Dave Mason - Mississippi Riverbank Club, Minneapolis, MN, 7-25-1986

Recently, a commenter named nytvf pointed out a Dave Mason concert on YouTube, and suggested I post that on my blog. I checked out the link, and I was impressed by the concert. It's an acoustic concert with great sound quality, but somehow it seems to only exist as that one YouTube. Well, until now, that is. Here it is converted by me into mp3s. Thanks to nytvf for the suggestion. (I'm always open to suggestions.)

Mason had commercial and critical success, highlighted by two big hits, "Only You Know and I Know" in 1970, and "We Just Disagree" in 1977. But his commercial fortunes went way down in the 1980s. He didn't even release a new studio album between 1980 and 1987. This concert happened near the end of that time. Pretty much all the songs he performed were songs he wrote in the 1960s or 1970s, or covers of classic songs. But while he didn't seem to be very creative with new songs during this time period, his performing skills were still a good as ever.

Mason played guitar, and was backed up by only one other person, Jim Krueger, also on guitar (and backing vocals). That's worth noting because Kreuger also wrote a couple of the songs performed here, "The Word" and "We Just Disagree." Kreuger was a member of Mason's band since the mid-1970s.

The one thing that surprises me here is that it seems Mason didn't play "Only You Know and I Know," which I would guess is the second best known song he's written, behind "Feelin' Alright." (Perhaps there was more to this concert that what's on the recording, I don't know.) 

Anyway, this previously obscure recording is one of the best live recordings of his music, in my opinion. The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I would guess it either has to be a soundboard or an FM radio broadcast.  

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 Feelin' Alright (Dave Mason)
02 World in Changes (Dave Mason)
03 talk (Dave Mason)
04 Every Woman (Dave Mason)
05 talk (Dave Mason)
06 Sad and Deep as You (Dave Mason)
07 That's Alright Mama [Instrumental Version] (Dave Mason)
08 talk (Dave Mason)
09 The Words (Dave Mason)
10 Not Fade Away (Dave Mason)
11 talk (Dave Mason)
12 Let It Go, Let It Flow (Dave Mason)
13 talk (Dave Mason)
14 Shouldn't Have Took More than You Gave - Dear Prudence (Dave Mason)
15 talk (Dave Mason)
16 Bird on the Wind (Dave Mason)
17 talk (Dave Mason)
18 We Just Disagree (Dave Mason)
19 talk (Dave Mason)
20 Maybe (Dave Mason)
21 talk (Dave Mason)
22 Dust My Blues (Dave Mason)
23 talk (Dave Mason)
24 All Shook Up (Dave Mason)
25 Bring It on Home to Me (Dave Mason)
26 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Dave Mason)
27 talk (Dave Mason)
28 All Along the Watchtower (Dave Mason)
29 talk (Dave Mason)
30 Take It to the Limit (Dave Mason)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vCDHvuqf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/1SiXN82PhZRd9jK/file 

The cover photo is from 1981. You can see a second guitarist behind Mason's guitar. I assume that's Jim Krueger. But you can only see part of his head and some of his guitar.

Covered: Van McCoy, Best Of: 1962-1985

Here's another artist for my "Covered" series. To remind you, this highlights the talents of songwriters by collecting cover versions of their songs. This time, the focus is on Van McCoy.

These days, McCoy is probably seen by many as a one-hit wonder, because he had one huge hit under his own name: "The Hustle." This instrumental was a huge hit in 1975. It went to Number One on the main U.S. singles chart, as well as on the soul chart. It reached at least the Top Ten in most other countries as well, including hitting Number Three in Britain. 

That was his only Top 40 hit in the U.S., so technically that makes him a "one-hit wonder" in that country. But he did have other hits in other countries. For instance, he had three more Top 40 hits in Britain. But more important, he had a very long and successful career as a songwriter and producer. The focus here will be just on the songwriting part though.

 

McCoy was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940. He started playing piano and singing in a church choir at a young age. He began writing songs at the age of 12. Eventually, he would have 700 of his songs recorded and released by himself or other musical artists. He started to study psychology at Howard University, but dropped out in 1960 to pursue a music career. 

 

He formed his own record company from the very start. He had a little success with his own recordings. His first single, "Mr. D.J.," was a minor hit in 1960. But he soon found more success writing and producing songs for others. He mostly concentrated on that, though he continued to release singles under his own name. His first really big hit as a songwriter was "Baby, I'm Yours." Singer Barbara Lewis took it to the Top Ten in 1965. He continued to write many more hits in the 1960s and 1970s. I've included the ones I liked the best here. Note these aren't necessarily all the biggest hits on the charts.

 

In the 1970s, he began focusing more on his own career. In the 1960s, he only released one album under his own name. But in the 1970s, he released ten. His solo career really took over after his 1975 hit "The Hustle." But he continued writing and producing songs for others as well. Unfortunately, his career was cut short, because he died of a heart attack on June 29, 1979, at the age of 39.

 

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more. It's surprisingly detailed compared to other similar entries:

 

Van McCoy - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 Stop the Music (Shirelles)
02 Getting Mighty Crowded (Betty Everett)
03 Giving Up (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 Baby, I'm Yours (Barbara Lewis)
05 It’s Starting to Get to Me Now (Irma Thomas)
06 Where Does That Leave Me Now (Nancy Wilson)
07 Before and After (Chad & Jeremy)
08 Let It All Out (O'Jays)
09 Stop and Get a Hold on Myself (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 When You're Young and in Love (Marvelettes)
11 You're Gonna Make Me Love You (Sandi Sheldon)
12 The Way to a Woman’s Heart (Billy T. Soul)
13 I Get the Sweetest Feeling (Jackie Wilson)
14 So Soon (Aretha Franklin)
15 Lost and Found (Kenny Carlton)
16 Nothing Worse than Being Alone (Ad Libs)
17 Right on the Tip of My Tongue (Brenda & the Tabulations)
18 Let Me Down Easy (Derrick Harriott)
19 The Hustle (Van McCoy)
20 This Is It (Melba Moore)
21 Heavy Love (David Ruffin)
22 Baby Don't Change Your Mind (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
23 Sweet Bitter Love (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pgC1na27

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/6J8Pg2jDSyrxSmE/file

The cover photo dates to 1975. I assume it's from an awards ceremony, but I don't know the details. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Smokey Robinson - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Live in Hyde Park Festival, Hyde Park, London, Britain, 9-8-2013

Here's the second BBC concert Smokey Robinson did for the BBC. If there are others, I'm not aware of them.

The first one I posted was from a few years earlier, 2009. This one is somewhat shorter. It seems he jettisoned the relatively recent songs from the set list, and focused more on classic hits. (Either that, or the BBC edited the concert down that way.) Virtually all the songs are big hits he had in the 1960s as part of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The exceptions are two big hits he had as a solo artist: "Just to See Her" and "Cruisin'." 

