Traffic - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1968

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

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

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

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

This album is 37 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MLqJ5PrS

alternate:

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

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

Traffic - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967

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

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

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

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

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

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

This album is 34 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h65NQ3pS

alternate:

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

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

Elliott Smith - Live Acoustic Cover Versions, Volume 1, 1997-1999

Isaac Newton once said: "If I have seen father, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." One reason I think Elliott Smith was so great was because he was inspired by some of the best musical giants who came before him.

This album illustrates that point very well. All the songs here are cover versions, done acoustically in concert. I generally removed the audience noise at the end of songs. Only two performances here have been officially released, but the sound quality is generally very good. The one exception to that is "Oh Sister," a Bob Dylan song, which is hissy. So I made that a bonus track.

Here are the original artists for the other songs:

Waterloo Sunset - Kinks
Thirteen - Big Star
They'll Never Take Her Love from Me - Hank Williams
For No One - Beatles
Walk Away Renee - Left Banke
Set Me Free - Kinks
Lost Highway - Hank Williams
All My Rowdy Friends [Have Settled Down] - Hank Williams, Jr.
Clouds - Quasi
Care of Cell 44 - Zombies
Jealous Guy - John Lennon
Isn't It a Pity - George Harrison
Harvest Moon - Neil Young

Smith did so many live acoustic cover versions that I have a sequel album covering the other years of his career. I also have an album of live cover versions done with a full band.

01 Waterloo Sunset (Elliott Smith)
02 Thirteen (Elliott Smith)
03 They'll Never Take Her Love from Me (Elliott Smith)
04 For No One (Elliott Smith)
05 Walk Away Renee (Elliott Smith)
06 Set Me Free (Elliott Smith)
07 Lost Highway (Elliott Smith)
08 All My Rowdy Friends [Have Settled Down] (Elliott Smith)
09 Clouds (Elliott Smith)
10 Care of Cell 44 (Elliott Smith)
11 Jealous Guy (Elliott Smith)
12 Isn't It a Pity (Elliott Smith)
13 Harvest Moon (Elliott Smith)

Oh Sister (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15175052/EllittS_1997-1999_LiveAcoustcCoverVrsionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo of Smith from 1998.

Richard Thompson - Invisible Means (with French, Frith, & Kaiser) - Alternate Version (1990)

In the late 1980s, Richard Thompson was a member of "the world's most obscure supergroup:" French, Frith, Kaiser, and Thompson. A few months ago, I posted a Richard Thompson-centric version of that band's first album, "Love, Life, Larf & Loaf." Basically, I kept all the Thompson songs and removed the rest.

The album does the exact same thing, except with the band's second (and last) album, "Invisible Means." Like the band's other album, the original album is fairly long. So if one keeps just the Thompson songs, and adds a couple of bonus tracks, it ends up being 40 minutes long, which is a  nice album length.

French, Frith, Kaiser, and Thompson (FFKT) were deliberately arty and experimental, and thus they had a niche audience only. I think a lot of Richard Thompson fans stayed away. But Thompson's songs aren't that different from his usual fare. So, just as last time, you get a solid "lost" Richard Thompson album. He does get experimental on a couple of songs, such as "March of the Cosmetic Surgeons," which is kind of a mock opera, and "Days of Our Lives," which means fun of soap operas. But they're still good songs, just different.

"Now That I'm Dead" is a song written by John French of the FFKT quartet. On the original "Invisible Means" album, there is a studio version sung by him. Personally, I think it's a great, funny song, but his vocal delivery totally ruined it. Luckily, Thompson sings it in concert as a bonus track that was added to a later edition of the album, and I've added that here.

All the other songs are Thompson originals, with the exceptions of "Loch Lomond" and the other bonus track "Love Has Made a Fool of You - Iko Iko."

01 Peppermint Rock (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)
02 March of the Cosmetic Surgeons (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)
03 Begging Bowl (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)
04 Loch Lomond (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)
05 Days of Our Lives (French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson)
06 Killing Jar (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)
07 Now that I Am Dead (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)
08 Love Has Made a Fool of You - Iko Iko (French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376680/RICHRDTHMPSN1990InvsibleMensAlternte_atse.zip.html

For some unknown reason, there have been two totally different official album covers for this album. You can see the more popular one in the Wikipedia entry for the album. I've chosen the lesser known one.

Robyn Hitchcock - Eerie Green Storm Lantern - Non-Album Tracks (2002)

Here's the next in my seemingly endless series of Robyn Hitchcock's stray tracks albums. The man is prolific!

This album covers just 2002. That was the year that Hitchcock was part of a reunion of his original band, the Soft Boys. The Soft Boys put out a studio album of all new material, "Nextdoorland," and went on tour.

For most musicians, the reunion would have taken up all of their creative energy for the year. But Hitchcock was coming up with other songs, which he never put on any studio album. Three of the songs here, "Mr. Kennedy," "Sudden Town," and "My Mind Is Connected..." actually originate from the "Nextdoorland" reunion album. However, these are solo acoustic versions that are very different than the Soft Boys versions on that album.

The rest of the songs here are the usual grab bag of stray tracks Hitchcock puts out most every year. "Let Me Roll It" is unusual in that it's a cover of a Paul McCartney solo song for a tribute album, done with a full band. I believe all the others are originals. A majority of the songs are from bootleg, but the sound quality on all of those are excellent. Most of those come from in-person radio or TV appearances.

I'm ending this with three bonus tracks of sorts. In addition to a Soft Boys album in 2002, a Soft Boys EP was also released, called "Side Three." It has seven songs on it. Frankly, these have to be the leftovers from the album session, and some of them aren't that good. But I've chosen the three I really like and added them to the end.

01 Mr. Kennedy (Robyn Hitchcock with Grant Lee Phillips)
02 Ring Them Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Take This in Remembrance (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Eerie Green Storm Lantern (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Four Lonely Lamps (Robyn Hitchcock & Grant Lee Phillips)
06 Let Me Roll It (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Sudden Town (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Unprotected Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 My Mind Is Connected... (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 I Got You Babe (Robyn Hitchcock & Deni Bonet)
11 Narcissus (Soft Boys)
12 Comin' Through (Soft Boys)
13 The Disconnection of the Ruling Class (Soft Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122304/RobynH_2000-2002_EerieGreenSormLantern_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I decided to take a very literal approach. With an album titled "Eerie Green Storm Lantern," I want to see an actual eerie green storm lantern! ;) So the photo is the best I could come up with from a Google search.

Norah Jones - Roll On - Non-Album Tracks (2005-2006)

Pretty much every time I post a Norah Jones album here, I argue that her stray tracks are better and more interesting than her album tracks. This album has a great case in point: the song "Lou Reed." It's an amusing song about the singer Lou Reed being seen cow tipping. It's a fun song, but it's also not the kind of song you'd find on one of her mainstream albums.

