Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 5: Yes, Rufus Thomas & Led Zeppelin

Here's the fifth and final part of a six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert. 

Yes had big success in the 1980s, especially with their massive 1983 hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart," so they were given a 25-minute long time slot in this concert. According to some accounts, such as setlist.fm, they also did the song "Changes." But I've seen claims that isn't true. I suspect they didn't, because 25 minutes already made their set the second longest set of the night.

I find it very odd if it's true that Rufus Thomas performed the song "Walking the Dog" between big sets by Yes and Led Zeppelin. The acts tended to get more and more famous the longer the concert went on, but Thomas was nowhere near as popular as the acts around his performance. It could be that he actually sang that much earlier and it was only shown on TV during a break between sets. I know this rearranging did happen some with the HBO TV broadcast. But all the sources I've seen have his song here, and I haven't seen anything to contradict it, so I'm leaving it here (for now, at least).

The thing this concert is best remembered for, by far, is the 32-minute-long reunion of Led Zeppelin. The band broke up in 1980 after their drummer John Bonham died. They reunited to play three songs at the massive Live Aid benefit concert in 1985. But that was widely considered a fiasco. Lead guitarist Jimmy Page was in a bad way with drug addiction at the time. Also, Phil Collins tried to play drums, but he was just winging it and discovered the songs were more complicated than he'd realized.

The band's reunion for this concert has also been criticized. Later, lead guitarist Jimmy Page called it "one big disappointment," and lead vocalist Robert Plant later said "the gig was foul." But I disagree. The band certainly played better than at Live Aid. A key change was the drums. This time, deceased drummer John Bonham's son Jason Bonham was old enough to replace his father in the band, and he did a good job of it. I saw some article reviews of the concert just after it happened, and the Led Zeppelin performance was praised. I think in retrospect opinions soured a bit because the performance was badly mixed. For instance, the bass playing of John Paul Jones could barely be heard at all for the first song and half of the second song. There were some other problems too. I attempted to fix this with the editing program UVR5. I think I made some improvements. However, the bass was so low for "Kashmir" that I couldn't make a fix there.

Also, I think one reason Page and Plant have bad memories of the concert is due to bad vibes happening off stage. Apparently, Plant was really, really sick of the song "Stairway to Heaven" by 1988, and didn't want to play it at the concert. But Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and long-time president of Atlantic Records, heard about this in advance and talked him into playing it the night before. Then, hours before the concert began, Plant changed his mind again and had big arguments with Page about it. Ultimately, the song was played, and understandably so, since it's one of the best and most popular songs of all time, overplayed though it is. And if you look at the cover photo I've chosen for this album, Plant and Page seemed genuinely happy during the concert.

The original idea was to have a final song with everyone from earlier in the concert brought on stage to perform together, which is the usual tradition for concerts like this. But ultimately it was decided that nothing could top the Led Zeppelin reunion, so there was no big finale after that. 

After this concert, Led Zeppelin reunited twice more. Once was for the band's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame reunion in 1995. The other was a full concert in 2007. Interestingly, that was for a tribute concert for Ahmet Ertegun. Note Ertegun was one of the people to introduce Led Zeppelin in this concert. The 1995 and 2007 reunions were considered much more musically successful than the 1985 and 1988 ones.

Oh, by the way, I didn't mark it as such, but I severely edited down the introduction to the Led Zeppelin set. The bootleg version I found had Robert Townsend, Phil Collins and Ahmet Ertegun talking for five minutes, mercilessly teasing the audience about who was going to be the final act of the concert, when everyone already knew it was Led Zeppelin. They dragged things out so long that it was downright painful to hear, so I cut the intro in half. Even then, it's probably still too long. I'm guessing that the band wasn't ready - maybe last minute arguing between Plant and Page? - so they were stalling for time to a ridiculous degree. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

088 Hold On (Yes)
089 Make It Easy (Yes)
090 Owner of a Lonely Heart (Yes)
091 I've Seen All Good People (Yes)
092 Roundabout (Yes)
093 talk (Paul Shaffer)
094 Walking the Dog (Rufus Thomas)
095 talk (Robert Townsend, Phil Collins & Ahmet Ertegun)
096 Kashmir (Led Zeppelin)
097 Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin)
098 Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)
099 talk (Led Zeppelin)
100 Misty Mountain Hop (Led Zeppelin)
101 talk (Led Zeppelin)
102 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
103 talk (Led Zeppelin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oWK5DxhD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3Qsjm78mYpHJKct/file

The cover photo of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin is from this exact concert.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 4: The Manhattan Transfer, Genesis, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Bee Gees, & The Rascals

Here's the fourth part of a six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert. 

Atlantic Records put out a lot of records by jazz artists. But since jazz music isn't a big seller, most of those artists didn't get invited to this concert. Two who did, Herbie Mann and Bobby Short, got cut out of the TV broadcast versions, so I don't have their performances. That just leaves the Manhattan Transfer to represent jazz, since they had some hits and wider commercial success in the 1970s and 80s.

Genesis is a band was only intermittently together in the 1980s. Phil Collins split his time between being in Genesis and having a hugely popular solo career. Mike Rutherford also carved out a successful solo career as the leader of Mike + the Mechanics. Genesis had last put out an album in 1986, "Invisible Touch," then toured to support it into 1987. However, this was the only concert they reunited for in 1988. Their twenty-minute long set was essentially one gigantic medley, although I've broken it into four tracks so I could get all the song names in.

As I mentioned previously, Crosby Stills and Nash sang the song "Southern Cross" to start this concert, but I don't have that recording. Then they returned for their own twenty-minute-long set. Most bootlegs of this concert have "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" earlier in the show, because the song order was scrambled up a bit on some TV broadcasts. But you can tell they did it here with the songs "Wooden Ships" and "Teach Your Children" because actor Michael Douglas referred to all three songs when he introduced them.

The Bee Gees played a relatively short set. In addition to "Lonely Days" and "Jive Talkin'" presented here, they also performed "To Love Somebody." However, I couldn't find a recording on that one. I found mention of it being posted on YouTube and then taken down, so it must be out there. If anyone has it, please let me know. Personally, I think the Bee Gees deserved another song or two, since they've one of the best selling acts of all time, but probably in the late 1980s they were still suffering from the backlash of their disco era overexposure.

The final musical act in this part is the Rascals. They broke up in 1972. This concert was their first reunion since then, going back to the original line-up that ended in 1970. After this concert, they would go on a short tour for a few months. After that, there were further one-off reunions in 1997 and 2010, and another tour in 2012 and 2013.

This album is an hour and 18 minutes long.

069 talk (Manhattan Transfer)
070 Mack the Knife (Manhattan Transfer)
071 Birdland (Manhattan Transfer)
072 Turn It On Again - Land of Confusion - Misunderstanding (Genesis)
073 Throwing It All Away (Genesis)
074 That's All - Tonight Tonight Tonight - Invisible Touch - Turn It On Again [Reprise] (Genesis)
075 You Can't Hurry Love - Shortcut to Somewhere - All I Need Is a Miracle (Genesis)
076 talk (Michael Douglas)
077 Wooden Ships (Crosby Stills & Nash)
078 talk (Crosby Stills & Nash)
079 Our House (Crosby Stills & Nash)
080 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
081 talk (Bee Gees)
082 Lonely Days (Bee Gees)
083 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
084 talk (Dan Aykroyd & Bill Murray)
085 Good Lovin' (Rascals)
086 Groovin' (Rascals)
087 People Got to Be Free (Rascals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t2DmMTS8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3pBToJ89aaas4tj/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Mike Rutherford on guitar and Phil Collins singing.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 3: The MG’s, Carla Thomas, Paul Rodgers, Miki Howard, Paul Shaffer, Sam Moore, The Elwood Blues Review, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof, The Spinners, & Wilson Pickett

Here's the third part of six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert. 

In the 1950s and 60s, Atlantic Records was mainly known as an R&B/ soul record label, though it broke out into other musical genres by the end of the decade. Most of this section served as a kind of concert within a concert that celebrated the 1960s soul music of the company. Atlantic Records distributed most of the music done by the Stax record label, so all of that was fair game here as well.

