Elton John - Rock in Rio, Parque Olimpico, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 9-7-2026

Here's a concert from earlier this month (writing this in September 2026). Elton John performed in front of over 100,000 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as the headline act for the 2026 Rock in Rio Festival. Luckily for us, it was broadcast on local radio and TV, so we have an excellent sounding version.

This concert wasn't on my radar screen to be posted. However, a frequent contributor to this blog, Fabio from Rio, is from, well, Rio. He actually attended this concert and enjoyed it, and then encouraged me to post it. So twist my arm, here we are. 

Since Fabio attended this concert, I thought that instead of the usual blah blah blah from me, we could have Fabio give his report on how the concert went. I asked him, and he kindly obliged. So here's Fabio impression of the concert experience. Take it away, Fabio: 

This was not my first time attending an Elton John performance. He is a "frequent flyer" to Brazil (he has been around here a dozen times, maybe) and I had already attended three or four of his concerts in Rio, the first one 31 years ago, in 1995, in a much smaller venue. This time around, since I was told it could really be his "last one ever," I decided at the last minute to go.

Attending the Rock in Rio Festival is far more than just going to a concert; it is a true, immersive experience. The festival grounds practically transform into a massive amusement park, packed with dozens of entertainment options. You could easily spend hours wandering between a movie theater, pop-up pubs, and dedicated stages featuring dance and acrobatic performances. The musical diversity is dizzying, spanning everything from traditional Brazilian music, instrumental sets, jazz, funk, and mainstream pop, all the way to electronic beats blasting until 3:00 AM. They even have a massive Ferris wheel and a zip line over the crowd. Oh, and there are also a couple of "rock" acts to justify the festival's title.  

As I mentioned, wanting to take it all in, I made sure to arrive early. My goal was to explore the vast venue without immediately getting tethered to the main stages. Since I was wandering around, I deliberately ignored a few big-name shows (at least that's what they were hyping). I followed my ears and ended up catching a fantastic blues cover band, a stunning ballet performance on stilts, and a brilliant set by the legendary Brazilian singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, among a couple other nice acts.

As the night progressed, it was time for the main event: Mr. Reginald K. Dwight. About an hour before the scheduled start of the show, I managed to squeeze my way through the sea of people and get to a reasonably good spot, but even then, Elton felt incredibly far away. In practice, I ended up watching most of his spectacular performance on the gigantic video screens flanking the stage. It was a fascinating yet slightly surreal experience: feeling the raw energy of a massive crowd all around me while, technically, watching the artist on a screen.  

The concert was really enjoyable: excellent sound, good setlist (all his main hits and a couple of deep cuts), incredible musicianship from the entire band, and Elton was clearly happier than a pig in the mud (or as we say in Brazil, "happier than a chick in the garbage can"). He addressed the crowd half a dozen times, including complaining a bit about the cold weather. We had an unusually cool night - around 18 degrees C (64 degrees F) which, for a Brazilian, and apparently for Elton too, is almost Game of Thrones' North Wall-level freezing. Elton later told the press that he felt it was one of his best performances of later years, and that the night was simply incredible. 

--- 

The only thing I want to add to that has to do with the sound quality. The vast majority of this apparently comes from the version broadcast on TV. That's a lucky thing, because the radio version was constantly interrupted by very annoying DJ (the morning "shock jock" types) speaking in rapid-fire Portuguese between almost every song. However, the TV version was lacking the encore of the last three songs. So I used the radio version for that, carefully getting rid of the DJ talk along the way. I also checked that version for differences, and found some more of John's banter between songs. So I added in those bits from the other source as well.

This album is two hours and 11 minutes long.

01 Funeral for a Friend - Love Lies Bleeding (Elton John)
02 talk (Elton John)
03 Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
04 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Elton John)
05 Philadelphia Freedom (Elton John)
06 talk (Elton John)
07 The One (Elton John)
08 Tiny Dancer (Elton John)
09 Sacrifice (Elton John)
10 Honky Cat (Elton John)
11 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Elton John)
12 Levon (Elton John)
13 Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (Elton John)
14 Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Elton John)
15 Have Mercy on the Criminal (Elton John)
16 talk (Elton John)
17 Candle in the Wind (Elton John)
18 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John)
19 talk (Elton John)
20 Sad Songs [Say So Much] (Elton John)
21 talk (Elton John)
22 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
23 Crocodile Rock (Elton John)
24 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)
25 I'm Still Standing (Elton John)
26 talk (Elton John)
27 Cold Heart (Elton John)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Skyline Pigeon (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Your Song (Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HM1acHif

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Rox5dzGV7ruzI7T/file

The cover image was put together by Fabio using an AI program. But the photo is a real, unaltered photo from this exact concert. (I double checked.) 

The AI helped with the text and layout and so forth. Fabio still uses CDs, and makes CDs of bootlegs he likes. So he made a back cover for himself, again using the assistance of AI. I don't know how many people might find such a thing useful. But what the heck, here it is if anyone wants it.

Mott the Hoople - Medicine Ball Caravan, Charlton Park, Bishopsbourn, Britain, 8-31-1970

Here's another excellent soundboard from the Bob Matthews collection that was previously unknown and unavailable to the public until now (as I write this in September 2026). As I've explained in previous posts, Bob Matthews was a sound engineer for the Grateful Dead and other bands, and hundreds of concert recordings he'd kept are now getting released. This one features Mott the Hoople.

I just posted concerts by Al Stewart and the Faces prior to this one. All three come from the same 1970 Medicine Ball Caravan rock festival. I've given a long explanation about just what the Medicine Ball Caravan was. In short, it was a concert tour across the U.S., culminating in this lone concert in Britain, to make the raw material for a movie. The movie came out in 1971, but it was a flop for various reasons.

At the time of this concert, Mott the Hoople were not well known. They had released their first album, the cleverly titled "Mott the Hoople," in 1969. They were on the cusp of releasing their second one, "Mad Shadows," which would come out a couple of weeks later. But these albums only sold moderately, and would provide no hits. The band wouldn't become well known until 1972, with their big hit "All the Young Dudes," followed by more hits.

As far as I know, this is the only concert recording of this band with sound quality this excellent. There is a BBC concert from later in 1970, but even that one doesn't sound as good as this one. So this is a very big find for fans of the band.

I'm getting the impression that the recordings from this festival all share the flaw of having the audience recorded way too quietly. So just like I did with the Al Stewart and Faces sets, I used the MVSEP program to greatly boost the volume of the cheering at the ends of songs. It should have the appropriate level of audience reaction for a concert now. 

So far, a Stoneground set from this festival has also been made public in recent days. I'm going to wait on posting that though, to see what else comes out of this festival before posting that, because we only have part of the set. There may be other partial sets I could pair it with, for instance. Besides, I doubt there would be a demand for the relatively unknown Stoneground like there is for some other bands.

On a somewhat different note, this is the first Mott the Hoople album I've posted, so here's the band's Wikipedia link:

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

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 talk (Mott the Hoople)
02 Darkness, Darkness (Mott the Hoople)
03 talk (Mott the Hoople)
04 Laugh at Me (Mott the Hoople)
05 talk (Mott the Hoople)
06 Rock and Roll Queen (Mott the Hoople)
07 talk (Mott the Hoople)
08 Thunderbuck Ram (Mott the Hoople)
09 talk (Mott the Hoople)
10 Half Moon Bay (Mott the Hoople)
11 talk (Mott the Hoople)
12 Keep A-Knockin' (Mott the Hoople)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gRn6WHJW 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/nRUKP72tpNcC4BC/file

The cover image shows the band's lead singer Ian Hunter at Birmingham Town Hall in Birmingham, Britain, on December 26, 1970.

The Faces - Medicine Ball Caravan, Charlton Park, Bishopsbourn, Britain, 8-31-1970

Yesterday, I posted about an amazing newly revealed treasure trove of hundreds of bootlegs starting to be made public. I'm going to call it the "Bob Matthews Bootleg Collection" and add a label with that name to help you find all the albums I post from there. Here's a short 1970 concert by the Faces from that collection. There had never been any public audio recording of this, and now we have a pristine soundboard!

