Covered: Hoyt Axton: 1963-1977

Here's another edition of the "Covered" series, where I pay tribute to talented songwriters by collecting cover versions of their songs. This time, the focus is on Hoyt Axton.

Axton was born in a small town in Oklahoma in 1938. He came from a musical family. His mother, Mae Boren Axton, was a songwriter who co-wrote the Elvis Presley classic hit "Heartbreak Hotel" and many country songs, and one of his cousins was folk singer Arlo Guthrie. After going to college and serving a few years in the U.S. Navy, he began playing his songs in clubs. He released his first album in 1962, and released a couple dozen from that time until the end of the 1990s.

However, while Axton had some minor hits in the 1970s, especially on the U.S. country chart, he had much greater success by having others cover his songs. He also had a successful parallel career as an actor, especially playing colorful characters in supporting roles in dozens of TV shows and movies. 

His first success as a songwriter was "Greenback Dollar," which became kind of a folk music classic after it was covered by the Kingston Trio in 1963. He didn't have much more success with others covering his songs for the rest of the 1960s, although "The Pusher" became one of Steppenwolf's best known songs in 1968. However, everything changed for him in 1970, because Three Dog Night covered "Joy to the World." Not only was it a Number One hit in the U.S., it was the best selling song of the year! After that, he had quite a few more successes with other people covering his songs for the rest of the 1970s. For instance, Three Dog Night had a Top Five hit with "Never Been to Spain," and Ringo Starr had a Top Five hit with "No No Song."

I've tried to avoid including songs sung by Axton, since this is supposed to be a collection of other musical acts covering his songs. However, I've included two duets he was involved in. "When the Morning Comes," a duet with Linda Ronstadt, is particularly notable for being his biggest hit as a singer. It reached Number 10 in the U.S. country chart in 1974.

He kept putting out new music until the end of his life. He died in 1999 at the age of 61 due to a heart attack.

Axton's songs weren't often big hits, though occasionally they were. However, they usually were distinctive and interesting.   

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Greenback Dollar (Kingston Trio)
02 The Pusher (Steppenwolf)
03 Willie Jean (Sunshine Company)
04 Joy to the World (Three Dog Night)
05 Snowblind Friend (Steppenwolf)
06 Ease Your Pain (Jackie DeShannon)
07 Never Been to Spain (Three Dog Night)
08 Sweet Fantasy (Glen Campbell)
09 When the Morning Comes (Hoyt Axton & Linda Ronstadt)
10 No No Song (Ringo Starr)
11 Sweet Misery (Martha Reeves)
12 Southbound (Three Dog Night)
13 Boney Fingers (Hoyt Axton & Rene Armand)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V6H6sG3w

alternate:

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

I don't know where or when the cover photo is from. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

John Mayer with Buddy Guy - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 6-29-2004

Here's yet another episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars singer-songwriter John Mayer. But it also includes blues legend Buddy Guy as a guest star.

I'm not a huge John Mayer fan, but his music is certainly good enough to be worthy of a Soundstage episode. And while that show encourages the inclusion of guest stars, I was impressed that Mayer chose Buddy Guy, out of all people. Like Guy, Mayer is a talented lead guitarist, and the two of them jammed well together near the end of the concert. Guy also got to sing one of his songs at the end.

At the time of this concert, Mayer had released two albums. Both of them sold at least three million copies. So he was at or near the peak of his popularity, though he continued to sell at that level through the rest of the decade.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 talk (John Mayer)
02 Clarity (John Mayer)
03 No Such Thing (John Mayer)
04 talk (John Mayer)
05 Something's Missing (John Mayer)
06 talk (John Mayer)
07 Why Georgia (John Mayer)
08 talk (John Mayer)
09 Bigger than My Body (John Mayer)
10 Daughters (John Mayer)
11 talk (John Mayer)
12 Your Body Is a Wonderland (John Mayer)
13 Come Back to Bed (John Mayer with Buddy Guy)
14 talk (John Mayer with Buddy Guy)
15 Damn Right, I've Got the Blues (John Mayer & Buddy Guy)
16 talk (John Mayer with Buddy Guy) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/htLkXHt1

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/voUMgU0Zop1kzZm/file

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

Dionne Warwick - BBC In Concert, Mermaid Theatre, London, Britain, 9-4-2005

Here's a BBC concert for Dionne Warwick. She's had a very long career, starting in the early 1960s and continuing to this day as I write this in 2025, but this seems to be the only concert that she did for the BBC, at least as far as I can tell.

It's too bad this wasn't from earlier in her career. But in terms of song selection, it basically was. I'm pretty sure that every single song here is from the early 1960s until the early 1980s, which was her long hit-making era. And, not surprisingly for her, the vast majority of the songs were written by the remarkable songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

After a long spoken intro over some music, the rest of the concert is practically one long medley, with almost no breaks between songs. But she alternated between performing truncated versions of some songs and full versions of other songs.

This is another album where I must thank musical friend Progsprog. I didn't know this existed, and it doesn't seem available on the Internet. But he had it and sent it to me. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 Intro (Dionne Warwick)
02 Here I Am - The April Fools (Dionne Warwick)
03 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Dionne Warwick)
04 Arthur's Theme [Best That You Can Do] (Dionne Warwick)
05 [Theme From] Valley of the Dolls (Dionne Warwick)
06 The Look of Love (Dionne Warwick)
07 A House Is Not a Home (Dionne Warwick)
08 What the World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick)
09 Walk On By (Dionne Warwick)
10 Anyone Who Had a Heart (Dionne Warwick)
11 You'll Never Get to Heaven [If You Break My Heart] (Dionne Warwick)
12 Message to Michael (Dionne Warwick)
13 This Girl's in Love with You (Dionne Warwick)
14 Alfie (Dionne Warwick)
15 talk (Dionne Warwick)
16 All the Love in the World (Dionne Warwick)
17 Heartbreaker (Dionne Warwick)
18 I'll Never Love This Way Again (Dionne Warwick)
19 That's What Friends Are For (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nz2HaRv4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/h0FOKwK2ZtW5wpt/file

The cover photo isn't from this exact concert, but it's close. It's from the concert she did the night before, at the Hackney Empire in London, on September 3, 2005.

Buffy Saint-Marie - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-11-1992

Here's a BBC concert by American singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. 

I've already discussed Sainte-Marie some when I posted a "Songwriters' Circle" album that she was involved in. You can read more about her there, including a Wikipedia link to even more:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/01/donovan-buffy-sainte-marie-roger-cook.html

I'll just add some more information relevant to this album. Sainte-Marie had a successful career in the 1960s and early 1970s. But then she went 16 years without releasing an album of new music. That changed in 1992, with her album "Coincidence and Likely Stories." It was mostly ignored in the U.S., failing to make the charts. But it got a better reception in Britain, even resulting in two minor hit singles there. "The Big Ones Get Away" in particular made the Top Forty. So the songs here are about an even split between those from her most recent album at the time and her best known songs from earlier in her career.

This concert has been pretty much impossible to find on the Internet, as far as I could tell. But musical associate Progsprog had a copy and passed it on to me. So a big thanks to him. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
02 Getting Started (Buffy Saint-Marie)
03 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
04 The Piney Wood Hills (Buffy Saint-Marie)
05 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
06 The Big Ones Get Away (Buffy Saint-Marie)
07 I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again (Buffy Saint-Marie)
08 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
09 Disinformation (Buffy Saint-Marie)
10 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
11 Universal Soldier (Buffy Saint-Marie)
12 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
13 Fallen Angels (Buffy Saint-Marie)
14 Until It's Time for You to Go (Buffy Saint-Marie)
15 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
16 Bad End (Buffy Saint-Marie)
17 Soldier Blue (Buffy Saint-Marie)
18 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
19 The Priests of the Golden Bull (Buffy Saint-Marie)
20 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
21 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Buffy Saint-Marie)
22 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
23 Starwalker (Buffy Saint-Marie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/STUM34h7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/chFZzhQhYHoMKP7/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Paris, France, on February 22, 1993. 

