Covered: George Harrison, Volume 1: 1964-1971

It's time that I tackle a truly great songwriter for the "Covered" series: George Harrison. I hope and assume that anyone reading the blog already knows that he was a member of the Beatles. This series includes songs he wrote while in the Beatles with songs from his long solo career afterwards. I found enough for six volumes.

Harrison is such a famous musician that I'm not going to try to sum up his life or even just his music career. But I do want to write some about the early evolution of his songwriting.

When it came to writing songs, he was a late bloomer. In the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote about 100 songs separately or together before the Beatles released their first album in 1963. (A lot of them were discarded.) Harrison was watching and learning from one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time. But apparently it wasn't until 1963 when he wrote his first complete song, or at least one he considered good enough to show to the other Beatles. His "Don't Bother Me" would appear on the band's second album, "With The Beatles." He wrote it while sick in bed during the summer of 1963. He later said that it was as an exercise to see if he could write a song, and "at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing, and then maybe eventually I would write something good."

But despite this early success (which, in fact, was a good song), the next two Beatles albums went by without any original Harrison songs on them. (He occasionally sang cover versions on Beatles recordings instead.) He later said that he lacked confidence and found it hard to compete with what he called the many "wondrous hits" written by the Lennon-McCartney team. But then the 1965 Beatles album "Help!" contained two of his songs. From that point on, every Beatles album contained at least one of his songs, usually two, and once three. (There were four on 1968's "The White Album," but that can be seen as two albums with two of his songs each.) He also had the occasional song come out on a B-side or archival release. Ultimately, 22 of his songs were released while the Beatles were together, out of 188 original songs by the band in total. But a few more of his songs trickled out in archival releases, such as "You Know What to Do," "Not Guilty," and "All Things Must Pass." There are still more of his songs the Beatles tried in the studio but remain unreleased. Most of those eventually appeared on his solo albums.

Unfortunately, for many years, Lennon and McCartney underestimated Harrison's songwriting, and didn't do much to encourage him. The two of them were writing so many excellent songs that they weren't keen to find room for many of Harrison's songs as well. But by 1969, that changed. Harrison's two songs for the "Abbey Road" album that year, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun," aren't just great Beatles songs, they're some of the best and most acclaimed songs of all time. "Something" is one of the most frequently covered songs ever, and as I write this in 2026, "Here Comes the Sun" is the most listened Beatles song on Spotify. 

As a result, Lennon and McCartney could no longer downplay Harrison's songwriting talent. Lennon called "Something" the best song on "Abbey Road." And, in 1969, McCartney said, "I think that until now, until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours." Also, decades later, McCartney had this to say: "It was easy to underestimate George because me and John... had always written most of the stuff... and George was a late bloomer as far as writing was concerned. He wasn't that interested in the beginning but then he started to get interested and, boy, did he bloom, you know? He wrote some of the greatest songs ever."

On September 8, 1969, the Beatles had an important meeting about their future plans. Ringo Starr couldn't attend, so the other Beatles made a tape recording of the meeting. That means a recording of exactly what was said has survived. In the meeting, due to the undeniable success of Harrison's songs on "Abbey Road," Harrison was treated as a songwriting equal to Lennon and McCartney, perhaps for the first time within the band. 

Lennon had been drifting away from the Beatles for some time, distracted by his relationship with Yoko Ono and hobbled by a heroin addiction. But in the meeting, he suggested the Beatles record a new album and a new single before the end of 1969, which would have been an ambitious schedule. He also suggested that he, McCartney, and Harrison get four songs each on every Beatles album moving forward, with Starr getting one or two if he wanted. (At this point, Starr had only written two songs on Beatles albums credited solely to him.)

Here's an entire article about that meeting. It's fascinating reading if you're a Beatles fan, with a lot of discussion about Harrison's songwriting and his role in the band: 

https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/john-lennon-plan-to-keep-the-beatles-together

Unfortunately though, later that month, Lennon took part in a rock festival in Toronto, Canada, as a solo artist. That experience went so well for him that it gave him the confidence to want to leave the Beatles and have a solo career instead. About a month after that, he told the other Beatles he was leaving the band, although they kept that a secret for another six months due to wanting to present a united front in a legal dispute they were having with their record company.

However, even after Lennon's announcement he was leaving, there was still a chance the Beatles would continue, releasing more solo albums mixed with Beatles albums where Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison would get four albums each. Here's the audio of a radio interview Harrison did in March 1970 where he talked about the Beatles getting back together later in 1970 to record another album after all four of them did solo albums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-fNA3Ee5eM 

Unfortunately, growing problems prevented that from happening, most especially due to financial conflicts between the band members as they fought over management and ended up suing each other. But that meant that by 1970, Harrison had a big backlog of excellent songs he'd been writing. Many of them came out on his classic and very successful solo album "All Things Must Pass" later in 1970. (Technically, it was a triple album, but it's basically a double album of songs because the third album just contains some long jam sessions.) A lot of those were written much earlier, but had been ignored by the other Beatles. For instance, "Isn't It a Pity" was written back in 1966, and had been rejected by the others for both the "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's" albums!

Anyway, let me steer this more to discussing the songs on this volume. Across the six volumes in this series, I have included ALL the songs Harrison wrote for the Beatles, but most of them don't show up until later volumes, just because what I considered the best cover versions didn't happen until years later. Instead, this volume has many songs that Harrison was writing with and/or for other musical acts at the time, since usually the best (and often the only) versions were the first ones. So, for instance, "Sour Milk Sea" was a song he wrote for Jackie Lomax, though Lomax's 1968 single of it didn't make the charts. He co-wrote "Badge" with Eric Clapton, and it was released by the band Clapton was in at the time, Cream. 

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" is an interesting case. Donovan wrote it when he was vacationing in India with the Beatles and others in 1968. It was a big hit, making the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain that year. But it turns out Harrison helped him out, writing a verse of the song by himself. But when the song came out as a single, the Harrison verse was missing. It was cut by the producer, due to the pressure of keeping a single under three minutes. Donovan later regretted this, saying it was the best verse in the song. He has often performed the Harrison verse in concert ever since. Apparently, Harrison was also very disappointed the verse wasn't included. I've used a live solo acoustic version from 1973 that includes that verse. But I put it in 1968 chronologically, since that's when Donovan's version of the song first came out (and when the Harrison verse should have come out as well).

"Octopus's Garden" is another tricky case. Technically, and legally, that song was written solely by Ringo Starr, and was included on the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album. But, in fact, it's pretty obvious to me that while the original idea was Starr's, Harrison played a key role finishing the song. At the time, Starr had barely done any songwriting, and he needed help. Harrison did Starr a favor by not asking for a songwriting credit. In both the "Let It Be" and "The Beatles: Get Back" films, one can actually see footage of Harrison helping him write the song while also teaching songwriting techniques.

Basically, the exact same thing happened with "It Don't Come Easy." The song was released as a solo single by Starr in 1971, and it made the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain. Here's an except from the Wikipedia entry about the song: "Although Starr received sole writing credit for 'It Don't Come Easy,' Beatles historian Bruce Spizer writes that he had 'substantial, but uncredited, assistance' from his bandmate George Harrison. In author Robert Rodriguez's description, the official songwriting credit was long thought to be 'bogus' and, notwithstanding Starr's involvement, a sign of Harrison's 'great generosity' in wanting to help the drummer establish himself independently of the Beatles." Starr started writing it in 1968 by himself, but he had trouble finishing songs. I would guess Harrison wrote half or more of it.

