Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 1975-1976

Here is the ninth, and last, volume of Lulu performing for the BBC. 

All but the last four songs are from her 1975 BBC TV show, "Lulu." As I mentioned in previous volumes, I found all the episodes of that TV show for the 1975 season. I converted the episodes to audio and then chopped out the songs and turned them into mp3s. That was enough for all of the two previous episodes, plus most of this one and another previous one. 

Lulu had BBC TV shows under different names from 1968 to 1975. So one reason this series is coming to an end with this volume is there is a sudden drop in the amount of material I could find. Also though, music was changing. Disco, punk, new wave, and such came along and swept away a lot of earlier musical trends. Lulu was tied to those earlier trends, so it makes sense that her show came to an end right about this time.

With the end of the show, that just leaves the last four songs. The last episode of her show aired in April 1975. I found a few strays from the latter half of 1975, and well as 1976. Tracks 16 and 17 come from a BBC TV special called "Seaside Special." You might want to give it a look on YouTube, especially because it has ABBA performing two songs actually live on stage instead of lip syncing like they usually did on TV shows. Track 18 is from the BBC TV show "Top of the Pops." I included it here because Lulu actually performed that song live, when most performed on that show did lip syncing. The final song is from another BBC TV special, called a "Jubilee of Music." It's the only song here from 1976 instead of 1975. It's fitting that the song Lulu sang was "Shout," because that's the song that made her into a star back in 1964.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality varies some, but is generally excellent. Note that pretty much all the songs were performed in front of a cheering audience, but I used the UVR5 audio editing program to remove as much of the cheering as I could.

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Son of a Preacher Man (Lulu)
02 Your Kiss Is Sweet (Lulu)
03 Song Sung Blue (Lulu)
04 Wouldn't It Be Luverly (Lulu)
05 Snowbird (Lulu)
06 Flash Bang Wallop (Lulu)
07 It May Be Winter Outside (Lulu)
08 A New Fangled Tango (Lulu)
09 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Lulu & David Clayton-Thomas)
10 I Just Don't Want to Be Lonely (Lulu)
11 Listen to a Country Song (Lulu)
12 Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (Lulu)
13 Take Your Mama for a Ride (Lulu)
14 New York, New York (Lulu & Dickie Henderson)
15 When Will I See You Again (Lulu)
16 Raised on Rock (Lulu)
17 A Boy like You (Lulu)
18 Heaven and Earth and the Stars [Edit] (Lulu)
19 Shout (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NFM1F2MZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/R0fWFGTY9gzqnFU/file

The cover image is from an unknown concert in November 1976. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Larkin Poe - Baloise Session, Event Halle, Basel, Switzerland, 11-6-2025

Here's a fairly recent concert by Larkin Poe. Well, a few months back as I write this in April 2026, at any rate. They're one of my favorite "newer" acts (by my "kids, get off my lawn" standards, hehehe), and I like to promote them by posting unreleased things from them. It's been a while since the last album I posted though. One reason is their "Tip O' the Hat" acoustic covers have slowed down to nearly nothing. Also, I haven't come across recent material with worthy sound quality. But then I came across this.

For this concert, the two Larkin Poe sisters (Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell) rocked out with a full band. I have to admit I prefer their acoustic style, since I like acoustic music in general. But this is a lot of fun. They certainly can do both styles very well.

This comes from the "Baloise Session" TV show. So far, I haven't really posted anything from this show. But it's been going since the 1980s, and broadcasts full concerts on various European TV stations. (As far as I can tell, it only gets to the U.S. via the Internet.) So even though this is unreleased, it's very well produced, and the sound quality is excellent. I found a video of this concert, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s.

I believe all the songs here are originals. In early 2025, Larkin Poe released their studio album "Bloom." A lot of the songs come from that. 

And by the way, congrats to them for winning a "Best Contemporary Blues Album" Grammy Award in 2024 for their album "Blood Harmony." They've never had a hit, and they don't fit the modern pop scene so they don't get much radio play, but they've been steadily growing in popularity by being really good and constantly promoting and performing. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 Nowhere Fast (Larkin Poe)
02 Mockingbird (Larkin Poe)
03 Easy Love, Part 1 (Larkin Poe)
04 Band Intros (Larkin Poe)
05 Bluephoria (Larkin Poe)
06 If God Is a Woman (Larkin Poe)
07 talk (Larkin Poe)
08 Southern Comfort (Larkin Poe)
09 talk (Larkin Poe)
10 Little Bit (Larkin Poe)
11 talk (Larkin Poe)
12 Devil Music (Larkin Poe)
13 AC-DC (Larkin Poe)
14 Bad Spell (Larkin Poe)
15 Pearls (Larkin Poe)
16 Wanted Woman (Larkin Poe)
17 Bolt Cutters and the Family Name (Larkin Poe) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/c4Zws1Xj 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/pGG1GQvZEhyCBan/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from the video.

J. J. Cale - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-13-1975

Here's a concert by the king of the mellow Tulsa groove, J. J. Cale. It's rather short, but the sound quality is excellent, since it comes from an FM radio broadcast.

I've been trying to resist, because I have too much good music to post already. But yesterday I finally gave in and collected all the concerts from this venue, Ebbets Field, in Denver, Colorado, that I could find. It's a remarkable treasure trove of music because from 1973 to 1977, dozens of concerts from this venue were broadcast on a local radio station, and the professional recording of them was better than usual for that era. I kept finding more and more. I've already posted six, but I found about another 50! So you can look forward to seeing a lot more of those here in the near future.

There are a few I can't find that I'm pretty sure exist, because excerpts from their recordings have been posted here:

https://colomusic.org/music/ebbets-field-rarities-1973-1977/

If anyone has the Ebbets Field concerts from the following, please let me know:

Joan Armatrading
Jesse Colin Young
John Fahey
Loudon Wainwright III
Eric Andersen
Wet Willie
Minnie Riperton
Beau Brummels
Dr. Hook 

I'm happy to say I've found the vast majority of the other concerts mentioned on that webpage. Those should all get posted here eventually, knock on wood.

Anyway, back to Cale. One nice thing about this concert is that it's one of the earliest live recordings of him available. I've only come across one that's from earlier, and that's a strange one from 1971 that is almost entirely instrumental. So this could be the first "normal" concert recording that's publicly available. Another nice thing, at least for me, is that his music sounds more lively than usual. 

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

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 talk (J. J. Cale)
02 Louisiana Women (J. J. Cale)
03 talk (J. J. Cale)
04 Lies (J. J. Cale)
05 Nowhere to Run (J. J. Cale)
06 Mo Jo (J. J. Cale)
07 Call Me the Breeze (J. J. Cale)
08 Woman I Love (J. J. Cale)
09 Bringing It Back [From Mexico] (J. J. Cale)
10 talk (J. J. Cale)
11 Magnolia (J. J. Cale)
12 After Midnight (J. J. Cale)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QgzXyRZT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ETN67pX9otBhEwR/file

The cover image is from a concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1986.

Peter Frampton - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 3-6-1974

Here's a concert by Peter Frampton. This took place about two years before he briefly became a rock superstar with the 1976 live album "Frampton Comes Alive!"

Frampton became a rock star even before he turned 18 as the lead singer and lead guitarist of the band the Herd. Then, from 1969 to 1971, he was one of the co-leaders of the popular band Humble Pie. He quit to start a solo career. For much of the 1970s, he struggled to gain fame. For instance, this concert took place the same month he released "Somethin's Happening," his third solo album. It would only reach Number 125 on the U.S. album chart. 

But his lack of popularity would later lead to the massive success of "Frampton Comes Alive!" because he was gradually putting out lots of quality songs that not many people knew about. So when that live album came out, it was like a "greatest hits"-level collection of songs that most people had never heard before. For instance, consider, "Do You Feel like We Do," performed in this concert. It came out on a 1973 album, but wasn't released as a single, so few people knew about it. But it was released as a single off "Frampton Comes Alive!" in 1976, and would hit the Top Ten in the U.S. singles chart and become one of his most famous songs.

