Jorma Kaukonen - Home Concerts 2, Fur Peace Ranch, Pomeroy, OH, 4-18-2020 to 4-25-2020

As I posted yesterday, I had a hard drive crash and a lot of data I had is now permanently lost. Thankfully, my music collection is stored on a different hard drive. This close call has given me a new appreciation for my music blog. If I did have a disaster and lose my music collection, at least a good portion of the unique parts of it would be here on this blog. So I'm going to focus even more on trying to post the music that hasn't been collected in the way I've collected it elsewhere.

This album is a case in point. Jorma Kaukonen has done a ton of home concerts since the pandemic began, usually once a week, sometimes solo and sometimes as part of Hot Tuna. He's still at it. But those concerts have included long question and answer sessions, as well as guest spotlights, neither of which I'm interested in. Plus, he tends to play a lot of the same songs. So this blog is probably the only place were you can find his home concerts boiled down to just the essential music and banter, without song repeats.

As a personal quirk, I've gotten bored with many of the covers he does, especially his covers of religious Rev. Gary Davis songs. So I've cut way down on those, and focused more on his original songs. I think he's underappreciated as a songwriter. There is the occasional cover song here, such as "Parchman Farm" and "I Know You Rider," but the vast majority are originals.

I have a few more in this series to post, especially if he continues to play more home concerts. This album is an hour and nine minutes long. I'm not sure why I made all the albums in this series over an hour long, but I did. It's been months since I made these albums, so I forget my reasoning, but I must have had some reason for it. ;)

01 Too Many Years (Jorma Kaukonen)
02 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
03 Parchman Farm (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 The Terrible Operation (Jorma Kaukonen)
06 Flying Clouds (Jorma Kaukonen)
07 Watch the North Wind Rise (Jorma Kaukonen)
08 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
09 Reenlistment Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
10 New Song [For the Morning] (Jorma Kaukonen)
11 I See the Light (Jorma Kaukonen)
12 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
13 Ain't in No Hurry (Jorma Kaukonen)
14 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
15 Third Week in the Chelsea (Jorma Kaukonen)
16 Bar Room Crystal Ball (Jorma Kaukonen)
17 Wolves and Lambs (Jorma Kaukonen)
18 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
19 Things That Might Have Been (Jorma Kaukonen)
20 talk (Jorma Kaukonen)
21 I Know You Rider (Jorma Kaukonen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15292182/JormaK_2020_HomeConcrts2FurPeaceRanch_4-18-2020_to_4-25-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from one of the YouTube videos of the home concerts contained here.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Soulful Covers, Volume 3: 2012-2016

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been having some computer trouble. Let's see if this works and gets posted correctly.

I've posted two previous albums in this series. This is the third and last. As I mentioned before, the basic idea is that Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings released an album of cover versions recently, after almost never putting cover songs on their albums. But they missed many covers they did over the years, so this collects all the good ones I could find.

Eight out of the 11 songs here remain officially unreleased. Most of those come from concert performances. But the sound quality remains high just the same. I kept a high standard and didn't include any songs that were somewhat rough.

Sadly, Sharon Jones died of cancer in 2016, so that's why this series ends in that year.

01 Goldfinger (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
02 I Ain't Got Nothin' but the Blues - Do Nothin' 'Til You Hear from Me (Joe Jackson with Sharon Jones)
03 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
04 It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World (Ed Turner & Number 9 Rock and Soul Revue with Sharon Jones)
05 What's Going On (John Legend & Sharon Jones)
06 Bring It on Home to Me (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
07 Tell Mama (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
08 Sing a Simple Song - I Want to Take You Higher (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
09 The Letter (Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones & Doyle Bramhall II)
10 Midnight Rider (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
11 Every Beat of My Heart (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15249597/SharonJns_2012-2016_SoulfulCovrsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the SXSW festival in 2013.

Good News and Bad News

I had something bad happen to me a few days ago. There was an overnight power outtage, and it destroyed my primary hard drive (even though it's an SSD drive that's less than a year old). I had a lot of important files there, and it's been a few months since it was backed up, so I've sent it off to a company that specializes in hard drive recoveries. 

The good news is, the vast majority of my music was on a secondary drive that survived. Still, I'm going to be hobbled for a while. I've decided to get a new computer since I have to start from scratch on a lot of things anyway. It'll be a couple of weeks before the new computer is delivered, and it'll take more time after that for me to get all the programs installed, settings changed, etc... Oh, I also have to figure out how to switch to Windows 10, since I'd been using Windows 7 until now. In the meantime, I'm using a different computer, and I'm limited in what I can do. Luckily, I have some albums ready to be posted, including the cover art. But I may be posting less for a while, and/or posting albums without cover art, until I'm fully recovered from my computer woes.

Oh, one more thing. I tried to get back to SoulseekQT using the same user name as before (albumsthatshouldexist), but I don't seem to sync up with my previous account. So, for the time being, my albums aren't appearing there, and I won't be posting new ones there. Hopefully I'll get that sorted out once I get my computer situation fixed. I plan to keep posting this music through Soulseek, one way or another.

UPDATE: Dammit! I just found out my hard drive is NOT recoverable, according to the top drive recovery experts. Sigh. What a sucky year. It's a good thing most of my music was on my other drive, or this blog probably would be done.

The Kinks - Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH, 9-5-1985

It's been too long since I've posted anything by the Kinks, considering they're my second favorite band of all time (behind only the Beatles). I'm very delighted to post this concert, because I think it's one of their best bootleg concert recordings in terms of sound quality, yet it seems to be very little known, even by big Kinks fans. There were a few serious sound problems with it, but I've managed to fix them, so now I hope it'll get more of the attention it deserves.

In 1984, the Kinks released the studio album "Word of Mouth." It didn't sell that well, but it's always been a personal favorite of mine, helped by the fact that one of my first concert experiences was seeing the Kinks play live that year. So I have long wanted a concert recording from that time period. Unfortunately, all the bootlegs I heard didn't have the sound quality that met my listening standards. Just a few days ago, I came across this soundboard bootleg. I'm puzzled why it hasn't gotten more notice, since it's one of their best sounding concert recordings of the 1980s, if not of s their entire career.

Note that "Word of Mouth" came out in 1984, but this concert is from the latter half of 1985. The Kinks didn't release an album in 1985, but lead singer Ray Davies released his first "solo album," "Return to Waterloo." I put that title in quote marks, because in fact it was a Kinks album in all but name, featuring all of the Kinks on every song, except for his brother, lead guitarist Dave Davies. So I guess this tour was to help promote "Return to Waterloo," though the only song played from it was the title track. I suspect the lack of Dave Davies' involvement on the album limited what they played in concert from it. As a result, it seems the Kinks weren't strongly promoting any album in particular, and played songs from their last three albums in roughly equal measure, plus lots of songs from earlier in their long career.

That said, there is one great "Word of Mouth" song that wasn't played at this concert that really should have been. "Living on a Thin Line" is one of Dave Davies' best songs. I checked setlist.fm, and it was the band's fourth most played song in 1985, behind only "Lola," "Do It Again," and "Come Dancing." So I was bummed this was one of the rare nights it wasn't played. 

However, I got lucky. As I mentioned above, there aren't any other excellent live recordings from this time period. But I found a partial exception. The Kinks played a concert in Frankfurt, Germany, in December 1984 that was broadcast on the radio there. Most of it is available in middling quality, but I found a handful of songs in much better quality. Most of them were the usual suspects like "You Really Got Me," but one of them was "Living on a Thin Line." Another was another nice "Word of Mouth" song, "Good Day." So I took those two songs and stuck them into the middle this concert.

As I mentioned above, the recording had a few serious sound problems. The first was an accidental side effect of it being such a great soundboard, because while the band on stage was recorded very well, not much could be heard from the audience. Sometimes, it almost sounded like they were playing an empty arena. So I systemically boosted the volume for the audience applause at the end of each song. Luckily, there as enough of the audience on the recording to allow me to make those bits sound like normal audience reactions.

But more difficult was the fact that there was some audience participation in the middle of a couple of the songs. For "State of Confusion," "Lola," and "Lola (Reprise)" in particular, there were a few bits where Ray Davies let the audience take over singing the lead vocals. I had to very carefully amplify the volume of the audience so there wouldn't be nearly silent gaps. "Lola" was especially tricky, because there were parts where the drumming kept going over the audience vocals. Luckily, there was another section in that song with just the audience vocals and no drumming, so I patched that in and mixed it with the drumming. Hopefully, the end result is it sounds just like the audience had been recorded at a more typical level for concert albums.

