Robin Trower - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-6-1973

Here's another one of the many Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. This one stars lead guitarist Robin Trower.

Here's the Wikipedia entry intro about him:

"[Trower] is an English rock guitarist and producer who achieved success with Procol Harum from 1967 until 1971 and as the bandleader of his own power trio known as the Robin Trower Band. Although Procol Harum was primarily known as a progressive rock band, Trower himself is known for his blues-infused guitar playing, which critics have frequently compared to that of Jimi Hendrix, whom he has cited as an influence. As a solo artist, Trower released four consecutive gold-certified albums from 1974 to 1977 that charted well in the U.S. and Canada, but in the 1980s his career faltered. He briefly returned to Procol Harum for their 1991 reunion album, The Prodigal Stranger, but left again to resume his solo career. His most recent solo album, Come and Find Me, was released in 2025."

Here's the full entry:

Robin Trower - Wikipedia

This concert took place about six months after the release of Tower's debut album, "Twice Removed from Yesterday." At the time, it didn't do that well. It just missed making the Top 100 album chart. But his next album, "Bridge of Sighs," would do much better, making the Top Ten.

A key member of Trower's band at this time was James Dewar. He not only was the bass player, he was the lead vocalist. He essentially was the "voice" for Trower until they parted ways in 1983. Trower and Dewar co-wrote most of the songs on the debut album. On later albums, Trower would dominate the songwriting a lot more.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 The Fool and Me (Robin Trower)
02 talk (Robin Trower)
03 Twice Removed from Yesterday (Robin Trower)
04 talk (Robin Trower)
05 Lady Love (Robin Trower)
06 talk (Robin Trower)
07 Daydream (Robin Trower)
08 talk (Robin Trower)
09 Day of the Eagle (Robin Trower)
10 talk (Robin Trower)
11 I Can't Wait Much Longer (Robin Trower)
12 talk (Robin Trower)
13 Man of the World (Robin Trower)
14 talk (Robin Trower)
15 Sinner's Song (Robin Trower)
16 talk (Robin Trower)
17 Little Bit of Sympathy (Robin Trower)
18 talk (Robin Trower)
19 I Can't Stand It (Robin Trower)
20 talk by emcee (Robin Trower)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5aTe9eMj

alternate:

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

All I know about the cover is it was taken in March 1973. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 10: April 1970

Here's another volume of music I compiled from episodes of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. This is the tenth. There's only one more after this.

There's a lot of variety on this album, with country, soul, jazz, and rock. Some highlights are B.B. King, Billy Preston, and Linda Ronstadt making her second appearance. 

A couple of songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. This is due to the usual problem with this series, of people talking over the music. (Especially the T.W.A. advertisements I keep mentioning.) So I fixed those in the usual way, with the help of the MVSEP program. 

By the way, Barbara McNair is a rare case of one of the performers for this show who also posed naked for Playboy Magazine. But it's not like she had to do that in order to get on the show. She'd had an established career starting in the late 1950s, as a singer and an actress for plays, T.V., and movies. She was signed to Motown Records from around 1966 to 1969. She even had her own T.V. show from 1969 to 1971, called "The Barbara McNair Show." 

Her career would take a hit in 1972, however, when she was arrested for heroin possession, because she signed for a package sent to her house containing heroin. However, charges against her were later dropped, and her husband was charged instead. It seems like her husband was a seriously bad dude. He was murdered in 1976. It was alleged he was involved in the Mafia, and was killed at the same time he was trying to put a hit out on someone else.

You can read her Wikipedia entry here:

Barbara McNair - Wikipedia 

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 Nobody Knows (Dillards)
02 Hey Boys (Dillards)
03 My Shining Hour (Carmen McRae)
04 I Love You More than You'll Ever Know (Carmen McRae)
05 Bending the Strings [Instrumental] [Edit] (Dillards)
06 Stand by Your Man (Lola Falana)
07 It Takes a Little Longer (Sonny Charles)
08 Friendship Train (Sonny Charles)
09 Walk a Mile in My Shoes [Edit] (Sonny Charles & Lola Falana)
10 Until It's Time for You to Go (Barbara McNair)
11 Son of a Preacher Man (Barbara McNair)
12 So Excited (B. B. King)
13 The Thrill Is Gone (B. B. King)
14 Lovesick Blues (Linda Ronstadt)
15 Long, Long Time (Linda Ronstadt)
16 Sing, Sing, Sing (Country Joe & the Fish)
17 The 'Fish' Cheer - I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Country Joe & the Fish)
18 Everything's All Right (Billy Preston)
19 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
20 God Bless the Child (Blinky)
21 Let's Get Together (Joanne Vent & Muscatel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UK1WoH6B

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ox0RbnXqeJIZP7N/file

The cover image of Linda Ronstadt is a screenshot I took from a video of one of these episodes. 

Flight of the Conchords - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 6-9-2016

Normally, I don't post comedy at this blog, since it's a music blog. But I'll make an occasional exception for comedic songs. I've posted music from Allen Sherman and Spinal Tap in the past, for instance. Here's another one: Flight of the Conchords. If you haven't seen their TV show, you're missing out. I really enjoyed that. It's about a fictional musical duo, starring Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, who are New Zealanders struggling to make it as musicians in New York City. One vital part of that show was that each episode featured a couple of original songs, which were consistently both funny and just well written songs. It's not easy to do both.

This is part of the leak of dozens of concerts from Port Chester, New York. Another person split the single audio file into songs. I further split out the talking parts.

The "Flight of the Conchords" T.V. show ran from 2007 to 2009, on H.B.O. They also put out albums in 2007, 2008, and 2009, plus a live one in 2019. They toured off and on from 2001 to 2018. This concert was the start of their 2016 tour. I just looked up their info, and I'm pleased that they resumed touring just last month, April 2026, for the first time since 2018. So let's hope the Conchords are starting a new chapter. They don't really need to reunite, because both Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have been successful as actors in T.V. and movies.

Note that the first half hour of this recording is the opening act, a stand-up comedy routine by Arj Barker. There's a good connection to the main act, because in addition to being a stand-up comedian, Barker played a recurring minor role in the Flight of the Conchords T.V. show. I've made his stand-up act track "00." That way, if you just want to listen to the main act, that starts with track 01.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent, although there's some echo/reverb marring the sound a bit. 

This album is two hours long exactly. It is an hour and 26 minutes long if you don't include Arj Barker's opening act. 

00 Arj Barker Stand-Up Routine (Arj Barker)
01 talk by Arj Barker (Flight of the Conchords)
02 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
03 Chips and Dips (Flight of the Conchords)
04 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
05 Father and Son (Flight of the Conchords)
06 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
07 Foux du Fafa (Flight of the Conchords)
08 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
09 Stana (Flight of the Conchords)
10 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
11 The Most Beautiful Girl [In the Room] (Flight of the Conchords)
12 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
13 Shady Rachel (Flight of the Conchords)
14 Mutha'uckas (Flight of the Conchords)
15 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
16 Seagull (Flight of the Conchords)
17 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
18 Iain and Deanna (Flight of the Conchords)
19 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
20 Summer of 1353 (Flight of the Conchords)
21 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
22 Bowie (Flight of the Conchords)
23 talk (Flight of the Conchords)
24 Business Time (Flight of the Conchords)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QBF1PR7M

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/9PggXRFxVjjJ8N5/file

The cover image comes from this exact concert.

The Fixx - BBC Rock Hour, City University, London, Britain, 6-26-1983

Thanks to my focus on things like the Ebbets Field radio broadcast and the "Playboy After Dark" TV show, I've been posting a lot of stuff from the early 1970s lately (as I write this in May 2026). In occurred to me I haven't been posting as much from the 1980s and the BBC in particular. So here's something that checks both of those boxes. It's a BBC concert by the Fixx from 1983.

