Roberta Flack - With These Hands - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1971)

This is a collection of non-album tracks for Roberta Flack that I recently found. They make up an excellent album from what I consider the peak of her career.

I've already posted some albums of non-album tracks from around this time period. So I was pleasantly surprised to find an entire album's worth more. That's because her 1970 album, "Chapter Two," and her 1971 album, "Quiet Fire," were recently rereleased with lots of bonus tracks. The first song here is the only "Chapter Two" bonus track, while the rest are all "Quiet Fire" bonus tracks.

I don't know why these songs weren't officially released at the time, because they sound as good to me as the ones on her albums. Perhaps it was that many of them were classic hits already, and she wanted to do more obscure material. But in any case, this makes for a very nice album all these years later.  

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Midnight Cowboy (Roberta Flack)
02 What's Going On (Roberta Flack)
03 Free at Last (Roberta Flack)
04 Chasin' the Sunshine (Roberta Flack)
05 Here, There and Everywhere (Roberta Flack)
06 O-o-h Child (Roberta Flack)
07 With These Hands (Roberta Flack)
08 Superstar [Groupie] (Roberta Flack) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uyTa5KfK

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2JNZyu1zumLlqsq/file

The cover photo is from a promo photo taken around 1971. I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Roberta Flack - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 3-30-1981

A couple of weeks ago (as I write this in mid-March 2025), soul singer Roberta Flack passed away. To be specific, she died on February 24, 2025, at the age of 88. I thought about posting an album for her in tribute, but I couldn't think of anything unreleased that I wanted in my music collection. Then I got on this kick of finding and posting episodes of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show, and I discovered that since her death, someone posted her Soundstage episode on a file sharing site in high quality. So here it is, a concert from 1981.

At the time of this concert, Flack's last studio album, "Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway," had come out a year earlier, in March 1980. She played a few songs from that album, including one written by Stevie Wonder, "You Are My Heaven," and another one co-written by him, "Don't Make Me Wait Too Long." But mostly she played older hits.

When it comes to posting concerts, I like including what actually happened at the concert, not things overdubbed later or scenes from other locations added in. Unfortunately, sometimes the Soundstage show did either or both of those things. The first song, "You Stopped Loving Me," has "[Edit]" in the title because there was a narrator's voice over part of the song. As I usually do, I got rid of that using the UVR5 audio editing program. There also were a couple of sections, each lasting a few minutes, in which Flack was interviewed. I removed those entirely. While interesting, in my opinion they didn't fit well being spliced into the middle of a concert.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 You Stopped Loving Me [Edit] (Roberta Flack)
02 talk (Roberta Flack)
03 If Only for One Night (Roberta Flack)
04 Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack)
05 Don't Make Me Wait Too Long (Roberta Flack)
06 Just When I Needed You (Roberta Flack)
07 Feel like Makin' Love (Roberta Flack)
08 You Are My Heaven (Roberta Flack)
09 Disguises (Roberta Flack)
10 Reverend Lee (Roberta Flack)
11 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Roberta Flack)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wMm36Gyx

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qvSUmszDhmcuC5S/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Park West Theatre in Chicago in 1981. I assume it's from this exact concert, though it's possible she played that venue more than once.

Roberta Flack - BBC In Concert, City Hall, Sheffield, Britain, 10-22-1984

When it comes to soul music, I much prefer the music of the 1960s and 70s to that of the 1980s. Disco killed the career momentum of practically all the soul music acts I like, and then the rise of drum machines, synths, and overproduction ruined tons of 1980s soul records. Luckily, this 1984 Roberta Flack is largely free of those problems. Yeah, it can sound a little slick at times, but mostly it's strong songs sung with an excellent voice.

The sound quality is top notch, as you'd expect from a BBC concert. I didn't have to make any changes. Everything here is unreleased.

