Traffic - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967

I'm proud of this release. Even if you have some from on Traffic at the BBC already, you need this version. Bootlegs of these performances have existed for many years, but I'm confident that the music has never sounded as good as it does here.

On previous bootlegs, some of the songs had good sound quality while others were poor. But apparently, at some point in the late 2010s, the performances were replayed on the BBC again, resulting in a new bootleg version of the songs at a much higher sound quality. Furthermore, a few songs were included that hadn't been bootlegged before.

Then, in November 2021, I updated all the songs again. This time, I built on the versions cleaned up by a blogger named Prof Stoned. He does excellent work, but he doesn't mind when the BBC DIs talked over some of the music, and kept those parts. So I used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the DJ talking while keeping the underlying music. Those are the ones marked with "[Edit]" in their names.

Thanks to all these edits, for the first time anywhere, one can hear all the BBC performances with sound quality exactly as good as the original broadcasts, and without any of the annoying DJ talkovers. This really should be an officially released album, but I've heard some record company disputes make the release of previously unreleased music from the Dave Mason years very difficult. Even if they do eventually release this, they might not remove the DJ talkovers.

The last song here, "Utterly Simple," is a bonus track of sorts, in that it isn't actually a BBC performance. It's actually exactly the same as the studio version, but it's remixed to make the spoken "phone call" in the middle of the song louder. Previously, I'd never paid much attention to that spoken part because it was largely drowned out by the music, but with this version, one can hear it as clear as day.

Traffic only performed in the studio for the BBC in 1967 and 1968. (Later, some of their live performances were played by the BBC.) I've split their performances into two albums. The 1968 album will follow.

This album is 34 minutes long.

01 Paper Sun [Edit] (Traffic)
02 House for Everyone [Edit] (Traffic)
03 Hole in My Shoe (Traffic)
04 Smiling Phases [Edit] (Traffic)
05 Coloured Rain [Edit] (Traffic)
06 No Face, No Name, No Number [Edit] (Traffic)
07 Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush [Edit] (Traffic)
08 Hope They Never Find Me There (Traffic)
09 Heaven Is in Your Mind (Traffic)
10 Dealer (Traffic)
11 Utterly Simple [Alternate Mix] (Traffic)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue, sorry. But check the comments below.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, color photos of Traffic in concert in 1967 or 1968 are very hard to find. So I've gone with band publicity photos instead. This one is from 1967. But everyone in the band was looking slightly to the side, so I made some slight edits to their eyes to make them look into the camera.