A couple of songs here you might not recognize, even if you're a big fan of Harrison's music, because he never released his own versions of them: "Ain't That Cute" by Doris Troy, "Sing One for the Lord" by Billy Preston, and "I'm Your Spiritual Breadman" by Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. In each case, he was involved in the production and/or recording of albums by those artists, and got involved enough to write or co-write some songs. "Try Some, Buy Some" by Ronnie Spector was another case of that, but he eventually did release his own version of that one.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Don't Bother Me (Gregory Phillips)
02 If I Needed Someone (Hollies)
03 Sour Milk Sea (Jackie Lomax)
04 Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan)
05 Badge (Cream)
06 Octopus's Garden (Ringo Starr)
07 My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston)
08 Something (Shirley Bassey)
09 Ain't That Cute (Doris Troy)
10 Sing One for the Lord (Billy Preston)
11 Here Comes the Sun (Richie Havens)
12 Taxman (Junior Parker)
13 It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr)
14 I'm Your Spiritual Breadman (Ashton, Gardner & Dyke)
15 Try Some, Buy Some (Ronnie Spector)
16 Let It Down (Stone the Crows)
17 The Inner Light (Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MtrvVGxu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/IIi6h8Vu3ZIF8Yh/file

The cover image is from 1965.

Moby Grape - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-8-1974

The next concert coming from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts is the band Moby Grape.

I really like this band, but they had a cursed history. Rock music author Jeff Tamarkin has written about them: "The Grape's saga is one of squandered potential, absurdly misguided decisions, bad luck, blunders, and excruciating heartbreak, all set to the tune of some of the greatest rock and roll ever to emerge from San Francisco. Moby Grape could have had it all, but they ended up with nothing, and less." Their 1967 debut album, the cleverly titled "Moby Grape," is on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time. 

But things began falling apart as soon as that record was released. One big problem was their manager Matthew Katz, who got them to sign band contracts and basically managed them into the ground. One particular issue was that he took the rights to the name "Moby Grape." To get around this, in later years, the band would use a variety of other names instead, such as Mosley Grape, Legendary Grape, Maby Grope, Fine Wine, and The Melvilles! I don't know what they were billed as for this show, but hopefully everyone attending knew they were really Moby Grape.

By 1974, the band had had break-ups and key members departing, and sometimes returning. Around 1974, three of the five original members were still in the band: Peter Lewis, Jerry Miller, and Bob Mosley. Additionally, Jeff Blackburn and Johnny Craviotto filled in for other departed members. Blackburn, by the way, co-wrote "My, My, Hey, Hey" with Neil Young.

Here's the band's Wikipedia page:

Moby Grape - Wikipedia

At first, I thought this concert had been officially released, because I found a version with an entire professional appearing booklet of photos and relevant text. But it turns out that's just a well done "grey market" release. (That means it has been legally released in Europe only due to the copyright laws there, but the artists get none of the profits.)   

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 Changes - Fall on You (Moby Grape)
02 Ain't No Secret (Moby Grape)
03 Hey Grandma (Moby Grape)
04 Murder in My Heart for the Judge (Moby Grape)
05 Gypsy Wedding (Moby Grape)
06 Miller's Blues (Moby Grape)
07 Window into My Soul (Moby Grape)
08 Gone Dead Train (Moby Grape)
09 Pan American (Moby Grape)
10 Silver Wheels (Moby Grape)
11 talk (Moby Grape)
12 Get On Up (Moby Grape)
13 Can't Be So Bad (Moby Grape)
14 Omaha (Moby Grape)
15 talk (Moby Grape)
16 Going Down (Moby Grape) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/THvT4vjz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/D6EMMNr0m52Mq3r/file 

There are so few photos of the band in the 1970s that I had to resort to using one from 1978. That's Jerry Miller on the left and Peter Lewis on the right at the Civic Center Plaza, in San Francisco, in February, 1978.

The Strawbs - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 3-4-1974

Here we go again with another Ebbets Field radio broadcast recording. This time, it's the British band the Strawbs in 1974.

The Strawbs were formed in 1963, but it took them a while to get going. They released their first album in 1969. They gained momentum, and by the time of this concert, they were near their peak of popularity. In 1973, they had their two biggest hits, "Part of the Union" and "Lay Down." 

However, there was a problem. "Part of the Union," which went all the way to Number Two in Britain, was written by band members Richard Hudson and John Ford, while "Lay Down" was written by band member Dave Cousins. A power struggle ensued. Hudson and Ford left in 1973 and started their own musical duo, "Hudson Ford." They had a couple of big hits on their own. In fact, other band members left, leaving just Cousins, plus another member, Dave Lambert, to recruit more people to fill out the band again.

They released a new album, "Hero and Heroine," the same month this concert took place. That album would give them another Top Forty hit in Britain, "Shine on Silver Sun." But that would prove to be the band's last significant hit. The band would disband in 1980, a victim of changing musical trends. But they would reunite later in the 1980s, and stayed together in different permutations until 2023. Cousins, the clear leader and main songwriter, died in 2025 at the age of 85.

Here's the Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

Strawbs - Wikipedia

I was surprised to see the band didn't perform "Part of the Union," since that was their biggest hit. But that made a lot more sense when I realized it was written by two members who had just left the band the year before. However, more surprising is they also apparently didn't perform "Shine on Silver Sun," the hit from the album released the exact same month as this concert. Oh well.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. It's been a while, but if I recall correctly, I think I boosted the vocals on all the songs (using the MVSEP program), since they were somewhat low in the mix. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 talk by emcee (Strawbs)
02 talk (Strawbs)
03 New World (Strawbs)
04 talk (Strawbs)
05 Lay Down (Strawbs)
06 talk (Strawbs)
07 Autumn (Strawbs)
08 talk (Strawbs)
09 Tears and Pavan (Strawbs)
10 talk (Strawbs)
11 Just Love (Strawbs)
12 talk (Strawbs)
13 Out in the Cold (Strawbs)
14 Round and Round (Strawbs)
15 Lay a Little Light on Me (Strawbs)
16 talk (Strawbs)
17 Hero and Heroine (Strawbs)
18 talk (Strawbs)
19 The River (Strawbs)
20 Down by the Sea (Strawbs)
21 talk by emcee (Strawbs)
22 Why and Wherefore (Strawbs)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3VG73ntm 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/DtGJ8dVsAbs5pyu/file 

The cover image is taken from an appearance on the "Midnight Special" TV show, which aired on March 15, 1974.

Elvis Costello - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 11-12-2013

Here's another concert from the April 2026 leak of dozens of soundboard recordings from the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. This is an Elvis Costello solo acoustic concert.

In September 2013, Costello released his latest studio album, "Wake Up Ghost," supported by the band the Roots. So one would think this concert just two months later would promote that. But no, you would wrong. Even this concert was over two hours long, only two of the songs were from that album ("Cinco Minutos con Vos" and "Tripwire"). Instead, it seemed he played whatever he felt like playing from all points in his career, including some obscurities. Then, in early 2014, he returned to this venue backed by the Roots, and performed a more typical concert promoting the "Wake Up Ghost" album. A recording of that concert has been leaked as well, and I'd like to post it eventually.

Some improvements were made by this recording by my musical associate Lil Panda. I made some additional minor changes on top of that, such as boosting the volume of the cheering at the ends of some songs, since that usually was quite low, as is the case for many soundboard bootlegs. I also boosted the volume of most of the banter between songs.

If you're a big Elvis Costello fan, this is a good concert for you, because he only played a few of his hits and made a lot of unexpected but interesting selections instead. And the sound quality can't be beat.

By the way, when this appeared in the leak I mentioned above, it was labeled as a 2012 concert. But I found out it definitely was a 2013 concert instead. The proof is from this page from an Elvis Costello fan site:

https://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php?title=Concert_2013-11-12_Port_Chester

It links to a newspaper review of the concert, which removes all doubt about the date. It also has some other interesting things related to this concert. For instance, that's where I got the photo for the cover. 

This album is two hours and 12 minutes long. 

