Just yesterday, I posted a Kool and the Gang BBC concert from 1981. In my write-up, I lamented that the album lacked two of their biggest hits that had already been released, "Jungle Boogie" and "Ladies' Night." Progsprog saw that, and it turns out he has a slightly different version of the same concert. It was exactly the same until the end. Then, it had "Ladies' Night" as the second to last song, plus a longer version of the last song, "Celebration." Together, the additions make up 14 minutes, mostly because "Ladies' Night" is quite long. So if you downloaded it already, I suggest you download this revised version. And thanks again to Progsprog for his help.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Monday, December 15, 2025
Various Artists - Rally for Nuclear Disarmament, Central Park, New York City, 6-12-1982
There's a lot about this concert that I don't know, apparently lost in the mists of time. I do know there was an absolutely enormous protest rally in Central Park on June 12, 1982. News reports say about a million people attended, making it the largest protest rally in the history of the U.S., at least up until that time. Part of that all day event was a concert. Some of it was broadcast on the radio, and that's what I have here. But I can't find any information about how much more there was that is now missing.
However, I do have some clues. Rita Marley actually performed four songs, which I found on YouTube. But the sound quality, apparently from homemade video footage was poor. I managed to salvage one song to at least represent her, but I had to do a LOT of work on it (using the MVSEP program) to make it at least listenable. Note the sound quality gets better after that, so don't be discouraged because it's the first song. I also know Jackson Browne played the song "For Everyman," which is not here. The radio broadcast cut in part way through the song, and there were technical problems, so only the last minute was salvageable. That was so little that I decided to just cut it out entirely. I also know performed a duet of the song "I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine." One can find a video of that on YouTube, but the quality was so bad that I had no hope of salvaging that one. They also did the song together in the studio for Ronstadt's 1982 album "Get Closer," by the way.
Furthermore, at the end of the concert, there were appearances by Jesse Colin Young, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, and Graham Nash. I suspect one or more of them probably had songs of their own earlier in the concert. I also saw a mention that Holly Near sang something at some point. The problem is, the radio broadcast only showed highlights of some of the big names, and even then it seems they took commercial breaks from time to time, skipping songs. If anyone knows more (for instance if you attended and remember what happened), please let us know.
To make matters more complicated, two days earlier, there was a related concert with a very similar name, the "Concert for Nuclear Disarmament," held at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, just outside New York City. That holds about 15,000 people. I found a review of that concert. There were only three acts: James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne. But because there were fewer acts, each of them performed almost full sets. I found one audience bootleg of part of that, but the sound quality was pretty terrible, so I won't be posting it.
Anyway, having something (in worthy sound quality) is better than having nothing. What we have here is pretty nice, even though many of the performers are the same ones who played in the "Peace Sunday" concert a week earlier in Los Angeles. Linda Ronstadt even played "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" with the same two well-known backing singers, Rosemary Butler and Nicolette Larson.
It was notable that Bruce Springsteen performed. However, I consulted the "Brucebase" website, which is very thorough, and that confirms that he only performed on two songs, while a guest during Jackson Browne's set. He sang his own song, "Badlands," with Browne on backing vocals, then Browne sang his own "Running on Empty" with Springsteen on backing vocals.
Another interesting tidbit is that James Taylor and John Hall jointly performed the song "Children's Cry." Taylor mentioned before the song started that they had written it together specifically for this concert. I did a little searching. It seems the only time this song was ever played was at this concert and at the "Concert for Nuclear Disarmament" two days earlier. And it apparently was never officially released in any form.
This concert recording sounded pretty decent, but there were issues. Some time back, musical friend Lil Panda did some audio editing to improve just the Linda Ronstadt songs. So I used his version for those. I also tried some editing of my own. I ran all the songs through MVSEP, and got rid of most of the crowd noise during songs while keeping it at the ends of songs. I then ran all the songs through MVSEP again, and adjusted the balance between the lead vocals and the instruments. For maybe half the songs, the lead vocals were too low.
It anyone has more of this concert (or the related Concert for Nuclear Disarmament), please share it.
This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.
01 One Love (Rita Marley)
02 The Pretender (Jackson Browne & Gary U.S. Bonds)
03 talk (Joan Baez)
04 Imagine (Joan Baez)
05 Promised Land (Bruce Springsteen with Jackson Browne)
06 talk (Jackson Browne)
07 Running on Empty (Jackson Browne with Bruce Springsteen)
08 talk (Jackson Browne)
09 Tumbling Dice (Linda Ronstadt)
10 Blue Bayou (Linda Ronstadt)
11 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
12 The Shoop Shoop Song [It's in His Kiss] (Linda Ronstadt with Rosemary Butler & Nicolette Larson)
13 Desperado (Linda Ronstadt)
14 Heat Wave (Linda Ronstadt)
15 Living in the U.S.A. (Linda Ronstadt)
16 That Lonesome Road (James Taylor)
17 You've Got a Friend (James Taylor)
18 talk (James Taylor)
19 Up on the Roof (James Taylor)
20 Stand and Fight (James Taylor)
21 talk (James Taylor & Chaka Khan)
22 It's Growing (James Taylor & Chaka Khan)
23 talk (James Taylor)
24 Children's Cry (James Taylor & John Hall)
25 talk (Joy Ryder & Avis Davis)
26 No More Nukes (Joy Ryder & Avis Davis)
27 talk (John Hall)
28 Plutonium Is Forever (John Hall)
29 talk (John Hall)
30 talk (Jackson Browne & Graham Nash)
31 Power (John Hall, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash & Carly Simon)
32 talk (John Hall)
33 Let's Get Together (Jesse Colin Young & Everyone)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/hjST8tt6
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/NVjT1WCkPe1RhvJ/file
The cover photo shows Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor. I would bet this was taken during the duet they did, "I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine," which unfortunately is not included here. The original was in black and white. But I used the "Kolorize" program to colorize it.
Tony Joe White - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, London, Britain, 5-8-1974
On the same day I'm posting this, I'm posting a BBC concert he did in 1970. Both of them were done for the "In Concert" TV show. I originally had posted that 1970 with this 1974 date, because that was how the bootleg was labelled. But musical friend Progsprog has sent me a lot of rare BBC material lately, and one thing he sent me was this 1974 show. When I got this, I realized I must have had the wrong date for the other show. It was pretty easy to figure out, because all the songs on that one were from 1970 or earlier, while this one has some songs he released in 1973 or 1974. For instance, "Sign of a Lion" was a song that only came out on a single that was released in 1974.
It seems White actually had two episodes of "In Concert" in 1974. They were taken from the same concert, and shown on TV a couple of months apart. If that's true, I'm guessing this is the first part, since it seems unlikely he would end with an obscure song like "Sign of a Lion," and this recording more fades out than comes to a clear end. If and when anyone can send the second part to me, I'll update this with that portion as well.
White had his biggest successes in the early 1970s, and then his commercial prospects declined as the decade went on. But he came back in the 1980s and 90s as a successful songwriter. That led to another BBC concert, which I plan on posting here as well.
The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 31 minutes long.
01 I've Got a Thing about You Baby (Tony Joe White)
02 Willie and Laura Mae Jones (Tony Joe White)
03 talk (Tony Joe White)
04 Even Trolls Love Rock and Roll (Tony Joe White)
05 talk (Tony Joe White)
06 Polk Salad Annie (Tony Joe White)
07 Caress Me Babe (Tony Joe White)
08 talk (Tony Joe White)
09 That Loving Feeling (Tony Joe White)
10 Sign of the Lion (Tony Joe White)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/ydGx4PEp
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/nqJWIOQfsc9AdKr/file
The cover photo is from a concert at the Crystal Palace Garden Party, in London, on September 15, 1973. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.
Tony Joe White - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, London, Britain, 11-23-1970
So I've completely deleted the old version I posted last year and I'm replacing it with this. It's actually the same music as before, but with changed title, cover art, and mp3 tags. I'll follow this by posting the 1974 concert.