KT Tunstall - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 5-6-2006

Here's another episode of the excellent "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.

Tunstall had a massive debut album in 2004. "Eye to the Telescope" sold nearly five million copies worldwide. So her popularity was still soaring at the time of this concert in 2006. Her next album wouldn't be released until 2007, so this mostly consists of songs from that debut album. 

Unfortunately, the popularity of her debut wasn't sustained. But I think she's put out quality music all along.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 talk (KT Tunstall)
02 Other Side of the World (KT Tunstall)
03 talk (KT Tunstall)
04 Miniature Disasters (KT Tunstall)
05 Under the Weather (KT Tunstall)
06 Another Place to Fall (KT Tunstall)
07 Universe and U (KT Tunstall)
08 talk (KT Tunstall)
09 Black Horse and the Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall)
10 talk (KT Tunstall)
11 Hollywood Hills (KT Tunstall)
12 Heal Over (KT Tunstall)
13 talk (KT Tunstall)
14 Suddenly I See (KT Tunstall)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eV9ZqTNt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JeBGNkeZ9qqw5ST/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1972-1976

I recently found some Gilbert O'Sullivan BBC session material that I'd missed. In fact, I found so many that I split what had been "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" into a revamped "Volume 1" plus this album. (In between chronologically is a 1971 concert that makes up "Volume 2.") So, before I say anything more, if you want to download this, you should redownload "Volume 1." I added five songs I'd previously missed to that one, and moved a bunch of songs from there to here, and so on. 

Here's the link to the revised version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/05/gilbert-osullivan-bbc-sessions-volume-1.html

Furthermore, note that while "Volume 2" stays exactly the same, I also had to renumber the two BBC volumes that come after this one. That includes "Volume 4," which I just posted here a few days prior to this, and is now called "Volume 5." (Sigh.) Here are the updated links for those:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/05/gilbert-osullivan-bbc-sessions-volume-3.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/gilbert-osullivan-bbc-sessions-volume-4.html 

The first seven songs here were moved from the old "Volume 1." They all are from the BBC "Top of the Pops" radio show (not to be confused with the TV show of the same name), and were very rare until an anonymous musical friend passed them on to me. However, everything else is new. All the remaining songs come from TV shows, mostly from the BBC, but with a couple of non-BBC ones thrown in there too.

Tracks 8 and 9 are from a TV special called "Burt Bacharach: Opus No. 3," in 1973. O'Sullivan almost never performed cover songs, but he did a short version of the Bacharach classic "Do You Know the Way to San Jose." Then he did a version of his big hit "Alone Again (Naturally)" with Bacharach essentially interviewing him for about a minute during the middle of the song!  

Tracks 10 and 11 are from the "Midnight Special" TV show in 1973. It was the only time he was on that show. Tracks 12, 13, and 14 are from the BBC TV show "It's Lulu." Track 15 is from a TV special called "Gilbert O'Sullivan: Welcome to My Show." I wish I had more, but unfortunately, most of it seems to have been lost or at least remains unavailable. This one song probably survived because it was a duet with Elton John. (And one other song performed by John survived as well.) Tracks 16 and 17 are from the BBC TV show "Lulu" in 1975. And the last song is from the BBC TV show "Shirley Bassey" in 1976.

I ran into a bit of a problem with all these different sources. O'Sullivan had a huge hit with "Get Down" in 1973, as it went to Number One in Britain and made the Top Ten in the U.S. I ended up with three versions of the song here, including two right in a row. The first, from the "Top of the Pops" radio show, is O'Sullivan doing it on his own. Then track 14 is a version of him performing the song as a duet with Lulu. Right after that, track 15, is a duet version with Elton John. I thought all three were different and interesting enough for me to include them all.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Bye Bye (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 But I'm Not (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 Clair (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 I Hope You'll Stay (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 Out of the Question (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Burt Bacharach)
09 Alone Again [Naturally] (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Burt Bacharach)
10 Ooh Baby (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Who Knows Perhaps Maybe (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 Why Oh Why Oh Why (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
14 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Lulu)
15 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Elton John)
16 Nothing to Do about Much (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
17 You Are You (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
18 Can't Get Enough of You (Gilbert O'Sullivan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7uve1osJ

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/phyte77MENyKMVA/file

The cover photo is taken from the Burt Bacharach TV special where tracks 8 and 9 are from. Bacharach was in the original image, but I cropped him out to focus on O'Sullivan. 

Bob Dylan - Outlaw Music Festival, Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, New York, 8-1-2025

Here's a Bob Dylan concert from only a few months ago (as I write this in December 2025). It's rare that I post a concert from this recent, often because of sound quality issues. But this is a special case. Someone managed to record the IEM (in ear monitor) version of this concert. This is a wireless feed of the music the band members were listening to, so they could easily hear each other. That means the sound quality is fantastic, like an excellent soundboard bootleg.

There was only one downside to this IEM recording. In this case, almost nothing of the audience was heard. Furthermore, often the tracks ended immediately after the song ended, because otherwise one would have just heard eerie silence. So I fixed this in two ways. One, I used the MVSEP program to split the songs into crowd noise and everything else. Then, if there was sufficient crowd noise to work with, I greatly, greatly boosted the volume of the crowd noise. Unfortunately, there were only a handful of songs with enough crowd noise to use this method. So that took me to the second method. For all the songs where I had no other option, I copied and pasted crowd noise in, from the ends of other songs. 

So now one can hear the crowd reactions you'd expect at the ends of all the songs. With this change made, this is probably the best sounding Dylan concert bootleg of the last ten years or more. That's my guess, at any rate. The previous one that had similar quality is from 2009, and I've posted that here.

Actually, there are three Dylan concerts from 2025 where someone captured the IEM feed. The other two have more issues though. In my opinion, this one sounded the best, so that's why I put in a lot of work to get the crowd noise problem fixed. 

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 Gotta Serve Somebody (Bob Dylan)
02 I Can Tell (Bob Dylan)
03 Forgetful Heart (Bob Dylan)
04 Axe and the Wind (Bob Dylan)
05 To Ramona (Bob Dylan)
06 Early Roman Kings (Bob Dylan)
07 Under the Red Sky (Bob Dylan)
08 I'll Make It All Up to You (Bob Dylan)
09 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
10 'Til I Fell in Love with You (Bob Dylan)
11 Desolation Row (Bob Dylan)
12 Love Sick (Bob Dylan)
13 Share Your Love with Me (Bob Dylan)
14 Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)
15 Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan)
16 talk (Bob Dylan)
17 Searching for a Soldier's Grave (Bob Dylan)
18 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Bob Dylan) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RX9e1xVK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ZMCc1aifpWeJfVQ/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

The Bee Gees with Jerry Lee Lewis - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 4-6-1973

Here's another episode of the Bee Gees performing for the "Midnight Special" TV show. Each time they were on, they did a duet with another star. This time, that other star is 1950s rocker Jerry Lee Lewis.

