Saturday, December 30, 2023

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/cox6C

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.

Friday, December 29, 2023

Marshall Crenshaw - The Human Jukebox, Volume 6: 2001-2002

I hope everyone had a happy holidays. I'm back with another volume of Marshall Crenshaw performing cover songs. This is the sixth volume so far, and there are still three more to go to get caught up to the present day (as I write this at the end of 2023).

By now, if you know the other volumes in this series, you should know the drill. As usual, I'm struck by the breadth and depth of Crenshaw's musical tastes. He performed a fair number of classic, well known songs here, but also some obscurities. For instance, "When I'm Cleaning Windows" dates to the 1930s, and was considered so racy that the BBC banned it for a while.

All but four songs are unreleased. Those four that are released happen to the the first four. One is from an Aerosmith tribute album, and two more are from a Nick Lowe tribute album.

The fourth released one, "Walk Away Renee," is from an official Crenshaw live album. Ironically, this one had more sound issues than most of the unreleased songs. While the song itself sounded fine, there was some annoying laughing and cheering over the music, including in the middle of the song. So I used UVR5 to wipe that out while keeping the music. Because I did a lot of that, I put "[Edit]" in the title. I also removed cheering from most of the other songs, but just at the end. There were a couple where it was too problematic to remove though. "When I'm Cleaning Windows" also has "[Edit]" in the title. If I remember correctly, that's because he stopped in the middle of song when he forgot how it went. I edited out that mistake.

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

01 Big Ten Inch Record - Bull Moose Jackson / Aerosmith
02 Cruel to Be Kind - Nick Lowe
03 Television - Nick Lowe
04 Walk Away Renee - Left Banke
05 Danny Says - Ramones
06 I'm Only Sleeping - Beatles
07 The Girl on Death Row - Lee Hazlewood with Duane Eddy
08 El Paso - Marty Robbins
09 Kick Out the Jams - MC5
10 My Little Red Book - Manfred Mann / Love
11 Pushin' Too Hard - Seeds
12 Nervous Breakdown - Eddie Cochran
13 When I'm Cleaning Windows - George Formby
14 Endless Sleep - Jody Reynolds
15 I Want to Tell You - Beatles
16 Beyond the Sea - Charles Trenet / Bobby Darin

Here's the usual song list:

01 Big Ten Inch Record (Marshall Crenshaw)
02 Cruel to Be Kind (Marshall Crenshaw & Christine Ohlman)
03 Television (Marshall Crenshaw)
04 Walk Away Renee [Edit] (Marshall Crenshaw)
05 Danny Says (Marshall Crenshaw)
06 I'm Only Sleeping (Marshall Crenshaw)
07 The Girl on Death Row (Marshall Crenshaw)
08 El Paso (Marshall Crenshaw)
09 Kick Out the Jams (Marshall Crenshaw)
10 My Little Red Book (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 Pushin' Too Hard (Marshall Crenshaw)
12 Nervous Breakdown (Marshall Crenshaw)
13 Cleaning Windows [Edit] (Marshall Crenshaw)
14 Endless Sleep (Marshall Crenshaw)
15 I Want to Tell You (Marshall Crenshaw)
16 Beyond the Sea (Marshall Crenshaw)

This album is 47 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/16107069/MarshallC_2001-2002_ThHumnJkeboxVolum6_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was take at a concert in Alexandria, Virginia, in January 2002.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 3-9-1980

I've already posted an album of Squeeze BBC sessions in the late 1970s. There are a bunch of Squeeze BBC albums to come. But from this point on, most of them are BBC concerts, like this one.

In 1979, Squeeze had a lot of success with their second album, "Cool for Cats," especially in Britain. That had two songs that reached Number Two in the British charts: "Cool for Cats" and "Up the Junction." They continued their success in 1980 with the album "Argybargy." That had the hits "Another Nail from My Heart" and "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)." "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)" didn't actually do too well in the charts at the time, not quite reaching the Top Forty in Britain, but it became one of their best known songs anyway.

So by the time of this concert, they had lots of well known songs to play, and they're all here. This concert has been officially released on the deluxe edition of "Argybargy," so the sound quality is excellent.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Slap and Tickle (Squeeze)
02 Touching Me, Touching You (Squeeze)
03 Slightly Drunk (Squeeze)
04 talk (Squeeze)
05 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell] (Squeeze)
06 Funny How It Goes (Squeeze)
07 Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
08 Cool for Cats (Squeeze)
09 talk (Squeeze)
10 Mess Around (Squeeze)
11 talk (Squeeze)
12 I Think I'm Go Go (Squeeze)
13 talk (Squeeze)
14 If I Didn't Love You (Squeeze)
15 Strong in Reason (Squeeze)
16 talk (Squeeze)
17 It's So Dirty (Squeeze)
18 talk (Squeeze)
19 Goodbye Girl (Squeeze)
20 talk (Squeeze)
21 Up the Junction (Squeeze)
22 Going Crazy (Squeeze)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16082779/SQUZE1980_BBSessonsVolum2InConcrtHmmersntOdeonLondnBitain__3-9-1980_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos of Squeeze in concert in 1980. However, I found a nice one of lead guitarist Glenn Tilbrook looking like a guitar hero in 1979. I don't know the details beyond that, however.

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers - Concert for Dave Obey, Regency Ballroom, Hyatt Regency, Washington, DC, 3-21-2004

I recently posted four albums of Joan Osborne singing Grateful Dead songs in concert with the band Phil Lesh and Friends in 2006. This is very similar. Two years earlier, instead of singing Dead songs with former member of the Dead bassist Phil Lesh, she did a concert where she sand Dead songs with former member of the Dead drummer Mickey Hart.

I know very, very little about this concert, and I could find almost no mention of it on the Internet. At some point I must have known something about it, because I put it on my "wish list" with the SoulseekQT file sharing program. After many months, I had forgotten all about it, and it showed up, allowing me to download it. 

Looking it up at discogs.com, I see that it technically was officially released at one point, but it seems it was a limited release and quickly went out of print. The record company that released it literally only ever released this one album. This was billed as the "Concert for Dave Obey," so I looked him up. It turns out he was a Democratic Congressperson in Wisconsin from 1969 to 2011. He was considered one of the most progressive people in Congress, which would explain why the likes of Obsorne and Hart performed a benefit concert that presumably helped raise money for his reelection.

That's about all I know. I don't know if more songs were played, or if anyone talked between songs, etc... If you know, please inform us. But what I do know is that it's great hearing Osborne sing Dead songs. And the song quality is excellent. By the way, I think Mickey Hart sang some lead vocals too, but he only did a bit of that since he's not known for his singing. Whoever played lead guitar did a very close imitation of Jerry Garcia's style, including the guitar tone.

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 Sugaree (Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers)
02 Scarlet Begonias - Fire on the Mountain (Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers)
03 Queen Bee (Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers)
04 I Know You Rider (Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers)
05 Franklin's Tower (Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers)
06 Going Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Mickey Hart, Joan Osborne & the Flying Other Brothers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16082496/JOANOS2004_ConcrtfrDveObyRgencyBllroomHyttRgencyWshingtnDC__3-21-2001_atse.zip.html

The cover is the exact one from the official release.

Friday, December 22, 2023

Rosanne Cash with David Byrne & Lucinda Williams - Columbia Records Radio Hour, New York City, 5-16-1993

Here's a particularly interesting concert by Rosanne Cash. It's rather short, less than an hour, but what makes it special is that David Byrne (of the Talking Heads) and Lucinda Williams take part as well. Both Byrne and Williams sing lead on at least one song, then sing a duet together, and also help Cash with vocals on other songs.

