Led Zeppelin - Sunshine Woman - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1969)

It's time for me to tackle the great Led Zeppelin with my usual approach of gathering all the quality stray tracks I can find from the group's career. I was surprised at just how much I could find - this is the first of five albums I've made, each of them about 40 to 50 minutes long.

As I usually do, my approach is to find songs not done on their official albums. But I considered anything on the rarities album "Coda" fair game, since those songs need to be reordered and fit in chronologically with other rarities. I also considered songs on "BBC Sessions" fair game if they weren't on any of the studio albums.

I started this album with four songs that aren't Led Zeppelin songs at all. Robert Plant didn't have much of a recording career before joining the group, and much of what is available from that time sounds very dated now. But I've found four quality songs that all sound very Led Zeppelin-esque to me. The three of them recorded with the Band of Joy actually have future Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham on them as well. The first three of these four songs are found on a popular retrospective of Plant's solo career, but the fourth one is just as good and remains officially unreleased.

Note the song "Sunshine Woman" was released on "BBC Sessions," and this is that performance. However, the officially released recording sounded strangely muffled and hissy. Some Zeppelin fans tweaked with the sound to fix it, and I've used their version, because to my ears it sounds noticeably better.

The last song on this album, "Pat's Delight," needs some explanation. From the very start of Led Zeppelin's live shows, they played this song, which is mostly a Bonham drum solo with some guitar riffing at the beginning and end. This would later turn into "Moby Dick" on the "Led Zeppelin II" album, at which point "Pat's Delight" was retired. The intro and closing guitar work would be totally changed.  However, I'm no drumming expert, but I'm told the drum soloing was basically the same.

I found a well-recorded live version of "Pat's Delight" that was 15 minutes long. I didn't want to bog down this album with a super long drum solo, especially because I hear it's virtually the same as live versions of "Moby Dick." So I cut the drumming way down, allowing one to hear the guitar parts that make this song unique. Note that the drumming fades out into a brief silence after the intro guitar ends. That's not an edit by me - that's how it is on the actual recording. But then I cut out about ten minutes of drumming after that point and have the drumming come back in from a quiet point near the end of all the drum soloing.

I'm excited about this series of Led Zeppelin stray tracks, because I've looked high and low for bootlegs that do the same thing, and I haven't found any that really get the job done. I've seen one or two things that boiled the best rarities down to an album or two, but there actually are about five albums' worth, as I've said. I think that's because the band did a lot of unique songs only in concert, usually cover versions, and I'm including those in this series too. You can see one example on this album, a live cover of the Yardbirds' hit song "For Your Love."

By the way, I'm not quite sure what the title to the seventh song here is. It's an instrumental outtake from the band's first album. Some people claim it's called "Do What Thou Wilt," but other people dispute that. It's most commonly known on bootlegs as"Pipes and Flamenco," but that appears to just be a creative name given to it by bootlegger many years later. I've included both of the known names.

01 Operator (Robert Plant)
02 Hey Joe (Robert Plant & the Band of Joy)
03 For What It's Worth (Robert Plant & the Band of Joy)
04 I Gotta Find My Baby (Robert Plant & the Band of Joy)
05 Baby Come On Home (Led Zeppelin)
06 Sugar Mama (Led Zeppelin)
07 Do What Thou Wilt [Pipes and Flamenco] [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
08 For Your Love (Led Zeppelin)
09 Sunshine Woman (Led Zeppelin)
10 Pat's Delight [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693857/LEDZPPLN1968-1969_SnshneWomn_atse.zip.html

Peter from the Albums I Wish Existed blog made the cover art.

Paul Simon - The African Concert, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2-14-1987

If you enjoy Paul Simon's "Graceland" album, you should enjoy this. 

Not long after that album came out in 1986, Simon wanted to put on a concert for the black South African community that musically inspired him. However, he wasn't allowed to perform in the country of South Africa. So he held a concert as close as he could get, in the neighboring country of Zimbabwe. Naturally, he plays all the songs from "Graceland." But instead of fleshing out the concert with songs from earlier in his career, he gives spots to the musicians who helped him out on the album and inspired him, like Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Hugh Masekela. So this is a deeper dive into the South African music that lead to the "Graceland" album.

This came out as a DVD, but never a CD or album. But here it is, taken from the DVD audio.

01 Township Jive (Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
02 Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
03 Gumboots (Paul Simon)
04 Whispering Bells (Paul Simon)
05 Bring Him Back Home [Nelson Mandela] (Hugh Masekela)
06 Crazy Love, Vol. II (Paul Simon)
07 I Know What I Know (Paul Simon)
08 Jinkel E Maweni (Miriam Makeba)
09 Soweto Blues (Miriam Makeba)
10 Under African Skies (Paul Simon with Miriam Makeba)
11 Nomathemba [Mother of Hope] (Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
12 Hello My Baby (Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
13 Homeless (Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
14 Graceland (Paul Simon)
15 You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)
16 Stimela (Hugh Masekela)
17 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
18 Nkosi Sikeleli Africa (Paul Simon, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela & Miriam Makeba)
19 Shaka Zulu [King of Kings] (Ladysmith Black Mambazo)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vH2BPoGJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/alQWMt7Ui1HCAZf/file

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the cover art.

Paul McCartney - Mull of Kintyre - Non-Album Tracks (1977-1978)

Today is the day Paul McCartney released his latest album "Egypt Station." It's been six years since his last studio album. In cerebration of that, here's the next in my series of albums collecting his best stray tracks from his long solo career.

The last album in this series covered the years 1973 to 1975. I couldn't find anything good from 1976, so this covers 1977 and 1978. The song "Mull of Kintyre" was released as a single in 1977 and went on to become one of the biggest hits of all time in Britain. Yet it wasn't even released as an A-side in the US, due to it sounding like a Scottish folk song. The B-side "Girls' School" was flipped to the A-side instead, and was a minor US hit.

Those are the only two officially released songs on this album. Some of the others were going to be released on a rarities compilation called "Cold Cuts," but that never got released, even though it came close several times.

There's one song here by Wings band member Denny Laine, "Find a Way Somehow." That song was released on a Laine solo album in 1973, but I don't like that version, mostly due to a cheesy spoken word segment in the middle of it. This is a longer unreleased version recorded in 1977 that has more musical involvement by McCartney.

Personally, I don't think this is as strong a bunch of songs are the three earlier stray tracks collections I've posted here. I think he just wasn't as musically inspired at the time, as can be seen with the relative disappointments of the "Wings at the Speed of Sound" and "London Town" albums. But it's still 1970s McCartney, which means it's pretty darn good.

01 Mull of Kintyre (Paul McCartney)
02 After You've Gone (Paul McCartney)
03 Find a Way Somehow (Denny Laine with Paul McCartney)
04 Waterspout (Paul McCartney)
05 Cage (Paul McCartney)
06 Girls' School (Paul McCartney)
07 Robber's Ball (Paul McCartney)
08 Rupert Song (Paul McCartney)
09 Sunshine Sometime (Paul McCartney)
10 Did We Meet Somewhere Before (Paul McCartney)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259157/PaulMcC_1977-1978_MllofKntyre_atse.zip.html

The cover is the cover to the "Mull of Kintrye" single, except "Wings" has been replaced with McCartney's name.

Robyn Hitchcock - Element of Light - Acoustic Versions (1986)

Still more Robyn Hitchcock! I'm generally trying to simultaneously post two companion albums for each of his official albums, so here's the second stray tracks album that goes with 1986's "Element of Light."

This one contains all of the acoustic versions of the songs from that album I could find. I was able to find eight out of ten songs, which is a pretty good ratio compared to some of his other albums. In addition, I was able to find three acoustic versions of the songs from the stray tracks studio album I just posted, "The Leopard."

All of these songs are written by Hitchcock. Five of the eleven songs are officially released demos, put out as bonus tracks. The rest are from concert bootlegs, with the audience noise removed.