This album is filled with similarly interesting songs. A bunch of them are her taking on classics, such as "Wild Horses," "Cry Me a River," and "Your Cheatin' Heart." (She rarely does these on her own albums because she wants to prove herself as a songwriter.) Other songs are new, but more daring than what you'd find on her albums.

So once again I'll assert that if you only know Norah Jones' music from what you hear on the radio, you're missing out. This isn't a huge departure from her usual style, but it has more variety and better songwriting.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Wild Horses (Tim Ries with Norah Jones)
02 I Gotta Get Drunk (Little Willies featuring Norah Jones)
03 Lou Reed (Little Willies featuring Norah Jones)
04 Lonely Lament (Liberation Prophecy with Norah Jones)
05 Cry Me a River (Norah Jones & Jim Campilongo)
06 Roll On (Little Willies featuring Norah Jones)
07 I Don't Want Anything to Change (Bonnie Raitt & Norah Jones)
08 Day and Night (El Madmo featuring Norah Jones)
09 World of Trouble (Norah Jones)
10 Your Cheatin' Heart (Jerry Lee Lewis & Norah Jones)
11 Milking Bull (Little Willies featuring Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15848746/NorahJ_2005-2006_RllOn_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo from 2006.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coloured Rain [Almost Instrumental Version] (Traffic)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Duckworth Lewis Method - On with the Show - Non-Album Tracks (2009-2013)

This is a strange and obscure album, but I really hope you give it a try, because the music is great.

The Duckworth Lewis Method (DLM) is a band made up of Thomas Walsh of Pugwash and Neil Hannon the Divine Comedy. Both of them are from Ireland. I appreciate Hannon's talent, even though I'm not really a fan of his band. I've only recently discovered Pugwash, and I'm really getting into them. I hope to post a lot of Pugwash stuff in the future. Pugwash is extremely influenced by the Beatles and ELO, and other 1960s and 1970s artists. But unlike most derivative bands, Walsh has considerable singing talent as well as songwriting talent.

As good as the Divine Comedy and Pugwash are on their own, they're even better working together as the DLM. But there's a very strange thing about the DLM: all, and I do mean ALL, of their songs are about the game of cricket! As an American, I know very little about cricket, and what I do know doesn't interest me in the slightest. And yet, I love these songs about cricket, even though I have no clue what they're about most of the time. That's because it's simply really excellent music.

The DLM have put out two albums, one in 2009 ("The Duckworth Lewis Method") and the other in 2013 ("Sticky Wickets"). I don't want to post either of them here, since you should support the artists by buying them. So instead this is compilation of stray tracks. Only three of the songs are versions of songs on their studio albums. But hopefully you'll see the quality level is so high that you'll want to get the albums too.

Many of the songs are covers. Some are cricket-themed, such as "Soul Limbo," which is a classic soul instrumental hit, but one that apparently was used as a theme song for cricket on the BBC for many years. Others appear to just be songs the band loves. Check out for instance their version of ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky," which they nail despite only being a small band.

There are a couple of non-album originals here too. One example is "Ireland, Ireland." Strangely, the band was commissioned by an Irish newspaper to write a new national anthem for Ireland, and this is the tongue-in-cheek result.

By the way, the band's strange name is a mathematical formulation relating to cricket. Again, I don't know or care much about cricket, so I can't explain it. But the name shows that they are extremely dedicated to their cricket obsession.

01 Gentlemen and Players [Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
02 Pedalo (Duckworth Lewis Method)
03 Test Match Special [Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
04 The Age of Revolution [Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
05 Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime (Duckworth Lewis Method)
06 Ireland, Ireland (Duckworth Lewis Method)
07 Mr. Blue Sky (Duckworth Lewis Method)
08 Soul Limbo [Instrumental] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
09 When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease (Duckworth Lewis Method)
10 What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (Duckworth Lewis Method with Matt Berry)
11 On with the Show (Duckworth Lewis Method)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328230/DuckwrthLwisM_2009-2013_OnwithShw_atse.zip.html

I made the album cover using a screenshot from a DLM video. The man playing guitar is Thomas Walsh, and the man playing accordion is Neil Hannon.

Tom P*tty & the Heartbreakers - Live Cover Versions, 2012-2016

I've posted 11 albums of Tom P*tty and the Heartbreakers playing live cover versions. This is the 12th, and the last. I wish this series could keep going on, but P*tty died all too soon in 2017.

(Note that I'm not using the full name of this artist due to concerns about copyright issues.)

Typically, P*tty and the Heartbreakers played classic hits from the 1950s and 1960s. That still was the case for some of the songs here. But this time around, he played more country songs, including some obscure songs, such as "June Apple." He also returned to some of his favorite artists, like the Byrds ("Lover of the Bayou"), Bob Dylan ("Knockin' on Heaven's Door"), and J. J. Cale ("Traveling Light").

Five of the nine songs here are actually done with his first band Mudcrutch, which he revived again for a tour in 2016.

One odd case is the song "Tweeter and the Monkey Man." The song was done by the Traveling Wilburys in 1988, when P*tty was a member of that band. But it's believed the song was written almost entirely by Bob Dylan, as a sort of parody or homage to Bruce Springsteen songs, so I consider this a cover and not P*tty doing a song of his own.

The first song ("Traveling Light") sounds a bit rough, since it comes from an audience bootleg. But most of the rest are officially released, and sound great.

By chance, this series of albums fittingly ends with Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Rest in peace, Tom.

The album is 47 minutes long.

I'm not including the track list due to copyright issues. But you can find it in the mp3 download file.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dqJtz6GS 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Fx3gqXjpoPIc5Zv/file 

For the album cover, I used part of a Mudcrutch concert poster. But I wanted the text to be "Tom P*tty and the Heartbreakers" instead of "Mudcrutch," so I took a banner with the band's name on in from another concert poster and placed that over the Mudcrutch name.

The Guess Who - Albert Flasher - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1971)

In early 1970, the Guess Who were at the peak of their success. They'd just released their hit album "American Woman," and were in the middle of recording a bunch of excellent new songs for their next album. Then guitarist Randy Bachman quit. This was devastating, because not only was Bachman's guitar playing key to the band's sound, but he co-wrote most of the band's song with lead singer Burton Cummings. (Bachman would go on to big success with Bachman-Turner Overdrive a few years later.)

The Guess Who scrapped the songs they were working on, recruited a couple of new members to replace Bachman, then put out an album of entirely different songs, called "Share the Land." It too was a success. But what happened to those other songs, all but one of which were co-written by Bachman and Cummings? Seven of them were finally released as the album "The Way We Were" in 1976, one year after the Guess Who broke up.