Another major sound problem is that sections of three songs were missing. The very end of "Destroyer" was cut off, as well as the start of the next song, "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman." Unfortunately, since this bootleg is so superior to the others from the time period, I had trouble finding appropriate missing bits to patch in. For "Destroyer," I ended up using a section from a soundboard recording from 1988. But I managed to repeat a couple of vocal lines near the end of the song from earlier in the song, so the 1988 part only makes up the last 15 seconds or so. You'll probably notice the edit, since I couldn't find a close match, but at least it's better than an abrupt halt to the song.

For the start of "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," I had an even more difficult time. During this tour, the band started that song with an instrumental snippet of the "Batman" theme song. The few other bootlegs with this sounded crappy, and they didn't match the key and tempo and so forth. Since it was just a short instrumental snippet, I instead decided to have the music fade in while the applause from the previous song faded out. Not much is missing, maybe 30 seconds.

A similar problem was that the second half of the last song, "Low Budget," also was missing. Again, I didn't have anything else from around that time period to fit it with. So once again I resorted to using part of a song from a 1988 soundboard. The section lasts about a minute, and goes from the start of the last verse to the end of the song. Also again, the edit is noticeable and far from ideal, but I figure it's better than nothing.

There's one more significant edit I made that wasn't the result of a sound flaw per se, but more of a personal choice. I was quite surprised to hear that "Guilty," a song written and sung by Dave Davies, began with Ray Davies saying, "And then we heard the chimes of midnight." This was followed by the clanging of bells, a loud explosion, and then about two minutes of indecipherable talking and war sounds, over a synth backing. I can only presume that while that was going on, some sort of anti-war video was played for the audience. (I'd never considered "Guilty" to be an anti-war song, more of a song railing against bad government leaders, but it does contain the line "Deaf to the cries of the innocent strangers you buried.") Anyway, this probably worked well if you were there and you saw it, but after the bells and the explosion, the rest was a frustrating listening experience, since on this recording one can't hear what was being said, or who was saying it, or why. So I edited most of that part out.

One more minor note. There's a song here called "Ohio Motorway." I don't know if you can call it a song. It's less than a minute long, and more like a snippet. I have absolutely no idea what this is called, if it had a name at all. I titled it "Ohio Motorway" to distinguish it from the famous CSNY song "Ohio."

Sorry for the rather long-winded explanation, but this concert needed some changes to bring it to its full potential. Now, with the two Frankfurt songs and missing sections added, it's an hour and 44 minutes long. If you're a Kinks fan and want just one concert of theirs from the 1980s, I recommend this one.

01 You Really Got Me Intro [Instrumental] (Kinks)
02 Do It Again (Kinks)
03 State of Confusion [Edit] (Kinks)
04 talk (Kinks)
05 Better Things (Kinks)
06 talk (Kinks)
07 The Hard Way (Kinks)
08 Don't Forget to Dance (Kinks)
09 talk (Kinks)
10 Come Dancing (Kinks)
11 Return to Waterloo (Kinks)
12 Catch Me Now, I'm Falling (Kinks)
13 Missing Persons (Kinks)
14 Destroyer [Edit] (Kinks)
15 [Wish I Could Fly Like] Superman [Edit] (Kinks)
16 Brother (Kinks)
17 Guilty [Edit] (Kinks)
18 A Gallon of Gas (Kinks)
19 Ohio Motorway (Kinks)
20 talk (Kinks)
21 Living on a Thin Line (Kinks)
22 Good Day (Kinks)
23 Lola [Edit] (Kinks)
24 talk (Kinks)
25 Lola [Reprise] [Edit] (Kinks)
26 All Day and All of the Night (Kinks)
27 I Gotta Move (Kinks)
28 Low Budget [Edit] (Kinks)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dJ5K5

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yQkSjvpY

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6EnOSkPI0IAnShm/file

The cover art photo of lead singer Ray Davies comes from a Kinks concert in Chicago in December 1984. I would have liked to use a photo showing the entire band, but I could only find a few good ones to choose from, and this was the best of the bunch.

Blood, Sweat and Tears - Woodstock Festival, Max Yasgur's Farm, Bethel, NY, 8-17-1969

I just posted the Band's performance from the famous 1969 Woodstock Festival. I mentioned in that post that the sets of most of the famous artists at Woodstock have been officially released as individual albums, but a few have slipped through the cracks. I'm posting the skipped ones that I like. The Band was one, and Blood, Sweat and Tears is another.

In my opinion, the first two Blood, Sweat and Tears albums are excellent. Their second album, simply called "Blood, Sweat and Tears," was hugely commercially successful in 1969. But for whatever reason, they quickly declined in both critical and commercial popularity after that. I'm mainly interested in what they did in 1968 and 1969. But there haven't been any official live albums from that time period, Even the bootlegs from that time are few in number and just average sounding audience recordings. So this Woodstock recording is very welcome, since it's in great soundboard quality.

The concert is 53 minutes long. Their set was a fine performance, containing all their best known songs from that time.

01 talk (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
02 More and More (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
03 Just One Smile (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
04 Somethin' Comin' On (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
05 I Love You More than You'll Ever Know (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
06 Spinning Wheel (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
07 Sometimes in Winter (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
08 Smiling Phases (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
09 talk (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
10 God Bless the Child (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
11 talk (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
12 And When I Die (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
13 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Blood, Sweat & Tears)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15252599/BloodSweatT_1969_Woodstck_Festival__8-17-1969_atse.zip.html

The album cover photo is from the concert in question. Not all of the many band members are seen.

The Band - Woodstock Festival, Max Yasgur's Farm, Bethel, NY, 8-17-1969

In 2019, all the music from the famous three-day-long 1969 Woodstock Festival was officially released.  It was called, "Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive." That's great, but it was a huge box set, containing a few dozen CDs, and it was only made available in limited numbers for one time only. Apparently, exactly 1969 copies were officially available to be sold, to mark the year of the concert. Of course, all of those were sold, and it's been out of print since then.

In the years prior to that, the complete Woodstock sets of some famous artists were officially released on a wider basis, and even more came out around the time of that box set. Here are the artists that I believe have had their performances released on individual albums:

Santana
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone
Jefferson Airplane
Joe Cocker
Johnny Winter
Butterfield Blues Band
Jimi Hendrix

I don't want to post the sets from any of those artists, since they are easy to get. But the rest of the festival is very hard to find, and now that it's been a year since the release of that already out of print box set, it seems that's all that is likely to come out. So I want to post the sets of some other artists that I like. (I've already posted the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young set.) One great thing about that festival is that the whole thing was recorded in soundboard quality, so we have excellent recordings from a time we might not otherwise have them.

So here's another Woodstock performance, from the Band. There is one really great live album by the Band from relatively early in their career, "Rock of Ages." But even that comes from concerts at the very end of 1971. In mid-1969, their set list was very different. Their second album - "The Band" - was due to be released only a few weeks after this concert, but they didn't play any songs from it. So their concert set list was largely based on their landmark 1968 album "Music from Big Pink," plus a couple of Motown covers ("Don't Do It" and "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever"). But most intriguingly, they did a couple of songs from "The Basement Tapes," recorded in 1967, that wouldn't get released until 1975: "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Ain't No More Cane." (Note that I included both of those exact performances on my Band stray tracks album "The Basement Tapes.")

The concert is 48 minutes long. It's well performed, and as I said, the sound quality is great. The only odd thing, in my opinion, is there was virtually no talking from anyone in the Band, except for a couple of "thank yous" at the ends of songs. There doesn't seem to be the usual emcee announcement at the start or the end either, though there is one before their encore.

01 Chest Fever (Band)
02 Don't Do It [Baby Don't Do It] (Band)
03 Tears of Rage (Band)
04 We Can Talk (Band)
05 Long Black Veil (Band)
06 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
07 Ain't No More Cane (Band)
08 This Wheel's on Fire (Band)
09 I Shall Be Released (Band)
10 The Weight (Band)
11 talk (Band)
12 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700631/TBND1969a_WodstckFestivlNY__8-17-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the concert in question. Unfortunately, it only shows four of the five members of the Band.

