Jim Croce - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-15-1973

Here's the last of the "Midnight Special" albums I put together before posting a poll about posting music from that TV show. From now on, future posts from the show will be from the poll choices list. This is a live album from Jim Croce.

Croce's time as a star was very short. His first major label album was released in April 1972, and he died in a plane crash on September 20, 1973. We're fortunate that, during that brief time, he appeared on the Midnight Special twice. The first time was on June 15, 1973, when he was the host. In case you're curious, the other musical acts for that episode were Little Anthony and the Imperials, Savoy Brown, Bobby Womack, Shawn Phillips, Barbara Fairchild, and Wishbone Ash. (I saw a mention that the show was actually recorded on June 8th, but I'm not completely sure about that.)

His second appearance was on the September 15, 1973 episode. He only performed one song, "I Got a Name." That's because that performance was meant to merely be teaser, in order to promote the fact that he would be hosting the show again for an upcoming episode. Sadly, he died in a plane crash before that episode was recorded.

This album starts with the June episode he hosted. That's followed by the "I Got a Name" performance from the September episode. That had a nice introduction by soul music legend Curtis Mayfield, so I decided to include that. But after all that, the album was still fairly short, at only 27 minutes. So I decided to draw on another TV appearance to beef things up a bit. I found an unreleased concert from July 1973 broadcast on Irish TV, called "Music Matters." A few songs were performed, but I only included the two that weren't repeats of other songs on this album. Those are the last two songs here.

This album is 33 minutes long.

01 Operator [That's Not the Way It Feels] (Jim Croce)
02 talk (Jim Croce)
03 talk (Jim Croce)
04 Roller Derby Queen (Jim Croce)
05 talk (Jim Croce)
06 You Don't Mess with Jim (Jim Croce)
07 talk (Jim Croce)
08 Speedball Tucker (Jim Croce)
09 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Jim Croce)
10 talk (Jim Croce)
11 Careful Man [Edit] (Jim Croce)
12 talk by Curtis Mayfield (Jim Croce)
13 I Got a Name (Jim Croce)
14 Rapid Roy [The Stock Car Boy] (Jim Croce)
15 talk (Jim Croce)
16 These Dreams (Jim Croce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TqTRysdg

alternate:

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

The cover photo is from the June 1973 concert. I had several to choose from, so I picked one that also showed his trusty musical companion, Maury Muehleisen.

Gordon Lightfoot - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 9-8-1979

Here's another episode of the excellent "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This is another episode starring Gordon Lightfoot. I say "another" because he also performed for the show in 1973. I've posted that album here already.

This album caught Lightfoot halfway between the release on his "Endless Wire" album in early 1978 and "Dream Street Rose," which would be released in 1980. He played two songs from each. Otherwise, this mostly consists of his classics from previous albums.

Two of the songs have edits to them. I edited track 12, a talk track, because it contained an interview. I cut that out, since it wasn't part of the concert. But I kept a section between songs there where he introduced the members of his band. The other edited track is the last one, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy." Unfortunately, that's a long song, and the episode ended after only three minutes of it. So I found a different bootleg soundboard version from the time period, and used that to patch in the last four minutes. That's why those two tracks have "[Edit]" in their titles.

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 Cotton Jenny (Gordon Lightfoot)
02 The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot)
03 Endless Wire (Gordon Lightfoot)
04 Summertime Dream (Gordon Lightfoot)
05 talk (Gordon Lightfoot)
06 Don Quixote (Gordon Lightfoot)
07 If You Could Read My Mind (Gordon Lightfoot)
08 Ghosts of Cape Horn (Gordon Lightfoot)
09 Beautiful (Gordon Lightfoot)
10 Hangdog Hotel Room (Gordon Lightfoot)
11 Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot)
12 talk [Edit] (Gordon Lightfoot)
13 Early Morning Rain (Gordon Lightfoot)
14 Whisper My Name (Gordon Lightfoot)
15 On the TV (Gordon Lightfoot)
16 Old Dan's Records (Gordon Lightfoot)
17 talk (Gordon Lightfoot)
18 Canadian Railroad Trilogy [Edit] (Gordon Lightfoot)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/a9ij6YWw

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/m7ic8ZlRKUWfuiR/file

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

Jimi Hendrix & Various Artists - Jimi Hendrix as Session Musician, Volume 1: 1964-1966

Here's something a little different from me. It's a collection of songs where Jimi Hendrix was a supporting player rather than the main artist. I've never done a collection of "session musician" appearances like this before, because normally I don't think that's interesting enough to make an album. But Hendrix is one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, in my opinion, so even these sorts of performances are worthy of hearing, in my opinion.

Note that this is not complete by any means. I deliberately left off some songs I found with Hendrix playing guitar on them. That's because I only wanted to include songs where he made a notable impact, typically with a guitar solo. I found enough music for three volumes. For this first volume, I found all but three of the songs on the "West Coast Seattle Boy" Hendrix box set. The other three are tracks 9, 14, and 15. That box set does a good job collection his earlier session work. But the later two volumes mostly come from other sources.  

