Cat Stevens - The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA, 12-8-1970

There are surprisingly few publicly available Cat Stevens concert recordings from his prime early 1970s. Even the bootlegs are scanty, with most of those from 1971 and almost nothing good from 1970, 1972 or 1973. But recently (as I write this), a super deluxe version of his 1970 album "Mona Bone Jakon" was released. It contains a previously unbootlegged and unknown concert recording of Stevens playing at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in December 1970. This recording sounds fantastic, so I'm sharing it here.

In 1970 and 1971, it seems Stevens played all his concerts in acoustic format, always with second guitarist Alun Davies accompanying him. That's the case here. 

The Troubadour songs on the super deluxe release only add up to 28 minutes. It's a shame more weren't included, because the concert must have been longer than that. In fact, one more song from it was included on a deluxe edition of "Teaser and the Firecat" (with an incorrect date). So I've added that in as well. That still made for a short album. So I've added three more songs at the end that also have just become available on the "Mona Bone Jakon" super deluxe edition. All three of those come from a French TV show recorded in Paris just one month earlier. The sound of these are virtually identical to the rest, with acoustic performances in front of small crowds. 

The super deluxe edition contains five songs recorded at another 1970 concert, at the Plumpton Racecourse in Britain in August 1970. A couple of the songs are different than the ones here, so I was tempted to add them as well. But unfortunately, the sound quality for those is poor, clearly coming from an audience bootleg that had been publicly available for years. The sound quality is such a step down from everyone else here that I decided to not even include them as bonus tracks.

By the way, I'm not entirely sure what the exact date of this concert is. Stevens played the Troubadour six nights in a row, from December 8th to December 13th. The super deluxe edition doesn't mention the specific date, though they give dates for all the other live recordings. But I came across another mention of a recording from December 8th long before the super deluxe edition came out, so that's my best guess.

This album is 41 minutes long, including the three songs at the end from the French TV show.

01 talk (Cat Stevens)
02 Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
03 talk (Cat Stevens)
04 Hard Headed Woman (Cat Stevens)
05 Longer Boats (Cat Stevens)
06 talk (Cat Stevens)
07 Wild World (Cat Stevens)
08 On the Road to Find Out (Cat Stevens)
09 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)
10 talk (Cat Stevens)
11 Into White (Cat Stevens)
12 talk (Cat Stevens)
13 Moonshadow (Cat Stevens)
14 Katmandu (Cat Stevens)
15 Maybe You’re Right (Cat Stevens)
16 Lady D’Arbanville (Cat Stevens)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hhsJw

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on the British "Top of the Pops" TV show some time in 1970.