The Bee Gees had a down year in 1973, compared to their usual hit-making ways in the late 1960s and all through the 1970s. They did have one song, "Saw a New Morning," just barely scrape the bottom of the Top 100 in the U.S. singles chart. It's a nice song though, and they performed it here.

I beefed up the Bee Gees performance by adding two songs they did for a different episode of the show. "Bad Bad Dreams" and "Don't Wanna Be the One" are from a November 23, 1973 episode.

Jerry Lee Lewis was one of a few artists who were big in the 1950s who kept having hits in the 1970s. His trick was switching from being a rock and roll star to being a country star. However, for this episode, he stuck solely to his 1950s rock and roll style, probably figuring, correctly, the show was more targeted towards rock music. 

A highlight of this album is Jerry Lee Lewis dueting with the Bee Gees on the Motown classic "Money (That's What I Want)." You can see them performing it together in the cover art.

A big thanks to GMan. He helped cut up the episode into mp3 files, and named them. Then I did some advanced work, adding applause at the ends of songs that got abruptly cut off for commercial breaks and such (which was most of them). I also edited some of the talk tracks. For instance, for the first track, I removed the theme song music and replace it with applause. And by the way, if anyone else wants to volunteer to help, I could get more of these episodes posted faster. There are dozens still to come.

In case you're curious, the other musical acts in this episode were Gladys Knight and the Pips, Frank Welker (doing comedy), Johnny Nash, Jim Weatherly, and Skeeter Davis. I've already posted the Gladys Knight songs elsewhere.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 To Love Somebody (Bee Gees)
03 talk (Bee Gees)
04 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Jerry Lee Lewis)
05 Lonely Days (Bee Gees)
06 talk [Edit] (Bee Gees)
07 Money [That's What I Want] (Jerry Lee Lewis & Bee Gees)
08 Good Golly, Miss Molly - Jenny Jenny - Tutti Frutti - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On (Jerry Lee Lewis)
09 Saw a New Morning (Bee Gees)
10 New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Bee Gees)
11 I Started a Joke - Massachusetts (Bee Gees)
12 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Bee Gees)
13 Bad Bad Dreams (Bee Gees)
14 Don't Wanna Be the One (Bee Gees)
15 talk [Edit] (Bee Gees) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AmxKkWmC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xDqHC6coPq2edqc/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Sparks - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Los Angeles, CA, 9-1-1974

Here's another episode from the great "Live at the Record Plant" radio show. This one stars the band Sparks. 

I'm rather surprised this is the first Sparks albums I've posted. I have several BBC concerts from them that I'll hopefully post eventually.

Sparks is an American band that was formed in 1971. Their second album, "Kimono My House," was a big hit, but only in Britain, not in the U.S. One song from that album, "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us," made it all the way to Number Two in the British singles chart. Another song, "Amateur Hour," made the Top Ten there. But neither song even charted in the U.S. So they must have been pretty unknown to the radio audience at the time of this concert. 

They would eventually find some success in the U.S., but gradually, and not nearly to the extent of their success in Britain and the rest of Europe.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. However, I did have to fix some things. There was some hiss during the banter bits, so I got rid of that using the MVSEP program. I also used that program to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments. 

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 talk (Sparks)
02 Hasta Manana, Monsieur (Sparks)
03 talk (Sparks)
04 Something for the Girl with Everything (Sparks)
05 talk (Sparks)
06 Talent Is an Asset (Sparks)
07 talk (Sparks)
08 Thank God It's Not Christmas (Sparks)
09 BC (Sparks)
10 talk (Sparks)
11 Here in Heaven (Sparks)
12 This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us (Sparks)
13 talk (Sparks)
14 Amateur Hour (Sparks)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tUGHpbDf

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UeBiFbfcyJ5H4di/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on a German TV show called "Disco," in 1974. I removed a couple of Disco logos in the picture, using Photoshop.

Randy Newman - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Sight and Sound, Planet Theatre, Slough, Britain, 2-26-1983

Here's another BBC concert album by Randy Newman. It's from the BBC TV show "Sight and Sound."

This will probably be the last BBC album from him, unless something else emerges. Actually, there is one more BBC concert he did, but I don't plan on posting it, because it's been officially released as the album "Live in London" in 2011.

In early 1983, Newman released the album "Trouble in Paradise." It was one of his best sellers, helped along by the popular song "I Love L.A." Many of the songs here come from that album, although he avoided that song (either that or the BBC edited it from a longer concert).

The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk (Randy Newman)
02 Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman)
03 Birmingham (Randy Newman)
04 talk (Randy Newman)
05 A Real Emotional Girl (Randy Newman)
06 talk (Randy Newman)
07 Christmas in Cape Town (Randy Newman)
08 Short People (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Randy Newman)
11 talk (Randy Newman)
12 The Blues (Randy Newman)
13 talk (Randy Newman)
14 The Girls in My Life [Part One] (Randy Newman)
15 Rednecks (Randy Newman)
16 talk (Randy Newman)
17 Jolly Coppers on Parade (Randy Newman)
18 Baltimore (Randy Newman)
19 talk (Randy Newman)
20 My Life Is Good (Randy Newman)
21 talk (Randy Newman)
22 Political Science (Randy Newman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NzVhj4Vp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/T4YkMgVViA5nvlf/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the "Saturday Night Live" TV show, on February 26, 1983.

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 6: Santana

Here's the sixth and final album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by Santana. 

It's a bit unusual in that about half of the set prominently features guest stars Ry Cooder and Steve Miller. No doubt, lead guitarist Carlos Santana took advantage of the fact that these two other talented guitarists were at the venue, since they had performed in earlier sets. Mostly, Cooder and Miller jammed on guitars with Santana, but Miller also did the lead vocals on the blues classic "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)."

I'm guessing that John Lee Hooker, who played a set earlier in the evening, went to sleep already, since he was well over 70 years old by this time. Had he been awake, he probably would have wanted to join in on "The Healer," because it's a song from Hooker's 1989 album of the same name. Santana co-wrote it and performed on it. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

01 talk (Santana)
02 Peace on Earth... Mother Earth... Third Stone from the Sun (Santana)
03 Somewhere in Heaven (Santana)
04 Viva La Vida [Life Is for Living] (Santana)
05 Savor [Instrumental] (Santana)
06 talk (Santana)
07 The Healer [Instrumental] (Santana with Ry Cooder)
08 talk (Santana with Ry Cooder)
09 All Your Love [I Miss Loving] (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)
10 Sacred Fire [Instrumental] (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)
11 Why Can't We Live Together (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)
12 Exodus (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/W1VeBVud

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tvlzB8CYRYgsZ6o/file

The cover photo of Carlos Santana is from this exact concert.

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 5: Jackson Browne

Here's the fifth album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by Jackson Browne.

In late 1993, a year after this concert, Browne would release the album "I'm Alive." But he already performed a three songs from it at this concert: "I'm Alive," "All Good Things," and "Miles Away." Many of the other songs played were from his 1980s albums.

This set includes a nice guest appearance by Bonnie Raitt on two songs, with her singing and playing slide guitar. Browne and Raitt were friends and usually played together when they were nearby. Raitt was scheduled to headline the similar themed benefit concert in the same venue one day later, so it made sense she was there watching this concert too. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 talk (Jackson Browne)
02 Before the Deluge (Jackson Browne with David Lindley)
03 talk (Jackson Browne)
04 I'm Alive (Jackson Browne)
05 talk (Jackson Browne)
06 Miles Away (Jackson Browne)
07 talk (Jackson Browne)
08 Soldier of Plenty (Jackson Browne)
09 In the Shape of a Heart (Jackson Browne)
10 talk (Jackson Browne)
11 World in Motion (Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt)
12 talk (Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt)
13 Here Come Those Tears Again (Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt)
14 talk (Jackson Browne)
15 All Good Things (Jackson Browne)
16 talk (Jackson Browne)
17 Lawless Avenues (Jackson Browne)
18 talk (Jackson Browne)
19 The Pretender (Jackson Browne)
20 talk (Jackson Browne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/55ERHawF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zyYdIN2dwvMuAK9/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 4: The Steve Miller Band

Here's the fourth album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by the Steve Miller Band. 

