Various Artists - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Waldorf Astoria, New York City, 1-20-1988

Yesterday (January 28, 2026), Bruce Springsteen dropped a new song about the current problems with ICE in Minneapolis, called "Streets of Minneapolis." It's good to see a protest song that addresses current issues, since there haven't been many of those in recent years. (He wrote, recorded, and released it in four days!) Here's a link, if you haven't heard it already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w 

Anyway, I wanted to post something from Springsteen after hearing that inspiring song. However, some recent computer problems I've been having have flared up again, which means I currently can't use Photoshop, which in turn means I can't make new album covers until that's fixed. So I looked around to see if I had some Springsteen-related album ready to go, cover and all. Luckily, I did. (I have soooo many albums I could post tomorrow, if only I had the time to finish them off. Sigh!) This one doesn't have a ton of Springsteen content, but it's a really interesting (thought short) concert. So, in a way, my current computer issues have an upside in that they're getting me to finally post this.

Now, finally, to the music. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started in the early 1980s. In 1986, they had their first induction ceremony, complete with a short concert featuring some of the inductees and other famous musicians. This has become a yearly tradition. Some concerts have been a lot more memorable than others. In my opinion, the ones from 1988 and 1989 were the most interesting, with the biggest star power. I haven't collected the others (though I very may well do so with some of them in the future), but I've made albums of those two. This is the 1988 one.

1988 was a really big year for the Hall of Fame, because their rule is that artists are only eligible for induction 25 years after their first record (be it a single or album). And when they were making their decisions in 1987 for this ceremony, that meant they were looking at the artists who put out their first records in 1962. It just so happens that was the first year of recordings for the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys! Those are three of the biggest and most influential musical acts of all time. The Drifters and the Supremes were inducted that year as well, plus some non-performers, like Berry Gordy.

The induction ceremony had a lot of intrigue and drama in it. The Beatles are arguably the biggest (and best, IMHO!) musical act ever, so they were the main focus here, even overshadowing Dylan and the other very big names. Since John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, he was represented by his wife Yoko Ono, and his sons Julian Lennon and Sean Lennon, and each of them gave short speeches. Ex-Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr were there, and also gave speeches. 

However, the big no-show was Paul McCartney. He was in the middle of a lawsuit still connected to the break-up of the band back in 1970, so he felt he couldn't attend due to that. He put out a statement: "I was keen to go to and pick up my award, but after 20 years the Beatles still have some business differences which I had hoped would have been settled by now. Unfortunately, they haven't been [settled], so I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with [Harrison and Starr] at a fake reunion." 

It turns out the lawsuit, which involved the division of profits from record sales, was settled a year later. So that was unfortunate timing as far as this concert goes. But at least that opened the door to the "Anthology" collaboration between the ex-Beatles a few years later.

Normally, when I post albums like this, I skip long speeches and focus on the music. But I'm making an exception here. I didn't include all the induction speeches, but I thought the ones relating to the induction of the Beatles and Dylan were important enough to include. They're all together at the beginning of this album, and they are about 19 minutes long in total. If you don't want to hear them, or just hear them once or twice, there's still about 40 minutes of music after that.

A big element of the drama involved Mike Love, a member of the Beach Boys. Love is one of the most notorious assholes in rock and roll, something I've discussed in other posts. But he really outdid himself this time. He appeared to be drunk, and used his induction speech to insult various famous musicians in the audience. This led to a funny quip from Dylan during his acceptance speech: when he listed people he wanted to thank, he thanked Love for not mentioning him in his speech!

Anyway, there are lots of interesting stories about what happened during this event. But instead of trying to summarize them all here, I'll just point out to an article from Rolling Stone Magazine that does a good job:

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

I've also posted a text file in the download zip that has the text to that article.

Regarding the music here, everything was professionally recorded, so the sound quality is excellent. However, I found the lead vocals were rather low in most of the songs, so I boosted that up with the help of the MVSEP program. Also, there was a problem in the performance of "Stop in the Name of Love." Mary Wilson of the Supremes was asked to sing the song (since Diana Ross was another prominent no show). But it was clear for this songs, as well as all the other songs, that there hadn't been any practice beforehand, so everyone was just winging it. For the first chorus at the start of the song, Wilson sang the song in one key, while the band (or at least most of it) played in another key. That sounds pretty painful to my ears. So I erased that, and patched in a chorus from later in the song. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Oh, also, during all the talking between songs, where band leader Paul Shaffer was trying to direct things, one or more people on stage kept playing guitar so loudly that it nearly drowned out what anyone was saying. So for most of those tracks, I used MVSEP to lower the volume of the guitar enough to make the talking more audible.  

The songs "I Saw Her Standing There" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" were officially released on the compilation album "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Volume 1: 1986-1991." Everything else here remains unreleased.

By the way, when it comes to the song list below, I only listed the name of the main lead singers. For all the songs, there was one of the most amazing gatherings of musical talent ever seen on one stage together. But it's next to impossible to figure out who was on stage doing what, other than the lead vocals. So that's why I kept the credits in the titles relatively simple. 

However, just as one example, it was Jeff Beck who started playing the "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" riff that led to that song being played, right when it seemed everyone was leaving the stage. Some of the others who were on stage at least part of the time but don't get mentioned in the song titles include: Neil Young, Paul Simon, Johnny Moore, Joe Blunt, Clyde Brown, Tom Fogerty, Les Paul, Arlo Guthrie, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Little Richard, Peter Wolf,  Dave Edmunds, Jeff Lynne, Julian Lennon, Sean Lennon, Little Steven, and Clarence Clemons.  

This album is an hour and six minutes long. 

01 talk (Mick Jagger)
02 talk (Ringo Starr)
03 talk (George Harrison)
04 talk (Yoko Ono)
05 talk (Julian Lennon)
06 talk (Sean Lennon)
07 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
08 talk (Bob Dylan)
09 Twist and Shout (Johnny Moore)
10 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan with George Harrison)
11 talk (Paul Shaffer)
12 I Saw Her Standing There (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
13 talk (Paul Shaffer)
14 Stand by Me (Ben E. King & Julian Lennon)
15 talk (Paul Shaffer)
16 Stop in the Name of Love [Edit] (Mary Wilson)
17 talk (Paul Shaffer)
18 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Hound Dog - Honey Hush (Elton John)
19 talk (Paul Shaffer)
20 Barbara Ann (Beach Boys)
21 talk (Paul Shaffer & John Fogerty)
22 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty with Bruce Springsteen)
23 talk (Paul Shaffer & John Fogerty)
24 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan with Bruce Springsteen)
25 talk (Paul Shaffer)
26 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Mick Jagger with Bruce Springsteen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SpmdHRju

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/yv9ChPKPJqpFcYT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Mick Jagger.

Various Artists - 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 10-30-2009

I just posted the first day of the two-day long 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert, in 2009. Here's the second day.