There's a lot of overlap in the set lists between these two concerts, but there are differences too. For instance, "Volume 1" contains "Being with You" but not "Cruisin'," and this one contains "Cruisin'" but not "Being with You." Those are his two biggest solo hits.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Going to a Go-Go (Smokey Robinson)
02 I Second That Emotion (Smokey Robinson)
03 talk (Smokey Robinson)
04 You've Really Got a Hold on Me (Smokey Robinson)
05 Ooh Baby Baby (Smokey Robinson)
06 talk (Smokey Robinson)
07 The Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson)
08 talk (Smokey Robinson)
09 Motown Boogie - The Way You Do the Things You Do (Smokey Robinson)
10 Get Ready (Smokey Robinson)
11 My Girl (Smokey Robinson)
12 talk (Smokey Robinson)
13 Just to See Her (Smokey Robinson)
14 The Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson)
15 Cruisin' (Smokey Robinson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/deF5o7GQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xWNsyFcPOtqnbE1/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1971-1972

I recently discovered a big amount of Lulu performances for the BBC, so much so that I'm expanding the four albums I'd previously posted into nine albums. This is almost entirely due to finding many more performances from the BBC TV shows she hosted. So here's a fifth volume.

Previously, I'd had one volume stretching from 1971 to 1975 (the old "Volume 4," now deleted). Nearly all of what had been on that volume is on this volume: tracks 1 through 8, and 10 through 14. So the only new tracks are 9 and 15. That means that virtually all the songs on the volumes after this will be new.

Although Lulu had a BBC TV show of her own during this time period, called "It's Lulu," I could find very few songs from this time period from that show. Actually, I only found two: "The More I See You," and the bonus track, "Scarborough Fair." (That's a bonus track due to poor sound quality.) So there's a possibility that many more songs from these years will eventually emerge, if some more recordings of those TV shows were saved somewhere. 

Instead, most of the songs on this album come from performances for the "Top of the Pops" BBC radio show (not to be confused with the BBC TV show of the same name). That makes up tracks 1 through 7 and 12 through 14. Note that you'll see "[Edit]" in the titles of a lot of those songs. That's due to the usual problem of BBC radio recordings from this era of DJs talking over the music. I did my usual editing, using the UVR5 program to remove the talking while keeping the music.

That leaves just tracks 8 through 11, and 15. All of those come from other BBC TV shows that had Lulu on as a guest. If you want specific details, please check the mp3 tags, as usual. These songs generally had audience applause. But I got rid of most of that using the UVR5 program. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is generally excellent, though it varies some. 

This album is 46 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Bridge Over Troubled Water [Edit] (Lulu)
02 You've Gotta Believe in Love [Edit] (Lulu)
03 Save the Country (Lulu)
04 Get Ready [Edit] (Lulu)
05 I Got Love [Edit] (Lulu)
06 Resurrection Shuffle [Edit] (Lulu)
07 Everybody's Got to Clap (Lulu)
08 It Don't Come Easy (Lulu)
09 The More I See You (Lulu with Dudley Moore)
10 Just a Little Lovin' (Lulu)
11 Nights in White Satin (Lulu)
12 Amazing Grace (Lulu)
13 It Takes a Real Man [To Bring Out the Woman in Me] (Lulu)
14 Even If I Could Change [Edit] (Lulu)
15 My Father's House (Lulu with the Young Generation)

Scarborough Fair (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SFJw5zRP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/chnsyalqmBk42N6/file

I don't know anything about the cover photo except it's "circa 1972."

Elvis Presley - International Hotel, Las Vegas, NV, 8-24-1969, Late Show

Once upon a time, Elvis Presley was arguably the biggest music star in the world. But I've noticed his fame is fading faster than that of others from his era, as people who grew up with him keep dying. His peak was before my time too, and I surmise it helped a lot to have lived through those years to fully understand what a groundbreaking musical act he was at the time. While I'm not a huge Presley fan, I do want to post some things that can help people appreciate why he was so famous in the first place. I previously posted highlights from his 1968 comeback TV special, which was one of the pinnacles of his musical career. This concert represents another musical peak for him.

Presley had a great music career in the 1950s, but squandered most of the 1960s starring in a bunch of bad B-movies. However, the 1968 comeback TV special I mentioned above showed that he was musically revitalized and ready for something new. He followed that with the studio album "From Elvis in Memphis" in June 1969, which was a big critical and commercial success. Rolling Stone Magazine has rated this as one of the top 500 albums of all time.

After that, he wanted to try performing concerts again. Aside from the brief concerts he did in front a small studio audience for his 1968 comeback special, he hadn't performed a concert since 1961. But demand was very high now that he was suddenly hot again, with a new hit album and hit singles. In May 1969, the brand-new International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, booked Presley for fifty-seven shows over four weeks (usually twice a night), beginning July 31 and running until early September. His previous backing musicians declined to participate, afraid of losing the lucrative session work they had in Nashville. Instead, Presley found new, high quality accompaniment, led by lead guitarist James Burton.

These new concerts were a huge success. The hotel soon gave him a five-year contract in which he would play there each February and August, at an annual salary of $1 million. That was a remarkable sum for that era. He would go on to perform concerts frequently in the 1970s, instead of making more movies (until his death in 1977). 

His first run of concerts in Las Vegas in August 1969 was his best. He was very excited to be performing again, and to be received so well, so he was at the top of his game. Also, his music still leaned on rock and soul. Just one year later, his music would shift to more middle-of-the-road pop. Many of the concerts from this month have been officially released, including some box sets. But after some digging, I found this one which remains unreleased, yet has ideal soundboard sound quality. (All the shows were professionally recorded for a live album.) 

Most of the songs were hits from the 1950s and early 1960s, or covers of classics (including a version of "Words" by the Bee Gees, released the year before). However, he included two new hit songs. "In the Ghetto" was released in April 1969, and went all the way to Number Three in the U.S. singles chart, his first Top Ten hit since 1963. But "Suspicious Minds," released as a single just two days after this concert, did even better. It would go all the way to Number One, becoming his 14th and last Number One hit in the U.S. Rolling Stone Magazine would later rank it as one of the top 100 songs of all time.

If you want just one live album by Presley, I would suggest this one.

Here's an interesting quote from a "Newsweek" review from his first month of concerts in 1969:

"Dressed in a chic black tunic and bell bottoms that matched his long but neatly combed black-tinted hair. Elvis Presley stepped onstage last week at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and launched into the driving beat of 'Blue Suede Shoes'. The audience of 2,000, most of them over 30, roared and squealed in nostalgic appreciation. In spite of his updated look, Elvis hadn't changed at all in the nearly nine years since his last personal appearance. Shaking, gyrating and quivering, he again proved himself worthy of his nickname, 'The Pelvis.' Through nervousness caused him to sing 'Love my, me tender' for 'Love Me Tender', the pasty-faced enchanter quickly settled down to work his oleaginous charms, backed by a 30-piece orchestra, a five-man combo and a chorus of seven. Oozing the sullen sexuality that threw the America into a state of shock in the 50's, he groaned and swiveled through a medley of 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Don't Be Cruel', 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'All Shook Up' and 'Hound Dog'. It was hard to believe he was 34 and no longer 19 years old."

