The Eagles - The Summit, Houston, TX, 11-6-1976

I just came across this bootleg Eagles concert today. I was so impressed with the sound quality that I'm posting it straight away.

In 1976, the Eagles had a new lead guitarist, Joe Walsh, who was already a star. They put out an album at the end of the year, "Hotel California," that went on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide. One of the band's singers, Don Henley, later said that the band "probably peaked on 'Hotel California. After that, we started growing apart as collaborators and as friends." So this is a particularly good time to hear a concert for them, especially for hearing their earlier songs done with Walsh's lead guitar. 

The 40th Anniversary Edition of "Hotel California" has included a concert in Los Angeles in October 1976. But that one only has ten songs on it, whereas this one has 17. I think that makes this a better listen, especially since the sound quality is outstanding. It so good that at times you'd think this was a studio session instead.

There were no problems with this bootleg. However, I did boost the audience noise after most of the songs. The soundboard was so pristine that the amount of cheering didn't sound right. Also, I cut out some dead air between songs, but not much. There is hardly any between song banter. I guess the band members just weren't feeling talkative that day.

Only two of the songs played were from the "Hotel California" album, which would get released a month later. But one of those is the song "Hotel California" itself, which of course would go on to become an all-time classic. Also, the concert is interesting in that four of the songs were done by Walsh outside the Eagles: "Turn to Stone," "Funk No. 49," "Rocky Mountain Way," and "Walk Away."

This concert is an hour and 38 minutes long.

01 Hotel California (Eagles)
02 Lyin' Eyes (Eagles)
03 talk (Eagles)
04 Wasted Time (Eagles)
05 Take It to the Limit (Eagles)
06 Desperado (Eagles)
07 Midnight Flyer (Eagles)
08 Turn to Stone (Eagles)
09 Already Gone (Eagles)
10 One of These Nights (Eagles)
11 Funk No. 49 (Eagles)
12 Good Day in Hell (Eagles)
13 Rocky Mountain Way (Eagles)
14 Witchy Woman (Eagles)
15 James Dean (Eagles)
16 talk (Eagles)
17 The Best of My Love (Eagles)
18 Walk Away (Eagles)
19 Tequila Sunrise (Eagles)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hK7Z2

I couldn't find any really good photos of the band in concert in 1976. This one is from a concert in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in May 1977.

Belle & Sebastian - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 2006-2010

Here's yet another album of Belle and Sebastian performing for the BBC

This is an album of studio sessions. Most of them were done for the BBC, but a few were not. Specifically, tracks 6, 7, and 8 come from a Seattle radio station session, and tracks 9, 10, and 11 come from a "Morning Becomes Eclectic" radio show. The rest come from four different BBC sessions.

All but the last three songs date to 2006. At that time, the band was promoting their 2006 album "The Life Pursuit." The next album was in 2010, "Write about Love," so that's why there are three songs from that year.

Between 2006 and 2010, the band's main singer and songwriter Stuart Murdoch was heavily involved in a different music group he created called "God Help the Girl." The next BBC volume will deal with material related to that band.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Mr. Richard (Belle & Sebastian)
02 The Blues Will Still Be Blue (Belle & Sebastian)
03 To Be Myself Completely (Belle & Sebastian)
04 Dress Up in You (Belle & Sebastian)
05 Funny Little Frog (Belle & Sebastian)
06 A Century of Fakers (Belle & Sebastian)
07 She's Losing It (Belle & Sebastian)
08 No Matter What (Belle & Sebastian)
09 Expectations (Belle & Sebastian)
10 Another Sunny Day (Belle & Sebastian)
11 White Collar Boy (Belle & Sebastian)
12 I Didn't See It Coming (Belle & Sebastian)
13 Piazza, New York Catcher (Belle & Sebastian)
14 Sukie in the Graveyard (Belle & Sebastian)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15832463/BellenS_2006-2010_BBSessionsVolume9_atse.zip.html

The cover actually dates to 2003. I should have used it for an earlier volume, but oh well. The woman at the front and center is actress Shanta Roberts, who is not part of the band. But this was from the photo shoot for the cover of the "Dear Catastrophe Waitress," and she was featured with all the band members on that.

Humble Pie - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, BBC, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 9-10-1970

Here's the second of three volumes of British band Humble Pie at the BBC. The first and third volumes are mostly made up of BBC studio sessions. But this one is a concert, the only one they did for the BBC (at least that I'm aware of).

This concert took place relatively early in the band's career, while it was still co-lead by Steve Marriott of the Small Faces and Peter Frampton of the Herd. It was shortly after the band's third album, simply called "Humble Pie." They were moving more towards the boogie rock direction that would lead to great success with their 1971 live album "Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore."

The concert was emceed by BBC DJ John Peel; he did pretty much all the talking between songs. As far as I know, it remains officially unreleased. But the sound quality is very good. However, there was a problem to my ears: I thought the lead vocals were too low in the mix. So I boosted them for nearly all the songs using the X-Minus audio editing program.

This album is an hour long.

01 talk (Humble Pie)
02 Four Day Creep (Humble Pie)
03 talk (Humble Pie)
04 I'm Ready (Humble Pie)
05 talk (Humble Pie)
06 Live with Me (Humble Pie)
07 talk (Humble Pie)
08 Stone Cold Fever (Humble Pie)
09 talk (Humble Pie)
10 Hallelujah I Love Her So (Humble Pie)
11 talk (Humble Pie)
12 Walk On Gilded Splinters (Humble Pie)
13 talk (Humble Pie)
14 Sad Bag of Shakey Jake (Humble Pie)
15 talk (Humble Pie)
16 One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba (Humble Pie)
17 talk (Humble Pie)
18 Big Black Dog (Humble Pie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15292115/HumbleP_1970_BBSessionsVolum2InConcert__9-10-1970_atse.zip.html

I must admit the cover photo is kind of a fake. I didn't find many good photos of the band in concert from around this time. However, I found two good photos of Humble Pie playing at Hyde Park in London on July 3, 1971. But one of them featured Steve Marriott very well, holding up a fist, yet didn't have Peter Frampton in it at all. The other one featured Frampton well, but Marriott was only a small figure on the side. So I used Photoshop to bring Frampton into the photo that most prominently featured Marriott. Frampton is the guitarist with the light blue suit. Since the lighting and such was the same in both photos, I think the edit works okay, although the right and the left of Frampton's guitar playing is flipped.

Madness - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Rock Hour, Dominion Theatre, London, Britain, 3-2-1983

I've posted two volumes of Madness performing for the BBC in recent weeks. Here's a third one. There are more coming.

This concert took place around what was arguably the band's commercial peak, thanks mostly to the song "Our House," which was a Top Five hit in Britain, and the band's only significant hit in the US.

I believe this concert remains unreleased. That said, the sound quality is excellent.

There's not much else to say. It's a great summary of the band's best songs up till that point, with lots of hits but no big surprises.

 This concert is 58 minutes long.

01 talk (Madness)
02 House of Fun (Madness)
03 talk (Madness)
04 Disappear (Madness)
05 talk (Madness)
06 Close Escape (Madness)
07 talk (Madness)
08 Bed and Breakfast Man (Madness)
09 talk (Madness)
10 My Girl (Madness)
11 talk (Madness)
12 The Sun and the Rain (Madness)
13 Embarrassment (Madness)
14 The Rise and Fall (Madness)
15 talk (Madness)
16 Sunday Morning (Madness)
17 talk (Madness)
18 Mrs. Hutchinson (Madness)
19 Take It or Leave It (Madness)
20 talk (Madness)
21 Razor Blade Alley (Madness)
22 talk (Madness)
23 Tomorrow's [Just Another Day] (Madness)
24 talk (Madness)
25 Grey Day (Madness)
26 Shut Up (Madness)
27 talk (Madness)
28 Madness (Madness)
29 talk (Madness)
30 Baggy Trousers (Madness)
31 talk (Madness)
32 Our House (Madness)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376608/MADNSS1983BBSssonsVlum3RckHurDminonThatre__3-2-1983_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any really good color photos of the band from 1983. This one is from an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in April 1984.

The Style Council - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Sight and Sound, Goldiggers, Chippenham, Britain, 3-10-1984

Here's the second of three volumes of Paul Weller's band the Style Council playing for the BBC. The first volume consists of BBC studio sessions. This one is a concert broadcast live on the BBC at the time.

This concert took place just a few days before the release of the band's first album, "Cafe Bleu." In my opinion, the band peaked around this time, so it's a good time for a BBC concert.

