Keith Richards - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-28-1992

Here's another episode of that great TV show, "PBS Soundstage." This episode stars Keith Richards, the lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones.

(Note that for one year, the program used the name "Center Stage" instead of "Soundstage." This is one of the shows from that year. But I'm calling it "Soundstage" to be consistent with all of the other many years of the show.) 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Richards was more serious about his solo career than he has been before or since. He put out two solo albums during that time, "Talk Is Cheap" in 1988, and "Main Offender" in 1992. He mostly played songs from those albums, but he also did a few Rolling Stones songs ("Gimme Shelter," "Time Is on My Side," and "Happy").

Because Richards was so famous, there actually were two episodes of this show. That's why, when they're combined like this, it totals a lot more than the usual hour-long episode.

This concert remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long. 

01 Take It So Hard (Keith Richards)
02 talk (Keith Richards)
03 Wicked as It Seems (Keith Richards)
04 talk (Keith Richards)
05 How I Wish (Keith Richards)
06 Gimme Shelter (Keith Richards)
07 talk (Keith Richards)
08 999 (Keith Richards)
09 talk (Keith Richards)
10 Yap Yap (Keith Richards)
11 talk (Keith Richards)
12 Hate It When You Leave (Keith Richards)
13 talk (Keith Richards)
14 Time Is on My Side (Keith Richards)
15 talk (Keith Richards)
16 Eileen (Keith Richards)
17 Will but You Won't (Keith Richards)
18 talk (Keith Richards)
19 Body Talks (Keith Richards)
20 talk (Keith Richards)
21 Could Have Stood You Up (Keith Richards)
22 talk (Keith Richards)
23 Happy (Keith Richards)
24 talk (Keith Richards)
25 Whip It Up (Keith Richards)

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

alternate:

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

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

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)

The download link has been removed due to copyright issues. But see the comments below.

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.

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.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: John Peel Show, Leeds University Union, University of Leeds, Leeds, Britain, 3-13-1971

I've posted three albums of the Rollings Stones playing for the BBC in the 1963 to 1965 time frame. (By the way, I've renumbered those albums, as I'll explain below.) I thought I was done with the Stones and the BBC. But I just stumbled across the fact that a famous concert the band played in Leeds, Britain, in 1971 was actually recorded for, and played on, BBC radio at the time. It was first broadcast on the "John Peel Show," although DJ John Peel wasn't there to act as emcee like he usually did since it took place outside of London and the band recorded the concert themselves.

This concert appeared as a bootleg for many years, usually with the name "Get Your Leeds Lungs Out" after a comment singer Mick Jagger made between songs. It was missing a couple of songs and the sound quality wasn't perfect. But then in 2015, the full concert was released with flawless sound quality as part of the "super deluxe" edition of the band's 1971 album "Sticky Fingers." If you haven't heard this yet, you're missing out! In terms of sound quality and performance, this is not only one of the very best recorded Rolling Stones concerts, I'd argue it's one of the best recorded concerts by anyone!

It's that good. It's a shame that it has only come out as part of an expensive "super deluxe" package and not as an individual release, when it blows most of the well known official Rolling Stones live albums away. One reason it's so good is because it was recorded in a small venue. The band actually played at the student union for the University of Leeds, which could only fit a couple hundred people. So that was the equivalent of playing at a small club. Whereas most of the band's official live albums were recorded in giant stadiums, with the sound quality and intimacy suffering as a result.

I'm one of those people who think the band was at its best when guitarist Mick Taylor was a member. This is arguably the peak of the Mick Taylor years, where he was fully integrated into the band and its sound, and before he started to pull away, before leaving in 1974. 

Thanks to the great sound quality, I didn't have to do anything except separate the banter between songs onto their own tracks.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

Oh yeah. I mentioned up above that I renamed the earlier Stones BBC albums posted here. That's because when I decided to post this, I realized I had a "Volume 1," "Volume 2," and a "Live at the BBC 1964" album. Now, "Volume 1" is still the same, the live album is called "Volume 2," and what had been "Volume 2" is "Volume 3." Fixing that cleared the way to naming this one "Volume 4." While I was at it, I also upgraded the sound quality on some songs for all three albums, using superior versions to the official BBC album versions, thanks to Prof. Stoned's music blog.

