Journey and Friends - Super Jam II, The Automatt Studio, San Francisco, CA, 10-1-1978

I'm kind of surprised that I'm posting a Journey album, because I'm not much of a Journey fan. I sing along to their hits when I hear them on the radio, but that's about it. But I stumbled across this bootleg the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised. The interesting thing about it is that it mostly consists of covers of classic soul and rock songs. The first two songs are Journey originals, and the last two are as well, but in between are no less than eight cover songs in a row. I never thought I'd hear Journey do songs like "Hold On, I'm Coming," "Crossroads," and "Born Under a Bad Sign," much less more obscure ones like "Show Me" by Joe Tex.

Adding to the interest, there are some special guests singing on some songs. I suppose I should first explain what exactly this is. Apparently, in 1978, the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show got the idea of doing special shows featuring different musical acts performing with each other. The first one of these was called "Super Jam," and consisted of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing with some other Southern rock stars. (Some band members had died in a plane crash in 1977). 

This was the second one, Super Jam II. Journey was the main band for all the songs. However, they were joined on some songs by the Tower of Power horn section for songs that needed horns, like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Road Runner." Two singers from the band Stoneground also took part, Annie Sampson and Jo Baker. Sampson sang lead vocals on "Road Runner" (originally by Junior Walker and the All-Stars), and Baker sang lead on "Love Hurts." They stuck around and sang on most of the other songs as well. For instance, on the song "People Get Ready" Journey's main vocalist Steve Perry sang lead on the first verse, Sampson took the second verse, and Baker did the third verse.

They were also joined by Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers. He was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist in the band's early years, writing and singing many of their biggest hits. But he left the group in 1977, about a year prior to this performance. He pursued a solo career for a few years, but didn't have much success, and rejoined the Doobie Brothers in the late 1980s. Johnston joined this concert from "Hold On, I'm Coming" onwards. At first, he just played lead guitar, along with Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon, trading solos. But he sang lead vocals on "Show Me" and "Crossroads."

Surprisingly, Journey started out as kind of a prog rock band, as well as a splinter band from Santana. The original lead vocalist, Gregg Rolie, was the lead vocalist for Santana's first four albums. Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon had played in Santana with Rolie. But while Rolie was the lead vocalist for Journey's first couple of albums, they didn't find much success. In 1978, Steve Perry joined, and he took over singing most of the songs. The band also switched to a more commercial sound, and soon gained massive popularity. 

This concert took place at a transitional time, with Perry being in the band less than a year. Two of the songs were actually mainly sung by Rolie: "Anytime" and "Born Under a Bad Sign." He stayed with the band until 1980. They he amicably quit, saying he wanted to start a family and explore a solo career. So while there are a couple of famous Journey originals here ("Lights" and "Wheel in the Sky"), overall, this is pretty different from how they would sound a few years later.

This performance took place in a recording studio, with no audience present. It was supposed to be broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, but apparently that never happened, due to legal problems getting permission for all the special guest participation. But it leaked out as a bootleg that sounds as good as a commercial release. The only song to be officially released from this is "Good Times" (a Sam Cooke cover), which appeared on a Journey box set.

There's some banter between songs, all spoken by Perry, but it sounds like this was overdubbed afterwards. On the version I found, there often was some music playing in the background at a low level while he was talking. I found this pointless and distracting, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of most of it. However, on track 3, there's the voice of someone faintly singing while he's talking, and I couldn't manage to get rid of that.

By the way, if there was a "Super Jam III" or beyond, I haven't heard of it.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Feeling That Way (Journey & Friends)
02 Anytime (Journey & Friends)
03 talk (Journey & Friends)
04 Road Runner (Journey & Friends)
05 talk (Journey & Friends)
06 Love Hurts (Journey & Friends)
07 talk (Journey & Friends)
08 Hold On, I'm Coming (Journey & Friends)
09 talk (Journey & Friends)
10 People Get Ready (Journey & Friends)
11 talk (Journey & Friends)
12 Show Me (Journey & Friends)
13 Crossroads (Journey & Friends)
14 Born Under a Bad Sign (Journey & Friends)
15 talk (Journey & Friends)
16 Good Times (Journey & Friends)
17 Lights (Journey & Friends)
18 talk (Journey & Friends)
19 Wheel in the Sky (Journey & Friends)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17258187/JORNY1978SuprJmIIThAutmttStdoSnFrncscoCA__10-1-1978_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Bq5hLjEN

I used a photo of the band from 1979, since they had a different drummer for almost all of 1978. This is from an appearance on "The Midnight Special" TV show.

Various Artists - Covered: Isaac Hayes & David Porter: 1965-1989

Here's another album from my "Covered" series, which highlights the careers of great songwriters. This time, it's the songwriting team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter.

In the 1960s, Hayes and Porter worked for the Stax Records label in Memphis, Tennessee. Both of them were local kids that got involved as session musicians, slowly graduating to producers and songwriters as well. Around 1965, they began writing songs together, mostly for the soul duo Sam and Dave, but also for some others on the Stax label. 

Unfortunately, their collaboration didn't last long. In 1968, Hayes put out a solo album called "Hot Buttered Soul." It was an unexpected hit, turning Hayes into a big soul music star. It, and following albums, mostly consisted of very extended versions of cover songs, so the songwriting team of Hayes and Porter wasn't needed much. As a result, the songwriting team broke up around 1969. But they wrote about 200 songs together during their roughly four years together, many of them all time classics, like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."

Porter didn't have much success writing songs with others after Hayes. But Hayes became an even bigger star in the early 1970s, especially with "Theme from 'Shaft'," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. in 1971. Although I've included that song, I avoided other Hayes solo songs, since this is focused on the Hayes-Porter collaboration. The songs here are in chronological order by year, and after "Theme from 'Shaft'" at track 13, all the songs are covers of earlier Hayes-Porter compositions. 

The one exception is "Deja Vu" by Dionne Warwick. That was an instrumental Hayes was working on in the late 1970s. Warwick heard him playing it, and liked it. She asked Hayes if she could finish it off with another songwriter, and he agreed, so she did. That songwriter, Adrienne Anderson, kept the title "Deja Vu" that Hayes gave to the instrumental, and Warwick had a big hit with it.

Here are the Wikipedia entries if you want to know more about them:

Isaac Hayes - Wikipedia

David Porter (musician) - Wikipedia

I tried to select a variety of different performers so I didn't have too many of any one. However, Sam and Dave did so many definitive versions that I kept four of their performances.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 You Don't Know like I Know (Sam & Dave)
02 Boot-Leg (Booker T. & the MG's)
03 Candy (Astors)
04 Hold On, I'm Coming (Sam & Dave)
05 60 Minutes of Your Love (Homer Banks)
06 B-A-B-Y (Carla Thomas)
07 Soul Man (Sam & Dave)
08 I Take What I Want (James & Bobby Purify)
09 Toe Hold (Sharon Tandy)
10 Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody (Cliff Bennett)
11 Your Good Thing [Is about to End] (Lou Rawls)
12 Soul Sister, Brown Sugar (Sam & Dave)
13 Theme from 'Shaft' (Isaac Hayes)
14 You Got Me Hummin' (Cold Blood)
15 I Thank You (ZZ Top)
16 Deja Vu (Dionne Warwick)
17 Wrap It Up (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
18 When Something Is Wrong with My Baby (Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17236601/COVRDIsacHyesDvidPrter_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HnTWxBFb

It's easy to find photos of Isaac Hayes, since he was a big star, but it's very hard to find photos of David Porter, since he was a low-profile songwriter. It's even harder to find photos of them together. I found a decent one for the cover, but it's from 2005, decades after their songwriting partnership ended.