(By the way, I had to look up the word "oleaginous." Can you imagine a news magazine using a word like that in today's dumbed-down media environment? Anyway, it basically means "oily.") 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis Presley)
02 talk (Elvis Presley)
03 I Got a Woman (Elvis Presley)
04 talk (Elvis Presley)
05 All Shook Up (Elvis Presley)
06 talk (Elvis Presley)
07 Love Me Tender (Elvis Presley)
08 talk (Elvis Presley)
09 Jailhouse Rock - Don't Be Cruel (Elvis Presley)
10 Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley)
11 talk (Elvis Presley)
12 Hound Dog (Elvis Presley)
13 I Can't Stop Loving You (Elvis Presley)
14 Johnny B. Goode (Elvis Presley)
15 talk (Elvis Presley)
16 Baby, What You Want Me to Do (Elvis Presley)
17 Runaway (Elvis Presley)
18 Are You Lonesome Tonight (Elvis Presley)
19 Words (Elvis Presley)
20 Yesterday - Hey Jude (Elvis Presley)
21 talk (Elvis Presley)
22 In the Ghetto (Elvis Presley)
23 talk (Elvis Presley)
24 Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley)
25 talk (Elvis Presley)
26 Can't Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zLt7DwcT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/cXKfFw3k2drNVGR/file

I found two good photos I wanted to use for the cover. I couldn't decide which one I liked more, so I decided to use both. Both of them are from a 

Smokey Robinson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Electric Proms, The Roundhouse, London, Britain, 10-24-2009

Smokey Robinson is a true soul music legend. He was the leader of the Motown band Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in the 1960s, and had a successful solo career after that. I found two concerts he did for the BBC. Both of them are well past his commercial prime, but he could still his songs very well. Here's the first of the two, from 2009.

In 2009, Robinson put out a new studio album, "Time Flies When You're Having Fun." In this concert, he performed three songs from the album: "Don't Know Why," "Girlfriend," and "Time Flies." The first one is a cover, and was a major hit for Norah Jones in 2002. The other two were written by Robinson. Other than that, the concert mostly leans on hits he did with the Miracles in the 1960s, with a couple of solo hits near the end, plus another cover, "Fly Me to the Moon."

A couple of songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. I fixed this album a while back, so I don't remember the problem with those. But given they are the first and last songs, I'll bet there were BBC DJs talking over the music. 

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Going to a Go-Go [Edit] (Smokey Robinson)
02 I Second that Emotion (Smokey Robinson)
03 talk (Smokey Robinson)
04 You've Really Got a Hold on Me (Smokey Robinson)
05 Ooh Baby Baby (Smokey Robinson)
06 talk (Smokey Robinson)
07 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Smokey Robinson)
08 Get Ready (Smokey Robinson)
09 My Girl (Smokey Robinson)
10 talk (Smokey Robinson)
11 My Girl [Reprise] (Smokey Robinson)
12 talk (Smokey Robinson)
13 Don't Know Why (Smokey Robinson)
14 talk (Smokey Robinson)
15 Fly Me to the Moon (Smokey Robinson)
16 talk (Smokey Robinson)
17 The Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson)
18 Girlfriend (Smokey Robinson)
19 Being with You (Smokey Robinson)
20 Time Flies (Smokey Robinson)
21 Just to See Her (Smokey Robinson)
22 The Tracks of My Tears [Edit] (Smokey Robinson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CZnhNBsp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/e5oitpiTHD5Y4rK/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Elton John - Cover Versions, Volume 6: 2008-2017

Here's the sixth and last album in a series of albums of cover versions by Elton John. I had started posted this series back in 2023, but I stopped for a couple of years due to problems with the copyright police. But they seem to be going easy on me lately, so I'm finally finishing off the series.

Only four of the songs here are unreleased. "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Birthday" are from a bootleg of a joint concert John did with Billy Joel in 2009. (He's done a lot of those over the years.) Unfortunately, the sound quality of those two songs are lower than the rest, despite my best efforts to make some audio editing improvements. "Streets of Philadelphia" is from a 2013 MusiCares tribute concert to Bruce Springsteen that I've posted in full on this blog. "Gravity," a duet with Sara Bareilles, is from a 2014 concert.

Pretty much all the other songs are from John's appearances on albums by other musical acts. Check the mp3 tags for more details. The one exception is "I Love You All the Time," which was released as an A-side in 2016.

This is probably going to be the last album in this series because, rather surprisingly, I can't find any good cover versions he did after 2017. Mind you, he's done lots of songs on his studio albums, but these albums only collect covers that aren't the versions from his studio albums. If anyone knows of covers I've missed from this time period, or after, let me know and I'll probably add them in to this album. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Joseph, Better You than Me (Killers, Elton John & Neil Tennant)
02 Back in the U.S.S.R (Elton John & Billy Joel)
03 Birthday (Elton John & Billy Joel)
04 Snowed In at Wheeler Street (Kate Bush & Elton John)
05 Oh Well, Part 1 (2Cellos & Elton John)
06 Streets of Philadelphia (Elton John with Raphael Saadiq)
07 The Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson & Elton John)
08 Gravity (Sara Bareilles & Elton John)
09 I Love You All the Time (Elton John)
10 Where Do the Guilty Go (Elton John & Frankie Miller)
11 Alone Again, Naturally (Pet Shop Boys & Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5co2GBbS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MyoGx6JEfwTVUTa/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Manchester Evening News Arena, in Manchester, Britain, on December 20, 2008.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1969-1971

If you think I've posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" for Lulu, you're not wrong. I recently discovered a ton of Lulu's BBC material that I'd missed before. In fact, I found so much that previously I'd posted four volumes, but now I'll be posting a total of nine! The vast majority of the new stuff is from the 1970s, especially 1975, but there is some music from the late 1960s. There are so many changes that I got rid of the old "Volume 4" and I'm replacing it with this one. I'd guess about half of the songs on this revamped volume are new.

Note also that I radically overhauled "Volume 3." I added a bunch of songs to that, and moved some other songs from that one to this one. So if you're interested in this at all, I strongly suggest you download the revised version of that album. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/10/lulu-bbc-sessions-volume-3-1968-1972.html

The first song is the only one not actually from the BBC. It's a duet with Johnny Cash, from Cash's own TV show. Most of the next bunch of songs are from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." Specifically, tracks 2 through 11 (with the exception of "Boom Bang a Bang," which was from a BBC TV special), plus track 19. These come from a musical associate named Marley, who sent me a bunch of performances from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." So a big thanks to him.

I mentioned in the previous volume that Lulu had her own BBC TV show from 1968 to 1975. I haven't been able to find many songs from her TV show from this time period, but I did find a handful from 1970. Those make up tracks 12 through 17. Track 18 ("Saved") is from another BBC TV show.

All of the performances here are officially unreleased. One snag with the new "Top of the Pops" tracks is that most of them had BBC DJs talking over the music. But I was able to remove the talking and keep the underlying music thanks to the X-Minus audio editing program. Those are the ones with " [Edit]" in their titles. I also got rid of the crowd noise as best I could for the songs that had that, mostly the TV show-sourced ones.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Games People Play (Lulu & Johnny Cash)
02 Oh Me, Oh My [I'm a Fool for You Baby] [Edit] (Lulu)
03 Sweep Around Your Own Back Door [Edit] (Lulu)
04 The Letter [Edit] (Lulu)
05 Boom Bang a Bang (Lulu)
06 Feelin' Alright [Edit] (Lulu)
07 Marley Purt Drive [Edit] (Lulu)
08 Mr. Bojangles [Edit] (Lulu)
09 Dirty Old Man [Edit] (Lulu)
10 Hum a Song [From Your Heart] [Edit] (Lulu)
11 Show Me [Edit] (Lulu)
12 Girl Talk (Lulu & Cass Elliot)
13 Sugar, Sugar (Lulu, Dudley Moore & Cass Elliot)
14 Keep the Customer Satisfied (Lulu)
15 Sweet Little Sixteen - Long Tall Sally - Blue Suede Shoes (Lulu)
16 Free the People (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)
17 Joy to the World (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)
18 Saved (Lulu)
19 Help [Edit] (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iCGFCJJK 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/uYCahxSGauK9xJd/file

The cover art photo comes from a BBC TV show in 1971, but I don't know the details.

