Fleetwood Mac - Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, CA, 7-19-1971

I've posted a lot of early Fleetwood Mac albums: stray tracks collections, BBC collections, and entire concerts. But while there's tons of live material from the Peter Green years ending in 1970, and while I've posted a 1972 concert, I haven't posted a concert from 1971. Until this post, that is.

1971 is often unfairly overlooked in the history of Fleetwood Mac. Many people love the guitar work of Peter Green, so when he left the band in mid-1970, interest plummeted. You can see that in a dearth of bootleg material for the years after he left. But even without Green, the band was still firing on all cylinders. They still had guitarist Danny Kirwan, who should have gone on to be a famous "guitar hero" in his own right, except for the fact that he flamed out of the band, and then later out of music altogether. The band also picked up the very talented Bob Welch as another lead guitarist and songwriter. The band's 1971 album "Future Games" is top notch in my book.

So I wanted to post a 1971 Fleetwood Mac concert. In terms of sound quality, it turns out there really is only one option: the Swing Auditorium show in San Bernardino, California, in July 1971. It's the only excellent soundboard bootleg from that year. The downside is that it's short and incomplete, only about 45 minutes when the band usually played at least twice that long.

To fix this, I've added five more songs of the same sound quality to the beginning of the album. They come from the official album "Madison Blues." It's a little known album that's kind of a grab-bag of material from the year or so after Green left the band. It has a bunch of songs that were performed at an unknown venue on an unknown date some time in January 1971. I left out a couple of songs that were duplicates of songs played at the Swing Auditorium. The result is that the 45-minute-long concert effectively sounds like an hour and 12-minute-long concert.

Both the Swing Auditorium and mystery Madison Blues recordings are excellent soundboards. But in a way they're too good, in the sense that they did a great job of capturing what was played on stage, but captured very little of the audience noise. That meant that after each song, it seemed like they played to an indifferent audience that barely cheered or clapped. To fix this, I tried to boost the volume of the audience reactions as much as possible. I also found some extended sections of generic cheering after a couple of the songs, and added that in to the ends of other songs, to further boost the audience response. The end result is now the songs still sound great but there also is the expected amount of cheering when each one of them ends.

01 Crazy about You (Fleetwood Mac)
02 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
03 One Together (Fleetwood Mac)
04 I Can't Stop Loving Her (Fleetwood Mac)
05 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
06 Lonely without You (Fleetwood Mac)
07 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
08 Jewel-Eyed Judy (Fleetwood Mac)
09 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
10 Station Man (Fleetwood Mac)
11 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
12 Get like You Used to Be (Fleetwood Mac)
13 Dragonfly (Fleetwood Mac)
14 Purple Dancer (Fleetwood Mac)
15 I'd Rather Go Blind (Fleetwood Mac)
16 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
17 Tell Me All the Things You Do (Fleetwood Mac)
18 Jam [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15211919/FleetwodMc_1971b_SwngAuditriumSnBernardinoCA__7-19-1971_atse.zip.html

It surprisingly hard to find any photos of Fleetwood Mac playing in concert in 1971. I found one, which I think is from an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" TV show. It's not ideal in that it only shows three of the band members, and one of those (drummer Mick Fleetwood) is partially obscured. But it does show the two most important band members of that year, Christine McVie and Danny Kirwan.

Jimi Hendrix - Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley, CA, 5-30-1970, Late Show

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the early show for Jimi Hendrix's famous concert in Berkeley, California, in 1970. Both his early and late shows are considered among the very best of his concerts, both in terms of sound quality and performance. The entire evening was professionally recorded and even filmed. It ultimately was turned into the movie "Jimi Plays Berkeley."

I've hesitated posting the late show, due to the simple though weird fact that the late show has been officially released while the early show has not. One might understand this if the set lists were the same, but they're actually quite different. I feel compelled to post the late show too, for consistency's sake, especially for the matching cover art I made, as well as the way I've broken all the talking between songs into their own tracks. But I do hope and assume that if you're downloading this, you already own the official version.

I don't have much to say that I didn't say in my comments for the early show. The late show is somewhat shorter than the early one, at an hour and seven minutes compared to an hour and 25 minutes for the early show. One other thing worth mentioning is that the concerts took place during a very fraught time for the town of Berkeley. There were ongoing, large protests about the Vietnam War, which was happening all over the country. But on top of that, there was a protest about People's Park, a public park in Berkeley that was in danger of closing. In 1969, a large protest about the park was put down by police firing buckshot from shotguns, which resulted in one death. Hendrix was probably referring to that in his comments before the song "Machine Gun" where he referenced the war taking place in Berkeley.

01 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Pass It On [Straight Ahead] (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Hey Baby [New Rising Sun] (Jimi Hendrix)
04 Lover Man (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Stone Free (Jimi Hendrix)
06 Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)
07 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
08 I Don't Live Today (Jimi Hendrix)
09 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
10 Machine Gun (Jimi Hendrix)
11 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
12 Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
13 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
14 The Star Spangled Banner [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
15 Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
16 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
17 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Jimi Hendrix)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15121693/JimiH_1970e_BerkelyCommunityTheatre__5-30-1970__Late_Show_atse.zip.html

See my comments from the early show about how I made the cover art from a concert poster for the concert. I used a different photo of Hendrix for the center of it. I know the photo comes from the Berkeley concerts, but I don't know if it's from the early or late show.

The Move - Colour Me Pop, London, Britain, 12-28-1968

Here's a short live concert performance by the Move, from 1968.

In the late 1960s, there were almost no opportunities for musical groups to perform more than a song or two on TV at any one time. An important exception to that was the BBC TV show "Colour Me Pop," which ran from 1968 to 1969. Each episode lasted half an hour and generally just featured one musical act. You can see a list of the more than 50 episodes here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_Me_Pop

It would be a great audio and visual treasure trove of music, except for the fact that the vast majority of the recordings were erased and thus lost to history. One of the very few episodes to survive feature the Move. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube, in color, no less. Just search for "The Move" and "Colour Me Pop."

A curious aspect of the show is that there appears to have been no talking whatsoever. There was no host introducing the band, nor any comments between songs by band members. Instead, there was just a little bit of theme music at the start and end (which I've cut out), and then the band running through their songs without pause. I guess they wanted to maximize the number of songs they could play within the show's half-an-hour time frame. There also was no crowd, so no crowd noise at all.

I've added a couple of songs at the end: "Brontosaurus" and "When Alice Comes Back to the Farm." The "Colour Me Pop" songs total to only 32 minutes. So the extra songs help flesh the album out to a more typical 40 minute length. But also, I've used up pretty much all the good recordings of TV appearances on the four albums I made of their BBC appearances. But here are two songs that are different versions than those on the BBC albums. I've come across other versions of other songs, but the sound quality is generally poor. Whereas these two sound great. They both come from the German TV show "Beat Club" in 1970.

Just as musical associate MZ worked on improving the sound for the other Move concert I just posted, he did that for this one too. So this should sound slightly better than the YouTube version or other bootleg versions, because the sonic balance has been improved.

01 I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Move)
02 Beautiful Daughter (Move)
03 The Christian Life (Move)
04 Flowers in the Rain (Move)
05 The Last Thing on My Mind (Move)
06 Wild Tiger Woman (Move)
07 Goin' Back (Move)
08 Fire Brigade (Move)
09 Something (Move)
10 Blackberry Way (Move)
11 Brontosaurus (Move)
12 When Alice Comes Back to the Farm (Move)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AupcpWAx

alternate:

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

For the cover art, I took screenshots from the actual "Colour Me Pop" video footage. The video begins with some sort of behind-the-scenes notations written in chalk about the show. I assume that wasn't shown. But I thought it looked cool, so I used parts of it. (I also wrote in the date and location myself in a similar style.) However, I left room for a screenshot of the band in the middle. It's a bit blurry and low-res, but photos of the band on stage in concert are rare, and this comes from the actual concert in question.