So, for this album, one gets to hear Frampton was he was still playing small clubs. In fact, we know this venue, Ebbets Field, only held about 250 at the most. But for a few years in the mid-1970s, many shows from this location were broadcast on a local radio station. That's why we have recordings like this that sound as good as official live albums.

Actually, this is the fifth album I'm posting that was recorded at Ebbets Field. More will be coming soon. So I just started a new "Ebbets Field Concerts" label to help you find the other ones.

Normally, these Ebbets Field broadcasts sound unusually good for their era. However, there were some problems with this one. I used a version where someone else already made some fixes. I left in a note file about that. I made some more fixes. Namely, the volume sometimes surged loud or quiet on the first couple of songs. But I was able to adjust that using the Audacity program. If you listen now, I don't think you'll hear any remaining problems. 

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 It's a Plain Shame (Peter Frampton)
02 Doobie Wah (Peter Frampton)
03 talk (Peter Frampton)
04 Lines on My Face (Peter Frampton)
05 I Wanna to Go to the Sun (Peter Frampton)
06 talk (Peter Frampton)
07 Do You Feel like We Do (Peter Frampton)
08 talk (Peter Frampton)
09 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Peter Frampton)
10 talk (Peter Frampton)
11 White Sugar (Peter Frampton)
12 talk by emcee (Peter Frampton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P9cVKFGS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LZSqdUmKOQ6qASV/file

The cover photo was taken in London in 1974. I don't know any more details. I used the AI features inside Photoshop to add most of his left arm (the one on the opposite side of the microphone) because that was missing in the original.

Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd - In Session (CHCH-TV Studios, Hamilton, Canada, 1987)

From about 1983 to 1988, there was a very unusual and interesting program on a Canadian TV station, called "In Session." It specialized in putting two or more musicians together in a recording studio and then filming their collaboration. Here's an episode that united three soul musicians: Steve Cropper, William Bell, and Eddie Floyd.

First off, a bit more about this TV show. I've previously posted two other episodes. One paired Glen Campbell with Jimmy Webb, and the other paired Campbell with Leon Russell. I have since found out that a 1983 episode paired Stevie Ray Vaughan with Albert King. I won't be posting that one, because it has been officially released, and that album is well known and easily available:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Session_(Albert_King_and_Stevie_Ray_Vaughan_album)

But I recently dug deeper, and found some other interesting episodes. I plan on posting at least two more after this one. If anyone knows more about this show, or has more episodes, please let me know, because I haven't been able to find out much. (For instance, I couldn't find the exact date of this episode, and I've even seen conflicting information on the year. So if anyone has more accurate info about that, please let me know.)

Anyway, back to this episode. Cropper, Bell, and Floyd were far from strangers, because they collaborated with each other quite a lot back in the 1960s. All of them were part of the Stax Records hit-making machine. Cropper is best known as a session musician lead guitarist as well as a songwriter (I've posted two Covered albums for him), though he also was a key member of the Stax house band, Booker T. and the MG's. Bell and Floyd were both famous for their singing careers. However, both of them were also very capable songwriters. For instance, Bell wrote his hits "You Don't Miss Your Water" and "Private Number," and well as songs for others, such as "Born Under a Bad Sign" for Albert King. Floyd generally wrote all of his hits, including the classic "Knock on Wood." Many of them, including that one, were written with Cropper. But Floyd also wrote songs for others. For instance, he and Cropper wrote a couple of hits for Wilson Pickett, such as "634-5789 (Soulsville U.S.A.)" and "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)."

Cropper and Bell also wrote songs together. For instance, they wrote "Share What You Got (But Keep What You Need)," a minor hit for Bell in 1966. Furthermore, Bell and Floyd wrote songs together. For instance, they co-wrote the 1971 song "'Till My Back Ain't Got No Bone," which was recorded by Bell and later covered by Albert King. Additionally, Cropper often played lead guitar on the songs recorded by Bell and Floyd. So there was a lot of collaboration going on between these three, plus others at Stax like Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and David Porter. 

For this episode, the three of them performed one classic soul hit after another. For most of the songs, at least one of them sang, wrote, or played on the original. They also shared some interesting stories between the songs. If you're a fan of the great Stax records of the 1960s and early 1970s, you really should listen to this.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is very good. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 I Can't Turn You Loose [Instrumental] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
02 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
03 These Arms of Mine (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
04 I've Been Loving You Too Long (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
05 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
06 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay - Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa [Sad Song] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
07 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
08 A Tribute to a King (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
09 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
10 Knock on Wood (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
11 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
12 Hip Hug-Her [Instrumental] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
13 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
14 You Don't Miss Your Water (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
15 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
16 634-5789 [Soulsville U.S.A.] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MSBFW64m

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/gulpelJL5thPLnR/file

The cover image is from this exact TV show episode. From left to right: Steve Cropper, William Bell, and Eddie Floyd. The image is rather low res because it's a screenshot I took from pretty rough video footage. 

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1975

Here's the eighth album of Lulu performing for the BBC. Like the previous volume, everything here is from 1975.

All the songs from the previous volume, and a good chunk from the volume before that one, come from the 1975 season of Lulu's BBC TV show. For most years, it was called "It's Lulu," but for its final season in 1975, it was just called "Lulu." This volume also contains nothing but songs from that show. As I mentioned previously, I found videos of all the episodes from that season on SoulseekQT, converted them to audio, and chopped out mp3s of the songs I wanted to post.

In the 1970s, Lulu became an all-around entertainer for her show, doing lots of comedy parts and singing music in many different pop styles. We see that again here. She sang just about any song that was popular, including "Rainy Days and Mondays" by the Carpenters, "Waterloo" by ABBA, and "If" by Bread. She also occasionally sang songs from decades earlier. 

 

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

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 I Can See Clearly Now - Montego Bay (Lulu)
02 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka & Lulu)
03 Rainy Days and Mondays (Lulu)
04 I've Never Seen Anything like It - Talk to the Animals (Lulu)
05 The Rhythm of Life (Lulu)
06 Sugar Candy Kisses (Lulu)
07 Sand and Sea (Lulu & Gilbert Becaud)
08 Waterloo (Lulu)
09 I'm a Brass Band (Lulu)
10 Please Mr. Postman (Lulu)
11 Just an Old Fashioned Girl (Lulu)
12 Getting to Know You (Lulu & Johnny Mathis)
13 Trouble - Blue Suede Shoes (Lulu)
14 Cabaret - An Englishman Needs Time - The White Rose of Athens - Big Spender [Edit] (Lulu)
15 And I Love Her So (Lulu)
16 If (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/c2drG2Ns

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/yR9mrZgc9pp0Iys/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from one of her 1975 TV show episodes. 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-3-1972, Part 2: Jonathan Edwards, Long John Baldry & More

Here is the second part of the third (and last) day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. This is the last album from this festival. Like the other album I put together from this third day, this is a grab-bag, consisting of relatively short sets of four music acts: Jonathan Edwards, Long John Baldry, Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010, and Osibisa.

Jonathan Edwards is a singer-songwriter who had a hit with the song "Sunshine." It went all the way to Number Four in the U.S. singles chart in 1971. That makes him a one-hit wonder. But he was (and still is) a lot more than that. I especially like his first few albums, and I've posted a concert from him. We have six songs from him here, but they only make up about 18 minutes of this album. "Sometimes in the Morning" and "Train of Glory" are from the official live album from the festival. His other songs are from the same audience bootleg as most of the other songs I've posted from this festival.

The next three songs are from British blues singer Long John Baldry. I've posted a BBC sessions album from him, as well as music from a band he was in, Steampacket. He had his biggest success in 1967, when he put out a single, "Let the Heartaches Begin," that went all the way to Number One in Britain (though it barely made the U.S. singles chart). His career was still going fairly well at the time of this concert. He had a minor hit in 1971 with the song "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll." Interesting fact: half of his 1971 album "It Ain't Easy" was produced by Elton John, and the other half was produced by Rod Stewart. "Bring My Baby Back" made it to the official live album from this festival, while the other song here is from the same audience boot mentioned elsewhere.

Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010 was a salsa band from Puerto Rico. Apparently, some of their lyrics were political, but the meaning was generally missed by the mostly English speaking audience. There were other lesser known bands like this one that performed at the festival, such as Banda del K-rajo, Bang, Elephant's Memory, Michael Overly, Rubber Band, Stonehenge, and Malo. But we don't happen to have any recordings from them, and we happen to have two songs from this band. Both are from the same audience boot mentioned above.

The last song was by the band Osibisa, who were the last musical act to perform at the festival. This song made it to the official live album. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about them: Osibisa is a Ghanaian-Caribbean Afro rock band founded in London in the late 1960s by four expatriate West African and three London-based Caribbean musicians. Osibisa was the most successful and longest lived of the African-heritage bands in London... and was largely responsible for the establishment of world music and Afro-rock as a marketable genre." They would have a couple of hits in Britain later in the 1970s.

Here's their Wikipedia entry:

Osibisa - Wikipedia 

So that's the last of the music I have from this festival. But before I finish my write-up of this last album, I want to explain a bit about some interesting events that happened as the festival finished. As I mentioned in a previous write-up, the main promoter of the festival was Alex Cooley, who had promoted some other major rock festivals. But he ran into a lot of trouble with this one, including the fact that he failed to get the proper permits. The festival only happened because it would have caused more trouble for the government to have tens of thousands of angry fans who had paid to fly to Puerto Rico just to attend the festival.

Cooley later explained how the festival ended for him: "[A] guy who was working in the festival, came over to me, the last night of the festival, and said [the government] issued a warrant in San Juan and they were coming to arrest me. So they smuggled me out of there with a Volkswagen bus. I got in the bus and they put things on top of me and they took me to the airport and there were people at the airport that were very sympathetic towards this and they let them.... Of course, you'd never be able to do this now - they let them drive the Volkswagen out on to the runway. So I got out of the Volkswagen and got directly on the plane. So that's how I got out of San Juan, out of Puerto Rico."

He left in all sorts of trouble, including owing at least $40,000 in taxes that apparently never got paid.

Cooley wasn't the only one who had trouble leaving the festival. Creem Magazine reported, "People had begun making the long trek back to San Juan and points beyond after the first day of the festival, but even this steady exodus didn't avert the Tuesday tie-up at the airport. Many of the people who had purchased the $149 festival package found that their return plane tickets were good only for stand-by, thus effectively leaving the stranded until auxiliary flights could be arranged."

Luckily, the government helped take care of the people stranded at the airport. Tents were set up near the main terminal. The Red Cross, the government, and even some airline companies provided food, water and medical attention. Some bands performed for the stranded passengers. Pan American Airlines provided the flights for about 3,000 people who attended the festival from outside Puerto Rico who otherwise couldn't leave. It took several days before everyone was able to leave the country. 

No wonder the government was mad at Cooley and the other festival organizers. It's also no wonder why Puerto Rico didn't have another rock festival like this until decades later.

This album is 55 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
02 Athens County (Jonathan Edwards)
03 Dues Day Bar (Jonathan Edwards)
04 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
05 Give Us a Song (Jonathan Edwards)
06 Shanty (Jonathan Edwards)
07 talk (Jonathan Edwards)
08 Sometimes in the Morning (Jonathan Edwards)
09 Train of Glory (Jonathan Edwards)
10 It Ain't Easy (Long John Baldry)
11 talk (Long John Baldry)
12 Bring My Baby Back (Long John Baldry)
13 Hemos Dicho Basta [Incomplete] (Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010)
14 Ya Se Van (Fran Ferrer & Puerto Rico 2010)
15 Y Sharp [Instrumental] (Osibisa)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZSLiFptp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iaLTJsYB36ObzqH/file

The cover image of Jonathan Edwards is from this exact concert. 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-3-1972, Part 1: Cactus, Faces & More

Here is the first part of the third, and last, day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. Unfortunately, for this last day of the festival, I wasn't able to find as much music as I found for the first two days. So I just have portions of sets. This has music from Cactus, the Faces, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Potliquor.

The four Cactus songs all come from official sources. The first three are from a live album called "'Ot 'n' Sweaty," released in 1972. The fourth song, "Bedroom Marurka," is from the official live album of the festival, "Mar y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival."

Cactus broke up a couple of months after this festival. Two band members, bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, joined with Jeff Beck to form the band Beck, Bogert and Appice, releasing an album later in 1972. Here's the Wikipedia entry about Cactus:

Cactus (American band) - Wikipedia 

The Faces, starring Rod Stewart, were one of the main headliners of the festival. However, they didn't perform last on the last day, as one might expect of a headliner. Apparently, the organizers realized that the audience size steadily declined towards the ends of festivals like this, so it was better to have the headliners on earlier. (Interesting fact: when Jimi Hendrix performed at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, most of the audience had left already. Only about 30,000 to 100,000 of the peak 600,000 people remained.) Unfortunately, we only have three songs from the Faces. All three of those are unreleased.

There's just one song here from the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the jazz fusion band led by guitarist John McLaughlin, "Noonward Race." But it's an impressive 13-minute-long instrumental. It comes from the official live album of the festival. Here the Wikipedia entry about this band:

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Wikipedia

Finally, that leaves the final song, from a band called Potliquor. This band played Southern rock with a Louisiana influence, since they were from Louisiana. They were together from 1969 to 1973 (plus a reunion in the late 1970s), and put out three albums in those years. Unfortunately, they were signed to a small record label and didn't get much promotion or distribution help. They were building some momentum, but that ended when the band broke up after only a few years. Their one song here is unreleased.

Here's their Wikipedia entry:

Potliquor - Wikipedia

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 Swim (Cactus)
02 Bad Mother Boogie (Cactus)
03 Our Lil Rock 'n' Roll Thing (Cactus)
04 talk (Cactus)
05 Bedroom Mazurka (Cactus)
06 It's All Over Now (Faces)
07 Maggie May (Faces)
08 Miss Judy's Farm (Faces)
09 Noonward Race [Instrumental] (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
10 The Train (Potliquor)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DHMVDrgp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/izVfQzS9XcCFAi3/file

The cover image of Rod Stewart is from this exact concert. The original picture was in black and white, but I converted it to color with the Kolorize program.

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-2-1972, Part 4: Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Here is the fourth and last part of the second day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. There is still one more day of the festival to go after this. This set features the prog rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

At this point in the band's career, they had only released two albums: "Emerson, Lake and Palmer" in 1970, and "Tarkus" in 1971. They had a new album coming ("Trilogy"), but it wouldn't be released until June 1972, and they didn't perform any songs from it. 

The band's bassist and lead vocalist Greg Lake later shared some memories about the band's experience at the festival: 

"The first thing I remember about the Mar Y Sol festival was stepping down onto the runway to discover the sun was so intense it had begun to melt the tarmac. After quite a long drive, we arrived at a luxury tropical hotel. At first, it all felt like a holiday atmosphere until we began to learn there were serious problems at the site and the government was trying to get the festival stopped. I remember jumping down out of a helicopter and being greeted by the backstage manager, who told me that they had just killed a rattlesnake under the stage. The whole thing did not feel good. It was not until later that we discovered a body being ferried out on the helicopter we had just arrived in was, in fact, the dead body of someone who’d been murdered, apparently over some drug deal that went wrong."

Lake also recalls having problems during the band's set. "I remember performing and feeling my left arm becoming unbearably hot. I quickly snatched a look between playing and singing and could see that my left arm was actually beginning to give off smoke. Apparently they had set up a huge and powerful search light on the side of the stage and were planning to use it during the filming. After a few desperate and agonizing screams from me, they finally switched it off."