Elliott Smith - The Steamboat, Austin, TX, 5-3-2003

I was listening to some Elliott Smith music yesterday, and I noticed that I'd never posted this concert from him. So I want to fix that ASAP, since it's an excellent concert. It's the best concert I've heard from 2003, the last year of his life. (He died on October 21, 2003, at the age of 34.) This is a solo acoustic concert.

What makes this concert recording stand out is the sound quality. It's an excellent soundboard bootleg. He was in good form, which wasn't always the case in 2003. He hadn't toured much since 2000, and he was playing a lot of new songs, some of which would end up on his 2004 album, "From a Basement on the Hill." It also ends with a nice cover of "Blackbird" by the Beatles. 

By the way, I've noticed there's a video of this entire concert on YouTube. This isn't sourced from that, though. The video quality isn't that good, but I thought I'd mention it for people who might want to watch it. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Happiness (Elliott Smith)
02 Memory Lane (Elliott Smith)
03 Rose Parade (Elliott Smith)
04 Strung Out Again (Elliott Smith)
05 talk (Elliott Smith)
06 Plainclothes Man (Elliott Smith)
07 I Figured You Out (Elliott Smith)
08 St. Ides Heaven (Elliott Smith)
09 A Passing Feeling (Elliott Smith)
10 Division Day (Elliott Smith)
11 talk (Elliott Smith)
12 Between the Bars (Elliott Smith)
13 Twilight (Elliott Smith)
14 I Better Be Quiet Now (Elliott Smith)
15 talk (Elliott Smith)
16 Pretty [Ugly Before] (Elliott Smith)
17 Waltz No. 2 [XO] (Elliott Smith)
18 Satellite (Elliott Smith)
19 talk (Elliott Smith)
20 Coast to Coast (Elliott Smith)
21 Say Yes (Elliott Smith)
22 talk (Elliott Smith)
23 Blackbird (Elliott Smith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/H56xYJ42

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hRfx7N2IVC2fHqT/file

The cover image is from a concert at the University of London Union, in London, Britain, on March 30, 2003.

The Gregg Allman Band - BBC Rock Hour, Uncle Sam's, Hull, MA, 11-12-1982

Here's an interesting BBC concert starring Gregg Allman, one of the main singer-songwriters for the Allman Brothers Band. I just stumbled upon this the other day, and I'm posting it straight away because it's very hard to find.

This concert came at a difficult time in Allman's musical career. The Allman Brothers Band reunited in the late 1970s after a couple of years apart, and put out three studio albums. But their music was out of sync with the musical trends of the time, and they broke up again in early 1982. This break up would last until 1988. Allman was forced to focus on his solo career. But he was even less of a draw as a solo act than as part of his old band. For several years, he was reduced to mostly performing in small clubs, if he could get paid to perform at all.

Given that context, it's rather surprising that 1982 seems to be the one and only time the BBC recorded and broadcast a Gregg Allman concert. Kudos to them. Also, kudos to Allman to sticking to his musical style instead of trying to chase the latest musical trends, a strategy that rarely works. This was his first tour after the Allman Brothers Band broke up for the second time earlier in 1982. He would keep touring through the 1980s. He finally would get a break when his next album, "I'm No Angel," was a surprise hit in 1987. It helped that, by that time, the mass public was getting around to appreciating his style of music again.

Already, Allman's band largely consisted of the same people he'd find success with in 1987. Most importantly, he stuck with two brothers, Dan Toler on lead guitar and David Toler on drums. Both of them were members of the Allman Brothers Band from 1979 to 1982.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. Most of the songs were originally done by the Allman Brothers Band, or were on 1970s Gregg Allman solo albums.

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 talk (Gregg Allman)
02 Dreams (Gregg Allman)
03 talk (Gregg Allman)
04 Sweet Feelin' (Gregg Allman)
05 talk (Gregg Allman)
06 Matthew's Arrival [Instrumental] (Gregg Allman)
07 talk (Gregg Allman)
08 Trouble No More (Gregg Allman)
09 Queen of Hearts (Gregg Allman)
10 talk (Gregg Allman)
11 Midnight Rider (Gregg Allman)
12 talk (Gregg Allman)
13 Stand Back (Gregg Allman)
14 One Way Out (Gregg Allman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LaoQUfXc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hcLgiq4ky6Yxcsu/file

The cover photo was taken at the Keystone Palo Alto, in Palo Alto, California, on September 26, 1985.

The Pretty Things - Copenhagen Beat Festival, K.B. Hallen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 8-22-1970

I'm pretty psyched to present this album. One thing I like doing with this blog is trying to fill in musical gaps. For instance, the Pretty Things were a great band in the 1960s especially, and great live performers, but there are very few surviving live recordings worth listening to. So here's something to help fill in that gap.

I believe this recording comes from a European TV station that broadcast the entire Pretty Things set from the Copenhagen Beat Festival in 1970. You can find the entire video on YouTube in black and white. That makes this one of the earliest surviving musical recordings from the band. 

However, there were some sound quality issues, even though it was recorded by a professional film crew. One problem was that the lead vocals were low in the mix. I fixed that using the MVSEP program. For many of the songs, I went through line by line to bring up particularly quiet bits. I did the same with the banter between songs. But I took extra steps there. For instance, I ran all of those bits through Adobe's vocal enhancer program, and I got rid of extra reverb. Before, it was virtually impossible to understand most of the banter. Now, I can make out most of it.

Note that I've posted a BBC concert by this band from just a couple of months earlier that has a similar set list. But "similar" isn't the same. For instance, one nice surprise here is a cover of "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (although it's drastically different, and mostly instrumental, with only one verse the same as the original). This concert and the BBC one I just mentioned are the best two early concerts by this band that I've come across so far.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Blue Serge Blues (Pretty Things)
02 talk (Pretty Things)
03 She's a Lover (Pretty Things)
04 talk (Pretty Things)
05 In the Square - The Letter - Rain (Pretty Things)
06 talk (Pretty Things)
07 Sickle Clowns (Pretty Things)
08 talk (Pretty Things)
09 Old Man Going (Pretty Things)
10 Mona - Drum Solo (Pretty Things)
11 Ohio (Pretty Things)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EMB7dab3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/9v4eaYVJNUA4XTC/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I took it from a YouTube video of the concert. That was in black and white. But I used the Kolorize program to colorize it. That's lead singer Phil May in the black leather jacket, and Pete Tolson behind him.

Fairport Convention - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 8-31-1970

First off, I have to warn that this concert is not up to the usual song quality of this music blog. It sounds pretty good to me, but not excellent. It's from an audience boot, not a soundboard, and it shows. I'm posting this for two reasons. One, a commenter named Chris repeatedly asked me to improve and post this specific concert. Two, early Fairport Convention is great, and recordings like this need to be preserved, so I decided Chris's idea had merit. 

In the end, I was able to make a lot of sonic improvements. (If you think this sounds rough, you should have heard it before.) There was a lot of muck in this recording. I used a few different audio editing tricks to reduce that, but I couldn't get rid of that entirely. I made a particularly big impact on the banter between songs. Before, that was barely intelligible. Now, most of what they're saying can be understood.

