Sheryl Crow - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Music Studios, New York City, 8-20-1998

Here we go again with another "VH-1 Storytellers" episode. This time, it's Sheryl Crow.

As an aside, I believed this is the 52nd album from this TV show that I've posted so far. I have about ten more to go, so we're entering the final stretch. That's out of nearly 100 episodes. There are a handful more I'd like to post except I can't find the music for them, and there are still others that have been officially released in full or are of musical acts that I really don't like. 

About a month after this concert, Crow released her third studio album, "The Globe Sessions." This would go on to be a big seller, selling about two million copies in the U.S. alone. 

As you'd expect, she played songs from her latest album. But only two were broadcast on the TV show: "My Favorite Mistake" and "Riverwide." I would assume she played more that got edited out.

There were two surprises in this concert. One, she performed the 1960s classic hit "Ode to Billy Joe," which she has never officially released. And two, she was joined by Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks for the song "Strong Enough." Apparently, Crow and Nicks are good friends and have occasionally appeared on each other's albums. Everything from this album is unreleased, except for the "Strong Enough" duet, which appeared on a various artists compilation of Storytellers performances.

As is usually the case with this series, the broadcast of first song began midway through. In most cases, I've managed to find a similar version and fill in the missing portion. I tried to do that again here, with "Everyday Is a Winding Road." Unfortunately, the other versions I found from around this time had somewhat different arrangements. It was enough of a difference so I couldn't make a good match. So I had to leave it incomplete.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Everyday Is a Winding Road [Edit] (Sheryl Crow)
02 talk (Sheryl Crow)
03 If It Makes You Happy (Sheryl Crow)
04 talk (Sheryl Crow)
05 My Favorite Mistake (Sheryl Crow)
06 talk (Sheryl Crow)
07 Ode to Billy Joe (Sheryl Crow)
08 talk (Sheryl Crow)
09 Riverwide (Sheryl Crow)
10 talk (Sheryl Crow)
11 Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow & Stevie Nicks)
12 talk (Sheryl Crow)
13 All I Want to Do (Sheryl Crow)
14 Leaving Las Vegas (Sheryl Crow)
15 talk (Sheryl Crow)
16 Home (Sheryl Crow)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17184618/SHERYLCRW1998StrytllrsSnyMsicStdosNwYrkC__8-20-1998_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fKcWWMwg

I couldn't find a good photo from this exact concert for the cover image. So instead I used a photo taken at a concert at Wembley Arena in London on December 10, 1997.

Matchbox Twenty - VH-1 Storytellers, Chelsea Piers, Pier 59, Studio C, New York City, 2-9-2001

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood continues with an episode featuring the band Matchbox Twenty. (They're also commonly known as Matchbox 20, but I went for spelling out "Twenty" since that how Wikipedia has it.)

I have to admit I wasn't that familiar with the music of this band, but they seem worthy of this TV show. The band had two massively popular albums in the U.S. in 1996 and 2000. Combined, those sold about 16 million copies in the U.S. alone. But the band's lead singer, Rob Thomas, is possibly even more famous for being the vocalist to Santana's huge hit "Smooth."

The most recent album at the time of this concert was "Mad Season." They performed six songs from that album: "Black and White People," "Bent," "Crutch," "Mad Season," "If You're Gone," and "Rest Stop."

Thankfully, the first song was not cut off, as is typically the case for this series. That's probably because this is from an audio bootleg that's about twenty minutes longer than the typical TV show episode for this series.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
02 Bent (Matchbox Twenty)
03 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
04 Mad Season (Matchbox Twenty)
05 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
06 Black and White People (Matchbox Twenty)
07 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
08 Push (Matchbox Twenty)
09 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
10 If You're Gone (Matchbox Twenty)
11 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
12 Crutch (Matchbox Twenty)
13 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
14 Lonely Weekend (Matchbox Twenty)
15 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
16 You Won't Be Mine (Matchbox Twenty)
17 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
18 Rest Stop (Matchbox Twenty)
19 talk (Matchbox Twenty)
20 3 A.M. (Matchbox Twenty)
21 Push [Country Version] (Matchbox Twenty)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17183680/MATCHBXTWNTY2001StrytllrsChlsaPersPir59NwYrkC__2-9-2001_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EXAdhr58

The cover image is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. It was rather blurry and low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to increase the detail.

Melissa Etheridge - VH-1 Storytellers, New York City, 11-10-1996

Even more "VH-1 Storytellers" episodes coming to you today. This time, it's singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge.

This performance was done in solo acoustic format. That seemed to be pretty common in the first year or two of the TV show, but happened rarely after that. It took place about a year after the release of Etheridge's 1995 album "Your Little Secret." It sold two million copies, which is very good, but that still was a come down compared to her previous album, "Yes I Am," which sold six million.

Only two songs from that album were included here: "Nowhere to Go" and "All the Way to Heaven." She probably played more, but this was edited down from a longer concert.

Speaking of editing, once again I was faced with the problem of the first song starting midway through. I found a different version of "Bring Me Some Water" also done acoustic style from the same time period, and patched the two versions together. That's what that song has "[Edit]" in its title. But, as usual with this series, I did a lot of additional editing, especially with the applause at the ends of songs. And I boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments on all the songs using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Bring Me Some Water [Edit] (Melissa Etheridge)
02 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
03 Watching You (Melissa Etheridge)
04 Come to My Window (Melissa Etheridge)
05 No Souvenirs (Melissa Etheridge)
06 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
07 Testify (Melissa Etheridge)
08 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
09 Yes I Am (Melissa Etheridge)
10 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
11 I'm the Only One (Melissa Etheridge)
12 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
13 Nowhere to Go (Melissa Etheridge)
14 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
15 All the Way to Heaven (Melissa Etheridge)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17184503/MELISSAE1996StrytllrsNwYrkC__11-10-1996_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ySEDagwk

The cover photo comes from the City of Hope benefit concert at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California, in 1996. I've posted an album of that concert at this blog, by the way.

Green Day - VH-1 Storytellers, MTV-VH-1 Studios, Santa Monica, CA, 2-15-2005

Here we go again - yet another episode of "VH-1 Storytellers." This time, it's the band Green Day.

This is a unique episode. Virtually all music acts on the TV show were promoting a new studio album and played some songs from it. But Green Day took that a step further. They played every song from their latest album, in order, without playing any other songs. 

Luckily for everyone, it turned out to be probably their most acclaimed album, "American Idiot," released in late 2004. Their commercial fortunes had been declining, but this album turned that around. It went to Number One in the U.S., and sold over 23 million copies worldwide. It's kind of a rock opera, with political themes that especially targeted George W. Bush, Jr., who was the U.S. president at the time. It had a fantastic critical reception. For instance, it won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, and Rolling Stone Magazine has it on their list of the top 500 albums of all time.

