my favorite of theirs. I don't know why, but starting in the late 1990s, I feel their songwriting went downhill. But their musical talent otherwise remained as strong as ever. This is a collection of stray tracks from 2000 and 2001. A majority of the songs are covers, so their songwriting decline isn't really evident here. I think this is still a very good listen.

Los Lobos put out an album in 1999 ("This Time") and another one in 2002 ("Good Morning Aztlan"). This deals with the in-between time. The band has been very busy when it comes to contributions to soundtracks and various artist compilations, and a handful of songs here are from those.

Furthermore, since the late 1990s, they've done a lot of side projects. Four of the songs here are from an album by the group "Los Super Seven." That's a group with a lot of musicians in it, including a lot of different lead singers. I've only included the songs sung by either of the two main singers in Los Lobos. In my opinion, these sound exactly like Los Lobos songs.

Finally, three more songs are from a concert bootleg. This is an excellent soundboard recording with the audience noise removed, so you probably won't even notice they're not studio recordings unless you look closely at the mp3 tags.

I know Los Lobos' albums have continued to be critically acclaimed. But frankly, I like this albums of "odds and sods" more than the official studio albums that come before or after it.

01 Johnny 99 (Los Lobos)
02 Cumbia Raza [English Version] (Los Lobos)
03 Big Boss Man (Los Lobos)
04 Colas (Los Lobos)
05 El Rey (Los Lobos)
06 Mustang Sally (Los Lobos)
07 Spy Wedding [Instrumental] (Los Lobos & Robert Rodriguez)
08 El Pescador (Los Super Seven)
09 Calle Dieciseis (Los Super Seven)
10 Teresa (Los Super Seven)
11 Campesino (Los Super Seven)
12 Oye Como Spy [Oye Como Va] [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262525/LosLbs_2000-2001_Tersa_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I found a Los Lobos concert poster. I don't know where or when it's from. I had to make some adjustments to get the rectangular poster to fit into a square shape.

Los Lobos - Live Classic Rock Cover Versions (1994-2000)

Before I post any more albums of studio stray tracks by Los Lobos, I want to post this album. I made it because I noticed a big number of classic rock songs played live by the band in the 1990s. There were so many from 1994 to 2000 that I decided to put them all together on an album. And it's an extra long album compared to what I usually post, at an hour and five minutes.

One reason I like Los Lobos so much is because they take wildly disparate types of music, from Mexican folk to experimental art rock to classic rock, and blend them together to make their own style. This album shows clearly the classic rock artists that influenced them the most. Here is who the songs on this album are originally by, in order:

01 Tomorrow Never Knows - Beatles
02 Spanish Castle Magic - Jimi Hendrix
03 Bertha - Grateful Dead
04 Don't Keep Me Wondering - Allman Brothers
05 What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
06 Waiting in Vain - Bob Marley
07 One Way Out - Allman Brothers
08 Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young
09 Rattlesnake Shake - Dear Mr. Fantasy - Fleetwood Mac - Traffic
10 Down by the River - Neil Young
11 Natural Mystic - No More Trouble  - Bob Marley
12 Oye Como Va - Santana

Those are a lot of my favorite artists too. I'll probably post something by all of them by and by.

This is the only Los Lobos album I've made like this because although they've continued to play classic rock covers in concert since 2000, they're mostly this same bunch of songs. I haven't found nearly enough different cover songs after 2000 to make another album. (At least not yet.)

Note that I included Los Lobos doing a version of "Bertha" on a previous stray tracks album. But that was their studio version, and this is live. I also included them doing "What's Going On" on another previous stray tracks album. But that was also done in a studio (in front of a small audience). Plus, that was Los Lobos, while this is their closely related spin-off band Los Super Seven, with Sheryl Crow doing some of the singing, so I figured it was different enough to be interesting.

By the way, Los Lobos has freely allowed tapers at their concerts for many years, so that means there are a lot of high quality bootlegs of them. That in turn means the sound quality here is typically excellent for live recordings. Three of the songs here are officially released and the rest come from bootlegs, but you can't tell which is which from the sound quality.