This album mostly consists of the songs on "The Way We Were." But that album has long been out of print, with the songs on it split as bonus tracks to both the "American Woman" and "Share the Land" albums.

Furthermore, I've added some key songs to the end. "Got to Find Another Way" also dates from around the same time, but was inexplicably left off "The Way We Were" and finally found its way as a bonus track to yet another version of the "American Woman" album.

The songs from this "lost album" are all solid, but I'm not sure if any of them could have been a big hit (though maybe "Palmyra" fits the bill). However, in 1971, the Guess Who released a hit, "Albert Flasher," that didn't go on any of their albums. So I've included that here too (as well as its B-side, "Broken"), and titled the album after it.

The instrumental song "La Jolla" comes from a Randy Bachman solo album called "Axe." That song, and the other songs from that album, were recorded at the exact same time, and in the same studio, as "The Way We Were" songs. Bachman also used the Guess Who drummer, and played his own bass parts. I would include more songs from "Axe," except they're all instrumentals and not that interesting, in my opinion.

I've also added two bonus tracks. They're by a different band, Brother, a trio from Canada, but this band had very close ties with the Guess Who. When Bachman left the Guess Who, guitarist Kurt Winter from Brother was picked as his replacement. One year later, bassist Jim Kale left the Guess Who and was replaced by Bill Wallace from Brother. So Brother was effectively taken over by the Guess Who, with Brother's best songs becoming Guess Who songs, such as "Bus Rider" and "Hand Me Down World."

Brother was in existence for less than a year before they broke up, and they never had a chance to record and release any of their songs. But after Winter left, he briefly reformed the band long enough to record a single. The A- and B-sides of that single are included as the bonus tracks. The vocals are sung by Winter and/or Wallace, both of whom were in the Guess Who or soon would be, so they're kind of Guess Who songs, in my opinion.

Personally, I think "American Woman" and "Share the Land" are the two strongest Guess Who albums, and this "lost" album from in between them is just as good as either of them.

01 Silver Bird (Guess Who)
02 Species Hawk (Guess Who)
03 Runnin' Down the Street (Guess Who)
04 Miss Frizzy (Guess Who)
05 La Jolla [Instrumental] (Randy Bachman)
06 Palmyra (Guess Who)
07 The Answer (Guess Who)
08 Take the Long Way Home (Guess Who)
09 Got to Find Another Way (Guess Who)
10 Albert Flasher (Guess Who)
11 Broken (Guess Who)

Second Time around the Woodpile (Brother)
Sending Money (Brother)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ct3aNDQ9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FgWroy4ljo1WZaj/file

For the album cover, I used the cover to the "Albert Flasher" single. That had the B-side title "Broken" on it, so I removed that and resized or repositioned other parts of the image. 

In 2026, I changed the cover. I kept the same image, but I colorized the photo in the middle, which had been tinted blue.

Pete Townshend - Uneasy Street - Non-Album Tracks (1990-1997)

Pete Townshend regularly released solo albums every few years through 1993. Then he stopped. His 1993 studio album is still his last one. (He did write the songs for a Who album in 2006.) He has continued to perform a lot of concerts, especially with the Who, but he hasn't even released many other solo songs since the early 1990s (for instance as singles or on compilations).

However, Townshend has continued to make new music since that time. It's just that he's been very low key about releasing it, if he bothers to release it at all. He's put out some more recent songs on his series of "Scoop" albums. He also released 20 demos, many of them dating from the 1990s, as a free download that briefly appeared on his website, called "Twenty." Other songs have only been played in concert.

I've compiled a bunch of these songs to make this album. Unfortunately, I don't think they're a strong bunch of songs, by his standards. It's known that he was busy with other work and hobbies for much of his time in the 1990s, so clearly he wasn't writing songs with the same fire as earlier in his career. But Townshend is so musically talented that even his less that great stuff is pretty good in my eyes.

I made two songs bonus tracks simply because I didn't think they were strong enough compared to the others. 

This album is 40 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

01 Flying Boy (Pete Townshend)
02 Squirm Squirm (Pete Townshend)
03 Wistful [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
04 Uneasy Street (Pete Townshend)
05 Got Love If You Want It - I'm the Face (Pete Townshend)
06 I Believe My Own Eyes (Pete Townshend)
07 No Message in a Broken Heart (Pete Townshend)
08 Latin Thing [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
09 The Shout [New Version] (Pete Townshend)
10 If You Live - Young Man Blues (Pete Townshend)
11 Uneasy Street (Pete Townshend)
12 Drumming [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)

971104 Arpeggio Piano [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
Poem Disturbed [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZLu1ZqPt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uk6xbtkQIkxBrcG/file

For the album cover, I used a promo photo of Townshend from 1996.

Duane Allman - Dimples - Non-Album Tracks (1969)

Duane Allman... SINGS! Wait. What?!

This is a very strange album. Duane Allman is considered one of the greatest guitar players of all time, especially when it comes to slide guitar. But he's about as well known for his singing as Bob Dylan is known for his lead guitar playing, meaning not at all. And yet, in early 1969, shortly before the Allman Brothers Band (ABB) formed, Duane Allman attempted to record a solo album in which he would sing all the songs. This is my attempt to recreate that album.

Duane Allman was not a bad singer, mind you. It's just that his voice was merely serviceable, while his brother Gregg had a remarkably expressive and bluesy voice. So of course it made sense to have Gregg Allman sing everything when the two of them were in the ABB together. But in early 1969, Gregg was spending many months in Los Angeles and Duane was busy working as a studio musician in Alabama. Duane was so impressive that he was offered a chance to record a solo album.

He did some work on the album, but either never finished it or didn't bother to release it. (Presumably, when Gregg moved back to the South in mid-1969 and musically linked up with Duane, Duane's solo album became moot.) Officially, only three songs have been released from it: "Happily Married Man" (which he wrote), "Goin' Down Slow," and "No Money Down." I've included two more here, from bootleg: "Steal Away" and "Dimples."

I've included another, "Down Along the Cove" only as a bonus track, because it's an instrumental meant to highlight his guitar soloing, but his guitar is buried so low in the mix as to be nearly inaudible, so I find it a very frustrating listen.

On top of that, it's known he recorded the songs "Bad News" and "Neighbor, Neighbor," but recordings of those haven't even been bootlegged (if they still exist at all).

The five songs that actually come from his planned solo album only total 23 minutes in length, which is too short for me to call an album. So I've added in some more songs to flesh it out. Duane very rarely sang lead vocals with the ABB, but he did on occasion. I've included two of those: "Hey Joe" and "Dimples." (That's the second version of "Dimples" on this album, but they're different enough for me to include both, especially since the live version has a lot more of his guitar soloing.)

