Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-3-2008 - Jimmy Buffett

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Jimmy Buffett and his band. For most of this festival, I don't know the order of the performers. But I do know that Buffett was the headliner and final act for this day of the festival. That helps explain why his set was unusually long compared to the others.

I read that before the festival, Buffett said in the media he might ditch his usual set list and play more of an acoustic set, due to the long history of folk music at the festival. But in the end he pretty much stuck to his usual set. The one exception was he ended with a cover of "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan. That definitely was a nod to the history of the festival, due to some famous Dylan performances in it in the 1960s. I checked on the setlist.fm database, and it seems this was the only time Buffett ever played that song in concert.

Also as an aside, the festival stage was very close to the harbor. There were boats in the harbor filled with people watching the musical acts. Apparently they often registered their approval by honking their horns. I thought that was very fitting for Buffett, since he based so much of his persona around a Caribbean beach bum vibe. 

This album is an hour and 48 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
02 Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw (Jimmy Buffett)
03 Brown Eyed Girl (Jimmy Buffett)
04 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
05 Fruitcakes (Jimmy Buffett)
06 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
07 Jamaica Mistaica (Jimmy Buffett)
08 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
09 Grapefruit - Juicy Fruit (Jimmy Buffett)
10 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
11 It's Five O'Clock Somewhere (Jimmy Buffett)
12 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
13 Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (Jimmy Buffett)
14 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
15 Come Monday (Jimmy Buffett)
16 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
17 Elvis Presley Blues (Jimmy Buffett with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
18 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
19 Son of a Son of a Sailor (Jimmy Buffett)
20 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
21 Volcano (Jimmy Buffett)
22 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
23 Cheeseburger in Paradise (Jimmy Buffett)
24 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
25 Cowboy in the Jungle (Jimmy Buffett)
26 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
27 Makin' Music for Money (Jimmy Buffett)
28 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
29 While My Guitar Gently Weeps [Instrumental Version] (Jimmy Buffett)
30 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
31 Last Mango in Paris (Jimmy Buffett)
32 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
33 School Boy Heart (Jimmy Buffett)
34 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
35 A Pirate Looks at Forty (Jimmy Buffett)
36 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
37 Southern Cross (Jimmy Buffett)
38 Fins (Jimmy Buffett)
39 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
40 Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffett)
41 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
42 One Particular Harbor (Jimmy Buffett)
43 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
44 Blowin' in the Wind (Jimmy Buffett)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2zyeec6B

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QqB0PK32GRv0qqS/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-3-2008 - Willy Mason

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by singer-songwriter Willy Mason.

I don't know much about Mason. Here's his Wikipedia entry intro, which doesn't say much:

"Willy Mason (born November 21, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter. He grew up on Martha's Vineyard in a musical family and began performing and recording in the early 2000s. Mason has performed in the United Kingdom and later toured internationally as both a solo artist and collaborator." 

Here's his full entry:

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

At the time of this concert, he had released two studio albums, "Where the Humans Eat" in 2004 and "If the Ocean Gets Rough" in 2007. All the songs performed here are original from those albums. In the years since this concert until now (as I write this in 2026), he has only released two more albums.

This album is 24 minutes long.

01 talk (Willy Mason)
02 Show Me the Way to Go Home (Willy Mason)
03 talk (Willy Mason)
04 Pickup Truck (Willy Mason)
05 Simple Town (Willy Mason)
06 Live It Up (Willy Mason)
07 Riptide (Willy Mason)
08 talk (Willy Mason)
09 Restless Fugitive (Willy Mason)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Byrj2kJS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/b40L2vhm4H0Nus8/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-3-2008 - The Levon Helm Band

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by the Levon Helm Band.

Levon Helm is best known as the main lead singer and drummer for the Band. But since the Band first broke up around 1977, he's had a long solo career as well. Unfortunately though, by the time of this concert, he was showing signs of physical decline, which can be heard in his voice. He would die four years later, in 2012, at the age of 71. He still generally sounded like you'd expect here, though. And he spread the lead vocals duties around a bit, letting some other members of his band sing a couple of songs, including one by his daughter Amy Helm. Generally, the songs were a mix of those from his solo albums, plus some classics by the Band.

As usual for this festival, the sound is excellent, while everything is unreleased. However, there was a problem with the first song, "The Same Thing," since the first thirty seconds or so were missing. I found another concert from the same year, at the Bonnaroo Festival, and used that to patch in the missing bit. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

This album is an hour and six minutes long. 

01 The Same Thing [Edit] (Levon Helm Band)
02 Ophelia (Levon Helm Band)
03 talk (Levon Helm Band)
04 Fannie Mae (Levon Helm Band)
05 talk (Levon Helm Band)
06 Love Played a Game (Levon Helm Band)
07 talk (Levon Helm Band)
08 Long Black Veil (Levon Helm Band)
09 talk (Levon Helm Band)
10 Got Me a Woman (Levon Helm Band)
11 Ashes of Love (Levon Helm Band)
12 Anna Lee (Levon Helm Band)
13 talk (Levon Helm Band)
14 Deep Elem Blues (Levon Helm Band)
15 Rag Mama Rag (Levon Helm Band)
16 The Shape I'm In (Levon Helm Band)
17 Chest Fever (Levon Helm Band)
18 talk (Levon Helm Band)
19 The Weight (Levon Helm Band with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ei4Edtou

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/cwu56RIwGnuI0ft/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-3-2008 - Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Technically, it was billed just as a Gillian Welch performance, but David Rawlings played a prominent role. Since they have usually been billed a duo in the years since, I did that here to be consistent with other albums I may post from them.

As usual, the music here is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. However, there was a problem with the last song, "Jackson." I was able to patch the problem though. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Speaking of "Jackson," it's one of two cover versions here. The other one is "Gone at Last."

This album is an hour and one minute long.

01 talk by emcee (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
02 Look at Miss Ohio (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
03 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
04 I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
05 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
06 Lawman (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
07 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
08 My First Lover (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
09 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
10 No One Knows My Name (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
11 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
12 Throw Me a Rope (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
13 Gamblin' Man (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
14 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
15 Red Clay Halo (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
16 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
17 Knuckleball Catcher (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
18 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
19 Sweet Tooth (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
20 Orphan Girl (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
21 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
22 Gone at Last (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
23 talk (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
24 Jackson [Edit] (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QhZgz2se

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/t5zkiio5Jlz6jbM/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 4-30-2015

Here's another great concert from the April 2026 Port Chester soundboard bootleg leak. This one features John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett. But it's not a split bill where one of them played a set and then the other one did. Instead, both of them stayed on stage the entire time, frequently helping out on each others' songs. It was just the two of them on stage with their acoustic guitars.

Prior to getting this concert ready for posting, I had no idea how frequently Hiatt and Lovett have collaborated musically. They never put out an album together, so I'd missed it. But they're toured together like this almost every year since 2008, at least. And they've done it again this year as I write this in 2026.

