Suzanne Vega - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, London School of Economics, London, Britain, 10-24-1985

Given the trouble that I detailed in my last post, I'm going to switch my posting strategy for a while to see how things shake out. For the next couple of weeks, at least, I'm going to be careful to only post 100 percent unreleased material, and see if any of that gets flagged. But, one way or another, I do plan on getting back to posting stray tracks collections and the like.

I also intend to start a YouTube channel and post some unreleased albums there, so at least I'll have a known second home on the Internet in case this one suddenly goes down. I hope to post more about that very soon.

So, with that in mind, here's something that I believe is completely unreleased. It's also high time I post something from American singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega. So far, the only music I've posted from her is a Songwriter's Circle episode in which she was one of the three featured artists.

This concert goes way back to the beginning of her recorded music career it took place just a few months after the release of her debut album, simply entitled "Suzanne Vega." It's a lot longer than that album, so it has many songs that were unreleased by her at the time, including some of her best known songs, such as "Tom's Diner," "Luka," and "Left of Center."

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 talk (Suzanne Vega)
02 Tom's Diner (Suzanne Vega)
03 talk (Suzanne Vega)
04 Some Journey (Suzanne Vega)
05 Small Blue Thing (Suzanne Vega)
06 Cracking (Suzanne Vega)
07 talk (Suzanne Vega)
08 Undertow (Suzanne Vega)
09 talk (Suzanne Vega)
10 The Queen and the Soldier (Suzanne Vega)
11 Knight Moves (Suzanne Vega)
12 talk (Suzanne Vega)
13 Gypsy (Suzanne Vega)
14 talk (Suzanne Vega)
15 Calypso (Suzanne Vega)
16 Straight Lines (Suzanne Vega)
17 Freeze Tag (Suzanne Vega)
18 talk (Suzanne Vega)
19 Luka (Suzanne Vega)
20 talk (Suzanne Vega)
21 Left of Center (Suzanne Vega)
22 Marlene on the Wall (Suzanne Vega)
23 talk (Suzanne Vega)
24 Neighbourhood Girls (Suzanne Vega)
25 talk (Suzanne Vega)
26 Black Widow Station (Suzanne Vega)
27 talk (Suzanne Vega)
28 The Rent Song (Suzanne Vega)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15467597/SuzannV_1985_BBSessionsVolum1InConcrtLondnSchlofEconomcsLondnBrtain__10-24-1985_atse.zip.html

The cover is one of only a few photos of Vega I could find that are definitely from 1985. This one was taken backstage at a concert in San Francisco in July 1985.

Announcment: Uht-Oh!

There has been a disturbing development. I just got a notice from blogger.com (which is owned by Google) that not one, not two, but three of my recent posts have been hidden due to a violation of "community standards." The posts are the Honeybus stray tracks album "Broken Wings," the Graham Nash solo concert at Club Quatro in Japan in 1990, and the Bruce Springsteen set of the Human Rights Now concert in Buenos Aires in 1988. I hope you downloaded those while you could, because they're no longer available.

This is very strange to me. I don't see any pattern behind these three being blocked. The Nash concert is 100 percent unreleased material, so I don't know what's wrong with that at all. A few of the songs from the Springsteen set are on an obscure official release, but so are a few songs from the four other sets posted from that same concert, and I didn't get a notice about those. Ditto with the Honeybus one. That's a mix of released and unreleased material, but so are the two other stray tracks albums by Honeybus, using many of the same official albums.

The one thing those three all have in common is they were posted in the past few days. Is there some new process that attempts to flag new posts? Perhaps. Or did this blog just come to the attention of some copyright police force? If either is the case, this blog could be in a lot of trouble. It might even get shut down. I've previously had some trouble with download links being broken, but this is different, because it's the blogging service hiding these posts. Perhaps it's time for me to look for a new host. 

In the meantime, you might want to go through the archives of this blog to grab what you want, because I sense there's more trouble coming. A year or two ago, a very similar blog with a very similar name, "Albums I Wish Exist," got a flurry of take down notices all at once, and blogger.com simply deleted the entire blog without warning! That's why, if you look at the current URL for that blog, https://albumsiwishexisted2.blogspot.com/, you'll see a "2" in the name, because that is the second version, created after the takedown. And that new version, which is basically a duplicate of the old one, hasn't had those troubles. So go figure. It all seems very arbitrary and random.

If anyone has any ideas for how I can host this blog without facing this problem, please do let me know. I might even want to have my own server so I hopefully wouldn't have higher-ups to answer to, but I don't know how to do that.

Also, I plan on continuing this even if the entire blog gets suddenly taken down. I have it backed up, and I'll attempt to find a new home. If that happens, please check the "Albums I Wish Exist" blog, or other similar blogs, and hopefully I'll be able to post about my new location through those.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (with Joni Mitchell) - Roosevelt Raceway, Westbury, NY, 9-8-1974

If you want just one full-length Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) concert recording, I would suggest this one. Although there was a lot of drug and ego trouble between band members backstage on their 1974 tour, the four of them were peaking in terms of songwriting and performance. And as a bonus, Joni Mitchell sang backing vocals on no less than nine of the songs.

This was the last night in the U.S. of CSNY's ill-fated 1974 concert tour. They only did one concert in 1974 after this, in London, Britain (which was their only appearance in Europe). Due to the troubles mentioned above, the four of them nicknamed this the "Doom Tour" amongst themselves, and they ran wild with 1970s superstar lifestyle excess. But despite all that, they had many good nights on stage, and this clearly was one such night. They played in front of 80,000 people as part of an all-day concert with Jesse Colin Young, the Beach Boys, and Joni Mitchell as opening acts.

The fact that Mitchell was an opening act helps explain why she joined in singing on a bunch of songs. I believe she did the same for the Wembley show, where she also was an opening act, but I don't think she did that on the other dates in the tour. By the way, the day of this concert, American stuntman Evel Knievel attempted to jump across Snake River Canyon in Idaho on a rocket-powered motorcycle. That happened to be broadcast on pay-per-view TV during Mitchell's set, and she actually took a break from her set to watch it for a few minutes, telling the audience that she was going to go watch some idiot commit suicide. (Knievel survived, but landed at the bottom of the canyon short of crossing the river.) Neil Young made a comment about the Knievel jump before one of the songs he played.

Unfortunately, I looked for the opening sets, but could only find this bootleg with worthy sound quality (or, in most cases, any versions at all).

This is a soundboard recording, and the sound quality is excellent. There were only a couple of snags. For one, a tiny section in the middle of "Deja Vu" was missing, but it seems it was only a few seconds long. It was during an instrumental passage, and I edited it so the missing bit won't be noticed. Also, the last part of "Black Queen" was missing, probably a minute or two. This was more difficult. But I used the version on the album "CSNY 1974" to bring it to a conclusion. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Speaking of the album "CSNY 1974," that's an official album released in 2014 that features highlights from this tour. It was a big triple album drawn from ten different concerts, but none of those concerts happen to be this one, so I'm pretty sure everything here is still officially unreleased. Personally, I usually prefer listening to entire concert recordings instead of live albums drawn from lots of different shows. If you feel the same, I'm pretty sure this is the best show from the tour, as the few other soundboards are incomplete or have other flaws. (For instance, there's a soundboard recording of the Wembley show too, but it was considered a disappointing performance.)

