The Who - After the Fire - Non-Album Tracks (1982-1991)

I've been posting at this blog for over four years now. There are so many artists that I've been dealing with that sometimes I lose track. That's the case with the Who. I posted some stray tracks albums from them way back, but I lost track before I finished. I have this album plus one more to get things more or less to the current day.

The Who put out the album "It's Hard" in 1982 and then broke up. Well, kind of. They didn't stay broken up for long. They reunited for the famous Live Aid benefit concert in 1985, and then went on a big tour in 1989. Since 1982, unfortunately, they've become more of a nostalgia act, continuing to make lots of money with touring, but only putting out two new albums and a few other songs here and there. Their main songwriter Pete Townshend has favored his solo career when it comes to putting out his new songs. 

For this album, I'm generally avoiding Townshend's solo material and focusing on what little there is done by the Who, as well as the occasional solo song by lead vocalist Roger Daltrey. Personally, I'm far less interested in Daltrey's solo material than Townshend's. I just don't think he's done that many songs that stand up to the quality of The Who, in large part because he's usually chosen songs that don't rock like Who songs do. So when there is the occasional excellent solo song from him from this time period, I've included it here.

All but two of the songs here are officially released, although the first two only came out on DVD, if that counts. Those two, "Twist and Shout" and "I Saw Her Standing There," are covers the Who did on their 1982 tour. The next two come from a 1985 Daltrey solo album. "After the Fire" has more of a Who connection because it was written by Townshend. Apparently, the Who planned to perform it at Live Aid that year, but they couldn't rehearse it enough to do it justice in time.

In 1989, Townshend put out a solo album called "The Iron Man." He utilized some lead vocalists on some of the songs other than himself. For two of the songs, "Dig" and "Fire," Daltrey sang lead, and bassist John Entwistle played too, so those were rightly billed as Who songs. Thus their inclusion here, despite appearing on a Townshend solo album. The two songs after that, "Born on the Bayou" and "Hey Joe," are covers of classics done by the Who on their 1989 tour. These are the only two unreleased songs, but they come from an excellent sounding soundboard bootleg.

In 1991, the Who briefly got back together again to record a cover of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" for an Elton John tribute album.

This is a motley collection of songs from a nine-year time span. The Who just didn't do many new songs during this time period. But I think it's nice to have them collected together just the same.

This album is 47 minutes long.

UPDATE: On July 1, 2022, I update the mp3 download file. I added two songs that were released in 2021 as bonus tracks of the band's 1982 "It's Hard." The songs are "Eminence Front" and "One's Life Enough." Instrumentally, both versions are exactly the same as the album versions. However, on that album "Eminence Front" was sung by Townshend and here it's sung by Daltrey. Whereas "One Life's Enough" was sung by Daltrey, and here it's sung by Townshend.

Adding those two songs made this album rather long, and the next album in this stray tracks series was rather short. So I moved the last song that had been here, "The Sea Refuses No River," to the start of the next album.

01 Eminence Front [Roger Daltrey Vocals Version] (Who)
02 One Life's Enough [Pete Townshend Vocals Version] (Who)
03 Twist and Shout (Who)
04 I Saw Her Standing There (Who)
05 After the Fire (Roger Daltrey)
06 Under a Raging Moon (Roger Daltrey)
07 Fire (Who)
08 Dig (Who)
09 Born on the Bayou (Who)
10 Hey Joe (Who)
11 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Who)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LHg71MpC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Td9TUyW0k4ciurI/file

The cover uses a publicity photo of the band in 1982.

Georgie Fame - BBC Sessions, Volume 3 (1966-1968)

Here's the third and final album of George Fame at the BBC in the 1960s.

Fame remained very popular during this time frame. In fact, one of the songs here, "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde," was a number one hit in Britain in 1968 (and his only significant hit in the US).

Seven songs here are officially released, from the album "The Complete Live Broadcasts." "Knock on Wood" and "Sidewinder" come from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Club" in 1968. Those songs are unreleased. There also are four unreleased songs from BBC studio sessions.

As is typically the case with 1960s BBC sessions, some of the songs had BBC DJs talking over the music. And, as I usually do, I wiped that talking out using the X-Minus audio editing program. There were six such songs this time (each one with "[Edit]" in their titles).

This album is 39 minutes long.

UPDATE: The mp3 download file was updated on June 12, 2022. I found two songs I'd missed, "Someday Man" and "Fire and Rain."

01 Papa's Got a Brand New Bag (Georgie Fame)
02 Keep Your Big Mouth Shut (Georgie Fame)
03 Three Blind Mice (Georgie Fame)
04 Do the Dog [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
05 Because I Love You [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
06 The Point of No Return (Georgie Fame)
07 Knock On Wood (Georgie Fame)
08 Sidewinder [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
09 Waiting Time [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
10 El Pussycat [Instrumental] (Georgie Fame)
11 The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde (Georgie Fame)
12 Respoken [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
13 Pink Champagne [Edit] (Georgie Fame)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116179/GeorgieF_1966-1968_BBSessionsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows Fame performing on the BBC TV show "Ready, Steady, Go" in 1968.

The Allman Brothers Band - Win, Lose or Draw - Alternate Version (1975)

I've posted a bunch of albums dealing with the peak years of the Allman Brothers Band, 1969 to 1973, as well as the years leading up to then. But what happened to the band after that? I plan to post more albums to gather more of their best music. Next up is the band's 1975 album, "Win, Lose or Draw."

This is a pretty decent album in its officially released form. But it pales in comparison to all the classic albums the band released from 1969 to 1973. Unfortunately, the band suffered the typical problems of bands that made it big, such as inflated egos, lots of drugs, and too many distractions. And they got really big in 1973, especially when their song "Ramblin' Man" became a number one hit in the US. But their problems were compounded by the death of guitarist Duane Allman in 1971 and then bassist Berry Oakley in 1972. In many ways, the band never fully recovered from those blows.

By the time the band worked on "Win, Lose or Draw," they were barely a band at all. The two remaining stars, keyboardist and vocalist Gregg Allman, and guitarist and vocalist Dickey Betts, spent most of their creative energies in 1973 and 1974 on solo albums and tours and the like. Relations between Gregg Allman and the rest of the band were so bad that he was rarely in the recording studio with them, doing the bare minimum to get his lead vocals done. But he was hardly the only problem. The band didn't sound that together because they weren't. Furthermore, many of the best songs were saved for solo albums instead.

That's not to say the album doesn't have its moments. In my opinion, "Can't Lose What You Never Had" and "Win, Lose or Draw" are classic songs that should go on any decent sized best of album. But the album had some duds too. Unfortunately, two of the lesser songs, "Nevertheless" and "Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John," were chosen as the album's two singles. Needless to say, they didn't do well. Overall, the album was considered a disappointment, even though it made it to number five in the US album charts. Then, further problems between band members caused the band to break up entirely in early 1976. (They would get back together in 1979, but that's a story for another time.)

You can read even more about the troubles the band had recording the album in the Wikipedia entry on the album:

Win, Lose or Draw (album) - Wikipedia

I believe I've made a much better version of this album, one that is worthy of standing with the albums that came before it, during their peak years. The official release is rather short, at only 38 minutes. I made it shorter still by removing the songs "Just Another Love Song" and "Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John," because I don't think they're worthy.

I also made significant edits to three songs. For "Can't Lose What You Never Had," I've always been frustrated by the ending. After the song cooks for five minutes, it seems to come to an end, only to have a surprise revival. However, that's brief, and the song fades out right when a guitar solo is wailing. I really wanted to hear more of that solo. In putting this together, I heard the excellent live version on the 1976 live album "Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas." It was recorded in Oakland in 1975. It goes on for almost another minute, so I've patched that extra part to the end of the studio version. To be honest, there isn't much more of that great solo, but I do like having the song come to a proper conclusion instead of fading out.

The edit to "Nevertheless" was a lot simpler. I was wavering about including this one or not. Then I realized the lead vocals were quite low. I used the audio editing program X-Minus to boost those vocals. That improved the song enough for me to decide to keep it.

