Van Morrison - Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin, TX, 1-12-1974

Here's something pretty awesome: a previously unknown Van Morrison bootleg from 1974, with pristine soundboard sound quality! It's pretty amazing these sorts of things keep popping up, even more than 50 years after the original performance. This one showed up at a prominent bootleg sharing site a couple of days ago (posted by BK for JEMS) as I write this in May 2026. I grabbed it there and made some edits to make it sound even better.

Sometimes, a soundboard recording captures the music on stage so very well that little audience noise is recorded. That was the case here. It almost sounded like Van and his band was performing to an empty room. I used the MVSEP program to separate the crowd noise from everything else, for every song. I found there was some crowd noise there, just very quiet. Because the sound quality is so excellent, I was able to drastically boost the volume of just the cheering at the ends of songs without having a lot of hiss too. Now, this sounds much better with the cheering at the usual expected volume, in my opinion.

There were a couple of sonic flaws. The first song (which is called "4 O'Clock in the Morning" on an official live album and "Try for Sleep" on an official studio album) is missing a bit of the very beginning. There was nothing I could do to fix this, since this song was performed extremely rarely until the 1990s and after. In "Don't Look Back," there was a burst of static that lasted a couple of seconds in the middle of the song. I was able to get rid of most of it, though not all of it, by using an MVSEP filter that reduces unwanted noise. Finally, the first minute or so of "Cyprus Avenue" was missing. So I found a similar version from the same era (specifically, a concert at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, on May 26, 1973), and used that to patch in the missing section. That's why two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Most of the songs were pretty standard in Morrison's concerts at the time. But the first song was rarely performed, as mentioned above. Ditto with "Don't Look Back," a John Lee Hooker song he originally did with Them in the 1960s. He'd only performed it once in concert prior to this. That's the same with "The Wild Side of Life." But while Morrison occasionally performed "Don't Look Back" in later years, this seems to be the second and last time he ever did it in concert. He probably played it because this was his first concert in Texas, and Hank Thompson, who had the original hit with that song, was from rural Texas.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long. 

01 4 O'Clock in the Morning [Try for Sleep] (Van Morrison)
02 Come Running (Van Morrison)
03 Moondance (Van Morrison)
04 Don't Look Back [Edit] (Van Morrison)
05 Ain't Nothin' You Can Do (Van Morrison)
06 Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
07 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Van Morrison)
08 Warm Love (Van Morrison)
09 Listen to the Lion (Van Morrison)
10 I've Been Working (Van Morrison)
11 Domino (Van Morrison)
12 Caravan (Van Morrison)
13 Cyprus Avenue [Edit] (Van Morrison)
14 talk by emcee (Van Morrison)
15 Gloria (Van Morrison)
16 The Wild Side of Life (Van Morrison) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/M9bbLqBp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/bFfUnxrS1U0Gb4e/file

I could have used a photo of Van Morrison in concert at this time, but I found a concert poster for him from 1974, and I decided to use that instead. I removed some text, and added other text, but I kept the same font type, color, and sizes. I also used an AI feature inside Photoshop to widen the image on both sides to help make it fit into a square space. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 5: Van Morrison, Linda Tillery, Lydia Pense, and More

Here's the fifth set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. So this is the very last album of the series. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set is a spontaneous jam session featuring pretty much any musician who wanted to be on stage.

Promoter Bill Graham wanted his final night of the week of concerts closing the Fillmore West to go out with a bang. So the radio station broadcast on KSAN continued until the early morning hours as the jamming continued. Surprisingly, Van Morrison didn't get a set of his own at any point that week. But maybe that was in order to save him as a surprise for this final jam session, I don't know. For the song list below, I'm only including the prominent lead vocalists for the songs that had vocals. You can see Van Morrison sang on most of the songs. But Linda Tillery of the band the Loading Zone sang quite a lot, as did Lydia Pense, of the band Cold Blood. 

But those weren't the only ones on stage. I found information that at least these other musicians were on stage during this jam session: Carlos Santana, Sam Andrew (Big Brother & the Holding Company), Michael Bloomfield, Jack Casady (Hot Tuna), John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), Vince Guaraldi, George Hunter (an artist who did many record covers), George Marsh (the Loading Zone), Bernard Purdie (a jazz drummer), and members of Tower of Power. The biggest surprise there for me is Vince Guaraldi, a jazz musician best known for his soundtracks to Charlie Brown TV specials.

It's clear no songs were carefully practiced for this jam session in advance. So the musicians stuck to simple songs that most everyone on stage was likely to know, or at least could fake it, such as "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven." 

A Rolling Stone Magazine article written just after the concert had this to say about the final jam session: "[Bill] Graham and his staff pelted the audience with gifts – paper plates, beer, champagne, and ice cubes. Sometime between 4 and 5 A.M., everyone gave up and went home. About 40 fans stuck around to shake hands with Graham, then left him to wander alone among the amps and debris." 

We actually have a photo of Graham "wandering alone among the amps and debris," so, what the heck, I'll show that here. 

It sounds like the Fillmore West was a great venue, and certainly a lot of phenomenal music was performed there during its relatively brief run, from 1968 to 1971. At least it went out in proper style with these concerts. 

This album is 55 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jam Band)
02 Rock Me Baby (Van Morrison & Linda Tillery)
03 I Found a Love (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
04 Flute and Guitar Jam [Instrumental] (Jam Band)
05 talk (Jam Band)
06 Roll Over Beethoven (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
08 Johnny B. Goode (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
09 My Angel Baby - Sh-Boom - Blue Moon - My Angel Baby (Linda Tillery)
10 Final Jam [Instrumental] (Jam Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Wh56F1Mw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/fBIQ5OtldjBWT6P/file

Once again, I got lucky with the cover art. The cover only shows Van Morrison, but apparently it comes from this exact concert. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 4: Santana & Mike Bloomfield

Here's the fourth 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 is kind of a continuation of the previous set by Santana. But it's separate from that because the band was joined by lead guitarist Mike Bloomfield all the way through. Plus, there were other guests. Most notably, Van Morrison showed up near the end to sing his song "I've Been Working."

This essentially was one long jam. I broke the music into two tracks, but the song "I've Been Working" sort of emerged from the jam without a clear break. I also don't know if the name of the jam, "Feel It Jam," means anything. I just copied that name from a bootleg.