This set was a little different from most Steve Miller Band concerts in that Miller and his band mates played on acoustic instruments. While most of his set was devoted to his big hits from the 1960s and 70s, he also played some blues covers. None of the songs played came from recent albums. (He would have a comeback album of sorts the next year with "Wide River.")

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 talk (Steve Miller Band)
02 Fly like an Eagle (Steve Miller Band)
03 Seasons (Steve Miller Band)
04 Honey, Where You Going (Steve Miller Band)
05 talk (Steve Miller Band)
06 Mercury Blues (Steve Miller Band)
07 talk (Steve Miller Band)
08 I'm Tore Down (Steve Miller Band)
09 Gangster of Love (Steve Miller Band)
10 Living in the U.S.A. (Steve Miller Band)
11 talk (Steve Miller Band)
12 Dance, Dance, Dance (Steve Miller Band)
13 talk (Steve Miller Band)
14 Rock'n Me (Steve Miller Band)
15 Take the Money and Run (Steve Miller Band)
16 talk (Steve Miller Band)
17 Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band)
18 talk (Steve Miller Band)
19 The Joker (Steve Miller Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/F6iCiLoJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BSLcAPbow7uvuFq/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 3: John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder

Here's the third album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by blues legend John Lee Hooker. For his entire set, he was backed on slide guitar by Ry Cooder.

If you're a fan of blues music, you should know John Lee Hooker, who is one of the biggest names in the genre. (He died in 2001 in his 80s, his exact age being uncertain.) He had a very long music career, starting with the classic hit single "Boogie Chillen," which was the best selling race record in 1949. By the 1980s, it seemed his best years were behind him. But in 1989, he had a career revival that started with the album "The Healer." It was a hit (for the blues genre), thanks in large part to many guest stars on it, such as Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, and Los Lobos. He repeated the guest star formula with his 1991 album "Mr. Lucky."

However, his relatively short set was pretty different from those albums. He performed without any backing other than Cooder, and generally played songs from much earlier in his career. But it does seem worth mentioning that Cooder helped produce "Mr. Lucky," so I'd guess that's how they started musically collaborating. 

This album is 24 minutes long. 

01 talk (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
02 Lonely Man (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
03 talk (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
04 Serve Me Right to Suffer (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
05 Hobo Blues (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
06 Crawling King Snake (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pM3c2HEf 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Y9DY1Rm1QRX0CmD/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. That's Hooker on the left (wearing a hat) and Cooder on the right. I used Photoshop to move them a few feet closer together.

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 2: John Trudell

Here's the second album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by John Trudell.

This concert was designed to support groups promoting the welfare and rights of Native Americans, so it was very fitting that Trudell performed. As Wikipedia puts it, he was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. (He died in 2015 at the age of 69.) He was more of a poet than a typical singer. As you can hear on this album, he spoke his poetry with a musical backing. 

In 1986, he put out his second album, "aka Graffiti Man." It slowly gained acclaim and popularity as a cassette-only release that spread through Native American gatherings. He released other albums after that. But in 1992, he redid "aka Graffiti Man" in a more professional manner, and had it released on CD and other formats, giving it wider release. A Rolling Stone Magazine review of the album stated that "Trudell employs basic rock, blues, traditional indigenous music, street shuffles, and folk songs to craft a compelling hybrid that encompasses many viewpoints and visions of reality." Most of the songs performed here come from that album.

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

John Trudell - Wikipedia 

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 talk (John Trudell)
02 Grafitti Man (John Trudell)
03 Rockin' the Res (John Trudell)
04 Fables and Other Realities (John Trudell)
05 Beauty in a Fade (John Trudell)
06 Johnny Damas and Me (John Trudell)
07 Crazy Horse (John Trudell)
08 talk (John Trudell)
09 Somebody's Kid (John Trudell)
10 Bombs Over Baghdad (John Trudell)
11 talk (John Trudell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QunU6hLK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/laiIUHwlYvGU9JZ/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 1: Mickey Hart & Friends

Christopher Columbus reached the Americas on October 12, 1492, landing on an island in the Bahamas he named San Salvador. Almost exactly 500 years to the day after that, there was a series of concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area not celebrating Columbus, but instead celebrating Native American resistance to colonialism. This is the first set available from the first day of these concerts. I could only find the first day concert with high quality sound, so that's the only concert I'm posting.

This first day concert was called "All Our Colors: The Good Road Concert," held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. The main acts were Mickey Hart and Friends, John Trudell, John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder, the Steve Miller Band, Jackson Browne, and Santana. I'll be posting all of that. White Boy and the Wagon Burners and Red Thunder also performed, but I don't have that music. There also were pow wow dance performances in the hours prior to the start of the formal music program.

The second day concert, which I won't be posting, was called "Healing the Sacred Loop: The Next 500 Years," and was also held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. The main acts were Cris Williamson, Todd Rundgren, Ry Cooder & David Lindley, Little Feat, Don Henley, and Bonnie Raitt. Then, on Monday October 12, 1992, a free concert was held at Crissy Field, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, with many of the same performers. I don't know why only the first day's concert is available with excellent sound quality, but it is what it is. If anyone has a worthy version of the other two concerts, please let me know.

These concerts were promoter Bill Graham's last big event that he was working on before he died in 1991. They were sponsored by the IITC Council (International Indian Treaty Conference), and the profits went to associated non-profits. 

Now, let me address this specific performance. Mickey Hart was one of two drummers for the Grateful Dead for decades. He also had a solo career that explored world music genres, especially through rhythm. Hart played drums during this set. But he was joined by many other musicians. Those included vocalists and multi-instrumentalists Bean, Tina, Candice  and Janelle of D'Cuckoo', Kitaro on keyboards, Michael Shrieve on drums, Marco Minnemann, Baba Olatunji of Planet Drum on percussion, and Steve Miller on guitar. As mentioned above, Miller would get his own set later in the concert. 

I have no idea what the actual names of these songs are, if they had specific names. If anyone knows, please let me know and I'll update the song list. 

Like all the other albums from this concert, the music is unreleased but the sound quality is excellent.  

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 talk (Mickey Hart & Friends)
02 Pow Wow Jam 1 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
03 Pow Wow Jam 2 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
04 Pow Wow Jam 3 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
05 Pow Wow Jam 4 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
06 Pow Wow Jam 5 (Mickey Hart & Friends)

 https://pixeldrain.com/u/1fC88dHS

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/B0rUk056QnViOn3/file 

The cover photo of Mickey Hart is from this exact concert. For the art framing the central photo, I used a promotional poster for the concert, and edited it to fit the space. 

Kansas - Best Of / Sampler (1974-1980) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's an album that came into being as a result of the Kansas concert that was posted here a few days ago. After guest poster Mike Solof suggested making an album of a concert from Kansas's 1979 Monolith tour, I agreed, but I mentioned that I was really familiar with the band's music. I only knew their big hits, especially "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." He really likes the band and thought that was a shame, so he offered to make a "best of" type album for newbies like me. I agreed again, and suggested that he post that on my blog too.

