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.

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 & 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.

Traffic - Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA, 2-21-1972

I previously posted some Traffic studio outtakes from their early 1970s period. I said that really is the only bootleg recording with excellent sound quality from that time, with the exception of one concert recording. This is that one other recording.

For some reason, bootleggers had a dry spell around the release of Traffic's "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" album in 1971, with no known soundboard recordings or great audience recordings. That leaves us with this. This concert was professionally recorded for a concert film called "Traffic: Live at Santa Monica." For one, a handful of songs were cut for time reasons: "Rock and Roll Stew," "Many a Mile to Freedom," "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring," "Hidden Treasure," and "Empty Pages." Also, all of the talking between songs was cut. But at least what remains sounds great, a clear cut above all the bootlegs from that time.

I found an audience bootleg that has all the missing songs. Unfortunately, it's an average sounding recording, and to include them would drag the listening experience way down, so I decided to go without. However, I did my best to at least restore the banter between songs. I found some talking from that audience bootleg. I also searched for other bootlegs from that time period, and took the banter from a couple of those. Since it was just talking, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to edit the heck out those bits, removing most of the mud and hopefully making the vocals clear enough to make out what's being said. Then I made little tweaks to the applause on the other tracks, so the clapping would fit in with the talking.

This concert is rather short as concerts of the time go, at an hour and five minutes. The full concert was closer to two hours. Hopefully, someday the concert will be released in full, since it's highly likely the whole thing was recorded. Until then, this will have to do.

01 talk (Traffic)
02 The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys (Traffic)
03 talk (Traffic)
04 Light Up or Leave Me Alone (Traffic)
05 talk (Traffic)
06 John Barleycorn (Traffic)
07 talk (Traffic)
08 Rainmaker (Traffic)
09 talk (Traffic)
10 Glad - Freedom Rider (Traffic)
11 talk (Traffic)
12 [Roamin' thro' the Gloamin' With] 40,000 Headmen (Traffic)
13 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259273/Trffc_1972_CivcAuditoriumSntaMonicaCA__2-21-1972_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot from the Santa Monica video. Unfortunately, the film quality isn't that great, and it shows. I had a hard time finding any good images of all the members of the band (since it was a big band by then), so I took one just showing key band members Steve Winwood (on guitar) and Jim Capaldi (on tambourine) and two others. The band name with arrows hidden in the lettering was taken from the opening credits of the video.

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.

Traffic - Open Your Heart - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1972)

I've already posted most of my interesting stuff by the band Traffic. But here's another Traffic stray tracks album that I somehow overlooked. This deals with the years 1970 to 1972, after Dave Mason left the group and when some other members joined.

This album is a mixed bag of very different things. The first song is a live version of "Can't Find My Way Home." That was a song written and sung by Traffic member Steve Winwood when he was a member of Blind Faith in 1969. Traffic only rarely played the song in concert, and this recording comes from an audience bootleg.

The next song, "Gimme Some Lovin'" was first done by Winwood's first band, the Spencer Davis Group. Traffic recorded a version for their live album "Welcome to the Canteen." This is a single version that's half as long and a much tighter edit.

Two more songs, "It's So Hard" and "Easter Weekend" have a strange history. Jim Gordon was the drummer for Eric Clapton's band Derek and the Dominos. He fancied himself a singer-songwriter as well as a drummer, and did at least the song "It's So Hard" for the Dominos. But that band fell apart in mid-1971, and he became a member of Traffic instead. These recordings have him singing his two songs as part of Traffic, with band member Jim Capaldi singing as well.

However, neither song was ever included on a Traffic album, even though they're good songs. I suspect this is because Gordon was a very good drummer, but he also was increasingly mentally unstable. He only was part of Traffic for about a year. He later got a very long prison sentence after murdering his mother in 1983. Due to that shocking fact, I suspect his songs have been ignored even for archival releases.

Traffic almost never played cover versions, either in the studio or in concert. But I've found an unreleased one from a concert, "Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9." This is mislabeled on bootlegs as "Keep On Moving." It's mostly instrumental, but there are some vocals, which makes clear it's a version of a minor hit by Wilson Pickett. It comes from an audience bootleg, so the sound quality is just good, not great.