I've also added two more songs that are instrumentals prominently featuring Duane's guitar: "The Weight" and "Going Up the Country." Happily, both of these were also recorded in early 1969, so I think they fit in well.

Finally, as a bonus track, I've added in a practice version of Boz Scaggs singing "Loan Me a Dime" with Duane on lead guitar. If you haven't heard the officially released version of this on Scagg's 1969 album, stop what you're doing and give it a listen immediately. It's 12 minutes long, and the vast majority of that is some of the best guitar soloing of Duane's career. This version is only five minutes long, and it's a more acoustic version, with a lot less soloing. But it's still interesting, and I'm including it mainly because it's officially unreleased and very hard to find.

So this is a strange album, for sure. It has more of Duane singing than him playing guitar solos, which is really weird. Furthermore, a lot of what I put on this wouldn't have actually been on Duane's solo album, if it ever was completed. But still, I think it's an interesting part of ABB history, and it makes a good listen.

01 Dimples (Duane Allman)
02 Happily Married Man (Duane Allman)
03 The Weight [Instrumental] (King Curtis with Duane Allman)
04 Steal Away (Duane Allman)
05 Goin' Down Slow (Duane Allman)
06 No Money Down (Duane Allman)
07 Going Up the Country [Instrumental] (Duck & the Bear [Johnny Sandlin & Eddie Hinton with Duane Allman])
08 Hey Joe (Allman Brothers Band & the Second Coming)
09 Dimples (Allman Brothers Band)

Down Along the Cove [Instrumental] (Duane Allman)
Loan Me a Dime [Rehearsal Version] (Boz Scaggs)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123724/TAllmanBB_1969-1970_DuaneADimpls_atse.zip.html

I'm not sure where the photo comes from that I used for the album cover here. But good color photos of Duane are few and far between, and this is a very good one.

The Allman Brothers Band - One More Ride - Band Demos (1969-1970)

I've posted three albums of music by Allman Brothers Band (ABB) members before they officially became the ABB in mid-1969. Now I can more on to posting actual ABB music.

There seemingly are a million official live ABB albums and a billion live ABB bootlegs, but there's a relatively small amount of studio outtakes. So I'm surprised that I'm able to make this album. I'm also surprised that so many of the songs here are officially unreleased (and also rarely seen on bootlegs).

The first four songs on this album are 1969 band demos for the first ABB album, simply called "The Allman Brothers Band." The rest are band demos for the second album, "Idlewild South." Although it should be noted that the last two songs, "Statesboro Blues" and "One More Ride," didn't appear on that album.

These demos generally sound very good, to the point that it's hard to notice which three of the songs have been officially released. The demo for the song "Revival" didn't sound as good, plus that version is very similar to the released album version, so I've only included that as a bonus track. Another demo, "Leave My Blues at Home," sounded even worse, so I didn't even include that as a bonus track.

Generally speaking, the versions here are fairly close to the ones that made the albums. But sometimes there are important differences, and the solos are different. Of course, the ABB are renowned for their live performances, but I think it's worthwhile to hear how the studio versions of these songs came to be.

01 Don't Want You No More [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
02 It's Not My Cross to Bear (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Trouble No More (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Dreams (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Don't Keep Me Wondering (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
07 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
08 Hoochie Coochie Man (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
10 One More Ride [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)

Revival (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17187623/TALLMANBB1969-1970OneMorRideBandDmos_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/75rMVCMk

I used a 1970 concert poster as the basis for the album cover. But I realized the photo used on the poster was exactly the same as the one on the "Idlewild South" album, so I replaced it with another photo of the band, from 1969. Over a year later, I got a good program for colorizing (Pixbim), so I colorized it.

UPDATE: On October 1, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello - The McCartney-Costello Demos (1987)

Before I continue posting more Paul McCartney stray tracks albums, I need to make a detour. And what a lovely detour it is! I think these demos McCartney did with Elvis Costello in 1987 are a highlight of both of their careers. If you don't have this album yet, you should get it now.

As I mentioned previously, McCartney was very disappointed at the critical and commercial reception to his 1986 album "Press to Play," and he vowed to redouble his efforts for his next album. A key part of that involved him make his most serious attempt to co-write songs with someone else since his songwriting team with John Lennon. It was a great match, because McCartney was often considered to be strong at melody and relatively weak at lyrics, while it was the opposite for Costello.

The two of them wrote a bunch of songs together that were much better than anything either of them had done on their own since the early 1980s. Unfortunately, they decided against putting out all these songs together, and instead they trickled out here and there, with most going to McCartney's next album ("Flowers in the Dirt") and Costello's ("Spike"). I suspect they were daunted by the comparisons between their collaboration and the legendary McCartney-Lennon songwriting team. It's even more unfortunate that they didn't continue their collaboration in later years.

So although there never was a McCartney-Costello late 1980s album, at least we have these acoustic demos. They existed on bootlegs for ages, but the vast majority of them were officially released as part of a deluxe edition of Flowers in the Dirt in 2017. Three co-written songs that were left off that (because the demos didn't feature both McCartney and Costello singing) have been released as bonus tracks to other albums.

Note that in 1988, McCartney and Costello recorded full-band demos for most of these songs. Those also have been officially released as part of the Flowers in the Dirt deluxe edition. That's an interesting listen, but I love acoustic music, so I actually prefer these recordings.

01 The Lovers that Never Were (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
02 Tommy’s Coming Home (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
03 Twenty Fine Fingers (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
04 So Like Candy (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
05 You Want Her Too (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
06 That Day Is Done (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
07 Don’t Be Careless Love (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
08 My Brave Face (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
09 Playboy to a Man (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
10 I Don't Want to Confess (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
11 Shallow Grave (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
12 Mistress and Maid (Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello)
13 Pads, Paws and Claws (Elvis Costello)
14 Back on My Feet (Paul McCartney)
15 Veronica (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15158819/PaulMcCElvisC_1987_TheMcCartnyCostlloDmos_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I had a hard time finding a color photo of McCartney and Costello together. I resorted to using one of them playing together in a 1999 concert.

Lone Justice - The Ritz, New York City, 9-18-1985

I've posted some material from Maria McKee's solo career, and I plan on posting a lot more. But so far, I've overlooked her earlier band, Lone Justice. With this post, I'm starting to rectify that.

For a time in the mid-1980s, Lone Justice was considered the hot "it" band. Many people who saw them in concert assumed they would go on to be hugely successful. That never happened, and it's a mystery why. But one can listen to an album like this one and understand why there was all the hype.

This is a really excellent concert. I've listened to a bunch of Lone Justice concerts, and this one is my favorite. It's a bootleg, but the sound is just as good as an official live album from the era. The song selection is excellent too.