I don't know much about the "Columbia Records Radio Hour." From what little I've gathered, it was a weekly radio show based in New York City. It was run by the radio station WFUV, and was syndicated to about 100 other radio stations across the U.S. I think it only existed in 1993 and 1994 or thereabouts, and then got cancelled. I gather that it featured musical artists who were signed to Columbia Records, as Cash was at the time. 

What's unfortunate is that I've come across very few recording from this show. That's a shame, because lots of great artists had full hour shows, including Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Cockburn, Shawn Colvin, Lou Reed, Toad the Wet Sprocket, etc... There are two "best of" collections that have been officially released, "Columbia Records Radio Hour, Vol. 1," and "Vol, 2." The entire Jeff Buckley show has been officially released. I have the bootleg of the Leonard Cohen show, and I should post that here soon. But other than that, I've had a hard time even finding bootlegs of the other shows. If you have any, please let me know.

As for this show, I had a bootleg of it for many years. The sound is excellent. It was recorded in front of a small audience, so you get some applause, but the sound quality is more like a studio session than a concert. In 2023, five of the songs from this concert were released as bonus tracks on a 30th anniversary edition of Cash's 1993 album "The Wheel," but I didn't use those versions since the bootleg sounded great already.

If you're a Rosanne Cash fan, you should definitely listen to this, but it's good for David Byrne and Lucinda Williams fans too. What's especially great is hearing the rapport between the three of them. It's clear they were all friends, and singing together for fun.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 talk (Rosanne Cash)
02 Seventh Avenue (Rosanne Cash)
03 talk (Rosanne Cash)
04 Roses in the Fire (Rosanne Cash)
05 talk (Rosanne Cash)
06 The Truth about You (Rosanne Cash)
07 talk (David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
08 Roll Back (David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
09 talk (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
10 What We Really Want (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
11 talk (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
12 Wouldn't It Be Loverly (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
13 talk (Rosanne Cash)
14 Seven Year Ache (Rosanne Cash)
15 talk (Rosanne Cash)
16 Sleeping in Paris (Rosanne Cash)
17 talk (Lucinda Williams with Rosanne Cash)
18 Something about What Happens (Lucinda Williams with Rosanne Cash)
19 talk (Lucinda Williams & David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
20 Tonight I Think I'm Going to Go Downtown (Lucinda Williams & David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
21 talk (Rosanne Cash)
22 The Wheel (Rosanne Cash)
23 talk (Rosanne Cash with Lucinda Williams & David Byrne)
24 Wandering (Rosanne Cash with Lucinda Williams & David Byrne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16082763/ROSANNC1993b_ClumbiRcrdsRdioHrNwYrkC__5-16-1993_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of Cash, Bryne, and Williams together. There are only a few of Cash and Bryne together, and none of them very good. So I went with a photo of Cash and Williams. Unfortunately, it's from waaaaay after this concert. It's from a 2015 concert, in fact. But I honestly don't think they look that different in this picture than how they looked in the 1990s.

Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven - Non-Album Tracks, 1992-1994

The last two times I posted an Eric Clapton album, I commented that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for his music due to his idiotic public stance about the Covid vaccine. But I've made my point there, so I'll just move on and post more of his music, since I created a bunch of stray tracks albums and other people might want to hear them. Sadly, there are lots of great musicians who have unfortunate beliefs or personal lives.

This album contains Clapton's big hit "Tears in Heaven," which was emotionally fueled by the tragic death of one of his children at a very young age. The song was a Top Ten hit in many countries, including the U.S. and Britain. But many more people got it by buying the live version on the album "Unplugged," which ended up selling nearly 30 million copies! 

However, the studio version appeared on a different album, the soundtrack to the movie "Rush." This is an odd album, because almost all of the songs are instrumentals written and performed by Clapton, plus "Tears in Heaven," plus the poppy sounding Clapton song "Help Me Up," and a long blues jam sung by Buddy Guy. I ultimately only included three songs from this album: "Tears in Heaven," "Help Me Up," and what I considered the best of the instrumentals, "Tracks and Lines." If you like that one, you should listen to the whole album. 

"Loving Your Lovin'" is from another movie soundtrack. "Stone Free" and "You Must Believe Me" are from tribute albums.

That leaves the unreleased tracks. Tracks 5, 6, and 7 are all Bob Dylan songs that Clapton planned to perform for the 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992 that celebrated 30 years of Dylan's music career. However, instead of being the live versions released on the official album of that concert, these are rehearsal versions that lucky have excellent sound quality. Also, the duet with Dylan on the song "t Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" only happened in the rehearsal, not the actual concert.

Finally, "Tell Me Mama" is from a concert bootleg. "Born Under a Bad Sign" is from a rehearsal for a blues themed concert.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Help Me Up (Eric Clapton)
02 Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
03 Tracks and Lines [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
04 Loving Your Lovin' (Eric Clapton)
05 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Eric Clapton)
06 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Bob Dylan & Eric Clapton)
07 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Eric Clapton)
08 Stone Free (Eric Clapton)
09 Tell Me Mama (Eric Clapton)
10 You Must Believe Me (Eric Clapton)
11 Born Under a Bad Sign (Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16073488/EricC_1992-1994_TarsinHeavn_atse.zip.html

The cover is largely based on the cover art for the single of "Tears in Heaven." However, I made some changes in Photoshop, like moving and/or resizing some of the text, and getting rid of some other text.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1977-1979

I've been posting albums at this blog for over five years now, and there still are tons of great musical artists that I haven't posted anything for yet, or only a little bit. The British band Squeeze is a case in point. I like them a lot, and I have many albums to post, but so far all I've posted are a couple albums from lead singer Glenn Tilbrook's solo career. So let me start to rectify that by posting a series of BBC albums.

Squeeze's first release was an EP in 1977, and then the full-length album "Squeeze" in 1978. This was a strange start for the band, because both the EP and the album were produced by John Cale, a former member of the band the Velvet Underground, and he pushed the band into a musical style they weren't comfortable with. That's often the case here, since many of the songs are from that first EP and first album.

The first four songs are from a BBC studio session in 1977. The session was hosted by famous BBC DJ John Peel. He was a key early supporter when they started out, but he lost interest after they got famous (which was part of a common pattern for him). 

The next two songs, tracks five and six, are from a short BBC concert in early 1978. I've only included two songs because the sound quality of that concert is merely good, not excellent, and most of the songs were done at other BBC sessions. But I had to at least include "Take Me, I'm Yours," since it's their first hit and most popular song from this time period.

The next four songs, tracks seven through 10, are from another John Peel BBC studio session in 1978. 

Finally, the last two songs are from an appearance on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1979. Both of those songs came out on the band's second album, "Cool for Cats." There are more key songs from that album, but sadly it seems they didn't make any other BBC appearances in 1979.

All the John Peel sessions songs, tracks one through four and seven through 10, have been released on the official album "The Complete BBC Sessions." But the others are still unreleased.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 Cat on a Wall (Squeeze)
02 Model (Squeeze)
03 All Fed Up (Squeeze)
04 Sex Master (Squeeze)
05 Take Me, I'm Yours (Squeeze)
06 Backtrack (Squeeze)
07 Bang Bang (Squeeze)
08 Ain't It Sad (Squeeze)
09 I Must Go (Squeeze)
10 The Knack (Squeeze)
11 Slap and Tickle (Squeeze)
12 It's So Dirty (Squeeze)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068402/Squze_1977-1979_BBSessonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a promo photo from around this time.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Phoenix Festival, Long Marston Airfield, Stratford-upon-Avon, Britain, 7-13-1995

I got so carried away posting BBC albums from other artists that I forgot I'd started posting a series of BBC albums from Paul Weller's solo career. But I've remembered, and now here's another one. There are many more to come.