I don't know who else performed on these jams, though it's a good bet there were others. If anyone knows, please let me know. If I recall correctly, at one point, someone on stage mentioned the name John Cipollina, so I figure he was involved. He had been one of the lead guitarists for Quicksilver Messenger Service, but he'd quit the band about six months prior to this concert. So probably this was a way for him to be involved in the final Fillmore West concerts without taking part in the Quicksilver Messenger Service performance the night before.

This music was followed by another jam session featuring some different performers. That'll be the final set from this series of concerts. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Feel It Jam [Instrumental] (Santana & Michael Bloomfield)
02 I've Been Working (Van Morrison, Santana & Michael Bloomfield)
03 talk (Santana) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BXEhUMpq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/WJ53WQC8NTU2xEn/file

Boy, did I get lucky with the cover photo for this album. I didn't expect to find any photos of Mike Bloomfield and Carlos Santana together. But I found one from this exact concert! The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: Live and Exclusive, Forum Theatre, Malvern, Britain, 11-25-2003

Finally, here's the last BBC album from Van Morrison. It's a BBC concert from 2003.

As I mentioned in previous write-ups, I think Morrison was great in the 1960s and 70s especially, and he even had a musical renaissance in the 1990s in my opinion, but he slowly turned into a reactionary asshole who also was just musically repeating himself, to the point that some of his more recent albums (like "Latest Record Project, Volume 1" in 2021) have to be some of the most critically panned albums by any famous artist, period. So at some point I had to step away from his music, and that point is right around the time of his concert. Mind you, this concert is fine by itself. But I don't have enough interest to post even more BBC material that's out there in the years after this, sorry.

Anyway, in October 2003, Morrison released the studio album "What's Wrong with This Picture?" Many of the songs here are from that. Plus there are some classics from earlier in his career. 

This unreleased album is 57 minutes long.

01 talk (Van Morrison)
02 Whining Boy Moan (Van Morrison)
03 Once in a Blue Moon (Van Morrison)
04 What's Wrong with This Picture (Van Morrison)
05 Little Village (Van Morrison)
06 Have I Told You Lately (Van Morrison)
07 Listen to the Lion (Van Morrison)
08 Goldfish Bowl (Van Morrison)
09 Stop Drinking (Van Morrison)
10 It's All in the Game (Van Morrison)
11 Gloria (Van Morrison)
12 talk (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1sr7qVKR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WitRZpkXz5zsOK5/file

The cover photo is from Bridgewater Hall, in Manchester, Britain, in April 18, 2003.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1999-2005

Here's another volume of Van Morrison performing for the BBC. This time, it's a collection of BBC TV performances.

Everything here comes from different episodes of the BBC TV show "Later... with Jools Holland." That's just by chance, as these were all the BBC sessions from the time period that I could find. The first two songs are from a 1999 episode. The next five are from another 1999 episode, a special year end celebration one. The three after that are from a 2000 episode. The last song is from a 2005 episode.

On many of these songs, Morrison shared the stage with some special guests. For the 1999 year-end episode (tracks 3 through 7), Morrison sang duets with Lonnie Donegan on three songs. Donegan was the "King of Skiffle" in the 1950s. The skiffle was a form of folk music that was extremely popular in Britain for a few years. Note that on one of the songs, "Midnight Special," Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music also joined Morrison and Donegan in singing different verses. For the 2000 episode (tracks 8 through 10), Morrison was prominently backed on vocals by Linda Gail Lewis. A duet album starring Morrison and Lewis was released in 2000.

There's one song I chose not to include from the 2005 session: "They Sold Me Out." I was fine with it at first, until I clearly heard the lyrics. They sound suspiciously antisemitic to me, and I don't want to further spread them. Even if they're not, the whole conceit of the song, in which he likens himself to being persecuted just like Jesus, is both ridiculous and offensive. Here's an article if you want a hint of the controversy this song caused:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/05/27/van-morrisons-lyrical-antisemitism/

In fact, this is basically when I reach the limit of what I can take from Morrison's declining career. Musically, he was repeating himself, and lyrically he was turning into a grumpy old man. Things would reach an all time low with his 2021 album "Latest Record Project: Volume 1," which has to be one of the worst albums of all time by a famous musical act. (At the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com, it gets a 1.77 on a 1 to 5 scale as I write this in 2025, which is a shockingly low number for that site.)

The music on this album I still like. He's helped a lot by the support of Lonnie Donegan and Linda Gail Lewis. But after this, I only plan on posting one more BBC album from him (although there are others), which is a concert from 2003.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Back on Top (Van Morrison)
02 When the Leaves Come Falling Down (Van Morrison)
03 Precious Time (Van Morrison)
04 Lost John (Van Morrison & Lonnie Donegan)
05 I Wanna Go Home [Sloop John B.] (Van Morrison & Lonnie Donegan)
06 Philosopher's Stone (Van Morrison)
07 Midnight Special (Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan & Bryan Ferry)
08 Let's Talk about Us (Van Morrison with Linda Gail Lewis)
09 Real Gone Lover (Van Morrison with Linda Gail Lewis)
10 No Way Pedro (Van Morrison with Linda Gail Lewis)
11 Celtic New Year (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/N4o2Wu5U

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/V8c1NTHQU6Y38dE/file 

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of one of these TV episodes.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Waterfront Hall, Belfast, Ireland, 2-3-1997

Here's another Van Morrison BBC album. This time, it's a concert from 1997.

I'm not a big fan of Morrison's music in the 1980's, where he leaned more into New Age sounds with more overt Christian messaging. But in my opinion he rebounded in the 1990s, with more of a focus on rootsy R&B and jazz. His renaissance continued with the album "The Healing Game," released in April 1997. A Rolling Stone Magazine article in 2019 listed the album as one of his ten best, the only album on that list from after 1980.

Although this concert took place a couple of months prior to the release of that album, he already was playing songs from it: "Fire in the Belly," "Rough God Goes Riding," "If You Love Me," "Sometimes We Cry," "Burning Ground," and "The Healing Game."

This album has two sources. The first ten songs are from a BBC radio broadcast, which was also filmed and shown on TV. Apparently, it's not just from February 3, 1997. There are some songs from February 2nd, but I don't know which is which. Luckily for us, in the filming of this concert, there were some outtakes that leaked to the public. I found those on YouTube, and added them in as the last four songs. The song order for the whole thing is scrambled compared to the actual order performed in concert, so I just stuck those four at the end. 