The last three songs are from Jim Capaldi's first solo album, released in 1972, but I've included them because they're kind of Traffic songs. "Big Thirst" prominently features former Traffic member Dave Mason, and it was co-written by him and Capaldi. The song "Open Your Heart" is actually an outtake from the Traffic album "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys," but it was bumped to Capaldi's solo album instead. I suspect that's the case with "How Much Can a Man Really Take" as well, since all the members of Traffic at the time appear on that also.

Steve Winwood sang lead on the vast majority of Traffic songs. On this album, two are sung by Gordon and three more by Capaldi., which is kind of strange But keep in mind that Capaldi did sing lead on Traffic songs sometimes, such as "Rock and Roll Stew," and he also co-wrote the vast majority of the band's songs.

01 Can't Find My Way Home (Traffic)
02 Gimme Some Lovin', Part 1 [Single Edit] (Traffic)
03 It's So Hard (Traffic)
04 Sittin' Here Thinkin' of My Love (Traffic)
05 Easter Weekend (Traffic)
06 Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9 (Traffic)
07 Big Thirst (Jim Capaldi with Dave Mason)
08 Open Your Heart (Jim Capaldi & Traffic)
09 How Much Can a Man Really Take (Jim Capaldi & Traffic)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700889/TRAFFC1970-1972_OpnYurHert_atse.zip.html

The cover art uses a photo from a Traffic concert in Amsterdam in 1971. A couple of the band members are out of the frame. I added the Traffic logo at the bottom, since the band loved sticking that on their album covers.

Dave Mason / Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog - World in Changes - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1970)

Have you ever heard of Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog (MCWF)? Probably not, I'd imagine. I'll explain about this band in detail below, but the short explanation is that it was a 1969 version of Traffic, except one that was led by Dave Mason, and without Steve Winwood. As far as I know, nobody has ever collected all of the few recordings of MCWF that exist, either officially or on bootleg, so I'm psyched to be presenting this for the first time. If you like the music of Traffic and/or Dave Mason, you should like this.

Dave Mason was in Traffic from the band's beginning in mid-1967 until when it broke up for the first time in late 1968. But it seems that he and Steve Winwood didn't get along that well. He left the group for a few months in early 1968, but returned in time to play a key role with the band's second album, simply called "Traffic." However, Winwood felt that Mason's style of music, more poppy and less jazzy, didn't fit in with where he wanted Traffic to go. Winwood led the effort to kick Mason out of Traffic, and apparently the two other band members (Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood) agreed.

But then something very strange happened. Not long after kicking Mason out of the group, Winwood left the band at the start of 1969 and joined the "supergroup" Blind Faith with Eric Clapton instead. Traffic then ceased to exist. But almost immediately, Mason hooked back up with the other two band members, Capaldi and Wood, and created a new band. They added a keyboard player, Wynder K. Frog, to help fill the void of not having Winwood's keyboard playing (though nobody could replace Winwood's incredible vocals).

The new band began playing concerts, with an emphasis on Mason's songs from Traffic as well as new songs he'd written. The band was well received, as they were widely seen as Traffic reborn, only with a new name. However, the band members didn't get along well with each other and didn't feel a musical chemistry. (I imagine the fact that the band was led by Mason, despite the fact that he had just been fired by the others a month or two earlier, didn't make for great chemistry!) Plus, apparently, they were all doing a lot of drugs and didn't feel that motivated. So after just three months together, the band broke up.

Mason went on to have a long solo career, starting with his acclaimed and popular 1970 album "Alone Together." Capaldi and Wood got back together with Winwood after Blind Faith broke up, and returned with the acclaimed and popular Traffic album "John Barleycorn" in 1970. Traffic stayed together for a few more years, though without Mason, though Mason did rejoin the band in mid-1971, just long enough to take part in recording the live Traffic album "Welcome to the Canteen." Frog, despite being a talented keyboard player, returned to musical obscurity.

MCWF would have left no recorded musical legacy whatsoever except for the fact that they played live on the BBC a couple of times in February 1969, and two of these songs were officially released on an obscure box set focused on the music of Traffic member Chris Wood called "Evening Blue." Plus, two MCWF instrumental studio recordings highlighting Wood's saxophone and flute soloing made it onto that box set too.