Since I've never posted anything by this band before, here's the intro to their Wikipedia entry, although it doesn't say that much: 

"The Fixx are a rock band from London, England, founded in 1979. The band's hits include 'One Thing Leads to Another,' 'Saved by Zero,' 'Are We Ourselves?,' and 'Secret Separation,' each of which charted in the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, as well as Mainstream Rock chart hits 'Red Skies,' 'Stand or Fall', "Driven Out,' and 'Deeper and Deeper,' which was featured on the soundtrack of the 1984 film Streets of Fire."

Here's the link to the full entry:

The Fixx - Wikipedia

I would add to that that their peak years of commercial success were 1983 and 1984, when they put out an album that reached Platinum status in the U.S. ("Reach the Beach") and another that reached Gold status ("Phantoms"). But they had occasional hits until the end of the 1980s. They are still together as I write this in 2026.

This was part of a radio show in the 1970s and 80s called the "BBC Rock Hour." There was a short introduction by a BBC DJ, but I removed it since it was clearly overdubbed at a later date. 

The music here is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 One Thing Leads to Another (Fixx)
02 Cameras in Paris (Fixx)
03 Stand or Fall (Fixx)
04 Privilege (Fixx)
05 Outside (Fixx)
06 Saved by Zero (Fixx)
07 The Fool (Fixx)
08 Reach the Beach (Fixx)
09 talk (Fixx)
10 Running (Fixx)
11 talk (Fixx)
12 Red Skies (Fixx)
13 I Found You (Fixx) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nF3vFhWK

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/scEEbtxY4ZICLvO/file

The cover image shows Cy Curnin, lead singer of the Fixx, at Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois, on July 23, 1983.

Van Morrison - Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin, TX, 1-12-1974

Here's something pretty awesome: a previously unknown Van Morrison bootleg from 1974, with pristine soundboard sound quality! It's pretty amazing these sorts of things keep popping up, even more than 50 years after the original performance. This one showed up at a prominent bootleg sharing site a couple of days ago (posted by BK for JEMS) as I write this in May 2026. I grabbed it there and made some edits to make it sound even better.

Sometimes, a soundboard recording captures the music on stage so very well that little audience noise is recorded. That was the case here. It almost sounded like Van and his band was performing to an empty room. I used the MVSEP program to separate the crowd noise from everything else, for every song. I found there was some crowd noise there, just very quiet. Because the sound quality is so excellent, I was able to drastically boost the volume of just the cheering at the ends of songs without having a lot of hiss too. Now, this sounds much better with the cheering at the usual expected volume, in my opinion.

There were a couple of sonic flaws. The first song (which is called "4 O'Clock in the Morning" on an official live album and "Try for Sleep" on an official studio album) is missing a bit of the very beginning. There was nothing I could do to fix this, since this song was performed extremely rarely until the 1990s and after. In "Don't Look Back," there was a burst of static that lasted a couple of seconds in the middle of the song. I was able to get rid of most of it, though not all of it, by using an MVSEP filter that reduces unwanted noise. Finally, the first minute or so of "Cyprus Avenue" was missing. So I found a similar version from the same era (specifically, a concert at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, on May 26, 1973), and used that to patch in the missing section. That's why two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Most of the songs were pretty standard in Morrison's concerts at the time. But the first song was rarely performed, as mentioned above. Ditto with "Don't Look Back," a John Lee Hooker song he originally did with Them in the 1960s. He'd only performed it once in concert prior to this. That's the same with "The Wild Side of Life." But while Morrison occasionally performed "Don't Look Back" in later years, this seems to be the second and last time he ever did it in concert. He probably played it because this was his first concert in Texas, and Hank Thompson, who had the original hit with that song, was from rural Texas.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long. 

01 4 O'Clock in the Morning [Try for Sleep] (Van Morrison)
02 Come Running (Van Morrison)
03 Moondance (Van Morrison)
04 Don't Look Back [Edit] (Van Morrison)
05 Ain't Nothin' You Can Do (Van Morrison)
06 Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
07 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Van Morrison)
08 Warm Love (Van Morrison)
09 Listen to the Lion (Van Morrison)
10 I've Been Working (Van Morrison)
11 Domino (Van Morrison)
12 Caravan (Van Morrison)
13 Cyprus Avenue [Edit] (Van Morrison)
14 talk by emcee (Van Morrison)
15 Gloria (Van Morrison)
16 The Wild Side of Life (Van Morrison) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/M9bbLqBp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/bFfUnxrS1U0Gb4e/file

I could have used a photo of Van Morrison in concert at this time, but I found a concert poster for him from 1974, and I decided to use that instead. I removed some text, and added other text, but I kept the same font type, color, and sizes. I also used an AI feature inside Photoshop to widen the image on both sides to help make it fit into a square space. 

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 9: February to March 1970

Here's another volume of music I compiled from episodes of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. By this point, we're well into the second and final season of the show.

This volume starts with a medley of songs by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. It's a particularly interesting performance because it had stripped down instrumentation, with minimal drums. 

I especially psyched that this includes two songs by Evie Sands. I still am mystified that she never became a big star. She had a great voice and was ridiculously beautiful (just look at the cover image). She even played an impressive guitar solo on her appearance on the "Johnny Cash Show" around this time. But she was signed to a crappy record company in the 1960s, and repeatedly had hit singles stolen from her by other acts who would hear her songs, quickly record their own versions, and get proper promotion. I posted a "best of" a few years ago to help draw more attention to her underappreciated career, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/11/evie-sands-best-of-evie-sands-1965-1974.html

There's almost no live recordings of her from this era, other than this one and the "Johnny Cash Show" appearance I mentioned above. It's especially nice to see her play a cover of "Light My Fire" here, because she never released any version of that one.

The Grass Roots performed on this show a year earlier. Unfortunately, that performance was lip-synced. But they played live for some reason on this, their second appearance. I believe they never released a version of the Motown classic "Dancing in the Street."

If anyone knows the name of the instrumental performed by Les Mann, please let me know so I can fix the title. 

It's nice this ends with a performance by jazz legend Sarah Vaughan. I'm pretty sure she never recorded "Didn't We," a song by Jimmy Webb, but only played it in concert around this time period. Similarly, R.B. Greaves, who is best known for his hit "Take a Letter Maria," never released "Danny Boy" on record.

Note that three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Those are more cases of talking over the music, especially advertisements for the airline company T.W.A. on the last song of each episode. I got rid of that in the usual way, with the help of the MVSEP program. 

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

01 Yesterlove (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
02 My Girl Has Gone (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
03 The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage - Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
04 In My Time (Noel Harrison)
05 But You Know I Love You (Evie Sands)
06 Light My Fire [Edit] (Evie Sands)
07 Shame and Scandal in the Family (Lloyd Haynes)
08 She Believes in Me (John Stewart)
09 Shackles and Chains (John Stewart)
10 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Johnny Mathis)
11 Aquarius - Let the Sunshine In (Johnny Mathis)
12 The Lady and the Outlaw [Edit] (John Stewart)
13 Instrumental (Les Mann)
14 Compared to What (Les Mann)
15 Walkin' through the Country (Grass Roots)
16 Dancing in the Street (Grass Roots)
17 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me (R. B. Greaves)
18 Danny Boy (R. B. Greaves)
19 Didn't We [Edit] (Sarah Vaughan)
20 There Will Never Be Another You (Sarah Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/38b4Z6iH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/ZHYbQSmqV5X0PS5/file

The cover is a screenshot of Evie Sands I took from a video of one of these episodes.

Roger McGuinn - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-20-1974

Here's another radio broadcast concert from the small Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado. This one is a solo acoustic performance by Roger McGuinn, former lead singer of the Byrds.