As with all the shows on this tour, the concert was broken into three sections. CSNY was backed by a full band for the first part and the last part, while there was a big acoustic section in the middle. The acoustic section is roughly from track 16 to 36. Each member got to do their own solo spot. Weirdly though, Crosby only did one song, while Nash, Stills, and Young each did three songs. But the solo songs weren't always really solo, others often joined vocals, including Mitchell on a few.

By the way, Mitchell's participation is a bit odd in that I didn't hear any banter between songs thanking her or even mentioning her. It's very possible that banter like that got cut out. (This also was the day that it was announced that President Ford pardoned former President Nixon for his Watergate crimes. Crosby told that to the crowd during the concert, and the crowd booed. But that's not on this recording, so at least some banter got cut.) But what also is a bit unusual is that she came and went from the stage at least seven different times. I figure that she only sang on the songs that she knew well and had something to contribute on vocal harmonies, and those were randomly scattered throughout the long concert. I find it particularly interesting that she helped sing "Our House," since that song was written by Nash about her when they had a romance around 1970.

This is quite a long concert. This album is three hours and nine minutes long.

01 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
03 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 Immigration Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
05 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Helpless (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
07 Military Madness (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
08 Johnny's Garden (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Walk On (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
14 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
15 The Lee Shore (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
16 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
17 Time After Time (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
18 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
19 Southbound Train (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
20 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
21 Another Sleep Song (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
22 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
23 Our House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
24 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
25 Hawaiian Sunrise (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
26 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
27 Long May You Run (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
28 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
29 Ambulance Blues (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
30 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
31 Old Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
32 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
33 Change Partners (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
34 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
35 Myth of Sisyphus (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
36 Word Game (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
37 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
38 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
39 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
40 Deja Vu [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
41 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
42 First Things First (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
43 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
44 Don't Be Denied (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
45 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
46 Black Queen [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
47 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
48 Revolution Blues (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
49 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
50 Pushed It Over the End (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
51 Pre-Road Downs (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
52 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 Carry On (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 Sugar Mountain (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Joni Mitchell)
56 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jeKeG

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6rMMex7V

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/f9nB9iMAMIHIH8U/file 

The photo used on the cover is from the CSNY Wembley concert a few days later (September 14, 1974). I couldn't find any good color ones from this exact one. I used this particular photo because it has Mitchell there with CSNY, and I thought it was particularly neat to see all five of them together. Neil Young's face was blocked by two microphones, but I did some tweaking in Photoshop so one can now see his eyes.

Also note that I found a concert poster for this exact concert. I based some of the cover art on the poster. However, I inverted the bright and dark bits to better match with the black background of the photo. I'm including the poster here, in case you want to see it. Note that the sketch in the middle was drawn by Mitchell, and was also used for the cover of the band's best of collection "So Far."

The Beatles - The Beatles Uncovered, Volume 2: Mike's Mixes (1967-1972) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's Mike with another Beatles compilation. Take it away, Mike.

Hey Kids, Michael Solof here and I’m back with Volume Two of some of my coolest remixes of Beatle tracks culled from over 300 shows I produced for a now defunct internet station called Beatles-a-rama. The thing I always found most fun (and still do) in working with Beatles tracks is using the most modern equipment out there to rip the commercially released tracks apart... and then finding out what is hiding in the cracks and crevices of the music. The stuff buried beneath. The stuff you never usually get a chance to hear. Until now! That’s what this collection is all about. I’m hoping that the hour of music in Volume Two will allow you to appreciate the greatest band in the world in a whole new way. 

There’s a lot more where this came from... but ready the PDF file that's included with the download for a brief track by track summary of what I’ve included in this batch. Enjoy!

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Maybe I'm Amazed [Mike's Mix] (Paul McCartney)
02 Oh Darling [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)
03 Apple Scruffs [Mike's Mix] (George Harrison)
04 Hear Me Lord [Mike's Mix] (George Harrison)
05 It's So Hard [Mike's Mix] (John Lennon)
06 I Want You [She's So Heavy] [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)
07 Wah Wah [Mike's Mix] (George Harrison)
08 Dear Boy [Mike's Mix] (Paul McCartney)
09 Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)
10 Rock of All Ages [Mike's Mix] (Badfinger & Paul McCartney)
11 My Sweet Lord [Mike's Mix] (George Harrison)
12 All Things Must Pass [Mike's Mix] (George Harrison)
13 The Back Seat of My Car [Mike's Mix] (Paul McCartney)
14 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)
15 You Never Give Me Your Money [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)
16 Happy Xmas [War Is Over] [Mike's Mix] (John Lennon)
17 Imagine [Mike's Mix] (John & Julian Lennon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mMTFFMaa

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0Tl2lddrSyfFQhK/file

As with Volume 1, I don't know where Mike got the cover art or who made it. Perhaps he can explain in more detail. In March 2025, I improved the image quality with the use of the Krea AI program.

The Talking Heads - Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA, 8-24-1979

I've been meaning to post a Talking Heads concert from their 1979 tour in order to further render the official live album "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads" further obsolete. I'm not a fan of that album because it tried to do too much, collecting live tracks from 1977 to 1980 instead of just focusing on one time period like most live albums. This is probably the best sounding concert recording of the band from 1979.

The reason this sounds so good is because it was professionally recorded for a Boston radio station and broadcast on the air at the time. The was also the case for the opening act, the B-52's, and I just posted their set. Only one song from this performance has ever been officially released as far as I know. "Mind" has appeared on the expanded edition of "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads."

The one flaw with this otherwise great sounding recording, in my opinion, is that the lead vocals were a bit low in the mix. But I used the audio editing program UVR5 to fix that, so this should sound better than it ever has been.

In 1979, the band was touring to support their latest album "Fear of Music." It was a very critically acclaimed album, for instance being named the best album of the year by NME, Melody Maker, and the Los Angeles Times. The band played most of the songs from that album, except for "I Zimbra," "Animals," and "Drugs." One interesting thing about this tour is that, even though the band's music was getting increasingly complicated, only the four band members played the concerts. For the next tour, that would drastically change, with more backing musicians than band members.

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 talk (Talking Heads)
02 Artists Only (Talking Heads)
03 talk (Talking Heads)
04 Stay Hungry (Talking Heads)
05 Cities (Talking Heads)
06 Paper (Talking Heads)
07 Mind (Talking Heads)
08 talk (Talking Heads)
09 Heaven (Talking Heads)
10 The Book I Read (Talking Heads)
11 Electric Guitar (Talking Heads)
12 Air (Talking Heads)
13 Warning Sign (Talking Heads)
14 Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Talking Heads)
15 talk (Talking Heads)
16 Memories Can't Wait (Talking Heads)
17 Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
18 talk (Talking Heads)
19 Life during Wartime (Talking Heads)
20 Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15454912/TTalkngHs_1979b_BrkleePerformnceCentrBostnMA__8-24-1979_atse.zip.html

Since I also posted the opening set by the B-52's, I thought it would be fun to have the two album covers look similar. I chose a similar photo that had a dark black background, even though it's probably from a different concert. (I don't know the sourcing from this one, except it looks like it's from the 1979 tour, judging by the fact that there are no extra musicians.) I also used the same font style and colors for both covers.

The B-52's - Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA, 8-24-1979

I hadn't planned on creating and posting this album at all. But I was making an album for the headlining act for this concert, which I will post shortly, and I discovered the B-52's were the opening act. I further discovered that an excellent sounding bootleg of this set exists, just like the headliner act. That's because both the opening and headlining acts were broadcast on a local radio station at the time. So I figured, "What the heck, why not post this set too?"