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 talk (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
02 Hoedown [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
03 Tarkus (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
04 Take a Pebble (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
05 Lucky Man (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
06 Piano Improvisation [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
07 Pictures at an Exhibition (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
08 Rondo [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uC48SVJP 

alternate: 

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

I couldn't find many photos from this festival. For this album, I was only able to find one decent one. It only shows keyboardist Keith Emerson. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Richard Thompson - Boxed Set, Cowcaddens, Glasgow, Britain, 8-16-1999

Here's a very nice Richard Thompson concert. It's from 1999, just after he released what I consider one of his best solo albums, "Mock Tudor," earlier that year.

I have to admit, I had planned to post this as the next album in my long series of Thompson's BBC albums. Most versions of this label it as a BBC concert. But right before posting, I did a little more digging and discovered this concert was done for a British TV show, but not a BBC one. "Boxed Set" was a short-lived music show around 1999 and 2000, done for Scottish Television (STV) in association with ITV. But, BBC or not, it's a worthy concert and one of his most high-profile TV appearances, so I'm posting it here.

I didn't have to do much audio editing. There was a short interview section with Thompson in the middle of the show that I got rid of, since it wasn't actually from the concert. Also, some of the cheering at the ends of songs got cut off as the TV show quickly went to commercial breaks and things like that. So, in those cases, I copied and pasted in some cheering from the ends of other songs. But that was about it.

Note that he was joined by his son Teddy Thompson to help sing the song "Persuasion." Teddy has had a successful music career of his own. 

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

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 talk (Richard Thompson)
02 Cooksferry Queen (Richard Thompson)
03 Bathsheba Smiles (Richard Thompson)
04 talk (Richard Thompson)
05 Uninhabited Man (Richard Thompson)
06 Persuasion (Richard Thompson with Teddy Thompson)
07 Two Faced Love (Richard Thompson)
08 Al Bowlly's in Heaven (Richard Thompson)
09 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard Thompson)
10 The Sights and Sounds of London Town (Richard Thompson)
11 Tear-Stained Letter (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZeNZzz2P

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/Fd36kzW1Ex2q6fk/file

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

Elliott Smith & Heatmiser - Mic City Sons (Elliott Smith Edition) (1996)

I've been on another Elliott Smith kick lately, so here's something else from him. This is an officially released album, the last album of a band he was in early in his music career called Heatmiser. But that band had two singer-songwriters, and split their output roughly evenly. Due to some recently released bonus tracks, I was able to make an all-Elliott-Smith version. That original version is still out there for those who want it this way. But for those especially keen on Smith's songs, here's an option for you. I would argue that if this was actually one of Smith's solo albums, it would be considered one of his best.

Heatmiser was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1991. The two main singer-songwriters were Smith and Neil Gust. The two of them were friends, as well as being roommates for several years. 1991 was the year that grunge started to make it big up the coast in Seattle. Thus, at the time, there was a lot of incentive to ride the popularity of the grunge sound, and that's what Heatmiser did. The band's first two albums in particular, "Dead Air" in 1993 and "Cop and Speeder" in 1994, really rock in a way that can sound shocking for those only familiar with Smith's later acoustic-based style. They were heavily influenced by bands like Husker Du and Fugazi.

Heatmiser found a lot of popularity in Portland, and performed there practically constantly. But their albums came out on an indie label and didn't make much impact elsewhere. At one point, they played a laudromat in Cleveland, and their entire "audience" left when that person's laundry was finished.

Smith later dismissed the band's music as "loud," and complained that being in Heatmiser changed the songs he was writing at the time into "loud rock songs with no dynamic." Furthermore, in a later interview, he said of his time in the band:

"I was being a total actor, acting out a role I didn't even like. I couldn't come out and show where I was coming from. I was always disguised in this loud rock band. [In the beginning] we all got together, everyone wanted to play in a band and it was fun, then after a couple of years we realized that none of us really liked this kind of music, and that we didn't have to play this way. You didn't have to turn all these songs you wrote into these loud... things. [...] It was kinda weird – people that came to our shows, a majority of them were people I couldn't relate to at all. Why aren't there more people like me coming to our shows? Well, it's because I'm not even playing the kind of music that I really like." 

In 1994, Smith released his first album, "Roman Candle," in a drastically different, semi-acoustic style. His solo career soon began to find a growing audience. Then in 1995, he released a second solo album in that style, "Elliott Smith," and his following continued to grow even more.

However, while that was going on, Heatmiser was working on their third album. The band's other main singer-songwriter, Neil Gust, was going through a similar musical transformation, moving away from a punk and/or grunge influenced rocking style to a more melodic one. Their 1996 album, "Mic City Sons," was a big musical leap forward, in my opinion, and many other people agree. 

For instance, here's part of the album's AllMusic.com review, by Michael Frey: "The quartet's finest and final album, 'Mic City Sons' features a decidedly more pop feel than its predecessors and marks Smith's maturation into the role of the band's visionary. From the opening notes of the swaggering, bass-heavy 'Get Lucky' to conclusion of the album with a soothingly soft hidden track ['Half Right'], 'Mic City Sons' is an outstanding collection of diverse and invigorating tracks. Songs like 'Plain Clothes Man' and 'You Gotta Move' exhibit the interplay of soulful, smooth vocals over gentle guitar strumming that has been so evident in Smith's solo work. The Gust-penned tunes, like 'Cruel Reminder' and 'Eagle Eye' are more rugged and aggressive, but complement Smith's songs brilliantly. ... Despite the success Heatmiser's members have achieved since their disbanding, it's unfortunate that this collective decided to split up just when they had reached such a creative peak."

As that review points out, Gust's songs are very good. One should hear the original version of this album, with an even number of Smith and Gust songs. But, in my opinion, it's also nice to listen to this Smith-centric version. The first seven songs here are from the original album. The remainder are from a deluxe edition released in 2025. That edition also contained two demos, but I didn't include them because they were full-band demos that didn't sound that different, and they were of songs from the original album. 

It would have been really interesting if Heatmiser could have kept going, along with Smith's solo career. But Smith's growing popularity basically made that impossible, especially due to some record company intrigue. For their third album ("Mic City Sons"), the band signed with a major label, Virgin Records, for the first time. Smith later explained what happened next:

"It was kind of ridiculous to carry it up to a certain point and then drop the ball or the bomb, like quitting the band right after we had signed to Virgin. I was the guy who made that gravy-train crash so to speak, and it was a gravy-train at the time. The breakup happened almost immediately after the contract was signed. I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members. In the event of the band dissolving, any members could be kept to that contract with or without their consent under the same terms. They didn't pick up Neil's option, only mine. It turned out to be a fucked-up situation because they said the reason they had signed Heatmiser was that they'd been hoping this [the breakup] would happen - or something to that effect. They said that right in front of Neil and I couldn't believe it."

Basically, the record company didn't want Heatmiser to succeed because they were only interested in Smith's solo career material. A 2018 article about the band by the Oregonian newspaper commented that "at some point in [late] 1996, the band fell apart. 'Mic City Sons' was released on a smaller Virgin sister label, Caroline, and slipped into the world quietly." In my opinion, the album really is a lost classic, be it the original version or this Smith-centric version.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Get Lucky (Heatmiser)
02 Plainclothes Man (Heatmiser)
03 The Fix Is In (Heatmiser)
04 You Gotta Move (Heatmiser)
05 Pop in G (Heatmiser)
06 See You Later (Heatmiser)
07 Half Right (Heatmiser)
08 I'm Over That Now (Heatmiser)
09 Burned Out, Still Glowing (Heatmiser)
10 Everybody Has It (Heatmiser)
11 Christian Brothers [Rock Version] (Heatmiser)
12 Untitled Instrumental (Heatmiser) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gESih8e4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/RdUa17d8B2tapaI/file

The cover image is almost identical as the original. However, I changed the text at the top from "Heatmiser" to "Elliott Smith & Heatmiser." 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-2-1972, Part 3: Alice Cooper

Here is the third part of the second day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. (I'm guessing the order based on the relative popularity of the musical acts at the time.) This one features the band Alice Cooper.