In the 1960s at Stax Records, the instrumental group the MG's backed up most of the other lead singers on the label, in addition to having some instrumental hits of their own. Later, key members of that band, like Steve Cropper and Donald 'Duck' Dunn, joined the Blue Brothers band in the late 1970s. Led by comedians/singers John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, they had a hit movie and some hit albums before Belushi died in the early 1980s. For most of this section of the concert, Cropper, Dunn, and other members of the MG's were the backing band. But for a portion of it, their name changed to the Elwood Blues Review, a sort of variant of the Blues Brothers because Aykroyd got involved in those songs too.

That backing band then supported some different lead singers. Carla Thomas was an original Stax star. Paul Rodgers, however, was a big star with Free and Bad Company (on Atlantic Records). Both both of those bands had ceased to exist by the time of this concert. So instead of singing any of his own hits, he sang "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" as a tribute to deceased Stax star Otis Redding. 1980s R&B star Miki Howard also sang a song associated with Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness."

Another big musical act for Stax was the soul duo Sam and Dave (Sam Moore and Dave Prater). Unfortunately, Dave Prater died several months prior to this concert (and the two of them had had a big falling out prior to that anyway). But Sam Moore was at this concert to represent Sam and Dave. Dave Prater was effectively replaced on some songs by Aykroyd, kind of bringing back the Blue Brothers, and was replaced by Phil Collins on two other songs. 

The only odd one out in this R&B section of the concert was Bob Geldof. I'm not sure why he was put where he was in the running order, if indeed this order is correct, but oh well. It was also a bit strange that instead of doing any of his own hits from his Boomtown Rats years, he did a cover of a relatively obscure song by Graham Parker.

The Spinners continued the R&B vibe of this portion of the show, even though they had much bigger success in the 1970s compared to the 1960s. I could only find one song they did. But they also played "Working My Way Back to You" and "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love."

Finally, Wilson Pickett was the star of the last couple of songs here. He was backed by the Elwood Blues Review. I looked at the video, and Dan Akroyd danced around on stage a lot and played some harmonica, but the lead vocals were basically all done by Pickett. Still, this must have kind of been a reunion for Pickett, because the Elwood Blues Review was basically the same as the MG's, and they were the backing band for most of Pickett's hits in the 1960s. Pickett even co-wrote one of the songs he performed here, "In the Midnight Hour," with the lead guitarist on stage, Steve Cropper.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

043 talk (Dan Aykroyd)
044 Last Night [Instrumental] (MG's)
045 talk (Steve Cropper)
046 Gee Whiz (Carla Thomas & the MG's)
047 talk (Steve Cropper)
048 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Paul Rodgers & the MG's)
049 talk (Steve Cropper)
050 Try a Little Tenderness (Miki Howard & the MG's)
051 talk (Steve Cropper)
052 Tramp (Carla Thomas, Paul Shaffer & the MG's)
053 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
054 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
055 Soul Man (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
056 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
057 I've Been Loving You Too Long (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
058 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
059 You Don't Know like I Know (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
060 talk (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
061 Knock On Wood (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
062 talk (Roberta Flack)
063 talk (Bob Geldof)
064 You Can't Be Too Strong (Bob Geldof)
065 Mighty Love (Spinners)
066 In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)
067 talk (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)
068 Land of 1000 Dances (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zi3oxCsd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/UMkqqccXBZLa7Di/file

The cover photo of Wilson Pickett is from this exact concert.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 2: Ben E. King, Roberta Flack, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the Average White Band, Ruth Brown, Debbie Gibson & Robert Plant

Here's the second part of a six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert.

I explained the basics about the concert in my write-up for part one. So read that if you want to know about the concert in general.

Ben E. King was a big soul music star back in the 1950s and early 1960s, both with the Drifters and as a solo act. But in 1986, two years prior to this concert, a reissue of his song "Stand by Me" reached the Top Ten in the U.S. and Number One in Britain.

Technically, Emerson, Lake and Palmer didn't perform at this concert. Instead, for one album only in 1988, Greg Lake left the group and was replaced by Robert Berry. They released a studio album using the group name "3." Then Lake rejoined the band, replacing Berry in time for the next album. For this concert, they were introduced as "Emerson and Palmer," with Berry and the group name "3" being ignored. I'm calling the band "Emerson, Lake and Palmer" so their music can be easily found with site searches and labels and such.

In retrospect, I think Debbie Gibson got too much time in this concert. Her set was 15 minutes long, making it longer than a lot of other acts who made it into various halls of fame. For instance, she had a longer set than Ruth Brown, despite the fact that she was such a big star for Atlantic Records for the first ten years of the company's existence that its nickname was "The House that Ruth Built." (Even the Wikipedia entry about the record company mentions that nickname.) But the timing was just right for Gibson. She had a huge debut album in 1987, which sold three million copies in the U.S. Her second album in 1989 would also be a big seller. But after that her sales fell off a cliff and she largely disappeared as a big star. I give her kudos for writing all her own songs. But I wouldn't be surprised if some people skip or delete her set.

I know of some music from this part of the concert that I couldn't find. Ruth Brown sang a second song, "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean." Emerson, Lake and Palmer (or 3, or Emerson and Palmer) played one other song, "Fanfare for the Common Man." The Average White Band did two other songs, "I Got Work to Do" and "Person to Person." I don't know when it happened, but probably early in this concert, Herbie Mann played a set of the songs "Push Push," "Soul Serenade," and "Memphis Underground." Also at some point, Vanilla Fudge played two songs, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Take Me for a Little While."

Robert Plant had lots of success as a solo artist in the 1980s. So he got a three song set in this portion of the show, while also singing lead with Led Zeppelin later in the show.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

By the way, note that the track numbering continues from the numbering of the previous part, in case you want to listen to all the concert as one huge album.

021 talk (Stephen Stills)
022 Spanish Harlem (Ben E. King)
023 talk (Ben E. King)
024 There Goes My Baby (Ben E. King)
025 Save the Last Dance for Me (Ben E. King)
026 Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack)
027 The Closer I Get to You (Roberta Flack & Peabo Bryson)
028 America - Blue Rondo a la Turk [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
029 Pick Up the Pieces [Instrumental] (Average White Band)
030 Teardrops from My Eyes (Ruth Brown)
031 talk (Lisa Bonet)
032 Staying Together (Debbie Gibson)
033 Foolish Beat (Debbie Gibson)
034 Out of the Blue - Shake Your Love - Only in My Dreams (Debbie Gibson)
035 talk (Debbie Gibson)
036 Happy Birthday (Debbie Gibson)
037 talk (Phil Collins)
038 Heaven Knows (Robert Plant)
039 talk (Robert Plant)
040 Ship of Fools (Robert Plant)
041 talk (Robert Plant)
042 Tall Cool One (Robert Plant)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FWMHka7W

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/njDAQ0s6ftPW7fx/file

The cover photo of Ben E. King is from this exact concert.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 1: Nu Shooz, Stacey Q, The Coasters, Phil Collins, LaVern Baker, Foreigner, Iron Butterfly, & Laura Branigan

Here's another big benefit concert. As I've mentioned before, I think these tend to get overlooked, except for the portions performed by really famous musical acts. In this case, the concert is best known for the second Led Zeppelin 1980s reunion, after they reunited for Live Aid in 1985. But there's so much more to this, including other interesting reunions. 

The entire concert was about 12 hours long. I didn't find all of it, but I found the vast majority of it. Presumably, a big chunk of those 12 hours was dead time between acts. I was able to find six hours of music. I've broken that up into five albums.

This was a rather unusual concert, in that it celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Atlantic Records record company. I'd be hard pressed to think of any other records companies celebrated like this, other than Motown Records. And it's odd that it was a 40th anniversary concert with no similar one for the 25th anniversary, or 30th, or 50th, etc... But it was probably lucky that it happened when it did, before some of the older acts retired or passed on. Atlantic Records had an interesting history in that it started out in the 1950s as the most important record company for R&B music before branching out into all musical genres. So a lot of the 1950s and 1960s stars that made the record company successful were able to perform at this concert.

