Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 9-1-1969, Part 5: Ten Years After

The fifth album from the third day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival is a set by the British blues band Ten Years After.

Like the two musical acts I just posted from this festival, Ten Years After was a band on the rise at this time in 1969. They were formed in 1967, and put out their first album that year, which didn't make the charts anywhere. They put out their second album in early 1969. It made the Top Ten in Britain, but didn't dent the U.S. charts at all. Then, in August 1969, they performed a well-received set at the Woodstock festival. That was a big breakthrough for them in the U.S., especially once the Woodstock movie and album were released. 

However, at this point, I imagine they still were largely unknown by the audience at this festival, though some may have heard of the buzz from the Woodstock performance. Just like at Woodstock, the audience loved their energetic jamming. When they finished, they got one of the longest standing ovations from the festival.

The recording is another "good news, bad news" situation. The good news is, this is either all of their set, or at least nearly all of it. The recording ran out partway through the last song here, so it could be they played a song or two after that. But at over an hour, they played longer than most acts, so there probably wasn't much more. The bad news though is that this comes from an audience bootleg, not a soundboard one. That means lower sound quality. And that's especially the case because their style of loud and electrified music demands good sound quality. (Acoustic recordings, for instance, are much more forgiving.) I did my best, using the MVSEP program to reduce the crowd noise during the songs, and using the UVR5 program to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments. But still, one can tell this doesn't sound as good as the soundboards from the festival.

Also, I found a different live recording from 1969 for their last song, "Help Me," and used that to patch in the missing section. And I did more extensive editing work on the songs than usual, for instance sometimes boosting specific lines in songs when they were extra quiet. But still, I could only do so much. So beware this doesn't sound fantastic.

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl (Ten Years After)
02 talk (Ten Years After)
03 I Can't Keep from Cryin' Sometimes (Ten Years After)
04 talk (Ten Years After)
05 Hobbit [Instrumental] (Ten Years After)
06 Spoonful (Ten Years After)
07 I'm Goin' Home (Ten Years After)
08 Help Me [Edit] (Ten Years After)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XhZtux42 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/VaLh49Fd1WqHrZ1/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows lead guitarist and vocalist Alvin Lee. The original was in black and white. I used the Kolorize program to colorize it.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 9-1-1969, Part 4: Tony Joe White

Here's the fourth album (out of ten) from the third day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. This one is a set by singer-songwriter Tony Joe White.

Just like the previous act I posted, Delaney and Bonnie, Tony Joe White was suddenly "hot" by the time of this concert. He started his recording career by releasing five singles in 1967 and 1968, but none of them made the charts. However, the last one, "Polk Salad Annie," was a slow grower. Over half a year after its release, it entered the charts in July 1969, thanks to a D.J. in Los Angeles who started frequently playing it. Right at the time of this concert, it peaked it the charts, reaching Number Eight in the U.S. It would be the biggest hit of his career, by far. But that hit had a big impact, because it caused people to look at his other songs, revealing that he was a very talented songwriter. People started covering his songs. For instance, Brook Benton released a single of his "Rainy Night in Georgia" at the end of 1969, and it almost went to the top of the charts in the U.S.

As expected, White played "Polk Salad Annie" in his set. Sadly, "Rainy Night in Georgia" wasn't included, nor was his "Willie and Laura Mae Jones," which was a minor hit for Dusty Springfield in 1969. But chances are very strong that this isn't the full set, since it's quite short, so we have no idea what other songs he performed. In any case, his set was very well received by the crowd. A review in "The Dallas Morning News" newspaper the next day remarked that White "put forth that down-home sound which is rapidly gaining momentum," and "the crowd ate it up."

Although this set is short, it's all from a soundboard bootleg source, so at least the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 23 minutes long.

01 Polk Salad Annie (Tony Joe White)
02 Aspen, Colorado (Tony Joe White)
03 Can You See the Lightning (Tony Joe White)
04 talk (Tony Joe White)
05 Roosevelt and Ira Lee (Tony Joe White)
06 Hard to Handle (Tony Joe White)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JtxsXKPR 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/2d1atZ8V6Wm8FIm/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. For once, the original was in color and I didn't have to do any editing on it.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 9-1-1969, Part 3: Delaney & Bonnie

This is the third album from the third day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. It features the duo Delaney and Bonnie. (Technically, they were billed, as usual, as "Delaney and Bonnie and Friends.")

The good news is, this recording is a soundboard bootleg. The bad news is, it's only 20 minutes long. I'm sure they played more than that. This wasn't the kind of concert, like Live Aid, where music acts had to be kept to short sets due to time concerns. But as we've seen with some other music acts already, for whatever reason, we often only get parts of sets. Grand Funk Railroad is a case in point, where only one song has emerged in soundboard quality. And while I was able to find more songs from an audience bootleg for that band, there is all I could find here.

At the time of this concert, Delaney and Bonnie hadn't had much success yet. They had just released their second album a couple of months earlier, but it only reached the lower rungs of the album charts. However, their albums were critically praised, and they were clearly a band on the rise. They toured the U.S. extensively in the months prior to this concert, opening for big name bands like Blind Faith (Eric Clapton's band at the time) and Led Zeppelin. To show just how hot they were, later in the year, both Clapton and George Harrison of the Beatles went on tour with them, playing lead guitar in their band! 

Here's a Wikipedia article about them: 

Delaney & Bonnie - Wikipedia 

This album is 20 minutes long. Had it been any shorter, I would have paired it with another short set.

01 We Got to Get Ourselves Together (Delaney & Bonnie)
02 The Ghetto (Delaney & Bonnie)
03 When the Battle Is Over (Delaney & Bonnie)
04 Things Get Better (Delaney & Bonnie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mip1LpCm

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/EB3SsN6tzl49ngG/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. There are some home videos and news reports from this festival, and in one of them I was able to find a short clip of Delaney and Bonnie. I took a screenshot from that, which means this is in color. I then used the Krea AI to improve the image detail.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 9-1-1969, Part 2: B. B. King

Here's the second act from the third day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival: blues legend B.B. King. (Unfortunately, I'm mostly just guessing on the performance order for this and most albums on this day.)

1969 was a pivotal year for B.B. King. He'd been releasing albums since 1956. However, they pretty much had only appealed to fans of blues music. But in the late 1960s, electric blues got to be very popular, thanks mostly to British bands like Cream and Fleetwood Mac. So King's popularity rose. He released two albums in 1969, and both of them rose higher on the pop charts (about Top Forty) and R&B charts (about the Top Ten) than any of his previous albums.

One of those albums, "Completely Well," contained the song "The Thrill Is Gone." That would become his biggest hit and his signature song. Unfortunately, that song wasn't released a single until December, a few months after this. So it's not performed here.

A bunch of acts performed twice over the course of the three days of the festival. Few performed three times, but King was one of them. Apparently, his set caused some amusement, because he didn't realize that most of the audience stayed for all three sets, and he played the same songs with most of the same banter between songs. But despite that glitch, his music went over very well. A review in the "Times Herald" newspaper said that King "seemed to improve with each performance, flawless, hitting those low blues-filled notes and proving his birthright to the title of King of the Blues." 

King also was more savvy than most blues musicians of his generation by playing festivals full of hippies like this. In between songs, he King told the audience, "Now you can go let everyone know that we can get together outside of Woodstock and have a good time." 

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 talk (B. B. King)
02 Sweet Sixteen (B. B. King)
03 Please Accept My Love (B. B. King)
04 talk (B. B. King)
05 Everybody Wants to Know Why I Sing the Blues (B. B. King)
06 Don't Want a Soul Hanging Around (B. B. King)
07 What's Wrong Little Mama (B. B. King)
08 How Blue Can You Get (B. B. King)
09 Whole Lot of Lovin' (B. B. King)
10 Everyday I Have the Blues (B. B. King) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/R9fc7uBt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/DhmPBDoFFQauK9K/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. The original was in black and white, and quite blurry in places. I used Kolorize to colorize. I tried to use Krea AI to reduce the blurriness, but you still see that with his hand and guitar.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 9-1-1969, Part 1: Grand Funk Railroad

It's time for more music for the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. With this album, I'm starting to post albums from the third and final day of the festival, September 1, 1969. So we're back to "Part 1" again. This time, it's Grand Funk Railroad.