I've added "Sweet Jane" as a bonus track of sorts. It's from another 1985 show, but one can easily imagine it was an encore to this one, since the band frequently played it as their encore.

01 You Are the Light (Lone Justice)
02 Grapes of Wrath (Lone Justice)
03 Fortunate Son (Lone Justice)
04 After the Flood (Lone Justice)
05 Ways to Be Wicked (Lone Justice)
06 Working Late (Lone Justice)
07 Go Away Little Boy (Lone Justice)
08 Sweet, Sweet Baby [I'm Falling] (Lone Justice)
09 Don't Toss Us Away (Lone Justice)
10 Rattlesnake Mama (Lone Justice)
11 Working Man Blues (Lone Justice)
12 The Train (Lone Justice)
13 East of Eden (Lone Justice)
14 Wait 'Til We Get Home (Lone Justice)
15 Soap, Soup and Salvation (Lone Justice)
16 Cry Baby (Lone Justice)
17 Sweet Jane (Lone Justice)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16695509/LONJSTCE1985_ThRitzNwYrkCty__9-18-1985_atse.zip.html

I'm happy to say the photo for the cover art here is a screenshot taken from the very concert the music comes from. That's because a quality video of the show exists on YouTube, and I took it from that.

Nick Drake - Bryter Layter - Acoustic Version (1970)

I got a comment today pointing out that the link to my acoustic version of Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" album had expired. I fixed the link, but that reminded me that I have yet to post my very similar acoustic version of Drake's "Bryter Layter" album. So I'm doing that here.

I love Drake's music. He's one of my absolute favorites. But if there's one fly in the ointment for me regarding his music, it's the string arrangements. I generally like them, but sometimes they get to be a bit much, and I long to hear the songs without the strings. Thus, I've created these all-acoustic versions.

As with the "Five Leaves Left" acoustic album, I'm able to make this due to a number of alternate versions of the songs. Four of the performances here are alternate versions done by Drake. Two are officially released ("Bryter Layter" from "The John Peel Session" and "Fly" from "Time of No Reply"), and two are from bootlegs. Five more songs come from stripped down or single channel mixes of the exact same performances as on the official "Bryter Later" album. (Thankfully for this project, there were some extreme stereo mixes with all the strings in just one channel.)

That leaves just one song - "Sunday." The reason I'd delayed posting this album is because I couldn't find a good acoustic version of "Sunday," which is a song with lots of strings and production. Rather than skip the song, or not post this album at all, I've decided on a rather radical solution: I'm using a 2019 cover version of the song that I found on YouTube. This is something I just came across today, by Lior Seker & Naama Shalev, who I presume are merely talented amateur musicians. They perform a flawless version of the song, with one of them playing flute and the other guitar.

Drake's guitar parts were extremely intricate and precise. Since this is an instrumental, in my opinion, it sounds exactly how Drake would have played the song if he'd done it with a flutist and without all the strings. I honestly couldn't have asked for anything more ideal. If you didn't read this text or study the song list, you'd probably never realize it was someone other than Drake playing the song.

If you want to be a purist and keep this to only actual Nick Drake performances, then just remove the last song.

01 Introduction [Instrumental] (Nick Drake)
02 Hazey Jane II (Nick Drake)
03 At the Chime of a City Clock (Nick Drake)
04 One of These Things First (Nick Drake)
05 Hazey Jane I (Nick Drake)
06 Bryter Layter [Instrumental] (Nick Drake)
07 Fly (Nick Drake)
08 Poor Boy (Nick Drake)
09 Northern Sky (Nick Drake)
10 Sunday [Instrumental] (Lior Seker & Naama Shalev)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15111064/NickDr_1970_BryterLaytrAcoustic_atse.zip.html

For the "Five Leaves Left Acoustic" album, I was lucky to find an outtake of the album cover photo session, and I used that for the cover art. I didn't have that luck this time around. I wanted to keep the art to something very similar to the official "Bryter Layter" cover, yet different. In the official cover, Drake's face is obscured by dark shadows. So I used Photoshop to lighten his face, and some of his body, to create my own alternate cover. I also added in the word "Acoustic" just below the album title.

John Fogerty - I Confess - Non-Album Tracks (1985-1989)

In my opinion, John Fogerty has very solid albums nearly all the time, with very few known extras, such as B-sides or bonus tracks. That said, "very few" isn't the same as "none." Plus, he's been known to play some unusual songs in concert from time to time.

Around 1976, Fogerty gave up on his solo career and went into musical seclusion for nearly ten years. He reemerged in 1985 with his album "Centerfield," which sold millions. But he followed that up with "Eye of the Zombie" in 1986, and it didn't do nearly as well (although I think it's still a fine album). Apparently stung by this relative failure, he didn't put out another album until 1997.

There are a flurry of stray tracks from the time of his 1985 and 1986, represented here. He continued to perform the occasional concert or guest appearance into the 1990s, but these were very infrequent until his 1997 album came out.

I think all the songs here are covers, though some, such as "No Love in You," are very obscure. I included some obvious songs at the end ("Suzie Q" and "Proud Mary") due to who Fogerty plays these versions with. I included "Cottonfields," even though it was a song he did with Creedence Clearwater Revival, because it was one of three songs he did for a Buddy Holly tribute concert (along with "It's So Easy" and "Rave On").

01 No Love in You (John Fogerty)
02 Soothe Me (John Fogerty)
03 I Confess (John Fogerty)
04 My Toot Toot (John Fogerty)
05 I Found a Love (John Fogerty)
06 It's So Easy (John Fogerty)
07 Cottonfields (John Fogerty)
08 Rave On (John Fogerty)
09 Kickin' Asphalt [Instrumental] (Duane Eddy & John Fogerty)
10 Suzie Q (John Fogerty with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir & Clarence Clemons)
11 Long Tall Sally (John Fogerty with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir & Clarence Clemons)
12 Proud Mary (John Fogerty & Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116177/JohnFoge_1985-1989_IConfss_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a publicity photo from 1986.

Joe Jackson - Live at The Savoy, New York City, 7-8-1981

If you like Joe Jackson's 1981 album "Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive," this is the concert for you. Personally, it's one of my favorite Jackson albums, so I really like this.

After three albums of all original music, Jackson put out an album entirely consisting of covers of swing and jump blues songs from the 1940s. For the concert tour to promote the album, he played all of the songs from it, plus a handful of additional covers in the same style, and absolutely none of his own songs. Apparently, this upset a lot of concert goers, and many left the shows early. But Jackson and his band were clearly having a heck of a good time anyway. This concert, and the album it is based on, is a great introduction to a really fun genre of music.