The sound quality of this concert is very good. Unfortunately, this is not the complete show. The last song fades out near its ending. I don't know what came after that. But some of the show is better than nothing.

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 talk (Style Council)
02 Meeting [Over] Up Yonder (Style Council)
03 My Ever Changing Moods (Style Council)
04 Speak like a Child (Style Council)
05 talk (Style Council)
06 The Whole Point of No Return (Style Council)
07 talk (Style Council)
08 Le Depart [Instrumental] (Style Council)
09 The Paris Match (Style Council)
10 talk (Style Council)
11 Party Chambers (Style Council)
12 Money-Go-Round (Style Council)
13 talk (Style Council)
14 Headstart for Happiness (Style Council)
15 Hanging On to a Memory (Style Council)

https://www.imagenetz.de/aM5ix

The cover photo of band leader Paul Weller was taken at a concert at the Dominion Theatre in London on March 15th, 1984. So while it isn't from this concert, it was taken in the same city just a few days later.

The Byrds - The Boarding House, San Francisco, CA, 12-8-1977

Here's a concert I'm particularly psyched to present, as part of commemorating the recent death of David Crosby (as I write this in January 2023). As far as I can tell, Crosby reunited on stage with other key members of the Byrds for only three concerts in the late 1970s. One of them, at the Roxy in Los Angeles, apparently hasn't been bootlegged at all. But very luckily, the other two have been bootlegged with excellent soundboard quality. I plan on posting both of them. Here's the first one that took place chronologically.

By 1977, the solo career of former Byrds member Roger McGuinn was losing steam. He resorted to going on an acoustic tour as a duo with former Byrds member Gene Clark. In early 1978, another former Byrds member, Chris Hillman, would join them and they would release a couple of albums as "McGuinn, Clark, and Hillman." At the time this concert took place, Hillman wasn't in the picture yet. 

But former Byrds member David Crosby was living in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time, so when the McGuinn and Clark tour came to town, McGuinn called Crosby and asked them to join them on stage. Crosby was a big star at that point, with the Crosby, Stills and Nash album "CSN" released earlier in the year and selling millions. So it's surprising that not only did Crosby join his former Byrds band mates on stage, he played most of both the early and late shows with them. All five original members of the Byrds had reunited for a studio album in 1973, simply called "Byrds." But Crosby, Clark, and McGuinn hadn't played on stage together since 1966 (when Clark quit the band).

Both the early and late shows were recorded with soundboard quality. However, there are pluses and minuses of both shows, and some different songs were played. So what I've done is combined the best parts of both shows, creating one ideal show that contains all of the songs from both. If you want to know which song is from which show, that info is in the comments field of the mp3 tags.

Generally speaking, I tried to use the late show song versions. The format of the show was that each band member played two or three of their songs in a solo acoustic format, then all three played together for the rest of the show. For the songs played together, Clark and McGuinn had been doing this tour together for some time, so they knew the songs well. But Crosby hadn't sung with the others on stage in a decade, and many of the songs they did were from AFTER the time he'd been fired from the Byrds in 1967! So he was flying by the seat of his pants much of the time, trying to come up with harmony vocals on the spot. I figure he did a better job of that in the late show, because he at least got a whack at the songs in the early show.

For the solo spots in the first portion of the show, I carefully combined songs from the early and late shows. For instance, Clark's "Release Me Girl" and "Train Leaves Here This Morning" are from the early show, and "Silver Raven" is from the late show. I didn't include his performance of "Denver or Wherever" because it was the one song in the whole bootleg where the sound was really messed up. (That's probably because it was the first song of the late show and some technical problems had to get worked out.) It seems that Crosby only did a solo spot for the late show. That's why he only has two solo songs, while Clark has three and McGuinn has four, since Clark and McGuinn played some different songs in each of their solo spots. 

For the main part of the show, with all three playing together, they generally did the same songs in roughly the same order. There were a few exceptions. For instance, "Wild Mountain Thyme" was only done in the early show, and "Little Mama" was only done in the late show. As I mentioned above, I generally used the late show versions. But a few of those were marred by a kind of crackling noise. So in those cases I used the early versions instead. Also, the first part of "Mr. Tambourine Man" had really bad sound quality on the vocals. But since that was just the chorus, I patched in the chorus from later in the song.

There's a lot of banter between songs. One can tell all three of them were having a great time. I used as much banter as possible, taking bits from the early show and adding them in to the late show banter. Hopefully, the end result sounds like one seamless whole.

I consider this a "must have" for any Byrds fan. It was a special and even historic evening. The three of them did songs they never did together before, like "Chestnut Mare," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Wild Mountain Thyme," and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," as well as rare songs from their early Byrds days like "She Don't Care about Time" and "Chimes of Freedom" that they didn't even do in other reunion shows.

This album is an an hour and 33 minutes long. I plan on posting their 1978 Boarding House reunion show soon.

01 talk (Gene Clark)
02 Release Me Girl (Gene Clark)
03 Train Leaves Here This Morning (Gene Clark)
04 Silver Raven (Gene Clark)
05 talk (Gene Clark)
06 The Lee Shore (David Crosby)
07 talk (David Crosby)
08 Drive My Car (David Crosby)
09 talk (David Crosby)
10 Dreamland (Roger McGuinn)
11 talk (Roger McGuinn)
12 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Roger McGuinn)
13 Wasn't Born to Follow (Roger McGuinn)
14 talk (Roger McGuinn)
15 Jolly Roger (Roger McGuinn)
16 talk (Roger McGuinn)
17 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
18 Chestnut Mare (Byrds)
19 Crazy Ladies (Byrds)
20 talk (Byrds)
21 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
22 talk (Byrds)
23 I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better (Byrds)
24 She Don't Care about Time (Byrds)
25 talk (Byrds)
26 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Byrds)
27 talk (Byrds)
28 Wild Mountain Thyme (Byrds)
29 talk (Byrds)
30 Chimes of Freedom (Byrds)
31 talk (Byrds)
32 He Was a Friend of Mine (Byrds)
33 talk (Byrds)
34 My Back Pages (Byrds)
35 talk (Byrds)
36 Little Mama (Byrds)
37 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Byrds)
38 talk (Byrds)
39 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Byrds)
40 talk (Byrds)
41 Eight Miles High (Byrds)

https://www.imagenetz.de/cEDaD

The cover photo comes from one of the late 1970s reunion shows with Crosby, but which one? This shows Clark (left), Crosby (center), and McGuinn (right). It actually had Hillman in it too, but I cropped him out. I have another photo with all four of them on stage at the Boarding House. So that must be from a later reunion concert they did in that venue in 1978, since Hillman wasn't there on this night. Thus, by process of elimination, I'm pretty sure this photo comes from the other reunion show with all four of them, at the Roxy in Los Angeles. 

For the band name at the top, I used the same unusual lettering as what was on the cover of their 1973 reunion album.

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Altamont Free Concert, Altamont Speedway, Tracy, CA, 12-6-1969

Here's a concert that appeared in high quality out of nowhere on YouTube about a week ago (as I write this in January 2023). It's remarkable to me that after 50 plus years, concerts like this still emerge. I'll be there are still lots of great records sitting in vaults or hard drives and not being shared.

It's great that this concert has appeared because the Flying Burrito Brothers only had a couple of peak years while Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman were members, and their recorded legacy from that time is small. There aren't many bootlegs by the band from that time, and their sound quality is generally poor. Whereas this is an excellent soundboard.

Also, it's interesting that it's from the infamous Altamont concert. If any concert deserves to be called "infamous," it's this one. To give an example of what a disaster it was, not only was somebody murdered in the audience during the concert, but Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) was stabbed in the leg while performing on stage, and Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane was punched unconscious while also performing on stage! If you want to know more, the documentary "Gimme Shelter" is a good way to go.

The Flying Burrito Brothers came on stage after Jefferson Airplane, so things were already bad. The security was a total fiasco, with 300,000 people attending, no police anywhere, and the Hells Angels biker gang supposedly providing security, but being more of the problem than the solution. Given all that, if you listen to this recording, you'd never realize things went so horribly wrong. This appears to be the full set, except for the song "Bony Maronie." The band were introduced by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. They played a surprisingly rocking set, and sounded good to my ears.

Let's hope that whoever released this to YouTube will also release similarly excellent sounding recordings of the other bands in the concert, like Santana, CSNY, and Jefferson Airplane. About half an hour of video footage from the concert was released by the Library of Congress in 2022, though with no sound. It would be great if all the video and audio comes out and then gets synched together.

This album is a fairly short one, at just 30 minutes long.