Grand Funk Railroad were one of the best-selling music acts in the early 1970s. In fact, although their debut album "On Time" had been released two months earlier, they were pretty much complete unknowns. In fact, the band had only been together for a few months already. They did play the Atlanta International Pop Festival about a month earlier, and got a good response to that. But still, they weren't well known enough to be invited to perform at the festival. 

However, they agreed to play for free, and even covered their own expenses. The first day of the festival began relatively late, at 4 P.M. So they warmed up the crowd for about an hour prior to the official start time. That performance went over so well that they were asked to be the opening act for the remaining two days of the festival. They ended up performing all three days. They went over well with the crowd all three times, which gave the band a lot of positive buzz, making this a pivotal moment in their music career. 

As it so happens, even though they performed three times during the festival (like many other acts that performed multiple times during it), we only have recordings from this day (or mainly from this day - see below). I often don't know the exact order of the acts on each day. But in this case I do, since all accounts say Grand Funk Railroad was the first act of the day. 

One twist though was that the concert started earlier than expected. The two previous days, the concert began at 4 P.M. But one of the promoters was quoted in a newspaper saying they changed it to 11 A.M. on this day because "We just didn't want another ending as late as we got Saturday." Unfortunately, word of the change didn't get out to everyone. So Grand Funk Railroad played to probably the smallest crowd of the entire festival.

This recording has two sources. The intro talk plus the first song, "Are You Ready," is from a soundboard bootleg. One can also find a video of that song's performance on YouTube. I'm not entirely sure which day that is from. Everything else is from an audience bootleg, which is labeled as being from this date, September 1st. Thus, the sound quality for that part is poorer. To help out, I used my usual editing tricks for this kind of circumstance. I used MVSEP to lower the amount of crowd noise during songs, and I used UVR5 to boost the lead vocals in the mix. Overall, it's a good audience bootleg as far as such things go, but it's still an audience bootleg, so beware.

Note also that the first part of the first song and last part of the last song of the audience tape were both cut off. So clearly this is only part of their set. We don't know how many more songs they played. I found other live versions from 1970 and used those to fill in the missing parts of those songs. That's why those two have "[Edit]" in their titles.

By the way, I'm pretty sure this is the only known bootleg recording of the band from 1969. 

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 talk (Grand Funk Railroad)
02 Are You Ready (Grand Funk Railroad)
03 In Need [Edit] (Grand Funk Railroad)
04 talk (Grand Funk Railroad)
05 Heartbreaker (Grand Funk Railroad)
06 talk (Grand Funk Railroad)
07 Inside Looking Out (Grand Funk Railroad)
08 Ups and Downs (Grand Funk Railroad)
09 Into the Sun [Edit] (Grand Funk Railroad)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KAx3LXPv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2OporCnq1NASJp8/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It shows lead guitarist Mark Farner. This was the only decent photo I could find of the band from the concert. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it using the Kolorize program, as well as some tinkering in Photoshop.

The Beatles - The Beatles Uncovered, Volume 13: Mike's Mixes (1963-1969) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

It's time again for another volume of Beatles remixes by guest poster Mike Solof. 

This one is different than all the previous ones. Basically, Mike decided to use the "unlucky 13" volume to include all the mixes that he was less than totally psyched about. If you read the PDF Mike always includes with these albums, he is surprisingly harsh about his own album. But I listened to this, and it's perfectly fine. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it's hard to go wrong with any mix of any Beatles song, in my opinion. But because this is like the outtakes from earlier albums he made, it's shorter than usual. Also, he didn't include song-by-song explanations in his PDF.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Because [Mike's Mix 4 2025] (Beatles)
02 Baby's in Black [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
03 Can You Take Me Back [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
04 Good Night, Take 10 [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
05 Got to Get You into My Life [Mike's Mix 2 2025] (Beatles)
06 Birthday [Mike's Mix 2024] (Beatles)
07 Hey Bulldog [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
08 I Don't Want to Spoil the Party [Mike's Mix 2024] (Beatles)
09 Dig It [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
10 Dizzy Miss Lizzy [Mike's Mix 2024] (Beatles)
11 Eleanor Rigby [Mike's Mix 2024] (Beatles)
12 For No One [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
13 I'll Cry Instead [Mike's Mix 2024] (Beatles)
14 Roll Over Beethoven [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
15 Rock and Roll Music [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
16 With a Little Help from My Friends, Take 10 [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
17 Things We Said Today [Mike's Mix 2024] (Beatles)
18 Please, Please Me [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6785v1eV 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/8DjvSgMg1Z5Q0jV/file

The cover is an image Mike creating using AI. It plays off the whole "Paul is dead" rumor.

Elkie Brooks - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 10-8-1977

This is the second of four BBC albums I'm posting for British singer Elkie Brooks. The first one consisted of studio sessions, but this one is a full concert.

Elkie Brooks began releasing singles as far back as 1964. But for many years, success eluded her. Then everything thing changed for her in 1977. She had her first hit early in the year, with the song "Pearl's a Singer." Later in the year, she had a second hit with "Sunshine After the Rain." Both of those reached the Top Ten in Britain. (She never had any hits in the U.S.) From that year on, it was like a switch was flipped, and she became a hit-making machine in Britain for the rest of the 1970s and all through the 1980s.

This concert catches her at the end of that pivotal year for her, 1977. It came after her two big hits that year, and both of them are included. It also includes "Lilac Wine," which wasn't released by her yet, but would be another hit for her in early 1978.

Brooks always had a great voice, but she'd never had success writing her own songs. However, by 1977 at least, she and/or her producers (the songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller) developed a knack for finding the right songs for her to sing. As an example, both of her 1977 hits, "Pearl's a Singer" and "Sunshine After the Rain" had been released by other artists years earlier, but they hadn't met with success until she did her versions. For most of the rest of the concert, she stuck with classic songs that had been hits in previous decades, going as far back as "Sophisticated Lady" from the 1930s.

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

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Elkie Brooks)
02 Be Positive (Elkie Brooks)
03 talk (Elkie Brooks)
04 Rich Man's Woman (Elkie Brooks)
05 Love Potion No. 9 (Elkie Brooks)
06 Sunshine After the Rain (Elkie Brooks)
07 Mojo Hannah (Elkie Brooks)
08 Slippin' and Slidin' (Elkie Brooks)
09 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Elkie Brooks)
10 Sophisticated Lady (Elkie Brooks)
11 Lilac Wine (Elkie Brooks)
12 If the World Was Run by Little Children - Mercedes Benz (Elkie Brooks)
13 Pearl's a Singer (Elkie Brooks)
14 Saved (Elkie Brooks)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7NCsRu5f

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/XeDj2biQQydugLO/file

The cover image comes from this exact concert. I took a screenshot from a YouTube video. The original was very blurry and low-res. I used Krea AI to fix it up, but it could only do so much with a bad source.

The Fortunes - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1967-1972

Here's the third and final album of the Fortunes performing for the BBC. Like the first two, it consists of studio sessions.

As I mentioned in my comments in the previous volumes, the Fortunes had unusual commercial, well, fortune. They had three big hits in 1965 and 1966, then pretty much disappeared from the charts for a bunch of years, only to return with more hits in 1971 and 1972. Then the disappeared again, and became an oldies act. 

Specifically their later hits were "Here Comes that Rainy Day Feeling Again" and "Freedom Come, Freedom Go" in 1971, and "Storm in a Teacup" in 1972. The first one almost made the Top Ten in the U.S., and the last two did make the Top Ten in Britain. The key to their revival was the use of professional songwriters, since the band never excelled writing hits on their own.  

