Sheryl Crow - Be Still My Soul - Non-Album Tracks (2002)

Here's the next in my long series of Sheryl Crow stray tracks albums. 2002 was the year she released her studio album "C'mon C'mon." Yet she performed enough songs to fill up this album, plus a couple more on the next album in this series.

There are a few original songs here, such as "Be Still My Soul," "Let's Get Free," "I Want You," and "You're Not the One." The others are generally covers of very famous, classic songs by the likes of Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers Band, Patsy Cline, the Rolling Stones, and John Lennon. Three of the songs are duets with Willie Nelson, and she also duets with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones on "Wild Horses."

The first five songs are officially released. They were B-sides, bonus tracks, or the like. The remaining six songs are all unreleased, and all come from live bootlegs. But the sound quality on those are all excellent, as they come from soundboard recordings or TV shows. 

The one song that doesn't sound as good is the bonus track, "Dead Flowers." It's almost good enough to be included, but the sound quality isn't quite up to snuff.

01 Be Still My Soul (Sheryl Crow)
02 For What It's Worth (Willie Nelson & Sheryl Crow)
03 Let's Get Free (Sheryl Crow)
04 Missing (Sheryl Crow)
05 I Want You (Sheryl Crow)
06 You're Not the One (Sheryl Crow)
07 Good Times, Bad Times (Sheryl Crow)
08 Midnight Rider (Sheryl Crow)
09 You Remain (Willie Nelson & Sheryl Crow)
10 Crazy (Willie Nelson & Sheryl Crow)
11 Wild Horses (Rolling Stones & Sheryl Crow)
12 Happy Xmas [War Is Over] (Sheryl Crow)

Dead Flowers (Sheryl Crow & Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15105030/SherylC_2002_BeStllMySoul_atse.zip.html

I don't remember what the source of this cover art photo is exactly, but it is from 2002.

Melissa Etheridge - Neil Diamond Tribute - Home Concert, Los Angeles, CA, 5-7-2020

This is the last Melissa Etheridge home concert album I have to post before her son died in mid-May 2020. After that, she took a long break then resumed doing home concerts, but only for those who paid for a subscription service. Since then, she has posted some stuff for free on YouTube, so I plan on collecting and posting some of that eventually.

It turns out that Etheridge is a big Neil Diamond fan, thanks to her father, who played lots of Diamond's music while she was growing up. Thus, she did an entire home concert playing nothing but Neil Diamond songs. This is a relatively short album at only 36 minutes, and if you remove all her talking between songs its only 23 minutes long. But I figured it was good to keep this together since it holds together thematically.

This follows the same format as the other Etheridge home concerts I've posted. Namely, she plays and sings everything herself, live. But sometimes she sounds like a one-person band, complete with drums and lead guitar solos and such, due to her looping ability. That means she records a sample of some music, such as a drum beat, then plays other instruments on top of it. I've cut out the bits where she made the loop samples and built them up. The songs she does the looping for here are "Cherry, Cherry" and "Holly Holy." Otherwise, it's just her and her acoustic guitar.

As with all her other home concert stuff, the sound quality is excellent, and everything is officially unreleased.

Say what you will about Neil Diamond and his music. Yes, he's often cheesy and uncool. But he wrote a lot of classic songs, and naturally Etheridge chose to play some of his best ones. She also told some interesting stories about him, including her personal interactions with him.

01 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
02 Shiloh (Melissa Etheridge)
03 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
04 Play Me (Melissa Etheridge)
05 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
06 Cherry, Cherry (Melissa Etheridge)
07 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
08 I Am, I Said (Melissa Etheridge)
09 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
10 Holly Holy (Melissa Etheridge)
11 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
12 Sweet Caroline (Melissa Etheridge)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289683/MelissaE_2020h_NeilDiamndTributeHomeConcrtLsAngelesCA__5-7-2020_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I wanted to use a photo of Etheridge and Diamond together. I'm happy to say I found out. This shows them together at a radio station in New York City in 2014. There was a radio station logo repeated several times on the wall behind them. I found those distracting, so I removed them using Photoshop.

Various Artists - Big Night at the Museum, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville, TN, 10-28-2020

The other day, I was looking for something Lucinda Williams did, and luckily stumbled upon this interesting concert from a couple of weeks ago (as I write this in November 2020). It's kind of an odd duck, but I really like it. Basically, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee put on a concert to help raise funds for them to keep going during the coronavirus pandemic. It's not exactly a home concert, because they got a bunch of famous country musicians to come to their museum and play music inside it. But there was no audience at all. Instead, the musicians went to various exhibits and played on the actual musical instruments played by country music greats like Jimmy Rodgers and Johnny Cash.

The key, for me, since I really like acoustic music, is that all the performances are solo acoustic. That's very rare for country music these days, but very much needed, since IMHO country music has suffered from bad production for a long time now. Stripping these songs way back, you get the raw essence of the music.

The show this came from was an hour and a half long. More than half of it was filled with talking. A lot of that was promoting the museum and asking for donations. A bit of it was more interesting, with the musicians sometimes talking about their influences and their feelings about playing the instruments once played by their musical heroes. But I cut all that out, since I think this has much greater replay value if it's all music and no talking. As a result, it's only 42 minutes long. That's not much for a show that was an hour and an half, but it's a good length for a typical album.

Even if you're not much of a country music fan, I highly recommend you check it out. Due to its all acoustic nature, it's more like a bunch of singer songwriters who all happen to work in the country genre. And by the way, if you want to catch all the talking parts between songs, I recommend you watch the full show, which is available on YouTube.

01 Buckaroo [Instrumental] (Brad Paisley & Dan Tyminski)
02 That's the Way the World Goes 'Round (Miranda Lambert)
03 Lovin' Arms (Keb Mo)
04 Don't Close Your Eyes (Tim McGraw)
05 Love Hurts (Emmylou Harris & Rodnew Crowell)
06 Heavy Traffic Ahead (Ricky Scaggs with Marty Stuart & Alison Brown)
07 Sweet Dreams (Reba McEntire)
08 I Still Miss Someone (Lucinda Williams)
09 Three Wooden Crosses (Kane Brown)
10 She Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Rodney Crowell)
11 You're Lookin' at Country (Ashley McBryde)
12 I Can't Stop Loving You (War and Treaty)
13 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Carlene Carter & Marty Stuart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15832939/BigNghtatMseumCountryMsicHallFmeMuseumNshvilleTN__10-28-2020_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I took a screenshot at the start of the YouTube video that showed the name of the concert.

KT Tunstall - Cover Songs, Volume 1: 2005-2006

Some months back, I posted a couple of acoustic home concerts that KT Tunstall did in 2020. I wasn't that big of a fan of hers, but I liked those concerts so much that I've started to get more into her music. One thing I've discovered is that she's done a lot of fun cover versions, and the vast majority haven't been officially released by her. So I've made a series of cover songs albums. This is the first, but I have a total of six currently planned.

Tunstall has a wide range of musical tastes. This can be seen symbolically with the first two songs here: "Get Ur Freak On" - a hip hop hit from 2001 with Indian elements in it, and "Ain't Misbehavin'" - a Fats Waller jazz or swing song from the 1920s! She takes all these different styles and adds her own stamp to it. 

Most of the songs on this album (and in this series) are done with a full band, though she occasionally does a solo acoustic version.

Seven of the songs here have been officially released, and five have not. The officially released ones generally are from obscure releases. Only one, the cover of "Golden Age," appears on one of her albums ("Acoustic Extravaganza"). The sound quality is excellent for all the songs, whether they're officially released or not.