He went ahead and did that, so here we are. Of course, there are official "best of" albums for the band already. But Mike felt none of those had the ideal selection of songs that he wanted. He focused on just their 1970s heyday, because in the early 1980s they lost key members and became a kind of Christian rock band for a while, before returning to their roots (and getting some key members back) later in the decade. 

If you want to know more, Mike has made a PDF with his explanation, as he usually does. If you think some essential songs were left off, or there are songs that shouldn't have been included, leave a comment. Perhaps Mike will make an updated version.

Unusually for this blog, everything here is released and from the studio albums. But hopefully this is a sampler that will inspire some people to dive deeper into the Kansas catalog. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

Before I get to the usual song list, here's the song list with names of the albums each song is from, and the year that album was released: 

01 Song for America - Song for America (1975)
02 Journey from Mariabronn - Kansas (1974)
03 Down the Road - Kansas (1974)
04 Carry On Wayward Son - Leftoverture (1976)
05 The Wall - Leftoverture (1976)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere - Leftoverture (1976)
07 Point of Know Return - Point of Know Return (1977)
08 Dust in the Wind - Point of Know Return (1977)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You - Monolith (1979)
10 A Glimpse of Home - Monolith (1979)
11 People of the South Wind - Monolith (1979)
12 Loner - Audio-Visions (1980)

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Song for America (Kansas)
02 Journey from Mariabronn (Kansas)
03 Down the Road (Kansas)
04 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)
05 The Wall (Kansas)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere (Kansas)
07 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
08 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
10 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
11 People of the South Wind (Kansas)
12 Loner (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y1GhCvdC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/h9B4sSiXYzdWPLl/file

Mike found the photo of the band. I don't know the details of where or when it's from. 

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Friday Night Is Music Night, Mermaid Theatre, London, Britain, 2-12-2016

I recently randomly stumbled across this concert by singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan. Since I've already posted four BBC albums by him, I decided to post it right away. It's a full concert with a complete orchestra backing him.

This is kind of the ultimate Gilbert O'Sullivan concert, due to the generous length, song selection, and many backing musicians. In addition to the orchestra mentioned above, O'Sullivan dueted with three different singers over the course of the concert.

I found this as a single file and then broke it into mp3s for each song. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 43 minutes long. 

01 talk by Ken Bruce (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 Thunder and Lightning (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 Private Eye (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 Out of the Question (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Where Would We Be [Without Tea] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
09 We Will (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Eleanor McEvoy)
10 Houdini Said (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Miss My Love Today (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 I Guess I'll Always Love You (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Ayala)
14 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
15 Can't Think Straight (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
16 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
17 Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
18 Clair (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
19 You Got Me Going (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
20 No Way (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
21 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
22 No Matter How I Try (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
23 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Bobby Davro)
24 Showbiz (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Bobby Davro)
25 Young at Heart [We'll Always Remain] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
26 Or So They Say (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
27 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
28 Lost a Friend (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
29 Why, Oh Why, Oh Why (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
30 Hold On to What You Got (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
31 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
32 What's in a Kiss (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
33 Alone Again [Naturally] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
34 Matrimony (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
35 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan) 

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

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MfpH01we0zmoDdS/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Various Artists - Colombian Volcano Disaster Appeal Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 2-9-1986

Here's a really interesting benefit concert. There aren't a lot of musical acts, but the ones that took part gave interesting performances, often with some unusual song choices. The big stars were David Gilmour (formerly of Pink Floyd), Pete Townshend (formerly of the Who), Annie Lennox (of Eurythmics) and Chrissie Hynde (of the Pretenders).

In November of 1985, the Nevada del Ruiz volcano erupted, causing a natural disaster in Colombia. It melted glaciers and caused catastrophic flooding that killed over 25,000 people. A native Colombian musician, Chucho Merchan, with the help of Pete Townshend, organized this benefit concert to raise funds for the surviving victims and to help raise awareness of their plight. Highlights of the concert were broadcast in many countries around the world, and a DVD of parts of it was eventually released. 

I had been aware of this concert for a long time, but I could only find the sets from the main stars. I put songs from the David Gilmour and Chrissie Hynde sets on albums I've posted elsewhere on this blog. However, I recently found virtually the entire concert, with excellent sound quality. So that inspired me to post this, and sooner rather than later.

The first three acts were popular in Britain around the of this concert, though their popularity didn't last. Working Week was a British jazz-dance band that had a hit with the song "Venceremos (We Will Win)" in 1984, plus some other minor hits in 1985 and 1986. 

Jaki Graham, a British soul and dance singer, had three Top Ten hits in Britain in 1985 and 1986, with "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love," "Round and Round," and "Set Me Free." But curiously, it seems she was only given time to perform one song, and she chose a song that wasn't one of her hits. 

The Communards were a British synth-pop duo. They had two really big hits and some smaller hits in Britain, though they had no success in the U.S. In 1986, their version of "Don't Leave Me This Way" reached Number One in the British singles chart, and was the biggest hit of the year in that country. However, that single wouldn't be released until about six months after this concert, which explains why they didn't play it here. They also had another big hit with "Never Can Say Goodbye" in 1987. At the time of this concert, they'd only had one minor hit, "You Are My World," but they didn't play it here.

Here are their Wikipedia entries: 

Working Week (band) - Wikipedia 

Jaki Graham - Wikipedia 

The Communards - Wikipedia 

I don't feel the need to explain the other musical acts in this concert, since they're well known and I've posted albums by each of them at this blog already. However, the timing of how this concert fit into their careers is worth mentioning. David Gilmour started a full-time solo career in 1984 after Pink Floyd broke up in 1983. But he hadn't done much as a solo artist after putting out a solo album in 1984, so his appearance here was notable. He would lead a new version of Pink Floyd starting in 1987.

Similarly, Pete Townshend started a full-time solo career after the Who broke up in 1982. At the time of this concert, he'd only released one solo album, in 1985. But in this concert, he only performed three Who songs, plus "Save It for Later," a cover of an English Beat song. 

Annie Lennox was a member of Eurythmics at this time. However, at the time, she was taking a short break due to some trouble with her voice. That's probably why she only sang one song on her own (while also singing a duet at the end). It was very unusual for her to appear as a solo artist. Her solo career wouldn't really begin until her first solo album in 1992.

Similarly, Chrissie Hynde was a member of the Pretenders at this time. By 1986, the Pretenders had basically become Hynde plus whomever she wanted to work with. But I guess she was billed under her own name because she performed with some different musicians than her usual band at the time. Plus, it seems that freed her to play some more interesting songs. She only did two Pretenders songs, the first two in her set. Then she did covers by the Beatles ("In My Life"), the Righteous Brothers, ("Little Latin Lupe Lu"), Bob Dylan ("Property of Jesus"), and KC and the Sunshine Band ("Give It Up"). That probably was her most eclectic set list ever, and the fact the last song was a duet with Annie Lennox was even more interesting.   

By the way, I saw that both actors Peter Richardson and Harry Enfield spoke during the concert. So I figure one of them has to be the emcee talking between songs. It sounds like the same person talking each time, but I'm not familiar with their voices, so I don't know which one it would be. If anyone can tell, please let me know so I can fix the song title info.   

This album is exactly two hours long. 

