Steve Winwood - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 4-24-2015

I posted about a week ago how there's been a recent leak of dozens of soundboard quality concerts at a Port Chester, New York venue. I'm still waiting on a lot of these. Every day, it seems someone or another is at least chopping up the single music files into songs. But since some are already converted, I can start posting those. I was feeling like listening to Steve Winwood, so I did this one.

Winwood hasn't released a new studio album since 2008. So he stuck to playing classics from earlier in his career. The only semi-recent song he played was "Dirty City," from 2008.

The sound quality is excellent (though in mono). The only tinkering I did was to boost the volume of the applause at the ends of songs, plus boosting the banter. Oh, and I boosted the volume of all the songs in general. For some reason, most of these Port Chester boots seem to have quite low volume settings.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood)
02 Them Changes (Steve Winwood)
03 Pearly Queen (Steve Winwood)
04 Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood)
05 talk (Steve Winwood)
06 Dirty City (Steve Winwood)
07 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Steve Winwood)
08 Glad [Instrumental] (Steve Winwood)
09 Light Up or Leave Me Alone (Steve Winwood)
10 talk (Steve Winwood)
11 Higher Love (Steve Winwood)
12 talk (Steve Winwood)
13 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood)
14 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/caAtwR93

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/ZtgPLfFf0BQsVCu/file

The cover photo is from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival at the Fair Grounds Race Course, New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 3, 2015.

Traffic - Fillmore East, New York City, 11-18-1970

Back in 2018, I posted an album of Traffic in concert from 1970, which I called "BBC Sessions, Volume 3." I included the four songs from this concert that weren't performed at that concert. But recently, I decided to post this concert in full. So here it is.

I suggest you download the latest version of that other 1970 concert I just mentioned. I updated it today. I didn't just remove the four songs at the end. I also added all the banter tracks between songs, which had been missing. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/04/traffic-paris-theatre-london-britain-4.html

Anyway, getting back to this concert, it's the one other great Traffic concert from 1970, in terms of sound quality. They are the only two soundboard recordings from that year, I believe. But there were some problems with this one, which is a reason why I didn't post it previously. However, I now have fixed those problems.

The main problem was that while the music was all there (with one exception, which I'll get to), the banter between songs was missing, and often even the cheering at the ends of songs were missing. However, it turns out the band performed at the Fillmore East the next day as well, and six songs from that were included on the 2011 deluxe edition of the "John Barleycorn Must Die" album. So I used those songs to get the banter and applause whenever possible. For instance, I used the November 18th version of "Medicated Goo," but pasted in the applause from the November 19th version at the end. For some songs that otherwise didn't have applause (since only a few of the November 19th versions have been released), I just recycled and patched in what applause there was in ways that you hopefully won't notice.

So that was one problem licked. Another problem is that a big chunk of the song "Glad" was missing - about six minutes. Luckily, the November 19th version was one of the released bonus tracks, so I used that version to patch it in. Frankly, you can hear this November 18th version has better sound quality than the patched in November 19th section in the middle, so I wonder why they didn't release November 18th tracks instead. But I digress.

There was yet another problem. While the recording quality was excellent, to be sure, worthy of an official live album, the vocals were low in the mix. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to bring those up.

The end result is that this sounds better than ever before, perhaps making it the best live Traffic concert recording out there. Many of the same songs were played as on the BBC concert from earlier in the year, but this has four more songs. Plus, that concert took place over six months earlier. In the meantime, Traffic went from a trio to a quartet, thanks to the addition of Ric Grech on bass. That allowed the others to be freer with their soloing, when they didn't have to do the work of the bass player as well.

The songs here are generally unreleased. But note there are bits and pieces that come from the November 19th versions, as mentioned above. The sound quality is truly excellent now.   

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Traffic)
02 Medicated Goo (Traffic)
03 Pearly Queen (Traffic)
04 talk (Traffic)
05 Empty Pages (Traffic)
06 Heaven Is in Your Mind (Traffic)
07 talk (Traffic)
08 [Roamin' thro' the Gloamin' With] 40,000 Headmen (Traffic)
09 John Barleycorn [Edit] (Traffic)
10 Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring (Traffic)
11 talk (Traffic)
12 Every Mother's Son (Traffic)
13 Glad - Freedom Rider [Edit] (Traffic)
14 Means to an End (Traffic)
15 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MVr3WG5P

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UcfuG3VuBpSWbsu/file

The cover photo shows Steve Winwood at a concert at the Bristol University Students Union, in Bristol, Britain, on April 25, 1970. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - The Carlsberg Concert - Songs and Visions, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 8-16-1997

This is a really fascinating concert, with a format I've never seen before. I highly recommend it. Basically, the idea was to get ten famous musicians to perform one classic song a year, in reverse order, going back to the start of rock and roll in 1955. The stars: Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige, Rod Stewart, and Eikichi Yazawa.

Occasionally, the "one song per year" format that meant having the star sing their own hits. For instance, Rod Stewart sang "Maggie May," Robert Palmer sang "Addicted to Love," and k.d. lang sang "Constant Craving." But more often, they sang songs they probably have never sang in public before or since. For example, Seal sang "Stairway to Heaven," Rod Stewart sang "In the Midnight Hour," Bon Jon Bovi sang "Sympathy for the Devil," and k.d. lang sang "I Will Survive!" 

Even more intriguingly, the stars sometimes sang unexpected duets. For instance, Seal and Steve Winwood teamed up to sing U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer sang a duet version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." The backing band was the same for all the songs, so there was no time wasted between songs. Stewart was the emcee, making very brief comments between all the songs. If you watch a video of this concert on YouTube, you'll see that each time he introduced a song, iconic images from the year the song was a hit were shown on a huge screen behind the stage.

For better or worse, the "one song per year" rule was only loosely enforced. Sometimes, they played two songs for one year, and more often years went by with no songs at all. They sometimes fudged the years songs came out. For instance, Rod Stewart in his banter implied that "Stairway to Heaven" was released in 1973, when it came out in 1971. The first and last songs were also wildly out of order. And the rule was only even loosely enforced until 1963. At that point, the concert turned into an Elvis Presley tribute, with seven Presley hits in a row. But those are just quibbles. The bottom line is that these big stars sang nothing but classic songs for the whole concert.

In terms of the stars, the one I had never heard of, and chances are you have never heard of, is Eikichi Yazawa. He is very little known in most Western countries, but he's a big star in Japan, filling stadiums there. He has the nicknames "The Boss" and "The King of Rock" there as well. The reason he isn't better known elsewhere is that his hits songs are sung in Japanese. He only did one song in this concert on his own, "Don't Be Cruel." I watched the YouTube video of it. He danced and held the stage with lots of charisma, but unfortunately one can hear a clear Japanese accent on his singing. Still, kudos for the concert organizers in giving him this big platform.