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

01 Get Ur Freak On - Missy Elliott
02 Ain't Misbehavin' - Fats Waller
03 Simple Twist of Fate - Bob Dylan
04 This Wheel's on Fire - Bob Dylan
05 Tangled Up in Blue - Bob Dylan
06 Teenage Kicks - Undertones
07 My Doorbell - White Stripes
08 You to Me Are Everything - Real Thing
09 Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
10 Darkness on the Face of the Earth - Willie Nelson
11 Lazarus - Sophie Solomon
12 Golden Age - Beck

Here's the usual song list:

01 Get Ur Freak On (KT Tunstall)
02 Ain't Misbehavin' (KT Tunstall with Jools Holland)
03 Simple Twist of Fate (KT Tunstall)
04 This Wheel's on Fire (KT Tunstall & Billy Bragg)
05 Tangled Up in Blue (KT Tunstall)
06 Teenage Kicks (KT Tunstall)
07 My Doorbell (KT Tunstall)
08 You to Me Are Everything (KT Tunstall)
09 Fake Plastic Trees (KT Tunstall)
10 Darkness on the Face of the Earth (KT Tunstall with Jools Holland)
11 Lazarus (Sophie Solomon & KT Tunstall)
12 Golden Age (KT Tunstall)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603012/KTTnstl_2005-2006_CovrSngsVol1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at a concert in 2005.

Morgan James - Acoustic Cover Songs, Volume 4, 2017-2018

Here's a quick summary if you've missed or overlooked my previous Morgan James posts. James has a great voice, the kind that sing Aretha Franklin songs or even opera. But she also has an affinity for performing songs where she's only backed by an acoustic guitar. She also has good taste in cover songs. So this is another out of many more albums of acoustic covers from her that I plan on posting.

As I've mentioned in the past, one thing I like about James's covers is that her taste in music isn't the same as mine, and she often "rescues" songs that I otherwise probably wouldn't hear or wouldn't like. In particular, she sometimes does modern pop songs that I avoid because of the usual bad modern production. It's often revelatory to hear those kinds of songs performed in the solo acoustic format. There are some examples of that here, for instance "Weak" by SWV and "Take Me to Church" by Hozier.

As usual with this series, all the songs are officially unreleased. Also as usual, the sound quality is consistently very good.

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

01 Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
02 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - Aretha Franklin
03 Waiting in Vain - Bob Marley
04 I Knew You Were Waiting [For Me] - Aretha Franklin & George Michael
05 Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ - Journey
06 Little Green - Joni Mitchell
07 Angel from Montgomery - John Prine
08 Weak - SWV
09 Take Me to Church - Hozier
10 Sweet Child o' Mine - Guns n' Roses
11 Who Wants to Live Forever - Queen

This is the usual song list:

01 Blue Christmas (Morgan James & Doug Wamble)
02 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Morgan James & Marc Broussard)
03 Waiting in Vain (Marc Broussard & Morgan James)
04 I Knew You Were Waiting [For Me] (Morgan James)
05 Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ (Morgan James)
06 Little Green (Morgan James)
07 Angel from Montgomery (Morgan James)
08 Weak (Morgan James)
09 Take Me to Church (Morgan James with Scott Bradlee)
10 Sweet Child o' Mine (Morgan James with Scott Bradlee)
11 Who Wants to Live Forever (Morgan James with Scott Bradlee)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266924/MorganJ_2017-2018_AcoustcCoverSongsVolume4_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at a concert in Berlin in 2017. I chose it because I really like how the lighting makes it look like her hair is made out of fire. That's exactly how the original looks; I didn't change a thing.

Richard Thompson - Persuasion - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (2000-2001)

It's been a while since I've posted any Richard Thompson music, but I still have tons more to share. So here's the next one. As an aside, a few weeks ago, a new box set of Richard and Linda Thompson music was officially released, called "Hard Luck Stories." I highly recommend it.

This is both a stray tracks album and an all-acoustic one. Only three of the performances have been officially released. 

The first three songs are all humorous in nature. (Someday, I'd like to post an album of all his comedy songs, if I can find enough. If people have suggestions on which songs to include for that, please let me know.) The first song, "I Agree with Pat Metheny," It's Thompson's take on an essay famous jazz musician Pat Metheny wrote about another famous jazz musician, Kenny G. You can read that here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080205170757/http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm

Another song of note here is "Persuasion." Thompson originally wrote this as an instrumental. That version was released on a movie soundtrack in 1991. But for some reason Tim Finn of Crowded House decided he liked it and wrote lyrics for it. He put his version of that on his 1993 solo album. Thompson finally released his version with Finn's lyrics added for a 2000 greatest hits album. Since then, he's performed it often and it has become one of his best known songs.

"Eight Miles High" is a cover of the famous Byrds song, with Roger McGuinn of the Byrds helping out. "She Belongs to Me" is by Bob Dylan. "Hamlet (Dog Eat Dog in Denmark)" is also a cover, which I believe is from a 1940s musical.

The album is rather short at only 35 minutes if you don't include the bonus track, but that's how things clustered together chronologically. 

Besides, I figure most people will enjoy the bonus track and keep it It's a version of possibly his most famous song, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." But this is a special version in that he sang some extra verses I think for this one performance only. If I recall from the bootleg, he was inspired to do that because an actual 1952 Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle was on stage for the show. The only reason the song is a bonus track is because the song quality isn't as good as the rest of the songs. But it's still decent.

01 I Agree with Pat Metheny (Richard Thompson)
02 Hamlet [Dog Eat Dog in Denmark] (Richard Thompson)
03 My Daddy Is a Mummy (Richard Thompson)
04 Eight Miles High (Richard Thompson & Roger McGuinn)
05 Mr. Rebound (Richard Thompson)
06 She Belongs to Me (Richard Thompson)
07 Gethsemane (Richard Thompson)
08 Outside of the Inside (Richard Thompson)
09 Persuasion (Richard Thompson)

1952 Vincent Black Lightning [Extra Verses Version] (Richard Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15270960/RichrdT_2000-2001_PrsuasionAcoustc_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo of Thompson comes from his appearance at a tribute concert to Joni Mitchell in 2000.

Joni Mitchell - Girl from the North Country - On TV and Radio (1969-1970)

A few days ago, a box set of early Joni Mitchell rarities called "Archives, Volume 1" was released. It's really great. I think it's one of the best box sets in years. If you're a Joni Mitchell fan, you should definitely check it out. 

To celebrate that release, I want to post something by Mitchell. So here's the next in my "On TV and Radio" series. This is much like my BBC albums I've done for various musicians, except there isn't much from the BBC, so I've given it a different name. But the general idea is to scoop up all the TV and radio performances she did that have excellent sound quality. 

I've focused on rare songs and tried to avoid repeating the same song twice. All but three of the performances here are officially unreleased, although I hope that the next "Archives" volume will include some or all of these. The first three songs are from the Dick Cavett TV show. The next two songs are from the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1969, which was professionally filmed and turned into a documentary movie. That includes a rare cover of "Let's Get Together," in which she was backed by Crosby, Stills and Nash as well as John Sebastian. The next three songs are from the Johnny Cash Show. That includes "Girl from the North Country," a cover song duet she did with Johnny Cash.

The next song, "That Song about the Midway," comes from the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. All of Mitchell's performance has been released on DVD, but not on album. I've only included one song from it, as it was a song she rarely did at the time. 

The next song, "All I Want," is from an appearance on the BBC in September 1970. She did another appearance at the BBC just one month later. I've posted that entire show here. It's very interesting, because she and James Taylor played the show together. (They were in a relationship for part of that year.) The whole September 1970 BBC show is available in good sound, but again I only included one song because it was rare. This version of "All I Want" is interesting because she said it was unfinished, and the lyrics are significantly different than the final version released on album.

The last two songs come from a benefit concert that helped start the Greenpeace environmental group. "Bony Maroney" is a cover that was part of a medley, but I separated it from the medley. "Hunter (The Good Samaritan)" was a rare original at the time that didn't get officially released.

01 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Willy (Joni Mitchell)
04 talk (Joni Mitchell)
05 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell)
06 talk (Joni Mitchell)
07 Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
08 Let's Get Together (Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash & John Sebastian)
09 Girl from the North Country (Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash)
10 California (Joni Mitchell)
11 My Old Man (Joni Mitchell)
12 talk (Joni Mitchell)
13 That Song about the Midway (Joni Mitchell)
14 talk (Joni Mitchell)
15 All I Want (Joni Mitchell)
16 Bony Maroney (Joni Mitchell)
17 Hunter [The Good Samaritan] (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256328/JoniMchl_1969-1970_GrlfromtheNrthCountry_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the duet she did with Johnny Cash that's included in the album. I took it from a screenshot of a video, and it's more blurry than I would like. If anyone has a better photo of them together, please let me know.