The Move - Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden, 12-15-1967

I consider the Move to be a pretty important and very talented 1960s group. Considering their importance, there's a surprising lack of live music available by them. The good news is that there are two nice official albums ("Something Else from the Move" and "Live at the Fillmore 1969"). But the bad news is there's very little else, even when it comes to bootlegs. But there are two good, though short, bootlegs, so I've decided to post both of them here. This is the first one.

Before I get to the main part of this album, I have a couple of bonus items at the start of the album, since that's what makes sense chronologically.

The first song, "Watch Your Step," is really interesting. Unfortunately, the recording starts mid-song and it fades out before the song ends. It actually comes from an undated 1966 concert in the Netherlands, and was shown on TV there. On the audio of this, the band sounds pretty wild, but the video of it needs to be seen to be believed - look it up on YouTube. In the few minutes of this song that we have, the Move smashes a TV on stage and sets part of the stage on fire! And this was hardly a one-off event. The Move of 1966 and 1967 was an extremely wild band in concert, miles away from what they would become as they morphed into ELO years later. In fact, they were so wild that they found it tough to do concerts at all, due to so many clubs and concert halls banning them.

The next three songs come from a German TV show in 1967 called "Beat Beat Beat." I'm including them because aside from the rest of this album and the stuff I'll put on another live album, this is just about the only other live recording that sounds good. There's one song played here that's also played later on this album: "I Can Hear the Grass Grow." Sorry 'bout that.

All the remaining songs, from the fourth one onwards, are from the Konserthuset in Stockholm, Sweden. I've posted several other concerts at this same venue from the late 1960s, for instance Traffic, Wilson Pickett, and the Hollies. It seems concerts were routinely recorded then to be played on the radio in Sweden, and many of those recordings have survived.

One nice aspect of the concert is there's at least a little bit of talking between each song. It also features a cover of "Why" by the Byrds that the band never played on record or at the BBC. (I used to have this and "Watch Your Step" on the band's 1967 BBC album, but I removed those since they belong here instead.)

Note that this is a fairly short album, at only 30 minutes long. Only 19 of those minutes are from the Stockholm concert. But it still makes for a nice listen, especially considering the lack of other live recordings by the band.

One final note. The sound quality is less than perfect. But I had my musical friend MZ work on balancing the sound, so this should sound a little bit better than any other version floating around as a bootleg. He said he didn't change the "Beat Beat Beat" songs, since nothing could be done to effectively improve them.

01 Watch Your Step (Move)
02 Walk upon the Water (Move)
03 I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Move)
04 Night of Fear (Move)
05 Somethin' Else (Move)
06 talk (Move)
07 Flowers in the Rain (Move)
08 talk (Move)
09 Why (Move)
10 talk (Move)
11 Hey Grandma (Move)
12 talk (Move)
13 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Move)
14 talk (Move)
15 I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Move)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4hZ7RsPM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QBfZ5HE77Yzz0BN/file

The cover art photo features the band playing on the "Top of the Pops" TV show in Britain in 1967.

Texas - Cover Versions, Volume 2 (1997-2008)

Yesterday, I posted the first of two albums of cover versions by the band Texas. Here's the second and final album. You should read the write-up to that other album for general information. But, in short, you don't have to be a fan of Texas's original material to enjoy these albums. As you can see, the band covers the same kind of music that is generally featured in this blog, and lead vocalist Sharleen Spiteri has an excellent voice.

Speaking of Spiteri, she went solo for a few years, roughly from 2008 to 2012. Then the band got back together and has stayed together ever since. So there's a big chunk of songs here that are credited to Spiteri instead of Texas. But it basically sounds the same. Note that Spiteri released a solo album in 2010, "The Movie Songbook," that entirely consists of cover versions. I've deliberately avoided including any songs from that album so as to not cut into album sales. But I did include a couple of songs from it if they were significantly different versions.

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

01 You're All I Need to Get By - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
02 Parisian Pierrot - Noel Coward
03 Don't You Want Me - Human League
04 Surrender - Diana Ross
05 Take Me with U - Prince
06 Private Number - William Bell
07 Across the Universe - Beatles
08 Tainted Love - Gloria Jones / Soft Cell
09 Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley
10 What Do I Get - Buzzcocks
11 Misty - Erroll Garner
12 Alice - Tom Waits
13 All These Things that I've Done - Killers
14 I Heard It through the Grapevine - Gladys Knight & the Pips / Marvin Gaye

It terms of sound quality, everything here sounds very good. I've maintained extra high sound quality standards for these two albums. That means some songs got cut. (I'm particularly bummed I couldn't find a good enough version of "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley.) Eight of the 14 songs here are officially unreleased. But that doesn't matter due to the high quality control.

I'm at a total loss as to when and where the song "All These Things that I've Done" is from. I'm placing it around 2008, since it's a Sharleen Spiteri solo version, and that's when her solo career began. But I very well could be wrong. If anyone knows better, please let me know.

Here's the usual song list:

01 You're All I Need to Get By (Texas)
02 Parisian Pierrot (Texas)
03 Don't You Want Me [Edit] (Texas)
04 Surrender (Texas)
05 Take Me with U (Texas)
06 Private Number (Texas & William Bell)
07 Across the Universe (Texas)
08 Tainted Love (Texas)
09 Suspicious Minds (Texas)
10 What Do I Get [Edit] (Texas)
11 Misty (Sharleen Spiteri)
12 Alice (Sharleen Spiteri & Jane Birkin)
13 All These Things that I've Done (Sharleen Spiteri)
14 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Sharleen Spiteri & Jamie Lidell)

This album is 51 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15852803/Texs_1997-2008_CovrVersionsVol2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is of Sharleen Spiteri in 2003. The photo is actually of her in an embrace with actor Ewan MacGregor, but I cropped him out of it. Once again, my apologies to the other band members for not featuring them on the cover.

Texas - Cover Versions, Volume 1 (1989-1993)

Full disclosure: I'm not that much of a fan of the band Texas. I like them about on the "greatest hits" level. That said, I think they're a talented band with an especially gifted singer, Sharleen Spiteri. Recently, I've been working with musical friend Lil Panda, and he turned me on to the idea of compiling a collection of cover versions by Texas. That's what I've made here, with his help. Whether your like Texas's originals or not, they play a great and ambitious bunch of classic songs for their covers, with Spiteri's vocals an obvious highlight. So if you enjoy the music of the blog in general, you should like this.

Here's a list of who did the original versions:

01 Dimples - John Lee Hooker
02 Living for the City - Stevie Wonder
03 It Hurts Me Too - Tampa Red / Elmore James
04 Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
05 Heart of Glass - Blondie
06 Tired of Being Alone - Al Green
07 I Can't Get Next to You - Temptations / Al Green
08 What Goes On - Velvet Underground
09 Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses
10 I've Got a Feeling - Beatles
11 Revolution - Beatles
12 One Love - Bob Marley

All but two of the songs here have been officially released: "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Heart of Glass." In terms of sound quality, they sound as good as the rest. Most of the songs are from B-sides or an album of BBC performances. The cover "Tired of Being Alone" was a big hit in 1992. I figure any Texas fan would know that version already. So instead I've included an acoustic version that comes from a B-side.
 
Here is the usual song list:

01 Dimples [Edit] (Texas)
02 Living for the City (Texas)
03 It Hurts Me Too (Texas)
04 Sympathy for the Devil (Texas)
05 Heart of Glass (Texas)
06 Tired of Being Alone [Acoustic Version] (Texas)
07 I Can't Get Next to You [Edit] (Texas)
08 What Goes On [Edit] (Texas)
09 Sweet Child O' Mine [Edit] (Texas)
10 I've Got a Feeling (Texas)
11 Revolution (Texas)
12 One Love (Texas) 

This album is 50 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15852696/Texs_1989-1993_CovrVersionsVol1_atse.zip.html

I know Texas is a full band, but my interest is mainly due to the vocals of Sharleen Spiteri, so she gets the cover billing here. The photo of her dates to 1998.