This album starts out with their commercial prospects declining, and getting worse. All the songs are from the pop hit focused BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." The first two songs are from 1967. That's a continuation from "Volume 2," when they had five more songs in 1967. Tracks 3 through 5 are from 1968. Then tracks 6 and 7 are from 1969. They had no tracks from 1970. So, as you can see, it looks like they were getting less attention from the BBC every year, until it seems they dropped off the radar altogether. But then they had that second burst of hits, so they got three more songs on the BBC in 1971 (tracks 8 through 10) and six more in 1972 (tracks 11 through 16). 

As with the two previous volumes, everything here is from the official album "Live at the BBC." But many of these versions are different because I removed the BBC DJs talking over the music, using the UVR5 audio editing program. Those are the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles. As you can see, the last bunch of songs are free of that problem, since the DJs finally stopped this bad habit around 1972. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 The Idol (Fortunes)
02 I Was Made to Love Her [Edit] (Fortunes)
03 Loving Cup [Edit] (Fortunes)
04 Do You Know the Way to San Jose [Edit] (Fortunes)
05 Time for Living [Edit] (Fortunes)
06 Ballad of the Alamo [Edit] (Fortunes)
07 Sad Sad Sad [Edit] (Fortunes)
08 Here Comes that Rainy Day Feeling Again [Edit] (Fortunes)
09 Freedom Come, Freedom Go [Edit] (Fortunes)
10 People I've Gotta Dream (Fortunes)
11 Storm in a Teacup (Fortunes)
12 Baby by the Way (Fortunes)
13 Everything Is Out of Season (Fortunes)
14 Wait Until September (Fortunes)
15 Secret Love (Fortunes)
16 Just a Line to Let You Know (Fortunes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/R9jQNEne

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5K08uKAzU3ijdgl/file

The cover photo shows the band in 1972. I used Krea AI to improve it a bit.

Peter Frampton - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 1-18-2007

Here's another from a long series of episodes of the TV show "PBS Soundstage." This time, it's an extra long episode, featuring Peter Frampton. I believe this actually was two hour-long episodes that made up a single concert.

Peter Frampton will always be associated with one album, and a double live album at that: "Frampton Comes Alive." Released in 1976, it was the best selling album of the year, and went on to have sales of more than eight million albums in the U.S. alone. But weirdly, he didn't have much commercial success before or after that. His second best selling album was "I'm in You," released in 1977, which sold a million in the U.S.

I think Frampton got kind of a raw deal out of this, with most people reducing his career to that one album. He actually put out a lot of good music in a career that's lasted over 50 years and is still going as I write this in 2025. This concert recording includes the big songs from "Frampton Comes Alive," sure, but it has lots of other good songs that weren't on that album. Frampton sings and writes songs, sure, but I think he's especially underappreciated as a lead guitarist. 

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I found video files, converted them to audio, then broke them into mp3s. So this is probably the first time this concert has been shared as an album. 

This album is an hour and 47 minutes long.  

01 Off the Hook (Peter Frampton)
02 Lying (Peter Frampton)
03 talk (Peter Frampton)
04 Lines on My Face (Peter Frampton)
05 talk (Peter Frampton)
06 Show Me the Way (Peter Frampton)
07 Black Hole Sun [Instrumental Version] (Peter Frampton)
08 Nasssau - Baby, I Love Your Way (Peter Frampton)
09 talk (Peter Frampton)
10 Do You Feel like We Do (Peter Frampton)
11 All I Want to Be [Is by Your Side] (Peter Frampton)
12 talk (Peter Frampton)
13 Wind of Change (Peter Frampton)
14 I Need Ground (Peter Frampton)
15 Money [I'll Give You That] (Peter Frampton)
16 talk (Peter Frampton)
17 Can't Take That Away (Peter Frampton)
18 I Don't Need No Doctor (Peter Frampton)
19 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Peter Frampton)

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

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ctRVLzfwx30eop3/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Don McLean - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Sounds for Saturday, London, Britain, 7-29-1972

A few weeks ago (writing this in June 2025), I posted a different "Volume 2" for Don McLean's BBC sessions, which was a concert from 1975. I have since found two more BBC concerts he did. So here's a brand new "Volume 2," a concert from 1972. I'll be posting another concert from 1973 as "Volume 3," and renaming that 1975 concert as "Volume 4." Sorry about the numbering confusion, but the bottom line is there's more good music to hear from Don McLean.

These newly discovered concerts are thanks to a Don McLean super fan who contacted me with the missing material I was looking for. That person also came up with a couple of extra songs I'd missed for "Volume 1," as well as three songs I'd missed for the 1975 concert that now makes up "Volume 4." I also removed a couple of songs from "Volume 1" because those exact versions are now on one of these extra full concerts I'm posting. So if you're a fan, I strongly suggest re-downloading those. Here are the links to the updated versions.

Volume 1: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/05/don-mclean-bbc-sessions-volume-1-1972.html

Volume 4: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/06/don-mclean-bbc-sessions-volume-2-in.html

"Volume 3" will be posted soon. Then there are two more volumes coming after that. So there's a bumper crop of Don McLean music on the way.

Okay, with all that explained, let me focus on this album. In 1972, McLean was probably at the peak of his popularity, thanks to the huge success of the hits "American Pie" and "Vincent." So we have this BBC concert, done in a solo acoustic format. It includes those two songs, plus other classics like "Empty Chairs" and "Castles in the Air." I don't know the name of song I've called "Turkey in the Straw Medley." I only know "Turkey in the Straw" is part of it. If anyone knows the other parts of the medley, please let me know. 

All the songs are unreleased except for "Everyday." That comes from the archival album "Favorites and Rarities." It turns out there's a 50-minute version of this concert as well. In fact, one can find the audio of it on YouTube (though it's poorly labeled). But there's a flaw with the sound all the way through that makes that version unusable for me. However, from that version I was able to find out that "Everyday" was the last song performed, so I was able to put it in its proper place. If anyone has the longer version with good sound quality, please let me know. 

This album is 38 minutes long. 

01 Magdalene Lane (Don McLean)
02 Empty Chairs (Don McLean)
03 And Her Mother Came Too (Don McLean)
04 She Was Poor but She Was Honest (Don McLean)
05 talk (Don McLean)
06 Turkey in the Straw Medley [Instrumental] (Don McLean)
07 Castles in the Air (Don McLean)
08 talk (Don McLean)
09 Where Were You, Baby (Don McLean)
10 American Pie (Don McLean)
11 Vincent (Don McLean)
12 Everyday (Don McLean)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/z8Sgzaov

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ws2YqaNxaCiFd3Y/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to Brian Wilson, Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, CA, 2-11-2005

As I mentioned in my last post, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys died a few days ago as I write this, on June 11, 2025. He's such an important musical figure that I considered it a must to post something in his memory. I did a little Internet browsing, and came across mentions of this tribute concert. However, I could only find a few songs from it, far from the whole thing. But luckily I've recently been getting some assistance from Fabio from Rio, who is a big Brian Wilson / Beach Boys fan. It turned out he had the DVD of this. He then figured out how to convert it to audio format, and sent it to me. So here you are. Earlier today, I posted an album that pays tribute to Brian Wilson created by Fabio, but two tribute albums is better than one.

MusiCares is a non-profit charity that is connected to the organization that runs the yearly Grammy music awards. Since 1991, they've been giving out a yearly award, MusiCares Person of the Year. They have a benefit concert celebrate the music of that person. It takes place in the same town and week as the Grammy awards, so lots of music stars are there to perform on stage or at least attend. The money raised from the benefit concert (and other activities) goes to an organization that helps struggling musicians, for instance those who are having medical trouble or drug addiction and can't afford treatment.

It seems that bootlegs of these yearly MusiCares concerts are basically non-existent. The audiences are relatively small and are mostly made up of music industry insiders who aren't likely to secretly tape record the show and then share that with the public. However, a handful of the concerts have been officially released on DVD. These are generally rare and already out of print. But I've managed to find most of them, concerts for: Paul Simon, James Taylor, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen (plus this one). I plan on posting all of those here eventually. I know of two more that exist: Barbra Streisand and Carole King. I'm not that interested in the Streisand one, but I'd be very interested in the King one, if anyone has that. (Or, heck, if anyone has any of the other concerts not on DVD!)