I'm very impressed by the roster of musical acts that performed at this club in the years of its existence, from 1973 to 1977. You can see a list of the performers in 1973 here:

https://queencityjamz.blogspot.com/2019/12/ebbets-field-denver-1973-listings.html

And the performers from 1974 to 1977 here: 

https://kimsloans.wordpress.com/tag/ebetts-field-denver-music-venue-1974/

In my opinion, there's a high rate of quality, with lots of concerts I wish I could hear, and not so many that I've never heard about or don't care for. I suspect that's because the owner of the venue, Chuck Morris, had good musical taste, and booked the artists he liked. To support that, I heard an anecdote that he was a very big fan of the Byrds, so much so that when he was hiring employees for his venue, one question he would ask was who were the five original members of the Byrds.

Given that, Morris must have been excited for this concert. The Byrds broke up in early 1973, right around the time the Ebbets Field venue opened up, so they never performed there. But McGuinn immediately started a solo career, releasing his first solo album, the cleverly titled, "Roger McGuinn," later in 1973. He was still promoting that album at the time of this concert.

The music is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. However, I made a lot of adjustments, because this recording was in a pretty raw state. So parts of songs were too loud, others too quiet, the banter was especially quiet, and so on. But all of it was fixable.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 I'm So Restless (Roger McGuinn)
02 talk (Roger McGuinn)
03 Lost My Drivin' Wheel (Roger McGuinn)
04 Bag Full of Money (Roger McGuinn)
05 talk (Roger McGuinn)
06 Wasn't Born to Follow (Roger McGuinn)
07 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Roger McGuinn)
08 talk (Roger McGuinn)
09 Take a Whiff (Roger McGuinn)
10 talk (Roger McGuinn)
11 Wayfaring Stranger (Roger McGuinn)
12 Old Blue Story-Song (Roger McGuinn)
13 talk (Roger McGuinn)
14 Old Blue (Roger McGuinn)
15 talk (Roger McGuinn)
16 Mr. Spaceman (Roger McGuinn)
17 talk (Roger McGuinn)
18 Eight Miles High (Roger McGuinn)
19 talk (Roger McGuinn)
20 Lover of the Bayou (Roger McGuinn)
21 talk (Roger McGuinn)
22 Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy (Roger McGuinn)
23 talk (Roger McGuinn)
24 The Bells of Rhymney (Roger McGuinn)
25 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Roger McGuinn)
26 The Lady (Roger McGuinn)
27 Chestnut Mare (Roger McGuinn)
28 talk by emcee (Roger McGuinn)
29 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Roger McGuinn)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/U4gbACq5 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XQrHNO2vRRX4oMy/file

The cover image shows McGuinn in Malibu, California, in July 1974. 

Tears for Fears - Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY, 9-28-2015

Here's another concert from the recent release of soundboard boots from Port Chester, New York (as I write this is May 2026). At first, the vast majority of them were posted as a single sound file, without being broken into songs. But more and more are being broken into songs by other people. So I'm choosing to post albums out of those ones. I've already found about 30 of those, so expect to see a lot more of these get posted in the near future.

Tears for Fears mainly consists of Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal. Orzabal continued the band basically as a solo project for most of the 1990s, without Smith. But Smith rejoined the band in the early 2000s, and they've been together even since. At the time of this concert, they hadn't released a new Tears for Fears album since "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending" in 2004. So they mostly played older classics. They also included a drastically reworked version of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean."

I didn't do much editing. But I did boost the volume of the cheering after many songs. One flaw with soundboards is they often capture the stage sounds well, but not much of the crowd. That was the case here, though only to a moderate degree. 

This album is an hour and 35 minutes long.

01 Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
02 Secret World (Tears for Fears)
03 Sowing the Seeds of Love (Tears for Fears)
04 talk (Tears for Fears)
05 Falling Down (Tears for Fears)
06 talk (Tears for Fears)
07 Pale Shelter (Tears for Fears)
08 Break It Down Again (Tears for Fears)
09 Everybody Loves a Happy Ending (Tears for Fears)
10 talk (Tears for Fears)
11 Change (Tears for Fears)
12 Mad World (Tears for Fears)
13 Memories Fade (Tears for Fears)
14 Closest Thing to Heaven (Tears for Fears)
15 Billie Jean (Tears for Fears)
16 talk (Tears for Fears)
17 Advice for the Young at Heart (Tears for Fears)
18 talk (Tears for Fears)
19 Badman's Song (Tears for Fears)
20 Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears)
21 talk (Tears for Fears)
22 Woman in Chains (Tears for Fears)
23 Shout (Tears for Fears)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RnrZQJai

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zz4aPZrhbkyFtM1/file

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

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 3: 1999-2025

Here's the third and final volume of the "Covered" series for Randy Newman.

Newman's usual solo albums have been released less frequently as he gets older, which is usually the case for songwriters. By now, 2026, he averages about one album a decade. But unlike a lot of aging songwriters, he's kept his standards high. Pretty much every album he's made has been critically praised. 

But he's been much busier and prolific with his other career, composing soundtracks for Hollywood movies. I mentioned in the write-up for "Volume 2" that his career got a big boost starting in 1995, when he composed the soundtrack for the first "Toy Story" movie. That led him to a new line of work making soundtracks for blockbuster movies for kids, such as the other "Toy Story" movies (including "Toy Story 6," released in 2026), "Cars," "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc.," and more. Most of those are a mix of songs with lyrics and background music. I didn't find a lot of songs from these movies sung by others that fit this collection, but there are a few in this volume. 

Some others are from earlier in his career. For instance, "Burn On," a 1972 song based on a true incident of the Cuyahoga River, which runs through Cleveland, Ohio, catching fire in 1969 due to excessive pollution. 

All the songs in all three volumes were officially released, except for the last two on this volume. "I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)" is from Randy Newman's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2013. It's sung by Newman and Don Henley. The album ends with "I Love L.A.," one of Newman's better known songs. I had trouble finding a worthy version, until I found this one. It comes from the 2025 Grammy Awards ceremony, and features a bunch of stars singing together.

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 When She Loved Me (Sarah McLachlan)
02 If I Didn't Have You (Billy Crystal & John Goodman)
03 Every Time It Rains (Joe Cocker)
04 Rider in the Rain (Reckless Kelly & Joe Ely)
05 Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father (Kim Richey)
06 Marie (Allison Moorer)
07 Our Town (James Taylor)
08 Burn On (Mason Williams)
09 I Will Go Sailing No More (Los Lobos)
10 Almost There (Anika Noni Rose)
11 Down in New Orleans (Dr. John)
12 Losing You (Mavis Staples)
13 It's Lonely at the Top (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy)
14 I'm Dead [But I Don't Know It] (Don Henley & Randy Newman)
15 I Love L.A. (Dawes, John Legend, St. Vincent, Brittany Howard, Brad Paisley & Sheryl Crow)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZoccZuhY

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/zKj0ZEWCA6LlgOM/file

The cover image is from 1995.

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 2: 1973-1999

Here's the second out of three "Covered" albums for singer-songwriter Randy Newman.

As I mentioned in "Volume 1," in the early 1970s, Newman was considered a cult albums, very critically acclaimed, but with not much commercial success for his own career. Even the many covers of his songs were rarely hits, though there were exceptions, especially "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Three Dog Night in 1970.

But things changed drastically for him in 1977, with the song "Short People." To pretty much everyone's surprise, his version was an massive novelty hit. It made it all the way to Number Two in the U.S., kept out of the top spot only by the all-time classic "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was wildly misunderstood, to say the least. A great many of his songs are sarcastic. For instance, his great song "Political Science" sarcastically advocates for blowing up the world with nuclear weapons. Many people who heard "Short People" didn't realize it was a sarcastic attack on prejudice by pointing out how silly it would be to hate short people for no reason, including ignoring the lyrics of the bridge, which explicitly run counter to the rest of the song. 

But in any case, the song made him a household name, even though his overall sales still didn't increase much. His only two really big hits on the singles charts remain "Short People" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." Since Newman's version of "Short People" is so well known, it's the only song in this series I've included that's performed by him.