The Who - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Charlton Athletic Football Ground, London, Britain, 5-18-1974

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I recently found a couple of BBC albums that are parts of album series that I thought were already finished. This is another one of those. I've already posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5" for the Who, as well as "Volume 6." So what was "Volume 5" has been renamed "Volume 6," and what was "Volume 6" has been renamed "Volume 8." Wait, 8, you say? Not 7? That's because I also found another album that needs to be slotted in there. I'll post that one soon as well. Let's hope there won't be any more renumbering after this!

Here's the link to what is now Volume 6:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-5.html

And here's the link to what is now Volume 8:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-6-in.html

This apparently was a pretty big deal of a concert at the time. It was kind of a rock festival (called "Summer of '74"), actually, due to the size of the crowd and all of the musical acts involved. It was held at a huge sports stadium that held 75,000 people, and it was sold out. The Who were the headline act, going on last, and the support acts were: Lou Reed, Humble Pie, Bad Company, Maggie Bell, Lindisfarne and Montrose. Those were all well-known, popular acts at the time. I wish I had the recordings for those too, but apparently only the Who portion was broadcast on BBC radio at the time, so worthy sounding bootlegs of the other acts aren't in the public domain.

In 1973, the Who released their epic rock opera double album "Quadrophenia," then toured to support it. That tour went into early 1974, but then the band took a few months off. They didn't put out a new studio album in 1974. They would only do a few concerts for the rest of the year, and this was the biggest one by far. It was one of the largest audiences the Who had ever played for up until that point, with only the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and a couple other big rock festivals around that time being larger. For the band's "Quadrophenia" tour, they basically played that album plus a few other hits. But with this concert, they went back to a "normal" set list, with songs taken from all points of their music career. Only four songs came from the "Quadrophenia" album ("Drowned," "Bell Boy," "Dr. Jimmy," and "5:15").

Apparently Pete Townshend (the band's lead guitarist and main songwriter) was going through some issues in 1974. He played this concert totally drunk, as well as the rest of the concerts the band did in 1974. As a result, he's said he doesn't have fond memories of this big event, and has said he thinks the band didn't play their best. However, I don't any problems with his playing or the band's as a whole, and their set went over very well with the crowd. The Who were in their musical prime in the early 1970s, so imagine even an off night by their standards was still pretty damn good.

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.

01 I Can't Explain (Who)
02 Summertime Blues (Who)
03 Young Man Blues (Who)
04 talk (Who)
05 Baba O'Riley (Who)
06 talk (Who)
07 Behind Blue Eyes (Who)
08 Substitute (Who)
09 I'm a Boy (Who)
10 talk (Who)
11 Tattoo (Who)
12 talk (Who)
13 Boris the Spider (Who)
14 talk (Who)
15 Drowned (Who)
16 talk (Who)
17 Bell Boy (Who)
18 talk (Who)
19 Dr. Jimmy (Who)
20 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
21 Pinball Wizard (Who)
22 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
23 5-15 (Who)
24 Magic Bus (Who)
25 My Generation (Who)
26 Naked Eye (Who)
27 Let's See Action [Nothing Is Everything] (Who)
28 My Generation Blues (Who)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eq7b5

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/21dD3Xs2

The cover photo is from this exact concert. The original was rather blurry and low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. It still is somewhat blurry, but at least it's better.

Various Artists - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 2: 1974-2009

I just posted Volume One for the "Covered" series selections for country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Here's Volume Two already. 

As I mentioned with Volume One, Kristofferson died two weeks ago as I write this in October 2024. He was 88 years old. 

He had a long and successful music career. He didn't have big commercial success - only two of his 18 studio albums even reached Gold sales (meaning 500,000 copies sold), and he never sold at the Platinum level (meaning a million). But he had a lot of critical acclaim, and he'll probably be best known for the thousands of cover versions of his songs.

His biggest impact undoubtedly was in the early 1970s, which was dealt with on Volume One. A few of the songs here also were first released in the early 1970s, but I preferred versions that came out later. But he continued to write and record quality songs until nearly the end of his life. (His last album of new material came out in 2016). For instance, Johnny Cash said "Here Comes That Rainbow Again" was his favorite song of all time. (The version of that song included here is by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup consisting of Kristofferson, Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.)

Since I'm not deeply familiar with Kristofferson's entire musical output, if there are any covers of great songs that I missed, please let me know and I'll consider including them.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Why Me, Lord (George Jones)
02 The Junkie and the Juicehead [Minus Me] (Johnny Cash)
03 Prone to Lean (Donnie Fritts)
04 Stranger (Billy Swan)
05 Rock and Roll Time (Roger McGuinn)
06 Something They Can't Take Away from Me (Roy Orbison)
07 You Show Me Yours [And I'll Show You Mine] (Willie Nelson with Amy Irvine)
08 One Day at a Time (Christy Lane)
09 If You Don't Like Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.)
10 They Killed Him (Johnny Cash)
11 Lovin' Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Tompall & the Glaser Brothers)
12 Here Comes That Rainbow Again (Highwaymen)
13 Jesus Was a Capricorn (Diana Darby)
14 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Emmylou Harris)
15 Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends (Joan Osborne)
16 The Silver Tongued Devil and I (Dick Van Altena)
17 Closer to the Bone (Kris Kristofferson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230520/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1974-2009Volum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UTXAJDeQ

The cover photo dates to 1977. There were some issues with the original, so I used the Krea AI program to improve it a bit.

Various Artists - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 1: 1968-1973

In the past couple of weeks (as I write this in October 2024), I've started fixing some cover photos that had some issues with the recently released Krea AI program. Probably the covers that needed the most work were the ones for my "Covered" series, albums that highlight the best songwriters in popular music, especially those who didn't have lots of success with their own versions. I hadn't posted any Covered albums in a long time, but I actually have over a dozen different songwriters (or songwriting teams) ready to go. One thing that held me back though was the cover art, since some of these songwriters have barely been photographed at all. But now that I'm using the Krea AI program, I'm excited to see if good cover art can be made. So I'm going to make an effort to get a whole bunch of these Covered albums posted in the near future.

The logical place to start with this new effort is Kris Kristofferson. That's because he died about two weeks ago (September 28, 2024, specifically) as I write this, so this could make a good way to remember his musical legacy. He was 88 years old when he passed.

