Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 1: Tower of Power

Here's the first set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Tower of Power.

Here's what the Wikipedia introductory paragraph has to say about the band:

"Tower of Power is an American R&B and funk band and horn section, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing since 1968. The band has had a number of lead vocalists, the best-known being Lenny Williams, who fronted the band between early 1973 and late 1974, the period of their greatest commercial success. They have had eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Their highest-charting songs include 'You're Still a Young Man,' 'So Very Hard to Go,' 'What Is Hip?,' and 'Don't Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream).'"

Here's the link to the full entry:

Tower of Power - Wikipedia 

This, the final night of the concerts closing the Fillmore West, had some of the biggest name acts. That was less so for Tower of Power. In a couple of years they would become pretty big, but they were relatively unknown in 1971. At the time of this concert, they had only released one album, "East Bay Grease," which barely missed the bottom of the Top 100 on the U.S. album charts in 1970. 

However, the band was already playing songs that would appear on their next album, "Bump City," released in 1972. Specifically, they played "Skating on Thin Ice," "You Got to Funkifize," and "You're Still a Young Man" from that album. "You're Still a Young Man" would prove to be the band's breakthrough hit, making the Top 40 in the U.S. singles chart in 1972.

On song from this concert, "Back on the Streets Again," made it onto the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Everything else here is unreleased. 

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Tower of Power)
02 Let a Woman Be a Woman, Let a Man Be a Man (Tower of Power)
03 talk (Tower of Power)
04 Social Lubrication (Tower of Power)
05 talk (Tower of Power)
06 Back on the Streets Again (Tower of Power)
07 talk (Tower of Power)
08 You're Still a Young Man (Tower of Power)
09 talk (Tower of Power)
10 Skating on Thin Ice (Tower of Power)
11 talk (Tower of Power)
12 You Got to Funkifize (Tower of Power)
13 You're Gonna Need Me (Tower of Power)
14 The Skunk, the Goose, and the Fly (Tower of Power)
15 talk (Tower of Power)
16 Sparkling in the Sand (Tower of Power)
17 Knock Yourself Out (Tower of Power)
18 Don't Fight It (Tower of Power)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AcjBD23F

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4L04sEP9T7WsufH/file

Don't look too closely at the cover! It has issues. It's a screenshot taken from this exact concert. However, the source was a low-res video, and due to the number of people involved, the level of detail per person is quite low. Still, I guess it's better than nothing. 

In Concert Against AIDS, Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, CA, 5-27-1989, Part 1: Tower of Power, Joe Satriani, and Los Lobos

Here's another big benefit concert with lots of big name stars. It's another case where these kinds of concerts seem to have mostly been forgotten, so I'm trying to give them the attention they deserve. I found enough for four albums from this concert. Here's the first one.

In the 1980s especially, the disease AIDS was a big issue. There was a lot of misinformation and fear about it. Ronald Reagan, who was president of the U.S. from 1981 to 1989, didn't even mention AIDS in public until 1985, despite it being a big news story since 1981, and he didn't give a speech addressing it until 1987. Foolish people were saying AIDS was a punishment from God for homosexuality (though eventually way more non-homosexuals would get it), and that one could get it from toilet seats and kissing and the like (which was untrue). So this concert was meant to help raise awareness about to issue as well as raise money to fund non-profits that were working on the issue.

The concert was held in the Oakland Coliseum, which could hold about 50,000 people. But I've come across some articles from the time period. It turns out there was so much fear and misinformation about AIDS at the time that about 20,000 tickets were unsold, and the articles cited opinions that some people were staying away out of fear of AIDS. For instance, famous music promoter Bill Graham, who helped promote this festival, said at the time, "There are people who are staying away out of fear, and they need to be educated." As if you could get AIDS just by attending a concert about AIDS! Sheesh!