01 Tomorrow Never Knows (Los Lobos)
02 Spanish Castle Magic (Los Lobos)
03 Bertha (Los Lobos)
04 Don't Keep Me Wondering (Los Lobos)
05 What's Going On (Los Super Seven & Sheryl Crow)
06 Waiting in Vain (Los Lobos)
07 One Way Out (Los Lobos)
08 Cinnamon Girl (Los Lobos)
09 Rattlesnake Shake - Dear Mr. Fantasy (Los Lobos)
10 Down by the River (Los Lobos)
11 Natural Mystic - No More Trouble (Los Lobos)
12 Oye Como Va (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16695511/LOSLBOS1994-2000_LivClssicRckCovrVersons_atse.zip.html

I'm really happy at how the cover art worked out. I found a concert poster of Los Lobos playing the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1998. It depicts a giant scorpion attacking San Francisco. All I did was crop it to fit the square space, then change the text on the green billboard.

Los Lobos - Little Heaven - Non-Album Tracks (1999)

1999 was a busy year for Los Lobos-related album releases. Los Lobos released the album "This Time," and the two main singer-songwriters in the band, David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas, released the second album from their experimental side project band, the Latin Playboys, called "Dose." On top of that, Rosas released his first solo album, "Soul Disguise."

Unfortunately, I feel Hidalgo and Rosas spent too much time on their side projects and not enough on Los Lobos itself, because "This Time" was far below the standards the band set with previous albums, especially the pinnacle of "Kiko" earlier in the decade. I was so disappointed by the album that I only found four songs on it that I liked. So what I've done here is combined the three Los Lobos-related 1999 albums to make one album of their best material that year.

If you own "This Time" and like all or most of the songs on it, this probably isn't the album for you. Although if you remove the songs from "This Time" here, you'd still get a 30-minute-long album, since I think a majority of the good songs they did in 1999 came out on other albums.

Los Lobos was busy in the 1990s putting out songs for soundtracks and various artists compilations, but I only know of one such song from 1999. That's a cover of the classic Jimi Hendrix song "Are You Experienced." So I've included that at the end. 

"I Love Every Little Thing about You" is a cover of a Stevie Wonder song. This version is from a concert bootleg. It was possibly the only time they played it concert.

This album is 44 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 1, 2024, I updated the mp3 download file. I added "I Love Every Little Thing about You."

01 Latin Trip (Latin Playboys)
02 Little Heaven (Cesar Rosas)
03 I Love Every Little Thing about You (Los Lobos)
04 Shack and Shamb (Cesar Rosas)
05 Lemon 'n Ice (Latin Playboys)
06 Soul Disguise (Cesar Rosas)
07 Struck (Cesar Rosas)
08 This Time (Los Lobos)
09 Oh Yeah (Los Lobos)
10 Viking (Los Lobos)
11 Turn Around (Los Lobos)
12 Are You Experienced (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16231803/LOSLBS1999_LttlHevn_atse.zip.html

The cover was made by Peter of the Albums I Wish Existed blog. I'm not sure where he found the art for the picture.

Los Lobos - Midnight Shift - Non-Album Tracks (1995-1998)

This is the next in my series of Los Lobos stray tracks albums. This covers 1995 to 1998, which is still close to what I consider their peak period of the early 1990s, so this is more excellent music from them.

Los Lobos has done a lot of songs for soundtracks and tribute albums, and that's the case again here. In fact, eight of the 15 songs here come from albums like those. Two more songs come from the spin-off group "Los Super Seven." The two songs from that prominently feature the two main singer-songwriters from Los Lobos, so they're basically Los Lobos songs.

The remaining five songs here come from the 1995 Los Lobos album "Papa's Dream." I don't consider that a "real" Los Lobos album, because it's very much an album aimed at children. If you like the whole thing, more power to you, but it contains many songs I'm not keen on hearing repeatedly. A lot of them are sung by people not in Los Lobos, some are too child-oriented for my tastes, and there are pointless remakes of "La Bamba." I've included the five songs I feel stand on their own, for adults who aren't into the whole "Papa's Dream" story for children.

By the way, I edited out about forty seconds of the instrumental "Mariachi Suite." Sorry if you don't like that, but I make these albums mainly for my own listening pleasure. The suite contains three instrumentals that don't have much to do with each other. The first two are nice, but the third is jarring and low-fi, and ruins the mood created by the first two. And, at only forty seconds long, it's too short to go anywhere interesting musically. I think the suite is much better without that part.

01 Cancion Del Mariachi [Morena De Mi Corazon] (Los Lobos with Antonio Banderas)
02 Let Love Reign (Los Lobos)
03 Mariachi Suite [Instrumental] [Edit] (Los Lobos)
04 Lonely Avenue (Los Lobos)
05 Wooly Bully (Los Lobos)
06 Route 90 (Los Lobos)
07 Corrido for Papa Lalo (Los Lobos)
08 La Mananita Alegre (Los Lobos)
09 La, La, La (Los Lobos)
10 Midnight Shift (Los Lobos)
11 Pepe and Irene [Instrumental] (Los Lobos with Money Mark)
12 Me Estas Matando (Los Lobos)
13 Lonesome Tears in My Eyes (Los Lobos with Paul Burlison)
14 La Sirena (Los Super Seven)
15 El Canoero (Los Super Seven)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262450/LosLbs_1995-1998_MidnightShft_atse.zip.html

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the album cover.