01 If You Were a Priest [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Winchester [Acoustic with Drums Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Somewhere Apart (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Ted, Woody and Junior (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 The President [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Raymond Chandler Evening [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Bass (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Airscape (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Never Stop Bleeding (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Lady Waters and the Hooded One [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 The Leopard [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15179084/RobynH_1986_ElementofLiAcousticVersions_atse.zip.html

The cover uses a painting made by Hitchcock and put on his website. I don't know the name of the painting or when it was done.

Robyn Hitchcock - The Leopard - Non-Album Tracks (1986)

Here's the next in my long series of Robyn Hitchcock stray tracks albums. As usual, I made two albums for one of his official studio albums, which in this case is 1986's "Element of Light." This first companion album contains stray studio tracks he did that same year.

There's not much to say that I haven't said already, if you've been following this series of albums. This is a relatively short album, just 32 minutes long. Most of the songs come from bonus tracks to "Element of Light." In addition, there are two B-sides. Plus there's one unreleased track, a live version of "The Calvary Cross" by Richard and Linda Thompson. One of the B-sides is a cover also, the classic Byrds hit "Eight Miles High."

If you like the general kind of music posted on this blog and you haven't given Hitchcock a try, you're really missing out! Literally everything he does is interesting.

01 The Calvary Cross (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 The Crawling (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Eight Miles High (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 The Black Crow Knows (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 The Leopard (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Tell Me about Your Drugs (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Sprinkling Dots (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Upside-Down Church Blues (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Into It (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Neck (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 The Can Opener (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122110/RobynH_1986_TheLeoprd_atse.zip.html

I couldn't come up with any good ideas for an album called "The Leopard" except for a picture of a leopard. So I Googled abstract art on leopards and came up with the picture here. I don't know who made it.

Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs - Under the Covers, Volume 2.5 (2009)

A few days ago, I posted my companion album to "Under the Covers, Volume 1," by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. I called it "Under the Covers, Volume 1.5," because it covered the same 1960s material. Here's the exact same thing, except this is "Under the Covers, Volume 2.5," covering 1970s material.

For "Volume 1," Sweet and Hoffs officially released three bonus tracks. For "Volume 2," they released an entire bonus disc that contains ten songs. So my work is done already, right? Not exactly, because there are plenty of other occasions when Sweet and/or Hoffs recorded 1970s songs. That's especially true for Sweet.

Most of the songs on this album are from the 2000s, but two of the Sweet songs are from the 1990s. Plus, for one Hoffs song, I had to reach all the way back to 1991 and her cover of "Feel like Makin' Love." This cover deserves special mention. For one thing, her version is great musically. But I highly, highly recommend you watch the YouTube video, because it's a real hoot. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol4MaEPayv0

As a male, I must say, this is one of the sexiest and most arousing music videos I've ever seen! Hoffs gets so into grooving to the song that I think she would make most professional pole dancers envious of her moves!

A couple other songs deserve special mention. I found a live version of Sweet and Hoffs doing "In the Long Run" together, which seems to be the only time they did this song. Note that this isn't the Eagles song "The Long Run," but instead is a song from the soundtrack to the 1970 cult classic movie "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

One song here, the "I've Seen All Good People - Your Move" medley, is merely a bonus track. That's because it also appears on "Volume 2." But this version is worthy of inclusion at least as a bonus track because it's done in a very different style, with just Sweet and Hoffs on acoustic guitars. (Plus, it's really just the "Your Move" part of the medley, while the official version has the full medley.) Additionally, the recording of this version (done for rollingstone.com) was poorly miked, with Sweet's vocals much, much louder than Hoff's. So, using a music editor, I carefully lowered all of Sweet's vocals so they wouldn't stand out. I think it worked. You can find the unedited version at YouTube if you're curious to see the difference.

When I first posted this in 2018, I decided there wasn't enough material to make a "3.5" album to complement the "Under the Covers, Volume 3" album that consists of 1980s covers. There just weren't enough extra 1980s songs, so I put everything here. But I decided that if I move all the songs from 1977 and after to the 3.5 album, that would split the material nicely. 

Thus, all the originals here date from 1970 to 1976. I found a couple more that fit, "Let Me Be the One" and "Do Ya." That means there's more Sweet-led songs than Hoffs-led ones, but so be it. There are a couple of Hoffs songs I could have included that fit the format, but I'm saving those for some solo albums I plan on posting later.

01 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love & Understanding (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
02 You Can Close Your Eyes (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
03 Melissa (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
04 A Song for You (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
05 Killer Queen (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
06 Baby Blue (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
07 Livin' Thing (Matthew Sweet)
08 Let Me Be the One (Matthew Sweet)
09 In the Long Run (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
10 The Ballad of El Goodo (Matthew Sweet)
11 Every Night (Matthew Sweet)
12 Feel like Making Love (Susanna Hoffs)
13 It Don't Matter to Me (Matthew Sweet)
14 Do Ya (Matthew Sweet)

I've Seen All Good People - Your Move [Acoustic Version] (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15263891/MattSwtSusH_2009_UndrCovrsVolme2.5_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a photo of Sweet and Hoffs, but I don't know what year it's from. I copied and pasted the text from one of the official albums to keep that distinctive font, then I changed the numbering.

The Who - 6 ft. Wide Garage, 7 ft. Wide Car - Non-Album Tracks (1970)

The last album I posted from the Who was "Who's for Tennis," a stray tracks album from 1968. For the Who, 1969 was consumed by the "Tommy" album, so that brings us to 1970. That year, the Who released the classic "Live at Leeds" live album, and the hit single "The Seeker." They also almost released a four-song EP as well, which probably was going to have the title "6 ft. Wide Garage, 7 ft. Wide Car" based on a joke by drummer Keith Moon. So that's why I've given this album that title. But ultimately, the group decided the EP wouldn't be an impressive enough follow-up to "Tommy."

In fact, just considering studio material, the Who had enough material for a solid album, not just an EP, so that's what I've made here. My challenge was to not include any songs from the group's next big concept album project, "Lifehouse," which eventually became the "Who's Next" album. The song "Naked Eye" was incorporated into some versions of "Lifehouse," but it actually was written by Pete Townshend in 1970 before he started to conceive of "Lifehouse," so I figure it's fair game here.

"I Don't Even Know Myself" is a 1970 B-side that also got retconned into "Lifehouse." But in this case there are two studio versions. So I've used the hard-to-find EP version here, allowing me to use the other version later. I also used the similarly rare EP version of "Postcard." But it doesn't actually matter much, since both of these versions are quite similar to their more well known versions (which can be found on the expanded version of "Odds and Sods.")

It turns out there's just enough material for a 36-minute long 1970 album, which is a decent album length for that year. In order to get that much, I had to use a couple of "Tommy" outtakes that didn't fit the plot. Luckily, the Who was firing on all cylinders in those years, so even their outtakes were quality songs.

01 The Seeker (Who)
02 Heaven and Hell (Who)
03 Here for More (Who)
04 Naked Eye (Who)
05 Young Man Blues (Who)
06 Trying to Get Through (Who)
07 I Don't Even Know Myself [EP Version] (Who)
08 Postcard [EP Version] (Who)
09 Now I'm a Farmer (Who)
10 Water (Who)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5e3v6ZYP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/HlPSd2nAyYvGz7M/file

I originally used cover art made by the music blogger "The Reconstructor." That blog also has a slightly different song list for this album, as well as a more detailed explanation of what the Who did that year. (I differed mainly in not wanting to include "Behind Blue Eyes" or "Drowned" on a 1970 album, even though they both were written in 1970.) I recommend you give it a read here:

http://the-reconstructor.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-who-7ft-wide-car-6ft-wide-garage.html

However, in 2025, I changed the cover to one made by Guy E (which I found at the Steve Hoffman music forum), since it better represents the situation described in the album title, of a car too big for its garage.