Phew!

The US presidential election was much too close, and the results were a mixed bag. It's deeply disturbing to me that so many people are willing to vote for Trump and the Republicans after he and they have shown exactly who they are. But hey, the main thing is that Trump lost and the American drift into authoritarian dictatorship has been halted, at least for now. Congrats to Joe Biden, America's new president-elect!

Now, back to the music.

Please Vote!

I've said in the past that I'm a very politically progressive person. I've tried hard to keep this blog just on music, and that is my general intention. But as I write this, it's just one day to presidential election day in the US. If you're a US citizen and you haven't voted yet, I can't resist encouraging you to vote, and especially to vote Donald Trump out of office!

I probably would have said more and posted more about this election except for the fact that Joe Biden has had a steady and clear lead in the polls, and nearly everyone has made up their minds anyway. That said, it really does matter if you vote. Did you know that in 2017, whether the Virginia state senate went Democratic or Republican came down to a single vote in a single local election? It's true. And that had big implications about the laws that could or couldn't get passed for the next year or two.

But more than that, there's the "people like you" theory. Basically, if you bother to vote, that means it's likely that people like you also will vote, and thus your interests will be represented. But if you don't, then people like you probably also won't bother, so your interests won't be represented.  Besides, I don't think you have grounds to complain about anything in US politics for the next four years if you don't bother to take half an hour out of your life to cast a vote.

Anyway, I encourage everyone to vote, no matter who you vote for. It's a basic civic duty, and the amount of time and effort involved is trivial compared to how important it is. But if you do vote, I strongly encourage you to choose Biden over Trump. I believe the fate of the country and even the world depends on this election. I think most people of both major political parties can at least agree on that much. That's why this election is on target to have a record turnout.

Okay, enough said. Back to the music.

Oh, one last thing. If you want the ideal music to listen to while Trump is hopefully voted out of office, please don't forget my compilation "Rock Trump Out." You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/10/various-artists-rock-trump-out-volumes_24.html

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 12, New York City, 10-1-2020 to 10-15-2020

As I promised, here's the next in my rush release of Norah Jones's home concerts. This gets me almost caught up to the current day. I only have one more to go after this. So I can post other things for a while before I get back to her.

I must admit, part of my motivation in posting this particular album on this particular day is to display the album cover that shows Norah Jones encouraging people to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. Please vote! Your vote really does matter.

Getting back to the music, this is pretty much just like the other albums in this series. On some other albums she's played guitar sometimes, but she's on piano the whole time here. 

As usual, most of the performances are solo versions of songs from her albums. But "Borderline" is Joni Mitchell tune "Dear John" is by Ryan Adams, and "What Would I Do without You" was done by Ray Charles.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Borderline (Norah Jones)
02 talk (Norah Jones)
03 Dear John (Norah Jones)
04 You’ve Ruined Me (Norah Jones)
05 Sleeping Wild (Norah Jones)
06 Burn (Norah Jones)
07 4 Broken Hearts (Norah Jones)
08 Light as a Feather (Norah Jones)
09 What Would I Do without You (Norah Jones)
10 Seven Years (Norah Jones)
11 Uh Oh (Norah Jones)
12 Broken (Norah Jones)
13 The Story (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634409/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts12__10-1-2020_to_10-15-2020_atse.zip.html

I took the cover art photo from Norah Jones's Instagram page. If you're a US citizen, please do vote!

Lucinda Williams - Salt of the Earth - Non-Album Tracks (2011)

Here's the next in my series of stray tracks albums for Lucinda Williams. If you like the other ones, you'll be sure to like this one too, because it's a particularly strong one, in my opinion.

Unlike the last album in this series, there aren't many covers of famous songs. The exceptions are "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan,"Dedicated to the One I Love" by the Five Royales, the Mamas and the Papas and many others, "If We Make It through December" by Merle Haggard, and "Salt of the Earth" by the Rolling Stones. "When I Get like This" is another Five Royales cover, but much less well known. Frankly, I'm not sure how many of the others are covers or originals. If you know, please let me know.

Nearly all of the songs have been officially released, usually on various artists compilations or from Williams dueting on other people's albums. The only two unreleased songs are the last two. Both of them are taken from a soundcheck before a concert, so they sound very good and don't have any crowd noise.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 When I Get like This (Lucinda Williams with Steve Cropper)
02 Dedicated to the One I Love (Lucinda Williams with Steve Cropper & Steve Winwood)
03 Undamned (Over the Rhine with Lucinda Williams)
04 I'm So Happy I Found You (Lucinda Williams)
05 Clear Blue Eyes (Amos Lee & Lucinda Williams)
06 If I Can't Have You (Blackie & the Rodeo Kings & Lucinda Williams)
07 Moment of Fame (Lucinda Williams & Son of the Velvet Rat)
08 White Patch of Canvas (Lucinda Williams & Son of the Velvet Rat)
09 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Tom Russell & Lucinda Williams)
10 If We Make It through December (Lucinda Williams)
11 Salt of the Earth (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191537/LucndaWllms_2011_SltoftheErth_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at a concert in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2011.

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 11, New York City, 9-10-2020 to 9-27-2020

For the past couple of days, I've put Norah Jones on a fast track, posting one of her home concert albums each day. That's so I don't fall more and more behind, since she consistently does a mini-concert every single week. Here's the latest. I'm getting closer to the present day as I write this on November 1, 2020, but I should have another one for tomorrow as well.

Once again, there's not much for me to say. If you've liked the other albums in this series, you should like this one too. She focuses on playing piano this time, and the mix of the piano and her voice is better than last time. As usual, she mostly does original songs from her albums. But she does a nice cover of the all-time classic "Amazing Grace," which I don't think she's ever played in public before.

This time around, the total length is 52 minutes.

01 Toes (Norah Jones)
02 talk (Norah Jones)
03 It’s a Wonderful Time for Love (Norah Jones)
04 talk (Norah Jones)
05 Out on the Road Again (Norah Jones)
06 Lovesick Blues (Norah Jones)
07 Straight Up (Norah Jones)
08 The Sun Doesn’t Like You (Norah Jones)
09 Heartache (Norah Jones)
10 Cold, Cold Heart (Norah Jones)
11 Flame Twin (Norah Jones)
12 Amazing Grace (Norah Jones)
13 Take It Away (Norah Jones)
14 Street Stranger (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15849019/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts11__9-10-2020_to_9-27-2020_atse.zip.html

Once again, I didn't want to have the same ol' same old photo of Jones sitting at her piano for the album cover. I came across a nice photo of her taken recently for the cover of "Downbeat Magazine." So I stripped all the usual magazine headline text from around it and used that.

Various Artists - Tom Petty's 70th Birthday Bash, 10-23-2020

Here's something that I think is great if you're a fan of Tom Petty's music at all. And who isn't a fan of Tom Petty's music? Petty died in 2017. Had he lived, he would have turned 70 on October 20, 2020. There has been a yearly tribute concert in his hometown of Gainsville, Florida, on his birthday each year since his death. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a normal concert wasn't possible, so a virtual home concert was held instead, with different artists sending in their cover versions of Petty songs from their homes. The entire concert was well over five hours long. I've cut that down to three hours to make a really strong concert.

Somewhat strangely, this concert was broken into three different parts. The first two parts were only played on SiriusXM satellite radio. The first part consisted mostly of performances by Gainsville musicians. Most of those musicians are obscure, with no officially recorded music whatsoever. In cutting this concert from five hours down to three, I mostly cut from the first part. There are a lot of generic and unremarkable covers of Petty songs by bands you've never heard of, such as the Arts in Medicine Hospital Band and Jeff Slate's Weekend Wilburys. But there were some excellent performances by some unknowns, so I've included those. There are were a few songs by more famous artists sprinkled in early, such as one of my favorites, Larkin Poe, doing a song with Steve Ferrone of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on drums. Another Heartbreaker, guitarist Mike Campbell, also helped with a song by Starcrawler.