I found a newspaper article that explains a little bit about how this concert came to be. When the show was first planned, the idea was to have a smaller auditorium and invite just a couple thousand people, mainly Atlantic Records employees and special guests. Ken Ehrlich, who produced the show, explained, "When it first started, it was to be a two-hour black-tie event at Radio City Music Hall. But I said to [Atlantic Records founder and president] Ahmet [Ertegun]: 'You've made music for kids, now you want to invite your friends to a party. You have to do it at [Madison Square] Garden. You want kids to scream and yell.' Eventually, the size dictated that we do it at the Garden. We wanted to reflect 40 years and reach a new audience. I want 15-year-old kids to see Ruth Brown and the Coasters."

The concert was a curious mix of self-promotion and charity. The self-promotion was first that the record company was patting itself on its back while also using the concert to promote some of their young and up and coming acts. But at the same time, the concert was expected to make at least 10 million dollars in profits due to selling TV broadcast and radio broadcast rights, and all of that money was to go to charity. Furthermore, most of the charity money was sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a charity created by the record company to basically give their legacy acts the profits they deserved but had been screwed out of back in the 1950s and 60s.

Before I say more, I want to point out that while many big names did perform at this concert, many other long-time Atlantic Records artists did not. The ones who didn't perform included Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Cream, the Allman Brothers Band, the Rolling Stones, INXS, King Crimson, Dusty Springfield, Hall and Oates, Peter Gabriel, and Chic. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Probably the biggest miss was the Rolling Stones. But they'd had a big falling out in the early 1980s and wouldn't reunite until a year later.

As far as I know, a couple of hours of highlights from this concert has been officially released on DVD, but nothing has appeared on album. So I've had to rely on bootlegs. The most easily accessible version of the concert is a portion that was broadcast on the HBO cable network. But that was less than half. Parts of it were also broadcast on ABC TV. Furthermore, other parts were broadcast on other networks. I found some bits from a German broadcast, for instance. Apparently, the entire show was broadcast on BBC, in one-hour weekly segments. But I haven't been able to find that anywhere. If anyone has any parts that I've missed, please let me know so I can add those bits in.

I've done my best to put this together as it really happened, but it's hard because I haven't been able to get a definitive list of the order of the performers. Still, the different versions did have a lot in common, and I've found clues from newspaper articles, so I've made best guesses. 

Let me mention some of the bits that I think are still missing from this portion of the show. Apparently, Crosby, Stills and Nash performed the song "Southern Cross" to open the show, and then returned for a longer set near the end of the show. LeVert did the song "Casanova." Bobby Short played two songs: "Hop Scotch Blues" and "Black and Blue." Rachelle Cappelli sang "The Truth'll Set You Free" plus an Aretha Franklin cover. LaVern Baker also did the song "Tweedle Dee." 

Note also that I have some introduction of acts, but I'm probably missing about half of those. In some cases, famous people who didn't perform themselves did the introductions, while in other cases performers from other parts of the show did the introductions. So, for instance in this part, Marv Albert, a sports broadcaster, introduced the Coasters. But Foreigner was introduced by Roberta Flack, who sang later in the show.

One notable event from this part of the show was the reunion of the Coasters. They were one of the biggest acts on the Atlantic label in the 1950s and early 1960s. But this was the first time the original members performed together in about twenty years.

Here's a Wikipedia article about the concert. But note that it doesn't say much, and its list of performers is incomplete and mostly follows the HBO broadcast:

Atlantic Records 40th anniversary - Wikipedia

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

001 talk (Robert Townshend)
002 Should I Say Yes - I Can't Wait (Nu Shooz)
003 Two of Hearts (Stacey Q)
004 talk (Marv Albert)
005 That Is Rock and Roll (Coasters)
006 Youngblood (Coasters)
007 Charlie Brown (Coasters)
008 I'm a Hog for You (Coasters)
009 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
010 talk (Phil Collins)
011 Jim Dandy (LaVern Baker)
012 Saved (LaVern Baker)
013 talk (Roberta Flack)
014 Hot Blooded (Foreigner)
015 Urgent (Foreigner)
016 talk (Foreigner)
017 I Want to Know What Love Is (Foreigner)
018 Juke Box Hero (Foreigner)
019 In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly)
020 Gloria (Laura Branigan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kCLD3BmR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ksQX0KcmnRSwASW/file

The cover photo of the Coasters is from this exact concert.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 2000-2005

It's time for me to post more of Paul Weller at the BBC. It's been six months since I last remembered to post more of this series. This time, the album consists of BBC studio sessions.

A huge box set called "At the BBC" consists of BBC performances from 1992 to 2008. However, Weller has performed at the BBC so often that even that big box set missed quite a lot. The first eight songs here are all unreleased, despite being BBC studio sessions with excellent sound quality. The last six songs do come from the box set.

For the most part, Weller played with a full band here, though there are a few acoustic performances.

This album is 52 minutes long. 

Oh, by the way, if you're a stickler for such things, at the same time I posted this, I posted minor changes to the titles for Volumes 1 and 7 in this series.

01 He's the Keeper (Paul Weller)
02 Picking Up Sticks (Paul Weller)
03 A Whales Tale (Paul Weller)
04 Dust and Rocks (Paul Weller)
05 Bag Man (Paul Weller)
06 Bullets for Everyone (Paul Weller)
07 In the Crowd (Paul Weller)
08 I Forgot to Be Your Lover (Paul Weller)
09 Wishing on a Star (Paul Weller)
10 Thinking of You (Paul Weller)
11 Corrina, Corrina (Paul Weller)
12 talk (Paul Weller)
13 Early Morning Rain (Paul Weller)
14 talk (Paul Weller)
15 To the Start of Forever (Paul Weller)
16 Paper Smile (Paul Weller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9d4jwdD1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WJ6MMcElMqmo8PM/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Belgium in July 2000.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 7-24-1973

It's high time I start posting the music Van Morrison has performed for the BBC over his long solo career. 

As far as I can tell, Morrison performed surprisingly rarely for the BBC in 1970s and 80s. I'm only aware of two BBC concerts in those decades, and no studio sessions. This first one comes arguably at the peak of his live performances, during the concerts recorded for his acclaimed double live album "It's Too Late to Stop Now." The songs on that album were taken from seven concerts in the summer of 1973, including two at the Rainbow Theatre in London, on July 23rd and 24th.

The Wikipedia entry for the "It's Too Late to Stop Now" album has something to say about those two concerts at the Rainbow: "The London concerts were the first time he had appeared in that city since performing with Them, six years earlier. The two concerts at the Rainbow Theatre in London were referred to as 'the rock event of the year' by critics, according to Ritchie Yorke in his biography. The 24 July 1973 London Rainbow concert was the first BBC simulcast broadcast simultaneously on BBC 2 television and Radio 2 stereo so that viewers with strategically sited loudspeakers could enjoy 'stereo TV.'"

In 2016, a super deluxe edition of "It's Too Late to Stop Now" was released, called "It's Too Late To Stop Now Volumes II, III, IV." That included a full CD of the Rainbow Theatre concerts. However, that one mixed the July 23rd and 24th shows together without specifying which songs were from which. I listened, and it seems to me the vast majority of the songs were from the 23rd show, because I hear little overlap with this. So some of the songs here may be on the original "It's Too Late to Stop Now" and/or some may be from the super deluxe edition, but I'm betting most are still unreleased.

This comes from a bootleg of the original BBC broadcast. The sound quality generally is excellent. Unfortunately though, the quality dips some for the last three songs, which was the show's encore. In particular, during the last song, "Gloria," a BBC DJ spoke over a short section in the middle of the song to make an announcement about the concert soon coming to an end. I had to remove that section entirely and patch it in instead with a chunk of the same song from "It's Too Late to Stop Now." That's only for about ten to fifteen seconds, but it's pretty noticeable as the sound quality briefly gets better. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 Warm Love (Van Morrison)
02 Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket (Van Morrison)
03 Here Comes the Night (Van Morrison)
04 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Van Morrison)
05 Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
06 Moonshine Whiskey (Van Morrison)
07 Moondance (Van Morrison)
08 Help Me (Van Morrison)
09 Domino (Van Morrison)
10 Caravan (Van Morrison)
11 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)
12 Wild Night (Van Morrison)
13 I Paid the Price (Van Morrison)
14 Saint Dominic's Preview (Van Morrison)
15 Gloria [Edit] (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GFp6uGSV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/c9OgThy2PmQVsYv/file

The cover photo might or might not be from this concert. It was taken at the Rainbow Theatre in London in July 1973. But he played two concerts there that month, so the odds are probably 50-50.