Additionally, three more songs MCWF performed at the BBC were recorded on bootleg. (A few more songs they played at the BBC appear to have been lost.) When I found a bootleg of those three songs, I discovered that the volume wobbled, regularly alternating between loud and quiet. So I did some editing in a music program to try to level out the volume. I think it sounds a lot better now. These bootleg recordings don't sound as good as the officially released songs, but they're good enough.

As for the MCWF songs here, two of them are Traffic songs written and sung by Mason ("Cryin' to Be Heard" and "Feelin' Alright"), and two others are Mason songs that would wind up on his 1970 album "Alone Together" ("Waitin' for You" and "World in Changes"). The band also do a cover of a blues song ("Leaving Blues") and two instrumentals.

If you add that all up, it's only 33 minutes long, which is on the short side for an album. I had a few Mason solo songs that he didn't do with Traffic but predated his first solo album, so I've included those as well. All the songs are ordered chronologically.

Two of these extra songs are live versions of "Only You Know and I Know" and "World in Changes" done at the Big Sur Folk Festival in late 1969. Mason apparently didn't have a band at the time, and he wasn't scheduled to perform at the concert. But Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did play, and they let Mason play two songs during the middle of their set to help him get his solo career started. Just Stephen Stills stayed on stage with Mason, playing guitar and singing backing vocals a little bit.

Normally, I don't like putting more than one version of a song on an album. But this album has two versions of "World in Changes." I'm allowing that because this album is the logical spot for both versions to fit in my music collection. Plus, luckily, the versions are pretty different, since the live version Mason does with Stills is acoustic and the other version with MCWF is with a full band. I've titled this album "World in Changes," since I have two versions of the song.

01 Little Woman (Dave Mason)
02 On a Theme Of… [Instrumental] (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
03 Feelin’ Alright (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
04 World in Changes (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
05 Waitin' on You (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
06 Cryin' to Be Heard (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
07 Leaving Blues (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
08 Jarn 1 [Instrumental] (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
09 Only You Know and I Know [Edit] (Dave Mason with Stephen Stills)
10 World in Changes (Dave Mason with Stephen Stills)
11 Satin Red and Black Velvet Woman (Dave Mason)
12 To Be Free (Dave Mason & Cass Elliot)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RokuVW8j

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sRmEosCAGsjn6hA/file

Since MCWF were only in existence a short time, and weren't that famous, there are almost no photos of the band. However, I did find one, from a newspaper article, so I'm using that as the cover art. It's a low resolution and grainy photo, but it's better than nothing. In case you're curious, the band members from left to right are: Capaldi, Mason, Wood, and Frog.

Over a year after first posting this, I decided to colorize the photo. It's still the worst quality photo I've used for any album cover, but at least now it's in color. ;) 

In 2025, six years after first posting this, I used the program Krea AI to improve the image quality. I had some problems with the hands of Frog on the far right. (AI programs are usually pretty terrible with fingers.) So I extended his jacket enough to cover as much as his hands as necessary until they looked fairly normal.

Traffic - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1968

Here's the second album of Traffic's BBC performances. Read my write-up for the 1967 album to understand what this is all about. In short, if you like Traffic at all, you need to get this. Even if you have it already, the sound quality is better than ever before.

As luck would have it, there are enough songs to make one album of all the 1967 performances and another of all the 1968 ones, with both albums being in the 30- to 40-minute-long range. Normally, I dislike repeating the same song twice on one album. Traffic did play one song twice at the BBC. But I'm lucky again because for the song "Heaven Is in Your Mind," one of the performances was in 1967 and the other was in 1968.

For the 1967 album, it seems I had the problem of BBC DJs talking over the starts of nearly every song. I'm really getting to hate DJ Brian Matthew, who annoys the heck out of me by talking deep into songs, often until the very second the vocals begin (as well as sounding as smarmy as humanly possible!). But, using the audio editing program X-Minus, I managed to wipe the DJ vocals while keeping the underlying music. Those are the ones with "[Edit]" in their names.

In November 2021, I redid all the songs here, using versions posted by blogger Prof Stoned, which sometimes had superior sound quality, and then making the above-mentioned edits from those. I also communicated with Prof Stoned, who set me straight on a few things. I thought I had some BBC songs that he'd missed, but he convinced me they were single versions and the like mislabeled on some bootlegs as BBC versions. So I've removed versions of "Feelin' Alright," "Dear Mr. Fantasy," and one or two more, that I'd had on an earlier version. This all authentic BBC stuff.