I could write pages about Hendrix's pre-fame history, and the tracks here. But if I do that, I probably would never get around to posting these volumes. So instead, I'll keep it short. Luckily, there's a good Rolling Stone article about his songs as a session musician before he became a star. I highly recommend you give this a read:

Jimi Hendrix: 10 Great Pre-Fame Tracks

I'll quote the intro to that article here:

"Before he was experienced, Jimi Hendrix was a hard-working sideman, playing studio session dates and backing bands across the so-called Chitlin' Circuit and beyond during the first half of the Sixties. After his discharge from the 101st Airborne Division following his brief spell as a paratrooper, the chance to dive headlong into rhythm and blues behind pros like Little Richard, King Curtis, and the Isley Brothers served as a valuable apprenticeship - though a decidedly unglamorous one. ... Despite the challenges, a letter Hendrix sent to his father during this period reveals his steely resolve to realize his destiny. 'I still have my guitar and amp and as long as I have that, no fool can keep me from living,' he writes. 'Although I don't eat every day, everything’s going all right for me. It could be worse than this, but I’m going to keep hustling and scuffling until I get things to happening, like they’re supposed to for me.' This baptism by fire forged the singular style that would make his name cultural shorthand for musical virtuosity." 

Hendrix actually began performing on the Chitlin' Circuit in late 1962, mostly in the South. At various points, he backed up lots of famous soul music stars, including Wilson Pickett, Slim Harpo, Sam Cooke, Ike & Tina Turner, and Jackie Wilson. However, this album begins in 1964, because that's the first time he managed to be included on released records.

In June 1966, Hendrix finally felt confident to form his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Performing in small clubs, he quickly made an impression. From there, he got an opportunity to move to Britain and do some recording. He left the U.S. in September 1966. Success quickly followed, with his first hit single, "Hey Joe," released near the end of the year. So that's where this volume ends, at the end of 1966.

Most everything here are failed, obscure singles. However, "Mercy, Mercy" was a significant hit. (It's interesting to note that Hendrix sometimes played that song in 1967, after he became famous.) I deliberately avoided live recordings as much as possible. If you're interested in that, I've posted an album gathering songs Hendrix sang when he was a part of Curtis Knight and the Squires in late 1965. Here's a link to that one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/03/jimi-hendrix-with-curtis-knight-squires.html 

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Testify (Isley Brothers)
02 Mercy, Mercy (Don Covay)
03 Can't Stay Away (Don Covay)
04 Have You Ever Been Disappointed (Isley Brothers)
05 I Don't Know What You Got But It's Got Me (Little Richard)
06 My Diary (Rosa Lee Brooks)
07 Utee (Rose Lee Brooks)
08 The Little Old Groove Maker (Jimmy Norman)
09 I'm a Fool for You, Baby (Curtis Knight with Jimi Hendrix)
10 Dancing All Around the World (Little Richard)
11 Help Me [Get the Feeling], Part 1 (Ray Sharpe)
12 I'm So Glad (Frank Howard & the Commanders)
13 [My Girl] She's a Fox (Icemen [Lonnie Youngblood & Jimi Hendrix])
14 Soul Food [That's A What I Like] (Lonnie Youngblood with Jimi Hendrix)
15 Wipe the Sweat [Instrumental Version] (Lonnie Youngblood & Jimi Hendrix)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/msRGNEov

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/Cp32kOQTpNlMFtL/file

The cover photo shows Curtis Knight and the Squires from 1966 or thereabouts. Can you tell on your own which one is Hendrix? He's the one on the left, with the toothy smile. This picture was in black and white, but I colorized with the help of the Kolorize program. 

The Incredible String Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 5-17-1974

Here's the seventh and last of the BBC albums I'm posting from the Incredible String Band. This one is a 1974 concert.

This concert came near the tail end of the band's first time together. Here's some info from their Wikipedia entry: "The group's changing lineup, adding Stan Schnier on bass, Jack Ingram on drums, and Graham Forbes on electric guitar, reflected moves toward a more conventional amplified rock group. Their final albums for Island [Records] were received disappointingly, and the label dropped them in 1974. By then, disagreements between [singer-songwriters Robin] Williamson and [Mike] Heron about musical policy had become irreconcilable, and they split up in October 1974."

After that, there was a reunion much later, from 1999 to 2006. That seems to have been the final split.

Only two songs from here were released on the band's official BBC album, "Across the Airwaves." Those are "1968" and "Log Cabin Home in the Sky." But everything else comes from a bootleg that sounds so good, you can't tell the difference on the sourcing.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Ithkos (Incredible String Band)
02 talk (Incredible String Band)
03 Log Cabin Home in the Sky (Incredible String Band)
04 talk (Incredible String Band)
05 1968 (Incredible String Band)
06 talk (Incredible String Band)
07 Jack Straw's Wishes [Instrumental] (Incredible String Band)
08 talk (Incredible String Band)
09 Maker of Islands (Incredible String Band)
10 talk (Incredible String Band)
11 Dear Old Battlefield (Incredible String Band)
12 talk (Incredible String Band)
13 Jigs [Good Morrow-Crawley's Reel-Small Coals for Nailers-Katie Hill] (Incredible String Band)
14 This Moment (Incredible String Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SkghByZo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/g0tj4cCJ86wmO8F/file

The cover photo is from the London Music Festival at the Alexandra Palace, in London, in August 1973.