Overall, the sound quality is excellent. However, one of the extra songs, "Tupelo Honey - Why Must I Always Explain," was suddenly cut off before the song ended. Luckily, the song dropped off to a near end about ten seconds prior to that. Probably it would have built back up before finishing. But I just cut it off at that point, and then added in some cheering from the end of other songs to give it more of a natural sounding ending.

This album is an hour and 18 minutes long.

01 Days like This (Van Morrison)
02 Fire in the Belly (Van Morrison)
03 Rough God Goes Riding (Van Morrison)
04 Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
05 Sometimes We Cry (Van Morrison)
06 Enlightenment (Van Morrison)
07 It Once Was My Life (Van Morrison)
08 If You Love Me (Van Morrison)
09 The Healing Game (Van Morrison)
10 See Me Through - Soldier of Fortune - Burning Ground (Van Morrison)
11 The Waiting Game (Van Morrison)
12 Ain't That Lovin' You, Baby (Van Morrison)
13 Vanlose Stairway (Van Morrison)
14 Tupelo Honey - Why Must I Always Explain (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VzLSGDdw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/6sMsQvFxFJoHNZw/file

The cover photo is from the Glastonbury Festival on June 29, 1997.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Jazz and Blues Festival, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Britain, 8-6-1995

Here's another volume of Van Morrison performing for the BBC. This time, it's a 1995 concert.

This concert is unusual in that he was backed by an orchestra, specifically the BBC Big Band. It occurred before the release of his album "How Long Has This Been Going On" near the end of the year. However, this was close to when that album was recorded, and many of the songs on her would also later appear on that album. There was an unusual amount of covers on that album, and there's quite a few covers here too, despite it being a relatively short concert (or, more likely, edit of a concert). Also, that album was credited to "Van Morrison with Georgie Fame and Friends." Georgie Fame is here as well, on keyboards and backing vocals.

This album is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Alright, Okay, You Win (Van Morrison)
02 How Long Has This Been Going On (Van Morrison)
03 talk (Van Morrison)
04 Early in the Morning (Van Morrison)
05 Days like This (Van Morrison)
06 Who Can I Turn To [When Nobody Needs Me] (Van Morrison)
07 That's Life (Van Morrison)
08 I Will Be There (Van Morrison)
09 Vanlose Stairway (Van Morrison)
10 Blues in the Night (Van Morrison)
11 Haunts of Ancient Peace (Van Morrison)
12 Your Mind Is on Vacation (Van Morrison)
13 Moondance (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wgqSfhCa

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/C32vK0OisluGMtY/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Cardiff, Britain, on September 1, 1995.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: One Irish Rover, Barbican Centre, London, Britain, 2-19-1990

Here's another BBC album performed by Van Morrison. This time, it's another concert, though note it's a short one.

For the last album in this series, I used material from a 1991 BBC documentary about Morrison called "One Irish Rover." That was made up of music from several different sources, which includes this concert. But only about half of the music here actually made it to that documentary. Luckily though, a bootleg exists of more. So, unlike "Volume 4," everything here has soundboard-level sound quality. It is a fairly short concert though, at less than an hour. I'm not sure if that's because the boot is incomplete or if it was just a short concert.

 The interesting thing about this concert is that Morrison was backed by a full orchestra, specifically the Danish Radio Big Band. So, like the concert for "Volume 4," which was a short concert filmed expressly for the BBC documentary, this too could have been put on mainly to be filmed for the documentary in order to have some songs with an orchestra. But Morrison's usual band at the time was also on hand, including keyboardist Georgie Fame. He can be heard occasionally on call and response vocals.

The "Volume 4" concert I've been mentioning took place in late 1989. This one took place in early 1990. However, no new album had been released in the meantime. His next studio album, "Enlightenment," wouldn't be released until late 1990. None of the songs here were from that. However, three of them, the last three here, were from his 1989 album "Avalon Sunset."

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 talk (Van Morrison)
02 I Will Be There (Van Morrison)
03 Here Comes the Knight (Van Morrison)
04 Haunts of Ancient Peace (Van Morrison)
05 Celtic Swing (Van Morrison)
06 Got to Go Back (Van Morrison)
07 A New Kind of Man (Van Morrison)
08 Listen to the Lion (Van Morrison)
09 Vanlose Stairway (Van Morrison)
10 I'd Love to Write Another Song (Van Morrison)
11 Orangefield (Van Morrison)
12 Whenever God Shines His Light (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GJgjHpis

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/3ctkoRwuY2Qq1Kp/file

The cover photo is taken from a screenshot of the "One Irish Rover" video. I ran it through the Krea AI program to improve the details.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: One Irish Rover, Ronnie Scott's Club, London, Britain, 5-24-1989

Here's another BBC album performed by Van Morrison.

To call this a BBC album is technically true, but I had to work to make it. The basis of it is a BBC TV special focused on Morrison released in 1991, called "One Irish Rover." This was composed of different segments, including duets with John Lee Hooker and Bob Dylan. But most of it consisted of songs from two concerts. This is one of them. 

So I extracted all the songs from this concert that made it into that video. I also found an audience bootleg of the same concert. The sound quality is obviously worse, but still decent, so I added three songs from that (tracks 2, 3, and 5). Having that extra source turned out to be crucial, because two of the songs from the video were mostly complete, but had some of their beginnings cut off. I was able to use the audience boot to fill in those missing pieces. That's why "Help Me" and "Summertime in England" have "[Edit]" in their titles.

The concert appears to have been an unusual one. It took place in Ronnie Scott's, a relatively small jazz club in London. It also seems to have been short, well under a hour. It probably was done specifically for the BBC documentary, since it was professionally filmed. It took place a couple of weeks before the release of his studio album "Avalon Sunset," and featured some of the first performances of songs from that album. For instance, this seems to be the very first public performances of "Whenever God Shines His Light," "When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God," and "Have I Told You Lately."

By the way, as one can see from the video, Georgie Fame played keyboards on these songs. He was a member of Morrison's band for quite a few years, after being a big star in the 1960s.