Frankly, there are some other live recordings from 1970 with similar set lists that sound better. But if you're a big fan of the band, especially in their early years, you'll want this one too. Richard Thompson was still in the band. He and violinist Dave Swarbrick had some good instrumental "duels" on some of the songs.

The music here is unreleased. As mentioned above, the sound quality is decent, but not the best. 

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long. 

01 talk (Fairport Convention)
02 Walk Awhile (Fairport Convention)
03 talk (Fairport Convention)
04 Dirty Linen [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
05 talk (Fairport Convention)
06 Staines Morris (Fairport Convention)
07 talk (Fairport Convention)
08 The Lark in the Morning [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
09 talk (Fairport Convention)
10 Now Be Thankful (Fairport Convention)
11 talk (Fairport Convention)
12 Matty Groves (Fairport Convention)
13 talk (Fairport Convention)
14 The Banks of the Sweet Primroses (Fairport Convention)
15 talk (Fairport Convention)
16 Drums [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
17 Flatback Caper (Fairport Convention)
18 talk (Fairport Convention)
19 Sloth (Fairport Convention)
20 talk (Fairport Convention)
21 Instrumental (Fairport Convention)
22 talk (Fairport Convention)
23 Tam Lin (Fairport Convention)
24 talk (Fairport Convention)
25 Sir Patrick Spens (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/U7xVhxBB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MWGun0fAX7SLESu/file

The cover image is from a Philadelphia Folk Festival on August 29, 1970. The original photo was in black and white. But I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham - Nordwestradio, Bremen, Germany, 10-14-1999

The songwriting team of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham are responsible for many soul classics, such as "Don Right Woman, Do Right Man" and "The Dark End of the Street." I've made two albums of their songs for my "Covered" series. But in addition to being excellent songwriters, they also were excellent performers. In particular, Penn had a soulful voice, and could have been a star if he'd saved his best songs for himself. (He sings lead on most of the songs here.) However, the two of them preferred being songwriters and sessions musicians instead. This concert is a good overview of the best songs, most of which they wrote together.

Penn and Olham began writing songs together in the 1960s, and wrote many hits. Penn put out a solo album in 1973, but it was mostly ignored at the time, and it seems he didn't tour or otherwise promote it. He resumed a solo career in 1993, usually working closely with Oldham. As far as I can tell, they only began touring in 1998, and occasionally toured after that. A live album compiled from various 1998 concerts was released in 1999, called "Moments from This Theatre." I prefer this concert for several reasons. For one, I prefer hearing a single concert, rather than an album cobbled together from lots of different concerts. Also, the official live album has 14 songs on it, and this one is significantly longer, with 21 songs. Plus, this one also has more banter.

This concert was recorded for a German radio station. The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

The concert is basically acoustic, with Penn playing an acoustic guitar and Oldham playing an organ, and not much else. 

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long. 

01 I'm Your Puppet (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
02 Sweet Inspiration (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
03 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
04 Cry like a Baby (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
05 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
06 I Met Her in Church (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
07 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
08 Lonely Women Make Good Lovers (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
09 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
10 It Tears Me Up (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
11 The Dark End of the Street (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
12 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
13 You Left the Water Running (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
14 A Woman Left Lonely (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
15 I'm Living Good (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
16 Ol' Folks (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
17 Nobody's Fool (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
18 Zero Willpower (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
19 Hello Memphis (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
20 Rainbow Road (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
21 Goodbye London [Edit] (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
22 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
23 These Bars [Made a Prisoner Out of Me] (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
24 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
25 Memphis Women and Chicken (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
26 talk (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
27 I Do (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)
28 Out of Left Field (Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yBuBTwFF

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/MlB0MsVI2exbusf/file

I don't know anything about the cover photo except it was taken in 1996. Oldham has a beard and Penn is shown playing a guitar. 

King Crimson - Chesterfield Jazz Club, Chesterfield, Britain, 9-6-1969

Here's a 1969 concert from King Crimson. This band has had many personnel changes over the decades, with only band leader Robert Fripp staying as a constant. Out of all the band's variations, I like their first one the best, the band that recorded the 1969 album "In the Court of the Crimson King." This band was phenomenal live, mixing jazz with rock and helping to kick off the prog rock genre. In 1970 though, the band personnel completely changed, with only Fripp remaining. This is probably the best sounding full length concert from the 1969 era of this band.

Note that this concert has been officially released. But I'm posting it here because it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. No live recordings from the 1969 version of this band were released until decades later. In 1997, a four CD box set of live recordings was released, called "Epitaph." It contained a version of this concert, but it was missing a few songs, and the sound quality wasn't that good. Then in 2010, a much, much bigger box set was released, called "The Complete 1969 Recordings." That's where I sourced this concert from. It's the complete concert, and the sound quality is better. The box set it comes from is made up of 26 CDs! I figure that not many people are going to splurge for a box set that enormous, which is why I liberated this as a stand-alone album.

The sound quality is pretty good, though not excellent. It originally comes from an audience bootleg instead of a soundboard or FM radio broadcast. But honestly, sometimes audience boots can sound as good as many soundboards, and that's the case here. The one big snag is that there is almost no crowd noise. One interesting thing is that some of the songs are not from the band's debut album, "In the Court of the Crimson King." For instance, there is a cover of the Donovan song "Get Thy Bearings." Also, the last half hour is almost entirely instrumental music that doesn't come from the album. 

Note that this concert took place after the debut album was recorded, but about a month before it was released. So the audience probably didn't know any of these songs beforehand. 

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long. 

01 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson)
02 [Why Don't You Just] Drop In (King Crimson)
03 talk (King Crimson)
04 Epitaph (King Crimson)
05 Get Thy Bearings (King Crimson)
06 talk (King Crimson)
07 I Talk to the Wind (King Crimson)
08 The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson)
09 Mantra [Instrumental] (King Crimson)
10 Travel Weary Capricorn (King Crimson)
11 Improv [Instrumental] (King Crimson)
12 Mars [The Devil's Triangle] [Instrumental] (King Crimson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vM1jL7xd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/q8h3Y7nzttXztUO/file

The cover image is from a concert in Hyde Park, London, on July 5, 1969. The band opened for the Rolling Stones in front of a huge audience of at least a couple hundred thousand people. That's Robert Fripp on guitar on the left and Ian McDonald on saxophone on the right.

Neil Finn, Roddy Frame, & Graham Gouldman - Songwriters' Circle, Subterania Club, London, Britain, 7-2-1999

Here's another episode of the BBC TV show "Songwriters' Circle." This show ran for only five episodes in 1999. Then it had a longer life about ten years later, with over a dozen episodes from 2010 to 2012. This is one of those 1999 episodes. It stars Neil Finn from Crowded House, Roddy Frame from Aztec Camera, and Graham Gouldman from 10cc. (Both Neil Finn returned for second appearances in 2011.)

As usual, the show had the format of each singer-songwriter taking turns performing their own songs. This episode, however, had more collaboration between them, especially in the second half of the show. That's one of the reasons I think this is one of the best shows in this series.

Unfortunately, this is the last episode I've been able to find. There are three others that were broadcast that remain elusive for me. There are two more 1999 episodes. One of them starred Joan Baez, Matraca Berg, and Gretchen Peters. The other one starred two duos, Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray, and then Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, plus John Martyn. I'm also missing a 2012 episode starring Bill Anderson, Clint Black, and Bob DiPiero. If anyone has them and wants to share, I'd love to post them here as well. 