Crosby, Stills and Nash - Solo Demos, Volume 1: 1968

I've already posted about 20 Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young albums that form a kind of alternate history in which they released a lot more music together than they actually did. This is the start of a  series of three albums that's kind of an addendum to that. For the first few years CSN were together, they recorded a bunch of solo demos. When the demo songs were unique, I included them on one of those alternate history albums. But that still left a bunch of demos of well known songs. So I've gathered those up into their own albums.

By luck, there's enough material for one album dealing with 1968, another with 1969, and a third for both 1970 and 1971. This, obviously, is the 1968 one. What's interesting about that is that CSN hadn't joined together yet. All three of them were leaving or had left their original bands (the Byrds for Crosby, Buffalo Springfield for Stills, and the Hollies for Nash). While they searched for what to do next, they continued to write and record demos of new songs, which is what we have here.

This album is rather short, at 32 minutes. I could have made it longer by including songs from Stills' archival album "Just Roll Tape, April 26th, 1968." But if you're into this sort of music, you should have that album. It's really good. The three Stills songs here are different versions from different sources.

The album is dominated by Crosby, who wrote and sings five of the ten songs. But that's just luck in terms of what has become publicly available. Apparently, all three of them wrote lots of songs in 1968, some of which they would record until years later. But we only have a smattering of the demos. That's especially the case for Nash. Apparently, he wrote some songs in this time period that still haven't been released in any form.

Three of the performances are officially unreleased. But in terms of sound quality, I don't think you can tell which ones those are.

01 Deja Vu (David Crosby)
02 49 Bye-Byes (Stephen Stills)
03 Horses through a Rainstorm (Graham Nash)
04 Games (David Crosby)
05 Marrakesh Express (Graham Nash)
06 Guinnevere (David Crosby)
07 You Don't Have to Cry (Stephen Stills)
08 Long Time Gone (David Crosby)
09 49 Reasons [49 Bye-Byes] (Stephen Stills with David Crosby)
10 Wooden Ships (David Crosby)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15100312/CrosbSN_1968_SoloDemsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a publicity photo of CSN from 1969.

Pink Floyd - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: Wembley Empire Pool, London, Britain, 11-16-1974

Here's one of the all-time great Pink Floyd concerts. If you don't have this, you really need to get it. Technically, it's a BBC performance, but it's really just a full concert from 1974, over two hours in length, that happened to get recorded by the BBC, so it has outstanding sound quality.

All of the material here has been officially released. There's even a Wikipedia page for it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_at_the_Empire_Pool

But that Wikipedia page is strange, because no such album with that title actually exists. Instead, parts of it have been released on three different albums. One has to put them together to get the full concert, which is exactly what I did here.

For once, there are no sound quality issues at all. (And by the way, there appears to have been no talking between songs whatsoever.) So instead I'll comment on the material. I think the most interesting part are the first three songs. The first one, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," would become a big part of Pink Floyd's next album, "Wish You Were Here," released a year later. The next two songs, "Raving and Drooling" and "You've Got to Be Crazy," were also supposed to go on that album. The three songs were all so long that when combined they made 51 minutes of music, more than enough for an album. But instead, the band shelved "Raving and Drooling" and "You've Got to Be Crazy," worked on them some more, including changing lots of the lyrics, and released them as "Sheep" and "Dogs" respectively for their 1977 album "Animals."

After those three songs, the entire "Dark Side of the Moon" was played in order. A 25-minute long encore of "Echoes" finished the concert.

Later, I'm planning on posting a 1977 concert, so one can hear live versions of the "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals" albums.

01 Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-9 (Pink Floyd)
02 Raving and Drooling [Early Version of Sheep] (Pink Floyd)
03 You've Got to Be Crazy [Early Version of Dogs] (Pink Floyd)
04 Speak to Me [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
05 Breathe (Pink Floyd)
06 On the Run [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
07 Time (Pink Floyd)
08 The Great Gig in the Sky (Pink Floyd)
09 Money (Pink Floyd)
10 Us and Them (Pink Floyd)
11 Any Colour You Like [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
12 Brain Damage (Pink Floyd)
13 Eclipse (Pink Floyd)
14 Echoes (Pink Floyd)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eJqEJYXr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FSnxQ8lJPtAf9Rs/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/bq9g8

I could be wrong, but I think the cover art photo comes from the exact concert in question. At the very least, it comes from the same 1974 tour.

Cat Stevens - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1966-1967

I'm delighted to present this album, because it's something that's very hard to find. As you may know, Cat Stevens had a couple of years as a young star in a poppy style in the late 1960s before disappearing for about a year due to illness and then reinventing himself as a sensitive singer-songwriter. He had a lot of success in his poppy phase, including the songs "I Love My Dog," "Matthew and Son," and "The First Cut Is the Deepest," but it tends to be overlooked in favor of his even more popular later style.

I knew that Stevens performed for the BBC a lot in the 1960s, but I'd assumed most or all of that material had been lost. For instance, there's no videos of that on YouTube, nor can bootlegs of it be found. Until now, that is. Although he played on lots of BBC radio shows, it seems that just his performances from the show "Top of the Pops" have emerged in recent years. (Note that's not to be confused with a BBC TV show of the same name.) So it's pretty remarkable to have this material at all.

But what's even better is that the sound is fantastic. You'd be forgiven if you thought at first that these were simply the studio album versions, especially because they all have the same full production as those versions, often with horns and/or orchestra. But if you listen carefully you'll notice they're all completely different performances, both vocally and instrumentally. There's even a song here that has never been officially released in any form, as far as I can tell: "(You and Your) Shiny Golden Hair."

What's also nice is that even though we only get a sampling of all of his BBC performances, this is a great selection of his 1960s material, and includes his hits from that era. Actually, one of his best known songs from the time, "The First Cut Is the Deepest," wasn't included with the Top of the Pops material. But I found a live version from 1967. It's the one and only fully live version of any song I could find from that era. (There are a few videos of him lip-syncing, or singing new vocals to a backing track, but those aren't worthy of inclusion here.) Its sound quality is a bit rougher than the rest, but I included it since it's possibly the only chance to get a hint of what he sounded like on stage in those early years.

As for the rest of the songs, there was one significant sound problem, which is something that often bedevils me with BBC recordings. Namely, the annoying DJs who talk over the music. Ugh! That happened several times here, always to the starts of the songs. (I've marked those by adding "Edit" to the song titles.) However, I fixed them using the audio editing program X-Minus.

The songs total up to 44 minutes, which makes for a nice album length. This also serves as a de facto greatest hits for his 1960s material, which was made up of two studio albums plus a few singles. The source material lacked any detail about when the songs were recorded, but I did some deep Internet research and managed to figure it all out. But in some cases I may be using the dates the songs were recorded, and in others the dates they were broadcast. The information I found was sometimes vague about that.

UPDATE: On February 14, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. No songs were added or removed. But because I made a later BBC sessions album by this one, I added "Volume 1" to the title. I changed the cover art to match. More importantly, I fixed the BBC DJ talking over the music problem better than I did originally, thanks to my discovery of programs like X-Minus.

01 I Love My Dog (Cat Stevens)
02 [You and Your] Shiny Golden Hair [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
03 The Tramp [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
04 Matthew and Son (Cat Stevens)
05 Granny [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
06 Portabello Road (Cat Stevens)
07 School Is Out (Cat Stevens)
08 I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun (Cat Stevens)
09 Hummingbird (Cat Stevens)
10 Lady [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
11 I Found a Love [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
12 The Laughing Apple (Cat Stevens)
13 A Bad Night (Cat Stevens)
14 Moonstone (Cat Stevens)
15 Kitty (Cat Stevens)
16 Blackness of the Night [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
17 I Love Them All [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
18 The First Cut Is the Deepest (Cat Stevens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15430731/CatSvns_1966-1967_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo that is said to be of Stevens "circa 1967."

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mercy Mercy - Non-Album Tracks (2006-2007)

In 2006, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released the album "Stadium Arcadium." Even though it's a double album, in my opinion it's solid all the way through and one of the best albums they ever did. Yet even with that double album, they still had lots of leftover songs, and they released many of them as B-sides in 2006 and into 2007. This album is mostly a collection of those B-sides.

