Various Artists - The Thrill Is Gone - A Tribute to B.B. King, Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 2-16-2020

The great blues legend B.B. King died in 2015, at the age of 89. I'm not sure what took so long, but five years later, there was this tribute concert celebrating his music. This is unusually long compared to most tribute concerts, at nearly four hours long. The vast majority of it was professionally recorded for a webcast, so the sound quality is mostly excellent. 

Note that I said "the vast majority" of this was professionally recorded, not all. That's because it seems a couple of performers didn't allow their songs to be included in the webcast. For those, I tried to find the songs elsewhere. I found a couple of the missing songs on YouTube, but the sound quality on those isn't as good as the rest. I couldn't find "You Shook Me" performed by Ann Wilson and Robert Randolph, as well as "Night Life" and "Take It Home" by Jamey Johnston. If anyone has those, please let me know and I'll add them in.

There was an impressive list of musicians who performed for this concert, including Buddy Guy, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, John Scofield, Ann Wilson (of Heart), David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos), Ivan Neville (of the Neville Brothers), Jimmie Vaughan (of the Fabulous Thunderbirds), Little Steven, Robert Cray, Robert Randolph, Shemekia Copeland, William Bell, and more.

Actually, this concert was performed two nights in a row, but only one night was broadcast. I don't know how different the other night might have been. 

The music here remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent, except for the few I took from other sources. Most of those are near the end, for instance "When Love Comes to Town" by Ann Wilson.

This album is three hours and 47 minutes long. 

01 talk (Wavy Gravy)
02 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
03 BB's Theme [Instrumental] (Tony C.C. Coleman)
04 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
05 You Upset Me Baby (Tony C.C. Coleman)
06 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
07 I Got a Mind to Give Up Living (Bob Margolin)
08 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
09 Let Me In (Bobby Rush)
10 talk (Bobby Rush)
11 Garbage Man (Bobby Rush)
12 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
13 Hummingbird (Val B. King & Frank Bacombe)
14 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
15 Let the Good Times Roll (Little Steven)
16 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
17 Beautician Blues (Southside Johnny)
18 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
19 Never Make a Move Too Soon (John Scofield & Ivan Neville)
20 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
21 Why I Sing the Blues (Kingfish)
22 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
23 Powerhouse [Instrumental] (David Hidalgo)
24 talk (David Hidalgo)
25 Need Your Love So Bad (David Hidalgo)
26 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
27 Please Love Me (Jimmy Vaughan)
28 talk (Jimmy Vaughan)
29 Woke Up This Morning (Jimmy Vaughan)
30 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
31 Blue Shadows (William Bell)
32 talk (William Bell)
33 Ain't Nobody Home (William Bell)
34 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
35 Paying the Cost to Be the Boss (Shemekia Copeland)
36 talk (Shemekia Copeland)
37 Call It Stormy Monday (Shemekia Copeland & John Scofield)
38 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
39 Three O'Clock Blues (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
40 talk (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
41 You Don't Know (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
42 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
43 So Excited (Warren Haynes)
44 How Blue Can You Get (Warren Haynes)
45 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
46 Ghetto Woman (Robert Randolph with Ivan Neville)
47 talk (Robert Randolph & Ivan Neville)
48 Don't Cry No More (Robert Randolph & Ivan Neville)
49 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
50 I Like to Live the Love (Robert Cray)
51 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Robert Cray)
52 When Love Comes to Town (Ann Wilson)
53 Sweet Little Angel - It's My Fault (Buddy Guy)
54 talk (Buddy Guy)
55 The Thrill Is Gone (Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks, Ann Wilson, Robert Cray & Shemekia Copeland)
56 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
57 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
58 Everyday I Have the Blues (Everybody)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YVLheabH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/90vA8uFEYrvrlzM/file

The cover photo shows an encore from this exact concert. In the front row, from right to left: Robert Cray, Warren Haynes, William Bell, Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, and (probably) Robert Rudolph.

Joan Baez with Hoyt Axton - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 5-30-1975

Here's another episode of that excellent TV show, "Midnight Special." I previously posted a 1973 episode hosted by Joan Baez. She was back to host it again in this 1975 episode. I also included Hoyt Axton as a guest, since they sang a song together.

One couldn't be a host of this show unless one had a certain amount of commercial success. Earlier in 1975, Baez released "Diamonds and Rust," a song she wrote herself, as a single. It was a Top Forty hit in the U.S., and helped the album it came from, also called "Diamonds and Rust," go Gold. (That means sales of half a million in the U.S.)

Hoyt Axton didn't have big success as a performer (although he did have a couple of hits on the country charts in the 1970s). However, he had a lot more success as a songwriter. In fact, I've created a "Covered" album for him, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/covered-hoyt-axton-1963-1977.html

Baez and Axton sang a duet on the song "Lion in the Winter." It was a song written by Axton. He did a duet version with Linda Ronstadt that came out in 1975 and was a minor country hit. Baez essentially sang Ronstadt's part. Axton also sang two songs on his own.

Baez had another musical collaboration in this episode. Hampton Hawes was a well known jazz pianist since the late 1940s. On Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" album, she wrote a jazzy song called "Children and All that Jazz," which featured a prominent piano part by Hawes. So the two of them performed it on this show, with Baez singing and Hawes playing the piano. Hawes died not long after that, in 1977. Hawes performed two other songs on his own in this episode, but I chose not to include them.

In case you're curious, the only other performer in this episode was Kool and the Gang. They played three songs.

Oftentimes, when I put these Midnight Special albums together, I bring in other songs from other episodes. But in this case, everything here is from this one episode. Baez would appear some more on the show in 1976 and 1977. She wasn't a host again, but she performed on enough songs that I'll probably be able to put together another album for her when those episodes are released on YouTube. 

This album is 40 minutes long. 

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

01 talk (Wolfman Jack)
02 Fountain of Sorrow (Joan Baez)
03 talk (Joan Baez)
04 Diamonds and Rust (Joan Baez)
05 talk (Joan Baez)
06 Jesse (Joan Baez)
07 talk (Joan Baez)
08 Children and All that Jazz (Joan Baez & Hampton Hawes)
09 talk (Joan Baez)
10 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Hoyt Axton)
11 When the Morning Comes (Hoyt Axton)
12 talk (Joan Baez)
13 Lion in the Winter (Joan Baez & Hoyt Axton)
14 talk (Joan Baez)
15 Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer (Joan Baez)
16 talk (Joan Baez)
17 Winds of the Old Days (Joan Baez)
18 talk (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Ju6hshd4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/pGv3nDcqZ5tmgjb/file 

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. It shows Baez with Axton.

Chris Rea - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: Saturday Programme, Maida Vale Studios, London, Britain, 10-13-2006

Here's another album in a mini-flood of Chris Rea BBC albums. Like all the previous ones, this is a concert.

In 2005, Rea released his 25th studio album, "Blue Guitars." This was no ordinary studio album. In fact, I would bet it's the longest studio album by a major musical act. It consisted of ten albums containing 137 songs in total, all of them originals. That added up to over ten hours of music! This mega-album explored virtually all genres of blues music, with each of the ten albums having a different theme.

Since Rea didn't release a new album in 2006, half of the songs in this concert come from his "Blue Guitars" album - specifically, tracks 1, 2, 4, and 6. The rest are hits from earlier in his career.

This is the last BBC concert I could find by Rea. But I did find some BBC studio sessions after 2006, enough for an album. (Which is a bit strange, since I didn't find studio sessions from before 2006, but so it goes.) So that will be the final BBC album I plan to post from him.

This album is 44 minutes long.