Tracy Chapman & Natalie Merchant - Donmar Warehouse, London, Britain, 3-25-1988

I'm extra psyched to be presenting this album. It's actually two acoustic sets making up one concert. The first half features Natalie Merchant when she was still the lead singer for the band 10,000 Maniacs, and the second features Tracy Chapman. They're linked by a duet, but also by more, as I will explain. 

I had been aware of this concert for a long time. I put the duet of Merchant and Chapman singing " Where the Soul Never Dies" on a stray tracks album a few years ago, in fact. But I never considered posting it because I thought the sound quality was a little lacking. However, with the improvements in audio editing technology in recent years, I thought I'd give it a try. I think it sounds very good.

Before I say more about the recording, let me share the interesting story behind how this concert came to be. 

In 1987, Tracy Chapman was a struggling musician living in Boston, performing in small clubs and sometimes on street corners. But that year, she finally got her big break and got signed to a major record label, Elektra Records. Meanwhile, Natalie Merchant was becoming a star as the main singer and songwriter for the band 10,000 Maniacs. In the summer of 1987, they released their third album, "In My Tribe." It made the Top Forty in the U.S. album charts, putting them on the map as a nationwide popular act.

It so happened that 10,000 Maniacs was also signed to Elektra Records. One day, in late 1987, she discovered a demo tape of some of Chapman's songs while visiting the record company's New York City office. She was very impressed, so much so that she actually cried from being emotionally moved by the songs. In late 1987 and early 1988, Chapman recorded her debut album. It would be released in April 1988 under the title "Tracy Chapman." 

Then, in late February 1988, Elektra Records had Chapman perform a special concert in Boston to help build anticipation for her upcoming album. Even though only 150 people could fit in the club, lots of journalists and music industry insiders were invited. Merchant heard about the concert. She was so interested in that demo tape she'd heard that she flew to the concert and met Chapman after the show. Merchant later said, "I felt a kinship because her record was made from the soul rather than to make money. There was similarity between us in the lyrical sentiment and musical quality." A few days later, Merchant sent Chapman a copy of her "In My Tribe," album, and the two began communicating.

This soon led to Merchant inviting Chapman to a concert in London the following month. Actually, it was two concerts, on March 24th and 25th, both at the Donmar Warehouse, which only held about 200 people. This was designed to introduce Chapman to a European audience, as she'd never performed outside the U.S. before. At this point, Merchant had never really done any solo concerts, only concerts with 10,000 Maniacs. But she pushed herself to perform solo in order to help Chapman promote her upcoming album in this way. And even though Merchant was a star and Chapman was an unknown, Merchant opened the concert to help give Chapman a bigger spotlight. The effort worked, because some British journalists attended one or both of the concerts and started to spread word about her music in Britain. Chapman then played a few more solo concerts in Britain, opening for John Martyn, before returning to the U.S.

When Chapman's debut album was released in April 1988, it was out of step with the musical trends of the time. So at first, it did reasonably well, but not great. The album sold 250,000 copies by June. That month, she got to take part in a concert honoring Nelson Mandela that was broadcast worldwide. That caused her sales to skyrocket. A couple of months later, her album reached Number One in the U.S. album chart. Eventually, it went on to sell over 20 million copies. It also helped open the door for many other acoustic-based singer-songwriter types.

So it turns out this concert (and the one at the same venue the day before) was important for both Merchant and Chapman. For Merchant, it was the start of her doing solo work, though it would still be a few years before she left 10,000 Maniacs. And for Chapman, it helped build her reputation at a key time, when her debut album was still a few weeks away from being released.

Merchant further helped Chapman by having her be the opening act for 10,000 Maniacs for a few months, back before the Nelson Mandela concert. Merchant later commented, "She certainly doesn't need any help from me in retrospect. I played with her in England and had her tour with us to get my crowd to see her rather than have her relegated to women's bins or folk bins in the stores. When she toured with us not many people had heard the album, but people sat completely enthralled and she got standing ovations most nights." 

Thanks to this essay, where I found much of the information here:

https://tracychapmanonline.substack.com/p/tracy-chapman-natalie-merchant-10000-maniacs 

Now, let's get to this recording. I found recordings of the two sets separately, and put them together. But I'm sure they're from the same source. It's an audience bootleg, but a pretty good one. Because the crowd was small, there was almost no crowd noise during the songs. However, the big problem that stopped me from posting this in the past was hiss. So I tried something new. MVSEP has a conversion setting called "Denoise." I tried it, and it did a really great job of getting rid of the hiss, even during the songs, while keeping everything else. This works better than "noise reduction," which often harms the music. 