This is another full BBC concert. Many BBC concerts were released on the box set "At the BBC." I've decided some of them are too similar to others for me to want to post them all here. Some of them also are shortened concerts, edited down to an hour or less. I'm trying to post the full-length concerts. The last one I did was from 1994. This one is just a year later. But in the meantime, he released his best selling solo album, "Stanley Road," so I think that's good reason for another concert here.

At first, I assumed this would be very straightforward, I would just post the concert from the "At the BBC" box set. But it turned out to be much more difficult than that. Listening to the concert from that box set again, I realized that there was absolutely no banter between songs whatsoever. And while Weller isn't the most loquacious person in the world, I figured he would at least say some things. 

So I found a soundboard bootleg of this exact same concert before the box set was released and I discovered that indeed there was some banter here and there. Thus, I kept the music from the box set version, figuring it's probably of slightly better sound quality (although both versions sounded the same to me). But I took all the bits of banter between songs that I could find and I pasted them in. So this combined version is arguably better than either the bootleg or box set versions. However, note that the bootleg version was missing four songs, so it could be there were some bits of banter before those songs that I missed.

Noel Gallagher, the lead guitarist and primary songwriter for the British band Oasis, joined Weller for the final encore. Gallagher was extremely popular at this time, which was at the height of the "Britpop" movement. The second Oasis studio album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" wouldn't get released until October 1995. But Weller and Gallagher played a song off it, kind of, an instrumental called "The Swamp Song." I say "kind of" because it was broken into two unnamed snippets of less than a minute each for the album. The full version was released as a B-side to the big hit "Wonderwall." On the recorded version, Weller played harmonica while Gallagher wailed on lead guitar, so that's what they did in this concert version as well.

After that, Gallagher also stayed for the final song, "I Walk on Gilded Splinters." That was originally done by Dr. John, but Weller did a version for his "Stanley Road" album.

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 talk (Paul Weller)
02 The Changingman (Paul Weller)
03 Hung Up (Paul Weller)
04 talk (Paul Weller)
05 Has My Fire Really Gone Out (Paul Weller)
06 Whirlpools' End (Paul Weller)
07 talk (Paul Weller)
08 Uh Huh Oh Yeh (Paul Weller)
09 Out of the Sinking (Paul Weller)
10 I Didn't Mean to Hurt You (Paul Weller)
11 Porcelain Gods (Paul Weller)
12 talk (Paul Weller)
13 Stanley Road (Paul Weller)
14 You Do Something to Me (Paul Weller)
15 Can You Heal Us [Holy Man] (Paul Weller)
16 talk (Paul Weller)
17 Shadow of the Sun (Paul Weller)
18 Sunflower (Paul Weller)
19 talk (Paul Weller)
20 Into Tomorrow (Paul Weller)
21 talk (Paul Weller)
22 Broken Stones (Paul Weller)
23 talk (Paul Weller)
24 Woodcutter's Son (Paul Weller)
25 talk (Paul Weller)
26 The Swamp Song [Instrumental] (Paul Weller & Noel Gallagher)
27 I Walk on Gilded Splinters (Paul Weller & Noel Gallagher)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16075952/PaulW_1995_BBSessonsVolum4InConcrtPhoenxFestivlStratfrdupnAvnBrtain__7-13-1995_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Weller comes from an appearance on the TV show "White Room" in 1995. By coincidence, Gallagher also played with Weller during that appearance.

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Michael Nesmith - Listen to the Band (1968) (A GUEST POST BY MIKE SOLOF)

Recently, I came across a music blog called "Talk from the Rock Room." It discussed a non-existent "album that should exist" by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. But the blog had no actual album to download and listen to. I think the idea was a good one, so I asked my musical friend Mike Solof if he could put something together. He's a big Monkees fan, so he agreed. This is the result. It follows the track list of the "Rock Room" music blog, but has some extra songs at the end.

Most of these songs were recorded in 1968. Even though Nesmith was a member of the Monkees at the time, he was backed by studio musicians in Nashville, Tennessee who specialized in country music. No other members of the Monkees were involved I believe, so this should be considered a Nesmith solo album, even though most of the songs eventually came out on Monkees albums, especially archival releases.

Keep in mind that "country rock" was just coming into being in 1968. "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," an album released by the Byrds in August 1968, is widely considered the first country rock album. But all but one of the songs here were recorded before that album was released. Had these songs been released in late 1968, as they should have been, Nesmith would have rightly been considered one of the founders of country rock. Instead, most of these stayed in the vaults, though a couple came out on Monkees albums, with "Listen to the Band" in particular being a minor hit in 1969 after extra horns were added.

As usual, Mike has written more extensive notes in a PDF, and in this case it includes notes taken from the "Rock Room" essay about this imagined album. But I just want to further note that the only song here not recorded by mid-1968 is "Down the Highway." We thought it was, but shortly before posting this, I found out it was actually recorded in 1969. However, it fits with the rest musical, so we've kept it. Also note that the last three songs are acoustic demos of songs earlier in the album, so one might consider them bonus tracks.

This album is 41 minutes long. If you don't include the last four songs ("Down the Highway" and the acoustic demos), the core of this album, all but one song recorded in Nashville, is 32 minutes long.

Finally, thanks to the "Talk from the Rock Room" blog for allowing us to use their idea and much of their text about it.

01 Listen to the Band (Michael Nesmith)
02 Propinquity [I've Just Begun to Care] (Michael Nesmith)
03 St. Matthew (Michael Nesmith)
04 The Crippled Lion (Michael Nesmith)
05 Good Clean Fun (Michael Nesmith)
06 Don't Wait for Me (Michael Nesmith)
07 Some of Shelley's Blues (Michael Nesmith)
08 How Insensitive [Insensatez] (Michael Nesmith)
09 Hollywood (Michael Nesmith)
10 Carlisle Wheeling (Michael Nesmith)
11 Nine Times Blue (Michael Nesmith)
12 If I Ever Get to Saginaw Again (Michael Nesmith)
13 Down the Highway (Michael Nesmith)
14 Propinquity [I've Just Begun to Care] [Demo] (Michael Nesmith)
15 St. Matthew [Demo] (Michael Nesmith)
16 Nine Times Blue [Demo] (Michael Nesmith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16072728/MchaelNsmth_1968_ListntotheBnd_atse.zip.html

For the cover photo, I found some screenshots taken from the Monkees TV show in which the characters dressed up in cowboy outfits. I used one of Nesmith.

Irma Thomas - Slim's, San Francisco, CA, 6-17-1995

Irma Thomas has had a long career singing soul music, and she's still going as I write this in late 2023. However, she's not considered a big name like, say Aretha Franklin or Etta James, so there are very few good bootleg concerts by her. But I recently came across this one. I was impressed with both the sound quality and the performance, so I'm posting it.

Here's the Wikipedia page about her, if you want to know more:

Irma Thomas - Wikipedia

One thing that sets her apart from most soul singers in that she was born near New Orleans, and lived most of her life there, so many of her songs are influenced by the New Orleans sound. She's even called "The Soul Queen of New Orleans." She had a few hits in the early 1960s, but none since then, and she even retired from singing altogether for most of the 1980s, running a club instead. But she resumed her career in the early 1990s, and while her sales weren't great, she was steadily critically acclaimed. She won a Grammy Award in 2007.

She put out a live album in 1991, called "Live! Simply the Best." I wasn't going to post this for fear that it was too similar to that album. But I checked the set lists, and most of the songs are different, with only her classic hits like "Time Is on My Side," "It's Raining," and "Wish Someone Would Care" being the same. So if you have that, I think you'll still want this.