As usual with these Port Chester boots, the sound is in mono. But other than that, the quality is excellent. 

This album is two hours and six minutes long.

01 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
02 Lift Up Every Stone (John Hiatt)
03 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
04 Church (Lyle Lovett)
05 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
06 Buffalo River Home (John Hiatt)
07 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
08 Whooping Crane (Lyle Lovett)
09 talk (John Hiatt)
10 Marlene (John Hiatt)
11 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
12 Sonja (Lyle Lovett)
13 talk (John Hiatt)
14 Crossing Muddy Water (John Hiatt)
15 White Boy Lost in the Blues (Lyle Lovett)
16 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
17 Master of Disaster (John Hiatt)
18 talk (Lyle Lovett)
19 All Downhill (Lyle Lovett)
20 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
21 Real Fine Love (John Hiatt)
22 She's No Lady (Lyle Lovett)
23 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
24 Feels like Rain (John Hiatt)
25 Fiona (Lyle Lovett)
26 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
27 Thing Called Love (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
28 L.A. County (Lyle Lovett)
29 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
30 Perfectly Good Guitar (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
31 If I Had a Boat (Lyle Lovett)
32 Have a Little Faith in Me (John Hiatt)
33 My Baby Don't Tolerate (Lyle Lovett)
34 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
35 Slow Turning (John Hiatt)
36 talk (John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett)
37 Step Inside This House [Step Inside My House] (Lyle Lovett)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GHdTJkJw 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/vZm69d6OKy7Mzkp/file

The cover image is actually a composite of two photos. Both photos were taken at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, New York, on May 3, 2015, probably within moments of each other. In one, Lovett's head looked good, but Hiatt's didn't. In the other, it was the opposite. So I used the Lovett one primarily, but pasted in the better head for Hiatt. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-3-2008 - Calexico

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by the band Calexico. Keep in mind I don't know the order of appearance of most of the musical acts, so these are being posted in no special order, other than the festival dates. This is the second one I'm posting of the third day of the festival.

This is the first album I've posted by Calexico. But I've also promised myself to keep the write-ups for these festivals short, so here's their Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calexico_(band)

All the songs are originals, with the exceptions of "Alone Again Or" by Love and "Goin' to Acapulco," by Bob Dylan and the Band. For the latter, they were joined by Jim James, the lead vocalist for My Morning Jacket.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 All the Pretty Horses - Frontera - Trigger (Calexico)
02 talk (Calexico)
03 Across the Wire (Calexico)
04 talk (Calexico)
05 Not Even Stevie Nicks (Calexico)
06 Woven Birds (Calexico)
07 talk (Calexico)
08 Two Silver Trees (Calexico)
09 talk (Calexico)
10 Inspiracion (Calexico)
11 Slowness (Calexico)
12 Alone Again Or (Calexico)
13 talk (Calexico)
14 Going to Acapulco (Calexico with Jim James)
15 talk (Calexico)
16 Crystal Frontier (Calexico)
17 Guero Canelo (Calexico)
18 talk by emcee (Calexico)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/j7eJ2Whg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/juASJN9hiTmKzRV/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It shows most, but not all, of the band members. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-3-2008 - Brandi Carlile

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Brandi Carlile. The festival lasted three days. I don't have any of the sets from the first day, which was only a partial day. I've previously posted seven sets from the second day. This is the first of several more from the third and final day.

At this point in her career, Carlile had only released two major label studio albums, the cleverly titled "Brandi Carlile" in 2005 and "The Story" in 2007. Most of the songs are from those albums, with the exception of two cover songs, "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Hallelujah." 

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 What Can I Say (Brandi Carlile)
02 talk (Brandi Carlile)
03 Late Morning Lullaby (Brandi Carlile)
04 talk (Brandi Carlile)
05 My Song (Brandi Carlile)
06 talk (Brandi Carlile)
07 Cannonball (Brandi Carlile)
08 talk (Brandi Carlile)
09 Have You Ever (Brandi Carlile)
10 talk (Brandi Carlile)
11 Turpentine (Brandi Carlile)
12 talk (Brandi Carlile)
13 The Story (Brandi Carlile)
14 talk (Brandi Carlile)
15 Folsom Prison Blues (Brandi Carlile)
16 talk (Brandi Carlile)
17 Hallelujah (Brandi Carlile)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YAgzd7Gu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/9PmvKU8FtPn2lhe/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Paul McCartney - Solo Rockers (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I recently posted three compilation albums of rockers from the solo careers of the four ex-Beatles, and three more compilation albums of ballads from them. All of those were put together by guest poster Mike Solof. But when Mike made those, he discovered there were a lot more rockers and ballads by Paul McCartney than any of the other ex-Beatles, since he's had a long and very prolific career. So Mike decided to make an extra rockers album just of McCartney songs, as well as an extra ballads one. Here's the rockers.

All the songs are taken from studio albums or singles. There are no special edits done by Mike this time. 

By the way, note that the range of years given in the title, 1969-2026, is for the entire project. On this album, the actual range ins 1972 to 2007. As usual, see the mp3 tags for all the details. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Junior's Farm (Paul McCartney)
02 Night Out (Paul McCartney)
03 Rinse the Raindrops (Paul McCartney)
04 Angry (Paul McCartney)
05 Beware My Love (Paul McCartney)
06 Used to Be Bad (Paul McCartney)
07 Rock Show (Paul McCartney)
08 Getting Closer (Paul McCartney)
09 Hi, Hi, Hi (Paul McCartney)
10 Jet (Paul McCartney)
11 Magneto and Titanium Man (Paul McCartney)
12 Fine Line (Paul McCartney)
13 Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney)
14 Ever Present Past (Paul McCartney)
15 Get Out of My Way (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5rb7nkZK 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sD7pOUGHyzFduOl/file

Now that this is an album only featuring McCartney, there's no need for Mike to use AI to create images of imagined Beatles reunions. So this is a real photo of McCartney in concert. Mike selected the picture though, so I don't know what year it's from or other details. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - Trey Anastasio

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Trey Anastasio. It's the last one I am posting from August 2, 2008. For my purposes, that was the first day of the festival, and I have a similar number from the second day. However, there actually were a few performances from August 1st. It's just that I don't have the music from any of those.

Trey Anastasio is the lead singer, lead guitarist, and main songwriter for the band Phish. Up until the time of this concert, Anastasio spent most of his time with Phish. They released 11 studio albums up until 2008. But he also released six solo studio albums in that time. However, he rarely performed concerts as a solo act. For instance, according to the setlist.fm database, he did no more than four solo concert appearances in any year up to and including 2008. So this was a pretty rare solo acoustic concert for him.