Again, it's just my opinion, but I think even these B-sides are quite good. I have certain standards. I'm not going to include absolutely everything just to be completist. I only want the songs I'll actually enjoy listening to. But in this case, I've included all the B-sides because I like them all. (That's in sharp contrast to the B-sides to their next album, "I'm with You," which I feel aren't nearly as good.)

There are only two songs here that aren't B-sides. One is a surprisingly faithful version of the Beach Boys' classic hit "I Get Around." That performance actually comes from 2005, so I should have included it on the band's previous stray tracks collection. But I only discovered it recently, and I figure 2005 is close enough for horseshoes. ;)

The other non-B-side is also the only song that remains officially unreleased. It's an acoustic version of the Bee Gees hit "How Deep Is Your Love." In concert, guitarist John Frusciante often had a solo spot in which he played acoustic covers that were very different from the usual Red Hot Chili Peppers fare, such as versions of songs by Simon and Garfunkel or Cat Stevens. Generally speaking, I haven't included those, because I usually don't think they fit in well with the rest of the band's output. But in this case, I think an acoustic version of the Bee Gees song is interesting, different, and very well performed. It's mostly Frusciante, but if you listen carefully there are some drums and backing vocals.

Sadly, this is the last of my planned stray tracks albums for the band, unless more material emerges. For their next album, "I'm with You," they released an entire album's worth of outtakes as a collection of singles. Combined, the collection is known as "I'm Beside You." But, as I mentioned above, I simply don't think they're very good, so I'm not going to bother with those. Other than that, there's a surprising lack of stray tracks. For instance, their next album, "The Getaway," had four singles released, but none of them had any B-sides. And the band has had almost no songs on soundtracks, other various artist compilations, and the like.

By the way, the band did compose 20 to 30 new songs for "The Getaway" album, only to scrap them all and start anew when they picked a new producer to work with. So there probably are a ton of songs sitting in the vaults. But none of them have leaked to the public yet.

01 Million Miles of Water (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 Whatever We Want (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 Lately (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
04 I Get Around (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
05 A Certain Someone (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
06 Mercy Mercy (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
07 Lyon 6.6.06 [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
08 Funny Face (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
09 I'll Be Your Domino (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
10 Permutation [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
11 Joe (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
12 Save This Lady (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
13 How Deep Is Your Love (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259318/TRedHChilP_2006-2007_MrcyMrcy_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo of the band in concert in 2006.

U2 - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - Non-Album Tracks (1995-1997)

U2 released the album "Zooropa" in 1993, and then "Pop" in 1997. In between was the experimental album with Brian Eno, technically under the "Passengers" name, called "Original Soundtracks 1." I've posted my alternate version of that album here. You'd think that was all they did between "Zooropa" and "Pop." But no, there's another entire album's worth of stray tracks. That's what I'm posting here. I think it holds up pretty well as an album of its own.

The key song, which I've made the title song, is the 1995 single "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me." It was a number 2 hit in Britain, and a number 1 hit in seven other countries. Most bands would have released an album around such a big hit, but the song was merely put on the "Batman Forever" soundtrack.

Instead of a new album, after the "Original Soundtracks 1" album, the band members pursued a variety of projects, including some minor solo work. For instance, band members Bono and the Edge wrote the song "GoldenEye" for Tina Turner to sing as the theme song to the latest James Bond movie. They never released a U2 version, but luckily they did an unreleased well developed demo that I've included here.

The rest of the songs have all been officially released. There are two more songs from movie soundtracks, and two songs from tribute albums. Four of the songs are B-sides to singles related to the "Pop" album. One of those, "Holy Joe," has also been a bonus track on some versions of that album.

All in all, in my opinion, the songs have a fairly consistent sound that's different from the experimental "Original Soundtracks 1" and is closely related to the sound of the controversial "Pop" album. That album has been seen as a disappointment. For my next U2 post, I'm going to share an alternate version of that that's somewhat better.

01 Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (U2)
02 Hallelujah (Bono)
03 GoldenEye [Demo] (Bono & The Edge)
04 Theme from Mission Impossible [Instrumental] (Larry Mullen & Adam Clayton)
05 North and South of the River (U2)
06 Holy Joe [Garage Mix] (U2)
07 I'm Not Your Baby (Sinead O'Connor & U2)
08 Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad (U2)
09 Slow Dancing (Willie Nelson & U2)
10 Dreaming with Tears in My Eyes (Bono)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256878/UTwo_1995-1997_HldMeThrillMeKssMeKillMe_atse.zip.html

I didn't want to use the official cover of the "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" single, because it's mostly a picture of Batman, since it was associated with the "Batman Forever" movie. But luckily, there's a remix single with a totally different cover, so I used that. It's a typical compared to the usual moody U2 covers. But that's because the video of the song mixes clips from the movie with a cartoon version of U2. The cover art comes directly from that video. All I did was remove some small text at the bottom describing the remix details.

Pink Floyd - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Sounds of the 70s, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 9-30-1971

I recently posted an album of Pink Floyd performing for the BBC in 1970. This is basically the exact same deal, except 1971 instead of 1970. The format was the same: an hour-long concert in front of an audience, played live on the radio. Even the host was the same, famous BBC DJ John Peel. Like the other show, he did all the talking between songs. So if you liked that one, you're sure to like this one.

A couple of the songs played in that 1970 concert are played again here: "Fat Old Sun" and "Embryo." But there are only five songs played in all, because the emphasis is on instrumental jamming. This concert took place one month before their album "Meddle" was released. Two songs from that album are played, "One of These Days" and "Echoes." "Echoes" is the clear focus and highlight, lasting for nearly half an hour. "Blues" is an unnamed instrumental played as an encore that was never released on any Pink Floyd album.

As far as song quality goes, this comes from "The Early Years" box set, so the sound quality is as good as you could hope for. The main thing I did was break up the talking between songs into their own tracks, and boosting the volume on those.

01 talk (Pink Floyd)
02 Fat Old Sun (Pink Floyd)
03 talk (Pink Floyd)
04 One of These Days (Pink Floyd)
05 talk (Pink Floyd)
06 Embryo (Pink Floyd)
07 talk (Pink Floyd)
08 Echoes (Pink Floyd)
09 Blues [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697018/PNKFLYD1971a_BBSssonsVolum5Sunds70sParsThetre__9-30-1971_atse.zip.html

For the cover art photo, I went with a photo of the band in the studio in late 1971.

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 1, New York City, 3-19-2020 to 4-7-2020

I'm really enjoying these home concerts brought on by the recent "stay at home" policies about the coronavirus. Especially this one. If you're a fan of Norah Jones at all, you should get this. For one thing, I don't know of any instances of her ever doing an "unplugged" style concert, and that's essentially what this is (minus the audience). The other nice thing is that many of the songs are interesting choices that she's never performed before.

Actually, this isn't concert, it's a collection of different things. Since March 19, 2020, she's been occasionally playing individual songs and posting them on YouTube. I've included all four of those ("Patience," "It's Not Easy," "You and Me," and "I Am Missing You"). The first one is the hit by Guns n' Roses. Who would have ever imagined Norah freaking Jones covering a Guns n' Roses song?! True, it's probably the most Norah Jones-ish song they ever did, but still, I admire her willingness to find good songs from whatever the source. And "I Am Missing You" is a song written by her father, the world famous sitar player Ravi Shankar. She'd meant to perform it for a concert celebrating what would have been his 100th birthday. But since the concert was cancelled due to the virus, she played it at home instead.

The bulk of the album comes from two brief home concerts she did. One was on March 26th, and consisted of four songs. The other was on April 2nd, and also consisted of four songs. Between these two concerts, plus the four songs I mentioned above, this album actually has six recording dates. But in all sounds like one concert, in my opinion, because they were all performed solo by her, either on piano or guitar, in the same room of her house. Actually, I'll bet the two brief concerts were done on the same date but just posted separately because she wore the same outfit for both of them.