This seems to be kind of an odd time for a Robert Flack concert. She didn't put out a new studio album in 1984. Her most recent one at the time, in 1983, was a duet album with Peabo Bryson, which she supported by going on tour with him. She wouldn't put out another studio album until 1988. My guess is she did have a greatest hits album that came out in 1984, so maybe she was supporting that. Or maybe she was just touring without any new material. This didn't contain any songs from her album with Bryson, and only one song from the album before that.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 I Keep Forgettin' [Every Time You're Near] (Roberta Flack)
02 Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack)
03 Feel like Makin' Love (Roberta Flack)
04 River (Roberta Flack)
05 Jesse (Roberta Flack)
06 The Closer I Get to You (Roberta Flack)
07 I'm the One (Roberta Flack)
08 Making Love (Roberta Flack)
09 talk (Roberta Flack)
10 Carousel (Roberta Flack)
11 The Water Is Wide (Roberta Flack)
12 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Roberta Flack)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xKSTCqzL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6mj1OBljBqpIAq3/file

I don't know anything about the cover photo except it's probably from 1984.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 2: Ben E. King, Roberta Flack, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the Average White Band, Ruth Brown, Debbie Gibson & Robert Plant

Here's the second part of a six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert.

I explained the basics about the concert in my write-up for part one. So read that if you want to know about the concert in general.

Ben E. King was a big soul music star back in the 1950s and early 1960s, both with the Drifters and as a solo act. But in 1986, two years prior to this concert, a reissue of his song "Stand by Me" reached the Top Ten in the U.S. and Number One in Britain.

Technically, Emerson, Lake and Palmer didn't perform at this concert. Instead, for one album only in 1988, Greg Lake left the group and was replaced by Robert Berry. They released a studio album using the group name "3." Then Lake rejoined the band, replacing Berry in time for the next album. For this concert, they were introduced as "Emerson and Palmer," with Berry and the group name "3" being ignored. I'm calling the band "Emerson, Lake and Palmer" so their music can be easily found with site searches and labels and such.

In retrospect, I think Debbie Gibson got too much time in this concert. Her set was 15 minutes long, making it longer than a lot of other acts who made it into various halls of fame. For instance, she had a longer set than Ruth Brown, despite the fact that she was such a big star for Atlantic Records for the first ten years of the company's existence that its nickname was "The House that Ruth Built." (Even the Wikipedia entry about the record company mentions that nickname.) But the timing was just right for Gibson. She had a huge debut album in 1987, which sold three million copies in the U.S. Her second album in 1989 would also be a big seller. But after that her sales fell off a cliff and she largely disappeared as a big star. I give her kudos for writing all her own songs. But I wouldn't be surprised if some people skip or delete her set.

I know of some music from this part of the concert that I couldn't find. Ruth Brown sang a second song, "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean." Emerson, Lake and Palmer (or 3, or Emerson and Palmer) played one other song, "Fanfare for the Common Man." The Average White Band did two other songs, "I Got Work to Do" and "Person to Person." I don't know when it happened, but probably early in this concert, Herbie Mann played a set of the songs "Push Push," "Soul Serenade," and "Memphis Underground." Also at some point, Vanilla Fudge played two songs, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Take Me for a Little While."

Robert Plant had lots of success as a solo artist in the 1980s. So he got a three song set in this portion of the show, while also singing lead with Led Zeppelin later in the show.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

By the way, note that the track numbering continues from the numbering of the previous part, in case you want to listen to all the concert as one huge album.