I had a lot of trouble putting this together. For one thing, this was one of those rare albums where voiceovers were added on top of the music to most of the songs. This was somewhat countered by the fact that four of the performances were released as B-sides without the voiceovers ("Give Me Novacaine," "Homecoming," "Are We the Waiting," and "St. Jimmy"). But still, three of them had that problem, and "St. Jimmy" had another problem. I fixed them using the UVR5 audio editing program, but that's why those songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

I had another problem. I was able to find the songs here easily enough, since this is a fairly popular bootleg. However, virtually all copies didn't have the banter between songs. I couldn't find any videos of the concert to help with this either. Eventually, I was able to find some talking tracks. But I suspect there are more that I missed.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 talk (Green Day)
02 American Idiot (Green Day)
03 talk (Green Day)
04 Jesus of Suburbia [Edit] (Green Day)
06 Holiday [Edit] (Green Day)
07 talk (Green Day)
08 Boulevard of Broken Dreams [Edit] (Green Day)
09 Are We the Waiting (Green Day)
10 St. Jimmy (Green Day)
11 talk (Green Day)
12 Give Me Novacaine [Edit] (Green Day)
13 She's a Rebel (Green Day)
14 talk (Green Day)
15 Extraordinary Girl (Green Day)
16 Letterbomb (Green Day)
17 talk (Green Day)
18 Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day)
19 talk (Green Day)
20 Homecoming (Green Day)
21 talk (Green Day)
22 Whatsername (Green Day)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180186/GRENDY2005StrytllrsMTVH1StdosSntaMncaCA__2-15-2005_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YMrA59V4

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

Travis - VH-1 Storytellers, Bray Film Studios, Windsor, Britain, 5-29-2000

Here is yet another "VH-1 Storytellers" episode. This time, it features the band Travis.

At the time of this concert, Travis was massively popular, but mostly in Britain and the rest of Europe. They remain far less known in the U.S. They released their first album, "Good Feeling," in 1997. It went Platinum in Britain. In 1999, their second album was released, "The Man Who." It went Platinum nine times over in Britain. (Note that in Britain Platinum sales are achieved with 300,000 copies sold, not a million in the U.S., due to the country's much smaller population size.) Their next album would also sell big in Britain, but since then, their sales have declined considerably.

This episode contained two interesting covers: "...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears, and "River" by Joni Mitchell. Both of them only came out as B-sides at the time. Naturally, the rest of the concert was dominated by songs from the band's big album "The Man Who."

As was usually the case for this series, most of the first song was not included. But I found a different version from the same year (at the Glastonbury Festival, actually), and used it to fill in the missing portion. Also, the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I boosted them using the UVR5 audio editing program.

Note this band is from Scotland, and the lead singer, Fran Healy, has a pretty thick Scottish accent. As an American myself, I found it pretty hard to understand his banter between songs. So beware.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Turn [Edit] (Travis)
02 talk (Travis)
03 Why Does It Always Rain on Me (Travis)
04 talk (Travis)
05 ...Baby One More Time (Travis)
06 talk (Travis)
07 Driftwood (Travis)
08 talk (Travis)
09 Coming Around (Travis)
10 talk (Travis)
11 As You Are (Travis)
12 talk (Travis)
13 Slideshow (Travis)
14 talk (Travis)
15 River (Travis)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180700/TRVIS2000StrytllrsBryFlmStdosWndsrBrtin__5-29-2000_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P7wfXDVf

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the video of this exact concert. I used the program Krea AI to add detail.

Elton John - VH-1 Storytellers, House of Blues, New Orleans, LA, 9-19-1997

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is the musical legend Elton John.

There are two particularly notable aspects about this episode, in my opinion. One is that the entire show was performed just by John at a piano. It isn't very often when he plays solo like that. The second is that this is effectively a double show, since it was twice as long as a typical episode.

Just three days after this concert, he released the studio album "The Big Picture." The songs played from that album here "Something about the Way You Look Tonight," which was a big hit, and " Long Way from Happiness." Otherwise, he generally played classic hits from previous albums.

As was usually the case, most of the first song was cut off. That's especially a shame since it was the all-time classic "Your Song." I found another version from the same year with similar sound quality and merged the versions together. That's what that song has "[Edit]" in the title. There also was a problem in the middle of "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues," but I was able to patch in some music to cover it up. So that's why that one also has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 Your Song [Edit] (Elton John)
02 talk (Elton John)
03 Talking Old Soldiers (Elton John)
04 talk (Elton John)
05 I Don't Wanna Go On with You like That (Elton John)
06 talk (Elton John)
07 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues [Edit] (Elton John)
08 talk (Elton John)
09 Daniel (Elton John)
10 talk (Elton John)
11 Levon (Elton John)
12 talk (Elton John)
13 Something about the Way You Look Tonight (Elton John)
14 talk (Elton John)
15 Long Way from Happiness (Elton John)
16 talk (Elton John)
17 Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
18 talk (Elton John)
19 Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (Elton John)
20 talk (Elton John)
21 Take Me to the Pilot (Elton John)
22 talk (Elton John)
23 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180168/ELTONJHN1997StrytllrsHuseofBlusNwOrlensLA__9-19-1997_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NnLzFMzv

I couldn't find a good photo from this exact concert. So instead I used one from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that took place only three days later, September 22, 1997.

The Foo Fighters - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, CA, 10-28-2009

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood continues. This time, it's the Foo Fighters.

The timing of this concert is rather curious. Normally, musical acts are promoting a new album. But this took place in the middle of a four-year gap between the release of "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" in 2007 and "Wasting Light" in 2011. Perhaps the answer is that the band released a "Greatest Hits" collection about one month after this concert.

The hits album included two new songs, "Wheels" and "Word Forward." Sure enough, both of those were performed here.

Thankfully, this episode did not begin halfway through the first song. As I've done for almost all the episodes in this series, I had to make a lot of small adjustments to improve the flow, especially adding applause when the applause got abruptly cut off. Also, the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I boosted them relative to the instruments.

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk (Foo Fighters)
02 This Is a Call (Foo Fighters)
03 talk (Foo Fighters)
04 Big Me (Foo Fighters)
05 talk (Foo Fighters)
06 Wheels (Foo Fighters)
07 talk (Foo Fighters)
08 My Hero (Foo Fighters)
09 talk (Foo Fighters)
10 Word Forward (Foo Fighters)
11 talk (Foo Fighters)
12 Everlong (Foo Fighters)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180167/TFOFGHTRS2009StrytllrsSnyPctursStdosClvrCtyCA__10-28-2009_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4SqPmo9u

The cover image is a screenshot taken from this exact concert.

Bon Jovi - VH-1 Storytellers, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, 9-20-2000

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode by the band Bon Jovi.

In this case, we happen to have album that is about double the typical episode length. This is because of a soundboard bootleg of the entire concert. I cut out some dead air. Also, a couple of songs were done twice, but I only kept one version each.

Bon Jovi has sold over 120 million albums worldwide. At the time of this concert, the band had release the studio album "Crush" several months earlier. It revived the band's sagging commercial sales, mostly due to the hit song "It's My Life." The album went on to sell over two million copies in the U.S., and did very well in Europe as well.

Only two songs from that album were performed in this concert: "It's My Life" and "Just Older." Most of the rest are hits from earlier albums. They also did the Tom Waits song "Jersey Girl," which has never been officially released by them.