On a different note, I'm back from my week-long trip to Seattle. Now that I'm back, I fixed the cover of County JoeMcDonald's "BBC Sessions, Volume 3," so you might want to redownload that one. I also hope to finally respond to some comments I still haven't gotten to during my Peru trip, plus the ones from the last week. 

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

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 talk (Neil Finn)
02 Distant Sun (Neil Finn)
03 talk (Roddy Frame)
04 Bigger Brighter Better (Roddy Frame)
05 talk (Graham Gouldman)
06 Bus Stop (Graham Gouldman)
07 talk (Neil Finn)
08 Don't Dream It's Over (Neil Finn)
09 talk (Roddy Frame)
10 Hymn to Grace (Roddy Frame)
11 talk (Graham Gouldman)
12 Heart Full of Soul (Graham Gouldman)
13 talk (Neil Finn)
14 Throw Your Arms Around Me (Neil Finn)
15 talk (Roddy Frame)
16 Killermont Street (Roddy Frame)
17 talk (Graham Gouldman)
18 For Your Love (Graham Gouldman)
19 talk (Neil Finn, Roddy Frame & Graham Gouldman)
20 Fall at Your Feet (Neil Finn with Roddy Frame & Graham Gouldman)
21 talk (Roddy Frame)
22 Oblivious (Roddy Frame with Neil Finn & Graham Gouldman)
23 talk (Graham Gouldman)
24 I'm Not in Love (Graham Gouldman)
25 talk (Neil Finn)
26 Weather with You (Neil Finn with Roddy Frame & Graham Gouldman)
27 talk (Neil Finn)
28 Ten Guitars (Neil Finn with Roddy Frame & Graham Gouldman)
29 talk (Neil Finn, Roddy Frame & Graham Gouldman)
30 Somewhere in My Heart (Roddy Frame with Neil Finn & Graham Gouldman)
31 talk (Graham Gouldman)
32 Dreadlock Holiday (Graham Gouldman with Neil Finn & Roddy Frame)
33 talk (Neil Finn)
34 Better Be Home Soon (Neil Finn with Roddy Frame & Graham Gouldman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FbfQAr71

alternate: 

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

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. From right to left: Neil Finn, Roddy Frame, and Graham Gouldman.

The New York Dolls - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 8-16-2006

Here is another album from the "PBS Soundstage" T.V. show. This one stars the New York Dolls.

The New York Dolls are most famous for the music they did in the early 1970s. They only released two albums in that time period, “New York Dolls” in 1973 and “Too Much Too Soon” in 1974, and neither album sold that well. But they were extremely influential on punk rock, heavy metal, hard rock, glam rock, glam, metal, and other musical genres. 

They broke up in 1976. Lead singer David Johansen had a successful second career with the persona "Buster Poindexter," playing a very different style of music. The band had a surprise reunion in 2004, however, although by that time only three of the five original band members were alive and participating in the reunion. One would have thought that they were long past their prime by that point. But they surprised with a very well receive album in 2006, "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This." Many critics put it on their best albums of the year list. This concert is a mix of songs from the new album and older classics.

The band would break up again in 2011. Since then, all of the bands original members have died.

Here's the band's Wikipedia page for more information:

New York Dolls - Wikipedia 

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

This album is 53 minutes long. 

01 talk (New York Dolls)
02 Looking for a Kiss (New York Dolls)
03 We're All in Love (New York Dolls)
04 talk (New York Dolls)
05 Puss 'N Boots (New York Dolls)
06 Gotta Get Away from Tommy (New York Dolls)
07 Take a Good Look at My Good Looks (New York Dolls)
08 Gimmie Love and Turn on the Lights (New York Dolls)
09 talk (New York Dolls)
10 Private World (New York Dolls)
11 talk (New York Dolls)
12 Dance like a Monkey (New York Dolls)
13 Punishing World (New York Dolls)
14 talk (New York Dolls)
15 Trash (New York Dolls)
16 Jet Boy (New York Dolls)
17 talk (New York Dolls)
18 Personality Crisis (New York Dolls)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cCea1JGZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I2yOtNFV4cA5odX/file

The cover of singer David Johansen is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. 

Country Joe McDonald with Barry Melton - BBC Sessions, Volume 4, In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 1-28-1975

Here is the fourth, and last, album of Country Joe MacDonald performing for the BBC. This is a concert from 1975.

This album is a bit different from the others in the series and that it prominently features Barry Melton as well as McDonald. McDonald and Melton were the co-leaders of Country Joe and the Fish, with both of them, writing songs. Melton was generally known as "the Fish." Their band broke up in 1970, after band members lost enthusiasm for touring and recording. But both McDonald and Melton continued with their own solo careers. They remain friendly with each other, and sometimes performed together, such as in this concert. In this case, each of them perform songs solo near the beginning, but mostly did songs together.

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

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Karma (Barry Melton)
02 talk (Barry Melton)
03 Marshmallow Road (Barry Melton)
04 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
05 The Man from Athabaska (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
06 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
07 Holy Roller (Country Joe McDonald)
08 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
09 Living in the Future in a Plastic Dome (Country Joe McDonald)
10 Fly So High (Country Joe McDonald)
11 On the Road Again (Country Joe McDonald)
12 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
13 Entertainment Is My Business (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
14 I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
15 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
16 The Hot Dog and Hamburger (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
17 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
18 Happiness Is a Porpoise Mouth (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
19 Here I Go Again (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
20 Sing Sing Sing (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
21 It's Finally Over (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ywihexA5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/fIOFXZZEO0RaRDz/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test BBC TV show in 1976. 

Michael McDonald & Friends - A Tribute to Motown, PBS Soundstage, Nashville, TN, 6-2005

Here is another episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" T.V. show. This one stars, Michael McDonald, but it has a bunch of special guests as well: Billy Preston, Toni Braxton, Take 6, and Indie.Arie. All the songs they performed are covers of Motown classics from the 1960s and 70s.

McDonald has been on the Soundstage show quite a lot. He was a key member of the Doobie Brothers when they hosted the show in 1979. He also hosted it in 2003 with some other guests. And he was a guest on an episode hosted by Kenny Loggins. And I believe he will be on at least one more episode that I have yet to post.

In this case, I would bet the show had him back because of the Motown theme to the episode, meaning that the songs were different from the ones he played on other episodes. At the time he was going through quite a Motown phase. In 2003, he released an all covers album just called "Motown," And in 2004, he released a sequel called "Motown 2." The special guests were not on those albums, with the exception of Toni Braxton. The duet she sang here with McDonald, "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," also appeared as a duet on his "Motown 2" album. 

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

An hour and six minutes long. 

01 I Second That Emotion (Michael McDonald)
02 talk (Michael McDonald)
03 I Was Made to Love Her (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
04 talk (Michael McDonald)
05 What's Going On (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
06 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Michael McDonald)
07 talk (Michael McDonald)
08 All in Love Is Fair (Michael McDonald)
09 talk (Michael McDonald)
10 Stop, Look, Listen [To Your Heart] (Michael McDonald & Toni Braxton)
11 talk (Michael McDonald)
12 Baby I'm for Real (Michael McDonald)
13 talk (Michael McDonald)
14 Tracks of My Tears (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
15 talk (Michael McDonald)
16 Since I Lost My Baby (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
17 talk (Michael McDonald)
18 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Michael McDonald)
19 talk (Michael McDonald)
20 You're All I Need to Get By (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
21 Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
22 talk (Michael McDonald)
23 Nowhere to Run (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
24 talk (Michael McDonald) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vR3Pfbkj 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4RldNOOrxv6NA5X/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. It shows Toni Braxton standing in the foreground and Michael McDonald sitting at the keyboards further back. 