My edit to the instrumental "High Falls" may be the most controversial. This is considered another highlight of the album by many. I agree that it's an excellent song. However, I take issue with the fact that it goes on for 14 minutes. That length would be fine in concert, or even on a different kind of album. But for an album that's only 38 minutes long total, it dominates things too much. Consider another great instrumental the band did, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." In concert, it was often stretched out to 20 or 30 minutes, but the actual studio album is just under seven minutes long. 

So I edited "High Falls" down to a more reasonable length. It started with about two minutes of what I consider aimless noodling before the song really kicked into gear. So I cut out that part. I also cut out a keyboard solo section in the middle. What's left is still almost nine minutes long, and it dominated by guitar soloing. Had the band cut the song down like this, it would have been short enough to get regularly played on classic rock radio like the instrumentals "Elizabeth Reed" and "Jessica."

If those were the only changes I made, the album would be a mere 27 minutes long. However, I also added some songs. In 1974, Gregg Allman put out a double live album. It's good, but generally features songs from his first album and Allman Brothers hits, and even some guest turns. There was nothing there that I decided fit here. However, he did have one really excellent song done as a piano demo in 1974 called "Bring It on Back." A fuller version would eventually appear on his 1977 solo album, but I prefer the simplicity of this version. I think it makes an ideal final track.

Meanwhile, Dickey Betts released a studio album in 1974 called "Highway Call." This is often considered the best album of his solo career. I picked the three songs from it that I liked the best, and thought would fit here the best. "Long Time Gone" was performed by the Allman Brothers Band in concert a fair amount in 1975 and 1976. I would have preferred to use one of those versions, except I didn't find any version that I liked as much as the studio version. (Mostly that was due to sound quality issues - there aren't many great soundboard bootlegs from this time period.)

The end result has four songs sung by Allman, four songs sung by Betts, and one instrumental (written by Betts). The album is 44 minutes long, which would have been an ideal album length for the time period.

01 Can't Lose What You Never Had [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Long Time Gone (Dickey Betts)
03 Win, Lose or Draw (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Highway Call (Dickey Betts)
05 High Falls [Instrumental] [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Nevertheless [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Rain (Dickey Betts)
08 Sweet Mama (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Bring It on Back (Gregg Allman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123852/TAllmanBB_1975_WinLoseorDrwAlternate_atse.zip.html

I might have just used the official cover, except I found an alternate I liked. For the band's 1975, some alternate artwork was made for concert T-shirts and handbills and the like. I took some of that art, cropped it to make a square shape suitable for an album cover, and did some cleaning up of some blurry areas.

Marmalade - Talking in Your Sleep - Non-Album Tracks (1972-1977)

Over the past few months, I've been posting albums of what I consider all the good songs you should hear from the British band Marmalade. At the time, they were considered a pop band only known for their singles, and that's pretty much still true today. However, in my opinion, they had enough good songs for five albums of their studio material, plus two more albums of BBC sessions. This is the last of the compiled albums of studio material.

Although this deals with the years 1972 to 1977, all but the last three songs are from 1972. That was their last year of significant commercial success. Things started to go south for them in late 1971, when Junior Campbell left the band. He and Dean Ford were the band's two lead vocalists, and they cowrote most of their original material. Campbell had some minor hits in 1972 with a solo career before commercially fading away. I've included one of his solo songs, "Hallelujah Freedom," here. "Radancer," The first song here, was also a Top Ten hit in Britain. But after that, they had a string of singles that rarely made the charts at all.

Times were changing in the early 1970s, and their Hollies style of music was falling out of favor. Their record company dropped them in 1972, and band members started to change with increasing frequency. By the end of 1973, Dean Ford was the only remaining original member, and he left in 1975. At that point, the band broke up. However, it turned out it wasn't quite done. Graham Knight and Alan Whitehead had been the bassist and drummer for the band since the beginning, respectively, but both had left by 1973. With the band done, they took the band's name and restarted the band with new members. 

It seemed they were about as uncool and washed up as could be, but they surprised everyone by having one final Top Ten hit in Britain in 1976 with "Falling Apart at the Seams." Then, in 1977, they were the first to release the song "Talking in Your Sleep." It bombed for them. But six months later, Crystal Gayle did a version of it, and had a big hit with it in the US and Britain, including hitting number one on the US country chart. These last two songs don't fit well with the rest of the band's music either in terms of personnel or in terms of musical style, since they're both more slick and generic than their other stuff. But I've included both of them since they're a part of the band's musical history.

After that, the band kept going, and is still going as I write this in May 2022, but strictly as an oldies act, with even more personnel changes. So my interest in the band ends with the end of this album.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Radancer (Marmalade)
02 Just One Woman (Marmalade)
03 Jody (Marmalade)
04 Mr. Heartbreaker (Marmalade)
05 Hallelujah Freedom (Junior Campbell)
06 Stay with Me (Marmalade)
07 Middle of a Night (Marmalade)
08 Out of a Dark Night (Marmalade)
09 Sunset Regret (Marmalade)
10 [Your Wish Is In] The Wishing Well (Marmalade)
11 Falling Apart at the Seams (Marmalade)
12 Talking in Your Sleep (Marmalade)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264360/Marmld_1972-1977_TalknginYourSleep_atse.zip.html

It's very hard to find good color photos of Marmalade at all, much less from the latter part of their career. I found one that I've used here that's supposed from "circa 1973," but I don't know anything more than that, including which band members are in it.

Georgie Fame - BBC Sessions, Volume 2 (1965-1966)

This is the second of three volumes of Georgie Fame playing for the BBC.

I've said most of what I want to say here in my comments about Volume 1. This is a very straightforward BBC collection. All of the songs are actual BBC studio sessions, and all of them are officially released, from the album "The Complete Live Broadcasts."

Also like Volume 1, and most of the BBC albums I've been posting here, there was a problem with BBC DJs talking over the intros and outros for some of the songs. In this case, there were six such songs (the ones with "[Edit]" in their names). But as I usually do, I used the X-Minus audio editing program to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

On a minor note, one song here, "Call Me," is a duet between Fame and Lulu. Since I've already posted three albums of Lulu at the BBC, I put that exact same performance on one of those.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Monkeying Around (Georgie Fame)
02 Something (Georgie Fame)
03 Ride Your Pony [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
04 The World Is Round [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
05 My Girl (Georgie Fame)
06 Boot-leg [Instrumental] (Georgie Fame)
07 Sweet Thing (Georgie Fame)
08 Funny How Time Slips Away (Georgie Fame)
09 See-Saw [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
10 Call Me (Georgie Fame & Lulu)
11 Get Away (Georgie Fame)
12 Last Night [Instrumental] [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
13 Close the Door [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
14 Sunny (Georgie Fame)
15 Dawn Yawn (Georgie Fame)
16 Lovey Dovey [Edit] (Georgie Fame) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116178/GeorgieF_1965-1966_BBSessionsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The album cover photo was taken at the Flamingo Club in London in 1965.

Beck - Rare Acoustic Performances, Volume 2 (1996-1997)

Recently, I posted a Beck album I made called "Rare Acoustic Performances, Volume 1." Here's the second and last album in that series.

As I explained for Volume 1, I've gathered some excellent sounding acoustic performances from the early part of his career. I didn't have any special place for them, so I've made these albums. If the song performances were totally unique, I put those on various stray track albums. So these generally are songs that aren't that, but still are very much worth hearing.

For the first volume, the sourcing was three different radio shows. For this volume, it's somewhat different. Seven of the songs similarly come from three different radio shows. One of them, "Untitled [KXLU]," is officially released on an obscure various artists collection of performances from that radio station. Everything else here is unreleased. But in addition to that, there are another eight songs taken from concert bootlegs. The first six songs come from a concert in Tilburg in the Netherlands, and the last two come from a concert in Eugene, Oregon. In both cases, the sound quality is excellent, and I stripped out the applause, so those songs sound much like they were recorded in the studio, like the other songs.

Not long after this, in 1999, Beck's sound changed drastically with his "Midnite Vultures" album, and his popularity grew, so acoustic appearances at radio stations became a lot less common. I still have similar things to post from later on, but in different formats, so this is the end of the series.