021 talk (Stephen Stills)
022 Spanish Harlem (Ben E. King)
023 talk (Ben E. King)
024 There Goes My Baby (Ben E. King)
025 Save the Last Dance for Me (Ben E. King)
026 Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack)
027 The Closer I Get to You (Roberta Flack & Peabo Bryson)
028 America - Blue Rondo a la Turk [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
029 Pick Up the Pieces [Instrumental] (Average White Band)
030 Teardrops from My Eyes (Ruth Brown)
031 talk (Lisa Bonet)
032 Staying Together (Debbie Gibson)
033 Foolish Beat (Debbie Gibson)
034 Out of the Blue - Shake Your Love - Only in My Dreams (Debbie Gibson)
035 talk (Debbie Gibson)
036 Happy Birthday (Debbie Gibson)
037 talk (Phil Collins)
038 Heaven Knows (Robert Plant)
039 talk (Robert Plant)
040 Ship of Fools (Robert Plant)
041 talk (Robert Plant)
042 Tall Cool One (Robert Plant)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FWMHka7W

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/njDAQ0s6ftPW7fx/file

The cover photo of Ben E. King is from this exact concert.

Roberta Flack - Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, RI, 8-16-1992

Here's an unreleased Roberta Flack concert.

Flack has a bunch of classic hits to her name. But I've been less impressed with many of her albums. I think she's suffered from the all too common problem of overproduction, making songs sound too slick and generic. So I think live recordings are a good way to get around that, because they generally have a more organic and raw sound.

I only know of one official live album from her, and that's from 1980, and was still deep into the disco sound of that time. This comes from the Newport Jazz Festival. I'm just guessing, but I think that venue inspired her to highlight some of her more jazzy material, which I appreciate.

This is an excellent soundboard recording. It was so well balanced that for once I didn't even have to boost the volume of the banter between songs (which I seem to almost always need to do for concerts).

Note that one song, the jazz standard "My Funny Valentine," is actually sung by Gabrielle Goodman. Apparently, Flack got a key break in her career by doing a guest spot at the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival, and she wanted to return the favor to someone else. Unfortunately, I looked up Goodman, and she only released three albums and her music career never really took off.

Flack does do most of her big hits along with some more jazzy stuff. However, I was surprised to see that what is probably her signature song, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," was not performed. I like that one, so I found an unreleased version she did from a concert a year later and put it at the end as a kind of quasi-bonus track. So if you want just one concert from her that does a good job of summing up her career, this is a good one to have.

This album is an hour and ten minutes long, including that extra song at the end.

01 talk (Roberta Flack)
02 Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack)
03 talk (Roberta Flack)
04 You Know What It's Like (Roberta Flack)
05 talk (Roberta Flack)
06 Blue Lights in the Basement (Roberta Flack)
07 talk (Roberta Flack)
08 Oasis (Roberta Flack)
09 talk (Roberta Flack)
10 Feel like Makin' Love (Roberta Flack)
11 talk (Roberta Flack)
12 My Funny Valentine (Gabrielle Goodman & Roberta Flack)
13 talk (Roberta Flack)
14 Where Is the Love (Roberta Flack)
15 talk (Roberta Flack)
16 Prelude to a Kiss (Roberta Flack)
17 talk (Roberta Flack)
18 Mercy Mercy Me [The Ecology] (Roberta Flack)
19 talk (Roberta Flack)
20 In My Life (Roberta Flack)
21 talk (Roberta Flack)
22 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Roberta Flack)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15407669/RobertaFl_1992_NewprtJzzFestivlNewprtRI__8-16-1992_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert. As a result, it's a bit low-res.

John Lennon and Various Artists - One to One Benefit Concert, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 8-30-1972, Late Show

A couple of days ago, I posted a Stevie Wonder "Musikladen" concert with three tracks taken from this concert, the "One to One" benefit concert on August 30, 1972, late show. Doing that, it occurred to me that I had enough material to put together a worthy version of that entire show, even though it's missing some songs. I don't believe anyone else has ever publicly put this together and made it available. You really should listen to this even if you have the official version of the early show, because the late show is considered to have the better performance.

The big deal about this show is that John Lennon only performed two full concerts as a solo artist after leaving the Beatles, and both of them were on this day, an early show and a late show. His portion of the early show was eventually officially released as the album "Live in New York City." However, none of the other musical artists - Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, and Sha Na Na - have seen any of their performances officially released, and none of Lennon's late show performance has been released. This is a shame, because the late show was widely considered the better show. That was so much the case that there was a lot of criticism for releasing Lennon's portion of the early show instead.