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 No Face, No Name, No Number [Edit] (Traffic)
02 [Roamin' thro' the Gloamin' With] 40,000 Headmen [Edit] (Traffic)
03 Dear Mr. Fantasy [Edit] (Traffic)
04 Blind Man (Traffic)
05 You Can All Join In [Edit] (Traffic)
06 Feelin' Alright [Edit] (Traffic)
07 Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring (Traffic)
08 Pearly Queen [Edit] (Traffic)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MLqJ5PrS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WFrSfyzxBvUsOS9/file

Just as with the 1967 album, I couldn't find good color photos of the band in concert, so I've gone with another band publicity photo for the cover art. This one is from 1968.

Traffic - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967

I'm proud of this release. Even if you have some from on Traffic at the BBC already, you need this version. Bootlegs of these performances have existed for many years, but I'm confident that the music has never sounded as good as it does here.

On previous bootlegs, some of the songs had good sound quality while others were poor. But apparently, at some point in the late 2010s, the performances were replayed on the BBC again, resulting in a new bootleg version of the songs at a much higher sound quality. Furthermore, a few songs were included that hadn't been bootlegged before.

Then, in November 2021, I updated all the songs again. This time, I built on the versions cleaned up by a blogger named Prof Stoned. He does excellent work, but he doesn't mind when the BBC DIs talked over some of the music, and kept those parts. So I used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the DJ talking while keeping the underlying music. Those are the ones marked with "[Edit]" in their names.

Thanks to all these edits, for the first time anywhere, one can hear all the BBC performances with sound quality exactly as good as the original broadcasts, and without any of the annoying DJ talkovers. This really should be an officially released album, but I've heard some record company disputes make the release of previously unreleased music from the Dave Mason years very difficult. Even if they do eventually release this, they might not remove the DJ talkovers.

The last song here, "Utterly Simple," is a bonus track of sorts, in that it isn't actually a BBC performance. It's actually exactly the same as the studio version, but it's remixed to make the spoken "phone call" in the middle of the song louder. Previously, I'd never paid much attention to that spoken part because it was largely drowned out by the music, but with this version, one can hear it as clear as day.

Traffic only performed in the studio for the BBC in 1967 and 1968. (Later, some of their live performances were played by the BBC.) I've split their performances into two albums. The 1968 album will follow.

This album is 34 minutes long.

01 Paper Sun [Edit] (Traffic)
02 House for Everyone [Edit] (Traffic)
03 Hole in My Shoe (Traffic)
04 Smiling Phases [Edit] (Traffic)
05 Coloured Rain [Edit] (Traffic)
06 No Face, No Name, No Number [Edit] (Traffic)
07 Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush [Edit] (Traffic)
08 Hope They Never Find Me There (Traffic)
09 Heaven Is in Your Mind (Traffic)
10 Dealer (Traffic)
11 Utterly Simple [Alternate Mix] (Traffic)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h65NQ3pS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yHesc9hKBvEgk7u/file

As I've mentioned elsewhere, color photos of Traffic in concert in 1967 or 1968 are very hard to find. So I've gone with band publicity photos instead. This one is from 1967. But everyone in the band was looking slightly to the side, so I made some slight edits to their eyes to make them look into the camera.

Traffic - Live 1968 - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 3-14-1968

In my last post, I used up all the studio tracks of Traffic's "Last Exit" compilation, and I said I'd have a better place to put the two live tracks, so you'd have no use for "Last Exit" anymore. Here's where the two live tracks go.

Traffic was together as a foursome - including Dave Mason - just two years, 1967 and 1968. The band got back together for a longer run of 1970 to 1974 without Mason. I like both versions of Traffic a lot, but I slightly prefer the first version, because I think Mason added another valuable dimension. Unfortunately, live recordings (all bootlegs) of early Traffic are very rare, and most have unacceptably bad sound. Virtually the only exception to this is a short concert I've posted already, of Traffic playing in Sweden in 1967, which has excellent sound. You can get that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/05/traffic-konserthuset-stockholm-sweden-9.html

The good news is I've found another Traffic concert with excellent sound, this time from the Fillmore on March 14, 1968, and I'm posting it here now. But there are issues with it, most of which I've fixed. The biggest problem is that it's short, only about 32 minutes long. Eighteen minutes of those are the two live tracks from "Last Exit," namely "Blind Man" and "Feelin' Good." The song "No Face, No Name, No Number" from that show also sounds excellent.