01 Cyanide Breath Mint (Beck)
02 Truck Drivin' Neighbors Downstairs [Yellow Sweat] (Beck)
03 Hollow Log (Beck)
04 Call Me Beck (Beck)
05 Buried Alive (Beck)
06 Asshole (Beck)
07 Somewhere Far Along (Beck)
08 Two Bit Cares (Beck)
09 Jack-Ass (Beck)
10 Unknown [Ain't Your Time to Go] (Beck)
11 Untitled [KXLU] (Beck)
12 I Ain't Got No Home (Beck)
13 Grinnin' in Your Face (Beck)
14 See Your Face (Beck)
15 Somewhere Far Along (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124902/BeckH_1996b-1997_RreAcousticPerformancesVolume2_atse.zip.html

I don't know exactly where and when the cover art is from, except it was taken in concert at some point in 1996.

Georgie Fame - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1964-1965)

I've posted an album of Georgie Fame at the BBC in the early 1970s as part of a partnership with fellow keyboard player Alan Price. This is the start of three volumes of him performing at the BBC in the 1960s on his own.

I suppose Fame isn't that well known in the US these days. He only had one Top Ten hit there, in 1968 with "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde." But in Britain he's much better known, since he had three number one hits there with "Yeh Yeh," "Get Away," and "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde," as well a bunch of minor hits. Fame is British, and added some R&B and/or jazz sensibilities to the charts. As I write this in April 2022, he's 78 years old, but still touring and recording. If you want to know more about him, here's his Wikipedia page:

Georgie Fame - Wikipedia

All the songs on this volume have been officially released, and they all sound great. The first five songs are from a live session at the Flamingo Club in London that was broadcast on the BBC at the time. I've edited the songs some to remove a DJ talking between songs, as well as some crowd noise.

The remaining songs were all done in BBC studios without an audience. By the time of the first studio session here in late 1964, he was having his first number one hit with "Yeh Yeh" after only a couple of failed singles. From that time forward through the end of the 1960s, the BBC had him do sessions on a fairly regular basis.

A few of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. It's the usual reason for these BBC sessions: BBC DJs talking over the music. And as I usually do, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to remove that talking while keeping the underlying music.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Night Train [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
02 Bright Lights, Big City [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
03 Walking the Dog (Georgie Fame)
04 Do-Re-Mi [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
05 You're Breaking My Heart (Georgie Fame)
06 Saturday Night Fish Fry (Georgie Fame)
07 Yeh Yeh (Georgie Fame)
08 Preach and Teach (Georgie Fame)
09 Tell All the World about You (Georgie Fame)
10 Let the Sunshine In (Georgie Fame)
11 In the Meantime (Georgie Fame)
12 Point of No Return [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
13 Telegram [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
14 Get on the Right Track, Baby (Georgie Fame)
15 Like We Used to Be (Georgie Fame)
16 Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Georgie Fame)
17 No No [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
18 Move It On Over (Georgie Fame)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116147/GeorgieF_1964-1965_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Fame is from 1964. He's backstage at some concert, but I don't know which one.

Julian Lennon & John Lennon - Imagine (1971 & 2022) (SONG MASH-UP) A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I'm going to let Mike have the floor on this. But I want to quickly say that this mash-up Mike made of Julian Lennon singing "Imagine" with his father John Lennon sounds great. You should give it a listen (the download link is at the very bottom of this post), and help share it, because it really is something special. - Paul.

Now, take it away, Mike:

Michael Solof here again. A few days ago (in mid-April 2022), I was blown away by Julian Lennonʼs new release of the track "Imagine" by his dad. After reading the accompanying note from his Twitter post (see below), I knew I just had to see if I could create a version that I wish existed, and try to
make Julianʼs version even more special. With that in mind, I decided to turn it into a duet with his dad. 

No easy feat I must say. I started out by tracking down every version of John singing "Imagine" that I could find. During my search I found many home demos, studio outtakes, live cuts, and TV appearances. My main concern was to find a version where the vocals acoustically matched, as closely as possible, those of the Julianʼs performance. It would sound unnatural to use a big echoing reverb drenched John vocal when Julianʼs recording had a beautiful, dry and intimate vocal. I finally found one that was darn close… but the music was completely different and clashed with Julianʼs sparse and haunting solo acoustic version. A few years ago that would have been a hugely insurmountable problem, but now a days there are websites that use really cool tech to separate the vocals from the instruments. What's left is just crystal clear, beautiful sounding vocals!

Using those same sites, I then separated out all the different parts of both versions so I was left with 4 tracks:
1. Julianʼs Lead Vocals
2. Johnʼs Lead Vocals
3. Nunoʼs guitar track
4. Nunoʼs Background Harmony Vocals

I knew I had to use Julianʼs vocal track as my base, and that I would need to edit Johnʼs vocals to match those as closely as possible. My next problem was Johnʼs phrasings were very different from Julianʼs. It wasn't a simple matter of playing both tracks, as is, at the same time. That sounded horrible and I wanted to make this sound as much like father and son sitting down face to face in a small intimate candlelit studio setting… and singing a beautiful song together for the first time. Now I began the hours and hours I needed to accomplish this. I often had to break up Johnʼs phrases between words, and sometimes syllables, to match the timings and structure of Julianʼs song . Occasionally, when that didn't work, I would even change the speed of the recording of Johnʼs vocal to extend the length of certain phrases slightly, for a better fit. It still didn't sound right. My original attempt had them both singing the entire song together. But then I watched a lot of different duets on YouTube and felt that if I switched back and forth between the verses and the choruses, that would be cool. So I did a version like that… but even that was missing the spark of these two guys just singing together.

So I started again. And this time, I had them trading off lines (starting with Julian since it is his release after all) and then having them both sing together on the chorusʼs. That did it… that gave me tingles! 6 more hours of editing…matching up every word and every syllable of the choruses until I was finally done. But I was still missing one last piece.

I let some friends listen to my mix and one comment I got completely transformed the song. I canʼt believe I didn't think of it first. My mix had both vocals centered, but a friend suggested I pan Julianʼs vocals to the left and Johnʼs to the right. First I tried hard pans all the way to the left and right, but this sounded weird. I wanted them to sound like they were sitting side by side, not across the room from each other. So I switched to a softer pan of each vocal just a bit to the left and right. That was MAGIC!

After a lot of internal debate, I also decided to include at the end of the song the extra harmony vocals provided by Julianʼs friend and co-guitarist Nuno Bettencourt. It really makes for a much fuller and powerful ending. So now hereʼs my version of the duet I wish, more than anything, could have existed. Being a huge and lifelong John Lennon fan, I was always touched by the fact that Julian has spent much of his life following in his dadʼs massive footsteps, fighting against the many injustices occurring around the world. Itʼs just downright inspiring to me. Julian was moved enough by the current situation in Ukraine to record this song. I thought the least I could do was let John join in the protest too!
I think he would have liked that.

In a first for both of us, Peter at https://albumsiwishexisted2.blogspot.com and this site are posting Mike's superb effort on the same day, not only to get the song out to as many people as possible, but also to highlight the reason that Julian released it in the first place, which is to show support for Ukraine in their current struggle.

The War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy... As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled to respond in the most significant way I could. So today, for the first time ever, I publicly performed my Dad’s song, 'IMAGINE'. Why now, after all these years? I had always said that the only time I would ever consider singing ‘IMAGINE' would be if it was the ‘End of the World’…But also because his lyrics reflect our collective desire for peace worldwide. Because within this song, we’re transported to a space, where love and togetherness become our reality, if but for a moment in time…The song reflects the light at the end of the tunnel, that we are all hoping for...As a result of the ongoing murderous violence, millions of innocent families have been forced to leave the comfort of their homes, to seek asylum elsewhere. I’m calling on world leaders and everyone who believes in the sentiment of 'IMAGINE', to stand up for refugees everywhere! 

Please advocate and donate from the heart. #StandUpForUkraine @glbltczn @nunobettencourtofficial 

— Julian Lennon

 

Here's the mp3 of the duet mash-up:

https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/1qpBk1RWxx

Beck - Rare Acoustic Performances, Volume 1 (1993-1994)

I still have lots of Beck music to post. I've been waiting for months for him to put out one more new song so I could post the latest stray tracks album. In the meanwhile, here's something from very early in his career.