Here is his Wikipedia entry:

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

He mostly played Phish songs here. But five songs, "Let Me Lie," "If I Could Be a Sailor," "Sleep Again," "Peggy," and "Shine," were from solo projects. Two of those,  "If I Could Be a Sailor" and "Peggy," were performed in public for the first time at this concert. 

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Brian and Robert (Trey Anastasio)
02 Farmhouse (Trey Anastasio)
03 talk (Trey Anastasio)
04 Water in the Sky (Trey Anastasio)
05 Let Me Lie (Trey Anastasio)
06 Bouncing Around the Room (Trey Anastasio)
07 Heavy Things (Trey Anastasio)
08 talk (Trey Anastasio)
09 If I Could be a Sailor (Trey Anastasio)
10 Mountains in the Mist (Trey Anastasio)
11 Sleep Again (Trey Anastasio)
12 Back on the Train (Trey Anastasio)
13 Peggy (Trey Anastasio)
14 Waste (Trey Anastasio)
15 Shine (Trey Anastasio)
16 Bathtub Gin (Trey Anastasio)
17 Wilson (Trey Anastasio)
18 Sample in a Jar (Trey Anastasio)
19 Chalk Dust Torture (Trey Anastasio)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/72RK7mZs

alternate:

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

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - Stephen & Damien Marley

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Stephen and Damien Marley.

Bob Marley is undoubtedly the greatest and most famous reggae musician of all time. Before he died of cancer in 1980, he had no fewer than eleven children. Some of them went on to music careers of their own, with Ziggy Marley being the most successful. But Stephen and Damien Marley, who are half-brothers, have had critical and commercial successes as well. For instance, Stephen has won eight Grammy Awards, and Damien has won four. The two of them started out as members of Ziggy Marley's band, the Melody Makers, but each of them eventually went solo. They have often teamed up, especially when going on tour.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Stephen Marley:

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

And here's the one for Damien Marley:

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

This concert had a lot of covers of classic songs by Bob Marley, including "Roots, Rock, Reggae," "Duppy Conqueror," "Redemption Song," "No Woman, No Cry," "Three Little Birds," and "Could You Be Loved." But the rest were originals by Stephen and/or Damien. Probably the best known of those was "Welcome to Jamrock." It was a hit for Damien Marley in 2008, but it actually was written by both of them.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Introduction (Stephen & Damien Marley)
02 Roots, Rock, Reggae (Stephen & Damien Marley)
03 talk (Stephen & Damien Marley)
04 Chase Dem (Stephen & Damien Marley)
05 Duppy Conqueror (Stephen & Damien Marley)
06 Redemption Song (Stephen & Damien Marley)
07 talk (Stephen & Damien Marley)
08 Mind Control (Stephen & Damien Marley)
09 Hey Baby (Stephen & Damien Marley)
10 No Woman, No Cry (Stephen & Damien Marley)
11 Three Little Birds (Stephen & Damien Marley)
12 talk (Stephen & Damien Marley)
13 The Traffic Jam (Stephen & Damien Marley)
14 All Night (Stephen & Damien Marley)
15 talk (Stephen & Damien Marley)
16 Pimpa's Paradise (Stephen & Damien Marley)
17 The Mission (Stephen & Damien Marley)
18 Welcome to Jamrock (Stephen & Damien Marley)
19 Could You Be Loved (Stephen & Damien Marley)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qJ8FFYGo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/E3YjEsFGXpLAfmR/file

The cover image shows Stephen Marley, and it is from this exact concert. I wanted a photo showing both Stephen and Damien, but I couldn't find any good ones from this concert. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - She & Him

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by the musical duo She and Him.

She & Him is an American musical duo consisting of Zooey Deschanel on vocals, piano, and ukulele, and M. Ward on guitar. They got a lot of attention starting with their debut album in 2008, because Deschanel was already an established movie star. But unlike a lot of movie stars putting out albums, this wasn't just a vanity side project. The duo has gotten consistent critical praise, and as I write this in 2026, they have been together for seven studio albums so far.

Here is their Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_%26_Him 

Most of the songs performed here were originals, with the covers "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and "The Garden Rose." Jim James, lead singer for My Morning Jacket, joined them for one song, "Magic Trick." 

Halfway through the set, the crowd was hit by a heavy rainstorm. But the concert continued anyway. This got referenced some in the banter between songs. 

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (She & Him)
02 talk (She & Him)
03 Black Hole (She & Him)
04 I Was Made for You (She & Him)
05 talk (She & Him)
06 Change Is Hard (She & Him)
07 Sentimental Heart (She & Him)
08 talk (She & Him)
09 You Really Got a Hold on Me (She & Him)
10 Take It Back (She & Him)
11 talk (She & Him)
12 The Garden Rose (She & Him)
13 talk (She & Him)
14 Lingering Still (She & Him)
15 Got Me (She & Him)
16 I Thought I Saw Your Face Today (She & Him)
17 Why Do You Let Me Stay Here (She & Him)
18 talk (She & Him)
19 Magic Trick (She & Him with Jim James)
20 talk (She & Him)
21 This Is Not a Test (She & Him)
22 talk (She & Him)
23 Sweet Darlin' (She & Him)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Ehy36Ex2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QfiVg4Ig8lkpwDi/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I wanted to use a photo showing both the "She" and the "Him," but I only found a few with Zooey Deschanel.

Ben Folds Five - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 10-9-2012

So far, I've posted about 27 concerts from the April 2026 leak of soundboards from the Capitol Theater in Port Chester. There's a lot more where that came from. I have at least 40 more I'm working on getting ready to post. Recently, a commenter named nytvf asked if that includes a Ben Folds Five concert. It does, and since I'm posting these in no special order and I got that request, I'm posting this one next.

Ben Folds Five, which actually consisted of three band members, not five, existed for seven years, from 1993 to 2000. During that time, they released three studio albums. Then band leader Ben Folds started putting out solo albums instead. But the band reunited in 2012 for another studio album, "The Sound of the Life of the Mind," an a supporting tour. Then the band broke up again. 

Not surprisingly, this concert mostly consists of songs from the band's four albums, especially their most recent ones. Ben Folds released three solo albums between 2000 and 2012, but only one song, "Landed," came from any of those. The album was definitely on Ben Folds Five songs. There also were no cover songs.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent, with no problems. 

This album is an hour and 44 minutes long.