By the way, it may seem odd at first that one of the songs chosen was "Some Guys Have All the Luck," because it wasn't as big of a hit as the other songs here. But that's Robert Palmer had a hit with it in 1982, and then Rod Stewart had a pretty differently arranged hit with it in 1984. So it made perfect sense for the two of them to sing a duet version of it here. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only time they sang the song together.

I found two main sources for this concert. One was a high quality video file, and the other was a video downloaded from YouTube. It's a good thing I found two, because each of them had songs the other one didn't. Furthermore, "Don't Be Cruel" sung by Yazawa wasn't included on either one. But I managed to find a YouTube video of it, as mentioned above, and I included it in the proper order (since the video kept going with the next song). 

This is called "The Carlsberg Concert" because it was sponsored by the Carlsberg Beer Company. (You can see the company logo in the background in the cover image). It was conceived and directed by someone named Tony Hollingsworth. I had never heard of him before, but it turns out he came up with some really unusual and intriguing concerts. For instance, at the same time I found this one, I found another one where he paired big name American and British music stars like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jon Bon Jovi with Japanese musicians. I plan on posting that one as well, eventually. Here's his bio page. 

Tony Hollingsworth 

It seems this "one song per year" format has never been repeated in a big concert like this in the many years since. That's too bad. I had never heard about this concert until I randomly stumbled across it the other day. If you know of other "various artists" concerts that you think I should post at my blog, please let me know. It seems there are many of these, like this one, that once appeared on TV and have only existed in video format, so they've gone way under the radar when it comes to being audio bootlegs. 

The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. I did make a few fixes, such as brief volume drops, but nothing major. Oh, but one consistent problem was that all the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I boosted that for all the songs using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is two hours and 37 minutes long.

01 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Rod Stewart, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige & Steve Winwood)
02 talk (Rod Stewart)
03 Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton)
04 talk (Rod Stewart)
05 Kiss from a Rose (Seal & Mary J. Blige)
06 talk (Rod Stewart)
07 Keep the Faith (Jon Bon Jovi)
08 Sympathy for the Devil (Jon Bon Jovi)
09 talk (Rod Stewart)
10 Constant Craving (k.d. lang)
11 talk (Rod Stewart)
12 Nothing Compares 2 U (Rod Stewart & Mary J. Blige)
13 talk (Rod Stewart)
14 Ain't Nobody (Chaka Khan)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Bad Medicine (Jon Bon Jovi)
17 talk (Rod Stewart)
18 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Seal & Steve Winwood)
19 talk (Rod Stewart)
20 Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer)
21 Some Guys Have All the Luck (Robert Palmer & Rod Stewart)
22 talk (Rod Stewart)
23 Every Breath You Take (Chaka Khan & k.d. lang)
24 talk (Rod Stewart)
25 Another One Bites the Dust - Good Times (Mary J. Blige)
26 talk (Rod Stewart)
27 I Will Survive (k.d. lang)
28 talk (Rod Stewart)
29 Is This Love (Seal)
30 talk (Rod Stewart)
31 Tonight's the Night (Rod Stewart)
32 talk (Rod Stewart)
33 Stairway to Heaven (Seal)
34 talk (Rod Stewart)
35 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
36 talk (Rod Stewart)
37 Travelin' Band (Jon Bon Jovi)
38 Proud Mary (Jon Bon Jovi)
39 talk (Rod Stewart)
40 You're All I Need to Get By (Seal & Toni Braxton)
41 talk (Rod Stewart)
42 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)
43 talk (Rod Stewart)
44 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Mary J. Blige)
45 talk (Rod Stewart)
46 In the Midnight Hour (Rod Stewart)
47 talk (Rod Stewart)
48 Like a Rolling Stone (Seal, Jon Bon Jovi & Robert Palmer)
49 talk (Rod Stewart)
50 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer)
51 Dancing in the Street (Steve Winwood & Chaka Khan)
52 talk (Rod Stewart)
53 All My Loving (k.d. lang & Chaka Khan)
54 talk (Rod Stewart)
55 Love Me Tender (Toni Braxton)
56 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood)
57 That's All Right, Mama (Jon Bon Jovi)
58 All Shook Up (Robert Palmer)
59 Jailhouse Rock (Rod Stewart)
60 Don't Be Cruel (Eikichi Yazawa)
61 Heartbreak Hotel (Rod Stewart, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood & Eikichi Yazawa)
62 Hey Jude (Everybody) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6sqiV8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/l69yltKzWGqfd88/file

The cover image shows a promotional photo taken in conjunction with this concert. The version I found was very wide but vertically narrow, so I split it into two parts, to allow me to make everyone appear larger. From left to right, top row: Eikichi Yazawa, Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, and Jon Bon Jovi. From left to right, bottom row: Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, and Rod Stewart. Mary J. Blige seems to have missed the photo shoot. I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. 

Steve Winwood - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 8-27-2004

Here's another episode from that great TV show, "PBS Soundstage." This time, it stars Steve Winwood.

In 2003, Winwood released the studio album "About Time." Despite this concert taking place about a year after the release, he was still touring to support that album. So four of the songs performed come from that album: "Different Light," "Bully," "Walking On," and "Why Can't We Live Together." None of the songs from that album were a hit, so it's possible you might not know them. However, "Why Can't We Live Together" is a cover of a soul hit in the 1970s by Timmy Thomas. 

Otherwise, he played some songs from his time with Blind Faith and Traffic in the 1960s and 70s, plus only one of his big solo hits from the 1980s ("Back in the High Life Again").

Typical episodes of this show were an hour long. However, this episode is close to an hour and a half long. That's because a DVD was released from it later, and the audio here comes from the DVD. Thus, the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood)
02 Different Light (Steve Winwood)
03 Empty Pages (Steve Winwood)
04 Bully (Steve Winwood)
05 Glad [Instrumental] (Steve Winwood)
06 Freedom Rider (Steve Winwood)
07 Back in the High Life Again (Steve Winwood)
08 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood)
09 Walking On (Steve Winwood)
10 talk (Steve Winwood)
11 Rainmaker (Steve Winwood)
12 Why Can't We Live Together (Steve Winwood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KwycBTh7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vYZ9ZUPiWQpc7m9/file

The cover is from this exact concert. I took a screenshot from a video. Then I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality a bit.

Steve Winwood - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Maida Vale Studios, London, Britain, 6-10-2010

I thought I was done with Steve Winwood at the BBC after posting a BBC concert he did in 1997. But I recently came across this one. So I renamed that one to "Volume 1," and this naturally becomes "Volume 2." I wouldn't be surprised if others show up eventually, since Winwood seems to be the type of popular British performer the BBC loves to support.