I also want to give a special mention to "Sail Away." I think it's an incredible song. But it also shows how unique his songwriting is, and how easy it can be for people to misunderstand his songs if they don't pay attention. It's basically an advertisement for a slave trader prior to the Civil War, attempting to coax Black Africans to come to the U.S. for a better life, when in fact the trader is tricking them into slavery. Yet somehow this sarcastic premise becomes a powerful song about the evils of slavery. It's been widely covered, including by the likes of Bobby Darin, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, and Kirsty MacColl. It was hard for me to pick just one cover, but I thought the version by Etta James is extra powerful.

From the start of Newman's songwriting career, he'd had a sideline writing instrumental music for T.V. shows, which then led to movie soundtrack work. That began way back in 1962, as I mentioned in the previous volume. His first movie soundtrack was in 1971. He did a few more movies here and there over the next couple decades. But his career took a turn in 1995, when he did the soundtrack for the hit movie "Toy Story." One song he did for that, "You've Got a Friend in Me," wasn't a hit per se, barely reaching the singles chart. But it became widely known, and widely beloved by children, and it's gone on to sell over three million copies! Surely that makes it one of the best selling non-hits ever. 

For that song, I've included a duet version between Newman and Lyle Lovett, since it's an interesting one that's also much less well known than the version just featuring Newman.

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Have You Seen My Baby [Hold On] (Ringo Starr)
02 Sail Away (Etta James)
03 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)
04 Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (Etta James)
05 Naked Man (Grass Roots)
06 Lucinda (Joe Cocker)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Baltimore (Nina Simone)
09 Mr. President (Marshall Tucker Band)
10 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
11 Louisiana 1927 (Aaron Neville)
12 Political Science (Everything but the Girl)
13 You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett)
14 Feels like Home (Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6SB3U9ZA

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/f6YT8V3gAvHLIQ3/file 

The cover image is from 1978.

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 1: 1963-1973

Whenever I think about the "Covered" series of albums I've made, I get frustrated, because I've got dozens that I've never gotten around to posting. I guess I enjoy the making of the albums more than the steps needed to post them. It feels like unfinished homework. But I'm going to make more of an effort to fix that, starting with a triple-header of Randy Newman.

Here's some highlights from his Wikipedia entry:  

"[Newman] is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, composer, and arranger. Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, he is known for his Americana-inspired songs, non-rhotic Southern-accented singing style, and typically mordant or satirical lyrics. Since the 1990s, he has worked mainly in film scoring, most popularly for Disney and Pixar. ... Newman has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (out of 22 nominations), three Emmys, seven Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and seven Golden Globe Awards. His award-winning film work includes 'Ragtime' (1981), 'The Natural' (1984), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'A Bug's Life' (1998), 'Pleasantville' (1998), 'Monsters, Inc.' (2001), 'Cars' (2006), 'The Princess and the Frog' (2009), 'Toy Story 3' (2010), and 'Marriage Story' (2019). He was honored with the Recording Academy's Governors Award in 2003, a Disney Legend award in 2007, and inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013."

As mentioned above, he was born in Los Angeles. But he also spent many of his childhood summers in New Orleans. That would prove to be important, because his songwriting would be heavily influenced by New Orleans styles. And also as mentioned above, he was part of an extended family of Hollywood film composers. His mother and father had regular jobs (as secretary and internist, respectively), but three of his uncles were film composers, and so were three cousins. 

He began writing songs professionally by the age of 17. He put out a single under his own name in 1962, but it flopped. So he decided to try writing songs for others for a while. He began having successes almost immediately. The first song here, "Hold Your Head High" by Jackie DeShannon, is from 1963. 

Also very early on, he began writing instrumental music for TV shows, starting with an episode of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in 1962. That talent would continue to grow, leading to him to eventually doing full movie soundtracks starting in 1971. More on that in a later volume though.

Alan Price helped boost Newman's songwriting career in 1967. For one thing, he had a hit with Newman's "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." But also, he was so taken by Newman's songwriting that his 1967 album "A Price on His Head" had no less than seven songs by Newman. Harry Nilsson paid him an even bigger compliment by covering an entire album of his songs in 1970, "Nilsson Sings Newman."

Newman finally released his first album under his own name in 1968, "Randy Newman (Creates Something New Under the Sun)." It was a critical success, and it led to even more musical acts covering his songs, but it didn't sell well. It didn't even reach the top 200 U.S. albums chart. For the next ten years or so, he would continue to be a cult artist, meaning he was critically praised and beloved by a small group of fans, but didn't have much wider commercial success. 

Meanwhile, his songwriting continued to get better and better. It arguably peaked with his 1972 album "Sail Away," though he has maintained remarkably high consistency for his entire career. Rolling Stone Magazine has put that album on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. His 1974 album "Good Old Boys" would also make that list, though lower down it.

Newman's songwriting is extraordinary, but it's also idiosyncratic, with frequent heavy sarcasm. Some songs have general romantic themes that lend themselves to being covered a lot, for instance "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." There are over a 100 different cover versions of that one. But then consider a song like "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." It's a sarcastic song about how God seemingly could care less about the human race, and even laughs at the calamities it throws at humanity. I think it's a great song, with deep meaning, but it's not exactly typical Top Forty subject material! So there are a lot of songs I would have wanted to include but didn't, because either there's no cover versions at all, or at least no worthy covers. And I've followed my usual rule for the "Covered" series of generally not including versions by Newman himself (although he'll show up with one song in a later volume, and in a duet in the other volume).

Note that some of the best songs written by Newman during this time period only show up in one of the later two volumes. So if you don't see a favorite, wait to see what's on those first. 

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Hold Your Head High (Jackie DeShannon)
02 Baby, Don't Look Down (Billy Storm)
03 I've Been Wrong Before (Cilla Black)
04 Nobody Needs Your Love (Gene Pitney)
05 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Alan Price Set)
06 Snow (Claudine Longet)
07 Illinois (Everly Brothers)
08 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Dusty Springfield)
09 Just One Smile (Blood Sweat & Tears)
10 Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad (Linda Ronstadt)
11 Love Story (Peggy Lee)
12 Dayton, Ohio, 1903 (Wayne Fontana)
13 Mama Told Me [Not to Come] (Three Dog Night)
14 Cowboy (Nilsson)
15 The Beehive State (Doobie Brothers)
16 Living without You (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
17 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Etta James)
18 Guilty (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/i6jjx6vk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/JKPIcpuJQBtagaN/file

The cover photo is from 1968.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 8: December 1969 to February 1970

Here's the seventh volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. It's the third volume of the show's second season.

I'll only mention some things about a couple of the performances. The rest should be evident just by listening. 

This episode features a previously unknown chapter of Lesley Gore's music career. She'd had a string of hits from 1963 to 1967, but her music went out of style. She continued to release some singles, but they all flopped. In 1972, she put out an album for the first time since 1967, "Someplace Else Now," that recast her in a singer-songwriter mode, similar to Carole King and her seminal 1971 album "Tapestry." In her Playboy TV appearance, she sang two songs that were moving into that mode. Neither of them were officially released by her anywhere, as far as I could tell. One of them, "Didn't We," is a Jimmy Webb song that was covered by many musical artists in this time period. 

Another bit of lost history are the two songs by Joanne Vent and Muscatel. Vent was an attractive White woman with a soulful, bluesy voice, who seemed to have potential for a big music career, a la Janis Joplin. She put out a solo album in 1969, called, "The Black and White of It Is Blues." Unfortunately, as one review I read put it, "Great voice, but not such a great album." At the time of this show, she was getting ready to release a second album with a new backing band, called Muscatel. I found a web link of someone selling a test pressing of it on eBay. But somehow that album never came out. The two songs she sang here suggest what her second album could have sounded like. She also was part of a duet in Volume 5, and shows up again in Volumes 10 and 11.