01 Michael Praytor, Five Years Later (Ben Folds Five)
02 talk (Ben Folds Five)
03 Missing the War (Ben Folds Five)
04 Hold That Thought (Ben Folds Five)
05 Jackson Cannery (Ben Folds Five)
06 talk (Ben Folds Five)
07 Selfless, Cold and Composed (Ben Folds Five)
08 talk (Ben Folds Five)
09 Erase Me (Ben Folds Five)
10 talk (Ben Folds Five)
11 Alice Childress (Ben Folds Five)
12 talk (Ben Folds Five)
13 Sky High (Ben Folds Five)
14 talk (Ben Folds Five)
15 Landed (Ben Folds Five)
16 Thank You for Breaking My Heart (Ben Folds Five)
17 Battle of Who Could Care Less (Ben Folds Five)
18 talk (Ben Folds Five)
19 Do It Anyway (Ben Folds Five)
20 talk (Ben Folds Five)
21 Brick (Ben Folds Five)
22 Draw a Crowd (Ben Folds Five)
23 Narcolepsy (Ben Folds Five)
24 Kate (Ben Folds Five)
25 Song for the Dumped (Ben Folds Five)
26 Army (Ben Folds Five)
27 talk (Ben Folds Five)
28 Magic (Ben Folds Five)
29 Underground (Ben Folds Five)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aTvZuCob 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zlRusL45lOR4QuP/file

The cover image of Ben Folds is a photo from this exact concert.

The Youngbloods - Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA, 3-29-1970

Here's another concert from the great Bob Matthews collection I've been raving about recently. To quickly review, a sound engineer mostly working for the Grateful Dead for decades recorded many hundreds of concerts without anyone knowing, and now they're getting publicly released almost on a daily basis. So far, they are soundboards with excellent sound quality. This 1970 concert by the Youngbloods follows that same pattern.

I'm still trying to figure out the contours of the Matthews collection. The person who has it and is releasing it to the public, Charlie Miller, isn't giving many advance hints, but we can start to surmise some things from the concerts posted so far. One thing I'm learning is there are many very similar concerts getting posted. For instance, in the last week (writing this on September 27, 2026), all the posts have been of 1970 concerts by the Youngbloods. There were concerts from this venue on March 27th, 28th, and 29th. But there's also a Youngbloods concert at Santa Clara University, one from Berkeley Community Theater, and one from a club called Euphoria in San Rafael. Out of those six concerts, I only plan on posting this one, because they all have very similar set lists and this one is the longest, with the most songs performed. But it's interesting in that it suggests there are recordings from many venues, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1969, the band released the album "Elephant Mountain." In my opinion, it's their best album. It's got a lot of critical praise. For instance, it was included in the popular book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die." Naturally, a lot of songs performed here are from that, as well as unreleased songs that would come out on their next albums. In late 1970, they would release a live album called "Rock Festival." The songs from that come from five different Bay Area venues. It's not clear which songs were from which venue, but at least one song came from this exact concert. So this could explain why this and other Youngbloods concerts are in the Bob Matthews collection, because the band was recording a lot of concerts with the intention of making a live album.

Weirdly, though, for this concert as well as the ones on the two previous nights at this venue, the song "Darkness, Darkness" wasn't performed. That was their biggest original hit song, which was released as a single in 1969 and then again in 1970. (It did better the second time.)

I've included all the songs and banter from this concert. However, there was a fair amount of dead air between songs, consisting either of guitar tuning or just near silence. I removed about ten minutes total of that.  

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 On Beautiful Lake Spenard [Instrumental] (Youngbloods)
02 Josiane (Youngbloods)
03 talk (Youngbloods)
04 Sugar Babe (Youngbloods)
05 Interlude [Instrumental] (Youngbloods)
06 It's a Lovely Day (Youngbloods)
07 Sweet Little Sixteen (Youngbloods)
08 talk (Youngbloods)
09 Hippie from Olema (Youngbloods)
10 talk (Youngbloods)
11 Quicksand (Youngbloods)
12 On Sir Francis Drake (Youngbloods)
13 Peepin' 'n' Hidin' [Baby What You Want Me to Do] (Youngbloods)
14 talk (Youngbloods)
15 Lovesick Blues (Youngbloods)
16 She's Long, She's Tall [She Weeps like a Willow Tree] (Youngbloods)
17 talk (Youngbloods)
18 Good Times (Youngbloods)
19 talk (Youngbloods)
20 Peace Song (Youngbloods)
21 Beautiful (Youngbloods)
22 Let's Get Together (Youngbloods)
23 talk (Youngbloods)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BkdWkG7o

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/O05zchQobMARyuo/file

The cover image of lead singer Jesse Colin Young is a screenshot I took from a video of the band performing on an unknown TV show around 1969. 

David Bowie - Aylesbury Friars Club, Aylesbury, Britain, 9-25-1971

Note that this David Bowie concert recording has been officially released, as part of the "Divine Symmetry" box set in 2022. However, I have done a lot of audio editing and added in some missing bits to make this a clear improvement over the released version, so I feel I'm justified in posting this. It is far and away the best live recording of Bowie prior to him becoming a big star with the "Ziggy Stardust" album in 1972. As such, I think it's a must have for any serious Bowie fan.

Bowie very rarely performed concerts prior to 1972, a fact he actually mentions in his banter between songs in this recording. So we're lucky to have this at all. The released version is a big sonic upgrade over the bootleg versions that had been circulating between. However, even that has issues. Most of it has soundboard-level quality. But there are issues, especially the song "Changes." That sounds only okay at the beginning of the song, then suddenly gets a lot better midway through. I couldn't make any improvements to that, and related issues.

However, there were some things I could improve. The main one was the parts that were left out. I checked the bootleg versions with the official version. The official version entirely excluded the song "Queen Bitch." I don't know why, but I'm guessing this was on a CD with some other songs, and there simply wasn't enough room to squeeze in the whole thing. That probably also explains why some of the banter between songs was removed as well. That's especially the case with the banter before "The Supermen," where two entire minutes were removed. There were other removals as well, for instance in front of "Oh, You Pretty Things." 

The first thing I did was restore the missing song and banter in their proper places. But that created a problem, because the sound quality difference between the official version and the bootleg version was stark. For the banter, luckily, I was able to close most of that gap. I ran it through the MVSEP program's de-reverb filter, and that helped. Then I took just the vocal parts of the banter tracks (which was most of them, aside from a little applause), and ran those through Adobe's vocal enhancer. That did wonders. Now, in my opinion, one can hardly tell the difference on the sourcing for the banter. I also did the same for the banter before "Changes," which sounded pretty bad on the official version.

It was harder to fix "Queen Bitch," since the bootleg version of the song was muddy. I did manage to use similar tricks to improve the clarity of the vocals somewhat. But still, at the end of the day, that one sounds worse than most of the rest of the songs. But it's still listenable, about on par with the problematic parts of "Changes" on the official version.

Bowie does a surprising number of cover versions here, by his usual standards ("Fill Your Heart," "Buzz the Fuzz," "Amsterdam," "Round and Round," and "I'm Waiting for the Man.") Maybe he was still uncertain how his own songs would go over with a concert audience. He needn't have worried, because the crowd loved him. You can especially hear that at the end, where he has to apologize because the audience didn't want him to stop but his band simply didn't have any other songs they'd practiced and were ready to play.