01 talk (Flying Burrito Brothers)
02 Six Days on the Road (Flying Burrito Brothers)
03 High Fashion Queen (Flying Burrito Brothers)
04 Cody, Cody (Flying Burrito Brothers)
05 Lazy Days (Flying Burrito Brothers)
06 Close Up the Honky Tonks (Flying Burrito Brothers)
07 talk (Flying Burrito Brothers)
08 Mental Revenge (Flying Burrito Brothers)
09 To Love Somebody (Flying Burrito Brothers)
10 Lucille (Flying Burrito Brothers)
11 talk (Flying Burrito Brothers)
12 Together Again (Flying Burrito Brothers)
13 If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Flying Burrito Brothers)
14 talk (Flying Burrito Brothers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15291665/FlyingBB_1969_AltamntFreeConcrtAltamntSpeedwyTracyCA__12-6-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Gram Parsons is from the Altamont concert featured here. For the text, I found the exact font from the band's first album and put that at the top, but in a different color. Then I typed in the bottom text with that same font.

Sheryl Crow - The Songs and the Stories: Sheryl Crow's Chapel, Nashville, TN, 6-18-2021

Here's a Sheryl Crow acoustic home concert that was sent to me from someone who likes this blog just today. As such, it's gone straight to the top of my big pile of albums to post.

If I'd had this back in 2021, I wouldn't have posted it, because it originally was a pay-to-view kind of thing. But time has passed and it's not even available anymore. Plus, it's already been on YouTube and some other places.

This was from a time during the Covid pandemic when Crow was unable to play with her band or in front of audiences due to fears of spreading the disease. So she did this show in the solo acoustic mode. But it was a bit different from the usual acoustic concert in that she utilized a lot of equipment to help her out. She played a few songs on piano, a couple on bass, and the rest on guitar. She also used some basic backing tracks, such as a simple drum beat on a couple of songs. 

As you can guess from the title of the show, "The Songs and the Stories," this was designed to be much like the VH-1 Storytellers series, with lots of banter about nearly every song. Except she had no time limit, so it was a much longer concert than any Storytellers show I've heard of. This has a generous running time of an hour and forty minutes.

All the songs were written or co-written by Crow. The sound quality is excellent, and there were no problems needing fixing.

I still have lots of Crow's stray tracks albums to post as I continue to move forward through her career chronologically. But in the meantime, you can enjoy this one.

01 Run, Baby, Run (Sheryl Crow)
02 talk (Sheryl Crow)
03 Everyday Is a Winding Road (Sheryl Crow)
04 talk (Sheryl Crow)
05 Leaving Las Vegas (Sheryl Crow)
06 Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow)
07 talk (Sheryl Crow)
08 God Bless This Mess (Sheryl Crow)
09 Shine Over Babylon (Sheryl Crow)
10 talk (Sheryl Crow)
11 It Don't Hurt (Sheryl Crow)
12 talk (Sheryl Crow)
13 Riverwide (Sheryl Crow)
14 talk (Sheryl Crow)
15 Crazy Ain't Original (Sheryl Crow)
16 talk (Sheryl Crow)
17 My Favorite Mistake (Sheryl Crow)
18 talk (Sheryl Crow)
19 All I Wanna Do (Sheryl Crow)
20 talk (Sheryl Crow)
21 The Na-Na Song (Sheryl Crow)
22 talk (Sheryl Crow)
23 The Story of Everything (Sheryl Crow)
24 talk (Sheryl Crow)
25 Crash and Burn (Sheryl Crow)
26 talk (Sheryl Crow)
27 If It Makes You Happy (Sheryl Crow)
28 talk (Sheryl Crow)
29 Redemption Day (Sheryl Crow)
30 I Shall Believe (Sheryl Crow)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kGePE

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. I took the text at the top from an advertisement for the show, then turned it red. I added the text at the bottom.

AC/DC - BBC in Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-2-1979

AC/DC isn't my cup of tea. But a lot of people like them, and they did a well-timed show for the BBC, so I'm posting this as part of my overall BBC project. 

When I say "well-timed," what I mean is that it was recorded shortly before lead singer Jon Scott died of acute alcohol poisoning in February 1980. Most AC/DC divides the band's career into two phases, the 1970s with Scoot as lead vocalist, and Brian Johnson as the lead vocalist for all the years after that. So this represents the peak of the Bon Scott years, coming on the heels of their massive success with the "Highway to Hell" album.

This performance remains officially unreleased. The sound quality is very good, and there were no problems to fix. There wasn't a live album released from this tour at the time, although an archival box set, "Bonfire," has another concert from this tour included in it.

AC/DC did record some studio sessions for the BBC during the Bon Scott era. But as far as I can tell, they didn't do any BBC concerts or sessions in the Brian Johnson era.

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

01 Live Wire (AC-DC)
02 Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be (AC-DC)
03 talk (AC-DC)
04 Shot Down in Flames (AC-DC)
05 talk (AC-DC)
06 Sin City (AC-DC)
07 talk (AC-DC)
08 Walk All Over You (AC-DC)
09 talk (AC-DC)
10 Bad Boy Boogie (AC-DC)
11 talk (AC-DC)
12 The Jack (AC-DC)
13 Highway to Hell (AC-DC)
14 talk (AC-DC)
15 Girls Got Rhythm (AC-DC)
16 talk (AC-DC)
17 High Voltage (AC-DC)
18 talk (AC-DC)
19 Whole Lotta Rosie (AC-DC)
20 Rocker (AC-DC)
21 talk (AC-DC)
22 If You Want Blood [You've Got It] (AC-DC)
23 Let There Be Rock (AC-DC)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123411/ACDCee_1979_BBConcertHammersmthOdeon__11-2-1979_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert - kind of. Most of it does. But the bright parts were extremely washed out, and the colors were weird. That made lead singer Scott in the middle look like a white blob. So I took a photo of him from a different 1979 concert and used Photoshop to paste him in exactly where Scott was standing in the original photo. Hopefully, it looks okay now.

Oh, and as for the text, I used the font that the band often used for their name. I then found what that font was called and used it for the rest of the text.

Elvis Presley - Sit Down Concert, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-27-1968, Late Show

I haven't really posted any Elvis Presley music (other than some songs on my "Covered" series) up until now because it seems every thing he ever did has been officially released. Heck, there's even an album consisting of just his talking between songs - no kidding. But some things need highlighting. I feel this is something he did that needs more attention.

Here's the story behind it. In the 1960s, Presley's idiotic manager Colonel Tom Parker steered Presley away from performing concerts in favor of starring in low budget, musical B-movies. As a result, Presley didn't give a single concert for seven solid years. Worse, Parker generally saddled him with subpar songs to record, because he didn't want to pay the usual royalty rates. As a result, Presley's career went downhill and the hits were fewer. Musical trends were changing fast. By 1968, with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and the Doors in the charts, Presley seemed like a relatively forgotten has-been. 

Thankfully, Presley got fed up, and wanted to get back to performing concerts. The idea was he'd be reintroduced to the public with a TV special. This December 1968 special, called "Singer Presents... Elvis," was the first time he'd been seen extensively on TV in many years. (Again, thanks to this mismanagement of Parker. Given how massively popular Presley was, the mind boggles to think how much more popular he could have been with smart management.) The special was a huge critical and commercial success. It revived his career in a big way.

The special had a few different parts to it, including highlights of a sit down, acoustic concert, as well as a stand up concert with orchestra. I think the really interesting part was the sit down concert. Arguably, it was one of the very first "unplugged" concerts, which was a format he almost never did. It was done in front of a small studio audience, with just Presley and his five-piece backing band, including his long-time guitarist Scotty Moore. It was an exciting performance. Especially if you watch video footage of it, you can see Presley had tons of charisma and musical talent. 

The 1968 comeback special has been officially released many times, in many different forms. The problem, in my opinion, is that there never has been a release of just one of the sit down concerts. And I say one, because he did two on the same night. They were very similar. I picked the late show to present here, because it contained all the songs from the early show, plus two more. And his performance was better, probably because he warmed up with the early show. Some official releases only had parts of the two sit down shows. Another release in 2018, "The Complete '68 Comeback Special," contained all of both sit down shows, but also with a bunch of other stuff that made up an entire box set.

I think it's great to just hear this concert on its own, complete, and without the nearly identical early show. So that's what I have here.