I've put this together from multiple sources. Portions of the late show were played on the radio, and other portions were broadcast on TV. By combining sources, I was able to avoid or edit out annoying emcee voice-overs. Generally speaking, the sound quality is very good - what you'd expect from TV or radio at the time - although there is some variability. However, some songs are missing altogether. I don't know if there are songs missing from the Sha Na Na or Roberta Flack sets, but I'd assume there are some missing ones at least from Flack's set, since she was a big star at the time and there are only two songs here. I also know that while I have three Stevie Wonder songs, I'm missing three others: "For Once in My Life," "If You Really Love Me," and "Heaven Help Us All." 

The biggest challenge, however, was putting together the set for the headliner, John Lennon. The following songs are still missing: "Power to the People," "New York City," "It's So Hard," "Woman Is the Nigger of the World," and "Well, Well, Well." The ones I found are in the correct order, except I switched "Instant Karma" and "Sisters O Sisters" so his set would start with one of his songs instead one by his wife, Yoko Ono. (The early and late show set lists were identical, except there were less Ono songs in the late show.)

Speaking of Ono, I have included two songs she wrote and sang: "Sisters O Sisters" and "We're All Water." When I recently posted Lennon's rehearsals for this concert, I didn't include her songs, and I commented that I'm not a fan of her screaming style. That's still true, but these two songs are pretty decent, with Ono singing instead of screaming for nearly all of them. There were a few bits here and there where she did her weird screaming thing, but I generally edited those out. Before you get upset though, consider that Ono was in charge of the release of the "Live in New York City" album for the early show, and not only did she not include any of her own songs, she edited out her screaming from Lennon's songs. There were a few screams I couldn't remove though, since the audio editing program UVR5 couldn't pull them apart from the music, including on the song "Hound Dog."

If any of you have any of the missing songs, please let me know and I'll add them in. As it is, with the help of the inclusion of the two Ono songs, Lennon's set is 42 minutes long. That makes it the same length as he "Live in New York City" album.

As an interesting aside, apparently Paul McCartney came close to performing a surprise set. However, he was having legal disputes with Allen Klein, who was the financial manager of the Beatles (minus McCartney) at the end of their time together, and who continued to manage Lennon. There were public rumors that some or all of the money wouldn't actually make it to charity, so McCartney bowed out at the last minute due to his concerns about Klein (who had a notorious reputation for being greedy - just ask the Rolling Stones) and how exactly the money would be handled. One can only imagine what might have happened in an alternate future if Lennon and McCartney had put aside some of their differences and appeared on stage together!

By the way, McCartney may have had good reason not to take part. George Harrison became livid at Klein's mishandling of the money from Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" in 1971. The millions raised didn't actually get to help anyone in Bangladesh for many years, long after the immediate crisis was over, mainly due to Klein making some legal errors that resulted in protracted lawsuits. By early 1973, both Harrison and Lennon dropped their dealings with Klein and got involved in lawsuits against him as well. Around that time, Lennon was quoted as saying about Klein, "Let's say possibly Paul's suspicions were right."

The entire concert is an hour and 14 minutes long.

01 Yakety Yak (Sha Na Na)
02 Tears on My Pillow (Sha Na Na)
03 Tell Laura I Love Her (Sha Na Na)
04 talk (Sha Na Na)
05 Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay (Sha Na Na)
06 Rama Lama Ding Dong (Sha Na Na)
07 Reverend Lee (Roberta Flack)
08 Somewhere (Roberta Flack)
09 Superwoman (Stevie Wonder)
10 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
11 Keep On Running (Stevie Wonder)
12 Instant Karma [We All Shine On] (John Lennon)
13 Sisters O Sisters (Yoko Ono & John Lennon)
14 talk (John Lennon)
15 Mother (John Lennon)
16 We're All Water (Yoko Ono & John Lennon)
17 talk (John Lennon)
18 Come Together (John Lennon)
19 Imagine (John Lennon)
20 Cold Turkey (John Lennon)
21 Hound Dog (John Lennon)
22 Give Peace a Chance (John Lennon) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15299335/JohnL_1972e_OnetOneBnefitConcrtMadso_SquarGrdenNewYrkC__8-30-1972__LateShow.zip.html

The cover photo is taken from this exact date (though I don't know if it's from the early or late show).

Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway - WPLJ Radio, A & R Studios, New York City, 11-24-1971

Here's something I just discovered the other day. So it went to the top of my ever-growing pile of albums to post.

I've posted a few albums by female soul singer Roberta Flack, but this is the first with soul singer and songwriter Donny Hathaway. Hathaway is considered a soul legend these days, but his music career was rather short and troubled. He started to hit it big with the hit single "The Ghetto" in 1969. But he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1971. Mental illness wreaked havoc on his life and his career after that, and he had to be hospitalized multiple times. He committed suicide in 1979.

Here's his Wikipedia page, for more info about him:

Donny Hathaway - Wikipedia

One bright spot in his musical career was his frequent duets with Roberta Flack. They put out a duet album in 1972, "Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway," and had some hit singles together in the late 1970s. That said, it seems they didn't perform in concert together much, since Hathaway didn't perform concerts that often after his mental health issues got worse. There are no official live recordings of them together that I know of, and virtually no such bootlegs either.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find the bootleg I'm sharing here on YouTube. I converted it into mp3 format and divided it into individual tracks. This show was recorded in front of a small studio audience for a live radio broadcast. The sound quality is excellent, just as good as an official live album from the time period.

Their 1972 album didn't come out until May of that year. This concert is from November 1971. However, most of the songs here are ones on that 1972 album. I'm guessing most or all of that album was recorded roughly around the time of this concert. Two singles from the album were released in late 1971.

The last two songs come from a different source, a US TV special broadcast in 1972 called "Double Exposure." The sound quality of those is significantly worse. The music even wobbles at a couple of points. So you might consider those bonus tracks of sorts. I included them mostly because Flack had a massive hit in 1972 with the song "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face," and I thought it would be good to include a version of that.

Note that on a lot of these songs the vocals are dominated more by Flack than Hathaway. But I believe Hathaway at least played keyboards on all the songs. Although Hathaway was a talented songwriter, he wasn't prolific and most of the songs are covers.

This album is 49 minutes long without the last two songs, and 58 minutes long if you include those too.

01 talk (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
02 Where Is the Love (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
03 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
04 talk (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
05 When Love Has Grown (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
06 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
07 You've Got a Friend (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
08 For All We Know (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
09 Baby I Love You (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
10 I [Who Have Nothing] (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
11 talk (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
12 Little Ghetto Boy (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
13 Be Real Black for Me (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
14 Someday (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
15 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15218635/RobertaFlDonnyH_1971_WPLJRadioARStdiosNYC__11-24-1971_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a concert that took place at UCLA in Los Angeles in September 1972. It was the only good color photo of the two of them on stage that I could find.

Bob Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue - Night of the Hurricane: Madison Square Garden, New York City, 12-8-1975

In 1975 and 1976, Bob Dylan put on a concert tour called "the Rolling Thunder Revue." It's something he's never done before or since, because instead of putting on regular concerts with himself as the main musician and one or more opening musicians, this was more like a traveling road show. Yes, Dylan was the main star, but he shared the spotlight with other big stars too, as well as lesser knowns.

There have been two official releases related to the Rolling Thunder Revue: "The Bootleg Series, Volume 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue," and "The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings." The first one contains selected songs from various concerts, and the second one contains no less than five complete Dylan sets from the tour, as well as rehearsals, and more. Yet all of these releases ignore the other musicians who played with Dylan (except for the duets he did with Joan Baez). I've always wanted to hear a complete show from this tour, with Dylan AND all the other musicians.