Cat Stevens - Buddha and the Chocolate Box - Alternate Version (1974)

I just posted a Cat Stevens concert yesterday. While I was looking at my Stevens albums, I decided, what the heck, I'll post this one too. I've made a lot of alternate versions of albums, though I haven't posted many on my blog. Sometimes, an album is pretty good, but if you remove a few songs and add in some others, it becomes much better. That's the case here.

Stevens had his greatest success in the early 1970s, with four killer albums in a row: "Mona Bone Jakon," "Tea for the Tillerman," "Teaser and the Firecat," and "Catch Bull at Four." In my opinion, the quality of his albums took a big hit after that. He still wrote lots of excellent songs, but the albums were hit and miss.

His 1973 album "Foreigner" was a particular disappointment. It was a significant departure from his earlier folky style, and it only had five songs on it, since the "Foreigner Suite" took up half of the album. It sold well, but that was mostly due to inertia from his previous albums. His 1974 album "Buddha and the Chocolate Box" did better, both commercially and critically. But it also is hit and miss. I've removed the songs I like the least: "Sun/C79," "Jesus," and "Home in the Sky."

I've replaced those with a bunch of songs. First, I've added in the three best songs from the "Foreigner" album. "The Hurt" was a minor hit. "Love" and "Heaven" are both excerpts from the 18-minute long "Foreigner Suite," They're the best part of that, by far, and they stand on their own as individual songs.

I've removed three songs and added three songs. But "Buddha and the Chocolate Box" is a short album at only 32 minutes long, so I've added in some more, to make it 38 minutes long. "A Bad Penny" was on that album, but the overproduction (complete with strings) marred the song for me. Instead, I've chosen a live version that was put on his 2001 box set. The last two songs, though, take this album to another level. "Another Saturday Night" is a cover of a Sam Cooke song. Stevens only released it as an A-side in 1974. "Two Fine People" is another A-Side, and also appeared on his "Greatest Hits" album in 1975. Both songs were Top 40 hits in the US. 

Including "Two Fine People" is a bit of a stretch since it came out in 1975 instead of 1974, but he didn't put out an album in 1975, and in my opinion it doesn't have a better album home than this.

In my opinion, after making these changes, this album is just as strong as his four early 1970s albums mentioned above. So if you have those but have shied away from his other 1970s albums, give this a try.

01 The Hurt (Cat Stevens)
02 The Foreigner Suite- Love (Cat Stevens)
03 The Foreigner Suite- Heaven (Cat Stevens)
04 Music (Cat Stevens)
05 Oh Very Young (Cat Stevens)
06 Ghost Town (Cat Stevens)
07 Ready (Cat Stevens)
08 King of Trees (Cat Stevens)
09 A Bad Penny (Cat Stevens)
10 Another Saturday Night (Cat Stevens)
11 Two Fine People (Cat Stevens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687688/CATSTVNS1974_BddhaChcolateBoxAlternte_atse.zip.html

The cover is the official cover, with no changes.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 11: 2011-2013

It feels like it's been a long time since I've posted any albums in this series, so here ya go. (It's hard for me to keep track of all the different artists and album series I've been posting. If you think I've fallen behind on anything else, please remind me.)

There's not much to say here except that if you like the other albums in this series, you'll like this. As usual, it's just Robyn Hitchcock and his acoustic guitar. Also, as usual, all the performances are unreleased. The sound quality is just fine for all the songs.

Maybe this album is a bit different in that he played some especially obscure songs. I had to look up who did the likes of "The Bed" and "Waving My Arms in the Air." But it's not surprising to see he plays Beatles and Syd Barrett songs the most, since those are two of his biggest influences.

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

01 The Wind Cries Mary - Jimi Hendrix
02 Dear Prudence - Beatles
03 Long Black Veil - Lefty Frizzell / Band
04 Andmoreagain - Love
05 Candyman - Grateful Dead
06 All La Glory - Band
07 More than This - Roxy Music
08 Waving My Arms in the Air - Syd Barrett
09 I Never Lied to You - Syd Barrett
10 The Bed - Lou Reed
11 Because - Beatles
12 Long Gone - Syd Barrett

Here's the usual song list:

01 The Wind Cries Mary (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Dear Prudence (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Long Black Veil (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Andmoreagain (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Candyman (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 All La Glory (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 More than This (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Waving My Arms in the Air (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 I Never Lied to You (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 The Bed (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Because (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Long Gone (Robyn Hitchcock) 

This album is 44 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274557/RobynH_2011-2013_AcousticCoversVolume11_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo features Hitchcock at the End of the Road festival in Britain in 2012.

Cat Stevens - The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA, 12-8-1970

There are surprisingly few publicly available Cat Stevens concert recordings from his prime early 1970s. Even the bootlegs are scanty, with most of those from 1971 and almost nothing good from 1970, 1972 or 1973. But recently (as I write this), a super deluxe version of his 1970 album "Mona Bone Jakon" was released. It contains a previously unbootlegged and unknown concert recording of Stevens playing at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in December 1970. This recording sounds fantastic, so I'm sharing it here.

In 1970 and 1971, it seems Stevens played all his concerts in acoustic format, always with second guitarist Alun Davies accompanying him. That's the case here. 

The Troubadour songs on the super deluxe release only add up to 28 minutes. It's a shame more weren't included, because the concert must have been longer than that. In fact, one more song from it was included on a deluxe edition of "Teaser and the Firecat" (with an incorrect date). So I've added that in as well. That still made for a short album. So I've added three more songs at the end that also have just become available on the "Mona Bone Jakon" super deluxe edition. All three of those come from a French TV show recorded in Paris just one month earlier. The sound of these are virtually identical to the rest, with acoustic performances in front of small crowds. 

The super deluxe edition contains five songs recorded at another 1970 concert, at the Plumpton Racecourse in Britain in August 1970. A couple of the songs are different than the ones here, so I was tempted to add them as well. But unfortunately, the sound quality for those is poor, clearly coming from an audience bootleg that had been publicly available for years. The sound quality is such a step down from everyone else here that I decided to not even include them as bonus tracks.

By the way, I'm not entirely sure what the exact date of this concert is. Stevens played the Troubadour six nights in a row, from December 8th to December 13th. The super deluxe edition doesn't mention the specific date, though they give dates for all the other live recordings. But I came across another mention of a recording from December 8th long before the super deluxe edition came out, so that's my best guess.

This album is 41 minutes long, including the three songs at the end from the French TV show.

01 talk (Cat Stevens)
02 Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
03 talk (Cat Stevens)
04 Hard Headed Woman (Cat Stevens)
05 Longer Boats (Cat Stevens)
06 talk (Cat Stevens)
07 Wild World (Cat Stevens)
08 On the Road to Find Out (Cat Stevens)
09 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)
10 talk (Cat Stevens)
11 Into White (Cat Stevens)
12 talk (Cat Stevens)
13 Moonshadow (Cat Stevens)
14 Katmandu (Cat Stevens)
15 Maybe You’re Right (Cat Stevens)
16 Lady D’Arbanville (Cat Stevens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687658/CATSTVNS1970_TrubdurLosAnglesCA__12-8-1970_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on the British "Top of the Pops" TV show some time in 1970.

Elton John - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: Playhouse Theatre, Edinburgh, Britain, 9-17-1976

Here is what I presume the last of the Elton John BBC albums from the 1970s (unless something unexpected pops up). This album took place in 1976, which in my opinion marks the end of his peak years of massive success. Disco was king for the rest of the 1970s, and John didn't do well during that time, both personally and musically. But he regained success at the start of the 1980s, and kept it for decades after that.

Anyway, I think this concert may be the best of the BBC ones I've posted here. What sets it apart is that is was performed entirely solo, with just Elton John on the piano. So that makes it a different beast than all the others. I could be wrong, but I believe it was the very first concert he played solo. There's a bonus too. Because of the solo format, he played a few songs he'd rarely or never played in public before, because he thought they didn't work with a band.

The sound quality is fantastic. That said, there were some problems I had to fix. The entire show was broadcast live by the BBC. Unfortunately, some BBC DJs tried to talk between the songs. Luckily, they only did this a little bit, mostly before the show started, during the long applause between encores, and at the end. I took all those out.

A more difficult problem was that a few of the songs had glitches. For instance, "Love Song" started in mid-song, with a BBC DJ talking over it. I suspect there was some sort of short commercial break. About half of the middle of "Tonight" was missing. There were so sound problems on a couple other songs, such as a burst of static during "Candle in the Wind." Luckily, I was able to find video footage of those exact performances on YouTube. The sound quality for those was equally great, but they generally lacked the banter between songs and some of the ending applause. But I was able to use those versions to seamlessly patch in fixes for all the problems. Now, the recording should be just about perfect!