At the time of this concert, the band was on their way to the big time. The album "Killer" was released in late 1971, and it was their first big album success. It would eventually go Platinum in the U.S., which means sales of a million or more. The band also had a lot of success with the song "I'm Eighteen," which made the Top Twenty in the U.S. singles chart in early 1971. However, greater popularity was coming. The band's next album, "School's Out" would be an even bigger success in 1972, propelled by a single with the same name. That single would be released only a few weeks after this concert.

The band was making a big impression with audiences due to their theatrical stage performances. One fan who attended this concert later commented, "I was not a fan of Alice Cooper until I saw him in concert at Mar y Sol. I think I was more amazed at the crowd reaction then the actual show, but they could rock. I remember this chill going over me when Alice hung himself. He also did the throwing money bit into the crowd, and watching people scramble for it was pretty funny." 

For this set, it happens that the entire performance has been officially released. It came out on a deluxe edition of the "Killer" album. Most of that album was performed in the concert, as well as "Public Animal  the show previews "Public Animal #9" from the upcoming album. The band played most of "Killer" during the concert, plus three songs from their previous album "Love It to Death," including their sole hit at the time, "I'm Eighteen."

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Be My Lover (Alice Cooper)
02 You Drive Me Nervous (Alice Cooper)
03 Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (Alice Cooper)
04 talk (Alice Cooper)
05 I'm Eighteen (Alice Cooper)
06 Halo of Flies (Alice Cooper)
07 Is It My Body (Alice Cooper)
08 Dead Babies (Alice Cooper)
09 Killer (Alice Cooper)
10 Long Way to Go (Alice Cooper)
11 Under My Wheels (Alice Cooper)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Cfbk6aJd

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/g4Qks4DitkRsWpD/file

I could be wrong, since it's been a long time since I make the cover art for this festival, but I'm pretty sure the cover image is from this exact concert. I found just two photos of him from it, this one, and one of him holding a skull in his hands.  

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-2-1972, Part 2: Billy Joel

Here is the second part of the second day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. (Although note that the set order is mostly guesswork.) This album stars Billy Joel. This is a real treat for Joel fans, because this was one of the most important concerts of his entire career, arguably THE most important. 

It's important to remember that while Billy Joel is a superstar today, and has been one for decades, in 1972, he was basically a nobody. He released his debut album, "Cold Spring Harbor," in 1971. But it came out on a small label and got little notice. Furthermore, the recording was released at the wrong speed, and Joel soon got in conflict with the label, leaving him without promotional support. Joel wasn't even supposed to perform at the festival. But after some other acts dropped out at the last minute (due to reasons I've mentioned in the write-up to the first album from this festival), he was brought in to fill up time. 

This turned out to be the biggest break for his career. His career was basically dead in the water. But some important people from Columbia Records were at the festival, and were impressed by his performance. In fact, they were so impressed that eventually they bought out the rest of his original contract. Going with a major label restarted his career and gave him the support eventually become a star.

Since this concert was so pivotal for Joel's career, I was able to find some interesting quotes about it. Here's one from "Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man," a book by Hank Bordowitz: "Before Mar Y Sol, nobody had ever heard of Billy Joel, outside of the New York area, and even there, nobody cared about Billy Joel. But as the sun broke through the clouds at Mar y Sol, Billy Joel had the place reeling and rolling."

And here's Irwin Mazur, Billy's first manager, quoted in that same book: "It was a moment I'll never forget. He had the crowd in the palm of his hands. He had never had that kind of command of an audience before. That was the first moment that he took command of the stage."

Here's a lengthier explanation from Larry Russell, who was the bassist in Joel's band at the time: 

"Well, we were slightly unsure what [the crowd would] think, really. Up until that point, we were a very folky, intimate, cerebrally provoking act. Nothing too fancy, very simple four piece band, Thinking back on it now, I think we should have had one more band member to fill things out and make the sound match the 'Cold Spring Harbor' record, but that would have complicated the expenses for the record/management companies. We knew when we saw that crowd we had to toughen our set, but we were not prepared to do that with songs like 'Travelin’ Prayer,' etc. But, somehow, whatever we played that day, they loved. Everything worked. And even though we sounded nothing like the bands that were scheduled to perform. somehow that in itself, set us apart from the others. Song after song, our momentum built, and by the time we were at our last song, the crowd was ready for more.

"The last song that day and everyday was ‘Tomorrow Is Today’, which on that day was really outstanding. But when we finished that song, they didn’t want us to leave, and so we had to resort to a harder styled cover song with Billy doing a fine impersonation of Joe Cocker, singing ‘The Letter’ with piano chops and Cockers' gyrations as well! After that, I ran off the stage to smoke a joint and our manager told me we had another encore... and then [he went] into the best version I have ever heard of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.' His vocal range was unbelievable, truly amazing. But then again, he was only 22 at the time."

Here's a link to the whole interview with Russell, if you want even more details:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204084216/http://marysol-festival.com/interviews/interview-with-larry-russell-billy-joel

As Russell, explains, the band had only been in existence for three or four months prior to this concert, mostly performing in small venues on the East Coast. So to go from that to performing before an audience of tens of thousands must have been a really big deal for Joel. 

In 1999, Joel returned to perform a concert in Puerto Rico for the first time since this 1972 festival. Between songs, he shared some memories with his banter. One person who attended that 1999 concert summarized his comments like this:

"He explained he had been here in the island previously for a festival called 'Mar y Sol,' asking if anybody remembered that. A few screams and claps came from the crowd, to which he replied, 'Oh, so you were there too?!' He said he was glad some people remembered... He admitted that in those days he and his band were just simple amateurs, guys looking for an opening to go forward and get noticed. He was happy that he'd developed his career to get to where he could now thank Puerto Rico for being a kind of 'starting point,' maybe not recognized that much, which helped with the record company’s support from that time forward."

Listening to this recording, I have to admit that it's good, but it didn't really knock my socks off. But I think that's because I'm looking at it from the perspective of Joel being a big star for decades already, with all the crowd-pleasing skills of a big star. In hindsight, this concert was the moment Joel showed he could be charismatic and take control of a crowd, a talent he hadn't shown in public before. I'm sure a lot of that was visual, such as the Joe Cocker-styled gyrations mentioned above. 

This recording is entirely unreleased. (Joel wanted to one of his songs to appear on the official album from the festival, which no doubt would have helped his career a lot, but it wasn't possible due to conflicts between two record companies.) Supposedly, this is from a soundboard source. I don't know if that's true, or if it's from the same audience bootleg as most of the rest of the festival. But it doesn't matter since the sound quality of the audience boot is basically at a soundboard level anyway. Also, we know this is the full performance.  

This album is 35 minutes long. 

01 Travelin' Prayer (Billy Joel)
02 talk (Billy Joel)
03 Josephine (Billy Joel)
04 The Ballad of Billy the Kid (Billy Joel)
05 talk (Billy Joel)
06 Captain Jack (Billy Joel)
07 talk (Billy Joel)
08 Tomorrow Is Today (Billy Joel)
09 talk (Billy Joel)
10 The Letter (Billy Joel)
11 talk (Billy Joel)
12 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Billy Joel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LYxyV5Uk

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2RF9fUzhcYJXQx9/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-2-1972, Part 1: David Peel, Herbie Mann, J. Geils Band & More

Here is the first part of the second day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. I'm doing this day by day, so this goes back to "Part 1" instead of "Part 4" of the entire festival. This is kind of a grab-bag for musical acts from the second day where I only have small portions of their sets.

Unfortunately, so much time has passed since this festival that a lot has been lost. I only was able to learn some basics about which acts performed on which day (though even that is sometimes questionable, especially since some of the acts performed more than once), and which ones were the headliners. Also, only bits and pieces of the music have survived. I've previously mentioned the official double album, "Mar y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival," long out of print. Some of the songs on this album come from that. (Specifically, tracks 1, 11, and 13.) But most of the songs come from an audience bootleg I mentioned in my previous write-ups. The good news is that the sound quality is surprisingly good for an audience bootleg. I didn't try any of my usual audio editing tricks on those songs, because they sounded like a soundboard already. But the bad news is how we often have only portions of many sets. For instance, I'm sure Dr. John played a lot more than just one song! I assume all the acts here performed more songs. But something is better than nothing.