This concert took place only a few months after the release of the B-52's debut album, simply called "The B-52's." However, four of the songs - "Private Idaho," "Devil in My Car," "Runnin' Around," and "Strobe Light" - were unreleased at the time and would appear on the band's second album "Wild Planet" in 1980. I read on Wikipedia that the band actually wrote most of the songs for their second album before their first album was released, but they held back some good songs, like "Private Idaho," to make sure the second album would be a strong one.

Although the sound quality is excellent overall, I felt the vocals were a bit low in the mix. So I used the audio editing program UVR5 to boost them some.

This album is 39 minutes long. It's rather short since the band was only the opening act.

01 talk (B-52's)
02 52 Girls (B-52's)
03 6060-842 (B-52's)
04 talk (B-52's)
05 Lava (B-52's)
06 talk (B-52's)
07 Private Idaho (B-52's)
08 talk (B-52's)
09 Devil in My Car (B-52's)
10 talk (B-52's)
11 Dance This Mess Around (B-52's)
12 talk (B-52's)
13 Runnin' Around (B-52's)
14 talk (B-52's)
15 Rock Lobster (B-52's)
16 talk (B-52's)
17 Strobe Light (B-52's)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15456913/TB5Twos_1979b_BrkleePerformnceCentrBostnMA__8-24-1979_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is said to be from the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in 1979. The band played there in August and then again in September, so it could be from either of those two shows.

Honeybus - Broken Wings - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1972)

Now that some missing songs have been found, I can continue with more Honeybus. Here's the third stray tracks album by them.

As I've mentioned previously, it's a crying shame how badly this band was treated by their record company. They wrote lots of great songs, but very few of them were released at the time. As a result, their legacy is really underappreciated. Consider that, of all the songs here, only three of them would have been publicly available at the time. "She Is the Female to My Soul" was an obscure 1972 A-side, and "Fighting for Peace" and "For Where Have You Been" were even more obscure B-sides. Adding to the insult, if I were to pick an A-side out of all these songs, "She Is the Female to My Soul" would have been near the bottom of my list.

At least these songs are finally available after all these years. The first three songs were only officially released two months ago as I write this in July 2023. They come from an official BBC compilation. They might be my favorite three songs here. One of them, "Melinda," has "[Edit]" in the title due to the usual problem of having to edit out a BBC DJ who talked over the music.

As with the previous stray tracks album, a number of songs here are technically credited to individual band members, but in fact are Honeybus tracks, since all the band members played on them. This is due to the record company giving up on the band (after releasing a Honeybus album in 1970, called "Story"), leading to singer-songwriters Colin Hare and Pete Dello to release their own solo albums in 1971. None of these songs are from those albums. Both of them ("March Hare" by Hare and "Into Your Ears" by Dello) are very good, and should be owned by any Honeybus fans. These are songs recorded around the same time and latest released as bonus tracks.

Although these songs were recorded between 1970 and 1972, they sound more like 1968 or 1969 tracks to me. The band was still capturing that magical, innocent late 1960s sound, and were seemingly impervious to musical trends. They remind me of the Left Banke, with poppy songs that used a lot of stringed instruments.

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 Follow the Plan (Honeybus)
02 Melinda [Edit] (Honeybus)
03 Broken Wings (Honeybus)
04 Fighting for Peace (Colin Hare & Honeybus)
05 She Is the Female to My Soul (Honeybus)
06 For Where Have You Been (Honeybus)
07 Hold Up, Fold Up (Pete Dello & Honeybus)
08 Texas Candy (Pete Dello & Honeybus)
09 Didn't I Tell You (Colin Hare & Honeybus)
10 Seek Not in the Wide World (Colin Hare & Honeybus)
11 Hear Me Only (Honeybus)
12 Texas Gold (Honeybus)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RiaSvqCU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/CYCecsp6i9hgNF8/file 

NOTE: This album got flagged due to a copyright issue with one song, a demo version of "Delighted to See You." That's not a big loss, since a different version is on the album I posted here, "I Can't Let Maggie Go." So I've reposted this without that song.

I've only found a few good photos of this band. So I had to resort to a black and white one here. But I used the program Palette to colorize them, and I'm really impressed at the result. I only did a little bit of touch-up work with Photoshop. I'm not sure what year this photo is from, but I'd guess 1968 or 1969. 

I took the style of the band name at the top from the artwork for one of their singles.

Graham Nash - Club Quatro, Tokyo, Japan, 11-21-1990

Last week, I posted a solo album by Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). I pointed out then that he tends to get overlooked when compared to the other musical heavyweights in CSNY, but he's definitely been a worthy member of that group. So here's another solo album by him. 

This time, it's a full concert. For many years, he didn't do solo concerts very often, because he was usually paired with David Crosby in Crosby-Nash when he wasn't part of CSN or CSNY. He did do a couple of brief tours in 1973 and 1986, but it wasn't until 2013 when he started to tour on his own more often. This appears to have been his only concert in the year 1990. Judging from his comments between songs in this concert, he was in Japan mainly to show off some of his photographs at a gallery (since he also has a passion about photography), and this concert was a bit of an afterthought. 

But it's a lucky thing it happened, because it's one of very few Nash solo concert bootlegs with excellent sound quality. This must be a soundboard. 

Of course, it's always nice to hear Nash's songs in the context of CN, CSN, or CSNY, with vocal harmonies and often a full band. But it's also nice to hear them like this, stripped way back to just one voice and one acoustic guitar.

The only flaw came in the song "America" (a cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic). It wasn't a flaw with the recording. Instead, it seems Nash broke a guitar string during the song. He had to stop briefly to deal with it. I edited the song to remove the interruption. That's why there's "[Edit]" in the name for that one. Also, I did a little cutting of dead air between songs, such as guitar tuning. And I boosted the vocals of his banter.

Note that the last song, "Try to Find Me," isn't actually from this concert. It was performed during a Nash solo spot in a CSN concert in 1991. But I've had this bootleg in my music collection for ages with that song added at the end, so I'm keeping it that way. I think it's a very overlooked tune. Even Nash overlooked it and didn't put it on any album for many years after he wrote it.

This album is an hour and five minutes long, including the extra song at the end.

01 Wind on the Water (Graham Nash)
02 talk (Graham Nash)
03 Just a Song Before I Go (Graham Nash)
04 talk (Graham Nash)
05 Don't Say Goodbye (Graham Nash)
06 talk (Graham Nash)
07 Marrakesh Express (Graham Nash)
08 talk (Graham Nash)
09 Simple Man (Graham Nash)
10 talk (Graham Nash)
11 Lady on the Island (Graham Nash)
12 talk (Graham Nash)
13 Wasted on the Way (Graham Nash)
14 America [Edit] (Graham Nash)
15 talk (Graham Nash)
16 Cowboy of Dreams (Graham Nash)
17 talk (Graham Nash)
18 House of Broken Dreams (Graham Nash)
19 I Used to Be a King (Graham Nash)
20 talk (Graham Nash)
21 Military Madness (Graham Nash)
22 Cathedral (Graham Nash)
23 talk (Graham Nash)
24 Our House (Graham Nash)
25 talk (Graham Nash)
26 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash)
27 Try to Find Me (Graham Nash)

NOTE: I've removed the download link due to a copyright issue. Sorry about that.

The cover photo comes from a CSN concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 1990. I couldn't resist using a Japanese styled font, since the concert took place in Japan.