The concert is an hour and 53 minutes long.

01 talk (Elton John)
02 Skyline Pigeon (Elton John)
03 talk (Elton John)
04 I Need You to Turn To (Elton John)
05 talk (Elton John)
06 Sixty Years On (Elton John)
07 Border Song [Holy Moses] (Elton John)
08 talk (Elton John)
09 Daniel (Elton John)
10 Love Song [Edit] (Elton John)
11 talk (Elton John)
12 The Greatest Discovery (Elton John)
13 Candle in the Wind [Edit] (Elton John)
14 talk (Elton John)
15 Benny and the Jets (Elton John)
16 talk (Elton John)
17 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] [Edit] (Elton John)
18 talk (Elton John)
19 Tonight [Edit] (Elton John)
20 talk (Elton John)
21 I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself (Elton John)
22 talk (Elton John)
23 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
24 talk (Elton John)
25 Better Off Dead (Elton John)
26 talk (Elton John)
27 Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (Elton John)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Sweet Painted Lady (Elton John)
32 talk (Elton John)
33 Your Song (Elton John)
34 talk (Elton John)
35 Island Girl (Elton John)
36 talk (Elton John)
37 Don't Go Breakin' My Heart (Elton John)
38 talk (Elton John)
39 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YuAsWusd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xJNnYtnc0usT7sL/file

The cover art photo definitely comes from the concert in question. Thanks to the YouTube videos mentioned above, I was able to confirm him wearing the same outfit.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Bridge School Benefit, Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA, 12-4-1988

In 1985, David Crosby kicked a very serious drug habit after serving nine months in prison. Young promised to reunite CSNY if Crosby ever got his act together, and he kept that promise. This resulted in the 1988 studio album "American Dream." To be honest, it wasn't that good, and certainly didn't live up to the hopes of their long-delayed reunion. But I would argue that most of the songs actually were pretty good, but the album was ruined by typical 1980s overproduction, which didn't suit the band at all.

Unfortunately, Young wasn't willing to go on tour to support the album. But CSNY did play the occasional benefit concert around that time, usually in acoustic format. I think their songs hold up much better in these concerts. Thanks to the acoustic format, the bad production issues are avoided, and CSNY shined in acoustic mode anyway.

Out of these several late 1980s CSNY benefit concerts, the one bootleg recording with the best sound quality has to be the 1988 Bridge Benefit concert. So that makes up the bulk of this album. But CSNY also played at the very first Bridge Benefit concert, in 1986. (It would become an annual event after skipping 1987.) That was a historically significant concert for CSNY, because it was only the second time they reunited since the 1970s, with the first taking place at the Live Aid concert in 1985. 

CSNY only played four songs in the 1986 Bridge Benefit show. Luckily, all four of them are different from the songs they played in the 1988 show. So I start this album out with the short 1986 concert, and then all of the 1988 concert. The only sang is that the sound quality for the 1986 concert isn't as good. It's fairly good, but it's an audience bootleg. Whereas the 1988 concert is a pristine soundboard bootleg. If the sound quality for the 1986 songs aren't good enough for you, just skip those, and you still have a decent length concert with the 1988 stuff.

For the 1988 Bridge Benefit, Young began the concert with a few solo numbers, which I haven't included here since it's just him. But for the last song in that set, "American Dream," CSN surprised the crowd by showing up shortly after the song began. This version is nearly acappella, and in my opinion it's way better than the studio version, again due to those overproduction problems. Too bad the crowd roars due to CSN showing up.

After that one brief appearance, CSNY left the stage. Then they didn't return until nearly the end of the show, after all the other acts. Most of this album is made up of their second and much longer time on stage together. By the way, Bruce Springsteen was the other big headline act for the concert, and CSNY joined Springsteen to sing backing vocals for his hit "Hungry Heart." I didn't include that here though since I decided a Springsteen song is a very different thing and wouldn't fit in with the rest. Plus, the CSNY vocals don't sound that distinctive on that song.

For both concerts here, I broke all the talking between songs into their own tracks. I generally boosted the volume a lot for that banter. In some cases, they were talking off mike to each other but by increasing the volume a lot I made it possible to clearly hear what they were saying. 

The 1986 concert is 17 minutes long. The 1988 concert is 47 minutes long. Added together, the album totals an hour and four minutes.

01 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
03 Change Partners (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
05 Daylight Again - Find the Cost of Freedom (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
07 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
08 American Dream (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Helplessly Hoping (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 Love The One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
14 This Old House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
15 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
16 Southern Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
17 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
18 Don't Say Goodbye (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
19 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
20 Compass (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
21 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
22 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
23 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281880/CrosbSNY_1988_BrdgeSchoolBenefitOklandCliseumOklandCA__12-4-1988_atse.zip.html

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any good photos of CSNY from either the 1986 or 1988 Bridge Benefit shows. If you have one, please let me know. So instead I used a photo of CSNY at a Farm Aid concert in 1989. I also squeezed in the logo for the concert in the bottom left corner.

KT Tunstall - Cover Songs, Volume 3: 2008-2011

Here's some more cover versions by KT Tunstall. As with the previous albums in this series, the songs are generally done with a full band. They also generally hew fairly close to the originals. She simply is having a fun time singing the songs she loves. But every now and then, her versions do differ a lot. The version of "Sombody to Love" here is an example of that.

Often when I put together these sorts of covers albums, there are lots of songs from the 1960s and 1970s. But not here. Tunstall grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, and most of the songs originally date from those years. There are a few exceptions though, for instance "Somebody to Love" being from the 1960s and "New York, I Love You" from the 2000s.

The sound quality for this album is very high. Half the songs are officially released and half are not. But you wouldn't know which is which. Most of the unreleased ones were recorded in the studio, with only one ("Nothing Compares 2 U") coming from a concert. But that one was recorded professionally for a French TV show.

The sound quality is so high that when I relistened to this, I decided that one song, a cover of "The Drugs Don't Work" by the Verve, didn't sound good enough to fit in with the rest. It's not that that one sounds bad at all. In fact, it's pretty good. But it just don't match the others. So it was downgraded to bonus track status.

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

01 Something to Talk About - Bonnie Raitt
02 Kiss on My List - Hall & Oates
03 Walk like an Egyptian - Bangles
04 You're the Voice - John Farnham
05 Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor
06 Because the Night - Bruce Springsteen / Patti Smith
07 New York, I Love You [But You're Bringing Me Down] - LCD Soundsystem
08 Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane
09 Don't You [Forget About Me] - Simple Minds
10 Close to Me - Cure

Here's the usual song list:

01 Something to Talk About (KT Tunstall & Daryl Hall)
02 Kiss on My List (Daryl Hall & KT Tunstall)
03 Walk like an Egyptian (KT Tunstall)
04 You're the Voice (KT Tunstall)
05 Nothing Compares 2 U (Teitur & KT Tunstall)
06 Because the Night (Rhythms del Mundo with KT Tunstall)
07 New York, I Love You [But You're Bringing Me Down] (KT Tunstall)
08 Somebody to Love (Rhythms del Mundo with KT Tunstall)
09 Don't You [Forget About Me] (KT Tunstall)
10 Close to Me (KT Tunstall)

The Drugs Don't Work (KT Tunstall & Billy Bragg) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603052/KTTnstl_2008-2011_CovrSngsVol3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a concert in 2008.

Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Los Angeles, CA, 6-2-1973

The other day, I stumbled across a pretty rare Linda Ronstadt concert bootleg. I really like it, as almost all of the songs are country songs that she didn't put on any of her albums or normally play in concert, and the sound quality is excellent. So I'm posting it here to help give it more attention.

Apparently, in the mid-1970s, Ronstadt occasionally played with this band, the Country Gazette, doing all country covers. Sometimes, she did the same with John Starling. But for whatever reason, these generally haven't been bootlegged, with this one exception. Most of it sounds excellent, as is probably a soundboard. But note that the sound quality for the first two songs isn't as good, with a bit more murk and hiss. Even those two sound pretty decent though.