01 King Horse (Elvis Costello)
02 Either Side of the Same Town (Elvis Costello)
03 Little Triggers (Elvis Costello)
04 talk (Elvis Costello)
05 Sneaky Feelings (Elvis Costello)
06 talk (Elvis Costello)
07 Crimes of Paris (Elvis Costello)
08 talk (Elvis Costello)
09 Town Cryer (Elvis Costello)
10 talk (Elvis Costello)
11 Starting to Come to Me (Elvis Costello)
12 After the Fall (Elvis Costello)
13 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
14 The Long Honeymoon (Elvis Costello)
15 The Delivery Man (Elvis Costello)
16 talk (Elvis Costello)
17 Walkin' My Baby Back Home (Elvis Costello)
18 Beyond Belief (Elvis Costello)
19 Human Hands (Elvis Costello)
20 Party Girl (Elvis Costello)
21 talk (Elvis Costello)
22 Almost Blue (Elvis Costello)
23 talk (Elvis Costello)
24 The Flirting Kind (Elvis Costello)
25 talk (Elvis Costello)
26 Shipbuilding (Elvis Costello)
27 Cinco Minutos con Vos (Elvis Costello)
28 Alison (Elvis Costello)
29 In Another Room (Elvis Costello)
30 A Slow Drag with Josephine (Elvis Costello)
31 Blue Chair (Elvis Costello)
32 talk (Elvis Costello)
33 Dirty Rotten Shame [Edit] (Elvis Costello)
34 Jimmie Standing in the Rain (Elvis Costello)
35 I Want You (Elvis Costello)
36 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
37 Tripwire - [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/berEjnCv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/YwJdSSi5H1BmYT6/file

The cover photo isn't the best, for instance, with his face partly covered in shadow. But it's the best I could find, since it hat was casting a shadow on his face nearly all the time. I used it because it's from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a video.  

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 4: 2016-2026 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

In recent days, I've been posting four alternate "Covered" album by Neil Young. As I explained previously, I mostly picked the songs in the ten volume "Covered" series for him. But these four are the turn for guest poster Fabio from Rio to make the picks. This is the fourth and last of those alternates.

There's not much else to say that I didn't say in previous write-ups. However, I'll reiterate that, for these four alternate volumes as a whole, about half the songs are different versions of songs on the original ten-volume "Covered" series, and the other half are songs that didn't get included there. But I'd say on this volume, only a few are unique, like "Ramada Inn," "Hey Babe," and "Human Race." And there actually are two versions of "Pressure" in these alternate albums, and none in the original 10-volume series.

Thanks again for Fabio for his role in making all these albums, both the original series and this series of alternates.  

This album is an hour and five minutes long. 

01 Pressure (Ossifer)
02 Expecting to Fly (Jakob Dylan & Regina Spektor)
03 Ambulance Blues (Jeff Rosenstock, Laura Stevenson)
04 The Losing End (Bill Janovitz)
05 Thrasher (Scott the Hoople)
06 Like an Inca (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real)
07 Ramada Inn (Scott the Hoople)
08 Hey Babe (Jeff Rosenstock & Laura Stevenson)
09 Human Race (Bernhard Schafers)
10 Lotta Love (Juliana Hatfield)
11 Give Me Strength (Emma Swift)
12 Such a Woman (Charlie Greene)
13 Comes a Time (Lena Hall)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/x61VMjCZ 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0rXP3r6JnwvGlv0/file

The cover image is from 2012 or thereabouts.

Zephyr with Tommy Bolin - Art's Bar and Grill, Boulder, CO, 5-2-1973

Mere minutes ago, I posted a concert of Zephyr with Tommy Bolin performed at the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado, in May, 1973. I'm posting this similar one immediately thereafter because I actually strongly recommend you listen to this one instead, unless you're a die-hard fan and want both. The issue is sound quality. The two concerts are similar, but this one sounds much better.

I gave a lot of explanation to the Ebbets Field concert I just posted that also applies here. But I guess I'll give a quick summary for those who didn't read the write-up for that album. The band Zephyr was formed in 1968 in the Boulder, Colorado area. Candy Givens was a charismatic lead singer and Tommy Bolin was an exceptionally talented lead guitarist. Bolin left the band in 1971 after two albums. The band continued without him, releasing another album in 1972.

Then, in the summer of 1973, Bolin had some free time between commitments for his band at the time, the James Gang. So he agreed to play a handful of reunion concerts with Zephyr, just in the Boulder and Denver area. This concert was professionally recorded, and officially released in 1997 under the name "Zephyr Live at Art's Bar and Grill May 2, 1973." As I write this in 2026, it's the only officially released Zephyr live album.

So, since this has been officially released, why am I posting it? That goes against my usual policy. It's because there was a serious flaw to the official release: the lead vocals were so low in the mix, they were almost inaudible. Here's a fan review I found of this album at the Discogs website, that sums up the problem: "Great example of Tommy Bolin's guitar playing. Amazing. Only issue is the mix has poor vocals. Great singer but can't hear her."

I guess in 1997 when this album was released, that problem would have been very difficult to fix. But now, anybody can fix it with ease, due to massive improvements in audio editing technology. So I fixed it. I used the MVSEP program to split the vocals from the instruments. Then I drastically boosted the volume of the vocals, and then merged the two parts back together. The result is like night and day, in my opinion. Before, the album was pretty much unlistenable, unless you treated it as an all instrumental album. But now it sounds just fine, like a well recorded live album from that time period.

So that's why I'm posting this, despite it being officially released. Also, I checked, and that release is out of print. 

If you compare this with the Ebbets Field concert recording, there are some songs performed on that one not performed here, and vice versa. As I said, if you're a big fan, you might want to hear both. But if you only want one, I would definitely make it this one, due to the sound quality. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Just Warming Up [Instrumental] (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
02 Cross the River (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
03 Boom-Ba-Boom [Instrumental] (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
04 Somebody Listen (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
05 Huna Buna (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
06 The Creator Has a Master Plan (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
07 Sail On (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
08 Crazy 'bout You (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
09 Goin' Home (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
10 Hard Chargin' Woman (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZP8XjRwQ

alternate:

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

In 1970, Zephyr appeared on a local PBS TV show, simply called "The Show." Video footage of that performance survives. So I took a screenshot from that video for the cover image. Candy Givens is seen as the lead singer, with Tommy Bolin on guitar behind her.

Zephyr with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-24-1973

Before I say anything else, I want to warn you about the sound quality here. A big reason I've been prioritizing the posting of concerts from the Ebbets Field venue is due to the consistently high sound quality. But this is an exception. This sounds markedly worse than any other recording from this venue that I've posted so far. I'm guessing it's an audience boot instead of a radio broadcast. So listener beware.

The main draw for this concert is lead guitarist Tommy Bolin, whose reputation has continued to grow since his untimely death in 1976. He was a member of the band Zephyr when that band started out in 1968. The main appeal of the band was that it paired Bolin's obvious guitar talents with the singing of Candy Givens, a woman whose singing had similarities to the singing of Janis Joplin. Zephyr put out albums in 1969 and 1971. They toured the U.S., but they didn't manage to get a commercial breakthrough. In 1971, just after the band's second album was released, Bolin left the band, due to growing personality conflicts in the band. The rest of the band continued without him, releasing another album in 1972.

In the summer of 1973, Bolin was at loose ends. He had joined the band the James Gang early in 1973. But that band had some time off between recording an album and when it would be released in September. Bolin was living in Boulder. Someone came up with the idea of Bolin reuniting with Zephyr for a few concerts just in the Boulder and Denver area. It would just be for fun, and to make a little money, since he was already committed to being a part of the James Gang. So this was one of a very small number of shows. I'm calling it "Zephyr with Tommy Bolin," because while he had been a member, he was no longer a member. 

As it turned out, Zephyr fizzled out shortly after these reunion shows. The band got back together in 1976 and continued onward. However, it only released one more album, in 1982. Then the band ended for good in 1984, when lead singer Candy Givens died of a drug and alcohol overdose.

I was disappointed that this concert doesn't sound very good. I tried to do some audio editing to improve things, but I could only do so much with the raw material. Then I noticed that another one of these reunion shows was actually released as an official live album, the only live album from the band. That release has the informative title "Zephyr Live at Art's Bar and Grill May 2, 1973." As you can see, that took place just three weeks prior to this concert, at a small club in Boulder.

So I gave that album a listen. The sound quality is much better than this one. But there was a fatal flaw: the lead vocals were extremely low in the mix, almost inaudible. So I decided to fix that, and then post that album too. I strongly recommend you actually listen to that album instead of this one, due to the drastically different sound quality. But, since I'm posting all the Ebbets Field concerts I can get my hands on, I'm posting this one too. If you're a real die-hard fan of Zephyr and/or Tommy Bolin, you might want both.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Zephyr, though it's not very thorough. As I write this in May 2026, it doesn't even mention the 1973 reunion with Bolin.