This appears to be a special concert done just for a small audience in one of BBC's recording studios. Everything here is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. 

Winwood played two songs from his most recent studio album, 2008's "Nine Lives" - "Hungry Man" and "Dirty City." As I write this in 2024, that still is his most recent album. He didn't play many songs overall, but there's a lot of soloing. For instance, "Light Up or Leave Me Alone" is fifteen minutes long!

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 talk (Steve Winwood)
02 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood)
03 Hungry Man (Steve Winwood)
04 Dirty City (Steve Winwood)
05 Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood)
06 Light Up or Leave Me Alone (Steve Winwood)
07 Higher Love (Steve Winwood)
08 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood)
09 talk (Steve Winwood)
10 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Eh3erAaz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ivdn07Lt5IYPim0/file

The cover photo of Winwood was taken in Atlanta, Georgia, in July 2010.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 3, Part 12: Traffic

The twelfth album from Day Three of the Woodstock ‘94 Festival is a set by the British band Traffic, led by lead singer Steve Winwood.

Traffic existed from 1967 to 1974. Traffic then reunited in 1994, but the reunion was short lived, only long enough for a studio album named “Far from Home,” and a supporting tour. What made it a Traffic reunion was the fact that Winwood was reunited with Jim Capaldi, who was an original member of the band and most of the songs with Winwood. No other band members from the bands, original era took part in the reunion. 

This festival just happened to take place during the reunion tour. Otherwise it probably wouldn’t have been a Winwood solo concert. Because it was a Traffic reunion though, all the songs were from the bands 1960s and 1970s heyday instead of Winwood solo hits. The one exception was the song “Mozambique,” an instrumental from the band’s reunion album.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 talk (Traffic)
02 Pearly Queen (Traffic)
03 Medicated Goo (Traffic)
04 talk (Traffic)
05 Rock and Roll Stew (Traffic)
06 Mozambique [Instrumental] (Traffic)
07 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Traffic)
08 Glad - Freedom Rider (Traffic)
09 Empty Pages (Traffic)
10 talk (Traffic)
11 Light Up or Leave Me Alone (Traffic)
12 talk (Traffic)
13 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic)
14 Gimme Some Lovin' (Traffic)
15 talk (Traffic)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RRw4QqQX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/o3AXDCN6zMh2sSt/file

The cover photo of lead singer Steve Winwood is from this exact concert.

Steve Winwood - Soulful Cover Songs, Volume 2: 2006-2021

Here's Volume 2 of Steve Winwood performing cover songs. Since most of them are soul songs, or at least sang with his usual soulfullness, I'm calling this series "Soulful Cover Songs." If you're a Winwood fan, you really need to hear these albums.

Five of the ten songs here have been officially released. "Ain't No Love" is from a Sam Moore album. "Love Will Keep Us Alive," a song written by Jim Capaldi, who was in Traffic with Winwood, was done for a tribute concert for Capaldi that later got released as an album. "Thirty Second Lover" is from a Steve Cropper album, "When the World Gets Small" is from a Gov't Mule album, and "Whiter Shade of Pale" is from a Santana album.

The other songs are from concert bootlegs. But those generally were soundboard recordings, so they sound excellent. A couple were from audience boots, but I edited them carefully until they sounded better. For instance, one thing I'm doing lately for albums like this that mix studio and live cuts is using the latest computer technology to get rid of the audience cheering on the live ones.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Ain't No Love (Sam Moore & Steve Winwood)
02 Love Will Keep Us Alive (Steve Winwood & Joe Walsh)
03 Right On (Steve Winwood & Santana)
04 Pretzel Logic (Steve Winwood & Steely Dan)
05 Thirty Second Lover (Steve Cropper & Steve Winwood)
06 The Weight (Steve Winwood)
07 When the World Gets Small (Gov't Mule & Steve Winwood)
08 Crossroads (Bonnie Raitt & Steve Winwood)
09 Everybody's Everything (Steve Winwood & Sheila E.)
10 Whiter Shade of Pale (Santana with Steve Winwood)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16174770/STVEWNWD20062021_SoullCovrSngsVlum2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, California, in 2005.

Steve Winwood - Soulful Cover Songs, Volume 1 (1989-2005)

I find it interesting that most of my Steve Winwood albums in my music collection are albums I've put together instead of the official studio albums. I tend to find his studio albums too slick and predictable for my tastes. I like it better when he goes off the beaten track.

This album is a good example of that. These are all non-album track cover songs, and since the vast majority are soul songs, I'm calling this "Soulful Cover Songs." There's enough music for two volumes; this is the first.

There are only three officially released songs here. "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" is from a Ruby Turner album. "I'm Ready" is from a Jools Holland album. "It's All Right" is from a tribute album to Curtis Mayfield.

The rest are all from concert bootlegs. However, I've edited them to get rid of the crowd noise. Generally speaking, the sound quality is excellent, with the vast majority of these coming from soundboard boots. One exception is the first track. That's from an audience boot, and sounds rougher. It was a tough call, but I decided it just barely made the cut of not being a bonus track.

The vast majority of these songs are well-known classics. Winwood nails them with his extraordinary voice. It's a real shame he's never put out an all-covers studio album, because he was born to sing this kind of music.

This album is an hour long, not including the bonus track.

01 Night Time Is the Right Time (Otis Grand Band & Steve Winwood)
02 When Something Is Wrong with My Baby (Ruby Turner & Steve Winwood)
03 It's All Right (Steve Winwood)
04 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood)
05 I'm Ready (Steve Winwood with Jools Holland)
06 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Stevie Winwood & the Funk Brothers)
07 Shotgun (Stevie Winwood & the Funk Brothers)
08 What's Going On (Stevie Winwood & the Funk Brothers)
09 Why Can’t We Live Together (Steve Winwood & Santana)
10 Hey Joe (Steve Winwood with Slash)
11 Crossroads (Steve Winwood)
12 Cissy Strut [Instrumental] (Steve Winwood)

Function at the Junction (Stevie Winwood & the Funk Brothers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16162341/STVEWNWD1989-2005_SoullCovrSngsVlum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a publicity photo from 1988.

Steve Winwood - Rough Hill Festival, Gloucestershire, Britain, 8-19-1978

I'm posting this unreleased Steve Winwood concert because it's unique. It doesn't have fantastic sound, though it's definitely listenable, and the performance is a bit rough. But Winwood began his solo career in 1977 with the album simply titled "Steve Winwood," yet this was his only solo concert until 1983. 