White is probably best known for the song "Polk Salad Annie," which he wrote and which was a Top Ten hit in the U.S. in 1969. He also wrote "Rainy Night in Georgia," which was a Top Ten hit for Brook Benton in 1970, and was included in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time. White's career faded into obscurity in the late 1970s, done in by disco like so many others at the time. But he had a revival in the 1990s, including writing some hits for Tina Turner.
Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:
The date I'm using here is the broadcast date. If anyone knows the recording date please let me know, so I can use that instead. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 30 minutes long.
01 Polk Salad Annie (Tony Joe White)
02 talk (Tony Joe White)
03 Rainy Night in Georgia (Tony Joe White)
04 talk (Tony Joe White)
05 Willie and Laura Mae Jones (Tony Joe White)
06 talk (Tony Joe White)
07 Groupy Girl (Tony Joe White)
08 talk (Tony Joe White)
09 The Migrant (Tony Joe White)
10 talk (Tony Joe White)
11 Roosevelt and Ira Lee [Night of the Moccasin] (Tony Joe White)
12 talk (Tony Joe White)
13 Save Your Sugar for Me (Tony Joe White)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/CUa8eUGz
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/eYf9ImF35xlgvCs/file
The cover photo is from this exact concert.
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: 1973-1975
Like Volumes One and Five in this revamped series, this is a collection of studio sessions. The first two songs are from an appearance on the BBC TV show "Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1973. Tracks 3 through 5 are from a BBC session in 1974. Tracks 6 through 9 are from another 1974 BBC session. Tracks 10 through 13 are from a BBC session in early 1975.
"Hooked on Love" has been released on an "Old Grey Whistle Test" compilation. Tracks 6 through 13 have been released on either "Cruel to Be Kind" or "What IS So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding," the two official BBC albums. That leaves four songs that remain unreleased. A couple of songs have "[Edit]" in their titles due to BBC DJs talking over the music. As usual, I fixed that with the help of the MVSEP audio editing program.
Note that I was going to post a few songs from the band's appearance on the German TV show "Rockpalast" in 1975. But it turns out the entire performance was officially released in 2025 under the title "Live at Rockpalast." So you should check that out if you're a fan of the band. It was one of their last concerts before they broke up.
This album is 43 minutes long.
01 Surrender to the Rhythm (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Hooked on Love (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding [Edit] (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 You Ain't Living Till You're Loving (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 The Ugly Things [Edit] (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 Ju Ju Man (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 Small Town, Big City (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 I Got the Real Thing (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 Everybody (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 We Can Mess Around [Mess with Love] (Brinsley Schwarz)
12 Cruel to Be Kind (Brinsley Schwarz)
13 Give Me Back My Love (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/EPTrEu7w
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/JUmaIr8ljS0wgQa/file
I don't know when or where the cover photo was taken. But I found very, very few good color photos of the band, and I thought this one of the band members with their wives and children was a nice one.
Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge with Billy Swan - Sounds like Friday, BBC Television Studios, London, Britain, 9-29-1978
I had never heard of "Sounds like Friday" prior to this, but it turns out it was a BBC TV show that only lasted for ten episodes in 1978 and 1979. Starting in 2017, the BBC had another TV show with the very similar title "Sounds like Friday Night," but it seems there's no connection.
It made great sense to have Kirstofferson and Coolidge on the same show, because they were married to each other for most of the 1970s. They met in 1970, right when both of them were becoming stars, and got married in 1973. They had a child together, and recorded some duet albums. But they divorced in 1980.
This concert came at or near the peak of Coolidge's popularity. She had three big hits in 1977 and 1978: "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "We're All Alone," and "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," and she performed all three of them here. Kristofferson didn't really have big hits on his own (with one or two partial exceptions), but had a more steadily successful career as a songwriter. (Check out the two "Covered" albums I've made for his songs.)
Billy Swan had one massive hit, "I Can Help." It went all the way to Number One on the U.S. singles chart in 1974. But what I didn't realize until doing this write-up is that he was more than just a "one-hit wonder." He wrote a bunch of country hits for others (as well as writing his own big hit), and had a series of minor country hits as well. He was a member of Kristofferson's band for many years, as well as a friend, which explains his presence here.
Although this is billed as a Kristofferson and Coolidge album, the first half mostly consists of Kristofferson (and Swan for his one song), and the second half mostly consists of Coolidge. The two of them finally came together to sing duets on the last two songs. Both of those songs were written by Kristofferson, by the way, as well as the other songs sung by him, while Coolidge's songs were cover versions.
The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 44 minutes long.
01 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Kris Kristofferson)
02 Risky Bizness (Kris Kristofferson)
03 I Can Help (Billy Swan)
04 The Bigger the Fool [The Harder the Fall] (Kris Kristofferson)
05 Spooky Lady's Revenge (Kris Kristofferson)
06 Words (Rita Coolidge)
07 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Rita Coolidge)
08 We're All Alone (Rita Coolidge)
09 talk (Rita Coolidge)
10 For the Good Times (Rita Coolidge with Barbara Carroll)
11 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Rita Coolidge)
12 Help Me Make It through the Night (Rita Coolidge & Kris Kristofferson)
13 Me and Bobby McGee (Rita Coolidge & Kris Kristofferson)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/1xJSrcnB
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/R8vqK04rTqK4fVZ/file
The cover imagine shows Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson at a concert in New York City at some point in 1978.
Kool & the Gang - BBC In Concert, Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 11-7-1981
Kool in the Gang released their first album in 1969, and had their first big hits in 1973 with "Jungle Boogie" and "Hollywood Swinging." But then their commercial fortunes went steadily down as the 1970s went on. A big problem was they didn't have a great lead singer, so they did a lot of instrumentals. But in 1979, the got a new lead singer, James "J.T." Taylor (not to be confused with the singer-songwriter with the same name), and moved in more of a mainstream pop direction. That resulted in two big hits in 1979, "Ladies' Night" and "Too Hot." Then in 1980 they did even better, getting their first Number One on the main U.S. singles chart with "Celebration." They had another big hit in 1981 with "Get Down on It."
That's the point when this concert happened, in late 1981. They went on to have a few more big hits in the next few years, especially "Joanna," which was the most played song on the radio in 1984. Most of their hits through 1981 were performed here, although I was a bit surprised not to see "Jungle Boogie."
When I first posted this, I didn't have "Ladies' Night." But within hours, musical friend Progsprog saw that omission and sent me the missing song. So thanks for that.
The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is an hour and nine minutes long.
01 Take It to the Top (Kool & the Gang)
02 Hangin' Out (Kool & the Gang)
03 Hollywood Swinging (Kool & the Gang)
04 talk (Kool & the Gang)
05 Jones vs. Jones (Kool & the Gang)
06 If You Feel like Dancin' (Kool & the Gang)
07 talk (Kool & the Gang)
08 Steppin' Out (Kool & the Gang)
09 Get Down on It (Kool & the Gang)
10 Take My Heart (Kool & the Gang)
11 Love Festival (Kool & the Gang)
12 Too Hot (Kool & the Gang)
13 Ladies' Night (Kool & the Gang)
14 Celebration (Kool & the Gang)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/Fr24B1Lo
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/CsoA7PL2ivg5vOn/file
The cover photo is from an appearance on the "American Bandstand" TV show in February 1982. I also found a logo of the band's name, and used that at the top.
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, London, Britain, 3-30-1973
Here's another BBC album by the British band Brinsley Schwarz. This time, it's a short concert from 1973.
In 1973, the band released the studio album "Please Don't Ever Change." But that was in October 1973, six months after this concert. Still, they played two songs that would appear on that album, "Hooked on Love," and "Why Do We Hurt the One We Love."
Many of the other songs wouldn't be released on album at all, at least not until archival albums decades later. For instance, "Do the Cod (The Thirty Pounder)" was an original instrumental that wouldn't get released until the "Thinking Back" box set in 2023. "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" is a soul music classic. This version of it would eventually be released on the "Cruel to Be Kind" collection of BBC performances. They never did a studio version, it seems. That's the exact situation with "Wait" (this performance being the only one released, on the "Cruel to Be Kind album). Note that's the same song done by the J. Geils Band, not the Beatles song.