As I mentioned in my write-up yesterday to an Al Stewart set from this same concert, Bob Matthews was a long-time sound engineer for the Grateful Dead and related bands from about 1966 until the mid-1980s. He died in 2021, and now, in 2026, another person named Charlie Miller has his collection of unreleased music and is in the process of making it public. It seems Matthews almost entirely worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, but there was a rare exception of him going to Britain to help record this concert for reasons I'll explain in a minute. So that's why we now have this recording.

This concert was part of an unusual music project called the "Medicine Ball Caravan." It was conceived by radio DJ Tom Donahue. Even though his DJ career began way back in 1949, he was sympathetic to the growing "hippie" counterculture movement in the late 1960s. For instance, he helped pioneer "underground" rock played on FM stations starting in 1967. He came up with an idea to get a collection of rock bands, and various associated hippies, and have them travel around the U.S. performing concerts in unusual places, and possibly clashing with mainstream America. The entire thing would be professionally filmed and made into a movie. At the time, the "Woodstock" movie had just been released and was doing very good business, so a movie company agreed to fund this project.

Originally, the headlining band for this tour was supposed to be the Grateful Dead, which would have been amazing. However, they backed out at the last minute and the much less well known band Stoneground took its place. But Bob Matthews (the one mentioned above with the treasure trove of bootleg recordings) was a sound engineer for the Dead at the time, so that's how he came to be involved. 

The concert tour went ahead as planned, but it was a fiasco. The film crew was French, and they barely spoke English, so there were a lot of problems with that right there. But it seems they also were hippies who soon discovered LSD and other drugs. Apparently, they were high and incompetent nearly the entire tour. The film the shot was a mess. Martin Scorsese was brought in to try to make something out of the footage. He would later go on to become a very famous movie director, but his movie career was just getting started. He was chosen because he'd been an editor on the "Woodstock" movie mentioned above. He tried his best for many months, but the original movie was so bad that there wasn't much he could do. The movie came out in 1971 under the name "Medicine Ball Caravan," but it was a flop and was quickly forgotten. 

A soundtrack came out at the same time, but it was rather short, with a mix of live versions from the tour and some previously released studio versions. It had a few good moments, especially a couple of live songs by B.B. King, but it lacked big names. It was a quickly forgotten flop as well.

However, the tour definitely had some musical highlights. As far as I can tell, there were only about half a dozen concerts across the U.S. But in addition to Stoneground, each concert tended to have other musical acts join in. Some acts that played sets at one of the concerts include Van Morrison, B.B. King, Doug Kershaw, Hot Tuna, and Alice Cooper. Some accounts say Joni Mitchell played a set, but I haven't seen any evidence of this at the official Joni Mitchell website, which has thorough details of all her concerts. So I'm not sure of that, but it's an exciting possibility. Furthermore, just today as I write this in mid-September 2026, the person releasing the Bob Matthews bootlegs released the Van Morrison set from a concert in Ohio that was part of this tour. That suggests to me that Matthews was involved in recording part or all of the whole tour, so we may have other great previously unheard music from it to look forward to.

That finally brings me to this concert. For some reason, after having a few concerts across the U.S., the idea was to have one final Medicine Ball Caravan concert in Britain. Stoneground came over from the U.S. to play in it, but most of the other bands were British. In my opinion, it was a pretty impressive line-up: the Faces, Al Stewart, Mott the Hoople, Edgar Broughton, Caravan, Shawn Phillips, and some lesser known bands like Daddy Longlegs, Silver Meter, and Formerly Fat Harry. The headliner was Pink Floyd! Already as I write this, sets from the Faces, Al Stewart, Mott the Hoople, and Stoneground have been released from the Bob Matthews collection in recent days. Apparently, most of the rest exists and is coming soon (with only two missing reels), including the Pink Floyd set! The curator of the collection, Charlie Miller, has posted a photo of all the Pink Floyd reels. That's very exciting for Pink Floyd fans because there are no known audio recordings of this Pink Floyd set, not even any with terrible sound quality. But this recording will be a pristine soundboard!

This entire concert was "professionally filmed" in order to be used in the movie. Although it was done by the same French film crew mentioned above, so I use the word "professionally" very loosely. However, for some reason, none of the footage from this concert made it into the movie. Perhaps the bands didn't give their permission and/or the film crew completely messed it up. I wonder if the footage still exists, and if so, will it ever be made public. (So far, there's no mention of the Bob Matthews collection containing video, only audio.)

Here's a good article about the entire Medicine Ball Caravan story:

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/medicine-ball-caravan/

And here's a fan site that has collected accounts about this concert by people who attended it:

https://www.ukrockfestivals.com/medicine-ball-caravan.html

From that, I learned only about 800 people attended the concert, despite the impressive line-up. In part, that was due to the fact that it took place on the same weekend as the 1970 Isle of Wight concert, which had many more big name music acts and was attended by about half a million people. But I don't think that disappointed the people who put on the concert very much, because they chose a venue that only held about 1,500 people anyway. I think their main intention was to get good film footage, not sell a lot of tickets.  

It's great that we have this previously unknown and unheard Faces recording, because there are very few concert recordings with this sound quality from this early in their career. They had only released one album so far, "First Step." Lead singer Rod Stewart wasn't a big star yet. In fact, they were so little known that they were still billed as the Small Faces for this concert, even though they'd changed their name and lead singers in 1969. 

Here's what one attendee said about this Faces performance: "The big surprise was The Faces. They stumbled on stage dressed in their purple velvet suits. I think Rod Stewart's suit was white velvet. Within ten minutes they tore the place apart with a truly brilliant set."

This recordings sounds fantastic, but it had one big problem: very little of the audience cheering could be heard. Luckily though, there was some there, just very quiet. I used the MVSEP program to split the songs into crowd noise and everything else, then I massively increased the volume of the crowd cheering at the ends of songs. It sounds like normal crowd responses now, although you can still tell they were playing to a pretty small crowd.

I'm going to keep posting all the good music from this festival as it comes out. The Mott the Hoople set is coming next. I don't know the order of the music acts, nor do I know just what still might come out. Perhaps when it's all made public I'll rename them a bit and put them in some chronological order. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 I Don't Want to Discuss It (Faces)
02 talk (Faces)
03 Maybe I'm Amazed (Faces)
04 talk (Faces)
05 Devotion (Faces)
06 talk (Faces)
07 Around the Plynth (Faces)
08 Gasoline Alley (Faces)
09 Around the Plynth [Reprise] (Faces)
10 talk (Faces)
11 It's All Over Now (Faces)
12 I Feel So Good (Faces)

 https://pixeldrain.com/u/25Gbqoib

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/il9Vw8oTy3M1p4C/file

The cover image is from an unknown concert in 1970. We can tell it's not this one though, since the clothes don't match the description of the eyewitness account mentioned above. The original was in black and white, but I used the Ask Gemini program to colorize it. From right to left: Rod Stewart (he's crouched way down in light blue pants), Ronnie Lane, and Ronnie Wood.

Al Stewart - Medicine Ball Caravan, Charlton Park, Bishopsbourn, Britain, 8-31-1970

This is an extraordinary concert recording if you're an Al Stewart fan. But even if you're not, you should read this write-up, because this hopefully is the start of something really big and great in the world of bootleg recordings. So let me explain that first, and then I'll talk about this specific recording.

Last week (as I write this in mid-September 2026), I posted a 1970 Jefferson Airplane concert, which had never been publicly available with that sound quality before. I mentioned that it sounded like that could be the start of a really big leak of hundreds of high quality bootlegs from long ago. Since then, I've learned a lot more about this. I want to share this with you, because it has the potential to be the best news when it comes to bootlegs in decades!

The key to all this is a person named Bob Matthews. He was a key member of the support staff for the Grateful Dead. He went to high school with band member Bob Weir, and because the band's first roadie, back in 1966. From all the way back then, he got involved with recording the band. He stayed associated with the Dead in various roles all the way through the mid-1980s. I guess around that time he drifted away and got involved with some telecommunications job. He died in 2021.