Zephyr (band) - Wikipedia  

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Cross the River (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
02 The Locomotion (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
03 Lay Down and Die (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
04 Rock Me, Baby (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
05 Going Home (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
06 The Creator Has a Master Plan (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
07 Sail On (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/59iXMozo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1zqAVNC1EVqMtR9/file

The cover image has major quality issues, just like the music for this album. But I chose it over other options because this is an actual photo taken inside the Ebbets Field venue! It's the first one I've found that fits with one of the albums I want to post. That's Candy Givens playing harmonica with a bandana on her head, and Tommy Bolin on guitar. 

I could have tried to improve this image in various ways, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it since the album has issues anyway.

Nick Lowe - Party of One Demos (1988)

I really need to post more Nick Lowe albums. I have a bunch ready to go, but I'm so swamped I never get around to them. However, this is something I only discovered a few days ago (as I write this in May 2026), so it went to the top of my pile of stuff to post.

In 1990, Lowe released the album "Party of One." It was a good album - in my opinion, all of Lowe's albums are at least good - but it didn't sell that well. Somehow, an album's worth of demos from that album has been leaked to the public, with excellent sound quality. It contains all the songs from that album, plus seven more (tracks 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, and 18). Two of those extras ended up as bonus tracks for the album (tracks 9 and 14). Another two (tracks 11 and 18) wound up on a 1992 album by a band he briefly joined, "Little Village." Another one, the great "I Live on a Battlefield," appeared on his next studio album in 1994, "The Impossible Bird." That leaves "I've Got Work to Do" and "Love's Been Gone Too Long" still unreleased.

On the "Party of One" album, all the songs were performed with a full band. Whereas this is just Lowe on vocals and guitar, though the songs are fairly fleshed out. He often added bass and backing vocals as well. Personally, I like this stripped down version better than the album version.

Everything here is unreleased except for two songs: "Rocky Road" and "Don't Think about Her When You're Trying to Drive." These exact versions of those have shown up on a "Party of One" EP.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 You Got the Look I Like (Nick Lowe)
02 Shting-Shtang (Nick Lowe)
03 I Don't Know Why You Keep Me On (Nick Lowe)
04 [I Want to Build A] Jumbo Ark (Nick Lowe)
05 What's Shakin' on the Hill (Nick Lowe)
06 Love's Been Gone Too Long (Nick Lowe)
07 All Men Are Liars (Nick Lowe)
08 Refrigerator White (Nick Lowe)
09 You Stabbed Me in the Front (Nick Lowe)
10 Honey Gun (Nick Lowe)
11 Fool Who Knows (Nick Lowe)
12 Who Was That Man (Nick Lowe)
13 Rocket Coast (Nick Lowe)
14 I've Got Work to Do (Nick Lowe)
15 Gai-Gin Man (Nick Lowe)
16 I Live on a Battlefield (Nick Lowe)
17 Rocky Road (Nick Lowe)
18 Don't Think about Her When You're Trying to Drive (Nick Lowe) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qgCNMcrb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/nNPgZSSrFS9rhf2/file

The cover image is supposed to have been taken in London in 1989. The original was in black and white. But, as I usually do, I used the Kolorize program to colorize it. For his hair, I checked with color images from around this time, and he'd already gone totally grey/white. 

The Four Tops - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 2-24-1989

I've only come across one concert the Four Tops did for the BBC. Perhaps one or more will come along, and I'll be forced to rename this one. But for now, here it is.

I would prefer if this concert took place earlier in their career. But 1989 isn't a bad time, because they had hits right up until then. The band had some lean years in the late 1970s and much of the 1980s, many of them with no hits, or only minor hits. But they did occasionally have a bit hit, such as "When She Was My Girl" in 1981, which just missed the Top Ten in the U.S. and made it to Number Three in Britain. They also had a big hit with "Loco in Acapulco," which was co-written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, of the great Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team for Motown Records. In 1988, that song missed the Top 100 entirely in the U.S., but it made the Top Ten in Britain. Another song from that same year, "Indestructible," did make the Top Forty in the U.S., as well as in Britain.

The year of 1989 is also a good time for a concert recording, because it was the effective end of the band as a creative entity. They only released one more album after this, in 1995, and it consisted of covers of Christmas songs. It's also great that the band still consisted of all four original members at this point. That would continue until one of the members died in 1997.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good, though not great. One problem was that the vocals were low in the mix. So I fixed that by running all the songs through the UVR5 program, and adjusting the balance. 

This album is 31 minutes long.

01 Reach Out, I'll Be There [Instrumental Version] (Four Tops)
02 Loco in Acapulco (Four Tops)
03 7 Rooms of Gloom (Four Tops)
04 When She Was My Girl (Four Tops)
05 Bernadette (Four Tops)
06 Mean Green Mother from Outer Space - Bernadette [Reprise] (Four Tops)
07 Walk Away Renee (Four Tops)
08 Reach Out, I'll Be There - Standing in the Shadows of Love - I Can't Help Myself (Four Tops)
09 Indestructible (Four Tops) 

NOTE: When posting this link, I got a Firefox warning that bestfile isn't secure. So it wouldn't let me download this link. I think it's having an issue with any bestfile link. Please let me know if this is happening to you as well. I hope this is just a temporary glitch. This is another time I'm glad I'm posting two links.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ugijmDC9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/user/files/PI6NSVQgN7s1BFn/edit

The cover photo is from a TV show appearance in Hof, Germany on March 4, 1989.

Buddy Guy - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 7-28-2018

I've been a bit slow about it, but I'm still sometimes posting concerts from the April 2026 leak of soundboard recordings from Port Chester. Here's one for blues legend Buddy Guy.

I've posted music from Guy before, so I'll just include a Wikipedia link if you're not familiar:

Buddy Guy - Wikipedia

Guy is one of those blues musicians who have seemingly played music forever. He is 89 years old as I write this, and he's still touring! At the time of this concert, he was 82.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent (but in mono). 

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.

01 talk (Buddy Guy)
02 Damn Right, I've Got the Blues (Buddy Guy)
03 Hoochie Coochie Man (Buddy Guy)
04 She's Nineteen Years Old - Cheaper to Keep Her (Buddy Guy)
05 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Buddy Guy)
06 Chicken Heads (Buddy Guy)
07 Five Long Years (Buddy Guy)
08 talk (Buddy Guy)
09 Feels like Rain (Buddy Guy)
10 talk (Buddy Guy)
11 Cognac (Buddy Guy)
12 All Around the World [Grits Ain't Groceries] - Sunshine of Your Love (Buddy Guy)
13 talk (Buddy Guy)
14 Who's Making Love (Buddy Guy)
15 Boom Boom (Buddy Guy)
16 talk (Buddy Guy)
17 Strange Brew (Buddy Guy)
18 Someone Else Is Steppin' In (Buddy Guy)
19 talk (Buddy Guy)
20 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Buddy Guy)
21 Instrumental (Buddy Guy)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UpJQDa1P

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SE4LGQy0yZa3f0X/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 3: 2007-2016 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the third volume out of four containing alternates to the "Covered" volumes made for the songs of Neil Young.

As with the other volumes in this series, the song selections were almost entirely made by guest poster Fabio from Rio. I just made a few small suggestions. So thanks again to him for his work on this.

I've already said pretty much all I wanted to say in Volumes 1 and 2 in this series, so look to that for more commentary. Also, Fabio wrote some liner notes, which are included in the download zip. (But they're the same notes for all four volumes.) 

This album is one hour long.

01 Bandit (Liam Titcomb)
02 Sugar Mountain (Harpoondodger & Pat Robitaille)
03 Long May You Run (Chris Seldon)
04 Wonderin' (Nils Lofgren)
05 Coupe de Ville (Jens Severin & Helpless)
06 I Am a Child (Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka & Lucy Kaplansky)
07 Words [Between the Lines of Age] (Chip Taylor)
08 You and Me (Trappers Cabin)
09 On the Way Home (America)
10 Lost in Space (Cosmo D)
11 Shots (Max Spada)
12 Can't Stop Workin' (Minus 5)
13 Hangin' on a Limb (Hall - Eserstam)
14 Country Home (Ragged Glory Holes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HkT8kKJb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tNUkYbG4WCAjmCj/file

The cover image is from 2005.