Unfortunately, the rest of this surprisingly short bootleg of this concert comes from another source that also sounds very good, except the vocals can hardly be heard. That's not a problem for the instrumental jam that starts the recording. But it is a problem for "Coloured Rain." So I've attempted a rather drastic edit. I took the vocal sections of a different performance of the song, from the Sweden show mentioned above, and matched the tempo and pitch with the Fillmore performance. Then I patched those in, keeping the longer instrumental sections from the Fillmore version. I think this works pretty well. But in case you don't agree, I'm including the unedited Fillmore version with very quiet vocals as a bonus track.

Note also that there's an occasional crackling sound on some of the recording, especially the instrumental jam. This actually was a problem of the sound system at the show itself. We know this because at one point, Traffic member Jim Capaldi made reference to it, complaining about the "eggs and bacon" sound he was hearing. Luckily, it's not very loud and it's mostly a problem just on that first song.

Since the concert is so short, I've managed to find a few more live performances with high sound quality. Two of them ("You Can All Join In" and "Feelin' Alright") prominently feature Dave Mason from later in 1968. (Note that Mason isn't on the above-mentioned Fillmore tracks, since they were recorded during the first time he left the band, in early 1968.)

The last song comes from a concert at the Fillmore East also later in 1968 (when Mason was still back in the band) where the instruments were all recorded very well, but the vocals were recorded horribly. As a result, the only song I've taken from this concert is an interesting and rare all-instrumental version of "Pearly Queen," so the problem of the vocals isn't an issue.

If you add up all the songs here, you get 44 minutes of music. That still isn't very long, but Traffic concerts in 1967 and 1968 were typically less than an hour long anyway, especially since they often weren't the headlining act. (The 1967 Sweden show is complete and that's only 40 minutes long.)

Aside from the songs here and the 1967 Sweden concert, the only other quality sounding live recordings from early Traffic that I've found are their BBC performances. I'll be posting those here soon.

01 Jam [Instrumental] (Traffic)
02 Coloured Rain [Edit] (Traffic)
03 talk (Traffic)
04 No Face, No Name, No Number (Traffic)
05 Blind Man (Traffic)
06 Feelin' Good (Traffic)
07 You Can All Join In (Traffic)
08 Feelin' Alright (Traffic)
09 Pearly Queen [Instrumental Version] (Traffic)

Coloured Rain [Almost Instrumental Version] (Traffic)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259246/Trffc_1968b_Live1968FillmreWestSnFranciscoCA__3-14-1968_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I wanted to use a color photo of Traffic playing in concert in 1968. But those are extremely rare, and I didn't find a single good one. So instead I decided to use a concert poster. This is part of a larger poster by Frank Bettlencourt of a concert in the Earl Warren Showground, Santa Barbara, CA, with Electric Flag, Traffic, and Steppenwolf. I removed Electric Flag and Steppenwolf from the poster and replaced that with some other text.

Traffic - Hole in My Shoe - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1968)

I commend Traffic for putting out the "Last Exit" album in 1969. It was one of the first examples of a rock band album that gathered up stray tracks. But in retrospect, it didn't do nearly as good a job as it should have. I suggest you forget that one and replace it with this.

This album has all of the studio songs from "Last Exit," plus more. (There are two long live songs on "Last Exit." I'm not including them here, because I have a better spot for them on another album that I'll be posting here soon.) The songs on "Last Exit" were either unreleased or obscure at the time the album came out. That meant it missed the three big hit singles Traffic put out, as well as their B-sides. This has those, plus a couple of additional songs that were otherwise missed.

Note that I didn't include any songs on the British versions of Traffic's first two albums, "Mr. Fantasy" and "Traffic." However, two songs from those are included here ("Giving to You" and "Utterly Simple"), but in very different versions. For instance, this version of "Giving to You" has an intro sung by Steve Winwood, while the album version has some talking and noise as an intro.

I've included an instrumental jam between Jimi Hendrix and Traffic as kind of a bonus track, although I put it on a Hendrix album I've posted here too.