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

01 Jazzy Blue (Chris Rea)
02 Where the Blues Come From (Chris Rea)
03 Josephine (Chris Rea)
04 Work Gang (Chris Rea)
05 Easy Rider (Chris Rea)
06 'Til the Morning Sun Shines on My Love and Me (Chris Rea)
07 Stainsby Girls (Chris Rea)
08 The Road to Hell I and II (Chris Rea)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/v1bNgzgE

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/cx4rVVei4vf1MwJ/file

The cover photo was taken at the Heineken Music Hall, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on March 22, 2006. I thought it was interesting to show him playing the harmonica instead of the guitar, for once. Note the glass slide on one of his fingers.

Good Month

Just a quick note. Today, I noticed that I made 92 posts in the month of January, 2026. That was the most prolific month since I've started this blog, by a fair margin. (A few were announcements, but still.) Let's hope there are more months like that. Who knows, someday I may even post 100 albums in a month, knock on wood.

Vince Gill - Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 12-5-1994

Here's a concert by country star Vince Gill. 

I have to admit I'm not familiar with Gill's music, and hearing this didn't do much for me. However, I recently got some music from musical friend Progsprog, and I saw he had this concert. I looked it up, and while it was traded some years ago, it seems to no longer be publicly available. So I figure it's kind of up to me to put this back into circulation.

This is a fine concert, if you're into Gill's music. Progsprog has it listed as a BBC concert, which is what got my attention at first. However, after doing some digging, I found evidence it was a radio broadcast, but I couldn't confirm specifically if it was a BBC one, so I decided to err on the side of caution and not mention the BBC part. If anyone can help confirm or refute that, I'd appreciate it. I can always change the title and cover as more information comes in. 

Since I don't know much about Gill, here's some excerpts from his Wikipedia entry:

Vincent Grant Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. ... Gill's commercial peak came in the first half of the 1990s, starting with his breakthrough album When I Call Your Name. He has made 65 entries on the Billboard country music charts, including four solo number one hits: "I Still Believe in You", "Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away", "One More Last Chance", and "Tryin' to Get Over You", all between 1992 and 1994. ... All of Gill's albums released in the 1990s were certified platinum or higher, with "I Still Believe in You" (1992) his highest, at quintuple-platinum. Gill has won 22 Grammy Awards, the most among solo male country music artists. ... Gill is known for his songwriting, his tenor singing voice, and his lead guitar work, with many critics noting his proficiency in both emotional ballads and up tempo material. He plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, and Dobro.

And here's the link to the full entry:

Vince Gill - Wikipedia 

I would add to that that he was a member of the Pure Prairie League in the 1970s, and has been a member of the Eagles since 2017. He also is married to Christian singer Amy Grant.

Thanks again to Progsprog for sharing this. 

This album is an hour and 41 minutes long. 

01 Oklahoma Borderline (Vince Gill)
02 talk (Vince Gill)
03 Pocket Full of Gold (Vince Gill)
04 talk (Vince Gill)
05 Ridin' the Rodeo (Vince Gill)
06 talk (Vince Gill)
07 Look at Us (Vince Gill)
08 Take Your Memory When You Go (Vince Gill)
09 talk (Vince Gill)
10 Tryin' to Get Over You (Vince Gill)
11 Rita Ballou (Vince Gill)
12 talk (Vince Gill)
13 Whenever You Come Around (Vince Gill)
14 talk (Vince Gill)
15 What Do Cowgirls Do (Vince Gill)
16 The Heart Won't Lie (Vince Gill with Dawn Sears)
17 One More Last Chance (Vince Gill)
18 Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away (Vince Gill)
19 Nothing like a Woman (Vince Gill)
20 talk (Vince Gill)
21 Liza Jane (Vince Gill)
22 When I Call Your Name (Vince Gill)
23 South Side of Dixie (Vince Gill)
24 talk (Vince Gill)
25 I Still Believe in You (Vince Gill)
26 talk (Vince Gill)
27 Oklahoma Swing (Vince Gill)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hiLbgz3U

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/4D7du8y3dVcglII/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Covered: Shel Silverstein, Volume 2: 1974-2010

Here's the second and final volume celebrating the songwriting of Shel Silverstein for the "Covered" series.

As with all these Covered albums, the songs are in loose chronological order, usually by year. Silverstein was active writing lots of new songs in the 1970s, and a lot of cover versions resulted. Some of his songs were hits, especially on the country charts. But, typically, his songs were more memorable and interesting than the usual hit material. Not many songwriters could write children's songs, funny songs, and even erotic songs. (Hopefully not all in the same song though!)

Silverstein gradually slowed his songwriting, as people do. He only released one album of new songs after 1985. So a lot of the later songs here were actually originally written earlier, sometimes much earlier. He died of a heart attack in 1999, at the age of 68.

It just occurred to me that I don't think I included a link to his Wikipedia page in the Volume 1 write-up, so here it is:

Shel Silverstein - Wikipedia 

To be honest, I know the well known songs written by Silverstein, but not all the lesser known ones. But he's the type of songwriter who wrote quirky gems. So if any of you know of some excellent songs he wrote that I left out, and especially covers of them, please let me know and I'll consider adding them in. 

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Marie Laveau (Bobby Bare)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris)
03 Alimony (Bobby Bare)
04 I Got Stoned and I Missed It (Dr. Hook)
05 The Danger of a Stranger (Stella Parton)
06 More like the Movies (Dr. Hook)
07 The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (Marianne Faithfull)
08 Put Another Log on the Fire (Bill & Boyd)
09 Numbers (Bobby Bare)
10 I'm Checkin' Out (Meryl Streep)
11 Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (Tori Amos)
12 The Twistable, Turnable Man Returns (Andrew Bird)
13 The Winner (Kris Kristofferson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Mha2Sjvi

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/FojQ9dwYjS5kuAi/file

I don't know when or where the cover photo was taken. Clearly though, he's older than in the Volume 1 photo, judging from the grey in his beard. The original photo was a black and white one, showing him in a crouching pose in front of some trees. I stripped out the background. Then I used the Kolorize program to colorize the picture.

Covered: Shel Silverstein - Volume 1: 1963-1972

Here's the next songwriter in my Covered series: Shel Silverstein. To say Silverstein was a colorful character is putting it mildly. Among his many talents was songwriting. I've found enough good covers of his songs for two volumes. Here's the first one.

Silverstein was born in Chicago in 1930, and raised there. He went to college, then spent a few years in the U.S. army. After that, he started to get known for his cartoons published in magazines. He especially had many of his cartoons published in Playboy Magazine, from the 1950s into the 1970s. He developed another creative career as the author of children's books. He eventually sold 20 million books. His most acclaimed books include "The Giving Tree," "Where the Sidewalk Ends," and "A Light in the Attic." He also had success writing for plays, movies, and TV shows.

So he was a creative Renaissance Man. But out focus here is on his songwriting. He was a music performer too, and released many albums, with the first one coming out in 1959. But he had a gruff voice with limited range. Also, it seems he very rarely performed in public, probably because he had so many other creative projects going on to want to go on long tours. So he was much more successful having others cover his songs.

His songwriting career started fairly slowly. He only had a few successes for most of the 1960s. But that changed drastically in 1969, when Johnny Cash had a huge hit with "A Boy Called Sue." That was such an unusual song, with lots of comedy, that many other musical acts went looking for other songs he'd written. It turns out his biggest fans were the band Dr. Hook. Their debut album "Doctor Hook," released in 1972, consisted entirely of songs written by Silverstein. And their second album, "Sloppy Seconds," released later in 1972, also consisted entirely of his songs! Those albums gave Dr. Hook their first two big hits, "Sylvia's Mother" and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone."