So that fixed most of the problem. However, the sound of Merchant's set was a bit rougher. The songs sounded pretty good, but the banter was often hard to understand. So I ran the talking tracks through Adobe's "Enhance Speech" program, which specifically helps with the clarity of speech. That helped a lot. The one remaining problem after that was that the first minute or so of Chapman's "For My Lover" was missing. Luckily, that song has some repetition in it, and the verses that were lost were repeated later in the song. So I just copied parts of the song to fill in the missing portion. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

On a final note, some of the songs performed in this concert still haven't been officially released. "After Talking to Myself" by Natalie Merchant has been performed in concert a few times, but it's not even known what the song title is. And Chapman played some songs that would show up on her second album "Crossroads," like "Born to Fight" and "This Time," plus, "If I" and "Be My Baby," which remain unreleased. And their duet of the traditional song "Where the Soul Never Dies" also remains unreleased by both of them.

This album is an hour and 38 minutes long. The Natalie Merchant set is 43 minutes long, and the Tracy Chapman one is 56 minutes long. (Also, just as a nitpicky thing, some versions of this bootleg I've seen list March 20th as the date, but I believe the more accurate date is there were two shows, on March 24th and 25th, and this is from the 25th.)

By the way, note that on the same day I'm posting this, I've added three songs to the Chapman "Acoustic Demos" album I made. All three of them are still unreleased songs recorded way back in 1986, in great sound quality, so you really should give those a listen. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/10/tracy-chapman-acoustic-demos-1986-1988.html 

01 talk (Natalie Merchant)
02 A Campfire Song (Natalie Merchant)
03 talk (Natalie Merchant)
04 Gun Shy (Natalie Merchant)
05 talk (Natalie Merchant)
06 Everyone a Puzzle Lover (Natalie Merchant)
07 talk (Natalie Merchant)
08 Don't Talk (Natalie Merchant)
09 talk (Natalie Merchant)
10 The Painted Desert (Natalie Merchant)
11 talk (Natalie Merchant)
12 Lilydale (Natalie Merchant)
13 What's the Matter Here (Natalie Merchant)
14 Maddox Table (Natalie Merchant)
15 talk (Natalie Merchant)
16 Verdi Cries (Natalie Merchant)
17 talk (Natalie Merchant)
18 Like the Weather (Natalie Merchant)
19 After Talking to Myself (Natalie Merchant)
20 talk (Tracy Chapman)
21 Why (Tracy Chapman)
22 If I (Tracy Chapman)
23 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
24 This Time (Tracy Chapman)
25 Behind the Wall (Tracy Chapman)
26 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
27 talk (Tracy Chapman)
28 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
29 talk (Tracy Chapman)
30 If Not Now (Tracy Chapman)
31 For My Lover [Edit] (Tracy Chapman)
32 Born to Fight (Tracy Chapman)
33 talk (Tracy Chapman)
34 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
35 talk (Tracy Chapman)
36 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
37 talk (Tracy Chapman)
38 Be My Baby (Tracy Chapman)
39 Where the Soul Never Dies (Tracy Chapman & Natalie Merchant)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/X4dRftSL

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/SojSNsOlHUBpier/file

The cover photo of Merchant and Chapman is from this time period, though I don't know the exact details. The background was white, but I used Photoshop to change it to black. I also used Krea AI to improve the image quality.

Little Feat & Friends - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-10-1977

Here's a very interesting episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The main host of the episode was the band Little Feat. But Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, and Jesse Winchester were on the show too, and all four of these musical acts performed together in various combinations. 

If you've been paying attention at all to this blog in the last week or so (as I write this in late October 2025), you'll notice I've been posting a lot of albums based on Midnight Special episodes lately. So far, only the shows from 1973 to 1975 have been posted in high quality on YouTube, with a chronological rollout slowly continuing. But occasional shows from later years were already bootlegged. There aren't many cases of that, and most of them are incomplete and/or have lesser sound quality. But I found this one in full with excellent quality, so I've decided to post it already. No doubt it's survived as a bootleg when most other episodes didn't because of the special collaborations.

The musical acts mentioned above were not the only ones on the show. In addition, Neil Young appeared for one song, and Weather Report performed three songs. I didn't include the Young song, because it wasn't really from the episode, but it was a video of him performing "Like a Hurricane" at some unknown concert. Had he actually been there, I would have included it, and I'll bet he would have interacted with some of the others too. (Most likely Emmylou Harris, since she sang backing vocals on some of his songs right around this time.) As for Weather Report, I didn't include them because they didn't fit in musically with the others, and there was no collaboration between them and the others. This is another case where I feel less is more, by having musical cohesion to the album.