01 talk (emcee)
02 Inner City Blues [Make Me Wanna Holler] (Working Week)
03 Sweet Nothing (Working Week)
04 South Africa (Working Week)
05 Shot in the Dark (Working Week)
06 talk (emcee)
07 Heaven Knows (Jaki Graham)
08 talk (emcee)
09 Sentimental Journey (Communards)
10 Forbidden Love (Communards)
11 Don't Slip Away (Communards)
12 talk (emcee)
13 talk (Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly)
14 Moonlight Shadow (Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly)
15 talk (emcee)
16 You Know I'm Right (David Gilmour)
17 Run like Hell (David Gilmour)
18 Out of the Blue (David Gilmour)
19 Comfortably Numb (David Gilmour)
20 talk (emcee)
21 I'm One (Pete Townshend)
22 talk (Pete Townshend)
23 Save It for Later (Pete Townshend)
24 Pinball Wizard (Pete Townshend)
25 Magic Bus (Pete Townshend)
26 talk (emcee)
27 Blame It on the Sun (Annie Lennox)
28 talk (emcee)
29 Time, the Avenger (Chrissie Hynde)
30 Back on the Chain Gang (Chrissie Hynde)
31 talk (Chrissie Hynde)
32 In My Life (Chrissie Hynde)
33 Little Latin Lupe Lu (Chrissie Hynde)
34 Property of Jesus (Chrissie Hynde)
35 Give It Up (Chrissie Hynde & Annie Lennox)
36 talk (emcee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t9XbbPYK 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DEK86KzNjctEOg0/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a video. It shows Chrissie Hynde and Annie Lennox together, on the last song in the concert. The video was very low-res and blurry, so the image has issues. But I was happy to at least come up with this, since I couldn't find any images of the two of them together. 

Gary U.S. Bonds - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-24-1981

Here's a BBC concert by Gary U.S. Bonds. It appears to be the only BBC concert he did, during the brief revival of his career in 1981.

Bonds had a rather strange career, and his strange stage name is a part of that. His real name is Gary Anderson. But early in his career, back around 1960, his record company insist that he call himself "U.S. Bonds." The thinking is that radio stations would mistake his records for obligatory public service announcements for the sale of U.S. bonds, which was a thing at the time, and thus he would get extra exposure. Whether he liked it or not, the name stuck, though he soon at least changed it to "Gary U.S. Bonds."

Bonds had a number of hits, all between 1960 and 1962, with "New Orleans" and "Quarter to Three" being the biggest. But then his career was basically forgotten for a long time. Between 1963 and 1980, he released over 20 singles, and none of them even made the charts. But then, in 1981, everything changed, due to music superstar Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen had long been a fan of Bonds' music, and performed "Quarter to Three" in many concerts. Springsteen was heavily involved in making Bonds' 1981 album, called "Dedication." He wrote three songs for it, including "This Little Girl," which became a Top Ten hit in the U.S. He and/or his E Street Band played on many songs, and he dueted with Bonds on another song, "Jole Blon." That helped the album reach Number 27 on the U.S. album chart. Music critic Dave Marsh later called it "one of the most successful comeback albums in rock and roll history." Springsteen would also be involved in two more albums by Bonds, in 1982 and 2004, though to less commercial success.

This concert leaned heavily on the "Dedication" album. Many of the songs are from it: "Jole Blon," "From a Buick 6" (a Bob Dylan cover),  "Daddy's Come Home," "The Pretender" (a Jackson Browne cover), "It's Only Love," (a Beatles cover), "Dedication," "Way Back When," "Your Love," and "This Little Girl" (those last two being Springsteen covers). In fact, only two songs aren't from the album, "Dear Lady Twist" and "Quarter to Three." Even his big 1960 hit "New Orleans" wasn't included (although that probably was a BBC editing decision, since this almost certainly consists of selections from a longer concert).

This is another album where I had help from a new volunteer named Ed. I gave him a long list of albums to choose to work from, and this was one he picked. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have posted it for a long time. Ed edited all the files to improve the mix. 

There was one problem with the recording. The last song, "Quarter to Three," ended badly. On the BBC recording, a BBC DJ began talking over the music, announcing that the time allotted for the concert had come to an end. Then the song came to a sudden stop. I used the MVSEP program to wipe the DJ's voice, saving a little more of the music. Then I faded the song out, while adding in a growing amount of crowd noise, to bring the concert to a more satisfying end. That's why that last song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Jole Blon (Gary U.S. Bonds)
02 From a Buick 6 (Gary U.S. Bonds)
03 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
04 Daddy's Come Home (Gary U.S. Bonds)
05 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
06 The Pretender (Gary U.S. Bonds)
07 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
08 Dear Lady Twist (Gary U.S. Bonds)
09 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
10 It's Only Love (Gary U.S. Bonds)
11 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
12 Dedication (Gary U.S. Bonds)
13 Way Back When (Gary U.S. Bonds)
14 Your Love (Gary U.S. Bonds)
15 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
16 This Little Girl (Gary U.S. Bonds)
17 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
18 Quarter to Three [Edit] (Gary U.S. Bonds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gth4teJz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/PExtveOGjFIloHW/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1981. But I don't know if it's from this exact concert or not, because I saw photos of him at that venue that year in different clothes, so he probably performed more than one concert there. 

B.B. King & Various Artists - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 8-30-1974

Here's another album from the "Midnight Special" TV show. It's a special one, because it's another musical themed episode. I believe this is the only show that exclusively focused on blues music, at least in the 1973 to 1975 time frame that I've investigated so far. The main host was blues legend B.B. King. However, there were a number of others blues figures too: Paul Butterfield, Jimmy Witherspoon, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Joe Williams, and Papa John Creach.

Normally, I edit these episodes down to just the music performed by the host, plus maybe one more musical act. But because this episode had a coherent theme, I included all the music. I did cut out some things, as I usually do, such as the theme song at the beginning, and announcements of commercial breaks, as well as announcements of who would be on the show in the next episode. The first track has "[Edit]" in the title, because I removed the usual theme song and replaced it with cheering in the background instead, using the MVSEP program to do so.

The sound quality is excellent throughout. The only problem was that the last song faded out before it really got going. So I don't even know what that song is. I just called it "Outro," since it had B.B. King giving some final words before the fade out started. I considered adding in some extra crowd cheering, but I decided to just keep it as it was, fading out into silence.

The music is excellent as well. I doubt there were many instances of the blues getting this kind of exposure on a national TV show, though admittedly one that was broadcast late at night. One special highlight is "Gettin' It Together," in which blues legends B.B. King and John Lee Hooker joined forces, assisted by violinist Papa John Creach. King and Hooker were actually long-time friends, with both of them starting their musical careers not far from each other, in the late 1940s. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (B.B. King)
02 Why I Sing the Blues (B.B. King)
03 talk (B.B. King)
04 Meet in the Bottom (Paul Butterfield's Better Days)
05 talk (B.B. King)
06 Nothing's Changed (Jimmy Witherspoon)
07 talk (B.B. King)
08 Boogie with the Hook [Edit] (John Lee Hooker)
09 talk (B.B. King)
10 Ball and Chain (Big Mama Thornton)
11 talk (B.B. King)
12 Who She Do (Joe Williams)
13 I Like to Live the Love (B.B. King)
14 talk (B.B. King)
15 Goin' Down Slow (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
16 talk (B.B. King)
17 John's Other [Instrumental] (Papa John Creach)
18 talk (B.B. King)
19 Gettin' It Together (B.B. King, John Lee Hooker & Papa John Creach)
20 talk (Wolfman Jack & B.B. King)
21 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King)
22 Love Is a Five Letter Word (Jimmy Witherspoon)
23 Tell Me Where to Scratch (Joe Williams)
24 talk (Wolfman Jack & B.B. King)
25 I Got Some Help I Don't Need (B.B. King)
26 Outro (B.B. King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gLzcWuLc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jkeglxL80nYZq0T/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert. From right to left: John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, & Papa John Creach.