But he was not just involved with the Dead; he had musical links to many other bands. For instance, he was a sound engineer on various Dead albums from "Aoxomoxoa" in 1969 to "Go to Heaven" in 1980, but he also worked on albums by New Riders of the Purple Sage, Hot Tuna, Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, Stoneground, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Barry Melton, and others. He even was a bass player in New Riders of the Purple Sage in 1969. He also had a key role in a company called Alembic, which started in 1969 and made high-end electronic equipment and musical instruments for many famous musicians. In short, this is someone who was a very connected insider in the music industry.

Recently, another person with many long-time links to the Dead, Charlie Miller, was given custody of Matthews' bootleg recordings, which Miller says number about 1,000 concerts. A lot of those are of the Dead, but apparently a majority are not. Miller is working with some other people to release all of this material to the public for free. He started a few weeks ago, and so far he has released about 20 recordings. If you want to see these as they come out, he has a Facebook page where he is posting download links called "Charlie Miller's Google Drive Links." I've noticed not everything he releases comes out there, actually, but most do. Some others are getting posted at the Guitars101 bootleg sharing site.

So far, here are the musical acts that he has released bootlegs for: the Grateful Dead, the Joy of Cooking, Jefferson Airplane, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Mickey Hart, the Faces, Al Stewart (this recording), Stoneground, Mott the Hoople, and the Youngbloods. Most of them so far are from 1970, and a lot of them are from a small Bay Area concert venue called the Family Dog on the Great Highway, which was only in existence from 1969 to 1970. We don't know what else Miller has and plans on releasing. He's only dropped a few hints. But I've looked at the musical acts that played at the Family Dog on the Great Highway at that time, and it's an intriguing list that includes multiple shows by the Kinks, the Velvet Underground, the Steve Miller Band, Canned Heat, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), It's a Beautiful Day, Elvin Bishop, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Commander Cody, Albert Collins, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and many, many more. The idea of getting pristine, previously unknown soundboard concert recordings from the likes of these bands after all this time boggles my mind! 

And that's just one possible lead. Probably, most of the music is related to the Dead and the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. But a lot of bands from all over the world passed through there. One thing I found out is that Matthews was involved in the recording of the infamous Altamont festival in 1969, headlined by the Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others. He is said to have had soundboard recordings of that entire festival, which he would sometimes play for visitors to his house. A few years ago, a soundboard of the Flying Burritos Bros. set from that festival somehow became available. Perhaps it was an early leak from the Matthews trove?

So if you like music from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, the time Matthews was involved in the music industry, hold on to your hats. Hopefully, there will be a steady release of hundreds of recordings in the months and years to come. I'm going to try to select the ones that interest me the most, make further edits if need be, and post them here. Normally, previously unknown recordings of this sound quality from this era are made public once in a blue moon. But so far, Charlie Miller seems to be releasing something new every couple of days!

This Al Stewart concert was part of a 1970 rock festival in England called the "Medicine Ball Caravan." In fact, there was an entire tour by that name that year. There's a long, tangled story about the tour and this concert in it, so I'll save that for the write-up of the next album from it.

Since this write-up is getting too long already, let me finally focus on this recording. The sound quality is fantastic, which is mind-blowing for its era. I'm pretty sure this now becomes the earliest publicly available concert recording by Stewart period, unless you count short radio and TV performances. In 2022, Stewart released a massive box set called "The Admiralty Lights," which was over 50 CDs in size. I'm sure this would have been included had Stewart had access to it back in 2022. That indicates to me that Matthews sat on his trove of recordings until his death, so nobody really knows what other treasures may be hidden in there, other than maybe Charlie Miller and a few people working with him now to get them to the public.

But this recording had a noticeable flaw, which was that there was almost no audible crowd noise. As I've said in other write-ups, this is a common problem for soundboards when they record everything on stage very well, but at the expense of capturing cheering from the crowd. Luckily, there was a little crowd noise. So I used the MVSEP program on all the songs to bring it up to a reasonable level.

This album is 33 minutes long. 

01 Electric Los Angeles Sunset (Al Stewart)
02 talk (Al Stewart)
03 Old Compton Street Blues (Al Stewart)
04 talk (Al Stewart)
05 In Brooklyn (Al Stewart)
06 talk (Al Stewart)
07 Zero She Flies (Al Stewart)
08 talk (Al Stewart)
09 Small Fruit Song (Al Stewart)
10 talk (Al Stewart)
11 Maybe Someday She Will Come Along (Al Stewart)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5zmYzYi3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/SUVxJqLqlXmjp1f/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Marquee club in London in June 1972. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Ask Gemini program. For the unusual font type, I got the text at the top from a poster of the movie made about the Medicine Ball Caravan. (That's a long story in and of itself.) I then had Ask Gemini make the rest of the tricky font in the same style.

Gregson & Collister - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1985-1989

I feel a little silly, because I just posted the first Gregson and Collister BBC album a couple of weeks ago (as I write this in mid-September 2026), and already I have to rename that one from "Volume 1" to "Volume 2." That's because this is a collection of different BBC sessions, and after I posted that album, a commenter pointed out a 1985 session I'd previously missed. So that made this one start at an earlier year than the 1987 concert I've posted. Thus, the second BBC album I'm posting from them is "Volume 1."

Here's a link to that other volume, so you hopefully don't get even more confused by having two BBC albums by this duo called "Volume 1." 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2026/09/gregson-collister-bbc-sessions-volume-1.html

Anyway, that 1985 session mentioned above opens this album with two songs, and it's a very interesting one. I'm pretty sure it was recorded (for the BBC TV show "Old Grey Whistle Test") before Gregson and Collister officially became a duo with that song. Instead, they were members of Richard Thompson's backup band, and those two songs were performed by that band, including some nice lead guitar interplay between Gregson and Thompson.

Tracks 3 through 8 comes from a 1988 BBC "In Concert" radio broadcast. I put it here instead of making a separate volume for it because it's only 20 minutes long. It happens to contain "Home Is Where the Heart Is," which also was played in the 1985 session discussed in the previous paragraph. I changed the song order some so those two versions wouldn't be so close to each other.

Tracks 9 through 11 are from a 1989 BBC studio session. I don't know anything about it except it's supposed to be dated March 3, 1989. If anyone knows more, please let me know.

The remaining tracks, 12 through 18, are from another 1989 BBC studio session. More details can be seen in the mp3 tags.

I believe everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 Home Is Where the Heart Is (Gregson & Collister with Richard Thompson)
02 Open Fire (Gregson & Collister with Richard Thompson)
03 This Tender Trap (Gregson & Collister)
04 You Rascal You (Gregson & Collister)
05 I Specialise (Gregson & Collister)
06 talk (Gregson & Collister)
07 How Weak I Am (Gregson & Collister)
08 Home Is Where the Heart Is (Gregson & Collister)
09 Blues on the Run (Gregson & Collister)
10 Everybody Cheats on You (Gregson & Collister)
11 This Is the Deal (Gregson & Collister)
12 Blessing in Disguise (Gregson & Collister)
13 Trying to Get You (Gregson & Collister)
14 The Minute You're Gone (Gregson & Collister)
15 talk (Gregson & Collister)
16 Here I Go Again (Gregson & Collister)
17 talk (Gregson & Collister)
18 I Shake (Gregson & Collister)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Gmv44CNm 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bQvbfyWKBsT6lfb/file

The cover photo comes from a concert at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in January 1989.

Squeeze - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 11-29-2017

Here's another concert from the leak of soundboard bootlegs from the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester in April 2026. I've been processing a lot of these, so I should be posting many more soon, knock on wood. This one features the British band Squeeze.

In October 2017, Squeeze released the studio album "The Knowledge." It got positive reviews from critics. For instance, allmusic.com calls it "a masterly latter-day work." As expected, there a few songs from this album mixed in with older classics.

Happily for me, the version I found already had the music broken up into separate tracks, so I didn't have to do much except mark off the talking tracks. The sound quality is excellent, but keep in mind all the recordings from the big leak mentioned above are in mono. 