The songs that Jackson did in this concert but not on the "Jumpin' Jive" album are: "Minnie the Moocher," "Stompin' at the Savoy," "Texas and Pacific," and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." Additionally, the song "Knock Me a Kiss" was done at some other concerts on this tour, but not this one. So I've added at the end that as a bonus track from another show.

For many years, I had a bootleg of this album in just decent sound. However, today I went poking around the Internet and found a version with better sound, so that's what I'm posting. The show was played live on FM radio, so the bootleg comes from that.

01 Jumpin' with Symphony Sid (Joe Jackson)
02 Jack, You're Dead (Joe Jackson)
03 We the Cats [Shall Hep Ya] (Joe Jackson)
04 Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby (Joe Jackson)
05 San Francisco Fan (Joe Jackson)
06 You Run Your Mouth [And I'll Run My Business] (Joe Jackson)
07 You're My Meat (Joe Jackson)
08 What's the Use of Getting Sober [When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again] (Joe Jackson)
09 Stompin' at the Savoy (Joe Jackson)
10 Tuxedo Junction (Joe Jackson)
11 Minnie the Moocher (Joe Jackson)
12 Five Guys Named Moe (Joe Jackson)
13 Jumpin' Jive (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 How Long Must I Wait for You (Joe Jackson)
16 Texas and Pacific (Joe Jackson)
17 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Joe Jackson)
18 Jumpin' Jive [Reprise] (Joe Jackson)
19 Knock Me a Kiss (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15847658/JoeJacks_1981_TheSavyNewYorkCity__7-8-1981_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I found a photo from Jackson's 1981 concert tour by Lynn Goldsmith. I like the unusual perspective, showing the full band as well as some of the audience. I also added in the pink lettering from a photo I found of 1981 concert tour T-shirt, and then added in the white text as well.

Stevie Wonder - SOUL! - WNET Studios, New York City, 11-19-1972

Thanks to everyone who expressed their support for this blog while I was on vacation. I'm still settling back home, so in the meantime I'm going to post some full concerts that don't require much tinkering or commentary from me.

This is a Stevie Wonder concert from 1972, at the start of his peak years. I recently posted an Al Green concert from "SOUL!," a public TV show recorded in New York City. Here is Wonder on that same show, only from a couple of months earlier. It's about an hour long, since each episode of the show lasted an hour.

Wonder and his band are in prime form. He plays a lot of unusual songs. I've put two of his unreleased originals from this show on one of the stray tracks compilations of his music that I've done. But it's good to have the full concert. He does some interesting cover versions, too. Crucially, this comes from late 1972, after his classic album "Talking Book" was released, so it includes "Superstition" and other great songs from that album.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 For Once in My Life (Stevie Wonder)
02 Let Me Know Just How You Feel - If You Really Love Me (Stevie Wonder)
03 Superwoman (Stevie Wonder)
04 You and I [We Can Conquer the World] (Stevie Wonder)
05 What's Going On - My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)
06 Blowin' in the Wind (Stevie Wonder)
07 With a Child's Heart (Stevie Wonder)
08 Love Having You Around (Stevie Wonder)
09 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours - Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Stevie Wonder)
10 Superstition - Maybe Your Baby (Stevie Wonder)
11 Uptight [Everything's Alright] - Keep On Running (Stevie Wonder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/B3Lwe18G

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xMBlqjc7KQIjGr1/file

I wanted to make a cover using a photo from the actual show. But the only ones I could find were low quality. Instead, I found this nice image from an interview Wonder did for the Old Grey Whistle Test earlier in 1972.

Tom P*tty & the Heartbreakers - Live Cover Versions, 2006-2011

Here's the next in my series of albums of Tom P*tty and the Heartbreakers doing live cover versions. This covers the years 2006 to 2011. It's the second to last, because I only have one more album that covers the years until P*tty's death in 2017.

(Note that I'm not using the full name of this artist due to concerns about copyright issues.)

This album differs a little bit from the previous ones in this series because in 2008, P*tty revived his early 1970s band Mudcrutch and went on tour with them. So four of the nine songs are with Mudcrutch instead of the Heartbreakers.

Also, there are two songs that are collaborations between Tom P*tty and the Heartbreakers and the Allman Brothers Band. They do versions of the Bob Dylan songs "Highway 61 Revisited" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." P*tty and Gregg Allman swap lead vocals from verse to verse.

But regardless of who P*tty was singing with, the types of songs he plays are pretty much the same as with previous albums in this series. Once again, it's mostly classic hits from the 1950s and 1960s. A few of the songs are lesser known: "Off the Hook," an obscure Rolling Stones song, " Love, Please Come Home," a country/bluegrass song by Bill Monroe, and "Champagne and Reefer," a Muddy Waters blues song.

The sound quality of the songs vary. Unfortunately, they're not as good as with some previous albums. All but two are officially unreleased, and some of those unreleased ones come from audience bootlegs instead of soundboards. But I still think it's a good listen.

I've included one song as a bonus track, due to the poor sound quality. That's "Gunslinger," a lesser known Bo Diddley song.

This album is 41 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

I'm not including the track list due to copyright issues. But you can find it in the mp3 download file. 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xMaPrDFa 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/UcTKpngZ84JfetT/file

For the album cover, I found a concert poster from 2010. I didn't change much, except I lopped off some other parts of the poster above and below, and I added in the album title at the bottom.

Al Green - SOUL!, WNET Studios, New York City, January 10, 1973

I really like soul music from the 1960s and 1970s. I wish I could post more of that kind of music here, but there seem to be way fewer "albums that should exist" for that type of music. One reason, I think, is because of a drastically smaller amount of live music to draw from, both officially released and bootleg.

Al Green is a case in point. It goes without saying that he's one of the soul greats, and one of the most commercially successful. But, remarkably, over his long musical career, he's only released one official live album, "Tokyo Live." Unfortunately, it was recorded in 1978 (and released in 1981), which means his music got "discofied." It's just not a very good album, and it was almost certainly released only because his record company got frustrated for new secular product from him after he switched to religious music in 1980.

But happily, there are some great live recordings from his peak era in the early 1970s. It's just that they're bootlegs. This one is one of the best. It's a 53-minute performance from "SOUL!" a PBS TV show that ran from 1968 to 1973. It was recorded professionally for the TV show, so it sounds as good as any official live album from the era.

Even better, Green put on an excellent performance. (He claimed in concert patter that he was suffering from a cold, but you can't hear it in his voice.) Almost all the songs he plays are his classic hits. He finishes the show with a cover of "We've Only Just Began" as part of a medley, which is a song he never did on an album.