Gerry Rafferty (with the Humblebums and Stealers Wheel) - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1970-1972

Here's a collection of BBC studio sessions by singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty. During this time, he was in two bands, the Humblebums and Stealers Wheel, while also putting out music as a solo artist. So this includes material from all of those bands.

Today, Rafferty is best known for the songs "Stuck in the Middle with You," "Right Down the Line," and "Baker Street." (You might not recognize the title "Baker Street," since it's only mentioned once in the song, but I'll bet you recognize the saxophone riff. Weirdly, the song didn't reach Number One in the U.S. despite being a massive hit in 1978, but it stayed at Number Two for six weeks!) But he was a very talented singer and songwriter who deserves to be known for a lot more than just those three songs. (I use the past tense, because he died in 2011 at the age of 63.)

 In 1969, Rafferty joined the band the Humblebums. The band had already existed for a few years, and was led by Billy Connolly. Connolly wouldn't have great success as a musician, but he would transition to becoming a world famous comedian and actor. When Rafferty joined, the Humblebums split between songs written and sung by Connolly and songs written and sung by Rafferty. The songs here generally are the Rafferty ones. By Connolly's own admission, Rafferty was leagues ahead of him musically, while Connolly excelled in comedic stage banter, which is missing here.

The Humblebums split in 1971. That same year, Rafferty put out his first solo album, "Can I Have My Money Back?" It was largely ignored due to poor record company support, but got good reviews. However, by the end of 1971, Rafferty joined another band, Stealers Wheel. This was a collaboration with singer-songwriter Joe Egan, with both of them writing and singing songs. I'll have more songs from Stealers Wheel in Volume 2. But for now, that band is represented by the last seven songs on this album.

The songs here come from a variety of BBC sources, all of them unreleased. The first nine songs come from four different BBC radio shows in 1970. Four of those songs have "[Edit]" in their titles due to the common problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. As I usually do, I used the UVR5 program to wipe the talking while keeping the music.

Track 10, "Can I Have My Money Back," is from an appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1971. Tracks 11, 12, and 13 are from an appearance by Stealers Wheel on a BBC "In Concert" radio show, though they only performed these three songs. Then the last four tracks are from an appearance on the "Top Gear" BBC radio show in early 1972.

Two songs, "A Little of Your Time" and "Oh No," have been bumped down to mere bonus track status, due to poor sound quality. Both of those are from the same BBC studio session in 1970.

This album is 54 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

UPDATE: On December 5, 2025, only about a week after I first posted this album, I updated the mp3 download file. A person named Alick who downloaded it noticed that it was missing a BBC session, and sent that session to me. That makes up tracks 11, 12, and 13. 

01 Rick Rack [Edit] (Humblebums)
02 Everybody Knows That [Edit] (Humblebums)
03 Mother [Edit] (Humblebums)
04 Please Sing a Song for Us [Edit] (Humblebums)
05 Mary of the Mountains (Humblebums)
06 Cruising (Gerry Rafferty)
07 Keep It to Yourself (Gerry Rafferty)
08 My Singing Bird (Gerry Rafferty)
09 All the Best People Do It (Humblebums)
10 Can I Have My Money Back (Gerry Rafferty)
11 I Get By (Stealers Wheel)
12 Please Sing a Song for Us (Stealers Wheel)
13 Steamboat Row (Stealers Wheel)
14 We're on the Right Track (Stealers Wheel)
15 Jose (Stealers Wheel)
16 Mary Skeffington (Stealers Wheel)
17 I Get By (Stealers Wheel)

A Little of Your Time (Humblebums)
Oh No (Humblebums)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/94k7gsff

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/lpYbzyUDi14ovYR/file

The cover photo was taken in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1972. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Songwriters' Circle Redo

Earlier in 2025, I posted an episode of the BBC TV show "Songwriters' Circle," that had the singer-songwriters Graham Gouldman, Ron Sexsmith, and Fran Healy take turns performing their songs. Unfortunately, I had to piece that together from various YouTube videos, and a couple of songs (plus spoken intros to other songs) were missing. But recently, a kind person named Alan sent me the entire show, with excellent sound quality. So I redid the album from scratch.

Here's the link to the updated version: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/02/graham-gouldman-fran-healy-ron-sexsmith.html

And thanks to Alan. I love it when these sorts of flaws get fixed. 

John Fogerty - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-23-2007

Here's John Fogerty, formerly of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), performing at the massive annual Glastonbury Festival in 2007.

Note that he also performed at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival, and I've posted that album already. Both of his performances were broadcast by the BBC, since they broadcast most of that festival every year. So I've made this one "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" and renamed the 2025 one to be "BBC Sessions, Volume 2." If you want to get the renamed version of that other one, with updated cover art and mp3 tags, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/08/john-fogerty-bbc-in-concert-glastonbury.html

This concert was in a very big pile I have of BBC concerts I want to post here eventually. But recently, a volunteer named Ed said he wanted to help get albums ready. He picked this one as one of the first ones he wanted to help with, so it moved up to the top of the pile. He worked on improving the sound balance and such.

Fogerty released the studio album "Revival" in 2007. I consider it one of his best solo albums, so I was surprised and disappointed to see that he didn't include a single song for it. But then I realized that this concert took place in June 2007, and "Revival" wasn't released until October. So he probably wasn't ready to play those in concert until after the album came out.

But it also was a bit strange that he practically played nothing but CCR songs, or cover songs associated with CCR, like "Cotton Fields" and "I Heard It through the Grapevine." The only song from his solo career was the last one, "Rockin' All Over the World." That's a bit unfortunate, because while he wrote many great CCR songs, he wrote many great solo career songs as well.

Weirdly, this concert is missing just one song, according to the setlist.fm song list. "Travelin' Band" was the first song performed. Two songs, "Green River" and "Ramble Tamble," came from a different source than the usual BBC broadcast, but essentially had the same sound quality. 

This album is an hour and 10 minutes long. 

01 talk (John Fogerty)
02 Green River (John Fogerty)
03 talk (John Fogerty)
04 Who'll Stop the Rain (John Fogerty)
05 Sweet Hitch-Hiker (John Fogerty)
06 Lookin' Out My Backdoor (John Fogerty)
07 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty)
08 Ramble Tamble (John Fogerty)
09 Midnight Special (John Fogerty)
10 I Heard It through the Grapevine (John Fogerty)
11 Lodi (John Fogerty)
12 Cotton Fields (John Fogerty)
13 Have You Ever Seen the Rain (John Fogerty)
14 Up Around the Bend (John Fogerty)
15 Keep On Chooglin' (John Fogerty)
16 Down on the Corner (John Fogerty)
17 Good Golly, Miss Molly (John Fogerty)
18 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty)
19 Fortunate Son (John Fogerty)
20 Rockin' All Over the World (John Fogerty)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3kHEWe6F 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/O34rtLaq6qCZFSL/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Kansas - Monolith Live - Springfield Civic Center, Springfield, MA, 9-2-1979 - Studiofied (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's a concert by the American prog rock band Kansas. 