I took the music from a bootleg. But I patched in more applause at the ends of some songs to help smooth the transitions between songs. And there were edits to two songs. I edited Wolfman Jack's introduction to get rid of the mentions of Neil Young and Weather Report. "Rock and Roll Doctor" by Little Feat was more difficult. This was another case of the show ending in the middle of song. So I found a soundboard bootleg of a Little Feat from Kansas City in 1977, and used that version of "Rock and Roll Doctor" to finish off the last three minute or so.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris with Little Feat)
03 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat with Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt & Jesse Winchester)
04 talk (Little Feat)
05 Runaway (Bonnie Raitt)
06 talk (Emmylou Harris)
07 Rhumba Man (Jesse Winchester)
08 Old Folks Boogie (Little Feat)
09 talk (Little Feat & Jesse Winchester)
10 I Can't Stand Up Alone (Jesse Winchester with Emmylou Harris & Bonnie Raitt)
11 talk (Jesse Winchester)
12 Home (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Little Feat)
14 Nothing but a Breeze (Jesse Winchester with Emmylou Harris)
15 Rocket in My Pocket (Little Feat)
16 My Songbird (Emmylou Harris)
17 Sugar Mama (Bonnie Raitt)
18 talk (Little Feat)
19 Rock and Roll Doctor [Edit] (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fDdTEYhP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/B1Dw5Vdo0jkhFj3/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's actually a combination of two different screenshots. At one point in the YouTube video, the camera panned from Lowell George to Emmylou Harris, then to Bonnie Raitt. The three of them were never in the frame at the same time. But I was able to take the two screenshots and stitch them together to get all three of them together.

Gladys Knight & the Pips with B.B. King - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 10-5-1973

At first glance, you might be wondering, "Wait, didn't he just post a Gladys Knight "Midnight Special" album from 1973 just a few days ago. And that's true, I did. But she was on that show enough for two albums. The first one I posted was from early 1973, and had Dr. John as a special guest. This is from late 1973 and early 1974, and has B.B. King as a special guest.

The first nine tracks come from the October 5, 1973 date mentioned in the title. Since B.B. King did a duet with Knight on his classic song "The Thrill Is Gone," I included the two other songs he did on his own. The other musical acts on that episode were Focus, Stories, Chris Smither, Earth, Wind & Fire, and a duet of Wolfman Jack and Monda. Hopefully, some of those will show up in later albums.

"Where Peaceful Waters Flow" is from a September 14, 1973 episode. It was the only song Knight performed in that episode. (It seems that was a teaser to help promote the fact she and her band would be hosting the show in a couple of weeks.) The remaining songs, tracks 11 through 15, are from a March 8, 1974 episode. 

Note that I've included two versions of "Midnight Train of Georgia." This song was released as a single in August 1973, and went all the way to Number One on the U.S. singles chart, becoming Knight's signature song. Normally, I don't include two versions of the same song on an album. But this is such a great song that I made an exception in this case. If you don't want it, it's easy to delete the second one, since it's the last song on the album.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As usual for this TV show, I converted the YouTube video to audio, then broke it into mp3s. And I added in more applause to smooth transitions between songs. There are two talk tracks in a row for tracks two and three, because those are from different points in the concert. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
02 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
03 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 To Know You Is to Love You (B.B. King)
05 Heavy Makes You Happy (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
06 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
07 The Thrill Is Gone (Gladys Knight & B.B. King)
08 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
09 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 Where Peaceful Waters Flow (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
11 I've Got to Use My Imagination (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
12 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
13 Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
14 On and On (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
15 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/htPuWyEy

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wWthF5jPrVRa8mW/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. But it's actually a combination of two images. I wanted a picture of Gladys Knight and B. B. King. So I looked through their duet song, "The Thrill Is Gone." The problem was, they never were standing right next to each other. So I took a screenshot of each of them, and then moved them close together in Photoshop. The red background with the lines of lights was the same, so lined that up to get them to match.

Diana Krall Update

Over a week ago now, I posted a Diana Krall BBC concert. Shortly afterwards, a commenter named PeterH told me he had four extra songs at the end that my version was lacking. He sent them to me, and I've added them in. It really makes a difference, as it becomes clear that this is the full concert (with her giving final thank yous at the end of the last song). So if you downloaded it before, I suggest you get this version instead. Here's the link back to that post:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/10/diana-krall-bbc-in-concert-mermaid.html

And thanks again to PeterH for the extra songs! 

Covered: Joe South: 1962-2005

Lately, I've had so much music I'm discovering, especially from "Midnight Special," "Ultrasonic," Live at the Record Plant," and "PBS Soundstage," that my Covered series highlighting worthy songwriters has fallen by the wayside. Again. But I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to post more of these, since a have a big number ready to go. Here's an album celebrating the songs of Joe South.

Joe South's songs were very popular for a few years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was born in 1940 in Atlanta, Georgia, and his music has an obvious southern influence. He began a career as both a performer and a songwriter in the late 1950s, when he was in his late teens. For many years, he only had minor success with both of those pursuits. The first song here is from 1962, and the second is from 1965. But then he hit his stride in 1968, when more people started covering his songs, and sometimes having big hits with them. For instance, Deep Purple had a big hit with "Hush" in 1968 (which was pretty atypical for them compared to their usual hard rock sound).