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 talk (Bon Jovi)
02 Love for Sale (Bon Jovi)
03 talk (Bon Jovi)
04 Jersey Girl (Bon Jovi)
05 talk (Bon Jovi)
06 You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
07 talk (Bon Jovi)
08 It's My Life (Bon Jovi)
09 talk (Bon Jovi)
10 Stranger in This Town (Bon Jovi)
11 talk (Bon Jovi)
12 Bed of Roses (Bon Jovi)
13 talk (Bon Jovi)
14 Livin' on a Prayer [Acoustic Version] (Bon Jovi)
15 talk (Bon Jovi)
16 Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi)
17 talk (Bon Jovi)
18 Just Older (Bon Jovi)
19 talk (Bon Jovi)
20 Bad Medicine (Bon Jovi)
21 talk (Bon Jovi)
22 Never Say Goodbye (Bon Jovi)
23 talk (Bon Jovi)
24 Someday I'll Be Saturday Night (Bon Jovi)
25 talk (Bon Jovi)

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

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. I also used the Krea AI program to add more detail.

The Bee Gees - VH-1 Storytellers, Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, FL, 11-25-1996

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode featuring the Bee Gees.

The Bee Gees are musical legends, having sold over 120 million albums worldwide. However, they were so massively popular during the 1970s disco era that the U.S. public burned out on them. While they continued to be popular in Europe and elsewhere, none of their new studio albums from the end of the 1970s until the time of this concert even reached the Gold status of selling 500,000 copies.

In early 1997, they would release the new album "Still Waters." It would give them the most success they had in the U.S. in decades, selling over a million copies. This was largely due to the hit song "Alone." While that is not included here, two other singles from that album are: "Still Waters (Run Deep)" and "I Could Not Love You More." The rest are generally big hits they wrote for themselves and others in earlier decades.

Generally speaking, the assumption with these Storytellers albums is that all of the performances are unreleased. But in this case, "How Deep Is Your Love" was released on a various artists compilation of Storytellers highlights.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 I Gotta Get a Message to You (Bee Gees)
02 talk (Bee Gees)
03 To Love Somebody (Bee Gees)
04 talk (Bee Gees)
05 I Started a Joke (Bee Gees)
06 talk (Bee Gees)
07 Lonely Days (Bee Gees)
08 talk (Bee Gees)
09 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Bee Gees)
10 talk (Bee Gees)
11 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
12 talk (Bee Gees)
13 How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees)
14 talk (Bee Gees)
15 Islands in the Stream (Bee Gees)
16 talk (Bee Gees)
17 Heartbreaker (Bee Gees)
18 talk (Bee Gees)
19 Stayin' Alive (Bee Gees)
20 talk (Bee Gees)
21 Still Waters (Bee Gees)
22 talk (Bee Gees)
23 I Could Not Love You More (Bee Gees)
24 talk (Bee Gees)
25 Words (Bee Gees)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17176452/TBEEGS1996StrytllrsBltmorHtelCralGblesFL__11-25-1996_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UrbmEbQa

The cover photo is from a concert at Wembley Stadium, in London, in September 1998.

No Doubt - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Studios, New York City, 8-10-2000

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode featuring the band No Doubt.

No Doubt really hit it big with their 1995 album "Tragic Kingdom." It sold over 16 million copies worldwide, and over 10 million in the U.S. They took five years to follow it up though. Their next album, "Return of Saturn," was a relative disappointment, selling about a million and a half copies in the U.S. That was the album they were touring to support for this special. Their next album released a year later would do considerably better. But then the band would break up and their lead singer, Gwen Stefani, would go on to have a very successful solo career.

Only two of the songs performed at this concert were from the "Return of Saturn" album: "Ex-Girlfriend" and "Simple Kind of Life." The latter song was the only significant hit from the album. Most of the other songs were from the "Tragic Kingdom" album. Interestingly, the band played early and abbreviated versions of two songs, "Don't Speak" and "Ex-Girlfriend," before playing the final versions.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Sunday Morning (No Doubt)
02 talk (No Doubt)
03 Just a Girl (No Doubt)
04 talk (No Doubt)
05 Don't Speak [Early Version] (No Doubt)
06 talk (No Doubt)
07 Don't Speak (No Doubt)
08 talk (No Doubt)
09 Ex-Girlfriend [Early Version] (No Doubt)
10 talk (No Doubt)
11 Ex-Girlfriend (No Doubt)
12 talk (No Doubt)
13 Simple Kind of Life (No Doubt)
14 talk (No Doubt)
15 Spiderwebs (No Doubt)
16 talk (No Doubt)
17 Trapped in a Box (No Doubt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17171361/NODUBT2000StrytllrsVHStdosNwYrk__8-10-2000_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ui8gPWSM

The cover is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to increase the detail level.

More A.I. Upgrading

I've been trying out the Krea AI picture enhancing program in the past couple of days. I really like the results. As I mentioned previously, it uses guesswork to create a lot of detail that wasn't in the original image. Sometimes, the faces don't look quite right, but I've figured some ways around that. A key one is to just overlay the new image on top of the old one in Photoshop, and then let more of the old image through.

Anyway, one problem with the "VH-1 Storytellers" albums I've been posting is that many of the cover images are screenshots I took from low-res videos of the TV show episodes. So there's been an unusually large number of poor album covers. I just used this new program to upgrade all the ones I wasn't satisfied with. Here's a list (in no logical order except the order I fixed them), in case you want to redownload them. Or you could just save the photos that show up in my blog posts.

Sorry I don't have download links. But you can just scroll back from the most recent postings and find them all easily enough.

Eurythmics - VH-1 Storytellers, Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center, New York City, 9-28-1999

John Fogerty - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 6-11-1997

Stevie Nicks - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 8-18-1998

Steely Dan - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Studios, New York City, 2-1-2000

Bonnie Raitt - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Studios, New York City, 5-12-1998

Billy Joel - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Studios, New York City, 9-11-1997

Sarah McLachlan - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Music Studios, New York City, 1-29-1998

Paul Simon - VH-1 Storytellers, New York City, 10-20-1997

Def Leppard - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 7-26-1999

Jackson Browne - VH-1 Storytellers, The Hit Factory, New York City, 4-18-1996

The Smashing Pumpkins - VH-1 Storytellers, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, 8-24-2000

Tori Amos - VH-1 Storytellers, Metropolis Studios, New York City, 10-24-1998

R.E.M. - VH-1 Storytellers, Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center, New York City, 10-23-1998

Natalie Merchant - VH-1 Storytellers, Manhattan Center, New York City, 9-14-1998

Electric Light Orchestra - VH-1 Storytellers, Altman Building, New York City, 4-20-2001

Lenny Kravitz - VH-1 Storytellers, New York City, 8-22-1999

Here comes another "VH-1 Storytellers" episode. This time, it's Lenny Kravitz.

Kravitz has had a very successful musical career. He's sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Most of his success came in the 1990s. The timing of this concert is a bit curious, because it came over a year after the release of his last album at the time, "5." He did have a very big hit single in 1999, "American Woman," that came from a movie soundtrack instead of his latest album. But he didn't play that here, or at least it wasn't included in the TV show.

Only one song from this album "5" was included in this performance, "Fly Away," a big hit. But then again there were only six songs in all. That, in part, is because he did a lot of talking, about 16 minutes' worth. The other songs were all big hits from earlier albums, except for the deep cut "My Precious Love."