That takes us to the end of 1972. I'll write more about him in the second and last volume.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Hey Nelly Nelly (Judy Collins)
02 In the Hills of Shiloh (Modern Folk Quartet)
03 25 Minutes to Go (Johnny Cash)
04 The Mermaid (Glen Yarbrough)
05 Boa Constrictor (Johnny Cash)
06 The Unicorn (Irish Rovers)
07 A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
08 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
09 One's on the Way (Loretta Lynn)
10 I Call That True Love (Dr. Hook)
11 The Taker (Kris Kristofferson)
12 Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball (Dr. Hook)
13 On Susan's Floor (Gordon Lightfoot)
14 Sylvia's Mother (Dr. Hook)
16 The Cover of Rolling Stone (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Vdghqyqe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/YfWSztH9v8E8ui0/file

The cover image is from 1972.

Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis (Live Acoustic Version)

Here's a song that was actually created earlier today, January 30, 2026. I don't think I've ever posted anything this fast at this blog before. Just two days earlier, Bruce Springsteen released a new song called "Streets of Minneapolis," which he had written only a couple of days before that. That released version was performed with a full band. But today, he was in Minneapolis, and he was a guest at a Tom Morello concert held at a small club. While there, he performed two songs, and one of them was "Streets of Minneapolis," done in solo acoustic mode. I thought this version is different enough, and interesting enough, to merit being posted here.

The recording of this song was just done by someone on their cell phone, so there were some sound quality issues. Another reason I'm posting this is because I figured I could make this version more listenable with some audio editing improvements. I used the MVSEP program to reduce the crowd noise during the song. I kept in some roars of the crowd where they were warranted, but I got rid of a lot of ambient noise, as well as random loud screams and woo-hoos. I also used the Adobe vocal enhancer program to add some clarity to Springsteen's comments before the song began.

In case you haven't figured it out from the song title, or from hearing about it already, the song is about the current crisis with I.C.E. misbehaving in Minneapolis. While I'm a political progressive, I usually try to avoid talking about politics on this music blog. But I have to say I'm glad that Springsteen has written a song to express what a majority of people in the U.S. are feeling right now: that I.C.E. is going too far, and they're harassing, hurting, and sometimes even killing people they don't like instead of properly doing their jobs. Democracy is in danger of being replaced by a de facto dictatorship. I hope other musicians follow Springsteen's example and lend their talents to help push back against this power grab.  

Springsteen's performance of this song was newsworthy enough to result in some articles. Here one, from the Daily Beast: 

Bruce Springsteen Kicks Trump ‘In the Teeth’ at Rage-Fueled Show

And here's all of Springsteen's participation in the concert: 

Bruce Springsteen at First Avenue 1/30/26  

After playing his new song, he was joined by a full band, including Tom Morello, and they performed "The Ghost of Tom Joad." Morello played some blistering lead guitar on that one. Then the concert ended with John Lennon's "Power to the People," though really it was just the chorus repeated a few times along with some shouting to get the crowd worked up.

Here's the link to the cleaned-up live acoustic version: 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yo8eER1S

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/krciqmn65DBSKGU/file

Normally, I post album covers. But this isn't an album. Besides, I'm having problems running Photoshop on my computer in the past few days. So if anyone wants a cover for this, it will have to wait. 

Oh, one final note. The "Brucebase" Bruce Springsteen Wiki has a lot of good links and information relating to this performance, including a bunch of photos. You can find that here:

2026-01-30 First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN - Brucebase Wiki 

Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers - The Van Sessions, Part 3 (2013-2017)

Way back in 2019, I posted two albums I made of the band Nicki Bluhm and Gramblers performing cover songs. They got some media attention for a few years through the gimmick of recording cover songs while the played inside a van driving down the road. For reasons I'll explain, I've gone back and made a third album of their van sessions. I also completely overhauled and added to the two albums I'd made already.

The one problem with these songs recorded in a van was that they were... genuinely recorded in a van! That meant a lot of ambient noise, such as the sound of gear shifts and nearby traffic. When I posted some songs back in 2019, I tried to clean that up as best I could, but there wasn't much I could do, given the tools available at the time. But recently I discovered a relatively new tool for the MVSEP program called "denoise." It does a fantastic job of reducing hiss and other noise without damaging the music. One of the first thoughts I had when I started that was that I could finally get rid of the hiss on the two albums I'd made by this band. But then it occurred to me I could probably fix more songs they did that had even more hiss. There were some I had discarded because the hiss problem was too much.

So I went back to their old videos posted on YouTube and downloaded the songs I had previously skipped. To my delight, when I tried using the denoise function on them, all that hiss disappeared, even on the extreme cases! I swear, what audio editing technology can do these days is like magic. I found enough material for a third album, as well as drastically improving the sound quality for the songs I'd posted already.

Note however that I just redid the other two albums at the same time I'm posting this, and the new songs are scattered over all three albums. Eight out of 14 songs on this album are new.  But also, six out of 16 songs on Volume 1 are new, and four out of 15 songs on Volume 2 are new. So if you like this, you really should redownload the other two volumes as well. Between the new songs and the de-hissed old songs those albums are drastically improved. Here are the links:

Volume 1: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/04/nicki-bluhm-gramblers-van-sessions-part.html

Volume 2:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/04/nicki-bluhm-gramblers-van-sessions-part_16.html 

Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers were in existence from about 2010 to 2018. Nicki Bluhm has continued with a successful solo career, but she hasn't done anything like the van sessions. So this focuses just on the Gramblers time period. Even with the Gramblers, the actually van sessions started strong in 2011 and 2013, and then slowly trailed off. On this album, tracks 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, and 13 were actually recorded inside their van. The rest are from various sources. Tracks 1, 11, and 14 are from concerts. (I removed the applause from those.) The others are from webcasts and radio sessions and things of that nature, without an audience. Check out the mp3 tags for the exact details.

This album is 54 minutes long.

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

01 Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane
02 Lido Shuffle - Boz Scaggs
03 In the Mountains - Sarah Siskind
04 Dire Wolf - Grateful Dead
05 I Wanna Dance with Somebody - Whitney Houston
06 One Toke Over the Line - Brewer & Shipley
07 I Can Get Off on You - Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson
08 Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
09 Bird Song - Grateful Dead
10 Mr. Saturday Night - Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers
11 Statesboro Blues - Blind Willie McTell
12 Picture Book - Kinks
13 That's All - Genesis
14 Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Somebody to Love (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
02 Lido Shuffle (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
03 In the Mountains (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
04 Dire Wolf (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
05 I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
06 One Toke Over the Line (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
07 I Can Get Off on You (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
08 Blue Christmas (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
09 Bird Song (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
10 Mr. Saturday Night (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
11 Statesboro Blues (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
12 Picture Book (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
13 That's All (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
14 Piece of My Heart (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/o2xb6dLu

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/0I9h1P6yZA2NzaS/file

The cover is a screenshot I took of the band performing a song in their van. I used Krea AI to improve the detail.

Various Artists - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Waldorf Astoria, New York City, 1-20-1988

Yesterday (January 28, 2026), Bruce Springsteen dropped a new song about the current problems with ICE in Minneapolis, called "Streets of Minneapolis." It's good to see a protest song that addresses current issues, since there haven't been many of those in recent years. (He wrote, recorded, and released it in four days!) Here's a link, if you haven't heard it already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w 

Anyway, I wanted to post something from Springsteen after hearing that inspiring song. However, some recent computer problems I've been having have flared up again, which means I currently can't use Photoshop, which in turn means I can't make new album covers until that's fixed. So I looked around to see if I had some Springsteen-related album ready to go, cover and all. Luckily, I did. (I have soooo many albums I could post tomorrow, if only I had the time to finish them off. Sigh!) This one doesn't have a ton of Springsteen content, but it's a really interesting (thought short) concert. So, in a way, my current computer issues have an upside in that they're getting me to finally post this.

Now, finally, to the music. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started in the early 1980s. In 1986, they had their first induction ceremony, complete with a short concert featuring some of the inductees and other famous musicians. This has become a yearly tradition. Some concerts have been a lot more memorable than others. In my opinion, the ones from 1988 and 1989 were the most interesting, with the biggest star power. I haven't collected the others (though I very may well do so with some of them in the future), but I've made albums of those two. This is the 1988 one.