The lead vocals were rather low in the mix, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost them relative to the instruments for all the songs.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Intro - Don't Mess with My Man (Irma Thomas)
02 Cry On (Irma Thomas)
03 I Did My Part (Irma Thomas)
04 Ruler of My Heart (Irma Thomas)
05 Hittin' On Nothin' (Irma Thomas)
06 It's Raining (Irma Thomas)
07 I Done Got Over It (Irma Thomas)
08 Iko Iko - Hey Pocky Way - I Done Got Over It [Reprise] (Irma Thomas)
09 Time Is on My Side (Irma Thomas)
10 talk (Irma Thomas)
11 Breakaway (Irma Thomas)
12 Wish Someone Would Care (Irma Thomas)
13 Baby, I Love You (Irma Thomas)
14 I Just Had to Hear Your Voice (Irma Thomas)
15 Get Here (Irma Thomas)
16 talk (Irma Thomas)
17 We're Gonna Make It (Irma Thomas)
18 Simply the Best (Irma Thomas)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16071778/IrmaThms_1995_SlimsSnFrncscoCA__6-17-1995_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos of Thomas from 1995. The one I used is from a festival in Nice, France, in 1994.

More Copyright Trouble

I just got notified that the album "Cover Songs, Volume 3: 1994-1999" by Elton John has been hidden due to some copyright violation. However, I've had that same album posted at my YouTube page for a couple of weeks, and I haven't had any copyright trouble there. Normally, I post links from my YouTube page back to this blog to get people to download the files. But in this case, I just changed the link at the end of my write-up on my YouTube page for this album. So if you still want to download that album, go here to get the link:

Elton John - Cover Versions, Volume 3: 1994-1999 - YouTube

Meanwhile, a couple of days ago, I got my very first notice from upload.ee of a copyright violation. They deleted the link to the Eric Clapton stray tracks album "Hoodoo Man" that I posted recently. So a couple of days ago, I just changed that link from a upload.ee one to an Imagenetz one. So far, so good. But in both these cases, you should get these while you still can, because who knows if the situation will change.

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/12/eric-clapton-hoodoo-man-non-album.html

Having a YouTube page has shown me just how random copyright enforcement is. Keep in mind that this blog and YouTube are both owned by Google, so you'd think their copyright violation finding bots would work the same. But clearly, they don't. So until and unless I run into more serious trouble, I'll continue posting things here that don't get allowed there, and vice versa. I'm just following their rules and taking down what I'm told to only where I'm told to. Let's hope that keeps working.

Paul McCartney - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-26-2004

I recently stumbled across this Paul McCartney BBC concert the big yearly Glastonbury Festival in 2004. I wanted to post it, but I'd already posted BBC concerts by him that took place in 2005 and 2007. This is the second one, since I also posted on from 1990. So the 2005 one got renamed to "Volume 3" and the 2007 got renamed to "Volume 4." Here are the links to those, if you want to get the updated cover art and mp3 tags and so forth.

Volume 3:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/07/paul-mccartney-chaos-and-creation-at.html

Volume 4:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/06/paul-mccartney-bbc-sessions-volume-3.html

Although this is only one year apart from that 2005 BBC concert I just mentioned, their set lists are very different. The key is that in 2005, McCartney would be promoting his new album "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," and he'd play a lot of songs from that. Plus, he generally played more deep cuts from his vast back catalog. Whereas for this concert he didn't have a new album to promote, and he had a huge audience of over 150,000 people to entertain. So this is much more a greatest hits type concert. Virtually every song is a classic, and most were big hits.

What is contained here sounds great, as you'd expect from the BBC. It's also a decent length for a concert. But unfortunately, many songs were not broadcast, so they don't appear here:

Got to Get You into My Life
All My Loving
She's a Woman
Maybe I'm Amazed
The Long and Winding Road
In Spite of All the Danger
We Can Work It Out
Here Today
All Things Must Pass
Yellow Submarine
I'll Follow the Sun
Calico Skies
Eleanor Rigby
I've Got a Feeling

Woe be the BBC employee given the task of cutting this concert down to a reasonable length, because those are some great songs that got the axe. That could have been a great concert all by itself, with about five number one hits included. Basically, what actually was broadcast was the first four songs selected from the first half of the concert, and then the entire second half of the concert in the correct order, starting with "Drive My Car," with only "I've Got a Feeling" cut from the second half. 

Let's hope that someday the full concert recording emerges. And what's crazy is there are so many more classic original songs that even a full version of this concert wouldn't include.

Anyway, as far as I know, this concert is entirely unreleased. In fact, I had a very hard time finding this one on the Internet at all. It took me a few weeks to track down, with the assistance of musical friend Mike Solof, who is a Beatlemaniac and knows more sources than I do. I hope this post will help bring back this recording from obscurity.

This concert is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 Jet (Paul McCartney)
02 Flaming Pie (Paul McCartney)
03 Let Me Roll It (Paul McCartney)
04 talk (Paul McCartney)
05 Blackbird (Paul McCartney)
06 Drive My Car (Paul McCartney)
07 Penny Lane (Paul McCartney)
08 Get Back (Paul McCartney)
09 talk (Paul McCartney)
10 Band on the Run (Paul McCartney)
11 Back in the U.S.S.R. (Paul McCartney)
12 talk (Paul McCartney)
13 Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney)
14 Lady Madonna (Paul McCartney)
15 talk (Paul McCartney)
16 Hey Jude (Paul McCartney)
17 talk (Paul McCartney)
18 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
19 talk (Paul McCartney)
20 Follow Me (Paul McCartney)
21 Let It Be (Paul McCartney)
22 talk (Paul McCartney)
23 I Saw Her Standing There (Paul McCartney)
24 Helter Skelter (Paul McCartney)
25 talk (Paul McCartney)
26 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [Reprise] (Paul McCartney)
27 The End (Paul McCartney)

Unfortunately, the download link had to be removed due to a copyright issue. Sorry.

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Beck - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-26-2016

This is another concert Beck performed for the BBC. 

There's a big time gap between the last BBC album, in 2003, and this one. In 2016, the year of this concert, Beck didn't have any new album to promote. However, he did play one song, "Dreams," that was an early single release for his 2017 album "Colours." So the concert is more of an overview of Beck's entire music career up until that point. Facing the huge Glastonbury Festival audience of well over 100,000, he generally did his best known songs. He also was backed by a band for pretty much the entire concert.

The entire concert is unreleased. However, the sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect from the BBC. It appears to be the full performance.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 Devil's Haircut (Beck)
02 talk (Beck)
03 Black Tambourine (Beck)
04 Loser (Beck)
05 talk (Beck)
06 Hell Yes (Beck)
07 talk (Beck)
08 Mixed Bizness (Beck)
09 talk (Beck)
10 Que Onda Guero (Beck)
11 The New Pollution (Beck)
12 Go It Alone (Beck)
13 Lost Cause (Beck)
14 Soul of a Man (Beck)
15 Think I'm in Love (Beck)
16 Dreams (Beck)
17 talk (Beck)
18 Girl (Beck)
19 talk (Beck)
20 Sexx Laws (Beck)
21 E-Pro (Beck)
22 Where It's At (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16071321/BeckH_2016_BBSessonsVolum5InConcrtGlastnbryFstivlWrthyFrmPltonBrtain__6-26-2016_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

T. Rex (John's Children and Tyrannosaurus Rex) - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967-1968

I've been reluctant to post BBC material from the British glam band T. Rex, because it's a rare case of the record companies actually doing things correct. In 2013, a six CD box set called "Marc Bolan at the BBC" was released, and it has everything one needs, including all the BBC performances of T. Rex band leader Marc Bolan from the start of his music career until his death. However, I decided to post this because I made a couple of important changes. For one, I removed all of the talking between songs (including many lengthy interviews). And two, I fixed all the instances when BBC DJs talked over the music. If you want all that talking between and over the music, the box sex is there for you. But this is version for the people who just want the music.