This album was quite short, only 24 minutes long. So I decided to add two songs at the end. It so happens I found two songs the band performed on an unknown French TV show in 1973. Since they were different songs from all the other ones on this album, they made an ideal fit. They, like most of the rest of this album, remain officially unreleased.
This album is 32 minutes long.
01 Do the Cod [The Thirty Pounder] [Instrumental] (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Hooked on Love (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 It's Been So Long (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 Why Do We Hurt the One We Love (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 Wait (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 Ju Ju Man (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 Wonder Woman (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/meK8xc7V
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/XN5smRd9bgTLomS/file
The cover image is a screenshot I took of an appearance on a French TV show in 1973.
Friday, December 12, 2025
Gerry Rafferty - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Edinburgh Playhouse, Edinburgh, Britain, 2-25-1993
Rafferty was pretty reclusive, and rarely went on tour. I'm only aware of three times he toured as a solo artist, in 1978, 1980, and 1993. I've already posted a concert from him that's very similar to this one. It took place in Hamburg, Germany, earlier the same month as this one. However, while the set lists are almost the same, there are differences. Most importantly, this has one more cover version at the end, of the classic soul song "Stand by Me."
This concert has been widely bootlegged. However, every version I've seen is only 55 minutes long. But this one has an additional 43 minutes! That's thanks to Progsprog, who gave me his version. Somehow, he keeps coming out with extra long versions of BBC concerts, so all thanks to him. Even better, the sound quality is excellent all the way through, and there were no problems to fix.
This album is an hour and 38 minutes long.
01 Waiting for the Day (Gerry Rafferty)
02 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
03 Your Heart's Desire (Gerry Rafferty)
04 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
05 Get Out of My Life Woman (Gerry Rafferty)
06 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
07 Right Down the Line (Gerry Rafferty)
08 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
09 Does He Know What He's Taken On (Gerry Rafferty)
10 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
11 Moonlight and Gold (Gerry Rafferty)
12 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
13 Don't Give Up on Me (Gerry Rafferty)
14 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
15 Stuck in the Middle with You (Gerry Rafferty)
16 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
17 It's Easy to Talk (Gerry Rafferty)
18 The Right Moment (Gerry Rafferty)
19 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
20 Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty)
21 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
22 Late Again (Gerry Rafferty)
23 Get It Right Next Time (Gerry Rafferty)
24 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
25 It Makes No Difference (Gerry Rafferty)
26 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
27 A Mess of Blues (Gerry Rafferty)
28 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
29 Stand by Me (Gerry Rafferty)
30 talk (Gerry Rafferty)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/svRZdWLj
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/j94QBKNsawN1Ijk/file
The cover photo is from a concert in Utrecht, Netherlands on February 17, 1993.
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1972-1973
Here's another volume of the British band Brinsley Schwarz performing for the BBC. This is a collection of studio sessions.
As I mentioned in earlier write-ups in this series, I previously posted three BBC albums from this band, only to completely overhaul the series and turn it into a seven album series instead. This largely corresponds to what used to be "Volume 2." However, there are additions, deletions, and changes.
For instance, the first five songs are ones I only recently found. They come from archival album "Last Orders." That album has very sketchy notes, and didn't reveal the source, except that it was from an "obscure radio show." (I suspect the people who put the album together were deliberately vague so they wouldn't have to pay more royalties to the sources.) However, I found an Internet mention of those exact songs in that exact order coming from an Irish TV show in 1972. So the details are still sketchy, but at least we know something.
The next four songs, tracks 6 through 9, come from a BBC session in late 1972. All of them were released on the official album "What IS So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding." The five songs after that, tracks 10 through 14, come from a 1973 BBC session. Two of those were also released on the "What IS So Funny" album, two more were from the "Cruel to Be Kind" official album, and one, "I Worry ['Bout You Baby]," remains unreleased. The last song, "Murder on My Mind," is from a different BBC session later in 1973, and came out on the "Last Orders" album. As always, you can find more details in the mp3 tags.
This album is 46 minutes long.
01 Unknown Number (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Silver Pistol (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 She's Got to Be Real (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 Country Girl (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 Range War (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 Nervous on the Road [But Can't Stay at Home] (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 It's Been So Long (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 Having a Party (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 You Got Me Hummin' (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 Mama Told Me Not to Come (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 You Never Can Tell (Brinsley Schwarz)
12 Play That Fast Thing [One More Time] (Brinsley Schwarz)
13 I've Cried My Last Tear (Brinsley Schwarz)
14 I Worry ['Bout You Baby] (Brinsley Schwarz)
15 Murder on My Mind (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/4mbw8TWD
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/3rPJn3cPJP7NbQn/file
I don't know any details of the cover photo. But it was one of a very few that showed all the band members and was in color. I used Krea AI to improve the image detail.
Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins with Various Artists - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-8-1973
The pairing of Loretta Lynn with Marty Robbins as co-host was rather unexpected. I searched the Internet, and found very few instances of them doing any musical collaborations before this show, or after. But they collaborated well on nearly all the banter for all the songs, as well as singing "Singing the Blues" together, plus starting and ending the show by singing the theme song, "Midnight Special," instead of having the usual version by Johnny Rivers.
There's not much else to say, except if you're a fan of classic country, this should be a special treat for you. I edited the first and last tracks some with MVSEP. For instance, the last track had an announcer speak over the middle of the song, but I managed to get rid of that voice and keep the rest.
This album is an hour and seven minutes long.
01 talk [Edit] (Sammy Jackson)
02 Midnight Special (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
03 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
04 One's on the Way (Loretta Lynn)
05 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
06 Don't Worry 'bout Me (Marty Robbins)
07 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
08 We're Gonna Hold On (George Jones & Tammy Wynette)
09 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
10 Blood Red and Goin' Down (Tanya Tucker)
12 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
13 Caroline Boogie [Instrumental] (Earl Scruggs Revue)
14 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
15 Spokane Motel Blues (Tom T. Hall)
16 Singing the Blues (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
17 Stand by Your Man (Tammy Wynette)
18 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
19 Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich)
20 talk (Marty Robbins)
21 A White Sport Coat [And a Pink Carnation] (Marty Robbins)
22 Devil Woman (Marty Robbins)
23 El Paso (Marty Robbins)
24 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
25 Oh, Lonesome Me (Don Gibson)
26 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
27 The Race Is On (George Jones)
28 Love Is the Foundation (Loretta Lynn)
29 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
30 You've Never Been So Far (Conway Twitty)
31 talk (Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty)
32 Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man (Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty)
33 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
34 She's All I Got (Johnny Paycheck)
35 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
36 Bosier City Backyard Blues (Johnny Rodriguez)
37 Delta Dawn (Tanya Tucker)
38 talk (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
39 Midnight Special [Reprise] [Edit] (Loretta Lynn & Marty Robbins)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/wFnVXQ1S
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/JwORT3ZtePHawLw/file
The cover photo of Marty Robbins and Loretta Lynn is a screenshot I took of a YouTube video of this exact concert.
Various Artists - Peace Sunday, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, 6-6-1982, Part 5: Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larson, Bette Midler, Jackson Browne, Gary U.S. Bonds, and Tom Petty
I'll just paste in a paragraph I wrote in my post for Part 2, since it still applies here:
If you want a full explanation of what the concert was about, please read my write-up for Part 1. In that, I also explained about the sound quality issue. In short, the only known source for the whole concert is an audience bootleg. It didn't sound very good, so this concert recording hasn't been shared that much. But I could tell there was potential there, if I could get rid of most of the much. As I explained in detail in my write-up, I think I did get rid of most of it. It still doesn't have excellent sound, but it's pretty good, and worthy of being posted at my blog, where I have pretty high sound quality standards.