It's great that Fleetwood Mac is included here. But unfortunately, their performance was badly edited down. Their one song, "Rattlesnake Shake," is only two and a half minutes long. It's clear the performance was longer, since the song both fades in and fades out. They also did a second song, "Coming Your Way," but it only showed up for half a minute at the very end of that particular episode, under an overdubbed advertisement for T.W.A. Airlines. So I didn't bother to include that.

I've mentioned that each episode ended with talking over the music. But, by chance, that only impacted one song in this volume,  "The Category Stomp by John Hartford. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in its title.

This album is an hour and eight minutes long. 

01 Something (Dolores Hall)
02 Just Because of You (Dolores Hall)
03 A Simple Thing as Love (John Hartford)
04 Natural to Be Gone (John Hartford)
05 The Category Stomp [Edit] (John Hartford)
06 Let's Get Together (Jack Jones)
07 If You Want Me To (Chambers Brothers)
08 Love, Love, Love (Chambers Brothers)
09 Georgia on My Mind (James Brown)
10 Yesterday (Vicki Anderson)
11 By the Time I Get to Phoenix (James Brown)
12 God Bless the Child (Jack Jones)
13 The More I See You (Jack Jones)
14 Rattlesnake Shake (Fleetwood Mac)
15 Hello Young Lovers (Lesley Gore)
16 Didn't We (Lesley Gore)
17 High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish (Tony Joe White)
18 Groupy Girl (Tony Joe White)
19 Slow Train (Joanne Vent & Muscatel)
20 Long Walk to D.C. (Joanne Vent & Muscatel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JdGHbzj8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/HAcJNqwRYyI9p09/file

The cover image shows Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. It's a screenshot I took from one of these episodes.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 5: 1987-1997 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. This is the fifth and final album of "Baez Sings Baez," naturally featuring Joan Baez. It makes the argument that Baez has been a talented songwriter, by compiling together all the songs she wrote or co-wrote.

Baez's music career has been slowing down as she gets older, which is how things naturally go. Her songwriting has slowed down as well. Most of the songs here are from 1987 to 1992. Only track 12 is from 1997. Since then, Baez has only released three studio albums, and none of them have included any of her own songs.

Fabio wanted to end this with a recent (2025) duet between Baez and Jesse Welles. The odds are good the song was written by Welles. But still, Fabio wanted it to show how Baez is staying alive and lending her voice to political and social causes.

There's a lot more to say. But you'll need to read the notes Fabio wrote for that, which are included in the download zip. Thanks again to Fabio for putting these albums together.

This album is 57 minutes long. 

Oh, one last thing. If you think the cover looks familiar, that's because I used it for the cover of "Volume 4" when I posted that a couple of days ago. But Fabio and I realized that cover image was too far off chronologically. So we found a more appropriate cover for "Volume 4," from 1982, and moved that one to this volume. So you might want to redownload that earlier volume, if you care about covers.

01 Recently (Joan Baez)
02 James and the Gang (Joan Baez)
03 Blues Improv (Joan Baez & Odetta)
04 China (Joan Baez)
05 Warriors of the Sun (Joan Baez)
06 Speaking of Dreams (Joan Baez)
07 Play Me Backwards (Joan Baez)
08 Isaac and Abraham (Joan Baez)
09 I'm with You (Joan Baez)
10 The Dream Song (Joan Baez)
11 Edge of Glory (Joan Baez)
12 Lily (Joan Baez)
13 No Kings (Jesse Welles & Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KXqi9dhf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/g3JwcWvelfTSjbD/file 

The cover image is from 2000. I don't know the details.

Caravan - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 11-11-1974

The flood of concerts from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts continues. This time, it's the British prog rock band Caravan.

I've only posted one other Caravan album at this blog so far. By a remarkable chance, it's from a concert that took place ONE DAY before this one! They performed for another radio show, "Live at the Record Plant," in California. Here's the link to that one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2026/01/caravan-live-at-record-plant-record.html

It's unfortunate that the two are so similar. But luckily there are a couple of songs performed here not performed on that one, and vice versa.

Three of the songs here were released on the massive 37 CD box set "Who Do You Think We Are." Those three are tracks 3, 4, and 7. I got everything else from a bootleg. The officially released tracks generally didn't have applause at their ends, so I filled those in by bringing in some cheering from the other songs.

The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Be All Right - Chance of a Lifetime (Caravan)
02 Memory Lain, Hugh - Headloss (Caravan)
03 L'Auberge du Sanglier - A Hunting We Shall Go - Pengola - Backwards [Instrumental] (Caravan)
04 For Richard (Caravan)
05 talk by emcee (Caravan)
06 talk (Caravan)
07 Hoedown (Caravan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eamaMpvi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/IQCGb81aB5MijY9/file

The cover photo shows band members Geoffrey Richardson (on violin) and David Sinclair (on keyboards). In the original, the two of them were farther away. But I used Photoshop to move them closer, so I could have them be larger in the image. It's from a concert in Berkeley, California, in the same month of November 1974.

Steve Winwood - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 4-24-2015

I posted about a week ago how there's been a recent leak of dozens of soundboard quality concerts at a Port Chester, New York venue. I'm still waiting on a lot of these. Every day, it seems someone or another is at least chopping up the single music files into songs. But since some are already converted, I can start posting those. I was feeling like listening to Steve Winwood, so I did this one.

Winwood hasn't released a new studio album since 2008. So he stuck to playing classics from earlier in his career. The only semi-recent song he played was "Dirty City," from 2008.

The sound quality is excellent (though in mono). The only tinkering I did was to boost the volume of the applause at the ends of songs, plus boosting the banter. Oh, and I boosted the volume of all the songs in general. For some reason, most of these Port Chester boots seem to have quite low volume settings.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood)
02 Them Changes (Steve Winwood)
03 Pearly Queen (Steve Winwood)
04 Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood)
05 talk (Steve Winwood)
06 Dirty City (Steve Winwood)
07 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Steve Winwood)
08 Glad [Instrumental] (Steve Winwood)
09 Light Up or Leave Me Alone (Steve Winwood)
10 talk (Steve Winwood)
11 Higher Love (Steve Winwood)
12 talk (Steve Winwood)
13 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood)
14 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/caAtwR93

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/ZtgPLfFf0BQsVCu/file

The cover photo is from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival at the Fair Grounds Race Course, New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 3, 2015.

Lightnin' Hopkins - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 4-24-1974

The range of musical acts who performed at the Ebbets Field venue, which held about 250 people, was impressive. For instance, I wouldn't have imagined a recording like this from Lightnin' Hopkins in 1974. But here it is.

I tend to think of Hopkins as someone from decades earlier. But he was still very musically active in 1974. He was about 61 years old, which isn't really old for a blues musician. For instance, B.B. King lived to be 89 years old, and was still performing right up until the end. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry intro about him: "[Hopkins] was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist, and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. The musicologist Robert 'Mack' McCormick opined that Hopkins is 'the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act.' He influenced Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Jr., and a generation of blues musicians such as Stevie Ray Vaughan... In his own lifetime, Hopkins was one of the initial inductees in 1980 to the Blues Hall of Fame." 

Here's the rest of the entry:

Lightnin' Hopkins - Wikipedia

I'll add a bit more to that. His recording career began in the 1940s, when he was already in his 30s. He grew popular with Black audiences in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s, his career got a boost when his music was discovered by the folk revival, mostly made up of White audiences. That started in 1960, when he performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City with Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. From that point on, he often played at folk festivals and colleges, and even toured internationally. He died of cancer in 1982, at the age of 69.