Fritz - Fritz (Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham) (1968-1971)

Here's a very special share, of something so rare that I don't believe it's even ever been bootlegged. It's an album of the best of Fritz, the band Fleetwood Mac stars Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were in back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

I've started posting various stray tracks albums of Fleetwood Mac, moving forward chronologically through the band's long career. I plan to keep doing that. But I also need to begin posting about the early career of Nicks and Buckingham, until they join Fleetwood Mac in 1975. Some people know about the official "Buckingham Nicks" album from 1973, but there's more than that, including this.

I'm not going to go through a long explanation about the story of Fritz. If you're interested in that, Google it. Here's one article that gives a good summary:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/30-fascinating-early-bands-of-future-music-legends-200891/stevie-nicks-and-lindsey-buckinghams-psychedelic-rock-band-fritz-203670/

The short version is that the band began in the Bay Area of California in 1966. In 1967, Nicks and Buckingham joined. The band got popular enough for them to open for many big name artists, including Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Nicks and Buckingham stayed in the band until it broke up in 1971, when those two moved to Los Angeles to try to make it big in the music business. But even though Nicks and/or Buckingham were the lead singers on all of Fritz's songs, there were three other band members, including Brian Kane on lead guitar and Bob Aguirre on drums. But the creative heart of the band was keyboardist Javier Pacheco, because he wrote nearly all the songs. (One exception here is the first song, "Where Was I," written by Nicks.)

As far as I can tell, absolutely none of Fritz's music has ever been officially released. And that's not likely to change any time soon, since neither Nicks nor Buckingham seem interested in uncovering the early part of their career. For instance, the 1973 "Buckingham Nicks" album is beloved by many Fleetwood Mac fans, but it has remained out of print ever since its first release. Only a couple of songs from it have come out on career spanning box sets, and nothing from any time before it.

Luckily, Pacheco has kept many recordings of Fritz, and in recent years he's released a lot of them through YouTube videos. I went through all the videos I could find and put together the best ones for this album. Unfortunately, that didn't mean including all the best songs, because I had to take into account two factors: song quality and recording quality. There were many more songs I didn't include, some of them quite good, because I deemed the recording quality too poor. For instance, there was at least an album's worth of songs performed live, but all of those recordings just weren't good enough for repeat listenings. (If you're interested though, just search for "Fritz" and "Pacheco" on YouTube.)

Thankfully, Fritz did go into professional recording studios several times to record some of their songs, even though they never got a record company to sign them. So pretty much all the songs here are good songs that are well recorded. If you like the "Buckingham Nicks" album, this is much like discovering a very similar album, of comparable musical talent. Despite the fact that nearly all the songs are written by Pacheco, they're probably as good as if they'd been written by Nicks or Buckingham in their pre-Fleetwood Mac days. (Pacheco has gone on to have a long musical career, but in other musical areas, mostly in the Spanish language.)

The last three songs on this album aren't quite Fritz recordings, but I figure they belong here because they fit in the general Fritz time frame. "Anybody Out There" is a demo by Nicks, apparently of a song she wrote. The last two songs, "Next Time Around" and "Time Ago" are more Pacheco songs. Fritz had broken up by then, but he still was able to get Nicks to sing one of them and Buckingham to sing the other.

By the way, I did make a significant edit for one song, "Reconsider." I don't know why, but for that song Pacheco has only made available a snippet of the song that's about a minute and twenty seconds long. That snippet ends with the exact same riff that starts it. So I repeated the entire song, and then added another copy of the intro riff at the end to allow a good fade out. Hopefully, the rest of the original recording will be made public one day. But until then, this can give you some idea of how the song goes.

This makes up a nice 44 minute album that I think any big fan of the "Rumours" era Fleetwood Mac would be interested in. Basically, if you hear a female voice on any of these songs, assume it belongs to Nicks, and if you hear a lead male voice, assume it's Buckingham.

01 Where Was I (Fritz)
02 Up to Fate (Fritz)
03 You Don't Get Young Anymore (Fritz)
04 Reconsider (Fritz)
05 Take Advantage of Me (Fritz)
06 Whirlpool (Fritz)
07 A Million Ways (Fritz)
08 Wondering Why (Fritz)
09 Good Old Fritz (Fritz)
10 In the Dawn (Fritz)
11 Pollyanna Louise (Fritz)
12 Anybody Out There [Demo] (Stevie Nicks)
13 Next Time Around (Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks)
14 Time Ago (Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks)

UPDATE: After a request from Pacheco to stop sharing this music, I've taken down the link. Some of this has now been officially released, with more coming soon. Here's a link if you want to buy the official album:

https://fritzrmb.com/music/

I'm still unable to do much photo editing, but I figured it was important to show a picture of Fritz, since so few people are familiar with anything about the early careers of Nicks and Buckingham, including how they look. In this photo used for the cover, taken around 1968, the sole female is Nicks. The male in the middle is Buckingham, and the male on the right is Pacheco. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good color photo of all five band members, so I cropped this one to highlight the three key people.

Jimi Hendrix - Cherokee Mist - Non-Album Tracks (1969)

Like I do with many important musicians, my plan is to make a series of albums covering Jimi Hendrix's studio stray tracks. It's been a while, but I've already posted two such albums, covering Hendrix's time with the Experience, from 1967 to early 1969.

This covers the next phase of Hendrix's career, after he broke up the Experience in early 1969 but before he got together with the Band of Gypsys in late 1969. Some songs on my previous Hendrix album with the Experience were recorded as late as April 1969. But before that group broke up he was already occasionally playing with other musicians, so the first songs on this album come from February 1969. I found so much good music from his time before the Band of Gypys that this is the first of two albums from that era, covering the spring and summer of 1969

For most of 1969, Hendrix was somewhat musically lost and looking for a new direction, as well as a new band worthy of him. Nothing from this time period would be officially released until long after his death. He recorded in the studio fairly frequently, but it was more experimenting than aiming to put up a new album.

In two cases, I made some drastic edits that serious Hendrix fans might object to. The first is the song "World Traveler." This song has never been officially released, but the one version known to bootleggers is eight minutes long. For most of the song, Hendrix mostly just played little fills and rhythm guitar while organist Duane Hitchings played riffs and rhythm on his organ without ever really breaking into a solo. There was just one section of the song where Hendrix sang, and two other sections where he played some nice solo guitar work. So I edited the song down to just those three parts, which made it only three minute long.

I did a similar thing with the song "Blue Window." This has been officially released, on the relatively obscure album "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - Jimi Hendrix." Unfortunately, that version is 13 minutes long, and most of it was aimless noodling without vocals or impressive instrumental work. So I edited it down to the best six minutes. (By contrast, another song, "It's Too Bad," is also quite long at nine minutes, but I felt the full length was justified.)

The rest of the album comes from various posthumous releases, such as "Blues," "People, Hell and Angels" and "Both Sides of the Sky." In one case ("Things I Used to Do") I used a longer and better version than the officially released one. In order to keep Hendrix's very complicated recording history straight, I've included the dates of each recording and the recording studio used, and added that information to the mp3 tags. All the songs are in chronological order.

By the way, the song "Crash Landing" was the title song of an 1970s Hendrix album produced by Alan Douglas. Rest assured that I've avoided Douglas's misguided production on this version of "Crash Landing" and all other songs on my Hendrix albums. (He had a habit of erasing all instrumentation except Hendrix's and then fleshing the songs out with his own musicians and back-up singers, who had never even met Hendrix.) 