This second day concert followed the same format as the one on the first day. Read my write-up for more details about this two-day concert in general. Suffice to say that for this day, four major musical acts were chosen: Aretha Franklin, Jeff Beck, Metallica, and U2. Each of them hosted one fourth of the concert, and each had special guests join them during their sections. 

I was a bit surprised by the choice of Jeff Beck, since his record sales weren't nearly as big as the others. It turns out that section was supposed to be for Eric Clapton, but he got sick at the last minute and had to back out. So Beck was another "guitar hero" to fill a similar role.

I detailed in my write-up for the first day of this concert how I put a longer concert out of material from a DVD, plus the HBO broadcast, plus an audience bootleg. That's the same case here, except I didn't find an audience boot for all the otherwise missing songs. I did find such a boot for some of the Metallica songs, but that didn't even have the entire Metallica set. But it did get me "You Really Got Me," with Ray Davies of the Kinks as the guest. 

The Wikipedia page for this concert lists all the songs that were performed, in their correct order. Here's that page:

25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concerts - Wikipedia 

Based on that, it looks like I'm missing five songs. Here are the songs that I couldn't find:

Drown in My Own Tears - Jeff Beck (or possibly Aretha Franklin, I'm not sure)
Cause We've Ended as Lovers - Jeff Beck
Rough Boy - Jeff Beck & Billy Gibbons
One - Metallica
Stone Cold Crazy - Metallica 

That's too bad, but at least the vast majority is here. If anyone has any of the missing songs, please let me know. The first day concert that I posted is a little over four hours long, whereas this one is two and a half hours long. If you add in the missing songs, this probably totals about three hours, not four. So I think the first day one is a little longer, and better. I'll bet some of that was due to Bruce Springsteen, as his section on the first day was extra long.

One interesting note about this concert is that the collaboration of Metallica with Lou Reed - a very unexpected pairing - eventually led to the recordings of the album "Lulu," a joint Metallica and Lou Reed release, in 2011. 

A couple of performers who appeared in the first day concert also appeared in this one. Jeff Beck played a song on the first day, and had his own section here. Sting sang duets on both days. And Bruce Springsteen had his own section on the first day, and sang two songs with U2 here. Jerry Lee Lewis also opened both days with a song.

The sound quality is generally excellent. The quality is actually higher here than on the first day, because I only have one song sourced from an audience boot this time ("You Really Got Me," as mentioned above). I ran into many of the same problems with the first day, such as having to smooth over the transitions between songs by adding extra cheering noises. Read my write-up about the other concert for more details on all that. 

This album is two hours and 33 minutes long.

01 talk (Tom Hanks)
02 Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)
03 Baby, I Love You (Aretha Franklin)
04 Don't Play That Song [You Lied] (Aretha Franklin)
05 Make Them Hear You (Aretha Franklin)
06 talk (Aretha Franklin)
07 Chain of Fools (Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox)
08 Theme from New York, New York (Aretha Franklin)
09 Think (Aretha Franklin & Lenny Kravitz)
10 [I Never Loved a Man] The Way I Love You (Aretha Franklin)
11 Respect (Aretha Franklin)
12 People Get Ready (Sting & Jeff Beck)
13 Freeway Jam [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
14 talk (Jeff Beck)
15 Let Me Love You Baby (Buddy Guy & Jeff Beck)
16 Big Block [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck)
17 Rice Pudding [Instrumental] (Billy Gibbons & Jeff Beck)
18 Foxy Lady (Billy Gibbons & Jeff Beck)
19 A Day in the Life [Instrumental Version] (Jeff Beck)
20 For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica)
21 talk (Metallica)
22 Turn the Page (Metallica)
23 talk (Metallica)
24 Sweet Jane (Lou Reed & Metallica)
25 talk (Metallica)
26 White Light-White Heat (Lou Reed & Metallica)
27 talk (Metallica)
28 Iron Man (Ozzy Osbourne & Metallica)
29 Paranoid (Ozzy Osbourne & Metallica)
30 talk (Metallica)
31 You Really Got Me (Ray Davies & Metallica)
32 All Day and All of the Night (Ray Davies & Metallica)
33 Enter Sandman (Metallica)
34 Vertigo (U2)
35 Magnificent (U2)
36 talk (U2)
37 Because the Night (U2, Bruce Springsteen & Patti Smith)
38 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (U2 & Bruce Springsteen)
39 Mysterious Ways (U2)
40 Where Is the Love - One (U2 & the Black Eyed Peas)
41 talk (U2)
42 Gimme Shelter (U2, Mick Jagger, Fergie & will.i.am)
43 talk (U2)
44 Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of (U2 & Mick Jagger)
45 Beautiful Day (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UZjACSG5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mtktsXHvZPk8rgE/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: Bono, The Edge, Fergie, and Mick Jagger.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, Trans World Dome, St. Louis, MO, 12-12-1997

To quote Michael Corleone in "Godfather III," "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Every time I think I'm done posting BBC albums by the Rolling Stones, it seems I find another one. This one typically isn't considered a BBC album because it was broadcast on U.S. radio at the time, and also shown on pay-per-view TV. But I found out from the BBC website that it was broadcast on the BBC at the same time, so that makes it a BBC album in my book.

At the time of this concert, the Rolling Stones were promoting their latest album, "Bridges to Babylon." Four songs are from that album: "Anybody Seen My Baby," "Saint of Me," "Flip the Switch," and "Out of Control." Also notable are some guest stars: Dave Matthews, Taj Mahal, and Joshua Redman. The song the band played with Taj Mahal, "Corrina, Corrina," was only ever performed by them at this one concert.

In 1998, the band released a live album of their 1997 tour. It contained three songs from this exact concert: "Waiting on a Friend," "Corrina, Corinna," and "The Last Time." Otherwise, everything here has not been officially released in any audio format. However, a DVD of this concert also exists. 

Sigh. Due to the belated discovery of this album, the two Rolling Stones BBC albums that come after this have been renumbered. If you want to get the updated versions (with revised cover art and mp3 tags), here are the links:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-rolling-stones-bbc-sessions-volume_24.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-rolling-stones-bbc-sessions-volume.html

This concert is two hours and 28 minutes long.

01 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
02 Let's Spend the Night Together (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 Flip the Switch (Rolling Stones)
05 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
06 talk (Rolling Stones)
07 Wild Horses (Rolling Stones with Dave Matthews)
08 talk (Rolling Stones)
09 Anybody Seen My Baby (Rolling Stones)
10 Saint of Me (Rolling Stones)
11 talk (Rolling Stones)
12 Corrina, Corrina (Rolling Stones with Taj Mahal)
13 talk (Rolling Stones)
14 Out of Control (Rolling Stones)
15 talk (Rolling Stones)
16 Waiting on a Friend (Rolling Stones with Joshua Redman)
17 talk (Rolling Stones)
18 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
19 talk (Rolling Stones)
20 All about You (Rolling Stones)
21 talk (Rolling Stones)
22 Wanna Hold You (Rolling Stones)
23 talk (Rolling Stones)
24 It's Only Rock 'n Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
25 The Last Time (Rolling Stones)
26 talk (Rolling Stones)
27 Like a Rolling Stone (Rolling Stones)
28 Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)
29 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
30 talk (Rolling Stones)
31 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
32 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
33 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
34 talk (Rolling Stones)
35 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
36 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)

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

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/pEwrUXIMbAPo9Je/file

I couldn't find any good images from this exact concert. The cover photo is from another concert in the same tour, in August 1997. From right to left, that's Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, CA, 10-7-1981

I can't believe it's happened again! A while back, I thought I was done posting BBC albums by the Rolling Stones, but then I found another one and had to renumber the last couple. Then I found another one and had to renumber the last couple again. Now, I've found yet another one, and I've have to renumber the three that come after this! Sigh. Let's just pretend that never happened and this was my numbering all along.