The Gang of Four - BBC Sessions (1979-1982)

The Gang of Four are the next musical act to get the BBC treatment. I'm interested mainly in their original years together, 1978 to 1982. (Like so many musical groups, there were various reunions later.) As far as I know, they didn't do any BBC concerts in that time frame, and this one album is all there is.

The first 11 songs here have been officially released as "The Peel Sessions Album." If that was all there was, I wouldn't be posting this, since the official album took care of things perfectly. But that's not the case. Those 11 tracks just happen to be all the BBC sessions with DJ John Peel. They also did two appearances on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" (tracks 12 to 14), and another BBC session with DJ Kid Jensen (tracks 15 to 18). All of those are unreleased, so I figure that's enough to justify putting them all together here.

The sound quality is excellent all the way through, for both the released and unreleased tracks. Two of the Old Grey Whistle Test songs were done before a studio audience, but it was a small one, and there's only a bit of clapping at the ends of those.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 I Found That Essence Rare (Gang of Four)
02 Return the Gift (Gang of Four)
03 5.45 (Gang of Four)
04 At Home He's a Tourist (Gang of Four)
05 Natural's Not in It (Gang of Four)
06 Not Great Men (Gang of Four)
07 Ether (Gang of Four)
08 Guns Before Butter (Gang of Four)
09 Paralysed (Gang of Four)
10 History's Bunk (Gang of Four)
11 To Hell with Poverty (Gang of Four)
12 He'd Send in the Army (Gang of Four)
13 Call Me Up (Gang of Four)
14 I Love a Man in a Uniform (Gang of Four)
15 The World at Fault (Gang of Four)
16 I Will Be a Good Boy (Gang of Four)
17 History of the World (Gang of Four)
18 We Live as We Dream, Alone (Gang of Four)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WdKgyHdN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vxXxH6NUndQ0UVF/file

I had fun making this particular album cover. I was searching the Internet for a good photo of the band, and came across one where the band members were posing dramatically, with their fists in the air. That reminded me of the dramatic statues of Communist countries like Russia and China. Perhaps that was intentional in the photo session, since the band is named after four political leaders from Communist China. But in any case, I found a photo of two giant bronze statues in North Korea. I used Photoshop to get rid of those, and then pasted in the band, and colorized them to look bronze.

Simon & Garfunkel - BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, Canada, 8-22-1983

There are some no-brainer, must-have concert bootlegs that I've never gotten around to posting for one reason or another. This is one of them.

After breaking up in 1970, Simon and Garfunkel did a bunch of reunion tours, but never made much new music together. The closest they got was in 1981 to 1983, when they released "The Concert in Central Park" live album, then began recording a new studio album, to be titled "Think Too Much." I've already posted my version of what that would have sounded like, here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/12/simon-garfunkel-think-too-much-various.html

But in addition to some studio recordings that ultimately never got released, they also toured some before breaking up again. This is clearly the best bootleg recording from that tour, a soundboard. 

The set list is fairly similar to "The Concert in Central Park" album, recorded in 1981, especially by having Garfunkel sing harmonies on a bunch of Paul Simon solo hits from the 1970s. But they also did three songs from the planned new album: "Cars Are Cars," "Think Too Much," and "The Late, Great Johnny Ace." Plus, they varied up the set list in other ways, for instance with the covers "I Only Have Eyes for You" and "One Summer Night." So it's definitely worth having both, in my opinion. This also is about half an hour longer, so it just has more songs in general.

This album is an hour and 43 minutes long.

01 Cecilia - Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)
02 America (Simon & Garfunkel)
03 My Little Town (Simon & Garfunkel)
04 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel)
06 Cars Are Cars (Simon & Garfunkel)
07 I Only Have Eyes for You (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Late in the Evening (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 The Late Great Johnny Ace (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 El Condor Pasa [If I Could] (Simon & Garfunkel)
14 Think Too Much (Simon & Garfunkel)
15 Still Crazy After All These Years (Simon & Garfunkel)
16 Kodachrome - Maybellene (Simon & Garfunkel)
17 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
19 Slip Slidin' Away (Simon & Garfunkel)
20 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
21 The 59th Street Bridge Song [Feelin' Groovy] (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 Old Friends (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 Wake Up Little Susie (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 One Summer Night (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
26 Late in the Evening [Reprise] (Simon & Garfunkel)
27 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WGogkFTs

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nxHotHUyVT2eMps/file

I looked for photos from this exact concert, and found two, both of them black and white. The other one only showed Simon, so I disregarded that one. This one is weird. I have no idea what was happening when this was taken. Their faces actually were even closer, with Garfunkel's nose overlapping Simon's a little bit, but that seemed even stranger, so I used Photoshop to move Garfunkel back a bit. I also used the Palette program to colorize it.

For the text at the top, I found an artistic rendering of their name, and stretched it to fit the space. Then I found a nice paisley pattern and used that to add some color and character to the letters.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 5 - Bruce Springsteen

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first sets featured Youssou N'Dour, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel and Sting. This is Bruce Springsteen's closing set.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Unlike some of the other artists in this concert, Springsteen hadn't yet gotten overtly political with his songs, though he would later, for instance with his 1995 album "The Ghost of Tom Joad." But he had done some political benefits before, such as the "No Nukes" concerts in 1979, and a frequent theme in his songs has been the problems of the common man. 

He also was the only one to release music to support this tour at the time. He put out the "Chimes of Freedom" EP in August 1988, which contained four songs recorded during a different tour earlier in the year. But it helped draw attention to the tour, especially the Bob Dylan cover "Chimes of Freedom," which he hadn't recorded before.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Sting.

The last two songs might not be considered part of Springsteen's set. Since this was the last set of the entire concert, all five of the headlining artists - Springsteen, N'Dour, Chapman, Gabriel, and Sting - joined together on stage to sing two encore songs. But I've included them here since they came right after his set.

In 1987, Springsteen released the album "Tunnel of Love," which was well received. But, oddly, he didn't play any songs from it during this set. Instead, he leaned particularly heavily on his 1984 smash album "Born in the U.S.A." Also, I'd like to note that he made some valiant attempts to speak Spanish for the Argentine audience, but he didn't seem as fluent as some others. I was particularly amused how he introduced Sting as "El Stingo" when Sting joined in singing the song "The River."

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is an hour and 25 minutes long. Since I consider it a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 46, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

46 talk by Sting (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
47 Born in the U.S.A. (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
48 The Promised Land (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
49 Cover Me (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
50 I'm on Fire (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
51 talk (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
52 The River (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band with Sting)
53 Cadillac Ranch (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
54 War (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
55 Monologue (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
56 My Home Town (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
57 Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
58 Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
59 Raise Your Hand (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
60 Twist and Shout (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
61 Chimes of Freedom (Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Youssou N'Dour & Sting)
62 Get Up, Stand Up (Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Youssou N'Dour & Sting)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6P24jWZ9

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/SmzsH9hwB7Zyr0I/file 

The cover photo is from this exact concert. I could have used a photo of just Springsteen, but I thought it was more interesting to use one of Tracy Chapman, Sting, and Springsteen from one of the encore songs. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 4 - Sting

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first sets featured Youssou N'Dour, Tracy Chapman and Peter Gabriel. This set is by Sting. The remaining set features Bruce Springsteen.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Sting was a good fit for this concert, due to a couple of songs on his most recent album at the time, "...Nothing like the Sun." One was "They Dance Alone," which was about the disappearance of thousands of political activists in Chile in the 1970s and 80s. Another, "Fragile," is about Ben Linder, a U.S. engineer who was working on a microhydro dam in Nicaragua in 1987 when he was killed by the Contras, a rebel group secretly funded by the U.S. government. 