Country Joe McDonald - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1974-1977

Here is another album of Country Joe McDonald performing for the BBC. This album consists of a series of BBC studio sessions.

This album consists of three different sessions. The first two songs are from an appearance on the “Old Gray Whistle Test” BBC TV show in 1974. Tracks four through seven are from the same show, but an episode in 1976. The remaining songs are from an appearance on John Peel’s BBC radio show in 1977. I couldn’t find any BBC performances after that year. However, I did find a 1975 concert. So that will be the subject of the fourth and final volume, unless some other material emerges.

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

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Holy Roller (Country Joe McDonald)
02 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
03 Living in the Country (Country Joe McDonald)
04 Save the Whales (Country Joe McDonald)
05 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
06 Our Wedding Day (Country Joe McDonald)
07 Breakfast for Two (Country Joe McDonald)
08 The Man from Athabaska (Country Joe McDonald)
09 Get It Together (Country Joe McDonald)
10 La Di Da (Country Joe McDonald)
11 Tricky Dicky (Country Joe McDonald)
12 Save the Whales (Country Joe McDonald)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1gKCFuu6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/fMMtxoNDznV1Swm/file

The cover photo is from the Bread and Roses Festival at the Greek Theatre, in Berkeley, California, on October 9, 1977.

Chris Isaak - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 9-2005

Here is another album of an episode of the "PBS Soundstage" T.V. show. This one stars Chris Isaak. It seems the makers of the show really liked Isaak, because this was one of three episodes starring him. I can’t remember offhand anybody else who starred in three episodes of the show. All of them were in the early 2000s. To Isaak’s credit, he mostly played different songs in each episode, helped by the fact that one of them was a Christmas episode.

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

This album is an hour and five minutes long. 

01 Dancin' (Chris Isaak)
02 talk (Chris Isaak)
03 Let Me Down Easy (Chris Isaak)
04 Wicked Game (Chris Isaak)
05 Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (Chris Isaak)
06 talk (Chris Isaak)
07 Solitary Man (Chris Isaak)
08 talk (Chris Isaak)
09 Western Stars (Chris Isaak)
10 talk (Chris Isaak)
11 Can't Do a Thing [To Stop Me] (Chris Isaak)
12 talk (Chris Isaak)
13 Only the Lonely (Chris Isaak)
14 Wrong to Love You (Chris Isaak)
15 American Boy (Chris Isaak)
16 talk (Chris Isaak)
17 Notice the Ring (Chris Isaak)
18 talk (Chris Isaak)
19 Diddly Daddy (Chris Isaak)
20 talk (Chris Isaak)
21 Goin' Nowhere (Chris Isaak)
22 Blue Hotel (Chris Isaak)
23 Think of Tomorrow (Chris Isaak)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PKJh2PBd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lX2h2IWmNdkd3vU/file

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

Billy Idol - PBS Soundstage, Congress Theater, Chicago, IL, 7-1-2009

Despite the fact that I just got back from Peru last week, I am on the move again. A family thing has me in Seattle Washington for six days. I just arrived. But like my trip to Peru, I have some albums, ready to go, so I should be able to keep posting during this trip. They mostly consist of episodes of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. 

Here is one from 2009 featuring Billy Idol. Since I am traveling, I’ll keep my comments short. 

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

This album is an hour and eight minutes long. 

01 Super Overdrive (Billy Idol)
02 Dancing with Myself (Billy Idol)
03 Flesh for Fantasy (Billy Idol)
04 Touch My Love (Billy Idol)
05 talk (Billy Idol)
06 White Wedding (Billy Idol)
07 talk (Billy Idol)
08 Scream (Billy Idol)
09 Eyes without a Face (Billy Idol)
10 Cry (Billy Idol)
11 Blue Highway (Billy Idol)
12 talk (Billy Idol)
13 Ready Steady Go (Billy Idol)
14 talk (Billy Idol)
15 Rebel Yell (Billy Idol)
16 talk (Billy Idol)
17 Kiss Me Deadly (Billy Idol)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HpiTYwra 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Z9oruJs6QmuEeUk/file

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

Covered: Neil Young, Volume 10: 2023-2026

Finally, here's the tenth and last volume for the Neil Young "Covered" series. A big thanks again to Fabio from Rio for doing most of the work to put these together.

Before I go to Fabio's notes about the songs, I want to mention something. My rule here was to include only one cover version of each song (and no versions performed by Young himself). We kept to that, except for two songs, "Heart of Gold" and "Cortez the Killer," where we had two versions. Now that I'm posting this last volume, you can look over all the volumes and see just what songs we included or didn't include. Let us know if you think there are any great Young songs that we didn't include a cover for.

Also, Fabio says he's going to make a kind of "extras" album or albums, consisting of cover versions that he liked that didn't make it here. That's a good opportunity to have second covers of some songs, instead of just one. So if you have ideas of covers that you don't see here, please post them in the comments. I'm sure Fabio will look those over and take that feedback into consideration for his "extras."

One more thing. Fabio wanted this to end on a strong song Young wrote in recent years, specifically "Green Is Blue." But we didn't have a good cover version for that one. So Fabio reached out to the Neil Young "Rust" community. A person named Jeff Winter stepped up and recorded a version of that song just for this collection. So thanks to Jeff as well.

Now, here's Fabio's comments about this time period. 

More than sixty years after Neil Young first emerged in the folk clubs of Toronto, Canada, and later with Buffalo Springfield in the mid-1960s, his songs continue to travel across generations, genres, and continents. The covers gathered throughout these ten volumes show how Young's catalog has become a kind of shared musical language: interpreted by classic rock veterans, indie artists, folk revivalists, Americana performers, and even bedroom musicians recording from home studios.

In recent years this process has only accelerated. Streaming platforms, Bandcamp releases, and fan communities have made it easier than ever for musicians to reinterpret songs from every era of Young's career - from the fragile acoustic ballads of the early seventies to the politically charged songs of his later decades. At the same time, Young himself has continued to release new music and expand his archival releases, ensuring that both longtime fans and new listeners keep rediscovering the depth of his songwriting.

This final volume works almost like an epilogue to the project: a reminder that Neil Young's songs remain very much alive, constantly finding new voices and new meanings. Even when he will no longer be with us - after all, we are all mortals - as long as musicians keep picking up guitars or sitting down at a piano, these songs will continue their journey.

As a final note, I'd like to add that putting together this collection has been both a challenge and a pleasure. Revisiting more than six decades of songwriting made it clear once again how remarkably durable Neil Young's music is: the same songs can survive countless reinterpretations while still retaining their emotional core.

My thanks go to Paul for the idea, the patience, and the many suggestions along the way - and also to the worldwide community of fans, collectors and musicians (the "Rusties") who keep discovering, performing and sharing these songs. Without that ongoing enthusiasm, projects like this would hardly be possible.

Most of all, this collection is simply a tribute to one of the most distinctive songwriters of the last sixty years. As long as people continue to listen to, perform and sing these songs, Young's music won't burn out nor will it rust. And his legacy will never fade away. 