This show, from the band's 1981-1982 world tour, was easy to miss because it doesn't get around much as a bootleg. I think that's because it's only half of a full show. Furthermore, the sound quality is not great. There are better recordings from this tour.

I can't do anything about the length, unfortunately. I found an audience bootleg from the same show, but it sounds pretty bad. However, I was able to do some audio editing, and I believe the show sounds much better now. For some reason, the BBC left in a lot of audience cheering all through the songs. I cut most of that out using the MVSEP problem. I also boosted Mick Jagger's lead vocals in the mix.

I think this show was first a "King Biscuit Flower Power" broadcast. But it was definitely broadcast by the BBC too, because the boot I had included the BBC DJ intros and outros. And while it's frustrating due to its short length, it is part of the Stones at the BBC, so I felt it necessary to post it here. 

If you're a stickler about album titles, please redownload the three Stones BBC concerts after this. I redid the cover art and the mp3 tags to all of them. And it turns out the mp3 tags were wrong for two of them anyway, due to all the confusion over the repeated renumbering. But everything should be good now.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Under My Thumb (Rolling Stones)
02 Let's Spend the Night Together (Rolling Stones)
03 Shattered (Rolling Stones)
04 talk (Rolling Stones)
05 Beast of Burden (Rolling Stones)
06 She's So Cold (Rolling Stones)
07 Hang Fire (Rolling Stones)
08 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
09 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
10 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
11 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
12 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3xQHEEDq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7pbPInoG0gixxOa/file

The photo is from this exact concert.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 10: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-29-2013

Here's the ninth and I assume last album of the Rolling Stones performing for the BBC. This time, it's a full concert from the massive yearly Glastonbury Festival in Britain. Despite it being 2013 and the festival has been happening steadily since about 1980, apparently this was the first time the Stones were invited to play there!

I mentioned in the previous album in this series, a BBC concert from 2006, that the Stones were getting long in the tooth. That even more so the case here. Lead singer Mick Jagger was 70 years old, which is frigging old for their style of energetic rock and roll. But in their defense, if you just listen to the recording, there's no way to tell. In my opinion, they still sound good and vibrant.

This is completely unreleased, and the sound is as good as you'd expect from the BBC. There were some problems though. The second half appears to be from a slightly different source. You can't tell based on the sound quality, but a difference was that, for that half, a BBC DJ talked between songs whenever possible. For instance, there was a couple of minutes of talking during the lengthy applause before the encore. But there was other talking as well. For instance, that annoying DJ talked over the last few seconds of "Midnight Rambler" and over the first few seconds of "You Can't Always Get What You Want." 

So I deleted the DJ talking whenever possible, like during the encore applause and after the final song. I also used the UVR5 audio editing program to remove his voice when he talked over songs. Those are the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles. Hopefully, the recording is now just the Stones.

One nice thing about this concert is that it has Mick Taylor guesting on two songs, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Taylor was the band's main lead guitarist starting in 1969, but he quit the band in 1974 and was replaced by Ronnie Wood. In recent years (writing this in 2024), he's been a guest star at quite a few Stones concerts.

In 2013, the band hadn't put out a new studio album in ages. So this is nearly all their best, classic songs. The only new song performed here was "Doom and Gloom," which came out on a 2012 greatest hits album.

This album is two hours and six minutes long.

UPDATE: On May 10, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same as before, but I changed the title (and cover art) after finding a previous BBC concert that I'd missed.

01 talk (Rolling Stones)
02 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 It's Only Rock 'n' Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 Paint It Black (Rolling Stones)
07 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
08 talk (Rolling Stones)
09 Glastonbury Girl [Factory Girl] (Rolling Stones)
10 talk (Rolling Stones)
11 Wild Horses (Rolling Stones)
12 talk (Rolling Stones)
13 Doom and Gloom (Rolling Stones)
14 talk (Rolling Stones)
15 Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
18 talk (Rolling Stones)
19 You Got the Silver (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 Happy (Rolling Stones)
22 Miss You Intro (Rolling Stones)
23 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
24 Midnight Rambler [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
25 talk (Rolling Stones)
26 2000 Light Years from Home (Rolling Stones)
27 Sympathy for the Devil [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
28 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
29 talk (Rolling Stones)
30 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
31 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
32 You Can't Always Get What You Want [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
33 talk (Rolling Stones)
34 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ikDyXXem

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WMxdpqUSA6nD3OH/file

The cover is from this exact concert. It shows Ronnie Wood on the left, Mick Jagger in the center, and Keith Richards on the right.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: In Concert, Hampden Park, Glasgow, Britain, 8-25-2006

I don't want to overwhelm people with all the Motown music I've been posting lately, so here's something different. Since I was recently posting some corrections to my series of Rolling Stones albums for the BBC, I might as well finish the series off. There are two remaining albums I want to post. One is a 2006 concert, and the other is a 2013 concert. Here's the 2006 one.

By 2006, the Stones were getting fairly long in the tooth. But they keep defying their ages and putting on lively concerts. They were promoting their 2005 album "A Bigger Bang." However, only three songs here are from it: "Oh No, Not You Again," "Rain Fall Down," and "Rough Justice." So this is basically their greatest hits. By this time, they were down to just three original members: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts. But Ronnie Wood had been with the band since 1976, so he'd become a key part of the band.

The sound quality of this bootleg is very good, but not excellent. There were no problems, and it seems to be complete.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
02 It's Only Rock 'N Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 Oh No, Not You Again (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 She's So Cold (Rolling Stones)
07 talk (Rolling Stones)
08 Sway (Rolling Stones)
09 talk (Rolling Stones)
10 Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
11 Rain Fall Down (Rolling Stones)
12 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
13 talk (Rolling Stones)
14 Slipping Away (Rolling Stones)
15 talk (Rolling Stones)
16 Before They Make Me Run (Rolling Stones)
17 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
18 talk (Rolling Stones)
19 Rough Justice (Rolling Stones)
20 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
21 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
22 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
23 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
24 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

NOTE: The download link had to be removed due to a copyright issue. Sorry. However, check towards the bottom of the comments.