In the early 1990s, it seemed Beck was writing a new song every few hours. He had so many songs that he didn't know what to do with them all. Some weren't released at all, and some were almost never played in public. There are some great sounding bootleg recordings from this time period that contain acoustic versions of many early songs. I've found enough for two albums of them; here's the first one.

This is quite similar to the BBC sessions I've been posting of other musicians lately in that the vast majority of these performances come from live radio sessions. In fact, for this volume, everything is from radio sessions. The first six songs come from a "Morning Becomes Eclectic" show on KCRW in 1993, the next four songs are from a KAOS radio show in Olympia, Washington, in early 1994, and the last five songs are from another "Morning Becomes Eclectic" show still in early 1994.

I've picked the really obscure and unreleased songs from these shows and put them on various stray tracks albums I've made. These songs basically are what's worthy and left over. All the songs are solo acoustic or at least Beck with only other acoustic accompaniment except for two songs: "Loser" and "MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack." In both of those cases, he sang live vocals over prerecorded backing tracks. Both are very worthy versions. For instance, "Loser" starts out sounding much the same as the hit version, but it goes on longer, with a lot of vocal improvisation at the end.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Loser [Live Vocals Over Instrumental Recording] (Beck)
02 Mexico (Beck)
03 Death Is Coming to Get You (Beck)
04 Whimsical Actress (Beck)
05 Pay No Mind [Snoozer] (Beck)
06 MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack [Lounge Version]  [Live Vocals Over Instrumental Recording] (Beck)
07 Mattress [Incomplete] (Beck)
08 Painted Eyelids (Beck)
09 Totally Confused (Beck)
10 Your Love Is Weird (Beck)
11 Bogusflow (Beck)
12 Dead Man with No Heart (Beck)
13 Hard to Compete (Beck)
14 It's All in Your Mind (Beck)
15 It's All Gonna Come to Be (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288843/BeckH_1993-1994_RareAcoustcPerformncesVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover art features Beck in concert in 1994, but I don't know the exact where or when.

Tom Jones - This Is Tom Jones, Volume 6 (1970-1972)

Thanks for your patience in my posting a bunch of Tom Jones albums in recent weeks. I know he's not everyone's cup of tea. If you're not into his music, you'll be glad to know this is the last album of his I plan on posting.

To be honest, I'm not that into his music myself, but I do like a lot of his 1960s stuff. And these albums of his TV show "This Is Tom Jones" have merit due to all of the guest stars he dueted with. This album is another example, with duets with: Ella Fitzgerald, John Denver, Shirley Basey, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Billy Preston, and Englebert Humperdinck.

As usual in this series, all of the songs are officially unreleased, and come from either DVDs or YouTube videos. But this time around, not all of the songs are from his TV show. Most of them are, but his show ended in early 1971. The last four songs date to 1972, and are all appearances he did on other TV shows. 

Of course, he kept going with many more TV show appearances and concerts. He's still going as I write this in 2022. But my interest in his music drops drastically around 1972. He's started his music career in much more of a soul music style, but that had been slowly eroding. You can see that with his choice of guest stars on this album. After 1972 or so, he went even more in a show-biz direction away from his soul (and rock) roots. That said, I think this album is just as strong as most of the others in this series.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Vehicle (Tom Jones)
02 Mary's Boy Child (Tom Jones)
03 Patches (Tom Jones)
04 Sunny (Tom Jones & Ella Fitzgerald)
05 Silent Night (Tom Jones, Ella Fitzgerald & the Treorchy Male Choir)
06 All Right Now (Tom Jones)
07 Carolina in My Mind (Tom Jones & John Denver)
08 With a Little Help from My Friends (Tom Jones & Shirley Bassey)
09 This Guy's in Love with You (Tom Jones & Petula Clark)
10 She's a Lady (Tom Jones)
11 Sweet Sweetheart (Tom Jones & Dusty Springfield)
12 Ball of Confusion [That's What the World Is Today] (Tom Jones)
13 Tired of Being Alone (Tom Jones)
14 Games People Play (Tom Jones, Billy Preston & Engelbert Humperdinck)
15 Witch Queen of New Orleans (Tom Jones & Engelbert Humperdinck)
16 Baby, You've Got What It Takes (Tom Jones & Dusty Springfield)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700849/TOMJNS1970-1972_ThisIsTmJnsVolum6_atse.zip.html

As with the other albums in this series, I chose a cover photo of Jones from one of his duets instead of him alone. This one features him and Dusty Springfield.

Susanna Hoffs - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA, 4-28-2012

I've already posted a Susanna Hoffs live concert that took place at McCabe's Guitar Shop near Los Angeles. But that one took place in 1994, and this is from 2012, eighteen years later.

Hoffs has generally prioritized her music career with the Bangles over her own solo career. However, one important exception is her 2012 solo album "Someday." It's an excellent album, easily her best solo album in my opinion, so if you like her music with the Bangles you should check it out. This concert took place shortly before that album was released, but still contains a bunch of songs from it. Matthew Sweet, who collaborated with Hoffs on three "Under the Covers" albums, also plays and sings on a few songs near the end.

Note that this bootleg recording is not a soundboard, which is my usual standard. But it's an excellent sounding audience recording. McCabe's is a very small club to begin with, so the sound is pretty good from that fact alone. I'm guessing there were less than 100 people there. There are no soundboards of her concerts from around this era, and this is the best sounding one that I've found.

Generally speaking, Hoffs played songs from her solo career plus Bangles hits. But she also threw in a few covers, such as "Teacher, Teacher" by Rockpile, and "All I've Got to Do" by the Beatles, and "Different Drum" by the Stone Poneys with Linda Ronstadt. There are more covers near the end with Sweet that appeared on their "Under the Covers" album.

By the way, she played two concerts this evening. This is the late show. Both shows were bootlegged, and the set lists were almost exactly the same. However, she and Sweet played "Rain" by the Beatles as one of the encores for the early show. So I added that in as the last song. They made a couple of big flubs where they hesitated before going into the next verses. So I edited those mistakes out, which is why "[Edit]" is included in the song title.

01 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
02 Raining (Susanna Hoffs)
03 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
04 November Sun (Susanna Hoffs)
05 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
06 Always Enough (Susanna Hoffs)
07 Different Drum (Susanna Hoffs)
08 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
09 Picture Me (Susanna Hoffs)
10 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
11 All I've Got to Do (Susanna Hoffs)
12 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
13 One Day (Susanna Hoffs)
14 Eternal Flame (Susanna Hoffs)
15 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
16 All I Want (Susanna Hoffs)
17 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
18 Manic Monday - 1999 - Sunday Morning - Femme Fatale (Susanna Hoffs)
19 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
20 In Your Room (Susanna Hoffs)
21 Hero Takes a Fall (Susanna Hoffs)
22 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
23 Holding My Breath (Susanna Hoffs)
24 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
25 Teacher, Teacher (Susanna Hoffs)
26 talk (Susanna Hoffs)
27 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Susanna Hoffs with Matthew Sweet)
28 talk (Susanna Hoffs with Matthew Sweet)
29 To Sir with Love (Susanna Hoffs)
30 talk (Susanna Hoffs with Matthew Sweet)
31 King Midas in Reverse (Susanna Hoffs with John Wicks)
32 Cinnamon Girl (Susanna Hoffs with Matthew Sweet)
33 Rain [Edit] (Susanna Hoffs with Matthew Sweet)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15292656/SusannaH_2012_McCabeGuitrShopSntaMonicaCA__4-28-2012_atse.zip.html

Despite the smallness of the venue, posters were made and sold for this exact show. So for the album cover, I just used one of the posters. I had to crop the rectangular shape to a square one, but all of Hoffs was just barely able to fit. Also, only the word "Susanna" was in big letters in the middle, so I added "Hoffs" in the same font. There was more info at the bottom of the poster, but I only included a portion of that that mentioned the location and the date.

The Spencer Davis Group - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1967-1973

I already post4ed two albums of the Spencer Davis Group performing for the BBC. Those dealt with the time Steve Winwood was a member, and lead singer, of the group. I figured that was it, because Winwood is a musical giant and was the chief attraction for me. But in putting together lots more BBC albums for this blog, I found out that the band still had merit without him. 