Changing Download Links

In recent weeks, I've been posting all new albums using the Pixeldrain and Bestfile download links. Nearly everybody seems to be using them just fine. Plus, I figure if I post both links for each new album, if one doesn't work, the other one should. 

As a result, I'm no longer making new links with upload.ee. When I started using that, there wasn't a problem with spam or viruses. But those things showed up and seemed to never go away. Of course, I'll keep existing upload.ee links, which is a majority of all the old links. But if and when any of those die or need to be changed, I'll be replacing them with Pixeldrain and Bestfile links.

Today, I also finished replacing all Imagenetz links, so I can stop using that service too. At first, I'd made a lot of those links, but I found they died mysteriously and at random, despite promises to be permanent. After a while, the only Imagenetz links I kept going were for albums over 200 MB in size, which is about an hour and a half of music, because upload.ee didn't allow files larger than 200 MB. But Pixeldrain and Bestfile don't have any such limitation. So I just added those two to the 200 or so albums I'd used Imagenetz with. However, I'll keep the Imagenetz links going in most cases until they die off on their own.

I don't know how long I'll be able to keep using Pixeldrain for new links, since they claim to have a "one and done" policy when it comes to copyright violations. So that's one key reason I'm making Bestfile links for all new albums too. But I'll keep going with Pixeldrain for as long as they let me.

Roxy Music - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 8-3-1972

Here's the second album of Roxy Music performing for the BBC. This time, it's a concert.

This concert, recorded for BBC radio, took place a couple of months after the release of the band's first album, "Roxy Music." It also took place just after the release of the band's first hit single, "Virginia Plain," which was not included on the album. The songs are mostly from the first album, plus the single. However, they also played a song introduced as "The Bogus Man, Part 2." In fact, the song was an early version of "Grey Lagoons," which would appear on the band's 1973 album "For Your Pleasure."

Most of the songs here were officially released as part of the "super deluxe edition" of the "Roxy Music" album. However, the song "The Bogus Man, Part 2" was not included, probably because it was significantly different from the final version. Furthermore, none of the BBC DJ chatter between songs were included. But I wanted to include that, because it was actually part of the concert, with the DJ talking on stage as it happened. In this case, the DJ was Bob Harris, known for his quiet voice. Luckily, I was able to find a bootleg version with the extra song and all the banter.

The last song here, "Ladytron," was not part of the concert. Instead, it was from an appearance on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" in June 1972. I've included it here because there was another version of that song in Volume 1 and the song wasn't performed in the concert here.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 The Bob [Medley] (Roxy Music)
02 talk (Roxy Music)
03 The Bogus Man, Part 2 [Early Version of Grey Lagoons] (Roxy Music)
04 talk (Roxy Music)
05 Sea Breezes (Roxy Music)
06 talk (Roxy Music)
07 Virginia Plain (Roxy Music)
08 talk (Roxy Music)
09 Chance Meeting (Roxy Music)
10 talk (Roxy Music)
11 Re-Make-Re-Model (Roxy Music)
12 Ladytron (Roxy Music)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Z87TQESb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/rj8DdSlvUfnJ0dY/file

The cover photo was taken on the set of the BBC TV show "Full House" in November 1972.

Ronnie Lane - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, London, Britain, 4-23-1974

About six months ago, I posted the first volume of Ronnie Lane performing for the BBC. I kinda lost track of this series for a bit, but I'm back with Volume 2. The first volume was all studio sessions, whereas this is all live material, most of it coming from one concert. Two more volumes are planned.

The first twelve tracks all come from one concert, which took place in London on April 23, 1974. It's from "BBC In Concert," which is probably the early 1970s TV show of that name that I've posted a bunch of albums from. These tracks all were released as part of the album "You Never Can Tell."

But there are a few tracks after that. "What Went Down (That Night with You)," is unreleased, and comes from the British TV show "Rock On with Kid Jensen" in late 1974. 

The remaining tracks, 14 through 19, all come from the same concert, which took place in Victoria Palace in London on March 16, 1975. However, different tracks come from different albums: "Just a Moment," "How Come," and "Kuschty Rye: The Singles." I'm guessing somewhere in the record company vaults a full concert recording exists, but only bits and pieces are being released from time to time.

By the way, note that for track 10, "I Believe in You," Lane basically let another musical act, Gallagher and Lyle, take over for one song. At the time, they were mainly known as a songwriting duo, but they would have some hits of their own in 1976.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Last Orders Please (Ronnie Lane)
02 talk (Ronnie Lane)
03 Done This One Before (Ronnie Lane)
04 talk (Ronnie Lane)
05 Flags and Banners (Ronnie Lane)
06 Tell Everyone (Ronnie Lane)
07 talk (Ronnie Lane)
08 How Come (Ronnie Lane)
09 talk (Ronnie Lane)
10 I Believe in You (Gallagher & Lyle with Ronnie Lane)
11 Debris (Ronnie Lane)
12 Ooh La La (Ronnie Lane)
13 What Went Down [That Night with You] (Ronnie Lane)
14 talk (Ronnie Lane)
15 From the Late to the Early - How Come (Ronnie Lane)
16 Sweet Virginia (Ronnie Lane)
17 talk (Ronnie Lane)
18 You're So Rude (Ronnie Lane)
19 Stone [Evolution] (Ronnie Lane) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pqLZQAp7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UetsdDEVRXXXtf8/file

The cover photo comes from an appearance on a BBC TV show from around this time, but I didn't keep the details.

Long John Baldry Redo

Normally, I don't make an announcement when I make some kind of alteration to an album I've already posted. In the vast majority of those cases, they're pretty minor changes. But I want to announce an update this time, because I've made a big change. I posted an album of BBC sessions by British blues singer Long John Baldry back in 2022. But I recently found a whole bunch of additional sessions by him, enough to increase the number of songs on the album from 14 to 24. I also improved the sound quality on some of the others.

So if you downloaded the album before, you definitely need this version instead. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/02/long-john-baldry-bbc-sessions-1963-1968.html

Foghat and Friends - New York Library Benefit Concert, The Palladium, New York City, 9-30-1977

Here's a very unique concert. It has less to do with Foghat and more their special guests, who were blues and R&B legends like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Winter, and Otis Blackwell.

Foghat is a rock band best known for their 1970s hits "Slow Ride" and "I Just Want to Make Love to You." But the band members were students of the blues. So when the band put together this benefit concert to be broadcast on national TV, they used it as kind of a way to educate the public about blues music. Only the first two songs were performed just by Foghat. After that, the guest stars generally took over, with Foghat only being the backing band. 

All we have of this concert is what made it onto the hour-long TV broadcast. That included some short voice-overs that introduced the guest stars. I just wanted to hear the concert with that, so I cut those bits out whenever possible. When the voice-overs went over the music, I used the UVR5 audio editing program to remove the talking while keeping the underlying music. That's why a few songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

As the show went on, some of the guests stayed on stage. By the last song, "I Just Want to Make Love to You," pretty much everyone was on stage. The song was originally performed by Muddy Waters, and he dominated the performance. But John Lee Hooker, Foghat, and some others had turns singing some of the lead vocals.

I believe everything from this concert remains officially unreleased. But if you want to see it was well as heard it, you should be able to find the video of it on YouTube.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Sweet Home Chicago (Foghat)
02 talk (Foghat)
03 It Hurts Me Too (Foghat)
04 My Baby's Gone [Edit] (Foghat & David 'Honeyboy' Edwards)
05 talk (Foghat)
06 Done Somebody Wrong [Edit] (Foghat & Eddie Kirkland)
07 Love Light [Instrumental] (Foghat & Eddie Kirkland)
08 talk (Foghat)
09 Shake Your Money Maker [Edit] (Foghat & Paul Butterfield)
10 Crawling King Snake (Foghat & John Lee Hooker)
11 talk (Foghat)
12 All Shook Up [Edit] (Foghat & Otis Blackwell)
13 talk (Foghat & Otis Blackwell)
14 Don't Be Cruel (Foghat & Otis Blackwell)
15 talk (Foghat & Johnny Winter)
16 Last Night (Foghat & Johnny Winter)
17 talk (Foghat & Muddy Waters)
18 Hoochie Coochie Man (Foghat & Muddy Waters)
19 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Foghat, Muddy Waters & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/etpduLpH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5biynw2DBpUZmMR/file

The cover comes from this exact concert. I believe that's Dave Peverett, lead vocalist of Foghat, with Muddy Waters looking at him.