Ray Charles with Sarah Vaughan - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 4-30-1976

I haven't posted any episodes of the "Midnight Special" TV show in a while, since I've been focused on Ebbets Field concerts and some other things. But don't worry, I always get back to unfinished projects sooner or later. Here's an episode hosted by Ray Charles, with Sarah Vaughan as his guest.

In case you're not aware, the people behind this TV show are posting one "new" episode a week, and have been doing that for a few years now. When I say "new," I mean most of these had been lost to history until they post high quality versions. Lately, as I write this in May 2026, they've made it from 1973 to early 1976. I've been disappointed with many of their recently posted episodes though. For some reason, in early 1976, the show was heavily dominated by Helen Reddy, who was that main host practically every week. But just yesterday as I write this, they posted an episode that really caught my interest. It was the first time Charles had been on the show since 1973. (I've posted an album of that show already, so check it out.) So that alone was interesting for me. But even better was that Sarah Vaughan was his main guest, resulting in them singing a couple of songs together. 

It's true that Charles and Vaughan had their peak years in the 1950s and 1960s (and in Vaughan's case also the 1940s). But they still had all their musical powers in the 1970s; it's just that popular musical tastes had changed. Both sound great here. Charles even was keeping up with the times in a good way with a cover of "Living for the City," a hit for Stevie Wonder in 1973.

Vaughan was not the only guest. The others were: the Bay City Rollers, Cate Brothers, Freddy Fender, and Aaron Williams, who did ventriloquist comedy. I strongly suspect Charles requested Vaughan to be on the show, but the likes of the Bay City Rollers had nothing to do with him.

As usual for this TV show, the music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 37 minutes long. 

01 Every Saturday Night (Ray Charles)
02 talk (Wolfman Jack)
03 talk (Ray Charles)
04 Georgia on My Mind (Ray Charles)
05 talk (Ray Charles)
06 The Man I Love (Sarah Vaughan)
07 Living for the City (Ray Charles)
08 I'm Gonna Keep On Singin' (Ray Charles & Sarah Vaughan)
09 What'd I Say (Ray Charles & Sarah Vaughan)
10 Blues for Big Scotia (Ray Charles)
11 America the Beautiful (Ray Charles)
12 What'd I Say [Reprise] (Ray Charles & Sarah Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nGUFdxSg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xnID8H3LUUvVjkc/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. Actually, I took three: one of the whole scene, one of Charles' head and one of Vaughan's head. Then I brought them together in Photoshop. That allowed more detail in those areas. 

Howlin' Wolf with Detroit Junior - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-23-1973

Enjoy your daily dose of Ebbets Field radio broadcasts while they last. Here's a concert by blues legend Howlin' Wolf. I've been wanting to post some music from his for ages, but I didn't have anything I considered worthy. Now, finally, I do. However, be mindful that only the second half of this recording actually features Howlin' Wolf. The first half mostly stars another blues musician, Detroit Junior.

It's important to keep in mind that Howlin' Wolf's health was in a bad way by the time this concert happened. He was only 62 years old in 1973. Sure, that's old, but not so old compared to some blues musicians. For instance, B.B. King performed over 300 concerts a year well into his 80s, and kept touring until one year before his death at the age of 89. But starting in 1969, Wolf had a number of serious health issues. He had a heart attack that year. The next year, he got in a serious car accident that forced him to be on dialysis for the rest of his life. Then in 1971, he had another heart attack. His blood pressure and kidneys kept getting worse. Despite all that, he kept touring occasionally and even increased the number of concerts he did in 1973. He would keep touring in 1974 and 1975 until his health issues just got to be too much. He died in early 1976 at the age of 65.

Due to these many problems, his band leader Eddie Shaw put his foot down and limited Wolf to just six songs per concert. In this concert he only did five songs, but one of them, "Goin' Down Slow," lasted over nine minutes, so that easily counted for two.

I don't want to summarize Wolf's entire career. Here's Wikipedia for that:

Howlin' Wolf - Wikipedia 

Unfortunately, only performing six songs that last a total of about 30 minutes isn't good value for a typical concert-goer, even if it was to see a blues legend. So that's why the first half of the concert was dominated by Wolf's backing band, especially singer and pianist Detroit Junior (birth name Emery Williams, Jr.). He was a reasonably well known blues figure in his own right. Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Detroit Junior - Wikipedia

Someone else worth a mention is Hubert Sumlin. He didn't do any singing in this concert, but he was the lead guitarist. He joined Wolf's band in 1954, and was basically his musical right hand man for the rest of Wolf's life. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 43 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Here's his entry:

Hubert Sumlin - Wikipedia

Although Wolf's health was failing, he still sounded exactly like you'd expect. In my opinion, 1973 was his last good year before his health problems started to be really noticeable in his music. That was the year he released his last studio album, "The Back Door Wolf," which is an album I quite like.  

This album is 58 minutes long. Just the Howlin' Wolf portion is 28 minutes. 

01 talk by emcee (Detroit Junior)
02 Talk to My Baby (Detroit Junior)
03 talk (Detroit Junior)
04 I Can't Stop Loving You [Instrumental] (Detroit Junior)
05 talk (Detroit Junior)
06 Your Love Is Creeping Away from Me (Detroit Junior)
07 talk (Detroit Junior)
08 Baby Workout (Detroit Junior)
09 talk (Detroit Junior)
10 How Blue Can You Get (Detroit Junior)
11 talk (Detroit Junior)
12 What'd I Say (Detroit Junior)
13 talk (Detroit Junior)
14 Little Red Rooster (Howlin' Wolf)
15 Going Down Slow [Edit] (Howlin' Wolf)
16 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
17 Killing Floor (Howlin' Wolf)
18 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
19 Shake for Me (Howlin' Wolf)
20 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
21 Goodbye Instrumental (Howlin' Wolf)
22 talk by emcee (Howlin' Wolf)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qzeCBjBo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uOMFPh1ttZRG1L6/file

The cover image is from a concert at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, in the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans, on April 12, 1973.

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 2: 2001-2007 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the second volume out of four, of alternates for Neil Young's "Covered" series. As I explained in my write-up for Volume 1, guest poster Fabio from Rio did most of the legwork finding cover versions for the original ten volumes, but I had most of the say in picking which ones were ultimately chosen. So these four alternate volumes are kind of Fabio's "revenge," because he did the picking. There were only one or two songs I pointed out I didn't think were that strong.

There's not much else to say. As with Volume 1, about half the songs are different versions of covers chosen in the original ten volumes, and about half the songs are ones that only show up in these alternates volumes. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 Dreamin' Man (Freebo)
02 Pressure (Ned Whattakiller)
03 This Note's for You (Royal Cat Club)
04 Pocahontas (Johnny Cash)
05 On the Beach (Radiohead)
06 Let It Shine (Ad Vanderveen)
07 Falling from Above (Jamey Darnold)
08 Hawks and Doves (Scott Miller & the Commonwealth)
09 Red Sun (Charlie Macon)
10 Without Rings (Scott Sandi)
11 The Needle and the Damage Done (Jorane)
12 Families (Gil Michaels)
13 Helpless (Elk City)
14 Cortez the Killer (Carrie Rodriguez with Tim Easton)
15 Ohio - Find the Cost of Freedom (Dalia)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ySf9gd4c

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/BLbNlIQ1jzvddqu/file

The cover image is from 1991 or thereabouts.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Denver Coliseum, Denver, CO, 5-12-1970

Here's something I'm very excited to post. I put many, many hours of work into this, but I think it paid off. This is an audience bootleg of a special Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) concert that sounded pretty rough. But now, after some editing, I believe it sounds almost as good as a soundboard from the era. However, be warned that sometimes the sound quality is still rough sometimes. But you should have heard what it sounded like before. It's vastly improved.