For this album, I don't feel I need to explain what happened in the concert, because I found not one, but two, articles that give good summaries. Here they are (with the second one from Rolling Stone): 

MusiCares Celebrates Brian Wilson As Person Of The Year | RECORDINGACADEMY.com 

Musicians Serenade Brian Wilson at MusiCares Gala 

I do want to mention though that I'm very disappointed this isn't the complete concert. Almost complete, but a couple of songs are missing, at least. One song that got left off the DVD, and thus left off this album, is a performance by Neil Young of the Beach Boys classic "In My Room." It seems to be the one and only time Young ever publicly performed this song, so it's a real loss. Another one that wasn't included is a duet between India.Arie and Brian Wilson on the even greater classic "God Only Knows." If anyone has either or both of those, please let me know so I can add them in.

Thanks again to Fabio from Rio. I looked everywhere and couldn't find this, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find he had it. After he sent it to me, I broke the audio into mp3s. So I think it's a safe bet that this is the first time this full concert is being shared in an audio format. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 I Get Around (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 talk (Richie Sambora)
04 City Blues (Richie Sambora)
05 Sail On, Sailor (Jamie Cullum)
06 talk (Barenaked Ladies)
07 Brian Wilson - 'Til I Die (Barenaked Ladies)
08 talk (John Legend)
09 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (John Legend)
10 talk (Backstreet Boys)
11 When I Grow Up [To Be a Man] (Backstreet Boys)
12 talk (Shelby Lynne)
13 Surfer Girl (Shelby Lynne)
14 talk (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
15 Don't Worry Baby (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
16 Surf's Up [Instrumental Version] (Jeff Beck)
17 Surfin' U.S.A. (Jeff Beck)
18 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
19 Don't Talk [Put Your Head on My Shoulder] (Earth, Wind & Fire)
20 talk (Darlene Love)
21 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Darlene Love)
22 Pet Sounds [Instrumental] (Brian Wilson Band)
23 talk (Neil Portnow & Brian Wilson)
24 Our Prayer - Heroes and Villains (Brian Wilson)
25 Good Vibrations (Brian Wilson)
26 Fun, Fun, Fun (Brian Wilson)
27 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gzQuD2sf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/6nJGwuHSdbQCB1H/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's India.Arie with Brian Wilson. 

Various Artists - Songs in the Key of Brian - Remembering Brian Wilson (1975-2021) (GUEST POST BY FABIO FROM RIO)

One of the all-time great musical geniuses, Brian Wilson, died a few days ago, on June 11, 2025. He was 82 years old. I wanted to post something to mark his passing. Luckily, I've recently been collaborating with a new musical friend, who goes by the name Fabio from Rio. He's a big fan of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, and came up with the idea of creating an album consisting entirely of songs about Brian Wilson. So that's what this is. I gave him free reign, and only helped him some with suggestions on song selection.

I would have never come up with the idea for this album, because I had no idea that there would be enough songs about Brian Wilson to make up an entire album. I knew of the song "Brian Wilson" by Barenaked Ladies, since that was a hit back in the 1990s, but that was about it. But Fabio must be a really big fan, because he found so many songs that we had to cut some out to keep the album from getting too long.

The album starts with a rare demo written and sung by Wilson himself. It also ends with two more written and sung by him, including a rare live version of "Love and Mercy." Fabio explained the reasoning for this in an email, which I liked. I'll just paste in his explanation here:

"The Wilson tunes are bookends, as they serve to introduce and close the 'main event' (all the tracks written to him or about him) while bringing a personal Brian touch to the collection. The first song, a 1975, demo works as a prelude (acknowledging Brian's fragility and strength both simultaneously contained in his voice), 'The Last Song' is the epilogue, and 'Love and Mercy' is a coda." 

Regarding the rest of the songs, what Fabio calls the "main event," tracks 2 through 13, are basically divided into two parts. Tracks 2 through 8 are direct tributes to Brian. That's obvious by their titles, but it's not just that: the lyrics and musical style ooze reference and admiration for the man. That's followed by tracks 9 through 13, which are indirect tributes to Brian, or direct tributes to things related to him (the Beach Boys, his health shop, girls, his genius, family), all mentioning him either in the title or lyrics.

So, a big thanks to Fabio from Rio for coming up with the idea for this album and then finding and selecting the songs. As you could guess from the name, he's Brazilian, and hopefully in the future he'll be able to assist in sharing more music from Brazil. I like a lot of music from Brazil, despite not speaking Portuguese at all. I haven't really shared any music from Brazil until now, because I don't have worthy rarities. But he does, so look forward to that in the future. He also has some other plans, including creating one or more albums as a further tribute to Wilson that will consist of songs in a Beach Boys style composed by other musical acts. 

Fabio has also taped a great number of concerts in Brazil. You can find some of them on his YouTube page, here: 

https://www.youtube.com/@musicadequalidade2020/videos

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 In the Back of My Mind [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
02 The Love Songs of B. Douglas Wilson (Splitsville)
03 Mr. Wilson (Hormones)
04 Dear Brian (Chris Rainbow)
05 Brian Wilson Said (Tears for Fears)
06 Brian Wilson (Barenaked Ladies)
07 Mr. Wilson (John Cale)
08 Brian Wilson (Queers)
09 Crazy = Genius (Panic at the Disco)
10 Radiant Radish (Pearl & the Oysters)
11 Brian Wilson Is My Dad (Breakup Shoes)
12 Minnesota Girls (Shackletons)
13 Since God Invented Girls (Elton John)
14 The Last Song (Brian Wilson)
15 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Kn42WH9u

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/EMCkcQ343EW7g0m/file

The cover photo shows Wilson in 2007. I added the font colors and type to match those used on the cover of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-31-1969, Part 4: Led Zeppelin

Here is the fourth and last album I have of music from the second day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. This time, it's Led Zeppelin. According to die-hard fans, this often ranks in the top five in polls of their best live recordings, due to both sound quality and performance.

Led Zeppelin had only released their debut album at this point (in January 1969), but it was such a smash that they were one of the biggest stars of the festival. The two music acts that were paid the most, $10,000 each, were Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin, so that's a good sign they were the two most anticipated performances. That can also be seen in the fact that they had the prized closing spot on the second day. (I think they went on right after B.B. King, but I'm not sure.)

In 2024, the band's lead guitarist Jimmy Page posted some photos of himself at this festival. He also wrote a little bit about it, which I include here: 

"Festivals were starting to become well-established in the US and the Texas Pop Festival offered a substantial bill of performing artists. I watched Sam & Dave perform and hung out with Janis Joplin, whom I had hung out with at Steve Paul's Scene Club in New York in the Yardbirds days. Led Zeppelin played a good set on this day."

There also is an interesting story about events that led up to this performance. They played Fair Park Coliseum, in Dallas, Texas, on August 4th, a mere three weeks before the festival. Angus Wynne III, promoter for this festival, saw a chance for some publicity. Wynne later said, "We found [Led Zeppelin's] road manager, and we said we wanted to make sure the band recognized the festival from the stage. And he said, 'Well, the fellows think they're going to be on vacation then. They don't know about it.' The band gets on stage, and after a couple of songs, [lead singer] Robert Plant says, 'Anyone heard of the Texas International Pop Festival? We got into town today and saw the posters with our name on them. We've never heard of it. It's a classic ripoff, and if you have tickets, you need to get your money back.'"

Wynne had recently signed the band to perform at his festival, so he was furious. He found the road manager locked inside a limousine. He and some friends pounded on the windows and almost tipped the car over before the manager emerged. Wynne said, "He ran out there [on stage] and he pulls Plant over to the side and whispers in his ear. Then Plant grabs him by the lapels and starts shaking him. At the end of the song, Plant goes to the microphone and says, 'Yeah, we're going to play [at the festival]. Our weasel road manager just told us.'"

So that's why, if you listen to the banter between songs in this album, Plant says: "It's very nice to be back in Texas. Last time we were here, it was a near disaster when we said we weren’t doing the festival and everything. We'd like to, this is the last date before we go back to England. So we really want it to be, have a nice time."