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left, it shows Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Mick Jagger.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Earl's Court, London, Britain, 5-22-1976

I mentioned about a week ago that I recently discovered a few BBC albums that I had missed, which is resulting in some renumbering. This is another case of that. I had previously posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5" for a 1990 Rolling Stones concert. But now that I've stumbled upon this concert, from 1976, I'm renaming that one "Volume 6." Here's the download link if you want to get the updated version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-rolling-stones-bbc-sessions-volume.html

I'm happy I came across this concert, though I'm a bit bummed it's from 1976. I consider that the low point for the band in the 1970s, as I don't like much of their 1976 album "Black and Blue." That said, pretty much any Rolling Stones concert is solid, and that's the case here. 

It's also nice that the keyboardist the band was using at the time was none other than Billy Preston, who was a big star in his own right. So he was rewarded with the spotlight for two songs in the middle of the concert. Both of his songs were huge hits (and actually bigger than recent Stones hits.) "Outa-Space" went to Number Two in the U.S. singles chart in 1972, and "Nothing from Nothing" was a Number One hit in 1974. Apparently, during "Outa-Space," Stones lead singer Mick Jagger was sent on wires way up above the crowd to make it look like he was flying, which is why Preston can be heard mentioning something to the crowd about Jagger flying.

Perhaps the reason I didn't find this bootleg concert sooner is because it had a very big flaw: it seems the BBC only broadcast part of it, and a few songs they didn't broadcast were filled in with an audio bootleg that sounded terrible. I specifically refer to the first song, plus the last three songs. I decided it was better to use versions from another concert instead. For the first song and two of the last three, I found a soundboard bootleg of a concert in Paris, France, two weeks later that sounds about as good. However, for the very last song, "Sympathy for the Devil," I couldn't find anything with similar sound quality in 1976. So I had to resort to a recording from 1975. You can find all the details in the mp3 tags.

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long.

01 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
02 If You Can't Rock Me - Get Off of My Cloud (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 Hand of Fate (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 Hey Negrita (Rolling Stones)
07 talk (Rolling Stones)
08 Ain't Too Proud to Beg (Rolling Stones)
09 talk (Rolling Stones)
10 Fool to Cry (Rolling Stones)
11 talk (Rolling Stones)
12 Hot Stuff (Rolling Stones)
13 Starfucker (Rolling Stones)
14 You Gotta Move (Rolling Stones)
15 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Happy (Rolling Stones)
18 talk (Rolling Stones)
19 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 Nothing from Nothing (Billy Preston & the Rolling Stones)
22 Outa-Space [Instrumental] (Billy Preston & the Rolling Stones)
23 talk (Rolling Stones)
24 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
25 talk (Rolling Stones)
26 It's Only Rock 'n Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
27 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
28 talk (Rolling Stones)
29 Jumping Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
30 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
31 Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)

https://www.imagenetz.de/a8tXN

alternate:

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

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/otrB6UdRePHA5Mz/file

Luckily, the cover photo is from this exact concert. However, it only shows the band's two most famous members, Mick Jagger (left) and Keith Richards (right).

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-7-1990

Here's another nice Rolling Stones concert for the BBC, this one from 1990.

The Rolling Stones had a lot of problems for most of the 1980s, effectively breaking up for a couple of years. But they got back together with a new studio album in 1989, "Steel Wheels," and then had their first concert tour since the one started in 1981. It was their longest and most lucrative by far at that point in the band's history. By the time of this concert, the name of the tour had changed from "Steel Wheels" to "Urban Jungle," the set list had changed, and the set design had been redone. The tour came to an end about a month after this.

One thing I like about this concert is that it was still done with what I consider the "real" Stones, meaning when the band still had five long-term band members in it. At the end of the tour, bassist Bill Wyman would retire permanently. Many years later, in 2021, drummer Charlie Watts died. So now, as I write this, the band is technically only a trio of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, plus backing musicians. 

The band's 1989 "Steel Wheels" was pretty good, but it was hard for it to complete with all the classic albums and songs they'd done previously. They played five songs from that album in this concert: "Sad Sad Sad," "Almost Hear You Sigh," "Rock and a Hard Place," "Mixed Emotions," and "Can't Be Seen." However, "Can't Be Seen" wasn't included in the BBC broadcast for some reason, so it's the only song played that isn't included here either. (I'm not counting an instrumental recording of part of the song "Continental Drift" that was played right before the concert began.)

That means the other 19 songs were from the band's previous albums, and pretty much every single one of them was a popular classic. So this is the nearly the last excellent recording of the version of the band with Bill Wyman firing on all cylinders. As far as I know, this remains unreleased.

The only problem with this album's sound quality was the vocals were a bit low in the mix. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals.

This album is two hours and ten minutes long.

01 Continental Drift [Instrumental Version] (Rolling Stones)
02 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
03 Sad Sad Sad (Rolling Stones)
04 Harlem Shuffle (Rolling Stones)
05 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
06 talk (Rolling Stones)
07 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
08 talk (Rolling Stones)
09 Almost Hear You Sigh (Rolling Stones)
10 talk (Rolling Stones)
11 Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
12 talk (Rolling Stones)
13 Angie (Rolling Stones)
14 talk (Rolling Stones)
15 Rock and a Hard Place (Rolling Stones)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Mixed Emotions (Rolling Stones)
18 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
19 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
22 talk (Rolling Stones)
23 Happy (Rolling Stones)
24 Paint It, Black (Rolling Stones)
25 2000 Light Years from Home (Rolling Stones)
26 Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)
27 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
28 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
29 It's Only Rock 'N Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
30 talk (Rolling Stones)
31 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
32 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
33 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dAbprsDr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mE8IcjOnqlrTdPJ/file

The cover photo is of the band from this exact venue, Wembley Stadium, but about a month later. From left to right, that's Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman.

The Rolling Stones - Emotional Rescue - Alternate Version (1980)

I've been gradually posting Rolling Stones stray tracks albums, working my way chronologically through their long music career. Starting at this point with their 1980 album "Emotional Rescue," I'm going to take a different approach. In my opinion, from 1980 onwards, their albums were usually hit and miss (with occasional exceptions, such as their 1981 album "Tattoo You"). So instead of more stray tracks albums, I'm making alternate versions of most of their albums from 1980 and after. (I'm also making some cover versions albums and some other things.) In this way, I hope to make versions of these later day albums that are solid all the way through, just like nearly all of their output prior to 1980.

The Stones put out a classic album in 1978, "Some Girls." Their 1981 album "Tattoo You" is also a classic. So it's a bit strange that the album in between, "Emotional Rescue" in 1980, was considered both a commercial and critical disappointment. (It reached Number One in the charts in many countries, but that was momentum from the previous album, and it didn't stay high in the charts for long.) For instance, if you look at the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, it was their lowest rated album in their career up until then, and far below the ratings of "Some Girls" and "Tattoo You."

