Luka Bloom, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash & Lou Reed - In Their Own Words, The Bottom Line, New York City, 2-19-1993, Early Show

This is a very rare, unique, and interesting unreleased concert. It's also quite long, at nearly three hours, and the sound quality is great. Furthermore, it's just the early show, and I'll be posting the late show - with the same performers but mostly different songs - soon.

The key figure behind this concert appears to be radio DJ Vin Scelsa. In the early 1990s, he hosted many concerts in New York City that brought together combinations of singer-songwriters. (I previously posted a concert he hosted with Rosanne Cash, David Byrne, and Lucinda Williams.) This concert appears to be part of a series he hosted called "In Their Own Words." For this one, I read that he first got Lou Reed to participate, then had Reed pick the other artists. Reed picked Talking Heads leader David Byrne and Rosanne Cash, one of Johnny Cash's daughters and at the time still mainly seen as a country music star. The surprise choice was Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom. At this point, Bloom was relatively unknown, having only released three solo albums. But Reed and Bloom had crossed paths due to performing at some of the same festivals in Europe the year before, and Reed liked Bloom's music.

This concert just featured the four artists performing solo acoustic. The format was "in the round," meaning each artist would sing a song in turn until everyone was done, and then the process would repeat, going around and around. (There was only one exception, when Reed played two songs in a row.) But this concert is also unusual in that these was extensive talking between songs, mostly in interview format between DJ Scelsa and whoever was singing the next song. The theme of the evening was songwriting, so most of the questions had to do with that. There's so much talking, in fact, that it took up nearly half of the concert. That has less replay value than the songs, so I've created two versions, one with all the talking and one with just the music.

The sound quality is excellent. I suspect the source is an audience bootleg, because originally the clapping was way louder than the music or talking. But if that's the case, it's one of the best audience boots I've ever heard, and actually sounds better than most soundboards! I had to adjust every track to boost the volume of the music and especially the talking while lowering the volume of the applause, but now it all sounds great. 

There were a few missing parts of the recording. Luckily though, there's a second bootleg of the same concert. The sound quality is worse, but it was mostly just for talking parts, so it didn't matter much. Additionally, I ran those bits through Adobe's "Enhanced Speech" program, and that helped them sound nearly as good as the rest. Two tracks were I had to splice different versions together have "[Edit]" in their names.

This album (the talking and music version) is two hours and 47 minutes long.

01 talk - Luka Bloom Introduction (Vin Scelsa)
02 Dreams in America (Luka Bloom)
03 talk - David Byrne Introduction (Vin Scelsa)
04 Tentative Decisions (David Byrne)
05 talk - Rosanne Cash Introduction (Vin Scelsa)
06 What We Really Want (Rosanne Cash)
07 talk - Lou Reed Introduction (Vin Scelsa)
08 Busload of Faith (Lou Reed)
09 talk - Luka Bloom Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Luka Bloom)
10 Wave Up to the Shore (Luka Bloom)
11 talk - David Byrne Q and A (Vin Scelsa & David Byrne)
12 Mind (David Byrne)
13 talk - Rosanne Cash Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Rosanne Cash)
14 The Wheel (Rosanne Cash)
15 talk - Lou Reed Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Lou Reed)
16 Heroin (Lou Reed)
17 talk - Luka Bloom Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Luka Bloom)
18 Gone to Pablo (Luka Bloom)
19 talk - David Byrne Q and A (Vin Scelsa & David Byrne)
20 Sax and Violins (David Byrne)
21 talk - Rosanne Cash Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Rosanne Cash)
22 Sleeping in Paris (Rosanne Cash)
23 talk - Lou Reed Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Lou Reed)
24 Cremation [Ashes to Ashes] (Lou Reed)
25 talk - Lou Reed Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Lou Reed)
26 What's Good (Lou Reed)
27 talk - Luka Bloom Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Luka Bloom)
28 Exploring the Blue (Luka Bloom)
29 talk - David Byrne Q and A [Edit] (Vin Scelsa & David Byrne)
30 Ready for This World [Edit] (David Byrne)
31 talk - Rosanne Cash Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Rosanne Cash)
32 Dance with the Tiger (Rosanne Cash)
33 talk - Lou Reed Q and A (Vin Scelsa & Lou Reed)
34 Romeo Had Juliette (Lou Reed)
35 talk (Vin Scelsa & Luka Bloom)
36 I Need Love (Luka Bloom)
37 talk (Vin Scelsa & David Byrne)
38 Sweet Old World (David Byrne)
39 talk (Vin Scelsa & Rosanne Cash)
40 Crescent City (Rosanne Cash)
41 talk (Vin Scelsa & Lou Reed)
42 Foot of Pride (Lou Reed)
43 talk (Vin Scelsa)

This is the link for the talking and music:

https://www.imagenetz.de/he37R

Here's the song list for the "music only" version. This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 Dreams in America (Luka Bloom)
02 Tentative Decisions (David Byrne)
03 What We Really Want (Rosanne Cash)
04 Busload of Faith (Lou Reed)
05 Wave Up to the Shore (Luka Bloom)
06 Mind (David Byrne)
07 The Wheel (Rosanne Cash)
08 Heroin (Lou Reed)
09 Gone to Pablo (Luka Bloom)
10 Sax and Violins (David Byrne)
11 Sleeping in Paris (Rosanne Cash)
12 Cremation [Ashes to Ashes] (Lou Reed)
13 What's Good (Lou Reed)
14 Exploring the Blue (Luka Bloom)
15 Ready for This World [Edit] (David Byrne)
16 Dance with the Tiger (Rosanne Cash)
17 Romeo Had Juliette (Lou Reed)
18 I Need Love (Luka Bloom)
19 Sweet Old World (David Byrne)
20 Crescent City (Rosanne Cash)
21 Foot of Pride (Lou Reed)
22 talk (Vin Scelsa)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16103356/VA1993_InThrOwnWrdsBottmLneNwYrkC__2-19__1993__ErlyShw_atse_MsicOnly.zip.html

I got really lucky with the photo on the cover here. The photo shows all the participants backstage either before or after the show. From left to right: David Byrne, Vin Scelsa, Lou Reed, Rosanne Cash, and Luka Bloom.