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns - Acoustic Version (1975)

Some months ago, I posted an acoustic version of Joni Mitchell's 1974 album "Court and Spark." Basically, that was the album when Mitchell switched from recording solo acoustic to recording with a band, so that version imagined that she just kept going with her original acoustic style. Recently, guest poster Mike Solof expressed interest in posting an acoustic version of her 1976 album "Hejira," which he likes quite a lot. Before, I post that, I thought it would make sense to create and post an acoustic version of her album after "Court and Spark" but before "Hejira," which is "The Hissing of Summer Lawns." So here it is.

For decades, there was a widely available bootleg called "Demos of Summer Lawns." It consisted of acoustic demos of most of the songs that would go on "The Hissing of Summer Lawns," though not all of them. Then, in 2023, the box set "Archives, Volume 3" was released. It contained most of the demos from the bootleg, though not all of them, and had previously unknown one.

I've put this together mostly using the demos from the box set. I rearranged them into the exact same order as the original studio album. However, I had trouble with a couple of songs. I couldn't find any alternate version of the song "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" anywhere. So I took the album version and edited it with the MVSEP program to remove the drums. That's why that's the sole song with "[Edit]" in the title. The demo of "Sweet Bird" wasn't included in the box set, but I was able to use the one from the Demos bootleg. For "Shadows and Light," I used a live bootleg version taken from the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. 

Finally, there's a bonus track of sorts. "Dreamland" was not actually included on "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" album. It wouldn't appear on one of her albums until "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" in 1977. However, a stripped down version was recorded in the spring of 1975, at the same time as most of the other demo versions here. So I included that one here as well. It has some drums on it, but it's still mostly acoustic.

In my opinion, "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" is an underrated album. If you don't like the increasingly jazzy style Mitchell was evolving into at this time, perhaps you'll like this acoustic version instead.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 In France They Kiss on Main Street (Joni Mitchell)
02 The Jungle Line (Joni Mitchell)
03 Edith and the Kingpin (Joni Mitchell)
04 Don't Interrupt the Sorrow (Joni Mitchell)
05 Shades of Scarlet Conquering (Joni Mitchell)
06 The Hissing of Summer Lawns [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
07 The Boho Dance (Joni Mitchell)
08 Harry's House (Joni Mitchell)
09 Sweet Bird (Joni Mitchell)
10 Shadows and Light (Joni Mitchell)
11 Dreamland (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aX8N9FYX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HMnoSnKqYxygRR8/file

For the cover art, I wanted to find something similar to the official cover, yet slightly different. I Googled the name of the album, and found an advertisement for it in a magazine. Indeed, it was similar but different. Note for instance the church on the far left in the line of buildings, which isn't in the official cover. There's also a line of text quoting a song lyric near the people carrying the snake. The ad was black and white, but I colorized it a bit to better match the official album, and I added the text at the top. 

Chris Farlowe - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1965-1966

British singer Chris Farlowe is a pretty obscure musical act for me, an American. But he's much better known in Britain, where he had a handful of hits, including "Out of Time," which reached Number One in the British singles charts in 1966. So here's the first of three BBC albums I have for him. This one consists entirely of BBC studio sessions.

Around 1964 and 1965, the British public was discovering soul music for the first time. Prior to then, most soul hits in the U.S. didn't get distributed in Europe. Suddenly, there was a big demand in Britain, for singers would could sing truly soulfully, but talented singers in that style such as Steve Winwood were few and far between. But Chris Farlowe could do soul convincingly. As a result, in early 1965, he was signed to Immediate Records, which was mainly steered by Andrew Loog Oldham, the producer and manager of the Rolling Stones at the time. Over the next couple of years, Farlowe was given some songs written by the Rolling Stones that they felt didn't fit their rocking style. That included "Out of Time," which Mick Jagger and Keith Richards specifically wrote for Farlowe.

Farlowe's popularity declined around 1967, when the British public's fascination with soul music was largely replaced by psychedelic music. However, Farlowe kept reinventing himself. Although he didn't write many songs, his soulful voice remained in demand. He was the lead singer of the jazz rock band Colosseum in 1970 and 1971. Then he was the lead singer of the rock band Atomic Rooster in 1972 and 1973. Since then, he's alternated between a solo career and Colosseum reunions.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Chris Farlowe - Wikipedia

All the songs here are officially released on the album "Live at the BBC." However, I've made changes, to focus on the music. I removed the many short interview tracks from that album. I also removed all the instances of BBC DJs talking over the music, of which there were many. Those are all the songs with "[Edit]" in their titles.

On this album, Farlowe largely performed soul songs, including daring to sing songs associated with Otis Redding and James Brown. However, he also did three songs written by the Rolling Stones: "Think," "Out of Time," and "Ride On Baby."

This album is 36 minutes long.

01 Watcha Gonna Do Baby [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
02 The Fool (Chris Farlowe)
03 Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
04 Think (Chris Farlowe)
05 Don't Just Look at Me [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
06 Mr. Pitiful (Chris Farlowe)
07 Out of Time [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
08 It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
09 I Got You [I Feel Good] (Chris Farlowe)
10 We're Doing Fine (Chris Farlowe)
11 Ride On Baby (Chris Farlowe)
12 Headlines (Chris Farlowe)
13 Bread [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oqXF2mvY

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0IHIGhsoVx78BHN/file

The cover photo is probably from 1965 or 1966.

Roxy Music - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1972

I have so many hundreds of albums I want to post that it can feel overwhelming. For instance, I have five BBC albums by Roxy Music and another three by their lead singer Bryan Ferry. I just need time to make the cover art and write the write-up. Anyway, I've been sitting on this for ages; it's about time I post it. This is an album of BBC studio sessions by Roxy Music from their first year of success, 1972.

This album consists of two studio sessions, both hosted by BBC DJ John Peel. The first one, consisting of the first five songs here, took place in January 1972. The second one, consisting of the last four songs, took place in May 1972. All but the last song was officially released as part of the "super deluxe edition" of the band's debut album, "Roxy Music."

These sessions came very early in the band's career. Their first public concerts took place in December 1971, yet they were playing for the BBC less than a month later! Even the second session here took place a month before the band released their debut album in June 1972. Not surprisingly, the songs mostly come from that album.

The band's line-up was somewhat in flux during this time. For instance, guitarist David O'List played on the January 1972 BBC session here, but was replaced by Phil Manzanera a month later. Brian Eno was the synth player for all of this, even though he wouldn't stay in the band for long.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 If There Is Something (Roxy Music)
02 The Bob [Medley] (Roxy Music)
03 Would You Believe (Roxy Music)
04 Sea Breezes (Roxy Music)
05 Re-Make-Re-Model (Roxy Music)
06 2HB (Roxy Music)
07 Ladytron (Roxy Music)
08 Chance Meeting (Roxy Music)
09 Bitter End (Roxy Music)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ud5GxWcP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/l65PoCNLsqSN8Jm/file

The cover photo appears to be from a photo shoot done in a recording studio in 1972.

The Ivy League - BBC Sessions (1965-1967)

I recently dug a little deeper and found more 1960s BBC sessions by lesser known musical acts. Even though they're lesser known, I figure this is unreleased material with great sound quality, and nobody else seems to be putting it out there for public consumption, so I should. Besides, there's something about the vibe of 1960s music that appeals to me even if it's a notch or two below the quality of the likes of the Beatles or Bob Dylan.

So here's an album of BBC studio sessions by the Ivy League. You may not have heard of this band, especially if you're American. They only had two Top Ten hits in Britain ("Funny How Love Can Be" and "Tossing and Turning"), and didn't come close to a hit in the U.S. They weren't together very long either. 

But there's more to this band than meets the eye. They were the first success for the songwriting duo of John Carter and Ken Lewis, who would go on to write many hits in the 1960s and 1970s. They generally wrote most of the Ivy League material, including their hits. Also, adding in the third band member, Perry Ford, they really honed their vocal harmony skills. They were in high demand as studio musicians for their backing vocals, singing on dozens of hits in Britain, starting with "I Can't Explain" by the Who.