The J. Geils Band set is the longest here, at 22 minutes. A New York Times review that was down on the festival in general liked that performance, at least, writing, "The J. Gells band finally played a set that deserved the accolades it has received in the past." Too bad there isn't more of it. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 Wang Dang Doodle (Dr. John)
02 All the Things You Are [Instrumental] (Dave Brubeck & Gerry Mulligan)
03 Take Five [Instrumental] (Dave Brubeck & Gerry Mulligan)
04 The Pope Smokes Dope (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
05 talk (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
06 Up Against the Wall (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
07 talk (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
08 New York City Hippie (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
09 Mother Where Is My Father (David Peel & the Lower East Side)
10 Memphis Underground [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
11 Respect Yourself [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
12 Never Can Say Goodbye [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
13 talk (J. Geils Band)
14 Looking for a Love (J. Geils Band)
15 talk (J. Geils Band)
16 Homework (J. Geils Band)
17 Crusin' for a Love (J. Geils Band)
18 Sno-Cone [Instrumental] (J. Geils Band)
19 Wait (J. Geils Band)
20 talk (J. Geils Band)
21 Whammer Jammer (J. Geils Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/77vXqgBR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0qsJyXsMdlKWoD1/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Herbie Mann playing flute in front, with other band members. 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-1-1972, Part 3: The Allman Brothers Band

Here's the third out of three albums I made from the first day of the 1972 Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. This one features of the headliners from the festival, the Allman Brothers Band.

On October 29, 1971, Duane Allman, one of the key members of this band, died in a motorcycle accident. But the band carried on. In February 1972, they released the double album "Eat a Peach," which was their biggest success so far at that point in their music career. While Duane Allman isn't on this recording, bassist Berry Oakley is. He also would die in a motorcycle accident later in 1972.

Only one song from this set has been officially released. "Ain't Wastin' Time No More" appeared on the album "Mar y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival." The rest comes from bootlegs. Luckily, they sound very good, so much so that you probably won't notice the difference between the officially released track and the rest.

It seems that while most of the set is presented here, it may not be all of it. Two of the songs were incomplete, "Statesboro Blues" and "You Don't Love Me." I used a bootleg of a concert from Jackson, Alabama, on March 23, 1972, to fill in the rest of those two songs. For "Statesboro Blues," I didn't have to fill in much. But for "You Don't Love Me," most of it actually comes from the other concert.

One interesting fact is that Gregg Allman always played a Hammond organ in concert. But for this show, the organ promised by promoters didn't show up in time. It is rumored that he asked to borrow Keith Emerson's organ, but was denied. Thus, he played most of the set with an electric piano instead. Only near the end of the set was that replaced by a Hammond organ, due it finally showing up. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
02 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Ain't Wastin' Time No More (Allman Brothers Band)
04 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Statesboro Blues [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
07 You Don't Love Me [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
08 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5ivtZ4ia

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Oe8WE71z2sYTAOg/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It would have been nice to find a photo of the entire band. But I've only seen a small number of good photos from the festival, and I was lucky to find anything that fits here at all. The photo shows Dickey Betts, of the band's two main singers and lead guitarists. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-1-1972, Part 2: B. B. King

Here's the second album from the first day of the Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. There are three albums from this day in total. This one consists only of a set by blues legend B. B. King.

As I explained in the first album from this festival, the festival was a bit of a fiasco overall. But there still was a lot of good music, and most accounts said that King's set was one of the highlights. Unfortunately, we only have some of the set. Just one song, "Why I Sing the Blues," made it onto the official album from the festival, "Mar y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival." So I used that version for that song. For the rest, I relied on a surprisingly good sounding audience bootleg that I mentioned in the write-up for the first album. 

But as I mentioned, that bootleg only has portions of the festival (or at least that's all that's been made public. This definitely wasn't King's full set. In fact, one of the songs, "Hummingbird," wasn't even complete. I found a different live recording of that from this era and used it to finish it off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Now, I want to say a little more about the festival that has nothing to do with B. B. King per se, but I didn't want to write too much in the write-up for the first album. I want to mention the musical acts that were supposed to attend the festival but didn't perform for some reason.

The biggest miss, by far, was John Lennon. He was very interested in performing at the festival, and that would have been a massively big deal, since he only performed a couple of full concerts after leaving the Beatles. Around 1972, he got to be friends with musician John Peel, who did perform at the festival, and he knew some other people who were going. So he wanted to be a part of it as well. Unfortunately, he was having legal problems with the U.S. government over his visa, and leaving the U.S. to go to Puerto Rico apparently would have added to those problems, despite the fact that Puerto Rico was and still is a U.S. territory. So instead, he and Yoko Ono sent a message of support. You can hear that here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSGbEVUbZoY

There were other big misses. Black Sabbath made it to Puerto Rico, and were supposed to perform on the third and last night. But while other bands were flown by helicopter from a hotel in the main city of San Juan to the festival site, no helicopters were available for the band. It was also determined that the roads were clogged, due to the festival, so they couldn't make it that way either. In the end, they simply stayed in their hotel. They didn't mind that much, since they'd already been paid.

Bloodrock, Flash Cadillac, Fleetwood Mac, and Malo also didn't perform for various reasons. Probably a lot of it had to do with the uncertainty surrounding the festival, since it almost didn't happen due to legal issues. A bunch of other musical acts were scheduled to perform, but it's unknown if they did or not: Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Savoy Brown, Roberta Flack, Al Kooper, Loggins & Messina, Poco,
Billy Preston, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. If anyone reading this attended the festival and can shed some light on this, that would be great.

This album is 25 minutes long.

01 Everyday I Have the Blues (B.B. King)
02 Hummingbird [Edit] (B.B. King)
03 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
04 Guess Who (B.B. King)
05 Why I Sing the Blues (B.B. King)
06 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HWrLrgKc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Oeez4DxyNBChLXg/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It's one of the few color photos I could find. The top of his head was missing, but I used AI features in Photoshop to fill out the missing part.
 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-1-1972, Part 1: Nitzinger - Brownsville Station

It's time for me to post another big rock festival. This is an interesting one, but not very well known: the Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, in Manati, Puerto Rico, in 1972. Unfortunately, only bits and pieces of recordings of this three-day-long festival survive and have made it into the public domain, most of them unreleased. But it's all very good to excellent sound quality, and there were a lot of musical acts performing, so it adds up. In total, I have enough material to post nine albums, containing over eight hours of music.

Before I get to describing the musical acts and songs on this particular album, let me discuss the festival in general. It has a rather strange history, probably mostly due to its unusual location, in Puerto Rico. It was the only big rock festival in that country in that time period. There are some reasons for that, as we shall see.

After the massive success of the Woodstock Festival in 1969, many promoters decided to try to organize their own big rock festivals and possibly make a lot of money. There wasn't enough of a local audience to justify a rock festival with famous names, so the idea was to hold a festival during a time people from the U.S. could come during a vacation. The appeal of beach, tropical jungle, and sunny weather could be combined with rock music to hopefully have a successful, well-attended festival. 

The original plan was for the festival to take place during Thanksgiving break in 1971. Artists like Santana, Jose Feliciano, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Ten Years After, Richie Havens, and the Chamber Brothers were booked to perform. But the planners ran into financial troubles, and the festival was postponed, or possibly cancelled altogether. Then Alex Cooley agreed to take over the management. He had already successfully organized two Atlanta International Pop Festivals and the Texas International Pop Festival. So his involvement added credibility, allowing the festival to be rescheduled for April 1st to 3rd, 1972.