For the second part of the concert, a different SiriusXM DJ took over. The focus on Gainsville musicians ended. Instead, more famous musicians from all over were featured, starting with Eddie Vedder, lead vocalist of Pearl Jam. This section continued through the performance by the Raconteurs.

The final and longest section tended to feature the most famous names, though a few lesser knowns are scattered in as well. This last second was made available on video at Tom Petty's official website and other places. You can find all of it on YouTube if you want to watch and not just listen. Since this section is much more widely available, most press accounts mistakenly asserted that was the entire concert. But in fact it was only about half.

Now, let me explain some more about what I chose not to include. There were five songs performed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers scattered through the concert. Judging by appearances, they're from different years of Petty's long careers. I didn't include any of those because I felt they didn't fit the rest of the concert. They were typical versions of his famous songs, like "Refugee" and "I Need to Know." Most of the songs were done by other musicians in the concert, so including them would have increased the repetition of songs a lot.

There also were a lot of spoken word sections. I removed nearly all of those. They're nice to hear once or twice, but they don't have much replay value after that, in my opinion. I've only included the between song banter by Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench, the lead guitarist and pianist, respectively, of Tom Petty's band the Heartbreakers. They did a mini-set of three songs, and the banter between the songs was an important part of that, in my opinion. Nearly all the talking was in the last section of the concert. If you watch that on YouTube, you'll hear nice spoken tributes to Petty by his wife Dana, his daughter Adria, Stevie Nicks, a poem by George Harrison's wife Olivia, and more.

Most of the songs sound great. But a few were recorded from homes with poor recording equipment. I rejected a few songs due to sound quality issues. I didn't include a version of "Yer So Bad" by Adam Sandler mostly because it was so poorly recorded. The songs by Beck and Susanna Hoffs also were not recorded well, but I included them because they just barely sounded good enough for my ears, and I particularly like those two artists.

Another problem was that there didn't seem much effort to prevent multiple versions of the same songs. For instance, there were no less than four versions of the song "Wildflowers!" I removed two of them, by the bands Grouplove and the Arts in Medicine Hospital Band, while keeping the versions by Eddie Vedder and Brandi Carlile. The song "Honey Bee" was another problem. There were three versions that I decided to keep, by Larkin Poe, Grace Potter with Reysonator, and the Foo Fighters. There were all good, and all different from each other. I removed some other songs that were done more than once. There are a few other songs with two versions: "American Girl," "Room at the Top," "Runnin' Down a Dream," and "Walls (Circus)." Since the concert is so long at three hours, I figure a few of those are okay.

Almost all musicians played just one song. There are a couple of exceptions though. As mentioned above, Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench did three songs together to end the concert. Norah Jones played two songs. And Margo Price and Lukas Nelson each did one song, but then also did a duet together.

As I mentioned above, this a great concert. All sorts of my favorite musicians were included, and they did excellent versions. Honestly, I could hardly have picked a better line-up myself. If you like Tom Petty at all, please give this a listen!

Another point I want to mention is that the vast majority of the performances were done on or just before the broadcast date, from the musician's homes, but there are a few exceptions. The Gary Clark, Jr. and Jason Isbell performances comes from concerts in 2017. The Killers did their song "American Girl" in concert. I don't know the date or location, but they played that song a bunch of times in concert from 2017 to 2019. Eddie Vedder's version of "Wildflowers" is a solo acoustic version done without an audience, so it sounds much like the others. But it actually was done in 2017 at some point after Petty's death and not made public until this concert.

Oh, and one last thing: as Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench repeatedly said at the very end of the concert, if you're a US citizen, please VOTE in the election on November 3rd!

01 Saving Grace (Andrew Leahey & the Homestead)
02 Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll (Hannah Harber)
03 Ways to Be Wicked (Sunkat)
04 Yer So Bad (Tristen)
05 Kings Highway (Michigan Rattlers)
06 Honey Bee (Larkin Poe with Steve Ferrone & Tyler Bryant)
07 Joe (Hannah Wicklund & the Stepping Stones)
08 The Apartment Song (Miss Tess)
09 Sweet William (Edan Archer)
10 There Goes Angela [Dream Away] (Emma Swift)
11 I Need to Know (Starcrawler with Mike Campbell)
12 Wildflowers (Eddie Vedder)
13 Walls [Circus] (Dawes with Mike Viola)
14 Room at the Top (Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit)
15 Square One (Caamp)
16 Honey Bee (Grace Potter with Resynator)
17 Learning to Fly (Kurt Vile)
18 American Girl (Killers)
19 Runnin' Down a Dream (Raconteurs)
20 Listen to Her Heart (Flaming Lips)
21 Don't Come Around Here No More (Beck)
22 The Waiting (Jackson Browne)
23 Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (Lukas Nelson & Margo Price)
24 Southern Accents (Lukas Nelson)
25 Free Fallin' (Susanna Hoffs)
26 Walls [Circus] (Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers)
27 Breakdown (Spoon)
28 Angel Dream No. 2 (Lady Blackbird)
29 Crawling Back to You (Margo Price)
30 Honey Bee (Foo Fighters)
31 Runnin' Down a Dream (Lucinda Williams)
32 Rockin' Around [With You] (Sabina Sciubba)
33 Good Enough (Gary Clark, Jr.)
34 Love Is a Long Road (Dhani Harrison & Graham Coxon)
35 Room at the Top (Amos Lee)
36 Climb That Hill (Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers)
37 Cabin Down Below (Alison Mosshart)
38 Wildflowers (Brandi Carlile)
39 Don't Fade on Me (Chris Stapleton)
40 Time to Move On (Norah Jones)
41 Only a Broken Heart (Norah Jones)
42 King of the Hill (Roger McGuinn)
43 I Won't Back Down (Stephen Stills with Christopher Stills)
44 It's Good to Be King (Dave Stewart)
45 Alright for Now (Emily King)
46 talk (Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench)
47 American Girl (Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench)
48 Something Good Coming (Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench)
49 talk (Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench)
50 We Want Boogie 'bout Midnight (Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench)
51 talk (Mike Campbell & Benmont Tench)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yj163rsU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/niPJPGTDgY0Se4Y/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/cpuNJ

The cover art is the official artwork for the convert. I didn't have to make any changes at all.

Elton John - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 12-22-1973

My series of Elton John performing for the BBC continues. This is an entire concert that was broadcast on BBC radio at the time. The sound quality is fantastic, and the set list is great too. He was at his creative peak, in my opinion, with this being the same year as the release of his classic double album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." If I had to suggest just one Elton John concert for someone to listen to, it would probably be this one.

There's not much else to say. About half of the songs are undeniable classics. For the other songs, I actually often prefer these versions to the studio versions, since they're more energetic. 

By the way, John played the same venue almost exactly one year later, and that was recorded by the BBC as well. That's the next album I plan to post in this series.

The concert is an hour and 41 minutes long.

01 Funeral for a Friend - Love Lies Bleeding (Elton John)
02 Candle in the Wind (Elton John)
03 talk (Elton John)
04 Hercules (Elton John)
05 talk (Elton John)
06 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Elton John)
07 talk (Elton John)
08 Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
09 talk (Elton John)
10 Daniel (Elton John)
11 talk (Elton John)
12 This Song Has No Title (Elton John)
13 talk (Elton John)
14 Honky Cat (Elton John)
15 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John)
16 talk (Elton John)
17 The Ballad of Danny Bailey (Elton John)
18 talk (Elton John)
19 Elderberry Wine (Elton John)
20 talk (Elton John)
21 Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer [Instrumental] (Elton John)
22 talk (Elton John)
23 I've Seen That Movie Too (Elton John)
24 talk (Elton John)
25 All the Girls Love Alice (Elton John)
26 talk (Elton John)
27 Crocodile Rock (Elton John)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Your Song (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)

https://www.imagenetz.de/coo8G

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/s29hwfP6

second alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/QnHsdvFN8zqXoAB/file

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe this photo was taken from the concert in question.

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 10, New York City, 8-20-2020 to 9-3-2020

I just posted a Norah Jones home concert album last night. I'm trying to post more in order to try to catch up with her quick pace of putting out new music every week, so here's another one.