I have no doubt they would have had much greater success, except Carter and Lewis quickly lost interest in being in a band, and soon devoted most of their attention to producing and songwriting for others, starting with the big 1967 hits "Let's Go to San Francisco" by the Flower Pot Men and "Winchester Cathedral" by the New Vaudeville Band. Carter left in 1966 and Lewis left in 1967. However, Carter and Lewis continued to write songs and produce well into 1967. Ford continued with new members, but to little attention, finally disbanding the band in 1975. 

Here's their Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

The Ivy League (band) - Wikipedia

The music here generally has the typical "British Invasion" sound of the times, but with a heavy emphasis on their three-part harmonies. There also is an obvious Beach Boys influence, so it's fitting that this starts with a Beach Boys cover. I'd guess close to the songs here are covers. It's strange to me that they didn't do more of their own songs that they wrote for others, since Carter and Lewis wrote many hits for others during this time, such as "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" by the Herman's Hermits and "Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James" by Manfred Mann. But I plan on posting a Carter and Lewis album in my Covered songwriting series that will include all of those and more. At least they did include their own version of "My World Fell Down," which was a hit by the band Sagittarius.

All the performances here are officially unreleased. As you'd expect from the time period, many of the songs had BBC DJs talking over the music. I used the UVR5 program to wipe out that talking while keeping the underlying music. Those are the songs with "[Edit]" in their titles. I also didn't include a few songs that they performed twice for the BBC, but I think there were only three of those.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Don't Worry Baby [Edit] (Ivy League)
02 When Day Is Done (Ivy League)
03 The 'In' Crowd [Edit] (Ivy League)
04 Funny How Love Can Be (Ivy League)
05 Almost Grown [Edit] (Ivy League)
06 Do Ya Wanna Dance [Edit] (Ivy League)
07 Havin' a Party [Edit] (Ivy League)
08 That's Why I'm Crying (Ivy League)
09 Graduation Day (Ivy League)
10 Tossing and Turning (Ivy League)
11 Lonely Room (Ivy League)
12 I Could Make You Fall in Love [Edit] (Ivy League)
13 Our Love Is Slipping Away (Ivy League)
14 One Day [Edit] (Ivy League)
15 The Glory of Love (Ivy League)
16 Wait a Minute [Edit] (Ivy League)
17 I'm In Love Again (Ivy League)
18 Running Round in Circles (Ivy League)
19 Arriverderci Baby [Edit] (Ivy League)
20 You Are My Sunshine (Ivy League)
21 Rain, Rain Go Away (Ivy League)
22 Get Out of My Life Woman [Edit] (Ivy League)
23 Barbara Ann [Edit] (Ivy League)
24 Willow Tree (Ivy League)
25 My World Fell Down (Ivy League)
26 Four and Twenty Hours (Ivy League)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PHg155T4 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/w4I8xYBQd5AKGeL/file

The cover photo is just about the only good color photo I've found of the Ivy League. Even then, it had a kind of murky or hazy problem that I couldn't fix in Photoshop. I ran it through the Krea AI program and the result looks much better.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, CA, 10-7-1981

I can't believe it's happened again! A while back, I thought I was done posting BBC albums by the Rolling Stones, but then I found another one and had to renumber the last couple. Then I found another one and had to renumber the last couple again. Now, I've found yet another one, and I've have to renumber the three that come after this! Sigh. Let's just pretend that never happened and this was my numbering all along.

This show, from the band's 1981-1982 world tour, was easy to miss because it doesn't get around much as a bootleg. I think that's because it's only half of a full show. Furthermore, the sound quality is not great. There are better recordings from this tour.

I can't do anything about the length, unfortunately. I found an audience bootleg from the same show, but it sounds pretty bad. However, I was able to do some audio editing, and I believe the show sounds much better now. For some reason, the BBC left in a lot of audience cheering all through the songs. I cut most of that out using the MVSEP problem. I also boosted Mick Jagger's lead vocals in the mix.

I think this show was first a "King Biscuit Flower Power" broadcast. But it was definitely broadcast by the BBC too, because the boot I had included the BBC DJ intros and outros. And while it's frustrating due to its short length, it is part of the Stones at the BBC, so I felt it necessary to post it here. 

If you're a stickler about album titles, please redownload the three Stones BBC concerts after this. I redid the cover art and the mp3 tags to all of them. And it turns out the mp3 tags were wrong for two of them anyway, due to all the confusion over the repeated renumbering. But everything should be good now.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Under My Thumb (Rolling Stones)
02 Let's Spend the Night Together (Rolling Stones)
03 Shattered (Rolling Stones)
04 talk (Rolling Stones)
05 Beast of Burden (Rolling Stones)
06 She's So Cold (Rolling Stones)
07 Hang Fire (Rolling Stones)
08 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
09 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
10 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
11 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
12 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3xQHEEDq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7pbPInoG0gixxOa/file

The photo is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - New York Children’s Health Project Benefit, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 12-13-1987

The first thing I want to make clear is that, while this is a star-studded benefit concert, it is also in large part a Paul Simon concert. Out of the 32 songs here, Simon sang lead on 11 of them, and backing vocals on another three. That's because Simon was the host and the prime mover behind the cause for this benefit.

I did a little research on how this concert came to be, and I think it makes for an interesting story. Apparently, when Simon was working on his studio album "Graceland" in 1985 or 1986, he was taking going to his recording studio in the heart of New York City most every day. Each morning, he would make eye contact with a homeless girl begging on a street corner. But eventually, after months, she didn't show up for a while. He asked around, and found out that she had died. Being homeless, she had no access to health care. Simon decided he wanted to do something to help.

Around this time, homelessness had greatly risen in New York City. Plus, many thousands of families were packed into squalid welfare hotels. Simon connected with Dr. Irwin Ledlener. a pediatrician, who was already working on the problem. 

Ledlener later recalled, "We went on a tour of some of the not-so-hot spots in the city. We went to the welfare hotels, to boarder-baby facilities where they had these infants whose mothers were crack
cocaine addicts, and we went to some of the infant H.I.V. programs. It was a hell of a day, just one thing after another." Simon and Ledlener decided that it was obvious many homeless children weren't getting any health care, so they decided to make that their focus. 

Ledlener told him it would cost about $90,000 for a mobile van to bring health care to where the homeless where. Simon paid for that out of his own pocket, and the van began operating in the fall of 1987. But it soon became clear that just one van wasn't enough. Plus, there were upkeep costs, and the need for a charity group (called the "Children's Health Fund") to keep medical records on the homeless kids no matter how often they moved. So Simon put this concert together. It raised about half a million dollars, which was doubled by a contribution from his record company. 

More vans were bought. The results were impressive, so the program kept expanding. By 2005, the charity had expanded far beyond New York City. They had 20 vans in 14 states. Simon followed up with two more benefit concerts (in 1993 and 2012) to help keep the charity funded. All in all, it seems like one of the best results of a benefit concert that I've heard of, although it's a shame the government wasn't performing this help already.

Anyway, getting to the details of this concert, keep in mind that Simon's most recent project was his wildly successful "Graceland" album, released in 1986. That sold 16 million copies worldwide. So perhaps it's not too surprising that Simon played eight songs from that album, while he still had support from the vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo and other South African musicians that had gone on tour with him to support the album. I checked, and this was essentially the very last concert of Simon's Graceland tour.

Other than that, there were short sets by Lou Reed, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Dion, Laurie Anderson, Bruce Springsteen, Ruben Blades, James Taylor, Nile Rodgers and Chaka Khan. Apparently, Billy Joel wasn't scheduled to take part, but since he dropped in at the last minute, he did an impromptu song. I believe Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five played a song, but it got cut from the bootleg I found. I think you can hear him for about ten seconds at the end of the Nile Rodgers medley, introducing Chaka Khan. Paul Shaffer & the World's Most Dangerous Band backed most of the musical stars who didn't bring their own bands, like Bruce Springsteen. Debbie Harry and Grace Jones were there, but they only introduced Lou Reed and then helped sing backing vocals to "Walk on the Wild Side."

One special moment was that Dion was backed by some major star power on his song "A Teenager in Love." His backing vocalists were Ruben Blades, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed! You can see how that looked from the album cover. That's a sign of how much of a musical influence he was on all of them, since he came from an earlier generation.