01 World Traveler [Edit] (Jimi Hendrix with Duane Hitchings)
02 It's Too Bad (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Blue Window [Edit] (Jimi Hendrix with Buddy Miles)
04 Cherokee Mist [Instrumental, Sitar Version] (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Mannish Boy - I'm a Man (Jimi Hendrix)
06 Crash Landing [Early Version of Freedom] (Jimi Hendrix)
07 The Things I Used to Do (Jimi Hendrix, Stephen Stills & Johnny Winter)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15119365/JimiH_1967-1968_CherokeeMst_atse.zip.html

I made the cover from a  1968 concert poster designed by Rick Griffin.

Aretha Franklin - Love Letters - Non-Album Tracks (1973-1974)

Here's the last in my series of albums gathering up Aretha Franklin's stray tracks from her golden era, 1967 to 1974. This covers 1973 to 1974.

Like the other albums in this series, I rely on the rarities compilation "Rare and Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul." Four of the songs are from that.

Two others are from Franklin's acclaimed 1972 gospel album "Amazing Grace." A lot of people consider that one of the best albums of her career. But it's a very religious album, and I'm not a religious person. Furthermore, most of it doesn't appeal to me musically, with a lot of slow songs, including long call and response sections, talking and preaching sections, and so on.

However, there are two songs from that album I do like, that show how soul music evolved from gospel: "How I Got Over" and "Old Landmark." You may remember James Brown doing "Old Landmark" in a great church scene in the 1980 "Blues Brothers" movie. If you're like me and you only dabble in gospel music, you'll like these two songs. 

As for the remaining songs, "Just a Lucky So and So" is unreleased and was performed for a TV special celebrating jazz great Duke Ellington. "The Boy from Bombay" and "Til It's Over" come from the 2021 box set "Aretha." "Master of Eyes (The Deepness of Your Eyes)" was released as a single in 1973. "Feel a Little Love" and "Springtime in New York" are both unreleased studio takes, but have very good sound quality.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 The Boy from Bombay (Aretha Franklin)
02 Just a Lucky So and So (Aretha Franklin)
03 At Last (Aretha Franklin)
04 Love Letters (Aretha Franklin)
05 Master of Eyes [The Deepness of Your Eyes] (Aretha Franklin)
06 Ain't but the One (Aretha Franklin & Ray Charles)
07 Are You Leaving Me (Aretha Franklin)
08 Til It's Over (Aretha Franklin)
09 Feel a Little Love (Aretha Franklin)
10 Springtime in New York (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ukMD71Ax

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zHhIh98VJLxsHOn/file

I made the cover based on a concert photo from the Muhammad Ali Variety Special, on May 16, 1975. In March 2025, I upgraded the cover image with the use of the Krea AI program.

David Bowie - Shadow Man - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1971)

As I said in a previous post, I've got a lot of Davie Bowie material to post, most of it from the late 1960s and early 1970s. There's BBC performances, acoustic versions, and more. But first, I want to post the stray track studio albums. The last one I posted covered 1968 to 1969; this one covers 1970 to 1971.

My two previous Bowie stray tracks albums covered early time periods when Bowie was still finding his style and his voice. But this one, in my opinion, covers some of the very best Bowie years, so it's not surprising that even his unreleased songs are still good. Most of the 12 songs on this album were written or co-written by Bowie. ("Buzz the Fuzz" is a cover.) Yet, surprisingly, only three of the songs here have been officially released

I don't know why, since I think this makes a solid album. Take, for instance, the song "Shadow Man." Bowie never allowed it to be included on any box set or bonus track. Yet, in 2001, he made a new version of the song for his album "Toy" (which wasn't released at the time due to problems at his record company.)

If you've a Bowie fan, don't miss this!

By the way, I've included one song, "Tired of My Life," only as a bonus track. There's two reasons for that. For one, it's just not that good of a song. But also, Bowie revamped it and greatly improved it, turning it into "It's No Game" for his 1980 album "Scary Monsters." I much prefer hearing that.

Also by the way, the first song, "London Bye Ta-Ta," is a remake of a song he released in 1967. But this version is included because it's significantly different, and, in my opinion, better. Oh, and the lead vocals for the song "Man in the Middle" are mostly sung by someone else, but Bowie apparently wrote it and he joins in the singing, so I figure it's worthy of inclusion.

01 London Bye Ta-Ta [1970 Version] (David Bowie)
02 Conversation Piece (David Bowie)
03 The Mirror (David Bowie)
04 Looking for a Friend (David Bowie)
05 Buzz the Fuzz (David Bowie)
06 Columbine (David Bowie)
07 Right on Mother (David Bowie)
08 Lightning Frightening (David Bowie)
09 Rupert the Riley (David Bowie)
10 Man in the Middle (Freddi Buretti & David Bowie)
11 How Lucky You Are [Miss Peculiar] (David Bowie)
12 Shadow Man (David Bowie)

Tired of My Life [It's No Game] (David Bowie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362465/DAVDBWE1970-1971ShadwMan_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ioGj4QMA

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the cover art. I enhanced it a bit with the Krea AI program.

George Harrison - Fear of Flying - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (1971-1982)

Here's something I'm excited to post, because I've taken two snippets of unreleased George Harrison songs and improved them into full songs.

First, let me explain that this album gathers up all the acoustic Harrison performances that don't easily fit anywhere else. I posted one album like this already, covering the years 1969 and 1970. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/george-harrison-acoustic-versions-1969.html

This is the sequel, covering 1971 to 1982. Mostly, it contains acoustic demos that were included as bonus tracks to various official studio albums. But there are some unreleased performances too, especially four songs Harrison did with Paul Simon for Saturday Night Live in 1976.

Additionally, two songs I found for this album were good, but too short. One is the song "Deep Blue" done for rehearsals for the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. The audio comes from video footage (which can be found on YouTube), but apparently the recording only started in the middle of the song, for a total of a little over a minute. I decided to do some tinkering to flesh it out. This version began with the last line of the chorus, then goes through one verse and a chorus before coming to an end. I put another copy of the verse and the chorus at the start, matching it up with that last line of the chorus. Then I took some of the instrumental music near the end and put it at the very beginning, to imitate how the song begins on the studio version. The result is two minutes of the song instead of just over one minute. I think it now sounds like a proper song instead of just a snippet.

I did a very similar thing with the song "Fear of Flying." In 2014, Harrison's wife Olivia played a one minute long snippet of a demo of the song, which was originally done by Charlie Dore in 1979, and then done by Harrison not long after that. The snippet contained all of two verses and a chorus, plus a one line of another verse, which starts out the same as the first verse. So I replaced that one lats line with a repeat of the entire thing, and then repeated just the first verse once more. Finally, using a few seconds of strumming from the middle of the song, I constructed an instrumental fade out. Now, instead of one minute, the song lasts two minutes and 17 seconds. It sounds like a real song to me, not just a snippet.

Hopefully, someday the Harrison estate will finally get around to officially releasing all of the "Fear of Flying" demo as well as many, many more demos by him that are said to exist. Until then, hopefully this edit will allow you to enjoy the song. If you're more of a purist and just want to hear the one minute version, it can be found on YouTube.

On a different note, while checking to make sure I had all the acoustic Harrison performances available for this album, I came across a great performance from 1997 that I'd missed. That's a solo acoustic version of the Traveling Wilburys song "If You Belonged to Me." There isn't enough material for a third acoustic album after 1982, so I've updated my "Portraits of a Leg End" album and added that song to it. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/george-harrison-portrait-of-leg-end.html

Oh, by the way, I also edited the song "Bye Bye Love." There was some annoying buzzing and crackling during the first chorus. I was able to remove it by patching in parts of the second chorus. I also removed some crowd noise during the first chorus using the same method.  