There's not much to say about this one that hasn't been said about the others in the series. Jones plays some songs on guitar and others on piano. For some of the piano ones, unfortunately, the vocals are a bit lower in the mix compared to the piano than I'd like, but only by a bit. Otherwise, everything is great.

There are no big surprises in terms of song choices. Most of the songs are originals from her albums. She does a few covers, but those were performed by her previously as well.

The album is 45 minutes long.

01 Say Goodbye (Norah Jones)
02 Tragedy (Norah Jones)
03 Carnival Town (Norah Jones)
04 Love Me (Norah Jones)
05 And Then There Was You (Norah Jones)
06 Creepin’ In (Norah Jones)
07 A Song with No Name (Norah Jones)
08 How Deep Is the Ocean (Norah Jones)
09 I Forgot (Norah Jones)
10 Happy Pills (Norah Jones)
11 How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart (Norah Jones)
12 Carry On (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634166/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts10__8-20-2020_to_9-3-2020_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I came across what I thought is a very cool and arresting recent photo from Jones's Instagram account. It's taken from her video of the song "Flame Twin," off her 2020 album "Pick Me Up Off the Floor."

Etta James - Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino de Montreux, Montreux, Switerland, 7-11-1975

Months ago, I posted an Etta James concert of her at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977. Today, I'm posting her appearance at the exact same concert venue in Montreux, but two years earlier, in 1975. The sound quality and performance is excellent. Clearly, it's a soundboard, due to it being recorded for a live radio broadcast. This is a very lucky thing, because it's the earliest worthy concert recording from her that we have, with the notable exception of her officially released 1963 live album "Rocks the House."

Originally, I posted only a portion of the concert (about 45 minutes). But I have since been able to find the whole thing, an hour and 20 minutes. The only change I made was to make her comments between songs into separate tracks.

01 talk (Etta James)
02 Respect Yourself (Etta James)
03 talk (Etta James)
04 Drown in My Own Tears (Etta James)
05 talk (Etta James)
06 W-O-M-A-N - Shake Your Booty (Etta James)
07 talk (Etta James)
08 Dust My Broom (Etta James)
09 talk (Etta James)
10 I'd Rather Go Blind (Etta James)
11 talk (Etta James)
12 All the Way Down (Etta James)
13 talk (Etta James)
14 Baby What Do You Want Me to Do (Etta James)
15 Rock Me Baby (Etta James)
16 talk (Etta James)
17 Call It Stormy Monday (Etta James)
18 Tell Mama (Etta James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260303/EttaJms_1975_MontreuxJzzFestival__7-11-1975_atse.zip.html

I'm very happy to say that the cover art photo comes from the exact concert in question. Since this concert is so similar to her 1977 appearance at the same place, I used the same font for this cover. But to make sure the covers wouldn't get confused with each other, I used a very different color for the text.

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 9, New York City, 7-31-2020 to 8-13-2020

I'm still having a hard time keeping up with Norah Jones and her weekly mini-home concerts. So I'm going to post a few of them to help catch up. Here's the next in the long series.

By now, I assume you know the deal with these. For a good chunk of songs at the start, she plays on the guitar instead of piano. There's not much else to say, other than the sound quality and performance quality is very good, as usual.

Oh, there is one more thing worth mentioning. I just found out today that she's releasing a deluxe edition of her latest album, "Pick Me Up Off the Floor." It has a second disc with 14 extra songs, and all of them are her favorite selections from these home concerts. So you might want to buy that to get the best songs in probably even better sound quality.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 talk (Norah Jones)
02 Pennies on the Floor (Norah Jones)
03 talk (Norah Jones)
04 Shoot the Moon (Norah Jones)
05 talk (Norah Jones)
06 Roll On (Norah Jones)
07 talk (Norah Jones)
08 For the Good Times (Norah Jones)
09 Long Time Gone (Norah Jones)
10 talk (Norah Jones)
11 Young Blood (Norah Jones)
12 talk (Norah Jones)
13 She's 22 (Norah Jones)
14 All a Dream (Norah Jones)
15 Falling (Norah Jones)
16 One Flight Down (Norah Jones)
17 Flipside (Norah Jones)
18 We'll Be Together Again (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634118/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts9__7-31-2020_to_8-13-2020_atse.zip.html

It's kind of tough coming up with a good album cover for each album in this series, since it's pretty much Norah sitting in the same spot in the same room for each one. Today, I came across a recent CNN interview with her that put a photo of her in her usual home concert spot through some kind of cartoony filter. So I used that, unchanged, for variety's sake.  If you don't like the filter, blame CNN, not me. ;)

The Beach Boys - It's a Beautiful Day - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1979)

Here's the next in my long series of stray tracks albums for the Beach Boys. 

Their official studio albums in the late 1970s were very spotty, so I'm taking the good songs from those. The band's material came down a lot in quality from their earlier peaks like "Pet Sounds," but they were still putting out a lot of good stuff in this era. Brian Wilson still had flashes of brilliance, and his brother Dennis Wilson in particular was hitting a creative peak. 

Unfortunately, they were making big missteps too. For instance, their 1978 album "L.A. (Light Album)" was ruined by the inclusion of an 11 minute long disco version of their previously released song "Here Comes the Night." Ugh! But if you separate the wheat from the chaff, this is actually a pretty good album.

In my opinion, a big part of the reason the late 1970s are not considered a good time for the Beach Boys was that they made terrible decisions about what to include or not include on their albums. "Here Comes the Night" was just one of several really bad clunkers they put on. Meanwhile, they left off lots of good songs. This album includes two songs that remain unreleased, plus another four that only came out as rarities at the time (such as a song on the soundtrack to the movie "Americathon"), or were put on archival releases much later. Six songs can make a world of difference between a good album and a bad one.

Note that I'm not including any songs from the two Dennis Wilson late 1970s solo albums, "Pacific Ocean Blue" and "Bambu." That's because they're solid albums and any Beach Boys fans should have both of them. I think they're the best solo albums by any members of the band, including Brian Wilson. ("Bambu" was never quite finished, and was only officially released decades later.)

I also only have two songs from the band's 1979 album "L.A. (Light Album)." I'll have more of that on the next album in this series. They continued to make good music as a bad through 1979 and 1980, and then pretty much dropped off a cliff after that.

01 California Feelin' (Beach Boys)
02 Winds of Change (Beach Boys)
03 Winter Symphony (Beach Boys)
04 Come Go with Me (Beach Boys)
05 Pitter Patter (Beach Boys)
06 Kona Coast (Beach Boys)
07 My Diane (Beach Boys)
08 Sad, Sad Summer (Mike Love & Celebration)
09 Angel Come Home (Beach Boys)
10 Goin' to the Beach (Beach Boys)
11 It's a Beautiful Day (Beach Boys)
12 Lookin' Down the Coast (Beach Boys)
13 Baby Blue (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376783/TBECHBYS1978-1979ItsaButfulDy_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a promotional picture of the band from the late 1970s, but I'm not sure about the exact year.

Paul McCartney - Tour Rehearsal, The Barn, Sussex, Britain, 1-1993

I read recently that Paul McCartney is planning on releasing a new album, to be titled "McCartney III," in December 2020.  That reminded me that it's been a while since I've posted anything from here, so here's the next album as I move chronologically through his career.

In February 1993, McCartney released the album "Off the Ground," then soon began another world tour. Just prior to that, sometime in January, he practiced songs for the tour in a barn in the British countryside. We're lucky to have very good unreleased performances from that rehearsal due to him playing some of them on his Oobu Joobu radio show. I've put the most interesting songs together for an album that's an hour and two minutes long.

The rehearsals were different from what actually got played on tour in that McCartney was more willing to try out unusual songs, as well as just have play around and/or experiment. Out of the 18 songs here, I count seven Beatles songs plus one solo hit and a song from his new album. The rest generally are covers of the songs he loved when he was growing up.