1988 was a really big year for the Hall of Fame, because their rule is that artists are only eligible for induction 25 years after their first record (be it a single or album). And when they were making their decisions in 1987 for this ceremony, that meant they were looking at the artists who put out their first records in 1962. It just so happens that was the first year of recordings for the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys! Those are three of the biggest and most influential musical acts of all time. The Drifters and the Supremes were inducted that year as well, plus some non-performers, like Berry Gordy.

The induction ceremony had a lot of intrigue and drama in it. The Beatles are arguably the biggest (and best, IMHO!) musical act ever, so they were the main focus here, even overshadowing Dylan and the other very big names. Since John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, he was represented by his wife Yoko Ono, and his sons Julian Lennon and Sean Lennon, and each of them gave short speeches. Ex-Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr were there, and also gave speeches. 

However, the big no-show was Paul McCartney. He was in the middle of a lawsuit still connected to the break-up of the band back in 1970, so he felt he couldn't attend due to that. He put out a statement: "I was keen to go to and pick up my award, but after 20 years the Beatles still have some business differences which I had hoped would have been settled by now. Unfortunately, they haven't been [settled], so I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with [Harrison and Starr] at a fake reunion." 

It turns out the lawsuit, which involved the division of profits from record sales, was settled a year later. So that was unfortunate timing as far as this concert goes. But at least that opened the door to the "Anthology" collaboration between the ex-Beatles a few years later.

Normally, when I post albums like this, I skip long speeches and focus on the music. But I'm making an exception here. I didn't include all the induction speeches, but I thought the ones relating to the induction of the Beatles and Dylan were important enough to include. They're all together at the beginning of this album, and they are about 19 minutes long in total. If you don't want to hear them, or just hear them once or twice, there's still about 40 minutes of music after that.

A big element of the drama involved Mike Love, a member of the Beach Boys. Love is one of the most notorious assholes in rock and roll, something I've discussed in other posts. But he really outdid himself this time. He appeared to be drunk, and used his induction speech to insult various famous musicians in the audience. This led to a funny quip from Dylan during his acceptance speech: when he listed people he wanted to thank, he thanked Love for not mentioning him in his speech!

Anyway, there are lots of interesting stories about what happened during this event. But instead of trying to summarize them all here, I'll just point out to an article from Rolling Stone Magazine that does a good job:

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

I've also posted a text file in the download zip that has the text to that article.

Regarding the music here, everything was professionally recorded, so the sound quality is excellent. However, I found the lead vocals were rather low in most of the songs, so I boosted that up with the help of the MVSEP program. Also, there was a problem in the performance of "Stop in the Name of Love." Mary Wilson of the Supremes was asked to sing the song (since Diana Ross was another prominent no show). But it was clear for this songs, as well as all the other songs, that there hadn't been any practice beforehand, so everyone was just winging it. For the first chorus at the start of the song, Wilson sang the song in one key, while the band (or at least most of it) played in another key. That sounds pretty painful to my ears. So I erased that, and patched in a chorus from later in the song. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Oh, also, during all the talking between songs, where band leader Paul Shaffer was trying to direct things, one or more people on stage kept playing guitar so loudly that it nearly drowned out what anyone was saying. So for most of those tracks, I used MVSEP to lower the volume of the guitar enough to make the talking more audible.  

The songs "I Saw Her Standing There" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" were officially released on the compilation album "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Volume 1: 1986-1991." Everything else here remains unreleased.

By the way, when it comes to the song list below, I only listed the name of the main lead singers. For all the songs, there was one of the most amazing gatherings of musical talent ever seen on one stage together. But it's next to impossible to figure out who was on stage doing what, other than the lead vocals. So that's why I kept the credits in the titles relatively simple. 

However, just as one example, it was Jeff Beck who started playing the "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" riff that led to that song being played, right when it seemed everyone was leaving the stage. Some of the others who were on stage at least part of the time but don't get mentioned in the song titles include: Neil Young, Paul Simon, Johnny Moore, Joe Blunt, Clyde Brown, Tom Fogerty, Les Paul, Arlo Guthrie, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Little Richard, Peter Wolf,  Dave Edmunds, Jeff Lynne, Julian Lennon, Sean Lennon, Little Steven, and Clarence Clemons.  

This album is an hour and six minutes long. 

01 talk (Mick Jagger)
02 talk (Ringo Starr)
03 talk (George Harrison)
04 talk (Yoko Ono)
05 talk (Julian Lennon)
06 talk (Sean Lennon)
07 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
08 talk (Bob Dylan)
09 Twist and Shout (Johnny Moore)
10 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan with George Harrison)
11 talk (Paul Shaffer)
12 I Saw Her Standing There (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
13 talk (Paul Shaffer)
14 Stand by Me (Ben E. King & Julian Lennon)
15 talk (Paul Shaffer)
16 Stop in the Name of Love [Edit] (Mary Wilson)
17 talk (Paul Shaffer)
18 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Hound Dog - Honey Hush (Elton John)
19 talk (Paul Shaffer)
20 Barbara Ann (Beach Boys)
21 talk (Paul Shaffer & John Fogerty)
22 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty with Bruce Springsteen)
23 talk (Paul Shaffer & John Fogerty)
24 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan with Bruce Springsteen)
25 talk (Paul Shaffer)
26 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Mick Jagger with Bruce Springsteen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SpmdHRju

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/yv9ChPKPJqpFcYT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Mick Jagger.

Joan Baez - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-25-1968

Here's the sixth and last album I'm posting from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. I'd like to post more, but this is everything that I've found. This is a set by Joan Baez.

In 1968, Baez hadn't really had any big hits yet. But she was one of the biggest names in folk music, and probably the biggest star of this festival. On two songs, she was joined on stage by the Charles River Valley Boys. Their most recent album at the time of this performance was "Beatle Country," and consisted of bluegrass versions of Beatles songs. That explains why one of the two songs they did with her was a Beatles song. Otherwise, Baez was in solo acoustic mode, as one can see from the cover image.

I'm pretty sure this is only part of her performance. The last song faded out, suggesting there was more. Plus, it seems uncharacteristic for her to end with a cover of "I've Just Seen a Face" by the Beatles, a song she never even put on record. And on the handbill for the show, she was the headliner act for the final day. She was allotted an hour of music in the schedule, a lot more that what's here. But this is what we have. If more of her set ever emerges, I'll be sure to add it in.

And speaking of lost music I'd like to add in, I definitely would like to post more albums of music from this festival, if that music can be found. According to a handbill from the festival I found at the jonimitchell.com website, there were over 30 musical acts who performed at the festival. Most of those were little known at the time, and even less well known now, so I don't think they would be interesting to many people. But there are some others I wound like to find, such as sets by Janis Ian, Dave Van Ronk, Odetta, Son House, Oscar Brand, and Jerry Jeff Walker. If anyone has any other music from the festival, please let me know so I can post that too.

This album is 36 minutes long. Like the rest of the music from this festival, the sound quality is excellent but it remains unreleased.