Kristofferson was one of the great songwriters for country music, but he wasn't blessed with a great voice. Thus, he was frequently covered by other musical acts, and he had only a few hits of his own. That works well for my Covered series. I only have a few of his albums in my music collection, mostly his most critically praised ones from the early 1970s. But in the wake of his death, there were a bunch of newspaper articles listing what people thought were his best songs (usually top ten lists). So I went through those, and made sure all of his most praised songs were included. 

I found enough material for two solid albums. This is the first one. As I usually try to do with this series, I emphasized cover versions. Only one song (on the second volume) features Kristofferson singing one of his own songs (though there's also a song performed by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup he was a part of).

In the past with these Covered albums, I've written a lot about the artists and the songs. From now on, I'm going to cut that short, so I'll find it easier to post a lot more of these albums. If you want to know a lot more, I suggest reading this Wikipedia page about him:

Kris Kristofferson - Wikipedia

But here's my short version of his career is like this. Kristofferson burst onto the country music scene around the year 1970, when loads of country music stars started covering his songs. Probably the best known cover was "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, which hit Number One on the U.S. single chart in 1971. But there were others. For instance, in 1970, "For the Good Times" was a Number One country single for Ray Price, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was Number One country single for Johnny Cash, and "Help Me Make It through the Night" was the same for Sammi Smith. At the time, country music was pretty formulaic, with relatively simple melodies and lyrics. Kristofferson wasn't a big groundbreaker for melodies, but his lyrics really shook up country music with their eloquence and emotional intelligence. One might say he brought a Bob Dylan level of songwriting to country music.

Kristofferson kept his own music career going, while still having his songs frequently covered by others. However, he only had one big hit on his own, "Why Me (Lord)," which reached Number One on the country singles chart in 1974. At the same time he kept a music career going, he also was very successful in the movies, starring in dozens of films, many of them with a country theme.

As usual with this Covered series, I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of only including one version of any given song. So, for instance, I was torn between the Ray Price and Al Green versions of "For the Good Times." The Price version was a massive hit in 1970, but I liked the Green version better. I had to make many other decisions like that. For instance, dozens of famous musical acts have covered "Help Me Make It through the Night." I also tried not to have more than one song per performer. But I decided to only make that a loose rule. Note for instance two songs done by Johnny Cash here. All the songs are in order of the year these versions came out. Consult the mp3 tags for details on that.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Jody and the Kid (Roy Drusky)
02 From the Bottle to the Bottom (Billy Walker)
03 Sugarman (Sam Baker)
04 Darby's Castle (Roger Miller)
05 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
06 Help Me Make It through the Night (Sammi Smith)
07 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
08 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
09 Me and Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)
10 I've Got to Have You (Carly Simon)
11 The Taker (Waylon Jennings)
12 Casey's Last Ride (John Denver)
13 For the Good Times (Al Green)
14 Nobody Wins (Lynn Anderson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230517/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1968-1973Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m2XxamgZ

I'm not entirely sure where the cover photo is from. But it looks like it was taken in the early 1970s. The original had some issues, so I used the Krea AI pic to fix it up a bit.

Tom Jones - BBC Sessions, Volume 4- In Concert, BBC TV Studios, London, Britain, 12-31-1971

For about two months, I've posted almost nothing but US Festival albums and VH-1 "Storytellers" albums. During that time, I found a few BBC albums that actually come before other BBC albums I found by that same artist. Like this one. I previously posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" for Tom Jones, as well as a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5." But now that I'm posting this one, what had been Volume 4 becomes Volume 5, and what had been Volume 5 becomes Volume 6. I've already updated those two, so if you've downloaded them before, feel free to download them again if you want to stay consistent.

Here's the link to what is now Volume 5:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/11/tom-jones-bbc-sessions-volume-4-in.html

And here's the link to what is now Volume 6:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/02/tom-jones-bbc-sessions-volume-5-bbc.html

Okay, with that out of the way, let's get to what this is. In 1971, Tom Jones was extremely popular, helped by his TV show "This Is Tom Jones." Despite being from Britain (Wales, specifically), he spent the entire year touring overseas. But towards the end of the year, he returned to Britain in time to tape this hour-long special for BBC TV. It was a good time for a special, because he was having hits left and right since 1965 until 1971, but he'd have one big hit in 1972 and then very few for the rest of the decade. He brought out all the stops, performing with an orchestra, a choir, and an American soul group (the Blossoms) at different points in the concert.

If you're a Tom Jones fan, you'll probably dig this. If you're not, beware of slick show-biz cheesiness. Still, it helps that almost every song was a big hit, either by Jones or covers. Some of the covers, such as "River Deep, Mountain High," apparently were never officially released by him.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Introduction - Till (Tom Jones)
02 Proud Mary (Tom Jones)
03 Tired of Being Alone (Tom Jones)
04 talk (Tom Jones)
05 Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Tom Jones)
06 All I Ever Need Is You (Tom Jones)
07 Witch Queen of New Orleans (Tom Jones)
08 talk (Tom Jones)
09 I'll Be There (Tom Jones & the Blossoms)
10 River Deep, Mountain High (Tom Jones & the Blossoms)
11 Nothing Rhymed (Tom Jones)
12 talk (Tom Jones)
13 In Dreams (Tom Jones)
14 Delilah (Tom Jones)
15 talk (Tom Jones)
16 [It Looks Like] I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Tom Jones)
17 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
18 She's a Lady (Tom Jones)
19 It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
20 talk (Tom Jones)
21 Amazing Grace (Tom Jones)
22 Resurrection Shuffle (Tom Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17216650/TOMJNS1971BBSssonsVlum4InCncrtBBTVStdosLndonBrtin__12-31-1971.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rQDvXA4P

The cover image is a screenshot taken from this exact concert.

Bob Dylan & the Band - Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL, 1-4-1974

In September 2024, a big box set of the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 tour was released. Called, "The 1974 Live Recordings," it's a whopping 27 CDs in size. It includes all the soundboard and multitrack recordings that could be found from that tour. Way back in 1974, just a few months after the tour ended, a double album called "Before the Flood" was released, compiling songs from several concerts from the tour. I never liked that album much, for reasons I'll explain in a minute. So I decided to pick what I consider the best concert from this box set and make some changes that arguably makes this superior to what is on the box set.

I have two issues with the "Before the Flood" album. First, I usually prefer full concerts, warts and all, to live albums selected from multiple concerts. And second, it seemed to me that Dylan was just going through the motions, playing his "greatest hits" to please the large crowds without much enthusiasm on his part. 

It turns out that's exactly what happened. Dylan had been in seclusion pretty much since his 1966 motorcycle accident. He'd only done one full concert in all the years since then (at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969), plus a handful of guest appearances. The public demand to see him on tour was immense. Add to that the fact that his backing band in 1966 were just a bunch of unknowns, but had since been deemed "the Band," and had some hits and critically praised albums of their own. They were a big concert draw in their own right, so to see them back Dylan was extra special. The resulting tour was one of the biggest and most hyped tour in rock and roll up until that point, selling out everywhere.