Additionally, early in 1988, Sting released an EP called "Nada Como el Sol," which contained Spanish versions of four songs from his "...Nothing like the Sun." That included the two political songs mentioned above. So perhaps it's not surprising that he performed the Spanish versions of those two songs instead of the English versions, since this concert took place in Argentina, where the dominant language is Spanish. I don't know if he speaks Spanish or had to be coached, but he also ably made some comments in Spanish between songs.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Peter Gabriel. Gabriel also helped sing the song "Ellas Danzan Solas" (the Spanish version of "They Dance Alone"). Also, Bruce Springsteen helped sing the final song, the huge Police hit "Every Breath You Take."

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long. Since I consider it a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 34, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

Note that on the mp3, I had to shorten the title for the medley "Bring on the Night - When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around" because it's so damn long.

34 talk by Peter Gabriel (Sting)
35 The Lazarus Heart - Too Much Information (Sting)
36 We'll Be Together (Sting)
37 If You Love Somebody Set Them Free (Sting)
38 One World [Not Three] (Sting)
39 talk (Sting)
40 Fragilidad [Spanish Version of Fragile] (Sting)
41 Driven to Tears (Sting)
42 Bring on the Night - When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around (Sting)
43 Don't Stand So Close to Me (Sting)
44 Ellas Danzan Solas [Spanish Version of They Dance Alone] (Sting with Peter Gabriel)
45 Every Breath You Take (Sting with Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451357/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part4-_Stng.zip.html

The cover is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a YouTube video. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 3 - Peter Gabriel

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first set mainly featured Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour, and the second set featured Tracy Chapman. This is Peter Gabriel's set. The remaining two are the sets of  Sting and Bruce Springsteen.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Peter Gabriel was a good fit for this concert, due to his interest in human rights abuses as well as world music. For instance, his 1980 song "Biko," which he played here, is about Steven Biko, an anti-Apartheid activist who was beaten to death by security officials while detained in a South African prison in 1977. It's too bad he didn't play "Wallflower," because that's a 1982 song about the mistreatment of political prisoners in Latin America, which couldn't have been more relevant to this concert in Argentina.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Tracy Chapman. Chapman also helped sing the song "Don't Give Up," taking the female vocal part done by Kate Bush on the record version. Also, Youssou N'Dour sang some on the record version of "In Your Eyes," so he naturally sang on this version as well.

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is an hour and five minutes long. Since I consider it a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 24, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

24 talk by Tracy Chapman (Peter Gabriel)
25 Red Rain (Peter Gabriel)
26 Games without Frontiers (Peter Gabriel)
27 Shock the Monkey (Peter Gabriel)
28 No Self Control (Peter Gabriel)
29 Don't Give Up (Peter Gabriel & Tracy Chapman)
30 Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
31 Monologue (Peter Gabriel)
32 In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel with Youssou N'Dour)
33 Biko (Peter Gabriel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451551/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part3-_PetrGbriel.zip.html

The cover is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a YouTube video. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 2 - Tracy Chapman

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first set mainly featured Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour. This one is Tracy Chapman's set. The next three are the sets of Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Chapman was a natural fit for such a concert, since she's often sung about political and social issues. But note that this concert came very early in her career. Her debut album "Tracy Chapman" was released in April 1988. It would go on to sell about 20 million copies! This concert only took place about six months after that album's release.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Youssou N'Dour.

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is 33 minutes long. For whatever reason, Chapman's set is the shortest. All of the songs are from her debut album except "Freedom Now," which would go on her second album. She mostly played solo acoustic, even doing one song acappella. However, Branford Marsalis contributed a saxophone solo on one song.

Since I consider this to be a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 14, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

14 talk by Youssou N'Dour (Tracy Chapman)
15 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
16 Why (Tracy Chapman)
17 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
18 Behind the Wall (Tracy Chapman)
19 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
20 talk (Tracy Chapman)
21 Freedom Now (Tracy Chapman)
22 Mountain O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
23 Talkin' Bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451322/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part2-_TrcyChapmn.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 1 - Leon Gieco, Charly Garcia & Youssou N'Dour

You may well ask: "Who the heck are Leon Gieco, Charly Garcia & Youssou N'Dour?" Prior to putting this album together a few days ago, I had only of Youssou N'Dour, and just a bit, mainly due to his musical collaborations with Peter Gabriel. The reason I'm posting this album is because it's the first part of five albums that make up a big, long benefit concert held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1988, in front of 75,000 people. The other artists are Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen.

The concert was the last one in a worldwide tour of 10 benefit concerts on behalf of Amnesty International that took place over six weeks in 1988. Although it did raise funds for charity, it was even more focused on raising awareness of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its 40th anniversary and the work of Amnesty International to combat human rights abuses around the world.

You can read more about the concerts at Wikipedia, here:

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

Youssou N'Dour is from the country of Senegal. Rolling Stone Magazine has said he is arguably the most famous musician from Africa. He was one of the five headliners for this concert tour, along with Chapman, Gabriel, Sting, and Springsteen. However, at each concert venue, there would be one or two additional musicians on the bill, generally those who were only regionally or nationally famous, in order to help them reach larger audiences. That's why Leon Gieco and Charly Garcia are included here. Both of them are from Argentina. Gieco is a singer-songwriter known as the "Argentine Bob Dylan." Charly Garcia is better known throughout Latin America. He's played many genres of music, from folk to prog rock. Both of them are known for being politically outspoken, making them a good fit with the themes of this concert.

Here's the Wikipedia page of Gieco:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3n_Gieco

And here's the page of Garcia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charly_Garc%C3%ADa

I'm pretty sure the sets of Gieco and Garcia are incomplete, with only two and four songs respectively. But something is better than nothing. Both sang entirely in Spanish.

N'Dour generally sings in Wolof, a language popular in Senegal and a few nearby countries. So if you prefer your music in English, this album may be tough sledding for you. However, the music of both Garcia and N'Dour is lively and often danceable, which helps transcend language barriers.

Note that portions of this concert have been officially released, but not much. The official album, "Released! The Human Rights Concerts," came out in 2013, long after the concert, and didn't seem to sell many copies. It was only a double album, and the concert was over five and a half hours long, so it only captured some highlights. For instance, that album has no songs by Gieco or Garcia, and only two by N'Dour. But this is an excellent soundboard bootleg, so there's no worries about sound quality.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. Only eight minutes are of Gieco's songs. Another 16 minutes are of Garcia's songs. The vast majority, 38 minutes, are of N'Dour's songs.