I definitely am not hoping that the virus lockdowns keep going for months. But if they do, I hope Jones will continue to post more material from her house every week. If she does, I'll gather that stuff up from time to time to post more albums like this one.

Finally, once more, if you find other good musicians who are performing home concerts like this, please let me know so I might post the concerts here. 

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Patience (Norah Jones)
02 It's Not Easy (Norah Jones)
03 talk (Norah Jones)
04 Turn Me On (Norah Jones)
05 talk (Norah Jones)
06 Joey (Norah Jones)
07 talk (Norah Jones)
08 I'm Alive (Norah Jones)
09 talk (Norah Jones)
10 Humble Me (Norah Jones)
11 talk (Norah Jones)
12 You and Me (Norah Jones)
13 Come Away with Me (Norah Jones)
14 talk (Norah Jones)
15 Lucky (Norah Jones)
16 talk (Norah Jones)
17 I Remember Clifford [Instrumental] (Norah Jones)
18 talk (Norah Jones)
19 Lonestar (Norah Jones)
20 I Am Missing You (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603573/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts1__3-19-2020_to_4-7-2020_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I took a screenshot of Jones at one of her home concerts. I believe it was the one on March 26, 2020. There was a wall decoration right behind her head that looked like some weird headgear, so I removed it in Photoshop.

Bill Withers - Beat Club, Bremen, Germany, 3-23-1972

Soul great Bill Withers died last week, on March 30, 2020. He was 81 years old. In honor of his passing, I wanted to post something from him. Unfortunately, like a lot of soul artists, there isn't that much material that hasn't already been released. But after some searching I found something I really like, and here it is.

Withers had a rather unusual career. When he started playing music professionally, he already was in his late 30s. Then he only stayed in the music industry for about a decade before effectively retiring. And even in that decade, he didn't tour that much more make many live TV or radio appearances. Luckily, he released an excellent double album of a 1972 concert called "Live at Carnegie Hall," so at least there's that.

My challenge was to come up with something that didn't just duplicate the live versions of the "Carnegie Hall" album. I think I found it with an appearance he made on the German TV show "Beat Club." It's from around the same time as "Carnegie Hall," but he played a couple of different songs. More importantly, the "Beat Club" performances were all done in a studio with no studio audience, so the overall feel is different. That also means the songs aren't bothered by audience noise.

The "Beat Club" performance is only about half an hour long. I've added some other things to that, essentially gathering up all the remaining live material I had from him. He did a performance for the BBC a few months after the "Beat Club" one that was very similar, except it was in front of an audience. I included the one unique song from that, "Grandma's Hands." Plus, I also added in some of his between song banter from the BBC in front of the "Beat Club" performances. It sounds a bit odd, but trust me, it works.

He did two unique songs for the US TV show "Soul!" in 1971, so I added those at the start. I also included "Better Days," which is from a 1971 movie soundtrack. It's the one officially released track here. It's also the only non-album track of his I could find. I added three more live songs at the end, two from 1974 and one all the way from 1982. That last performance was effectively the end of his musical career - he only performed songs in public a few times after that.

So this is a bit of a stretch to call this the "Beat Club" show, since seven of the songs are from other sources, but oh well. The important thing, in my opinion, is that it's a solid and consistent listen. Note that all of his big hits are included with the exception of "Lovely Day." I couldn't find any live versions of that one.

01 I'm Her Daddy (Bill Withers)
02 Grits Ain't Groceries [All Around the World] (Bill Withers)
03 Better Days (Bill Withers)
04 talk (Bill Withers)
05 Lonely Town, Lonely Street (Bill Withers)
06 Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers)
07 talk (Bill Withers)
08 Use Me (Bill Withers)
09 talk (Bill Withers)
10 Kissin' My Love (Bill Withers)
11 Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
12 Harlem - Cold Baloney (Bill Withers)
13 talk (Bill Withers)
14 Grandma's Hands (Bill Withers)
15 Hope She'll Be Happier (Bill Withers)
16 You (Bill Withers)
17 Just the Two of Us (Bill Withers & Grover Washington, Jr.)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191081/BillWithrs_1972_BeatClbBremnGermany__3-23-1972_atse.zip.html

For the cover art photo, I could have used a screenshot of the "Beat Club" performance, since a video of that exists on YouTube. But it was somewhat low resolution. So instead I've chosen a photo from a 1973 concert in France.

The Bangles - The Loft, Berlin, Germany, 2-10-1986

The Bangles have never released an official live album. I find this surprising, because the band has been very good live, and a live recording allows one to hear them without the sometimes overly slick production of the studio versions.

When it comes to 1980s Bangles, I prefer their earliest stuff the most, because they were more raw and rocking then. They got very slick and overproduced by the time they broke up in 1988. Unfortunately, the sound quality on live recordings is pretty rough for their first years, until 1986. 1986 was when they hit ir really big with "Manic Monday" and "Walk like an Egyptian," so several of their concerts were recorded for live broadcast by radio stations.

I've listened to parts of those, and the other alleged best recordings from 1986, and I came to the conclusion that the sound quality for a show at The Loft in Berlin, Germany sounds the best. In my opinion, it's about as good as what you'd expect for an official 1980s live album. That's why I'm posting it here.

There's one other 1986 concert that also sounds very good, in my opinion - the Syria Mosque Ballroom Arena (Pittsburgh, PA, 10-29-1986). The Loft recording missed the opening song, plus part of the start of the next song. So I've used the Syria Mosque recording to fill in the missing song, as well as patching in the first half of a minute of the second song. Furthermore, some really great songs were played there that weren't played in Berlin, especially "I Want You" (which would have been a number one hit in my ideal alternate universe) and "Walk like an Egyptian." So I've added three songs to the end. That makes the album an hour and three minutes long.

In terms of fixes, there were a few occasions where there was a burst of unwanted feedback during a song. I mostly managed to patch those up, using bits from the Syria Mosque concert. But if there are any I missed, let me know and I'll fix those too.

01 In a Different Light (Bangles)
02 talk (Bangles)
03 Live (Bangles)
04 Restless (Bangles)
05 talk (Bangles)
06 Walking Down Your Street (Bangles)
07 James (Bangles)
08 Manic Monday (Bangles)
09 talk (Bangles)
10 I'm in Line (Bangles)
11 He's Got a Secret (Bangles)
12 talk (Bangles)
13 If She Knew What She Wants (Bangles)
14 Return Post (Bangles)
15 Let It Go (Bangles)
16 Going Down to Liverpool (Bangles)
17 talk (Bangles)
18 Angels Don't Fall in Love (Bangles)
19 I'm Not Talking (Bangles)
20 Hero Takes a Fall (Bangles)
21 Dover Beach (Bangles)
22 talk (Bangles)
23 September Gurls (Bangles)
24 I Want You (Bangles)
25 Walk like an Egyptian (Bangles)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15535013/TBangls_1986_TheLoftBerlinGrmany__2-10-1986_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a New Year's Eve concert at the end of 1986.

Aretha Franklin - Swing In, WDR Studio-L, Cologne, Germany, 5-17-1968

It's frustrating how little well recorded live soul music there is from the 1960s and 1970s. Even for big names like Aretha Franklin, you're lucky if you get an official live album or two, usually short and flawed, and quality bootlegs are extremely rare. But this is one of those nice rare instances.

Franklin became a big star in 1967, and arguably had an even bigger year in 1968. A lot of Europeans discovered American soul music in the late 1960s. When soul stars toured Europe then, they usually were surprised by the size and passion of the fans there. Franklin was so big in 1968 that she was given her own entire episode of a German TV show called "Swing In."

This show has its plusses and minuses. A minus is that there was a very talkative MC who spoke in German a lot. I edited him out entirely, even carefully removing a bit where he talked over part of the end of the song "Respect." He also did a short interview with Franklin right in the middle of the show (with everything being painstakingly translated in German and English in real time). I cut that out too. The video of this concert has appeared on YouTube around 2018, so if you want to see it, including the missing German bits, you can watch it there.