Anyway, this first album essentially contains the warm-up acts before the bigger names performed later. Los Lobos was already a pretty big name, especially after they had a Number One single in the U.S. with "La Bamba" in 1987, so they get most of the time here. However, it's possible the first two acts, Joe Satriani and Tower of Power, performed more songs. I don't know. I put these albums together from multiple sources, and none of them had everything, which increases the chances there are more pieces I couldn't find.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 Always with Me, Always with You [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
02 Surfing with the Alien [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
03 The Crush of Love [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
04 Believe It (Tower of Power)
05 talk (Tower of Power)
06 What Is Hip (Tower of Power)
07 talk (Los Lobos)
08 Evangeline (Los Lobos)
09 Don't Worry Baby (Los Lobos)
10 talk (Los Lobos)
11 Will the Wolf Survive (Los Lobos)
12 I Walk Alone (Los Lobos)
13 talk (Los Lobos)
14 The Giving Tree (Los Lobos)
15 talk (Los Lobos)
16 Let's Say Goodnight (Los Lobos)
17 talk (Los Lobos)
18 Someday (Los Lobos)
19 Georgia Slop (Los Lobos)
20 Shakin' Shakin' Shakes (Los Lobos)
21 I Got Loaded (Los Lobos)
22 Why Do You Do (Los Lobos)
23 talk (Los Lobos) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jXifNoFo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/P9BFcCIUhqeQ3SE/file

The cover image is a screenshot taken from a video of Los Lobos performing at this exact concert. It's a bit low-res, but it was the best I could find. I tried to use the Krea AI program to increase the detail, but in this case it didn't seem to help much.

Little Feat with Tower of Power - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, L'Olympia, Paris, France, 2-3-1975

Here's a BBC concert album from the band Little Feat. It took place when they were at or near their musical prime, in 1975. It also contains a short opening set by the band Tower of Power.

This concert was a popular bootleg for a long time, ever since people recorded it off the radio. In 2024, the Little Feat portion was finally officially released, as extra tracks on the deluxe edition of the band's 1974 album "Feats Don't Fail Me Now." I used that recording for that portion of the concert. However, I was surprised to discover that recording has a serious flaw (and one not shared with the Tower of Power section), in that the vocals were quite low in the mix. So I brought the vocals back up to where they should have been, to match the Tower of Power section, using the MVSEP program. So now this should sound better than it ever has sounded before.

The Tower of Power section is 20 minutes long, while the Little Feat portion is 55 minutes long. The Tower of Power section is still unreleased. The sound quality is excellent throughout.

There's been some contradictory information about when this concert took place. I've seen some sources say February 1st, while others say February 3rd. When I first posted this, I had it as February 1st. But then I was sent some more information by a commenter, and that swayed me to change it to February 3rd just one day later. 

Note that I found a second BBC concert Little Feat did much later, so this is "Volume 1." I hope to post "Volume 2" soon as well.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

01 Only So Much Oil in the Ground (Tower of Power)
02 talk (Tower of Power)
03 Don't Change Horses [In the Middle of a Stream] (Tower of Power)
04 So Very Hard to Go (Tower of Power)
05 Knock Yourself Out (Tower of Power)
06 On Your Way Down (Little Feat)
07 Skin It Back (Little Feat)
08 Fat Man in the Bathtub (Little Feat)
09 talk (Little Feat)
10 Rock and Roll Doctor (Little Feat)
11 Oh Atlanta (Little Feat)
12 Cold, Cold, Cold - Dixie Chicken - Tripe Face Boogie (Little Feat)
13 Willin' (Little Feat)
14 Teenage Nervous Breakdown (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Mjp1qfbw

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/2prYxhk5LhIkhFm/file

The cover photo is from a TV show appearance in 1974. All I know it took place in Los Angeles. For the text, I found the band name logo with the font and colors shown here. I then used Photoshop to mimic the text for all the other writing.

Tower of Power - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 6-3-1973

I have a ton of "Live at the Record Plant" radio show episodes to share, so here's another one. This one features the Tower of Power in 1973.

Tower of Power was formed in 1968, at a time when many bands with horn sections started happening. Their first album was released in 1971. Released in early 1973, their third album, the cleverly titled "Tower of Power," was their commercial peak, containing their biggest hit, "So Very Hard to Go," along with the minor hits "This Time It's Real" and "What Is Hip." They played two of those here, but not "This Time It's Real."

I've read that these "Live at the Record Plant" had audiences up to 60 people. That's as many as could fit in the small confines of that recording studio. But there's virtually no audience noise on this one. Perhaps this was one of the first shows in the radio show series, and they hadn't began inviting audiences yet.