01 The Light that Has Lighted the World [Demo] (George Harrison)
02 Deep Blue [Edit] (George Harrison)
03 If Not for You (Bob Dylan & George Harrison)
04 Sue Me, Sue You Blues (George Harrison)
05 I Don't Care Anymore (George Harrison)
06 Dark Horse (George Harrison)
07 Bye Bye Love [Live] (George Harrison & Paul Simon)
08 Rock Island Line [Live] (George Harrison & Paul Simon)
09 Homeward Bound [Live] (George Harrison & Paul Simon)
10 Here Comes the Sun [Live] (George Harrison & Paul Simon)
11 Let It Be Me [Demo] (George Harrison)
12 Here Comes the Moon [Demo] (George Harrison)
13 Life Itself [Demo] (George Harrison)
14 Blow Away [Demo] (George Harrison)
15 Fear of Flying [Edit] (George Harrison)
16 Save the World [Demo] (George Harrison)
17 Mystical One [Demo] (George Harrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15119279/GeorgeH_1971-1982_FrofFlying_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art, using the cover of Harrison's 1980 book "I Me Mine" as the basis.

Aretha Franklin - Spanish Harlem - Non-Album Tracks (1971)

Here's the next of my stray tracks albums from Aretha Franklin's golden age, 1967 to 1974.

Normally, Franklin was pretty consistent in including her hit singles on her albums. But for whatever the reason, that wasn't the case in 1971.  In that year, she put out three songs as singles that didn't go onto her latest studio album of new material: "You're All I Need to Get By," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and "Spanish Harlem." Instead, they would go onto a greatest hits album released later that year.

Naturally, the three hit songs I've mentioned plus a B-side make up four tracks here. To fill out the rest of the album, I used four live songs that never appeared on any of her studio albums, and removed the audience noise. The live album is "Don't Fight the Feeling: The Complete Aretha Franklin & King Curtis Live at Fillmore West." Note this is NOT the same as her popular 1971 album "Aretha Live at Fillmore West," but a recent four CD version of all the soundboard recordings that were used to make that 1971 live album. I was careful to only use versions that weren't on the 1971 album.

Some of the live songs were of recent hit songs like "Love the One You're With" by Stephen Stills and "Make It With You" by Bread that got the Aretha soul treatment. In my opinion, these easily could have been hit songs too. So this is an unusually strong collection, with about half of the songs either hits or should-have-been hits.

01 You're All I Need to Get By (Aretha Franklin)
02 I Need a Strong Man [The To-To Song] (Aretha Franklin)
03 Spanish Harlem (Aretha Franklin)
04 Lean On Me (Aretha Franklin)
05 Heavenly Father (Aretha Franklin)
06 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Aretha Franklin)
07 Love the One You're With (Aretha Franklin)
08 Make It with You (Aretha Franklin)
09 Mixed-Up Girl (Aretha Franklin)
10 Reach Out and Touch [Somebody's Hand] (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/U1dqfcfA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JTsPld92OaXrO9l/file

I made the cover art based on a 1972 concert photo.In March 2025, I upgraded the cover image with the use of the Krea AI program.

Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs - Under the Covers, Volume 1.5 (2006)

A few days ago, someone asked me if I was familiar with the three "Under the Covers"albums by Hoffs and Matthew Sweet. This is my way of replying yes, yes, I am. :) Those three albums contain nothing but cover versions of classic songs, done by decade. "Under the Covers, Volume 1" came out in 2006 and focused on songs from the 1960s. There were only three official bonus tracks to that. But I've used those plus other 1960s covers to make a companion album. I figured the only logical title I could give it was "Volume 1.5."

Three of the songs here are also on "Volume 1." That's because these are very different acoustic versions, done live in the studio for radio shows. All the other songs are different, and come from a variety of sources. Most of them are from 2006, but I went back to 2002 and 2004 grab two songs and forward to 2009 and 2011 to grab two others. I figure that for this type of album the year the song was recorded isn't as important as the performance and sound quality, as well as it being a 1960s cover. There were just two cases where I included a song that didn't have both Sweet and Hoffs on it ("Big Sky" and "Good Night.")

I've also included "Cinnamon Girl" as a bonus track. The reason it's only a bonus track is because that song is on "Volume 1" and this version isn't very different. (It was done live in a studio.) However, it's in excellent sound quality, so I'm throwing it on in case anyone wants it. 

UPDATE: On October 23, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I added one song I'd previously overlooked, "I Can See for Miles."

01 Here Comes the Sun (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
02 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
03 I See the Rain (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
04 Different Drum (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
05 To Sir with Love (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
06 Rain (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
07 I Can See for Miles (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
08 The Village Green Preservation Society (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
09 Sorry (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
10 On the Way Home (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
11 Big Sky (Matthew Sweet)
12 Got to Get You into My Life (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
13 I'll Keep It with Mine (Susanna Hoffs with Petra Haden)
14 Good Night (Matthew Sweet)

Cinnamon Girl (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15263892/MattSwtSusH_2006_UndrCovrsVolme1.5_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a photo of Sweet and Hoffs, but I don't know what year it's from. I copied and pasted the text from one of the official albums to keep that distinctive font, then I changed the numbering. 

Susanna Hoffs - Summer Daze - Non-Album Tracks (2012-2016)

I'm a big fan of the Bangles as well as Susanna Hoffs' solo career. I'll be posting a bunch of both eventually. Here's a start.

In 2012, Hoffs put out her solo album "Someday." It's a really excellent album. If you haven't heard it yet, please go do so. I'd say it's better than anything the Bangles did since their early years, but in a more mellow and acoustic vein. Anyway, in 2012, she also put out not one but two EPs, both of them with songs on them not found elsewhere. My guess is Hoffs recorded more songs that she wanted to put on her album (since she kept it to an all-killer no-filler 31 minutes in length), and rather than keeping her outtakes locked up in a vault, she released them through the EPs.

Those EP songs got me started on making an album of stray tracks to compliment "Someday." One song on one of the EPs was essentially an acoustic version of one of the album tracks ("One Day (Ragtag Version)"), and I found three more acoustic versions of the album tracks from a live radio appearance. I found three more songs done live in 2012 that weren't on the album.

That alone would have been enough for a 33-minute long album, longer than "Someday" itself. But since 2012, Hoffs has been surprisingly quiet, aside from doing some touring with the Bangles. Here it is 2018 and she hasn't put out another album, either by herself or with the Bangles. In fact, I've found almost no new music from her at all. However, I have found three songs she did from 2015 and 2016, so I've added them at the end.

I've organized this album so the first half is mostly acoustic versions of songs from her "Someday" album or other new acoustic-styled songs, while the second half is mostly cover versions.

01 Picture Me [Acoustic Version] (Susanna Hoffs)
02 Raining [Acoustic Version] (Susanna Hoffs)
03 Always Enough [Acoustic Version] (Susanna Hoffs)
04 Petite Chanson (Susanna Hoffs)
05 Summer Daze (Susanna Hoffs)
06 One Day [Ragtag Version] (Susanna Hoffs)
07 Sally Go 'Round the Roses (Susanna Hoffs)
08 All I've Got to Do (Susanna Hoffs)
09 This Will Be Our Year (Susanna Hoffs)
10 When You Walk in the Room [Acoustic] (Susanna Hoffs)
11 Never My Love (Susanna Hoffs)
12 September Gurls (Susanna Hoffs)
13 I'm Ready to Move On - Wild Heart Reprise (Susanna Hoffs & the Bleachers)
14 Take Me with U (Susanna Hoffs with Petra Haden)
15 I'll Keep It with Mine (Susanna Hoffs with Petra Haden)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15121862/SusannaH_2012_SummrDaze_atse.zip.html

By the way, I still haven't been able to get a new laptop so I can easily work on making album covers some more. However, I saw a photo of Hoffs from 2012 that looks so good I just had to make an album cover anyway. She truly is an ageless beauty, as well as a great singer. Keep in mind that she already was in her 50s when this photo was taken.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 1: 1986-1991

In a previous post about Robyn Hitchcock, I mentioned that I've made three kinds of his albums for this blog: 1) acoustic versions of songs on his official albums, 2) collections of stray tracks, and 3) acoustic cover versions, usually done live.