The Rolling Stones Albums: songs, discography, biography, and listening guide - Rate Your Music

In retrospect, I think there are two reasons this was a disappointing album. The first is that there was increasing conflict between the two main creative forces in the band, singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. Richards had been heavily using drugs through most of the 1970s, if not earlier, but he cleaned himself up in time for this album, after having narrowly dodged a long prison term for drug possession in Canada in 1978. During his drug years, he'd been content to let Jagger lead the band. But once he cleaned up, he wanted to take a bigger role. That should have been a good thing, but Jagger was used to being in charge by then. The songwriting suffered, since Jagger and Richards had often written songs together, much like the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team in the Beatles.

But even with that, the album should have been a really solid one, except for poor song selection. Most critically, three songs were rejected for this album, but were included on their next one, "Tattoo You," when the band all but stopped coming up with new songs for a while due to the Jagger-Richards conflict. Those three were "Hang Fire," "Little T&A," and "No Use in Crying." In my opinion, had those songs been included instead of the weakest ones that ultimately made it on the album, its reputation would be much, much better. Unfortunately for my purposes though, I don't want to use any of those three, since they work great as part of "Tattoo You."

That said, it still can be greatly improved by removing some songs and adding others. The ones I removed are: "Dance (Part 1)," "Send It to Me," "Indian Girl," and "Where the Boys Go." I'm sure other people would pick different ones to remove. In my opinion, some of these are less fully fleshed out songs and more riffs with dance beats added. The band wasn't afraid to dabble with disco, which was super trendy at the time, but I don't think many of their disco experiments look that good in retrospect (with the obvious exception of their big 1978 hit "Miss You").

Anyway, I've kept six songs from the album, and I've put those as the first six tracks here, in their original order. The remaining four come from elsewhere. "I Think I'm Going Mad" was an easy add. It was a B-side, released in 1979. That's another case of poor song selection, since I think it's better than many songs they chose to include on the album. 

You might recognize "Lonely at the Top," because it was a single from Jagger's 1985 solo album "She's the Boss." However, it started out as a Rolling Stones song in 1979. The version here is unreleased. The sound quality is a bit rough, and some of the lyrics hadn't been worked out yet. But I figure it's interesting enough to merit inclusion.

The last two songs are more examples of poor song selection for the album. They did get released, but not until decades later. Both were recorded in 1979 and could have been included on the album. But "Troubles A-Comin'" wasn't released until the 2021 super deluxe edition of "Tattoo You," and "We Had It All" wasn't released until the 2011 super deluxe edition of "Some Girls" (despite the fact that it was actually recorded a year after "Some Girls" was released). 

This album is 40 minutes long. By comparison, the original version was 41 minutes long.

01 Summer Romance (Rolling Stones)
02 Let Me Go (Rolling Stones)
03 Down in the Hole (Rolling Stones)
04 Emotional Rescue (Rolling Stones)
05 She's So Cold (Rolling Stones)
06 All about You (Rolling Stones)
07 I Think I'm Going Mad (Rolling Stones)
08 Lonely at the Top [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
09 Troubles A-Comin' (Rolling Stones)
10 We Had It All (Rolling Stones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5amzMzjj 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Rc7IdxuvqHKsfuj/file

The original cover used a thermal camera to take pictures of four members of the band. (I think drummer Charlie Watts got cut out.) I wanted something similar but different. Since the cover was already so strange, all I did was invert the colors for everything but the text at the top. You have to know the cover well to even tell the difference.

The Rolling Stones - Some Covers, Volume 2: 1979-1981

I posted "Some Covers, Volume 1" by the Rolling Stones back in September 2021. I planned to post Volume 2 soon thereafter. It's now two and a half years later. Oops! The reason for the delay was that I wanted to post my stray tracks albums for the band's "Some Girls" era, and that got delayed for various reasons I've explained elsewhere. So now I'm finally free to post this one.

Just like "Volume 1," this collects cover versions the band did that they didn't put on their studio albums at the time. But after getting themselves together and making the classic "Some Girls" album in 1978, the band started to split. Lead guitarist Keith Richards finally got off various drug addictions and wanted to take more of a leadership role in the band. But lead singer Mick Jagger didn't like that, and the two of them butted heads.

One result of that was the key members began taking part in more solo projects. There aren't any solo songs from Jagger, but there are two solo songs by Richards, one by guitarist Ronnie Wood, and two more by a short-lived side project band that was headed by both Richards and Wood, the New Barbarians.

Furthermore, Richards sings one of the Rolling Stones songs here, "Your Angel Steps Out of Heaven." As a result of all that, Richards sings four songs and Wood sings two. Normally, Jagger sang the vast majority of the songs for the band. But that leaves only seven songs for him, and two of those are duets with blues legend Muddy Waters. So that's a bit unusual, but that's what the source material gave me. I tried to sort the songs so that it usually alternates between one sung by Jagger and then one sung by Richards or Wood.

Only five of the songs here are officially released. "Going to a Go-Go" is from the rather obscure archival live album "Hampton Stadium." "Let’s Go Steady Again" is a duet between Richards and a lesser known female singer, Kristi Kimsey. This song comes from a Kimsey album called "As I Look Back." "Seven Days," a great Bob Dylan cover, is from a Ronnie Wood solo album. The two songs with Muddy Waters, "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "Champagne and Reefer," are from another fairly obscure archival live album called "Checkerboard Lounge Live."

That leaves the unreleased songs. "Linda Lu," "Your Angel Steps Out of Heaven," and "Sweet Home Chicago" are from studio sessions by the band. "Linda Lu" has "[Edit]" in the title because I thought it went on too long without purpose, so I edited out about a minute of it. The next two songs, "Apartment No. 9," and "Worried Life Blues," are from a soundboard bootleg of a New Barbarians concert. "Twenty Flight Rock" is from a concert in Hartford, Connecticut, during the band's big 1981 tour. Richards has a penchant for weepy country songs, surprisingly enough. The last two unreleased songs, "Oh, What a Feeling" and "Don't," were done by him as solo performances in the studio.

I've collected one more album of covers that deals with the rest of the 1980s. I hope it won't take as long before I post that one.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Linda Lu [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
02 Your Angel Steps Out of Heaven (Rolling Stones)
03 Sweet Home Chicago (Rolling Stones)
04 Apartment No. 9 (New Barbarians (Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood))
05 Worried Life Blues (New Barbarians (Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood))
06 Going to a Go-Go (Rolling Stones)
07 Let’s Go Steady Again (Rolling Stones with Kristi Kimsey)
08 Twenty Flight Rock (Rolling Stones)
09 Seven Days (Ronnie Wood)
10 Hoochie Coochie Man (Muddy Waters & the Rolling Stones)
11 Oh, What a Feeling (Keith Richards)
12 Down the Road Apiece (Rolling Stones)
13 Champagne and Reefer (Muddy Waters & the Rolling Stones)
14 Don't (Keith Richards)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16322317/TROLLNGSTNS1979-1981SmeCversVolum2_atse.zip.html

I picked a pretty strange Stones concert poster for the cover art to Volume 1. I did the same with this one. I don't have the details about this poster, but I cropped out much of it so I could focus on the flower with the Stones lips logo.