Then, in 1969, he had a big hit of his own, "Games People Play." It just missed the Top Ten in the U.S. singles chart, and since then is probably considered his signature song. Then he had another in 1970, with "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," which also just missed the Top Ten. I've chosen to include the Joe South version of "Games People Play." But the main point of this series is to focus on cover versions, so that's the only song I've included that's performed by him. 

In 1970, he also had his biggest success as a songwriter with "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden." It was first released by Billy Joe Royal in 1967, and there were a couple more covers after that. But when Lynn Anderson released her version in 1970, it went all the way to Number One in the country chart, and Number Three in the main U.S. singles chart, and became one of the best selling songs of the year. 

After all this success in just a couple of years, his future looked very promising. But then tragedy struck. Tommy South, his brother, committed suicide. Tommy had been in Joe's backing band, and they two of them were very close. Joe irrationally blamed himself for the suicide. He sank into a deep depression that lasted for years, and started taking heavy drugs to cope. His time as a promising songwriter basically ended at that point, as he lost his inspiration for many years. He later said, "I really kicked myself around for years... one of the main hang-ups was I just refused to forgive myself. You know, you can go through drug treatment centers, and it's not a permanent healing until it's a spiritual healing." He finally turned his life around in the late 1980s, but musical trends had largely passed him by, and he never released any new albums after 1975. All the songs here were written before that 1971 tragedy, though some of them were covered many years later. 

He died of a heart attack in 2012, at the age of 72. Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more: 

Joe South - Wikipedia 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 You're the Reason (Arthur Alexander)
02 I've Got to Be Somebody (Billy Joe Royal)
03 Hush (Deep Purple)
04 Games People Play (Joe South)
05 Down in the Boondocks (Billy Joe Royal)
06 These Are Not My People (Johnny Rivers)
07 Don't It Make You Want to Go Home (Brook Benton)
08 Walk a Mile in My Shoes (Elvis Presley)
09 [I Never Promised You A] Rose Garden (Lynn Anderson)
10 Redneck (Swamp Dogg)
11 Yo-Yo (Osmonds)
12 Don't Throw Your Love to the Wind (Jody Miller)
13 Birds of a Feather (Johnny Nash)
14 I Knew You When (Linda Ronstadt)
15 Children (Stephanie Finch)
16 The Greatest Love (Kelly Hogan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Cs7VpEZz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/SgxQeTnbykRnLm9/file

I took the cover photo from the cover of an album called "The Joe South Story." I don't know the details. But it was one of very few I could find that was in color and showed him when he was young. 

Various Artists - A Tribute to Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 6-29-2000

Unfortunately, I'm all done posting Gershwin Prize and MusiCares tribute concerts, at least until more of them become publicly available. But there are other similar tribute concerts out there. This one is so similar in format that it's basically the same as the other two kinds of concerts. This concert honors the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. 

In fact, there was a Gershwin Prize concert in 2012 honoring these two songwriters. But I'd argue this one is superior. For one thing, its twice as long. But also, it has more big name stars, especially Dionne Warwick, who is widely considered the top singer of Bacharach-David songs.

I'm not sure of the exact reason for this concert, be it an anniversary or something like that. But I suppose it doesn't matter much. But I do know the profits from the concert went to support the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy non-profit. And it was broadcast on TV at the time, and later released on DVD. That's how I have it here in excellent sound quality, since it's never been released on any audio format.

By the way, I know Hal David was there, because of photos of him there, including the cover photo I selected. But there's no sign of him on this recording. I suspect he gave a speech near the end of the concert, just like Burt Bacharach did, but his speech got edited out of the TV show (and thus the DVD) since Bacharach is the much more famous one out of the two. 

This album is an hour and 42 minutes long. 

01 talk (emcee)
02 Wives and Lovers (Kenny Lynch)
03 talk (emcee)
04 One Less Bell to Answer (Lucie Silvas)
05 talk (emcee)
06 Don't Make Me Over (Lynden David Hall)
07 talk (emcee)
08 Reach Out for Me (Brian Kennedy)
09 talk (emcee)
10 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Yazz)
11 talk (emcee)
12 You'll Never Get to Heaven (Shola Ama)
13 talk (emcee)
14 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Sacha Distel)
15 talk (emcee)
16 This Guy's in Love with You (Paul Carrack)
17 talk (emcee)
18 A House Is Not a Home (Petula Clark)
19 Wishin' and Hopin' (Petula Clark)
20 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Petula Clark)
21 talk (emcee)
22 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me (Leo Sayer)
23 talk (emcee)
24 Alfie (Sumudu Jayatilaka)
25 talk (emcee)
26 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Brian Kennedy)
27 talk (emcee)
28 What's New Pussycat (Brian Conley)
29 Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa (Brian Conley)
30 talk (emcee)
31 I Just Have to Breathe (Teish O'Day)
32 talk (emcee)
33 Make It Easy on Yourself (Edwin Starr)
34 talk (emcee)
35 The Look of Love (Linda Lewis)
36 talk (emcee)
37 Elvis Costello (talk)
38 I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself (Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach)
39 talk (emcee)
40 Walk on By (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
41 I Say a Little Prayer (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
42 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
43 Anyone Who Had a Heart (Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach)
44 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Dionne Warwick & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6Ec9rngv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mrGkAfgvmiFeA5M/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's Bacharach on the left and David, wearing glasses, on the right.

