Dr. Hook - Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Television Theatre, Shepherd's Bush, London, Britain, 11-25-1975

I was all set to post a "PBS Soundstage" episode starring the American band Dr. Hook. But then I noticed I have a BBC concert by that band that I meant to post months ago, but forgot about. So I'm posting that here first. The Soundstage episode will be posted soon as well.

 First off, note that this band was called "Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show" from its start in the late 1960s until 1975. But by the time this concert took place, they had shortened their name to just "Dr. Hook," so that's the name I'm using here.

Dr. Hook had a lot of success, mostly in the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1982, they had nine Top Forty songs in the U.S. But they don't seem to be that well remembered today. Perhaps that's because they covered a lot of musical ground, from jokey songs (mostly written by Shel Silverstein) to weepy ballads. Or perhaps it's because they were known for a wild and amusing stage show, which is hard to capture for posterity unless you were actually there to remember it. But in any case, they were an interesting band that always knew how to capture people's attention.

At the time of this concert, the band was best known for three songs: "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone,'" "Silvia's Mother," and "Only Sixteen." All three were Top Ten hits in the U.S. But strangely, neither of the first two were included here. In banter between songs, they hinted that the BBC didn't like "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'" because it mentioned a specific product, which was against BBC policy at the time. (In 1970, the Kinks even had to rerecord "Lola" just to change the words "Coca Cola" to "cherry Cola" so it could get played by the BBC.) But the failure to include "Silvia's Mother" is even stranger, since it was their one and only British hit at the time, and a big one too, reaching Number Two in Britain in 1972.

Normally, the BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test had several different musical acts perform on each episode. But sometimes they had one episode featuring just one act, and this was one such case. This remains officially unreleased.

Note that Dr. Hook did another BBC concert in 1980. I've found most of the songs for it on YouTube, but without any of the banter between songs, and very little applause. Also, I don't know the song order. So I'm not willing to post that one just yet. I hope a better version will emerge. (If you have one, please share!) If and when I do post that, this one will get renamed to "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." 

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 talk (Dr. Hook)
02 The Millionaire (Dr. Hook)
03 talk (Dr. Hook)
04 The Yodel Song (Dr. Hook)
05 talk (Dr. Hook)
06 Get My Rocks Off (Dr. Hook)
07 talk (Dr. Hook)
08 Only Sixteen (Dr. Hook)
09 talk (Dr. Hook)
10 Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Dr. Hook)
11 talk (Dr. Hook)
12 Everybody's Making It Big but Me (Dr. Hook)
13 Carry Me, Carrie (Dr. Hook)
14 Happy Trails (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eH97jR4b 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/mhbzRLq9KHuGi8a/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from this exact concert. I used Krea AI to improve the picture quality. 

Hall & Oates - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Old Grey Whistle Test, Wood Lane BBC 2 TV Centre, London, Britain, 5-18-1976

Still yet another renumbering. I previously posted a 1990 Hall and Oates concert as their only BBC album. But then I discovered this one, from 1976.

The Old Grey Whistle Test was a long-running BBC TV show. Typically, they had several different musical acts on each episode, but occasionally they would devote an entire episode to just one act. This was one such time. It's a bit surprising Hall and Oates got that much attention, because they weren't that popular yet, especially in Britain. They only had one minor hit in Britain at the time, "She's Gone," which just missed hitting the Top Forty singles chart in 1976. "Sara Smile" was a big hit in the U.S. that year too, but it completely missed the singles chart in Britain. Even so, I'm surprised it wasn't performed here. (Or at least it didn't get included if the BBC edited the show down.) Most of the big hits they're known for would come later, in the early 1980s.

This performance is unreleased. I couldn't find a bootleg of this anywhere. However, I found individual videos for all the songs on YouTube. I also found a set list with the correct song order. So I put them in order and edited them to make smooth transitions between songs. 

As mentioned above, I renamed the 1990 BBC concert they did after finding this one. Here's the link for that:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/07/hall-oates-bbc-in-concert-town-and.html 

I also found a 2003 BBC concert they did, so I plan on posting that. However, they also did a BBC concert in Battersea Park, London, at some point in 1998, which I can't find. So if anyone has that, please pass it on to me so I can post it.

01 Camellia (Hall & Oates)
02 talk (Hall & Oates)
03 Lady Rain (Hall & Oates)
04 Laughing Boy (Hall & Oates)
05 I'm Just a Kid [Don't Make Me Feel like a Man] (Hall & Oates)
06 Is It a Star (Hall & Oates)
07 talk (Hall & Oates)
08 She's Gone (Hall & Oates)
09 Gino [The Manager] (Hall & Oates)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cZZko5HQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BkQCz36VcVe2nBM/file 

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert.