This album is an hour and 41 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Squeeze)
02 Please Be Upstanding (Squeeze)
03 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell] (Squeeze)
04 talk (Squeeze)
05 Patchouli (Squeeze)
06 Hourglass (Squeeze)
07 Final Score (Squeeze)
08 talk (Squeeze)
09 Rough Ride (Squeeze)
10 Annie Get Your Gun (Squeeze)
11 Innocence in Paradise (Squeeze)
12 talk (Squeeze)
13 Cradle to the Grave (Squeeze)
14 Nirvana (Squeeze)
15 Cool for Cats (Squeeze)
16 Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
17 Departure Lounge (Squeeze)
18 talk (Squeeze)
19 Albatross (Squeeze)
20 Take Me, I'm Yours (Squeeze)
21 Tempted (Squeeze)
22 Wicked and Cruel (Squeeze)
23 Goodbye Girl (Squeeze)
24 Up the Junction (Squeeze)
25 If I Didn't Love You (Squeeze)
26 Slap and Tickle (Squeeze)
27 talk (Squeeze)
28 Is That Love (Squeeze)
29 Black Coffee in Bed (Squeeze)
30 Band Introductions - Black Coffee in Bed [Reprise] (Squeeze)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZhUzecTb

alternate

https://bestfile.io/en/zjykbOEAvkG8yLl/file

The cover image of lead singer Glenn Tilbrook is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. 

Tim Hardin - Balladeers, WTBS-FM Studios, Cambridge, MA, 1-1963

Every now and then, I come across a really excellent sounding bootleg from the early 1960s. I treasure these, because they're like little miracles, since so little was recorded well and survived from back then (outside a few big names, especially the Beatles and Bob Dylan). I've posted a few like that, such as recordings from Jorma Kaukonen in 1964 and Jackie DeShannon in 1963. Here's another one like that. It's singer-songwriter Tim Hardin performing solo acoustic for a radio show in the Boston area called "Balladeers."

Hardin started his career as a folksinger in 1961, mostly living in New York City or Boston. He slowly established himself, but he wouldn't release his first studio album until 1966. However, some early recordings would later be released after he got famous as the albums "Tim Hardin 4" and "This Is Time Hardin." There's a lot of overlap between the songs on those albums and the ones performed here, but some differences too, with some unique songs here.

Most of the songs are covers, and they're generally more bluesy than his originals that made him famous (like "Reason to Believe" and "If I Were a Carpenter"). But there are a few originals here too, such as "Danville Dame," "Whiskey, Whiskey," and "Go Bum Again." By the way, "Go Bum Again" is one of those here that don't seem to have ever been officially released in any form.

There was one problem with this bootleg recording when I found it, and that was lot of hiss. Lots and lots. But I managed to get rid of nearly all of that, thanks to the MVSEP program. Now, this sounds almost as good as those other early recordings that got officially released, such as "Tim Hardin 4."

As far as I can tell, everything here remains officially unreleased. However, there are some "grey market" release of this performance (meaning bootlegs sold as if they were legit releases) under names like "In Session 1963" and "The Early Blues."  

This album is 36 minutes long. 

01 You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover (Tim Hardin)
02 Hesitation Blues (Tim Hardin)
03 talk (Tim Hardin)
04 Danville Dame (Tim Hardin)
05 Crossroads Blues (Tim Hardin)
06 Hoochie Coochie Man (Tim Hardin)
07 House of the Rising Sun (Tim Hardin)
08 talk (Tim Hardin)
09 Whiskey, Whiskey (Tim Hardin)
10 Instrumental (Tim Hardin)
11 Railroad Worksong - When You Hear the Cuckoos Hollerin' (Tim Hardin)
12 Go Bum Again (Tim Hardin)
13 Rocky Mountain Woman Blues (Tim Hardin)
14 Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad (Tim Hardin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sTcnwmsi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6J1lRA32WLVMkbI/file

The cover image shows Hardin in a recording studio around 1965 or 1966. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it.

Crosby, Stills and Nash - The Forum, Los Angeles, CA, 6-29-1977

The short version is that there has never been a good sounding concert recording of Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN) from their pivotal 1977 tour. But now there is. That's not due to a newly revealed recording. I took a pre-existing one and upgraded it with lots of audio editing. In my opinion, this now sounds as good as a typical soundboard from that era, or at least close to it.

I've been a big CSN (and sometimes Y) fan for many years. In my opinion, there are worthy concert recordings from all of their important years except for 1977. In terms of soundboards, two songs, "(He Play Real Good for Free)" and "Shadow Captain" were released on the 1983 official live album "Allies." That was because around 1983 Crosby was in a bad way due to drug addiction, so they had to go back to an earlier time to get some really good live recordings with him singing lead vocals. Those two songs are from a concert in Houston. There are live versions of some other songs from that same 1977 Houston concert on YouTube, but only part of a show. I wanted an entire show, with all the songs in the correct order. I kept an eye out for a worthy one for many years, but to no avail. There was one audience bootleg that was pretty decent, but it only included about 2/3rds of the concert.

I was aware of another audience bootleg from 1977 that was a full concert. It was Mike Millard, who was a reknowned bootleg taper. But, like most audience boots, it had many issues: too much echo/reverb, lots of hiss, crowd noise during songs, and so on. However, it occurred to me that, due to the advances in audio editing technology in recent years, I could probably get this one to sound good if I worked on it enough. 

So that's what I did, because I really, really wanted a good recording from this tour. I worked more on editing this than nearly anything else I've posted here. I ran every song through the MVSEP program at least three times, sometimes more. I also used Adobe's speech enhancer on all the talking tracks. But in the end, I got the result I was looking for.

I was particularly interested to hear songs from the band's 1977 album "CSN." It was the first CSN album since their debut "Crosby, Stills and Nash" in 1969. After "Deja Vu" as CSNY in 1970, CSN just couldn't get their act together enough to put out another album as a group, either with or without Y - Neil Young. But in 1976, Stills got divorced. After grieving, he quit drinking and focused on music with a passion he hadn't shown for years. he was the driving force behind the "CSN" album, which I think is excellent. It's actually their best selling album as a trio, even narrowly outselling their debut one. 

I was hoping for a lot of songs from their "CSN" album. Unfortunately, not that many, just four: "Just a Song Before I Go," "Cathedral," "Shadow Captain," and "I Give You Give Blind." The album was released only a few weeks earlier, so they may have figured the audience didn't know the songs that well. I was especially hoping for versions of "See the Changes" and "Dark Star," but I checked at setlist.com and there were many concerts this year where those weren't played. Oh well. At least there were a couple of nice rarities, especially "King of the Mountain," which never made it onto an album in the 1970s, and "As I Come of Age."

The three of them were firing on all cylinders for this album and tour. Unfortunately, that wouldn't last. Soon thereafter, Crosby's drug addictions got worse and worse, so they didn't tour much until they put out a new album in 1982. Even then, Crosby's participation was the bare minimum. He wouldn't get cleaned up until he was forced to spend a year in prison in the mid-1980s. That's a big reason why I wanted a live recording from 1977, because they wouldn't be really good again as a trio until about a decade later.

There's only one song with "[Edit]" in its title, even though I made a zillion edits overall. That one is singled out because the beginning of the song, including the first line of vocals, was missing. I filled it in using another recording from that year (from Lakeland, Florida).

Here's a great article about the 1977 CSN reunion, published earlier the same month as this concert:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-actual-honest-to-god-reunion-of-crosby-stills-and-nash-63934/

This album is two hours and 18 minutes long.

01 Pre-Road Downs [Edit] (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
02 The Lee Shore (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
03 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
04 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
05 I Used to Be a King (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
06 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
07 Just a Song Before I Go (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
08 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
09 Shadow Captain (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
10 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
11 Turn Back the Pages (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
12 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
13 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
14 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
15 You Don't Have to Cry (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
16 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
17 Guinnevere (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
18 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
19 Our House (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
20 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
21 Cathedral (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
22 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
23 King of the Mountain (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
24 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
25 Crossroads - You Can't Catch Me (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
26 4 + 20 (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
27 As I Come of Age (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
28 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
29 Helplessly Hoping (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
30 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
31 Blackbird (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
32 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
33 Critical Mass - Wind on the Water (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
34 Deja Vu (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
35 I Give You Give Blind (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
36 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
37 Military Madness (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
38 Carry On (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
39 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
40 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
41 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills & Nash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2Ce6Vs9i

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vQ6zcy4Dc1PPOTg/file

The cover image comes from a concert at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, on October 22, 1977. It was in color already, but just barely. I used the AI program Ask Gemini to improve the color and the details.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison & Ringo Starr - Solo Rockers, Volume 3 (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the third and last album compiling the best rockers from the solo careers of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Once again put together by Mike Solof (with some suggestions from me). 