So far, I've posted a few albums of the first two types. This is the first one of the third type. I've had to wait because I couldn't find any examples of Hitchcock doing acoustic covers until 1986. That's because he didn't tour much until around 1985. Then, for the next few years, he mostly played with his band the Egyptians, and quality bootlegs of his occasional acoustic concerts are rare.

As far as I can tell, he didn't perform acoustically much until 1990, after the release of his acoustic "Eye" album that year. But luckily we do have some occasional quality acoustic recordings from this early phase of his solo career that predate that.

If you enjoy this album, you'd be glad to hear that there's a lot more to come! This is the first of ten albums I've made containing nothing but Hitchcock playing songs by other artists. There are a total of 140 songs in the ten albums, with none of them repeated.

Mind you, this does NOT include any music from any of his full band concerts where he's played entire albums (plus bonus tracks) by other artists! I figure those are worth their own posts at a later time.  Over the years, he's performed:

all of Bob Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert
The White Album (The Beatles)
Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Pink Floyd)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
Abbey Road (The Beatles)
Hunky Dory (David Bowie)
Clear Spot (Captain Beefheart)
Revolver (The Beatles)
The Basement Tapes (Bob Dylan)
Sweethearts of the Rodeo (The Byrds)
a show just of Syd Barrett songs
a concert of what he called "Naff 1970s Hits."

If I could ever examine Hitchcock's music collection, I imagine it would closely mirror my own, based on his cover choices. As you can see from the albums he's performed, he loves Bob Dylan and the Beatles most of all, and he also really loves Pink Floyd (especially the Syd Barrett era).

That's reflected in his acoustic covers, as he covers those three artists the most. Over the ten acoustic covers albums I've made, you'll also see more than one cover of: David Bowie, The Doors, The Byrds, The Velvet Underground, Richard Thompson, Van Morrison, Roxy Music, The Kinks, John Lennon (solo), Lou Reed, Nick Drake, Jimi Hendrix, The Incredible String Band, The Band, Love, The Grateful Dead, George Harrison (solo), Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young, plus many, many other artists he does one or two songs of.

That's pretty much a list of my very favorite musical artists of all time! (Though I must admit I've never really gotten into Roxy Music or The Incredible String Band.)

No, Hitchcock doesn't have an incredible voice like Aretha Franklin's or Elvis Presley's. But he has a very good one, with character, and he always does justice to the many classic songs that he clearly loves. I don't know of any other artist who has played so many cover songs acoustically in concert. And yet he's not even close to being a "covers artist" because his covers only make up a small percentage of all the songs he does in a typical concert. It's just that he loves to vary things up instead of playing the same songs over and over again. Many of the covers I've included in these albums were only ever publicly performed by him once.

By the way, on top of everything else, I've also made an album I'll post later on just of his acoustic versions of songs by the Soft Boys, his original band. I figure those should be treated separately since he wrote those songs.

For all of these acoustic albums, I've removed the audience noise wherever I could. That's to create a consistent listening experience, since some of the songs come from radio station performances and other occasions where there was no audience.

Only one song on this album has been officially released. The two Van Morrison cover "Fair Play" was recorded at a 1991 concert, but were included as B-sides to a single that year.  The rest are from bootlegs. There are more songs I could have included but didn't because I felt the sound quality wasn't up to snuff.

By the way, I want to give a shout out to The Asking Tree, a website of Hitchcock data. This series wouldn't have been possible without it. To see what a human jukebox Hitchcock is, check out this below weblink to a list of all the songs he's covered. (I didn't include lots of them in this series because they were done with a full band, often in one of his shows playing a full album by someone else, or because there's no quality bootleg recording.)

The Asking Tree

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

01 The Book of Love [Acappella Version] - Monotones
02 That's When Your Heartaches Begin - Ink Spots
03 False Knight on the Road - traditional
04 Went to See the Gypsy - Bob Dylan
05 Big-Eyed Beans from Venus - Captain Beefheart
06 No Strange Delight - Roxy Music
07 The Crystal Ship - Doors
08 Charlotte Anne - Julian Cope
09 Avalon - Poor Man Story - Roxy Music
10 I Found a Reason - Velvet Understand
11 Here She Comes Now - Velvet Understand
12 Brown Paper Bag - John Hegley
13 Draft Morning - Byrds
14 Strawberry Fields Forever - Beatles
15 The Ghost in You - Psychedelic Furs
16 Wild Mountain Thyme - traditional / Byrds
17 Withered and Died - Richard and Linda Thompson
18 Fair Play - Van Morrison

Over You - Roxy Music

Note that the second part of "Avalon," "Poor Man Story," appears to be a story Hitchcock made up on the spot while he continued to play the music from "Avalon" on the guitar. I came up with the title, since I felt the need to call it something.

And here's the regular song list:

01 The Book of Love [Acappella Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 That's When Your Heartaches Begin (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 False Knight on the Road (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Went to See the Gypsy (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Big-Eyed Beans from Venus (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 No Strange Delight (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 The Crystal Ship (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Charlotte Anne (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Avalon - Poor Man Story (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 I Found a Reason (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Here She Comes Now (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Brown Paper Bag (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Draft Morning (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Strawberry Fields Forever (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 The Ghost in You (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Wild Mountain Thyme (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Withered and Died (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Fair Play (Robyn Hitchcock)

Over You (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16067939/RobynH_1986-1991_AcousticCoversVolume1_atse.zip.html

I made the cover based on a photo from 1992. I couldn't find any really good ones of him playing an acoustic guitar in concert from before then.

David Bowie - Karma Man - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

Here's more of David Bowie's stray track material. This album covers 1967. It's a very curious time in Bowie's career. He'd just moved away from his rock and R&B material, but he had yet to hit his stride with his unique Bowie sound, which he would start to do in 1969. During this time, he went through a sort of music hall phase that was drastically out of step of what was considered cool in those years.

But, Bowie being Bowie, it was much more complicated than that. He was inspired from all sorts of sources, including the old-fashioned entertainer Anthony Newley, but also the songwriting of Ray Davies of the Kinks, as well as the music of the Velvet Underground. Furthermore, Bowie was a big science fiction fan, and that was starting to show up in his songs. The result was a truly unique mix.

Much of his output from this era appeared on his very first album, the 1967 album simply called "David Bowie." But, as you can see here, there was just as much material that didn't get on that album. A lot of this has never been officially released, probably because Bowie has been somewhat embarrassed about this phase of his career. Admittedly, it is hit or miss. For instance, people either love or hate "The Laughing Gnome." Personally, I think it's brilliant; you just have to appreciate it as a goofy novelty song.

But also, we can see the first examples of the fully developed Bowie style. For instance, I think songs like "Karma Man" and "Let Me Sleep Beside You" could have easily stood proudly as part of any of his next several albums.

I believe all the songs here are Bowie originals, except for "I'm Waiting for the Man," a Velvet Underground song.

This album is 34 minutes long.

01 The Laughing Gnome (David Bowie)
02 Everything Is You (David Bowie)
03 Social Girl (David Bowie)
04 Silver Treetop School for Boys (David Bowie)
05 Little Toy Soldier (David Bowie)
06 I'm Waiting for the Man (David Bowie)
07 Did You Ever Have a Dream (David Bowie)
08 C'est la Vie (David Bowie)
09 Karma Man (David Bowie)
10 Let Me Sleep Beside You (David Bowie)
11 When I Live My Dream [Alternate Version] (David Bowie)
12 Run Piper Run [Edit] (David Bowie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15536162/DavidB_1967_KarmaMn_atse.zip.html

I found a photo of Bowie in 1967, then removed the background and replaced it with a psychedelic-styled one to fit the kind of albums covers that were in vogue in that year.