It seems likely to me that the band was supposed to be back in England by the time of this festival, but the band's management couldn't resist the $10,000 prize for doing this festival, so they signed a contract for it without consulting the band members first. The band members were pissed because it meant their trip back home was cut short. Happily though, it all worked out in the end, and the band happened to perform one of their best concerts.

This performance was professionally filmed. Unfortunately, nothing was done with it, and it seems most of it was lost or destroyed. There are some short clips you can find on YouTube. Also, in the 2025 documentary "Becoming Led Zeppelin," a minute or two of "Dazed and Confused" can be seen from this film. But that supports the suggestion that most of the film no longer exists, because most of that song cuts to a different performance at a different concert. (One can tell by a sudden change in the clothes, and other factors.) 

If you want to know more about this performance, the website ledzeppelin.com has a webpage about it. It includes excepts from reviews in newspaper articles, as well as photos of the band, memorabilia, and photos of more newspaper articles about the whole festival. Here's a link:

Texas International Pop Festival - August 31, 1969 / Lewisville | Led Zeppelin Official Website 

Although this is the last of only four albums from the second day of the festival, I have ten albums for the third and final day of the festival. Those will be coming soon.

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 talk (Led Zeppelin)
02 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Led Zeppelin)
03 I Can't Quit You Babe (Led Zeppelin)
04 talk (Led Zeppelin)
05 Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
06 talk (Led Zeppelin)
07 You Shook Me - Rock Me Baby - You Shook Me (Led Zeppelin)
08 How Many More Times (Led Zeppelin)
09 The Hunter - The Lemon Song - Bye Bye Baby (Led Zeppelin)
10 How Many More Times [Reprise] (Led Zeppelin)
11 talk (Led Zeppelin)
12 Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1kXJhtqa 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/oyVob9ClcUWrBAx/file 

I found two photos from this concert that I really liked, one of Jimmy Page and one of Robert Plant. Instead of picking one over the other, I used Photoshop to include both of them. Page is the one in the purple shirt.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-31-1969, Part 3: Santana

The third album from the second day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival is a set by Santana.

A key thing to keep in mind here is that at the time of this concert, almost nobody in the audience would have known the music of Santana. Their first album, "Santana," was released on August 22, 1969, only about ten days prior to this performance. The first single from it, "Jingo," didn't make much of an impact on the charts. They also performed at the Woodstock festival earlier in August, and that was their big break that put them on the road to stardom. But most of the impact of that would come later, for instance after the Woodstock album and concert came out. Later in 1969, the single "Evil Ways" would be released from their first album and go on to be a big hit, resulting in them getting on prominent TV shows, like "The Ed Sullivan Show." But all that was still in the future. Maybe some people at this festival had also been at the Woodstock festival and spread some word-of-mouth news about them, but that was probably it.

The set list was very similar to their Woodstock set list, except even shorter. Their Woodstock set was 48 minutes long, and this one is only 33. I don't know if that's because this one is incomplete, or if it was just a rather short set. Since they weren't well known yet, it's possible this is the whole thing.

This album is 33 minutes long. 

01 Evil Ways (Santana)
02 talk (Santana)
03 You Just Don't Care (Santana)
04 talk (Santana)
05 Shades of Time [Instrumental] (Santana)
06 Jingo (Santana)
07 talk (Santana)
08 Treat (Santana)
09 talk (Santana)
10 Soul Sacrifice [Instrumental] (Santana)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1FQz8Dbp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qDf1JWX5REJCBDj/file

The cover photo of Carlos Santana is from this exact concert. It was the only photo of the band I could find from this concert, and I had to do a lot of work on it to make it look good. It was in black and white, so I converted it to color using Kolorize, plus I did some work in Photoshop, like making the colors of the flags in the background match other pictures from the festival. Santana's face was blurry, so I had to do some extra work to make that look better, using Krea AI and Photoshop.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-31-1969, Part 2: Sam & Dave

Here's the second album of the second day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. It's a set by soul music duo Sam and Dave.

Note, by the way, that I don't know the exact order of the performances on the second day, with a couple of exceptions. So this order is just a guess.

We're very lucky to have this album, because there are very few recordings of Sam and Dave performing live in the 1960s prime (at least that are publicly available). They never released a live album, and there are virtually no bootlegs. The only partial exception with bootlegs is a 1967 concert in Norway that I've posted, which includes a Sam and Dave set that lasts only 20 minutes. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/07/various-artists-stax-volt-revue.html 

Sam and Dave had lots of hits from 1965 to 1969. But they had a change of record companies and producers, and lost the use of some key songwriters who had been working them, and the hits suddenly dried up. They broke up in early 1970, ending their peak era. They got back together multiple times, starting in 1971, but the magic was gone. They basically became an oldies act, doing it to make a living. They typically would show up separately for shows, require separate dressing rooms, not look at each other onstage, and communicate through intermediaries. So it's good to have this recording from the tail end of their peak era, right before everything went to hell for them.

For some reason, a common bootleg of this festival only includes two songs by Sam and Dave, "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "May I, Baby." But in fact, there are all these songs, with soundboard quality.

This album is 35 minutes long.

01 Sing a Simple Song [Instrumental Version] (Sam & Dave)
02 I Take What I Want (Sam & Dave)
03 talk (Sam & Dave)
04 I've Been Loving You Too Long (Sam & Dave)
05 May I, Baby (Sam & Dave)
06 Soul Man (Sam & Dave)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QrRRwprE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/YOnN14e4yEbDzrI/file 

The cover photo is from this exact concert. As with many of the acts for this festival, I was lucky to find just one photo actually from the festival. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it using the Kolorize program. I also improved the detail with the use of the Krea AI program.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-31-1969, Part 1: Incredible String Band - Herbie Mann

It's time for me to tackle more of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. With this album, I'm beginning the second day of the festival. So note in the album title this is "8-31-1969" instead of the 30th, and thus Part 1 (again). 

I really wanted to have one musical act per album, but this is the one exception. I was only able to find 11 minutes of the performance by the Incredible String Band, and 14 minutes of the performance by Herbie Mann, so I put them together. I don't know if they played back to back, but the odds are low that they did. At least it's known they both performed on the second day.

All the music on this album is from a soundboard bootleg source. I'd guess maybe half or less of the total music from the festival has been made public with soundboard sound quality, but it's very strange how it sometimes is only parts of sets, as is the case both times here. In some cases, I've found an audience bootleg to fill in missing pieces, but not here. So something is better than nothing, I guess.

I've already posted some Incredible String Band albums at this blog, so I don't need to introduce them. Obviously, they must have played more than two songs, but I couldn't find any complete set list for them.

Herbie Mann (who died in 2009 at the age of 73) had an unusual career. He was a jazz flutist. What was unusual was that he managed to have some pop hits, and got enough of a following to be invited to a rock festival like this one. No doubt, he wouldn't have been invited had it not been for his album "Memphis Underground," released in April 1969. Recorded in Memphis with soul musicians, it fused jazz and soul, and went on to become of the best selling jazz albums of all time. 

In this concert, all his songs were instrumentals, with his jazz flute being the lead instrument. Just like the Incredible String Band, he must have played more than two songs, but these are all we have. Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Herbie Mann - Wikipedia  

Regarding the festival in general, the attendance dropped about in half on the second day. That was largely due to the negative media coverage. The front-page headline on the morning of the second day in the Dallas Morning News was "Drugs Mar Pop Fest!" The article told of "freak-outs" and "bad trips" suffered by at least thirty youthful "hippies" who'd taken mescaline or LSD, requiring treatment in the festival's first aid tent. One of the festival's promoters later told Rolling Stone Magazine, "The press hurt us bad. I could just see parents looking up from their papers at breakfast and telling their kids, 'You're not going out there.'" In actual fact, the percentage of people having bad trips was extremely low compared to the overall size of the crowd, something that Dallas Morning News article even acknowledged deeper in the article. But one has to keep in mind the cultural conservatism in Texas at the time. It's a wonder the festival was allowed to happen at all. In fact, a similar festival planned to take place that same summer in Oklahoma City was cancelled by the authorities at the last minute.