This also was on the most pivotal concerts in the history of CSNY. So let me give some background. In March 1970, the CSNY album "Deja Vu" was released. It was a massive hit right away. Rolling Stone magazine would later put it on their list of the top 500 albums of all time. It would eventually sell eight million copies in the U.S. alone.

CSNY had toured in late 1969 into January 1970, but then they took an extended break. This Denver concert was supposed to be the first one of a big nationwide tour after that break to promote "Deja Vu." However, there was trouble brewing behind the scenes. CSNY needed a bassist and drummer to play live. So far, those roles had been filled by Greg Reeves on bass and Dallas Taylor on drums. But mere days before this concert, Reeves was fired by Stephen Stills. Stills later claimed that this was "because [Reeves] suddenly decided he was an Apache witch doctor." That sounds like a weird excuse, but it seems there's some truth to it. For instance, Nils Lofgren later said that during one of the sessions for Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" album in 1970, Reeves appeared covered head to toe in gold paint. Young explained the bassist was "doin' his Indian thing." And Reeves himself later said that members of CSNY "thought I was trying to put spells on them" due to his strong interest in Native American shamanism. He also dyed his hair red and did many other strange things.

But that wasn't the only reason he was fired. It seems there were some musical issues as well. Still later said that Reeves "freaked too much on the bass and no one could keep up because [he] did not play one rhythm the same. He could play bass imaginatively, but he has to be predictable as well." Furthermore, Reeves also wanted to sing some of his songs during CSNY concert. Stills thought that was "ludicrous, only because the songs weren't great. We'll sing any song if it's great, but not just because it happens to be written by our bass player."

Reeves was replaced by Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuel. Stills had just been using him as his bassist when he was recording his first solo album that year. But Reeves was fired late in rehearsals, so CSNY didn't have much time to rehearse songs with Samuel before their tour began. Furthermore, the band members were having other problems. Their massive success was leading to ego trips and lots of drug use. Also, David Crosby's girlfriend Christine Hinton died in September 1969, and it took him a long time to get over it. For instance, he was prone to just breaking into tears at random times during the recording of the "Deja Vu" album. On top of all that, eight days before this concert, four students were killed by the U.S. government's national guard at Kent State. It caused a nationwide uproar. It also led Neil Young to write the classic song "Ohio" in the days just prior to this concert.

So tensions were steadily rising for CSNY, and it all blew up around the time of this concert. The first half of the concert was all acoustic. That went pretty well, mostly. One issue was the sound system the band had paid to use for their entire tour was used for the first time, and it was terrible. If you listen to this recording, you can hear strange sounds in the background from time to time, much like fireworks going off. David Crosby even commented on those sounds and apologized for them before one of the songs in the acoustic set. But this continued occasionally for the rest of the concert. Furthermore, there were problems with the monitors, which means the band members had trouble hearing what the others were playing. You can hear Neil Young complain about that during the acoustic set as well.

But things got a lot worse during the electric set. The problems with the sound system and the monitors continued, and were magnified in the full band setting. Furthermore, Samuel was struggling to keep up with all the songs he had just learned days earlier. 

Drummer Dallas Taylor later explained: "The tour had been booked during all of this chaos. And it was a multi-million dollar tour. And so [Samuel] came out, but we didn't get a chance to rehearse with him. By then, the Charles Manson [murder trial] stuff was going on; it just went very dark, very quickly. I think with the cocaine coming into the world, it just went dark and evil. So [Samuel], God bless him, he didn't get a chance to learn the songs."

Samuel himself later said, "I'd never been on stage with monitors before. I didn't even know who I was on stage with. Dallas I knew a little bit from [working on Stills' solo album], so we just had to bluff our way through. Neil was very uncomfortable because Stephen and I had played together a lot more."

Neil Young was so frustrated that he walked off the stage before the end of the second to last song, "Everybody I Love You." If you listen to the banter after that song, you can hear the other band members asking each other what happened to Young. Probably, they cut the concert a little short when Young didn't return during their final song.

Things then got even worse after the concert was over. The rest of the tour was immediately cancelled. Young was so upset that he threatened to leave the group. Taylor later said, "After the show, I got this phone call from Neil. He asked would you consider continuing the tour without Stephen? I didn't think about it: no." 

The next day, the band flew to Los Angeles. A crisis meeting was held with all the band members, plus record company executives and managers, like David Geffen, Ahmed Ertugun, and Elliott Roberts. Only Taylor had to wait outside. At the end of the meeting, he was told that he was fired. Taylor later said, "By then, it was about Neil taking over as leader, controlling the band. He was mad that Stephen fired Greg Reeves, 'cos he loved Greg. It's like third grade stuff. ... Neil said, well, if I have to work with Stills, then Dallas has to go, 'cos he knew I was allied. I mean, it's crazy stuff."

Indeed, during the recording of the "Deja Vu" album, Stills was taking copious amounts of cocaine for the first time. This led to him working in the studio for many hours a day, sometimes even going 24 hours or more without stopping. The only other person who could keep up with him was Taylor, who was also taking lots of cocaine. Whereas Young felt a connection to Reeves, probably helped by their shared interest in Native American culture. For instance, the very moment Stills fired Reeves, Young was there in the same room, and immediately told Reeves that he still wanted him to play bass on his solo album, "After the Gold Rush." 

So, almost certainly, Young didn't want Stills fired, and/or knew that wasn't a realistic demand. The two of them would later say multiple times that they were close friends, and they've had many musical projects together over the years. But, by making that initial demand, it allowed Young to get the compromise of getting Taylor fired, which reduced Stills' influence over the whole band.

Johnny Barbata was hired to play drums instead. Additionally, the cancelled tour dates were rescheduled. After two weeks of more rehearsals, the tour resumed. At first, things went okay. But soon, personality conflicts came to a head again. Stills, in particular, got even more carried away with cocaine and alcohol abuse, which led to megalomania. After a concert in Chicago in early July, Crosby, Nash, and Young decided to fire Stills. The tour staggered on for two more concerts before mercifully coming to an end. 

Nash then helped put together a double live album, "Four Way Street," which was released in 1971 and was a big seller. But CSNY was effectively finished, excepting a couple of spontaneous reunion concerts, until a 1974 tour. (And that tour is a whole other story, with even more problems.)

Decades later, Stills had this to say: "I just wish we could have held it together a little longer. But there were petty ego jealousies going on. Nash and I weren't talking. Neil wanted to be on his own. I had my solo album to finish. But we still could have done that and kept CSNY going. But we threw it all away for very fallacious reasons, I can see now. I mean, we were standing on the verge. And all of the freedom we wanted for our own personal careers would have still been available to us. But we couldn't put [aside] the trivial going on between us. If a voice of reason could have cleared that fog, we could have realized our full potential and CSNY would be mentioned in the same breath with the Beatles and the Stones. We also could have become rich enough to be creative. But I was the biggest fool. I thought the managers would come up with some strength. They didn't. So we lost it all, right there, that day, to indulgence. We lost it all." 

Ironically, just one day after this concert, and the same day the band fired Taylor, CSNY was told that "Deja Vu" had just reached the Number One spot on the U.S. album chart. So Stills is right to lament what might have been if they could have stayed together. 

So that's the story, the context of this concert. But I also want to talk a little bit about the song list, because it was an extraordinary one for the band. The previous CSNY concert was in January 1970, and none of them had done solo concerts, except for Young doing a few concerts with Crazy Horse in February and March. All four of them wrote a lot of new songs and began working on solo albums. Plus, there were some songs from "Deja Vu" that none of them had ever performed in concert before. This meant that lots of songs were performed to the public for the very first time, including many that were still unreleased. I did some research using the setlist.fm website. Here are all the songs that got their world premiere at this concert. The ones with asterisks were still unreleased at the time:

Tell Me Why*
Man in the Mirror*
Only Love Can Break Your Heart* 
We Are Not Helpless* 
Love the One You're With*
Carry On
Chicago*
As I Come of Age*
Southern Man*
Everybody I Love You

That's pretty incredible, considering how many of those songs have gone on to be considered classics! 