01 talk (Rolling Stones)
02 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
03 Live with Me (Rolling Stones)
04 Dead Flowers (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 Stray Cat Blues (Rolling Stones)
07 Love in Vain (Rolling Stones)
08 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
09 talk (Rolling Stones)
10 Bitch (Rolling Stones)
11 talk (Rolling Stones)
12 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
13 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
14 Little Queenie (Rolling Stones)
15 talk (Rolling Stones)
16 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
17 talk (Rolling Stones)
18 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
19 talk (Rolling Stones)
20 Let It Rock (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701030/TROLLNGSTNES1971_BBSessonsVolum4LedsUnvrsityUnon__3-13-1971_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. With the roof visible in the background, maybe this can give you a sense of how small the room was. Sadly, the picture is in black and white, and it's too much of a pain in the butt for me to convert it into color, at least for now.

Various Artists - NME Poll Winners' Concert, Empire Pool, London, Britain, 4-11-1965

I read an interesting article today about how the sale of new music is continually falling to all time lows every year, while interest in older music continues to rise. It's a good article. I suggest you check it out:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/is-old-music-killing-new-music 

As the article points out, there's still plenty of good new music, it's just that's not what gets promoted and makes it big, due to screwed-up record companies and other factors. Compare the artists on the top of the charts today to the quality of the mainstream artists at the time of this 1965 concert: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, Dusty Springfield, Them (with Van Morrison), the Moody Blues, Donovan, and many more, all sharing the same stage! Is it any wonder that lots of people (including me) are more interested in this kind of music than the generic, pre-packaged pop of today? The amount of sheer talent bursting up the charts in 1965 was staggering.

The reason so many big names played this one concert was because it was an awards show of sorts for NME - New Musical Express, a British music magazine. NME began giving out yearly poll winner awards in 1953, and continue to do it until this day (2022 as I write this). At least through 1968, there were annual concerts to celebrate the winners. But unlike most awards shows, this concert just focused on music instead of bogging things down with speeches and award presentations. 

I would love to hear the 1966, 1967, and 1968 shows in full, since music just got better and better as the 1960s went on, in my opinion, and all sorts of interesting artists played in those later shows, including Cream, the Small Faces, the Move, the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Who, the Yardbirds, and lots more, including more appearances by big names in this concert, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. But I've only come across parts of the 1966 show, and none of the 1967 or 1968 shows. The full 1964 and 1965 shows are available on bootleg though, and I'm posting the 1965 one as I think it's more interesting, with these mostly British Invasion acts more fully developed by then.

The sound quality is excellent throughout. This concert was professionally recorded in order to be broadcast on British TV a short time afterwards. The TV version was edited down, but somehow luckily a recording of the entire show has made its way to the public. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube, though it's only in black and white.

This concert took place before artists typically stretched out with lots of soloing and jamming and such. These songs don't differ that much from their studio versions (with a few exceptions, like Them and the Animals). But I still think this is a fascinating listen, as there aren't many quality concert recordings from this early in the 1960s. In particular, there were many artists who were pretty big back in the day but have little to no surviving audio or video of them in concert. Even for major names like the Animals and Dusty Springfield, there's very little from around this time period. And for the lesser known acts, this is often the only evidence of them in concert that seems to still exist.

I'm a big Kinks fan, so a minor disappointment for me is that the Kinks only played two songs. Even at this early stage in their career they were a big enough name to deserve more time. Apparently, this has to do with them being late to the show. You can hear guitarist Dave Davies apologize about this between songs. According to some accounts, they actually played after the Beatles, as the very last act. However, the recording I used had them just before the Beatles, and that seems to fit in terms of the audience applause and announcement and such, so I'm keeping it that way.