As an aside, while I was searching the Internet to learn more about this, I came across a similar recording, of both Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris playing with the Seldom Scene in 1975. But, weirdly, they're part of an archive at the University of North Carolina at Raleigh, and you can only download the mp3s if you are physically on that campus! So if anyone reading this is a student there, please do us a favor and free these up for everyone else to hear:

https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/searchterm/Linda%20Ronstadt%20and%20Emmylou%20Harris%20with%20The%20Seldom%20Scene/order/nosort

Anyway, getting back to this concert, although Ronstadt put a fair number of country songs on her early 1970s albums, only one of the songs here, "Crazy Arms," had appeared on any of her albums at the time of this concert. Another one, "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)," would appear on her 1974 album, and would be a minor country hit. So this is pretty much a "lost" Ronstadt album, except performed live.

The location of the concert is not in question. But I had a hard time figuring out just when this concert took place. Some bootlegs have it in 1974, with no specific date, but others have it in 1972, also without a specific date. I also found a comment on the Internet from someone who claimed to have been to the exact show, and taped it, and was certain it took place on June 2, 1973. I wasn't sure which way to go, until I listened to the banter between the songs. At one point, Ronstadt talked about how she'd recently been the opening act for a Neil Young tour. I Googled that, and found out that tour with Young and Ronstadt took place in early 1973 (the "Time Fades Away" tour), and ended in April 1973. Thus, the June 2, 1973 fits her comments perfectly, and must be correct.

I should note that I'm not that into country music, and I'm not that big of a Linda Ronstadt fan either. But I like this album! It's a good bunch of songs, sung and performed very well, with some nice banter between the songs.

This concert is fairly short, at only 35 minutes long.

01 Rocky Top (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
02 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
03 Crazy Arms (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
04 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
05 Once More (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
06 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
07 Wicked Path of Sin (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
08 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
09 I Can't Help It [If I'm Still in Love with You] (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
10 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
11 Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
12 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
13 The Poor Old Slave (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
14 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
15 Angel Band (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
16 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)
17 Orange Blossom Special [Instrumental Version] (Linda Ronstadt with Country Gazette)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16695494/LINDRNSDT1973_McCbesGitarShpLsAnglsCA__6-2-1973__with_Country_Gazette__atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is from a New Year's Eve TV special hosted by Dick Clark at the end of 1973.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Soulful Covers, Volume 2: 2010-2011

A week or two ago, I posted the first of three albums of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings doing all covers, and here's the second. This was in response to their new all-covers album, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)." All the albums I'm posting in this series avoid any of the songs on that official album.

Six of the songs here are officially unreleased. But the sound quality is very good for that sort of thing. It helps that three of the songs come from an in-studio Internet show, and another comes from a TV show. So only two are from concert bootlegs.

The song "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" included a long section in the middle where each band member was introduced and then played their instrument for a few moments. I cut all that out except for the intros to the two back-up singers, since I like what they did with those. I ended up cutting the song length about in half, which is why "Edit" is in the title.

01 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love [Edit] (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
02 Dancing Together (David Byrne & Fatboy Slim with Sharon Jones)
03 Road of Broken Hearted Men - When the Saints Go Marching In (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
04 Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Daryl Hall & Sharon Jones)
05 Hot Fun in the Summertime (Daryl Hall & Sharon Jones)
06 It's Uncanny (Daryl Hall & Sharon Jones)
07 Wild Horses (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
08 You Know I'm No Good (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings with Wanda Jackson)
09 Messin' Up (Steve Cropper & Sharon Jones)
10 Come On and Save Me (Steve Cropper, Dylan LeBlanc & Sharon Jones)
11 I'll Be Around (Lee Fields & Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328491/SharonJns_2010-2011_SoulfulCovrsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at the Apollo Theater in New York City in 2010.

Fleetwood Mac - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2-28-1969

I thought I was all done posting material from the Peter Green era of Fleetwood Mac. In terms of live material, there are only so many concerts that haven't been officially released yet still have high sound quality. But I found one more that's worthy, and anything featuring Peter Green in his prime is worth hearing, so here it is.

This is a strange one, because it's made up of two concerts that were performed in different cities in the Netherlands on the exact same night. Fleetwood Mac played at a venue called the Concertgebouw in The Hague around 6 P.M. Then they played another concert in Amsterdam at a venue with the exact same name later that same evening. (It seems they didn't go on stage until around midnight.) I don't know if it was by chance or what, but over the next few months, about half an hour of the Hague concert was played on Dutch radio or TV, from a longer show, then about half an hour of the Amsterdam concert was played on Dutch radio or TV, also from a longer show. The two broadcast portions were bootlegged over the years, while the rest of both concerts seem to have gotten lost.

This album consists of the broadcast portions from those two concerts. However, I've organized it so that most of the second concert comes first. That's because we have the ending of the first concert but not the ending of the second one, so it makes sense to end with an ending.

Generally speaking, the sound quality is excellent, since this was professionally recorded for either radio or TV. That said, some parts sound better than others. Some songs sound fantastic and some sound merely good. That's probably because the bootlegs were cobbled together from different sources. I worked with my musical associate MZ on improving the sound quality. He made some nice improvements, but sometimes one can only do so much. A few of the talking bits between songs come from worse sources, but that doesn't matter much since it's only a little bit of banter.

I cut a few songs for various reasons. There were two versions of "One Sided Love," so I only used one of them. A short snippet of "Teenage Darlin'" was played, but it really was only the bass line while the audience was cheering. That led into "Twist and Shout," but less than a minute of that was recorded. So I didn't include either of those.

Note that two of the exact performances here, "One Sided Love" and "Greeny Alone," were used on the stray tracks album I made called "One Sided Love."

The entire album is 59 minutes long. The Amsterdam portion is 35 minutes long and the Hague portion is 24 minutes long. The Hague portion includes the very first track (which is only a few seconds of an MC introducing the band in Dutch), then from track 13 to the end.

By the way, for the very delicate types out there, there are some X-rated improvised lyrics to the "Blue Suede Shoes" medley.

01 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
02 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
03 Merry Go Round (Fleetwood Mac)
04 One Sided Love (Fleetwood Mac)
05 Dust My Broom (Fleetwood Mac)
06 Got to Move (Fleetwood Mac)
07 Greeny Alone [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
08 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
09 Sugar Mama (Fleetwood Mac)
10 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
11 I Can't Hold Out (Fleetwood Mac)
12 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
13 Stop Messin' Round (Fleetwood Mac)
14 San-Ho-Zay [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
15 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
16 Albatross [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
17 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
18 Tallahassee Lassie (Fleetwood Mac)
19 Blue Suede Shoes - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Blue Suede Shoes (Fleetwood Mac)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15291491/FleetwodMc_1969a_ConcertgbouwAmsterdmNetherlands__2-28-1969_atse.zip.html

What a nice lucky break! I've had a hard time finding any good photos of the band on stage in 1969. But I happened to find the concert poster for the exact Amsterdam concert featured here. I didn't change a thing, so I hope your Dutch is good if you want to read all of it. :) But concert posters are rectangular. To make it fit, I cut out the portion of it below the band name. That portion mainly mentioned the name of the supporting bands, which were Cuby + Buzzards, and Livin' Blues.

Neil Young - Last Dance - Non-Album Tracks (1973)

A few days ago as I write this, the Neil Young box set "Archives, Volume II" was released. Man oh man! I've been waiting to hear the songs on that for decades. It sounds just as good as I'd hoped. If you're a Neil Young fan at all, I highly recommend that you get it.

I've already posted a couple of stray tracks albums in the time period covered by the box set, 1972 to 1976. I plan on redoing and expanding that effort, starting here. This one is a bit different than the others I plan on doing though, because Young came very close to releasing an album called "Last Dance" in 1973, and the exact song list is known for it. So this is closely based on that.

Here's a short article from "Uncut" magazine about this lost album:

Neil Young was still laid up at his Broken Arrow ranch, just south of San Francisco, recovering from spinal surgery, when “Harvest” made him the biggest-selling solo artist in the world. During the long months of his recuperation, there had been a growing clamour for him to tour that had gone unanswered, although he knew there were big bucks to be made by everyone after the album’s phenomenal success. His record company had simultaneously been so hungry for a follow-up that in November 1972, they’d released the soundtrack from his unseen film, “Journey Through The Past”. It was a rag-bag of old tracks, studio outtakes, a couple of live cuts, bits of Handel’s “Messiah”, a cover of The Beach Boys’ “Let’s Go Away For Awhile” and only one new song, “Soldier”. Young hadn’t wanted it released at all, but Warners had told him they’d distribute the film if he gave them the soundtrack. They then tried to dress it up as his ‘new’ album, and promptly dumped the film.

