Wednesday, June 15, 2022

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: John Peel Show, Leeds University Union, University of Leeds, Leeds, Britain, 3-13-1971

I've posted three albums of the Rollings Stones playing for the BBC in the 1963 to 1965 time frame. (By the way, I've renumbered those albums, as I'll explain below.) I thought I was done with the Stones and the BBC. But I just stumbled across the fact that a famous concert the band played in Leeds, Britain, in 1971 was actually recorded for, and played on, BBC radio at the time. It was first broadcast on the "John Peel Show," although DJ John Peel wasn't there to act as emcee like he usually did since it took place outside of London and the band recorded the concert themselves.

This concert appeared as a bootleg for many years, usually with the name "Get Your Leeds Lungs Out" after a comment singer Mick Jagger made between songs. It was missing a couple of songs and the sound quality wasn't perfect. But then in 2015, the full concert was released with flawless sound quality as part of the "super deluxe" edition of the band's 1971 album "Sticky Fingers." If you haven't heard this yet, you're missing out! In terms of sound quality and performance, this is not only one of the very best recorded Rolling Stones concerts, I'd argue it's one of the best recorded concerts by anyone!

It's that good. It's a shame that it has only come out as part of an expensive "super deluxe" package and not as an individual release, when it blows most of the well known official Rolling Stones live albums away. One reason it's so good is because it was recorded in a small venue. The band actually played at the student union for the University of Leeds, which could only fit a couple hundred people. So that was the equivalent of playing at a small club. Whereas most of the band's official live albums were recorded in giant stadiums, with the sound quality and intimacy suffering as a result.

I'm one of those people who think the band was at its best when guitarist Mick Taylor was a member. This is arguably the peak of the Mick Taylor years, where he was fully integrated into the band and its sound, and before he started to pull away, before leaving in 1974. 

Thanks to the great sound quality, I didn't have to do anything except separate the banter between songs onto their own tracks.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

Oh yeah. I mentioned up above that I renamed the earlier Stones BBC albums posted here. That's because when I decided to post this, I realized I had a "Volume 1," "Volume 2," and a "Live at the BBC 1964" album. Now, "Volume 1" is still the same, the live album is called "Volume 2," and what had been "Volume 2" is "Volume 3." Fixing that cleared the way to naming this one "Volume 4." While I was at it, I also upgraded the sound quality on some songs for all three albums, using superior versions to the official BBC album versions, thanks to Prof. Stoned's music blog.

01 talk (Rolling Stones)
02 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
03 Live with Me (Rolling Stones)
04 Dead Flowers (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 Stray Cat Blues (Rolling Stones)
07 Love in Vain (Rolling Stones)
08 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
09 talk (Rolling Stones)
10 Bitch (Rolling Stones)
11 talk (Rolling Stones)
12 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
13 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
14 Little Queenie (Rolling Stones)
15 talk (Rolling Stones)
16 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
17 talk (Rolling Stones)
18 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
19 talk (Rolling Stones)
20 Let It Rock (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701030/TROLLNGSTNES1971_BBSessonsVolum4LedsUnvrsityUnon__3-13-1971_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. With the roof visible in the background, maybe this can give you a sense of how small the room was. Sadly, the picture is in black and white, and it's too much of a pain in the butt for me to convert it into color, at least for now.

10 comments:

  1. Hi, Paul,
    I bow to more expert members of the board but I think this concert may have been broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on 30th May 1971 (a Sunday) and repeated the following Wednesday on 2nd June - the first as a "John Peel Show" special and the repeat as a "Sounds of the 70s" special.
    Both were scheduled as 60 minute programmes, so at a guess, one or two of the songs were edited out of the broadcast version!
    Thanks for all your efforts.
    Stuart

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    1. Wow, you're right. I didn't even consider John Peel, cos I figured one would hear his voice. Or at least bootleggers would mention that. But since you mentioned it, I looked it up on the John Peel Wiki, and that confirmed that it was first broadcast as the John Peel Show. It turns out that the band recorded the show themselves, so Peel wasn't there as the emcee. Thanks for the smart tip!

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  2. I agree with you. The Stones were at their best with Mick Taylor in the band. This is still evident when he appears on stage at events like Glastonbury and Hyde Park. The band suddenly comes alive. Ronnie is at his best when performing alone and is profoundly different in his playing when he does. Maybe Mick and Keith don't allow him enough room, even after all this time.

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    1. I like a lot of Ron Wood's music, but he hasn't been a great fit for the Stones. When Taylor quit, they could have picked practically any guitarist on the planet. I think they went with Wood because he was a friend they wanted to hang out with much more than for musical reasons.

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  3. What a find! Thank you so much for so much!! A fraternal hug from your Brazilian fan.

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  4. There are some online applications that colorize your photos automatically. It's not perfect but it's fast.

    Here you can see your pic after using https://www.myheritage.es/incolor/

    https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO96AFIoGR7r6zy5yYteYQR7NYPzB8ibuDQoFAEYR45miYHgNi27SBMZhpYpMiFM0xn-8tjQbT6dKIlW9-nTrV-iXsgR00QTH-lleeiEFP1dCdU1_wDkMU86yBcs1yZ5u9Dzl9GyqKeTKJjdpnLSuzBAuwfIWjhbe15i_NDnp67o0Hyp5ub8VYr-26/s1600/bbcsessions4leeds-Colorized.jpg

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    Replies
    1. That's not terrible. I might colorize this one eventually. I do wish these programs would let a person circle the human heads and such, to give the computer program some clues, in order to be more accurate. I wish I knew of a program like that.

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  5. hey - great concert! So, is this the stereo version in full? according to Wikipedia most boots/versions of the broadcast are in mono but the show in stereo was part of the 2015 package.
    Keep up the good work.
    Dano

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  6. Regarding your comment about the capacity of the venue, you have been misinformed!
    The capacity is about 2,000 not 200!
    I went to Leeds University in 1970 and was at the Stones concert.

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  7. Thanks for posting this, I hadn't noticed it before. I'm having difficulty downloading but will try again later. Can you repost the first three BBC collections? I missed those and can't see them here anymore. Thanks in advance if you can.

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