If you want to know more about the comeback special, this webpage lays the story out very well:

Elvis's '68 Comeback Special: The story of the greatest comeback gig of all time - Gold (goldradiouk.com)

Note that this includes two versions of the song "Baby What You Want Me to Do." I'm guessing he felt unhappy with the first version, so he tried it again. At the time, he was assuming only parts of the concerts would be shown in the special, not the whole thing.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 talk (Elvis Presley)
02 Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley)
03 Baby What You Want Me to Do (Elvis Presley)
04 talk (Elvis Presley)
05 That's All Right, Mama (Elvis Presley)
06 Are You Lonesome Tonight (Elvis Presley)
07 talk (Elvis Presley)
08 Baby What You Want Me to Do (Elvis Presley)
09 talk (Elvis Presley)
10 Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis Presley)
11 talk (Elvis Presley)
12 One Night (Elvis Presley)
13 talk (Elvis Presley)
14 Love Me (Elvis Presley)
15 talk (Elvis Presley)
16 Trying to Get to You (Elvis Presley)
17 Lawdy, Miss Clawdy (Elvis Presley)
18 talk (Elvis Presley)
19 Santa Claus Is Back in Town (Elvis Presley)
20 Blue Christmas (Elvis Presley)
21 Tiger Man (Elvis Presley)
22 talk (Elvis Presley)
23 When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again (Elvis Presley)
24 Memories (Elvis Presley)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15835746/ElvisP_1968_SitDwnConcertNB_StdiosurbankCA__6-27-1968_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is taken from the very sit down concert featured here (though I don't know if it's from the early show or late one).

Brandi Carlile - Cover Songs, Volume 8: 2022

Here's yet another volume of Brandi Carlile singing cover songs. This takes us close to the present day (as I write this in January 2023), but I already have some songs for a Volume 9.

All the songs here are officially unreleased. Carlile sings so many cover versions that I've been able to up my sound quality standards. I left a bunch of songs off this that merely sounded okay. For instance, she's done "Rocket Man" by Elton John many times, but I have yet to find a high quality version. Hopefully she'll keep doing sounds like that so I can include them on future volumes.

Everything here was done live in concert. Some of these are from TV or radio station appearances, which helped with the sound quality.

This album is 48 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 The Rose - Bette Midler
02 Angel - Sarah McLachlan
03 Space Oddity - David Bowie
04 Creep - Radiohead
05 Woodstock - Joni Mitchell
06 You're Not Alone - Allison Russell
07 Madman Across the Water - Elton John
08 It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World - James Brown
09 If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow

Here's the usual song list:

01 The Rose (Wynonna Judd & Brandi Carlile)
02 Angel (Brandi Carlile & Sarah McLachlan)
03 Space Oddity (Brandi Carlile with Celisse Henderson)
04 Creep (Brandi Carlile with Celisse Henderson)
05 Woodstock (Brandi Carlile)
06 You're Not Alone (Allison Russell & Brandi Carlile)
07 Madman Across the Water (Brandi Carlile)
08 It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World (Brandi Carlile & Brittany Howard)
09 If It Makes You Happy (Brandi Carlile)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15904427/BrandiC_2022_CovrSongsVolume8_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a concert in Los Angeles in March 2022.

Crosby, Nash & Young - Sheriff Hongisto Prisoners' Benefit, Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3-26-1972

Here's an interesting acoustic concert from 1972. Instead of Crosby, Stills and Nash, or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY), it features the rather unusual combination of Crosby, Nash and Young. It was broadcast live on a local radio station (KSAN), so it's professionally recorded and sounds great.

In early 1972, the various members of CSNY were arguably at or near the peak of the critical and commercial success. All four of them had put out solo albums on top of group albums, and all of those had done very well. Crosby and Nash went on tour together in 1971, and recorded an album as a duo, "David Crosby and Graham Nash," that would be released only a week or two after this concert. Neil Young released "Harvest" in February 1972. It would be his biggest commercial success. The song "Heart of Gold" was released as a single, and was well on its way to hitting Number One in the US at the time of this concert.

CSNY as a group was broken up at the time of this concert, but that was mostly due to problems between Stephen Stills and the others. Stills had gone overboard with alcohol and cocaine abuse, leading to megalomania so bad that the others decided to kick him out of the group in July 1970. That was exacerbated by the fact that Stills had been dating singer Rita Coolidge, who then left him for Nash. So maybe that explains why Crosby, Nash and Young played together in this concert but Stills wasn't there. (I know of only two other CNY concerts. I plan on posting one of the other two eventually.) The four of them would reunite in 1973, though that would be rocky, very much an on again, off again thing.

Crosby and Nash only played two concerts as a duo in 1972, both of them in the month of March. This one was because of a benefit concert, and I'm guessing the other one was as well. The cause in this case was a seemingly odd one for political progressives like CSNY, at least at first glance. The concert was basically to support Richard Hongisto, the elected sheriff of San Francisco at the time. I was curious about this, so I did a little research. It turns out that Hongisto was about as progressive as a sheriff could be in the 1970s. He was a colorful character who made many bold moves as sheriff, for instance hiring an unprecedented number of minorities and openly gay and lesbian officers, and openly advocating for the legalization of marijuana. He also worked to reform prisons and support more prisoner rights. 

Here's an interesting article about his fascinating time as San Francisco's sheriff:

Sheriff Richard Hongisto, the Notable Exception | History of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department (sfsdhistory.com) 

This concert was specifically to raise money for the county jail inmate welfare fund. At the time, the jails were in a terrible condition due to years of neglect and lack of funding. Hongisto drew public attention to this by going to work as sheriff for several days in tattered and torn clothing, because those actually were the clothes the inmates were issued at the time. The shoes they were issued deliberately had big holes causing all the toes to stick out, so one size could (roughly) fit anyone's feet. In light of all that, one can see why CNY thought this was a worthy cause for a benefit concert. Between songs, you can hear them talk about Hongisto and the reason for this benefit a little bit.

Crosby and Nash started the concert by playing three songs just as a duo. Then Young joined them and they did two songs as a threesome. Then each one of them took turns playing two songs while alone on stage. After that, all three finished the concert with three more songs (oddly, all of those at the end written by Nash).

By the way, Young didn't tour at all in 1972, despite having a both Number One album and hit single early in the year. This was the only full concert he took part in that year. (He made three appearances at other artist's concerts, playing only a few songs each.)

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Nash & Young)
02 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
03 I Used to Be a King (Crosby, Nash & Young)
04 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
05 The Lee Shore (Crosby, Nash & Young)
06 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
07 Harvest (Crosby, Nash & Young)
08 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
09 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Nash & Young)
10 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
11 Southbound Train (Crosby, Nash & Young)
12 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
13 Almost Cut My Hair (Crosby, Nash & Young)
14 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
15 Page 43 (Crosby, Nash & Young)
16 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
17 And So It Goes (Crosby, Nash & Young)
18 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
19 Immigration Man (Crosby, Nash & Young)
20 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
21 Heart of Gold (Crosby, Nash & Young)
22 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
23 The Needle and the Damage Done (Crosby, Nash & Young)
24 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
25 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Nash & Young)
26 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)
27 Military Madness (Crosby, Nash & Young)
28 Chicago (Crosby, Nash & Young)
29 talk (Crosby, Nash & Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281781/CrosbNY_1972_ShriffHongistoPrisonrsBenefitWinterlndSnFranciscoCA__3-26-1972atse.zip.html

I found one photo of Crosby, Nash and Young on stage in March 1972. The credits give it a different date and location, but the very thorough Sugar Mountain Neil Young concert database only have Young joining Crosby and Nash on this date, so it must have been taken at this concert. Since it was a rather rough black and white photo, I tried to jazz it up by adding some color to it.

Also, while looking at the Sugar Mountain database just now, I found a poster for this concert, so I'm including it here for anyone who is interested.

Joni Mitchell - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Sounds for Saturday, London, Britain, 5-19-1972

I just posted a revamped and renamed version of a 1970 Joni Mitchell BBC concert I'd posted before, so I could get to posting this one. It's a BBC concert she did in 1972, before the release of her next album "For the Roses" later that year.

This concert remains officially unreleased, though hopefully that could change when the "Archives, Volume 3" box set comes out. So far, much of this concert has been bootlegged, but not all of it. It is known the songs "A Case of You" and "Both Sides Now" were also played, and the order they appeared. So I found other versions of those from a different 1972 concert and added them in. The recording of concert, from the Troubadour in Los Angeles in December 1972, is an audience bootleg, but the sound quality is roughly comparable to the rest of this show.

Many of the songs are from her previous albums, but she plays a few from "For the Roses," which would get released about six months later: "Electricity," "Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)," "See You Sometime," "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio," and "For the Roses." Some of those were only played in 1972. And according to setlist.fm (which is sometimes incomplete), this was the only concert performance of "See You Sometime."