As far as naming the artists for each song goes, technically I should have put the names of the emcee or emcees on many of the talk tracks. Some of those had band members talking, some had the emcees, and some where a mix. But rather than spend time dealing with all that, I just put the name of the act being introduced, for simplicity's sake. (Unfortunately, one of the emcees was DJ Jimmy Savile, who later was disgraced in a child molestation scandal. Thankfully, his role here is very minor.) I only put in the DJ names on the very first and last tracks, since those weren't linked to any particular artists.

A couple of the performers here are rather forgettable. I was tempted to cut out Freddie and the Dreamers and Sounds Incorporated in particular. But ultimately I decided it was best to present the entire thing unedited (although I cut out some annoying laughter by Freddie and the Dreamers between songs). Overall, I think the percentage of quality performers is quite high. 

The Beatles only got to do a 15 minute long set, but it's nice that you can actually hear them perform instead of being totally drowned out by screaming, as was typical of the time. Apparently, the arena (Empire Pool, later renamed Wembley Arena), held about 10,000 people. I'm sure that, by 1965, the Beatles could have filled up a much larger venue in London all on their own.

This concert is two hours and 23 minutes long. I cut out some dead air between songs. But there was surprisingly little of that to begin with. Either this was already edited down, or this was a tightly run show.

01 talk (Keith Fordyce & Jimmy Savile)
02 Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing (Moody Blues)
03 Go Now (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Freddie & the Dreamers)
05 Little Bitty Pretty One (Freddie & the Dreamers)
06 talk (Freddie & the Dreamers)
07 A Little You (Freddie & the Dreamers)
08 talk (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
09 Yeh Yeh (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
10 talk (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
11 Walking the Dog (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
12 talk (Seekers)
13 I'll Never Find Another You (Seekers)
14 talk (Seekers)
15 A World of Our Own (Seekers)
16 talk (Herman's Hermits)
17 Wonderful World (Herman's Hermits)
18 talk (Herman's Hermits)
19 Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (Herman's Hermits)
20 talk (Ivy League)
21 Funny How Love Can Be (Ivy League)
22 talk (Ivy League)
23 Sweet and Tender Romance (Ivy League)
24 talk (Ivy League)
25 That's Why I'm Crying (Ivy League)
26 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
27 Time for You [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
28 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
29 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
30 talk (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
31 The Game of Love (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
32 talk (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
33 Just a Little Bit Too Late (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
34 talk (Rolling Stones)
35 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Rolling Stones)
36 Pain in My Heart (Rolling Stones)
37 Around and Around (Rolling Stones)
38 The Last Time (Rolling Stones)
39 talk (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
40 Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
41 talk (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
42 Going Out of My Head (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
43 talk (Donovan)
44 You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond (Donovan)
45 talk (Donovan)
46 Catch the Wind (Donovan)
47 talk (Them)
48 Here Comes the Night (Them)
49 Turn on Your Love Light (Them)
50 talk (Searchers)
51 Bumble Bee (Searchers)
52 talk (Searchers)
53 Let the Good Times Roll (Searchers)
54 talk (Dusty Springfield)
55 Dancing in the Street (Dusty Springfield)
56 talk (Dusty Springfield)
57 Mockingbird (Dusty Springfield)
58 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Dusty Springfield)
59 talk (Animals)
60 Boom Boom (Animals)
61 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
62 Talkin' 'bout You (Animals)
63 talk (Kinks)
64 You Really Got Me (Kinks)
65 Tired of Waiting for You (Kinks)
66 talk (Beatles)
67 I Feel Fine (Beatles)
68 talk (Beatles)
69 She's a Woman (Beatles)
70 talk (Beatles)
71 Baby's in Black (Beatles)
72 talk (Beatles)
73 Ticket to Ride (Beatles)
74 talk (Beatles)
75 Long Tall Sally (Beatles)
76 talk (Keith Fordyce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4H9U7vDp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7A16q3et1lHDWG1/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/cTsNU

There are a fair number of photos from this concert. However, the vast majority of them are in black and white. The only color one I've found is a photo showing only Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. When I first posted this, I used a photo of the Beatles, but it turned out that was from the 1966 NME concert. So instead I took a screenshot of the Beatles in the 1965 NME concert video, and colorized that.