I cut out some banter by DJ Tom Donahue near the end, when he was hyping the products of the sponsor of the show. Basically, it was a commercial inserted into his banter.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is very good. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 Squib Cakes [Instrumental] (Tower of Power)
02 talk (Tower of Power)
03 What Is Hip (Tower of Power)
04 talk (Tower of Power)
05 Both Sorry Over Nothin' (Tower of Power)
06 Down to the Nightclub (Tower of Power)
07 talk (Tower of Power)
08 You're Still a Young Man (Tower of Power)
09 talk (Tower of Power)
10 Soul Vaccination (Tower of Power)
11 talk (Tower of Power)
12 Clean Slate (Tower of Power)
13 So Very Hard to Go (Tower of Power)
14 talk by Tom Donahue (Tower of Power)
15 talk (Tower of Power)
16 Knock Yourself Out (Tower of Power)
17 talk by Tom Donahue (Tower of Power) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rfZizjzn

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/B8qsM1kA4DkV8kk/file

The cover photo was taken in 1973. That's all I know about it. 

Santana - PBS Soundstage, Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL, 2-19-1977

Here's another one of these great "PBS Soundstage" concerts I recently discovered. This one mostly features Santana in 1977. However, in the middle of the show, Carlos Santana and his band left the stage and was replaced by the Tower of Power for three songs. Santana and the Tower of Power finally joined together for the last song. On top of that, saxophonist Gato Barbieri also joined in for the last two songs.

This is an excellent sounding concert now, but boy oh boy did it need a lot of fixing. I downloaded a very large video file of the concert which sounded great. But I soon discovered a problem: there were little gaps of silence throughout the recording. Little batches of them would show up about every minute, all the way through. I don't know what caused that, but I discovered that if I carefully cut out of the gaps in the Audacity audio editing program, there was no loss of music. So, being a glutton for punishment, I tried to fix the microgaps. I may have missed a few. If you notice any annoying ones, let me know and I'll further fix it. But I got the vast majority of them at any rate.

There was an additional problem that I wasn't so successful in fixing. At the start of "Black Magic Woman," there was a voiceover for about the first thirty seconds. I used the UVR5 program to remove the talking while keeping the underlying music. However, the volume of the music had been turned down so much that there was a lot of distortion that just isn't fixable. So the first thirty seconds or so of that song is pretty rough. That's why it has "[Edit]" in its title.

This concert took place one month after the release of the Santana studio album "Festival." Four tracks are from that (1, 3, 10, and 11). It was the second and last album with Leon Patillo on lead vocals. 

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Carnaval - Let the Children Play - Jugando (Santana)
02 Dance, Sister, Dance (Santana)
03 Revelations [Instrumental] (Santana)
04 Oakland Stroke (Tower of Power)
05 You Oughta Be Havin' Fun (Tower of Power)
06 What Is Hip (Tower of Power)
07 Black Magic Woman - Gypsy Queen [Edit] (Santana)
08 talk (Santana)
09 Europa [Earth's Cry, Heaven's Smile] [Instrumental] (Santana with Gato Barbieri)
10 Give Me Love (Santana with Gato Barbieri)
11 Maria Caracoles (Santana with Tower of Power)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/p58utecV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/B74BVIbvGxulPD8/file

The cover photo shows Carlos Santana singing backing vocals into a microphone while lead singer Leon Patillo looks on.

Journey and Friends - Super Jam II, The Automatt Studio, San Francisco, CA, 10-1-1978

I'm kind of surprised that I'm posting a Journey album, because I'm not much of a Journey fan. I sing along to their hits when I hear them on the radio, but that's about it. But I stumbled across this bootleg the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised. The interesting thing about it is that it mostly consists of covers of classic soul and rock songs. The first two songs are Journey originals, and the last two are as well, but in between are no less than eight cover songs in a row. I never thought I'd hear Journey do songs like "Hold On, I'm Coming," "Crossroads," and "Born Under a Bad Sign," much less more obscure ones like "Show Me" by Joe Tex.

Adding to the interest, there are some special guests singing on some songs. I suppose I should first explain what exactly this is. Apparently, in 1978, the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show got the idea of doing special shows featuring different musical acts performing with each other. The first one of these was called "Super Jam," and consisted of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing with some other Southern rock stars. (Some band members had died in a plane crash in 1977). 

This was the second one, Super Jam II. Journey was the main band for all the songs. However, they were joined on some songs by the Tower of Power horn section for songs that needed horns, like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Road Runner." Two singers from the band Stoneground also took part, Annie Sampson and Jo Baker. Sampson sang lead vocals on "Road Runner" (originally by Junior Walker and the All-Stars), and Baker sang lead on "Love Hurts." They stuck around and sang on most of the other songs as well. For instance, on the song "People Get Ready" Journey's main vocalist Steve Perry sang lead on the first verse, Sampson took the second verse, and Baker did the third verse.