The same month, fuming at the label’s duplicity, he anyway started to assemble a large crew of technicians at his ranch to prepare for a three-month, 65-date tour, the largest and longest of its kind to date, which would find him playing nightly to audiences of up to 20,000 people in sports stadiums, basketball arenas, and ice hockey rinks. Also at Broken Arrow were the Stray Gators, the band who’d played on “Harvest”, including veteran Nashville session drummer Kenny Buttrey, bassist Tim Drummond, pedal-steel player Ben Keith and on keyboards Jack Nitzsche, the producer and arranger who’d first worked with Young on his Buffalo Springfield epic, “Expecting To Fly”. They would be his backing band on the forthcoming tour, rehearsals for which were interspersed with recording sessions for the official follow-up to “Harvest”.

Young had already recorded four solo acoustic demos at A&M Studios in LA – “Letter From Nam”, “Last Dance”, “Come Along And Say You Will” and “The Bridge” – and worked up more new songs at Broken Arrow. The new record’s working title was “Last Dance”. 

---

Now, for the first time, the public has all the songs that makes up this album. Instead of releasing "Last Dance," Young decided to release the live album "Time Fades Away" that largely contained the same bunch of songs. However, the tour for that album had lots of problems, and the album itself was problematic. Young was dissatisfied with it and kept it out of print for decades. So it's especially interesting to hear the alternate album for most of those songs, "Last Dance."

In putting this together, I could just make an album that's exactly the songs on the known song list for this album. But I didn't want to do that for my own listening purposes, because two of the songs ("New Mama" and "Lookout Joe") would later go on his acclaimed album "Tonight's the Night," and I don't like having those on both albums. So what I've done is create two versions of this album. One follows the exact song list that Young intended. The other removes the "Tonight's the Night" songs and replaces them with other songs from the time period that fit.

One song I've added is "Letter from 'Nam." This one had been unreleased and even unbootlegged until "Archives, Volume II." However, it turns out to basically be the exact same song as "Long Walk Home" from his 1987 album "Life," so I've added that as the subtitle. I've also added a great acoustic version of "L.A." from the box set, and removed the audience noise as best I could. Furthermore, I've added the exact same version of "Yonder Stands the Sinner" as on the "Time Fades Away" album. I want to include all the "Time Fades Away" songs, but there are no publicly available studio versions of those two songs. Plus, "Yonder Stands the Sinner" was only played a few times in 1973, so the "Time Fades Away" version is the only version with excellent sound quality.

Note that the version of the song "Last Dance" I've included is called "Monday Morning" on the box set. It's drastically different than the live version on "Time Fades Away." It's an acoustic demo, whereas the live version is a rocking version with a band, and is considerably longer. But the words and melody are exactly the same, so I've put "Last Dance" in as the song's subtitle.

When all is said and done, all but two of the songs here are studio versions.  The album is 37 minutes long, which is right in line with the lengths of his albums in that era. I didn't include one new and previously unreleased song played on his 1973 tour, "Sweet Joni." But I plan to do something with it for my next revised 1970s stray tracks album.

Here's the song list for my preferred version of this album. Note that I've added the two "Tonight's the Night" songs on the intended song list as bonus tracks. Both of those come from the live "Tuscaloosa" album, with the audience noise removed.

01 Time Fades Away (Neil Young)
02 Yonder Stands the Sinner (Neil Young)
03 Come Along and Say You Will (Neil Young)
04 The Bridge (Neil Young)
05 Don't Be Denied (Neil Young)
06 L.A. (Neil Young)
07 Letter from 'Nam [Long Walk Home] (Neil Young)
08 Journey through the Past (Neil Young)
09 Monday Morning [Last Dance] (Neil Young)
10 Goodbye Christians on the Shore (Neil Young)

Lookout Joe (Neil Young)
New Mama (Neil Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15848399/NeilY_1973_LastDnce_atse.zip.html

Here also is what I call the "exact version" of the album, which follows Young's intended song list exactly. Note though that he almost certainly would have used a full band version of "Last Dance" similar to the live version on "Time Fades Away" instead of the "Monday Morning" demo I used here.

01 Time Fades Away (Neil Young)
02 New Mama (Neil Young)
03 Come Along and Say You Will (Neil Young)
04 The Bridge (Neil Young)
05 Don't Be Denied (Neil Young)
06 Lookout Joe (Neil Young)
07 Journey through the Past (Neil Young)
08 Monday Morning [Last Dance] (Neil Young)
09 Goodbye Christians on the Shore (Neil Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191362/NeilY_1973_LstDnceExactVrsion.zip.html

Although the title and song list for the "Last Dance" is known, I don't know if a cover was ever made for it. So we just have to guess. I've used the cover Young selected for the CD in the box set that largely deals with this time period. But that CD is called "Everybody's Alone." I took some of his writing from the "Time Fades Away" album and replaced the words "Everybody's Alone" with "Last Dance." The cover is otherwise unchanged.

Morgan James - Acoustic Cover Songs, Volume 5, 2018-2019

I've got lots of Morgan James material to post, so here's the next one. In case you need a reminder, she puts her own songs on her own studio albums, but she's also fond of doing lots of cover versions for YouTube, with just a solo acoustic guitar accompanying her.

This is exactly the same approach as the previous four volumes in this series. All the songs are unreleased, but the sound quality is high.

Note that the third to fifth songs are all covers from the Beatles' "White Album." In 2018, she performed that entire double album, in order, with just an acoustic guitar backing her up. It's really good, but it's also an officially released album, so I'm not going to post it here. However, she did these three songs on a separate occasion, so I can include them. If you like what she does, I suggest getting that album, as well as her version of all of Joni Mitchell's "Blue" album.

By the way, the second to last song, "Love's in Need of Love Today," was done as a duet with another woman. But the video doesn't name that woman, so I can't credit her. If you recognize her (by watching the YouTube video) and know her name, please let me know.

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

01 Lithium - Nirvana
02 Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor
03 Dear Prudence - Beatles
04 Why Don't We Do It in the Road - Beatles
05 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - Beatles
06 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland
07 Bring It On Home to Me -  Sam Cooke
08 If You Don't Know Me by Now - Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes
09 Feelin' Alright - Traffic / Joe Cocker
10 Find the Cost of Freedom - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
11 Calling You - Jevetta Steele
12 Love's in Need of Love Today - Stevie Wonder
13 Say It Ain't So - Weezer

Here's the usual song list:

01 Lithium (Morgan James)
02 Nothing Compares 2 U (Morgan James)
03 Dear Prudence (Morgan James)
04 Why Don't We Do It in the Road (Morgan James)
05 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Morgan James)
06 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Morgan James)
07 Bring It On Home to Me (Morgan James)
08 If You Don't Know Me by Now (Morgan James)
09 Feelin' Alright (Morgan James)
10 Find the Cost of Freedom (Morgan James)
11 Calling You (Morgan James)
12 Love's in Need of Love Today (Morgan James)
13 Say It Ain't So (Morgan James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266970/MorganJ_2018-2019_AcoustcCoverSongsVolume5_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken in 2018, though I don't know the details. The wall behind her head had some writing on it which I found distracting, so I removed that in Photoshop.

Fairport Convention - One More Chance - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: 1973-1975

I just posted an album of Fairport Convention at the BBC, from 1971 to 1973. This follows that one. In my opinion, 1971 to 1973 wasn't a great time for the band, since they'd lost both Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny and didn't find anyone worthy of filling those very big musical shoes. But in 1974, Denny came back. She didn't stay long, only through 1975, but her presence helped revive the band for a while. 

This album roughly corresponds with her second time in the band. She shows up from the fourth song through the last one. She sings most of the songs she was present for.

The previous album in this BBC series was easy to put together, since all but two of the songs came from the "Live at the BBC" box set. This one was considerably more tricky. Only four of the songs come from that. Some weren't performed for the BBC per se, but were done for other radio or TV shows. Of those other songs, five come from album bonus tracks, and one comes from a different box set. 

That leaves just one song that remains officially unreleased, "One More Chance." It was performed for a Dutch TV show, and the sound is pretty good.

Denny left the band again at the end of 1975 or early 1976, along with Trevor Lucas and Jerry Donahue. In my opinion, that marks the end of the band's best years. The adopted a much lower profile for the rest of the 1970s and pretty much didn't appear at the BBC during those years. So I'm ending the BBC series here.