Sorry about the noticeable difference in quality of the songs from the video compared to those of the audience boot. If that bothers you, just delete tracks 2, 3, and 5. 

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Did Ye Get Healed (Van Morrison)
02 Whenever God Shines His Light (Van Morrison)
03 Have I Told You Lately (Van Morrison)
04 It's All in the Game - You Know What They're Writing About (Van Morrison)
05 When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God (Van Morrison)
06 Help Me [Edit] (Van Morrison)
07 Summertime in England [Edit] (Van Morrison)
08 Moondance (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EpHd731e

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/v8YCl8xqjaUqswE/file

The cover image comes from this exact concert. I took a screenshot from the One Irish Rover video. Then I ran it through the Krea AI program to improve the quality.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-21-1987

Here's another Van Morrison BBC album. This time, it's a full concert at the annual Glastonbury Festival.

I believe Morrison has performed at Glastonbury more than any other major music act. He's performed there eleven times so far: in 1982, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1997, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2016, and 2021! But weirdly, out of all of those times, it seems the only time his performance was broadcast on the BBC was this 1987 concert. That's especially strange because at least since 1997, the BBC has been broadcasting virtually the entire festival. He must have had some special exception against broadcasting his sets. I couldn't even find worthy audience bootlegs from his other Glastonbury concerts.

But at least we have this one. Serious Van Morrison fans have put this in the top ten of all of his concert recordings, according to a poll I saw. Personally, I'm not a big fan of his 1980s music, where he moved to more of a mellow New Age style with occasionally overt Christian themes. But at least a concert like this is more lively, mixing his best 80s songs with classics from earlier decades.

The bootleg recording of this concert is excellent. There was only one minor problem in that the applause after a few of the songs obviously got cut off early. So I patched in more applause in those cases, and made sure the transition to the next song sounded good, without any drastic drops in volume.

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long.

01 Moondance [Instrumental] (Van Morrison)
02 Celtic Swing [Instrumental] (Van Morrison)
03 Northern Muse [Solid Ground] (Van Morrison)
04 Vanlose Stairway (Van Morrison)
05 It's All in the Game (Van Morrison)
06 Help Me (Van Morrison)
07 Foreign Window (Van Morrison)
08 Dweller on the Threshold (Van Morrison)
09 Cleaning Windows (Van Morrison)
10 A Sense of Wonder (Van Morrison)
11 And the Healing Has Begun (Van Morrison)
12 Celtic Ray (Van Morrison)
13 One Irish Rover (Van Morrison)
14 In the Garden (Van Morrison)
15 Summertime in England (Van Morrison)
16 Full Force Gale (Van Morrison)
17 Bright Side of the Road (Van Morrison)
18 Rave On, John Donne - Did Ye Get Healed (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BRTGZbDC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sMFHuIGRbl9CvaH/file

The cover photo comes from a concert at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, Illinois, on July 16, 1986.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1984-1995

When I posted Van Morrison's "BBC Sessions, Volume 1," I commented that it was a shame Morrison hardly ever performed for the BBC in 1980s. Musical associate MZ saw that comment, and sent me some stuff. Based mostly on that, I was able to put together this album of BBC sessions.

"Sense of Wonder" is from an appearance on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1984. "In the Garden" is from another BBC TV show in 1986. 

The next four songs come from a BBC TV special about Morrison called "One Irish Rover." It collected a bunch of different performances. One of them featured Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in 1989 singing just as a duo in Athens, Greece, on a hill overlooking the Acropolis. It's great to have these two musical giants collaborate, but to be honest it generally seemed like Dylan was winging it and didn't know Morrison's songs that well. But he did play some nice harmonica, and he sang more assertively on "One Irish Rover." The last of those four songs, "And It Stoned Me," was from the same session, but wasn't actually included in the "One Irish Rover" show. (You can find YouTube videos of all four songs, if you're interested in seeing and not just hearing them.)

"Whenever God Shines His Light" is from the BBC TV show "Top of the Pops," in 1989. Most appearances on that show are lipsynced, but not this one. It's a duet of Morrison and Cliff Richard, the same as on Morrison's 1989 studio album "Avalon Sunset." The next two songs, "Avalon of the Heart" and "So Quiet in Here" are from an appearance on the "Late Show," another BBC TV show, in 1990. Finally, the last two songs are from the show "Later... with Jools Holland" in 1995.

Everything here is unreleased on audio format, though the "One Irish Rover" show has been released on video. For the songs with cheering studio audiences, I used the MVSEP program to get rid of the cheering. "Whenever God Shines His Light" has "[Edit]" in the title because the first few seconds were missing. I fixed that by patching in some music from later in the song.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Sense of Wonder (Van Morrison)
02 In the Garden (Van Morrison)
03 Crazy Love (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
04 Foreign Window (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
05 One Irish Rover (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
06 And It Stoned Me (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
07 Whenever God Shines His Light [Edit] (Van Morrison & Cliff Richard)
08 Avalon of the Heart (Van Morrison)
09 So Quiet in Here (Van Morrison)
10 Don't Worry about a Thing (Van Morrison)
11 That's Life (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gfJA3oVS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NQkCrr4NOO0M1l5/file

The cover photo is from a photo shoot in Bath, Britain, in May, 1989.

Van Morrison - The Orphanage, San Francisco, CA, 7-29-1974

Before I post more BBC albums by Van Morrison, I have to post this concert. I just found it, and I'm very glad I did, because the sound quality is exceptional, especially for the time period.

As for the performance, the fact that it's from 1974 should tell you all you need to know. Morrison was on fire in concert during that era. Here's what Wikipedia had to say about a live album he recorded a year earlier: "Frequently named as one of the best live albums ever, 'It's Too Late to Stop Now' was recorded during what has often been said to be the singer's greatest phase as a live performer." He was still in that groove in 1974.

This is from an FM radio broadcast. One can tell by the introduction by a DJ named Tom Donahue. No doubt, that explains the sound quality. I made a few subtle audio editing tricks to improve the sound quality a little more.

Also, most versions of this bootleg have appeared without the last song, "Gloria." But I managed to track that down from a different source of the same show and add it in.

