But that still leaves 1974, and arguably this is his greatest live recording, from a concert early that year. This is a soundboard bootleg, and the sound quality is fantastic. The only problem is that the audience applause often quickly faded out at the ends of the songs. I suspect there's some missing banter from between the songs as well, although he does a fair amount of talking during the songs. I think I managed to fix the applause problem by patching in applause from the few song endings that had it to the ones that didn't.
The concert begins with twenty minutes of instrumentals, including a drum solo. But the musical interplay is sharp from those instrumentals onwards. Many of the songs are stretched well beyond their album version lengths, allowing for lots of improvisation. For instance, "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" is 3 minutes on album, but 11 minutes here.
There's a lot of controversy about which date this concert took place. The date most commonly used is January 29, 1974. But it has been determined that the Doobie Brothers headlined the same venue that night. Other dates given include January 20, January 24, and February 24! However, a website on the history of the venue (the Rainbow Theatre) makes clear he only played there on January 24th and February 2nd. And at one point in the concert, he thanked the audience for coming back so soon after him playing there recently, which logically means it most likely is from February 2nd.
I've added five songs to the end of the show. The first four come from two short shows he did in France and Germany in the two weeks prior to the main show. They also are have excellent sound quality since they were recorded for TV broadcast. I've only included the songs that weren't also played in the main show.
The last song comes from about a year later, at the yearly Grammy Awards ceremony. This is the only truly excellent sounding performance I've found from him from 1975. There are two popular 1975 bootlegs, one from Toronto, Canada, and one from Kingston, Jamaica (with Bob Marley guesting on two songs!), but the sound quality from both of those aren't good enough for me to want to share them.
The main show from the Rainbow Theatre is an hour and a half long. If you add in the extra songs, it's an hour and 51 minutes of Stevie Wonder at his musical peak.
01 Instrumental No. 1 - Drum Solo (Stevie Wonder)
02 Contusion [Instrumental] (Stevie Wonder)
03 Instrumental No. 2 (Stevie Wonder)
04 talk (Stevie Wonder)
05 Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
06 Superwoman (Stevie Wonder)
07 To Know You Is to Love You (Stevie Wonder)
08 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
09 Visions (Stevie Wonder)
10 Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing (Stevie Wonder)
11 Living for the City (Stevie Wonder)
12 You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Stevie Wonder)
13 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
14 [You've Been Better to Me Than] A Lot of My Dreams (Stevie Wonder)
15 All in Love Is Fair (Stevie Wonder)
16 Danka Shoen - Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
17 I Can See the Sun in Late December (Stevie Wonder)
18 He's Misstra Know-It-All (Stevie Wonder)
19 You Haven't Done Nothin' (Stevie Wonder)
https://www.upload.ee/files/16700511/STEVIWNDR1974_RanbwThetreLondnBrtin__2-2-1974_atse.zip.html
The cover art photo is of Wonder playing at the Rainbow Theatre around this time. But I'm not sure if it's from the exactly show, since he played there at least twice in early 1974.
Wow!!! Excellent work, thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteRE: Date of this recording. Stevie actually played The Rainbow five times in early 1974! 20th/24th January, 2nd/24th February and 2nd March (two shows a night!) So using your logic it probably was the 24th show!
ReplyDeleteWhat's your proof that he played there five times?
DeleteThis video shows him playing march 2nd 1974 https://instagram.com/stories/steviewonderlegacy/2785371795684338297?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&utm_medium=share_sheet
ReplyDeleteI can't access Instagram. Do you have a link to that somewhere else, or can you tell me what it says?
DeleteOk so it is a story which is celebrating innervisions winning album of the year at the 16th Grammy's on march 2nd. It looks like hers playing at the Grammy's in the video but not sure if that was at the rainbow theatre...
DeleteYou're right, he was at the Grammys on March 2, 1974. But note that the date of this concert was February 2, 1974. So I don't see a conflict.
DeleteThat tracklisting and description above sounds amazing but I cannot get the file?
ReplyDeleteHere's my standard advice:
DeleteIf you're having trouble downloading things from my blog, for instance you click on a ZippyShare link and get an annoying ad, I have a few recommendations.
1) Try right clicking on the link, and opening it in a new window. People say that helps.
2) Use an ad blocker add on or extension for your browser. That's what I do, and it leaves Zippyshare free of all the crud. Plus, it's a good thing that helps you avoid ads when browsing on the Internet in general. There's a bunch to choose from, and they're generally free.
3) Use a VPN. That stands for Virtual Private Network. Zippyshare is banned in a few European countries, so this is a way to hide what country you're in. Actually, it's a good (and perfectly legal) thing to do when browsing the Internet in general.
3) If all else fails, I also share everything I post on my blog through the music file-sharing program SoulseekQT. It's free, no strings attached, and super easy to use. Just search for the artist and album title, plus "atse" (which stands for "Albums That Should Exist").
I got it - thanks!
Delete