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 talk (Lenny Kravitz)
02 Are You Gonna Go My Way (Lenny Kravitz)
03 talk (Lenny Kravitz)
04 Let Love Rule (Lenny Kravitz)
05 talk (Lenny Kravitz)
06 Always on the Run (Lenny Kravitz)
07 talk (Lenny Kravitz)
08 Believe (Lenny Kravitz)
09 talk (Lenny Kravitz)
10 My Precious Love (Lenny Kravitz)
11 talk (Lenny Kravitz)
12 Fly Away (Lenny Kravitz)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17171279/LENNYKRVTZ1999StrytllrsNwYrkC__8-22-1999_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/djfDokSr

I couldn't find any good photos from this exact concert. So the cover photo is from a concert in Chicago, Illinois, on July 15, 1999.

John Mayer - VH-1 Storytellers, Steiner Studios, New York City, 12-10-2009

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode featuring John Mayer.

I'm not a big John Mayer fan, although I appreciate he's a talented singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist. I guess I'm biased against him in large part because I'm so annoyed by his song "Waiting for the World to Change," which I see as an excuse for youth passivity and apathy. I just looked it up on Wikipedia right now, and one newspaper review referred to it as perhaps "the most spineless social-justice song ever written." I couldn't agree more.

I just had to vent about that, sorry. Anyway, at the time of this concert in 2009, Mayer's career had been highly commercially successful. His three previous studio albums sold at least three million copies each in the U.S. alone. His current album at the time, "Battle Studies," was released just a couple of weeks prior to this concert. It would go on to sell over two million copies in the U.S.

Only two songs here were from that album: "Heartbreak Warfare" and "Who Says." Most of the rest were from previous albums, although "Daughter Sequel Song" seems to have been made up on the spot. (The song title is just a guess.)

This album is 41 minutes long. That's a bit short compared to other episodes, so there might be a missing song or some missing banter.

01 No Such Thing (John Mayer)
02 talk (John Mayer)
03 Daughters (John Mayer)
04 talk (John Mayer)
05 Heartbreak Warfare (John Mayer)
06 Daughter Sequel Song (John Mayer)
07 talk (John Mayer)
08 Your Body Is a Wonderland (John Mayer)
09 talk (John Mayer)
10 Who Says (John Mayer)
11 talk (John Mayer)
12 Waiting on the World to Change (John Mayer)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17167414/JOHNMYER2009StrytllrsStinrStdosNwYrkC__12-10-2009_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/53XmSK2z

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Pearl Jam - VH-1 Storytellers, Club Avalon, New York City, 5-31-2006

Continuing the "VH-1 Storytellers" flood, here's an episode featuring the band Pearl Jam.

In the 1990s, Pearl Jam sold a massive number of albums. For instance, their debut album "Ten" sold over 13 million copies in the U.S. alone. By the time of their 2006 studio album, simply called "Pearl Jam," their sales were down but they had settled to getting dependable Gold sales (500,000) for this album and the previous two ones. The album did generally get very good reviews.

This performance heavily featured songs from the album: "World Wide Suicide," "Gone," "Severed Hand," "Unemployable," "Army Reserve," and "Life Wasted."

This episode was particularly tough to make presentable. Most of the songs came from a video of the TV show. That means only part of the first song was included, so I had to patch that in with a performance from a different concert that same year. But this is longer than a typical episode because I also found three songs from an audience bootleg of the full show, plus the banter before each of those songs. It turns out those were all of the songs performed. I also found a complete set list, so I added those extra songs in the correct order they were played.

Once I had all that material, I had to do a lot of "massaging" to make it more listenable. Probably the biggest problem was that this was one of the rare, extra annoying episodes where voiceovers were added to extended instrumental sections for most songs. So that's why "[Edit]" is added to some of the song titles after the first one, as I used the UVR5 audio editing program to wipe out the voiceovers while keeping the underlying music. Sometimes, what was left sounded rather rough. For "Gone," I took some music from earlier in the song (under some vocals) and patched that into the problem spot, since there was a prolonged repeated musical section that allowed me to do that. The songs sourced from the audience bootleg didn't have the voiceover problem, but the sound quality on them wasn't as good. So I did some more editing on them to make them sound better. And all the songs had the lead vocals low in the mix, so I had to run all the songs through UVR5 again just to boost the vocals.

Phew. A lot of hassle for me, but it should be a smooth listening for you.

Now, getting to the actual musical content, what's most notable to me is how politically outspoken the band's lead singer Eddie Vedder was in his banter. George W. Bush, Jr. was president at the time, and political progressives (such as myself) were very upset with him over the Iraq War being fought under false pretenses, the erosion of civil liberties, and many other issues. Vedder started right away with a rant against the Bush Administration before even playing the first song, and didn't let up much after that. (Good for him, I say!) 

Particularly notable was the sole cover played, "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon." This originally was written by folk singer Phil Ochs in the 1960s as "Here's to the State of Mississippi," about racism in the South. But Ochs rewrote it in the early 1970s as "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon," targeting the Nixon Adminstration at the time. But Vedder sang a version with entirely new lyrics. Instead of mentions of Mississippi or Nixon, it was filled with critiques of people associated with the Bush Administration. I don't think this cover has been included on any official Pearl Jam release.

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 talk (Pearl Jam)
02 Better Man [Edit] (Pearl Jam)
03 talk (Pearl Jam)
04 Unemployable (Pearl Jam)
05 talk (Pearl Jam)
06 World Wide Suicide (Pearl Jam)
07 talk (Pearl Jam)
08 Gone [Edit] (Pearl Jam)
09 talk (Pearl Jam)
10 Severed Hand (Pearl Jam)
11 talk (Pearl Jam)
12 Army Reserve (Pearl Jam)
13 talk (Pearl Jam)
14 Insignificance (Pearl Jam)
15 talk (Pearl Jam)
16 Alive [Edit] (Pearl Jam)
17 talk (Pearl Jam)
18 Here's to the State of Richard Nixon [2006 Version] (Pearl Jam)
19 talk (Pearl Jam)
20 Life Wasted [Edit] (Pearl Jam)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17167413/PERLJM2006StrytllersClbAvlonNwYrkC__5-31-2006_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gAottyW5

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

The Doors and Friends - VH-1 Storytellers, Hollywood Center Studios, Los Angeles, CA, 11-22-2000

This is possibly the strangest episode of the "VH-1 Storytellers" TV series, because it highlights the music of the band the Doors, despite the fact that that band's career effectively ended when its charismatic lead singer Jim Morrison died way back in 1971. 

The band's three surviving members Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger, and John Densmore continued for a year or two, but it wasn't the same without Morrison and they broke up. Every now and then, they reunited for some tribute or another. For instance, in 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the three of them played a few songs with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam serving as the lead singer. But these occasions were rare.

Then, in 2000, the tribute album "Stoned Immaculate: The Music of the Doors" was released. But this was different than almost all tribute albums, because members of the Doors played on the songs, with a variety of lead singers. There even were some songs incorporating unreleased recordings of Jim Morrison's voice before he died. Unfortunately, it wasn't well received by critics, and didn't sell well. 

There was no tour to support it... except for this one Storytellers episode. Again, the three surviving members of the Doors reunited to perform on all the songs, as well as do most of the talking and reminiscing between songs. Many (though not all) of the lead singers from the "Stoned Immaculate" album participated: Scott Weiland of the band Stone Temple Pilots, Ian Astbury of the band the Cult, Travis Meeks of the band Days of the New, Scott Stamp of the band Creed, and Perry Ferrell of the band Jane's Addiction.