Most importantly, when he left in early 1967, along with his brother Muff Winwood, they were replaced by Phil Sawyer on guitar and Eddie Hardin on keyboards. Sawyer didn't stay long, but Hardin was the key recruit. He sang lead vocals, and his voice had more than a passing resemblance to Steve Winwood's. But also, it turned out he was a decent songwriter. In late 1968, he left the band and took the drummer Pete York with him. They created the duo Hardin and York and had some success. The rest of the Spencer Davis Group fizzled out and then broke up without those two. Then, in 1973, the band was reformed with Hardin and York back in the fold, only to break up again in 1974.

So the way I look at it, this was basically a new band, an early version of Hardin and York. Guitarist Spencer Davis himself was a point of continuity, but in my opinion he was never the key member of the group despite having his name in the band's name. This new band didn't reach the commercial or critical success of the band with Steve Winwood, because Winwood's vocal and instrumental talents are unique and extraordinary, but if you compare them with other bands of the day, they were pretty good, I think. They still kept doing some R&B like they'd done with Winwood, but they also did a fair amount of psychedelic influenced music, to keep up with the times in 1967 and 1968.

This Winwood-less version of the band didn't do that many BBC sessions, but luckily there's just enough for an album decent length. It would be longer, except I didn't include the second versions of three songs they played twice: "Time Seller," "Feel Your Way," and "Mr. Second Class." As it is, I think it works neatly as a "best of" of this version of the band, featuring all their best known songs, including their three minor British hits, "Time Seller," "Mr. Second Class," and "After Tea." ("Time Seller" hit number two in the Netherlands.)

By the way, although it wasn't released as a single, their best song may be the first one, "Don't Want You No More." If you're a fan of the Allman Brothers Band, you probably recognize this. They did an instrumental version if it on their first album as part of a medley with the song "It Ain't My Cross to Bear," and they played that medley a zillion times in the years afterwards. It's interesting to hear the original version with lyrics.

All of the performances here from 1967 and 1968 have been officially released on the compilation album "Taking Out Time." However, a number of them, the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles, had BBC DJs talking over the music. I removed the DJ vocals in the usual way I do, using X-Minus audio editing software.

The last three songs are somewhat different. These all date to 1973, during the band's short-lived reunion. They're all from an unreleased concert that was broadcast on the BBC at the time. They finished with a version of "Gimme Some Lovin'," the band's most famous song from when Winwood was a member. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Don't Want You No More [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Mr. Second Class [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Time Seller [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Feel Your Way (Spencer Davis Group)
05 Taking Out Time (Spencer Davis Group)
06 Moonshine [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
07 After Tea [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
08 Dust My Blues [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
09 With His New Face On (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Let's Have a Party (Spencer Davis Group)
11 Catch You on the Rebop (Spencer Davis Group)
12 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/B1qJ4aFZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/dwuOm4zJruAcfcG/file

Boy, did I have a heard time finding any decent photos of this version of the band. Steve Winwood casts such a huge shadow over the band that it seems virtually any photo includes him. I had to resort to using the photo of the cover of the "Taking Out Time" compilation album. It's not great - is it intentional that one of the band members is visibly yawning? - but at least it's not terrible.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 14: 2016

It's been a while since I've posted anything from Robyn Hitchcock, and a still have plenty to post before catching up to current day, so here's another album from him. It's yet another in the very long series of acoustic covers. I just have one more to post after this until the start of the Covid pandemic (where he began playing tons of home concerts with even more acoustic covers).

As with his other acoustic covers, he doesn't try to radically reinvent any of the songs, but he performs all of them very well, and has impeccable taste in source material.

Hitchcock is nothing if not consistent about the musicians he loves the most. Most of his favorites are featured here, though there's no Syd Barrett, and he did two John Lennon songs instead of Beatles ones. The first three songs are David Bowie songs because this took place right after Bowie died.

As with the vast majority of the volumes in this series, all the performances here are officially unreleased. They come from concert bootlegs. Not all of those are soundboard sourced, so the sound quality isn't always excellent. But it's generally at least very good. For the song "Quicksand," there were a few annoying "woo-hoo" noises from the audience in the middle of the song. So I used audio editing software to get rid of that, thus the "[Edit]" in the title.

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

01 Quicksand - David Bowie
02 Soul Love - David Bowie
03 The Prettiest Star - David Bowie
04 Pancho and Lefty - Townes Van Zandt
05 Let It Be Me - Everly Brothers
06 Candy Says - Velvet Underground
07 Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Underground
08 Isolation - John Lennon
09 No. 9 Dream - John Lennon
10 October Song - Incredible String Band
11 Just like a Woman - Bob Dylan
12 The Butcher - Leonard Cohen
13 Isis - Bob Dylan

Here's the usual song list:

01 Quicksand [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Soul Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 The Prettiest Star (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
04 Pancho and Lefty (Robyn Hitchcock & Grant-Lee Phillips)
05 Let It Be Me (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
06 Candy Says (Robyn Hitchcock with Sean Nelson & Emma Swift)
07 Pale Blue Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock with Sean Nelson & Emma Swift)
08 Isolation (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 No. 9 Dream (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 October Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Just like a Woman (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
12 The Butcher (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Isis (Robyn Hitchcock)

This album is 52 minutes long. 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274627/RobynH_2016_AcousticCoversVolume14_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 2016 concert, but I don't recall the details.

Iwan Fals - Ngalor Ngidulnya, Volume 3 (2021)

Here's the third volume in my series of Iwan Fals acoustic home concerts. Who is Iwan Fals? In case you missed my earlier posts on him, he's an Indonesian rock star, often called the "Bob Dylan of Indonesia." In my opinion, he's an all-time musical giant, and so far ahead of all other Indonesian musicians that he's in a league of his own.

Unfortunately, his chief strength is probably his lyrics, which address all sorts of political and social topics in addition to the usual romantic topics. If you don't understand Indonesian, that will slip by you, because all the songs here are in Indonesian. As a result, I suspect very few people will download this, but hopefully the few who do will dig it.

As with the other albums in this series, he played some of his best known songs from his vast back catalog, with a focus on the ones that work well in a solo acoustic context.

As with all the volumes in this series, I took all the performances from videos that Fals posted on YouTube. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Asmara Tak Secengeng Yang Aku Kira (Iwan Fals)
02 Siang Pelataran S. D. Sebuah Kampung (Iwan Fals)
03 Berikan Pijar Matahari (Iwan Fals)
04 Semoga Kau Tak Tula Tuhan (Iwan Fals)
05 Puing II (Iwan Fals)
06 Jendela Kelas I (Iwan Fals)
07 Celoteh Camar Tolol dan Cemar (Iwan Fals)
08 Nak (Iwan Fals)
09 Adzan Subuh Masih di Telinga (Iwan Fals)
10 Berkacalah Jakarta (Iwan Fals)
11 Tolong Dengar Tuhan (Iwan Fals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16064371/IwanF_2021_NgalrNgidlnyaVolum3_atse.zip.html

Like the other albums in this series, the cover photo is a screenshot taken from one of the YouTube videos of the performances here.

Joan Osborne - Stand Back - Non-Album Tracks (2003-2005)

I have a ton of Joan Osborne music to post, so I'm going to try to prioritize that a bit more. Here's the next in a long series of her stray tracks albums.

At this point in her career, Osborne was wearing a few musical hats. She had her solo career going on, of course. But she also got involved singing with the Funk Brothers, the backing group to most of the Motown hits from the 1960s and early 1970s. She was featured in the documentary movie about them called "Standing in the Shadows of Motown." The first two songs here are unreleased performances she did with the Funk Brothers on a tour promoting that movie.

She also began getting involved with various successor bands to the Grateful Dead around this time. That's a whole separate thing, in my opinion, so I'll post her music related to that at another time.

The two songs with the Funk Brothers mentioned above are unreleased (but come from an excellent sounding soundboard bootleg). The last two songs here also are unreleased, and come from concert bootlegs. The first of those, "On the Old Kentucky Shore," was originally done by her as a duet with Ricky Scaggs for a various artists album celebrating the music of country musician Bill Monroe. I didn't like that version, because it featured a lot more of Scaggs than it did of Osborne. But I found this live version instead that has only Osborne singing all the lead vocals, so I used that one. The last song, "Turtle Blues," was most famously done by Janis Joplin.