This is a Mike Solof guest post. Kansas are best known for their songs from earlier in the 1970s, like "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." But Mike believes the band's 1979 album "Monolith" is very underrated. It turns out there's really only one bootleg recording of the tour promoting Monolith with soundboard quality. But while the sound quality was fundamentally good, there were issues. For instance, it was in stereo, but there was very little separation. Mike went to great lengths to improve the sound quality still further, running each song through the MVSEP program nine times or more, to separate out each of the instruments and then put them together with better stereo separation. He also stripped out all of the crowd noise, so one can better hear the band's instrumentation without crowd noise getting in the way.

As usual, there are more details in the PDF file Mike wrote that's included in the download zip. But if you like Kansas, this could be their ultimate live album from the end of their prime era. 

This album is hour and 23 minutes long.

01 Intro (Kansas)
02 On the Other Side (Kansas)
03 People of the Southwind (Kansas)
04 Away from You (Kansas)
05 talk (Kansas)
06 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
07 Closet Chronicles (Kansas)
08 The Wall (Kansas)
09 Reason to Be (Kansas)
10 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
11 Angels Have Fallen (Kansas)
12 Opus Insert (Kansas)
13 Stay Out of Trouble (Kansas)
14 The Spider [Instrumental] (Kansas)
15 Portrait [He Knew] (Kansas)
16 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
17 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
18 talk (Kansas)
19 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HDWyJ3Hd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/XteNaMyxGhpOgNR/file

The cover photo is the front design from a T-shirt sold during the band's 1979 tour. I added some text at the bottom.

Lou Rawls - Latin Casino, Cherry Hill, NJ, 5-24-1977

Here's an obscure yet great sounding concert bootleg starring soul singer Lou Rawls. I hope it won't stay obscure after I post this.

Rawls had a lot of hit singles between 1965 and 1971, especially on the U.S. R&B singles chart. But after that, his career stalled for a few years. Then, in 1976, he changed record companies and changed his management. That led to his comeback hit in late 1976, "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine," which sold over a million copies. He also didn't have any big hits after 1977. (He died in 2006 at the age of 72.) So 1977 is a good time for a concert recording from him.

The music here is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. It must be a soundboard or FM radio broadcast. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Groovy People (Lou Rawls)
02 This Song Will Last Forever (Lou Rawls)
03 Tobacco Road (Lou Rawls)
04 Natural Man (Lou Rawls)
05 talk (Lou Rawls)
06 Pure Imagination (Lou Rawls)
07 Charge Card Blues Medley (Lou Rawls)
08 It Was a Very Good Year (Lou Rawls)
09 talk (Lou Rawls)
10 Old Folks (Lou Rawls)
11 You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine (Lou Rawls)
12 talk (Lou Rawls)
13 Let's Fall in Love All Over Again (Lou Rawls)
14 All the Way (Lou Rawls)
15 See You When I Get There (Lou Rawls)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vCtfiufM 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SYwUa7VQ62p6Uan/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on an ABC TV show called "Thursday Night Special" in 1977.

Chicago - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 6-2003

Here's another episode of the excellent "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars the band Chicago.

By 2003, the band was long past their 1970s heyday, and they'd lost some key members. It's too bad the show couldn't have had them on during that decade. But still, it's a solid bunch of classic songs. And I'm posting pretty much all the Soundstage episodes I can find, so I'm posting this one too.

If I recall, this is from a DVD, so it's longer than the usual episodes for this show. And that also means the sound quality is excellent.  

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long. 

01 Make Me Smile - So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Chicago)
02 Anxiety's Moment - West Virginia Fantasies - Colour My World (Chicago)
03 To Be Free - Now More than Ever (Chicago)
04 talk (Chicago)
05 If You Leave Me Now (Chicago)
06 Dialogue (Chicago)
07 talk (Chicago)
08 Hard Habit to Break (Chicago)
09 Saturday in the Park (Chicago)
10 Beginnings (Chicago)
11 Just You 'N' Me (Chicago)
12 talk (Chicago)
13 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
14 Feelin' Stronger Everyday (Chicago)
15 I'm a Man (Chicago)
16 Hard to Say I'm Sorry - Get Away (Chicago)
17 Free (Chicago)
18 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
19 talk (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wLLgZpQj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/eeX7HnPFOy1vwPM/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from a video of this exact concert.

Jimmy Cliff - Wolf Lake Memorial Park Pavilion, Hammond, IN, 7-16-2014

Yesterday (November 24, 2025), the world lost another musical great, Jimmy Cliff. He was 81 years old. I wanted to post something to pay tribute to his musical legacy. I looked around, and to my pleasant surprise, discovered this concert. Someone posted it at a bootleg sharing site for the first time just yesterday, also to pay tribute to him. So you haven't heard this before.

This comes from a soundboard, and the sound quality is excellent. However, there was one problem with the recording: it captured what was heard on stage great, but there was almost no sound of the audience. So I ran every song through the MVSEP program, splitting the crowd noise from everything else. Then I greatly (and I do mean greatly) boosted the crowd noise at the ends of songs and other appropriate places, like during singalongs. So this version sounds even better than the one that first appeared just yesterday.

Cliff put out a lot of classic reggae music in the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s. But then he put out mere okay albums for a long time. However, in 2012, he had an excellent comeback album appropriately titled "Rebirth." It won a Grammy for the best reggae album of the year, and Rolling Stone Magazine named it one of the best 50 albums of 2012. Even though this concert took place well over a year after the release of that album, he was still touring to support it. Four songs here come from that album: "Rebel Rebel," "World Upside Down," "One More," and "Children's Bread."

This is a fairly long concert, which gave Cliff time to play most of his best known songs. He also managed to weave in a kind of personal musical history, which included him performing some of his earliest songs, like "King of Kings" and "Miss Jamaica" from the early 1960s, but also some cover songs that were influences on him, like "Honor Your Mother and Father," "Judge Not" (written by Bob Marley before he was famous), "Hold Me Tight," and "Cupid." All in all, this is a great concert recording to remember him by.

This album is an hour and 58 minutes long.

01 Bongo Man - Rivers of Babylon (Jimmy Cliff)
02 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
03 King of Kings (Jimmy Cliff)
04 Miss Jamaica (Jimmy Cliff)
05 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
06 Hard Road to Travel (Jimmy Cliff)
07 You Can Get It If You Really Want (Jimmy Cliff)
08 Wild World (Jimmy Cliff)
09 Rebel Rebel (Jimmy Cliff)
10 Under the Sun, Moon and Stars (Jimmy Cliff)
11 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
12 Vietnam (Jimmy Cliff)
13 World Upside Down (Jimmy Cliff)
14 Treat the Youths Right (Jimmy Cliff)
15 Rub-A-Dub Partner - Reggae Movement (Jimmy Cliff)
16 Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
17 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
18 Honor Your Mother and Father (Jimmy Cliff)
19 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
20 Judge Not (Jimmy Cliff)
21 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
22 Hold Me Tight (Jimmy Cliff)
23 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
24 Cupid (Jimmy Cliff)
25 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
26 The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff)
27 I Can See Clearly Now (Jimmy Cliff)
28 Reggae Night (Jimmy Cliff)
29 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
30 One More (Jimmy Cliff)
31 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
32 Welcome Home (Jimmy Cliff)
33 Wonderful World, Beautiful People (Jimmy Cliff)
34 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
35 Sitting in Limbo (Jimmy Cliff)
36 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
37 Children's Bread (Jimmy Cliff)
38 talk (Jimmy Cliff)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/68X6ncJE

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/Ey7q5QBV8qvDarH/file

The cover photo is from the Austin City Limits Festival at Zilker Park, in Austin, Texas, on October 10, 2014.