This album is 43 minutes long. It seems to be the complete show, according to Mitchell's official website, jonimitchell.com.

01 This Flight Tonight (Joni Mitchell)
02 Electricity (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Judgement of the Moon and Stars [Ludwig's Tune] (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 See You Sometime (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Carey (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 For the Roses (Joni Mitchell)
17 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376016/JONIMCHLL1972BBSssonsVolum3SundsforSturdy__5-19-1972_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. But if my memory is correct, I colorized it.

Joni Mitchell with James Taylor - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 10-29-1970

Note that I've already posted this concert back in 2018. But I'm posting it again because I realized my original post has an accuracy problem. I took that from a bootleg that presented the concert as a joint one between Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, with both of them singing some of their own songs. However, it turns out that's not actually how the concert really was. Some of those songs were taken from other concerts around the same time, giving Taylor a larger role. I've decided to keep that version, for those who just want a good listen and aren't that interested in the accuracy. If you want it, it's still at this link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/07/joni-mitchell-james-taylor-in-concert.html

But for those who want this concert exactly as it happened, I'm presenting this version. Taylor was present, but it was mostly a Mitchell concert. Taylor played and sang backing vocals on a few of her songs in the second half of the show, but he only sang one of his own, "You Can Close Your Eyes," done as a duet with her, with her vocals arguably more prominent.

The BBC must have really loved Mitchell in 1970, because she did a BBC concert in September 1970, which I've just renamed as "BBC Sessions, Volume 1. You can get there here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/11/joni-mitchell-in-concert-bbc-television.html

Yet she was back two months later with this concert, playing many of the same songs. Perhaps the reason they had her again was the added appeal of having Taylor join her for some songs. In any case, they're both concerts worth hearing, with excellent sound quality. This is arguably the better one, not only because of Taylor but also because it's about 20 minutes longer. She was very talkative between songs, and there's some good banter between her and him.

This full concert has been officially released as part of the "Archives, Volume 2" box set. That's how I noticed I had some songs added in from other sources.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 That Song about the Midway (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 The Gallery (Joni Mitchell)
05 Hunter (Joni Mitchell)
06 talk (Joni Mitchell)
07 River (Joni Mitchell)
08 My Old Man (Joni Mitchell)
09 The Priest (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 Carey (Joni Mitchell)
12 A Case of You (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
14 California (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
16 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
17 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
18 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
19 talk (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
20 You Can Close Your Eyes (Joni Mitchell & James Taylor)
21 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
22 talk (Joni Mitchell)
23 Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376018/JONIMCHLLJAMSTYLR1970BBInCncrtParsTheatreLondnBrtin__10-29-1970.zip.html

I wanted to use a color photo of Mitchell and Taylor playing music together for the cover. Unfortunately I couldn't find one, but I found a black and white one that's the cover of a bootleg for this show. I kept most of the design and just changed some of the text. Then, months later, I figured out how to colorize it. The photo was taken at a concert in Queens College in New York in December 1970.

The Style Council - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1983-1985

I've recently finished posting a bunch of albums of the Jam performing for the BBC. I'm moving through Paul Weller's music career, and he played for the BBC a heck of a lot. So his next band Style Council is up. Then I'll get to his long solo career.

I have enough material for three BBC volumes. This first one consists of studio sessions. The other two are concerts. This is an especially interesting listen because some of the sessions were acoustic in nature, and other than this, there is very little of that from this band.

Everything here is officially unreleased. The sound quality is generally pretty good, but variable. Some of the acoustic stuff sounds a bit rougher than the rest, but it's all listenable. I have "[Edit]" in the titles for a few of the acoustic songs because I used X-Minus audio editing software to boost the vocals.

There were a couple of songs done twice, and I've only included one version of each. However, I've added a second version of "Headstart for Happiness" as a bonus track. I figure that's worth hearing because it's an acoustic version, different from the other full band version. Yet the sound quality isn't as good as the other version, thus it only being a bonus track.

This album is 48 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Micks Up [Instrumental] (Style Council)
02 The Paris Match (Style Council)
03 Here's One that Got Away (Style Council)
04 Headstart for Happiness (Style Council)
05 Le Depart [Instrumental] [Acoustic Version] (Style Council)
06 My Ever Changing Moods [Acoustic Version] [Edit] (Style Council)
07 Long Hot Summer [Acoustic Version] [Edit] (Style Council)
08 Mick’s Blessings [Instrumental] [Acoustic Version] (Style Council)
09 The Paris Match [Acoustic Version] [Edit] (Style Council)
10 [When You] Call Me (Style Council)
11 You're the Best Thing (Style Council)
12 The Lodgers (Style Council)
13 Homebreakers (Style Council)
14 A Stones Throw Away [Acoustic Version] (Style Council)

Headstart for Happiness [Edit] [Acoustic Version] (Style Council)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jkx34

I don't know exactly where or when the cover photo was taken, but judging by their clothes and hair styles, I think it was early in the band's existence.

Bruce Springsteen - Blood Brothers - Non-Album Tracks (1993-1995)

I recently updated all the 22 volumes of Bruce Springsteen's live covers collection that I've made. I changed the mp3 tags to be more iTunes friendly and fixed the volume balance between songs. I also improved the sound quality of some songs by using versions from recently released official live albums (he's putting out a steady stream of those, though only through the Internet). To draw attention to that, I wanted to post something else by Bruce Springsteen. 

However, there isn't much need to post concerts from him, due to all those official Internet releases. And when it comes to studio material, I'm still waiting for a second "Tracks" archival box set, since that has been heavily hinted for a long time now, and I'm sure there's lots of key material there. That said, there's a cluster of very good songs released in 1993 to 1995 that make for an obvious album that should exist. So here it is.

For most of the 1970s and 1980s, Springsteen did all his recording and touring with his band, the E Street Band. But he stopped working with them for about ten years, from the end of 1989 to 1999. One key exception is that he recorded some new tracks with them in 1995 - "Secret Garden," "Blood Brothers," and "This Hard Land," to be added to a best of collection called "Greatest Hits." A couple more songs from that reunion, "High Hopes" and "Without You," were released on the "Blood Brothers" EP a year later. Other songs were released at the time as contributions to other albums: "Streets of Philadelphia," "Gypsy Woman," and "Dead Man Walkin'." "Streets of Philadelphia" in particular was acclaimed and won an Academy Award for best song, as well as four Grammy awards. It also was a big hit, particularly in Europe, where it hit Number One in some countries.

Additionally, there were more songs written that didn't get released at the time. "Brothers Under the Bridge" and "Back in Your Arms" came out later in the "Tracks" box set. "Homestead" and "Waiting on the End of the World" remain unreleased. "It's the Little Things that Count" was done live only at the time, and has since come out on some of those Internet only live albums I previously mentioned.

So that's a lot of material. It would have made sense to put out a studio album instead of scattering some songs here and there. Knowing how prolific he is, there probably are even more than remain in the vault and haven't been bootlegged. He even released a documentary about the E Street Band reunion called "Blood Brothers," which makes it especially strange he didn't release an album at the same time.

I've included three bonus tracks. He did the song "Blood Brothers" in two very different versions. So I included the alternate version just as a bonus track. "Here Comes the Night" is a cover song, first made famous by Van Morrison's 1960s band "Them." Springsteen did it once during a soundcheck in France, but never in an actual concert. He didn't really have it together for the soundtrack, and stopped and started the song a couple of times. I edited it together to make one complete version. The sound quality is fairly good, but it's only a bonus track because the performance is rather rough and tentative. Finally, there's a version of "Murder Incorporated." This song was first released on the 1995 "Greatest Hits" album, but it was actually recorded in 1982. I didn't include it, since it belongs to another era. But he did record it live in 1995, so that's the bonus version here.

This album is 52 minutes long, without the bonus tracks.

01 Blood Brothers (Bruce Springsteen)
02 Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen)
03 Secret Garden (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Gypsy Woman (Bruce Springsteen)
05 Homestead (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Missing (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Dead Man Walkin' (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Brothers Under the Bridge (Bruce Springsteen)
09 High Hopes (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Without You (Bruce Springsteen)
11 Waiting on the End of the World (Bruce Springsteen)
12 Back in Your Arms (Bruce Springsteen)
13 It's the Little Things that Count (Bruce Springsteen)

Blood Brothers [Alternate Version] (Bruce Springsteen)
Here Comes the Night [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen)
Murder Incorporated [Live] (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bi5uA

The cover is just the cover of the 1996 EP "Blood Brothers,"unchanged.