I believe this was the last time the three surviving members of the Doors performed together in concert. Ray Manzarek died in 2013, so there could be no further reunions.

We have a lot more than the typical 45 minute long episode in this case because a DVD performance was released. However, even that wasn't the full show. And weirdly, a couple of songs were only included as "bonus tracks," so they were tacked on at the end instead of fitting into the concert with all the others. I moved one of those to fit with other songs sung by the same lead singer. But moving the other one wasn't so easy, so I left it at the end.

Unfortunately, for some bizarre reason, the DVD kept to the TV show's weird habit of including only part of the first song. This was frustrating because it appears that this concert was the one and only time the lead singer Perry Farrell sang this song, "L.A. Woman," with the surviving Doors members. He did do the some in concert some with his band Jane's Addiction, but that had been about a decade earlier, and the versions were fairly different. On the "Stoned Immaculate" album he sang one song, but it was a different song "Children of the Night" (which by the way wasn't an original Doors song, though it used some of Jim Morrison's poetry and his voice). So I had to leave this song incomplete. It's especially frustrating because it's only about a minute out of what is at least an eight minute long song.

All in all, this episode is a bit strange, but I think it works. The lead singers all sang well, and the banter between songs by the surviving members of the Doors was interesting. It seems this actually was much more successful than the "Stoned Immaculate" album, which had a lot of misguided efforts to use Morrison's voice and/or modern music styles that didn't fit the Doors.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 L.A. Woman [Incomplete] (Doors & Friends with Perry Farrell)
02 talk (Doors & Friends)
03 Love Me Two Times (Doors & Friends with Pat Monahan)
04 talk (Doors & Friends)
05 Alabama Song [Whisky Bar] - Backdoor Man (Doors & Friends with Ian Astbury)
06 talk (Doors & Friends)
07 The End (Doors & Friends with Travis Meeks)
08 talk (Doors & Friends)
09 Break on Through [To the Other Side] (Doors & Friends with Scott Weiland)
10 talk (Doors & Friends)
11 Five to One (Doors & Friends with Scott Weiland)
12 talk (Doors & Friends)
13 Light My Fire (Doors & Friends with Scott Stapp)
14 talk (Doors & Friends)
15 Roadhouse Blues (Doors & Friends with Scott Stapp)
16 talk (Doors & Friends)
17 Riders on the Storm (Doors & Friends with Scott Stapp)
18 talk (Doors & Friends)
19 Wild Child (Doors & Friends with Ian Astbury)
20 talk (Doors & Friends)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17167417/TDORSNFRENDS2000StrytllrsHllywodCntrStdosLsAnglesCA__11-22-2000_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GzXzNRN5

The cover photo is of Scott Stapp, taken from this exact concert.

John Mellencamp - VH-1 Storytellers, Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL, 10-1-1998

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood continues with an episode featuring John Mellencamp.

In October 1998, just a few days after this concert, Mellencamp released a studio album simply titled "John Mellencamp." Unfortunately for him, it marked the start of point in his career with lower sales. His previous ten albums sold at least a million copies in the U.S., and he's sold over 30 million in his career. But this album would only go gold (sales of 500,000), and he hasn't bested that ever since.

However, only two of the songs performed here are from that album: "Eden Is Burning" and "I'm Not Running Anymore."

Once again, we somehow got lucky, because this appears to be a soundboard bootleg of the full performance instead of just the 45 minutes or so of the actual TV episode. I don't know how, but that's happened quite a few times for this TV show. Mellencamp talked quite a lot between songs, pretty much explaining his entire music career and personal development through his life. 

The only song officially released from this concert is "Jack and Diane," which appeared on a various artists compilation of Storytellers performances.

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.

01 talk (John Mellencamp)
02 Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp)
03 talk (John Mellencamp)
04 Eden Is Burning (John Mellencamp)
05 talk (John Mellencamp)
06 Crumblin' Down (John Mellencamp)
07 talk (John Mellencamp)
08 Small Town (John Mellencamp)
09 talk (John Mellencamp)
10 I'm Not Running Anymore (John Mellencamp)
11 talk (John Mellencamp)
12 Pop Singer (John Mellencamp)
13 talk (John Mellencamp)
14 Minutes to Memories (John Mellencamp)
15 talk (John Mellencamp)
16 Jackie Brown (John Mellencamp)
17 talk (John Mellencamp)

NOTE: Unfortunately, the download link has been removed due to a copyright issue. Sorry.

I couldn't find a really good cover photo from this exact concert. So instead I used one from an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in November 1998.

Jewel - VH-1 Storytellers, Metropolis Studios, New York City, 6-9-1999

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is the episode featuring Jewel (a.k.a. Jewel Kilcher).

It terms of popularity, Jewel peaked early. Her first album, "Pieces of You" in 1995, sold twelve million copies in the U.S. Her second one, "Spirit," sold four million. Her next one in 2001 would sell about a million, and sales would decline further from there. So it made sense that VH-1 wanted her to do an episode in 1999, while she was still touring to support her "Spirit" album.

She only performed three songs from that album, "Hands" (the big hit from the album), "Jupiter," and "What's Simple Is True." Most of the rest were from her first album, including the big hits "Who Will Save Your Soul" and "You Were Meant for Me."

Normally, all of the performances from these albums are unreleased. But the version of "Who Will Save Your Soul" here made it to a various artists compilation of Storytellers performances.

I'm not quite sure what's up with the sourcing here. At 53 minutes, it's longer than the 44 minute long video of this episode found on YouTube. The last two songs were not included in that video. So perhaps this is a bootleg of more. But if that's the case, I would expect to be well over an hour long, since all the other bootlegs of full performances are of that length. Oh well. At least it all sounds like it comes from one source, and we don't have the usual problem of the first song being cut off.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 talk (Jewel)
02 Hands (Jewel)
03 talk (Jewel)
04 Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone (Jewel)
05 talk (Jewel)
06 You Were Meant for Me (Jewel)
07 talk (Jewel)
08 Who Will Save Your Soul (Jewel)
09 talk (Jewel)
10 Jupiter [Swallow the Moon] (Jewel)
11 talk (Jewel)
12 Sweet Angel [The Cowboy Waltz] (Jewel)
13 talk (Jewel)
14 What's Simple Is True (Jewel)
15 talk (Jewel)
16 OEO [Do You Want to Play] (Jewel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17161585/JEWL1999StrytllrsMtrplisStdosNwYrkC__6-9-1999_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pNDyzvak

I couldn't find a good photo from this exact concert. This one is form a concert in Southampton, England, in May 1999.

AI Magic?

Today, I discovered a new AI program to potentially help with improving the cover art of my albums. Not often, but occasionally, I feel obliged to use a low quality image when I can't find anything better. I learned about a brand new (and free) AI program called Krea AI. I've only started testing it, but it seems to do a really good job of upgraded and enhancing pictures.

Here's an example. This is an album cover I made of Robert Johnson a while back. The problem with Johnson is that he was such an obscure figure that only a few photo of him are known to exist, and all of them are of very poor quality. (It was the 1930s, after all.) 

By comparison, here's how Krea AI upgraded that same picture, by using guesswork to make up details.