Aretha Franklin - Love for Sale - Non-Album Tracks (1969-1970)

Here's the next in my series of stray tracks for Aretha Franklin's golden era. I explained the method to my madness in my last Franklin post: use the material from the "Rare and Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul" collection, but add in other singles, live tracks, and so on, while breaking the music up to shorter album lengths.

My first album, covering 1967 to 1968, was nearly all songs from the "Rare and Unreleased" collection. But for this album, covering 1969 to 1970, one can better see what I'm doing. Six of the songs here are from that collection. But another three are unreleased live songs where I removed the clapping. Plus, there's a hit only released as a single "The House that Jack Built" and a B-side that also was strangely released from "Rare and Unreleased," even though it gathers up some of the B-sides from this era ("Pledging My Love - The Clock").

I'm particularly proud of what I did with "Gentle on My Mind."  After some research, I was able to track down a copy of Franklin doing that song with Andy Williams on his TV show in 1969. Unfortunately, Williams started the song in his muzak-y style which I loathe. Then Franklin, her back-up singers, and band, completely took over the rest of the song, leaving Williams in the dust. So what I did was cut out the Williams part of the song entirely. Now it just sounds like a great Franklin song from start to finish. About the only evidence Williams is even there is when he says "Here we go!" near the start of the recording.

01 The Fool on the Hill (Aretha Franklin)
02 You're Taking Up Another Man's Place (Aretha Franklin)
03 You Keep Me Hangin' On (Aretha Franklin)
04 I'm Trying to Overcome (Aretha Franklin)
05 Funny Girl (Aretha Franklin)
06 Gentle on My Mind (Aretha Franklin with Andy Williams)
07 Love for Sale (Aretha Franklin)
08 Once in a Lifetime (Aretha Franklin)
09 Pledging My Love - The Clock (Aretha Franklin)
10 It's Not Unusual - See Saw (Aretha Franklin & Tom Jones)
11 The Party's Over (Aretha Franklin & Tom Jones)
12 My Way (Aretha Franklin)
13 My Cup Runneth Over (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9ku3bhSt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/y0QJ1paYt7qRr7S/file

The cover art is based on a 1971 photo, with additional artwork added by Makeba Rainey. In March 2025, I upgraded the cover image with the use of the Krea AI program. In the original, all of her body (but not her clothes) was in black and white, so I colorized that part.

Aretha Franklin - Sweet Bitter Love - Non-Album Tracks (1966-1968)

With Aretha Franklin's funeral taking place today, it's a good time to post more of her music in memory to her great career.

As I've mentioned before, it's generally acknowledged that the peak of her career was from 1967 to 1974. In 2007, an official album of her stray tracks from this time was released, called "Rare and Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul." This is a very good album, but I found I didn't listen to it much. It dawned on me that the problem was it was two CDs of about 70 minutes of music each, and most of the songs were in a slow tempo. It was too much Aretha at once, and it dragged too much.

What I've done instead is broken up the music from that compilation into smaller chunks of about 40 minutes each - about the length of Franklin's albums at the time. I added in other songs that didn't make her official albums, including some great A-side hits and some songs that were only done live. These extra tracks are generally more lively, and I think the result is a much better listen.

01 My Kind of Town [Detroit Is] (Aretha Franklin)
02 Try a Little Tenderness (Aretha Franklin)
03 Sweet Bitter Love (Aretha Franklin)
04 It Was You (Aretha Franklin)
05 The Letter (Aretha Franklin)
06 So Soon (Aretha Franklin)
07 Mr. Big (Aretha Franklin)
08 Talk to Me, Talk to Me (Aretha Franklin)
09 The House that Jack Built (Aretha Franklin)
10 My Song (Aretha Franklin)
11 There's No Business like Show Business - Baby Come Back to Me (Aretha Franklin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15112468/ArethaF_1967-1968_SweetBittrLove_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art based on a photo that I'm guessing is from around 1967.

Bob Dylan - I'll Keep It with Mine - Non-Album Tracks (1964)

Here's yet another in a long line of Bob Dylan stray tracks albums. As it so happens, there's just enough material this time around to cover the year 1964.

I think Dylan must have slowed his songwriting considerably after his hyper-productive 1963, probably because he was changing styles from the political and outward looking to the personal and introspective. The album "The Times They Are A-Changin'" came out just two weeks into 1964, so effectively this album covers the time he was working on the album "Another Side of Bob Dylan," released in August 1964. He would hardly do any recording until January 1965, which would be the sessions for "Bringing It All Back Home," and another drastic musical change for him.

This album is fairly short - only 32 minutes (not counting the bonus track, which I'll get to shortly). "Another Side of Bob Dylan" is not as lauded as much as the albums that came before it or after it, and I think the shortness of this album is a sign that he didn't have as much good material to choose from. But still, any mid-Dylan material is pretty damn good.

Note that the songs "Dr. Strangelove Blues" and "Stoned on the Mountain" performed by Dylan and his folk music friend Eric Von Schmidt seem to have been composed on the spot. But still, they came up with a lot of great, amusing lines, and clearly they had a fun time.

The bonus track is a version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on backing vocals. It was almost included on the "Another Side" album. I only added it as a bonus because it's done on Dylan's next album in a very similar manner. I'm glad Dylan rejected this version, because I think the song is better without Elliott's rough vocals.

01 Mama, You Been on My Mind (Bob Dylan)
02 Denise (Bob Dylan)
03 California [Acoustic Version] (Bob Dylan)
04 The House of the Rising Sun [Electric Overdubs Version] (Bob Dylan)
05 Black Crow Blues [Acoustic Guitar Version] (Bob Dylan)
06 I'll Keep It with Mine (Bob Dylan)
07 Dr. Strangelove Blues (Bob Dylan & Eric Von Schmidt)
08 Stoned on the Mountain (Bob Dylan & Eric Von Schmidt)
09 More and More (Bob Dylan & Eric Von Schmidt)
10 Guess I'm Doing Fine (Bob Dylan)

Mr. Tambourine Man [Early Version] (Bob Dylan with Ramblin' Jack Elliott)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hyArZnCq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sRM1nxS46AgNPU9/file

The cover art was made by Peter of the Albums I Wish Existed blog. Later, I sharpened the image with the Krea AI program.

Paul Weller - Slide Away - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (1997-2001)

I just posted an album of Paul Weller's full band stray tracks from 1996 to 1998. This is essentially the companion album to that. It covers a longer time period, but it's all-acoustic material.

Weller has gone through different phases when he wanted to rock and other phases where he wanted to get mellow and acoustic. The late 1990s were one of his most rocking phases. This album starts in 1997, but I couldn't find any good acoustic versions from 1998 or 1999 at all. But by 2001, he went acoustic in a big way, going on tour with just himself, an acoustic guitar, and a piano, and putting out a live album of that tour, "Days of Speed." I figure any Weller fan big enough to want this already has "Days of Speed," so I didn't include any songs from that.

Typically, Weller's acoustic material falls into three categories: his solo material, his Jam and Style Council material, and cover songs. This has some of all three. As far as covers go, "Waiting on an Angel" sounds exactly like a Weller original to my ears, but it's actually a Ben Harper song. Weller also does a great duet with Pete Townshend on an old Who song ("So Sad about Us"), and a cover of an Oasis song ("Slide Away.") "Carnation" and "Here's One that Got Away" are Jam and Style Council songs, respectively.

01 As You Lean into the Light (Paul Weller)
02 Everything Has a Price to Pay [Acoustic 1997 Version] (Paul Weller)
03 Friday Street (Paul Weller)
04 Driving Nowhere [Acoustic with Drums] (Paul Weller)
05 Waiting on an Angel (Paul Weller)
06 So Sad about Us (Pete Townshend & Paul Weller)
07 Dust and Rocks (Paul Weller)
08 A Whale's Tale (Paul Weller)
09 Carnation (Paul Weller)
10 Sweet Pea, My Sweet Pea (Paul Weller)
11 Here's One that Got Away (Paul Weller)
12 Frightened (Paul Weller)
13 Slide Away (Paul Weller)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15849468/PaulW_1997-2001_SldeAwayAcoustc_atse.zip.html

I made the cover from a bootleg of 2001 Weller music.