Tom Jones with Alison Krauss - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 2-12-2016

Here's another episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars Tom Jones, with a guest appearance by Alison Krauss.

I have to admit, I kind of want to dislike Tom Jones, because he's practically the epitome of 1970s show biz cheesiness. But he keeps surprising me with good music. In particular, he had an unexpected late career renaissance. Instead of turning into strictly an oldies act, he went in new directions. You can definitely see that here, starting with a Leonard Cohen cover as the first song. 

At the time of this concert, he was promoting his 2015 album "Long Lost Suitcase." It continues his critically acclaimed renaissance, with more of an emphasis on roots music, like blues and folk. That said, he also played some of the oldies hits, like "Thunderball" and "It's Not Unusual."

One thing I really like about this show is how it's encouraged the main act to have a guest star appearance. That tradition continues here with Alison Krauss. However, unlike some other episodes, her role is relatively minor. Instead of having a few songs to herself, she sang two duets with Jones in the middle of the concert, and then came back for a third one later.

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

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 Tower of Song (Tom Jones)
02 talk (Tom Jones)
03 Run On (Tom Jones)
04 talk (Tom Jones)
05 Strange Things (Tom Jones)
06 talk (Tom Jones)
07 Delilah (Tom Jones)
08 Take My Love [I Want to Give It] (Tom Jones)
09 talk (Tom Jones)
10 Opportunity to Cry (Tom Jones & Alison Krauss)
11 Raise a Ruckus (Tom Jones & Alison Krauss)
12 talk (Tom Jones)
13 Elvis Presley Blues (Tom Jones)
14 talk (Tom Jones)
15 Soul of a Man (Tom Jones)
16 talk (Tom Jones)
17 If I Give My Soul (Tom Jones)
18 Burning Hell (Tom Jones)
19 Don't Knock (Tom Jones)
20 talk (Tom Jones)
21 Didn't It Rain (Tom Jones & Alison Krauss)
22 talk (Tom Jones)
23 Green Green Grass of Home (Tom Jones)
24 'Til My Back Ain't Got No Bone (Tom Jones)
25 Kiss (Tom Jones)
26 talk (Tom Jones)
27 I Wish You Would (Tom Jones)
28 talk (Tom Jones)
29 Thunderball (Tom Jones)
30 talk (Tom Jones)
31 It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
32 talk (Tom Jones)
33 What Good Am I (Tom Jones)
34 talk (Tom Jones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ppbZ6i58

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gRJiLFTTeo8PoKN/file

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

Dave Mason - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-7-1975

Here's another album from the "Midnight Special" TV show. This time, it's a concert by Dave Mason, formerly of the band Traffic.

Most of the album is from an episode of the show broadcast in early 1975. (Note for all of these episodes, the recording date probably was a bit earlier.) The other musical acts in the show were the Kiki Dee Band, the Average White Band, and the Crusaders. I didn't include any of those here, but perhaps one or more of them will show up on a future album where they fit better.

However, the last two songs are from a different source. That's another episode of the show, broadcast on December 30, 1977. In the meantime, he'd had a big hit with "We Just Disagree," so that's one of the two songs he played at that time.

This bootleg recording has excellent sound overall. As usual for this series, I started with the YouTube video, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s. There was a problem with the song "Feelin' Alright," however. I'm learning that this show often ended in the middle of a song, and that was the case here. Only the first two minutes of the song were actually from the show. So I found a performance on a different TV show from the same era, and used that to finish it off. (I'm not sure, but it's probably from the "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" TV show in 1973.) That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.  

This album is 44 minutes long. 

01 World in Changes (Dave Mason)
02 Bring It on Home to Me (Dave Mason)
03 All Along the Watchtower (Dave Mason)
04 Every Woman (Dave Mason)
05 You Can't Take It When You Go (Dave Mason)
06 Only You Know and I Know (Dave Mason)
07 Lucille (Dave Mason)
08 talk (Dave Mason)
09 Feelin' Alright [Edit] (Dave Mason)
10 Let It Go, Let It Flow (Dave Mason)
11 We Just Disagree (Dave Mason)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/crSBFjAC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/9nEeTLqxLl5oNLS/file

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

Al Kooper - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 10-23-1974

Here's a solo acoustic piano concert by Al Kooper in front of a small audience for the "Live at the Record Plant" radio series. 

To be honest, I didn't expect much from this. I knew of Kooper from his roles as a session musician, producer, and songwriter, but I'd never heard much of him as a performer. But I was quite impressed, actually. He played a lot of good songs, a mix of covers and originals, and had some interesting banter between songs. 

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Al Kooper - Wikipedia

This recording sounded pretty good, but it did have some trouble with hiss. I did some audio editing to get rid of most of the hiss on the talking tracks, with the help of the MVSEP program. But I didn't touch the hiss on the actual songs, for fear that would hurt the music. But it isn't nearly as noticeable there anyway. It only stood out when the background was mostly silent.  

