Recently though (November 2023), my musical associate Lil Panda was telling me about the great features of the audio editing program he's using, called Izotope. (I don't have that one, since it's fairly pricey.) One feature it has is to "de-wind" - to get rid of the sound distortions caused by wind blowing on microphones. That was the exact problem with the audience bootlegs of those four Isle of Wight sets that I didn't post - lots and lots of wind noises. So I asked if he could try out the de-wind function of them, and he agreed. Boy, what a difference! It's like day and night. The wind rustling noises are pretty much totally gone. Thanks to that change, I feel I can finally post those four sets, starting with this one.
Keep in mind though that this is still based on an audience bootleg. So while it's definitely listenable, in my opinion, it's not as good as a soundboard recording, which is what most of the other Isle of Wight sets are. Luckily, this is a solo acoustic set, which means the sound flaws are less noticeable than if it had been a full band set. But things are variable. For instance, the first song "Mobile Line" sounds rough, but a few songs later, "She's a Lady" sounds pretty much like a soundboard. So if you're very picky when it comes to sound quality, listen to the whole thing. At least a good chunk should be acceptable to even those with high standards.
When I first posted all the Isle of Wight albums in August 2023, I was only able to find three songs from John Sebastian's set with worthy sound quality. "Red Eye Express" was included in the documentary movie "Message to Love." "Daydream" also sounded particularly good, although I don't know why. Those three had been included as part of the Joni Mitchell set, which I'd called Part 1 for the August 29, 1970 sets. But now I've removed those from her set, and given it a new title (Part 2), new cover art to fix the title, and new song numbering (since the numbering continues from after Sebastian's set). Then all the other sets from August 29, 1970 are changed, with Part 2 becoming Part 3, and Part 3 becoming Part 4, and so on. Thus, I recommend you re-download all of those. Furthermore, I've added two songs to the Ten Years After set, so you'll especially want to get that one.
It'll probably be a couple of weeks before I can add the Donovan, Joan Baez, and Richie Havens sets, because Lil Panda is traveling and won't be able to get to them until then. All three of those sets are from the last day of the festival, August 30, 1970, so there will be lots of renumbering of all the sets from that day.
One nice surprise about this album is that, midway through Sebastian's set, he had an impromptu reunion with Zal Yanovsky, who co-founded the Lovin' Spoonful with Sebastian. They played four Lovin' Spoonful songs together that Sebastian usually didn't play as a solo artist. Here's what Sebastian later had to say about it: "I hadn’t played with Zal since the group broke up, except in hotel rooms and living rooms. He’s been touring with Kris Kristofferson, you know, and a message was passed up to me on stage twice before I understood it, asking me why I didn’t ask Zal to come up. It was really weird doing those old Spoonful numbers."
There's a fair amount of talking between songs. In addition to what Lil Panda did with getting rid of the wind sounds, I ran all the talking tracks through another editing filter. This one is called "Enhance Speech," by Adobe. Unfortunately, it's only good for talking, not singing. For these tracks, it did add some clarity to his somewhat muffled voice.
This album is an hour and nine minutes long.
001 Mobile Line (John Sebastian)
002 Lovin' You (John Sebastian)
003 You're a Big Boy Now (John Sebastian)
004 talk (John Sebastian)
005 She's a Lady (John Sebastian)
006 How Have You Been (John Sebastian)
007 talk (John Sebastian)
008 Jug Band Music (John Sebastian)
009 talk (John Sebastian)
010 I Had a Dream (John Sebastian)
011 In the Still of the Night (John Sebastian)
012 talk (John Sebastian)
013 4 Eyes (John Sebastian)
014 talk (John Sebastian)
015 Rainbows All Over Your Blues (John Sebastian)
016 talk (John Sebastian)
017 Blues in the Bottle (John Sebastian with Zal Yanovsky)
018 Do You Believe in Magic (John Sebastian with Zal Yanovsky)
019 talk (John Sebastian with Zal Yanovsky)
020 Boredom (John Sebastian with Zal Yanovsky)
021 talk (John Sebastian with Zal Yanovsky)
022 Bald Headed Lena (John Sebastian with Zal Yanovsky)
023 talk (John Sebastian)
024 Darlin' Be Home Soon (John Sebastian)
025 Harmonica Solo [Instrumental] (John Sebastian)
026 Younger Generation (John Sebastian)
027 talk (John Sebastian)
028 Daydream (John Sebastian)
029 Red Eye Express (John Sebastian)
030 talk (John Sebastian)
031 Younger Girl (John Sebastian)
032 talk (John Sebastian)
The cover photo is from this exact concert.
Thanks! This should be a treat!
ReplyDeleteAnother one. Thanks. Cheers
ReplyDeleteThanks so much!
ReplyDelete