01 Carry It On (Joan Baez)
02 talk (Joan Baez)
03 Turquoise (Joan Baez)
04 Gentle on My Mind (Joan Baez)
05 talk (Joan Baez)
06 C'era un Ragazzo Che Come Me Amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones (Joan Baez)
07 talk (Joan Baez)
08 What Have They Done to the Rain (Joan Baez)
09 talk (Joan Baez)
10 Suzanne (Joan Baez)
11 talk (Joan Baez)
12 Kumbaya (Joan Baez)
13 talk (Joan Baez)
14 Green, Green Grass of Home (Joan Baez with the Charles River Valley Boys)
15 talk (Joan Baez with the Charles River Valley Boys)
16 I've Just Seen a Face (Joan Baez with the Charles River Valley Boys)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AZrgZx8D

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ZCy2XdPOjVDQbHh/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

John Denver (plus Denver, Boise & Johnson) - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-25-1968

Here's the fifth album I'm posting from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. Out of six albums I'm posting from the festival, this is the only one that I had posted already. So I've deleted that and I'm reposting it, to help people find all six albums together. I also found a better cover image (since it's from this exact concert). But the music is the same as before. The first part is a solo performance by John Denver on August 23, 1968, the first day of the festival. But he was still part of a folk trio, Denver, Boise and Johnson. So most of the rest is from a performance by that trio on August 25, 1968, the last day of the festival.

Since I posted this already, back in 2022, I'm just going to repost what I wrote there, with a few minor edits: 

I like to find music of famous musicians from the time before they were famous, provided it's worthy of their later career and the sound quality is excellent. There aren't a lot of cases like that, but I've posted three 1969 concerts of John Denver here, before he started to hit it big around 1971. He's a good candidate for that kind of thing, because he was singing in public and writing excellent songs well before becoming famous. For instance, his later classic "Leaving on a Jet Plane" was actually written in 1966.

The three 1969 concerts I've posted are all excellent sounding soundboard bootlegs. It turns out there's another excellent sounding soundboard bootleg of him from even earlier, 1968! Here it is.

It's actually three different recordings combined. (I'm keeping it just the same as the original bootleg I found.) The first nine tracks feature just Denver on solo acoustic guitar, at the Philadelphia Folk Festival on August 23, 1968. Then, two days later, he came back as part of the Denver, Boise and Johnson folk trio, at the same festival. That's here as tracks 10 to 22. Then the last four tracks also feature Denver, Boise and Johnson, but at a concert in Columbus, Ohio, in June 1968.

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

For the Denver, Boise and Johnson songs, Denver sang most of them, but David Boise or Michael did the lead vocals on some of them too.

The Philadelphia Folk Festival portion of the concert is 42 minutes long. With the Columbus, Ohio songs added at the end, it's a total of 55 minutes.

01 Good Ole Friends of Mine (John Denver)
02 talk (John Denver)
03 Deal with the Ladies (John Denver)
04 Catch Another Butterfly (John Denver)
05 talk (John Denver)
06 Sticky Summer Weather (John Denver)
07 Farewell Party (John Denver)
08 talk (John Denver)
09 What's That I Hear Now (John Denver)
10 If You Had Me in Shackles (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
11 Yellow Cat (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
12 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
13 Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
14 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
15 Business Goes On as Usual (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
16 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
17 Everybody's Talkin' (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
18 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
19 '68 Nixon [This Year's Model] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
20 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
21 Leaving on a Jet Plane (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
22 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
23 The John Birch Society (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
24 Victoria Dines Alone (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
25 Your Friendly, Liberal, Neighborhood Ku-Klux-Klan (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
26 Let's Get Together (Denver, Boise & Johnson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PYNs4VLY

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lglBbeXntl11zMw/file

The cover image is different than the one I'd used the first time I posted this album. That's because I managed to find a photograph taken from this exact concert. It's the only photo from this festival I found that was already in color.

Buddy Guy - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-24-1968

Here's the fourth album I've found from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. It's a set by Buddy Guy.

If you look at the list of performers at this festival, this music seems out of place. Guy came to rock, with a full band, yet it was a folk festival. It must be one of the very few times songs like "I Got You (I Feel Good," originally by James Brown, were played at a folk festival! But hey, I'm not complaining. Since it seems most everything from these festivals were professionally recorded, this is one of the first live recording from Guy's long music career that has survived with excellent sound quality.

At least Guy started out in folky mode. The first three tracks here actually come from an afternoon performance at some kind of acoustic workshop. So the two songs there consisted of just Guy and an acoustic guitar. Later in his career, he performed many acoustic concerts, often with his frequently musical partner Junior Wells. But apparently this was very unusual for him at this point in his career.

The rest of the songs are from a concert that evening. That portion is 45 minutes long. In it, Guy and his band straddled the line between soul and blues. In addition to playing the James Brown song mentioned above, they also did a version of the soul classic "Knock on Wood."

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 talk (Buddy Guy)
02 Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl (Buddy Guy)
03 Rock Me Baby (Buddy Guy)
04 Instrumental (Buddy Guy)
05 talk (Buddy Guy)
06 Crazy about You Baby (Buddy Guy)
07 talk (Buddy Guy)
08 Sweet Sixteen (Buddy Guy)
09 talk (Buddy Guy)
10 I Got You [I Feel Good] (Buddy Guy)
11 Knock on Wood (Buddy Guy)
12 Call It Stormy Monday (Buddy Guy)
13 Mary Had a Little Lamb (Buddy Guy)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BY2T8J4n

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vdknhIANwJS3NmI/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It must have been taken during his afternoon acoustic set, since his evening performance took place in the dark. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-24-1968

Here's the third album I've found of music from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. This one is a set by Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys.

Here's the introduction to his Wikipedia entry:

"William Smith Monroe (September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter who created the bluegrass music genre. For this reason, he is often called the 'Father of Bluegrass.' The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, who named their group for the bluegrass of Monroe's home state of Kentucky. He described the genre as 'Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound.'" 

Here's the rest of the entry: 

 

Bill Monroe - Wikipedia 

 

I don't have much more to say except that the sound quality is excellent, like all the music I've found from this festival. And, like all the music from this festival, this appears to be unreleased.

Oh, and note that the first two albums I posted from this festival (the Doc Watson and Joni Mitchell sets) are from August 23rd, but this one was from August 24th.
 

This album is 27 minutes long. 

01 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
02 Uncle Pen (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
03 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
04 Blue Ridge Mountain Blues (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
05 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
06 Train 45 (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
07 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
08 Blue Grass Breakdown [Instrumental] (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
09 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
10 Down in the Willow Garden (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
11 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
12 Wayfaring Stranger (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
13 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
14 Dusty Miller [Instrumental] (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
15 talk (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
16 Orange Blossom Special [Instrumental] (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/d8AKnTt6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/CMlIgQiznSgwFGv/file

I believe this is the only cover photo from this festival that wasn't actually taken at the festival. Instead, it's from the Newport Folk Festival in 1969. The original was in black and white, but I converted it to color with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Joni Mitchell - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-23-1968

Here's the second out of six albums that I'm posting from the 1968 Philadelphia Folk Festival. This one features a short acoustic set by Joni Mitchell.

Note that while I'm posting all I have from this festival in a bunch, I'm not attempting to organize the albums into "Part 1," Part 2," and so on. That's because it was a three day festival, and I only have a couple of sets from each day. I also don't know the order of the performances. 

Joni Mitchell wasn't a big name yet in 1968, at the time of this concert. She was getting a lot of acclaim for her songwriting, and some famous musicians were already covering her songs. But she'd only released one album at the time of this concert, and that one, "Song to a Seagull," didn't make the charts. So it looks like she was only allowed a pretty short set. The official jonimitchell.com website has tons of good information. It has an article that reviewed her performance, which you can read here:

https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=603

According to that, she received a standing ovation, which was unusual for the festival. And the audience cheered for more, but she said she was only allowed to play five songs for 20 minutes. (Cleverly, it looks like she stretched that a bit by playing a medley of two songs at the end.) 

She only played one song ("Cactus Tree") from the sole album she'd released so far. Instead, three songs would come from her album "Ladies of the Canyon," one from "Clouds," and one from "Blue." 

This album is 26 minutes long.

01 That Song about the Midway (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
04 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 The Circle Game - Little Green (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/B2ibjhNE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ThztLxga4BOYSSw/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. However, the original was in black and white. I had to colorize it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Doc Watson - Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Schwenksville, PA, 8-23-1968

If you've been following this blog a while, you may have noticed that I put a special emphasis on trying to post music from big rock festivals. Here's another example of that, though it's a folk festival this time.

