Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 6-30-1971, Part 5: Elvin Bishop, Taj Mahal, and More

Here's the fifth set from the first day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set is different. Instead of featuring one musical act, it was a bonus jam session after all the acts scheduled to perform had finished their sets. 

I luckily found this set on YouTube, then converted it to audio format and broke it into mp3s. The text for that contained some informative text taken from Wolfgang's Vault, so I'll repeat that here: 

"As many may already know, on the final night (July 4th) of the closing week festivities at Fillmore West a lengthy jam session occurred, featuring many great musicians and singers. What few remember is that a similar event occurred earlier in the week (on the first night, June 30th). It was this jam session, in fact, that provided the two tracks that made it onto the 'Fillmore: The Last Days' live release. The core band includes Elvin Bishop on lead guitar, Stephen Miller (from Elvin's band) on organ, David Brown (from Boz Scaggs' band) on bass and Michael Shrieve (from Santana) on drums. This was one of the few sets not broadcast locally, and until these pre-production reels were recently discovered in the Bill Graham Archive, nobody was aware that most of this jam session existed on tape. This part of the session features Lester Chambers of The Chambers Brothers on lead vocals. On 'Have You Ever Been Mistreated,' Chambers sings in an unfamiliar falsetto and on 'You Better Believe,' sings in his distinctive voice, with the Pointer Sisters punching out their gospel-fueled vocals between each line of the verses. A truly captivating performance." 

I have some more information to add. This set also included some lead vocals by Linda Tillery, who was the lead singer for the band the Loading Zone. And Jo Baker was involved as well. She sang lead on some songs in the Elvin Bishop Group at the time. The Pointer Sisters sang lead vocals on one song. Their involvement here is especially interesting because they were just starting out. They signed a record contract at some point in 1971, and released a single later that year, as well as another one in 1972. But their debut album wouldn't come out until 1973.

The credits in the song list are only for the main lead vocalists. Many others were involved, but it's pretty much for me to tell who was playing on each song. But, for instance, the Pointer Sisters were an opening act for the Elvin Bishop Group in 1971, and doing a lot of backing vocals in studio sessions. So they sang some backing vocals here as well. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 We Gonna Rock (Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop & Boz Scaggs)
02 Long and Tall (Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop & Boz Scaggs)
03 You Got Me Hummin' (Pointer Sisters)
04 I Found a Love (Linda Tillery)
05 Why I Sing the Blues (Linda Tillery)
06 Have You Ever Been Mistreated (Lester Chambers)
07 You Better Believe (Lester Chambers)
08 talk (Elvin Bishop)
09 Blues Jam (Elvin Bishop & Everyone)
10 talk (Elvin Bishop)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2x78nZby

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/kq2pNq5x6Li4Q5X/file

I thought it would be tough to find a good cover photo for this album, since there wasn't one main musical act this time. So I was tickled pink to discover a photo of Boz Scaggs, Taj Mahal, and Elvin Bishop from this exact concert. It must be from the first two songs. That's Scaggs, Mahal, and Bishop from right to left. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

The Pointer Sisters with Dan Hicks - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 3-15-1974

Here's another episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. This one stars the Pointer Sisters. As I made it, I realized the album would be pretty short. So I added in two songs performed by Dan Hicks from the same episode. I think that's a good fit, since both acts at this time were performing older styles of music not commonly played in the 1970s, like swing.

I've already posted a televised BBC concert by the Pointer Sisters that was broadcast in February 1974. This was broadcast just one month later. (Unfortunately, with TV shows like this, I usually only have the broadcast dates, not the actual recording dates.) So one would think the two appearances would be pretty similar, but at least half of the material was different.

One thing I noticed is that there were four Pointer Sisters at this time: Anita, Bonnie, Ruth, and June (all of them actual sisters). In the BBC concert the month before, all four performed. But in this concert, June wasn't there. Maybe she was sick or something? I don't know. They would remain a foursome until 1977, when Bonnie would leave for a solo career. One song here, "Black Coffee," was sung just by Bonnie.