A bigger problem was that the festival was really hot. Many people were treated for heat exhaustion, and also for cut feet, due to going barefooted. Another problem was outsiders who continued to go to the lake next to the venue to ogle at naked people skinny dipping there. But other than that, the festival ran quite smoothly compared to other festivals of similar size in that era.

Here's the list of all the music acts on the second day, in alphabetical order, since I don't know the actual order they appeared:

Chicago
James Cotton Blues Band
Delaney & Bonnie
Grand Funk Railroad
The Incredible String Band    
B.B. King
Led Zeppelin
Herbie Mann
Sam & Dave
Santana 

In addition to this album, I'm posting the sets from Led Zeppelin, Sam & Dave, and Santana. For all the others, they also performed on either the first day and/or third day as well, and I have albums from all of them on those days. So, very luckily, nothing really important is missed from this day.

This album is 26 minutes long. 

01 talk (Incredible String Band)
02 Waiting for You (Incredible String Band)
03 Black Jack Davy (Incredible String Band)
04 Tangier [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
05 Improvisation [Instrumental] (Herbie Mann)
06 talk (Herbie Mann)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Qcq67t43

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/m59CqMvUzhl3F6i/file

Both photos are from this exact concert. On the left, that's Robin Williamson, one of the two lead singers for the Incredible String Band. On the right, that's Herbie Mann. Both of the original pictures were in black and white. I used the Kolorize program to colorize them.

Covered: John D. Loudermilk: 1956-2002

Here's another album for my "Covered" series, highlighting the talents of songwriters who got covered a lot. This one is for John D. Loudermilk.

Loudermilk is probably best known for three big hits: "Indian Reservation," a Number One hit in the U.S. for Paul Revere and the Raiders in 1971, "Ebony Eyes," a Number One hit in Britain for the Everly Brothers in 1961, and "Tobacco Road." That last one wasn't as big of a hit, although the Nashville Teens did have a hit with it in 1964. But its one of those songs lots of musical acts love to cover. Wikipedia says it "has since become a standard across several musical genres." 

However, he wrote many more hits than just those three, and his songs have been widely covered. He had a reputation for writing songs that were a little bit quirky and different from the usual.

Loudermilk was born in 1934, and grew up in a musical environment in North Carolina. In fact, two of his cousins made up the Louvin Brothers, a very famous country music duo. The first big hit of one of his songs, "A Rose and a Baby Ruth," happened in 1956, while he was 21 years old and still going to college. After that, he tried having his own career as a performing musician, and he ended up releasing many singles and albums. However, he only saw modest success that way. He had two songs that barely made it into the Top Forty in the U.S., "Sittin' in the Balcony" in 1957, and "Language of Love" in 1961, and some smaller hits. He found much more success having other musical acts record his songs. 

Most of his successes came in the late 1950s and all through the 1960s. He wrote many hits for many different musical acts. This album includes most of his best known songs, but there are plenty more that I didn't include. For instance, he wrote lots of country hits, and I was more selective with those since I'm not such a big country fan. 

Most of the songs here are the original hit versions, if they were hits. I've included a couple of lesser known songs performed by Loudermilk himself, "Road Hog" and "The Jones'," to show some of the diversity of his songwriting talent. The last really big hit he had was "Indian Reservation" in 1971. The four songs that come after than on this album are covers of songs that generally were first released a lot earlier.

It seems he retired from songwriting in the 1970s, and apparently was able to live on royalty checks. That freed him up to pursue passion projects, and he had many. For instance, in the 1990s, he devoted himself to traveling, studying ethnomusicology, chasing hurricanes, and doing research on Native American burial mounds! 

Here's the Wikipedia entry about him, if you want to know more:

John D. Loudermilk - Wikipedia 

But here's a better article that sums up his career:

LifeNotes: Songwriting Great John D. Loudermilk Passes - MusicRow.com 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 A Rose and a Baby Ruth (George Hamilton IV)
02 Angela Jones (Johnny Ferguson)
03 Ebony Eyes (Everly Brothers)
04 Road Hog (John D. Loudermilk)
05 [He's My] Dreamboat (Connie Francis)
06 Norman (Sue Thompson)
07 Watch Your Step (Brooks O'Dell)
08 Windy and Warm (Ventures)
09 Abilene (George Hamilton IV)
10 Tobacco Road (Nashville Teens)
11 Bad News (Johnny Cash)
12 This Little Bird (Marianne Faithfull)
13 I Wanna Live (Glen Campbell)
14 The Jones' (John D. Loudermilk)
15 Indian Reservation [The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian] (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
16 Break My Mind (Wreckless Eric)
17 You Call It Joggin' [I Call It Runnin' Around] (Mose Allison)
18 Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (Maria McKee)
19 Turn Me On (Norah Jones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h2wgDDB2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Y1UEO9WQYOuk47p/file

There are very few color photos of Loudermilk from when he was young. So I had to resort to using the cover photo from the album "Blue Train." I don't know when the photo was taken because it's an archival album.

Sly & the Family Stone - Portland Campus Gym, University of Maine, Portland, ME, 10-24-1970

I'm posting this today because I heard that Sly Stone, leader of the band Sly and the Family Stone, died yesterday, June 9, 2025. He was 82 years old. 

There are surprisingly few good bootleg recordings for Sly and the Family Stone in their prime years. Heck, surprisingly few live recordings, period, other their their classic performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival. After hearing Stone died, I looked around bootleg sharing sites, and found this bootleg concert. It's an audience boot, which often isn't up to my sound quality standards. However, it's an unusually good audience boot. That's still not as good as a soundboard or radio show boot, but it's pretty close. 

To sweeten the pot a bit, I made a couple of fixes. For one, I reduced the crowd noise during the songs (while keeping it at the ends of songs) using the UVR5 audio editing program. I also boosted the lead vocals in some places, though it didn't need fixing for some songs. And there were a couple of drop outs where the music stopped for a second or two, and I fixed those as well. Plus, I cut out several minutes that were pretty boring at the beginning. Some of that was just lots of cheering. But also, Sly Stone gave kind of a speech at the beginning, and I chopped that down to just the more interesting parts.

By the way, this boot was recorded by someone named Joe Maloney. According to the notes that came with the version I found, the audience had to wait an hour and a quarter between the opening band and Sly and the Family Stone going on stage. This wasn't surprising, because by 1970 Sly Stone had become famous for being late to his own concerts, or missing them altogether, usually due to drug use. According to the Wikipedia article on Stone, in 1970, one fourth of the band's concerts were cancelled, while many of the others started very late.

 Maloney claims it was later found out that Stone was caught using heroin by the police during that wait time, but they ultimately decided to let him go on stage anyway to prevent the crowd from possibly rioting. I don't know if that's true - how would audience members know what happened behind the scenes, anyway? But that sort of thing did happen to Stone sometimes during this time period, because his drug use was out of control. However, Maloney claims that "As soon as the music started, 
it was like a switch had been flipped and Sly and the band came to life, turning in a performance that I still consider one of the ten best shows I've ever seen."

Sadly, the most surprising thing about Stone's death in 2025 is probably that he lived that long. He released a lot of great music in the 1960s and early 1970s, despite having a serious drug addiction from 1969 on. But drugs eventually took control of his life, and his great musical talent was largely wasted. He wrote an autobiography (or had it ghost written, probably) which was published in 2023, and a majority of it is an account of his life-long struggle with drug addiction. But still, he did great things when he was at his peak, which is amply shown in this concert.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 talk (Sly & the Family Stone)
02 Thank You [Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin] (Sly & the Family Stone)
03 M'Lady (Sly & the Family Stone)
04 talk (Sly & the Family Stone)
05 Sing a Simple Song (Sly & the Family Stone)
06 Stand (Sly & the Family Stone)
07 You Can Make It If You Try (Sly & the Family Stone)
08 Dance to the Music (Sly & the Family Stone)
09 Music Lover (Sly & the Family Stone)
10 I Want to Take You Higher (Sly & the Family Stone)
11 Hot Fun in the Summertime (Sly & the Family Stone)
12 I Want to Take You Higher [Reprise] (Sly & the Family Stone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h4mV4Wjb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/aRU1hZQcn3onmQ3/file

The cover is a close up of Sly Stone's head when he was young. I don't know any more details. 