Unfortunately, whoever booked the tour set up a punishing schedule, with two shows per days sometimes and almost no days off. As the tour went on, Dylan started to lose the power of his voice. He often resorted to shouting the songs more than singing them. Furthermore, he played fewer and fewer rarities as the tour went on, ending up with just his biggest crowd pleasers by the end. Unfortunately, the "Before the Flood" album is drawn from the end of the tour. But most Dylan fanatics are more interested in the beginning of the tour, when Dylan and the Band were excited instead of weary, Dylan was singing great, and they weren't afraid to play unusual songs.

But there are more problems with the box set. One is that some of the concerts were not professionally recorded in full, due to technical difficulties or negligence or the like. Another is that although the Band played many of their own songs in every concert on the tour, the box set contains absolutely NONE of those. 

The very first concert on the tour took place in Chicago on January 3, 1974. That one, plus the next one, also in Chicago, on January 4th, are the most interesting ones to me, in terms of the set list as well as the quality of the performance. But there's a pretty good sounding audience bootleg for the January 4th show, but only a very poor sounding bootleg for January 4th. So I decided to post the January 4th concert. 

I used the audience bootleg to fill in the missing Band songs, all ten of them (tracks 7-12 and 21-24). The sound quality on these isn't as good, and you'll probably notice that right away. But I still think they sound very listenable. I used some tricks with the UVR5 and MSVEP audio editing programs to make them sound a little better. For instance, I got rid of most of the crowd noise in the middles of sounds, generally only keeping the cheering at the starts and ends of songs. 

Another problem with this concert is that five of the Dylan songs were missing (probably due to technical problems). Those were: "Lay, Lady, Lady," "All Along the Watchtower," "Forever Young," "Something There Is about You," and "Like a Rolling Stone." Luckily for my purposes, all five of these songs happened have been performed the night before, even though there were many differences in the two set lists. So, for those five songs, I used the versions from January 3rd, since the sound quality was significantly better than the audience bootleg from the Fourth.

There was yet another problem with this concert recording. Namely, for both the January 3rd and 4th recordings, virtually all of the applause was quickly faded out at the ends of songs. This would have resulted in the loss of all banter between songs, but it so happened Dylan and the members of the Band almost never said a word between songs, so there probably wasn't anything lost there. However, it sounded annoying to me to have the applause cut off. So I did some editing, patching in extra applause after virtually every song, except for the Band ones, since they were sourced differently. It seems whoever was recording the concerts cut the applause off like that for all the early dates in the tour. Maybe it was to save on recording tape, I don't know.

Because it had been so long since Dylan had gone on tour, many of the songs were being played for the first time on these two Chicago nights. For instance, even though "All Along the Watchtower" had been written way back in 1967, and Dylan would go on to perform that song in concerts more than any other (2300 plus and growing as I write this), he'd never played it in concert before this. Others had only been done rarely. For instance, "Hero Blues" and "Song to Woody" had only been performed a couple of times back in 1962 and/or 1963. Dylan and the Band released a new studio album right as the tour was starting, called "Planet Waves." They only played a few songs from the album on tour though, and they gradually dropped out of the set lists as the tour went on. But this concert has "Tough Mama," "Something There Is about You," and "Forever Young," plus the outtake "Nobody 'Cept You." Additionally, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" had only been released the year before on a movie soundtrack, and was being played for the first time as well.

If you're a Dylan fanatic, you should get the entire box set. If you're not though, I'd easily recommend this over the "Before the Flood" album, even though the Band songs sound a little worse.

This album is an hour and 57 minutes long.

01 Hero Blues (Bob Dylan & the Band)
02 Lay, Lady, Lay (Bob Dylan & the Band)
03 Just like Tom Thumb's Blues (Bob Dylan & the Band)
04 It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob Dylan & the Band)
05 Tough Mama (Bob Dylan & the Band)
06 Ballad of a Thin Man (Bob Dylan & the Band)
07 Stage Fright (Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Bob Dylan & the Band)
09 King Harvest [Has Surely Come] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
10 Long Black Veil (Bob Dylan & the Band)
11 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 Up on Cripple Creek (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob Dylan & the Band)
15 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan & the Band)
16 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan & the Band)
17 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Bob Dylan & the Band)
18 The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Bob Dylan & the Band)
19 Nobody 'Cept You (Bob Dylan & the Band)
20 It's Alright, Ma [I'm Only Bleeding] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
21 Rag Mama Rag (Bob Dylan & the Band)
22 When You Awake (Bob Dylan & the Band)
23 The Shape I'm In (Bob Dylan & the Band)
24 The Weight (Bob Dylan & the Band)
25 Forever Young (Bob Dylan & the Band)
26 Something There Is about You (Bob Dylan & the Band)
27 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan & the Band)
28 Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.imagenetz.de/m9B4n

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4v5gopbk

Luckily, the cover photo comes from one of the two Chicago concerts in January 1974, though I'm not sure which one. It probably was this one though, because the first night had a bunch of furniture on stage to try to create a homey atmosphere, but that was dropped by the second show.

Ray Davies - Westbury Music Fair, Westbury, NY, 10-20-1997

The posting of this album is another side effect of posting a flood of "VH-1 Storytellers" albums. Ray Davies of the Kinks was the performer for the very first Storytellers episode in 1996, and the show was basically modeled after his solo concerts at the time, which mixed songs with lots of banter, including readings from his autobiography, "X-Ray."

Hearing the Davies episode made me want to hear a full-length concert by him from this time period. In 1998, he released the album "Storyteller." It was basically a live album of these solo concerts he was doing at the time. (It had one new studio track at the end.) He did acoustic concerts from 1995 to 1999, backed only by a second guitar player. "Storyteller" is a great album, but it's only 70 minutes long (not including that studio track). I wanted a full, long concert.

Unfortunately, all of the bootlegs of his solo concerts from the late 1990s are audience boots, with poor to middling sound... with one exception. That exception is this concert from Westbury, New York, which is a true soundboard. Not only is the sound quality great, but it seems Davies performed an extra long concert with some rarely performed songs. For instance, according to the setlist.fm website, he only performed "My Diary" three times in his entire music career, and this was the only solo acoustic version.

That said, there were some issues with this recording. For example, the volume of the banter between song was way lower than the songs. There also was hiss, especially with the banter. I managed to fix the volume imbalances and get rid of most of the hiss. I also fixed other problems, like occasional dropouts. This sounds noticeably better than the bootleg version floating around the Internet, in my opinion. Basically, it sounds just as good as his "Storytellers" album, only it's twice as long, with lots more songs and more banter. I think this is a "must have" for any Kinks/ Ray Davies fan, especially since it's the only known soundboard recording from this time period.

This concert is two hours and 16 minutes long.