One other minus is that Franklin pretty much never says a word between songs. I'm guessing this is because she surmised the German audience wouldn't understand her, as well as the fact that she only had an hour for the concert and couldn't afford to waste any time. 

One minus is also a plus in the sense that the German audience was unusually polite and subdued for a soul music audience at the time. They were even subdued compared to other European audiences, because one can see video on YouTube of a much more lively Aretha Franklin concert in Amsterdam in 1968. But this is a plus because one can clearly hear the music instead of lots of screaming and cheering. Also, it's a big plus that the recording exists at all, since this sort of soul bootleg from the time is so rare, as I mentioned above.

By the way, there's an official live Franklin album called "Aretha in Paris." Not only is it also from 1968, it was recorded only about a week before this concert. But I much prefer this recording to that one. The sound quality is similar, and the performance here is as good or better. Plus, especially with the extra songs I've included, this is longer.

I've added three songs at the start of the German concert, and three more after its end. These extra songs are arguably the most interesting of all, because she played some unusual songs, none of which were on the "Aretha in Paris" album. Highlights include a duet with Frankie Valli, of all people, and a strange medley with Sammy Davis. Jr. I put some at the start because those are chronologically earlier (including two songs from 1967), while the songs at the end are from later in 1968.

01 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Aretha Franklin)
02 That's Life (Aretha Franklin & Frankie Valli)
03 Groovin' (Aretha Franklin)
04 You Are My Sunshine (Aretha Franklin)
05 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Aretha Franklin)
06 Night Life (Aretha Franklin)
07 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin)
08 Baby, I Love You (Aretha Franklin)
09 Dr. Feelgood [Love Is a Serious Business] (Aretha Franklin)
10 Since You've Been Gone [Sweet Sweet Baby] (Aretha Franklin)
11 Good to Me as I Am to You (Aretha Franklin)
12 I Never Loved a Man [The Way I Love You] (Aretha Franklin)
13 Chain of Fools (Aretha Franklin)
14 Soul Serenade (Aretha Franklin)
15 Respect (Aretha Franklin)
16 I Say a Little Prayer (Aretha Franklin)
17 Come Back Baby (Aretha Franklin)
18 What Is Soul - Think - Respect - What I'd Say (Aretha Franklin & Sammy Davis, Jr.)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GCQY2z4S

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/u9EoWJxhvKXA1Gd/file

For the cover art photo, I could have used a screenshot from the actual show. But that was somewhat low resolution. Instead, I found a high quality photo from a rehearsal for the "Swing In" show that took place a couple of days earlier. I colorized the black and white photo to make it more interesting. (The video of the concert is in black and white as well.)

I did grab a screenshot of the "Swing In" logo from the video, and I included that as well. Note that most bootlegs that exist of this show claim it was from the German TV show "Rockpalast." But that show didn't start until 1974, and the logo clearly proves this was "Swing In" instead.

In March 2025, I upgraded the cover image with the use of the Krea AI program.

Jimi Hendrix - BBC Sessions, Volume 4 (1968-1970)

Here's the fourth and last of my albums compiling Jimi Hendrix's BBC performances, as well as other radio or TV appearances of similar sound quality.

This was the most difficult album to put together of the four. The others largely drew from officially released versions of songs. But for this volume, only three of the 12 performances on it have been officially released.

I'm not sure why Hendrix played on the TV and radio so much in 1967 (three volumes' worth) but so relatively rarely from 1968 to 1970, the year he died. 1968 is a particular puzzler. That year, he had a very big hit double album with "Electric Ladyland," which went to number 1 in the US and number 6 in Britain, and it contained "All Along the Watchtower," which was a sizeable hit in both countries. So he had material to promote. But, strangely, he only played a few songs from that album in concert, and didn't do TV or radio appearances for it either. His one such appearance in 1968 was for Dusty Springfield's BBC TV show, but that took place months before "Electric Ladyland" was released. It's also strange the three songs played for that weren't included on either of the official Hendrix BBC albums. I've included them, but the sound quality is a bit rough.

At least there's a good explanation for Hendrix not playing for the BBC much in 1969 and 1970. The first week of January 1969, he appeared on the BBC TV show of British pop star Lulu. He was supposed to play "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" then "Hey Joe." Lulu was due to turn "Hey Joe" into a duet halfway through the song, then she'd sing her traditional final song of the show. But Hendrix thought doing a duet with Lulu wasn't cool. (Apparently he liked Dusty Springfield more, sine he sang the duet "Mockingbird" with her in 1968, which is on this album.) So, halfway through "Hey Joe," right when Lulu was supposed to join him on stage, he switched to playing an instrumental version of the Cream hit song "Sunshine of Your Love."

Noel Redding, bassist in Hendrix's band, later explained what happened next:

"This was fun for us, but producer Stanley Dorfman didn't take it at all well as the minutes ticked by on his live show. Short of running onto the set to stop us or pulling the plug, there was nothing he could do. We played past the point where Lulu might have joined us, played through the time for talking at the end, played through Stanley tearing his hair, pointing to his watch and silently screaming at us. We played out the show. Afterwards, Dorfman refused to speak to us but the result is one of the most widely used bits of film we ever did. Certainly, it's the most relaxed."

However, as fun as that was for the band, it is widely believed that Hendrix got banned for any future appearances on BBC TV or radio. And that's borne out by the fact that he didn't perform for the BBC from the Lulu show in January 1968 until his death in September 1970.

Luckily, Hendrix's fame was growing in the US. He appeared on popular US late night talk shows in 1969: "The Dick Cavett Show" (twice) and "The Tonight Show." The sound quality for these appearances are also a bit rough, especially for the song "Lover Man." My musical friend MZ did his best to improve these songs, but there was only so much he could do. By the way, for "Lover Man," Hendrix was halfway through playing the song when his amp blew out. The show quickly cut to a commercial. When the show returned, he started the song again and finished it without any further trouble. I've only included the full version of the song.

I had to search high and low to find any instances of Hendrix playing on TV or radio in 1970. I found out that two songs ("Come On" and "Red House") from a concert in Stockholm, Sweden, were played on a Swedish radio station at the time. I've included those even though the sound also is fairly rough. Of all the songs on this four volume series, I'd say "Lover Man" plus these two songs have the worst sound. But MZ worked on these as well, and improved them. I figured they're still good enough for inclusion, especially because one of them, "Come On," was a song that Hendrix played live very rarely.

By the way, for this entire series, I tried hard to sort the songs from one volume to another to avoid having two versions of the same song on the same album. The first volume has two versions of "Hey Joe," and this one has two versions of "Voodoo Child." I couldn't avoid having "Voodoo Child" twice here since it's a 1968 song and the three previous volumes are from 1967 performances only. But I shuffled the song order a bit so at least the two "Voodoo Child"s aren't next to each other.

01 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Stone Free (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Mockingbird (Jimi Hendrix & Dusty Springfield)
04 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)
06 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
07 Sunshine of Your Love [Instrumental Version] (Jimi Hendrix)
08 Hear My Train A-Comin' (Jimi Hendrix)
09 Izabella (Jimi Hendrix)
10 Machine Gun (Jimi Hendrix)
11 Lover Man (Jimi Hendrix)
12 Come On [Let the Good Times Roll] [Full Version] (Jimi Hendrix)
13 Red House (Jimi Hendrix)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15120755/JimiH_1968-1970_BBSessionsVolume4_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a screenshot from Hendrix's 1969 appearance on Lulu's TV show.

Keb Mo - Home Concert, Franklin, TN, 4-4-2020

We can all agree that the coronavirus pandemic is a terrible thing. But it does have one nice silver lining in that lots of musicians are streaming concerts from their homes. A couple of days ago, I posted a home concert from Richard Thompson. Here's another one from Keb Mo. I hope I'll have more concerts like these to post in the near future.