The Philadelphia Folk Festival is one of the longest running folk festivals in the U.S., along with the Newport Folk Festival. It started in 1962, and it continues to this day (as I write this in January 2026). I've noticed that big portions, if not all, of these festivals have been professionally recorded. However, it seems only a few sets here and there leak out to the public, and almost none of it has been officially released. I noticed that there was an unusually big amount of recordings available to the public for the 1968 festival. I found enough material for six albums, all with soundboard quality, when most years I might find zero, one, or two. So I decided to focus on 1968, especially since I think it's important to try to save and share recordings of this quality that go all the way back to the 1960s. So here's the first album, a set by Doc Watson.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about him: 

"Arthel Lane 'Doc' Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. He won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His fingerpicking and flatpicking skills, as well as his knowledge of traditional American music, were highly regarded. Blind from a young age, he performed publicly both in a dance band and solo, as well as for over 15 years with his son, guitarist Merle Watson, until Merle's death in 1985 in an accident on the family farm."

Note that this is the time period in which Merle Watson was supporting him, so he's on this recording too. 

Here's the link to the rest of the entry:

Doc Watson - Wikipedia 

This album is 26 minutes long. 

01 talk (Doc Watson)
02 When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland (Doc Watson)
03 talk (Doc Watson)
04 Anniversary Blue Yodel [Blue Yodel No. 7] (Doc Watson)
05 talk (Doc Watson)
06 Spikedriver Blues (Doc Watson)
07 talk (Doc Watson)
08 Otto Wood the Bandit (Doc Watson)
09 talk (Doc Watson)
10 Open Up Them Pearly Gates (Doc Watson)
11 talk (Doc Watson)
12 Southbound (Doc Watson)
13 talk (Doc Watson)
14 Bill Cheatham (Doc Watson)
15 talk (Doc Watson)
16 Blackberry Rag (Doc Watson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qGTCSydV 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/9Qg0i1qOYAxstWO/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Ultimate Spinach - Unicorn Coffee House, Boston, MA, 7-1967

I like music from a lot of different times and places, but I have a particular fondness for classic rock from the late 1960s. I feel there was a special burst of creativity, especially with the influence of psychedelia. Lately, I've been having fun finding some excellent sounding concerts from that time by lesser known bands. This is one: Ultimate Spinach.

I must admit, the band named "Ultimate Spinach" hasn't aged well. I think a lot of people pass them by just due to their name. But in my opinion, they were one of the better psychedelic bands. They were probably the most famous band to come out of Boston in that era. 

Their main creative force was Ian Bruce-Douglas. He played several instruments including guitar, keyboards, harmonica, sang lead for most of the songs, and wrote most of the songs. But they also had a female vocalist, Barbara Jean Hudson, who sang lead a fair amount. They released two albums, "Ultimate Spinach," which came out just a few days into 1968, and "Behold and See," which came out later that same year. They were well received critically, and sold okay. (Their first album made the Top Forty on the U.S. album chart.) However, the band essentially broke up by the end of the year. They released one more album in 1969, but it was mainly just a contractual obligation thing. Most band members, including Bruce-Douglas, left by then.

Here's a link to the band's Wikipedia page:

Ultimate Spinach - Wikipedia

This concert took place a good six months before the release of their first album. According to their Wikipedia article, for a time, they were the "house band" at this venue, the Unicorn Coffee House. But they must not have been very well known when this was recorded, because the audience only numbered a couple dozen, at best, judging by the sound of the cheering. So it's a very pleasant surprise that we have this excellent sounding soundboard recording. It appears to be the only worthy sounding bootleg by the band, and no live album was ever released.

Most of these songs appeared on the band's debut album. But one, which many fan consider their best song, "Mind Flowers," wouldn't appear until their second album. They started out with two covers, "Hey Joe" and "Let's Get Together."

The sound quality here is great. However, the applause was missing for most of the songs. This was common in that era, when people would often turn off tape recorders between songs to save tape. But there were about three songs that did have complete applause. So I basically used those bits to fill in the missing applause for the other songs. I used various tricks, like combining applause from different songs, so each one sounded a bit different.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Hey Joe (Ultimate Spinach)
02 Let's Get Together (Ultimate Spinach)
03 I Don't Know (Ultimate Spinach)
04 Funny Freak Parade (Ultimate Spinach)
05 Don't Let These Years Go By (Ultimate Spinach)
06 Don't Cry for Me (Ultimate Spinach)
07 Follow Me (Ultimate Spinach)
08 [Ballad of The] Hip Death Goddess (Ultimate Spinach)
09 Mind Flowers (Ultimate Spinach)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6yy3cXXf

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0dguPrIeUuq8mf2/file

There are very few photos of this band at all, and I couldn't find any of them actually in concert. I don't know any details about this one. The original was in black and white, but I found a colorized version. Then I used the Krea AI program to improve the quality a little bit.

Some Improvements

I'm glad to announce that after a week long ban, I'm allowed to use Pixeldrain for download links again. So I just updated all the links I'd posted in the last week. I'm very happy about that, because I find the Pixeldrain links to be better than the BestFile ones.

Also, recently, I've been taking advantage of the MVSEP program's "denoise" filter. It used to be the only way to get rid of hiss was with an audio editing filter called "noise reduction." But this is a crude technique, and it often got rid of music along with hiss, so I had a rule to only use it on talking tracks. However, thanks to improved AI-based technology, the denoise filter works much better. 

Let me show an example. This is a screenshot of the Audacity program, where I do most of my music editing. It's a song by the band Glass Menagerie. I took the screenshot after using the denoise function to split the song into noise, at the bottom, and everything else. You can see there's a fair amount down there. Once I split it like this, all I have to do is delete that track, and save the rest. It's easy, and it makes a huge difference on songs like this one that had lots of hiss. This example was chosen more or less at random. For some songs, the hiss level is much greater.

So, using this technique, I made improvements to the following albums.

The Blues Project - The Matrix, San Francisco, CA, 9-1966

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-blues-project-matrix-san-francisco.html

Glass Menagerie - BBC Sessions (1968-1969) 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/03/glass-menagerie-bbc-sessions-1968-1969.html

Tracy Chapman - WMFO Studio, Tufts University, Medford, MA, 1-2-1984

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/11/tracy-chapman-wmfo-studio-tufts.html 

Fairport Convention - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9-13-1968 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/11/fairport-convention-concertgebouw.html

Derek & the Dominos - Marquee Club, London, Britain, 8-11-1970 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/11/derek-dominos-marquee-club-london.html

Joni Mitchell - Eastern Rain - Non-Album Tracks (1966-1967) 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/02/joni-mitchell-eastern-rain-various.html

Lucinda Williams - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA, August 9, 1991 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/05/lucinda-williams-mccabes-guitar-shop.html

Dusty Springfield - On TV and Radio, Volume 1: 1964-1966

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/dusty-springfield-on-tv-and-radio-1964.html

So if you like any of those albums, I recommend you redownload them. They sound better now. For the Joni Mitchell, Glass Menagerie, and Dusty Springfield ones, just a handful of songs needed improvement. And with Springfield, I still want to work through her other "On TV and Radio" albums. I'm sure there's more hiss there too.

Furthermore, an alert commenter noted that about six minutes was somehow missing to this album. I don't know what happened there, but it's fixed now. 

Donald Byrd - A New Perspective (On a New Perspective) (1964) (A Mike Solof guest post)

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/09/donald-byrd-new-perspective-on-new.html

Getting back to the hiss issue, I found the above albums to fix by searching my blog for the word "hiss" and seeing which of the albums that came up still needed improvement with that. But I'm sure there are many more that could be improved this way. I don't have time to go back and relisten to the thousands of albums I've posted to figure this out. So if you can think of albums I've posted with hiss problems, let me know, and I'll check to see if they can also be improved. Once I post an album here, I want to make sure it's presented with the best sound quality possible, even if that means more work to fix things. Thanks.