I took most of the cover text from advertisements of the show, though I added in the list of some of the artists.

The Rolling Stones - Some Covers, Volume 1 (1977-1978)

There are some artists where I've run into roadblocks that has hindered me from continuing posting stray tracks albums chronologically. Lately, I've been putting in extra effort to try to get past those blocks. One such case in the Rolling Stones. 

So far, I've posted stray tracks albums all the way up until their 1978 album "Some Girls." That album is very tricky to deal with because in early 1977, guitarist Keith Richards was arrested in Canada for a heroin charge that could have given him up to seven years in prison. In the end, his charge was reduced, and though he pleaded guilty, he didn't serve any prison time at all. But the Rolling Stones didn't know that at the time. So, starting in late 1977, they recorded pretty much every musical thought they had at the time, so they'd have years of music to release in case Richards spent years in prison. 

As a result, there's a ton of recorded music from around that time that didn't end up on "Some Girls." In 2011, the band put out a double album version, with a second album of previously unreleased outtakes. Later this year (2021 as I write this), they'll be putting out a deluxe edition of the 1981 album "Tattoo You" that will include a few more outtakes from that 1977-1978 pile. But even those releases are only a portion of all the worthy material the band recorded at that time.

I've decided to split up this material into four albums of about 45 minutes each. Two of them consist entirely of cover versions, and two of them are originals. One of those will closely follow the extra songs from the 2011 "Some Girls" release, with some other songs added. Here's the first of the covers albums.

By and large, when it came to covers, the band chose favorite songs they knew growing up, from the 1950s or earlier. So you get Chuck Berry songs, blues classics, and the like, but also a couple of reggae songs, and the occasional country song done by Keith Richards alone on acoustic guitar. 

Only four of the performances here have been officially released. "Tallahassee Lassie" was one of the 2011 "Some Girls" bonus tracks. "Run Rudolph Run" and "The Harder They Come" were released as the A- and B-sides of a Keith Richards solo single in 1978, but I credit those to the Rolling Stones since that band in fact backed him on those supposed "solo" songs. Finally, "Sweet Little Sixteen" was done in concert and was released on the live album "Live in Texas '78." 

The studio sessions from 1977 and 1978 have been bootlegged at high quality, so everything here sounds good. The only other live track is "Hound Dog," but that's from a soundboard bootleg, so it sounds as good as the rest.

By the way, the song "Don't Look Back" was originally done by the Temptations in 1965 in the typical Motown style. In 1978, Peter Tosh and Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger released a reggae version as a single. I'll include that version on another stray tracks album. This is a different, unreleased version, also done in reggae style, but with all of the Rolling Stones and without Peter Tosh. 

This album is 51 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists who made each song famous:

01 Tallahassee Lassie - Freddy Cannon
02 Back in the U.S.A. - Chuck Berry
03 Shame, Shame, Shame - Jimmy Reed
04 Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
05 The Harder They Come - Jimmy Cliff
06 I Ain't Superstitious - Willie Dixon / Howlin' Wolf
07 Blues with a Feeling - Little Walter
08 Say It's Not You - George Jones
09 Don't Look Back - Temptations / Peter Tosh
10 Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran
11 Hound Dog - Big Mama Thornton / Elvis Presley
12 My First Plea - Jimmy Reed
13 Key to the Highway - Charlie Segar / Little Walter
14 Sweet Little Sixteen - Chuck Berry
15 What Am I Living For - Chuck Willis
16 She Still Comes Around [To Love What's Left of Me] - Jerry Lee Lew

Here's the usual song list:

01 Tallahassee Lassie (Rolling Stones)
02 Back in the U.S.A. (Rolling Stones)
03 Shame, Shame, Shame (Rolling Stones)
04 Run Rudolph Run (Rolling Stones)
05 The Harder They Come (Rolling Stones)
06 I Ain't Superstitious (Rolling Stones)
07 Blues with a Feeling (Rolling Stones)
08 Say It's Not You (Keith Richards)
09 Don't Look Back (Rolling Stones)
10 Summertime Blues (Rolling Stones)
11 Hound Dog (Rolling Stones)
12 My First Plea (Rolling Stones)
13 Key to the Highway (Keith Richards)
14 Sweet Little Sixteen (Rolling Stones)
15 What Am I Living For (Rolling Stones)
16 She Still Comes Around [To Love What's Left of Me] (Keith Richards)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256655/TRollngS_1977-1978_SmeCovrsVolume1_atse.zip.html

There are a zillion photos of the Rolling Stones. So, for this album cover, I wanted to use something different. I found a really interesting concert poster for a 1973 concert that features a dragon. I had to crop it to get the rectangular poster to fit into the square space, and I added the text.

The Rolling Stones - Black and Blue - Alternate Version (1976)

Here's the beginning of a kind of Rolling Stones album I want to post. From the band's beginnings in the early 1960s until their 1974 album "It's Only Rock and Roll," I feel all their music was good and their albums were solid. But beginning with "Black and Blue" in 1976 until now, I feel their albums have been hit and miss. So I've made my own versions of each of those albums, removing the weak songs and replacing them with outtakes that I like better. Thus, instead of posting more stray tracks collections for the band like I did for their earlier stuff, I'll be posting these alternate album versions instead.

By the way. there are two exceptions to later albums that need improving: "Some Girls" in 1978 and "Tattoo You" in 1981. Both of those are great all the way through, so I'll be skipping over them. But with "Some Girls," there's a ton of outtakes. In fact, there's so many that I'll be posting more than one album just to deal with those.

Note that when I make or rearrange albums, I'm making them first and foremost for my listening enjoyment. Posting them at this blog to share is a secondary consideration. Each person has their own opinion on which songs are the best or the worst. Your feelings may differ, in which case you should make your own versions. This caveat especially applies to this album, because opinions on it differ wildly. Some people think it's great, other people think it's terrible, and some just find it average. 

"Black and Blue" was a big hit, going to number one in the US and Britain. But, in my opinion, the big sales were mostly due to them coasting on their reputation. Guitarist Keith Richards has called this their "marking time" album, and I agree. I feel they lost their enthusiasm of the 1960s and early 1970s, and they just put out an album in 1976 because it was expected for them to put one out every so often. Their lead guitarist Mick Taylor had quit the band after their last album, so they used the recording sessions for this album as tryouts for a new lead guitarist. Ronnie Wood ultimately won the job, but some other guitarists can be heard on the final versions of some songs.

For this album, the Stones tried some new things, dabbling with disco, funk, and reggae. Some like those songs the best, and some like them the least. I belong in the latter camp. I've removed three songs from the official album: "Hot Stuff," "Hey Negrita," and "Cherry Oh Baby." The first two are the disco and funk ones. I enjoy songs in those genres if they're really good, and in fact the Stones tackled those genres much better on their next album, "Some Girls." But I consider those two songs failed experiments that are more just grooves that don't go anywhere than actual songs. 

As for "Cherry Oh Baby," I don't have any big problem with it except that it's a cover song of a reggae classic by Eric Donaldson, and I'm much more familiar with the original, as well as a later version by UB40. When I hear the song, I want to hear those versions instead of the Stones one. I think at the time most people outside of Jamaica wouldn't have been aware of the original, and the UB40 version hadn't happened yet, so the Stones version would have been appreciated more. But I can only look at it from my perspective now, so I gave that song the axe.

To replace those three songs, I've added three others. Ronnie Wood joined the band for this album. "I Got Lost When I Found You" is a song from his 1975 solo album "Now Look." In my opinion, it sounds exactly like a Stones song, and it fits well here. 

"Come On Sugar" (sometimes known as "Let's Do It Right") is an outtake. It's a funky groove song just like two of the songs that I omitted, but I think this one is better. It probably helps that it has Jeff Beck on guitar. 