Los Lobos - Blue Moonlight - Non-Album Tracks (1993-1994)

In 1992, Los Lobos released "Kiko," which is widely seen as their high-water mark. They waited until 1996 to release a proper studio album sequel, "Colossal Head," which was just as widely seen as a step down from "Kiko." This could be seen as an album Los Lobos could have released in 1994, which would have been better received than "Colossal Head," in my opinion.

This album is 48 minutes long. If it had been a true follow-up to "Kiko," I think one could remove some of the covers and still have a decently long album. I count five covers: "I'm Tore Down," "She's About a Mover," "Try Me," "Run Through the Jungle," and "Down Where the Drunkards Roll."

Four of the songs here are by the Latin Playboys. Basically, that's the same as Los Lobos, as it consisted of their two main singer-songwriters, plus their producer as a band member, doing more experimental stuff. They put out an album in 1994 that was hit or miss, so I only included what I considered the best songs from it. One of their songs, the excellent "New Zandu," came out a year earlier on a Los Lobos compilation.

01 I'm Tore Down (Los Lobos)
02 Blue Moonlight (Los Lobos)
03 Wrong Man Theme [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)
04 New Zandu (Latin Playboys)
05 Alone in a Crowd (Los Lobos)
06 This Time of the Year (Los Lobos)
07 She's about a Mover (Los Lobos)
08 Try Me (Los Lobos)
09 Lights Out (Los Lobos)
10 Run through the Jungle (Los Lobos)
11 Ten Believers (Latin Playboys)
12 Same Brown Earth (Latin Playboys)
13 Forever Night Shade Mary (Latin Playboys)
14 Down Where the Drunkards Roll (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262472/LosLbs_1993-1994_BlueMoonlght_atse.zip.html

In making this album cover, I decided to go in a very literal direction. ;)

Los Lobos - Till the Hands Fall Off the Clock - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1992)

I've got a lot of Los Lobos stray tracks albums to post. They've been very prolific. This album covers 1988 to 1992. It's one of my favorites, because I think the band peaked in the second half of the 1980s through most of the 1990s.

Los Lobos has a history of doing a lot of songs for tribute albums and movie soundtracks. Sometimes, they've performed great originals for such projects, like the song "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" here. But more often, they've done originals. They have an unusually wide range of material they can do justice to, from traditional songs sung in Spanish to 1950s-based roots rock to soul music to long guitar solo jams on classic rock songs. This album has all that and more. They even do a swing song from an old Disney movie.

About half of the songs here come from concerts, with four of the songs coming from live bootlegs. But don't worry, because Los Lobos has long had a policy of giving bootleggers permission to do their thing, so they are all drawn from high quality soundboard recordings.

 Los Lobos played "This Land Is Your Land" with Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead in 1989. It's rather strange in that they performed this in a stadium parking lot with no crowd, and then had the performance played on ABC's evening news broadcast that evening. But it was never officially released.

01 I Wanna Be Like You [The Monkey Song] (Los Lobos)
02 Pigfoot Shuffle [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)
03 Till the Hands Fall Off the Clock (Los Lobos)
04 This Land Is Your Land (Los Lobos, Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir)
05 Someday (Los Lobos)
06 Up the Line (Los Lobos)
07 Bertha (Los Lobos)
08 Beautiful Maria of My Soul (Los Lobos)
09 Politician (Los Lobos)
10 La Iguana (Los Lobos)
11 El Zapateado [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)
12 Shotgun (Los Lobos)
13 What's Going On (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262451/LosLbs_1988-1992_TilltheHandsFllOfftheClck_atse.zip.html

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the cover.

Los Lobos - La Bamba - Alternate Version (1987)

I've always considered "La Bamba," the soundtrack to the 1987 movie about Richie Valens, a de facto Los Lobos album. However, I've had a couple of problems with it. One, it's rather short, at only 31 minutes long. And two, it has 12 songs, and four of them aren't Los Lobos at all, but other musicians featured in the movie. So I made some changes.