Joan Armatrading - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-5-1979

It's time for another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars Joan Armatrading.

This concert took place at a strange time for Armatrading. She had been releasing an album a year for most of the 1970s, but she didn't release one in 1979. This was due to a financial dispute with her record company, which was later resolved. To fill the gap, a live album called "Steppin' Out" was released in Britain. But the record company didn't deem her popular enough to release the album there (though it did get released there many years later). Also to fill the gap, an EP was released in November 1979. One song on that, "Rosie," was a hit in 1980. This concert included a version of "Rosie," as well as "Love Song," which was otherwise only included on the "Steppin' Out" live album.

It's been a while since I put this album together, so I don't remember why two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Probably, it was due to voiceovers, since that was all too common a practice for this TV show. The sound quality is very good, despite this remaining unreleased. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Barefoot and Pregnant [Edit] (Joan Armatrading)
02 Rosie (Joan Armatrading)
03 talk (Joan Armatrading)
04 Cool Blue Stole My Heart [Edit] (Joan Armatrading)
05 talk (Joan Armatrading)
06 Back to the Night (Joan Armatrading)
07 Baby I (Joan Armatrading)
08 Love Song (Joan Armatrading)
09 Mama Mercy (Joan Armatrading)
10 Love and Affection (Joan Armatrading)
11 Show Some Emotion (Joan Armatrading)
12 You Rope Me, You Tie Me (Joan Armatrading)
13 Kissin' and a Huggin' (Joan Armatrading)
14 Tall in the Saddle (Joan Armatrading)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/66RaLUo2 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/DYKHlGSZ0nKXtNE/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Chicago, but not this concert. It's from the Park West venue, in July 1979. The original version was in black and white. But I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Don McLean - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Hard Rock Club, Manchester, Britain, 7-26-1975

I got a request today to post more of Don McLean's BBC stuff. I had one ready to go, so here it is. It's a short concert from 1975.

1975 was kind of an odd time for the BBC to want to broadcast a Don McLean concert. He'd had two huge hits in 1972 ("American Pie" and "Vincent") and two smaller ones in 1973 ("Dreidel" and "If We Try"), but then no more through the time of this concert. In fact, he didn't even release a new album in 1975. His previous album was "Homeless Brother" in 1974. He did have one very minor hit with the song "Wonderful Baby" from that album, but that isn't included here. However, some of the other songs are from that album, like "La La Love You," "Homeless Brother," and "The Legend of Andrew McGrew."

This is a solo acoustic concert, just McLean and his guitar. It also is fully unreleased.

This album is 48 minutes long.

UPDATE: On June 14, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file for this album. For one thing, I changed the name of the album from "Volume 2" to "Volume 4" after discovering two more BBC concerts I'd previously missed. I also added three songs I'd missed, "Banjo Instrumental," "Over the Mountains," and "Masters of War." 

01 talk (Don McLean)
02 Bronco Bill's Lament (Don McLean)
03 Empty Chairs (Don McLean)
04 La La Love You (Don McLean)
05 American Pie (Don McLean)
06 talk (Don McLean)
07 Homeless Brother (Don McLean)
08 Respectable (Don McLean)
09 Over the Waterfall - Arkansas Traveller [Instrumental] (Don McLean)
10 Over the Mountains (Don McLean)
11 Masters of War (Don McLean)
12 talk (Don McLean)
13 The Legend of Andrew McGrew (Don McLean)
14 Babylon (Don McLean)
15 This Little Light of Mine (Don McLean)
16 Vincent (Don McLean)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2pVCWnzd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/rlAsPaYpjsvqSSz/file

The cover photo shows Don McLean at the Grand Gala in Amsterdam, Netherlands on February 15, 1974.

The Fortunes - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1966-1967

This is a second volume of the British band the Fortunes performing for the BBC. Like the first volume, it consists entirely of studio sessions.

As I mentioned in Volume 1, the Fortunes had a rather strange history of success, compared to other bands similar to them at the time. They had three hits in 1965 and 1966. But then, for many years, they had no hits at all, only to have some more hits in 1971 and 1972. Yet, despite that dry spell, the BBC kept putting them on their broadcasts. 

All the songs here are from the "Top of the Pops" radio show. That show is pretty much unique in how the vast majority of the broadcasts from this era survived in pristine condition, and that's the case with these.

During this time period, the band wasn't popular enough to put out albums, due to the lack of hits. In fact, they'd have no studio album between 1965 and 1970. For a lot of the songs here, no studio version was ever released on either singles or albums. That's especially the case for cover versions, like "Working in a Coalmine," "Opus 17," "I Couldn't Live without Your Love," "If I Were a Carpenter," "I Can't Help Myself," and "Waterloo Sunset."

All of the performances here have been officially released on the album "Live at the BBC." However, many of these versions are edited by me, to get rid of the BBC DJs talking over the beginnings or ends of songs. As usual, I used the UVR5 program to fix those, all ten songs with "[Edit]" in their titles.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Maria (Fortunes)
02 You Gave Me Somebody to Love (Fortunes)
03 Silent Street (Fortunes)
04 Opus 17 [Edit] (Fortunes)
05 Working in a Coalmine [Edit] (Fortunes)
06 Is It Really Worth Your While (Fortunes)
07 I Couldn't Live without Your Love [Edit] (Fortunes)
08 If I Were a Carpenter (Fortunes)
09 Sleeping Partner (Fortunes)
10 It's the Time of the Year [Edit] (Fortunes)
11 Just Give Me Something to Remind Me [Edit] (Fortunes)
12 I Know Just How You Feel (Fortunes)
13 Try a Little Harder (Fortunes)
14 Just One Smile [Edit] (Fortunes)
15 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie Honey Bunch] [Edit] (Fortunes)
16 Waterloo Sunset [Edit] (Fortunes)
17 Just Another Dream [Edit] (Fortunes)
18 To Love Somebody [Edit] (Fortunes)

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

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/qiN8p2yHjZEgebP/file

I don't know anything about this cover photo of the band except that it's "circa 1967." I used Photoshop to extended it at both the top and bottom. The AI couldn't extend the flower pattern on one of the jackets, which is why that stops.

The Wallflowers - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 5-3-2005

I'm posting episodes of the PBS TV show "Soundstage" in more or less random order. This time, the Wallflowers came up. If you're not familiar, the best known fact about the Wallflowers is that the band's lead singer and songwriter, Jakob Dylan, is the son of music legend Bob Dylan. It's easy to hear the connection in their similar voices. But Jakob wasn't just coasting on his father's fame, because the band has done a lot of good music, including a few hits that could be considered classics.

The Wallflowers are best known for one album, "Bringing Down the Horse." Released in 1996, it sold four million copies in the U.S. alone, more than any album by Jakob's illustrious father. This concert took place in the same month as the release of another album, "Rebel, Sweetheart." The album got some critical praise, but unfortunately by this time the sales had dropped greatly compared to 1996. Most of the songs performed are from that album, with some better known songs from earlier albums mixed in. Unfortunately, two of the band's biggest hits, "6th Avenue Heartache" and a cover of David Bowie's "'Heroes,'" are not included here.

Despite being unreleased, the sound quality is excellent, and there were no problems. The length does seem about five minutes short compared to most other episodes from around this time though, so I wonder if a song is missing. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Sleepwalker (Wallflowers)
02 Everything I Need (Wallflowers)
03 talk (Wallflowers)
04 Here He Comes [Confessions of a Drunken Marionette] (Wallflowers)
05 We're Already There (Wallflowers)
06 Nearly Beloved (Wallflowers)
07 Empire in My Mind (Wallflowers)
08 Letters from the Wasteland (Wallflowers)
09 talk (Wallflowers)
10 Hand Me Down (Wallflowers)
11 talk (Wallflowers)
12 One Headlight (Wallflowers)
13 The Beautiful Side of Somewhere (Wallflowers)
14 The Passenger (Wallflowers)
15 talk (Wallflowers)
16 Three Marlenas (Wallflowers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tEjzdCDu 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/WUKoKPJomMJlQ7F/file

The cover photo of Jakob Dylan is from this exact concert.

Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland - Mechanics Hall, Worchester, MA, 4-10-2005

I recently posted an album from the start of Linda Ronstadt's music career. Here's one from near the end of her career. This is an unreleased concert of her singing jazz standards, backed only by the piano playing of Marian McPartland.

Marian McPartland was a jazz pianist for a long, long time. At the time of this concert, she was almost ninety years old! She died in 2013, at the age of 95. From 1978 to 2011, she hosted a music show on NPR radio called "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz." This is from an episode of that show. It was recorded in 2013, but for some reason it wasn't broadcast until years later. (I also posted a concert of Norah Jones on McPartland's show, which you can do a search here for.) 

In late 2004, Linda Ronstadt released a studio album of jazz standards called "Hummin' to Myself." It was similar in style to the three albums she made with Nelson Riddle in the 1980s, and she said many of the songs were ones she never got around to doing back in those years. Ronstadt's voice was still in fine form for the album and this concert. But as it turns out, that wouldn't be the case for long. The last album she did was in 2006, the last time she sang on stage was in 2009, and her last studio recording is from about 2010. She gradually lost the ability to sing, due to a degenerative condition called "progressive supranuclear palsy." 

This concert had a lot of discussion between Ronstadt and McPartland between songs. In fact, it was too much talking for my tastes. So I cut out a lot of it. Much of it was easy to cut, parts that consisted of McPartland identifying the name of her radio show and talking about NPR. But also, there were many minutes in which the entire life story of Ronstadt was discussed in detail, amongst other things. I wanted to keep the focus on the songs that were being played. So I kept the talking that was relevant to that, and got rid of everything else. If you want to hear the whole thing, there are other versions of this bootleg that can be easily found.

I was surprised that only three songs performed were from the "Hummin' to Myself" album: "Tell Him I Said Hello," "I Fall in Love Too Easily," and "Miss Otis Regrets." Most or all of the other songs are from the three albums she did with Nelson Riddle in the 1980s, mentioned above. There also is an instrumental near the end composed by McParland that doesn't involve Ronstadt.

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
02 Tell Him I Said Hello (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
03 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
04 I Fall in Love Too Easily (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
05 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
06 Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
07 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
08 Someone to Watch Over Me (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
09 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
10 Get Out of Town (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
11 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
12 Lush Life (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
13 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
14 What'll I Do (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
15 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
16 Miss Otis Regrets (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
17 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
18 Portrait of Linda Ronstadt [Instrumental] (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
19 talk (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland)
20 I'll Be Seeing You (Linda Ronstadt with Marian McPartland) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KmjYudaT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/mvPCnFdHXrnQ5Af/file

The cover photo is from the Bridge School Benefit concert at Shoreline Amphitheater, in Mountain View, California, on October 29, 2005.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-30-1969, Part 5: Canned Heat

The fifth and final album from the first day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival is a set by the blues band Canned Heat. But don't worry, this is just the end of the first day of a three-day festival, so there's a lot more to come.

I know from various reports that Canned Heat were the last act of the first night. That meant they were a big deal, since they got an even more prized spot than Janis Joplin, who already was a big star. And they certainly were a very popular band by this time. They had two hit songs in 1968, "Going Up the Country," and "On the Road Again." They also made an impact performing at the Woodstock festival two weeks earlier.

The good news is, this is a soundboard recording, so the sound quality is excellent. The bad news is that it's incomplete, being just a little over half an hour long. Although no songs are cut off, there are several reasons I'm sure this is only about half of their performance. One is that they played for about an hour and ten minutes at the Woodstock festival, and a similar amount at the Atlanta festival, so it stands to reason they played a similar amount of time here. Also, this recording doesn't include versions of their two hit songs, "Going Up the Country" and "On the Road Again," but we know they played both of them at Woodstock. Finally, I found a mention that they didn't leave the stage until about 4:30 in the morning. The previous act, Janis Joplin, started shortly before one A.M. There's only half an hour recording of her set and half an hour recording of this one, and that isn't nearly until music to fill up three and a half hours.

It's likely this was the first half of the set, with their more popular songs coming towards the end, and thus missing here. I have no idea why a soundboard recording of some parts of some sets have survived and other parts are missing, but we should be grateful we have at least this much. Most of the other big festivals of 1969, like ones in Atlanta and Atlantic City, have been almost totally forgotten because of a lack of recordings, including bootlegs. (There are official live albums of Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers at the Atlanta festival, but the 1970 festival, not the 1969 one.)

This album is 31 minutes long.

01 talk (Canned Heat)
02 Bullfrog Blues (Canned Heat)
03 Rollin' and Tumblin' (Canned Heat)
04 talk (Canned Heat)
05 Blind Owl Blues (Canned Heat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BBab7mrP

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4CjV5Bq6OpiH3RT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Bob "Bear" Hite, one of the band's two lead singers. The original was black and white, and blurry and low-res. I colorized it using the Kolorize program. Then I ran it through the Krea AI multiple times, filling in a lot of detail.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-30-1969, Part 4: Janis Joplin

Here's the fourth album from the first day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. It's a set by Janis Joplin. This time, I'm more sure about the order, since I know this was the second to last set of the day. 

Janis Joplin was the star of the first day of the festival, and probably the most anticipated act of the entire festival. She had been one of the standout acts at Woodstock two weeks earlier, and she was well known for her on-stage charisma. She had been a part of the band Big Brother and the Holding Company, but she went solo at the end of 1968. At the time of this concert, she hadn't yet released her first solo album, "I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!" But it was due to come out less than two weeks after this concert, so many of the songs she played were from that album.

Even though Joplin was a big star, her set started late into the night. That's because the organizers of the festival screwed up with the timing. The audience was let in shortly before noon, but the first act didn't began playing until about four P.M. Then there were big delays between acts. As a result, Joplin took to the stage close to one in the morning. The set here seems short, at a little over half an hour, but that's because it's incomplete. It's known that the last song she performed was "Piece of My Heart," and she also played "Work Me, Lord," and neither of them are included here. So it's possible some other songs are missing as well. Just two weeks earlier, her set at the Woodstock festival lasted slightly over an hour, so it's likely she played a similar amount of time at this festival.

Her performance lived up to expectations, and she left the stage to a long standing ovation. 

The concert was a particularly emotional one for Joplin, because she had been born and raised in Texas. Growing up in Port Arthur, off the Gulf of Mexico about three hundred miles away, she had been very unhappy because she already was a hippie of sorts in the early 1960s and she didn't know anyone else unconventional like her. After performing "Work Me, Lord," which I mentioned isn't included here, she reportedly happily told the crowd, "You're looking great! Texas never looked like this when I lived here, man. But man, look at you now!" 

She moved from Texas to California in 1966. After the concert, she told reporters that this was only the second time she'd been back to Texas after moving. She said, ""I had to get out man, they were fuc*ing me over." She also said that she planned to visit her family in Port Arthur in the days after the concert.

The recording is a soundboard that sounds excellent. The only problem, as mentioned above, is that it's incomplete. At least none of the songs here got cut off.  

This album is 32 minutes long. 

01 talk (Janis Joplin)
02 Raise Your Hand (Janis Joplin)
03 As Good as You Been to This World (Janis Joplin)
04 talk (Janis Joplin)
05 Try [Just a Little Bit Harder] (Janis Joplin)
06 talk (Janis Joplin)
07 Maybe (Janis Joplin)
08 To Love Somebody (Janis Joplin)
09 Summertime (Janis Joplin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HzzKCy8p

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2GAZ3CYz1CpjVQ0/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It was in black and white, so I used the Kolorize program to colorize it. I also used the Krea AI program to improve the detail.