Like the box set, I've divided Bolan's BBC recordings into six albums. Here's the first one. This actually predates the existence of "T. Rex" per se. The first three songs are from his first band, John's Children. Then he formed a duo with Steve Porter, who changed his name to Steve Peregrin Took, called "Tyrannosaurus Rex." In early 1970, that name was shortened to just "T. Rex." But for consistency I'm just calling everything "T. Rex."

For pretty much Bolan's entire career, his song were instantly recognizable, due to his unique style. The one partial exception to that was the first band he was in, John's Children. That band had already been in existence for about a year when Bolan joined in 1967, and it already had a lead vocalist, Andy Ellison. Bolan joined only as lead guitarist after the band's guitarist left. So on the first three songs here, Ellison sings more than Bolan does. However, if you listen carefully, Bolan does sing some.

Bolan wrote and sang an excellent song for John's Children, "Desdemona." It was that band's first and only hit. Unfortunately, Bolan was only in the band for four months, and only took part in one BBC session, and they didn't do that song, so it's not here. I have three songs by John's Children at the start, but note they actually played four in their one BBC sessions. But for whatever reason, one of the songs, the cover "Daddy Rolling Stone," sounds significantly worse than the rest. So I've only included that one as a bonus track.

Everything else on this album is by Tyrannosaurus Rex, a.k.a. T. Rex, with Bolan on lead vocals. That's much more distinctive. BBC DJ John Peel was a big fan from early on, and many of these sessions were from Peel's show. In the middle of the song "Frowning Atahuallpa," there's a section where Peel recited some poetry written by Bolan. I kept that in, since it was part of the performance.

Bolan's early stuff is pretty unique, and it's not for everyone. Personally, I'm not that big of fan of this, although I do like a lot of his later stuff, after his style changed some. But I'm posting this for the sake of completeness. And if you are a Bolan fan, all his BBC material is essential, especially since virtually no live recordings exist from this early in his career.

01 Jagged Time Lapse [Edit] (John's Children [T. Rex])
02 The Perfumed Garden of Gulliver Smith (John's Children [T. Rex])
04 Hot Rod Mama [Edit] (John's Children [T. Rex])
05 Highways (T. Rex)
06 Dwarfish Trumpet Blues (T. Rex)
07 Scenescof (T. Rex)
08 Child Star (T. Rex)
09 Pictures of Purple People (T. Rex)
10 Hot Rod Mama (T. Rex)
11 Knight (T. Rex)
12 Frowning Atahuallpa (T. Rex)
13 Strange Orchestras (T. Rex)
14 Afghan Woman (T. Rex)
15 Deborah (T. Rex)
16 Mustang Ford (T. Rex)
17 Stacey Grove (T. Rex)
18 One Inch Rock (T. Rex)

Daddy Rolling Stone [Edit] (John's Children [T. Rex])

https://www.upload.ee/files/16064360/TRexx_1967-1968_BBSessonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover is a photo of John's Children. I thought it would be more interesting to show that than just a picture of Bolan from slightly later on.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 5-23-1996

I previously posted a 1996 Mark Knopfler BBC concert. In fact, that one took place a mere four days before this one. But I'm posting both concerts because the set lists are different enough to justify that. 

Here are the six songs that were played in this concert and the one I posted as "BBC Sessions, Volume 2": "Walk of Life," "Last Exit to Brooklyn," "Romeo and Juliet," "Done with Bonaparte," "Brothers in Arms," and "Money for Nothing." In particular, this concert has some key Dire Straits songs not played in the other one: "The Bug," "Calling Elvis," "Sultans of Swing," and "Telegraph Road." This version of "Telegraph Road," which is 15 minutes long, is a particular highlight.

Seven of the songs here were officially released on a deluxe version of the album "Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits" (tracks 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13 and 14.) The rest are unreleased. But the sound quality is excellent throughout. There were no problems.

This album is an hour and 36 minutes long.

01 Darling Pretty (Mark Knopfler)
02 Walk of Life (Mark Knopfler)
03 Imelda (Mark Knopfler)
04 The Bug (Mark Knopfler)
05 Je Suis Desole (Mark Knopfler)
06 Calling Elvis (Mark Knopfler)
07 Last Exit to Brooklyn [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
08 Romeo and Juliet (Mark Knopfler)
09 Sultans of Swing (Mark Knopfler)
10 talk (Mark Knopfler)
11 Done with Bonaparte (Mark Knopfler)
12 Telegraph Road (Mark Knopfler)
13 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler)
14 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler)

https://www.imagenetz.de/ejRS6

The cover photo is from a concert in Hamburg, Germany, in June 1996.

Eric Clapton - Hoodoo Man - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1992)

It's been a year since I last posted an Eric Clapton stray tracks album. I have to admit that I still have lost a lot of enthusiasm for his music ever since he came out strongly against the Covid vaccine. But I have a bunch more of these stray tracks albums by him, so I might as well keep posting them.

Five of the songs here have been officially released. "This Kind of Life" is from a Brendan Croker album. "That Kind of Woman" was actually written by George Harrison, but never recorded by him. Clapton did it for a charity benefit album called "Nobody's Child." "Border Song" was done for "Two Rooms," a tribute album to Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Finally, "The Stilt House" went on the "Lethal Weapon 2" soundtrack and "Runaway Train" went on the "Lethal Weapon 3" soundtrack. 

That leaves five unreleased songs. "Forever" is a studio outtake. The other four are from concert bootlegs. Generally speaking, their sound is very good.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 A Remark You Made [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)
02 Forever (Eric Clapton)
03 This Kind of Life (Brendan Croker & Eric Clapton)
04 The Stilt House [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton, David Sanborn & Michael Kamen)
05 That Kind of Woman (Eric Clapton)
06 Bad Boy (Eric Clapton)
07 Sweet Home Chicago (Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Steve Tyler & Others)
08 Border Song (Eric Clapton)
09 Hoodoo Man (Eric Clapton)
10 Runaway Train (Elton John & Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687967/ERICCLPTN1988-1992_HoodoMn_atse.zip.html

The cover photo seems to be from a promo photo shoot taken around 1989.

Marshall Crenshaw - The Human Jukebox, Volume 5: 1995-2000

Here's another all cover songs album performed by Marshall Crenshaw. You don't have to be a fan of his original material to enjoy his covers of lots of different styles of music, often doing obscure gems.

On this volume in particular, Crenshaw digs deeper into the obscurities than on previous volumes. There are a few classic hits covered here, but only a few. By the way, the song "'Til I Hear It from You" isn't exactly a cover song. This was a big hit for the Gin Blossoms in 1995. But Crenshaw actually co-wrote, though he never recorded his own version on any album. So I thought it would be interesting to include that too.

This album is 47 minutes long.

This is a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Don't Forget Me - Harry Nilsson
02 Wanda and Duane - Dave Alvin
03 All or Nothin' at All - Bruce Springsteen
04 Sock It to Me, Santa - Bob Seger
05 I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone - Elvis Presley
06 Blue Eyed Elaine - Earnest Tubb
07 Fire - Jimi Hendrix
08 My Back Pages - Bob Dylan
09 My Mommy and Santa Claus - Lonnie & Lottie
10 My True Love - Bobby Fuller Four
11 'Til I Hear It from You - Gin Blossoms
12 Treasure of Love - Clyde McPhatter
13 Journey to the Center of Your Mind - Amboy Dukes
14 Love's Theme [Instrumental] - Barry White & Love Unlimited Orchestra

Here's the usual song list:

01 Don't Forget Me (Marshall Crenshaw)
02 Wanda and Duane (Marshall Crenshaw)
03 All or Nothin' at All (Marshall Crenshaw)
04 Sock It to Me, Santa (Marshall Crenshaw with the Chisel Brothers)
05 I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone (Marshall Crenshaw)
06 Blue Eyed Elaine (Marshall Crenshaw)
07 Fire (Marshall Crenshaw)
08 My Back Pages (Marshall Crenshaw)
09 My Mommy and Santa Claus (Marshall Crenshaw)
10 My True Love (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 'Til I Hear It from You (Marshall Crenshaw)
12 Treasure of Love (Marshall Crenshaw)
13 Journey to the Center of Your Mind (Marshall Crenshaw)
14 Love's Theme [Instrumental] (Marshall Crenshaw)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16060910/MarshallC_1995-2000_ThHumnJkeboxVolum5_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at the House of Blues in October 1995. I don't know which exact venue though, since there are a bunch with that name.