Paul Weller - Brand New Start - Non-Album Tracks (1996-1998)

I've come to the conclusion recently that Paul Weller probably is the hardest working guy in music. Or at least he's close! I saw some interview videos where he admitted he has no hobbies because all he does is eat, sleep, and breathe music. He even broke up a perfectly happy marriage in the mid-1990s because he was afraid of being TOO happy, and thus not feeling creatively challenged enough. (That's what his hit song "The Changingman" is about.)

Anyway, one result of his work ethic is that I have a ton of stray tracks albums to post, covering his entire career. The only other musician I know of who probably is more prolific with material NOT on official albums is Robyn Hitchcock, so I'm posting a ton of his stuff too. I wouldn't bother with either of these guys, except their non-album material is usually just as good overall as their album material.

This Weller album, covering 1996 to 1998, is a particularly good one. It includes some nice originals, such as the hit "Brand New Start." Five of the 12 songs are covers, but I think they sound exactly like Paul Weller songs. Two of them - "The Circle" and "I'm Gone" come from such obscure source material, and sound so much like quality Weller originals, that you'd have to do some research to even find out Weller didn't write them.

In my opinion, this album is just as good (and slightly longer) than the official album that came out in this time period, 1997's "Heavy Soul."

01 The Circle (Paul Weller)
02 Will It Go Round in Circles (Paul Weller with Jools Holland)
03 Eye of the Storm [Instrumental] (Paul Weller)
04 Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City (Paul Weller)
05 I'm Gone (Paul Weller & Jools Holland)
06 Shoot the Dove (Paul Weller)
07 So You Want to Be a Dancer [Instrumental] (Paul Weller)
08 The Poacher (Paul Weller & Ocean Colour Scene)
09 Brand New Start (Paul Weller)
10 Right Underneath It (Paul Weller)
11 Science [Lynch Mob Remix] (Paul Weller)
12 Tales from the Riverbank [New Version] (Paul Weller)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15849256/PaulW_1996-1998_BrndNewStrt_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I just used the cover of the "Brand New Start" single.

Sheryl Crow - Keep On Growing - Non-Album Tracks (1995-1996)

It's funny - I think I prefer some of the Sheryl Crow stray tracks albums I've made to her official albums. That's probably because albums like this one have more variety, and a lot of cover songs.

Crow is a great singer, and is often a very good songwriter, but some of the songs she writes can fall into "adult contemporary" blandness. That's definitely not the case when she's covering the likes of the Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Derek and the Dominos, or the Allman Brothers Band - and she does all of that and more here.

Her original songs are an interesting bunch too. The mid to late 1990s was Crow's commercial peak, I think in large part because she was musically peaking too.

This album has gone through some significant changes since I first posted it. In November 2021, I split it in two, creating the album "Rock Me Baby" because I found a bunch more songs from this time period. I put most of them on that album, but I also added "Midnight Rider," "All I Wanna Do (Beat Version)," and "La Ci Darem la Mano." Normally, I'm not that into alternate versions of songs, but I figure ""All I Wanna Do (Beat Version)" is different enough from the famous hit song version to merit inclusion.

"La Ci Darem la Mano" sticks out like a sore thumb. Crow dueted with Luciano Pavarotti for a song one would find in an opera. Personally, I think Crow did a very good job with her part (though I don't know opera enough to really judge). But since it's so different from everything else, I've stuck it at the end.

There's one bonus track, "100 Years," a duet with Blues Traveler. It sounds excellent even though it comes from a concert bootleg. The reason it's a bonus track is because it features a lot more of Blues Traveler than it does of Crow.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Keep On Growing (Sheryl Crow)
02 Get Off of My Cloud (Sheryl Crow)
03 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band & Sheryl Crow)
04 I Feel Happy (Sheryl Crow)
05 Let It Bleed (Sheryl Crow)
06 The Joker (Sheryl Crow)
07 All I Wanna Do [Beat Version] (Sheryl Crow)
08 Free Man (Sheryl Crow)
09 Sad, Sad World (Sheryl Crow)
10 La Ci Darem la Mano (Luciano Pavarotti & Sheryl Crow)

100 Years (Blues Traveler & Sheryl Crow)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15106861/SherylC_1995-1996_KeeponGrwing_atse.zip.html

I made the cover from a 1996 concert photo.

Robyn Hitchcock - Fegmania - Acoustic Versions (1985)

This is a follow-up to my last post. Both cover 1985, the year Robyn Hitchcock released the album "Fegmania." The previous post was an album of stray tracks from that year. This album contains acoustic versions of as many songs from "Fegmania" I could find.

There are 12 songs on "Fegmania." It's a fairly rocking album, the first one Hitchcock did with the Egyptians, so not all of the songs lend themselves to acoustic versions. But I was able to find good acoustic versions for eight of them.

In addition, I found an acoustic version of the album track "Another Bubble," but I didn't think the sound quality is up to snuff with the rest of the songs. So I've only included it as a bonus track. Keep it if you wish, or don't.

The other seven songs here are acoustic versions of the songs on my 1985 stray tracks album I just posted, "Victorian Squid."

01 Egyptian Cream [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 I'm Only You (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 My Wife and My Dead Wife (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Goodnight I Say (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 The Man with the Lightbulb Head (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Insect Mother [Demo] (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Glass (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Heaven (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 The Bells of Rhymney (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Some Body (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Dwarfbeat (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Victorian Squid (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Birdshead (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 I Got a Message for You (Robyn Hitchcock)

Another Bubble (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271834/RobynH_1985b_FegmanAcousticVersions_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used the cover of the "Man with the Lightbulb Head" single. Clearly, it's a drawing done by Hitchcock. I've changed the text in the speech bubbles. Previously, the bubbles read: "You're too late!" and "I've come to turn you on!"

Robyn Hitchcock - Victorian Squid - Non-Album Tracks (1985)

My posting of Robyn Hitchcock's numerous stray track albums continues. As I've mentioned previously, for most of his official studio albums, I've been able to make two albums: one of acoustic versions of the songs on that album, and then another album of all the good stray tracks from that time. This is an example of the latter, covering 1985, the year Hitchcock released the "Fegmania" album.

"Fegmania" was the first album Hitchcock did with the Egyptians, the band he would stick with until 1992. (I'm not keeping track which songs are recorded with the Egyptians and which ones aren't, because, to be honest, I don't think it makes much difference. It's clearly Hitchcock plus a backing band whenever he's with a band.) Hitchcock did start playing many more concerts in 1985, but I couldn't find any instances of them doing really rare songs. So all the songs here have been officially released one way or another.

I call this album "Victorian Squid," because out of all of the songs on it, it's the one Hitchcock seems to like the best. Most of these songs haven't been played in concert at all, but he stills plays "Victorian Squid" on a regular basis.

01 The Bells of Rhymney (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Some Body (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Dwarfbeat (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 The Pit of Souls [Parts I-IV] [Instrumental] (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 The Drowning Church (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Lady Obvious (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Victorian Squid (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Parachutes and Jellyfish (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Captain Dry (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Birdshead (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 I Got a Message for You (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Point It at Gran (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122113/RobynH_1985c_VictorinSquid_atse.zip.html

I'm very pleased at how this album cover turned out. Since I had decided to call the album "Victorian Squid," I Googled the term to see if anything interesting came up. Turns out someone named Travis Louie has made some fake portraits of people from the Victorian era but with some very strange twists. Such as a boy showing off his pet giant squid! All I did was add in a sepia tone and the text. Perfect. ;)