I don't know much about this concert. But I think it was for a charity connected to Nicole Tacot, a woman he married later that same year. Given that personal connection, it's understandable that he made this one exception to otherwise not during this time period. The location was out in the countryside, only a few miles from Winwood's house. No doubt, that location made it even more difficult for him to not take part.

I also am not totally sure, but I believe the concert was broadcast on the radio. That's why it sounds better than a typical audience bootleg. However, the sound quality could be better. I think I helped a bit by boosting the lead vocals on the songs where they were low in the mix.

Winwood played five out of the six songs on his 1977 album. Of those, "Let Me Make Something in Your Life," "Midland Maniac," and "Time Is Running Out" was only ever played in public in this concert. "Hold On" was only ever played one other time, and "Vacant Chair" was only additionally played a handful of times on his 1983 tour. Additionally, "Two-Way Stretch" is a Winwood original that only ever showed up as a B-side in 1981, and this was the only public performance of it. Plus, he ended the concert with a cover of the 1950s classic "Hound Dog," the only time he did that in concert. Also, he sang "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" in some other contexts, but this was the only time he did it in one of his solo concerts. Finally, remember Nicole Tacot, who I said he married later that year? She sang lead vocals on another cover, "Then He Kissed Me." Winwood never did that one in concert again either. She also sang backing vocals on the other songs.

So, like I said, this was a very unique concert. As if that isn't enough, some of the songs were done very differently than their studio versions, especially "Hold On" and "Vacant Chair."

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood)
02 Midland Maniac (Steve Winwood)
03 Hold On (Steve Winwood)
04 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Steve Winwood)
05 Walking in the Wind (Steve Winwood)
06 Let Me Make Something in Your Life (Steve Winwood)
07 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Steve Winwood)
08 talk (Steve Winwood)
09 Then He Kissed Me (Steve Winwood & Nicole Tacot)
10 Two-Way Stretch (Steve Winwood)
11 Vacant Chair (Steve Winwood)
12 Time Is Running Out (Steve Winwood)
13 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)
14 talk (Steve Winwood)
15 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16134994/STVEWNWD1978_RughHllFstivlGlcstrshreBitin__8-19-1978_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos from this concert, at least not any good ones. The cover photo shows Winwood in May 1977.

Eric Clapton - Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 1-13-1973, Early Show

First off, I want to make clear that Eric Clapton performed two concerts in one day, January 13, 1973, at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The late show was released as the album "Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert" later in 1973. Then an expanded version of that was released in 1995. But what I'm posting here is the early show, in soundboard quality that sounds just as good as the official album. So you may want to have this, even if you have the late show.

These two concerts were pivotal for Clapton's music career and his life in general, so a little history in needed. He fell into a bad heroin addiction after his classic album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" was released in 1970. He didn't play in concert or release any new music in 1971 or 1972, with the exception of participating in the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Pete Townshend of the Who heard of Clapton's addition problem, and even though Townshend didn't know Clapton that well, he knew Clapton was a major music talent and he wanted to help him recover from his addition and get back on his feet. Townshend helped gather a band of excellent musicians just for these two shows. Many in the band were current or former members of Traffic, such as Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Rick Grech, and Rebop Kwaku Baah. But Townshend and Ronnie Wood also played guitar. 

This band practiced for ten days, and put on a good show. Clapton was still addicted to heroin at the time, but he sang and played lead guitar surprisingly well, considering his condition. More importantly, the concerts did give him a kick in the pants. He merely had been hanging around his house, watching TV and getting high, but this got him back into music. He quit heroin over the course of the next year, in part due to working on a farm to get back in shape. Then he released the album "461 Ocean Boulevard" in 1974, which was a big success and lead to a long and successful solo career. He later said that seeing the faith that Townshend and the other musicians had in him gave him the confidence to overcome him addiction.

Unfortunately, Townshend didn't leave much of a musical mark in the concerts. He didn't sing any songs, and it seems he only stuck to playing rhythm guitar. However, he seemed to have been the band leader, as well as the emcee, doing most of the talking between songs. Steve Winwood though, had a larger musical role. Clapton sang nearly all the songs, but Winwood sang lead on "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," Presence of the Lord," and the Traffic song "Pearly Queen." So the concert was a bit like a reunion of Blind Faith, the 1969 band led by Clapton and Winwood. However, since Clapton hadn't released any new music since 1970, most of the songs were from the "Layla" album and Clapton's 1970 solo album "Eric Clapton."

As far as the recording goes, this is another bootleg I found that had been improved by the person nicknamed Captain Acid. I then made more changes to his version. I boosted the volume of the lead vocals for all the songs. But I especially boosted the vocals for the talking bits between songs, which were really low. I also cut out some guitar tuning and other dead air between songs.

Note that not all of the songs performed here are officially unreleased. The 1995 version of the official album contains 14 songs. Ten of them are from the late show, and four are from the early show. Two of those from the early show, "After Midnight" and "Bell Bottom Blues," were included because they were only done in the early show. Two others, "Layla" and "Little Wing," were played in both shows, but for some reason the early show versions were chosen. By the way, I read the liner notes to the 1995 version, and it weirdly implies there was only one concert. So I had to dig pretty deep to find which songs were from which show.

This concert is an hour and 30 minutes long.

01 talk (Eric Clapton)
02 Layla (Eric Clapton)
03 Badge (Eric Clapton)
04 Blues Power (Eric Clapton)
05 talk (Eric Clapton)
06 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Eric Clapton)
07 Roll It Over (Eric Clapton)
08 Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad (Eric Clapton)
09 talk (Eric Clapton)
10 Little Wing (Eric Clapton)
11 talk (Eric Clapton)
12 Bottle of Red Wine (Eric Clapton)
13 After Midnight (Eric Clapton)
14 Bell Bottom Blues (Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Eric Clapton)
16 Presence of the Lord (Eric Clapton)
17 Tell the Truth (Eric Clapton)
18 talk (Eric Clapton)
19 Pearly Queen (Eric Clapton)
20 Let It Rain (Eric Clapton)
21 Crossroads (Eric Clapton)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mo9SJ

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xkC9cgzX

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jg3Efr0vehjxRo0/file 

The cover photo comes from one of these two Rainbow shows, but I'm not sure which one. From right to left, that's Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton, Rick Grech, and Pete Townshend. Grech and Townshend were further to the side, but I used Photoshop to move them closer to Clapton.

Blind Faith - BBC In Concert, Hyde Park, London, Britain, 6-7-1969

Blind Faith was a short-lived "supergroup." Guitarist Eric Clapton stuck with drummer Ginger Baker from their previous band Cream, and joined with singer and keyboardist Steve Winwood from Traffic and Ric Grech from Family. They only lasted long enough for one album, 1969's "Blind Faith," and a short tour. 