I think it looks pretty damn amazing. But the downside is that it's arguably less authentic, since so much of it is guesswork. So what do you all think? Should I upgrade some pics like this or not?

Here's another one I upgraded just now. It's a picture of the songwriting team Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy. My problem was I couldn't find even a single photo of them together, even though they'd written many great songs together. So I used Photoshop to cobble together a picture with both of them in it. But I felt it had some serious flaws, for instance some of the colors not looking quite right (since I colorized some of it too).

And here's what the Krea AI program did. All I did was feed in that picture (minus the lettering) and this is what came out with no changes whatsoever. I think it looks much better, and less stitched together.

I couldn't resist doing one more. This is the Def Leppard cover I did just a few days ago, from a very blurry and low-res video screenshot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is what the program came up with. I thought for sure it would do a poor job with that one, since it had so little to go on, but I have to say I'm impressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what do you think? I could do a lot of this, or a little bit, or not at all. I am very curious to see what other people think about the use of this kind of technology.

Sting - VH-1 Storytellers, Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY, 7-15-1996

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode by Sting, former lead singer of the band the Police.

In early 1996, Sting released his fifth solo studio album, "Mercury Falling." It did reasonably well by his standards, selling over a million copies in the U.S., but it didn't have any big hits in the U.S., a first for one of his albums. Only three of the songs performed here come from that album, "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot," "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying," and "Lithium Sunset."

This episode is rather unusual for the series, because Sting often stopped in the middle of performing a song to talk about the song structure. Then he would finish it off. That happened for five songs. It's an interesting technique, though I wish he would have saved the talking for before or after those songs.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 talk (Sting)
02 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
03 talk (Sting)
04 Message in a Bottle [Reprise] (Sting)
05 Every Breath You Take (Sting)
06 talk (Sting)
07 Every Breath You Take [Reprise] (Sting)
08 Fields of Gold (Sting)
09 talk (Sting)
10 Fields of Gold [Reprise] (Sting)
11 talk (Sting)
12 King of Pain (Sting)
13 talk (Sting)
14 King of Pain [Reprise] (Sting)
15 talk (Sting)
16 Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot (Sting)
17 talk (Sting)
18 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (Sting)
19 talk (Sting)
20 I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying (Sting)
21 talk (Sting)
22 I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying [Reprise] (Sting)
23 talk (Sting)
24 Roxanne (Sting)
25 talk (Sting)
26 Lithium Sunset (Sting)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17161582/STNG1996StrytllrsStphnTlkhuseAmgnsttNY__7-15-1996_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/X4fu4R6x

I couldn't find any really good images from this exact concert. So instead I used a photo taken somewhere in France some time in 1996.

Tom Waits - VH-1 Storytellers, Burbank Airport, Los Angeles, CA, 4-1-1999

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood continues with an episode featuring singer-songwriter Tom Waits.

I have conflicted opinions about Waits. On one hand, I really don't like his voice, which I feel is part of a deliberately constructed persona where he's trying to be a character in a Charles Bukowski novel. But on the other hand, I can't deny he's a talented songwriter, and I enjoy his songs when other people sing them. Given that, I wasn't really looking forward to prepping this album. But it was better than I'd expected. A big part of that is there's a lot of banter, and his talking is entertaining without the singing vocals problem I have with him.

One nice thing about the Storytellers album is that the episodes were typically only about 45 minutes long, but a good portion of them are bootlegs that are a lot longer. This is one such case. The soundboard bootleg I found was nearly two hours long, but I cut out a little bit of dead air here and there. I also removed a song or two that were redone because the producers of the show weren't happy with the first version for some reason or another.

At the time of this concert, Waits was just about to release "Mule Variations," his first studio album in six years. It would come out two weeks later. Rolling Stone Magazine would later include it in their list of the top 500 albums of all time. A few songs were played from it: "Chocolate Jesus," "Get Behind the Mule," "Hold On," "Picture in a Frame," "House Where Nobody Lives," and "What's He Building." This is mostly performed in solo acoustic mode.

This album is an hour and 44 minutes long.

01 talk (Tom Waits)
02 Tango 'till They're Sore (Tom Waits)
03 talk (Tom Waits)
04 Hang Down Your Head (Tom Waits)
05 talk (Tom Waits)
06 Ol' 55 (Tom Waits)
07 talk (Tom Waits)
08 Strange Weather (Tom Waits)
09 talk (Tom Waits)
10 Hold On [False Start] (Tom Waits)
11 Hold On (Tom Waits)
12 talk (Tom Waits)
13 Picture in a Frame (Tom Waits)
14 talk (Tom Waits)
15 I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (Tom Waits)
16 talk (Tom Waits)
17 House Where Nobody Lives (Tom Waits)
18 Get Behind the Mule Intro (Tom Waits)
19 Get Behind the Mule (Tom Waits)
20 talk (Tom Waits)
21 Chocolate Jesus (Tom Waits)
22 talk (Tom Waits)
23 What's He Building (Tom Waits)
24 talk (Tom Waits)
25 A Little Rain (Tom Waits)
26 talk (Tom Waits)
27 Downtown Train (Tom Waits)
28 talk (Tom Waits)
29 Black Wings (Tom Waits)
30 talk (Tom Waits)
31 Jesus Gonna Be Here (Tom Waits)
32 talk (Tom Waits)
33 Jersey Girl (Tom Waits)

https://www.imagenetz.de/egFMe

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9Yg98Z61

The cover photo is from a concert at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, on March 20, 1999, just a couple of weeks prior to this concert.

Elvis Costello - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 5-29-1996

Here's yet another "VH-1 Storytellers" album. This one features British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello.

In 1996, Costello released "All This Useless Beauty," his seventeenth studio album. It wasn't a big seller, but it was critically well received. It was the last album done with his backing band the Attractions. However, this concert was basically done in a solo acoustic style, as he was only backed by keyboard player Steve Nieve.

Three songs performed here are from the "All This Useless Beauty" album: "Why Can't a Man Stand Alone," "All This Useless Beauty," and "I Want to Vanish."

For these Storytellers albums, I'm assuming that everything is officially unreleased. But for this one, the performance of "Just a Memory" was released. It was included on a various artists compilation of the Storytellers series.

All too often, these episodes started in the middle of the first song. That was the case with this one, "Accidents Will Happen." But in this case, I was able to find another version from the same year to fill in the missing portion.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Accidents Will Happen [Edit] (Elvis Costello)
02 Just a Memory (Elvis Costello)
03 talk (Elvis Costello)
04 Why Can't a Man Stand Alone (Elvis Costello)
05 talk (Elvis Costello)
06 Mistress and Maid (Elvis Costello)
07 talk (Elvis Costello)
08 Veronica (Elvis Costello)
09 talk (Elvis Costello)
10 Alison (Elvis Costello)
11 talk (Elvis Costello)
12 Almost Blue (Elvis Costello)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
15 talk (Elvis Costello)
16 All This Useless Beauty (Elvis Costello)
17 talk (Elvis Costello)
18 I Want to Vanish (Elvis Costello)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17157456/ELVSCOSTLLO1996StrytllrsStrytllrsStdoNwYrkC__5-29-1996_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PS5UZf6r

I couldn't find a good photo from this exact concert. So instead the cover photo is from a concert in Switzerland some time in 1996.