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Sheryl Crow - The Good Fight - Non-Album Tracks (2018-2020)

Phew. Sheryl Crow has sooo many stray tracks. This is the nineteenth album of non-album tracks I've posted so far, and I still have two more to go to get caught up to the present day.

By now, you probably know the drill. This is the usual mix of released and unreleased tracks. There are six released tracks this time, and in four cases they're from Crow appearing on albums by other artists. The two others are A-sides ("Woman in the White House" and "Lonely Town, Lonely Street").

As for the three unreleased tracks, those are "Tumbling Dice," "Walk Away," and "Redemption Day." "Tumbling Dice" sounds a bit rough, and just barely made the cut. Everything else on the album sounds very good though. As for the song "Redemption Day," Crow has done versions just by herself and also as a duet with Johnny Cash. This is another duet version, but with Bruce Springsteen singing Cash's part.

There are two bonus tracks, both from bootlegs. The sound quality wasn't good enough for those.

This album is 39 minutes long, not counting the bonus tracks.

01 My Sweet Love (Reef & Sheryl Crow)
02 The Good Fight (Timothy B. Schmit & Sheryl Crow)
03 Tumbling Dice (Sheryl Crow)
04 Turn Off the News [Build a Garden] (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real & Sheryl Crow)
05 Walk Away (Sheryl Crow & Joe Walsh)
06 Redemption Day (Sheryl Crow & Bruce Springsteen)
07 Everywhere You Go (Ziggy Marley & Sheryl Crow)
08 Woman in the White House [2020 Version] (Sheryl Crow)
09 Lonely Town, Lonely Street (Sheryl Crow with Citizen Cope)

Black Dog (Robert Plant & Sheryl Crow)
When Will I Be Loved (Sheryl Crow)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16054504/SherylC_2018-2020_ThGoodFght_atse.zip.html

This time, I used a concert poster for the album cover. I had to cut off a lot of the bottom part of the poster to get it to fit. I also write the album name over where the name of her back up band had been. (It used to say "and the Thieves.")

Elton John - Cover Versions, Volume 3: 1994-1999

Here's another album of cover songs by Elton John. As with the previous albums in this series, I collected covers he didn't put on his studio albums, which usually meant live performances.

During this time period, Elton John did a lot of joint tours with Billy Joel. They did a fair amount of interaction, playing songs together, or having John sing one of Joel's songs, or vice versa. So a bunch of songs here are from that. For instance, John did covers of Joel's "New York State of Mind," "My Life," and "Uptown Girl," and together they performed "A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles and a medley of the 1950s classics "Lucille" and "Great Balls of Fire."

Five songs here have been officially released, and those are the five songs that are also studio tracks. One of those songs, "Little Island," is a Randy Newman song that John sang on a Randy Newman album. The other four (tracks 3, 6, 7, and 11) are from tribute albums.

The remaining seven unreleased songs are all from concert bootlegs. John is famous enough that I believe these are all from soundboard recordings, so the sound is excellent throughout.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 New York State of Mind (Elton John)
02 A Hard Day's Night (Elton John & Billy Joel)
03 I'm Your Man (Elton John)
04 Little Island (Elton John with Randy Newman)
05 Sand and Water (Elton John)
06 Don't Stop (Elton John)
07 Stand by Your Man (Elton John)
08 Lucille - Great Balls of Fire (Elton John & Billy Joel)
09 My Life (Elton John & Billy Joel)
10 Uptown Girl (Elton John & Billy Joel)
11 Twentieth Century Blues (Elton John)
12 Still the One (Shania Twain & Elton John)

The download link has been removed due to copyright issues. However, look at the comments below.

The cover photo is from a concert in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1995.

Friday, December 15, 2023

Foamfoot (The Black Crowes and Others) - The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA, 1-8-1994

So who the heck was Foamfoot? This was a band made up of a couple key members of the Black Crowes, plus a key member of Jellyfish, plus others, that came together to play one concert entirely of cover songs back in 1994. The concert was professionally recorded for official release, but it never actually got released. But it makes for a great concert album because they guys really knew how to play classic rock. And, as a bonus, David Crosby joined in to sing a song.

The Black Crowes have mainly been led by the Robinson brothers, with Chris Robinson on lead vocals and Rich Robinson on vocals and guitar. But another key member in the 1990s was Marc Ford on lead guitar. The band was at the height of their popularity and creativity around 1994, with their first two albums selling millions in the U.S. 

Jimmy Ashurst, bass player from the Ju Ju Hounds, later explained what happened next. "There were several jams with Chris (Robinson), Marc (Ford), and Andy (Sturmer – drummer for Jellyfish). Chris was for the first time in his career living far from his brother Rich and I think he was interested in seeing what he was capable of doing without him. The live shows we did, Foamfoot and Big Toe, were more for fun and we did covers of other people’s songs."

So, as mentioned in that quote, in addition to this one show as Foamfoot, there was another show or two by the same band using the name "Big Toe," but that's mostly forgotten due to the lack of a high quality recording like this one. Furthermore, in late 1993, basically the same group of people plus a couple more did some recordings of songs written by Chris Robinson using the band name "Sweet Pickle Salad." Those have never been released, but exist on bootleg. 

In addition to the band members previously mentioned (Chris Robinson, Marc Ford, Jimmy Ashurst, and Andy Sturmer), Eric Bobo also played in the band on percussion. He'd previously played with Cypress Hill and the Beastie Boys. And note that while Sturmer was a key lead vocalist and songwriter for Jellyfish as well as being the band's drummer, in this band he just played drums. Furthermore, Gary Louris of the Jayhawks joined in to play guitar on one song in this concert. And David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, and Nash dropped in to help sing a song he wrote, "Long Time Gone."

This band seems to have been mainly led by Chris Robinson, and since he's the lead vocalist of the Black Crowes, it sounds a heck of a lot like the Black Crowes doing a bunch of cover songs. And although that band was most popular in the 1990s, they were heavily influenced by the classic rock of the early 1970s, especially bands like the Rolling Stones, the Faces, and Southern Rock bands like the Allman Brothers. In fact, in 2022, a reformed Black Crowes put out an EP called "1972" containing covers of songs from 1972 by those types of bands.

Given all that, it's not too surprising that the covers here are mostly from the early 1970s, plus a few from the 1960s. Here are the original artists for each song:

01 talk (Foamfoot)
02 Walk in My Shadow - Free
03 Bottle of Red Wine - Eric Clapton
05 Tin Soldier - Small Faces
07 Take the Highway - Marshall Tucker Band
08 Deal - Grateful Dead
10 Love Me Till the Sun Shines - Kinks
12 Long Time Gone - Crosby, Stills and Nash
14 Jemima Surrender - Band
15 One Way Out - Sonny Boy Williamson II / Allman Brothers Band
17 Presence of the Lord - Blind Faith

The sound quality is excellent. Note that this bootleg has gotten around a lot. There are rumors that the band members made it available as a bootleg after they couldn't get it officially released. But most of the versions had the last song, "Presence of the Lord," fade out before it ended. But a year or two ago (as I write this in 2023), a compete version of the song was posted on YouTube, so I used that version.