Canned Heat - Marianhill, Arcen, Netherlands, 8-12-1971

I've been looking for a really good concert bootleg for the band Canned Heat, and I recently found this one. It took place in the Netherlands. I'm not sure, but I think it was broadcast by a Dutch radio station, thus explaining the excellent sound quality.

Unfortunately, one of the band's two lead singers and leaders, Alan Wilson, died in 1970. So he's not on this recording. But on the plus side, two of the band's three hits are here: "Let's Work Together" and "Goin' Up the Country." The version of "Goin' Up the Country" is very different from the hit version, being much faster and more rocking. Personally, I don't like it as much, but I give them points for trying something different anyway.

On most of the songs, the lead vocals were rather low in the mix. I fixed that by using the MVSEP program.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Let's Work Together (Canned Heat)
02 talk (Canned Heat)
03 Hill's Stomp [Instrumental] (Canned Heat)
04 talk (Canned Heat)
05 That's All Right (Canned Heat)
06 talk (Canned Heat)
07 Goin' Up the Country (Canned Heat)
08 Long Way from L.A. (Canned Heat)
09 Pay My Rent Boogie (Canned Heat)
10 talk (Canned Heat)
11 Utah (Canned Heat)
12 Big City (Canned Heat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PGKKGhXT

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/t9jnzbFquZWWqa1/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, on October 11, 1971. At the center is lead singer Bob Hite.

The J. Geils Band - The Fillmore, Detroit, MI, 4-25-2009

Here's an excellent concert by the J. Geils Band in 2009. The band broke up in the early 1980s, and only had occasional reunions up until this time. This concert was broadcast on the radio at the time, so the sound quality is excellent. 

The other day, I came across a YouTube video discussing the break-up of the J. Geils Band in the early 1980s. They'd been moderately commercially successful until 1981. That year, they released two singles, "Centerfold" and "Freeze-Frame," that were massive. "Centerfold" even was the Number One song in the U.S. for several weeks. This success proved their undoing. The band's lead singer Peter Wolf wanted to stick to the band's blues and R&B roots, but some other band members wanted to go into a pop direction. Wolf left the band before they could release a new album. The rest of the band released an album without him anyway, but it flopped and the band broke up.

After that, Peter Wolf had a successful solo career for a while, but that eventually petered down to a low level. Meanwhile, many other band members actually left the music business for some years. For instance, lead guitarist J. Geils opened a car shop restoring vintage cars, and bassist Danny Klein attended cooking school and then became a professional chef! But the band reunited for about a dozen concerts in 1999. Then they had another concert in 2005, and one in 2006. That takes us to 2009, when they had another short reunion tour, but only six concerts that year. There would be more short tours from 2011 to 2015, and then the band broke up for good. 

The band has only released three live albums. But the only one that includes most of their famous songs, "Showtime," from 1982, is short at only 45 minutes. And it was recorded when the band was falling apart, and has some issues. So, in my opinion, this is their definitive live concert recording to provide an overview of their entire career. Nothing here is from after 1981. But it has pretty much every essential song they did. And while nearly thirty years had passed since their hit-making days, you wouldn't know it at all from listening to this.

In terms of sound quality, there was one problem. Sometimes, a soundboard is so good at capturing what was happening on stage that it captures very little of the audience noise. That's what happened here. So when each song ended, it sounded like a small amount of applause from a tepid audience. To fix that, I just carefully boosted the volume on the applause after every song while keeping everything else the same. 

This album is two hours long. 

01 talk (J. Geils Band)
02 First I Look at the Purse (J. Geils Band)
03 Homework (J. Geils Band)
04 talk (J. Geils Band)
05 Hard Drivin' Man (J. Geils Band)
06 talk (J. Geils Band)
07 Pack Fair and Square (J. Geils Band)
08 Sanctuary (J. Geils Band)
09 Night Time (J. Geils Band)
10 talk (J. Geils Band)
11 Cruisin' for a Love (J. Geils Band)
12 talk (J. Geils Band)
13 So Sharp (J. Geils Band)
14 Detroit Breakdown (J. Geils Band)
15 talk (J. Geils Band)
16 Serves You Right to Suffer (J. Geils Band)
17 Give It to Me (J. Geils Band)
18 talk (J. Geils Band)
19 Musta Got Lost (J. Geils Band)
20 Love Stinks (J. Geils Band)
21 Looking for a Love (J. Geils Band)
22 talk (J. Geils Band)
23 Whammer Jammer [Instrumental] (J. Geils Band)
24 [Ain't Nothin' but A] House Party (J. Geils Band)
25 talk (J. Geils Band)
26 Just Can't Wait (J. Geils Band)
27 talk (J. Geils Band)
28 Freeze-Frame (J. Geils Band)
29 Start All Over (J. Geils Band)
30 Where Did Our Love Go (J. Geils Band)
31 talk (J. Geils Band)
32 Peachtree Street (J. Geils Band)
33 talk (J. Geils Band)
34 Centerfold (J. Geils Band)
35 Love-Itis (J. Geils Band)
36 talk (J. Geils Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VCtEKEmC 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/vwhQ7AJJRfEtJxf/file

The cover photo of lead singer Peter Wolf is from a concert at the House of Blues, in Boston, on February 19, 2009.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Muddy Waters - The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, 10-2-1966

Here's a really great concert by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. At the time, the band was firing on all cylinders with Paul Butterfield on harmonica and Mike Bloomfield playing lead guitar. (Bloomfield would leave for a solo career a year later.) But what really kicks this concert to the next level is that the blues legend Muddy Waters joined them to sing two songs for an encore.

Lucky for us, promoter Bill Graham was running the Fillmore venue at the time, and he often recorded the concerts there. So this is an excellent sounding soundboard, despite the fact that it's still unreleased.

The only problem with this recording was the song "East-West." This is a truly great instrumental, on the cutting edge of improvisational rock in 1966. Each time the band played it, it came out quite differently, so much so that there's an official release just consisting of different versions of this song. Unfortunately, most versions of this song that I've come across get cut off before the song finishes, probably because the song was so long that the tape would run out. That's the case here, with this 18-minute-long version. So I found a different version and added the last 15 seconds or so from that to this version, just long enough to give it a proper finish. That's why this one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

I believe Muddy Waters and his band was on the same bill as the Butterfield Blues Band. At the time, the Fillmore often added musical acts to concerts that weren't just the usual rock acts, to help give the audience a musical education. So that's why there was a cross over, with Muddy Waters joining in for a couple of songs.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Shake Your Money Maker (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
02 The Sky Is Crying (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
03 talk (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
04 Oh Pretty Woman (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
05 Help Me (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
06 Never Say No (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
07 talk (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
08 You're So Fine (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
09 talk (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
10 East-West [Instrumental] [Edit] (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
11 talk by Bill Graham (Paul Butterfield Blues Band & Muddy Waters)
12 Clouds in My Heart [Edit] (Paul Butterfield Blues Band & Muddy Waters)
13 talk (Paul Butterfield Blues Band & Muddy Waters)
14 I Got My Mojo Working (Paul Butterfield Blues Band & Muddy Waters)
15 Closing Theme [Instrumental] (Paul Butterfield Blues Band & Muddy Waters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KgY5ip8K

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/vg3LnwD0AJhMLnZ/file

The cover image shows Paul Butterfield playing harmonica on the left and Mike Bloomfield playing guitar on the right. It was taken in New York City, probably in 1966.