Ralph McTell - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC TV Theatre, Shepherd's Bush, London, Britain, 11-9-1976

I have to admit I'm not very familiar with Ralph McTell or his music. Even his huge hit, "Streets of London," was a Number Two hit in Britain, and similarly big in some other countries, but it never was a hit at all in the U.S., so I was only barely familiar with it. But I found this unreleased solo acoustic BBC concert, and I gave it a listen and I liked it. So now I'm sharing it.

Ralph McTell, an English singer-songwriter, released his first solo album in 1968. His original song "Streets of London" was put on his second solo album in 1969. However, it wasn't released as a single until it was slightly redone in 1974. That's when it hit big and made him famous. But judging from the songs here, he's a lot more than just a one-hit wonder. On this album, he does a mix of originals and blues covers.

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Ralph McTell - Wikipedia

This is from an episode of the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" that mostly or entirely consisted of one of his concerts. I found a video file of this concert and converted it to mp3s.

This album is 40 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On October 4, 2025, I redid the mp3 download file. The musical content is exactly the same, but I changed the title to "Volume 2" after I found material for a "Volume 1," and I redid the cover art and mp3 tags.

01 talk (Ralph McTell)
02 Weather the Storm (Ralph McTell)
03 talk (Ralph McTell)
04 Dry Bone Rag [Instrumental] (Ralph McTell)
05 talk (Ralph McTell)
06 From Clare to Here (Ralph McTell)
07 talk (Ralph McTell)
08 Naomi (Ralph McTell)
09 talk (Ralph McTell)
10 Old Grey Rag [Instrumental] (Ralph McTell)
11 talk (Ralph McTell)
12 May You Never (Ralph McTell)
13 talk (Ralph McTell)
14 Big Tree (Ralph McTell)
15 talk (Ralph McTell)
16 Hesitation Blues (Ralph McTell)
17 Streets of London (Ralph McTell)
18 talk (Ralph McTell)
19 Winnie's Rag (Ralph McTell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6aMX1U2Q

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/8WmZVRB8TbHYy5C/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from this exact concert.

U2 - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Old Grey Whistle Test, Balmoral TV Studios, Belfast, Britain, 3-8-1987

I continue with more of U2 performing for the BBC. This is a short but interesting 1987 concert.

1987 was the year U2 went from being "mere" stars to being superstars, thanks to their blockbuster album "The Joshua Tree." This concert for the BBC TV Show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" took place the day before that album was released. In fact, after the show, at midnight, they went to a local record store and signed autographs for people waiting in line to buy the album as soon as it turned midnight. So this was the first public unveiling of two new songs, "Exit" and "In God's Country." ("Trip through Your Wires" had been performed just once prior to this.) Furthermore, they did two cover songs, "People Get Ready" and "Southern Man." They had done "Southern Man" a bunch of times in 1982, but this was the first time they ever played "People Get Ready" in public. Furthermore, this apparently was the only time they ever played "Pride (In the Name of Love)" in the same key as the album version.

The two last songs are unusual too, but I mention them separately because they're actually from a different show. The main show is rather short, only 22 minutes long. So I wanted to add a bit more. The last two songs (tracks 9 to 11) are from a brief appearance the band made on an Irish TV show just a week later. They did two covers. It was the first time they did "Springhill Mining Disaster," and it was the only time they ever did "Happy Xmas (Was Is Over)."

Everything here is unreleased, as far as I know. But the main show had some serious sound quality issues. There was a constant noise through the whole thing that was annoying. But I used some sound editing tricks to get rid of it. So I would imagine this sounds better than any other bootleg versions out there up to this point.

This album is 28 minutes long.

01 talk (U2)
02 People Get Ready (U2)
03 Southern Man (U2)
04 Trip through Your Wires (U2)
05 Exit (U2)
06 In God's Country (U2)
07 talk (U2)
08 Pride [In the Name of Love] (U2)
09 talk (U2)
10 Springhill Mining Disaster (U2)
11 Happy Xmas [Was Is Over] (U2)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16326160/UTOO1987BBSssonsVlum5OldGryWhstlTstBlmralTVStdosBlfstBrtin__3-8-1987_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact performance. (Note the "Whistle Test" sign in the background.) Unfortunately, it's probably a screenshot from the video and the picture quality isn't that great.