In terms of song selection, this is pretty similar to "It's Too Late to Stop Now" and some other live stuff I've posted from him from this time period. But see above about how he was at his performing peak around this time. Note that this concert took place a few months before the release of his 1974 album "Veedon Fleece," so there are no songs here from that.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 talk by Tom Donahue (Van Morrison)
02 Heathrow Shuffle [Instrumental] (Van Morrison)
03 Ain't Nothing You Can Do (Van Morrison)
04 Warm Love (Van Morrison)
05 Snow in Anselmo (Van Morrison)
06 Help Me (Van Morrison)
07 Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
08 I Believe to My Soul (Van Morrison)
09 Moondance (Van Morrison)
10 Foggy Mountain Top (Van Morrison)
11 Street Choir (Van Morrison)
12 Listen to the Lion (Van Morrison)
13 I've Been Working (Van Morrison)
14 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Van Morrison)
15 Gloria (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xPmPNkHy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/rxxNnMFOBGEel85/file

The cover is from a 1974 concert, but I don't know the details.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 7-24-1973

It's high time I start posting the music Van Morrison has performed for the BBC over his long solo career. 

As far as I can tell, Morrison performed surprisingly rarely for the BBC in 1970s and 80s. I'm only aware of two BBC concerts in those decades, and no studio sessions. This first one comes arguably at the peak of his live performances, during the concerts recorded for his acclaimed double live album "It's Too Late to Stop Now." The songs on that album were taken from seven concerts in the summer of 1973, including two at the Rainbow Theatre in London, on July 23rd and 24th.

The Wikipedia entry for the "It's Too Late to Stop Now" album has something to say about those two concerts at the Rainbow: "The London concerts were the first time he had appeared in that city since performing with Them, six years earlier. The two concerts at the Rainbow Theatre in London were referred to as 'the rock event of the year' by critics, according to Ritchie Yorke in his biography. The 24 July 1973 London Rainbow concert was the first BBC simulcast broadcast simultaneously on BBC 2 television and Radio 2 stereo so that viewers with strategically sited loudspeakers could enjoy 'stereo TV.'"

In 2016, a super deluxe edition of "It's Too Late to Stop Now" was released, called "It's Too Late To Stop Now Volumes II, III, IV." That included a full CD of the Rainbow Theatre concerts. However, that one mixed the July 23rd and 24th shows together without specifying which songs were from which. I listened, and it seems to me the vast majority of the songs were from the 23rd show, because I hear little overlap with this. So some of the songs here may be on the original "It's Too Late to Stop Now" and/or some may be from the super deluxe edition, but I'm betting most are still unreleased.

This comes from a bootleg of the original BBC broadcast. The sound quality generally is excellent. Unfortunately though, the quality dips some for the last three songs, which was the show's encore. In particular, during the last song, "Gloria," a BBC DJ spoke over a short section in the middle of the song to make an announcement about the concert soon coming to an end. I had to remove that section entirely and patch it in instead with a chunk of the same song from "It's Too Late to Stop Now." That's only for about ten to fifteen seconds, but it's pretty noticeable as the sound quality briefly gets better. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 Warm Love (Van Morrison)
02 Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket (Van Morrison)
03 Here Comes the Night (Van Morrison)
04 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Van Morrison)
05 Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
06 Moonshine Whiskey (Van Morrison)
07 Moondance (Van Morrison)
08 Help Me (Van Morrison)
09 Domino (Van Morrison)
10 Caravan (Van Morrison)
11 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)
12 Wild Night (Van Morrison)
13 I Paid the Price (Van Morrison)
14 Saint Dominic's Preview (Van Morrison)
15 Gloria [Edit] (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GFp6uGSV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/c9OgThy2PmQVsYv/file

The cover photo might or might not be from this concert. It was taken at the Rainbow Theatre in London in July 1973. But he played two concerts there that month, so the odds are probably 50-50.

Van Morrison - The Bottom Line, New York City, 11-1-1978, Late Show

Is it possible to separate a musician from the music he or she makes? That's a problem I've been facing when it comes to Van Morrison. He's always had a reputation as an asshole. I even have a friend who worked in a record store and encountered Morrison there decades ago. He said it was by far the most unpleasant interaction he ever had with a famous person (and lots of them came to this particular store). But Morrison has gone even further during the recent Covid pandemic, putting out albums with anti-vaccine and even antisemetic rants. (For the latter, check out the lyrics to his song "They Control the Media.") In a way, I'm kind of glad that he's had a slow and steady decline musically too, so I don't have to feel bad about missing out on his latest albums.

That said, he had a great run for a long time. I think his older music can still be celebrated. His musical output from the mid-1960s until about 1980 is great, and he had some worthy periods after that. Today, I just updated the links to all of his albums I'd previously posted. Many of them had gone dead. I also redid the volume balance between songs, and updated the mp3 tags to the new format. Rather than make an announcement just about that, I figured I'd post something else by him at the same time.

This concert is from 1978, after the release of his "Wavelength" album. He burned out a bit in the mid-1970s, waiting three years between releasing studio albums, which felt like eons back in those busy years, and he rarely performed concerts during that time as well. But this concert shows that he still had that magical "it" factor. Both the early and late shows were broadcast on the radio, so the sound quality is excellent. I've only included the late show because it contains all the songs from the early show plus a few more, and the performance is slightly better. He was in a rocking mood, and his new songs held up with his older ones. In particular, I've always felt the song "Wavelength" should have been a big hit.

This album is an hour and twenty minutes long.

01 Moondance (Van Morrison with Katie Kissoon)
02 Wavelength (Van Morrison)
03 Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
04 Checkin' It Out (Van Morrison)
05 Hungry for Your Love (Van Morrison)
06 Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
07 Crazy Love (Van Morrison with Katie Kissoon)
08 Kingdom Hall (Van Morrison)
09 Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison)
10 Natalia (Van Morrison)
11 Help Me (Van Morrison)
12 Wild Night (Van Morrison)
13 Joyous Sound (Van Morrison)
14 Caravan (Van Morrison)
15 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701218/VANMRRSN1978_BottmLneNwYorkCty__11-1-1978__LatShw_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from 1978, but it's not clear exactly when or where it was taken beyond that.

Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison & Chrissie Hynde - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-7-1984

I've been working my way through Bob Dylan's music career chronologically. So far, as I write this in November 2022, I've made it to about 1976. But I recently came across this excellent concert from 1984, so it goes to the top of the pile of things to post.