There's one more best ballads album coming. Then, since McCartney has so much solo career, and his heart keeps on ticking, there's another album of extra rockers from him, and another of extra ballads. (On top of that, you'll also notice slightly more songs from him on these other albums too.)

Most of the songs here come from studio albums. There are a couple of exceptions though. "Soily" is a great McCartney rocker from his Wings years. He put out a live version, but no studio version. The version here is an unreleased studio take. Also, "I'm Losing You" and "Cleanup Time" were both included on Lennon's 1980 album "Double Fantasy." However, these are special remixes done by Mike. Oh, and the last song is an unusual one. "Givin' Grease a Ride" originally appeared on a 1974 album by Mike McGear, McCartney's brother. But Mike (Solof) did another edit to remove McGear and focus on McCartney's participation on it. McCartney co-wrote it, and the backing band on the recording was Wings. 

This album is 59 minutes long. 

31 Soily [Take 7] (Paul McCartney)
32 Goodnight Vienna (Ringo Starr)
33 I'm Losing You [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
34 Old Siam, Sir (Paul McCartney)
35 Any Road (George Harrison)
36 Cleanup Time [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
37 Spin It On (Paul McCartney)
38 It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr)
39 Sue Me, Sue You Blues (George Harrison)
40 House of Wax (Paul McCartney)
41 Whatever Gets You thru the Night (John Lennon)
42 Any Road (George Harrison)
43 Home to Us (Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr)
44 Drowning in the Sea of Love (Ringo Starr)
45 Givin' Grease a Ride [Wings Only Version] [Mike's Mix 2025] (Mike McGear with Paul McCartney and Wings) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nNBttgVC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/d5Oeosromzuc9dy/file

The cover is another imagines Beatles reunion image that Mike asked an AI program to make. I pointed out to him that it was odd if the crowd was behind the Beatles, but Mike pointed out it could have been a stage in the center of the crowd. 

Stephen Stills & Manassas - Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 10-7-1973

Back in 2018, I posted a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) concert is very closely linked to this one, taking place just three days earlier at the same venue. I'll explain more about that shortly. I was certain that I had posted this album at the same time. However, recently I was updating broken links, and I noticed there was no link for this album. I looked closer, and realized I'd never posted it. So better late than ever.

Manassas was a band led by Stephen Stills of CSNY. But included many other great musicians, especially Chris Hillman, formerly of the Byrds, who wrote and sang lead vocals on some songs. The idea was this would be Stills' main band for many years. They released the cleverly titled "Manassas" in 1972 and "Down the Road" in 1973. CSNY had been apart since late 1970. But around the time of this concert, they began getting back together.

A concert taking place on October 4, 1973 was billed as a Manassas concert. But CSNY basically crashed the band's first set and played a bunch of songs acoustically, which meant they didn't need Manassas to back them up. That reunion a very big deal in the music world. CSNY had been called the "American Beatles" and had sold zillions of albums, way more than Manassas. Chris Hillman later commented that this was the night he realized the future of Manassas was done, due to Stills naturally wanting to rejoin the much more popular CSNY. It would turn out Hillman was right. Manassas would break up not long after this, after they played a few more concerts to finish their tour.

Here's the link to the CSNY set (mostly) from that concert:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/crosby-stills-nash-young-winterland.html

However, "the show must go on." Despite being upstaged by the CSNY reunion, Stills and the rest of Manassas still had their second set to perform. But it must have been frustrating and bittersweet for them (except for Stills). Their encore, "Daylight Again - Find the Cost of Freedom," was performed by Manassas and CSNY together. That may have been awkward. By the way, I've included that song on both album, since it was both a CSNY performance and a Manassas one.

Then, three days later, on this date, October 7, 1973, the whole process repeated itself. CSNY performed another set in the middle of another Manassas concert at this same venue. For whatever reason, I believe only the Manassas set from this date is available, so that's what I'm posting here. This apparently includes everything that was performed except for the songs with just CSNY. As for CSNY, the album I've posted from them consists mostly from their October 4, 1973 concert, with a few different songs from October 7th added in.

At least some of two concerts were professionally filmed for some reason, and I think this one was broadcast live on the radio as well. That's why we have a recording with soundboard-level sound quality. I don't believe the film footage has been officially released in any way, but you can find it on YouTube. 

This album is an hour and 18 minutes long.

01 Song of Love (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
02 Rock and Roll Crazies (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
03 Jet Set [Sigh] (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
04 Anyway (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
05 So You Want to Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
06 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
07 Johnny's Garden (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
08 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
09 Go Back Home (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
10 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
11 Six Days on the Road (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
12 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
13 Safe at Home (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
14 Fallen Eagle (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
15 Hide It So Deep (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
16 You're Still on My Mind (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
17 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
18 Pensamiento (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
19 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
20 49 Bye-Byes - Drum Solo (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
21 For What It's Worth (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
22 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
23 Lies (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
24 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
25 The Treasure - Carry On (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
26 talk (Stephen Stills & Manassas)
27 Daylight Again - Find the Cost of Freedom (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young & Manassas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1zBra6Q8

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/bW21m9x5dzPVqrJ/file

The cover image is taken from a video of this exact concert. I used Ask Gemini to add to the detail level.

Jefferson Airplane - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 9-14-1970

It's been many decades since what a consider a musical golden era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. You'd think that after all this time, all of the really excellent bootlegs would have either been leaked to the public or keep unaccessible in musician and/or record company vaults. But that's not so, and this recording is another good example. I found this on a bootleg site (Guitars101). It was made public there for the very first time as I write this in mid-September 2026. What's encouraging is the person who posted it said they'd recently gotten a bunch of recordings from a friend, and this is one of them. So hopefully there will be more like these. This is a really excellent previously unknown soundboard of Jefferson Airplane in 1970.

By the way, the people who posted this (David Minches and Charlie Miller) also posted a soundboard recording of Jefferson Airplane in the same venue the very next day, September 15, 1970. I decided to only post this one because they have very similar setlists. But you might want to download the other one at Guitars101. I picked this one because I had a slight preference for the few songs that were different. Most notably, this was the only one with a performance of "Starship."

In 1970, at the time of this concert, Jefferson Airplane was coming apart. They were using a lot of drugs, especially cocaine, and the band members were having increasing conflicts with each other. The drummer, Spencer Dryden, was fired from the band in February 1970, and was replaced by Joey Covington. More importantly, Marty Balin, a key singer and songwriter in the band, was increasingly estranged from the other band members. He would quit the band in early 1971.

The band didn't release a new album in 1970, the first time that happened since it got started in 1966. They only released a single, "Mexico" backed by "Have You Seen the Saucers," both of which were performed here. But their record company released a popular greatest hits album, "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane," so they were touring to support that.

However, the band had come up with a bunch of new songs that were unreleased at the time. Some of them were performed here: "Emergency," written by Balin, "Up or Down," sung by Balin but written by Peter Kaukonen, brother of lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, "You Wear Your Dress Too Short," a blues cover sung by Malin, "Whatever The Old Man Does (Is Always Right)" by Covington, and "The Man (The Bludgeon of the Bluecoat)," also by Covington. When the band finally released their next album, "Bark," in 1971, none of those songs were included. The Balin-sung songs weren't included because he had left the band by then. I don't know why the two Covington-sung ones weren't included. Maybe he wasn't important enough in the band, being merely the new drummer, or maybe they weren't deemed good enough. Either way, it's interesting to hear them here. 

Additionally, the song "Starship" performed here is from the album "Blows Against the Empire." It was released about a month after this concert. Technically, it was billed to "Paul Kantner and the Jefferson Starship." That the first use of the name "Jefferson Starship." The name would return into 1974, replacing "Jefferson Airplane." Although it was billed as a Kantner solo album, it also had lots of involvement from Grace Slick, who wrote or co-wrote some songs, and sang lead vocals on many of them. 

I noticed that there's a version of "Blows Against the Empire" with some bonus tracks. One of them is the exact version of "Starship." I think it's the only officially released song from this concert.