This album is 60 minutes long.

01 talk (David Bowie)
02 Fill Your Heart (David Bowie)
03 talk (David Bowie)
04 Buzz the Fuzz (David Bowie)
05 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
06 talk (David Bowie)
07 Amsterdam (David Bowie)
08 talk (David Bowie)
09 The Supermen (David Bowie)
10 talk (David Bowie)
11 Oh, You Pretty Things (David Bowie)
12 Eight Line Poem (David Bowie)
13 talk (David Bowie)
14 Changes (David Bowie)
15 talk (David Bowie)
16 Song for Bob Dylan (David Bowie)
17 talk (David Bowie)
18 Andy Warhol (David Bowie)
19 talk (David Bowie)
20 Queen Bitch (David Bowie)
21 Looking for a Friend (David Bowie)
22 talk (David Bowie)
23 Round and Round (David Bowie)
24 talk by emcee (David Bowie)
25 talk (David Bowie)
26 I'm Waiting for the Man (David Bowie)
27 talk (David Bowie)
28 talk by emcee (David Bowie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TD1x3zsQ

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/kPGLJZKfsIP9WOa/file

The cover image is from a concert poster for this exact concert. I cropped it to get it to fit into a square space. I also added in the number "1971," since I always want to include the date, month, and year for all the concerts I post. 

Jesse Colin Young - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 7-27-1975

I was planning on posting a newly discovered Youngbloods concert bootleg from the Bob Matthews collection today. However, when I put that in my Youngbloods folder, I noticed this one there, which I thought I'd posted a while back. So I'll post this one first and hopefully get to the Youngbloods one tomorrow. This is Jesse Colin Young, the lead singer and main songwriter for the Youngbloods, performing for the Live at the Record Plant radio show in 1975.

The Youngbloods broke up in 1972. Jesse Colin Young then had a fairly successful solo career for the rest of the 1970s. For instance, "Songbird," the 1975 album he was on tour to support when this concert took place, made it to Number 26 in the U.S. albums chart. 

With his song selection, Young leaned heavily on songs from that album plus his two prior solo studio albums. He avoided the better known Youngbloods songs, only playing one song first done by that band, "Sugar Babe."

It's been a while since I edited this album. But if I recall, there was some hiss, which I got rid of using the MVSEP program. 

This music remains unreleased. The sound quality is close to excellent. 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Sugar Babe (Jesse Colin Young)
02 Songbird (Jesse Colin Young)
03 Motorhome (Jesse Colin Young)
04 Song for Juli (Jesse Colin Young)
05 Miss Hesitation - Hesitation Blues (Jesse Colin Young)
06 Mornin' Sun (Jesse Colin Young)
07 Before You Came (Jesse Colin Young)
08 Ridgetop (Jesse Colin Young)
09 Lafayette Waltz - Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Jesse Colin Young)
10 Let Your Light Shine (Jesse Colin Young)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/j2Z5WgFj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/kBr6zuaM0MWn0GY/file

The cover image shows Young performing at the Greek Theatre, in Berkeley, California, on August 16, 1975. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - Richie Havens

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Richie Havens.

The presence of Havens at this festival was a musical reminder of the festival's long history. He'd previously performed in the 1965, 1966, and 1968 editions of the festival. 

This time, he performed mostly in solo acoustic mode, as was his usual style.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 talk (Richie Havens)
02 All Along the Watchtower (Richie Havens)
03 Paradise (Richie Havens)
04 Dreaming Way Down Deep (Richie Havens)
05 My Love Is Alive (Richie Havens)
06 Woodstock (Richie Havens)
07 Lives in the Balance (Richie Havens)
08 Freedom (Richie Havens)
09 talk (Richie Havens)
10 Maggie's Farm - Won't Get Fooled Again (Richie Havens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/f8GafBYf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/4kJabR8p6iq5AzH/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - Jim James

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by Jim James. He's the lead singer and main songwriter for the band My Morning Jacket.

At the time of this festival, James hadn't put out any solo albums yet. He'd put out a solo EP of cover songs in 2009, though, and then the first of several solo albums starting in 2013. So, not surprisingly, he played all My Morning Jacket songs, with the exception of "When You Are Who You Are."

Here's his Wikipedia page:

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

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 Tonight I Want to Celebrate with You (Jim James)
02 Sec Walkin (Jim James)
03 It Beats 4 U (Jim James)
04 Stage Banter (Jim James)
05 Wonderful [The Way I Feel] (Jim James with M. Ward)
06 talk (Jim James with M. Ward)
07 Golden (Jim James with M. Ward)
08 Look at You (Jim James with M. Ward)
09 Librarian (Jim James)
10 Bermuda Highway (Jim James)
11 The Way that He Sings (Jim James)
12 What a Wonderful Man (Jim James)
13 When You Are Who You Are (Jim James)
14 Hopefully (Jim James)
15 Smokin from Shootin (Jim James)
16 Gideon (Jim James)
17 Anytime (Jim James)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jkpNG9XX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Z5Ia1VneNviqWrg/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - The Cowboy Junkies

Here's another album from the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set by the Cowboy Junkies.

As I said in my previous write-up, I'm going to try to keep these write-ups short for the festival. But since I haven't posted anything from this band before, here's their Wikipedia page:

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

I have to say I'd thought this band was a one-trick pony, playing all their songs in a slow, sleepy style. But I was pleasantly surprised that there was a good amount of musical variety here, and even some rocking at times.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Miles from Our Home (Cowboy Junkies)
02 I Don't Get It (Cowboy Junkies)
03 talk (Cowboy Junkies)
04 Follower 2 (Cowboy Junkies)
05 My Little Basquait (Cowboy Junkies)
06 Those Final Feet (Cowboy Junkies)
07 Just Want to See (Cowboy Junkies)
08 Working on a Building (Cowboy Junkies)
09 Good Friday (Cowboy Junkies)
10 talk (Cowboy Junkies)
11 Murder Tonight in the Trailer Park (Cowboy Junkies) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZhpULCm2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ex58qcldyrBjXdA/file 

The cover photo of the band's lead singer Margo Timmins is from this exact concert.

Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, 8-2-2008 - The Black Crowes

The Newport Folk Festival is one of the oldest and most respected music festivals in the world. It began in 1959 and continues to this day, although it was inactive from 1970 to 1984. If all that music from these festivals were publicly available, that would be really incredible. Unfortunately, most festivals either weren't recorded or the recordings haven't been made public, with the exception of the 1968 festival (which I've posted), and the 1969 one (which I plan on posting), plus this one, from 2008. Here's the first act I'm posting from the first day of the two-day festival, the Black Crowes.

There's a ton of great music I want to post at the blog, but it seems I'm always falling behind. Making the cover art and writing the write-ups definitely slows me down. So I'll try to keep the write-ups for this festival as brief as I can.