Pete Townshend - VH-1 Storytellers, Portchester Hall, London, Britain, 3-23-2000

Next for the "VH-1 Storytellers" series is an episode featuring Pete Townshend.

Back in 1971, the Who released the album "Who's Next." This originally was going to be a concept album / rock opera called "Lifehouse," but Townshend, the band's main songwriter, gave up on it and just released "Who's Next" as a typical studio album without an obvious concept. But he never gave up entirely on the Lifehouse idea, and made occasional attempts to finish it off.

His attempt to finish it probably culminated in 1999 and 2000. In 1999, a radio play for Lifehouse was done by the BBC, which lasted about two hours and included the original demos done in the early 1970s. Then, in 2000, Townshend released "The Lifehouse Chronicles," a six CD box set containing the radio play, all the original demos, and more. When he performed for Storytellers, he was promoting this box set. So all of the songs are from the Lifehouse project, including three that were on the "Who's Next" album ("Behind Blue Eyes," "Baba O'Riley," and "Won't Get Fooled Again").

 

As was typically the case for this show, only the end of the first song was included. But I was able to find another version of this song, "Let's See Action (Nothing Is Everything)," from the same year to fill in the missing portion.

 

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Let's See Action [Nothing Is Everything] [Edit] (Pete Townshend)
02 talk (Pete Townshend)
03 Pure and Easy (Pete Townshend)
04 talk (Pete Townshend)
05 Behind Blue Eyes (Pete Townshend)
06 talk (Pete Townshend)
07 Baba O'Riley (Pete Townshend)
08 talk (Pete Townshend)
09 Won't Get Fooled Again (Pete Townshend)
10 talk (Pete Townshend)
11 Greyhound Girl (Pete Townshend)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17157586/PETTWNSHND2000StrytllrsPrtchstrHllLndnBrtin__3-23-2000_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6TgiENBj

I couldn't find a good photo from this exact concert. So instead I used a photo of Townshend that actually came from a concert by the Who in London in 2000.

The Dave Matthews Band - VH-1 Storytellers, Harvey Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City, 5-17-2005

The next episode in the "VH-1 Storytellers" series features the Dave Matthews Band.

The Dave Matthews Band had the most success in the 1990s. Their first two albums sold a combined 13 million copies in the U.S. But at the time of this concert, the band was still having plenty of success. Their 2005 album they were touring to support at the time of this concert, "Stand Up," reached Number One in the U.S. album charts and sold over a million copies in the U.S.

Four of the songs here come from the "Stand Up" album: "American Baby," "Dreamgirl," "Louisiana Bayou," and "Steady as We Go." "American Baby" was the band's highest charting single in the U.S., reaching the Number 16 spot. The rest of the songs are originals from earlier albums, except for "All Along the Watchtower," which is the classic Bob Dylan song.

I'm somewhat regretful that I prepared this album for release. I'm not much of a fan of this artist in the first place, and this one was a real pain in the butt to make presentable. The main problem is that it seems around 2005 and 2006, the Storytellers show got in the habit of putting voiceovers in the middle of songs. Generally, these were portions of interviews done with band members, which were then placed in sections of the songs where there weren't lead vocals, such as solos. That happened in all but two songs here! Ugh. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to separate the vocals from the instruments. Then I completely deleted the voiceover talking. The volume of the instrumentation was drastically lowered during these sections, so I then tried to boost the volume of those parts to match the rest of the songs. That much worked okay, but sometimes there was some damage to these sections, due to either lingering bits of the voiceovers or loss of some music from the volume being turned way down on those parts. But, by and large, the songs sound pretty decent and you hopefully won't notice any problems.

Another problem was that the lead vocals were too low in the mix. So I had to use UVR5 again, this time to boost the vocals relative to the instruments. But at least this wasn't a case where part of the first song was missing, as is typical for this TV series.

This album is an hour long.

01 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
02 American Baby [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)
03 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
04 Crush [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)
05 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
06 Dreamgirl [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)
07 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
08 Where Are You Going (Dave Matthews Band)
09 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
10 Louisiana Bayou [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)
11 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
12 Ants Marching [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)
13 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
14 Steady as We Go (Dave Matthews Band)
15 Too Much [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)
16 talk (Dave Matthews Band)
17 All Along the Watchtower [Edit] (Dave Matthews Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17157447/TDAVMATTWSBND2005StrytllrsHrvyThetrBroklynAcdmyofMsicNwYrkC__5-17-2005_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/URdw1VWD

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Sarah McLachlan - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Music Studios, New York City, 1-29-1998

The flood of "VH-1 Storytellers" episodes continues. This time, it's singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. 

I like McLachlan's music. I have long wanted to post an album by her, but she's not very prolific, so there hasn't been a lot to work with. So I'm glad to at least post this.

This concert took place about six months after the release of McLachlan's 1997 album "Surfacing." It was the best selling album of her career, selling eight million copies in the U.S. alone. In 1999, she would release the live album "Mirrorball." It would contain most of the same songs here (though not all). However, this performance has a more stripped down sound, and also has all the banter between songs that the "Storytellers" TV show is famous for.

 Five of the songs here are from the "Surfacing" album: "Building a Mystery," "Sweet Surrender," "Adia," "Witness," and "Angel." The rest are from her previous albums.

As usual for this TV show, the first song started half-way through. Most of the time, I was able to find a similar version to fill in the missing part. But in this case I couldn't find a good enough match. If someone else can fix it, I would be very happy to add that in.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Good Enough [Incomplete] (Sarah McLachlan)
02 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
03 Building a Mystery (Sarah McLachlan)
04 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
05 Ice Cream (Sarah McLachlan)
06 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
07 Sweet Surrender (Sarah McLachlan)
08 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
09 Hold On (Sarah McLachlan)
10 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
11 Elsewhere (Sarah McLachlan)
12 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
13 Possession (Sarah McLachlan)
14 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
15 Adia (Sarah McLachlan)
16 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
17 Witness (Sarah McLachlan)
18 talk (Sarah McLachlan)
19 Angel (Sarah McLachlan)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17168513/SARHMCLCHLN1998StrytllrsSnyMsicStdosNwYrkC__1-29-1998_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MaLqpx1w

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. I upgraded it using the Krea AI program.

My Morning Jacket - VH-1 Storytellers, VH-1 Storytellers Studio, New York City, 6-3-2011

Next up with "VH-1 Storytellers" is My Morning Jacket.

My Morning Jacket is a band led by singer-songwriter Jim James. They haven't sold as many albums as most of the other artists on the Storytellers TV show, nor have their had big hits. But they've developed a sizeable devoted following, and have been critically praised. Personally, I haven't really gotten into their music, but they're worthy of this post, since I'm trying to post all the Storytellers episodes I can find that I deem at least decent.

This concert took place just after the release of the album "Circuital," the band's sixth studio album. However, only two of songs here, "Circuital" and "Movin Away," are from that album.