Richard Thompson - 1000 Years of Popular Music - Third Version (2008-2009)

From about 2001 to 2009, Richard Thompson occasionally put on a special type of concert, called "1000 Years of Popular Music." The idea started for him around the year 2000, when Playboy Magazine asked him and a bunch of other famous musicians to list what they considered to be the best songs of the millennium. Thompson alone took them literally and gave them a list that genuinely covered 1000 years, whereas everyone else made lists just of the last century. That inspired him to perform this concerts where he played some of his favorite songs of the last 1000 years, with many going back centuries. 

In 2021, I compiled and posted two versions of these kinds of concerts. Those mostly were sourced from concerts between 2001 and 2004. At that time, I also made a third version, mostly consisting of concerts from 2008. But I never felt ready to post it until now. The reason was sound quality. Most of the songs from the first two versions came from soundboard bootlegs or a DVD video. But this one pretty much entirely comes from unreleased audience bootlegs. (As usual, you can find sourcing details in the mp3 tags.) I felt that didn't meet the sound quality standards I'd set for my music blog. I waited, hoping either better sources would be found, or audio editing technology would improve enough for me to make this sound worthy of posting.

Well, better sources never were found, but audio editing technology did improve. Now, in January 2026, I feel this one sounds nearly as good as the first two. I just recently discovered a relatively new filter the MVSEP program has called "denoise." It's great for getting rid of hiss. So I used that on all the songs. I also ran all the songs through MVSEP's reverb reduction. And I additionally ran all the talking tracks through Adobe's vocal enhancer, which does wonders adding clarity to talking.

I know a couple of commenters have been asking for this ever since I mentioned a third version back in 2021. Thanks for your patience! Sorry it took so long. 

Speaking about that Adobe vocal enhancer, since that works so well, I recently used that on many of the talking tracks in the first two versions. Many of those talking bits were from audience boots instead of soundboard boots, so they needed help too. They sound much better now. So I strongly recommend you redownload those albums, if you'd downloaded them before.

Here's the link to the first version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/richard-thompson-1000-years-of-popular.html

And the link to the second version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/06/richard-thompson-1000-years-of-popular.html

I was very careful to avoid duplicating any songs from version to version. Luckily, Thompson kept changing the songs on his different "1000 Years" tours. So this should be just as entertaining as the other two versions. Also, like those versions, I've included sourcing information in brackets in the song titles. That includes the songwriter or writers, when known, and the year the song was written, if known.

Actually, I believe the last time Thompson toured with this theme was 2008. I have one song here from 2009, "Substitute," that came from a different kind of concert. But it was done in acoustic mode, like all the songs here, and I thought it fit in nicely, so I included it. Let's hope he comes back to this tour concept someday, because it's a fun way to learn musical history. (Besides, I'd love to see what songs he would deem worthy from the 2010s and 2020s.)  

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long. 

01 Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene [Praise to You, Queen of Heaven] [1200s] (Richard Thompson)
02 talk (Richard Thompson)
03 The Three Ravens [1400s or earlier] (Richard Thompson)
04 talk (Richard Thompson)
05 Ja Nus Hons Pris [King Richard, 1192] (Richard Thompson)
06 talk (Richard Thompson)
07 Cutty Wren [1300s] (Richard Thompson)
08 talk (Richard Thompson)
09 False Knight on the Road [1820s or earlier] (Richard Thompson)
10 talk (Richard Thompson)
11 Pipe, Shepherd's Pipe [unknown] (Richard Thompson)
12 talk (Richard Thompson)
13 A Man Who Would Woo a Fair Maid [Gilbert and Sullivan, 1888] (Richard Thompson)
14 talk (Richard Thompson)
15 Down by the Salley Gardens [William Butler Yeats, 1889, set to music in 1909] (Richard Thompson)
16 talk (Richard Thompson)
17 Rigs of the Time [1905 or earlier] (Richard Thompson)
18 talk (Richard Thompson)
19 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime [Bing Crosby, 1932] (Richard Thompson)
20 talk (Richard Thompson)
21 Strange Fruit [Abel Meeropol, 1937] (Richard Thompson)
22 talk (Richard Thompson)
23 Parchman Farm [Mose Allison, 1957] (Richard Thompson)
24 talk (Richard Thompson)
25 Little Boxes [Malvina Reynolds, 1962] (Richard Thompson)
26 Hold Me Tight - There's a Place - I Want to Hold Your Hand [Beatles, 1963] (Richard Thompson)
27 talk (Richard Thompson)
28 All Right [I'll Sign the Papers] [Ray Price, 1964] (Richard Thompson)
29 Substitute [Who, 1966] (Richard Thompson)
30 talk (Richard Thompson)
31 Workin' Man Blues [Merle Haggard, 1969] (Richard Thompson)
32 talk (Richard Thompson)
33 Get Up, Stand Up [Bob Marley & the Wailers, 1973] (Richard Thompson)
34 talk (Richard Thompson)
35 Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime [Korgis, 1980] (Richard Thompson)
36 talk (Richard Thompson)
37 Beds Are Burning [Midnight Oil, 1987] (Richard Thompson)
38 talk (Richard Thompson)
39 Maneater [Nelly Furtado, 2006] (Richard Thompson) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wPFoeBMn

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/ruKCZLQUli3nX0K/file 

The cover photo comes from a concert at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2008. I also used the same framing artwork that I used on the first two versions.

Spirit - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 3-6-1969, Late Show

In previous posts, I've lamented the lack of live recordings of Spirit during their peak years, 1967 to 1970, with worthy sound quality. But that's starting to change as I find a bit more. This one has some sound issues, but overall it's still one of their best live recordings from the 1960s.

This is the late show. I wonder if it's incomplete, because it didn't include any of their three best known songs up to that point in their career, "Fresh Garbage," "Mechanical World," and "I Got a Line on You." Perhaps some or all of those were played in the early show, and they didn't want to repeat themselves. Or this might be incomplete. It seems pretty short, but I believe they were the opening act for Ten Years After, and it does have what sounds like the beginning and the end.

The band started with an instrumental that I thought was just terrible, virtually unlistenable, which I just called "Intro." For two minutes, they simply hit the same chord over and over again, with nothing else happening. I cut it down to a mere seventeen seconds (which is why that has "[Edit]" in its title). At that length, it's fine. But at two minutes, it's an ordeal to hear. Strange. 

Anyway, another curious inclusion here is a song which I have titled "Boogie," but I don't know if that's the real name. I also don't know if it's a cover or an original. They explained that they had been touring with the likes of Canned Heat, and they'd heard a lot of boogie songs, so they felt compelled to try one out. If anyone has a better name for this song and/or knows anything more about it, please let me know.

As I mentioned above, the sound quality is pretty good, but not great. The three other Spirit concerts I've posted so far (from the Texas International Pop Festival in 1969, Boston in 1969, and the Fillmore West in 1970) sound better. But this is still worthy of listening to, in my book, especially since there's so little live recordings from this era. And they were interesting in concert, thanks in part to the jazz backgrounds of some band members.

This album is 33 minutes long.

01 talk (Spirit)
02 Intro [Instrumental] [Edit] (Spirit)
03 New Dope in Town (Spirit)
04 It Shall Be (Spirit)
05 Poor Richard (Spirit)
06 talk (Spirit)
07 Darlin' If (Spirit)
08 Aren't You Glad (Spirit)
09 Boogie (Spirit)
10 talk (Spirit)
11 Uncle Jack (Spirit)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ECjkTHtg

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/evOK830TvZYD03a/file

The cover photo was taken at a concert at the Palladium, in Birmingham, Michigan, in March, 1970. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. Also, there were a couple of large heads of audience members at the bottom, but they were blurry and washed out, and didn't look good. So I replaced them with other heads in the same spots, and added a couple more, so I could extend the image further down the bottom. 

From right to left: Randy California, Ed Cassidy, and Jay Ferguson.