Even if you're not familiar with the Black Crowes, if you like classic rock from the early 1970s, you should enjoy this, because it's expertly sung and played by people who clearly love this kind of music.

Here's the usual song list:

01 talk (Foamfoot)
02 Walk in My Shadow (Foamfoot)
03 Bottle of Red Wine (Foamfoot)
04 talk (Foamfoot)
05 Tin Soldier (Foamfoot)
06 talk (Foamfoot)
07 Take the Highway (Foamfoot with Gary Lewis)
08 Deal (Foamfoot)
09 talk (Foamfoot)
10 Love Me Till the Sun Shines (Foamfoot)
11 talk (Foamfoot)
12 Long Time Gone (Foamfoot with David Crosby)
13 talk (Foamfoot)
14 Jemima Surrender (Foamfoot)
15 One Way Out (Foamfoot)
16 talk (Foamfoot)
17 Presence of the Lord (Foamfoot)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16055299/Foamfoot_1994_ThTroubdourLsAnglesCA__1-8-1994_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of Foamfoot. The popular bootleg of this concert just uses a drawing of a crow. So instead I used a photo of Chris Robinson, singing at a Black Crowes concert in 1993.

Iggy Pop with David Bowie - Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, 3-21-1977

It's high time I post something from Iggy Pop, so he's a concert from probably the most pivotal year of his music career. Plus, this could be of interest for David Bowie fans. Bowie was involved in every song here, but... only in a backing role. He played keyboards and sang backing vocals, but no lead vocals at all. You can see him sitting at the keyboards in the background of the cover photo.

It's fitting that Bowie was involved, because he played a pivotal role at this point in Pop's career. Pop had a few wasted years in the middle of the 1970s after Pop's band the Stooges broke up, mostly due to drug abuse. Bowie helped Pop get a solo career started. He co-wrote nearly all the songs on Pop's albums "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life," and produced and played some instruments on them for good measure. Still, the albums were more Pop than Bowie, and they were very critically acclaimed. They probably still are the most praised albums of Pop's career. However, sales weren't that good, although the albums at least reached the Top Forty in the U.S. and Britain.

In early 1977, Bowie had just released an acclaimed album of his own, "Low." But rather than tour to support it, he joined Pop's tour band for about six weeks. Pop went on to tour a lot more that year without Bowie, but this concert happens to be one with Bowie. Bowie deliberately kept a low profile during these concerts, never singing lead vocals or addressing the audience. However, if you listen carefully, you can often make out his voice with the backing vocals.

This concert happened after the release of "The Idiot," but before the release of "Lust for Life." So it mostly consists of songs from "The Idiot," plus songs from when Pop was in the Stooges.

After releasing "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life," Pop had one more album on his record company contract. So he decided to release a live album from his 1977 shows that ended up getting called "TV Eye Live 1977." Unfortunately, it was a pretty bad album. Pop put most of the production costs in his own pocket and had it produced and mastered very cheaply, which resulted in poor sound quality. So, for instance, although allmusic.com reviews gave both "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life" five stars out of five stars, "TV Eye Live 1977" only got one and a half stars. So there has been a big need for a good live album from his 1977 concerts.

Happily, in 2020, a box set called "The Bowie Years" was released. Not only did it include all three albums mentioned above, it included three full soundboard-based concerts. Two of those have disappointing sound quality though, and this one was the best, by far. So I'm posting this here to give this concert the prominence it deserves. 

I didn't have any problems with the recording, except for two near the end. First, the last song, "China Girl," faded out before the song ended. So I took the last bit from one of the other concerts in "The Bowie Years" and used that to give that song a decent finish. 

And second, this concert was lacking the song "Lust for Life," and that's my favorite Pop song from 1977. So I added that at the very end as a quasi-bonus track. That version comes from a concert in Manchester, Britain, in September 1977.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. Just the Cleveland part (without "Lust for Life") is 57 minutes long.

01 Raw Power (Iggy Pop)
02 T.V. Eye (Iggy Pop)
03 Dirt (Iggy Pop)
04 1969 (Iggy Pop)
05 Turn Blue (Iggy Pop)
06 Funtime (Iggy Pop)
07 Gimme Danger (Iggy Pop)
08 No Fun (Iggy Pop)
09 Sister Midnight (Iggy Pop)
10 I Need Somebody (Iggy Pop)
11 Search and Destroy (Iggy Pop)
12 I Wanna Be Your Dog (Iggy Pop)
13 China Girl [Edit] (Iggy Pop)
14 Lust for Life (Iggy Pop)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16050169/IggPp_1977_AgraBllroomClevelndOH__3-21-1977_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is actually two photos put together. I wanted a photo that showed Pop and Bowie together on stage, but I could only find photos of either Pop or Bowie. So I used Photoshop to put Pop in front of a photo of Bowie (and a couple of strangers standing at the side of the stage). Both photos were from the same concert, at the Rainbow Theatre in London, on March 7, 1977. So that was about two weeks before this concert.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 8-15-1982

I have a problem with posting this Joe Jackson BBC album. When I posted Volume 1 in this series, it was taken down due to a copyright violation. Much of that album was sources from the official album "Live at the BBC." Unfortunately, this entire album is sourced from that too. So I figure if I post this, I might get in more trouble. And I don't want to risk it because I don't know how much danger I'm in. For instance, there's no "three strikes and you're out" policy, or any other policy I know of.

As a result, I'm not going to post a link to a download file. However, if it so happens that someone else posts a link in the comments section, I'm not going to stop them. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

But even though I'm not posting a link (cough), I can still talk about this music. Much changed for Jackson since the previous BBC album I posted, which was a 1980 concert. In 1981, he put out an album that was a tribute to swing and jump blues songs from the 1940s, called "Jumpin' Jive." Then, in 1982, he released the album "Night and Day." It was a collection of original songs, but it moved in a jazzier direction, and was especially influenced by the songwriting of Cole Porter. That was the album he was promoting with this concert, and most of the songs are from it.

This concert is 55 minutes long.

01 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
02 Cancer (Joe Jackson)
03 Real Men (Joe Jackson)
04 Breaking Us in Two (Joe Jackson)
05 Fools in Love (Joe Jackson)
06 Chinatown (Joe Jackson)
07 Target (Joe Jackson)
08 T. V. Age (Joe Jackson)
09 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
10 Tuxedo Junction (Joe Jackson)
11 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson) 

The download link has been removed due to copyright issues. However, look at the comments below.

The only thing I know about the photo used on the cover is that it was taken at a concert in New York City in 1982.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Shocking Blue - The Star Dancing ‘83, Den Helder, Netherlands, 12-28-1984

These days, at least in the U.S. and Britain, the Dutch band Shocking Blue are mainly known as "one hit wonders" for their song "Venus." And that makes sense, because that song hit Number One in the U.S. and they never had any other Top Forty hits in either country. But they had many more good songs than that. For instance, they had 13 Top Twenty hits in the Netherlands, their native country, and many hits in other European countries.

I never thought I'd post a Shocking Blue album here, because I didn't know of any worthy rare or unreleased material. For instance, I never came across any bootleg concerts by them. But I recently found this. I think it's definitely worthy. Admittedly, it isn't from the band's prime time together, from 1967 to 1974. The band broke up for about ten years, but then all the original members of the band briefly reunited around 1984. I believe different versions of the band kept going until lead singer Mariska Veres died in 2006. But I consider this more legitimate since it was the entire original band.