This is a solo acoustic concert, with a lot of banter between songs. The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
02 Nothing I Can Do (Lightnin' Hopkins)
03 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
04 Lord Have Mercy (Lightnin' Hopkins)
05 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
06 Lazy Woman Do (Lightnin' Hopkins)
07 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
08 I Got My Hook in Your Water (Lightnin' Hopkins)
09 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
10 Can You Tell Who's Coming In (Lightnin' Hopkins)
11 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
12 Cook My Breakfast (Lightnin' Hopkins)
13 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
14 Key to the Highway (Lightnin' Hopkins)
15 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
16 It's Time for You to Change Your Way (Lightnin' Hopkins)
17 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
18 Instrumental (Lightnin' Hopkins)
19 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
20 Rock Me Baby (Lightnin' Hopkins)
21 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
22 Ain't It Crazy [The Rub] (Lightnin' Hopkins)
23 talk (Lightnin' Hopkins)
24 70 Miles from Nowhere (Lightnin' Hopkins)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JNuN8nge

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/Af025pQZxD1XMB6/file

The cover image is from the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 10, 1974.

Clint Black, Bill Anderson & Bob DiPiero - Songwriters' Circle, Bush Hall, London, Britain, 3-25-2012

I thought I was done with the "Songwriters' Circle" TV show. There were three episodes I couldn't find, but I'd looked everywhere and came up empty. But the other day, one more of them showed up via SoulseekQT. So here it is. This is a country-themed episode. It stars Clint Black, Bill Anderson, and Bob DiPiero.

I would guess that most people reading this have heard of Clint Black, but haven't heard of Bill Anderson and Bob DiPiero. That's because Black has been a big country star in recent decades, while Anderson and DiPiero have more worked behind the scenes as professional songwriters. 

Here's some information on each of them.

This is the Wikipedia intro for Clint Black: "[He] is an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. Signed to RCA Nashville in 1989, Black's debut album 'Killin' Time' produced four straight number one singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. Although his momentum gradually slowed throughout the 1990s, Black consistently charted hit songs into the 2000s. He has had more than thirty singles on the U.S. Billboard country charts, thirteen of which have reached number one, in addition to having released twelve studio albums and several compilation albums."

Here's the link to the whole entry:

Clint Black - Wikipedia

Here's the entry for Bob DiPiero: "[He] is an American country music songwriter. He has written 15 U.S. number one hits and several Top 20 singles for Tim McGraw, The Oak Ridge Boys, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Faith Hill, Shenandoah, Neal McCoy, Highway 101, Restless Heart, Ricochet, John Anderson, Montgomery Gentry, Brooks & Dunn, George Strait, Pam Tillis, Martina McBride, Trace Adkins, Travis Tritt, Bryan White, Billy Currington, Etta James, Delbert McClinton, Van Zant, Tanya Tucker, Patty Loveless, and many others."

And here's the rest of the entry:

Bob DiPiero - Wikipedia

Finally, here's the entry for Bill Anderson. The intro for this one is much longer, so I selected some sentences from it: "[He] is an American country music singer, songwriter, and television host. His soft-spoken singing voice earned him the nickname 'Whispering Bill' from music critics and writers.[1] As a songwriter, his compositions have been covered by various music artists since the late 1950s. ... While in college, he wrote the song "City Lights", which became a major hit for Ray Price in 1958. His songwriting led to his first recording contract with Decca Records that year; shortly afterward, Anderson began to have major hits. In 1963, he released his most successful single, "Still". The song became a major country/pop crossover hit and was followed by a series of top-10 hits. ... His songs were being notably recorded by other artists. ... In the 1970s, Anderson continued having major hits as a recording artist, as well. ... He was dropped from his record label in the early 1980s and began a brief career in television, which included hosting the game shows 'The Better Sex' and 'Fandango.' Anderson began writing songs again in the early 1990s for the next generation of country performers. Collaborating with other writers, he wrote material that went on to become hits for Vince Gill, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, and Steve Wariner in the next two decades. ... In his career as both a writer and performer, he has received awards from the Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame."

He is considerably older than the other two stars of this episode. As I write this in 2026, he is 88 years old. Here's the rest of his Wikipedia entry:

Bill Anderson - Wikipedia 

Now, there are just two episodes that I'm still looking for. Both are from 1999. One stars Joan Baez, Matraca Berg and Gretchen Peters. The other one stars Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, and John Martyn.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Blue Clear Sky (Bob DiPiero)
02 talk (Bob DiPiero)
03 talk (Clint Black)
04 Killin' Time (Clint Black)
05 talk (Clint Black)
06 The Songwriters (Bill Anderson)
07 talk (Bob DiPiero)
08 The Church on Cumberland Road (Bob DiPiero)
09 talk (Clint Black)
10 Spend My Time (Clint Black)
11 talk (Bill Anderson)
12 Happiness (Bill Anderson)
13 talk (Bob DiPiero)
14 They're Playin' Our Song (Bob DiPiero)
15 talk (Clint Black)
16 Better and Worse (Clint Black)
17 talk (Bill Anderson)
18 Give It Away (Bill Anderson)
19 talk (Bill Anderson & Clint Black)
20 talk (Bob DiPiero)
21 Gone (Bob DiPiero)
22 talk (Clint Black)
23 Code of the West (Clint Black)
24 talk (Bill Anderson)
25 The Tips of My Fingers (Bill Anderson)
26 talk (Bob DiPiero)
27 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Bill Anderson, Clint Black & Bob DiPiero)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/g6t9i6G9 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/9dWf0CCmyFmKDXA/file

Here's an extra special bonus. Normally, I'm not interested in sharing videos. I like listening to music much more than watching it. I also don't want "mission creep" for this blog. But I think this is a great show that has been extremely hard to find. So here is a text file that contains links to the videos of all of the full episodes I could find. I found one from the 1999 season and all of the ones from the 2010 to 2012 seasons. So that leaves two 1999 episodes I don't have the videos for, and two more 1999 episodes I don't have anything for, at least not yet. These are just PixelDrain links. The files range in size from 500 MB to 1.2 GB.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zqFGowKa

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. From right to left: Bob DiPiero, Clint Black, and Bill Anderson. 

Denver, Boise & Johnson - The Bistro Inn, Columbus, OH, 6-1968

One can find such interesting music on YouTube these days. I was searching for more concerts from the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado, and the use of the search term "Denver" helped me find this concert. I checked, and it wasn't available anywhere else. It's nearly two hours of the folk trio Denver, Boise and Johnson, with excellent sound quality. If you're a fan of John Denver then you'll want this, because he was the "Denver" in "Denver, Boise and Johnson."

I should start by explaining who this trio were. I've actually posted half an album of their music on this blog before. I say half, because I posted an album that contained a John Denver solo set he did at the Philadelphia Folk Festival as well as a Denver, Boise and Johnson set from that same festival. The latter set lasted about 25 minutes. Here's the link to that one, in case you're curious:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2026/01/john-denver-plus-denver-boise-johnson.html

Anyway, when I posted that, I explained the background of the trio. Here's that same explanation:

The group was originally a popular folk group called the "Chad Mitchell Trio." But in 1965, Chad Mitchell left for a solo career, and was replaced by John Denver. It was his first big break into the music industry. The group changed its name to just the "Mitchell Trio." Then, by 1968, the last original member had left, so they were legally required to change their name again, to "Denver, Boise and Johnson." At this point, they consisted of John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson. This version didn't last long, breaking up in 1969 without releasing any albums. 

Now, let me get back to how I found this concert on YouTube. It turns out that Michael Johnson posted it there in 2022. I mention that name, because this was the Michael Johnson who was a member of Denver, Boise and Johnson. Actually, it must be a family member who posted that, because Johnson died in 2017. But whoever posted it posted a handful of concert bootlegs from this trio, so if you're interested in more, go check out that person's YouTube page. I picked this one because it was the longest and most coherent, coming from a single concert.

Here's Johnson's website, if you want to see more pictures and other information about this trio: https://www.mjblue.com/mjdbj.html

At the time of this concert, this trio mostly performed cover songs. But occasionally they played John Denver originals. You can find a few sprinkled in here, like "Take Me to Tomorrow," "Like to Deal with the Ladies," "For Baby (For Bobbie)," "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Catch Another Butterfly," and "Sticky Summer Weather." I think those are all of his originals, but I might have missed one or two. A year after this concert, Peter, Paul and Mary would have a big hit single with "Leaving on a Jet Plane," turning it into a folk classic.