01 Hombres de Hierro (Leon Gieco)
02 Solo le Pido a Dios (Leon Gieco)
03 Demoliendo Hoteles (Charly Garcia)
04 Los Dinosaurios (Charly Garcia)
05 Nos Siguen Pegando Abajo [Pecado Mortal] (Charly Garcia)
06 La Ruta de Tentempie [Extasis] (Charly Garcia)
07 N'Dobine (Youssou N'Dour)
08 Immigres-Bitim Rew (Youssou N'Dour)
09 Kocc Barma (Youssou N'Dour)
10 talk (Youssou N'Dour)
11 Nelson Mandela (Youssou N'Dour)
12 Deugeu [The Truth] (Youssou N'Dour)
13 The Lion [Gaiende] (Youssou N'Dour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451327/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part1-_YssouNDour.zip.html

Also, here's a link if you want to download all five parts of this concert at once (including the Bruce part that is otherwise unavailable). Be warned though that this is a big download - 750 megabytes - since the concert is five and a half hours long.

https://www.imagenetz.de/ihHwY

The cover photo is of N'Dour. I took a screenshot of a YouTube video of this exact concert. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

Honeybus - Taking the Heart Out of Love - Non-Album Tracks (1969-1970)

I've been wanting to post this album for a long time. I posted the first Honeybus stray tracks album back in early 2021. This is the second. I had to hold back on posting this one because there were a few key songs I couldn't find anywhere. Happily, a couple of months ago (as I write this in July 2023), an official BBC compilation album was released, containing those missing songs. So now a key logjam has been broken. Not only can I post this album, but I have two more stray tracks albums after this, plus two BBC albums.

As I mentioned in my previous Honeybus, this British band really got screwed by their record company. Despite having a Top Ten hit in 1968 with "I Can't Let Maggie Go," they weren't allowed to record an album at the time. They were coming up with lots of good, original songs, but only were able to release a few on singles - only five singles from 1967 to 1969, and none in 1970. 

That means there are only two songs officially released by Honeybus at the time, the first two, which were the A- and B-sides of a single. Plus, the last song was recorded in 1970, but not released as a B-side until 1972. However, there are four more singles here, because different band members released "solo" singles in 1969. I put "solo" in quote marks because I read an interview with a band member who said all these solo projects were really Honeybus recordings. It seems the record company didn't think the Honeybus name would help sales, so they wanted releases under different names. 

So, in addition to all those A- and B-sides of various "solo" singles (tracks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 13), we have four more songs that were recorded for the BBC. Those are tracks 9 through 12. As I mentioned above, these were recently officially released, and they generally sound very good. It's such a shame that the record company wouldn't let them release an album, or more singles, because these are very good songs. In fact, I'd say "Walking Aphrodisiac" in particular is one of my favorites from them.

As usual with BBC recordings from this time, there's the occasional problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. That happened with two songs here, "Too Long" and "You Live Good Life." Also as usual, I wiped that talking using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 She Sold Blackpool Rock (Honeybus)
02 Would You Believe (Honeybus)
03 Mary, Mary (Kelly [Jim Kelly & Honeybus])
04 Reverend Richard Bailey (Kelly [Jim Kelly & Honeybus])
05 I'm a Gambler (Lace [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
06 Go Away (Lace [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
07 Taking the Heart Out of Love (Magic Valley [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
08 Uptight Basil (Magic Valley [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
09 My Suzanne (Honeybus)
10 Too Long [Edit] (Honeybus)
11 Walking Aphrodisiac (Honeybus)
12 You Live Good Life [Edit] (Honeybus)
13 Grannie, Grannie (Colin Hare & Honeybus)
14 The Right to Choose (Honeybus)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LHmCxLvs 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sft64VajemcwYg2/file

As with the earlier stray tracks album, I used some of the band's singles covers to help with making the cover here. In particular, I used the text and colors for the top section from the single "Girl of Independent Means." But I changed the text to "Taking the Heart Out of Love." But the lower half is a photo I found from a different source.

Marshall Crenshaw - My Favorite Waste of Time - Non-Album Tracks (1980-1982)

I plan on posting a big series of cover versions done by Marshall Crenshaw. But before I do that, I want to post this stray tracks album.

Crenshaw has had a long, successful music career, but his first two albums, "Marshall Crenshaw" in 1982 and "Field Day" in 1983, are generally considered his best. For instance, the crowd-sourced review website gives the highest ratings to those first two albums by a fair margin from all the others.

But in my opinion, he has three excellent early albums. The problem is, he never released the third one. This album is mostly made a demos of songs from the year or two leading up to his first solo album. He'd been playing in bands for most of the 1970s, and even had a role playing John Lennon in the musical "Beatlemania" for a little while. 

During that time, he'd written a lot of songs. It seems that after his first album was written, most of these were old and boring to him, so most of them didn't get officially released at the time. But many years later, he released an album of demos called "9 Volt Years Battery Powered Home Demos & Curios." The first five songs here come from that. The next five songs come from the 40th anniversary deluxe edition of his debut album. The three after that as bonus tracks from a different edition of the debut album. Finally, the last song is from a movie soundtrack released around that time.

The thing is, these are not really rejects. For instance, "You’re My Favorite Waste of Time" has become one of his most popular songs, and has been included on best of collections. "Something’s Gonna Happen" was the A-side to his very first release. The rest are all of a high caliber. I think only "Stop Her on Sight (S.O.S.)" is a cover. There are some other stray tracks from around this time that I didn't include (such as about half of the "9 Volt Years") because I wanted this to be a solid album through and through. In fact, in my opinion, this is my second favorite album of his, behind only his 1982 debut.

Oh, by the way, two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. That's because I thought the lead vocals were a little low for those, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost them relative to the instruments.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Run Back to You (Marshall Crenshaw)
02 Everyone's in Love with You (Marshall Crenshaw)
03 She's Not You (Marshall Crenshaw)
04 First Love (Marshall Crenshaw)
05 Bruce is King [Instrumental Version of Blues Is King] (Marshall Crenshaw)
06 Look at What I Almost Missed (Marshall Crenshaw)
07 Something’s Gonna Happen (Marshall Crenshaw)
08 You’re My Favorite Waste of Time [Edit] (Marshall Crenshaw)
09 Just Not for Me [Not for Me] (Marshall Crenshaw)
10 Never Gonna Happen (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 Starlit Summer Sky [Edit] (Marshall Crenshaw)
12 Somebody like You (Marshall Crenshaw)
13 Stop Her on Sight [S.O.S.] (Marshall Crenshaw)
14 It's Only a Movie (Marshall Crenshaw)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BTkYFWR6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/EJGjESKseXb82Oa/file

The cover photo of Crenshaw was taken at the Record Plant recording studio in New York City, during the recording of his debut album in January 1982. In January 2025, I improved the cover a bit with the Krea AI program.

Cat Stevens - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-25-2023

In June 2023, Cat Stevens (a.k.a. Yusuf, or Yusuf Islam) released a new studio album, "King of a Land." It amazes me that he still sounds so good, since his heyday was about 50 years ago, and he spent a couple of decades since then not even playing music at all. But even though he's 74 years old as I write this in 2023, his voice sounds as good as ever. And I like his new album. His first couple of comeback albums didn't do much for me, but in my opinion, his recent albums are better than anything he did since the early 1970s.

There's only been one official Stevens live album, recorded in 1976, which was not the best time period for him. Since his musical comeback began in 2006 he hasn't toured much, and bootleg recordings have been few and far between. So the fact that he headlined one of the nights at the 2023 Glastonbury Festival was great news, because most everything from that festival gets professionally recorded and broadcast by the BBC. Indeed, I was able to find a high quality video of his set, and converted it to mp3s. The sound quality is excellent.

The set list is about what you'd expect. He mostly played his classics from the late 1960s and early 1970s. He only did three songs from his new album ("Take the World Apart," "Highness," and "Pagan Run"). He also did two cover versions, "Here Comes the Sun" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." Most importantly, he sounds great. Some other legends his age have been losing their voices in recent years, like Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and Neil Young. But Stevens' voice still sounds so good that it's almost uncanny.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 7, 2025, I upgraded the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I renamed the title from "Volume 5" to "Volume 7" after finding not two BBC albums I'd missed.