01 talk (Ray Davies)
02 Lola (Ray Davies)
03 talk (Ray Davies)
04 A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy (Ray Davies)
05 Shangri-La (Ray Davies)
06 talk (Ray Davies)
07 My Diary (Ray Davies)
08 Animal Farm (Ray Davies)
09 Dead End Street (Ray Davies)
10 Celluloid Heroes (Ray Davies)
11 talk (Ray Davies)
12 Victoria (Ray Davies)
13 talk (Ray Davies)
14 20th Century Man (Ray Davies)
15 talk (Ray Davies)
16 London Song (Ray Davies)
17 talk (Ray Davies)
18 That Old Black Magic (Ray Davies)
19 talk (Ray Davies)
20 That Old Black Magic [Reprise] (Ray Davies)
21 Tired of Waiting for You (Ray Davies)
22 talk (Ray Davies)
23 Set Me Free (Ray Davies)
24 talk (Ray Davies)
25 See My Friends (Ray Davies)
26 Autumn Almanac (Ray Davies)
27 talk (Ray Davies)
28 X-Ray (Ray Davies)
29 Minnie the Moocher (Ray Davies)
30 talk (Ray Davies)
31 Art School Babe (Ray Davies)
32 talk (Ray Davies)
33 A Well Respected Man (Ray Davies)
34 talk (Ray Davies)
35 The Ballad of Julie Finkle (Ray Davies)
36 talk (Ray Davies)
37 Back in the Front Room (Ray Davies)
38 talk (Ray Davies)
39 You Really Got Me (Ray Davies)
40 talk (Ray Davies)
41 Waterloo Sunset (Ray Davies)
42 talk (Ray Davies)
43 You Really Got Me [Reprise] (Ray Davies)
44 Come Dancing (Ray Davies)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dnrTi

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bTVrWFtN

The cover photo was taken a concert in Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England, in March 1997.

Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb - In Session (CHCH-TV Studios, Hamilton, Canada, 12-1988)

Although I'm done with the "VH-1 Storytellers" series, here is something very similar in content and length. 

Jimmy Webb is a talented singer-songwriter who never had any hits of his own, but wrote many hit songs for others. In particular, Glen Campbell has covered many of his songs, and had big hits with some of them, such as the all-time classics "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Galveston," and "Wichita Lineman." In 1974, he even released an album consisting entirely of Jimmy Webb songs. In 1988, he released the album "Light Years," which included a couple more songs written by Webb. As part of the promotion for that album, Campbell and Webb appeared together on a Canadian radio show. Not only did they perform a bunch of Webb's songs together, they talked some about the songs as well. So that was more or less exactly like a Storytellers episode, except there was no studio audience and it took place about a decade earlier. The length of about 45 minutes was exactly the same for Storytellers episodes too.

It was rare for Campbell and Webb to perform together like this. So eventually, in 2012, an album of this radio show was released as an audio album, as well as a video. However, this album is very obscure. It took me months before I could even find a copy. So I decided to post it here to give it greater exposure.

Furthermore, I improved the album in two ways. Firstly, I added some songs that weren't on the official album. These come from the video of the same concert. In terms of music from that video, I didn't add much, just "Honey Come Back." It's really only a snippet that's less than a minute long, which probably explains why it didn't make the album. But I found several chunks of banter that were only on the video. One of these talked about the song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," but then the song just barely started before it faded out. So I found a version of Campbell doing it in concert within a couple of years of this performance, and added it in.

The second big change I made is that the banter often was overdubbed over instrumental sections of the songs. Most of these were at the beginnings of songs, but occasionally, as in "MacArthur Park," they took place in the middle of the songs. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get take these talking bits out of songs. But instead of trashing them, I generally put them as more banter before the songs.

I suspect there were more songs played, and especially more banter, but this is all I could find. Generally speaking, Campbell sang the lead vocals and played guitar while Webb played keyboards. On some songs, they were backed by a full band. On a couple, it was just Campbell and his acoustic guitar.

All in all, this is a really interesting album. Even if you're not a big fan of either Campbell or Webb as performers, you should hear this because virtually every song performed is a classic.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
02 By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
03 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
04 Light Years [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
05 If These Walls Could Speak (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
06 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
07 Galveston [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
08 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
09 Where's the Playground, Susie (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
10 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
11 MacArthur Park [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
12 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
13 Wichita Lineman [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
14 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
15 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
16 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
17 Honey Come Back (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
18 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
19 Sunshower (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
20 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
21 Still Within the Sound of My Voice (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17216624/GLENCMPBLLJMMYWBB1988InSssonCHCHTVStdosHmltonCnada__12-1988__atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BeHRgDfG

The cover of the official "In Session" album looks very amateurish, so I ignored that. I took the "In Session" graphic at the top from a YouTube video of this concert. However, that video was too low-res for good photos of the duo. Instead, I found this photo. I don't know when or where it's from exactly, but their ages seem to be in the right ballpark. (Webb is at the keyboards and Campbell is standing with the microphone.)

Freedonia - The Secret Side Project of Christopher Cross, 2018-2021- Freedonia (2018-2021) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

With my big VH-1 Storytellers project done, this is a good time for another Mike Solof guest post. He actually has a handful of albums that he's getting ready, but this is the first one to be finalized.

Do you remember singer-songwriter Christopher Cross? He had some big hits in the early 1980s, like "Sailing," "Ride like the Wind," and "Arthur's Theme (Best You Can Do)." His commercial sales declined quite a lot after that, but he kept putting out new music and touring. In 2018, he joined a local band in Austin, Texas, called Freedonia. This band put out a studio album in 2018, another one in 2019, and an EP in 2021 (though it was actually recorded back in 2018 and 2019). Mike has noted this has basically been a secret side project for Cross, because he hasn't put his name on the record covers (even though he does all the lead vocals and most of the songwriting), and the band apparently only performs concerts in the Austin area. It seems to be a labor of love.

Mike has put together a compilation of what he considers the best of Freedonia's music. So if you haven't heard of this band, and you probably haven't, this is a good way to check them out. It's a kind of jazz rock that sounds a lot like Steely Dan. As usual, Mike has included a PDF file that gives his thoughts plus some photos.

Oh, and there's an interesting bonus track. Most people don't know that Cross is actually a really talented lead guitarist too. His 1980 hit "Ride like the Wind" has a ripping guitar solo at the end of the song that was buried deep down in the mix. But with advances in audio software, that solo has been brought up in the mix. So that's the bonus track. (By the way, there's a whole YouTube video by Rick Beato taking about that very solo that you should check out.)

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Enjoy the Show (Freedonia)
02 Leaving It Up to the Moon (Freedonia)
03 Firefly (Freedonia)
04 Bring Back the Dinosaurs (Freedonia)
05 The Lost River [Instrumental] (Freedonia)
06 Gone So Long (Freedonia)
07 The World Is Broken (Freedonia)
08 Van the Bluesman (Freedonia)
09 Westeros [Instrumental] (Freedonia)
10 When All is Said and Done (Freedonia)
11 You'll Go It Alone (Freedonia)
12 Soweto (Freedonia)
13 FBI (Freedonia)
14 Ride like the Wind [Remix] (Christopher Cross)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17209091/CHRISTPHRCRSS2018-2021ScrtSdePrjctFredna_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gH1tkEuk

The cover photo was taken from a Christopher Cross website. It shows the Freedonia band playing in a small club. Cross is the one wearing the hat.