"Built That Way" is another outtake, and a typical Stones rocker. This had never been bootlegged until about a week ago, as I post this now. The bootleg recording had a big problem though in that the lead vocals were buried in the mix. I tried to use the sound editing program Audacity to bring the vocals forward. This sort of editing technique almost never works for me (it's a crapshoot that depends on how much the vocals are centered in the stereo mix compared to the instruments), but in this case I got lucky and it worked. So I made my own edit where the instrumental intro, solo, and outro sections are exactly same as on the bootleg version, but the vocal sections are altered to make the vocals more prominent by pushing the rest of the instrumentation back.

"Fool to Cry" was the sole hit from this album. I never liked that song much, mostly because Mick Jagger sings falsetto for much of the song, and I'm not a fan of his falsetto style. So I was very happy to recently discover that there's an outtake of this song that beats the pants off the hit version. For starters, Jagger sings the song without falsetto, thank God. But also, this version is much more of a guitar workout. Wayne Perkins (one of the lead guitarists trying out for the band) is all over this version, making it almost a minute longer with his soloing. I like this version much better.

In my opinion, because the band wasn't feeling that creatively inspired, they often padded out the song lengths so they'd have enough music to fill up an album, with every song being at least four minutes long. Sometimes, this was justified, such as on the seven minute long "Memory Motel," or the six minute long alternate version of "Fool to Cry." But other times, the songs start to get boring. I've trimmed the endings of two of them, "Hand of Fate," and "Melody." In both cases, I removed less than a minute. But I think it makes a difference and stops those songs from dragging.

On top of all those changes, I also tinkered with the song order. I started out with a couple of rockers. To me, "Memory Motel" is the obvious closer. I think merely changing some of the song order helps a lot.

The original version of this album is 41 minutes long. This version is 38 minutes long. I was tempted to add in another song or two, but in this case I think less is more. Frankly, most of their other outtakes from this album are more disco and/or funk grooves that aren't even as good as the songs I omitted.

I hope that if you've given this album a pass in the past due to its poor reputation, you give this version a try. Like many people, I think the band's albums peaked from about 1968 to 1972. This version aims to be more in the style of those earlier albums. If, on the other hand, you really like their 1970s dabblings in disco and funk, this is not the version for you.

01 Hand of Fate [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
02 Crazy Mama (Rolling Stones)
03 Fool to Cry [Alternate Version] (Rolling Stones)
04 Melody [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
05 I Got Lost When I Found You (Ronnie Wood)
06 Come On Sugar [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
07 Built That Way [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
08 Memory Motel (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256569/TRollngS_1976_BlckBlueAlternte_atse.zip.html

I got lucky with the cover art. Given that I made an alternate of "Black and Blue," I'm tickled pink that I was able to find an outtake from the photo session for the cover of that album. This is very similar to the official cover, except the band members are smiling instead of looking serious. (Well, three of them are smiling.) I used the exact same text and font as the original, but I had to reposition the words and drastically enlarge them in order to fill up some otherwise empty space. 

I also brightened bassist Bill Wyman. Not only was he the smallest, standing way in back, he was shrouded in darkness. It looked bad if I altered that too much, but at least you can see his face now.

The Rolling Stones - We Love You - Non-Album Tracks (1966-1967)

A couple of days ago, I posted an album that resulted when I split a Guess Who album I'd previously posted in two. A couple of days ago, I did the same thing with a Jefferson Airplane album. Today, it's happening again, this time with a Rolling Stones album. In 2018, I had posted a bunch of these songs on the stray tracks album "Flowers," which was only loosely based on the official album of that name. I've created a new version of that album, putting most of the 1966 songs it. Meanwhile, this is for the late 1966 and 1967 songs, as the band radically (though temporarily) switched its style from R&B to psychedelia.

I hadn't planned on creating this album. But a few days ago, a remarkable new Rolling Stones bootleg emerged. You can read about it here:

Treasure trove of 50 unreleased Rolling Stones songs mysteriously emerges online (the-sun.com)

I considered posting the whole thing here, but I've decided against it, because I noticed a few other similar sites had it and then quickly took it down. I presume they got takedown notices, and I want to avoid those. Instead, I'm going to pick the worthy songs from it and add them to my stray tracks albums. I also plan on posting more of those albums soon, especially since most of the songs from this new bootleg date from the 1980s and 1990s.

