Etta James - Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino de Montreux, Montreux, Switerland, 7-9-1977

In recent days I've been posting mostly acoustic music, generally from 2020 home concerts. I thought it's time for something a little more lively. Also, it seems I never get to post enough soul music. So here's a bootleg of a great Etta James concert from 1977.

I'm a big Etta James fan. She had a long career that started in the 1950s and ended with her death in 2012. But, in my opinion, her music was most vital in the 1960s and 1970s. She also was an impressive live performer. However, there's very little recorded live music from her 60s and 70s heyday. There's a wonderful live album from 1963 called "Rocks the House." If you don't have it and you like her music, you should get it. But that's it in terms of official releases, even including archival releases. When it comes to bootlegs as well, there's next to no live recordings from that era.

Luckily, there's one notable exception. Starting in 1975, she began playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. She didn't do it every year, but when she did, her set usually got professionally recorded and played on the local radio. This concert dates to 1977, mostly. The last song, a cover of "Take It to the Limit" by the Eagles, is from the 1978 festival, and is the only song from that show that I could find. If the website setlist.fm is correct, this is her entire 1977 performance. Her 1978 appearance largely had the same setlist, with "Take It to the Limit" as an exception, so we're lucky that one song has somehow made it to bootleg when the rest of the concert hasn't.

The sound quality on all of this is fantastic, as good as you'd expect from an official live album. For the original version of this concert that I posted, there were issues with the applause at the end of the songs, plus a lack of banter between songs. But I have since updated it with a better source that fixed those things. So, no worries. ;)

I'm going to end my comments here with a plea for help. As good as this 1977 concert is, I'm even more interested in having and sharing her 1975 appearance at Montreux. I've been able to find five songs from it. A video of four of the songs is on YouTube. But, in fact, she played 11 songs that year, a much longer set than her 1977 one. The entire 1975 concert was released in 2015 on an album simply called "1975," as you can see here:

https://www.discogs.com/Etta-James-Etta-James-1975-Recorded-Live-At-Montreux-Jazz-Festival/release/7805148

But only a 1,000 copies of that were sold, and it quickly went out of print. I can't find it or buy it anywhere. I think that should be made more widely available. So if anyone has it and is willing to share it, please let me know. 

This 1977 concert is 57 minutes long, including the one song from 1978. I suspect the 1975 Montreux show is the one and only excellent concert recording of a full concert (meaning well over an hour) that we're ever likely to be able to hear. It also would be great to have because the 1975 and 1977 set lists are very different, with only two songs played at both shows.

Note that if you're a Randy Newman fan, it's a special treat that she does two Randy Newman songs here, "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and "Sail Away." She knocks them out of the park.

UPDATE: On October 29, 2020, I was contacted by Dave Lowrey. He says he actually played bass during this concert! He shared a slightly better version of the concert. Most of it was exactly the same, including the same sound quality. But it had one song that had been missed, "I'd Rather Go Blind." It also had all the banter between songs, and the proper audience reactions after each song. That added 12 minutes to the length of the album. Furthermore, I was able to fix the location of one of the songs. ("Tell Mama" started the concert instead of ended it.) So thank you very much, Mr. Lowrey!

01 Tell Mama (Etta James)
02 talk (Etta James)
03 I'd Rather Go Blind (Etta James)
04 Groove Me (Etta James)
05 talk (Etta James)
06 At Last - Trust in Me (Etta James)
07 A Sunday Kind of Love (Etta James)
08 talk (Etta James)
09 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Etta James)
10 talk (Etta James)
11 Sail Away (Etta James)
12 Rock Me Baby (Etta James)
13 talk (Etta James)
14 Take It to the Limit (Etta James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260283/EttaJms_1977_MontreuxJzzFestival__7-9-1977_atse.zip.html

The photo comes from the actual concert in question, I'm happy to say.