Humble Pie - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1969-1970

Humble Pie was a British band that initially united the musical talents of Steve Marriott from the Small Faces and Peter Frampton from the Herd. It's time to see what they did for the BBC.

This first album is a collection of BBC studio sessions, with a couple of exceptions. The exceptions are "Wrist Job," done for Dutch radio, and "For Your Love," done for the German TV show "Beat Club." Everything here is officially unreleased. The sound quality is generally very good, though some are better than others.

Humble Pie would soon discover a successful formula with boogie rock, much like Status Quo, but for their first album or two their sound was more varied. That can be seen here. Most of the songs are originals, with a few exceptions, like "Shakin' All Over," Walk on Gilden Splinters," and "For Your Love."

There was some BBC DJ talk on "Sad Bag of Shakey Jake," but I edited it out using the X-Minus audio editing program.

For this album, I relied on the work of Prof. Stoned at his music blog, which you can find here:

http://www.profstoned.com/

He put together the best sounding versions of all of Humble Pie's BBC performances, so I relied on his choices.

This album is 53 minutes long. There are two other volumes coming soon.

01 Natural Born Bugie (Humble Pie)
02 Sad Bag of Shakey Jake [Edit] (Humble Pie)
03 Heartbeat (Humble Pie)
04 Desperation (Humble Pie)
05 Wrist Job (Humble Pie)
06 Shakin' All Over (Humble Pie)
07 Walk on Gilded Splinters (Humble Pie)
08 Four Day Creep (Humble Pie)
09 Big Black Dog (Humble Pie)
10 For Your Love (Humble Pie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15292117/HumbleP_1969-1970_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in 1969. I don't know any other details.

Status Quo - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 7-7-1988

I've posted two albums of BBC studio sessions by the British boogie rock band Status Quo. Most of that was before they went into full on boogie mode in the early 1970s. I'm not a big fan of their boogie rock stuff, as I think a lot of it is samey. However, they did perform some shows over the years that were broadcast by the BBC, and a commenter recently asked if I could post more. 

So here's one, probably the last one I'll post by them. By 1988, the band had lots of hits, yet they still had most of their key long-time members. So it's a good time for a concert from them. 

In 2010, the band released a box set called "Live at the BBC." This comes from that. As a result, the sound quality is excellent. There's no talking between songs, but maybe they simply aren't talkative types. Some of the band's biggest hits are here, such as "Whatever You Want" or "In the Army Now," but others are missing. They also did some album tracks, as well as covers by John Fogerty ("Rockin' All Over the World," which was another big hit by them) and Chuck Berry "Bye Bye Johnny."

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Whatever You Want (Status Quo)
02 Little Lady (Status Quo)
03 Roll Over Lay Down (Status Quo)
04 Cream of the Crop (Status Quo)
05 Who Gets the Love (Status Quo)
06 Hold You Back (Status Quo)
07 Don't Drive My Car (Status Quo)
08 Dirty Water (Status Quo)
09 In the Army Now (Status Quo)
10 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)
11 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
12 Bye Bye Johnny (Status Quo)

https://www.imagenetz.de/m5CGx

The cover photo was taken at a concert in Munich, Germany, in May 1988. Unfortunately it only shows two of the band members.

The Byrds - Born to Rock and Roll - Non-Album Tracks (1972-1973)

In the wake of David Crosby's death, I want to post some more music by Crosby with the Byrds, but first I'm moving through the Byrds' career chronologically, and the next one doesn't have Crosby in it (except for a very little bit). This stray tracks album marks the end of the era of the Byrds from their origin to their first break up in 1973. But there would be intermittent reunions after that, including one of all the original members later in 1973!

The Byrds slowly petered out in 1972 and 1973, with Roger McGuinn as the only original member. The band last studio albums were released in 1971, "Byrdmaniax" and "Father Along." They did a little more studio recording in 1972 (tracks 2, 3, and 5 here), but none of it was released at the time. They continued to tour extensively until February 1973, however. Meanwhile, a reunion with all five original members - McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gene Clark, and Michael Clarke - was brewing. These five recorded a new album in late 1972, while the other version of the band was still performing concerts. The reunion version put out the studio album "Byrds" in March 1973. McGuinn broke up the touring version of the band at that time due to anticipation that the original members would go on tour. But their new studio album was a critical and commercial disappointment, and no tour materialized. But McGuinn retired the Byrds name at that point, and started a solo career instead.

There are some songs here attributed to the Byrds. In addition to the three studio tracks mentioned above (eventually released as bonus tracks), there are unreleased versions of "Kansas City" and "The Water Is Wide." The rest of the songs though are generally solo works. However, there's the odd case of the song "My New Woman." This was included on McGuinn's first solo album, simply called "Roger McGuinn," and also released in 1973. All of the original Byrds either played or sang on it, including David Crosby, which is why I said above there was a little bit of Crosby in this album. I'm guessing that song was an outtake from the 1972 sessions for the reunion album by the original members.

Towards the end of the Byrds' career, lead guitarist Clarence White had become a key member. Unfortunately, he was killed in July 1973 due to being struck by a drunk driver when he was loading musical instrument into a parked car. Five of the remaining songs here feature White. Another is from a solo album by Byrds member Skip Battin.

01 Kansas City (Byrds)
02 Lost My Drivin' Wheel (Byrds)
03 Born to Rock and Roll (Byrds)
04 Alabama Jubilee [Instrumental] (Clarence White)
05 Bag Full of Money (Byrds)
06 My New Woman (Roger McGuinn & the Byrds)
07 Why You Been Gone So Long (Clarence White with Ry Cooder)
08 The Last Thing on My Mind (Clarence White)
09 The Water Is Wide (Byrds)
10 I Am a Pilgrim [Instrumental Version] (Clarence White & Bob Baxter)
11 China Moon (Skip Battin)
12 Draggin' (Roger McGuinn)
13 Lost Highway (Clarence White & Muleskinner)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376785/TBYRD1972-1973BrntoRckndRll_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in Connecticut in June 1972.

David Crosby - Rockefellers, Houston, TX, 4-18-1987

Two days ago, January 19, 2023, another great musician passed away. David Crosby of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young (CSNY), died at the age of 81, after a long illness. He lived a wild rock and roll lifestyle, including using lots of heavy drugs in his younger days, so I'm sure he was as surprised as anyone that he lived as long as he did. That's especially true considering his liver failed and he got a transplanted one in 1994.

In 2015, Crosby had a falling out with his longtime musical partner Graham Nash, and they never reconciled. As a result, there were no CSN or CSNY concerts or albums after that. It's too bad that there will never be one last hurrah for them now. But at least Crosby went out on a high note musically. For decades, he was known as the least prolific songwriter in CSNY. But from 2014 to 2021, he released five solo studio albums, all them generally well rated by critics. I saw a quote from him today where he basically said he didn't know how much time he had left, so he wanted to go all out making music that would last well beyond his passing.

I've already posted tons of CSN and CSNY music. To commemorate Crosby's death, I want to post some more of his music. I've never posted any solo concert recordings from him, so this is a good time for this. This one is one of my favorites. It came at a key point in his life. In the early and mid-1980s, his life seemed ruined due to an addiction to crack. He hit a low point in 1985 and 1986, when he had to serve nine months in a Texas prison due to drug and gun possession offenses. But he got clean in prison and stayed that way the rest of his life. He also rediscovered his musical muse, after barely writing any songs for the previous five or six years. Thus, this concert found him newly revitalized, almost like a musical rebirth. He wrote a bunch of excellent new songs and his voice was back in top form. 

Unfortunately, the recordings of most of those new songs would be marred by bad production choices, both on the 1988 CSNY reunion album "American Dream" and his 1989 solo album "Oh Yes I Can." This concert featured him in solo acoustic mode. That's a great thing in my opinion, because the songs are stripped down to their core, free of the many bad production trends of the 1980s. The new songs here are "Drive My Car," "He's an American," "Oh Yes I Can," and "Compass." I think they hold their own with the other songs here. "(He Played Real Good) For Free" is a Joni Mitchell song, and "Drop Down Mama" is a cover.

A great thing about this bootleg is that it's a soundboard, with really excellent sound quality. There were no problems to fix, although I boosted the volume of the cheering after many of the songs because the recording didn't capture much crowd noise. 