Here it is, in all three hours and 50 minutes of it! 

If you want to hear just one full Rolling Thunder Revue concert, this is the one, for several reasons. For starters, this concert had a special purpose, to help free professional boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter from prison. Dylan (and many others) felt Carter was unjustly imprisoned, so he wrote a song about it, "Hurricane," which would be included on his 1976 album "Desire." I don't want to go into the full story, but if you want to know more, I suggest watching the 1999 movie "The Hurricane" starring Denzel Washington. Although the concert was still part of the tour, it was given the special name "Night of the Hurricane." Many famous people attended it, and there was a lot of press about it, helped by the fact that it was held in New York City.

Given all that, it's a lucky break that there's a soundboard bootleg of this entire concert with fantastic sound quality. This sounds just as good as any of the officially released material from the tour. Also, it's from a sweet spot in the tour where the musicians had found their groove but hadn't grown bored or fatigued (as would happen with many of the 1976 shows on the tour). 

Furthermore, many of the musicians here played for all or most of the tour, like Roger McGuinn and Joan Baez. But this concert gets an extra lift with the special guests Joni Mitchell and Roberta Flack. Mitchell did play on some other shows during the tour, but this is as good as it gets in terms of sound quality for her set. And this was the only show with Roberta Flack. Also, Robbie Robertson from the Band played guitar on "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" and possibly a couple other Dylan songs.

Another special guest was boxing legend Muhammad Ali. During the show's intermission, Ali came out on stage and gave a speech about the point of the show, raising public awareness and pressure to release Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter from prison. During this speech, Ali spoke on the phone to Carter from his prison cell. Some other lesser knowns spoke as well, including some politicians. All in all, this segment took up half an hour. It's fine to listen to it once, but I don't think it stands up to repeat listenings. So I've brutally edited than half an hour down to just five minutes, focusing on Ali's phone call with Carter. 

A lot of the what is cut out is unnecessary fluff. For instance, Ali got sidetracked and spent a few minutes praising a politician friend of his, who he claimed was going to run for president. (I looked it up, and that person did run for many offices, but never won anything.) Later on it the concert, Dylan, with his great sarcastic wit, makes a reference to this by introducing another musician and commenting that person is NOT running for president.

At nearly four hours, this is probably the longest album I've posted on my blog so far.