01 Fixing a Hole (Paul McCartney)
02 Let It Be (Paul McCartney)
03 Twenty Flight Rock (Paul McCartney)
04 No I Never (Paul McCartney)
05 Jet (Paul McCartney)
06 Three Cool Cats (Paul McCartney)
07 I've Just Seen a Face (Paul McCartney)
08 She's a Woman (Paul McCartney)
09 Cut Across Shorty (Paul McCartney)
10 Hi Heeled Sneakers (Paul McCartney)
11 Shake, Rattle and Roll (Paul McCartney)
12 Get Back (Paul McCartney)
13 Matchbox (Paul McCartney)
14 Blue Suede Shoes (Paul McCartney)
15 Midnight Special (Paul McCartney)
16 Things We Said Today (Paul McCartney)
17 Drive My Car (Paul McCartney)
18 Winedark Open Sea (Paul McCartney)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376628/PAULMCCRTNY1993aTurRherslTheBrnSussxBritin__1-1993_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of McCartney practicing at the barn during these sessions. So instead I used a photo of him playing piano during an appearance on the TV show Saturday Night Live in 1993.

Various Artists - Rock Trump Out, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 (2015-2020)

I posted some similar to this a couple of weeks ago. But this is not the same! Previously, I posted two volumes of this "Rock Trump Out" compilation. Since then, I've found a bunch more songs (nine, to be precise), enough to make a third volume, after some reorganizing. But each album covers a different time period, so some of the new songs are on the first and second volumes. Many of the songs on the third volume are new, but not all of them. Thus, I strongly suggest you download all three volumes.

For the rest of my comments here, I'm using the same comments I posted in the earlier version, with a minimum of changes to reflect what's new with this version.

---

I'm a very politically progressive person. I'm trying hard to keep this blog focused just on the music. But with the critically important November 2020 presidential election coming up, I don't think I'll be able to keep entirely quiet about politics. Needless to say, I hope you all vote for Joe Biden! As Bernie Sanders put it recently, "This is not just an election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This is an election between Donald Trump and democracy."

I've put together a collection of songs that combines my political feelings with my love of music. All the songs are either about Trump or at least they're Trump adjacent, addressing the dire situation the country is in due to the Trump presidency. I found so many songs that I've made three albums out of them that are about an hour long each. But, and this is key, these are all GOOD songs that stand on their own musically. I culled them down from a larger bunch based both on topic relevance and musical quality. So if you're feeling frustrated about the Trump presidency and want something to help motivate you to work for his defeat while also entertaining you, this is for you.

Whereas if you're a Trump supporter, you're probably going to skip this. If you post pro-Trump comments here, be warned I'm likely to delete them. Sorry. This is not a place for heated political arguments. If you're not into this, then please move on.

Also, there are NO song parodies here. A lot of those are entertaining, but that's an entirely different thing. All the songs here are serious, and a majority of them are done by big name musicians. 

I've split the songs into three albums. The first album's songs were all released between 2015 and 2017. The second album's songs date from 2018 until 2020. The third album's songs all come from 2020. A couple of them were released only a few days ago as I write this. Within each album, I worked with a friend to sort the songs in a way that hopefully makes for a good musical flow.

In order for a song to be included, it had to be one that I liked. I'm not really a fan of rap or hip hop, so there's very little of that here, even though there have been some big anti-Trump songs in those genres. There are a couple that are rap influenced, especially the ones by the Prophets of Rage (made up of members of Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine) and Janelle Monae. Still, if someone else put this together, they probably would have included more.

The title is "Rock Trump Out." The idea there is that we can rock while we kick Trump out on election day. The word "rock" is intentional because my musical tastes are based in classic rock, and I want these to be rocking albums. So I excluded some good anti-Trump songs that were good but too folky, too country, etc... to fit. I did include some soul and funk songs and the like, since those fit the upbeat mood.

I've looked around the Internet, and I haven't seen anyone else put a collection together like this, at least not that I could find. I'm sure there are some really good songs that fit the theme that I missed. If you know of any, please let me know and I may well add them in.

If you're someone who wants Trump voted out, please spread this to your friends and family and beyond. It's something that can lift spirits in these difficult times.

I'm almost done with my comments here, but I have a couple of interesting notes about a few songs. Believe it or not, the words to "Old Man Trump" were written by the famous folksinger Woody Guthrie, before he died in the 1960s! In his later years, he lived in an apartment building owned by Donald's father Fred Trump, who not surprisingly was a racist asshole like his son. It's interesting to note that Guthrie complained about the Trump family's bias against black people even back then!

The song "Fergus Laing" by Richard Thompson is another interesting case. Thompson wrote it about Trump before Trump began his run for president, and released it on album the same week Trump's campaign began! It seems Thompson must have been one step ahead of everyone else.

I edited two songs down simply because I thought they were too long. The two are "Can't Put It in the Hands of Fate" by Stevie Wonder and "Going Down to Sing in Texas" by Iris DeMent. I cut the Wonder song from almost seven minutes down to five minutes. I cut the DeMent song from well over nine minutes down to five minutes. For the Wonder song, a lot of what I cut was just repetitive stuff. For the DeMent one, I had to cut out a bunch of verses, She sang about all sorts of things. I tried to keep the focus on Trump and cut the verses that were less related to him.

By the way, this is an example of a song that may not appear to have anything to do about Trump at first glance. (Thompson has confirmed in interviews that it is.) Many of the other songs are like that, where they're more subtle. But if you listen closely, the relevance will sink in. The two Sheryl Crow songs are good examples of that. They just sound like really catchy pop songs until you pay attention to the lyrics with Trump in mind.

I debated whether or not to include a song by Barbra freaking Streisand! Who knew she would ever release a pointed protest song about Trump? It doesn't fit the rocking theme, and I'm not a Streisand fan at all. But in the end it was too good and too relevant to leave out. I'm very surprised to say that.

There are all sorts of really great songs here, too many for me to single out by name. But I'd be curious to hear which ones you like the most or the least.

Normally, I would make different blog posts for the three albums that make up this project. But I've only made one post to make it easy for you to share the whole thing with others if you want to. Note though that there are three zip file links below, not one, so click on all three. I've made covers for the three albums too.

UPDATE: On June 30, 2023, I added a song I'd previously missed, "Dump That Trump," by Rick Estrin and the Nightcats.

VOLUME 1:

01 That's What Makes Us Great (Bruce Springsteen & Joe Grushecky)
02 Old Man Trump (Ryan Harvey, Ani DiFranco & Tom Morello)
03 Justice (Dumpstaphunk with Trombone Shorty)
04 Hail to the Chief (Prophets of Rage)
05 The Perilous Night (Drive-By Truckers)
06 Make America Great Again (Pussy Riot)
07 Just How Low (Robert Cray)
08 Tin Foil Hat (Todd Rundgren with Donald Fagen)
09 Million Dollar Loan (Death Cab for Cutie)
10 Season of Change (Stone Foundation with Bettye LaVette)
11 Make This World (Lee Fields & the Expressions)
12 Can't You Tell (Aimee Mann)
13 Ode to the Donald [A Song for Donald Trump] (David Clayton-Thomas)
14 Is This the Life We Really Want (Roger Waters)
15 Fergus Laing (Richard Thompson)

VOLUME 2:

01 March March (Chicks)
02 Two Steps Forward (Kirk Fletcher)
03 Above the Law (O'Jays)
04 Shame (Tedeschi Trucks Band)
05 [Keep Mar-a-Lago But] I Want America Back (Eric Hirshberg)
06 Man without a Soul (Lucinda Williams)
07 What the Hell (Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite)
08 Hung Out to Dry (Hoodoo Gurus)
09 Despite Repeated Warnings (Paul McCartney)
10 Wouldn't Want to Be like You (Sheryl Crow with Annie Clark)
11 Can't Deny Me (Pearl Jam)
12 What's He Gonna Say Today (Eric Bibb)
13 The Right to Live in Peace [El Derecho de Vivir en Paz] (Roger Waters)
14 Don't Lie to Me (Barbra Streisand)

VOLUME 3:

01 This Man (Robert Cray)
02 The Revolution Starts Now (Ann Wilson)
03 Can't Put It in the Hands of Fate [Edit] (Stevie Wonder with Rapsody, Cordae, Chika & Busta Rhymes)
04 Turntables (Janelle Monae)
05 Commander in Chief (Demi Lovato)
06 Hands Off (Joan Osborne)
07 Stick That in Your Country Song (Eric Church)
08 Going Down to Sing in Texas [Edit] (Iris DeMent)
09 Do or Die (Ani DiFranco)
10 In the End (Sheryl Crow)
11 Vote That Fucker Out (Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby)
12 The President [2020 Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Lookin' for a Leader 2020 (Neil Young)
14 Dump That Trump (Rick Estrin & the Nightcats).