01 talk (Cat Stevens)
02 The Wind (Cat Stevens)
03 Moonshadow (Cat Stevens)
04 talk (Cat Stevens)
05 Here Comes My Baby (Cat Stevens)
06 The First Cut Is the Deepest (Cat Stevens)
07 talk (Cat Stevens)
08 Matthew and Son (Cat Stevens)
09 talk (Cat Stevens)
10 Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
11 Oh Very Young (Cat Stevens)
12 talk (Cat Stevens)
13 Hard Headed Woman (Cat Stevens)
14 talk (Cat Stevens)
15 Sitting (Cat Stevens)
16 talk (Cat Stevens)
17 Tea for the Tillerman (Cat Stevens)
18 talk (Cat Stevens)
19 [Remember the Days of The] Old Schoolyard (Cat Stevens)
20 talk (Cat Stevens)
21 If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Cat Stevens)
22 talk (Cat Stevens)
23 Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens)
24 talk (Cat Stevens)
25 Take the World Apart (Cat Stevens)
26 talk (Cat Stevens)
27 Here Comes the Sun (Cat Stevens)
28 talk (Cat Stevens)
29 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Cat Stevens)
30 talk (Cat Stevens)
31 Highness (Cat Stevens)
32 talk (Cat Stevens)
33 Peace Train (Cat Stevens)
34 talk (Cat Stevens)
35 Pagan Run (Cat Stevens)
36 Wild World (Cat Stevens)
37 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/meLFuuoF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XAVyon7j6EbOks9/file

The cover photo was taken at the concert featured here.

The Chicks (a.k.a. The Dixie Chicks) - BBC In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-25-2023

This is the first album I've posted from the Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks. I have to admit that I'm not that familiar with their music, but they are the best selling female band of all time. And I was very impressed with their 2020 protest song "March, March," which I put on my "Rock Trump Out" compilation. So when I found a video of their performance at the annual Glastonbury Festival last month (as I write this in July 2023), I decided to convert that to mp3s and post it here.

I had previously tried to find any BBC material by the Dixie Chicks. (They changed their name in 2020 because they didn't like the association between the word "Dixie" and the Confederacy.) They did do a BBC concert in 1999, and I may post that at some point. But I want to post this now, since this concert is only a few weeks old as I write this.

The sound quality is very good, though not amazing. The set list is what you'd expect, a mix of songs from their most recent album ("Gaslighter," released in 2020), and older hits. The one surprise was they did a cover of the Miley Cyrus song "Rainbowland" in honor of Pride Month.

This concert is an hour and one minute long.

01 talk (Chicks)
02 Sin Wagon (Chicks)
03 Gaslighter (Chicks)
04 talk (Chicks)
05 Ready to Run (Chicks)
06 Landslide (Chicks)
07 Wide Open Spaces (Chicks)
08 Cowboy Take Me Away (Chicks)
09 Tights on My Boat (Chicks)
10 talk (Chicks)
11 White Trash Wedding (Chicks)
12 talk (Chicks)
13 Long Time Gone - Daddy Lessons (Chicks)
14 talk (Chicks)
15 Rainbowland (Chicks)
16 March, March (Chicks)
17 Not Ready to Make Nice (Chicks)
18 talk (Chicks)
19 Goodbye Earl (Chicks)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15433333/TChcks_2023_BBInConcrtGlastnbryFestivlWrthyFrmPiltnBitain__6-25-2023_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Cat Stevens - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Radio Theatre, London, Britain, 6-3-2009

This is kind of a new album, and kind of something I posted previously. Let me explain. Back in 2009, I posted a Cat Stevens (a.k.a. Yusuf Islam or Yusuf) album which I called "Two Radio Shows." It contained music from two radio shows he did in 2009, each of them being about half an hour long. Since then, I've really gotten into posting BBC material. So I've deleted that album and replaced it with this one. It still contains material from those two 2009 shows, but I've included the full BBC concert, which is nearly an hour long, and then just three songs from the other concert, done for the Morning Becomes Eclectic radio show. It turns out those were the only three songs that weren't also played in the BBC concert.

In 2006, Stevens returned to secular music with the album "An Other Cup." In 2009, he followed that up with a second album, "Roadsinger." To promote "Roadsinger," he did a lot of live appearances. Two radio shows stand out for their exceptional sound, one on "Morning Becomes Eclectic" in California on May 12th, and one for the BBC in Britain on June 3rd. The shows were very similar, with the same small, mostly acoustic band. Both these shows are from bootlegs, but they were played on TV and/or the radio, and were professionally recorded. So this is as good as if they had been recorded for an official album.

I stated in my last Cat Stevens post that I wasn't impressed with his first couple of albums after his return to secular music. I still feel that way, and I also feel they've gotten better with each new album, with his 2017 album "The Laughing Apple" the best (comeback) one yet. But only six out of 18 songs here are from his 2006 or 2009 comeback albums, and he generally played the strongest ones. Mostly, he did his classics from the early 1970s, but with some nice unexpected choices, such as "Portobello Road" and "Blackness of the Night" from his 1960s pop era, or "Ruins," one of his better songs from later in the 1970s.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 7, 2025, I updated the download file. The music is the same, but I renamed the album from "Volume 4" to "Volume 6" after finding two BBC concerts by him that I'd missed.

01 talk by Johnnie Walker (Cat Stevens)
02 Oh Very Young (Cat Stevens)
03 Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
04 talk (Cat Stevens)
05 Thinking about You (Cat Stevens)
06 talk (Cat Stevens)
07 Miles from Nowhere (Cat Stevens)
08 Wild World [Zulu Version] (Cat Stevens)
09 talk (Cat Stevens)
10 Portobello Road (Cat Stevens)
11 talk (Cat Stevens)
12 Blackness of the Night (Cat Stevens)
13 Into White (Cat Stevens)
14 talk (Cat Stevens)
15 Roadsinger (Cat Stevens)
16 talk (Cat Stevens)
17 Boots and Sand (Cat Stevens)
18 talk (Cat Stevens)
19 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)
20 All Kinds of Roses (Cat Stevens)
21 Don't Be Shy (Cat Stevens)
22 talk (Cat Stevens)
23 To Be What You Must (Cat Stevens)
24 Welcome Home (Cat Stevens)
25 Lilywhite (Cat Stevens)
26 Ruins (Cat Stevens)
27 Maybe You're Right (Cat Stevens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yqsLsnKK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QoqJFCmSxyEEWr5/file

The photo I used for the cover art comes from a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in December 2009. I stuck with the same photo I used for the "Two Radio Shows" version of this album, except I completely redid the text, using the same font color and type as earlier albums in this BBC series.

Joan Osborne - Listen - Non-Album Tracks (2015-2017)

This is another stray tracks album from Joan Osborne. I haven't found enough songs from after 2017 to fill up another album yet, so this is the last one, for now.

Only four of the ten songs are officially released. Three of those come from an album of Bruce Springsteen cover songs with the Waybacks. "Listen" is the other released song.

Most of the rest come from concert bootlegs. However, "You Didn't Treat Me Right" is a studio outtake. Like two songs on the previous stray tracks album for her, I don't think this has been made publicly available anywhere until now.