Linda Ronstadt - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Old Grey Whistle Test, New Victoria Theatre, London, Britain, 11-13-1976

Here's a concert Linda Ronstadt performed for the BBC, done for the "Old Grey Whistle Test" TV show in 1976.

In August 1976, Ronstadt released the studio album "Hasten Down the Wind." It continued her steady rise in popularity, though her next album, "Simple Dreams," would be her biggest seller. Six of the songs here are from "Hasten Down the Wind" - tracks 2, 3, 10, 12, 14, and 17. The rest come from her previous albums.

Everything here is unreleased. I haven't seen any audio bootlegs of this concert anywhere. However, it was a TV appearance, and I found a high quality video file of it. So I converted it to audio and broke it into mp3s. The sound quality is excellent throughout.

The only downside is that this is shorter than a typical concert, no doubt edited down to fit the time allowed on the TV show. This album is 48 minutes long.

UPDATE: On March 10, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I changed the name of the album, adding "Volume 1" after I discovered material for a "Volume 2."

01 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Lose Again (Linda Ronstadt)
03 That'll Be the Day (Linda Ronstadt)
04 Love Has No Pride (Linda Ronstadt)
05 Silver Threads and Golden Needles (Linda Ronstadt)
06 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
07 Willin' (Linda Ronstadt)
08 It Doesn't Matter Anymore (Linda Ronstadt)
09 When Will I Be Loved (Linda Ronstadt)
10 Crazy (Linda Ronstadt)
11 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
12 The Tattler (Linda Ronstadt)
13 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
14 Lo Siento Mi Vida (Linda Ronstadt)
15 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
16 Love Is a Rose (Linda Ronstadt)
17 Hasten Down the Wind (Linda Ronstadt)
18 Tracks of My Tears (Linda Ronstadt) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4A9T4Ub1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WKQuonrWIqT3dIj/file

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Big Country - Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC, The Hexagon, Reading, Britain, 4-14-1986

I still have mountains of BBC material to post, so here's a bit more. The British band Big Country have done several concerts for the BBC. I'm not a really big fan of the band, but I do really like a few of their hits, such as "Wonderland," "Fields of Fire," "Look Away," and "In a Big Country," so I figure they deserve at least one concert here. I picked this one because I thought it's from a good time period, and has worthy sound quality. They were the most popular in the first half of the 1980s, and this contains all of their most famous songs from that time.

This concert remains officially unreleased. It's from the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." They devoted a full hour to showing this concert. Unfortunately, the show ended about a minute before the last song, "Fields of Fire," finished. You can find the full video on YouTube and see where it fades out. However, it turns out there's a complete version of the concert that has only been released on DVD. A commenter named Santaci kindly pointed this out to me and then converted the audio and sent it to me. I then was able to add in the missing portion of the song. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

In terms of sound quality, I thought the vocals were a bit low in the mix, so I used the audio editing program UVR5 to boost the vocals relative to the instruments. Otherwise, everything sounded fine.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 talk (Big Country)
02 Wonderland (Big Country)
03 Where the Rose Is Sown (Big Country)
04 talk (Big Country)
05 Remembrance Day (Big Country)
06 I Walk the Hill (Big Country)
07 talk (Big Country)
08 Look Away (Big Country)
09 Chance (Big Country)
10 The Teacher (Big Country)
11 talk (Big Country)
12 In a Big Country (Big Country)
13 Inwards (Big Country)
14 Harvest Home (Big Country)
15 Fields of Fire [Edit] (Big Country)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15833665/BgCountry_1986_OldGryWhstleTestBBCTheHexagnReadngBrtain__4-14-1986_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of the band is from the yearly Knebworth Festival in Britain, on June 9, 1986.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Old Grey Whistle Test, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 4-24-1983

The previous four volumes of Joni Mitchell at the BBC all date from the first half of the 1970s. As far as I can tell, the only time she performed for the BBC after that was this concert in 1983. It was for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." I figured these are only selections from a longer concert, but I couldn't find the rest. I figure having some of it is better than nothing.

The 1980s were not a good musical decade for Mitchell. Like many musical greats who were big in the 1960s and/or 1970s, she tried to move with the musical trends of the times, but in retrospect, the 1980s production techniques on her albums haven't aged well and didn't really suit her music.