Also at this time, two band members, lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady, had formed their own spin-off group, "Hot Tuna." Since they were on friendly terms with other band members, Hot Tuna often served as the opening acts to Jefferson Airplane concerts, or there would be a Hot Tuna section in the middle. For this concert, the first four songs are effectively a mini Hot Tuna set.

As I mentioned above, this is an excellent sounding soundboard. However, I think I improved it still further. It had one problem that is common to excellent sounding soundboards: they record what happened on stage wonderfully, but don't get much of the crowd cheering. That was very much the case here. So I ran every single song through the MVSEP program, boosting the cheering dramatically at the end of each song. Now, it sounds like a normal concert, with the expected amount of audience reaction.

It sounds like the recording for about the first thirty seconds or so of "We Can Be Together" was wonky. I improved it a bit, but most of it was beyond my ability to fix.  

This album is two hours and 19 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
02 Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (Jefferson Airplane)
03 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
04 New Song [For the Morning] (Jefferson Airplane)
05 Been So Long (Jefferson Airplane)
06 Hesitation Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
07 We Can Be Together (Jefferson Airplane)
08 Mexico (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Crown of Creation (Jefferson Airplane)
10 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
11 Whatever the Old Man Does [Is Always Right] (Jefferson Airplane)
12 The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil (Jefferson Airplane)
13 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
14 Emergency (Jefferson Airplane)
15 Come Back Baby (Jefferson Airplane)
16 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
17 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)
18 Wooden Ships (Jefferson Airplane)
19 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
20 Up or Down (Jefferson Airplane)
21 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
22 Have You Seen the Saucers (Jefferson Airplane)
23 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
24 The Man [Bludgeon of a Bluecoat] (Jefferson Airplane)
25 The Other Side of This Life (Jefferson Airplane)
26 Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane)
27 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
28 Greasy Heart (Jefferson Airplane)
29 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
30 You Wear Your Dress Too Short (Jefferson Airplane)
31 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
32 Freight Train [Instrumental Version] (Jefferson Airplane)
33 Starship (Jefferson Airplane)
34 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
35 3-5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds (Jefferson Airplane) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/g3L7yzZm

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iWjtOF0HNrB7dqw/file

The cover image shows a concert in Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan, on May 24, 1970. From left to right: Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, Grace Slick, and Marty Balin.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison & Ringo Starr - Solo Ballads, Volume 2 (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here is the second out of three albums where guest poster Mike Solof gathered together ballads from the solo careers of the Beatles. 

Since this is a collection of released songs, I don't have much to say. You can find more sourcing details in the mp3 tags. Also, Mike has included a list of the source albums in his PDF file added to the download zip. 

All of the songs are the official studio album versions, with the exception of "Run of the Mill," which is an unreleased demo version. However, when it comes to putting a ballads album like this Mike noticed a lot of the Beatles solo career songs tended to be more of the rocking variety. So, for five of the songs here, Mike made mixes to make these, well, more ballad-esque. Those are the ones with "[Mike's Mix 2026]" in their titles.

This album is 48 minutes long.

15 Somedays (Paul McCartney)
16 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] (George Harrison)
17 Bless You (John Lennon)
18 Heal the Pain (Paul McCartney & George Michael)
19 Grow Old with Me [Mike's Mix 2026] (Ringo Starr)
20 Run of the Mill [Demo] (George Harrison)
21 Tomorrow (Paul McCartney)
22 Beautiful Boy [Darling Boy] (John Lennon)
23 Only You [Mike's Mix 2026] (Ringo Starr)
24 Footprints (Paul McCartney)
25 Woman [Mike's Mix 2023] (John Lennon)
26 Golden Blunders (Ringo Starr)
27 Days We Left Behind (Paul McCartney)
28 Grow Old with Me [Mike's Mix 2023] (John Lennon)
29 Just for Today [Mike's Mix] (George Harrison)
30 Jenny Wren (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1CCu6UDj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/9EfenBAkeihKu2n/file

The cover is more AI art Mike found on the Internet. He likes those more than I do. All the ones in this ballads series have the same style.

St. Vincent - Cover Versions, Volume 3: 2022-2026

Here's the third and final album of cover versions by singer-songwriter St. Vincent. Once again, a big thanks to musical friend Lil Panda for coming up with the idea and helping to put this together.

This time, the vast majority of the songs are unreleased versions, usually from concert bootlegs. The only officially released ones are the first three tracks, plus track 7. As usual, consult the mp3 tags for more sourcing details.

Also, if you think her version of "Running Up That Hill" sounds remarkably similar to the original by Kate Bush, that's because it's St. Vincent's vocals added to the instrumentation of the original. 

Even though most of the songs come from bootlegs, the sound quality is generally excellent. 

This album is 50 minutes long.

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

01 Funkytown - Lipps, Inc.
02 Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney
03 Piggy - Nine Inch Nails
04 You Still Believe in Me - Beach Boys
05 Glory Box - Portishead
06 Running Up That Hill [A Deal with God] - Kate Bush
07 Pain for Fun - Willow
08 Breed - Nirvana
09 Lush Life - Billy Strayhorn
10 Young Americans - David Bowie
11 Grace - Jeff Buckley
12 Poses -  Rufus Wainwright

Here's the usual song list: 

01 Funkytown (St. Vincent)
02 Dig Me Out (St. Vincent)
03 Piggy (St. Vincent)
04 You Still Believe in Me (St. Vincent)
05 Glory Box (St. Vincent with the Roots)
06 Running Up That Hill [A Deal with God] [Live Vocals Only] (St. Vincent)
07 Pain for Fun (Willow & St. Vincent)
08 Breed (Nirvana & St. Vincent)
09 Lush Life (St. Vincent)
10 Young Americans (St. Vincent)
11 Grace (St. Vincent)
12 Poses (St. Vincent)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qC5AUHT6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I9hBSLrxczpAHCS/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Chase Center in San Francisco, on September 26, 2022.

Jesse Winchester - Bottom Line, New York City, 5-1-1977

I've been wanting to post a Jesse Winchester concert for years. But I wanted it to be a really good one, and one that includes the song "Biloxi." That's my favorite song of his. I finally found a bootleg recording that checks both of those boxes, so here it is.

Winchester was born and raised in the South of the U.S., specifically Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. But in 1966, when he was 18, he received a draft notice that indicated he was likely to serve in the Vietnam War. He reacted by moving to Montreal, Canada. Shortly after moving there, he began writing songs and performing them in local clubs. In 1970, he was discovered by Robbie Robertson of the Band, who produced his debut album, the cleverly titled "Jesse Winchester." It was very well received critically, and more albums followed. 

However, his success was hobbled by the fact that he couldn't perform in the U.S., since he was still avoiding the draft. But in 1976, with the Vietnam War over, U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardoned all draft resisters, including Winchester. So this concert comes from the first year he was able to perform anywhere in the U.S. since his music career began.

He died in 2014, at the age of 69. Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more: 

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

This is an excellent sounding recording because it was broadcast live on the radio. It remains unreleased. There were problems with a couple of songs though, including my favorite, "Biloxi," as well as "Let the Rough Side Drag." There were a couple of minor skips on both. But I managed to fix them. That's why those two have "[Edit]" in their titles. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 talk (Jesse Winchester)
02 Payday (Jesse Winchester)
03 talk (Jesse Winchester)
04 Tell Me Why Did You Like Roosevelt (Jesse Winchester)
05 Bowling Green (Jesse Winchester)
06 Midnight Bus (Jesse Winchester)
07 talk (Jesse Winchester)
08 Biloxi [Edit] (Jesse Winchester)
09 talk (Jesse Winchester)
10 Let the Rough Side Drag [Edit] (Jesse Winchester)
11 talk (Jesse Winchester)
12 Indian Killed the Woodcock - The Sugarfoot Rag [Instrumental] (Jesse Winchester)
13 talk (Jesse Winchester)
14 Seems like Only Yesterday (Jesse Winchester)
15 talk (Jesse Winchester)
16 My Songbird (Jesse Winchester)
17 Black Dog (Jesse Winchester)
18 Mississippi You're on My Mind (Jesse Winchester)
19 talk (Jesse Winchester)
20 Twigs and Seeds (Jesse Winchester)
21 Rhumba Man (Jesse Winchester)
22 Isn't That So (Jesse Winchester)
23 Yankee Lady (Jesse Winchester)
24 talk (Jesse Winchester)
25 I Can't Stand Up Alone (Jesse Winchester)
26 The Brand New Tennessee Waltz (Jesse Winchester)
27 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Jesse Winchester)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KGS39x2g

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rQuFHiHR8NRlNpb/file

The cover image is not from this exact concert, but it's close. It's from the same venue, but seven days later, on May 7, 1977. Probably, he was playing a series of consecutive shows.