In 1984, returned to commercial and critical success after a few controversial years with very religious albums. This concert must have been a symbolic triumph for him, playing before over 70,000 people in Wembley Stadium in London on a bill that included opening acts Nick Lowe, UB40, and Santana.

Dylan put on a long show, 2 hours and 31 minutes, with lots of special guests (who I will explain in a minute). He was in a very rocking mood, playing even some sedate songs like "Every Grain of Sand" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in a lively style. His band included lead guitarist Mick Taylor, formerly of the Rolling Stones, who ripped many excellent solos throughout the show.

Here's a review from the time in Rolling Stone Magazine. The article title says it all: "Bob Dylan Back in Peak Form." The article calls it one of the concert highlights of Dylan's career, and I would agree.

Bob Dylan performs epic concert at Wembley Stadium – Rolling Stone

Dylan must have liked this show because he released a live album late in 1984, "Real Live," with six of the ten songs coming from this exact concert. Personally, I must prefer hearing a full concert like this one to a live album with songs chosen from different concerts. Besides, this is two and half hours long and "Real Live" is only 50 minutes long.

The sound quality of this bootleg is excellent. I found different versions of this concert on the Internet, and most of them are merely okay sounding audience bootlegs. But this version comes from a soundboard. It sounds just as good as the versions of the songs on the "Real Live" album, in my opinion.

There was only one sonic flaw. On four of the songs, there were some very small silent gaps, each of them only a second or less. But it was enough to be noticeable and annoying. I carefully edited those songs to remove the gaps, and when I did I found there wasn't any music missing. Those four have "[Edit]" in their names. 

Now, let me discuss the many special guests on this show. Dylan played two hours, mostly with a full band, but some songs done solo acoustic. Then he came back for what turned out to be a very unusual encore that lasted 35 minutes. For the whole encore, he was joined by Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde. Santana and Clapton often played guitar solos. Right before the song "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," Dylan joked, "There's too many guitar players up here. I may just sing the first verse and leave." It would be good if someone could watch the video of this concert on YouTube and figure out who played which solo in the encores (with Mick Taylor presumably playing some too).

Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders mostly sang backing vocals, though apparently she also played a harmonica solo on one song. This was not her finest hour - it's very challenging to sing harmony with Dylan, since he changes how he sings the lyrics in unpredictable ways. 

On top of that, Van Morrison made a brief but important appearance in the encore too. He only showed up for the song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." That was a Dylan song he sang on a Them album back in 1966, and he's revisited in concert from time to time ever since. He sang the lead vocals for it here. I think Hynde also sang a verse, but unfortunately wasn't turned on because one can barely hear just a few traces of her voice in the middle of the song.

This concert shows Dylan swinging for the fences, trying to please a huge crowd, and hitting a home run. Look at the set list below. Almost every song is a well known classic, and he performed most of them in a rocking style. So if I were to present just one Dylan concert to someone not that familiar with his music, I probably would choose this one.

01 Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan)
02 Jokerman (Bob Dylan)
03 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
04 Just like a Woman (Bob Dylan)
05 Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan)
06 I and I (Bob Dylan)
07 License to Kill (Bob Dylan)
08 talk (Bob Dylan)
09 I've Got to Use My Imagination (Bob Dylan & Greg Sutton)
10 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan)
11 Tangled Up in Blue (Bob Dylan)
12 It's Alright, Ma [I'm Only Bleeding] (Bob Dylan)
13 Simple Twist of Fate (Bob Dylan)
14 Masters of War (Bob Dylan)
15 Ballad of a Thin Man (Bob Dylan)
16 Enough Is Enough [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
17 Every Grain of Sand [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
18 Like a Rolling Stone [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
19 Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan)
20 Girl from the North Country [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
21 It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob Dylan)
22 talk (Bob Dylan)
23 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
24 talk (Bob Dylan)
25 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan & Van Morrison with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
26 Tombstone Blues (Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
27 Senor [Tales of Yankee Power] (Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
28 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
29 Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
30 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan with Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton & Chrissie Hynde)
31 talk (Bob Dylan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KhBmeEi6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/KjYCMNSw8z0s3rz/file

The cover photo is from the exact concert featured here. I'm pretty sure that's Chrissie Hynde in the white shirt with her back to the camera, and Eric Clapton standing next to her.

Them - BBC Sessions and Live (1965-1966)

Them only existed as a band led by Van Morrison for a short time, 1964 to 1966. Unfortunately, as chance has it, very few recordings of what they played live has survived. I've cobbled together what little there is here. In doing so, I had to combine their BBC sessions and concert performances to get enough material for one album. Even then, it's only 35 minutes long. 

Furthermore, it includes three versions of "Gloria" and three versions of "Here Comes the Night." Normally, I'm against including multiple versions of the same song on one album. But I figure I'd put out everything, since there's so little of it. If you don't like the multiple versions, just delete one or more of them.

I've sorted the music here chronologically. It comes from five sources. Songs one to three and six to eight are apparently Them's only two brief BBC performances. It's nice to have these alternative versions with studio quality sound, but it's unfortunate that they played "Here Comes the Night" and "Gloria" both times. Note that these suffer from the typical problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. But I applied the usual X-Minus editing to wipe those vocals while keeping the underlying music.

The fourth and fifth songs come from the 1965 NME Pollwinners concert. I recently posted that concert in full, including the Them portion, but it's good to have it here with the other material by the band. This is probably the best glimpse of what they sounded like live. Instead of just playing short versions of their hits as expected, they stretched out with a six minute version of "Turn On Your Love Light." Apparently this was more typical of what they did when they played in small clubs, often stretched songs out with lots of soloing, and even sometimes improvising songs on the spot. ("Gloria" is said to have originated from one such on stage creation.)

Tracks nine and ten are from a live performance in Paris that was shown on TV. Too bad there isn't more of it.

The last three tracks are rather curious. A Belgian TV show filmed Them in concert in 1966, and you can still find this footage on YouTube. Unfortunately, they only showed parts of songs. Each of the three songs here range from about a minute to almost two minutes. Still, I figure this much is better than nothing. If you know the name of the instrumental, please let me know. If you watch the YouTube video of this, you'll see it's Van Morrison wailing on the saxophone during that song.