This big concert ended with a bunch of star performers. Linda Ronstadt dominated the first half of this part of the concert. During her set, she let her friend Nicolette Larson sing one song, while Larson and Rosemary Butler sang back-up on another song. Then Bette Midler just sang one song, acappella style, and also made a lot of funny comments.
Jackson Browne dominated the second half of this part of the concert. After performing three songs, he had Gary U.S. Bonds sing one song, "This Little Girl," which was a hit in 1981. Then Browne and Bonds sang a song together, "The Pretender." The song was written by Browne and released by him in 1975. But Bonds did a version on his 1981 album. After that, Tom Petty showed up to sing two songs, with Browne backing him up. Curiously, he sang two cover versions instead of any of his own songs. Perhaps that was because he was backed by Browne's band instead of the Heartbreakers, like he was used to.
At the very end, all the stars from earlier in the concert came back to sing two songs. First, Graham Nash led the others on his song "Teach Your Children." Then everyone sang "Give Peace a Chance," originally by John Lennon. But this version skipped the verses (with very hard to remember lyrics) and just repeated the chorus over and over again.
Two songs, "Blue Bayou" and "I Only Want to Be with You," have "[Edit]" in their titles. As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, I did a lot of editing on all the songs. But those two needed even more work on top of that. For instance, with "Blue Bayou" the first verse had the sound of some person near the taper talking through it. But luckily the verse was repeated later, so I patched in sections of that to get rid of that person's voice.
This album is an hour and eight minutes long.
Note that, for all the parts, the track numbers continue from the numbers in the previous part. That way, you can put all the songs together and listen to the whole thing at once if you want.
61 Blue Bayou [Edit] (Linda Ronstadt)
62 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
63 The Shoop Shoop Song [It's in His Kiss] (Linda Ronstadt with Rosemary Butler & Nicolette Larson)
64 talk (Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larson)
65 I Only Want to Be with You [Edit] (Nicolette Larson with Linda Ronstadt)
66 Get Closer (Linda Ronstadt)
67 talk (Linda Ronstadt)
68 Back in the U.S.A. (Linda Ronstadt)
69 talk (Bette Midler)
70 You Must Ask the Heart (Bette Midler)
71 talk (Bette Midler)
72 talk (Jackson Browne)
73 Crow on the Cradle (Jackson Browne)
74 talk (Jackson Browne)
75 Running on Empty (Jackson Browne)
76 Doctor My Eyes (Jackson Browne)
77 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds & Jackson Browne)
78 This Little Girl (Gary U.S. Bonds with Jackson Browne)
79 The Pretender (Gary U.S. Bonds & Jackson Browne)
80 talk (Jackson Browne)
81 Well... Alright (Tom Petty with Jackson Browne)
82 Not Fade Away (Tom Petty with Jackson Browne)
83 talk (Everyone)
84 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash & Everyone)
85 Give Peace a Chance (Everyone)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/tBipmuXn
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/g4QkgU1zmITJigf/file
I got really lucky when it comes to this concert. I only found a handful of photos from the whole thing, but that was just enough to find good ones for four out of the five parts. This one shows Tom Petty (in front) and Jackson Browne during this part of the concert.
Various Artists - Peace Sunday, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, 6-6-1982, Part 4: Dan Fogelberg and Stevie Nicks
Here's the fourth out of five albums that make up the "Peace Sunday" concert in 1982.
I'll just paste in a paragraph I wrote in my post for Part 2, since it still applies here:
If you want a full explanation of what the concert was about, please read my write-up for Part 1. In that, I also explained about the sound quality issue. In short, the only known source for the whole concert is an audience bootleg. It didn't sound very good, so this concert recording hasn't been shared that much. But I could tell there was potential there, if I could get rid of most of the much. As I explained in detail in my write-up, I think I did get rid of most of it. It still doesn't have excellent sound, but it's pretty good, and worthy of being posted at my blog, where I have pretty high sound quality standards.
This part is split in two. The first half features Dan Fogelberg, and the second half features Stevie Nicks. Graham Nash helped Fogelberg with harmony vocals on one song.
Both Fogelberg and Nicks were at or near the peak of their popularity. His most recent album at the time, "The Innocent Age," was released in 1981. It sold over two million copies, and had three songs in the Top Ten of the U.S. singles chart. Meanwhile, Nicks was having both a very successful solo career while still remaining a member of Fleetwood Mac. A new Fleetwood Mac album, "Mirage," would be released a month after this concert. Nicks didn't perform any songs from it.
This album is an hour and one minute long.
Note that, for all the parts, the track numbers continue from the numbers in the previous part. That way, you can put all the songs together and listen to the whole thing at once if you want.
50 Part of the Plan (Dan Fogelberg)
51 Empty Cages (Dan Fogelberg)
52 Tell Me to My Face (Dan Fogelberg)
53 Face the Fire (Dan Fogelberg)
54 talk (Dan Fogelberg)
55 There's a Place in the World for a Gambler (Dan Fogelberg with Graham Nash)
56 Edge of Seventeen (Stevie Nicks)
57 talk (Stevie Nicks)
58 Sara (Stevie Nicks)
59 I Need to Know (Stevie Nicks)
60 Rhiannon (Stevie Nicks)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/DGXo684q
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/0sOekxVb3WtKsKr/file
The cover photo of Stevie Nicks is from this exact concert.
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Various Artists - Peace Sunday, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, 6-6-1982, Part 3: Stevie Wonder and Joan Baez & Bob Dylan
I'll just paste in a paragraph I wrote in my post for Part 2, since it still applies here:
If you want a full explanation of what the concert was about, please read my write-up for Part 1. In that, I also explained about the sound quality issue. In short, the only known source for the whole concert is an audience bootleg. It didn't sound very good, so this concert recording hasn't been shared that much. But I could tell there was potential there, if I could get rid of most of the much. As I explained in detail in my write-up, I think I did get rid of most of it. It still doesn't have excellent sound, but it's pretty good, and worthy of being posted at my blog, where I have pretty high sound quality standards.
Now, let's get to the music. This part of the concert started with some songs by Stevie Wonder. Just one month before this concert, he released a best of album called "Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I." It contained four new songs, and he performed two of them here, "Front Line" and "Do I Do." He also had a new songs written for the occasion, but it seems he and his band couldn't practice the song enough in time to his satisfaction, so he simply spoke the lyrics instead. I don't know the actual name of the song/poem, but I made an educated guess of "Throw Down in the Name of Love." If anyone knows a better title, please let me know.
The rest of this part of the concert consists of a set by Joan Baez, capped by three songs where she was joined by Bob Dylan. The two of them had a long personal history together, especially since they were romantically linked for a couple of years in the 1960s. The two of them toured together in 1975 and 1976. But after that, they didn't appear on stage together again until this concert. Then they were stage some more in 1984. As far as I know, they have been on stage together again in the many years since then.
Dylan wasn't one of the scheduled performers, so his appearance here was a pleasant surprise. That was especially the case because he basically took all of 1982 off. He didn't release or record any music, and this was his one and only concert appearance. They dueted on two classic Dylan anti-war songs, which were ideal for the occasion. The third song they sang was a real surprise though: "A Pirate Looks at Forty," by Jimmy Buffett. I'm pretty sure that's the only time Dylan ever sang a Jimmy Buffett song in concert.
Unfortunately, Dylan's performance wasn't the best. If you listen, it's pretty clear he did little to no practice with Baez. He even got the lyrics to "Blowin' in the Wind" wrong, singing the same verse twice. But still, it was great to have his involved with this concert. Since the mid-1960s, he's rarely been overtly politically active, but he was making his voice heard on the issue of nuclear disarmament by singing these particular songs at this particular concert.
I mentioned in my write-up to Part 1 that I spent a long time fixing the sound quality issues with this concert. I could have put "[Edit]" on all the songs, since I edited every single one of them a lot. But since I did the same treatment to all of them, I've saved that for the most extreme edits. There's one case here, with "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man." On top of all the other problems I was fixing, the beginning of the song was missing. Probably, the taper was saving tape by stopping during long pauses between songs, and then was a little slow it hitting "record" again in this case. But luckily, the lyrics at the start of the song were repeated later in the song, so I was able to fill in the missing section.