There were some celebrity appearances as well. Springsteen was introduced by New York baseball stars Ron Darling and Don Mattingly. Whoopi Goldberg introduced Nile Rodgers. She spoke for longer, but I cut out some of it because she was just stalling for time while the band got ready, as she admitted, and it showed. Comedian Bill Cosby gave a speech prior to introducing Ruben Blades. But I cut out all of it except for a few words introducing Blades, since I can't stand to hear him due to his later revealed history of rape. Lorne Michaels, Kevin Nealon and Chevy Chase introduced James Taylor.

As far as I know, everything here remains unreleased. But the bootleg I found has soundboard quality.

This album is three hours and 13 minutes long.

01 The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
02 Gumboots (Paul Simon)
03 Whispering Bells (Paul Simon)
04 talk (Paul Simon)
05 Crazy Love, Vol. II (Paul Simon)
06 I Know What I Know (Paul Simon)
07 talk (Paul Shaffer & the World's Most Dangerous Band)
08 Treat Her Right (Paul Shaffer & the World's Most Dangerous Band)
09 talk (Paul Shaffer, Debbie Harry & Grace Jones)
10 Tell It to Your Heart (Lou Reed)
11 talk (Lou Reed)
12 New Sensations (Lou Reed)
13 Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed with Debbie Harry & Grace Jones)
14 talk (Lou Reed)
15 The Wanderer (Dion)
16 Runaround Sue (Dion)
17 talk (Dion)
18 A Teenager in Love (Dion with Simon, Springsteen, Joel, Reed, Taylor & Blades)
19 talk (Paul Simon)
20 Yinhle Lentombi (Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
21 Homeless (Paul Simon & Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
22 Graceland (Paul Simon)
23 talk (Paul Simon)
24 You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)
25 talk (Paul Simon)
26 talk (Paul Simon)
27 Babydoll (Laurie Anderson)
28 Let x = x (Laurie Anderson)
29 talk (Paul Simon, Ron Darling & Don Mattingly)
30 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
31 Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen)
32 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
33 Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen with Paul Simon & Billy Joel)
34 Cuentas del Alma (Ruben Blades)
35 talk (Ruben Blades)
36 Muevete (Ruben Blades)
37 talk (Paul Simon, Lorne Michaels, Kevin Nealon & Chevy Chase)
38 Looking for Love on Broadway (James Taylor)
39 Carolina in My Mind (James Taylor)
40 That Lonesome Road (James Taylor)
41 talk (Whoopi Goldberg)
42 talk (Nile Rodgers)
43 We Are Family - Le Freak - Good Times (Nile Rodgers)
44 I Feel for You (Chaka Khan with Nile Rodgers)
45 talk (Paul Simon)
46 New York State of Mind (Billy Joel)
47 Still Crazy After All These Years (Paul Simon)
48 Late in the Evening (Paul Simon)
49 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - Drums (Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
50 talk (Everybody)
51 Rock and Roll Music (Bruce Springsteen & Everybody)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jKCnMBjU

alternate

https://bestfile.io/en/uLq5HEnWr1SO0XO/file

The cover photo was taken at this exact concert. It shows the moment Dion was backed by an impressive bunch of stars on the song "A Teenager in Love." From left to right, that's Ruben Blades, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, and Dion. Dion had been further over to the left by about ten feet. In fact, I took him from a different photo taken in the same sequence. Then I used Photoshop to move him close to Springsteen.

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Manchester Apollo, Manchester, Britain, 9-20-1987

For a long time now, I've been occasionally posting albums of the band Squeeze performing for the BBC. It's been quite a few months since I posted the last one, but I recently remembered it's time to post another one, so here you go.

In 1987, Squeeze had a peak of popularity, thanks mainly to their song "Hourglass," which was their first hit in a few years. That came from their album "Babylon and On," released just five days prior to this concert.

Not surprisingly, the band played a few songs from that album, plus some of their earlier hits. They also did the cover song "Such a Night," which they never officially released in any form.

This concert is completely unreleased, as far as I know. The sound quality is pretty good, but not outstanding.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell] (Squeeze)
02 talk (Squeeze)
03 The Prisoner (Squeeze)
04 talk (Squeeze)
05 Hourglass (Squeeze)
06 853-5937 (Squeeze)
07 Last Time Forever (Squeeze)
08 Up the Junction (Squeeze)
09 Footprints (Squeeze)
10 Striking Matches (Squeeze)
11 Take Me, I'm Yours (Squeeze)
12 Is That Love (Squeeze)
13 Such a Night (Squeeze)
14 Trust Me to Open My Mouth (Squeeze)
15 Cool for Cats (Squeeze)
16 Black Coffee in Bed (Squeeze)
17 Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
18 talk (Squeeze)
19 Labelled with Love (Squeeze)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FEVavMAY

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Vq42rPVzj5RcMW6/file 

If the cover photo looks like the band is playing inside a giant mouth, that's because the band is playing inside a giant mouth! For instance, that's a row of teeth at the bottom. I put this album together ages ago, so I've long since forgotten why they were playing inside a giant mouth. I only know this happened during a TV show appearance in 1987.

Chris Isaak - Acoustic, Volume 3: 1998-2016

Recently, a commenter pointed out to me that I had posted two volumes of Chris Isaak performing a third, yet I hadn't posted the third one. That was a very good point. I sometimes have albums all ready to go but then get distracted and fail to post them for some reason or another. So here's Volume 3.

As I mentioned with Volume 2 in this series, I really like how Isaak isn't afraid to perform songs just with an acoustic guitar or two. Typically, he's done this during short appearances, like in-person radio station promotions, where it probably isn't worth it for him to bring his entire band along. So this is mostly a compilation of unreleased performances from TV shows and radio shows. As usual, check the mp3 tags for all the details.

The only exceptions to that are tracks 7, 8, and 9. Track 7, "Forever Blue," is an acoustic version released on the album "Best of Chris Isaak." Tracks 8 and 9, "Don't Leave Me On My Own" and "Waiting," are also acoustic versions from the "Best of Chris Isaak" album, but only as bonus tracks on the iTunes version of that album.

Isaak's music career has been slowing down as he gets older, so this probably is the last album in this series. But never say never, I suppose.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Don't Get So Down on Yourself (Chris Isaak)
02 Sweet Leilani (Chris Isaak)
03 Blue Darlin' (Chris Isaak)
04 Speak of the Devil (Chris Isaak)
05 One Day (Chris Isaak)
06 Let Me Down Easy (Chris Isaak)
07 Forever Blue [Acoustic Version] (Chris Isaak)
08 Don't Leave Me On My Own [Acoustic Version] (Chris Isaak)
09 Waiting [Acoustic Version] (Chris Isaak)
10 Only the Lonely (Chris Isaak)
11 Somebody's Crying (Chris Isaak)
12 Wicked Game (Chris Isaak)
13 I Want You to Want Me (Chris Isaak)
14 Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (Chris Isaak)
15 It Hurt Me So (Chris Isaak)
16 Great Balls of Fire (Chris Isaak)
17 Ring of Fire (Chris Isaak)
18 Oh, Pretty Woman (Chris Isaak)
19 My Happiness (Chris Isaak)
20 Live It Up (Chris Isaak)
21 Blue Christmas (Chris Isaak)
22 Perfect Lover (Chris Isaak)
23 Please Don't Call (Chris Isaak) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gpUPv5Xj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BpKi5r1ZG4I4Sh2/file

The cover photo shows Chris Isaak performing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in November 2004.

Kenny Rogers - BBC In Concert, London, Britain, 1-10-1979

I can't say I'm much of a Kenny Rogers fan. But it can't be denied that he's had massive success, selling over 100 million records worldwide, and he has some classic country hits. So when I came across a bootleg of this concert the other day, I figured it was worthy of inclusion in my big BBC project.

I looked up Rogers' discography, and I was surprised to find that although he's released dozens and dozens of studio albums, he only ever released three live albums. And all three seem to be surprisingly bad, coming late in his career with complaints from reviewers of poor sound quality. One specifically is a Christmas album. So that probably makes this his best live album, if only due to a lack of competition. This also appears to be the only BBC recording from him that I could find, although who knows, sometimes others pop up later.