Unfortunately, these last two songs don't sound as great as the rest. But I used some sound editing tricks to improve them as much as possible. Also, for "Turtle Blues," it seems a section of the song in the middle was missing. So I cut out all of that verse to make the missing section less obvious.

As for all the songs in between, they are all officially released. Generally, they come from Osborne's appearances on other people's albums, or on various artists compilations. But also, she did a Christmas album around this time. Personally, I don't like the whole thing, so I took the songs I did like and added them to this album, as well as the next stray tracks album in this series.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 For Once in My Life (Joan Osborne & the Funk Brothers)
02 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Joan Osborne & the Funk Brothers)
03 Lover Man (Greg Osby with Joan Osborne)
04 Stand Back (Joan Osborne)
05 Just to Be Alone with You (Joan Osborne)
06 Santa Claus Baby (Joan Osborne)
07 Christmas in New Orleans (Joan Osborne)
08 Spoonful (Joan Osborne & Vivian Campbell)
09 What Do Bad Girls Get (Joan Osborne)
10 On the Old Kentucky Shore (Joan Osborne)
11 Turtle Blues [Edit] (Joan Osborne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376012/JOANOSB2003-2005StandBck_atse.zip.html

The cover photo features Osborne at a public event in 2005.

Tom Jones - This Is Tom Jones, Volume 5 (1970)

I haven't posted much since getting back from vacation, been busy, but I hope to post a bunch in the next few days to make up for it. First up is some more Tom Jones. This is the fifth out of six volumes of his performances from his TV show, "This Is Tom Jones."

As with the other volumes, this has a lot of duets on it. In fact, ten out of the 14 songs are duets. And also like those others, he sings and plays with some of the biggest stars in music at this time. The duets here are with: Leslie Uggams, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Burt Bacharach, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Reed, and the Supremes. I must admit I'd never heard of Uggams before, but it's ridiculous that he had so many duets with those other big stars. And consider that this is only from one portion of one season of his show, and I was only able to find some of the duets done during that time.

The duets with Aretha Franklin are particularly significant, in my opinion. They did four songs together, for almost 10 minutes of music. I doubt Franklin ever dueted with anyone as much as she did with Jones on this TV appearance. And while the Ray Charles duet is technically only one track, it's a medley of three songs that lasts seven minutes.

As with the other albums in this series, this is sourced from DVDs and YouTube videos. The DVD tracks sound better, not surprisingly, but it all had to meet my usual sound quality standards.

Even if you're not much of a Tom Jones fan, there's a lot to like here. Yeah, there are a few cheesy show-biz tunes. But there also are plenty of duets with some all-time greats, generally doing classic songs.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Somewhere (Tom Jones & Leslie Uggams)
02 Venus (Tom Jones)
03 If I Ruled the World (Tom Jones)
04 That Thing Called Love - Understanding - Bright Lights (Tom Jones & Ray Charles)
05 I Heard it Through the Grapevine (Tom Jones & Smokey Robinson)
06 What the World Needs Now (Tom Jones with Burt Bacharach)
07 Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head (Tom Jones & Burt Bacharach)
08 It's Not Unusual - See Saw (Tom Jones & Aretha Franklin)
09 Spirit in the Dark (Tom Jones & Aretha Franklin)
10 The Party's Over (Tom Jones & Aretha Franklin)
11 Funky Chicken (Tom Jones)
12 Guitar Man (Tom Jones & Jerry Reed)
13 River Deep, Mountain High (Tom Jones & Supremes)
14 Try a Little Tenderness (Tom Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700848/TOMJNS1970_ThisIsTmJnsVolum5_atse.zip.html

As with the other albums in this series, I figured it would be more interesting to show a photo of Jones from one of his duets on the cover rather than him alone. So I chose him singing with Aretha Franklin from the performance featured here.

Roy Orbison - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Roy Sings Orbison, London, Britain, 7-11-1975

A couple of weeks ago, I published the first volume of Roy Orbison at the BBC. Here's the second and final volume.

Generally speaking, I like to post music of artists here when they were in their peak years. For Orbison, in my opinion, that was the 1960s. Then he spent a long time in the musical wilderness, without much critical or commercial success, before hitting another peak in the late 1980s with a new successful hit single and album, as well as membership in the Traveling Wilburys. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 52, cutting his career revival short.

This album takes place during that musical wilderness time, when he seemed to be very out of fashion with the musical trends of the time. But I'm posting this because he was stubbornly consistent, in a good way, meaning this concert from 1975 probably would have sounded nearly exactly the same as if it had been recorded in, say, 1967, except for a few song selections. He kept doggedly pursuing his musical vision, and eventually the rest of the world caught up with him again. 

I also like it because it's a single show done for a BBC TV special in front of a live audience, so it has a good musical unity, as well as occasional comments by Orbison between the songs. The one downside to that is that it's relatively short, at only 33 minutes long.

There has been one official, though obscure, BBC album for him, called "Live at the BBC." I'm not a fan of it because it only grabs some BBC recordings here and there. In this case, that album included seven of the eleven performances from this show, and none of the banter between songs. So I ignored that album as a source, and used a complete version I found on YouTube instead. In terms of sound quality, I can't really tell the difference. I think this sounds perfectly fine.

Generally speaking, this is a run through of his best known songs. But it also includes "Hung Up on You," which was his latest single release at the time.

01 Only the Lonely (Roy Orbison)
02 talk (Roy Orbison)
03 Crying (Roy Orbison)
04 Penny Arcade (Roy Orbison)
05 talk (Roy Orbison)
06 Blue Bayou (Roy Orbison)
07 Running Scared (Roy Orbison)
08 talk (Roy Orbison)
09 Hung Up on You (Roy Orbison)
10 talk (Roy Orbison)
11 Candy Man (Roy Orbison)
12 In Dreams (Roy Orbison)
13 talk (Roy Orbison)
14 Mean Woman Blues (Roy Orbison)
15 It's Over (Roy Orbison)
16 talk (Roy Orbison)
17 Oh, Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15910223/RoyOrb_1975_BBSessionsVolume2RoySngsOrbison__7-11-1975_atse.zip.html

The cover image is a screenshot taken from the exact show featured here.

Tom Jones - This Is Tom Jones, Volume 4 (1969-1970)

Here's another album based on the TV show hosted by Tom Jones, "This Is Tom Jones." It's the fourth of six such albums.

As usual, there are lots of duets with big names. On this album, the duets are with: Little Richard, Glen Campbell, Janis Joplin, the Rascals, Dusty Springfield, and Joe Cocker. Probably the most notable was the duet with Joplin. She died so young, that I think this is the only major duet she did on TV.

There's not much else to say. As with the rest of the series, all the songs here are officially unreleased. All the shows are from the "This Is Tom Jones" show with the exception of "Proud Mary," which is from another TV show. But I slotted it in chronologically with the others. Also like the rest of the series, the sound quality is pretty good overall, but variable. Some of the songs come from a DVD source and sound great, while others come from YouTube videos, and are more of a mixed bag.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Don't Fight It (Tom Jones)
02 I Got Plenty O' Nuttin' (Tom Jones)
03 Jenny, Jenny - Rip It Up (Tom Jones & Little Richard)
04 Proud Mary (Tom Jones)
05 You Came a Long Way from St. Louis (Tom Jones & Glen Campbell)
06 Land of 1000 Dances (Tom Jones)
07 Raise Your Hand (Tom Jones & Janis Joplin)
08 In the Midnight Hour (Tom Jones & the Rascals)
09 Bony Maronie (Tom Jones)
10 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Tom Jones & Dusty Springfield)
11 Help Yourself (Tom Jones)
12 My Funny Valentine (Tom Jones)
13 Delta Lady (Tom Jones & Joe Cocker)
14 We Can Work It Out (Tom Jones)
15 She Loves Me (Tom Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700844/TOMJNS1969-1970_ThisIsTmJnsVolum4_atse.zip.html

As with the covers of the other albums in this series, I thought it would be more interesting to show Jones during one of the duets instead of him alone. Since the duet with Joplin is the most celebrated one here, I used a photo from that.

Roy Orbison - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1965-1971

Next, it's Roy Orbison's turn to have some BBC sessions. This is the first of two volumes. The second one will be a short, single concert from the 1970s.