Furthermore, this was the first time CSNY performed "Everybody's Been Burned," a Byrds song written by Crosby, as well as "Bluebird," a Buffalo Springfield song written by Stills. I don't count those as premieres though, since they were performed live previously by the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. However, this was the sole time "Everybody's Been Burned" was performed in a CSNY concert, and one of only two times "Bluebird" was performed in a CSNY concert. (However, Stills wrote another song, "Bluebird Revisited," that was kind of an update of that song, and he did perform that in concert some.)

Oh, and another exceptional thing about this concert is that this was the one and only time "Everybody I Love You" was performed live by CSNY. Perhaps later there were bad feelings about that song, since it was the one where Young walked off the stage? I don't know. But also note that the lyrics of the song are actually quite different from the version on the "Deja Vu" album. Additionally, this was the only time "We Are Not Helpless" was performed in a CSNY. The song was written by Stills, but he also only performed it three more times in solo concerts all the rest of his long music career. 

Okay, this is turning out to be a long write-up, sorry. But now I have to address the sound quality issue. When I first heard this the bootleg of this concert, I noticed a lot of big problems. For instance, there was a tremendous amount of hiss. But I also sensed that most of them were fixable problems, and it was a better audience recording than most. (I've included a text file with the download zip that explains some about the origins of the recording.) I also was impressed that this was a complete recording, including all the cheering and banter between songs. For some reason, there are a lot of partial recordings of CSNY concerts from 1969 and 1970, and/or recordings where the banter wasn't recorded. (Tapers often did that in that era to save tape.)

The first thing I did was run all the songs through the MVSEP program to get rid of hiss. And boy, was there a lot of hiss! I've rarely ever seen that much hiss get cleaned up. So that was a big improvement right there. The next problem was there was a lot of reverb/ echo, especially on the vocals. So I ran all the songs through MVSEP again, first separating out the vocals and then running a dereverb filter on them. That helped a lot too.

But then I decided to go further, and really clean up the vocals. Since this was an audience recording, there was a lot of talking from people near the taper. In fact, at one point, one could hear a conversation where someone asked the taper if they were taping the concert, and then, finding out they were, asking if they could get a copy. So there was a lot of crud like that. I listened to each song carefully, and erased any vocals that came from comments in the audience instead of band members. I was able to get rid of most of it. However, sometimes people were talking at the exact same time band members were talking. I tried running songs with that problem through yet more filters which are supposed to separate talking from singing. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. 

In the end, some talking remains, for instance on the song "On the Way Home." But most of that is fairly low in the mix. For the more egregious remaining cases of audience members talking during singing, I used vocals from the CSNY concerts that year and patched them in. Typically, that was just for a line or two. For instance, in "Teach Your Children," someone in the audience had a coughing fit for about ten seconds while Nash was singing. So I got rid of that with the patching method. Really, every song here deserves to have "[Edit]" in their titles, due to all the line by line editing I did. But I've only marked the ones where I patched in bits from other songs. Oh, and I also got rid of some dead air between songs, especially guitar tuning. I also cut out some talking from audience members during quiet times between songs, if that was the only way to get rid of it.

In conclusion, this was a pretty disastrous concert. Nash even publicly said this after the concert, to explain the tour date cancellations: "The music was rubbish and we knew it. We had to cool ourselves out before we could get back again." But, in my opinion, most of the trouble happened in private, before and after the concert. The actual music was pretty good. That's especially true for the acoustic set, before the problems with playing with a full band with an unprepared bass player and bad monitors and sound system happened. 

And it certainly is a historic concert, with so many classics being heard in public for the very first time, and rare songs, as well as all the band drama. If you're a CSNY fan, I would consider this a "must have," even though some sound quality problems remain.

I can't resist ending with one more quote, this time by Young, summing up how the band broke apart in 1970: "[It was] because we had no idea what we were doing. It's not because there was anything wrong with anybody in the band. It was just, what we were confronted with made us be... it changed us. It changed us. The crowd. The adulation. The roaring sound. It changed us." 

And ooooooone more quote... this one from British music critic Barney Hoskyns: "I don't think it would have been possible for CSNY in 1970, 1971, to go on much beyond that. A break-up was inevitable. You've got four young guys, two of whom are certainly out of their heads on cocaine [Crosby and Stills]. It's petty stuff. These are guys who were not very grown up. And they're not very good at talking to each other. And resolving stuff."

This album is an hour and 50 minutes long. 

01 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
03 Teach Your Children [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
05 On the Way Home (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Helpless (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
07 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
08 Everybody's Been Burned (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Tell Me Why [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 Man in the Mirror (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
14 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
15 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
16 Black Queen (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
17 Bluebird [Edit] (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
18 We Are Not Helpless - America's Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
19 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
20 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
21 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
22 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
23 Pre-Road Downs (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
24 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
25 Carry On (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
26 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
27 So Begins the Task (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
28 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
29 Chicago (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
30 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
31 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
32 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
33 As I Come of Age (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
34 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
35 Southern Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
36 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
37 Everybody I Love You (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
38 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
39 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CRbuc6Rc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/T9pNrz1WmydF5Tc/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, on June 12, 1970. The original version was black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Little Feat - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 7-19-1973, Late Show

Yesterday, I posted Little Feat's early show at the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, in 1973. This is the late show.

As I mentioned in my write-up for the early show, it seems this one was the one that was actually broadcast live on a local radio station at the time. The emcee at the end of the early show told the people leaving they could hear the late show with their car radios as they drove home. But this show lacks the usual expected encore because the band was opening for Zephyr, and had run out of time. (Zephyr broke up around 1970, but did a few reunion shows in the Denver area around this time.)

There's some overlap in song selection between the early shows and late shows, with five songs being played in both. But five songs were only played in the early show: "Hamburger Midnight," "On Your Way Down," "Willin'," "Cold, Cold, Cold," and "Fat Man in the Bathtub." Meanwhile, six songs were only played in the late show: "A Apolitical Blues," "The Fan," "Texas Rose Cafe," "Snakes on Everything," "Cat Fever," and "Sailin' Shoes."

This album is an hour long.

01 talk (Little Feat)
02 A Apolitical Blues (Little Feat)
03 Two Trains (Little Feat)
04 Got No Shadow (Little Feat)
05 The Fan (Little Feat)
06 talk (Little Feat)
07 Texas Rose Cafe (Little Feat)
08 talk (Little Feat)
09 Snakes on Everything (Little Feat)
10 talk (Little Feat)
11 Cat Fever (Little Feat)
12 talk (Little Feat)
13 Walkin' All Night (Little Feat)
14 talk (Little Feat)
15 Sailin' Shoes (Little Feat)
16 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)
17 Tripe Face Boogie (Little Feat)
18 talk (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4Ca8kMnq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Cor6zSPJrrheyHK/file

The cover image focusing on band member Lowell George is from an episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show, broadcast on August 9, 1974. I wanted to have a picture of the band in 1973, but there were surprisingly few of those, and none that were very good. I used the same source for the early show.

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 1: 1966-2001 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Back in March 2026, I posted no less than ten volumes of the "Covered" series for Neil Young. Surely, you'd think, that's enough. Ten volumes is more than any of the other dozens of artists in the "Covered" series. But no, there's more! In making those ten albums, guest posted Fabio from Rio did most of the hard work, collecting hundreds of different cover versions, and presenting them to me in an organized fashion. But I did most of the selecting of which songs made the final cut. This, by contrast, represents Fabio's choices for the best of the rest. I had a little say, but just a song or two here and there where I suggested a different version or something like that. 

Fabio found enough for four volumes of "Covered" alternates. Here's the first one. Across these four volumes, about half the songs are different versions of songs that were included on the previously posted ten Neil Young "Covered" volumes. But the other half are songs that didn't feature on those volumes at all.

Fabio has written some liner notes, which are included in the download zip. But since these volumes are more like an addendum to those earlier ten volumes, he wrote just one essay for all four volumes, without song-by-song explanations.