In my opinion, Mariska Veres got most of the attention for her vocals and good looks, but the band's secret weapon was lead guitar player Robbie Van Leeuwen, due to his songwriting. Not only did he write all of Shocking Blue's hits, but he wrote hits for bands before (the Motions) and after (Mistrial) as well. They really should have been bigger, but I'm pretty sure they were held back by the simple fact that they were a Dutch band. Back in the 1960s and 70s, it was extremely hard for any musical act to make it the English speaking world if they weren't from an English speaking country like the U.S., Canada, Ireland, or Britain. Shocking Blue made it with the song "Venus" because it was pretty much an unstoppable hit. But they could have had many more in better circumstances. They've gained a lot of credibility in retrospect, especially after Nirvana covered one of their songs ("Love Buzz").

This album has been sold in a limited basis with the name "Comeback." But I looked it up and I'm confident it's a grey market release, meaning the band's record company never approved it and the band hasn't profited from it. That's why it's only been on sale in a few countries with lax copyright enforcement, like Russia.

But regardless of that, the sound quality is excellent. Clearly, it's a soundboard recording. In fact, maybe the only downside is that the audience is rather quiet. I gather due to the smattering of clapping after some songs that they were played in a club to a small audience. But I tried to boost the volume of the applause after most songs. And I patched more clapping in after the last one, since that came to an abrupt end and left a bad feeling.

Most of the band's hits are here. But there's a surprising number of covers. There are two songs by Jefferson Airplane: "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." Lead singer Mariska Veres sounds so much like Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick that it's almost uncanny. There's also a cover of "This Wheel's on Fire," originally by Bob Dylan and the Band, and "Crazy on You" by Heart.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Shocking Blue)
02 Send Me a Postcard (Shocking Blue)
03 talk (Shocking Blue)
04 Long and Lonesome Road (Shocking Blue)
05 talk (Shocking Blue)
06 Somebody to Love (Shocking Blue)
07 Never Marry a Railroadman (Shocking Blue)
08 White Rabbit (Shocking Blue)
09 Venus (Shocking Blue)
10 talk (Shocking Blue)
11 Hot Sand (Shocking Blue)
12 talk (Shocking Blue)
13 Inkpot (Shocking Blue)
14 talk (Shocking Blue)
15 Never Release the One You Love (Shocking Blue)
16 talk (Shocking Blue)
17 This Wheel's on Fire (Shocking Blue)
18 Mighty Joe (Shocking Blue)
19 talk (Shocking Blue)
20 Crazy on You (Shocking Blue)
21 talk (Shocking Blue)
22 Out of Sight - Blossom Lady - Let Me Carry Your Bag (Shocking Blue)
23 Shocking You (Shocking Blue)
24 talk (Shocking Blue)
25 Venus [Reprise] (Shocking Blue)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16046581/ShckingBlu_1984_TheStrDancng83DnHeldrNtherlnds__12-28-1984_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos of the band from their 1984 reunion era. So instead I went with a promo photo from the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne - Joan Osborne Sings Grateful Dead Songs, Volume 4 (2006)

I've already posted three volumes of Joan Osborne singing lead vocals on Grateful Dead songs with the band Phil Lesh and Friends. This the fourth, and unfortunately, last album in the series.

As with the others in this series, the entire tour was professionally recorded and released at the time, so the sound quality here is great. Also like the others, the songs are in chronological order from when they were played in concert.

Most of the songs here are Grateful Dead originals, but not all of them. "Let the Good Times Roll" and "In the Midnight Hour" are classic songs in their own right that were frequently covered by the Dead. "Blue Sky" was never performed by the Dead. However, it's by the Allman Brothers Band, another famous jam band from the same era, so it fits right in. Finally, just like the last volume, a Ryan Adams song was performed, "Peaceful Valley."

This album is one hour long, more or less exactly.

01 Attics of My Life (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
02 Here Comes Sunshine (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
03 Blue Sky (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
04 Reuben and Cherise (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
05 Lazy River Road (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
06 Let the Good Times Roll (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
07 Peaceful Valley (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
08 In the Midnight Hour (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16049341/JoanO_2006d_JoanOsbrneSngsGrtefulDdSngsVolum4_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows Osborne at some point during this 2006 tour, but I don't know the details.

Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton - The Bottom Line, New York City, 5-9-1989

We're very lucky to have this recording. In 1989, Eric Clapton joined Carl Perkins for a bunch of songs in concert. I looked it up at a comprehensive Clapton fan site, and believe that's the only time that happened. Yet somehow a soundboard recording leaked to the public.

The first half or so of this is just Perkins and his usual band. That's quite nice all by itself, with this sound quality. But track 11 introduces Clapton, and he stayed on stage for the rest of the concert. It seems like they planned this in advance and may even have practiced some, because Clapton was quite involved and seemed to know what he was doing, including joining in on backing vocals a lot. He even sang lead for part of the song "Matchbox."

If anyone know more about this concert, and how it came to be professionally taped but then not officially released, please let me know.

This album is 50 minutes long. The portion with Clapton is the last 30 minutes.

01 The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise (Carl Perkins)
02 talk (Carl Perkins)
03 Dixie Fried (Carl Perkins)
04 talk (Carl Perkins)
05 Born to Rock (Carl Perkins)
06 talk (Carl Perkins)
07 The Birth of Rock and Roll (Carl Perkins)
08 Your True Love (Carl Perkins)
09 talk (Carl Perkins)
10 Put Your Cat Clothes On (Carl Perkins)
11 talk (Carl Perkins)
12 Mean Woman Blues (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
13 talk (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
14 Matchbox (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
15 talk (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
16 Roll Over Beethoven-Maybellene-Slippin' and Slidin'-I'm Walkin'-Whole Lotta Shakin'-Hound Dog (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
17 talk (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
18 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)
19 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Carl Perkins with Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16039160/CarlPerk_1989_TheBottmLneNwYrkC__5-9-1989_atse.zip.html

We're very lucky that I managed to find one photo from this exact concert, showing Perkins and Clapton together. Unfortunately, it was only in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Palette program.

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Colston Hall, Bristol, Britain, 5-19-1996

Mark Knopfler had been a big star with Dire Straits until 1992, but his solo career didn't really get going until 1996, with the release of his first proper solo album, "Golden Heart." I've already posted one BBC album from him that contains BBC studio sessions starting in 1996. Volume 2 here consists of a 1996 concert broadcast on the BBC. I actually plan to post two BBC concerts he did in 1996 because their set lists are different enough. But first, here's this one.

Everything here is officially unreleased, as far as I know, but the sound quality is excellent. The good news is the concert is fairly long, at an hour and nine minutes. The bad news is I suspect that some of it wasn't broadcast and thus isn't included, because his concerts typically lasted longer than that.

Since Knopfler only had one solo album to draw on at this point, he tended to play more Dire Straits songs than he did later in his solo career. That's the case here. Even with the concert being incomplete, there are still five songs done by Dire Straits: "Walk of Life," "Romeo and Juliet," "Brothers in Arms," "Money for Nothing," and "Going Home." Most of the other songs are from his "Golden Heart" solo album. But "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is from a 1989 movie soundtrack of the same name, and "Father and Son" is from the 1984 movie soundtrack "Cal."

01 Walk of Life (Mark Knopfler)
02 Rudiger (Mark Knopfler)
03 I'm the Fool (Mark Knopfler)
04 Last Exit to Brooklyn [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
05 Romeo and Juliet (Mark Knopfler)
06 talk (Mark Knopfler)
07 Done with Bonaparte (Mark Knopfler)
08 A Night in Summer Long Ago (Mark Knopfler)
09 Father and Son [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
10 Golden Heart (Mark Knopfler)
11 Cannibals (Mark Knopfler)
12 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler)
13 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler)
14 Going Home [Theme From 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16049325/MarkK1996c_BBSessonsVolum2InConcrtColstnHallBristlBrtain__5-19-1996.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1996.