Unfortunately, Cooley and others managing the festival didn't understand local culture. Those dates meant the festival would take place during Holy Week, and Easter. That was a good vacation time to get Americans to fly there. But Puerto Rico was heavily Catholic, and many people there didn't like how this created a conflict with religious activities. Cooley also relied on a friend of a friend who was a high ranking official in the military there, and promised to take care of all the necessary permits and such. Unfortunately, that friend failed to follow through. The festival took place anyway, because so many people arrived from out of the country that it would have been a bigger debacle for the local authorities to not allow it. But Cooley found himself in hot water. Ultimately, he had to get smuggled out of country to avoid possibly serving prison time.

The festival was held on a beach near the main city of San Juan. Somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people attended, most of them from the U.S. But there were many problems. The weather caused a lot of problems. At times, it was very rainy. At other times, it was too hot, over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A review in Creem Magazine reported, "Quite ironically, the festival's major drawing card, old sun, readily proved to be one of its most formidable villains. Even the most fanatical sun-worshipers soon found themselves crawling for cover after only minimal exposure; the medical tent reported that a vast majority of cases handled related directly to this torturous sun blaze."

There was a crazy amount of drug use. That lead to four deaths. One person was hacked to death while sleeping, possibly due to a bad drug deal or a romantic dispute. A couple other people drowned in the ocean. Creem Magazine also reported, "The dark eyes of violence were always staring over your shoulder. Gangs of Puerto Ricans roamed the grounds in varying shades of belligerence, many carrying knives and apparently itchy fingers. It was like an ugly New York City against a postcard backdrop."

A local newspaper, the San Juan Star, reported, "Mar y Sol was Puerto Rico's Woodstock Nation, except that by 1972 people were beginning to lose faith in the peace and love schtick." 

The title of a review in the New York Times was "Mar y Sol: Unhappy and Unsuccessful." You can read the entire review here:

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/05/archives/mar-y-sol-unhappy-and-unsuccessful.html

So while the festival had many serious problems, there also was a lot of good music. And experiences varied. I was looking up some YouTube videos of performances from the festival, and many commenters said they had a great time, with some saying it had been life-changing. So it was a mixed bag. But there were enough problems that there never was another festival like that allowed in Puerto Rico in that era.

There had been a really nice website dedicated to the festival. Unfortunately, it appears to have died a few months ago (as I write this in April 2026). However, one can still find links to pages from it using archive.org. Here's the main page describing what happened, with links to other pages:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201202130637/https://marysol-festival.com/history-menu/festival-history

Now, let me address the music. There were plans to make a movie out of the festival, but the filming never happened due to all the legal troubles related to the festival. I did find a few minutes of footage from a home movie, however, which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhS5t_zx53k

While the movie didn't happen, a double album of highlights from this festival was released. But it didn't do very well, and it eventually went out of print. It's never even been released on CD. Here's a Wikipedia entry about the album, with a list of the songs from it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_y_Sol:_The_First_International_Puerto_Rico_Pop_Festival_(album)

I wouldn't be posting this festival if that's all the recordings that survived. Luckily, there's more. A couple of the sets were later officially released in full, such as the sets by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Alice Cooper. I'll explain the sourcing for each album. But a majority of what I found comes from a bootleg recorded by two locals, Pedro Collazo and Oscar Mandry. They only made an audience recording. But the sound quality is really damn good. One would easily think it's a soundboard instead. However, only parts of their recordings have made it to the Internet, and it seems they only recorded parts of the performances. Most sets are incomplete, and sometimes some songs are incomplete. I put together everything I could, combining all the official and bootleg sources I could find.

Before putting these albums together, I had never heard of Nitzinger. Turns out that was a band led by lead guitarist John Nitzinger. You can find his Wikipedia entry here:

John Nitzinger - Wikipedia

Some time in 1972, his debut album was released, also called "Nitzinger." He went on to have a long, though relatively low profile, music career. Just two of his songs here made it onto the official album from the festival: "Texas Blues - Jelly Roll." 

Brownsville Station is best known for a single hit. That hit, "Smokin' in the Boys Room," went all the way to Number Three on the U.S. singles chart in 1973. However, that was still a year away at the time of this festival, so you won't find that song here. In 1972, the band released its second album, which just barely made it into the Top 200 U.S. albums chart.

Here's their Wikipedia entry:

Brownsville Station (band) - Wikipedia

So, I would guess not a lot of people are going to be that keen about either of the musical acts here. But don't worry, there's a lot more to come from this festival. And I was to gather up all the music I can find from it, not just the most famous acts.  

This album is 44 minutes long. 

01 I'm a Steamroller, Mama (Nitzinger)
02 Ticklelick (Nitzinger)
03 Jam [Instrumental] (Nitzinger)
04 Louisiana Cock Fight (Nitzinger)
05 talk (Nitzinger)
06 Texas Blues - Jelly Roll - Dr. Feelgood (Nitzinger)
07 Mister Robert (Brownsville Station)
08 talk (Brownsville Station)
09 Wanted Dead or Alive (Brownsville Station)
10 talk (Brownsville Station)
11 Blue Suede Shoes (Brownsville Station)
12 Johnny B. Goode (Brownsville Station)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iF1P2hz9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uBGhj7A7zu1j6FK/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows the band Nitzinger, with the crowd in the background. 

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: 1975

Here's another album of Lulu performing for the BBC. This is the seventh volume out of nine that I plan to post.

With this album, I'm entirely into the 1975 material that mostly led to me adding a bunch of new Lulu BBC albums. As I mentioned in the last write-up in this series, I came across all the episodes to the 1975 season of Lulu's BBC TV show, "Lulu." There were 13 episodes of the show that season, which ran from January to April. Each episode had one or more guest stars, but most of it consisted of Lulu singing songs, or performing in comedy skits. Despite having a hit BBC TV show for many years (1968 to 1975), she put out surprisingly few albums during that time period (and the same goes for singles). For instance, she released an album in 1973, and another one in 1976. So the vast majority of the songs on this album (and the other 1970s BBC albums I've put together) consist of songs she never officially released.

Just to be clear, everything here is from her BBC TV show. And none of the songs were included on the previous Lulu BBC album I had made dealing with her early 1970s time period. 

I have to admit a lot of this stuff is pretty far from rock or soul. "On the Good Ship Lollipop," for instance, a song made famous by Shirley Temple in 1934. By this time, she had became a versatile middle of the road actress and singer, performing songs in pretty much any genre. That said, she was a good singer, and she generally picked good songs. So, while this isn't for everyone, I figured that it deserved to be remembered. So I went through the bother of going through all the episodes of converting the songs into mp3s. 

Lulu sang a duet with Labi Siffre, choosing the classic hit "This Guy's in Love with You." Since I've made some BBC albums for Siffre too, I put this song on one of those collections too, his "BBC Sessions, Volume 3."

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. Note that I tried to remove the audience cheering as much as possible, using the UVR5 audio editing program. But sometimes, some remnants remained. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 I've Got the Music in Me (Lulu)
02 Goldfinger - Diamonds Are Forever - The Man with the Golden Gun [Edit] (Lulu)
03 I'm Stone in Love with You (Lulu)
04 Everything Is Coming Up Roses - On the Good Ship Lollipop - Don't Sit under the Apple Tree (Lulu)
05 You Make Me Feel Brand New (Lulu)
06 I'm a Woman (Lulu)
07 You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You (Lulu)
08 That's When the Music Takes Me (Lulu)
09 Baby I'm-a Want You (Lulu)
10 After Midnight (Lulu)
11 Hang On in There Baby (Lulu)
12 Puppet on a String (Lulu)
13 Knock, Knock Who's There - Boom Bang a Bang (Lulu)
14 Congratulations (Lulu)
15 The Ash Grove (Lulu & the King Singers)
16 Put a Little Love Away (Lulu)
17 Jubilation T. Cornpone (Lulu)
18 Spinnin' and Spinnin' (Lulu)
19 This Guy's in Love with You (Labi Siffre & Lulu)
20 I Won't Last a Day without You (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/j2PqwJkQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/n9ootA9JZXQ2V8Q/file

The cover photo is taken from a screenshot from a 1975 episode of her TV show.