VOLUME 1 LINK:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15252337/RockTrmpOutVolum1_2015-2017_atse.zip.html

VOLUME 2 LINK:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15250720/RockTrmpOutVolum2_2018-2020_atse.zip.html

VOLUME 3 LINK:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15389834/RockTrmpOutVolum3_2020_atse.zip.html

I couldn't decide what to do for the album cover art. Then I had the idea to do a Google image search for the phrase "Kick Trump Out." I found a poster with that phrase in big letters made by someone named 4personnen. So I took that and changed "Kick" to "Rock," as well as adding more text at the bottom. I also changed the colors, with a different basic color for each volume.

Robyn Hitchcock - Magnum Force (2012)

"Magnum Force" was a 1975 hit action movie starring Clint Eastwood. It was one of five movies where Eastwood played the character Harry Callahan, better known by the nickname "Dirty Harry." While traveling the world playing concerts, Robyn Hitchcock kept catching the movie on TV, and found himself fascinated by it in some inexplicable way. He was so interested that he wrote a bunch of songs relating to the movie. By 2009, it was reported in the news that Hitchcock was planning to turn his songs about the movie into a Broadway play. Here's an article about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jan/29/magnum-force-the-musical?fbclid=IwAR1Tc42j3wZ-ywzIraTmCXCFxuGSYA0ohElBOV3ekm3Ww7BDnto4jjd2vy8

Sadly, the "Magnum Force" play has not come to pass, at least not yet. But in 2012, apparently just once, Hitchcock played a bunch of his songs about the movie for a small audience in a club in London. The movie was shown. From time to time, it was stopped and Hitchcock played a song that was relevant to the latest scene. Then the movie resumed. 

Luckily, there's a decent sounding bootleg from this unique concert (or movie screening or whatever you call it). I've taken the recording and stripped it down to just the music. (There wasn't much talking by Hitchcock in any case, but there was some by an emcee.) For once, I didn't have to remove the clapping at the ends of songs, because the audience was told to stay quiet until the end of the movie.

This is a very short album compared to what I usually post here, at just 27 minutes long. But it's all the songs I know of that he's written relating to the movie. I didn't want to dilute that by adding any other songs.

Some of the songs have been officially released by him here and there. "Light Blue Afternoon" appeared on his 2011 album "Tromso, Kaptein," "San Francisco Patrol" was on his 2014 album "The Man Upstairs." "Follow Your Money" was released as a single only with Emma Swift in 2015. "(A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs" first appeared on the 2005 album "Obliteration Pie," then in a different form in the 2006 album "Ole! Tarantula." That one seems to be Hitchcock's favorite of the bunch, since he still plays it in concert a lot. It also has more of an obvious link to the movie than most, since "Briggs" was one of the main characters in it.

That leaves three songs. As far as I can tell, they're still unreleased. I don't even know the real names to them, since he probably only ever played them this one time, and he didn't name them. The names here are the guesses made by the person who recorded the show. If you know of better names for any of them, please let me know.

01 Light Blue Afternoon (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Can You Fly This Thing (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 What Do I Have to Do (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 San Francisco Patrol (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Follow Your Money (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Either You're for Us or You're Against Us (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 [A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations] Briggs (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068061/RobynH_2012_MagnumForcVariousSongs_atse.zip.html

I decided to have a little fun with the cover art. I took a poster from the movie that featured Clint Eastwood holding a big gun. I found a photo of Hitchcock from probably the late 1980s that had a similar shading and shadow angle. I then replaced Eastwood's head with Hitchcock's. I also replaced Eastwood's full name with Hitchcock's in the poster's tag line.

World Party - Beatles Covers (1986-2006)

Karl Wallinger, the main force behind the band World Party, is a huge Beatles fan. He's done a lot of Beatles covers over the years, so many that there's enough to make an album of them. So that's exactly what I've done here. A couple of the songs are from the solo careers of John Lennon and Paul McCartney ("No. 9 Dream" and "Man We Was Lonely" respectively), and there's one Lennon-McCartney song the Beatles never recorded ("A World without Love"). But I figure that's close enough for horseshoes.

One must say that these Beatles covers are often very close to the Beatles versions. Occasionally, takes a very different approach, such as with "The Long and Winding Road," which has a different rhythmic structure. But that's rare. But that's okay. Wallinger obviously had a lot of fun recreating the records he loves.

Most of these songs are officially released, but rare. Three are B-sides. Three more are from the archival box set "Arkeology." A few are from various artists compilations. Two are actual album tracks. But three are unreleased. For two of those, the last two songs on the album, I don't even know what year they're from. All I know is that they were posted on a now defunct official World Party website. I estimated they were released around 2006, but I'm not sure. If anyone knows, please let me know.

I wouldn't have made this if my musical associate Lil' Panda didn't come up with the idea and drop nearly all of the songs in my lap. So thanks for that.

The album is 40 minutes long.

01 Nowhere Man (World Party)
02 Dear Prudence (World Party)
03 Happiness Is a Warm Gun (World Party)
04 Cry Baby Cry (World Party)
05 A World without Love (World Party)
06 I'm So Tired (World Party)
07 Fixing a Hole (World Party)
08 Martha My Dear (World Party)
09 No. 9 Dream (World Party)
10 Penny Lane (World Party)
11 Man We Was Lonely (World Party)
12 The Long and Winding Road (World Party)
13 All You Need Is Love (World Party) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376844/WORLDPRTY1986-2006BetlsCovrs_atse.zip.html

I have no idea where or when the cover art photo was taken. But I liked it, and I didn't see many other good ones to choose from. Judging from his appearance, I'm guessing it's from the early 2000s.

The Spencer Davis Group - Valmiina Pyorii, Helsinki, Finland, 3-19-1967

Just yesterday, Spencer Davis died of pneumonia at the age of 81. He was best known as the founder of the 1960s band the Spencer David Group. But even though the band was named after him, the band was dominated by their remarkable lead singer Steve Winwood. At the time of the band's first single, he'd only just turned 16 years old. But he would go on to have a long and successful career with Traffic, then Blind Faith, then as a solo artist.

I've had a Spencer Davis Group concert that I've been meaning to post, so this seems like a good time to do it. Steve Winwood was only with the band a relatively short time, from 1963 to early 1967. But virtually all of their big success was with him. They had four big hits, which were number 1 either in Britain or Canada: "Keep On Running," "Somebody Help Me," "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man." But despite their successes, they never released a live album, and there are virtually no bootlegs of them in concert.

Luckily, virtually no bootlegs isn't the same as no bootlegs. I've found two interesting videos with very good (though not excellent) sound quality, plus two other officially released live tracks. I've put them all together to make this album. The first four songs here are from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Beat Beat" in 1966. The rest of the album comes from a concert in Helsinki, Finland, in March 1967 that luckily also was shown on TV. You can find that, and the German TV appearance, on YouTube.

The band was named the "Spencer Davis Group" mainly because Davis was talkative and didn't mind doing interviews, whereas the other band members were shy. So Davis does a lot of the talking between the songs. But Steve Winwood does the vast majority of the lead vocals, as well as playing the organ. If you only know him from his work with Traffic and after that, you're missing out. He already was an excellent vocalist with a remarkable, distinctive voice in these years. Yeah, sometimes the songs are more poppy, but also often soulful and/or bluesy.

The album as a whole is 35 minutes long. The Finland concert part alone is 25 minutes long.