That said, she sounds great here. It actually doesn't have much to do with her 1980s music, because the BBC only selected two songs from her 1982 album "Wild Things Run Fast:" "Solid Love" and "Chinese Cafe - Unchained Melody." (And "Unchained Melody" is a classic ballad from the 1950s.) Otherwise, this concert sounds like it could have been from the mid-1970s. She played all the songs with a band, but it wasn't as jazzy as her late 1970s stuff.

The sound quality is excellent. At first, I thought the banter between songs was cut by the BBC. But I looked at a couple other concerts she did in 1983, and she barely had any banter in those concerts either, so I guess she just wasn't much for talking in concert that year.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Song for Sharon (Joni Mitchell)
04 God Must Be a Boogie Man (Joni Mitchell)
05 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
06 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
07 Carey (Joni Mitchell)
08 Amelia (Joni Mitchell)
09 [You're So Square] Baby, I Don't Care (Joni Mitchell)
10 Solid Love (Joni Mitchell)
11 Chinese Cafe - Unchained Melody (Joni Mitchell)
12 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15480061/JoniMchl_1983_BBSessionsVolum5OldGryWhistlTstWemblyArnaLondnBrtain__4-24-1983_atse.zip.html 

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Jackson Browne - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Television Theatre, London, Britain, 12-7-1976

In the early and mid-1970s, Jackson Browne's popularity had been slowly but steadily growing. He wasn't well known in Europe though, since he'd never toured there. But in 1976, he did his first European tour, to promote his latest album, "The Pretender." This isn't from a BBC radio show, it's from the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test," so that was a big promotional boost for him. This recording is rather short due to limits on TV time, but I presume he brought his A-game to make the best out of it.

One slightly odd aspect of this show is that singer-songwriter Warren Zevon was the supporting act for Browne's European tour, and he was generously given a spot in this show. He sang his song "Mohammed's Radio," with Browne helping on backing vocals.

This sound quality is the usual BBC high quality. But there was on problem. The last song, "The Pretender," faded out about three and a half minutes into it, and it's a seven-minute-long song. I assume that's because Browne had a certain allotted amount of TV time to perform and he went over it. So I found a different version of the song also with high quality, from 1976 (taken from a concert in Amsterdam), and I patched that in to finish the song off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

This concert is 48 minutes long.

01 talk (Jackson Browne)
02 Something Fine (Jackson Browne)
03 talk (Jackson Browne)
04 For Everyman (Jackson Browne)
05 talk (Jackson Browne)
06 Fountain of Sorrow (Jackson Browne)
07 talk (Jackson Browne)
08 The Only Child (Jackson Browne)
09 talk (Jackson Browne)
10 For a Dancer (Jackson Browne)
11 talk (Jackson Browne)
12 Mohammed's Radio (Warren Zevon & Jackson Browne)
13 talk (Jackson Browne)
14 The Pretender [Edit] (Jackson Browne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362727/JACKSNBRWN1976BBSessonsVlum2OldGryWhitleTst__12-7-1976_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VrEx3BSw

The cover photo is from an unknown concert in 1976.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Old Grey Whistle Test, New Victoria Theatre, London, Britain, 4-22-1974

In 1974, Joni Mitchell arguably reached the pinnacle of her commercial success. She released the album "Court and Spark" near the start of the year. It reached Number Two in the US and sold a couple million copies. For all her previous album, she'd generally stuck to a solo acoustic sound, whereas this one was rocking, with a full band. For her next few albums she would turn more towards jazz, so this was the closest she got to a conventional rock sound. 

Towards the end of the year, she released a live album, called "Miles of Aisles," which was recorded in August 1974. It was a good time for a live album for her, allowing her to do her earlier acoustic songs with a full band. However, it only contained one song from her hit album "Court and Spark," and it was "People's Parties," which wasn't one of the album's hits. Furthermore, there was almost no banter recorded between the songs.

Unfortunately, there are almost no truly excellent sounding bootlegs from her 1974 concert. In fact, the only one with a soundboard level quality that I know of is this one. However, there are problems. About 45 minutes of this show was broadcast on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." I think more of it was broadcast for BBC radio. Three of the songs seemed to have not been bootlegged at all. Ditto with the banter between songs. 

So I've had to cobble this together from different sources. The "Old Grey Whistle Test" songs all sound great. But they were selected as highlights from throughout the show, rather than being a bunch. The rest generally sound almost as good, but there are some exceptions. There were some sonic flaws here and there. For instance, for the last song, "Twisted," there were about ten seconds that were all messed up, so I patched that with a version with a lot lower sound quality. Also, there was no applause at the end. So again I patched in a different version for the very end, allowing me to include all the cheering after the song. I had to do a similar patch for "(He Played Real Good) For Free." That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. There are a couple other spots with minor problems that I decided not to fix, since using a lower quality patch probably wouldn't sound any better.