01 Paper Sun (Traffic)
02 Giving to You [Single Version] (Traffic)
03 Hole in My Shoe (Traffic)
04 Smiling Phases (Traffic)
05 Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush (Traffic)
06 Am I What I Was or Am I What I Am (Traffic)
07 Utterly Simple [Soundtrack Version] (Traffic)
08 Just for You (Traffic)
09 Medicated Goo (Traffic)
10 Something's Got a Hold of My Toe [Instrumental] (Traffic)
11 Shanghai Noodle Factory (Traffic)
12 Withering Tree (Traffic)
13 Jam Thing [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix & Traffic)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700887/TRAFFC1967b-1968_HleinMySho_atse.zip.html

I've titled this album "Hole in My Shoe" mainly because I found a really nice cover to the "Hole in My Shoe" which I'm able to use as this album cover, with only a few minor tweaks.

Traffic - Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden, 9-12-1967

I've already posted one Traffic album, a concert from 1970. But I plan on posting some more, including stray tracks collections and BBC performances. But first, here's a concert from 1967.

Traffic was together (with Dave Mason) from 1967 to 1968, then broke up for a year, before having a longer run, from 1970 to 1974 (without Dave Mason, except for a few concerts). There are lots of concert recordings from their second iteration, both official and bootleg, but almost none from their first iteration. Generally, the few bootlegs that exist from that time have poor sound. This concert from Stockholm, Sweden, is almost the only exception.

I'm not sure why, but I have a bunch of recordings in my music collection from the late 1960s recorded at the Konserthuset with unusually good sound quality for its time. Maybe there were a series of shows recorded for a Swedish TV or radio show? The only downside is that the concert is rather short, at about 41 minutes. But that probably was all they played that night, and the other Traffic setlists from 1967 are similarly short.

There's a popular bootleg of this show called "Traffic Jam." But I see no reason for that name, other than a play on words, so I'm skipping that.

01 Giving to You (Traffic)
02 Smiling Phases (Traffic)
03 Coloured Rain (Traffic)
04 Hole in My Shoe (Traffic)
05 Feelin' Good (Traffic)
06 Paper Sun (Traffic)
07 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259250/Trffc_1967d_KonserthsetStockhlmSweden__9-12-1967_atse.zip.html

It's very tough to find any good photos of Traffic in concert in 1967. I had to resort to using a photo from the cover of the official Traffic archival release "The Definitive Collection."

Traffic - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: John Peel's Sunday Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 4-30-1970

This is the third Traffic BBC album I'm posting. It's a  concert from 1970. It leans heavily on the "John Barleycorn Must Die" album, which would be released a couple of months later.

At the time, the band was just a trio consisting of Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood. A few months later, Ric Grech would join on bass. (Prior to Grech joining, Winwood generally did bass parts on his organ.)

When I first posted this album in 2018, I made some decisions that I now regret. One is that the concert was emceed by BBC DJ John Peel, and I cut out all of Peel's banter between songs. I am now restoring all of that. The other is that I added some additional songs at the end, from a November 1970 concert at the Fillmore East. That made sense if I was going to present just one Traffic concert from 1970. But I have since decided that later concert deserves to be posted in full, so I've removed those extra songs from this album. 

 

So this is how I should have posted the album in the first place. Note I also made a slight change to the album title (and thus the cover art too), since it should be "John Peel's Sunday Concert" and not just "In Concert."

 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is one hour long. 

 

01 talk (Traffic)
02 Who Knows What Tomorrow Will Bring (Traffic)
03 talk (Traffic)
04 Every Mother's Son (Traffic)
05 talk (Traffic)
06 No Time to Live (Traffic)
07 talk (Traffic)
08 Medicated Goo (Traffic)
09 talk (Traffic)
10 John Barleycorn (Traffic)
11 talk (Traffic)
12 Pearly Queen (Traffic)
13 talk (Traffic)
14 Stranger to Himself (Traffic)
15 talk (Traffic)
16 Empty Pages (Traffic)
17 talk (Traffic)
18 Glad [Instrumental] (Traffic)
19 Freedom Rider (Traffic)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AqLpeRf5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Qp9JsE0lLP8ZHNu/file

Originally, I used the cover of a popular bootleg for this concert. But much later, I decided it simply wasn't a very good picture. So I replaced it with a photo of the band playing at Middlesborough, Britain, in March 1970.