01 Keep On Running (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Sittin' and Thinkin' (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Please Do Something (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Somebody Help Me (Spencer Davis Group)
05 When I Come Home (Spencer Davis Group)
06 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
07 Dust My Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
08 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
09 Mean Woman Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Together 'Till the End of Time (Spencer Davis Group)
11 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
12 I'm a Man (Spencer Davis Group)
13 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Georgia on My Mind (Spencer Davis Group)
15 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
16 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yiyQVvn3

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/lXTLa3dA1nL1edH/file

The cover art photo is of the band in 1967. Steve Winwood was still in the band, here's on the far right, so it must be from early 1967. Winwood's eyes were looking off to the side, so I made an adjustment in Photoshop to make him looking forward like all the others.

Brandi Carlile - Home Concerts 2: Maple Valley, WA, 6-14-2020 (The Firewatcher's Daughter Album)

A few weeks ago, I posted a home concert album of Brandi Carlile. It collected a bunch of performances she played at home during the coronavirus pandemic, usually just a song here or two songs there. This album is different. It's a single home concert, consisting of her entire 2015 "The Firewatcher's Daughter" album, plus two extra songs at the end.

For most of her music career, Carliile has closely collaborated with the twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth. Those two have played guitar and bass, sing backing vocals, and often write or co-write songs on her albums. For this concert, it's just the trio of Carlile plus the Hanseroths, all on acoustic instruments.

During the pandemic lockdown, Carlile has been gradually holding concerts in which she plays all of her albums from start to end. Most of these have been available only behind a pay wall, so I won't be posting them here. But two of them have been made more widely available, including this one, so I'll post those two.

To be honest, I'd never heard "The Firewatcher's Daughter" before this home concert came along. But I like what I've heard a lot, so I'm posting this. It's made me go back and listen to the albums that I'd missed. Hopefully you'll feel the same if you haven't discovered this album in its original form already.

The sound quality of this concert is very good. There's a lot of talking between songs, which is often interesting, and gives a lot of information about the songs and how they came to be written.

The two extra songs at the end are "The Story," Carlile's first hit, and "Hallelujah," the classic by Leonard Cohen.

The concert as a whole is an hour and 18 minutes long.

01 talk (Brandi Carlile)
02 Wherever Is Your Heart (Brandi Carlile)
03 talk (Brandi Carlile)
04 The Eye (Brandi Carlile)
05 talk (Brandi Carlile)
06 The Things I Regret (Brandi Carlile)
07 talk (Brandi Carlile)
08 Mainstream Kid (Brandi Carlile)
09 talk (Brandi Carlile)
10 Beginning to Feel the Years (Brandi Carlile)
11 talk (Brandi Carlile)
12 Wilder [We're Chained] (Brandi Carlile)
13 talk (Brandi Carlile)
14 Blood, Muscle, Skin and Bone (Brandi Carlile)
15 talk (Brandi Carlile)
16 I Belong to You (Brandi Carlile)
17 talk (Brandi Carlile)
18 Alibi (Brandi Carlile)
19 talk (Brandi Carlile)
20 The Stranger at My Door (Brandi Carlile)
21 talk (Brandi Carlile)
22 Heroes and Songs (Brandi Carlile)
23 talk (Brandi Carlile)
24 Murder in the City (Brandi Carlile)
25 talk (Brandi Carlile)
26 The Story (Brandi Carlile)
27 talk (Brandi Carlile)
28 Hallelujah (Brandi Carlile)
29 talk (Brandi Carlile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281069/BrandiC_2020_HomeConcrts2MapleValleyWA__6-14-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is from a short promo video for this concert, in which she held up an oversized version of "The Firewatcher's Daughter" album cover.

Aerosmith - MTV Unplugged, Ed Sullivan Theater, New York City, 8-11-1990

I'm not much of a fan of Aerosmith beyond their hits. But their hits are really good and there are a lot of them. There is one thing from them that I want to share at this blog though, and that is an "acoustic" performance they did for MTV Unplugged in 1990 that never has been officially released. It's really good, and this version I'm sharing is superior to the one that is commonly available as a bootleg.

I put "acoustic" in quotes because they played as a full band, including drums, so it's more like semi-acoustic. But for a hard rocking band like Aerosmith, it was a different sound for them, relatively speaking. I believe it's the only time they ever played in an acoustic format. (Lead singer Steven Tyler has done some acoustic stuff in recent years, but without the rest of the band.) I consider this a "must-have" for any Aerosmith fan.

This show has been frequently bootlegged, and you can find grey market versions on Amazon and other similar places. But that version has a big problem. While it contains all the music in good quality, the recording was butchered between most of the songs, with most of the banter and applause cut off. I found one video clip on YouTube that had much more of the time between songs, but only for a portion of the concert. However, that encouraged me that more of it had to be out there. I looked high and low, and finally managed to find a version that included the full recording. It adds about six minutes to the total length of the concert, so it makes a difference.

The sound quality of this version is excellent. The show was professionally recorded by MTV, so this sounds as good as any live album from the time. It's a mystery to me why this album wasn't officially released, especially since the "Unplugged" trend was big at the time, and bands that did release their "Unplugged" concerts often sold millions of those albums. But at least it's here for you to listen to now.

I've made a few edits to improve things. The version I found with all the time between the songs included sometimes had too much dead air with guitar tuning and the like. So I cut out the boring parts. I also boosted the volume of some of the banter that was a bit quiet. But that was all the tweaking I had to do.

The band played some cover songs that they didn't normally do, for instance "Love Me Two Times" by the Doors, "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf, and "Milk Cow Blues" by Kokomo Arnold (which was done by Elvis Presley and the Kinks as well, by the way). They also did some covers that they put on well-known albums: "Big Ten Inch Record," "Walking the Dog," and "Train Kept A-Rollin'." Add it together, and about half the songs they did were covers.

The main concert is an hour and six minutes long. 

On top of that, I've added some quasi-bonus tracks at the end. Basically, I stuck everything else I had from the band that was acoustic or semi-acoustic. It wasn't much. There are two songs the band played acoustically for the Howard Stern radio show in 1997, "Pink" and "Bacon Biscuit Blues." By the way, I believe "Bacon Biscuit Blues" is an original outtake from the "Nine Lives" album that never got officially released because it didn't fit with the other music they were doing at the time. Then this album ends with acoustic versions of songs that were released as B-sides to the hit A-sides of the same songs in 1993 and 1994. 

Including all four of the extra songs, the album totals a hour and 24 minutes.

01 Hangman Jury (Aerosmith)
02 talk (Aerosmith)
03 Monkey on My Back (Aerosmith)
04 talk (Aerosmith)
05 Love Me Two Times (Aerosmith)
06 talk (Aerosmith)
07 Seasons of Wither (Aerosmith)
08 talk (Aerosmith)
09 Big Ten Inch Record (Aerosmith)
10 One Way Street (Aerosmith)
11 Smokestack Lightning (Aerosmith)
12 Dream On (Aerosmith)
13 talk (Aerosmith)
14 Milk Cow Blues (Aerosmith)
15 Toys in the Attic (Aerosmith)
16 talk (Aerosmith)
17 Walking the Dog (Aerosmith)
18 talk (Aerosmith)
19 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Aerosmith)
20 Train Kept A-Rollin' [Slow Version] (Aerosmith)
21 talk (Aerosmith)
22 Last Child (Aerosmith)
23 Pink (Aerosmith)
24 Bacon Biscuit Blues (Aerosmith)
25 Amazing [Acoustic Version] (Aerosmith)
26 Crazy [Acoustic Version] (Aerosmith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288620/Aerosmth_1990_MmTVUnpluggedEdSllivanTheaterNewYrkC__8-11-1990_atse.zip.html

Boy, did I have a hard time finding a good cover image for this album. The video of the band's "Unplugged" performance is available on YouTube and other places, but it's rather low-res and blurry. It's okay for watching a video, but any screenshot of it looks bad. All the photos I found from the concert, such as the ones used for bootleg covers, were taken from the blurry video. But I finally found one good one taken from yet another bootleg cover of the same concert. The only problem is it only depicts lead singer Steven Tyler instead of the entire band. So this is what I'm going with. But if anyone has a better one, please let me know.

The text for the band name and "Unplugged" is exactly as it was from the bootleg cover. The only change I made is the small text under the word "Unplugged."