I also decided to do something about the three songs that didn't get bootlegged:  "This Flight Tonight," "Woodstock," and "Jericho." For those, I used the best alternate versions I could find, which was a concert in Ambler, Pennsylvania, in August 1974 for the first two, and one in Seattle, Washington, for the last one. For the banter, I used additional bits of the concerts from Ambler and Seattle. But I listened to several bootlegs of her 1974 concerts, and there just wasn't that much banter.  For instance, for most of those concerts, she played the first six or so songs without any talking at all between songs. So this recording reflects that, with banter only before some of the songs. But she did talk extensively in a few cases.

I expect that in the next year or two, Mitchell will release her third "Archives" box set, which will include this time period. So hopefully we'll get a full version of a 1974 concert. Until then, this is the best version out there.

This concert is an hour and 47 minutes long. That makes it significantly longer than "Miles of Aisles," which is an hour and 18 minutes long.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 This Flight Tonight (Joni Mitchell)
03 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Joni Mitchell)
04 Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell)
05 The Same Situation (Joni Mitchell)
06 talk (Joni Mitchell)
07 Just like This Train (Joni Mitchell)
08 Rainy Night House (Joni Mitchell)
09 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
12 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 People's Parties (Joni Mitchell)
15 All I Want (Joni Mitchell)
16 talk (Joni Mitchell)
17 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
18 talk (Joni Mitchell)
19 Jericho (Joni Mitchell)
20 talk (Joni Mitchell)
21 For the Roses (Joni Mitchell)
22 talk (Joni Mitchell)
23 Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire (Joni Mitchell)
24 Blue (Joni Mitchell)
25 [He Played Real Good] For Free [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
26 Trouble Child (Joni Mitchell)
27 Help Me (Joni Mitchell)
28 Car on a Hill (Joni Mitchell)
29 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
30 Raised on Robbery (Joni Mitchell)
31 The Last Time I Saw Richard (Joni Mitchell)
32 Twisted [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.imagenetz.de/files/b7373b6fffb53f0562198d681bed3edb.zip

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/N5zVuRJf

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jPjrQiMPwyIs5yk/file 

The cover photo actually comes from a Joni Mitchell concert at this exact venue in April 1974. But apparently she played there a few nights, because the photo is from two days earlier, April 20th.

Billy Joel - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC TV Centre, London, Britain, 3-13-1978

I've got so many bootleg BBC concerts to post that it's crazy. I keep finding more and more. I'm sure I have over a hundred new ones to post. The thing is, it's often the case that they're both uncommon as bootlegs and have really excellent sound, so they need more attention. Here's a case in point. I already posted a Billy Joel BBC concert, from 1984, but I recently discovered this one from 1978, back when he was just starting to be a big star.

This concert was done for BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." Usually, that show would have several different artists for each show, but occasionally they would use the entire show for just one. That's the case here. I was surprised that one of his biggest hits at the time, "Piano Man," wasn't played. But I discovered that he was on that show in 1975, for just two songs, and that was one of them. So I've added those two at the start. Note those two songs don't have any cheering after them, but the rest of them do.

This album is 53 minutes long. The 1978 concert, minus the two 1975 songs at the start, is 43 minutes long.

UPDATE: On December 4, 2023, I updated the cover art to match that of the other two covers in this BBC series.

01 Travelin' Prayer (Billy Joel)
02 Piano Man (Billy Joel)
03 Miami 2017 [Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway] (Billy Joel)
04 talk (Billy Joel)
05 Movin' Out [Anthony's Song] (Billy Joel)
06 talk (Billy Joel)
07 New York State of Mind (Billy Joel)
08 talk (Billy Joel)
09 The Entertainer (Billy Joel)
10 She's Always a Woman (Billy Joel)
11 Root Beer Rag (Billy Joel)
12 talk (Billy Joel)
13 Just the Way You Are (Billy Joel)
14 Souvenir (Billy Joel)
15 Ain't No Crime (Billy Joel)
16 talk (Billy Joel)
17 Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16020623/BillyJ_1978_BBSessionsVolume1OldGryWhistleTest__3-13-1978_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. The video of it can be seen at YouTube.