David Bowie - VH-1 Storytellers, Manhattan Center, New York City, 8-23-1999

Here we are with the very last "VH-1 Storytellers" album I plan on posting.

My goal was to post only episodes that haven't been released as albums. I'm breaking that rule here because this one has been posted as an album (and as a DVD). But the reason I'm posting this is because the album had some problems which I believe I've fixed. 

The album only had eight songs, with banter between them, plus four bonus tracks at the end without banter. Also, one song that was played, "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell," wasn't included at all. So I'm including the missing song. I also made some changes to make the bonus tracks fit better into the full concert. I didn't have the extra banter that presumably went with them. But I moved one song ("Always Crashing in the Same Car") to a spot earlier in the concert where it fit well with some banter to precede it there. And I made a couple other minor adjustments to make things flow better in a way that made logical sense to me. In the end, this isn't drastically different or enlarged, but I think it's a better listen.

I have a few more final notes about this Storytellers series. One is that there were a few other Storytellers episodes I didn't include because they have been officially released, and I didn't see any way to noticeably improve them. In particular, these ones are interesting:

Ringo Starr
Billy Idol
Counting Crows
Culture Club
Meat Loaf

Futhermore, as I previously mentioned, there are a few more episodes I would like to post, but I can't find the full audio for them. If any of them do show up, I will post them. If you have one or more, please pass them on to me. Those are:

Lyle Lovett
Shawn Colvin
Cee-Lo Green
Death Cab for Cutie
Ray LaMontagne
Jason Mraz
Grace Potter

On top of that, I have to admit there are still more episodes I didn't post because I didn't like these artists enough. Besides, most of them aren't available anyway. Those are: Hanson, Tony Bennett and the Backstreet Boys (together, strangely enough), Wyclef Jean and Friends, Train and Fuel (a shared episode), Jay Z, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Kid Rock, Kanye West, Christina Aguilera, Infant Sorrow, T.I., Maxwell, Jill Scott, and Alicia Keys.

I believe I posted 63 episodes at the blog. If you add up the others mentioned above that aren't posted here for one reason or another, it comes to about 90 episodes, give or take one or two.

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 talk (David Bowie)
02 Life on Mars (David Bowie)
03 talk (David Bowie)
04 Rebel Rebel (David Bowie)
05 talk (David Bowie)
06 Thursday's Child (David Bowie)
07 talk (David Bowie)
08 Can't Help Thinking about Me (David Bowie)
09 talk (David Bowie)
10 Always Crashing in the Same Car (David Bowie)
11 talk (David Bowie)
12 China Girl (David Bowie)
13 talk (David Bowie)
14 Seven (David Bowie)
15 talk (David Bowie)
16 Drive-In Saturday (David Bowie)
17 talk (David Bowie)
18 Word on a Wing (David Bowie)
19 Survive (David Bowie)
20 I Can't Read (David Bowie)
21 talk (David Bowie)
22 If I'm Dreaming My Life (David Bowie)
23 The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell (David Bowie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17195338/DAVDBWE1999StrytllrsMnhttnCntrNwYrkC__8-23-1999_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RmhNNGzw

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Don Henley - VH-1 Storytellers, Hollywood Center Studios, Los Angeles, CA, 2-19-2000

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood is almost at an end, with just one more album after this. This is an episode featuring singer-songwriter Don Henley.

We're lucky that this appears to be another double episode. On YouTube, and with most bootlegs, one can only find the first half of this. Perhaps that was all that was actually aired. But I luckily found more, which sounds like material edited down to a second episode. I believe I even removed one comment Henley made about halfway through that was an intro to the second episode (and didn't make sense when listening to all the music together).

The episode took place three months prior to the release of the studio album "Inside Job." It was Henley's first solo album in eleven years. Despite that long break, it sold over a million copies in the U.S. (He's never been that prolific. It would take him 15 years to release his next studio album.)

Henley performed four songs from his "Inside Job" album: "Taking You Home," "Workin' It," "Everything Is Different Now," and "For My Wedding."

Henley had his greatest success in the 1970s as a member of the Eagles. But it seems that by this point in his music career, he was tired of his Eagles songs. He only performed two of them here, "Life in the Fast Lane" and "Desperado." Even then, "Life in the Fast Lane" was drastically rearranged into more of a rap song. The other songs he played were generally solo hits from the 1980s.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long. 

01 talk (Don Henley)
02 The End of the Innocence (Don Henley)
03 talk (Don Henley)
04 Dirty Laundry (Don Henley)
05 talk (Don Henley)
06 The Boys of Summer (Don Henley)
07 talk (Don Henley)
08 Taking You Home (Don Henley)
09 talk (Don Henley)
10 Workin' It (Don Henley)
11 talk (Don Henley)
12 The Heart of the Matter (Don Henley)
13 talk (Don Henley)
14 Everything Is Different Now (Don Henley)
15 talk (Don Henley)
16 Sunset Grill (Don Henley)
17 talk (Don Henley)
18 Life in the Fast Lane [Rap Version] (Don Henley)
19 talk (Don Henley)
20 For My Wedding (Don Henley)
21 talk (Don Henley)
22 Desperado (Don Henley)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17201392/DONHNLY2000StrytllrsHllywodCntrStdosLsAnglesCA__2-19-2000_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/s6RhX7pw

The cover photo is from an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on July 14, 2000.

The Black Crowes - VH-1 Storytellers, The Bottom Line, New York City, 8-27-1996

We're getting very near to the end of the "VH-1 Storytellers" series. I only have two more I plan on posting after this. This one features the band the Black Crowes.

We happened to get lucky with this one, because there is a soundboard bootleg of the entire concert that the Storytellers TV show drew from. I cut out a couple of songs that were duplicates, due to the producer asking the band to do them again because of some minor reason or another. I also cut out a lot of dead air time. And there were some chunks of that, for instance while the band had to wait for the producers to get something ready. But I kept all the worthy banter.

The Black Crowes hit it big with their debut album, "Shake Your Money Maker," which sold five million copies in the U.S. Their second album also sold two million. But their fourth album, "Three Snakes and One Charm," didn't even go Gold in the U.S. (meaning sales of 500,000). That was the album they were promoting with this concert, as it had been released the month before.  

Surprisingly, they only played two songs from it: "Good Friday" and "Under a Mountain." Most of the songs were from their previous albums. However, they finished with a Rolling Stones cover, "Torn and Frayed."

Due to the sourcing, I didn't have some of the usual problems with this series, like the first song getting cut off. But I had some other problems I had to fix. For instance, the banter between songs sometimes got very quiet, so I boosted that. And there also was a lot of hiss at times during the banter, but I managed to get rid of a lot of that through using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is an hour and 41 minutes long.