01 Brilliancy Medley - Cherokee Shuffle [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
02 George Jackson (Fairport Convention)
03 Six Days on the Road (Fairport Convention)
04 John the Gun (Fairport Convention)
05 The Devil in the Kitchen [Fiddlestix] [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
06 Rising for the Moon (Fairport Convention)
07 Down in the Flood (Fairport Convention)
08 Breakfast in Mayfair (Fairport Convention)
09 Farewell to a Poor Man's Son (Fairport Convention)
10 One More Chance (Fairport Convention)
11 White Dress (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Q8F6F4gK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LCLuVYYDU8h4N2g/file

I had a really hard time finding any good photos of the band from the years Denny rejoined. I had to resort to taking a screenshot of a brief clip of the band playing on "The London Weekend Show" in 1975. The picture is somewhat low-res. If you know of a better one I can use, please let me know.

Fairport Convention - Banks of the Sweet Primroses - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: 1971-1973

In my opinion, the two musical greats in Fairport Convention were Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny. Unfortunately, by the end of 1970, both of them had left the band. There still were other excellent musicians in the band, though. So although my interest in the band drops quite a lot after 1970, I'm continuing my BBC series through the rest of the early 1970s, with this album and one other one.

The vast majority of the songs here come from the "Live at the BBC" box set. In fact, most songs are from just two BBC sessions on that, with the first five songs from one BBC session in 1971 and the last four songs from another session in 1973. 

That just leaves two songs in the middle. The first one, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is a real oddity. Perhaps it doesn't belong here, since it isn't from Fairport Convention at all, but instead is of a band, the Performing Gibsons, that was led by two prominent former members of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson and Ian Matthew. This band was only in existence a short time and never officially released anything at all. But they played live on the BBC once, and did this Dylan song as well as song others. 

That leaves just "The Hanging Song." This was done by Fairport Convention for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." Luckily, the sound quality is excellent, even though the performance remains unreleased.

01 Sir William Gower (Fairport Convention)
02 Banks of the Sweet Primroses (Fairport Convention)
03 Bridge Over the River Ash [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
04 Lord Marlborough (Fairport Convention)
05 Angel Delight (Fairport Convention)
06 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Performing Gibsons [Ian Matthew & Richard Thompson])
07 The Hanging Song (Fairport Convention)
08 Tokyo [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
09 Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (Fairport Convention)
10 Possibly Parsons Green (Fairport Convention)
11 Rosie (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115463/FairprtC_1971-1973_BnksoftheSweetPrimrosesBBSessionsVolume6_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo shows the band playing a concert at the Winterland in San Francisco in October 1971. From left to right are: Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol, and Dave Swarbrick.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Soulful Covers, Volume 1: 1998-2009

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were a fantastic retro-soul band, until Jones died of cancer in 2016. They made a point of flling their albums with original songs. But earlier this month, they released the album "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)" that consisted entirely of covers, performed back when Jones was still alive. 

This gave me the idea to compile all the other cover songs they did. It turns out there were a lot. In fact, I found enough for three albums. Here's the first one. In my opinion, Jones was a great singer, and the Dap-Kings were a very fine backing band for her, and I love their retro soul sound. But if they had one weakness, it was in the strength of their original material, which was hit and miss. So, in my opinion, they really excel doing these covers of the songs they love.

Most of the songs here have been officially released. The exceptions are "Sweet Jane" plus the last three songs. As an aside, I'm amused by the "Sweet Jane" cover, which is a "duet" between Jones and Lou Reed, who wrote the song when he was part of the Velvet Underground. It started out with Reed singing it, as he usually did, but then Jones totally took over and left Reed far behind, relegating him to singing some backing vocals near the end of the song. Not exactly a typical duet!

Anyway, the sound quality of the four unreleased songs are excellent, so the whole thing sounds very good. I put the song in rough chronological order by year, with the exception of "Amazing Grace," which fit better as the last song. Note that version is rather short, less than a minute long, but I figure it's better than not having any of the song at all.

01 I Got the Feeling (Sharon Jones)
02 Got to Be a Love (Greyboy with Quantic & Sharon Jones)
03 Sweet Jane (Lou Reed & Sharon Jones)
04 Wild about That Thing (Sharon Jones with Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges)
05 It's Tight like That (Sharon Jones with Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges)
06 We Shall Not Be Moved (Sharon Jones With Billy Rivers & the Angelic Voices of Faith)
07 That's What My Baby Likes (Sharon Jones with Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges)
08 The Way We Lived (Wax Tailor with Sharon Jones)
09 Baby [You've Got What It Takes] (Michael Buble & Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
10 You Can't Hurry Love (Ralph Sall Experience with Sharon Jones)
11 A Change Is Gonna Come (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
12 There Was a Time (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)
13 Amazing Grace (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15133658/SharonJns_1998-2009_SoulfulCovrsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California, in 2008. For the text I tried to go with the retro soul look that matches the music.

Larkin Poe - Home Concert, Nashville, TN, 11-21-2020

A couple of days ago, as I write this, Larkin Poe released their latest studio album, "Kindred Spirits." Unlike their previous albums made of originals, this one consists entirely of cover versions, done acoustically. It closely follows their great "Tip 'O the Hat" YouTube series. I've posted all of the songs from that long series as I'm able to gather them into albums. Some of the songs on their new album have been done in that series, but some are new.

Anyway, to promote their new album, Larkin Poe performed a home concert right when the album was released. The full home concert is over an hour long, and is available on YouTube under the name "Larkin Poe Release Party." I've edited that show way down for this album, because about half of that consisted of question and answer sessions that don't have much repeat listening value. If you want to hear all that, I recommend listening at YouTube.

Instead, I've cut the show down to just the music, plus the talking that is directly relevant to the songs they played. All the songs they played are on their new album but one ("Come On in My Kitchen"). But there are only six songs here from the album and the album contains 11 songs in total, so I hope this will spur you to get the album.

This concert is fairly short, at 28 minutes, but that's all there was to the concert that I felt made for a good listen.

01 talk (Larkin Poe)
02 Bell Bottom Blues (Larkin Poe)
03 talk (Larkin Poe)
04 Who Do You Love (Larkin Poe)
05 talk (Larkin Poe)
06 Nights in White Satin (Larkin Poe)
07 talk (Larkin Poe)
08 Rockin' in the Free World (Larkin Poe)
09 talk (Larkin Poe)
10 Crocodile Rock (Larkin Poe)
11 talk (Larkin Poe)
12 Come On in My Kitchen (Larkin Poe)
13 talk (Larkin Poe)
14 Take What You Want (Larkin Poe)
15 talk (Larkin Poe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15181822/LarkinP_2020g_HmeConcrtNshvilleTN__11-21-2020_atse.zip.html

The album cover is a screenshot I took from the YouTube video of the exact concert in question.

Chris Stamey - Secret Communist Meeting, Home Concert, East Windsor, NJ, 2-19-2005

Chris Stamey has had a musical career since the 1970s and has been involved in many bands and projects, but he's best known for being one of the two main creative forces in he dB's. You can read more about him at his Wikipedia page here:

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

I'm not a huge follower of his career, but recently, musical associate Lil Panda sent me this bootleg, which apparently has never publicly circulated before. Both the sound quality and performance quality is so good that I felt compelled to share it.

This concert took place at someone's house, with an audience of probably only a couple dozen people, judging by the clapping sounds. It's not a soundboard, but in a venue that small and intimate, that hardly matters. What does matter is that it was recorded well. The volume of the applause at the end of each song was too loud, so I turned that down, and the volume of the banter between songs was too quiet, so I turned that up. Otherwise, there were no problems to speak of.

In the year this concert took place, he had a new album out, called "A Question of Temperature." But he didn't play much from that. The concert has songs from all stages of his career, including old dB's songs, plus a few covers (like "Expecting to Fly" by Buffalo Springfield" and "Let It Be Me" by the Everly Brothers. He played acoustic guitar, and was backed up by one or two others, including some piano.

The concert is two hours and four minutes long. I called it "Secret Communist Meeting," because he made a couple of playful references to that in his banter between songs.

Since I'm not that knowledgeable about Stamey and the dB's, I got help from Rob of the excellent blog dBs Repercussion, which can be found here:

https://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com/

He helped me get the correct song titles. A few of the songs are unreleased, so the titles are speculative: "Remedy (I Want a Cure)," and the snippets "Street Team" and "Back It Up."