Most Storytellers episodes I've found are about 45 minutes in length. This one is about half an hour longer, which is still not long enough for a double episode. So probably a bootleg included some or all of the other songs the band performed. The sound quality is excellent, as usual for these episodes.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 Wordless Chorus (My Morning Jacket)
02 talk (My Morning Jacket)
03 Golden (My Morning Jacket)
04 talk (My Morning Jacket)
05 The Way that He Sings (My Morning Jacket)
06 talk (My Morning Jacket)
07 Gideon (My Morning Jacket)
08 talk (My Morning Jacket)
09 Circuital (My Morning Jacket)
10 talk (My Morning Jacket)
11 Movin Away (My Morning Jacket)
12 talk (My Morning Jacket)
13 Dondante (My Morning Jacket)
14 talk (My Morning Jacket)
15 Smokin' from Shootin' (My Morning Jacket)
16 talk (My Morning Jacket)
17 Wonderful [The Way I Feel] (My Morning Jacket)
18 talk (My Morning Jacket)
19 One Big Holiday (My Morning Jacket)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17153996/MYMORNNGJACKT2011StrytllrsStrytllrsStdoNwYrkC__6-3-2011_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jKdzJ1zo

The cover is from this exact concert. I chose this one to highlight just how small the audience was.

Bruce Springsteen - VH-1 Storytellers, Two River Theater, Red Bank, NJ, 4-4-2005

Here's a particularly interesting "VH-1 Storytellers" episode. This one features Bruce Springsteen.

Perhaps it's not surprising that Springsteen agreed to do this show, since he's been known to talk quite a lot between songs. But he approached this in a very unusual way. Typically, after playing a song, he then played it again, but starting and stopping, and explaining the meaning of the lyrics line for line. None of the other Storytellers episodes that I came across featured this level of lyrical analysis, that's for sure.

Technically, the "talk" tracks make up nearly an hour of this hour and a half long concert. But that's misleading since a good portion of those "talk" tracks has him playing and singing some as he did that lyrical analysis. There also was a question and answer session.

And speaking of how long this episode is, the reason this is so long is because the concert was later released as a DVD (but not an audio album). So it wasn't edited down to the usual 45 minutes or so of the typical episodes for this show. That also means we didn't have to suffer the usual problem of having only half of the opening song.

The concert was almost entirely just Springsteen, playing either an acoustic guitar or piano. But he was supported on backing vocals on some songs by his wife, Patti Scialfa. He would release the studio album "Devils and Dust" later the same month as this concert. That is a solo acoustic album, so it's fitting he also did this in solo acoustic format. However, only two of the songs performed are from that album: "Devils and Dust" and "Jesus Was an Only Son."

This album is an hour and 36 minutes long.

01 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
02 Devils and Dust (Bruce Springsteen)
03 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Blinded by the Light (Bruce Springsteen)
05 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Brilliant Disguise (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Nebraska (Bruce Springsteen)
08 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Jesus Was an Only Son (Bruce Springsteen)
10 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
11 Waiting on a Sunny Day [False Start] (Bruce Springsteen)
12 Waiting on a Sunny Day (Bruce Springsteen)
13 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
14 The Rising (Bruce Springsteen)
15 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
16 Thunder Road (Bruce Springsteen)
17 talk (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bz32v 

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KL2vfTSe

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

R.E.M. - VH-1 Storytellers, Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center, New York City, 10-23-1998

Once again, it's time for another "VH-1 Storytellers" episode. This time, it's the band R.E.M. Luckily, this one happens to be twice as long as the usual episodes.

In 1998, R.E.M. released the album "Up." It was their first as a trio, since drummer Bill Berry retired. It was considered a relative commercial and critical disappointment compared to their previous albums. For instance, it only went gold in the U.S. (meaning sales of 500,000 or more) while their previous six albums went platinum (sales of a million or more) or multi-platinum.

A bunch of the songs performed were from the new album: "Daysleeper," "Sad Professor," "I'm Not Over You," "The Apologist," "Suspicion," "Parakeet," "Walk Unafraid," and "At My Most Beautiful." That's eight out of the 15 songs performed.

I found an audio bootleg of this, which as I mentioned above is twice the usual length of these episodes. I don't know if it's a soundboard bootleg that was leaked of the full performance, or it was a double episode, which happened very occasionally for the show. Either way, the sound is excellent. However, the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I boosted them using the UVR5 audio editing program.

As usual for the show, the first song started halfway through. That's strong evidence that this was a double episode, because it wouldn't make sense that a bootleg would cut the first song off in that same way. In any case, I found a BBC version of that song, "Electrolite," from 1998, and used that to fill in this missing part. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 Electrolite [Edit] (R.E.M.)
02 talk (R.E.M.)
03 Daysleeper (R.E.M.)
04 talk (R.E.M.)
05 Losing My Religion (R.E.M.)
06 talk (R.E.M.)
07 Perfect Circle (R.E.M.)
08 talk (R.E.M.)
09 Sad Professor (R.E.M.)
10 talk (R.E.M.)
11 Fall on Me (R.E.M.)
12 I'm Not Over You (R.E.M.)
13 talk (R.E.M.)
14 The Apologist (R.E.M.)
15 talk (R.E.M.)
16 Man on the Moon (R.E.M.)
17 talk (R.E.M.)
18 New Test Leper (R.E.M.)
19 talk (R.E.M.)
20 Parakeet (R.E.M.)
21 talk (R.E.M.)
22 [Don't Go Back To] Rockville (R.E.M.)
23 talk (R.E.M.)
24 Suspicion (R.E.M.)
25 talk (R.E.M.)
26 Walk Unafraid (R.E.M.)
27 talk (R.E.M.)
28 At My Most Beautiful (R.E.M.)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17172260/REEEM1998StrytllrsGrndBllromMnhttanCntrNwYrkC__10-23-1998_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wg6tXRSB

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. I upgraded the detail using the Krea AI program.

Kings of Leon - VH-1 Storytellers, The Factory at Franklin, Franklin, TN, 4-5-2011

Shocker! Yet another "VH-1 Storytellers" episode. This time, it's the band Kings of Leon.

This American rock band is made up of three brothers and a cousin. I have to admit I knew very little about them prior to getting this album ready. Their first album came out in 2003. They soon found great success in Britain, and they remain more popular there. But they hit it big in the U.S. as well with their 2008 album "Only by the Night," which sold two and a half million copies there. For this concert, they were promoting their next album, 2010's "Come Around Sundown," which also did well in Britain and the U.S.

The timing of the concert is pretty fortunate, because they probably were at their peak of popularity. They remain a band as I write this in 2024, but their sales have slowly declined since then.

For once, this episode didn't begin with only half of the first song. Phew. The lead vocals were rather low in the mix, so I boosted them for all the songs using the audio editing program UVR5.

I took this from a video I found on SoulseekQT. That was a lucky break, because otherwise I could only find a couple of songs from it on YouTube.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon)
02 talk (Kings of Leon)
03 Molly’s Hangover (Kings of Leon)
04 talk (Kings of Leon)
05 Radioactive (Kings of Leon)
06 talk (Kings of Leon)
07 California Waiting (Kings of Leon)
08 talk (Kings of Leon)
09 Taper Jean Girl (Kings of Leon)
10 talk (Kings of Leon)
11 Fans (Kings of Leon)
12 talk (Kings of Leon)
13 The Immortals (Kings of Leon)
14 talk (Kings of Leon)
15 Back Down South (Kings of Leon)
16 talk (Kings of Leon)
17 Use Somebody (Kings of Leon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17145093/KINGSOLEON2011StrytllrsThFctryatFrnklnFrnklnTN__4-5-2011_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XzWxXLdS

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