--- 

Note that Fabio wrote individual paragraphs about all the songs in this volume. To see that, please look at the Word file added to the download zip file. Thanks again to Fabio for his help putting these albums together.  

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 Ten Men Working (Enrico Di Bella)
02 Berlin (Jens Thomas)
03 There’s a World (Sufjan Stevens)
04 Hitchhiker (Minus 5)
05 Out of My Mind (Minus 5)
06 Crime in the City [Sixty to Zero Part 1] (Paul Besselle)
07 No More (Gil Michael)
08 One of These Days (Kassi Valazza)
09 Borrowed Tune (Chris Eckman)
10 Lookin' for a Love (Jeffrey Martin)
11 Philadelphia (Brandi Carlile)
12 White Line (Kurt Vile)
13 Cowgirl in the Sand (Anders Osborne)
14 Here We Are in the Years (Sharon Van Etten)
15 Sail Away (Tyler Ramsey & Carl Broemel)
16 Green Is Blue (Jeff Winter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HHUvHraJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NxLoGxoSibb70Jq/file

The cover photo is from 2019. 

Glen Campbell & Leon Russell - In Session (CHCH-TV Studios, Hamilton, Canada, 11-18-1983)

Back in 2024, I posted an album featuring an hour-long musical collaboration between Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb in 1988. It was from a Canadian TV show called "In Session." I don't know much about this show. But I found another episode that I thought was worthy of posting. Again, it's an hour long, and features Glen Campbell, but this time he collaborated with Leon Russell. And I don't know how long the show ran, but it's from five years earlier, 1983.

If anyone knows of (and has) more worthy episodes from this show, let me know and I'll post those too. What I really like about the two episodes that I found is they are true musical collaborations, instead of just taking turns playing songs. Campbell pretty much played guitar on all the songs, and Russell pretty much played keyboards on every song, and they often sang together. They also did some songs that I would guess they rarely or never performed in the own concerts, but they performed them here because they were songs that both of them knew, usually from big influences like Elvis Presley.

By the way, note that I just updated the cover of the Campbell and Webb episode. When I was putting this album together, I looked at that one and realized I'd failed to include some basic information on the cover. Thus the update. Here's the link, if you want to get the fixed version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/10/glen-campbell-jimmy-webb-in-session.html

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

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 I Saw the Light (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
02 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
03 Gentle on My Mind (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
04 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
05 Heartbreak Hotel (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
06 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
07 They Still Dance to Waltzes in England (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
08 Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
09 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
10 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
11 A Song for You (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
12 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
13 Southern Nights [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
14 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
15 You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
16 I Don't Mind (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
17 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
18 Crying (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
19 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
20 You Don't Know Me (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
21 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
22 I Don't Care What Mama Don't Allow (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
23 Lady Blue (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
24 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
25 I Believe to My Soul (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
26 talk (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)
27 Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell & Leon Russell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/J7kWCJ6A

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/ZjShhBn2RFjRyAM/file

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

Neil Sedaka - BBC In Concert, Neil Sedaka, London, Britain, 4-26-1975

A couple of weeks ago (writing this in March 2026), a posted a couple of albums made up of performance of Neil Sedaka on the "Midnight Special" TV show. In the course of putting those together, I stumbled across this BBC concert Sedaka did at the same time. I'm not that big of a Sedaka fan, but I'm kind of fanatic about posting these old BBC concerts, so I figured what the heck and I'm posting it. 

By the way, I also found evidence that Sedaka did other BBC concerts, usually decades later. For instance, he did one in 2010. But I haven't been able to find any of those. If you have them and want to share them, I'll post those as well.

This concert was broadcast on BBC TV. It was relatively early in his mid-1970s comeback. But it includes the song "Laughter in the Rain," which was the key song that made him popular again. It also starts with "Love Will Keep Us Together," which he wrote. That was a huge Number One hit for Captain and Tennille. I looked it up, and that single was released in April 1975, the same month as this concert. But this is probably the broadcast date, not the recording date. So I think it's highly likely he recorded this before he knew that song would be such a big hit.

The "BBC In Concert" concert is only half an hour long. Since that's pretty short, I did a search to see if he did anything else for the BBC around that time. I did find a couple of things. Tracks 12 through 15 are from an appearance on the BBC TV show "Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1974. That was even earlier in his comeback. But he did have one minor hit in Britain in 1972, "That's When the Music Takes Me." The last song is from a 1975 episode of the BBC TV show "Lulu," starring the British singer Lulu. The song, "Laughter in the Rain," is the only repeat here, luckily enough. But this is a duet version sung by Lulu, so I figured that's different enough to justify including both.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 42 minutes long. Just the "In Concert" portion is 30 minutes long.

01 Love Will Keep Us Together (Neil Sedaka)
02 talk (Neil Sedaka)
03 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka)
04 When You Were Lovin' Me (Neil Sedaka)
05 talk (Neil Sedaka)
06 Stephen (Neil Sedaka)
07 talk (Neil Sedaka)
08 The Queen of 1964 (Neil Sedaka)
09 New York City Blues (Neil Sedaka)
10 talk (Neil Sedaka)
11 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Neil Sedaka)
12 Betty Grable (Neil Sedaka)
13 A Little Lovin' (Neil Sedaka)
14 talk (Neil Sedaka)
15 Solitaire (Neil Sedaka)
16 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka & Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/S63g5A1b 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/YxjeaydmC3VxZCN/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from this exact concert.

Chicago - Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, 3-17-1971

Here's another nice guest post. About a month ago as I write this in late March 2026, a frequent commenter named Sax and Guitar helped me post a collection of TV appearances by the Rascals (a.k.a. the Young Rascals). He's expressed doing more, so hopefully this is just the beginning. With the Rascals one, I happened to have my own version the album he had in mind basically done already. But in this case, pretty much everything was done by Sax and Guitar. He came up with this concert, and did a lot of careful editing to get it just right. (And it needed some help.) About the only thing I did was offer some suggestions, plus making the cover art. So, thanks again, Sax and Guitar.

On top of everything else, Sax and Guitar has written extensive notes, which are included in the download zip file. So I'll leave most of the commentary to him. But I'll just note that this is an unreleased soundboard recording, all from one show, except for the last two songs, which come from a different show from the same era, to complete their typical set list from this time period. And while I've posted two Chicago concerts from 1969, and one from 1970, it's nice to get one from 1971 as well. Those early years were their best years, in my opinion.

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.  

01 Listen (Chicago)
02 talk (Chicago)
03 Happy, 'Cause I'm Going Home (Chicago)
04 Poem for the People (Chicago)
05 Lowdown (Chicago)
06 Free Form Piano Intro [Instrumental] (Chicago)
07 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
08 Sing a Mean Tune, Kid (Chicago)
09 Ballet for a Girl from Buchannon (Chicago)
10 Fancy Colours [Edit] (Chicago)
11 talk (Chicago)
12 Elegy Suite [Instrumental] [Edit] (Chicago)
13 Beginnings (Chicago)
14 I Don't Want Your Money (Chicago)
15 talk (Chicago)
16 Loneliness Is Just a Word (Chicago)
17 talk [Edit] (Chicago)
18 A Song for Richard and His Friends [Edit] (Chicago)
19 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GHuEnPXu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/m9e8r1RIedJIRO1/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 1971. Most, but not all of the band members, are shown.