01 Something Came Over Me (Chris Stamey)
02 talk (Chris Stamey)
03 Broken Record (Chris Stamey)
04 talk (Chris Stamey)
05 From a Window to a Screen (Chris Stamey)
06 talk (Chris Stamey)
07 Close Your Eyes (Chris Stamey)
08 talk (Chris Stamey)
09 The Lie (Chris Stamey)
10 talk (Chris Stamey)
11 Skin (Chris Stamey)
12 talk (Chris Stamey)
13 Venus DeMilo (Chris Stamey)
14 talk (Chris Stamey)
15 In Spanish Harlem (Chris Stamey)
16 talk (Chris Stamey)
17 Tape Op Blues (Chris Stamey)
18 talk (Chris Stamey)
19 The Newlyweds (Chris Stamey)
20 talk (Chris Stamey)
21 Occasional Shivers (Chris Stamey)
22 talk (Chris Stamey)
23 The Summer Sun (Chris Stamey)
24 talk (Chris Stamey)
25 talk (Chris Stamey)
26 Expecting to Fly (Chris Stamey)
27 talk (Chris Stamey)
28 Insomnia (Chris Stamey)
29 talk (Chris Stamey)
30 Two Places at Once (Chris Stamey)
31 talk (Chris Stamey)
32 Send Me Something Real (Chris Stamey)
33 talk (Chris Stamey)
34 Company of Light (Chris Stamey)
35 talk (Chris Stamey)
36 Street Team (Chris Stamey)
37 talk (Chris Stamey)
38 Back It Up (Chris Stamey)
39 talk (Chris Stamey)
40 Instrumental (Chris Stamey)
41 Remedy [I Want a Cure] (Chris Stamey)
42 If and When (Chris Stamey)
43 talk (Chris Stamey)
44 Let It Be Me (Chris Stamey)
45 talk (Chris Stamey)
46 Kierkegaard (Chris Stamey)
47 talk (Chris Stamey)
48 I Want to Break Your Heart (Chris Stamey)
49 talk (Chris Stamey)
50 Song for Johnny Cash (Chris Stamey)
51 talk (Chris Stamey)
52 Before We Were Born (Chris Stamey)
53 14 Shades of Green (Chris Stamey)

The download is split into two parts:

Part 1:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16065472/ChrsStmey_2005_SecrtCmmunstMeetngHomConcrtEstWndsorNJ__2-19-2005_Pt1_atse.zip.html

Part 2:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16065812/ChrsStmey_2005_SecrtCmmunstMeetngHomConcrtEstWndsorNJ__2-19-2005_Pt2_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo features Stamey at a dB's concert in Chicago in 2005.

10cc - Civic Center, Santa Monica, CA, 11-26-1975

A few days ago, I posted a live acoustic album by Graham Gouldman, who in my opinion is one of the best songwriters ever. I highly recommend that album. Putting that together got me in a 10cc mood, since Gouldman has been a key member of that band since its founding in the early 1970s. It dawned on me that I didn't have any live 10cc album. Long story short, I looked around and decided that this is the best live 10cc album out there, even though it's a bootleg.

10cc in its prime was a collaboration between four talented songwriters: Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. Needless to say, it's highly unusual to have four talented songwriters in one band. Even the Beatles only managed three (since Ringo Starr only dabbles in writing songs). The problem is, songwriters generally want to do their own things with their own songs. Sure enough, 10cc proved to be unstable. The line-up with all four songwriters only lasted four years, from 1972 to 1976. At that point, Godley and Creme left to form a duo, logically named "Godley and Creme." 

I wanted a live album from the time all four songwriters were in the band, preferrably near the end of that time, so that most of their best songs as a foursome could be included. It turns out there are very few good bootlegs from that era, and no official live albums. Luckily, there's one that stands far above the rest, and that's this one. (The band's first live album, "Live and Let Live," comes from 1977 concerts, so it doesn't feature Godley and Creme or feature their songs.)

This bootleg was in very good shape. It obviously comes from a soundboard source. I didn't have to do any tinkering, except to break up the banter between songs into their own tracks. In my opinion, it sounds as good as their official 1977 album. There was only one album with all four songwriters released after this, "How Dare You!" in 1976. The best known song from that album is "Art for Art's Sake." Happily, that played that song here. Thus, all the best known songs from that era are included, with the exception of "I'm Mandy Fly Me," also from the "How Dare You!" album.

By the way, in 1971, the group "Hotlegs" had a huge hit with the song "Neanderthal Man." In actuality, that group really was 10cc, before they settled on that band name. During this concert, someone in the audience knew Hotlegs and 10cc was one and the same and loudly shouted out for "Neanderthal Man." The band seemed amused and obligingly played it, but only for less than a minute, since it was a silly novelty hit that they probably weren't that fond of.

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long.

01 Introduction (10cc)
02 Silly Love (10cc)
03 Flying Junk (10cc)
04 talk (10cc)
05 Baron Samedi (10cc)
06 Old Wild Men (10cc)
07 talk (10cc)
08 The Sacro-Iliac (10cc)
09 talk (10cc)
10 Somewhere in Hollywood (10cc)
11 talk (10cc)
12 Donna (10cc)
13 talk (10cc)
14 Ships Don't Disappear in the Night [Do They] (10cc)
15 talk (10cc)
16 I'm Not In Love (10cc)
17 talk (10cc)
18 The Film of My Love (10cc)
19 talk (10cc)
20 Art for Art's Sake (10cc)
21 talk (10cc)
22 The Worst Band in the World (10cc)
23 talk (10cc)
24 Neanderthal Man (10cc)
25 talk (10cc)
26 The Wall Street Shuffle (10cc)
27 talk (10cc)
28 Rubber Bullets (10cc)
29 talk (10cc)
30 Une Nuit a Paris (10cc)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mptkm

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6V7TM4bp

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/GVau10m6KNxhd7A/file

I wanted to use a photo of the band in 1975, showing all four members. I couldn't find a really good one though. But I found a good one from 1974, from them doing an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" TV show.

KT Tunstall - Cover Songs, Volume 2: 2007-2008

I recently posted an album of KT Tunstall's cover songs. Even though her albums are all or almost all original songs, she has a lot of fun doing covers, so I have no less than six albums in this series. Here's the next one.

All but two of the songs here are officially released. Those two ("My Sharona" and "Out of Touch") were recorded for a radio show and an Internet show respectively, so they sound just as good as the others. The vast majority of the songs are studio versions instead of live ones.

In 2007, Tunstall released a Christmas-themed EP that contained all cover songs. So this album has a lot of Christmas songs on it. I've tried to spread them out so this doesn't come off as a heavily seasonal thing. Luckily, most of the songs she chose for that were good songs that just happen to have a Christmas link to them - "2000 Miles" by the Pretenders being on a good example of that. I left off one song from that EP, "Sleigh Ride," since that was is too overtly Christmas-y for my tastes to fit into something like this.

Tunstall rarely tries to reinvent the cover songs she does. She just enjoys playing the songs she loves, and she does a very good job of it. I like her wide-ranging musical selections, and sometimes she manages to rescue good songs from obscurity.

01 I Want You Back - Jackson 5
02 Christmas [Baby Please Come Home] - Darlene Love
03 Ain't Nobody -Rufus with Chaka Khan
04 Fairytale of New York - Pogues & Kirsty MacColl
05 Let's Stick Together - Wilbert Harrison / Canned Heat
06 2000 Miles - Pretenders
07 La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf
08 Mele Kalikimaka [Christmas in Hawaii] - Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters
09 My Sharona - Knack
10 The Prayer - Bloc Party
11 Lonely This Christmas - Mud
12 Out of Touch - Hall & Oates

Here's the usual song list:

01 I Want You Back (KT Tunstall)
02 Christmas [Baby Please Come Home] (KT Tunstall)
03 Ain't Nobody (KT Tunstall)
04 Fairytale of New York (KT Tunstall & Ed Harcourt)
05 Let's Stick Together (KT Tunstall)
06 2000 Miles (KT Tunstall)
07 La Vie En Rose (KT Tunstall)
08 Mele Kalikimaka [Christmas in Hawaii] (KT Tunstall)
09 My Sharona (KT Tunstall & Keren Ann)
10 The Prayer (KT Tunstall)
11 Lonely This Christmas (KT Tunstall)
12 Out of Touch (Daryl Hall & KT Tunstall)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603014/KTTnstl_2007-2008_CovrSngsVol2_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo features Tunstall playing for "The Today Show" in New York City in 2007.