Various Artists - Prince's Trust Rock Gala, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 6-20-1986

Hmmm. I could have sworn I'd posted this months ago. I'd posted the 1982 Prince's Trust concert a while back. I was getting to post the next one in the series, from 1987, when I did a search and noticed this one wasn't here. So now you'll get two in a row, as I'll be posting the 1987 one today as well. 

Prince Charles, the crown prince of Britain at the time, ran a charity to help troubled youths. It's still going as I write this in 2024, and Charles has finally become king. 

These concerts didn't happen every year. In fact, I don't think there was any after the 1982 one I mentioned until this one, although there was a Dire Straits concert in 1985 that benefited the charity. This one, though, was truly a star-studded event. Perhaps inspired by Live Aid in 1985, the big names showed up in droves.

In fact, I find this concert frustrating, because so much big name talent was underused. The concerts started with sets by Big Country, Suzanne Vega, and Level 42. I definitely like Big Country and Suzanne Vega (whereas Level 42, not so much), and I've posted albums by them here. But it seems very odd to me that they got to play four or five songs each, while much bigger names like Sting, Mark Knopfler, George Michael, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger got less than one full song, since they only appeared as part of duets. Very strange.

That said, what there is here is quite good. It's just that I wish there had been a lot more of it. But as far as I can tell, this was the complete concert. I guess the organizers had to keep things relatively short because the concert was broadcast live on TV and radio in Britain. I gather the reason Big Country, Suzanne Vega, and Level 42 had such surprisingly long sets was because one purpose of the show was to showcase new talent. This is a trend with the other Prince's Trust concerts I'm aware of. At least in this year the new acts would end up being pretty good. (Some other years weren't so lucky.)

One special aspect of this concert is how much the big stars in the second half of the show performed together. You don't really see it in the artist credits on each song. For instance, typically, Phil Collins played drums, Elton John played piano, Midge Ure of Ultravox played rhythm guitar, and Eric Clapton or Mark Knoplfer played lead guitar. At one point, you can hear Rod Stewart joke about how happy he is to finally get Elton John in his backing band. But that's not all. You really the watch the video this (the whole thing can be found on YouTube as I type this) to see all the stars backing each other.

The highlights are many, too many for me to describe. But I'll point out that the biggest start of the evening had to be Paul McCartney, who closed the show. Keep in mind that, from the perspective of 1986, McCartney hadn't barely played in any concerts since the 1970s. Starting in 1989 he would go on a world tour, and he would tour often after that. But he'd only made three other concert appearances in the 1980s prior to this, and each one was just for a couple of songs at most. (For instance, he played one song for Live Aid in 1985.)

By the way, note that there's a flaw with the duet of "Dancing in the Street" by David Bowie and Mick Jagger. For some reason, Bowie's vocals are way down in the mix. I currently don't have the means to fix that, since it's tricky with them singing together most of the time. But with audio editing technology advancing recently, it probably will be fixable eventually.

Note that various versions of this concert have been officially released, both on audio and video. But as far as I can tell, none of them are complete. The audio version, for instance, is only the length of a single album. So there's a lot more music here.

This album is two hours and 17 minutes long.

01 Introduction (Emcee)
02 talk (Big Country)
03 Wonderland (Big Country)
04 Fields of Fire (Big Country)
05 talk (Big Country)
06 Look Away (Big Country)
07 Chance (Big Country)
08 talk (Big Country)
09 In a Big Country (Big Country)
10 talk (Big Country)
11 talk (Suzanne Vega)
12 Tom’s Diner (Suzanne Vega)
13 talk (Suzanne Vega)
14 Cracking (Suzanne Vega)
15 Small Blue Thing (Suzanne Vega)
16 talk (Suzanne Vega)
17 Marlene on the Wall (Suzanne Vega)
18 talk (Emcee)
19 Lesson in Love (Level 42)
20 Leaving Me Now (Level 42)
21 Something about You (Level 42)
22 talk (Level 42)
23 Your Song (Elton John)
24 talk (Phil Collins)
25 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
26 talk (Emcee)
27 Better Be Good to Me (Tina Turner)
28 talk (Tina Turner)
29 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton & Tina Turner)
30 talk (Eric Clapton)
31 Call of the Wild (Midge Ure)
32 talk (Midge Ure)
33 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler & Sting)
34 talk (Mark Knopfler)
35 Every Time You Go Away (Paul Young)
36 talk (Paul Young)
37 Reach Out (Joan Armatrading)
38 No One Is to Blame (Howard Jones)
39 talk (Rod Stewart)
40 Sailing (Rod Stewart)
41 I’m Still Standing (Elton John)
42 talk (Elton John)
43 Every Time You Go Away (Paul Young & George Michael)
44 talk (George Michael)
45 I Saw Her Standing There (Paul McCartney)
46 Long Tall Sally (Paul McCartney)
47 talk (Paul McCartney)
48 Dancing in the Street (David Bowie & Mick Jagger)
49 Get Back (Paul McCartney & Everyone)
50 talk (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kFX6wzSe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FFh3i4FUiXCUiKw/file

Each time one of these concerts happened, there typically was a group photo. If anyone wants to identify all the people in the photo, that would be great.

The Rolling Stones - Some More Girls 1 - Non-Album Tracks (1977-1978)

You might have noticed that I posted a series of stray tracks albums for the Rolling Stones up until two and a half years ago (writing this in February 2024), and then I stopped. That's because I got stuck around 1978 in their career. But I recently found a way to tackle this time period for the band. (Funnily enough, I also got stuck around 1978 with Bob Dylan's career for a long time.) I've created no less than three albums. The first is "Some Covers, Volume 1," an album entirely of cover versions that I posted back in 2021. Next comes this, "Some More Girls 1." That'll quickly be followed by "Some More Girls 2."

To understand why there's so much Rolling Stones material around 1978, you have to understand some of the band's history. In February 1977, the band's lead guitarist Keith Richards was caught by police in a hotel room with so much heroin that he was charged with drug trafficking, which could have resulted in a very long prison sentence, possibly even life in prison. Ultimately, his charge was reduced to mere drug possession and he only got a suspended sentence. But the band members didn't know that result until late 1978. In the meantime, the decided to record as much new music as possible, in case he was locked up for years.

Also in 1977, punk music was suddenly all the rage. The Rolling Stones had been coasting for a few years, reveling in their luxury lifestyle and taking way too many drugs. But they felt challenged by punk music and found new inspiration in wanting to stay relevant. The result was their 1978 album "Some Girls," widely considered to be one of their best. In fact, Rolling Stone Magazine has listed it as one of the 500 best albums of all time.

One reason it was so good was because they came up with so many new songs from all those sessions while worrying about Keith Richards' possible prison sentence that they had plenty to pick and choose from for the album. In fact, they wrote about 50 new songs, and only ten were used on the album. Some more would come out on their next two albums, "Emotional Rescue" and "Tattoo You." Then, in 2011, the "Some Girls" album was released with an entire second album of extra songs. Many of them were overdubbed, especially with lots of new vocals by lead singer Mick Jagger.