St. Vincent - Cover Versions, Volume 2: 2016-2021

Here's a second volume of covers performed by singer-songwriter St. Vincent (a.k.a. Annie Clark). 

This volume is evenly split between officially released and unreleased. Tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, and 16 are the officially released ones. Check out the mp3 tags for each song for specific details about where they come from. 

The others generally come from concert bootlegs, or in-person radio station appearances, or the like. Again, check the mp3 tags for more info. They all sound excellent, except for "Perfect Day." That one was from an audience bootleg with rough sound quality. But I ran it through several filters with the MVSEP audio editing program, and I think it sounds decent now. 

Note that "Masseduction-One Kiss" isn't a cover in the usual sense. Instead, it's a medley of a song by St. Vincent with one by Dua Lipa, and performed by them together. I thought it was interesting enough to include, even though it's only sort of half of a cover version.

This album is 53 minutes long.

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

01 Something on Your Mind - Karen Dalton
02 Bad Girls - Elegant Too
03 Crazy - Willie Nelson / Patsy Cline
04 London Calling - Clash
05 Possum Kingdom - Toadies
06 Consideration - Rihanna featuring SZA
07 And Then She Kissed Me - Crystals
08 Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell
09 Perfect Day - Lou Reed
10 Wouldn’t Want to Be like You - Sheryl Crow
11 Masseduction-One Kiss - St. Vincent & Dua Lipa
12 Controversy - Prince
13 Martha My Dear - Beatles
14 The Eddy - Glen Ballard & Randy Kerber
15 All Tomorrow’s Parties - Velvet Underground
16 Sad but True - Metallica

Here's the usual song list: 

01 Something on Your Mind (St. Vincent)
02 Bad Girls (St. Vincent)
03 Crazy (St. Vincent)
04 London Calling (St. Vincent)
05 Possum Kingdom (St. Vincent)
06 Consideration (St. Vincent)
07 And Then She Kissed Me (St. Vincent)
08 Court and Spark (St. Vincent)
09 Perfect Day (St. Vincent)
10 Wouldn’t Want to Be like You (St. Vincent & Sheryl Crow)
11 Masseduction-One Kiss (St. Vincent & Dua Lipa)
12 Controversy (St. Vincent)
13 Martha My Dear (St. Vincent)
14 The Eddy (St. Vincent)
15 All Tomorrow’s Parties (St. Vincent & Thomas Bartlett)
16 Sad but True (St. Vincent) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aDXXHLWb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Tq1uPHx8lyLlKNL/file

The cover image was taken in New York City on September 6, 2017.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison & Ringo Starr - Solo Rockers, Volume 2 (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here is the second out of three albums where guest poster Mike Solof gathered together rockers from the solo careers of the Beatles. I've already explained pretty much everything you need to know in the write-up to "Volume 1," so I'll keep this write-up short.

All the songs here have been officially released, except for "Dispute and Violence." This was a collaboration between George Harrison and Ravi Shankar that was performed during Harrison's 1974 concert tour. 

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

Note that, for this album and the others in this series and the ballads series, Mike wanted the track numbering to continue from album to album. That way, you can put them in one folder and listen to them as a single album if you want. 

15 So Glad to See You Here (Paul McCartney)
16 What You Got (John Lennon)
17 Wake Up My Love (George Harrison)
18 One (Ringo Starr)
19 Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five (Paul McCartney)
20 Devil's Radio (George Harrison)
21 Instant Karma [We All Shine On] (John Lennon)
22 Have You Seen My Baby (Ringo Starr)
23 Girls School (Paul McCartney)
24 Tight A$ (John Lennon)
25 Cloud 9 (George Harrison)
26 Oh My My (Ringo Starr)
27 Monkberry Moon Delight (Paul McCartney)
28 I Don't Wanna Face It [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
29 Dispute and Violence (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
30 Only Mama Knows (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jjye47MU

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/L7Adyk612Rd8gDn/file

The cover image is another one Mike made using AI, imagining Beatles reunions that never happened. In my opinion, this one has a late 1970s vibe.

Laura Nyro - Bottom Line, New York City, 7-12-1978

Here's a great sounding bootleg concert of singer-songwriter Laura Nyro. It's in solo acoustic mode, usually just her at the piano.

Nyro is best known for the albums she released from 1967 to 1971. They are very interesting in and of themselves, but also, many of the songs were covered by others and became hits. After 1971, she quit the music industry for a few years. She got married and lived a simple life in the countryside. But she came back in 1976. She released an album that year, "Smile," and went on tour. She also released an album in 1978, "Nested," and toured again. However, after that she quit the music business a second time for another six years.

This second phase of her career, from 1976 to 1978, didn't result in hit cover versions like the first one did, so it's not that well known. But if you look at the ratings of her albums at the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com, her 1976 and 1978 albums get pretty good ratings. They're not quite as high as her earlier albums, but higher than all of her subsequent ones.

In 1977, she also released her first live album, "Season of Lights... Laura Nyro in Concert." It documented her 1976 tour, which was done with a full band. This recording, though, is different, because she performed without a band. It was recorded for a radio broadcast, so the sound quality is fantastic.

I found a single audio file for this entire concert. I chopped it up into individual mp3s. So I believe this is the first time this has been shared as a tracked audio bootleg. 

The concert consisted of a mix of songs from her two most recent albums and well known songs from previous albums. It ends with a cover of "Mama Roux" by Dr. John. I don't believe any version of this song by her has been officially released. 

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Laura Nyro)
02 Rhythm and Blues (Laura Nyro)
03 Mr. Blue [Song of Communication] (Laura Nyro)
04 Sweet Blindness (Laura Nyro)
05 American Dreamer (Laura Nyro)
06 Crazy Love (Laura Nyro)
07 Child in a Universe (Laura Nyro)
08 Light [Pop's Principle] (Laura Nyro)
09 And When I Die (Laura Nyro)
10 The Nest (Laura Nyro)
11 Emmie (Laura Nyro)
12 Sexy Mama (Laura Nyro)
13 Man in the Moon (Laura Nyro)
14 In the Country Way (Laura Nyro)
15 talk (Laura Nyro)
16 Mama Roux (Laura Nyro)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4oxpo7hy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tAcTrMUlQah0c8k/file

The cover image isn't from this exact concert, but it's from just a couple of weeks later. It's from a concert at the Wollman Rink in Central Park, New York City, on July 22, 1978. The image was originally in black and white, but I colorized it.

St. Vincent - Cover Versions, Volume 1: 2006-2016

I started to be familiar with the music of St. Vincent when I posted her Glastonbury performance in August 2025. But I didn't know she did a lot of interesting cover versions until musical friend Lil Panda tipped me off. He sent me a bunch of covers. I took that and ran with it, finding a bunch more. In the end, we came up with enough for three albums worth.

One thing I like about her covers is she has a wide range of influences, and often some lesser known ones. Check out the below list to see what I mean.

This album is 50 minutes long.