It may be a bit of a surprise that he has enough BBC sessions for that, since Roy Orbison was an American singer. But I don't think it's a coincidence that this volume dates from 1965 to 1971. Orbison had lots of hits in the early 1960s all over the world, peaking with "Oh, Pretty Woman" in 1964, which I've heard is one of the top ten most played songs on the radio of all time. But then his fortunes dropped considerably from 1965 in the US, where the British Invasion reigned supreme. From 1965 to 1969, he only had five Top 40 hits there, most towards the bottom of those charts. By contrast, in Britain he had 13 Top 40 hits in those same years, including a number three hit in 1966 with "Too Soon to Know." So it's not surprising that he capitalized on this by playing more in Britain.

There is one official BBC album for him, called "Live at the BBC." But it's rather scanty, dealing with the years from 1968 to 1988. Six of the songs here are from that, and the rest are unreleased. All of those six are from proper BBC studio sessions.

As for those unreleased songs, they come from a variety of sources, not all of them strictly the BBC. Songs five through eight are from a 1966 BBC session that the official album totally overlooked, even though the sound is perfectly good. The first four songs are also technically from the BBC, but a live appearance on a BBC TV show (that was actually filmed in the Netherlands) rather than a studio session. The remaining songs are from appearances on British or Australian TV shows. 

I've avoided including more than one performance of each song. There were only a couple of repeated songs from all these different sources with the exception of "It's Over," which he played on three more occasions. (The other repeats were "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "Twinkle Toes.")

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Running Scared (Roy Orbison)
02 Goodnight (Roy Orbison)
03 Mean Woman Blues (Roy Orbison)
04 What'd I Say (Roy Orbison)
05 It Wasn't Very Long Ago [Edit] (Roy Orbison)
06 Twinkle Toes (Roy Orbison)
07 Breaking Up Is Breaking My Heart (Roy Orbison)
08 It's Over (Roy Orbison)
09 In Dreams (Roy Orbison)
10 Too Soon to Know (Roy Orbison)
11 Communication Breakdown (Roy Orbison)
12 Leah (Roy Orbison)
13 Oh, Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison)
14 Only the Lonely (Roy Orbison)
15 Crying (Roy Orbison)
16 Walk On (Roy Orbison)
17 Where Have All the Flowers Gone (Roy Orbison)
18 Scarlet Ribbons [For Her Hair] (Roy Orbison)
19 This Little Bird (Roy Orbison)
20 Dream Baby [How Long Must I Dream] (Roy Orbison)
21 Sweet Caroline (Roy Orbison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15910328/RoyOrb_1965-1971_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The album cover features Orbison from a performance at the Palladium in London in 1966.

Tom Jones - This Is Tom Jones, Volume 3 (1969)

Here's another volume of Tom Jones singing on his TV show "This Is Tom Jones." For the previous two volumes, I suggested that the duets he did were a highlight. For this volume, that was kicked up a notch or two: ten out of 14 songs here are with other artists.

There are a lot of big names here: Bobby Darin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Wilson Pickett, the Moody Blues, "Mama" Cass Elliot, Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, and Little Richard. (I must confess I'm not that familiar with Diahann Carroll, but she won Tony, Globe Globe and Emmy awards.) 

The one I want to draw attention to is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). How weird is it that those guys did a duet with Tom friggin' Jones?! Jones sang lead on David Crosby's "Long Time Gone." What's even more interesting is how good it is. You can find a YouTube video of the performance, which has over 2 million views as I write this (in March 2022). There are thousands of comments, and nearly all of them are full of praise. One I particularly liked said, "Am I crazy or is this one of the greatest live rock and roll performances of all time?" In :Shakey," a biography of Neil Young, Young's manager Elliott Roberts said CSNY was embarrassed about appearing with Jones, who was the epitome of cheesy at the time. Roberts said that Young ripped him about it for years afterwards. But if you watch the video, it looks obvious to me that CSNY were smiling widely and having a good time. Stills in particular seemed inspired by the competition and sang his vocal part an octave higher than he usually did.

Of course, Jones was the epitome of cheesy - as "show-biz" as it gets. But he also was a damn good singer. And look at the list of classic songs here, and the legends he sang with. There's lots of good music here.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 You Keep Me Hangin' On - More Today than Yesterday (Tom Jones & Diahann Carroll)
02 Let It Be Me (Tom Jones)
03 Worried Man Blues - Aquarius-Let the Sunshine In (Tom Jones & Bobby Darin)
04 Fly Me to the Moon (Tom Jones)
05 Long Time Gone (Tom Jones & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Hi-Heeled Sneakers (Tom Jones)
07 Lodi (Tom Jones)
08 Barefootin' - In the Midnight Hour - Hey Jude (Tom Jones & Wilson Pickett)
09 It's a Hang Up Baby (Tom Jones with the Moody Blues)
10 When This Battle Is Over (Tom Jones & Cass Elliot)
11 Walk the Line (Tom Jones, Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
12 Working in the Coal Mine- Dark as a Dungeon - Sixteen Tons - John Henry (Tom Jones & Johnny Cash)
13 Rip It Up (Tom Jones & Little Richard)
14 Send Me Some Lovin' - Good Golly, Miss Molly (Tom Jones & Little Richard)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700842/TOMJNS1969_ThisIsTmJnsVolum3_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I wanted to get a good picture of CSNY with Jones. Unfortunately, CSNY were scattered all over the stage, and it was rare to get more than a couple of them in the frame at any one time. So I went with one of Crosby staring at Jones.

Tom Jones - This Is Tom Jones, Volume 2 (1969)

Here's a quick recap: from 1969 to 1971, Tom Jones was the host of a British TV show called "This Is Tom Jones." He sang several songs each episode, and also had musical guests who sang songs, plus he typically sang duets with the guests. This means there's a musical treasure trove of performances, all of which remain unreleased on record (though some have been released on DVD). I've found enough for six albums, though there's many more performances I've been unable to find.

As with the other volumes in this series, it's the duets that I think makes this most interesting. For this album, he sang with Salena Jones, Fran Jeffries, Cher, Stevie Wonder, and Sammy Davis, Jr. On later volumes, the number of duets will be even larger.

In terms of sound quality, all the albums in this series are about the same. Some of this is sourced from DVD and the rest is from YouTube videos. The DVD material sounds better. But I didn't use any YouTube songs that sounded dodgy.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 That Old Black Magic (Tom Jones & Salena Jones)
02 When I Fall in Love (Tom Jones)
03 Hello Young Lovers (Tom Jones)
04 Baby, You've Got What It Takes (Tom Jones & Fran Jeffries)
05 Shake (Tom Jones)
06 Turn On Your Love Light (Tom Jones)
07 Lucille (Tom Jones)
08 The Beat Goes On (Tom Jones & Cher)
09 A Place in the Sun - Uptight [Everything's Alright] - Nothing's Too Good for My Baby - It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones & Stevie Wonder)
10 Autumn Leaves (Tom Jones)
11 See Saw (Tom Jones)
12 What the World Needs Now (Tom Jones & Sammy Davis, Jr.)
13 You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You & I Got a Woman (Tom Jones & Sammy Davis, Jr.)
14 Love Me Tonight (Tom Jones)
15 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Tom Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701293/TOMJNS1969_ThisIsTmJnsVolum2_atse.zip.html

As I mentioned with Volume 1, for the album covers in this series, I thought it would be more interesting to show Tom Jones singing duets instead of him alone. So here he is with Stevie Wonder, when they sang the four song medley included here.

Mary Hopkin - All the Diamonds - Non-Album Tracks (1972-1973)

Here's another stray tracks album from British singer Mary Hopkin.

Hopkin had a lot of commercial success from 1968 to 1971. Then she pretty much dropped off the radar. She married music producer Tony Visconti in 1971, and soon stopped releasing any new music or performing concerts. Instead, she focused on starting a family. Only the first four songs here were officially released at the time, as the A- and B-sides to singles in 1972. Both singles stiffed in Britain and the US, although "Summertime Summertime" was a number five hit in the Netherlands. (Weirdly, it was released under the band name "Hobby Horse," but I've labeled it with Hopkin's name to keep things simple.)