01 Tired of Being Alone (Al Green)
02 Look What You Done for Me (Al Green)
03 How to Mend a Broken Heart (Al Green)
04 I'm Still in Love with You (Al Green)
05 talk (Al Green)
06 Judy (Al Green)
07 You Ought to Be with Me (Al Green)
08 talk (Al Green)
09 Love and Happiness (Al Green)
10 We've Only Just Begun - Let's Stay Together (Al Green)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7LrB3c3L

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/yE2kB0LNw5rKNrt/file

When I first posted this album in 2019, I made a cover that was very low-res, due to a poor source. In March 2025, I went back to the video of this concert and took a new screenshot. Then I used the Krea AI program to improve the image somewhat.

Oh, and I took the exact text for "SOUL!" from a photo of an ad for the show that I found. So I stuck with the cowboy font for the rest of the text.

The Allman Brothers Band (31st of February) - Morning Dew - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1969)

Here's the last of three albums dealing with the careers of Gregg and Duane Allman before they started the Allman Brothers Band in mid-1969.

The previous album I posted was the second Hour Glass album, "Power of Love." Hour Glass, which was mainly Gregg and Duane, broke up after the album came out and was generally ignored. Instead, they soon hooked up with the 31st of February, a band made up of Scott Boyer, David Brown, and Butch Trucks.

The 31st of February had already released an album to very little notice. Boyer was the band's chief guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He was  talented too. He and Brown would later play in the band Cowboy, whose best known song written by Boyer is "Please Be with Me," covered by Eric Clapton and many others. But Gregg and Duane were so talented that they basically took over the band. The five of them began working on a second 31st of February, with Gregg singing most of the songs and Duane dominating the guitar soloing.

However, in order to get himself and Duane out of their Hour Glass record contract, Gregg had promised to record a solo album for that record company. He went to Los Angeles to do that, so the 31st of February album was never quite finished. The songs "It's Not My Cross to Bear" and "Southbound" included here come from his solo album project, which also was never finished. (By the way, "Southbound" is a totally different song than a later Allman Brothers Band song with that title. "It's Not My Cross to Bear" is a song the Allman Brothers Band would later do, though this is a more stripped down demo version.)

In 1972, after Duane died and the Allman Brothers Band became huge, the second 31st of February album was finally released under the name "Duane and Gregg." At the time, it was seen as kind of a cheap cash grab, and that's true. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the music on it happens to be really good. In fact, it's almost like a lost Allman Brothers Band album. For instance, it contains an early version of "Melissa" that isn't very different from the classic Allman Brothers Band version. And personally, I think their version of the folk classic "Morning Dew" should have been a big hit. It also contains other songs that show of Gregg's songwriting skill, for instance "God Rest His Soul," which was his reaction to the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

So far, all the songs mentioned above have been officially released, though hard to find. The last two songs on this album are still unreleased. They might or might be called Allman Brothers Band performances, depending on how you look at it.

In early 1969, with Gregg still in L.A., Duane hooked up with drummer Jaimoe and bassist Berry Oakley, crossing paths with them due to Duane's extensive work as a session guitarist. The three of them moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and reconnected with Butch Trucks, the drummer for the 31st of February, who had joined a band there called the Second Coming. That band was led by guitarist Dickey Betts. All of these people began jamming together, often on the concert stage. Basically, it was the Allman Brothers Band minus Gregg and plus a couple others, though they still called themselves the Second Coming.

The last two songs here come from these jams. A popular bootleg lists them as being recorded on March 26, 1969. But apparently that's not true, and that bootleg is a compilation of a bunch of different performances from March. In any case, "Born in Chicago" features Dickey Betts on vocals, and "Hey Joe" is a rare example of Duane Allman singing lead vocals, with a lot of his lead guitar. Luckily, the band was recording itself on a regular basis in order to listen to what they'd done and improve, so these songs are in excellent soundboard quality.

At the tail end of March, Gregg finally returned from L.A. (having finally gotten out of his record contract). and joined in with the jam sessions. The musical chemistry was obvious from the very start, so Gregg, Duane, Jaimoe, Butch Trucks, Berry Oakley, and Dickey Betts formally became the Allman Brothers Band.

01 Morning Dew (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
02 God Rest His Soul (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
03 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
04 Melissa (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
05 I'll Change for You (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
06 Back Down Home with You (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
07 Well I Know Too Well (31st of February with Duane & Gregg Allman)
08 It's Not My Cross to Bear [Demo] (Gregg Allman)
09 Southbound (Gregg Allman)
10 Born in Chicago (Allman Brothers Band & the Second Coming)
11 Hey Joe (Allman Brothers Band & the Second Coming)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17175731/TALLMANBB1968-1969MrningDw_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bYu4ciaW

Unfortunately, I don't know it any photo exists of the 31th of February that includes Gregg and Duane Allman. The band's second album that got released as "Duane and Gregg" just has a drawing of those two on the cover. So I used a photo of those two, taken shortly after the Allman Brothers Band was formed in mid-1969. Duane is the one with a mustache and partial beard, and Gregg has his hair hanging over his eyes. I colorized it.

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

The Allman Brothers Band (Hour Glass) - Power of Love - Alternate Version (1968)

A few days ago, I posted a compilation of the best of the very start of the musical careers of Duane and Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. That covered the years 1965 to 1967, and frankly, it's probably only for completists. The two of them were still finding their musical identity and developing their skills.

But this album is different. The two of them take a giant leap. This still isn't the Allman Brother Band with its impressive long soloing, but it's a really solid album for 1968.

Hour Glass basically was Duane and Gregg Allman, with some other musicians who have since faded into obscurity. The band put out two albums, "Hour Glass" in 1967 and "Power of Love" in early 1968. The first album was kind of a disaster, because the record company manipulated the band, trying to push them into a poppy Motown sound. All but one of the songs on that album were covers, and nearly all of them didn't suit them and were badly produced.

But "Power of Love" is a very different story. The band was given much more creative freedom. Most importantly, seven of the 12 songs on the album were written by Gregg Allman. I've included the best eight songs from the album here, plus one bonus track, and six of those nine songs are written by him. In my opinion, Gregg Allman was an excellent songwriter, but not very prolific. So this is a bounty of little-known original songs by him.

I think this Hour Glass album is often disregarded, because most of the people who would want to hear it are Allman Brothers Band fans, and this still isn't the full Allman Brothers Band sound yet. Even though it's getting closer, it's still made up of short, poppy songs, with little room for Duane Allman to show off his guitar skills.

That said, I think the album is greatly improved by removing the weaker songs and replacing them with some other Hour Glass tracks. Apparently, the band was very different in concert, sounding much more like what the Allman Brothers Band would become, with longer, bluesy performances. Unfortunately, I don't think any recordings of their concerts have survived. But these extra songs are more in that vein, especially a medley of B. B. King songs ("Sweet Little Angel - It's My Own Fault - How Blue Can You Get").