These are the original artists for each song: 

01 These Days - Jackson Browne / Gregg Allman
02 Dig a Pony - Beatles
03 Sleep All Summer - Crooked Fingers
04 Every Drop of Rain - David Byrne & Fatboy Slim
05 Need You Tonight - INXS
06 Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
07 Tango Till They're Sore - Tom Waits
08 She Is Beyond Good and Evil - Pop Group
09 Some of Them Are Old - Brian Eno
10 Early Autumn - Woody Herman & His Orchestra
11 Make Believe - Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks
12 Lithium - Nirvana
13 Emotional Rescue - Rolling Stones

Here's the usual song list: 

01 These Days (St. Vincent)
02 Dig a Pony (St. Vincent)
03 Sleep All Summer (St. Vincent & the National)
04 Every Drop of Rain (David Byrne & Fatboy Slim with Candie Payne & St. Vincent)
05 Need You Tonight (Beck, St. Vincent & Liars)
06 Never Tear Us Apart (Beck, St. Vincent & Liars)
07 Tango Till They're Sore (St. Vincent)
08 She Is Beyond Good and Evil (St. Vincent)
09 Some of Them Are Old (St. Vincent)
10 Early Autumn (St. Vincent & the Living Sisters)
11 Make Believe (St. Vincent)
12 Lithium (Nirvana & St. Vincent)
13 Emotional Rescue (St. Vincent)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MoHyMmek

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WQGIrd3rhDTPdrO/file

The cover image comes from the PLUG Independent Music Awards ceremony in New York City on March 6, 2008.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison & Ringo Starr - Solo Ballads, Volume 1 (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Yesterday, I posted "Solo Rockers, Volume 1," featuring rocking songs from the solo careers of the four Beatles. It was created by guest poster Mike Solof. This is the exact same concept, also done by Mike, but with ballads. There are different definitions of ballads, but in this case we're talking about love songs usually done in a more mellow mode than the rockers.

For the rockers, Mike's selection of songs was pretty straightforward. But when it came to picking ballads from the Beatles' solo careers, it was harder going. He found enough for three volumes, the same as for the rockers. But in some cases, he chose to make some new "Mike's Mix" edits of songs that toned down or removed drums and some other elements to help the songs fit into the ballad mode. His edit of "Blow Away" by George Harrison on this volume is a good example. The original, which was a hit in 1979, is pretty close to a rocker. But Mike's edit transforms it pretty dramatically, and hopefully allows you to appreciate the song in a new way. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Bluebird (Paul McCartney)
02 Never without You [Mike's Mix 2026] (Ringo Starr)
03 Here Comes the Moon [Mike's Mix 2025] (George Harrison)
04 Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
05 So Bad (Lindsay Pagano & Paul McCartney)
06 I'm Yours (Ringo Starr)
07 Blow Away [Mike's Mix 2026] (George Harrison)
08 Heaven on a Sunday (Paul McCartney)
09 Old Dirt Road [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
10 Little Willow (Paul McCartney)
11 I'll Still Love You (Ringo Starr)
12 Dark Sweet Lady (George Harrison)
13 Love [Take 31] (John Lennon)
14 Baby's Request (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Hi6PcHRM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/opD0riXacqTFSaL/file

Mike chose some more AI artwork that he found on the Internet for the cover.

Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift - Live from Tubby's House, Nashville, TN, 8-24-2026

Ever since at least the Covid pandemic beginning in 2020, Robyn Hitchcock has performed a lot of home concerts. Generally speaking, I haven't posted them because they were behind paywalls, and artists like him need ways to make a living. But about two weeks ago as I write this in early September 2026, Hitchcock posted a home concert on YouTube that's available for anyone. I've converted it from video to audio and chopped it up into mp3s, so you can enjoy it as an audio bootleg. 

In July 2026, Hitchcock released an excellent new studio album, "The Confuser." It's his best in years, in my opinion. Yet, in typical contrarian fashion, he barely promoted it at all in this concert. He only played one song from hit, "My Dead Astronaut." Instead, this was a requests show, and he and his partner Emma Swift were looking at Internet requests as they came in live and performing some of them. So he tended to do lesser known songs.

Speaking of Swift, she is an excellent singer herself. She sang harmonies on a good number of the songs. She also bantered back and forth with Hitchcock between most of the songs, but I didn't carefully listen to the talking tracks to see which ones involved her or didn't. 

 

Hitchcock and Swift did another one of these concerts for YouTube on September 2, 2026, and I have plans to process and post that one as well. 

This album is an hour and 31 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 My Dead Astronaut (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 You and Oblivion (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 The Leopard (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
08 [A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations] Briggs (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Raymond Chandler Evening (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Autumn Is Your Last Chance (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Mexican God (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Cynthia Mask (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 Winchester (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 talk (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
21 So You Think You're in Love (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
22 talk (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
23 Rock 'n' Roll Toilet (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
25 Oceanside (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
26 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 Glass Hotel (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Opel (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
31 One Long Pair of Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
32 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zX1iRPXP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BN2ki1qPiczUr5C/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. I used the Ask Gemini program to improve the image quality.

Various Artists - Walden Woods Benefit, Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, CA, 4-1-1992

This is yet another "various artists" type rock concert. But you could also see it basically as short concerts by Neil Young, John Fogerty, and Roger Waters, plus three songs at the beginning by Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

I've previously posted five albums of music coming from a Walden Woods Benefit concert held in 1993. And before I say more, I just want to note that when I first posted those albums in early 2024, I couldn't find any photos from the concert, so I used an artistic logo from the concert for all five covers. I was never happy with that. But when I was putting this album together, I did another search and found proper photos for those. So I suggest you search this blog for "Walden Woods" and "1993" to redownload those, if you want better cover art.

Anyway, in 1990, Don Henley of the Eagles helped start the Walden Woods Project, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the land around Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, which became well known due to the writings of Henry David Thoreau. The main idea was to buy up the land around Walden Pond and put it into a conservancy so the nature of the area would be preserved. It was important to get a lot of money for this effort quickly, before property developers bought up the land instead. To that end, Henley organized a series of benefit concerts. There were two in 1990 and two more in 1991. Then there was this one in 1992, and the one I posted from 1993. There have been still more after that, in 1997, 1998, 2007, and 2017. Eventually, about $22 million was raised, from these concerts and other means, and hundreds of acres were bought and preserved.

That's all great. But, unfortunately, when it comes to the music, I only know of bootlegs from this one, plus the 1993 one I've already posted. And this one is incomplete. There actually were two concerts in the same venue, one on March 31, 1992. That one had a country theme. The artists that night were Clint Black, Mark Chesnutt, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Trisha Yearwood, and Don Henley. Then, for this night, in additions to the acts presented here, Henley played again. But for whatever reason, we don't have his set, which probably was the final act.

The recording I found is an audience bootleg. It's a pretty good one, but still, it suffers some flaws. The main flaw, though, has been fixed. There was a lot of crowd noise all the way through it. But I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program, specifically its de-crowd filter. I only kept the cheering at the ends of songs, and also whenever there were big surges of cheering during sounds. But I lowered the volume a lot on those surges. The result, in my opinion, sounds very close to soundboard quality.

By the way, if anyone else has any of the other Walden Woods Benefit concerts, please share them with me so I can share them here. It sounds like a lot of good music was performed. You can see the setlists to some (but not all) of the concerts here:

https://www.setlist.fm/festivals/concert-for-walden-woods-6bd69e26.html 

This is an hour and 54 minutes long.

01 Vincent of Jersey (Big Head Todd & the Monsters)
02 Broken Hearted Savior (Big Head Todd & the Monsters)
03 Moose Song (Big Head Todd & the Monsters)
04 Unknown Legend (Neil Young)
05 From Hank to Hendrix (Neil Young)
06 talk (Neil Young)
07 Old King (Neil Young)
08 Such a Woman (Neil Young)
09 talk (Neil Young)
10 Dreamin' Man (Neil Young)
11 talk (Neil Young)
12 Natural Beauty (Neil Young)
13 After the Gold Rush (Neil Young)
14 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty)
15 The Old Man Down the Road (John Fogerty)
16 talk (John Fogerty)
17 Centerfield (John Fogerty)
18 I Heard It through the Grapevine (John Fogerty)
19 talk (John Fogerty)
20 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty)
21 talk (John Fogerty)
22 Proud Mary (John Fogerty)
23 talk (John Fogerty)
24 Fortunate Son (John Fogerty)
25 In the Flesh (Roger Waters)
26 The Happiest Days of Our Lives (Roger Waters)
27 Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 (Roger Waters)
28 Mother (Roger Waters)
29 Comfortably Numb (Roger Waters & Don Henley)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rJ9xttUq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yu1JbGtNP7nIGZv/file

I couldn't find any photos whatsoever from this concert. But I did find the cover of the program for this concert, so I used that. It shows a map of the Walden Woods area, plus a little portrait of Henry David Thoreau at the bottom. I added the text below that. I also squished the rectangular map vertically so it could fit into a square space.