Monday, February 10, 2020

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1964-1965

I just posted Volume 1 of the Rolling Stones' "BBC Sessions." Most of my comments I'd want to make here have already been made with that post, so please refer to that.

As I said in that post, I've divided up the band's performances at the BBC into three albums. This is the second and last of two albums in which the band played in the BBC studios without any audience. I have another album, Volume 2, for all their BBC performances played in front of a live audience.

I wish there was material for more 1960s volumes beyond these ones, but unfortunately the band stopped their BBC performances in 1965. That's the same time the Beatles stopped doing the same. I guess both bands figured they had become so famous that they didn't need the hassle of recording special performances just for the BBC anymore.

Unfortunately, I looked into this, and I couldn't find any examples of the Stones playing in the studio for any other TV or radio stations in the 1960s. They did play many songs for Radio Luxembourg in 1964, but none of those recordings have survived. (Some BBC performances are lost as well.) In every case I could find of the band playing on TV, there was lots of cheering from adoring audiences, so the sound quality takes a big hit. These BBC performances are unique for the era.

I mentioned in the last post that I had to edit some songs to get rid of the BBC DJs talking over the music. That's the case again here. I made a number of minor edits, for instance when the opening second or two of the song was missing due to the talking DJ problem. In two cases, I made significant enough edits to put "Edit" in the song title. For "Mercy, Mercy" I was able to patch in the intro music from elsewhere in the same song. For "It's All Over Now," the intro was unique. So I had to use the intro from the studio album version.

UPDATE: On June 12, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I didn't actually add or remove any songs, but I did make some important changes. For one thing, I changed the title of the album, because the album of live 1964 BBC sessions rightfully needed to be considered "Volume 2" of this series. That also meant changing the cover art and mp3 tags. But on top of that, I upgraded the sound quality of many of the songs. Many serious Rolling Stones fans believe that the sound quality of the band's official BBC album, "On Air," isn't that good. I've been keeping an eye on the music blog of Prof. Stoned. He found bootleg versions that sounded better than the "On Air" versions. So I've used those versions in the same cases he did.

01 Walking the Dog (Rolling Stones)
02 Around and Around (Rolling Stones)
03 If You Need Me (Rolling Stones)
04 I Can't Be Satisfied (Rolling Stones)
05 Crackin' Up (Rolling Stones)
06 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby (Rolling Stones)
07 It's All Over Now [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
08 2120 South Michigan Avenue [Instrumental] (Rolling Stones)
09 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Rolling Stones)
10 The Last Time (Rolling Stones)
11 Down the Road a Piece (Rolling Stones)
12 Cry to Me (Rolling Stones)
13 Fanny Mae (Rolling Stones)
14 Mercy, Mercy [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
15 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
16 The Spider and the Fly (Rolling Stones)
17 Oh Baby [We Got a Good Thing Goin'] (Rolling Stones)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eMLzr

The situation with the cover art is pretty much the same as it was for Volume 1. I resorted to using a black and white photo because it actually is a photo of the band at the BBC at the right time. In this case, the band was photographed at the Playhouse Theatre in London in 1965. I colorized it because I really dislike keeping the cover black and white. Brian Jones is standing in back. I lowered him a bit relative to the others so I wouldn't have to have the rest of the band lower in the frame.

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