This album is an hour and nine minutes long.
Note that, for all the parts, the track numbers continue from the numbers in the previous part. That way, you can put all the songs together and listen to the whole thing at once if you want.
33 talk (Stevie Wonder)
34 Front Line (Stevie Wonder)
35 talk (Stevie Wonder)
36 Throw Down in the Name of Love [Spoken Lyrics] (Stevie Wonder)
37 Master Blaster [Jammin'] (Stevie Wonder)
38 Do I Do (Stevie Wonder)
39 We Demand World Peace Today (Stevie Wonder)
40 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man [Edit] (Joan Baez)
41 talk (Joan Baez)
42 Warriors of the Sun (Joan Baez)
43 Imagine (Joan Baez)
44 Diamonds and Rust (Joan Baez)
45 talk (Joan Baez)
46 With God on Our Side (Joan Baez & Bob Dylan)
47 A Pirate Looks at Forty (Joan Baez & Bob Dylan)
48 Blowin' in the Wind (Joan Baez & Bob Dylan)
49 talk (emcee)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/rZFaw6jr
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/XxOyn7vxXc2PzU7/file
The cover image of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan is from this exact concert.
Various Artists - Peace Sunday, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, 6-6-1982, Part 2: Timothy B. Schmidt & Don Felder, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Stephen Stills & Dave Mason, and Taj Mahal
If you want a full explanation of what the concert was about, please read my write-up for Part 1. In that, I also explained about the sound quality issue. In short, the only known source for the whole concert is an audience bootleg. It didn't sound very good, so this concert recording hasn't been shared that much. But I could tell there was potential there, if I could get rid of most of the much. As I explained in detail in my write-up, I think I did get rid of most of it. It still doesn't have excellent sound, but it's pretty good, and worthy of being posted at my blog, where I have pretty high sound quality standards.
Now, switching to the music here, most of this Part 2 section is dominated by Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN). Graham Nash already sang a song on his own in Part 1. Weirdly though, only two songs were performed by CSN here. Then Stephen Stills stayed on stage and performed three more songs on his own (with a back-up band), and then two more with Dave Mason joining in. (However, Mason could mostly be heard helping with lead guitar, not singing lead vocals.) The two songs with Mason weren't ones that Stills usually did with CSN. But the other three he did solo definitely were CSN standards. I would guess that CSN was going through tough times in the early 1980s, mainly due to David Crosby's excessive drug use. So Stills probably was more interested in his solo career.
On a different note, the Eagles broke up around 1980. But two members of the Eagles, Timothy B. Schmidt and Don Felder, sang an Eagles hit, "I Can't Tell You Why." Most Eagles songs were written and sung by other band members, but that was one that was mainly written and sung by Schmidt.
This album is 49 minutes long.
By the way, note that the track list numbering picks up where Part 1 left off. That way, you can easily listen to all of the songs from the entire concert in a row if you want to.
17 talk (Graham Nash)
18 I Can't Tell You Why (Timothy B. Schmidt with Don Felder)
19 talk (Graham Nash)
20 Long Time Coming (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
21 Chicago (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
22 talk (emcee)
23 Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills)
24 For What It's Worth (Stephen Stills)
25 Dark Star (Stephen Stills)
26 talk (Stephen Stills)
27 Hoochie Coochie Man (Stephen Stills & Dave Mason)
28 Rocky Mountain Way (Stephen Stills & Dave Mason)
29 talk (emcee)
30 talk (Taj Mahal)
31 Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue (Taj Mahal)
32 Stagger Lee (Taj Mahal)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/2P8yiZNv
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/GHuHYJqbFPuA5TV/file
The cover photo of CSN is from this exact concert.
Various Artists - Peace Sunday, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, 6-6-1982, Part 1: Gil Scott-Heron, Jesse Colin Young, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, and Donovan
I really like posting big rock festivals. I feel these often get forgotten. This was a very interesting one. Just look at some of the musical acts that took part: Gil Scott Heron, Jesse Colin Young, Bonnie Raitt, Donovan, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Stevie Wonder, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Dan Fogelberg, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, and Tom Petty. However, the problem with this one is that only known recording is a problematic audience bootleg. However, I have spent many, many hours getting this into listenable shape. It's still far from ideal sound quality, but I think it's definitely worth listening to, after all the audio edits I've made. I've split this long concert into five albums. This is the first one.
First, let me explain what this concert was about. In the early 1980s, the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia (then the Soviet Union) heated up. Ronald Reagan was president of the U.S., and struck a more militaristic posture, such as calling Russia "the evil empire." The U.S. decided to base intermediate nuclear weapons in Western Europe for the first time. This led to a growing anti-nuclear war movement, which was related to an anti-nuclear power movement triggered by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.
This concert in 1982, which was attended by about 85,000 people, was meant to draw attention to the nuclear war issue, and put pressure on the U.S. to reduce it's aggressive policies. It was just one of many around that time. For instance, one week later, there was a protest march and concert in New York City attended by about a million people that was the biggest protest in history up until that time. In 1983, there were 50 simultaneous protests across the U.S. Also in 1983, the TV movie "The Day After" depicted the results of a nuclear war on a family. It was one of the top ten most watched TV shows of all time, showing how concern was spiking over the issue. In Europe, there were even more opposition and protests. Eventually, there were peace talks, and in 1987, the U.S. and Russia signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which led to the destruction of all intermediate range nuclear weapons. That, and other peace treaties, helped lower the tensions and fear.
It turns out the protesters had good reason to be concerned. In 1983, the world actually came very close to being destroyed in a nuclear war, entirely by accident. A Russian early warning system mistakenly showed five nuclear missiles heading towards Russia. A Russian engineer on duty was supposed to pass the warning up the chain of command. But he had a feeling it was a false alarm, and didn't pass the warning on. It turned out he was right, and the early warning system had malfunctioned.
You can read all about it in this Wikipedia article:
1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident - Wikipedia
The common perception is that the trend of musicians staging benefit concerts for altruistic reasons began with Live Aid in 1985. But this concert was in 1982. And there were others like it in those years, such as the No Nukes concerts in 1979, and the 1982 New York City concert I mentioned above, which starred Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bonnie Raitt, and many more. (I've only found some of that one, but I'm looking for more.)
Okay, so that explains what this concert was all about. Now, let me address the sound quality issue. As I mentioned above, the only source I could find for this concert is a merely decent audience bootleg. It suffered from the usual problems audience boots have, some one which I could fix, and some I couldn't. It's clear the person who recorded it turned their tape recorder off between songs a lot, so we miss many introductions and other banter. There was nothing I could do about that.
But the main problem, of crowd noise, was one I could fix, although it turned out to be a very big pain in the ass. For starters, I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program, specifically separating the crowd noise from everything else. Then I wiped out most of the crowd noise, except where it was appropriate to keep, for instance at the ends of songs and during sing-alongs. That alone made a BIG difference. There had been a constant level of backround noise, and I got rid of nearly all of it.
However, there was more crowd noise that was harder to fix. Often during songs, people near the taper would shout "WOOHOO!" and the like. Sometimes there would be entire conversations. I ran all the songs through MVSEP again, splitting the vocals from everything else. Then I carefully went through the vocals and got rid of anything that didn't belong. Occasionally, the bits I wanted to remove overlapped with singing, and I couldn't remove it. But that was relatively rare. Most of the time, people saved their "woohoos" and such for the instrumental parts.
The result is still not great. But it's way better than before, in my opinion, and sometimes it could be mistaken for soundboard quality. Luckily, the audience bootleg was fundamentally good. If that hadn't been the case, I wouldn't have taken on this time-consuming task.
Luckily, as far as I can tell, the taper did record all the songs by all the musical acts, even if some of the banter is gone. For instance, not only is there no introduction of the first artist, Gil Scott-Heron, the recording began in the middle of some comments he made. And while we have an introduction for Donovan, we don't have one for Jesse Colin Young. Lots of little missing bits like that. But the main thing is the music.