As I mentioned with the Thompson post, if you kind out about home concerts such as these from talented artists, please let me know, because they're easy to miss. Today, I was looking over my musical collection to see which artists I'd like to see play a home concert, and I was disappointed to realize just how many of my favorites have died or retired. :( I need to find some younger musicians who are just as talented as the best of previous generations. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

A Keb Mo home concert is particularly welcome for me because I've had issues with the production on most of his studio albums. He keeps putting out music that  veers towards "adult contemporary," a la James Taylor, when I most enjoy him playing acoustically. So this concert is great, because it's just him and his acoustic guitar, and there's no crowd noise to mar the sound quality. The Richard Thompson home concert unfortunately was recorded at a low streaming rate, but that's not a problem here. Mo recorded this in a music studio, and the sound quality is fantastic.

Actually, there's one snag about the sound quality, and that's the fact that the concert started out with an extremely low volume for the first couple of songs. Happily, that's something I was easily able to fix with a sound editing program. Mo's talking between songs was also unusually quiet, so I boosted the volume there too.

I did some editing between the songs. If he spend some time tuning his guitar, I usually cut that out. I also cut some of his talking that wasn't interesting. For instance, it's not entirely true that Mo was all alone for the concert. His unnamed wife was never seen, but she was apparently in a nearby control room and occasionally gave him some remote feedback. I edited out some of their back and forth that was technical in nature. For the comments from his wife that I kept it, I had to boost the volume a very large amount, since she was barely audible. So you'll hear a lot of hiss the few occasions when she spoke. All in all, I probably only cut out about five minutes from the concert in total.

Virtually all the songs are Keb Mo originals. But this concert took place a day or two after soul legend Bill Withers died, so he did a cover of "Grandma's Hands" in tribute to him.

The concert is 50 minutes long. Here's a link if you want to watch it as well as hear it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5rq9c4uBME

01 talk (Keb Mo)
02 Muddy Water (Keb Mo)
03 talk (Keb Mo)
04 Grandma's Hands (Keb Mo)
05 talk (Keb Mo)
06 Better Man (Keb Mo)
07 talk (Keb Mo)
08 I Remember You (Keb Mo)
09 talk (Keb Mo)
10 Change (Keb Mo)
11 talk (Keb Mo)
12 Life Is Beautiful (Keb Mo)
13 talk (Keb Mo)
14 Woman in Charge (Keb Mo)
15 talk (Keb Mo)
16 Tell Everybody I Know (Keb Mo)
17 talk (Keb Mo)
18 Rita (Keb Mo)
19 talk (Keb Mo)
20 Every Morning (Keb Mo)
21 talk (Keb Mo)
22 She Just Wants to Dance (Keb Mo)
23 talk (Keb Mo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15429910/KebM_2020_HomeConcrtFranklnTN__4-4-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a screenshot I selected from the home concert.

Robyn Hitchcock - Tin Angel, Philadelphia, PA, 3-25-1995, Late Show

I just posted the early Robyn Hitchcock show that comes from the same date and location as this late show. No bootleg recording of that early show has ever been made publicly available up until now, as far as I know, but there is a boot of this late show. However, I'm posting it here so you'll be easily able to get both.

The late show is just the same as the early show in terms of stellar soundboard sound quality and performance. If you like that one, you'll like this one. The one snag is that the first song, "Cynthia Mask," was missing the first twenty seconds or so. Happily, I found a bootleg from just a few days later, March 30, 1995, in which he also played that song. So I used that version to patch the missing section. The sound quality for that isn't as good, so you might notice the transition, but I figure it's better than nothing.

Also, this show is about eight minutes shorter than the early show (52 minutes compared to one hour). That suggests that maybe one or more songs are missing, since I've noticed with concerts that late shows are often a bit longer than early ones. However, if that's the case, we'll probably never know, and this is all we've got.

In terms of song selection, the vast majority of the songs are different than the ones played in the early show, so you'll probably want to hear both. Three songs are repeated: "De Chirico Street," "I Something You," and "The Yip Song."

01 Cynthia Mask [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Shuffling Over the Flagstones [Instrumental] (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Each of Her Silver Wands (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 De Chirico Street (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Statue with a Walkman (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Vegetation and Dimes (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 My Wife and My Dead Wife (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Beautiful Girl (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 I Something You (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Bass (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 The Yip Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 She Doesn't Exist Anymore (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Listening to the Higsons (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15272091/RobynH_1995_Tin_AngelPhiladelphiaPA__3-25-1995__Late_Show_atse.zip.html

If you compare the cover art photo here with the one for the early show, I think it'll be obvious to you that they both come from the same concert. He's wearing the same shirt, and the lighting is the same. I don't know what show that was exactly, though, except that it took place in 1995.

Robyn Hitchcock - Tin Angel, Philadelphia, PA, 3-25-1995, Early Show

In recent weeks, a kind person nicknamed Lil Panda has been helping me find more music to post on this blog. You'll see more results from that in the future, including more covers collections. This Robyn Hitchcock concert comes from him. As far as I know, Lil Panda went to the concert, both the early and late shows, and got a copy of the soundboard for both. For some reason, the late show has been available on bootleg for many years, but the early show has never been, until now, right here.

And what a good show it is! The sound is fantastic, and the hour-long performance is excellent as well. All the songs are written by Hitchcock. The only slight disappointment for me is that he doesn't talk between songs as much as he sometimes does. But you can't have everything. I didn't have to do anything to fix the sound, except I broke the talking between songs into their own tracks, as I usually do.

For the most part, Hitchcock is accompanied by nothing but his acoustic guitar. However, towards the end of the show he switches to solo electric guitar for a little bit. He also is sometimes joined by Deni Benet on violin.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Satellite (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Balloon Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Alright, Yeah (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Man with a Woman's Shadow (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 De Chirico Street (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Sinister but She Was Happy (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 The Devil's Coachman (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Raining Twilight Coast (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 I Something You (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 So You Think You're in Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 The Yip Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 I Am Not Me (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Autumn Is Your Last Chance (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Never Stop Bleeding (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Arms of Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Zipper in My Spine (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Only the Stones Remain (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15272085/RobynH_1995_Tin_AngelPhiladelphiaPA__3-25-1995__Early_Show_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is taken from an unknown 1995 concert. I had used it for another Hitchcock album cover, for "Acoustic Covers, Volume 2." But I decided it fits better here, since there's an early show and late show, and I'm posting them both, and I found this one and another one come from the same source. So I've put a different cover on that "Volume 2" album.

Jimi Hendrix - BBC Sessions, Volume 3 (1967)

Here's Volume 3 of Jimi Hendrix's performances for the BBC. Like the first two, all of the songs are from 1967. He did a ton of TV and radio performances in 1967. That isn't surprising. But what is surprising is that he did comparatively few from 1968 to 1970. I have just one volume in this series covering those three years.

This time, all but three of the songs were played at the BBC, and were on the official "BBC Sessions" album. The three exceptions come from a Dutch TV show called "Hoepla." One of those, "Catfish Blues," was released on the official "Blues" album. The other two remain officially unreleased. The "Hoepla" show was recorded very well. It was in front of a live audience, but I've removed the clapping as much as possible.

Other than that, there's no much to say for this album. However, as I mentioned earlier in this series, Hendrix played some songs for the BBC that he rarely or never played "live" (in the studio) again. One can especially see that on this volume, with rare songs like "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Wait Until Tomorrow," "Day Tripper," and even a "jingle" he wrote for the BBC called "Radio One."

01 Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Hoochie Coochie Man (Jimi Hendrix)
04 Driving South [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
06 Catfish Blues (Jimi Hendrix)
07 Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
08 Hear My Train A-Comin' [Alternate Take] (Jimi Hendrix)
09 Radio One (Jimi Hendrix)
10 Wait until Tomorrow (Jimi Hendrix)
11 Day Tripper (Jimi Hendrix with Robert Wyatt)
12 Spanish Castle Magic (Jimi Hendrix)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15120521/JimiH_1967g_BBSessionsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken in the TTG Studios in Los Angeles in October 1968.