For some musical acts in the "Covered" series, they had a lot of hits, and the choices of which covers to pick is pretty straight forward - the hit versions. But with Neil Young, it was much more subjective, since there have been tons of covers, but very few hits. So one person's trash is another person's treasure. You may well like some of these better. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Guess Who)
02 Down to the Wire (Yellow Hand)
03 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Carpenters)
04 Down by the River (Buddy Miles)
05 Til the Morning Comes (Francoise Hardy)
06 I Believe in You (Linda Ronstadt)
07 Hold Back the Tears (Jessi Colter)
08 Revolution Blues (Band of Blacky Ranchette)
09 Already One (Aaron Springfield)
10 Human Highway (Jim Witter & Cassandra Vasik)
11 Borrowed Tune (Marc Jordan)
12 Pushed It Over the End (Rich Hand)
13 Big Time (Black Crowes)
14 The Old Laughing Lady (Stereophonics)
15 Motion Pictures (Mercury Rev)
16 Mellow My Mind (Hederos & Hellberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kra1ih4k

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yfTyPoRmZ7KvcBd/file

The cover image is from 1969 or 1970. It was taken from a black and white photo of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Little Feat - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 7-19-1973, Early Show

Next up from the Ebbets Fields radio broadcasts is Little Feat. They did an early show and a late show, so naturally I'm starting with the early show.

I've already posted a couple of Little Feat albums, so I won't say much more about them here. But note that this was from relatively early in the band's history, before they became very famous. Near the start of 1973, they released their third album, "Dixie Chicken." It was their first album to go Gold in the U.S., which means sales of half a million. But I'm guessing most of those sales didn't happen until later, when the band's growing popularity caused some people to discover their earlier albums, because the album didn't make the charts at all.

Interestingly, you can hear by the emcee speaking at the end of this recording that the band was actually the opening act for Zephyr. (They probably were much less well know nationwide, but they were based in Denver and played there a lot, so they were local favorites.) Also, it seems only the late show sets of both Little Feat and Zephyr were actually broadcast on the radio. But somehow this recording survived too, probably due to Little Feat's later fame. 

In fact, I'd say these early and late shows by Little Feat are some of the most popular of all the Ebbets Fields recordings. There are very few concert recordings of this sound quality from this early in the band's career. But the recordings, going under names like "American Cutie" and "Late Night Truck Stop," are grey market releases. That means they exploit a loophole in European copyright law allowing for their legal sale in Europe, but the musical act doesn't get any of the profits. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Hamburger Midnight (Little Feat)
02 Got No Shadow (Little Feat)
03 talk (Little Feat)
04 On Your Way Down (Little Feat)
05 talk (Little Feat)
06 Walkin' All Night (Little Feat)
07 talk (Little Feat)
08 Two Trains (Little Feat)
09 talk (Little Feat)
10 Willin' (Little Feat)
11 talk (Little Feat)
12 Cold, Cold, Cold (Little Feat)
13 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)
14 Tripe Face Boogie (Little Feat)
15 talk (Little Feat)
16 Fat Man in the Bathtub (Little Feat)
17 talk (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rRobHZAk 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hPVtW7HbErXX0zn/file

The cover image focusing on band member Lowell George is from an episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show, broadcast on August 9, 1974. I wanted to have a picture of the band in 1973, but there were surprisingly few of those, and none that were very good.

Alan Price with Georgie Fame - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: Alan Price, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Britain, 12-22-1980

Here's another album of Alan Price performing for the BBC. I found four episodes of a short T.V. series he did in 1980, simply called "Alan Price." This is the fourth and last of those. 

This one has a pretty prominent guest role for Georgie Fame, who was in a musical duo with Price in the early 1970s. The three songs they did together here was enough for me to credit this to "Alan Price with Georgie Fame." Linda Taylor also was a part of two duets. She featured in one of the earlier episodes, the one I turned into "Volume 6."

Each of the four episodes from this show had a musical theme. I'll bet you couldn't figure out this one, just from the song titles. Basically, the theme was "great songwriters." More specifically, Price said in his banter, "We're going to devote this program to some of the most significant composers of the last 15 to 20 years." 

That pretty much checks out. Here's the songwriters for each song:

01 Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan
03 Get Away - Georgie Fame
05 Saturday Night Fish Fry - Louis Jordan & Ellis Walsh
07 Be My Baby - Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich & Phil Spector
09 Fire and Rain - James Taylor
10 American Pie - Don McLean
12 Reach Out, I'll Be There - Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland
14 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - Phil Spector, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil

Georgie Fame and Louis Jordan are a lot better known for covering songs by others, but that's a minor quibble, I suppose. Most of the others have been featured in my "Covered" series, or will be eventually (knock on wood).

The last song, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," isn't actually from the same show as the rest. It's from another BBC T.V. show, "Fundamental Frolics," aired in 1981. But the song choice fits the great songwriters theme perfectly. Even the guest vocalist on that one, Linda Taylor, appeared on this same episode.

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

This album is 32 minutes long. 

01 Subterranean Homesick Blues (Alan Price)
02 talk (Alan Price)
03 Get Away (Alan Price & Georgie Fame)
04 talk (Alan Price)
05 Saturday Night Fish Fry (Alan Price & Georgie Fame)
06 talk (Alan Price)
07 Be My Baby (Alan Price & Linda Taylor)
08 talk (Alan Price)
09 Fire and Rain (Alan Price & Georgie Fame)
10 American Pie (Alan Price)
11 talk (Alan Price)
12 Reach Out, I'll Be There (Alan Price)
13 talk (Alan Price)
14 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' (Alan Price & Linda Taylor)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HEd73RjJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/4TdLLOA0KiphRqe/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. Since Georgie Fame had a prominent role, I wanted to include him as well. He's the one in the light green jacket.

Klaatu - The Sampler Album (1976-2005) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's another Mike Solof guest post. This one came about because I was conversing with Mike, and the band Klaatu somehow came up. I mentioned that I'd heard of them, but I'd never gotten around to listening to their music. So Mike volunteered to enlighten me by making a sampler album containing what he considers the cream of their crop.

The band has a very unusual history. Probably their biggest claim to fame is that when their debut album came out in 1976, there was a widespread rumor that their album actually was a secret Beatles reunion album. Of course that wasn't true. But I can understand why some people believed the rumor, because the band had a Beatlesque sound. And I consider that a very good thing. If you like that style of music - and who doesn't? - you should give this a listen.

There's a lot more to this band and their history. But I'm not going to tell it here. For one thing, Mike has written extensive liner notes, which are included in the download zip, as is his wont. And you can also read Wikipedia for more:

Klaatu (band) - Wikipedia

I asked Mike why Woman is only a bonus track. Here's his response. "In case you are all wondering (and I know you all are) why I considered 'Woman' a bonus cut and not part of the main set, here's the answer (taken from Wikipedia): 'The trio very briefly reunited in 1988 at George Martin's AIR Studios in London with John Jones to record a single, "Woman," though no one was particularly happy with the results as the song was written by someone outside of the band (Paul Vincent Gunia) for the German television series Tatort. Initially, Long had wanted to merely use the Klaatu name, but could not get the rest of the band's approval without their involvement. The single was released only in West Germany and did not chart, making it an extremely rare item in the Klaatu catalogue; Draper confirmed that the song was considered for a few rarities compilations, but all three band members had agreed to not include the track.'"

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (Klaatu)
02 Anus of Uranus (Klaatu)
03 Sub-Rosa Subway (Klaatu)
04 Doctor Marvello (Klaatu)
05 We're Off You Know (Klaatu)
06 Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III (Klaatu)
07 Around the Universe in Eighty Days (Klaatu)
08 Little Neutrino (Klaatu)
09 A Routine Day (Klaatu)
10 The Love of a Woman (Klaatu)
11 I Can't Help It (Klaatu)
12 True Life Hero (Klaatu)
13 Knee Deep in Love (Klaatu)
14 I Don't Wanna Go Home (Klaatu)
15 California Jam (Klaatu)
16 All Good Things (Klaatu)

Woman (Klaatu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vcsQKLJM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/473QSPC1alBVbpl/file

Klaatu was a notoriously elusive band. For the band's first few years, there were no publicly available photos of them at all. They finally relented a bit in the early 1980s, when they briefly went on tour. So I think this promo photo dates from that time. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. Also, the background was just blank white. So I took some artwork of the pyramids from one of their album covers and put that in the background to make things look a little more interesting.