The presence of Dan Hicks here is curious, due to the timing. Hicks was the leader of the band Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks from 1967. But he broke up the band in 1973, later saying, "It was getting old. We became less compatible as friends. I was pretty disillusioned, had some money, and didn't want to do it any more." The last album with the Hot Licks came out in 1973. He wouldn't release a solo album until 1978. So this appearance took place at a time when he didn't have a new album to promote, or even a backing band of his own. I'm just speculating here, but perhaps since the Pointer Sisters were the hosts of the episode, they had some influence on which other acts would be chosen for the episode, and they wanted Hicks since he was interested in the same sort of retro styles they were at the time. 

In any case, here's the Wikipedia links for Hicks:

Dan Hicks (singer) - Wikipedia 

In case you're curious, the other musical acts in the episode were Focus, Billy Paul, the Crusaders, the Butts Band, and the Strawbs. 

The last song, "Cloudburst," is not from this episode. Instead, it's the only song they performed when they were on the show for the July 20, 1973 episode. They wouldn't be on the show again until much later. They would host it again in 1979, and Bonnie Pointer would be a host as a solo artist in 1980. I'll probably make an album out of that once those episodes are made public.

As usual with these episodes, I did a lot of editing to get rid of the gaps between nearly every song,  due to commercial breaks or switches to other musical acts. I mostly did this by adding in more applause. Also, the song "Wang Dang Doodle" was heavily edited. After about two minutes, the recording of the song came to an end, because the TV broadcast ended at that point, in mid-song. So I went looking for a different version of the song. I found a good one, from the European TV show "TopPop," broadcast on January 28, 1974 (with all four sisters). I used that to finish off the song. Also, since it was a studio version, I added applause at the end so it would fit in with the rest of the concert. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 talk by Wolfman Jack (Pointer Sisters)
02 Yes We Can Can (Pointer Sisters)
03 talk (Pointer Sisters)
04 13-D (Dan Hicks)
05 talk (Pointer Sisters)
06 Little Pony (Pointer Sisters)
07 talk (Pointer Sisters)
08 Salt Peanuts (Pointer Sisters with Wolfman Jack)
09 Bangin' on the Pipes - Steam Heat (Pointer Sisters)
10 Hummin' to Myself (Dan Hicks)
11 Black Coffee (Bonnie Pointer)
12 Wang Dang Doodle [Edit] (Pointer Sisters)
13 Cloudburst (Pointer Sisters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Eh6PKabY

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/K3x5rrGxyWSaIx9/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. The screenshot was taken by a volunteer named Liam, who also did most of the rest of the cover work.

The Pointer Sisters - BBC in Concert, London, Britain, 2-12-1974

Here's yet another version of the BBC "In Concert" TV shows from the early 1970s. On the downside, that means it's a fairly short concert. But on the upside, like most of these other than some of the big names, it's never been converted to an audio bootleg until now. 

Most people who think of the Pointer Sisters probably think of them as the pop act they were in the early 1980s, scoring with big hits like "I'm So Excited," "Automatic," "Slow Hand," and "He's So Shy." But this group was significantly different when this was recorded in 1974. For one thing, there were four Pointer Sisters, not three as there would be later, and yes, they were sisters. But also, musically, they had a mostly retro sound, with a look like a girl group from the 1930s or 1940s. However, while they did some old timey jazz and bebop, they also did funk, and country, and more. At this time, they'd only had one album one, with a second about to be released, but they'd already had two R&B hits with "Yes, We Can Can" and "Wang Dang Doodle."

Here's their Wikipedia if you want to know more:

The Pointer Sisters - Wikipedia

Despite the fact that there are only five songs here, you can see their stylistic variety, for instance going from country with "Fairytale" straight to some great funk with "Yes, We Can Can." 

This album is only 28 minutes long.

01 Salt Peanuts (Pointer Sisters)
02 Fairytale (Pointer Sisters)
03 Yes, We Can Can (Pointer Sisters)
04 Wang Dang Doodle (Pointer Sisters)
05 Old Songs (Pointer Sisters)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271339/TPointrS_1974_BBInConcertLondnBritain__2-12-1974_atse.zip.html

I could have used a screenshot from the YouTube video of this concert, but it would have been fairly low resolution, especially to have all four sisters in the frame. Instead, I used a photo that was taken in London in 1974, but apparently a different show (due to different outfits).