Bonnie Raitt - BBC Concert: Old Grey Whistle Test, Shepherd's Bush Studios, London, Britain, 3-23-1976

In the 1970s, "The Old Grey Whistle Test" was a popular BBC TV show. Typically, it would have a variety of different performers for each show, but occasionally it would devote an entire show to just one artist. One such occasion was when the American singer Bonnie Raitt played a short concert for the show in London in 1976.

I've posted some of Raitt's acoustic concerts from the early 1970s. But by 1976, she was playing with a full band, so this is a different kind of concert from her. Most of the songs are from her early 1970s albums, but she also does a couple from her latest at the time, "Home Plate," released in 1975. 

This concert is rather short, at only 39 minutes. But I came across another live TV appearance she did one year later for the US TV show "The Midnight Special" where she did her 1977 hit "Runaway" plus another song from her 1977 album "Sweet Forgiveness." So I added those two at the end. That makes the whole album 47 minutes long.

01 Love Me like a Man (Bonnie Raitt)
02 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
03 Too Long at the Fair (Bonnie Raitt)
04 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
05 I'm Blowin' Away (Bonnie Raitt)
06 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
07 You've Got to Know How (Bonnie Raitt)
08 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
09 Write Me a Few of Your Lines - Kokomo Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
10 Sugar Mama (Bonnie Raitt)
11 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
12 What Do You Want the Boy to Do (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
14 Under the Falling Sky (Bonnie Raitt)
15 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
16 Angel from Montgomery (Bonnie Raitt)
17 Home (Bonnie Raitt)
18 Runaway (Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15165254/BonniR_1976_BBSessionsVolume1OldGryWhstleTest__3-23-1976_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 1976 concert, but I don't know which one exactly. I could have used a screenshot from the TV show, which is on YouTube, but the quality of this picture is significantly better.

The Kinks - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: Christmas Concert - Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 12-24-1977

I'm continuing to post a series of what I consider are the best Kinks concert recordings. The emphasis there is on "recordings," because the Kinks were usually very good in concert, but only rarely were entire concerts recorded at the very highest sound quality.

It so happens that 1977 saw two such concerts, one right at the beginning of the year, and the other right at the end. I've already posted one, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-kinks-winterland-san-francisco-ca-2.html

It so happens that the two 1977 concerts have fairly different setlists, so I think it's worth it to post both of them. This second concert was performed on Christmas Eve, so it's widely known as the "Christmas Concert." It was recorded for the TV show "Old Grey Whistle Test," and shown on BBC TV at the time. (The Kinks played some other songs for that same show in March 1977, and I've included those on one of my "At the BBC" collections.) Thus, I've included this in my BBC Sessions album series.

This is widely considered one of the best Kinks concert recordings. I've even seen it on a blogger's list of the best bootlegs of all time. The only downside is that it's a mere hour long, instead of the usual hour and-a-half to two-hour-long concert the Kinks did in those years. I'm guessing that's because the Old Grey Whistle Test had an hour-long format. I don't know if the Kinks played more songs that didn't make the show, but if they did, I can't find any trace of them anywhere.

Probably due to the time limitation, the Kinks put on a very tight concert, with relatively little talking between songs. In fact, several songs quickly follow each other, or even could be considered parts of medleys. I've separated what little talking there is onto separate tracks.

This album is one hour long.

01 Juke Box Music (Kinks)
02 Sleepwalker (Kinks)
03 Life on the Road (Kinks)
04 talk (Kinks)
05 A Well Respected Man (Kinks)
06 Death of a Clown (Kinks)
07 Sunny Afternoon (Kinks)
08 Waterloo Sunset (Kinks)
09 All Day and All of the Night (Kinks)
10 talk (Kinks)
11 Slum Kids (Kinks)
12 talk (Kinks)
13 Celluloid Heroes (Kinks)
14 talk (Kinks)
15 Get Back in the Line (Kinks)
16 talk (Kinks)
17 The Hard Way (Kinks)
18 Lola (Kinks)
19 Alcohol (Kinks)
20 Skin and Bone - Them Bones (Kinks)
21 Father Christmas (Kinks)
22 You Really Got Me (Kinks)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700790/TKNKS1977d_BBSessonsVolum7RainbwThetre__12-24-1977_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used an actual screenshot from the concert in question, since it was shown on TV. The best image I could find shows just the head of Ray Davies, instead of the whole band. When I updated the album in February 2021, I stripped the black background behind Davies and replaced that with the same sort of background that I used in all the other BBC Sessions albums.