01 Good Love Is Hard to Find (Bob Neuwirth)
02 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
03 Sleazy (Bob Neuwirth)
04 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
05 Hula Hoop (T-Bone Burnett)
06 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
07 Too Good to Be Wasted (Rob Stoner)
08 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
09 Laissez Faire (Steven Soles)
10 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
11 Life on Mars (Mick Ronson)
12 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
13 Alabama Dark (Ronee Blakley & Bob Neuwirth)
14 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
15 Need a New Sun Rising (Ronee Blakley)
16 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
17 Cindy [When I Get Home] (Bob Neuwirth)
18 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
19 Mercedes Benz (Bob Neuwirth)
20 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
21 Shadows and Light (Joni Mitchell)
22 Coyote (Joni Mitchell)
23 talk (Joni Mitchell)
24 Edith and the Kingpin (Joni Mitchell)
25 Don't Interrupt the Sorrow (Joni Mitchell)
26 talk (Muhammad Ali & Rubin "Hurricane" Carter)
27 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
28 [Ballad Of] Ramblin' Jack (Bob Neuwirth)
29 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
30 Muleskinner Blues (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
31 Pretty Boy Floyd (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
32 talk (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
33 Salt Pork, West Virginia (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
34 talk (Ramblin' Jack Elliott & Bob Neuwirth)
35 Rake and Ramblin' Boy (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
36 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
37 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob Dylan with Bob Neuwirth)
38 It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob Dylan)
39 The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Bob Dylan)
40 Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You (Bob Dylan)
41 talk (Bob Dylan)
42 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Bob Dylan)
43 talk (Bob Dylan)
44 Romance in Durango (Bob Dylan)
45 talk (Bob Dylan)
46 Isis (Bob Dylan)
47 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
48 talk (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
49 Dark as a Dungeon (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
50 Mama, You Been on My Mind (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
51 talk (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
52 Never Let Me Go (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
53 talk (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
54 I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
55 talk (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
56 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
57 talk (Joan Baez)
58 Diamonds and Rust (Joan Baez)
59 talk (Joan Baez)
60 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Joan Baez)
61 Prison Trilogy [Billy Rose] (Joan Baez)
62 Joe Hill (Joan Baez)
63 Long Black Veil (Joan Baez)
64 talk (Joan Baez)
65 Please Come to Boston (Joan Baez)
66 talk (Joan Baez)
67 talk (Roberta Flack)
68 25th of Last December (Roberta Flack)
69 talk (Roberta Flack)
70 Why Don't You Move In with Me (Roberta Flack)
71 talk (Joan Baez)
72 Eight Miles High (Roger McGuinn)
73 Chestnut Mare (Roger McGuinn)
74 talk (Joan Baez)
75 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Joan Baez with Roger McGuinn)
76 talk (Bob Neuwirth)
77 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Bob Dylan)
78 Simple Twist of Fate (Bob Dylan)
79 talk (Bob Dylan)
80 Oh, Sister (Bob Dylan)
81 talk (Bob Dylan)
82 Hurricane (Bob Dylan)
83 One More Cup of Coffee [Valley Below] (Bob Dylan)
84 talk (Bob Dylan)
85 Sara (Bob Dylan)
86 talk (Bob Dylan)
87 Just like a Woman (Bob Dylan)
88 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan with Roger McGuinn)
89 This Land Is Your Land (Bob Dylan & the Rolling Thunder Revue)

https://www.imagenetz.de/afW7D

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MjHbUh3D

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/f449QP8x5jzNaBR/file

I believe the cover photo comes from the final bows after the last encore. Going from left to right, I believe that's Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dylan and Baez sharing the center microphone, then Rob Stoner, Bob Neuwirth, Steven Soles, and Ronee Blakely. Thanks to loneill for help with identifying everyone.

Roberta Flack - Afro Blue - Non-Album Tracks (1968)

In mid-2020, a deluxe edition of Roberta Flack's album "First Take" was released. This was very special as far as deluxe editions go, because it contained a second disc of what was essentially an entirely unreleased album. In fact, there's so much music on it (an hour and 16 minutes) that it could be a double album. "First Take," her debut album, was recorded in early 1969 and released by the end of that year. All but the first songs here was recorded in 1968. So one might think of this as her true debut album.

Flack started out playing small clubs for several years before getting a record contract. Most of the songs here were recorded in three days, and came easily since they consisted the songs of her well honed stage act. The vast majority of the songs are covers. However, "Groove Me" is not the hit by King Floyd, which wouldn't come out until 1970. It's a Flack original.

The first song is a bit different. "All the Way" is a live recording done in 1969. But it wasn't released until decades later on a Les McCann archival album called "Les Is More." This was included on the "First Take" deluxe edition. (Another song on that, "Trade Winds," has been put on the stray tracks album "Freedom Song" instead.)

By the way, as generous as the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition are, there are many more songs recorded at that session. Other songs include: "On a Clear Day," "A Change Is Gonna Come," "Lovin' You," "Love for Sale," "With These Hands," "A House Is Not a Home," "Just a False Start," "Elusive Butterfly," "First of All," and "This House," plus early versions of the songs from "First Take." Let's hope those get released someday too.

If you like Flack's first few albums before she went fully into a slick, mainstream direction, you're sure to like this.

