Paul McCartney - Unplugged Rehearsal, The Barn, Sussex, Britain, 1-7-1991

In 1991, Paul McCartney was the first musician to play a concert for MTV's new "Unplugged" show and then release an album of it. I'll get to that concert in a following post. But first, here's a rehearsal he did to get ready for the concert, two weeks prior to it.

Although this is a bootleg, the sound quality is fantastic. It's probable that McCartney recorded the rehearsals himself to hear how he and his band sounded, and the recording somehow slipped out to bootleggers later. The only snag is that a few of the songs ended a couple of seconds early. But I was able to fix those with some editing.

This basically sounds exactly like the official "Unplugged" album, except without any audience reactions at the end of each song. But the songs played are somewhat different. I count five songs played here that didn't get played at the concert. Unfortunately, there are a few others that were practiced but didn't get included on this bootleg: "Figure of Eight," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Heart of the Country," "She's My Baby," and "Mrs. Vanderbilt." Hopefully those recordings will come out someday. Some of the songs are done in a playful way, including three songs in a row where he sings with a Russian accent.

The rehearsal recordings are only 33 minutes long. I also happen to have two songs from the actual "Unplugged" concert that were played twice, apparently due to video recording issues. I didn't have anything else to do with them, so I've added them at the end of this album as quasi-bonus tracks, with the audience reactions removed.

01 Hi-Heeled Sneakers (Paul McCartney)
02 Midnight Special (Paul McCartney)
03 Mother Nature's Son (Paul McCartney)
04 She's a Woman (Paul McCartney)
05 Rock Island Line (Paul McCartney)
06 Love Me Tender (Paul McCartney)
07 Blackbird (Paul McCartney)
08 Blue Moon of Leningrad [Blue Moon of Kentucky] (Paul McCartney)
09 She's a Voman [She's a Woman] (Paul McCartney)
10 talk (Paul McCartney)
11 I've Just Seen a Face (Paul McCartney)
12 Cumberland Gap - Hey Liley, Liley Lo - Freight Train (Paul McCartney)
13 Things We Said Today (Paul McCartney)
14 Tequila (Paul McCartney)
15 Froggie Went a-Courtin' (Paul McCartney)
16 Cut Across Shorty (Paul McCartney)
17 Ain't No Sunshine [Alternate Take] (Paul McCartney with Hamish Stuart)
18 We Can Work It Out [Alternate Take] (Paul McCartney)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gkEGc

The photo I chose for the cover art isn't actually from the rehearsals. It looks like it was taken in a hotel room somewhere. But it does date from 1991, and it shows McCartney playing an acoustic guitar.