I've created two albums to gather all the extra songs from the "Some Girls" era that are publicly available. That includes most of the songs from the 2011 deluxe edition of the album, as well as lots of still unreleased outtakes. Note that I say "most of" because one of the deluxe edition songs, "We Had It All" was actually recorded in 1979, well after "Some Girls" was released. So I'll be putting that elsewhere. I've put another song, "Tallahassee Lassie," on the "Some Covers 1" album.

This album is composed of the remaining songs from the deluxe edition, plus one more. That one, "Everything's Turning to Gold," was released as a B-side in 1978.

I've arranged this so nearly all the songs are originals, with most of the cover versions going to the "Some Covers 1" album. The only cover here is "You Win Again," originally by Hank Williams. 

There's not much else to say, since this is very similar to the second disc of the deluxe edition of "Some Girls." Note though that I edited one song, "Petrol Blues." That's because it came to a very abrupt end that didn't sound good to me. So I took an small, instrumental portion from earlier in the song and added it to the end, then faded it out. That makes the song about ten seconds longer. I think it has a better finish now.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Claudine (Rolling Stones)
02 Everything's Turning to Gold (Rolling Stones)
03 So Young (Rolling Stones)
04 Do You Think I Really Care (Rolling Stones)
05 When You're Gone (Rolling Stones)
06 No Spare Parts (Rolling Stones)
07 Don't Be a Stranger (Rolling Stones)
08 I Love You Too Much (Rolling Stones)
09 Keep Up Blues (Rolling Stones)
10 You Win Again (Rolling Stones)
11 Petrol Blues [Edit] (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16307893/TROLLNGSTNS1977-1978SmeMreGrls1_atse.zip.html

The cover of "Some Girls" is very memorable. It's based on a vintage advertisement for female wigs, except some faces were replaced by members of the Rolling Stones and a random selection of female celebrities (as well as George Harrison, believe it or not). This led to legal trouble and the cover has since changed twice, but the basic look has stayed the same. I thought it would be fun to go with that same general idea. So I found a vintage ad for female underwear that seemed to have a similar vibe, and I used that. I also mimicked the font style and text placement for the words.

The Rolling Stones - Some More Girls 2 - Non-Album Tracks (1977-1978)

I just posted "Some More Girls 1," a collection of stray tracks by the Rolling Stones from 1977 and 1978. This is a complimentary album to that one, as you can tell by the name, containing yet more stray tracks from the same time period.

I mentioned in my write-up for "Some More Girls 1" that I was found myself unable to post these albums for over two years. That was almost entirely due to this album (and I wanted to post them together). The other one was easy, because it mostly contained the songs from the deluxe edition of the classic 1978 album "Some Girls." This one contains all the other good outtakes I could find from the same time period. 

For a long time, I felt this one just didn't hold up musically, compared to the other album. As I mentioned in my write-up for that album, the Rolling Stones recorded a surprisingly large number of songs in 1977 and 1978 - about 50 in total. Of the unreleased ones, nearly all of them have been bootlegged in some form or another. But the problem is that a lot of them just aren't very good. As I mentioned for that other album, the band was stockpiling songs because of a worry that lead guitarist Keith Richards would have to serve a long prison sentence (although in the end he didn't have to). In many, many cases, the band was just brainstorming ideas, with no vocals or only a hummed or mumbled melody. I suppose the idea was that if Richards had to go to prison, lead singer Mick Jagger was the band's main lyricist, and he could write and sing the vocals later. That's why, when the deluxe edition of "Some Girls" was released in 2011 with a dozen extra songs, most of the extra songs had new vocals added by Jagger, often with newly composed lyrics.

The short version of all that is that while there are many unreleased songs from this era, most are lacking intelligible lyrics (since they largely hadn't been written yet) or any vocals at all. Furthermore, the sound quality of these bootlegs varies wildly. Some of the songs I found I thought were pretty good, but the sound quality was lacking. 

In a way, my dithering paid off, because in late 2021, the band's 1981 album "Tattoo You" was rereleased as a deluxe edition, with an entire second album of extra songs. But despite being a classic album, "Tattoo You" was made up of revamped outtakes from the 1970s, so the extra songs were also all from the 1970s. It turns out four of those were from the 1977-1978 "Some Girls" sessions. So I was able to include them on this album and get rid of some of the more dodgy selections I'd previously had.

Furthermore, in the last couple of years, audio editing technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, thanks to artificial intelligence breakthroughs. So I was able to use this new technology to improve the mixes of some of the other songs, most especially by boosting the lead vocals on some of them.

I also ultimately decided less is more. I had some iffy songs that I wasn't sure to include on the album or not, or as bonus tracks or not. In the end, I decided to let most of them go. The end result is pretty decent, I think, though it still obviously doesn't compare with the "Some Girls" album itself, an undisputed classic.

Tracks 1, 2, 10, and 11 are from the "super deluxe edition" of Tattoo You, as mentioned above. Note that includes an early version of the classic hit "Start Me Up" that's different enough to be interesting. Also, the released version of "It's a Lie" is about five minutes long, and I thought that was too long. The song started to get boring for me. So I edited about a minute out of it.

The only other released song is "Don't Look Back," which was released as a single in 1977. Some might argue that it doesn't belong here, since it's not actually a Rolling Stones song. It was a duet performed by reggae star Peter Tosh and Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger. In my opinion, having Jagger's voice prominently featured makes it fit with the other songs. Besides, this was well before Jagger began a real solo career, so there's no better album from this era to add it to.

That leaves six unreleased songs on the album proper. Most of them had issues, which is why you see "[Edit]" included in the song titles for some of them. In some cases, I thought they went on too long, so I cut them down to a reasonable length, like I did with "It's a Lie." Keep in mind that the band was figuring these songs out as they were playing them, so they often went on extra long in their efforts to find the right groove. I have no doubt that most or all of them would have been shortened up eventually if they even were included on studio albums.

Note that one song, "So Young," also appears on "Some More Girls 1." But that was a full band version, and this one is basically just accompanied by a piano. So I thought both were worthy of inclusion. Also note that "Covered in Bruises" is sung by band member Ronnie Wood. It's an early version of the song "1 2 3 4," which ultimately came out on his 1981 solo album "1 2 3 4." But while that album has a solo version, this is an actual Rolling Stones version, done at the same time as most of the others here (typically, December 1977). I figured it also is different enough for inclusion, even to the point of having a different title.

As with the other album, I wanted the vast majority of the songs to be originals. So only one is a cover, "Shame, Shame, Shame," originally by Jimmy Reed. Most of the covers were put on the album "Some Covers 1" instead. In case you don't have that one yet, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-rolling-stones-some-covers-volume-1.html

This album still has its flaws. For instance, some songs still just have mumbled vocals instead of fully completed lyrics, like "Everlasting Is My Love" (call me crazy, but I think I hear Bruce Springsteen's name mentioned in that one). But still, I think this is a worthy album. While it can't compare with "Some Girls," some of these songs are as good or better than the ones that made it on their next album, the very uneven "Emotional Rescue."