If that's the case, how on Earth do I have enough material for this album? It turns out that even though she didn't release most of it at the time, she continued to do a fair amount of recording. These songs have come out on a series of archival releases that Hopkin has put out herself, decades later. The notes on these albums don't say much, but I used clues like copyright dates and lists of the musicians on the songs to figure out what years they were recorded. I may be slightly off on some of them, but I think I'm in the right ballpark.

In 1972 and 1973, Jim Croce went from being an unknown to becoming a big star, only to die in a plane crash in 1973. Hopkin must have been a big fan, because she did no less than four covers of his songs here: "A Long Time Ago," "One Less Set of Footsteps," "and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song." She also did songs by songwriters Bruce Cockburn ("All the Diamonds") and Emitt Rhodes ("Only Lovers Decide" and "Trust Once More").

In my opinion, Hopkin was recording a lot of good music. I suspect the main reason more of this wasn't released was that she was hit with a huge amount of fame at a young age, having possibly the biggest hit of the year in 1968 when she was only 18 years old, and she decided she didn't really want to be famous. So she mostly made music just for her own enjoyment in private.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Summertime Summertime (Mary Hopkin)
02 Sweet and Low (Mary Hopkin)
03 Mary Had a Baby (Mary Hopkin)
04 Cherry Free Carol (Mary Hopkin)
05 For All My Days (Mary Hopkin)
06 A Long Time Ago (Mary Hopkin)
07 What a Friend You Are (Mary Hopkin)
08 Life Begins Again (Mary Hopkin)
09 One Less Set of Footsteps (Mary Hopkin)
10 Only Lovers Decide (Mary Hopkin)
11 All the Diamonds (Mary Hopkin)
12 Next Time, This Time (Mary Hopkin)
13 Trust Once More (Mary Hopkin)
14 I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song (Mary Hopkin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15121788/MaryHop_1972-1973_AlltheDimonds_atse.zip.html

I looked for good photos of Hopkin from 1972 or 1973, but there weren't any. She still did some concerts in 1972, in fact there's a good official live album of her from that year ("Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1972," which I highly recommend if you're a fan), but I guess I was unlucky. So I used a photo that from slightly earlier, though I don't know the exact year.

Lou Reed - 1971 Acoustic Demos (1971)

I recently posted an acoustic version of Lou Reed's first solo album, the 1972 album simply titled "Lou Reed." That material came from a bunch of acoustic demos he did in 1971. There are enough demos for a second album of all the other songs he had written at that time. This is that album.

As I explained with my post about the "Lou Reed" acoustic album, in 2021, an album called "RCA Acoustic Demos" was released. However, it was only on sale for one day in Britain, in order to retain European copyrights to the performances. The sound quality from this source is excellent. I've used that source for the first 23 minutes here. That includes a version of "I Love You." I put a different demo of that on the "Lou Reed" acoustic album, since I found two good ones.

That leaves six more songs at the end. These all come from bootlegs of his acoustic demos, which have been publicly circulating for years. Unfortunately, the sound quality of these are okay, but not as good as what has recently come out via the "RCA Acoustic Demos." So I've edited all of them to try to improve their sound quality a bit. That's why they all have "[Edit]" in their titles. The main thing I did was increase the volume of the lead vocals relative to the music. That way, you can more clearly hear what he's singing.

The sound quality of those six songs is variable. Generally speaking, they start sounding fairly good and then the quality declines towards the end. So if high sound quality matters to you, you might want to bail out at some point. For me, these all sound good enough for repeat listenings.

In terms of musical content, Reed put out two albums in 1972, "Lou Reed" and "Transformer." All the "Lou Reed" songs are on the other album I recently posted (with the exception of the second version of "I Love You" here). So it's not surprising that there are a bunch of "Transformer" song here - six out of the eleven songs from that album. Note though that this version of "Walk on the Wild Side" is very different. I suspect this was an early version with placeholder lyrics, since the lyrics are so strange, and clearly inferior to the final version.

Reed was on fire as a songwriter, building up a stockpile of songs he would draw on for years to come. For instance, "Kill Your Sons" would go on a 1974 album, and "Follow the Leader" would go on a 1976 album. But he also looked backwards, in that "What Goes On" and "I'm Sticking with You" were Velvet Underground songs. "I'm Sticking with You" is particularly interesting, because the Velvet Underground version that was officially released had most of the lead vocals by the band's drummer Moe Tucker, whereas here you get to hear the song's author sing it. But perhaps most interesting of all is "So in Love" because this song has never been officially released in any form.

There are many more acoustic demos Reed recorded that are on bootleg and I haven't included here. That's because the "RCA Acoustic Demos" versions sound much better, and the performances are only slightly different. I included all the songs I could find that weren't on that release.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 Perfect Day (Lou Reed)
02 I'm So Free (Lou Reed)
03 I'm Sticking with You (Lou Reed)
04 New York Telephone Conversation (Lou Reed)
05 I Love You (Lou Reed)
06 She's My Best Friend (Lou Reed)
07 Kill Your Sons (Lou Reed)
08 Hangin' 'Round (Lou Reed)
09 Goodnight Ladies [Edit] (Lou Reed)
10 So in Love [Edit] (Lou Reed)
11 Oh, Jim [Edit] (Lou Reed)
12 The Kids [Edit] (Lou Reed)
13 Walk on the Wild Side [Edit] (Lou Reed)
14 What Goes On - Follow the Leader [Edit] (Lou Reed)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15250295/LouR_1971_1971_AcoustcDmos_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I wanted a photo of Reed from the time period that fit with the acoustic demo nature of the album (as opposed to him being on stage with an electric guitar and glam make-up). I didn't find any really good color ones, but I found a black and white one I liked that comes from an interview he did in January 1972. Since I try to avoid black and white album covers, I colorized it.

Lou Reed - Lou Reed - Acoustic Version (1971)

In 1972, Lou Reed started his post-Velvet Underground solo career with the album simply titled "Lou Reed." Personally, I think it's one of his best solo albums, because his songwriting was a peak. But it's also a flaw album, due to bad production. To give you some idea, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe from the progressive band Yes are prominently featured all over it. There's nothing wrong with the musical skills of those two guys, but it shows the producer was trying to turn the music into something that didn't fit.

Anyway, just a few days ago (as I write this in March 2022), I found out that in late 2021, an album of Reed's 1971 acoustic demos was officially released, called "RCA Acoustic Demos." You probably haven't heard of this, because it was only released for literally a day in Britain in order to retain the legal rights to the performances, due to the way European copyright law works. I love acoustic versions of songs, so it was a no-brainer for me to post that stuff here. However, it was a long album, over an hour, and I decided to break it in two. I noticed that every single song from the 1972 album "Lou Reed" was played on it, so I've made a version of that album using those acoustic versions. For all the other songs, I've made a second album, which I will be posting shortly.

Technically speaking, one song here is not from that source, "I Love You." I found two acoustic versions of that song. One is from the "RCA Acoustic Demos," and the other is the last song on the "Peel Slowly and See" Velvet Underground box set. Even though that is billed as a Velvet Underground performance, it really was just Reed and his guitar. So I've put that version here, and the other version will go on the other album I'll be posting.

Eight out of the ten songs here were originally done by the Velvet Underground. He essentially cleaned out most of the songs that band never got around to recording, allowing him to put out an album of mostly new tunes later in 1972, "Transformer." So if you think his Velvet Underground stuff is great, which it is, and "Transformer" is great, which it is, you can see why I think this is an excellent album too. But if you have an issue with the production, this allows you to hear it in a completely different way.

This album is 34 minutes long. The sound quality is excellent all the way through.

01 I Can't Stand It (Lou Reed)
02 Going Down (Lou Reed)
03 Walk and Talk It (Lou Reed)
04 Lisa Says (Lou Reed)
05 Berlin (Lou Reed)
06 I Love You (Lou Reed)
07 Wild Child (Lou Reed)
08 Love Makes You Feel [Ten Feet Tall] (Lou Reed)
09 Ride into the Sun (Lou Reed)
10 Ocean (Lou Reed)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262650/LouR_1971_LuReedAcoustc_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I zoomed in on one section of the official cover and enlarged that. Then I added the same text at the top of his name.