Of the remaining unreleased songs, "Jolene" was done in a studio for a radio station, so that sounds great. The rest are a little rougher, but are all good enough for my ears to merit inclusion here.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Cover Me - War (Waybacks with Joan Osborne)
02 You Didn't Treat Me Right (Joan Osborne)
03 I'm on Fire (Waybacks with Joan Osborne)
04 Dancing in the Dark (Waybacks with Joan Osborne)
05 Listen (Infamous Stringdusters & Joan Osborne)
06 Jolene (Joan Osborne)
07 Angel from Montgomery (Joan Osborne)
08 Freedom (Joan Osborne)
09 Little Red Corvette (Joan Osborne)
10 Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You (Joan Osborne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15429721/JoanO_2015-2017_Listn_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a concert at the City Winery in New York City in February 2016.

Graham Nash - Live Acoustic, 2010-2016

Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young (CSNY) released a new solo album, "Now," in May 2023. It was such a low-key release that I didn't notice until now, two months later. To celebrate that, here's an album from him.

Nash tends to get knocked as the most lightweight and poppy of the four singer-songwriters in CSNY. And while that is probably true, he is still very worthy as a solo artist. I've fallen in that trap by posting solo albums by Crosby, Stills, and Young but not Nash, but I'll try to rectify that with this post and others.

Nash's last solo album came out in 2016 and was called "This Path Tonight." I think it's a particularly strong album, so you might want to check it out if you've missed it. This album largely focuses on that. The first five songs are from 2010 to 2015, and are generally acoustic versions of CSNY classics, with the exception of a cover of the Buddy Holly song "Peggy Sue." There's also an interesting version of the Neil Young song "Ohio," except sung by Nash. But the other nine songs were done in support of his "This Path Tonight" album, and mostly consist of songs from that album, though there are versions of "Bus Stop," which Nash did with the Hollies, and "Just a Song Before I Go" and "Military Madness" from the 1970s.

The vast majority of the songs here were performed by Nash for in-person radio station appearances. ("Peggy Sue" was done for a small audience at a museum, and "Mississippi Burning" is a "This Path Tonight" bonus track, and the only song officially released here.) As a result, the sound quality is excellent, usually on par with studio recordings. There's a little bit of clapping at the end of a few songs, but not much. I deliberately avoided any actual concert recordings to keep the focus on acoustic versions and to keep the sound quality high.

Nash wrote all the songs for his 2016 album with lead guitarist Shayne Fontayne. On the vast majority of the songs here, it's just Nash and Fontayne on guitars, with Fontayne sometimes singing backing vocals. Note that although "Mississippi Burning" is a bonus track, it sounds like it was recorded live as an acoustic duo in front of a small audience, so it fits in with the others.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Peggy Sue (Graham Nash)
02 Chicago (Graham Nash)
03 Ohio [Nash Vocals Version] (Graham Nash)
04 Our House [Guitar Version] (Graham Nash)
05 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash)
06 Mississippi Burning (Graham Nash)
07 Golden Days (Graham Nash)
08 Bus Stop (Graham Nash)
09 Myself at Last (Graham Nash)
10 This Path Tonight (Graham Nash)
11 Just a Song Before I Go (Graham Nash)
12 Encore (Graham Nash)
13 Another Broken Heart (Graham Nash)
14 Military Madness (Graham Nash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15429728/GrahmN_2010-2016_LveAcoustc_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on November 16, 2016.

Lucinda Williams - I'm Crying - Non-Album Tracks (2015-2016)

Lucinda Williams has a new album out (as I write this in July 2023) called "Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart." To celebrate that, I'm posting another one of her stray tracks albums.

About half of the songs are officially released. Those come from the usual mix of soundtracks, various artists compilations, and appearances on albums by other artists.

There are five unreleased songs, which all are covers of classics: "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash, "Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young, "It's Not My Cross to Bear" by the Allman Brothers Band, and "It Makes No Difference" by the Band. Unfortunately, none of these sound really great, meaning soundboard bootleg quality. But they all sound good enough for me not to demote them to bonus tracks. I used some editing tricks to make them sound a bit better. Still, you may well notice the sound quality difference between those and the official tracks.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 So Much Trouble in the World (Lucinda Williams)
02 New York City (G. Love & Special Sauce with Lucinda Williams)
03 The Rising (Lucinda Williams)
04 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Lucinda Williams)
05 Met an Old Friend (Lucinda Williams)
05 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Lucinda Williams)
06 Rockin' in the Free World (Lucinda Williams)
07 It's Not My Cross to Bear (Lucinda Williams)
08 I'm Crying (Lucinda Williams)
09 God Don't Never Change (Lucinda Williams)
10 It Makes No Difference (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15420580/LucndaWllms_2015-2016_ImCryng_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was take at the Azkena Rock Festival in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, on June 17, 2016.

The Beatles - The Beatles Uncovered, Volume 1: Mike's Mixes (1967-1973) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

If you've been following this blog, you may recall that I’ve posted a couple of albums over the past year by a musical friend of mine named Mike Solof. 

It turns out Mike has even more music that he'd like to post here. And today he brings us his specialty: a Beatles related album. Mike worked for a now defunct internet radio station called Beatles-A-Rama for 11 years. His program focused on Beatle rarities... and he has a ton of them! He was allowed free rein to do whatever type of programs he wanted to do each week, and that led to him creating hundreds of his own personal mixes. 

You may notice that I often use various programs to help me bring up the vocals on many of the albums I present. Mike has been using similar programs for years to not only isolate vocals, but to also reduce each track to it’s basic tacks (usually bass, guitars, keyboards, drums and any other instruments that the band might be using). Then he remixes them to isolate and highlight the fun things that are usually buried deep and unheard in the tracks your used to hearing on the released album. 

So that is what he is presenting us with today. Most of the songs here are by the Beatles, but there are a couple by Paul McCartney and John Lennon from their early solo careers. If you want more details about what he did with each song, check out the PDF file included in the download.

01 Helen Wheels [Mike's Mix Remix] (Paul McCartney)
02 Here Comes the Sun [Mike's Mix Remix with Solo] (Beatles)
03 Crippled Inside [Acoustic Mike's Mix Remix] (John Lennon)
04 While My Guitar Gently Weeps [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)
05 Band on the Run [Semi-acoustic Mike's Mix Remix] (Paul McCartney)
06 A Day in the Life [Mike's Mix 2 Remix] (Beatles)
07 Martha My Dear [Mike's Mix Remix without Brass & Strings] (Beatles)
08 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds [Mike's Mix Stereo Remix] (Beatles)
09 Octopus's Garden [Mike's Piano Only Mix] (Beatles)
10 When I'm 64 [Mike's Take 4 Clarinet Remix] (Beatles)
11 Monkberry Moon Delight [Stripped] (Paul McCartney)
12 Penny Lane [Mike's Mix Remix with Discussion] (Beatles)
13 Within You, Without You [Mike's Mix Remix] (Beatles)
14 Abbey Road Medley with Hidden Track [Mike's Mix] (Beatles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2RrxXUzq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/l5FZUstUEfti36p/file

The cover was put together by Mike. Maybe he can explain where the images come from. Since Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still alive, I'm assuming those are based on recent images of them. But since John Lennon and George Harrison have been deceased for some time now, I'm assuming AI or some other artistic tool was used to show what they may have looked like if they were still alive today.

In March 2025, I updated the cover image. I used the Krea AI program to improve things a bit. I repositioned the bodies some, and added a lot of grey to McCartney's hair.