Oh, speaking of the banter, that often was muffled and hard to understand. So I ran all the "talk" tracks through the Adobe voice enhancer program. That only works for talking, not singing, but it really helps with the clarity.
This album is 52 minutes long.
01 talk (Gil Scott-Heron)
02 Alien (Gil Scott-Heron)
03 talk (Gil Scott-Heron)
04 Please Save the Children (Gil Scott-Heron)
05 talk (Gil Scott-Heron)
06 Shut 'Em Down (Gil Scott-Heron)
07 Imagine (Jesse Colin Young)
08 Let's Get Together with Susie Young, Graham Nash & Jerry Corbitt (Jesse Colin Young)
09 talk (Graham Nash)
10 Military Madness (Graham Nash)
11 talk (Bonnie Raitt & Graham Nash)
12 Love Has No Pride (Bonnie Raitt with Graham Nash)
13 talk (Graham Nash)
14 Sunshine Superman (Donovan)
15 Season of the Witch (Donovan)
16 Mellow Yellow (Donovan)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/JPtfeBmR
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/Drcen3BFlcbmwxj/file
I found photos of musical acts performing for all the albums I've made out of this festival, except for this first part. However, I did find this cover of the official program for the festival, and I thought the image of a nuclear bomb blast morphing into a tree was interesting, so I used it. I had to crop it a bit, and clean it up some in Photoshop. Other than that, the only change I made was adding the text at the bottom. All the text at the top was on the original image.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Jimmy Buffett - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 2-19-1974
After decades in the music business, Jimmy Buffett became a kind of institution, almost a genre by himself, and earned hundreds of millions of dollars. But I'll bet at the time of this concert he had no clue he would ever reach that level of success, because he was still trying to make it.
In February 1974, the same month as this concert, he released his fourth album, "Living and Dying in 3/4 Time." But his first three albums were released to very little notice at the time. That fourth one was the first to crack the Top 200 in the U.S. album charts - not Top 100, but Top 200 - and just barely. The album did contain his first single, "Come Monday," which made the Top 40 in the U.S. singles chart. However, that success was still to come, since the single wouldn't even be released until April. I'm sure most listeners to this radio program at the time had never heard of him yet.
Given all that, his performance was extremely casual. He was in solo acoustic mode, apparently because he couldn't afford to tour with a band yet. His banter between songs make up 25 minutes of this recording, with the actual songs making up the other 35 minutes. I've posted over 3,000 albums at this blog, and believe me, that's a very unusually high amount of banter. It sounded almost like he was hanging out with a few friends, telling stories and shooting the shit, and occasionally remembering to sing another song.
The music here in unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is one hour long.
01 talk by emcee (Jimmy Buffett)
02 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
03 Ringling, Ringling (Jimmy Buffett)
04 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
05 Come Monday (Jimmy Buffett)
06 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
07 Pencil Thin Mustache (Jimmy Buffett)
08 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
09 Peddler Not a Pusher (Jimmy Buffett)
10 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
11 Railroad Lady (Jimmy Buffett)
12 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
13 They Don't Dance like Carmen No More (Jimmy Buffett)
14 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
15 Migration (Jimmy Buffett)
16 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
17 God's Own Drunk (Jimmy Buffett)
18 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
19 Brahma Fear (Jimmy Buffett)
20 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
21 A Pirate Looks at Forty (Jimmy Buffett)
22 talk by emcee (Jimmy Buffett)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/CsK9jieB
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/60fuiKtRvZ2L4tU/file
I don't know anything about the cover image except that it's from 1974. It had a big watermark right over his face and neck, but I got rid of it using Photoshop, since there are almost no good color photos of him from this early in his career.
Gerry Rafferty with Stealers Wheel - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1972-1978
Stealers Wheel only existed for a short time, late 1971 until 1975, but they had a complicated history. The two main band members were Rafferty and Joe Egan, with both of them writing and singing songs. They had a bit hit from their first album released in 1972, "Stuck in the Middle with You." Unfortunately, I couldn't find any BBC version of this song. In fact, I couldn't find any decent version of the song, other than the famous studio version. I did find one live version from the time period, but the sound quality was atrocious, so I didn't include it.
After a second album, the band broke up again. For a while, Rafferty left and Egan led the band. Then the band reformed, including Rafferty again. They released a third album in 1975, only for the band to break up for good after that. That's why there are some Stealers Wheel songs here, then some Rafferty solo ones, then more Stealers Wheel songs. And it could be that some of the Stealers Wheel ones don't have Raffery on them, I don't know. Maybe someone else can clarify that.
Everything here is unreleased. The first two songs are from a Stealers Wheel appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test BBC" TV show, in 1972. I believe they made a second appearance on the show later, but it seems no known versions are publicly available (if any survived at all). Tracks 3 and 4 are from the "Top of the Pops" BBC radio show (not the TV show of the same name) in early 1973. Tracks 5, 6, and 7 are from the "Top Gear" BBC radio show. Strangely, that was a Rafferty solo appearance, despite taking place less than two weeks after the "Top of the Pops" appearance. Perhaps that's when they broke up for the first time? Tracks 8 through 10 are from another "Top Gear" radio show, this time in 1975, when they briefly reunited for their third and final album.
After Stealers Wheel broke up for good in 1975, Rafferty was unable to release a solo album for three years, due to lingering legal issues. When he finally released his second solo album, "City to City," in 1978, it was a massive hit, selling over five million copies. That was due to the presence of two huge hit singles from the album, "Right Down the Line," and "Baker Street."
It seems that Rafferty toured at least in 1978 and 1980, but I can't find any concert bootlegs from that era at all. (Does anyone know of any?!) However, I did find some videos of him playing five songs for an unknown European TV show in 1978. I've included those, even though they're not from the BBC, since any live recordings from him are so hard to find. Happily, that includes "Baker Street," but frustratingly, no "Right Down the Line." That's a real shame, since it's my favorite song by him.
I have one more BBC album to post from him, a 1993 concert. Look for that here soon.
This album is 56 minutes long.
01 I Get By (Stealers Wheel)
02 Late Again (Stealers Wheel)
03 Outside Looking In (Stealers Wheel)
04 You Put Something Better Inside Me (Stealers Wheel)
05 Over My Head (Gerry Rafferty)
06 Don't Get Me Wrong (Gerry Rafferty)
07 My Singing Bird (Gerry Rafferty)
08 Wishbone [Edit] (Stealers Wheel)
09 This Morning (Stealers Wheel)
10 Monday Morning (Stealers Wheel)
11 Johnny’s Song (Gerry Rafferty)
12 High Fashion Queen (Gerry Rafferty)
13 Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty)
14 The Ark (Gerry Rafferty)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/7K9CcY8r
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/IemyOxyMpOjGu7g/file
The cover photo is from a concert in Antwerp, Belgium, on June 24, 1978.
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, London, Britain, 5-4-1972
Here's another BBC album by the British band Brinsley Schwarz. Like the previous two, it's another short concert.
The previous concert, "Volume 3," took place about six months prior to this. With that concert, the band largely played songs from their 1972 album "Silver Pistol," even though it hadn't been released yet. This time, they largely played songs from their next album, "Nervous on the Road," even though that one wouldn't be released until September 1972. These are the songs from that album: "It's Been So Long," "Don't Lose Your Grip on Love," "Surrender to the Rhythm," and "Home in My Hand."
This album is 24 minutes long. That's unusually short. I don't know if this is the full concert, since they typically were about an hour long or half an hour long. It could be a song or two is missing. But this is all I have.
Four of the songs here are from the official BBC album "Cruel to Be Kind:" tracks 6, 8, 10, and 12. The rest are from a bootleg. But the sound quality is about the same from the different sources.