That said, the new bootleg contains one song dating all the way back to 1967, and it's a good one. "She's Doing Her Thing" had previously been bootlegged, but only as an instrumental, and this newly emerged version is fully fleshed out with vocals. There are rumors that the person who posted the new bootleg has more coming soon. This song gives hope that they have access to 1960s material. That would be great, because there has been very little previously unreleased 1960s material released due to continued disputes between the band and their record company from that era.

Anyway, I was going to put "She's Doing Her Thing" on my "Flowers" collection, but when I did I saw it was over an hour long, which was really long for a 1960s album. I went looking around to see if there were any more songs from that time that I'd missed. To my surprise, I found a couple. One is a bluesy instrumental called "Gold Painted Fingernails." 

Another is a very unusual instrumental for the band. According to Nico Zentgraf's authoritative Rolling Stones website called "The Complete Works of the Rolling Stones," this song is called "Pieces, Part 1 to 5." I couldn't find any other mentions of this name, so I'm using that name for now. The band recorded it in five separate sections, which may explain why it's called "Pieces." I found a version where someone had edited all the sections together. I cut out a middle section that I didn't like. The final result is a real gem, in my opinion, and is just as neat of a rare find as "She's Doing Her Thing."

On top of that, there is yet another unreleased song here, "Get Yourself Together." And curiously, this also contains an instrumental, "Title 5," that was released as a bonus track for "Exile on Main Street," even though the song was recorded in 1967 and seemingly has nothing to do with that 1972 album. (I suspect that has to do with the previously mentioned troubles between the band and their 1960s record company. I'm guessing they liked "Title 5" and wanted to release it, so they pretended as if it was from the early 1970s and thus out of reach of that 1960s record company.)

Up till now, I've discovered the rare and unusual songs on this album. But really, the meat of the album are the well known ones. In my opinion, this contains five classics with "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow," "Let's Spend the Night Together," "Ruby Tuesday," "We Love You," and "Dandelion." But the other songs are solid too. In my opinion, had this actually been an album the band released in the 1960s, it would be considered one of their best.

This album is 39 minutes long. That doesn't include the bonus track, "It's All Over Now." The band had a big hit with it in 1964. But I'm including it because they came up with a totally different arrangement for it for a TV show appearance in early 1967. They prerecorded the backing track a few days earlier, then sang live vocals to it in front of a cheering audience. It's only a bonus track because unfortunately the sound quality isn't that good.

01 Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow (Rolling Stones)
02 Who's Driving Your Plane (Rolling Stones)
03 Get Yourself Together [I Can See It] (Rolling Stones)
04 Gold Painted Fingernails [Instrumental] (Rolling Stones)
05 Let's Spend the Night Together (Rolling Stones)
06 Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
07 Title 5 [Instrumental] (Rolling Stones)
08 If You Let Me (Rolling Stones)
09 We Love You (Rolling Stones)
10 Dandelion (Rolling Stones)
11 She's Doing Her Thing (Rolling Stones)
12 Pieces, Parts 1 to 5 [Instrumental] [Edit] (Rolling Stones)

It's All Over Now [1967 Version] (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701039/TROLLNGSTNES1966-1967_WeLovYu_atse.zip.html

Since I decided to name this album "We Love You," I searched the Internet for covers of the single with that name. I've often found that using single covers for albums help provide authentic period flavor to the art. I found a good one, but a big chunk of it was filled with a boring black and white background pattern. And I found another one that had a good photo of the band, but was surrounded with some boring artwork. So I combined them, putting the band photo over most of the black and white pattern.

I did one more thing. The band photo had them sitting in front of some really awful curtains. They looked like the curtains of somebody's old fashioned grandmother, totally out of sync with their psychedelic fashions of the time. So, using Photoshop, I edited out the curtains and replaced them with a dark forest. I'm not sure why I picked a forest, but it just popped into my head as the thing to do, and I like how it turned out.