01 talk (Black Crowes)
02 Nonfiction (Black Crowes)
03 talk (Black Crowes)
04 Good Friday (Black Crowes)
05 talk (Black Crowes)
06 Under a Mountain (Black Crowes)
07 talk (Black Crowes)
08 Thorn in My Pride (Black Crowes)
09 talk (Black Crowes)
10 Jealous Again (Black Crowes)
11 talk (Black Crowes)
12 Wiser Time (Black Crowes)
13 talk (Black Crowes)
14 She Talks to Angels (Black Crowes)
15 talk (Black Crowes)
16 Hard to Handle (Black Crowes)
17 talk (Black Crowes)
18 Ballad in Urgency (Black Crowes)
19 talk (Black Crowes)
20 Descending (Black Crowes)
21 talk (Black Crowes)
22 Remedy (Black Crowes)
23 talk (Black Crowes)
24 Torn and Frayed (Black Crowes)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kwrti

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iZhC4sD6

The cover photo is from a concert at the Paradiso, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on February 15, 1997. 

Pink - VH-1 Storytellers, MTV-VH-1 Studios, Santa Monica, CA, 8-21-2012

The next target of the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode featuring Pink. (Her birth name is Alecia Hart. She prefers to go by P!nk with the exclamation mark in the name.) Note this is the second to last Storytellers episode, with only Ed Sheeran's episode three years later after this one.

Pink has sold 60 million albums worldwide. One month after this concert, she released the studio album "The Truth about Love." It reached Number One in the U.S. album charts and sold the equal to about three million copies in the U.S. (I say the equal because by 2012 an increasing number of sales were digital.) 

On the album, she was joined by the singer Lily Allen on the song "True Love," and by the singer Nate Ruess of the band fun on the song "Just Give Me a Reason." Both Allen and Ruess guested on those songs for this concert as well. The two of them also co-wrote those songs with Pink. 

In addition to those two songs, the song "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" came from the album. The others were generally hits from previous albums.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 So What (Pink)
02 talk (Pink)
03 True Love (Pink with Lily Allen)
04 talk (Pink)
05 Sober (Pink)
06 talk (Pink)
07 Who Knew (Pink)
08 talk (Pink)
09 Just Give Me a Reason (Pink & Nate Ruess)
10 talk (Pink)
11 Family Portrait (Pink)
12 talk (Pink)
13 Blow Me [One Last Kiss] (Pink)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17195344/PINK2012StrytllrsMTVH1StdosSntaMncaCA__8-21-2012_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JTwmWKJ2

The cover is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert.

Robert Plant - VH-1 Storytellers, Westway Studios, London, Britain, 6-6-2002

I'm running out of "VH-1 Storytellers" albums to post, but there still are a few to go. This one features Robert Plant.

A month after this concert, Plant released his seventh solo studio album, "Dreamland." It got good reviews from critics, but it didn't sell well. As I write this in 2024, it's the only Plant solo album to not at least go Gold in the U.S. (sales of at least 500,000). Perhaps a problem was it had been nine years since his last true solo album, so his career lost some momentum. (He did a reunion with Jimmy Page in the meantime.)

The album largely consisted of cover versions. Three of those covers were performed here: "Funny in My Mind (Fixin' to Die)," "Darkness, Darkness," and "Morning Dew." Three of the remaining songs were songs he first did with Led Zeppelin.

As usual, the first song started halfway through. Unfortunately, this was a case where I couldn't find a fix. The song, "Ship of Fools," was one that he only played a few times around 2002, and none of those other recordings sounded good. He did play it a bunch of times in the early 1990s, but I thought that was too big of a time jump.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Ship of Fools [Incomplete] (Robert Plant)
02 talk (Robert Plant)
03 Funny in My Mind [Fixin' to Die] (Robert Plant)
04 Whole Lotta Love (Robert Plant)
05 Tall Cool One (Robert Plant)
06 talk (Robert Plant)
07 Four Sticks (Robert Plant)
08 talk (Robert Plant)
09 Darkness, Darkness (Robert Plant)
10 talk (Robert Plant)
11 Going to California (Robert Plant)
12 talk (Robert Plant)
13 Morning Dew (Robert Plant)
14 talk (Robert Plant)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17191027/ROBRTPLNT2002StrytllrsWstwyStdosLndonBrtin__6-6-2002_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RJYh6vff

The cover photo is from a concert at the Hammersmith Apollo, in London, Britain, on October 30, 2002.

The Goo Goo Dolls - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 3-12-2002

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" album series is an episode featuring the Goo Goo Dolls.

The Goo Goo Dolls have sold 15 million albums worldwide. But their popularity definitely peaked with one album, 1998's "Dizzy Up the Girl," which sold five million albums in the U.S. alone. For this concert they were supporting the follow-up album to that one, "Gutterflower." It would be released a month after this concert. That album would sell slightly less than a million copies in the U.S., which was a good showing but still a steep drop from the previous one.

Only performances of two songs from that album were included here: "Big Machine" and "Sympathy." Probably more were played but the concert was edited down to fit the TV show time slot.

As was usually the case with this TV show, only the end of the first song was included. But I found a different version of that song, "Name," and used it to fill in the missing portion. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title. I believe I also boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments using the UVR5 program, since they were low in the mix.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Name [Edit] (Goo Goo Dolls)
02 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
03 Iris (Goo Goo Dolls)
04 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
05 Broadway (Goo Goo Dolls)
06 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
07 Slide (Goo Goo Dolls)
08 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
09 Sympathy (Goo Goo Dolls)
10 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
11 Black Balloon (Goo Goo Dolls)
12 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
13 Big Machine (Goo Goo Dolls)
14 talk (Goo Goo Dolls)
15 We Are the Normal (Goo Goo Dolls)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17191028/TGOOGDLLS2002StrytllrsStrytllrsStdoNwYrkC__3-12-2002_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CJNoN743

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Coldplay - VH-1 Storytellers, Harvey Theatre, New York City, 5-18-2005

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" flood is an episode featuring the band Coldplay.

Coldplay has seen massive success, selling over 100 million albums worldwide. But they've also faced a lot of backlash from people who think their success is not deserved. The band's lead singer made a joke about this as soon as the recording begins, by introducing the band as "the Backstreet Boys" before correcting himself. Personally, I don't think they're awful but they don't really interest me much either. But they're decent enough for me to include them with all the other Storytellers albums I'm posting.

This concert took place about two weeks prior to the release of the band's third album, "X&Y." That album would go on to hit Number One in 32 countries and sell 13 million albums worldwide, making it the best selling album of 2005. But just two of the songs performed at this concert were from this album: "Speed of Sound" and "Fix You."