Billy Preston with Buddy Miles - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 8-31-1973

It's time for another episode from that fantastic TV show, "The Midnight Special." This one stars Billy Preston, with Buddy Miles as his guest.

Preston started his music career quite young. Having taught himself how to play piano, he began performing on stage by the time he was ten. In 1963, he released his first studio album, at the age of 16. But he didn't have a lot of success at first, and mostly worked as a backing musician for Ray Charles and others. He got a big break in early 1969 when he backed the Beatles in the studio for a couple of weeks during their Get Back / Let It Be sessions. And when the song "Get Back" was released as a single that year, it was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston." He had his first big hit later in 1969 with "That's the Way God Planned It." It didn't do much in the U.S., but it almost reached the Top Ten in Britain. More hits followed by the time of this show, especially "Outa-Space," "Will It Go Round in Circles," and "Space Race."

Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Billy Preston - Wikipedia 

This album is a combination of three episodes. Most of the songs come from the August 31, 1973 episode named in the album title. But "Blackbird" and "That's the Way God Planned It" come from a February 16, 1973 episode. Actually, "That's the Way God Planned It" was played twice, in the August and February episodes. But the August version faded out before the end of the song. So I used the complete February version. However, the talking right before it is from the August version. Also, tracks 11, 12 and 13 come from the December 14, 1973 episode.

Preston hosted the show again in 1975. I plan on posting that again. It seems he and Buddy Miles actually were friends (as they said on this episode), because Miles was a guest on that episode as well. It seems the host often had some say on who the guests for their episodes would be. 

I included Miles as the guest mostly because they performed "My Sweet Lord" together, as you can see from the cover image. Also, they had similar soul music styles. In case you're curious, the other guests on the August 1973 episode that Preston hosted were: Steely Dan, Bo Diddley, Maureen McGovern, Ned Doheny, and Gladstone. For the opening talk by Wolfman Jack, I edited it so that mentions of the those other guests weren't included. That's what that track has "[Edit]" in the title. I also included only part of the next track, which consisted of some comments by comedian Tommy Smothers.

By the way, "I'm So Tired" is not the Beatles song of the same name. However, "Blackbird" is a Beatles cover. 

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

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 talk (Tommy Smothers)
03 Will It Go Round in Circles (Billy Preston)
04 talk (Billy Preston)
05 Them Changes (Buddy Miles)
06 talk (Wolfman Jack)
07 My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston & Buddy Miles)
08 talk (Billy Preston)
09 All Spaced Out (Billy Preston)
10 Music's My Life (Billy Preston)
11 Space Race [Instrumental] (Billy Preston)
12 How Long Has the Train Been Gone (Billy Preston)
13 I'm So Tired (Billy Preston)
14 Blackbird (Billy Preston)
15 Thinking of You (Buddy Miles)
16 talk (Billy Preston)
17 That's the Way God Planned It (Billy Preston)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2vHo8jnd

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/PCrntjhghM3NAH8/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. That's Buddy Miles playing drums, and Billy Preston looking over at him while playing keyboards. I used Photoshop to remove some mostly empty space between them.

Elliott Smith - Umbra Penumbra, Portland, OR, 9-17-1994

Here's something a bit unusual from singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. This is the earliest known acoustic concert by him, all the way back in 1994. 

From 1990 until 1996, Smith was a member of the rock band Heatmiser. While still in that band, he began a solo career in 1994. He released his first solo album, "Roman Candle," in July 1994. The album was a fluke. He had recorded it in a friend's basement, and sent the songs to a record company in hopes of getting a record deal to release a solo single. But the company liked his demos enough to want to release all of them as an album. Smith later said, "I thought my head would be chopped off immediately when it came out because at the time it was so opposite to the grunge thing that was popular ... The thing is that album was really well received, which was a total shock, and it immediately eclipsed [Heatmiser], unfortunately." 

Smith performed over a dozen solo concerts on the West Coast promoting the album. This one is the best sounding recording from that tour, by far. I had this as a bootleg for ages. But in 2020, it was released as a bonus disc for a deluxe edition of his 1995 album "Elliott Smith." Normally I don't released officially released stuff, but I'm making an exception here because I think this concert doesn't get enough attention. One can practically put it with his studio albums due to the sound quality, as well as the song selection. He performed ten songs, but only three of them were from the "Roman Candle" album (tracks 6, 9, and 10). Most of the others were unreleased at the time. One of those, "Alphabet Town," would be released on Smith's 1995 self-titled album.

The last song, "Half Right," was one that would be released on the last Heatmiser album, "Mic City Sons," released in 1996. The other main singer-songwriter in that band was Neil Gust. He joined Smith to sing the song here. The song though was written by Smith. Smith's solo version of it eventually was released on the archival album "New Moon."

This album is 34 minutes long. 

01 talk (Elliott Smith)
02 Some Song (Elliott Smith)
03 Alphabet Town (Elliott Smith)
04 Whatever [Folk Song in C] (Elliott Smith)
05 talk (Elliott Smith)
06 No Name No. 4 (Elliott Smith)
07 Big Decision (Elliott Smith)
08 talk (Elliott Smith)
09 Condor Ave (Elliott Smith)
10 No Name No. 1 (Elliott Smith)
11 talk (Elliott Smith)
12 No Confidence Man (Elliott Smith)
13 talk (Elliott Smith)
14 Crazy Fucker (Elliott Smith)
15 talk (Elliott Smith)
16 Half Right (Elliott Smith with Neil Gust)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Gr3DMRQc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/Hxn19sSJEVvr8To/file

The cover photo is from 1994. But I don't know the details. 

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: 1973-1975

Here's the next volume of Lulu performing for the BBC. Only three songs here were on the previous Lulu BBC album I'd made dealing with this time period: tracks, 7, 9, and 10. Everything else is music I recently discovered.

The main reason I discovered a bunch of Lulu music is that I found the entire 1975 season of videos of Lulu's BBC TV show. (For that season, the show was renamed from "It's Lulu" to just "Lulu.") The sound quality was excellent, so I converted those to audio and cut out the mp3s of the songs featuring her. That 1975 material starts with track 11, and continues until the end of the album. It also makes up the bulk of the three additional BBC albums I'll be posting after this one.

That still leaves the rest of the album, tracks 1 through 10. As I mentioned, three of those songs are ones I posted on the old version of "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" (now completely replaced). After finding the 1975 season, I looked around and more still more videos I'd previously missed, mostly from YouTube. It helps that there's an active Lulu YouTube page, and it's posted a bunch of new stuff since I originally made some BBC albums for her. Tracks 1 through 9 come from the 1973 edition of her BBC TV show. (I couldn't find anything from 1974.) Only track 10 ("The Man Who Sold the World") is different, coming from a BBC radio show.

All the music here is unreleased. The sound quality is generally excellent, though it varies somewhat. I removed the applause as best I could from nearly all of these using the UVR5 audio editing program. But I couldn't get rid of all of it on all the songs. 

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 Touch Me in the Morning (Lulu)
02 Killing Me Softly (Lulu with Sergio Mendes)
03 That's When the Music Takes Me (Lulu)
04 When You Smile (Lulu)
05 She (Lulu & David Clayton-Thomas)
06 For the Good Times (Lulu)
07 Blue Suede Shoes - Hound Dog - Heartbreak Hotel - Love Me Tender - Teddy Bear - Jailhouse Rock (Lulu)
08 Mr. Tambourine Man (Lulu)
09 Lean On Me (Bill Withers & Lulu)
10 The Man Who Sold the World (Lulu)
11 Never Can Say Goodbye (Lulu)
12 Goodness Gracious Me (Lulu & Michael Bates)
13 The Man with the Golden Gun (Lulu)
14 Smile, Darn You Smile (Lulu)
15 Baby Love (Lulu)
16 Let's Put It All Together (Lulu)
17 Stand by Your Man (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/z563zgfb

alternate:

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

The cover photo is from an appearance on Lulu's TV show "It's Lulu" at some point in 1973.