This actually consists of two concerts, an early show and a late show. He played many of the same songs at both. So I combined them to make one show without any repeats. I removed the intro to the second show, so it sounds like one long show. The first five songs, up through and including "Delta," are from the early show, and the rest are from the late show. The ones he played in both are: "Almost Cut My Hair," "Oh Yes I Can," "Compass," "Guinnevere," "Wooden Ships," and "Long Time Gone." I generally used the late show versions, but I used the early show version of "Almost Cut My Hair" because he gave a longer and more interesting verbal intro for that one.

This album is an hour and 29 minutes long.

01 talk (David Crosby)
02 The Lee Shore (David Crosby)
03 talk (David Crosby)
04 [He Played Real Good] For Free (David Crosby)
05 talk (David Crosby)
06 Almost Cut My Hair (David Crosby)
07 talk (David Crosby)
08 In My Dreams (David Crosby)
09 talk (David Crosby)
10 Delta (David Crosby)
11 Drop Down Mama (David Crosby)
12 talk (David Crosby)
13 Carry Me (David Crosby)
14 talk (David Crosby)
15 Triad (David Crosby)
16 talk (David Crosby)
17 Drive My Car (David Crosby)
18 He's an American (David Crosby)
19 Almost Cut My Hair (David Crosby)
20 Bittersweet (David Crosby)
21 talk (David Crosby)
22 Oh Yes I Can (David Crosby)
23 talk (David Crosby)
24 Compass (David Crosby)
25 talk (David Crosby)
26 Guinnevere (David Crosby)
27 talk (David Crosby)
28 Wooden Ships (David Crosby)
29 talk (David Crosby)
30 Long Time Gone (David Crosby)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16375927/DAVIDCRSB1987RckefllrsHustnTX__4-18-1987_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is apparently from April 11, 1987, only a week before this concert. I don't know the location.

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-ups, Volume 2: 2018-2019

Here we are with a second volume of Bill McClintock's mash-up crazy genius. This is just like Volume 1, and very similar to the coming Volumes 3 and 4. He typically mashes two, but sometimes three, famous songs together to create something new. In my opinion, these are superior edits to the typical mash-ups one can find here and there. If you haven't checked out Volume 1 yet, give this a listen. If nothing else, it's very different and interesting.

As I mentioned with Volume 1, McClintock is a fan of hard rock and heavy metal, and has a habit of combining those kinds of songs with soul, rock, or pop songs. You can see more examples of that on this volume than on Volume 1. Who, for instance, would ever think of combining a Wham pop hit with a thrash metal song by Slayer? But he did, and it somehow works! Better still, in my opinion, is his mashing together of "Chemical Warfare" by Slayer with "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves to make "Chemical Warfare (Don't It Feel Good)." The first time I heard that, I couldn't stop laughing. He also makes videos for all of his mash-ups with just as much expert editing and attention to detail. For an even better laugh, check out the video to that song.

But while some of these songs are funny due to the absurdity of the juxtapositions of different styles, in many cases they also work musically, with the mash-ups often as good as the originals in their own ways. You really need to listen to this to understand.

As with the other volumes in this series, the naming of the songs and the artists is a bit complicated. First comes to combined name of the mash-up, then the names of the songs that were mashed together in brackets. Then the names of the artists for each of the original songs. The mash-up names were made by McClintock, although I occasionally made some tweaks.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Beautiful Shining Star of Superstition [Beautiful Girls vs. Shining Star vs. Superstition] (Van Halen vs. Earth, Wind & Fire vs. Stevie Wonder)
02 Billie Jean's Got Another Thing Comin' [Billie Jean vs. You've Got Another Thing Comin'] (Michael Jackson vs. Judas Priest)
03 Gimme Shelter Baby [Gimme Shelter vs. Give it to Me Baby] (Rolling Stones vs. Rick James)
04 Rock the Space Freak [Rock the Casbah vs. Super Freak vs. Space Truckin'] (Clash vs. Rick James vs. Deep Purple)
05 Killed by Exodus [Killed by Death vs. Exodus] (Motorhead vs. Bob Marley)
06 Mean Machine [Mean Street vs. Dancing Machine] (Van Halen vs. Jackson 5)
07 Ain't Too Shy to Beg [Ain't Too Proud to Beg vs. Once Bitten. Twice Shy] (Temptations vs. Great White)
08 Shining Woman [Shining Star vs. American Woman] (Earth, Wind & Fire vs. the Guess Who)
09 Money for Shopping [Money for Nothing vs. Shop Around] (Dire Straits vs. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
10 Too Young to Strike a Pose [Too Young to Fall in Love vs. Vogue] (Motley Crue vs Madonna)
11 Tropicana Death Ensemble [War Ensemble vs. Club Tropicana] (Slayer vs. Wham)
12 All I Want for Christmas Is the Beautiful People [All I Want for Christmas Is You vs. The Beautiful People] (Mariah Carey vs. Mariah Manson)
13 Finally Faster [Finally & Faster] (Cece Peniston & Within Temptation)
14 I Wish It Would Burn [I Wish It Would Rain & Burn] (Temptations vs. Deep Purple)
15 Bang Your Head, It's a Celebration [Celebration vs. Bang Your Head] (Kool & the Gang vs. Quiet Riot)
16 Chemical Warfare [Don't It Feel Good] [Chemical Warfare vs. Walking on Sunshine] (Slayer vs. Katrina & the Waves)
17 Fire into the Jungle [Run through the Jungle vs. Into the Void vs. Fire] (Creedence Clearwater Revival vs/ Black Sabbath vs/ the Ohio Players)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602490/BillMcC_2018-2019_MashsVolum2_atse.zip.html

As with Volume 1, the cover uses a logo from Bill McClintock's YouTube page, plus a photo of him in the middle. I used a different background color to help differentiate it from the previous volume.

Elvis Costello & Flip City - Flip City Demos (1974-1975)

Yesterday, I posted about Sting's music before the Police, which I think is surprisingly good. Now it's time to look at Elvis Costello's music before his first album in 1977, which I also think is surprisingly good. Everything here is still unreleased. But it's all studio recordings with excellent sound quality, and the vast majority are songs written and sung by Costello that haven't appeared anywhere else (with the exception of "Imagination (Is A Powerful Deceiver)," a version of which appeared as a bonus track for the "My Aim Is True" album). I'm surprised this music hasn't gotten more attention.

When Costello started his music career, he was heavily influenced by the pub rock sound, especially the band Brinsley Schwarz. For a few years, from 1974 to 1976, he was a member of the pub rock band Flip City. Although they played concerts, they never released any records, not even a single. But they certainly tried. The songs here come from three different studio sessions. 

The first one took place in 1974. It was recorded at a BBC studio, but it wasn't intended for BBC broadcast, since the band was so little known at the time. It was simply the case of the band having a connection that allowed them to briefly use BBC facilities to record some demos. The first song is the only one from that session here. They also recorded "Exiles Road" and "Radio Soul," but I haven't included them because they did later versions that I have included that are slightly better.

The other two sessions were done in the attic of a pub called Hope and Anchor in 1975. The owner of that pub was trying to get into the music business producing and selling records, so that person had built a recording studio there. They were searching for a potential hit single. They settled on the cover song "Third Rate Romance," since it was breaking as a hit in the US by the Amazing Rhythm Aces. But in the end, it never got released. The band broke up around the end of 1975. Costello won a record contract for a solo album in 1976, and the rest is history.  (At this point, he was still going by his given name, Declan McManus - he would get his new music name after signing the record contract.)

There are a few covers here. In addition to "Third Rate Romance," there's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan, as well as "Packin' Up," and "You Win Again" by Hank Williams. "On the Road" was written and sung by Flip City guitarist Steve Hazelhurst. A couple of the originals would later get re-written and put on Elvis Costello albums. "Baseball Heroes" is an early version of "Miracle Man," and "Radio Soul" is very similar to "Radio, Radio." Also, "Imagination (Is a Powerful Deceiver)" is a distant relation to "Alison," though it's hard to tell.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Baseball Heroes [Early Version of Miracle Man] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
02 Imagination [Is a Powerful Deceiver] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
03 Pay It Back (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
04 Radio Soul [Early Version of Radio, Radio] (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
05 Third Rate Romance (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
06 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
07 Packin' Up (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
08 Please Mister, Don't Stop the Band (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
09 Exiles Road (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
10 Wreck on the Slide (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
11 On the Road (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
12 You Win Again (Elvis Costello & Flip City)
13 Sweet Revival (Elvis Costello & Flip City)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15284458/ElvisCost_1974-1975_FlpCityDemos_atse.zip.html

There are very few photos of the band Flip City. I picked the best one I could find. That's Costello singing into the microphone.