For decades, the festival focused on folk music. But by 2008, the management changed, and the new management wanted to increase the crowds by including some non-folk acts. As you'll see with the albums I post from this festival, they definitely succeeded with their approach. The Black Crowes here are an example of the change, since they're much more of a rock act than a folk act.

Apparently, the new management also had the idea of broadcasting parts of this festival on the radio, which is how we have these great sounding recordings. I've found enough for 13 albums. But there are even more I wish I could have included. Perhaps some weren't broadcast on the radio because the music acts didn't agree, or perhaps they did and I just can't find them. Either way, here are the missing ones:

The Avett Brothers
Jakob Dylan
Steve Earle
Over the Rhine
Cat Power
Son Volt
Brian Wilson 

If you have any of these sets, let me know and I'll post them too. By the way, the ones I'm posting are in no special order, since I couldn't figure out the chronological order. I did get some clues, but it's confusing because there were two stages going at once much of the time. 

Here's a newspaper review of the 2008 festival as a whole:

The Boston Globe 

The Black Crowes started their set with a couple of acoustic cover songs in a nod to the folk traditions of the festival. But then they continued with their usual rocking style. 

This album is an hour and 20 minutes long.

01 talk (Black Crowes)
02 Girl from the North Country (Black Crowes)
03 He Was a Friend of Mine (Black Crowes)
04 talk (Black Crowes)
05 Whoa Mule (Black Crowes)
06 Polly (Black Crowes)
07 Poor Elijah - Tribute to Johnson - Things Get Better (Black Crowes)
08 Wiser Time (Black Crowes)
09 Movin' On Down the Line (Black Crowes)
10 Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution (Black Crowes)
11 Jealous Again (Black Crowes)
12 Oh Josephine (Black Crowes)
13 Thorn in My Pride (Black Crowes)
14 talk (Black Crowes)
15 talk by emcee (Black Crowes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sPKcdPgu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/epSvZ9Y4QypvtTP/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I took the font style and logo at the top from the festival's promotional material.

The Staple Singers - Hampton Jazz Festival, Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA, 6-29-1973

The Staple Singers were a family music group that existed for a long time, from the early 1950s until the 1990s. They were decently popular all through the 1950s and 1960s (Bob Dylan was a big fan of their early work), but their acoustic mix of gospel and folk limited their appeal. Then, in the early 1970s, they moved in more of a mainstream soul direction, and were rewarded with four big classic hits: "Respect Yourself," "I'll Take You There," "If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)" and "Let's Do It Again." Here's a soundboard bootleg concert from their peak early 1970s period.

Although the Staple Singers toured a lot, there are surprisingly few live recordings from this time, either officially released or bootleg. There are three official live albums from them. One is very early, 1964, and the other two are quite late, 1980s or after. Quality bootlegs are few and far between. This is the only worthy one I've found from the 1970s that has at least some of their big hits. "Respect Yourself" and "I'll Take You There" are here, but the other two hits mentioned above hadn't been released yet. 

The Staple Singers always had a gospel element to them. Personally, I'm not religious and don't like preachy music. But while there's a gospel number here, I'm perfectly okay with it.

By the way, there was one song at the start that I've removed: "Are You Sure." The reason I removed it is because the recording only had the last minute of it, and I couldn't find any good way to patch in the rest. 

As an aside, weird fact: the band members were all from the Staples family, with the key members being Pop Staples as lead guitarist and Mavis Staples as the usual lead vocalist. Yet for some reason they called themselves the "Staple Singers" instead of the "Staples Singers."

Here's their Wikipedia entry: 

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

This album is 40 minutes long. 

01 Be What You Are (Staple Singers)
02 talk (Staple Singers)
03 I Like the Things about Me (Staple Singers)
04 Respect Yourself (Staple Singers)
05 Don't Break My Heart (Staple Singers)
06 I'll Take You There (Staple Singers)
07 talk (Staple Singers)
08 And the Lord Will Hear (Staple Singers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/z2dNw5BG 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/VeBDNnozv75XmBU/file

The cover image comes from an appearance on the "In Concert" ABC TV Show on November 14, 1973.

The Joy of Cooking - Family Dog at the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA, 8-2-1970

Yesterday, I posted a concert of the Joy of Cooking performing at the Family Dog at the Great Highway on August 1, 1970. This time, it's the same band at the same venue, but the next night, on August 2, 1970. The set list is fairly different, so I suggest getting both concerts. This is another previously known soundboard, coming to us thanks to the gradual release of the Bob Matthews collection.

Like I mentioned yesterday, I think this is a really underrated band. If you like music from this era, I strongly recommend you give this a listen.

As an aside, the person who is releasing the Matthews collection, Charlie Miller, hasn't dropped many hints of what's coming. But he has already posted a few concerts from the Family Dog at the Great Highway venue, and I noticed yesterday that he posted a photo of some reels of Dan Hicks and His Hot Links concerts still coming from there. It seems increasingly likely that we'll be getting more music from that venue (though his collection is sourced from many other venues as well). 

So I looked up the venue at setlist.fm. It was only in operation for about a year, from June 1969 to December 1970. Here's a list of all the musical acts that performed there during that time, and the number of concerts they did in parentheses. This list very well may be incomplete, but it should give us a general idea. I checked bootleg sharing sites, and it seems all of this music has been unheard by the public so far, with the exception of a bunch of concerts by the Grateful Dead (and spin-off acts like Mickey and the Hartbeats, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan), a few by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, and two by Jefferson Airplane. Let's hope we can hear a lot more of these in the months to come: 

New Riders of the Purple Sage (18)
Grateful Dead (16)
Charlie Musselwhite (9)
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen (9)
The Elvin Bishop Group (8)
Jefferson Airplane (7)
A.B. Skhy (6)
It’s a Beautiful Day (5)
Big Brother & the Holding Company (5)
Quicksilver Messenger Service (4)
Albert Collins (4)
The Velvet Underground (4)
Hot Tuna (4)
The Sons of Champlin (4)
Harvey Mandel (3)
The Fourth Way (3)
The Kinks (3)
Poco (3)
The Golden Toad (3)
Lonnie Mack (3)
David LaFlamme (3)
The Congress of Wonders (3)
Danny Cox (3)
The Rhythm Dukes (3)
Zoot Money (3)
Canned Heat (3)
The Youngbloods (3)
Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks (2)
Kaleidoscope (2)
Steve Miller Band (2)
Joy of Cooking (2)
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (1)
Tower of Power (1)
Johnny Mars (1)
The New Lost City Ramblers (1)
Cleveland Wrecking Co. (1)
The Charlatans (1)
Floating Bridge (1)
Santana (1)
Brewer & Shipley (1)
Mickey & the Hartbeats (1)
Aum (1)
Beggars Opera (1)
Womb (1) 

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Laugh, Don't Laugh [Instrumental Version] (Joy of Cooking)
02 Red Wine at Noon (Joy of Cooking)
03 Piece of Paper (Joy of Cooking)
04 talk (Joy of Cooking)
05 Laugh, Don't Laugh (Joy of Cooking)
06 Did You Go Downtown (Joy of Cooking)
07 talk (Joy of Cooking)
08 Bad Luck Blues (Joy of Cooking)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/evCm7bY2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XRcG30Y7eRjRdrz/file

Like I mentioned in the Joy of Cooking post I made yesterday, I could find almost no photos of this band playing in concert. However, I found a YouTube video of them from around 1970, and I took some screenshots. The one I posted yesterday, highlighted one of their lead singers, Toni Brown, on keyboards. This one shows the back of Brown, but has more of a highlight on the other lead singer, guitarist Terry Garthwaite. I used the Ask Gemini program to improve the image quality.  