They were also joined by Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers. He was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist in the band's early years, writing and singing many of their biggest hits. But he left the group in 1977, about a year prior to this performance. He pursued a solo career for a few years, but didn't have much success, and rejoined the Doobie Brothers in the late 1980s. Johnston joined this concert from "Hold On, I'm Coming" onwards. At first, he just played lead guitar, along with Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon, trading solos. But he sang lead vocals on "Show Me" and "Crossroads."

Surprisingly, Journey started out as kind of a prog rock band, as well as a splinter band from Santana. The original lead vocalist, Gregg Rolie, was the lead vocalist for Santana's first four albums. Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon had played in Santana with Rolie. But while Rolie was the lead vocalist for Journey's first couple of albums, they didn't find much success. In 1978, Steve Perry joined, and he took over singing most of the songs. The band also switched to a more commercial sound, and soon gained massive popularity. 

This concert took place at a transitional time, with Perry being in the band less than a year. Two of the songs were actually mainly sung by Rolie: "Anytime" and "Born Under a Bad Sign." He stayed with the band until 1980. They he amicably quit, saying he wanted to start a family and explore a solo career. So while there are a couple of famous Journey originals here ("Lights" and "Wheel in the Sky"), overall, this is pretty different from how they would sound a few years later.

This performance took place in a recording studio, with no audience present. It was supposed to be broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, but apparently that never happened, due to legal problems getting permission for all the special guest participation. But it leaked out as a bootleg that sounds as good as a commercial release. The only song to be officially released from this is "Good Times" (a Sam Cooke cover), which appeared on a Journey box set.

There's some banter between songs, all spoken by Perry, but it sounds like this was overdubbed afterwards. On the version I found, there often was some music playing in the background at a low level while he was talking. I found this pointless and distracting, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of most of it. However, on track 3, there's the voice of someone faintly singing while he's talking, and I couldn't manage to get rid of that.

By the way, if there was a "Super Jam III" or beyond, I haven't heard of it.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Feeling That Way (Journey & Friends)
02 Anytime (Journey & Friends)
03 talk (Journey & Friends)
04 Road Runner (Journey & Friends)
05 talk (Journey & Friends)
06 Love Hurts (Journey & Friends)
07 talk (Journey & Friends)
08 Hold On, I'm Coming (Journey & Friends)
09 talk (Journey & Friends)
10 People Get Ready (Journey & Friends)
11 talk (Journey & Friends)
12 Show Me (Journey & Friends)
13 Crossroads (Journey & Friends)
14 Born Under a Bad Sign (Journey & Friends)
15 talk (Journey & Friends)
16 Good Times (Journey & Friends)
17 Lights (Journey & Friends)
18 talk (Journey & Friends)
19 Wheel in the Sky (Journey & Friends)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17258187/JORNY1978SuprJmIIThAutmttStdoSnFrncscoCA__10-1-1978_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Bq5hLjEN

I used a photo of the band from 1979, since they had a different drummer for almost all of 1978. This is from an appearance on "The Midnight Special" TV show.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 3: Tower of Power

The third major music act to perform at the 1975 SNACK benefit in San Francisco was Tower of Power.

Tower of Power was formed in 1968. The American band focused on soul and funk music with an emphasis on horns. They were a big band at the time of this concert, with ten band members. They had their biggest success in the early 1970s. 

A few months prior to this concert, they changed lead singers, from Lenny Williams to Hubert Tubbs.

This album is 32 minutes long.

16 talk (Tower of Power)
17 Oakland Stroke (Tower of Power)
18 What Is Hip (Tower of Power)
19 talk (Tower of Power)
20 Down to the Nightclub [Bump City] (Tower of Power)
21 talk (Tower of Power)
22 Sparkling in the Sand (Tower of Power)
23 You're the Most [To Say the Least] (Tower of Power)
24 You're Still a Young Man (Tower of Power)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17209145/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA197503TwerofPowr_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nGGCoa8A

I found only one photo of the band from this exact concert, and I used it here for the cover. However, I had to crop out some of the band members on the left and right because it was a long rectangular photo that I needed to fit into a square space. I also colorized the photo with the help of the Palette program, and then some Photoshop fixing.

UPDATE: On October 7, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.