Sting - Before the Police - Non-Album Tracks (1975-1977)

When the Police hit the music scene in 1977, it seemed they came out of nowhere. They looked like a young punky band just getting started, especially due to their short, spiky haircuts. But in fact, all three members had been playing music for years already. Drummer Stuart Copeland had been in the prog rock band Curved Air. Lead guitarist Andy Summers was even briefly a member of the Animals in the 1960s.

As for lead singer and songwriter Sting, real name Gordon Sumner, he was in a jazz fusion band called "Last Exit" from 1974 to 1977. Then, around the time the Police formed in early 1977, Sting also joined a band called "Strontium 90" as kind of a side project. At that point, the Police consisted of Sting, Copeland, and a guitarist named Henry Padovani. Through Stontium 90, Sting and Copeland met Summers. Summers soon replaced Padovani, and the Police went on to great fame and fortune.

This album contains what I consider the best of Sting's music before the Police got big. I selected the songs I liked the most from both Last Exit and Strontium 90. Both bands had two lead vocalists. My job was made easier by only selecting the lead vocals by Sting. He wrote nearly all of the songs as well (with a cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down" an exception). As a result, this sounds much like a lost Police album, though with more of a jazzy sound than a reggae/ new wave one.

I think the music here is quite good. I was very selective, making a rather short album of only the best songs. A couple of them were reworked in Police songs, and there are bits and pieces of others that got recycled as well. Also, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" was a big hit for the Police in 1981, even reaching Number One in Britain. This includes a version of that all the way back in 1976. It's billed as a Strontium 90 song, since it appeared on an album billed to them, but it really was just a Sting solo demo.

Everything here is officially released, though extremely rare. The Last Exit songs are from albums called "First from Last Exit" and "Savage Beast," and the Strontium 90 songs are from the album "Police Academy." These are all studio versions, with the exception of "3 O'Clock Shot," which is from the sole concert Strontium 90 ever did. The albums generally are compilations put together after the Police got famous.

If you like the Police, I'll bet you'll like this.

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 Carrion Prince [Ye of Little Hope] [Early Version of Bring on the Night] (Sting [Last Exit])
02 I Got It Made (Sting [Last Exit])
03 Oh My God (Sting [Last Exit])
04 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Sting [Last Exit])
05 I Burn For You (Sting [Last Exit])
06 Fool in Love [Early Version of So Lonely] (Sting [Last Exit])
07 I'm on This Train (Sting [Last Exit])
08 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (Sting [Strontium 90])
09 3 O'Clock Shot (Sting [Strontium 90])
10 Visions of the Night (Sting [Strontium 90])

https://www.imagenetz.de/dzLTY

I couldn't find any good photos of Sting before the Police. I ended up using one from the first few months of the Police's career. This is a rare photo of him before he dyed his hair blond. The photo was black and white, but I colorized it.

The Jam - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 12-3-1982

Here's the seventh and last volume of the Jam playing for the BBC. I believe this is the seventh the last concert the band ever did. As such, it's an extra long concert the ably sums up their six year career.

The sound quality is generally excellent, as you'd expect for a BBC recording. However, there were issues in some places for a few of the songs. In two cases, it was a volume issue with bassist Bruce Foxton's vocal microphone being too low in the mix. So I used the X-Minus audio editing program to boost the vocals for those spots. In one more instance, the band let the audience sing a bit, and the audience was too low, so I made the same kind of fix. Those three songs have "[Edit]" in their names.

Otherwise, there's not much to say. If you want to get just one of these Jam BBC concerts, I suggest this one. They went out with a bang while still in their prime.

This concert is an hour and 42 minutes long.

With the Jam done, in the near future I'll turn to Paul Weller's successor band, the Style Council, and what they played for the BBC.

01 talk (Jam)
02 Start (Jam)
03 It's Too Bad (Jam)
04 Beat Surrender (Jam)
05 talk (Jam)
06 Away from the Numbers (Jam)
07 talk (Jam)
08 Ghosts (Jam)
09 In the Crowd (Jam)
10 talk (Jam)
11 Boy about Town (Jam)
12 talk (Jam)
13 So Sad about Us (Jam)
14 All Mod Cons (Jam)
15 To Be Someone [Edit] (Jam)
16 talk (Jam)
17 Smithers-Jones (Jam)
18 talk (Jam)
19 That's Entertainment (Jam)
20 The Great Depression (Jam)
21 Precious (Jam)
22 talk (Jam)
23 Move On Up (Jam)
24 talk (Jam)
25 Circus [Instrumental] (Jam)
26 Down in the Tube Station at Midnight (Jam)
27 David Watts [Edit] (Jam)
28 Mr. Clean [Edit] (Jam)
29 talk (Jam)
30 Town Called Malice (Jam)
31 But I'm Different Now (Jam)
32 talk (Jam)
33 Trans-Global Express (Jam)
34 In the City (Jam)
35 Get Yourself Together (Jam)
36 When You're Young (Jam)
37 Private Hell (Jam)
38 The Butterfly Collector (Jam)
39 The Dreams of Children (Jam)
40 The Gift (Jam)
41 Going Underground (Jam)

https://www.imagenetz.de/h2NJS

The cover photo shows the Jam in Chicago in 1982.

Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck - Tacoma Dome, Seattle, WA, 7-8-1984

The great lead guitarist Jeff Beck died a couple of days ago (as I write this in January 2023). I wanted to post something to mark his death, and I decided on this. It's much more of a Rod Stewart concert, but Beck played guitar on six songs. I figure it's a lesser known thing that may be a surprise to many of his fans.

Stewart and Beck played together for a couple of years in the late 1960s in the Jeff Beck Group. They got along well musically but clashed on a personal level. Then Beck played on Stewart's single "Infatuation" in 1984. Beck then agreed to play in Stewart's next concert tour. I'll let Stewart explain what happened next, from his autobiography:

"The problem with this, from the outset, was that it all too obviously cast Jeff in a supporting role, which he was pretty much guaranteed to hate, however handsomely remunerated. The tour was set for 74 dates over four months. Behind the scenes, a lot of people were muttering and saying, 'This is doomed - he won’t last two shows.' But they were all wrong. He lasted three. And then he left, saying something about how the audience were all housewives, which was a little bit rude of the old scamp."

Stewart exaggerates a bit. Beck actually lasted six shows. This one was the fourth. But still, that wasn't long. Luckily, this bootleg exists of their brief 1984 reunion, and it's an excellent soundboard. There was only one problem with the sound: it was such an excellent soundboard that you couldn't hear much of the audience. So I boosted the cheering at the end of each song.

I lost most of my interest in Stewart after he went full disco with songs like his 1978 Number One single "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy." In the early 1980s, he went all the way into the synth-heavy new wave sound. That sound has not dated well for him. He did put out some good singles, but his 1980s albums generally get lower ratings than those from the 1970s or 1990s. Luckily, this concert is more of a throwback to his 1960s and 1970s blues rock sound. I'm sure a big part of that was due to the presence of Beck. I highly doubt he would have done songs like "Rock My Plimsoul" and "I Ain't Superstitious" - both from the Jeff Beck Group days - otherwise. But most of the other songs have more of a rock sound than being dated by 1984 sounds. However, there are exceptions, like the cover of the Free classic "All Right Now," redone in synth-heavy new wave style. 

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 talk (Rod Stewart)
02 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Rod Stewart)
03 talk (Rod Stewart)
04 You Wear It Well (Rod Stewart)
05 talk (Rod Stewart)
06 Hot Legs (Rod Stewart)
07 talk (Rod Stewart)
08 Tonight's the Night [Gonna Be Alright] (Rod Stewart)
09 talk (Rod Stewart)
10 You're in My Heart [The Final Acclaim] (Rod Stewart)
11 talk (Rod Stewart)
12 She Won't Dance with Me (Rod Stewart)
13 talk (Rod Stewart)
14 All Right Now (Rod Stewart)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Young Turks (Rod Stewart)
17 Infatuation (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
18 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
19 People Get Ready (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
20 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
21 Rock My Plimsoul (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
22 I Ain't Superstitious (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
23 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
24 The Pump [Instrumental] (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
25 talk (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
26 Bad for You (Rod Stewart with Jeff Beck)
27 talk (Rod Stewart)
28 Passion (Rod Stewart)
29 talk (Rod Stewart)
30 Gasoline Alley (Rod Stewart)
31 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)

https://www.imagenetz.de/k5dgL

The cover photo of Stewart and Beck was taken in New York City in 1984. For once, I didn't use Photoshop to bring them closer together. Apparently they were hugging while at a press conference to start the concert tour.