When it comes to live recordings, unfortunately, there isn't that much. In my opinion, this is the only bootleg concert recording I've heard with really good sound quality. There are said to be one or two other soundboard bootlegs, but they don't sound nearly as good. This was the band's very first concert, performed for free in front of an audience of about 100,000 people. It was professionally recorded and filmed by the BBC, which is why is sounds so much better than their other bootlegs.

The downside is that, even though the audience reaction was very good, the band felt their performance was subpar. Apparently, Clapton complained about it in an autobiography he wrote many years later. It's true that they probably weren't at their best, due to the fact that they hadn't had enough practice to fully jell yet. For instance, you can hear Winwood failing to hit or hold notes sometimes. But I'd rather hear this than a better performed show with poor sound quality. These guys were still excellent musicians who ran circles around most everyone else even on their bad days.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Clapton thought the jamming in Cream had grown excessive, so he was against long solos in Blind Faith. You can see that here, with the longest song being seven minutes. With Cream, their songs sometimes went to 20 minutes or thereabouts. Probably as a result of that attitude, and a lack of new material, the concert is relatively short. They did all the songs from their sole album, and a few covers, but they didn't want to rely on lots of their Cream and Traffic songs. The only one done here is Traffic's "Means to an End."

This album is 49 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 10th, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same. However, I confirmed this concert was played on BBC that same year, so I added "BBC In Concert" to the title, and updated the cover art and mp3 tags.

01 talk (Blind Faith)
02 Well... All Right (Blind Faith)
03 Sea of Joy (Blind Faith)
04 talk (Blind Faith)
05 Sleeping in the Ground (Blind Faith)
06 Under My Thumb (Blind Faith)
07 talk (Blind Faith)
08 Can't Find My Way Home (Blind Faith)
09 Do What You Like (Blind Faith)
10 Presence of the Lord (Blind Faith)
11 talk (Blind Faith)
12 Means to an End (Blind Faith)
13 Had to Cry Today (Blind Faith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fWgcvjjv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HvpJ8ufs48SNNq7/file

The cover comes from this exact concert. By the way, note the lens of a film camera on the far left. You can watch a video of the whole concert shot by those cameras on YouTube.

Latin Crossings (Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval) - Westport Festival, Music Halle, Hamburg, Germany, 7-18-1998

I've posted a couple of rather unusual Steve Winwood albums in recent days. So what the heck, here's another one. This is probably the strangest of all. In 1998, Steve Winwood took part in a short European tour with a couple of stars from the Latin jazz world: percussionist Tito Puente and trumpet player Arturo Sandoval. They did some Latin tunes, as well as some of Winwood's hits that had a Latin influence on them. The band never released any recordings, and never played again after this tour. The whole thing probably would have slipped into the mists of time except for the fact that a bootleg of an excellent soundboard exists, which is presented here.

Winwood hasn't been that influenced by Latin sounds (compared to say, Stephen Stills, who has done a bunch of Latin-based songs), so this collaboration seems to have come out of left field. But it turns out that in 1976 he played lead guitar on a Latin music album by the Fania All Stars called "Delicate and Jumpy." He even played one song from that album here, "Picadillo." Mostly, he stayed on keyboards for this concert. But on that song and a couple others, he broke out the lead guitar instead, sounding quite a bit like Carlos Santana at times.

I applaud Winwood for taking part in a collaboration like this. Most stars as famous as he was by the 1990s would have been content to do the same thing and just play their own concerts full of their own hits. I'm guessing he did this for the love of the music instead of for what minimal money he would have made.

The only problem with this concert is it seems to get cut off before the end of the concert. The last song "Gimme Some Lovin'" got abruptly cut off near the end of the song. I fixed this by finding an audience bootleg elsewhere, then patching about fifteen seconds just to give it closure. It's such a short addition that the poor sound quality doesn't sound apparent, in my opinion. But it seems the band played other songs, such as "Oye Coma Va," a song originally done by Tito Puente but also made famous by Santana. Still, having some of this is better than nothing.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Con Sandunga [Instrumental] (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])
02 Higher Love (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])
03 Para Los Rumberos (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])
04 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])
05 I'm a Man (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])
06 Picadillo [Instrumental] (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])
07 Gimme Some Lovin' [Edit] (Latin Crossings [Steve Winwood, Tito Puente & Arturo Sandoval])

https://www.upload.ee/files/16371636/STEVWNWD1998WstprtFstivlMsicHlleHmbrgGrmny__7-18-1998_atse.zip.html

I had a hard time finding any good photos of this band. So in the end I took a screenshot of a video of them from YouTube. It's rather rough, but at least it's something. The words at the top come from a concert poster, unchanged.

Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi - Timothy White's Rock Stars, Emerald Sound Studios, Nashville, TN, 11-1990

Here's an extra cool treat, in my opinion. If you're a fan of Steve Winwood and/or Traffic, you should give this a listen. That's doubly so if you're into acoustic music as I am, because this features just ex-Traffic members Steve Winwood or guitar or piano, and Jim Capaldi on (light) drums.

In 1990, Winwood released the solo studio album "Refugees of the Heart." It wasn't one of his better efforts. But it led to a reunion of Winwood with Capaldi, who had a moderately successful solo career until this point. Winwood and Capaldi wrote most Traffic songs together. For "Refugees of the Heart," they co-wrote one song, "One and Only Man," and Capaldi played drums on a few others.

Once the album was released, the two of them continued writing songs together. This eventually morphed into the release of the 1994 Traffic album "Far from Home," though they were the only two members of Traffic on it. By the way, I considered whether I should bill this as "Traffic" or not, since this is the exact same line-up as that album. But for this show they were billed just as Winwood and Capaldi, so I went with that. They wouldn't decide to bill themselves as Traffic again until 1992, after the suggestion of a fan.

This is very much like an episode of "VH-1 Storytellers," because there was a lot of talking between songs. There was more, but I edited a lot of it out. Mainly, I cut out most of the vocals of DJ Timothy White. Also, songwriter Will Jennings stopped by halfway through the show. He spoke a little bit, but I cut out virtually everything from him. What I kept were the parts of the discussions that related to the songs they were playing. I tried to make it similar to a concert experience where performers often explain some about the songs they're about to play.

Ironically, even though this radio appearance was supposed to promote the album "Refugees of the Heart," there is only one song here from that album, "I Will Be Here." They played two songs that were still unreleased, "Here Comes a Man" and "Nowhere Is Their Freedom." Both of those would appear on the 1994 Traffic album "Far from Home." Instead, they mostly played and talked about old Traffic songs, as well as a few others from various points in Winwood's career, including "Presence of the Lord," a Blind Faith song written by Eric Clapton. Musically, this is dominated by Winwood, with all of the lead vocals by him, and Capaldi often on backing vocals. But both of them talked a lot between songs.