01 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Unknown Number (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 It's Been So Long (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 Don't Lose Your Grip on Love (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 Surrender to the Rhythm (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 Home in My Hand (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
12 Ju Ju Man (Brinsley Schwarz)
13 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/tmKuhhRB
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/1Zl03WUdqpNEth8/file
The cover image is a screenshot from an appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test TV show in 1973.
The Bee Gees with Wilson Pickett - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-22-1973
Often when I put these Midnight Special albums together, I draw in material from other episodes. But for this one, everything comes from the episode that aired on June 22, 1973. The Bee Gees mostly performed their hits, but they also performed an unexpected cover of "Alexander's Ragtime Band," a song written by Irving Berlin all the way back in 1911. They never officially released a version of this, and it was one of the very few times they performed it, it seems. The only other instance I could find of them performing it dates back to 1963, when they were just starting out.
There's also an excellent version of the Beatles classic "Hey Jude," done in an interesting duet between Wilson Pickett and mostly Barry Gibb. This is another song the Bee Gees never officially released in any form. However, Pickett had a hit with it in 1968 that turned it into a soul song. This version closely followed that version.
As for Pickett, his career was on the decline in 1973. He'd had a long run of hits from 1963 to 1972. But then he made the mistake of changing record companies, and his new company, RCA, gave him poorer material. One of the two songs he did on his own here, "Mr. Magic Man," was the first single for this new record company. It was a decent hit on the R&B singles chart, but tanked on the regular singles chart. However, as can be seen and heard in this episode, Pickett was still a very talented and charismatic singer who deserved better songs to sing.
In case you're curious, here are the other musical acts on this episode: the Steve Miller Band, John Kay, Jimmie Spheeris, Maxine Weldon, and the Muledeer and Moondoog Medicine Show. (The last one being a comedy act.)
This album is 32 minutes long.
01 talk by Wolfman Jack (Bee Gees)
02 I Gotta Get a Message to You (Bee Gees)
03 talk (Bee Gees)
04 In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett)
05 Alexander's Ragtime Band (Bee Gees)
06 talk (Bee Gees & Wilson Pickett)
07 Hey Jude (Bee Gees & Wilson Pickett)
08 Run to Me (Bee Gees)
09 Mr. Magic Man (Wilson Pickett)
10 Morning of My Life (Bee Gees)
11 Holiday (Bee Gees)
12 Let There Be Love (Bee Gees)
13 My World (Bee Gees)
14 Wouldn't I Be Someone (Bee Gees)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/on3DH93r
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/77olOJ36crKm7Ov/file
The cover image is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert. From right to left: Wilson Pickett, Maurice Gibb, and Barry Gibb.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Curtis Mayfield with Canned Heat - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-8-1973
One of the things I like most about the Midnight Special show was how it often had different musical acts perform together. But I never would have expected Curtis Mayfield and Canned Heat to perform a song together. Yet they did here, with show host Wolfman Jack singing on it too. And it appears to have been a song made up just for the occasion, as you can tell by the title Mayfield gave to it when he introduced it: "A Little Midnight Special Boogie on You."
At the time, Mayfield was a very big star. He had led the band the Impressions for most of the 1960s. Then as a solo star, he had a massive success with the soundtrack to the movie "Super Fly." The album went to Number One in the U.S. album chart, and actually made more money than the movie it was supporting. Two songs from it, "Superfly" and "Freddie's Dead," made the Top Ten singles chart. Then, in May 1973, Mayfield released the album "Future Shock."
Mayfield was on the show a good number of times in 1973 and 1974, though he usually didn't play many songs each time. He hosted the show for the June 8, 1973 episode, and that makes up the bulk of the music here. He hosted it again in 1974, and that will be the focus of another album I plan on posting. But I've also worked in songs from two other episodes. "Freddie's Dead" comes from the February 23, 1973 episode. And "Future Shock" and "Right On for the Darkness" come from the September 14, 1973 episode. Between those three episodes, we get four songs from the "Future Shock" album ("Future Shock," "Right On for the Darkness," "If I Were Only a Child Again," and "Back to the World"), plus the two big hits from "Superfly."
Also, there are the Canned Heat songs. At the time, that band was on the decline. Earlier in 1973, they released their seventh album, "The New Age." It was their first one to not even make the Top 100 album chart in the U.S. One problem was that musical tastes were changing, and the band's boogie and blues was going out of style for a while. Another problem was the band was in a mess. One original member had died and two more had just left, leaving only two, plus replacements. And some band members were deep into drug addictions.
Despite all that, they put on a good performance here. "Harley Davidson Blues" was a song from their latest album. "Let's Work Together" was one of their earlier hits. Then there's the collaborative song with Mayfield and Wolfman Jack mentioned above.
As usual with these Midnight Special albums, I had to do a lot of editing to make it flow well. I patched in extra applause to the ends of most every song, for instance. I also left out a lot of music to keep a coherent focus. In case you're curious, the other musical acts on the main episode featured here were the Spinners, Jose Feliciano, Tufano-Giammarese, Ravi Shankar, and Leroy Hutson.
This album is 34 minutes long.
01 Superfly (Curtis Mayfield)
02 talk (Curtis Mayfield)
03 Let's Work Together (Canned Heat)
04 Freddie's Dead (Curtis Mayfield)
05 Harley Davidson Blues (Canned Heat)
06 If I Were Only a Child Again (Curtis Mayfield)
07 Back to the World (Curtis Mayfield)
08 talk (Curtis Mayfield)
09 A Little Midnight Special Boogie on You (Canned Heat, Curtis Mayfield & Wolfman Jack)
10 Future Shock (Curtis Mayfield)
11 Right On for the Darkness (Curtis Mayfield)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/xjMHAzJK
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/oLmTgxOys7sLTt1/file
The cover image is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert. From left to right: Curtis Mayfield, Bob Hite of Canned Heat, and Wolfman Jack.
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 11-18-1971
As I mentioned previously, I'm reorganizing and reposting my BBC material by this band, after finding some things I'd previously missed. Mostly, it's a case of finding full concerts like this one.
At the time of this concert, the band was still about three months away from releasing their third album, "Silver Pistol." But they already were playing some songs from it. In fact, every song here but two are from that album. Those two are "Country Girl," from a previous album, and "Nervous on the Road (But Can't Stay at Home)," which actually wouldn't be released until the next album after "Silver Pistol," called "Nervous on the Road." So while they played a BBC concert earlier in 1971, every single song here is different.
Five of the tracks here were released on the official BBC album "Cruel to Be Kind" (tracks 7, 8, 10, 12 and 14). The rest are unreleased, I'm pretty sure. The sound quality is excellent overall.
This album is 29 minutes long.
01 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Country Girl (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 Dry Land (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 Unknown Number (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 Silver Pistol (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 Range War (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 Egypt (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
12 Nervous on the Road [But Can't Stay at Home] (Brinsley Schwarz)
13 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
14 Rockin' Chair [Instrumental] (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/5BegSypm
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/mZtSZxfnRBPERNU/file
I don't know when or where the cover art photo is from. Also, the colors are kind of messed up. But given the rarity of good color photos of the band, I felt obliged to use it. I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.
Monday, December 8, 2025
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, London, Britain, 3-25-1971
Back in 2021, I posted only three BBC albums. At that time, I couldn't find their full BBC concerts. Two official BBC albums were released for the band, "Cruel to Be Kind" and "What IS So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding." But both of them only presented selected songs from both studio sessions and concerts. As far as I know, none of the band's BBC concerts have been released in full. Many of the songs have been released on those two official albums, plus other archival releases. So I've gathered what I could from the best sounding sources. Then I added material from bootlegs to fill in the gaps, such as the banter between songs.
In 1970, the band put out two studio albums, and then put out another in 1972, but they didn't put out an album in 1971. Perhaps they were planning to but then it got delayed and changed or something, because there are a bunch of unreleased-at-the-time songs from that year, more than any other year for the band. Three out of the five songs performed here were unreleased: "Crime of Passion," "Rock and Roll Station," and "Motorway Madness." Versions only were released decades later, on the "Thinking Back" box set. They actually are taken from this BBC concert, and had most of the audience noise removed. The scanty information from the box set doesn't mention this, but I compared the versions to make sure.