I kind of rued the day I decided to post this album, because it needed a lot of work. Unfortunately, it came during the 2005 to 2006 time period when the people behind this TV show thought it was a good idea to put voiceovers on top of the music. This happened for all but one song. Worse, on some songs it even happened two or three times! That's why there's "[Edit]" in most of the song titles. I tried to fix this problem using UVR5, but in some spots the underlying music was damaged, and you can hear some iffy bits. But after fixing all that, I discovered the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I had to run all the songs through UVR5 again to take care of that.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 talk (Coldplay)
02 Yellow [Edit] (Coldplay)
03 talk (Coldplay)
04 In My Place [Edit] (Coldplay)
05 talk (Coldplay)
06 Politik [Edit] (Coldplay)
07 talk (Coldplay)
08 Speed of Sound (Coldplay)
09 talk (Coldplay)
10 The Scientist [Edit] (Coldplay)
11 talk (Coldplay)
12 Clocks [Edit] (Coldplay)
13 talk (Coldplay)
14 Fix You [Edit] (Coldplay) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17191015/COLDPLY2005StrytllrsHrvyThetrNwYrkCty__5-18-2005_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5BQPsyHE

The cover is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert.

Rod Stewart - VH-1 Storytellers, Supper Club, New York City, 4-28-1998

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode featuring Rod Stewart.

This episode took place just one day prior to the release of Stewart's 19th studio album, "When We Were the New Boys." In my opinion, the show was lucky to have him when he did, because he was ending a phase of releasing typical rock albums. Starting in 2002, he would spend about a decade recording albums that mostly consisted of "Great American Songbook" songs. Those sold very well, but are easily skipped over, so I'm glad this predates that.

The "When We Were the New Boys" album was a bit unusual for Stewart because it consisted mostly of cover versions of contemporary music acts like Oasis, Primal Scream, and Ron Sexsmith. He sang three songs from that album: "Cigarettes and Alcohol," "Rocks," and "Ooh La La." That last one actually was done by his early 1970s band the Faces, but it had been co-written by band member Ronnie Lane (along with Ronnie Wood). Stewart did it on the album as a tribute to Lane, who died the year before.

I had to do the usual things I did with most of these Storytellers episodes. Namely, fixing the applause at the ends, which often got cut short. I also boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments using UVR5. At least this episode didn't have part of the first song cut off, as was often the case for this show.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Cigarettes and Alcohol (Rod Stewart)
02 talk (Rod Stewart)
03 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
04 talk (Rod Stewart)
05 Tonight's the Night [Gonna Be Alright] (Rod Stewart)
06 talk (Rod Stewart)
07 Stay with Me (Rod Stewart)
08 talk (Rod Stewart)
09 Ooh La la (Rod Stewart)
10 talk (Rod Stewart)
11 Forever Young (Rod Stewart)
12 talk (Rod Stewart)
13 You're in My Heart [The Final Acclaim] [False Start] (Rod Stewart)
14 You're in My Heart [The Final Acclaim] (Rod Stewart)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Rocks (Rod Stewart)
17 talk (Rod Stewart)
18 Having a Party (Rod Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17190977/RODSTWRT1998StrytllrsSupprClbNwYrkC__4-28-1998_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RZFxS1EH

The cover image is a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert. However, it was low-res and blurry, so I sharpened it up using the Krea AI program.

James Taylor - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 5-31-1997

Next up for "VH-1 Storytellers" is an episode featuring singer-songwriter James Taylor.

This one is twice as long as a typical episode of this TV show. I don't know if that's because it was broken into two episodes or if it's a bootleg that contained the full concert. But either way, we get lots of music.

In 1997, Taylor released the studio album "Hourglass," his first studio album in six years. It was seen as a comeback for him, both commercially and critically. It was his first Top Ten album in the U.S. in 16 years, selling over a million copies. It also won him a Grammy Award for Best Pop Album.

He performed six songs from his new album: "Line 'Em Up," "Hangnail," "Jump Up Behind Me," "Enough to Be on Your Way," "Little More Time with You," and "Another Day." His other songs were generally classics from older albums. On some songs he played solo acoustic, while on others he was backed by a small band.

Note that one song from this performance was officially released: "Mexico." It appeared on a various artists collection of Storytellers highlights.

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long.

01 talk (James Taylor)
02 Carolina in My Mind (James Taylor)
03 talk (James Taylor)
04 Sweet Baby James (James Taylor)
05 talk (James Taylor)
06 Jump Up Behind Me (James Taylor)
07 talk (James Taylor)
08 Mexico (James Taylor)
09 talk (James Taylor)
10 Mona (James Taylor)
11 talk (James Taylor)
12 Enough to Be on Your Way (James Taylor)
13 talk (James Taylor)
14 Little More Time with You (James Taylor)
15 talk (James Taylor)
16 Steamroller (James Taylor)
17 Copperline (James Taylor)
18 talk (James Taylor)
19 The Frozen Man (James Taylor)
20 talk (James Taylor)
21 Riding on the Railroad (James Taylor)
22 talk (James Taylor)
23 Hangnail (James Taylor)
24 talk (James Taylor)
25 Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
26 talk (James Taylor)
27 Another Day (James Taylor)
28 talk (James Taylor)
29 Line 'Em Up (James Taylor)
30 talk (James Taylor)
31 Valentine's Day (James Taylor)
32 talk (James Taylor)
33 Mudslide Slim and the Blue Horizon (James Taylor)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17187506/JAMSTYLR1997StrytllrsStrytllrsStdoNwYrkC__5-31-1997_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h5zNseeB

The cover is a screenshot from this exact concert. It was rather low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to sharpen it up.

More Picture Fixes with AI

I made a post a few days ago about how I've been making upgrades to some of the album covers thanks to a new computer program I've discovered called Krea AI. Since then, I've been using it some more to revamp some old album covers that I considered subpar. I was asked to put the results in a zip file so one can easily grab them all, so here they are. You can also download the individual albums and you'll get the improved covers there too.

This zip file contains 78 revised covers. Hopefully other zip files will follow as I fix more. These mostly contain covers from the recent "VH-1 Storytellers" albums I've been making, since many of the covers were low-res screenshots, and covers from the Covered series of singer-songwriters that I've made in the past. There were a lot of dodgy covers there, owing to the fact I highlighted many songwriters who very rarely were photographed well, especially songwriter duos pictured together. I'm much happier with the results now.

The Krea AI program isn't perfect by any means, but overall, I'm really impressed with the results. And I've learned a little trick, which is that I overlay the new version over the old version in Photoshop, and for any area where the new version doesn't look good, I partially or totally erase it, allowing the older version to dominate. This is especially helpful around the eyes. They say the eyes are the "windows to the soul." If the eyes are just a little bit different it doesn't look like the right person, so I often resort to using the "old" eyes while updating most everything else.

To show how much things can change, compare the original black and white version of a Chris Hillman album cover I found with the final version, after I colorized it, modified it, and ran it through Krea AI. I think the difference is pretty remarkable.

Here's the zip file. You'll have to figure out which ones go with which albums. But that shouldn't be hard since the album and artist names are always mentioned on the covers.

https://www.upload.ee/files/17187431/PictureFixeswithAIVolume01.zip.html 

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/a1AmMz3e

If anyone has specific covers they'd like to see upgraded, please let me know. Thanks.

By the way, also note that whenever I update a link now for whatever reason, I try to add in a Pixeldrain link as well.