This isn't the end of what Gregg and Duane did before starting the Allman Brothers Band in mid-1969. It turns out there's another album worth of good music from them from later 1968 and early 1969. That'll be the subject of my next post from them.

By the way, another pillar of the Allman Brother Band sound was guitarist Dickey Betts. But unlike the Allmans, he has almost no recorded legacy from his time before he met the Allmans and joined their band. There's only one single, released in 1968. I don't think it's very good, since it consists of covers of songs by Cream and Jefferson Airplane that don't differ much from the originals. I've added them as bonus tracks in case you're curious, but they don't fit the rest of the album here. The Allmans and Betts wouldn't even meet for the first time until 1969.

Another by the way: as I got ready to post this album, I realized that I'd mistakenly put the song "Norwegian Wood" on the 1965 to 1967 collection. I thought that was on the 1967 Hour Glass album, but it's actually on the 1968 one. So I've removed that from the zip file for that other album, and put the song here instead. By the way, that's Duane playing the sitar all over that song.

One final note, which is an interesting trivia tidbit: the original brief liner notes to the "Power of Love" album were written by none other than Neil Young! Furthermore, the notes were "witnessed and approved" by Stephen Stills. Both Young and Stills were in Buffalo Springfield at the time, they shared some concert bills with Hour Glass, and were very impressed. Young even watched an Hour Glass recording session.

01 Power of Love (Hour Glass)
02 Changing of the Guard (Hour Glass)
03 To Things Before (Hour Glass)
04 I Can Stand Alone (Hour Glass)
05 Down in Texas (Hour Glass)
06 I Still Want Your Love (Hour Glass)
07 Going Nowhere (Hour Glass)
08 Norwegian Wood [This Bird Has Flown] [Instrumental] (Hour Glass)
09 Bad Dream (Hour Glass)
10 Sweet Little Angel - It's My Own Fault - How Blue Can You Get (Hour Glass)
11 Been Gone Too Long (Hour Glass)
12 Ain't No Good to Cry (Hour Glass)

She Has Funny Cars (Dickey Betts & the Second Coming)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123633/TAllmanBB_1968_HrGlassPowrofLove_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I just used the cover of the "Power of Love" without any changes.

Jonathan Edwards - WLIR Tuesday Night Ultrasonic Concert Series, Ultrasonic Recording Studios, Hempstead, NY, 12-12-1972

If you've been following this blog for a while, I hope you've gotten a sense of the type of music I post and you know I'm not going to post something unless I think it's good. I further hope you'll trust me enough to try out some artists you're not too familiar with. If you like early 1970s acoustic-based singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, and so on, I strongly urge you to give this a try.

Jonathan Edwards had a brief moment in the spotlight with the song "Sunshine." It was a number four hit in the US in 1971 and did about as well in Canada, though it seems to have been ignored in Britain. The album it came from, simply called "Jonathan Edwards," is kind of a sleeper classic, and I also strongly recommend you should get that one if you don't have it already.

Since then, Edwards has kept his music career going all the way until today, but at a much lower profile. He never had another song or album reach the top 100 in the charts, but he's kept plugging away anyway. When I went looking for a photo of him from the early 1970s to use for the album cover, I was shocked at how there were virtually no photos of him from that time, so I fear his music has largely been forgotten. And that's a shame, because he's a lot better than just one hit song or even one well regarded album.

This is an entire concert from him, slightly over one hour long. It's a bootleg recording, yes, but it sounds fantastic, better than a lot of official live albums from the time. It was recorded in a radio station record studio in front of a very small audience and played live on that radio station. So this is no ordinary concert recording. It's just Jonathan Edwards and his acoustic guitar and harmonica, plus one other musician who changes instruments from song to song, usually playing either bass or violin.

Basically, this is like having Edwards sitting on your porch playing his best songs and telling stories. I wish he would have released an album just like this back in the day; maybe he would have had more success. After his hit, he had trouble capturing how good his music was on his albums. (It hasn't helped that he changed record companies fairly often, so there never has been any best of compilation, or any other sort of archival releases.)

Here's an interesting little fact: most of the songs from this concert were written by Edwards, but about three or four were written by Joe Dolce, who would later have a huge number one hit, all over the world in 1980,"Shaddap Your Face." Dolce had a long career as a songwriter and poet before his novelty hit, and he and Edwards were in a band together in the late 1960s. A story Edwards tells during the concert about an unnamed band member who took acid in the countryside and got shocked by an electric fence is actually a reference to Dolce.

There was only one problem with this concert, and that's that it didn't have Edward's hit song "Sunshine" on it. The bootleg recording wasn't complete, because right as it gets cut off, one can hear Edwards counting in to starting another song. I'm sure he wanted to end the show with his hit. Luckily, I was able to find a live acoustic performance of him doing that song for a TV show, so I added that in at the end. It didn't have any crowd applause when the song finished, which sounded weird since all the other songs do. So I copied some applause from another song earlier in the concert to make that last song fit in with the others.

By the way, I cut out some of the dead air between songs, such as when the guitar is getting tuned. Also, one tradition in the WLIR Ultrasonic concert series was that halfway through the concert there would be an intermission in which the musician would be interviewed by the emcee / host. I cut that out, since it doesn't bear repeated listening. But you can hear the emcee talking between songs some, especially near the end when he has a request for the song "Athens County." He was miked up, so he sounds as loud and clear as Edwards whenever he speaks.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

UPDATE: On September 12, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I changed the title and the cover art to be consistent with other albums from this same Ultrasonic radio show.

01 Travelin' Man (Jonathan Edwards)
02 King of Hearts (Jonathan Edwards)
03 Someone Better Listen (Jonathan Edwards)
04 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
05 The Ballad of Upsy Daisy (Jonathan Edwards)
06 My Home Ain't in the Hall of Fame (Jonathan Edwards)
07 Sometimes (Jonathan Edwards)
08 Morning Train (Jonathan Edwards)
09 Stop and Start It All Again (Jonathan Edwards)
10 Rolling Along (Jonathan Edwards)
11 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
12 Angelina (Jonathan Edwards)
13 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
14 Jump's Breakdown (Jonathan Edwards)
15 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
16 Jesse (Jonathan Edwards)
17 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
18 Shanty (Jonathan Edwards)
19 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
20 Train of Glory (Jonathan Edwards)
21 Everybody Knows Her (Jonathan Edwards)
22 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
23 Athens County (Jonathan Edwards)
24 You Are My Sunshine - Sunshine [Go Away Today] (Jonathan Edwards)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FTcr6MQC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/hCBhnq5z8CPsIg2/file

As I mentioned above, I was amazed at how few good photos there are of Edwards from the 1970s. Luckily, I found one, from a concert in 1973. In February 2025, I improved it with the help of the Krea AI program.