If you're wondering why Denver, Boise and Johnson didn't have a hit with "Leaving on a Jet Plane" before Peter, Paul and Mary did, it's because they basically couldn't get a record contract. By 1968, folk music was considered passe, especially if it was still acoustic and not folk-rock. The trio released a couple of singles that didn't make the charts. They broke up in 1969, having never released a studio album in the year or so that these three people made up the trio. John Denver, of course, went on to superstardom only a couple of years after that. Michael Johnson also went on to have a successful, long music career, including having a couple of Number One hits on the U.S. country singles chart in the 1980s.

This appears to be a soundboard recording. There were a few problems, mostly where songs got cut off. That happened three times. For "Let's Get Together," only the very end of the song was missing, literally the last sung note, plus the applause. So that was an easy fix. For "Coal Tattoo," nearly the entire song was missing. But Michael Johnson's YouTube page has some other Denver, Boise and Johnson live recordings, as I mentioned above, so I used one of those to fill in most of the song. It was a similar situation with "Both Sides Now" near the end of the concert. That was missing about the first minute, so I also filled that in with a different live version taken from that YouTube page.

It appears the band played three sets in this concert. I think this includes all of the first and second sets. But there may have been additional songs before "Coal Tattoo" at the start of the third set. There are very few repeats. Only the last three songs were played earlier. 

Oh, one last thing. I don't know the exact date of this concert, and I'm not even sure of the month. Michael Johnson's YouTube page merely says it took place in the summer of 1968. But I found another reference that said June 1968, so I'm going with that unless I hear something different. 

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 That's the Way It's Gonna Be (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
02 What This Country Really Needs Is Another Movie Star (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
03 We Didn't Know (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
04 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
05 Take Me to Tomorrow (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
06 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
07 Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
08 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
09 Red Velvet (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
10 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
11 Like to Deal with the Ladies (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
12 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
13 Bending the Strings [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
14 Everybody's Talkin' (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
15 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
16 Draft Dodger Rag (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
17 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
18 Both Sides Now (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
19 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
20 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
21 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
22 If You Had Me in Shackles (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
23 The John Birch Society (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
24 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
25 For Baby [For Bobbie] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
26 You Certainly Have Got a Pretty Fantastic Bod (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
27 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
28 Victoria Dines Alone (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
29 Your Friendly, Liberal, Neighborhood Ku Klux Klan (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
30 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
31 Leaving on a Jet Plane (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
32 Yellow Cat (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
33 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
34 The '68 Nixon [This Year's Model] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
35 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
36 Turning Point (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
37 Blowin' in the Wind (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
38 Let's Get Together [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
39 Coal Tattoo [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
40 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
41 Asturias [Leyenda] [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
42 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
43 Business Goes On as Usual (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
44 Catch Another Butterfly (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
45 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
46 Foggy Mountain Breakdown [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
47 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
48 Cripple Creek [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
49 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
50 Sticky Summer Weather (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
51 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
52 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
53 Both Sides Now [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
54 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
55 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Denver, Boise & Johnson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uGr1HA5x

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/a75hEoNov5OCOmm/file

I found the photo of this trio at Michael Johnson's website. From left to right: Michael Johnson, David Boise, and John Denver.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 7: November to December 1969

Here's the seventh volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. It's the second volume of the show's second season.

In this volume, one again we see the split between Hugh Hefner including acts from the easy listening pop style of music he preferred, such as Tony Bennett and Mitch Miller, and rock and soul music he allowed on the show "for the kids." (As I mentioned in a previous write-up in this series, he usually would explicitly say some acts were "for the kids" when introducing them, as if adults weren't going to like them.) 

This volume has an unusual number of collaborations, none of which have been officially released in any form: Tony Bennett with Mitch Miller, Tony Bennett and Joe Williams (twice),  Tony Bennett with Moe Kaufman, Lou Rawls and the Cannonball Adderly Quintet, and Ike & Tina Turner with Doug Kershaw. Plus, there was a version of "Flip, Flop and Fly" featuring everyone in that episode. I mentioned a few of the participants in the song title, including Steve Allen, the comedian, who sang one of the verses. But there were others too that I didn't mention, or the title would have been too long. Even Hugh Hefner, the head of Playboy, sang a verse!

This episode also continued the second season trend of having unwanted talking over the music sometimes, especially voice-over advertisements for T.W.A. Airlines on the last song of each episode. So that's why you'll see "[Edit]" on some songs. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

01 It Don't Mean a Thing [If It Ain't Got That Swing] (Tony Bennett)
02 Blue Velvet (Tony Bennett with Mitch Miller)
03 Watch What Happens (Tony Bennett)
04 Swinging Shepherd Blues [Instrumental] (Moe Koffman)
05 I've Gotta Be Me (Tony Bennett & Joe Williams)
06 The Song Is You (Joe Williams)
07 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Tony Bennett & Joe Williams)
08 I Can't Cry Anymore (Joe Williams)
09 The Shadow of Your Smile (George Kirby)
10 I Left My Heart in San Francisco - I Wanna Be Around (Tony Bennett with Moe Kaufman)
11 Hamba Nami [Instrumental] [Edit] (Cannonball Adderly Quintet)
12 Dead End Street (Lou Rawls)
13 Make the World Go Away (Lou Rawls)
14 The Country Preacher [Edit] (Cannonball Adderly Quintet)
15 My Baby Loves Me (Lou Rawls & the Cannonball Adderly Quintet)
16 I Want to Take You Higher (Ike & Tina Turner)
17 Come Together (Ike & Tina Turner)
18 Proud Mary (Ike & Tina Turner)
19 Honky Tonk Women [Edit] (Ike & Tina Turner with Doug Kershaw)
20 You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' (Blossoms)
21 Me and You (O. C. Smith)
22 The Learning Tree (O. C. Smith)
23 Flip, Flop and Fly (Blossoms, Steve Allen, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Everyone)
24 Goodnight My Love (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BaELQz7n

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/aOyyOnC6ukjmxkl/file

The cover photo shows Ike and Tina Turner, and some of their backing band. That's Tina in the middle of the front, and Ike right behind her. This is a screenshot I took from the video of one of the episodes here.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 4: 1977-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's a guest post by Fabio from Rio. It's another volume in the "Baez Sings Baez" series. This is a collection of all the songs written by Joan Baez. Fabio wanted to make that point that although she has been primarily as someone who sings cover songs, she's written a lot of good songs herself.

The first six songs are from studio albums in 1977 and 1979. But after that, it seems she had trouble getting record companies interested in releasing more of her studio albums. New wave, punk, and disco came along and made her style of folk music seem out of fashion. She wouldn't release another studio album until 1987.

But that leads us to some of the more interesting songs here, because around 1980, she recorded material for an album that never got released, and she was backed by the Grateful Dead for all the songs! So there are five songs here with the Dead (tracks 8 through 12), all of them still unreleased.

There's a lot more to say about this Dead connection and other matters. But I'll leave that to Fabio, who wrote more extensive notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is an hour long. 

01 Luba the Baroness (Joan Baez)
02 The Altar Boy and the Thief (Joan Baez)
03 Honest Lullaby (Joan Baez)
04 Michael (Joan Baez)
05 For Sasha (Joan Baez)
06 Free at Last (Joan Baez)
07 Cambodia (Joan Baez)
08 Don't Blame My Mother (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
09 Happy Birthday Leonid Brejnev (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
10 Lady Di and I (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
11 Marriot U.S.A. (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
12 Lucifer's Eyes (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
13 Children of the Eighties (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GjgtvAKU

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/TACY7VBfYSTtFMj/file

The cover photo is from 1982. Fabio found the picture, so I don't know the details. 

