Morgan James - Acoustic Cover Songs, Volume 7, 2020-2022

It's been a while since I've posted any albums by Morgan James, but I'm back with more. I'm glad to see from the download numbers that a lot of people appreciate her considerable vocal talents.

This is another album consisting entirely of cover versions done acoustically. It gets a bit confusing, because I first posted six albums of her acoustic covers from the years 1994 to 2020. Then, in 2020, due to being stuck at home thanks to the Covid pandemic, she did 100 covers in a row, which she called the Quanatunes series. I posted seven albums of that. This picks up where that left off, back to more acoustic covers that aren't specifically part of that Quarantunes series.

There's not much to say here that I didn't say with earlier volumes. Although I'll note that she was especially bold with her song selection this time, covering some of the most iconic songs of all time, including "Layla" and "Stairway to Heaven!" It's interesting to hear songs like that backed only by a single acoustic guitar.

I almost didn't include "Son of a Preacher Man," because it had some big problems. The song broke down in the middle, as she and her guitarist, her husband Doug Wamble, forgot how the bridge went. However, I did some heavy editing that snipped out the problem area. There still are some bits of Wamble talking that I don't like, but I couldn't remove them because it overlapped with her singing. The song also was cut off right at the end, but I found a way to patch in a final guitar strum to give it a decent finish. All of that is why the song has "[Edit]" in the title. 

By the way, I'm most of the way to having a Volume 8, but I'm still a few songs short.

This album is 47 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
02 Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
03 The Dark End of the Street - James Carr
04 The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
05 With or Without You - U2
06 Son of a Preacher Man [Edit] - Dusty Springfield
07 Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
08 Gethsemane - Jesus Christ Superstar Soundtrack
09 Better Man - Pearl Jam
10 Layla - Derek & the Dominos
11 Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
12 Sweet Bitter Love - Aretha Franklin

And here's the usual song list:

01 Chain of Fools (Morgan James)
02 Stairway to Heaven (Morgan James)
03 The Dark End of the Street (Morgan James)
04 The Middle (Morgan James)
05 With or Without You (Morgan James)
06 Son of a Preacher Man [Edit] (Morgan James)
07 Simple Man (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
08 Gethsemane (Morgan James)
09 Better Man (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
10 Layla (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
11 Wild Horses (Morgan James & Nicole Zuraitis)
12 Sweet Bitter Love (Morgan James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15282129/MorganJ_2020-2022_AcoustcCoverSongsVolume7_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is of her performing in concert outdoors in Michigan in August 2022. I found some of the background distracting, so I cleaned it up using Photoshop.

Norah Jones - Come Away with Me 20th Anniversary Livestream, Allaire Studios, Shokan, NY, 4-28-2022

Here's something fresh, in that the whole thing was recorded two weeks ago as I write this (in early May 2022). In 2002, Norah Jones released her debut album "Come Away with Me," which went on to sell nearly 30 million copies, making it one of the best selling albums of all time. Last month, she released a super deluxe 20th anniversary edition of that album, with lots of outtakes. To celebrate that, she recorded a home concert on April 28, 2022, consisting solely of all the songs from that album, plus three of the recently released outtakes. She's posted the whole concert on YouTube for free, so I figure it's okay if I convert it into mp3 format and post it here.

As part of celebrating that album, she reunited with the same musicians she recorded the album with. It's a small combo of just a guitarist, bassist, and drummer, plus her own piano. Another guitarist, Jesse Harris, who was also on the original record (and wrote the breakthrough hit "Don't Know Why") joined in for just one song, "Shoot the Moon."

As mentioned above, you can find the entire concert on YouTube. It's very professionally filmed, with multiple cameras swooping over the musicians. That also shows that while this is a home concert played in front of only a handful of people, it wasn't recorded in Jones' home. Instead, it was recorded in someone's home/studio in Shokan, New York, with dramatic bay windows looking over the Hudson River.

This concert is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 The Nearness of You (Norah Jones)
02 The Long Day Is Over (Norah Jones)
03 Nightingale (Norah Jones)
04 One Flight Down (Norah Jones)
05 talk (Norah Jones)
06 A Little at a Time (Norah Jones)
07 Painter Song (Norah Jones)
08 I’ve Got to See You Again (Norah Jones)
09 Lonestar (Norah Jones)
10 Turn Me On (Norah Jones)
11 Fragile (Norah Jones)
12 talk (Norah Jones)
13 Shoot the Moon (Norah Jones)
14 talk (Norah Jones)
15 What Would I Do without You (Norah Jones)
16 Come Away with Me (Norah Jones)
17 Feelin' the Same Way (Norah Jones)
18 Cold, Cold Heart (Norah Jones)
19 Seven Years (Norah Jones)
20 Don't Know Why (Norah Jones) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16696756/NORHJNS2022_ComeAwywithMeLivestream___4-28-2022_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from the YouTube video of this concert.