VinegarJoe - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: BBC in Concert, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 12-1-1973

Here's the second and last of what I have of the British band Vinegar Joe at the BBC. In case you missed the Volume One post, Vinegar Joe had Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks as co-lead vocalists in the early 1970s, before they both became famous with their solo careers. The first volume contained BBC studio sessions. This one contains live material.

Most of this, tracks 8 through 17, consist of the 1973 BBC concert mentioned in the title. But that's rather short, at 28 minutes. (I'm guessing the BBC gave them a half-hour time slot.) I happen to have a few songs from a different concert in Belgium in 1972, so I added those to the front. That recording survives in very good quality because it was the TV show "Pop Circus."

It's a bit odd that the eighth track is a BBC DJ introducing the start of the concert. I considered changing the order, putting the 1972 concert after the 1973 one. I also considered moving just that DJ intro to the very start of the album. But ultimately I decided to just keep it like this.

By the way, note that I found some different versions of the 1973 concert on popular bootleg trading websites. Pretty much all of the different versions have different dates. Some say it took place in 1972, some just say 1973 without giving a year, and so on. But rest assured all these are the same concert, and I did the research to get the date correct. (For one thing, the band played songs from their album "Six Star General," released in October 1973, so it makes sense the concert took place after that album was released.)

That 1973 concert was kind of a last hurrah for the band. They broke up only a few months later, in the spring of 1974.

01 So Long (Vinegar Joe)
02 talk (Vinegar Joe)
03 See the World (Vinegar Joe)
04 Rock and Roll Gypsies (Vinegar Joe)
05 talk (Vinegar Joe)
06 No One Ever Do (Vinegar Joe)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Vinegar Joe)
08 talk (Vinegar Joe)
09 Let Me Down Easy (Vinegar Joe)
10 Food for Thought (Vinegar Joe)
11 Talkin' about My Baby (Vinegar Joe)
12 talk (Vinegar Joe)
13 Giving Yourself Away (Vinegar Joe)
14 talk (Vinegar Joe)
15 Black Smoke from the Calumet (Vinegar Joe)
16 talk (Vinegar Joe)
17 Proud to Be a Honky Woman (Vinegar Joe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274969/VinegarJ_1973_BBC_Sessions__Volume_2-_BBC_in_Concert__Golders_Green_Hippodrome__12-1-1973_atse.zip.html

I was only able to find a small number of color photos of the band in concert. The one I chose for the cover is from the Reading Festival in August 1972. I like it because it shows the band's two lead vocalists, Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks.

Vinegar Joe - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1972-1974

I recently posted a couple of BBC albums of the British band Alan Bown. Being in that band was the first big break in the career of singer Robert Palmer. He then went on to join this band in 1971. It broke up in 1974. Palmer then went on to a very successful solo career.

But he wasn't the only one. Vinegar Joe was unusual in that it had two lead singers, a man and a woman. The man was Palmer and the woman was Elkie Brooks. She also would have a successful solo career in Britain, with 13 hits in that country. But Palmer and Brooks typically didn't sing together in harmony like, say, the Everly Brothers. Instead, Palmer would usually sing one song and Brooks would sing another.

The band released three albums from 1972 to 1974, but despite their obvious talents, they never had a hit album or single. You can read more about the band here:

Vinegar Joe (band) - Wikipedia

Everything here is officially unreleased. The songs are from 1972, except for the last two. All but one are from BBC studio sessions. That one is "Lawdy Miss Clawdy," which come from a concert in Stockholm, Sweden, that was filmed for TV. The sound quality is generally very good, although there is some variation.

There's one bonus track. It also sounds pretty good. The reason it's a bonus track is because another version of the song is already on the album. The bonus track version comes from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show.

You may not this is called "Volume One." I have a second volume, which consists of a short BBC concert.

This album is 36 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Early Monday Morning (Vinegar Joe)
02 Rusty Red Armour (Vinegar Joe)
03 Leg Up (Vinegar Joe)
04 Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Vinegar Joe)
05 Rock and Roll Gypsies (Vinegar Joe)
06 So Long (Vinegar Joe)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Vinegar Joe)
08 Dream My Own Dreams (Vinegar Joe)
09 Proud to Be a Honky Woman (Vinegar Joe)

Rusty Red Armour (Vinegar Joe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274963/VinegarJ_1972-1974_BBC_Sessions__Volume_1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a dressing room after a concert in Aylesbury, Britain, in December 1972. Elkie Brooks is the lone female, in the red dress. Robert Palmer is in the back row in a white T-shirt, which is head turned to the side.