I made a couple of edits to the last song, "I Put a Spell on You." The first line was missing from the recording. So I found a spot later on in the song where he said the line and patched it in. Also, the song came to a very abrupt end. Rather than making the song even shorter by fading it out, I patched in a bit more from the solo, maybe five to ten seconds, and faded that out.

Note that the making of this album can be partially credited to the blogger Prof Stoned. He has collected everything Them ever did and put it on his blog, with the best sounding versions. So all I had to do was select from that. Unfortunately, there were some other recorded TV performances by the band, but they were lipsynced, so I didn't include those here.

01 Here Comes the Night (Them)
02 Gloria [Edit] (Them)
03 All for Myself [Edit] (Them)
04 Here Comes the Night (Them)
05 Turn On Your Love Light (Them)
06 Gloria [Edit] (Them)
07 One More Time (Them)
08 Here Comes the Night (Them)
09 Mystic Eyes (Them)
10 Gloria (Them)
11 Dimples [Incomplete] (Them)
12 Unknown Title [Instrumental] (Them)
13 I Put a Spell on You [Incomplete] [Edit] (Them)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700742/THM1965-1966_BBSessonsLve_atse.zip.html

The cover uses a promo photo of the band from 1965. The version I found had a really messed up color balance, with a kind of wash of orange over the whole thing. I used Photoshop to tweak it and hopefully make them have plausibly human skin tones.

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

I read an interesting article today (in January 2022) about how the sale of new music is continually falling to all time lows every year, while interest in older music continues to rise. It's a good article. I suggest you check it out:

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

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

The reason so many big names played this one concert was because it was an awards show of sorts for NME - New Musical Express, a British music magazine. NME began giving out yearly poll winner awards in 1953, and continue to do it until this day (2022 as I write this). At least through 1971, there were annual concerts to celebrate the winners. But unlike most awards shows, this concert just focused on music instead of bogging things down with lots of speeches and award presentations (though there was a short section for that). 

I would love to hear the 1966, 1967, and 1968 shows in full, since music just got better and better as the 1960s went on, in my opinion, and all sorts of interesting artists played in those later shows, including Cream, the Small Faces, the Move, the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Who, the Yardbirds, and lots more, including more appearances by big names in this concert, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. It seems only the 1964, 1965 and 1966 shows are available on bootleg. I'm posting the 1965 one first as I think it's more interesting, with these mostly British Invasion acts more fully developed by then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In case you're curious about who won the poll awards this year, there's a list at the NME website, which you can see here: 

https://www.nme.com/nme-awards/awards-history/1965-606223

It seems there were even more musical acts who performed but didn't make it to the recording for one reason or another. I'm not entirely sure if they actually performed, but these other names were included in the program given to the audience and were at least scheduled to perform: Tom Jones, the Bachelors, the Rockin' Berries, and Twinkle.  

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

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6niBfp48

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/RBH3ooSgczT5hrW/file

When I first posted this album in 2022, I used a black and white photo of the Beatles from the concert that I colorized. But looking at the cover again in 2026, I decided the photo wasn't very good. So I used a different photo of the Beatles from the concert that is zoomed in closer, and has more detail. This one also was black and white, and then colorized by me with the use of the Kolorize program.

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

Van Morrison - Talk about Pop, RTE Television Studios, Dublin, Ireland, 11-2-1973

Here's something very interesting by Van Morrison. As far as I know, it's the one and only time he's given a solo acoustic performance, and it happened when he was young and in his musical prime. It was done for a short-lived Irish TV show called "Talk about Pop," in late 1973.

The good news is that a very good sounding bootleg recording of this performance exists. There was no audience, so that helps the sound quality. The song list is also interesting. He played some songs that didn't get released at the time, like "Drumshanbo Hustle" and the cover "The Wild Side of Life." Plus, he did some very rare songs, like "I Shall Sing," which he always did with a big band including horns.

The bad news is that there was considerable dialogue between Morrison and a TV host between songs, and there doesn't seem to be any audio of that. However, there's a transcript of most of it. Here it is:

https://www.oocities.org/tracybjazz/hayward/van-the-man.info/reviews/1973rte.html

The other bummer is the last two songs - "Snow in San Anselmo" and "Beside You" -  didn't make it to the bootleg either. They were the last two songs played, and perhaps the performance ran too long for the length of the TV show. By that still leaves 45 minutes of Morrison's only "unplugged" performance.

I've posted a bunch of early 1970s live music from him here already. I was careful not to include anything from this show though, because I knew I would want to post it here eventually.

01 Wild Children (Van Morrison)
02 Slim Slow Slider (Van Morrison)
03 Warm Love (Van Morrison)
04 Drumshanbo Hustle (Van Morrison)
05 Autumn Song (Van Morrison)
06 St. Dominic's Preview (Van Morrison)
07 Purple Heather [Wild Mountain Thyme] (Van Morrison)
08 Madame George (Van Morrison)
09 The Wild Side of Life (Van Morrison)
10 I Shall Sing (Van Morrison)
11 And It Stoned Me (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701212/VANMRRSN1973g_TlkabutPpRTETlevisonStdios__11-2-1973_atse.zip.html

Although this comes from a TV show, I haven't been able to find any video or photos from it. So I used a photo of Van Morrison in concert in Amsterdam in April 1974. At least it shows him by himself playing the acoustic guitar.

Van Morrison - Real, Real Gone - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1981)

I love all of Van Morrison's music all the way through the end of the 1970s. But that comes to a sudden halt for me with his 1980 album "Common One." He drastically changed his style to more of a jazzy, new age-y mood music. Then he kept to that style for the next ten years or so. Some people really like it, but I only like the occasional song until his 1990 album "Enlightenment," when he got back to more of a rootsy style.

Anyway, this is the last of the stray tracks albums I've made to cover his golden era from the late 1960s through the 1970s. (I should have posted this earlier, but I was trying to find a couple of songs for it, and I finally found them.) The music continues into 1981, but the songs from 1980 and 1981 generally keep to his earlier style.

The first song here, "Real, Real Gone," was one of the highlights of the 1990 album I mentioned above, "Enlightenment." But as can be seen here, it actually dates from much earlier, but he just sat on it for some reason. Perhaps it was due to that shift of styles, especially since he returned to it when his style shifted back.