Pink Floyd - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 7-16-1970

Around 1970, the BBC began playing hour-long concerts in front of live audiences. Pink Floyd was one of the bands that benefited from being able to stretch out in that new format. They wound up playing concerts from the BBC in 1970 and 1971, as well as a longer one in 1974. This is the first of those.

Note that I've already posted three albums of Pink Floyd playing at the BBC (done in the BBC studios with no audience present). Since I'm continuing with three more BBC albums from them, I've decided to rename those earlier albums slightly, so they all have "Volume" in the title. For instance, the first one was known as "BBC Sessions, 1967," but now I'm calling it "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." I've just renamed those and updated the cover artwork accordingly. This one, then, is Volume 4.

Although this is live, it was professionally recorded, and it widely considered one of the few really great concert recordings of the band. It was included on the official box set "The Early Years." I'm including it here to continue the BBC series, plus it really should be heard on its own.

I've broken the talking between songs onto their own tracks, but other than that, I didn't need to change anything. Note that the concert was hosted by legendary BBC DJ John Peel. He's the one that does all the talking between songs.

The concert took place while the band was in the middle of recording the album "Atom Heart Mother." So it's not surprising that it features three songs from that album, "If," "Fat Old Sun," and "Atom Heart Mother." We're especially fortunate that "If" was included, because the band only played that excellent song a handful of times. The song "Atom Heart Mother" had been played a few times already, using the clunky title "The Amazing Pudding." They wanted something better, and realized that had to come up with something fast so that Peel would have a new title to give it for this BBC show. Luckily, they came up with the new title shortly before the concert when band member saw the headline "Atom Heart Mother Named" in a newspaper article about a nuclear-powered pacemaker.

Also note that the song "Atom Heart Mother" really needed a full choir, plus a full orchestra, to play right. For this concert, they hired a professional choir and professional orchestra to back them. Later, when they played the song on tour, they had to make do with a revolving group of back-up musicians who often didn't perform nearly as well. As a result, they shortened the song in concert and cut out the parts that needed the choir and orchestra. So this is probably the definitive live version, especially due to the sound quality.

01 talk (Pink Floyd)
02 Embryo (Pink Floyd)
03 talk (Pink Floyd)
04 Fat Old Sun (Pink Floyd)
05 talk (Pink Floyd)
06 Green Is the Colour (Pink Floyd)
07 Careful with that Axe, Eugene (Pink Floyd)
08 talk (Pink Floyd)
09 If (Pink Floyd)
10 talk (Pink Floyd)
11 Atom Heart Mother (Pink Floyd)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697017/PNKFLYD1970c_BBSssonsVlum4InConcrtParsThetre__7-16-1970_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a Pink Floyd concert later in 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York City.

Jimi Hendrix - BBC Sessions, Volume 2 (1967)

This is the second of four volumes of Jimi Hendrix playing at the BBC. Once again, all the performances date to 1967.

As I mentioned in my description of Volume 1, four of the songs here (the first four) chronologically belong with Volume 1, but I put them here in order to cut down on the duplications of the same song on one album. That's also the case for the last song, which should belong on the next volume in this series.

You may note that three of the songs here have "Alternate Take" in their names. That's because when Hendrix played at the BBC, he sometimes did more than one take of the same song, then only one version was played on the radio. Luckily, recordings of these alternate takes survived, and in just as good sound quality. If these are "inferior" versions, I don't hear that. They just have different solos and such.

For this volume, five of the 14 songs have not been officially released. Four of those come from Hendrix performing for TV or radio shows other than the BBC. There also is one song ("Burning of the Midnight Lamp") that was officially released, but not on the official BBC releases because it was from one of those other TV or radio shows.

Also, one of the unreleased songs WAS from the BBC: an instrumental medley of the Motown hits "I Was Made to Love Her" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." However, only about half of that version was included on the official "BBC Sessions" album, and this is the whole thing. By the way, that medley, plus an instrumental known as "Jammin'" also feature Stevie Wonder on drums.

As with the other volumes in this series, I was highly selective on what to include in terms of sound quality. There are other songs played on TV or the radio at the time that didn't make the cut, usually selections from concerts that are marred by lots of crowd noise. So the sound quality here is uniformly high. Even better, my musical associate MZ edited some of the unreleased songs to make them sound better than the commonly circulating bootleg versions.

01 Foxy Lady [Alternate Take] (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Hey Joe [Alternate Take] (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
04 Stone Free (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Fire (Jimi Hendrix)
06 The Wind Cries Mary (Jimi Hendrix)
07 Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Jimi Hendrix)
08 Jammin' [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix with Stevie Wonder on Drums)
09 I Was Made to Love Her - Ain't Too Proud to Beg [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix with Stevie Wonder on Drums)
10 Hound Dog (Jimi Hendrix)
11 Driving South [Alternate Take] (Jimi Hendrix)
12 Little Miss Lover (Jimi Hendrix)
13 Catfish Blues (Jimi Hendrix)
14 Hear My Train A-Comin' (Jimi Hendrix)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15120218/JimiH_1967f_BBSessionsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo shows Hendrix in a recording studio in October 1967.

Jimi Hendrix - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1967)

One clear highlight of Jimi Hendrix's recorded work are his recordings for the BBC. The sound quality and performances are just as good as those on his studio albums, and he played some interesting songs he never or rarely played in concert. Many of these performances were first officially released on the single album "Radio One" in 1988, and then more were released on the double album "BBC Sessions" in 1998.

The official "BBC Sessions" album certainly is a good one. But they missed a few songs. More importantly, there are some performances for TV or radio shows that sound just as good, except they weren't done for the BBC. I've expanded the reach of the "BBC Sessions" to include this non-BBC material as well. That has allowed me to make four albums of this stuff instead of two. This is the first one.

One nice benefit to putting these performances on four albums is that I have carefully organized them to reduce the number of times one album has two or more versions of the same song on them. For whatever reason, the vast majority of Hendrix's TV or radio appearances were in 1967. His song repertoire was small back then at the start of his fame, and he only had a few hits. So he tended to perform the same songs over and over again, especially "Hey Joe" and "Purple Haze."

Due to that fact, as well as the fact that there's a ton of Hendrix material out there, I've chosen to only include the versions that sound the best, without repeating songs too much. For this album, the only duplicate I have is two versions of "Hey Joe." Note that I've generally stuck to ordering these albums by the dates they were recorded. But I've made a few exceptions to reduce the duplications. So, for instance, I've moved versions of four songs ("Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," "Foxy Lady," and "Stone Free") that were recorded in early 1967 to the next album in this series.

Three of the 14 performances on this album are still officially unreleased. In addition, two more are from official releases other than either of the BBC albums. One of those, "Burning of the Midnight Lamp," actually was played on the BBC, but on a TV show instead of the radio. That one was only available as a rare bonus track for the "Jimi Hendrix Experience" box set.

I'm glad to say that none of these performances are marred by BBC DJs talking over the music. If there were instances of talking before or after songs, I've cut that out to keep the focus on the songs.

I've included one bonus track, an unreleased version of "Rock Me Baby." This also was played for the BBC. But unfortunately, the last minute or so got cut off, so I faded it out. I suspect that's why it wasn't included on the official BBC albums. The sound on that one is a little rough, but my associate MZ worked on editing it to at least make it sound better than it had been.

01 Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Stone Free (Jimi Hendrix)
04 Love or Confusion (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix)
06 The Wind Cries Mary (Jimi Hendrix)
07 Killing Floor (Jimi Hendrix)
08 Fire (Jimi Hendrix)
09 Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
10 Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix)
11 Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Jimi Hendrix)
12 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Jimi Hendrix)
13 I Don't Live Today (Jimi Hendrix)
14 Driving South [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)

Rock Me Baby (Jimi Hendrix)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15119366/JimiH_1967e_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo shows Hendrix playing "Purple Haze" at the BBC's "Top of the Pops" TV show in March 1967. I didn't include any music from this performance because he sang to the recorded version of the song.