Links Are Getting Fixed

I've noticed a lot of download links are dying (as I write this in September 2026). This is because the download services I use let the links go dead if nobody downloads a particular file within a certain time period. (I just checked, and for Bestfile it's 25 days, for upload.ee it's 50 days, and for Pixeldrain it's two months.) For the last couple of weeks, I've been slowly but surely fixing a lot of dead links as I move away from using upload.ee, where most of the dead links are.

I've been reluctant to do this just because it's a big pain in the butt (and this is a labor of love blog I only do due to my love of music and wanting to share it). I realized though the main thing holding me back is I've been adding two download links per album, Bestfile and Pixeldrain. I really like Pixeldrain. They make it very easy to do batch uploads. But with Bestfile, one can only upload five files at a time. Even then, about half of the time, the upload doesn't work and I have to do it again. This can turn uploading hundreds of albums into a really unpleasant chores. There have been rare times when I've had to upload an album five or six times before Bestfile succeeded with it. By contrast, Pixeldrain never fails.

So I realized that I'm probably never going to get around to uploading all those old albums with Bestfile, due to the bad and inconsistent upload system. I decided instead to only use Pixeldrain links for previously posted albums. But for newly posted ones, I'll still use both Pixeldrain and Bestfile, because I know some people have trouble with Pixeldrain for whatever reason.

Here's how things stand. I have over two thousand albums with Pixeldrain and Bestfile links. I had about another two thousand with upload.ee links. In the past weeks, I've replaced 500 of those with Pixeldrain links. I haven't done that in any special order, but I'm tackling certain bands first (often just because they're easy). For instance, I've done Belle and Sebastian, the Byrds, Aimee Mann, Beck, CSN(Y), Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, Morgan James, the Indigo Girls, the Velvet Underground, Van Morrison, and a lot more. Plus, I've done all the "various artists" albums, which mostly consist of rock festivals. So if you've been having trouble with download links for any of those, give them another try. 

Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away fixing more links. However, one reason it's taking time is that, while I'm at it, I'm also reviewing the cover art and making improvements when I see ones I don't like. Usually that's because of low-res/ blurry issues. Previously, I had been using Krea AI, but I'm too cheap to play and now they only allow four free uses per 24 hours. But recently I've discovered Ask Gemini does a really great job improving and/or colorizing images, and I can do at least a couple dozen per day. So if you dig through albums posted from previous years, you may find some cover changes, hopefully for the better. Gemini has a habit of wanting to make content changes while it's upgrading the detail level. But I've learned how to give extremely detailed and specific instructions to stop it from doing that.

I hope in a couple of months, maybe sooner, virtually all of the links will be working again, and with cover art I'm happy with. Knock on wood. If there are some musical acts where you want the links fixed sooner rather than later, please let me know and I'll see what I can do.

The Joy of Cooking - Family Dog at the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA, 8-1-1970

Here's another previously unknown fantastic sounding bootleg from the Bob Matthews collection. This time, it's a concert by the Joy of Cooking. (Technically, their name doesn't include the "the".) If you're not familiar with them, I'm not surprised. They only had one minor hit in the early 1970s, in the U.S., and that didn't get close to the Top Forty. But if you like music from this time period, you really should check them out. I think they're excellent. I've been wanting to post something from them for a long time, but just never got around to it. This new release gives me the perfect opportunity.

Here's the intro to their Wikipedia entry:

"Joy of Cooking was an American music ensemble formed in 1967 in Berkeley, California. Associated with the hippie culture, the band's music combined rock and roll with folk, blues, and jazz. The band released three studio albums on Capitol Records in the early 1970s as well as a minor hit single in 1971, "Brownsville." Led by guitarist Terry Garthwaite and pianist Toni Brown, who both shared lead vocals, Joy of Cooking was a rare example of a rock band fronted by women."

I can't emphasize that last point enough. There were quite a few musical acts led by women in the early 1970s, especially in soul music or the singer-songwriter genre. But there were very few in the rock genre. Garthwaite and Brown wrote songs, were excellent singers, and were very talented at their instruments to boot. In my opinion, they should have been much more popular than they were. Maybe part of the problem, in addition to the usual sexism in the industry, is that they weren't around for long. They only released three albums together, in 1970, 1971, and 1972. Garthwaite and Brown did tour together some after that into the late 1970s, and put out a couple other albums together also, but they lost a lot of momentum because they didn't keep using the Joy of Cooking name.

Note this album is relatively short, because they were the opening act for It's a Beautiful Day. (Let's hope the Bob Matthews collection releases that too.) But they returned to perform again one night later, and that also has been newly released. A good number of the songs are different, so I plan on posting that one here as well.

I didn't have to edit much here. The sound is fantastic, as good as you could hope for from that era. 

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Brownsville - Mockingbird (Joy of Cooking)
02 First Time, Last Time (Joy of Cooking)
03 Too Late, but Not Forgotten (Joy of Cooking)
04 Piece of Paper (Joy of Cooking)
05 talk (Joy of Cooking)
06 If Some God [Sometimes You Gotta Go Home] (Joy of Cooking)
07 Red Wine at Noon (Joy of Cooking)
08 Pilot (Joy of Cooking)
09 Laugh, Don't Laugh (Joy of Cooking)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/67WGgHF8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oKPPiV6noM9PI11/file 

The cover image shows Toni Brown. There are very few images of the band in concert. Luckily, I did find a YouTube video of them performing "Brownsville" for a TV station. I took this screenshot from that. It was rather low-res, so I used the Ask Gemini program to improve the detail level.

Van Morrison - Medicine Ball Caravan, Antioch College Golf Course, Yellow Springs, OH, 8-21-1970

Here's another album from what I am now calling the Bob Matthews collection. Hopefully, these are just the first out of hundreds more bootlegs to be released from that collection. I also posted some albums from the "Medicine Ball Caravan" concert in Canterbury, Britain. As I mentioned in previous write-ups, that was the final concert in a short Medicine Ball Caravan, with the ultimate goal of making a movie and soundtrack from it. There were about half a dozen concerts across the U.S. before that concert in Britain, and this is from one of them. It's a pristine soundboard of Van Morrison in his absolute prime, a few months after the release of his classic "Moondance" album.