01 All the Way (Roberta Flack)
02 This Could Be the Start of Something (Roberta Flack)
03 Groove Me (Roberta Flack)
04 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Roberta Flack)
05 Hush-A-Bye (Roberta Flack)
06 Afro Blue (Roberta Flack)
07 It's Way Past Suppertime (Roberta Flack)
08 Frankie and Johnny (Roberta Flack)
09 On the Street Where You Live (Roberta Flack)
10 The House Song (Roberta Flack)
11 Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Roberta Flack)
12 The Song Is Love (Roberta Flack)
13 To Sir with Love (Roberta Flack)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116229/RobertaFl_1968_AfroBlu_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of Flack from 1968, which isn't surprising since she was largely unknown back then. The one I used is from a series of promo photos that came out when her debut album was released in late 1969. It was a black and white photo, but I colorized it.

Roberta Flack - Freedom Song - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1974)

Up until recently, I wasn't a fan of Roberta Flack's music. I'd gotten the impression that most of it was smooth, cheesy, generic pop. I only liked a few of her big hits, like "Killing Me Softly," that were good enough to rise above production issues. But then I discovered her first few albums were different. Her first album came out in 1969, and she only went all in on "adult contemporary" pop around 1973. Her first album, "First Take," is particularly acclaimed. 

In this, I shouldn't be too surprised, because it fits with larger musical trends. The late 60s and early 70s were a musical high water mark, in my opinion. Soul music in particular went drastically downhill as the 1970s went on, especially thanks to disco. Look at many other soul greats who had great music at the start of the 1970s but then struggled from the mid-1970s onward, like Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and many more.

In any case, now that I've come to appreciate at least the early phase of Roberta Flack's career, I've discovered that she did a lot of songs in concert in those years that she never put on her albums. I found enough for a nice stray tracks collection. Furthermore, I plan on posting an early concert of hers that has even more.

Flack is a song interpreter, not a songwriter, so all of these songs are covers. The third and fourth songs are duets from a Les McCann album. Four more songs, "Freedom Song" plus the last three, come from soundtracks or a guest appearance on another album. The rest are taken from concert bootlegs. Luckily, those are of high sound quality. I've removed the audience noise so those songs will fit in with the studio tracks.

This album is 57 minutes long.

UPDATE: On July 2, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I added the song "Let's Stay Together," which I'd previously missed.

Here are the original artists for each song:

01 Save the Country - Laura Nyro / 5th Dimension
02 Let It Be - Beatles
03 How Many Broken Wings - Les McCann
04 Baby, Baby - Les McCann & Roberta Flack
05 Freedom Song - unknown
06 Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye - Tammi Terrell
07 Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer - Stevie Wonder
08 Ooh Child - Five Stairsteps
09 God Bless the Child -  Billie Holliday
10 When You're Smiling [The Whole World Smiles with You] - Seger Ellis / Louis Armstrong
11 Let’s Stay Together -Al Green
12 Trade Winds - Three Degrees
13 On a Clear Day [You Can See Forever] - Killer Joe - Barbra Streisand
14 Freedom - Sherman Brothers

Here's the usual song list:

01 Save the Country (Roberta Flack)
02 Let It Be (Roberta Flack)
03 How Many Broken Wings (Les McCann & Roberta Flack)
04 Baby, Baby (Les McCann & Roberta Flack)
05 Freedom Song (Roberta Flack)
06 Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Roberta Flack)
07 Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer (Roberta Flack)
08 Ooh Child (Roberta Flack)
09 God Bless the Child (Roberta Flack)
10 When You're Smiling [The Whole World Smiles with You] (Roberta Flack with Quincy Jones)
11 Let’s Stay Together (Roberta Flack)
12 Trade Winds (Roberta Flack)
13 On a Clear Day [You Can See Forever] - Killer Joe (Roberta Flack)
14 Freedom (Roberta Flack)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15405538/RobertaFl_1970-1974_FreedmSong_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is from the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1971.