The bonus track "You Don't Have to Go" is another example of a song that wasn't really finished. It was too rough for me to include on the album proper.

This album is 40 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Fiji Jim (Rolling Stones)
02 Shame, Shame, Shame (Rolling Stones)
03 Everlasting Is My Love [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
04 The Way She Held Me Tight [Misty Roads] (Rolling Stones)
05 Don't Look Back (Peter Tosh & Mick Jagger)
06 Never Make You Cry [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
07 So Young [Piano Version] (Rolling Stones)
08 Covered in Bruises [Early Version of 1 2 3 4] [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
09 Not the Way to Go [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
10 It's a Lie [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
11 Start Me Up [Early Version] (Rolling Stones)

You Don't Have to Go [Edit] (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16307883/TROLLNGSTNS1977-1978SmeMreGrls2_atse.zip.html

Check out the write-up of "Some Girls 1" for a better explanation of what this cover art is all about. Basically, I was trying to imitate the style of the official "Some Girls" cover, which was based on a vintage advertisement for female beauty products. I found another real vintage ad with a similar vibe, then added the text in the same style and locations the official album.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 7: Hall & Oates with Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin, Mick Jagger & Tina Turner, and Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood

I was hoping to post this at the same time as the others, but I got too busy. Anyway, this is the final part of the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid. The London portion will soon follow.

The biggest acts were saved for the end of the concert. First up was Hall and Oates, who were probably at the peak of their popularity in 1985. But more than half of their set was dominated by their guests, David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, both former lead singers for the Temptations. (The actual Temptations were still in existence and even had a big comeback hit in 1985 with "Treat Her like a Lady," so I wonder if they were passed over in favor of Ruffin and Kendricks.) Either Ruffin or Kendricks sang lead vocals on the last four songs, which were all Temptations classics from the 1960s. Note that Hall and Oates had started touring with Ruffin and Kendricks earlier in the year, and put out a live album with them later in the year.

Next up was Mick Jagger, lead vocalist for the Rolling Stones. In my opinion, he was clearly a substitute for having all of the Rolling Stones play. But around this time the Rolling Stones were having a rough patch, and almost broke up. Apparently, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, the guitarists for the Stones, didn't want to miss out on Live Aid entirely. So they backed Bob Dylan instead. It's telling how badly the Rolling Stones must have been getting on with each other that they didn't even make a guest appearance for Jagger's set, but played on the one immediately after instead.

Jagger had just put out his first proper solo album earlier in the year, "She's the Boss." It's unfortunate in my opinion that he performed a couple of songs from that during his set, "Lonely at the Top" and "Just Another Night." They're decent songs, but they don't seem worthy of the second to last act for the US version of Live Aid. At least he did play one Rolling Stone classic, "Miss You." Then he was joined by soul singer Tina Turner. They did "State of Shock," which is a song Jagger had done the year before with Michael Jackson and the rest of the Jacksons. Then they did another Stones classic, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)." Jagger rarely dueted with Turner, and I think these two songs by them may have been unique to this concert.

The last act was Bob Dylan. I'm glad they gave him the respect he deserved by giving him the most prestigious time slot, even though I'm sure his 1980s record sales were smaller than many of the acts that went on before him. It's interesting that the first two of the three songs he played were lesser known ones from his deep discography. But both obviously were selected with the Live Aid theme of helping the Ethiopian famine in mind. The first song, "The Ballad of Hollis Brown," was especially apt, as it told of a 1930s Midwest farmer that face crop failure and disaster. He finished with a crowd pleaser and all time classic, "Blowin' in the Wind." Unfortunately, while Dylan performed well, Richards and Wood didn't add much, mostly just strumming their guitars, probably with little to no practice beforehand.

Dylan caused some controversy, due to a comment he made between songs. He said: "I hope that some of the money... maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe... one or two million, maybe ... and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks." 

This pissed off organizer Bob Geldof, who later said: "He displayed a complete lack of understanding of the issues raised by Live Aid. ... Live Aid was about people losing their lives. There is a radical difference between losing your livelihood and losing your life. It did instigate Farm Aid, which was a good thing in itself, but it was a crass, stupid, and nationalistic thing to say." 

However, as Geldof points out, Dylan's comment did inspire the Farm Aid concert, which took place later that year and directly benefited US farmers. Furthermore, Farm Aid has become a yearly concert that continues to this day (as I write this in 2023). Over time, all those Farm Aid concerts have raised way more money for charity than Live Aid ever did. So if Dylan's comment helped cause all that, then I say kudos to Dylan. 

After that, there was a big finale with all the stars on stage, like these kinds of shows usually end. And naturally, the song they sang was "We Are the World," the charity single from earlier in the year that helped inspire the concert in the first place. There were some problems with the microphones, so some of the lead vocals weren't heard early in the song. On the DVD release, this was fixed by patching in some vocals from the "We Are the World" single. But I've kept to the untampered version. I don't think it sounds bad, and the patched in vocals prominently featured some people (Kenny Rogers and James Ingram) who weren't actually at the concert.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

149 talk (Bill Graham)
150 talk (Dionne Warwick)
151 Out of Touch (Hall & Oates)
152 talk (Hall & Oates)
153 Maneater (Hall & Oates)
154 talk (Hall & Oates)
155 Get Ready (Hall & Oates & Eddie Kendricks)
156 Ain't Too Proud to Beg (Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin)
157 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin)
158 My Girl (Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin)
159 talk (Bette Midler)
160 Lonely at the Top (Mick Jagger)
161 talk (Mick Jagger)
162 Just Another Night (Mick Jagger)
163 talk (Mick Jagger)
164 Miss You (Mick Jagger)
165 talk (Mick Jagger)
166 State of Shock (Mick Jagger & Tina Turner)
167 It's Only Rock 'n Roll [But I Like It] (Mick Jagger & Tina Turner)
168 talk (Bill Graham)
169 talk (Jack Nicholson)
170 talk (Bob Dylan)
171 The Ballad of Hollis Brown (Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood)
172 talk (Bob Dylan)
173 When the Ships Comes In (Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood)
174 talk (Bob Dylan)
175 Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood)
176 We Are the World (USA for Africa)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15699932/LveAidJFKStdiumPhladlphiaPA__7-13-1985_Part7.zip.html

As with most of the albums in this series, I have four pictures from the concert making up the cover. On the top left is Hall and Oates with David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, on the top right is Tina Turner and Mick Jagger, on the bottom left is Ronnie Wood, Bob Dylan, and Keith Richard, and on the bottom right is a portion of the large group of people on stage for the finale. If you look closely, you can see Lionel Richie and Dionne Warwick, both of whom were not given their own sets earlier in the concert.