I did a fair amount of creative editing here, due to the way I cut the talking down to make the whole thing better for repeat listenings. I moved some of the talking bits, and also moved some of the songs, for various reasons, such as not wanting there to be too long of a stretch of talking between songs. I also figured out there were a couple of songs here that weren't on the usual bootlegs. Instead, they appeared on a DVD released years later called "From the Archives." The reason I know they're from here is because a couple of songs on that are exactly the same as the bootleg versions. Plus, all of them featured Winwood and Capaldi in an acoustic context, and this was the only time that seemed to have been recorded.

Capaldi died of cancer in 2005 at the age of 60. He and Winwood were starting to work on another album together, but that effort had to stop due to Capaldi's health rapidly declining. It seems this is the one and only time they did an extensive acoustic session like this that was recorded for posterity. It really is a unique find for fans of this music.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
02 Valerie [Edit] (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
03 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
04 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
05 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
06 Here Comes a Man (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
07 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
08 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
09 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
10 No Face, No Name, No Number (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
11 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
12 Empty Pages (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
13 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
14 Nowhere Is Their Freedom (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
15 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
16 I Will Be Here (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
17 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
18 While You See a Chance (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
19 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
20 Don't You Know What the Night Can Do (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
21 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
22 Presence of the Lord (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
23 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
24 John Barleycorn (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
25 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
26 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
27 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700508/STEVWNWOD1990_TimthyWhitsRckStrsEmerldSundStdiosNshvlleTN__11-1990_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken somewhere in 1994. I adjusted Jim Capaldi's eyes (he's on the one with moustache and goatee) so they are looking at the camera like Steve Winwood's.

Steve Winwood - Tour Rehearsal, Wimbledon, Britain, 5-20-1983

The other day, I wanted to listen to something from Steve Winwood that I hadn't heard before. I thought a concert would be good, since I don't have much live music from his solo career. But many songs from his hit 1986 album "Back in the High Life" are overplayed, and I haven't heard much of his solo stuff from prior to that. So I looked for something earlier. It turns out he only did one solo tour prior to that, in 1983. Unfortunately, there seem to be no really excellent sounding bootleg recordings of that tour... except for this one.

However, this isn't exactly a concert recording. Instead, it's taken from a rehearsal right before the tour began. Winwood and his band ran through most of the songs they would play on the tour just as if an audience was there. But since there was no audience, the already very good sound quality is improved by the lack of any cheering and clapping. 

Sometimes, these sorts of rehearsals can be poor, with the musicians fumbling their way through songs they're still trying to figure out. But this must have been a final run through, because the songs sound as sharp and good as if they were played in concert, with no flubs at all. 

Already by 1983, Winwood had three successful solo albums, and a couple of big hits with "While You See a Chance" and "Valerie." So, not surprisingly, most of the songs here are from those three albums. Due to the massive success of his 1986 album "Back in the High Life," most of these songs would be retired from later concert tours. Thus I'd suspect these are the only good recordings of many of them, other than the album versions.

In the actual 1983 concerts, Winwood would play more songs from his time with Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group, namely, "Somebody Help Me," "Dear Mr. Fantasy," "Gimme Some Lovin'," "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys," and "Keep on Running." Unfortunately, none of those are included. Probably that's because he could do a song like "Gimme Some Lovin'" in his sleep by this time, so there wasn't much need to rehearse it. The only oldies are "I'm a Man" and a cover of "(I'm A) Road Runner." Note that "Your Silence Is Your Song" is a rarity that only appeared on a 1982 movie soundtrack.

All of these performances were taken from YouTube videos. I couldn't find them anywhere else. I didn't see any mention of what order the songs were played. So I looked at the set lists of his 1983 concerts. Most of them had the songs in the same order every night, with a few additions or subtractions here and there. Thus I used that order. I couldn't find any reference to two of the songs being played in concert at all, "There's a River" and "While There Is a Candle Burning," so I put those two in front.

Note that there was a fair amount of dead air at the starts and ends of songs. I never heard any talking, so I didn't delete that. But there was some tuning or putzing around with the instruments. I think it makes a stronger listen with all that cut out.

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

01 There's a River (Steve Winwood)
02 While There Is a Candle Burning (Steve Winwood)
03 Your Silence is Your Song (Steve Winwood)
04 [I'm A] Road Runner (Steve Winwood)
05 Help Me Angel (Steve Winwood)
06 Arc of a Diver (Steve Winwood)
07 Valerie (Steve Winwood)
08 Second-Hand Woman (Steve Winwood)
09 Vacant Chair (Steve Winwood)
10 Slowdown Sundown (Steve Winwood)
11 Dust (Steve Winwood)
12 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood)
13 Big Girls Walk Away (Steve Winwood)
14 And I Go (Steve Winwood)
15 While You See a Chance (Steve Winwood)
16 Still in the Game (Steve Winwood)
17 Spanish Dancer (Steve Winwood)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274860/SteveWnwd_1983_TourRehearslWimbldonBritain__5-20-1983_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from his 1983 concert tour, but I don't know the details.

Steve Winwood - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Manchester Opera House, Manchester, Britain, 5-22-1997

Here's another BBC concert, this time from Steve Winwood. 

I figure this one has to be seriously edited down. It's only 45 minutes long, and one would assume someone like Winwood would play concerts that are about an hour and a half long, at least. If there was any dialogue between songs, that's gone too. 

The result is that only the most popular songs remain. For instance, this dates from 1997, but there's almost nothing that he did from the 1990s. The lone exception is a cover of "Family Affair," which he put on his 1997 album, but it is a Sly and the Family Stone song from the early 1970s. Winwood didn't have any big hits in the 1990s. What remains are his big hits from the 1980s, plus three hits he did in the 1960s with the Spencer Davis Group. Curiously, there's nothing at all from his years with Traffic. These editing choices means the songs here have an emphasis on lively rhythm and blues.

As usual with BBC concerts, the sound quality is excellent.

The album is 45 minutes long.

UPDATE: On December 31, 2024, I renamed the album. I found a later BBC album from him, so this one became "Volume 1." I also redid the art with the name change.

01 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood)
02 Roll with It (Steve Winwood)
03 While You See a Chance (Steve Winwood)
04 Family Affair (Steve Winwood)
05 Freedom Overspill (Steve Winwood)
06 Keep On Running (Steve Winwood)
07 Higher Love (Steve Winwood)
08 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HS4ttGTP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FrSnq9oRX479Dvz/file

The cover photo comes from a performance at the VH-1 Music Awards in Los Angeles in 1997.