Note that I've also posted some stray tracks albums for the band. Where there are rarities like those three songs I just mentioned, I've included those on a stray tracks album as well, even when the only version is from a BBC source.
This album is 27 minutes long.
01 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Crime of Passion (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 Rock and Roll Station (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 Ju Ju Man (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 The Slow One (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
10 Motorway Madness (Brinsley Schwarz)
11 talk (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/oWbwNMR3
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/nCorcndlErpXLGy/file
It's really damn hard finding good color photos of this band. The good news is that I found one for the cover here. The bad news is that it only clearly shows Nick Lowe and Ian Gomm (with the ginger hair). Also, I don't know when it was taken, although I do know it's from the Newlands Tavern in London. I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.
Brinsley Schwarz - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1970-1972
Weirdly, Brinsley Schwarz was the name of the band and a member of the band, but not the most important or most visible member. Brinsley Schwarz was the lead guitarist. But the member who sang and wrote most of the songs was Nick Lowe. He would later go on to have a long and successful solo career. Another key member was Ian Gomm, who also sang and wrote some songs, and also would have a hit as a solo artist. (Gomm isn't on this album though, since he joined the band in 1971.)
Here's the band's Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:
In April 1970, the band released their debut album, simply titled "Brinsley Schwarz." Then, in December 1970, they released their second album, "Despite It All." This album consists entirely of radio appearances in 1970 when they were promoting those two albums, with one exception.
The first three songs come from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Club" in June 1970. True, that's not a BBC thing, but I'm including it anyway. It's one of very few TV or radio appearances they did (and survived) that wasn't for the BBC.
"Love Song" is from a BBC concert in September 1970. Unfortunately, it seems no recordings of this concert are known except for this one song. I found two versions of it. Both had issues. For instance, one version was missing the beginning. But I was able to combine them to create a decent version. So that's why this song has "[Edit]" in its title. I also removed the audience noise at the end.
The next four songs, tracks 5 through 8, come from an appearance on the "Top Gear" radio show in November 1970.
The last song, "She's Got to Be Real" is from an appearance on the Bob Harris BBC radio show in early 1972.
Most of the songs performed here were from the band's first two albums. However, "Indian Woman" and "Seymour (I Love You)" were unreleased at the time. Eventually, versions were released on archival albums in the 2020s. "Indian Woman" came out on the "Last Orders" album, and it's this version. However, that version, and all versions I found, have the beginning cut off, with the song beginning in mid-verse. But I managed to fix it by patching in some music from later in the song. That's why it has "[Edit]" in its title.
"Seymour (I Love You)" and "Funk Angel" came out on the "Thinking Back" box set. "She's Got to Be Real" came out on the official BBC album "What IS So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding." All the other performances are unreleased. However, they generally have sound quality similar to the officially released ones.
This album is 52 minutes long.
01 Ebury Down (Brinsley Schwarz)
02 Ballad of a Has-Been Beauty Queen (Brinsley Schwarz)
03 Indian Woman [Edit] (Brinsley Schwarz)
04 Love Song [Edit] (Brinsley Schwarz)
05 Seymour [I Love You] [Instrumental] (Brinsley Schwarz)
06 Funk Angel (Brinsley Schwarz)
07 The Slow One (Brinsley Schwarz)
08 Rock and Roll Station (Brinsley Schwarz)
09 She's Got to Be Real (Brinsley Schwarz)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/DBWw4shB
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/849iAbTbA8CQRMq/file
The cover art photo comes from a concert in Tunbridge Wells, Britain, in 1973. The original was in black and white, but due to the severe lack of good color photos of the band, I went through some trouble to colorize it. I later improved the image detail with the Krea AI program.
Various Artists - Dave Edmunds' All Star Rock 'n' Roll Revue, Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA, 4-7-1990
I looked around, and found this concert, which I'd never known of before. Cropper was part of the backing band, along with Terry Williams (ex-Rockpile), Phil Chen (ex-Rod Stewart), the Memphis Horns, and others, so he played on every song.
This tour probably happened thanks to Ringo Starr of the Beatles. In 1989, Starr put on the first of many "His All-Starr Band" concert tours. These consisted of Starr plus a rotating group of other musical stars who weren't big enough of their own to play big concert venues. But when they were packaged together, along with an ex-Beatle, they were. Dave Edmunds looked at that formula and immediately decided to try the same thing. He brought together Kim Wilson, former lead vocalist of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Graham Parker, and Dion. Each of them played about a half an hour set, with Edmunds playing both at the start of the concert and at the end.
The shows were successful, it seems. But Edmunds only attempted this for this one tour. In fact, he joined the "His All-Starr Band" tours in 1992 and 2000. Perhaps that's because Edmunds went into semi-retirement after 1990. He only put out one more album of new material, in 1994. And he only did one more significant tour, in 2007, before retiring from music for good in 2017.
This concert was the last show of the tour. I read that a double album of this exact concert was released, but only in Japan. However, if that's true, it would only be a minority of this recording, since this is a very long concert, at nearly three hours! This concert was also broadcast for the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, which is why we have it with excellent sound quality.
One last thought. A while back, I made two "Covered" album for Steve Cropper. So if you want to remember all the great songs he helped write, that's probably an even better way to do it. Here are the links to those:
https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-artists-covered-steve-cropper.html
https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-artists-covered-steve-cropper_30.html
This album is two hours and 47 minutes long.
01 talk (Dave Edmunds)
02 Last Night [Instrumental] (Dave Edmunds)
03 Fallin' through a Hole (Dave Edmunds)
04 Feel So Right (Dave Edmunds)
05 Closer to the Flame (Dave Edmunds)
06 Don't Talk to Me (Dave Edmunds)
07 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Dave Edmunds)
08 talk (Dave Edmunds)
09 Wrap It Up (Kim Wilson)
10 It Comes to Me Naturally (Kim Wilson)
11 Wasted Tears (Kim Wilson)
12 I Believe I'm in Love with You (Kim Wilson)
13 There Is Something on Your Mind (Kim Wilson)
14 Tuff Enuff (Kim Wilson)
15 talk (Kim Wilson)
16 Nervous Fella (Kim Wilson)
17 talk (Dave Edmunds)
18 Get Started, Start a Fire (Graham Parker)
19 Under the Mask of Happiness (Graham Parker)
20 talk (Graham Parker)
21 Local Girls (Graham Parker)
22 talk (Graham Parker)
23 My Girl (Graham Parker)
24 Slash and Burn (Graham Parker)
25 talk (Graham Parker)
26 Lady Doctor (Graham Parker)
27 talk (Graham Parker)
28 My Love's Strong (Graham Parker)
29 Soultime (Graham Parker)
30 Heat Treatment (Graham Parker)
31 talk (Dave Edmunds)
32 King of the New York Streets (Dion)
33 talk (Dion)
34 The Night Stood Still (Dion)
35 talk (Dion)
36 Ruby Baby (Dion)
37 talk (Dion)
38 Written on the Subway Wall (Dion)
39 Runaround Sue (Dion)
40 The Wanderer (Dion)
41 talk (Dion)
42 Abraham, Martin and John (Dion)
43 From Small Things [Big Things One Day Come] (Dave Edmunds)
44 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
45 talk (Dave Edmunds)
46 Ju Ju Man (Dave Edmunds)
47 King of Love (Dave Edmunds)
48 talk (Dave Edmunds)
49 Crawling from the Wreckage (Dave Edmunds)
50 Paralyzed (Dave Edmunds)
51 talk (Everyone)
52 [Sitting On] the Dock of the Bay (Everyone)
53 I'm Ready (Everyone)
54 Keep A-Knockin' (Everyone)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/w4EEsJQM
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/4B7YTBcfLApwM51/file
The cover photo is from a concert at the Marlboro Blues Festival, in Chicago, Illinois, on March 24, 1990. From right to left: Steve Cropper, Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker, and Dion.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)