Three songs - "I'm Ready," "John Brown's Body," and "Sax Instrumental No. 1" - were released as B-sides to various versions of Morrison's "Back on Top." This is odd, because "Back on Top" was released in 1999, and all these songs are from 1978. But it makes more sense if you consider that he had recently released the archival compilation "The Philosopher's Stone," and these songs apparently had just missed making the cut for that.

"Dead Girls of London" is a very strange song for Morrison. He's done soul, jazz, blues, country, folk, and in various combinations, but he's pretty much never done straight rock and roll, at least not since his days with "Them." And yet this song rocks. It was written by Frank Zappa and one of his band members, L. Shankar, but somehow Zappa talked Morrison into singing the lead vocals. (I'm guessing they were recording in the same recording studio at the time.) Zappa wanted to release the Morrison version, but Morrison was on a different record label and that label wouldn't give permission. So a shorter version without Morrison was released instead. The Morrison version didn't come out until a 2011 Zappa archival release.

In my opinion, "Wonderful Remark" is one of the great Morrison songs. It wasn't officially released until 1983, when it showed up on the "King of Comedy" soundtrack. But in fact it was written much earlier. I've included an early version on a 1972 stray tracks album. Even the "King of Comedy" version was actually recorded in 1981, which is why I've included it here.

Also, for sticklers like me, note that Morrison's song "Street Theory," which is from 1980, is almost exactly the same as "Come On Out Child," a song he did in 1975. I didn't realize the similarity until I was listening again to this album before posting it here, and I had a "Hey! That sounds familiar!" moment. "Come On Out Child," is unreleased, but I posted it on my stray tracks album "Not Working for You." "Street Theory" is from the official archival release "The Philosopher's Stone." I've added "Come On Out Child" to the subtitle, since it's the same lyrics and melody.

I've included two songs only as bonus tracks, "Bright Side of the Road" and "Cleaning Windows." That's because both are songs that were officially released on albums in that era, but these are different versions. "Bright Side of the Road" has a very different arrangement, and "Cleaning Windows" has somewhat different lyrics.

01 Real, Real Gone [First Version] (Van Morrison)
02 Stepping Out Queen, Part 2 (Van Morrison)
03 I'm Ready (Van Morrison)
04 John Brown's Body (Van Morrison)
05 Sax Instrumental No. 1 [Affirmation] (Van Morrison)
06 Dead Girls of London (Van Morrison & Frank Zappa)
07 Street Theory [Come On Out Child] (Van Morrison)
08 Down the Road I Go (Van Morrison)
09 Wonderful Remark (Van Morrison)
10 Mona (Van Morrison)

Bright Side of the Road [Alternate Version] (Van Morrison)
Cleaning Windows [Alternate Version] (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15853456/VanMrsn_1978-1981_RealRelGne_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of Morrison waiting around back stage in 1980.

Van Morrison - Acoustic Versions, 1969-1970

I just posted an album of Van Morrison doing acoustic versions of his songs in a recording studio in 1968 and 1969. This is the continuation of that, with songs from 1969 and 1970. It all comes from one batch of recordings, but I like to break things up into album-sized chunks if I can. Both of these albums are about 40 minutes long.

Everything I said about the previous album holds true here. Like that album, the vocals were too loud in relation to the instruments for nearly all the songs, so I edited them to bring them more into balance. As with that album, I could only do so much, but I think these versions sound better than the popular bootlegs the songs come from, such as "Gypsy Soul" and "Van Morrison Gets His Chance to Wail."

Six of the first seven songs were recorded on or around December 1969, after the songs for the classic "Moodance" album were recorded, but before that album was released (in February 1970). So most of the songs were geared towards his next album, "His Band and Street Choir." I also included a fast version of the song "Come Running" that was recorded for "Moondance" in the summer of 1969. I put that on this album instead of the previous one because that has a different version of the same song. The rest of the songs were recorded in 1970 and also were meant for the "His Band and Street Choir," though one song, "When That Evening Sun Goes Down" would appear on the album after that instead, "Tupelo Honey."

I'm only including songs that don't appear on any studio albums from that era. However, I can include four unreleased songs - "I Can't Get It Straight," "Lorna," "Hey Where Are You," and "Bit by Bit" because I had two versions of those, so I was able to put one version on my series of stray tracks albums and the second version here. As I mentioned previously, Morrison wrote more good songs than he knew what to do with in 1968 and 1969, and some of them fell through the cracks and were forgotten, such as those four.

By the way, there was a sonic flaw towards the end of "If I Ever Needed Someone," a kind of crackling sound. I was able to remove most of it by patching in some repeated lyrics from earlier in the song, but a little bit of it wasn't fixable at the end of the last verse, due to lyrics that didn't get repeated.

Also, I did a lot of editing for the tenth track here, which is some dialogue between Morrison and presumably his record producer. On the bootleg I got this from, the vocals were so low as to be almost inaudible, so I moved them to a separate track and increased the volume a lot. It turns out the producer's vocals were much quieter than Morrison's probably because Morrison was right in front of a microphone and the producer wasn't. So I increased the producer's vocals even more. That worked, but the result was a lot of hiss, especially when the producer talked. To fix that, I used noise reduction. Normally, I'm loathe to use that since it degrades the music quality overall, but I think it was okay to use here, since it was done merely for talking and not actual music.

I wish I could continue this acoustic series into 1971 and beyond, but there's no more publicly available relevant source material after this. However, Morrison did play acoustically in concert later in the 1970s (though very rarely), and I plan on posting some of that here soon.

01 Virgo Clowns (Van Morrison)
02 Come Running [Fast Version] (Van Morrison)
03 If I Ever Needed Someone (Van Morrison)
04 I Can't Get It Straight (Van Morrison)
05 Lorna (Van Morrison)
06 Hey, Where Are You (Van Morrison)
07 Bit by Bit (Van Morrison)
08 Domino [Harmony Version] (Van Morrison)
09 When the Evening Sun Goes Down (Van Morrison)
10 talk (Van Morrison)
11 Domino (Van Morrison)
12 I'll Be Your Lover Too (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701198/VANMRRSN1969-1970_AcustcVrsons__1969-1970_atse.zip.html

The photo for the cover art was taken in Woodstock, New York, in April 1970. As I did with the photo for the other Van Morrison acoustic album I just posted, I tinted the black and white photo with a blend of colors to try to jazz it up.