Traffic - Alternate Studio Versions, 1971-1973

Traffic was a great band, and they were particularly great live. However, there's a frustratingly small amount of good sounding music by them other than what was released on their official albums. Almost no archival material has been released in the decades since the band broke up in the mid-1970s, other than a few bonus tracks here and there. Most live bootlegs of the band are audience recordings that sound poor to awful. There are a few good ones from 1967 to 1970, but I've posted those here already.

The situation gets even worse after 1970. There's one official live album called "On the Road," but it's merely okay. Most critics said the songs went on too long, and the playing wasn't that inspired. I agree. In my opinion, the band's last great album is "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" from 1971. I've found one fairly good live recording from that time period, which I will post later. But in terms of sound quality, it turns out there are some unreleased studio recordings that sound fantastic, and that's what this album is.

The first three songs are outtakes from the "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys." There really needs to be some kind of deluxe or even super deluxe release of that album, but as it is, there haven't even been any bonus tracks released. There is a popular bootleg of outtakes though, and that's where these three songs come from. All three are interesting alternate takes with excellent sound quality. 

However, beware that that bootleg has some other songs on it that aren't worthy of inclusion here. For instance, there's an alternate mix of "Rock and Roll Stew" that's just that, an alternate mix, that's barely different from the album version. There also are three instrumental jams that actually aren't Traffic at all, but outtakes from album sessions of a different artist that sounded kind of like them. And so on. These are the three gems from that bootleg.

Most of the rest of the songs date to a performance on the German TV show "Musikladen" in 1973. The band stopped doing BBC sessions and most other TV or radio show appearances after 1970, but this is one key exception. These songs were done live in the studio, without any audience, so they're essentially alternate studio versions as well. Three of the songs are from the band's 1973 album "Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory." But there's also a version of "40,000 Headmen," first done in 1968. And there's an instrumental simply called "Jammin'" by Musikladen. If anyone knows of a better title for that one, please let me know.

The last song, Light Up or Leave Me Alone" from the "Low Spark" album, is a bit of cheat, because it's actually taken from a 1973. But I'm including it here because it was filmed for a German TV show, and the sound quality is so excellent that you'd think it's another studio outtake. That's helped by the fact that I cut out the audience applause at the end.

If you like Traffic from the early 1970s and want to hear something more than what's on their official albums, this is as good as it gets in terms of sound quality and performance. Let's hope more gets officially released someday.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys (Traffic)
02 Rock and Roll Stew (Traffic)
03 Rainmaker (Traffic)
04 Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory (Traffic)
05 Evening Blue (Traffic)
06 [Sometimes I Feel So] Uninspired (Traffic)
07 [Roamin' thro' the Gloamin' With] 40,000 Headmen (Traffic)
08 Jammin' [Instrumental] (Traffic)
09 Light Up or Leave Me Alone (Traffic)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700891/TRAFFC1971-1973_AltrnteStudioVrsions_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from the Musikladen show.

Steve Winwood - Acoustic - Non-Album Tracks (1994-2020)

Here's a personal update: I'm still on my long vacation, and still having very full days acting like a tourist. Yesterday, I switched from having very full days acting like a typical tourist in the big cities along the upper East Coast to chilling out in rural Vermont with a much more relaxed vacation pace. Nearly all the remainder of my vacation will be in the countryside. That means I should be able to post more often, knock on wood. 

One downside though is that I'm working from a tablet/light laptop that has my music collection on it but doesn't have Photoshop, so I can't make any album covers at the moment. Thus, I'll be posting albums here without album covers until I get home (about two weeks from now), unless it happens to be a case where I'd made an album cover already. Then I'll make the missing album covers when I get back home. However, if anyone wants to make an album cover, I could use that instead and update the post fairly quickly with that. In this particular case, some of the songs come from YouTube videos of Steve Winwood playing a guitar in front of a home fireplace, so that would make for a great cover.

Anyway, on to the music. It's likely you know Steve Winwood from his long career, first with the Spencer Davis Group, then Traffic, then Blind Faith, then a solo career. There are times he's done some acoustic-based music, such as with the Traffic album "John Barleycorn Must Die," but he's never put out an all-acoustic album, and his solo acoustic performances have been very rare. I've gathered up all the ones I could find, stretching from 1994 to 2020. That's a wide range of time, but it all fits together well in my opinion, since his voice and his style hasn't changed much over those years. 

All of the songs are officially unreleased on record, though the third through fifth songs come from an official DVD. Also, two songs, the sixth and seventh ones, were put out by Winwood on his website, www.stevewinwood.com. The rest generally come from in-person radio station appearances, so the sound quality is very high throughout. 

Two of the songs are covers: "What's Going On" and "Now the Green Blade Riseth." The rest generally are his best known songs from all phases of his career, including songs he originally did with the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith. A couple of the songs feature him on keyboards, but most are him on acoustic guitar. One song, "Higher Love," is a duet between him and his daughter Lilly Winwood, who has a fine voice.

This album is only 36 minutes long, but it's a gem all the way through, in my opinion. If anyone knows of other acoustic versions he's done that I've missed, please let me know and I'll add them in.

01 We're Gonna Make It (Steve Winwood)
02 While You See a Chance (Steve Winwood)
03 [Roamin' thro' the Gloamin' With] 40,000 Headmen (Steve Winwood)
04 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood)
05 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)
06 Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood)
07 John Barleycorn (Steve Winwood)
08 Higher Love (Steve Winwood & Lilly Winwood)
09 Back in the High Life Again (Steve Winwood)
10 What's Going On (Steve Winwood)
11 Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood)
12 Now the Green Blade Riseth (Steve Winwood)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15193967/SteveWnwd_1994-2020_Acoustc_atse.zip.html

The cover here was made by PJ of the Albums I Wish Existed blog. The pic is a screenshot taken from a YouTube video Winwood did a few years ago.

The Spencer Davis Group - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1966-1967

Here's the second and last album of the Spencer Davids Group performing for the BBC. As I mentioned in the previous post, this basically was Steve Winwood's group right before he formed Traffic. However, their material was much more overtly based on soul music.

Most of what I said in the post for Volume 1 holds here for Volume 2. Once again, the sound quality is excellent, even though it's a mix of released and unreleased material. In fact, this volume has more unreleased performances than released ones. 

And, once again, many of these songs had BBC DJs talking over the intros. There were eight cases of that here, which I have fixed. Using the audio editing program X-Minus, I wiped out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

Pretty much all of the songs on Volume 1 were songs the band did on albums or singles. But there are some songs the band did on this album that they didn't record elsewhere, as far as I can tell. That includes "Rambling Rose," "Mess Up a Good Thing," "Oh Pretty Woman," and "That's All." Also, note that "Oh Pretty Woman" is a cover of the Albert King song, not the famous Roy Orbison song.