Jackson Browne - Jabberwocky, Syracuse, NY, 3-27-1971

Here is a really great concert bootleg from Jackson Browne. It may well be the most interesting concert recording out of his long career, because it's from very early, about a year prior to the release of his debut album. The most interesting aspect is that there's no less than nine songs here that weren't officially released at the time (and only a couple of have come out in different versions much later). So it's basically like there's an entire album of songs prior to his debut included here.

I've known about this concert for a long time, but I hadn't posted it yet because it had a number of sound quality issues, and I'd never gotten around to fixing them. But yesterday, I saw a person named "twrona" posted a version on a popular bootleg sharing site that fixed most of those issues. (I left that person's notes so you can read what they fixed.) So I grabbed that and made some fixes of my own. Mostly, that had to do with volume adjustments. I also ran all the talking tracks through the Adobe vocal enhancer to help get rid of hiss and other background noise, which were much more noticeable during those bits.

This is a solo acoustic concert. (There's some talk at the beginning about Browne having a backing musician, referred to as "the Famous Flame" or "Tom Jones," but that's just jokey references to his guitar.) This very possibly is the earliest concert recording available for him. Note that it took place the same night as a Bonnie Raitt concert in the same venue. You can find that one here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/04/bonnie-raitt-jabberwocky-club-syracuse.html

(I just updated the cover art for that one. Taking a look at it again after a long time, I didn't like it. So I changed the font colors and style to match this Browne one.) 

This appears to be a combination of early and late shows. (I'm not sure where the break is, but "Jamaica Say You Will" is probably the last song of the early show.) Perhaps Raitt also did early and late shows, and her recording is a combination of those as well. At one point, Browne noted that Raitt was backstage during his set, and he also noted a written set list she'd left on stage. It's a shame the two of them didn't perform any songs together, but they probably were just starting to get to know each other. They would go on to become good friends, and perform together on stage many, many times.

I cut out some dead air and guitar tuning between songs. I also cut out about three minutes of crowd interaction in the middle of the show. Basically, someone in the audience was very aggressive, and all but demanded to be allowed to sing a song. Browne obliged, and the person sang... and was absolutely terrible. Trust me, you don't want to hear it. By the way, this same person asked for Raitt at one point. I think it's the same person who basically was an annoying heckler during Raitt's concert that same evening.

Here are all the songs performed in this concert that remain unreleased by Browne: 

Together Again (performed twice, the first version being much shorter)
Mae Jean Goes to Hollywood
Last Time I Was Home
Jesus in 3-4 Time (a J.D. Souther cover)
Take It Underground
When You Lose Your Money
Someday Morning
World to Gain
Shadow Dream Song

Most of the rest of the songs would appear on Browne's 1972 debut album "Jackson Browne," also known as "Saturate Before Using." But two, "Our Lady of the Well" and "These Days," would appear on his 1973 album "For Everyman."

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. That's because it was broadcast live on the WNEW radio station, as was Raitt's performance. 

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long.

01 talk (Jackson Browne)
02 Under the Falling Sky (Jackson Browne)
03 World to Gain (Jackson Browne)
04 talk (Jackson Browne)
05 Together Again [Short Version] (Jackson Browne)
06 talk (Jackson Browne)
07 Mae Jean Goes to Hollywood (Jackson Browne)
08 Last Time I Was Home (Jackson Browne)
09 talk (Jackson Browne)
10 Jesus in 3-4 Time (Jackson Browne)
11 talk (Jackson Browne)
12 My Opening Farewell (Jackson Browne)
13 talk (Jackson Browne)
14 From Silver Lake (Jackson Browne)
15 talk (Jackson Browne)
16 Rock Me on the Water (Jackson Browne)
17 talk (Jackson Browne)
18 Jamaica Say You Will (Jackson Browne)
19 Together Again (Jackson Browne)
20 talk (Jackson Browne)
21 Take It Underground (Jackson Browne)
22 talk (Jackson Browne)
23 When You Lose Your Money (Jackson Browne)
24 talk (Jackson Browne)
25 Our Lady of the Well (Jackson Browne)
26 talk (Jackson Browne)
27 These Days (Jackson Browne)
28 Someday Morning (Jackson Browne)
29 Shadow Dream Song (Jackson Browne)
30 talk (Jackson Browne)
31 Song for Adam (Jackson Browne)
32 talk (Jackson Browne)
33 Looking into You (Jackson Browne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Hh5vD1WT 

alternate: 

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

The cover image is supposed to be "circa 1971" at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Dan Hicks - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 9-1973, Late Show

I just posted Dan Hicks performing the early show on this date as part of the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. Here's the late show. 

Unfortunately, it seems we only have part of the late show. This one is 23 minutes shorter than the early show, and it doesn't end with anything sounding like an encore. But it's better to have some of the show than none at all.

Luckily, there is only a moderate amount of overlap between the early and late shows. Just three songs were played in both (at least in the parts we have recordings for): "Who Are You," "I'll Tell You Why that Is," and "Out on the Western Plain."

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I had to do a lot of volume adjustment on the version I found, especially boosting the volume of the banter between songs. But that was the only tinkering necessary.

This album is 34 minutes long.

01 Peach Pickin' Time (Dan Hicks)
02 talk (Dan Hicks)
03 He Don't Care - Sweet Lorraine (Dan Hicks)
04 Who Are You (Dan Hicks)
05 talk (Dan Hicks)
06 I'll Tell You Why that Is (Dan Hicks)
07 How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away (Dan Hicks)
08 Out on the Western Plain (Dan Hicks)
09 talk (Dan Hicks)
10 The Same Thing (Dan Hicks)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AtY6UufQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/P8JAlFyPSAhAiJR/file

The cover image was taken on May 8, 1973, for the "In Concert" ABC TV show. That's the same source for the cover image used for the early show. I wanted to have similar photos because Hicks probably would have been wearing the same clothes for the early and late shows. 

Dan Hicks - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 9-1973, Early Show

Here's another album sourced from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. This time, it's Dan Hicks. He performed an early show and last show. That seemed to be standard procedure at that venue, but most of the time we only have the recording of one show. But this time, we have both. So here's the early show first.

I've already posted a little bit about Hicks, when he was a guest for an episode of the Midnight Special TV show, hosted by the Pointed Sisters. But here's some more on him. This is how his Wikipedia entry begins:

"[Hicks] was an American singer-songwriter and musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. He is perhaps best known for the songs 'I Scare Myself' and 'Canned Music.' His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune 'How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?'"

Here's the rest of his Wikipedia entry:

Dan Hicks (singer) - Wikipedia

Hicks led the band "Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks" from 1967 to 1973. Their best selling album was released in 1973, "Last Train to Hicksville... the Home of Happy Feet." It seems likely he'd already broken that band up by the time of this concert, because he was billed as the "Dan Hicks Trio" here. 

As an aside, I haven't been familiar with his music until posting these albums. But I'm very familiar with the Thomas Dolby version of "I Scare Myself." I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was originally written and released by Hicks. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.  

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Who Are You (Dan Hicks)
02 Humming to Myself (Dan Hicks)
03 talk (Dan Hicks)
04 Three Wishes (Dan Hicks)
05 I Got Mine (Dan Hicks)
06 talk (Dan Hicks)
07 We're Not on the Same Trip - Out on the Western Plain (Dan Hicks)
08 talk (Dan Hicks)
09 I Scare Myself (Dan Hicks)
10 Cowboys Dream No. 19 (Dan Hicks)
11 talk (Dan Hicks)
12 I'll Tell You Why that Is (Dan Hicks)
13 Evening Breeze (Dan Hicks)
14 talk (Dan Hicks)
15 Long Come a Viper (Dan Hicks) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/K5BB8i9d

alternate:

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

The cover image was taken on May 8, 1973, for the "In Concert" ABC TV show.