I don't consider any of those four songs by other artists essential, especially the imitation of Jackie Wilson by a fairly obscure singer. So I cut all four of them. This made the album only 20 minutes long. Luckily, it turns out that Los Lobos did a number of other 1950s covers around this time, even if they weren't Richie Valens songs per se. Two songs come from a Los Lobos box set, and I was able to find five more from soundboard bootlegs of concerts from 1985 to 1987. I also included another Los Lobos cover of a Richie Valens (see the explanation below.) Adding those songs doubles its length, to 42 minutes, and makes it a real, all-Los Lobos album.

Well, almost all Los Lobos. One of the four songs I discarded from the original soundtrack is a remake of "Who Do You Love" by Bo Diddley. It turns out that after the soundtrack was released, there was a concert filmed for TV in which most of the artists on the soundtrack played their songs. The others went on their own, but Diddley was backed by Los Lobos when he did "Who Do You Love." I've included that, so really you're only missing three songs from the original.

Note that this post has been updated on December 28, 2018. Originally, there was one song I wanted to include, but I couldn't find: the Los Lobos version of "That's My Little Suzie." It's an actual Richie Valens song, so it couldn't fit the theme of this album any better. I wasn't able to find it at first, but now I have, so the zip file and song listing have been updated to include it. I found it on an official but extremely rare live album called "Chuy's Tape Box, Vol.1." Apparently, this was meant to be the start of a series of official bootleg releases by Los Lobos, but so far they've only released the one, which is of a 1984 concert.

01 La Bamba (Los Lobos)
02 Come On, Let's Go (Los Lobos)
03 Ooh, My Head (Los Lobos)
04 We Belong Together (Los Lobos)
05 Framed (Los Lobos)
06 Donna (Los Lobos)
07 Charlena (Los Lobos)
08 Goodnight My Love (Los Lobos)
09 Who Do You Love (Bo Diddley & Los Lobos)
10 That's My Little Suzie (Los Lobos)
11 Rip It Up (Los Lobos)
12 I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday (Los Lobos)
13 The Town I Live In (Los Lobos)
14 Walking with Frankie (Los Lobos)
15 Farmer John (Los Lobos)
16 Buzz, Buzz, Buzz (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262425/LosLbs_1987_LaBmbaAlternte_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I just used the original cover, but I erased the names of the other artists on it, since they no longer appear on the album.

Los Lobos - And a Time to Dance (1982-1984)

I consider Los Lobos a great band, and I plan on posting a bunch of albums from them. I'm going to start near the beginning of their career and go forward chronologically, as I usually do.

In 1978, Los Lobos put out an all Spanish language album. But I don't see any reason to tinker with that. So we go forward to their next major release, an EP in 1983 called "....And a Time to Dance." I've used that as the core of this album. But that EP is short, only 16 minutes long if one removes "Come On, Let's Go," the song that is repeated on their 1987 soundtrack album "La Bamba." I do remove that, because I try hard to avoid repetition.

So my goal here was to find enough worthy music from the time to stretch the EP into a full-length album. I did so by grabbing one song from 1982, another song from 1983, and four songs from 1984. The songs come from a variety of sources, but all are of high audio quality - the two from live bootlegs are based on excellent soundboards. Just as importantly, the musical quality is solid too.

As it so happens, I pretty much doubled the length of music here, from 16 to 34 minutes. If I found  more quality songs, I would have added more, but these are all the good ones I found from those years.

By the way, I changed the title slightly. The EP begins with three dots. I dropped the dots, to indicate this is something different, and also because I think it's awkward beginning an album title with that kind of punctuation.

Also, here's an interesting anecdote I came up with while researching songs for this album. The members of Los Lobos were so poor in 1983, then when they had some success with their EP that year, they used the money to buy a van, which enabled them to go on tour to other towns for the first time. How different it would be just a few years later, when they'd have a number one hit!

01 Let's Say Goodnight (Los Lobos)
02 Walking Song (Los Lobos)
03 Anselma (Los Lobos)
04 How Much Can I Do (Los Lobos)
05 Why Do You Do (Los Lobos)
06 Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio (Los Lobos)
07 Diablo Con Vestido [Devil with the Blue Dress On] (Los Lobos)
08 I'm Sorry (Los Lobos)
09 We're Gonna Rock (Los Lobos)
10 Soul Twist [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)
11 300 Pounds of Heavenly Joy (Los Lobos)
12 Sleep Walk [Instrumental] (Los Lobos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262422/LosLbs_1983_AndaTimetoDnceAlternate_atse.zip.html

The cover art is the exact cover for the "And a Time to Dance" EP.