At the time of this concert, in early 1979, Rogers was near the peak of his popularity. He'd just had a massive hit in late 1978 with "The Gambler," which became his signature song. He'd had some other big hits too, like "Lucille" and "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town." However, some other big ones were still to come, like "Coward of the County," "Islands in the Stream," "Lady," and "We've Got Tonight."

In the middle of the show, Rogers left the stage to allow a country pop act called "Dave and Sugar" to perform. I wasn't too impressed with this duo, which never had much commercial success, and it kind of ruined the flow of the concert, in my opinion. So I cut out those two songs. Sorry to all the hordes of Dave and Sugar fans out there. ;) 

Weirdly, back in 1968, Rogers had a minor hit with an unabashedly psychedelic song describing an L.S.D. trip, called "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." It was his very first hit, while he was lead singer to the band the First Edition. Weirder still, Rogers performed this song at a prime spot towards the end of this concert.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Desperado (Kenny Rogers)
02 talk (Kenny Rogers)
03 Love or Something like It (Kenny Rogers)
04 Lucille (Kenny Rogers)
05 Daytime Friends (Kenny Rogers)
06 talk (Kenny Rogers)
07 Sweet Music Man (Kenny Rogers)
08 In and Out of Your Heart (Kenny Rogers)
09 Every Time Two Fools Collide (Kenny Rogers)
10 Heart to Heart (Kenny Rogers)
11 Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town (Kenny Rogers)
12 talk (Kenny Rogers)
13 There's an Old Man in Our Town (Kenny Rogers)
14 talk (Kenny Rogers)
15 Just Dropped In [To See What Condition My Condition Was In] (Kenny Rogers)
16 The Gambler (Kenny Rogers) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ap7SmMNA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/pv4I2Lu9BhcF97I/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert.

Electric Light Orchestra - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Radio 2 in Concert, BBC Radio Theatre, London, Britain, 11-7-2019

Here's the fifth, and possibly last, album of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) performing for the BBC.

By this point, ELO was basically Jeff Lynne plus backing musicians. He formed the band in 2014 (again) and started regularly going on tour. There are a couple more BBC shows ELO did in the late 2010s, but I don't think I'll bother with them because they're all pretty similar to each other and to the original records.

However, I think this one is more interesting, because it's the only concert of a tour that never happened. Note the timing: this show took place in November 2019. It was the warm up show for a tour that was supposed to start in early 2020 - but that's when the Covid 19 pandemic hit, so the tour was cancelled. The tour was meant to promote the 2019 ELO album "From Out of Nowhere." Three songs from that album were performed in this concert: "From Out of Nowhere," "All My Love," and "Time of My Life." Due to the canceled tour, I believe this concert was the only time ELO performed them in concert.

Otherwise, it's a rather short concert, with the usual ELO hits.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
02 Evil Woman (Electric Light Orchestra)
03 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
04 All Over the World (Electric Light Orchestra)
05 Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra)
06 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
07 Handle with Care (Electric Light Orchestra)
08 Livin' Thing (Electric Light Orchestra)
09 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
10 From Out of Nowhere (Electric Light Orchestra)
11 Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
12 All My Love (Electric Light Orchestra)
13 Eldorado Overture - Can't Get It Out of My Head (Electric Light Orchestra)
14 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
15 Time of Our Life (Electric Light Orchestra)
16 Rockaria (Electric Light Orchestra)
17 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
18 Turn to Stone (Electric Light Orchestra)
19 Mr. Blue Sky (Electric Light Orchestra)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/d8a956Wc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DR0dgiidgBuAvx6/file

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Darius Rucker - CMT Storytellers, Worldwide Stages, Spring Hill, TN, 8-29-2022

I recently found two "CMT Storytellers" albums I considered worthy of posting. The first was Brooks and Dunn. This, the second one, is Darius Rucker.

Like with Brooks and Dunn, I'm not much of a fan of Darius Rucker. But also like with Brooks and Dunn, I know there are plenty of people who are fans of his music, and I'm trying to post all the at least decent Storytellers albums I can find.

Rucker first hit it big with his band Hootie and the Blowfish in the 1990s. Their 1994 album "Cracked Rear View" went on to sell more than 22 million copies worldwide! But by the end of the 1990s, the band faced declining sales. None of their albums went gold (meaning selling half a million copies) - a far cry from their earlier success. 

Starting in 2001, Rucker began transitioning into a solo career in country music. He never entirely gave up Hootie and the Blowfish, and still occasionally performs with them, but his solo career soon became his main focus. That's because he's found a lot of commercial success with that too. For instance, he's had nine Number One songs on the U.S. country singles chart. One song, a cover of "Wagon Wheel," sold about four million copies in 2013.

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Darius Rucker - Wikipedia 

This concert has him mainly in country mode. However, he played a couple of his biggest hits with Hootie and the Blowfish too: "Let Her Cry" and "Only Wanna Be with You."

I had to make a lot of edits to make this sound like one coherent concert. I faced the usual problems of the applause getting cut off too early and having to get rid of snippets of songs from later in the show, meant to keep people watching right before going to commercials. But it should sound good now, I hope.

Note that as I write this in December 2024, there have been four additional episodes of "CMT Storytellers," three in 2023 and one in 2024. They featured:

Kelsea Ballerini
Kane Brown
Dierks Bentley
Little Big Town

I don't think I'm going to find and post any of those shows. None of them really interest me. For instance, a couple of them fall into the "bro country" sub-genre, which I try to avoid. Plus, I don't think they're nearly as popular as either Brooks and Dunn or Darius Rucker. But if anyone thinks I'm wrong, let me know. I have to admit I didn't look into them very closely either.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 talk (Darius Rucker)
02 Let Her Cry (Darius Rucker)
03 talk (Darius Rucker)
04 Alright (Darius Rucker)
05 talk (Darius Rucker)
06 For the First Time (Darius Rucker)
07 talk (Darius Rucker)
08 It Won't Be like This for Long (Darius Rucker)
09 talk (Darius Rucker)
10 This (Darius Rucker)
11 talk (Darius Rucker)
12 Wagon Wheel (Darius Rucker)
13 talk (Darius Rucker)
14 Only Wanna Be with You (Darius Rucker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/R9gyTeMa

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/GYjc8z8ZvthFHHh/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Brooks & Dunn - CMT Storytellers, Worldwide Stages, Spring Hill, TN, 3-25-2022

I have to confess I'm not much of a Brooks and Dunn fan. However, I made a vow to post all the "VH-1 Storytellers" concerts I could by musical acts that are at least decent, and this country duo makes that bar. 

Technically, this isn't a "VH-1 Storytellers" concert. That TV show basically died out in 2012. But it's basically the exact same thing, same storytelling format, except it's on the CMT (Country Music Television) channel instead of the VH1 channel. Both channels are owned by the same mega corporation (Paramount). So the show was revived in 2022 with the twist that all the new episodes feature country music acts.

The duo was formed when Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, both struggling singer-songwriters in the country genre at the time, decided to join forces. Their debut album as a duo went on to sell six million copies in the U.S. They had success after success after that, with a total of 20 songs that reached Number One on the U.S. country singles charts. They broke up in 2010. But they've had numerous reunions since then, including this one.

Here's their Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Brooks & Dunn - Wikipedia

I faced some of the exact same problems when I was putting together VH-1 Storytellers albums. For instance, the applause was often abruptly cut off at the ends of songs. And snippets of songs played later in the show were played earlier in the show, right before commercial breaks. Furthermore, some of their talking between songs was actually from interviews and not the show itself. I had to do a lot of editing to smooth all that over and get this to sound like a continuous concert. I hope I succeeded.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Brand New Man (Brooks & Dunn)
02 talk (Brooks & Dunn)
03 Red Dirt Road (Brooks & Dunn)
04 talk (Brooks & Dunn)
05 Neon Moon (Brooks & Dunn)
06 talk (Brooks & Dunn)
07 Ain't Nothing 'bout You (Brooks & Dunn)
08 talk (Brooks & Dunn)
09 You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone (Brooks & Dunn)
10 talk (Brooks & Dunn)
11 Believe (Brooks & Dunn)
12 talk (Brooks & Dunn)
13 Boot Scootin' Boogie (Brooks & Dunn)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GmdfoLie

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xqz0cFEFIjMhv2O/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Ronnie Dunn is the one who has a big "cowboy" tattoo on his arm.