For both this and this first album, I avoided including two versions of the same song. Luckily, there weren't many instances of those. I believe the duplicates were "Mean Woman Blues," "Midnight Train," "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," "Together 'Till the End of Time," and maybe one or two more. (I forget.) It's very fortunate that there's one version of each of their big hits, considering we don't have any instances of any of those being played twice. Also note that probably their best known song, "Gimme Some Lovin'," has some different lyrics for the third verse. (And you can actually understand more of the rest of the lyrics.)

The Spencer Davis Group kept going for many years after Steve Winwood left in early 1967. They played some more at the BBC too. But my interest is with the Winwood years, so this album stops chronologically right when Winwood left. (They did do some good stuff later, but they moved in a different musical direction and pretty much became a different band.)

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Please Do Something [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Rambling Rose (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Somebody Help Me (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Let Me Down Easy [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
05 Mess Up a Good Thing [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
06 Dust My Blues [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
07 I'm Getting Better [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
08 Together 'Til the End of Time [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
09 When I Come Home (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Mean Woman Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
11 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)
12 I Can't Get Enough of It [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
13 Oh Pretty Woman (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Neighbour, Neighbour (Spencer Davis Group)
15 I'm a Man (Spencer Davis Group)
16 Take This Hurt Off Me (Spencer Davis Group)
17 That's All [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nQpLfPs8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/K39hQv5DtUZbe9V/file

The cover art comes from a 1966 publicity photo.

The Spencer Davis Group - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1964-1965

One thing I've focused on with this blog is to post music recorded by the BBC. I'm especially keen to post BBC sessions from all the important 1960s bands, due to the excellent sound quality from a time when there usually wasn't much recorded well other than the official studio recordings. Some of that has never been officially released. Or, if it has, the BBC DJs talked over the starts to many songs. I have limited sound editing skills, but one thing I can do is fix those in most cases. So here we go with another 1960s band, the Spencer Davis Group.

I feel this band is unjustly neglected. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the fact that they were called the Spencer Davis Group when Steve Winwood was the main lead vocalist and star. Basically, if you want to hear Winwood rip through lots of soul music covers and some originals in the same vein, this band is the place to look.

The band's BBC recordings have been somewhat neglected. There was one fairly obscure album of those recordings released in 2002, called "Mojo Rhythms & Midnight Blues, Vol. 1." But it missed many songs. Luckily, I was able to find the others with comparable sound quality. I also added three songs that technically were done live in concert: "Kansas City," "Every Little Bit Hurts," and "Stevie's Blues." But these were recorded shockingly well for the year, and sound as good as the others. I suspect they were done in a sound check type situation, because they have virtually no crowd noise. (I edited out a little bit after the songs ended.)

This band was a victim of the problem I mentioned above, BBC DJs talking over the starts of songs. Five songs here had that problem, the ones I've marked with "[Edit]" in the titles. I've used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

In most instances, the songs here are songs the band did on albums or singles, and the arrangements are basically the same. But still, they do an impressive job playing these songs live. Plus, this album, plus the Volume 2 that will follow, basically make up an excellent "best of" for the band, as it includes all their hits and the songs they enjoyed playing the most.

One song, "Midnight Train" is a bonus track only because I have another version of the song on this album, and I don't like including multiple versions. But the sound quality on the bonus version is as good as the others here.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Midnight Train (Spencer Davis Group)
02 It's Gonna Work Out Fine (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Dimples [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
04 My Babe [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
05 Watch Your Step (Spencer Davis Group)
06 It Hurts Me So (Spencer Davis Group)
07 I Can't Stand It [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
08 Kansas City (Spencer Davis Group)
09 Every Little Bit Hurts (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Stevie's Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
11 Strong Love (Spencer Davis Group)
12 This Hammer [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
13 She Put the Hurt on Me (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Keep On Running (Spencer Davis Group)
15 Goodbye Stevie [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)

Midnight Train [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1KKbswV5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HwEJPqVM2yGopce/file

The album cover uses a publicity photo from 1965.

The Spencer Davis Group - Valmiina Pyorii, Helsinki, Finland, 3-19-1967

Just yesterday, Spencer Davis died of pneumonia at the age of 81. He was best known as the founder of the 1960s band the Spencer David Group. But even though the band was named after him, the band was dominated by their remarkable lead singer Steve Winwood. At the time of the band's first single, he'd only just turned 16 years old. But he would go on to have a long and successful career with Traffic, then Blind Faith, then as a solo artist.

I've had a Spencer Davis Group concert that I've been meaning to post, so this seems like a good time to do it. Steve Winwood was only with the band a relatively short time, from 1963 to early 1967. But virtually all of their big success was with him. They had four big hits, which were number 1 either in Britain or Canada: "Keep On Running," "Somebody Help Me," "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man." But despite their successes, they never released a live album, and there are virtually no bootlegs of them in concert.

Luckily, virtually no bootlegs isn't the same as no bootlegs. I've found two interesting videos with very good (though not excellent) sound quality, plus two other officially released live tracks. I've put them all together to make this album. The first four songs here are from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Beat Beat" in 1966. The rest of the album comes from a concert in Helsinki, Finland, in March 1967 that luckily also was shown on TV. You can find that, and the German TV appearance, on YouTube.

The band was named the "Spencer Davis Group" mainly because Davis was talkative and didn't mind doing interviews, whereas the other band members were shy. So Davis does a lot of the talking between the songs. But Steve Winwood does the vast majority of the lead vocals, as well as playing the organ. If you only know him from his work with Traffic and after that, you're missing out. He already was an excellent vocalist with a remarkable, distinctive voice in these years. Yeah, sometimes the songs are more poppy, but also often soulful and/or bluesy.

The album as a whole is 35 minutes long. The Finland concert part alone is 25 minutes long.

01 Keep On Running (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Sittin' and Thinkin' (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Please Do Something (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Somebody Help Me (Spencer Davis Group)
05 When I Come Home (Spencer Davis Group)
06 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
07 Dust My Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
08 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
09 Mean Woman Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Together 'Till the End of Time (Spencer Davis Group)
11 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
12 I'm a Man (Spencer Davis Group)
13 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Georgia on My Mind (Spencer Davis Group)
15 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
16 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yiyQVvn3

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/lXTLa3dA1nL1edH/file

The cover art photo is of the band in 1967. Steve Winwood was still in the band, here's on the far right, so it must be from early 1967. Winwood's eyes were looking off to the side, so I made an adjustment in Photoshop to make him looking forward like all the others.