This isn't as exciting as some other recent releases from the Bob Matthews collection, because this performance had already been released as a soundboard. In fact, I was planning on posting it in a few days, inspired by the other Medicine Ball Caravan releases, when I saw this got posted. This is the same music as the existing version, but with markedly better sound quality. Both versions are soundboards, but the other one had probably passed through different hands, with copying and loss of quality along the way. By contrast, this sounds like it was locked in a vault from then until now, which is probably more or less exactly what happened, thanks to sound engineer Bob Matthews. So even if you have this already, please do get this version instead.

It was known Matthews was involved the audio of the British concert mentioned above. It was said to have unusually good sound for an outdoor concert as a result. But the fact that this has also been released from the Matthews collection leaves open the exciting possibly that we'll get recordings of some or most of the rest of the short tour. As I mentioned in a previous write-up, that could mean sets by B.B. King, Doug Kershaw, Hot Tuna, Alice Cooper, Stoneground, possibly Joni Mitchell (there are conflicting accounts of that), and unknown others. Time will tell, hopefully soon.

One can tell that this performance (at a random golf course in Ohio, apparently!) was done primarily for the film footage. At one point after "Crazy Love," a voice got on the microphone and explained there was a short pause in order to change film reels. That makes me wonder where the heck is the footage of this concert, not to mention the rest of the tour? What came out in the movie was generally very disappointing, with many great musical acts, including Morrison, not included at all. I haven't seen it, but people say that only a couple of songs performed by B.B. King were impressive. Let's hope the footage of this prime Van Morrison concert still exists in the vaults somewhere.

Morrison was a couple of months away from releasing his second album in 1970, the classic "His Band and Street Choir." So a couple of songs here are from that ("I've Been Working" and "Domino"), with most of the rest from "Moondance." Note that there's a verse of "Domino" that didn't make it onto the album version.

I made a couple of improvements. The first five seconds or so of "Brown Eyed Girl" was missing. Luckily, that was a repeated riff, so I was able to patch in the missing bit from elsewhere. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, the audience applause was rather low in the mix. Not nearly as low as in the British Medicine Ball Caravan concert, but still, I used MVSEP to remix all the songs, boosting the applause. I also cut out some dead air between songs. 

This album is 36 minutes long. 

01 Brown Eyed Girl [Edit] (Van Morrison)
02 Moondance (Van Morrison)
03 Crazy Love (Van Morrison)
04 talk (Van Morrison)
05 Come Running (Van Morrison)
06 I've Been Working (Van Morrison)
07 Domino (Van Morrison)
08 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)
09 talk by emcee (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AtAuwJUi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hSaP7PRp8r7NTst/file 

I don't know where the cover image is from, but I got the impression that it's from around 1969, give or take a year. The original was in black and white. But I used the Ask Gemini program to colorize it.

Chris Cornell - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 6-25-2016

Here's another concert from the April 2026 Port Chester soundboard leak. With the newer and even more exciting Bob Matthews collection leak happening, with close to one new release per day, I want to make more of an effort to get these posted so I can focus on fewer things at once. So here's a solo acoustic concert from Chris Cornell.

Cornell is best known for being the lead singer and songwriter for the bands Soundgarden and Audioslave. I must admit that I never got into either of those bands, although I've really liked some songs. I guess I'm just not big on grunge in general. That said, I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I'm much more of a solo acoustic music kind of guy, and that's all this is, although Cornell was backed by a second musician. 

Everyone knows that Cornell had a great voice. But I was impressed with his songs in this format. And he did some interesting covers of some very famous musical acts ("Nothing Compares 2 U" by Prince, "Thank You" by Led Zeppelin, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan, "Billy Jean" by Michael Jackson, and "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles). In fact, I'm so impressed that this makes me want to hear more of his music. And that rarely happens to me with this type of music. I guess I should have known that the guy who wrote "Black Hole Sun" was an uncommonly good songwriter, because that's a totally classic song, and one with an unusual melody and chord structure. 

This concert took place in 2016, which is less until his death by suicide in May 2017. While that death is certainly tragic, the silver lining for this album is this is a good summary of his entire music career.

There are only two problems with this recording, one I could fix and one I couldn't. I couldn't fix the fact that it's all in mono. The other problem was that the last song, "Higher Truth," came to a sudden stop about a minute before the song ended. I found another version of the song (from a concert in Manchester the same year) and used that to patch up the ending. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is two hours and 24 minutes long.

01 talk (Chris Cornell)
02 Before We Disappear (Chris Cornell)
03 Can't Change Me (Chris Cornell)
04 talk (Chris Cornell)
05 'Til the Sun Comes Back Around (Chris Cornell)
06 talk (Chris Cornell)
07 Nothing Compares 2 U (Chris Cornell)
08 talk (Chris Cornell)
09 Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart (Chris Cornell)
10 talk (Chris Cornell)
11 The Times They Are A-Changin' Back (Chris Cornell)
12 talk (Chris Cornell)
13 Halfway There (Chris Cornell)
14 talk (Chris Cornell)
15 Josephine (Chris Cornell)
16 Fell on Black Days (Chris Cornell)
17 Thank You (Chris Cornell)
18 talk (Chris Cornell)
19 Getaway Car (Chris Cornell)
20 talk (Chris Cornell)
21 Doesn't Remind Me (Chris Cornell)
22 River of Deceit (Chris Cornell)
23 Blow Up the Outside World (Chris Cornell)
24 Let Your Eyes Wander (Chris Cornell)
25 The Last Remaining Light (Chris Cornell)
26 talk (Chris Cornell)
27 Wide Awake (Chris Cornell)
28 talk (Chris Cornell)
29 Say Hello 2 Heaven (Chris Cornell)
30 talk (Chris Cornell)
31 Billie Jean (Chris Cornell)
32 Scream (Chris Cornell)
33 talk (Chris Cornell)
34 Rusty Cage (Chris Cornell)
35 talk (Chris Cornell)
36 Black Hole Sun (Chris Cornell)
37 Hunger Strike (Chris Cornell)
38 talk (Chris Cornell)
39 Wooden Jesus (Chris Cornell)
40 A Day in the Life (Chris Cornell)
41 talk (Chris Cornell)
42 I Am the Highway (Chris Cornell)
43 talk (Chris Cornell)
44 Seasons (Chris Cornell)
45 talk (Chris Cornell)
46 Higher Truth [Edit] (Chris Cornell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dX4SvfaH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5a0aXLNL30k3H7k/file 

The cover image apparently comes from this exact concert. I say "apparently" because I'm not entirely sure about the source. But it's from this 2016 tour, at least.