This unreleased album is 56 minutes long. 

01 talk by Tom Donahue (Al Kooper)
02 Brand New Day (Al Kooper)
03 talk (Al Kooper)
04 Without Her (Al Kooper)
05 talk (Al Kooper)
06 Autobiography in 725 Bars (Al Kooper)
07 talk (Al Kooper)
08 Sam Stone (Al Kooper)
09 talk (Al Kooper)
10 Just One Smile (Al Kooper)
11 talk (Al Kooper)
12 New Fashioned Love Song (Al Kooper)
13 talk (Al Kooper)
14 Drown in My Own Tears (Al Kooper)
15 talk (Al Kooper)
16 Don't Hang Up (Al Kooper)
17 talk (Al Kooper)
18 I Can't Quit Her (Al Kooper)
19 talk (Al Kooper)
20 [Be Yourself] Be Real (Al Kooper)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/soLq1wmj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/KXyFmbi6xNJWwfy/file

The cover photo was taken at a concert at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 12, 1973.

War - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 10-19-1973

Here's another "Midnight Special" album I didn't factor into the poll I posted yesterday, since I'd made this one already. It's a concert by the band War, in 1973.

I'd been looking for a good concert bootleg by War for a long time. But they're one of those bands, like 1970s ZZ Top, that are strangely lacking worthy bootlegs. There is an official live album, "War Live," released in 1974. But that's about it when it comes to the band in the 1970s prime. And while that official album is very good, it has been criticized for some of the songs going on too long. For instance, two of the songs on it are about 20 minutes long. This is more streamlined, while still have some room for jamming.

Tracks three through eight are from the October 19, 1973 episode, which was hosted by War. "Slippin' into Darkness" was the only song they played on the show's pilot episode on August 19, 1972. And "Gypsy Man" is from the September 14, 1973 episode. Finally, "All Day Music" is from the "ABC In Concert" TV show, which was a rival to Midnight Special for a couple of years on a different TV network. Normally, I want to keep the content of these Midnight Special albums just from that show, but I'm making a rare exception here.

The episode hosted by War had a lot of other musical acts on it: New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople, Danny O'Keefe, the Climax Blues Band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Piper. I didn't include any of those here since none of them seemed like a close stylistic match.

As usual for this show, I converted the YouTube video to audio, then broke it into mp3s. I also patched in applause to make smooth transitions between songs.  

This album is 42 minutes long. 

01 Slippin' into Darkness (War)
02 Gypsy Man (War)
03 The Cisco Kid (War)
04 talk (War)
05 Me and Baby Brother (War)
06 The World Is a Ghetto (War)
07 talk (War)
08 City Country City [Instrumental] (War)
09 All Day Music (War)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/J1nV8CXk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0JFXtEeX4X2kLY2/file

The cover image is from this exact concert.

Gladys Knight & the Pips with Dr. John - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 5-25-1973

When I posted a poll yesterday about the "Midnight Special" TV show, I said I have a few things I've already prepared that don't figure into the poll question. Here's one of them, an album by Gladys Knight and the Pips. Actually, they appeared on the show enough for two albums. This is the first one.

Gladys Knight and the Pips had their first hit in 1961, and many followed. But they really hit their peak in the early 1970s. Their best year of all was 1973, with four big hit singles. So they appeared on the "Midnight Special" multiple times that year. The first nine tracks here come from the May 25, 1973 episode, which they hosted. But they also played a couple of songs each on the April 6th and May 4th episodes. I've only included the tracks from those that weren't also performed on May 25th. 

Furthermore, they also performed on the show in late 1973 and again in early 1974. But that will be the subject of a different album.

As was typical for the TV show, there were a number of other acts. The Staple Singers, John Stewart, Dr. John, and Skylark also played songs. Plus, there was a comedy segment by Robert Klein. I chose to include the two Dr. John songs, since I think they fit in well in terms of musical style. The Staple Singers would also fit, but I would like to eventually gather up all their appearances on the show for an album, after more from them gets posted on YouTube.

This band hasn't been bootlegged much at all, so this is nice to have. As usual for this TV show, I converted the YouTube video to audio, then cut it into mp3s.  

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk by Wolfman Jack (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
02 Friendship Train (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
03 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 Instrumental (Dr. John)
05 Right Place, Wrong Time (Dr. John)
06 Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
07 I Don't Want to Do Wrong (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
08 Such a Night (Dr. John)
09 Neither One of Us [Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye] [Edit] (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 If I Were Your Woman (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
11 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Gladys Knight & the Pips)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vb5TAaHq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/3tg1GnHyQtftH0J/file

The cover image is from this exact concert, on May 25, 1973. 

A New Poll

As I've been mentioning in recent days, I recently discovered an amazing amount of music I'd previously missed, in the form of episodes of the 1970s "Midnight Special" TV show on YouTube. So far, all the episodes from the start of the show in 1973 to late 1975 have been posted, in chronological order. I've already turned a few of these into albums, and I have a few more on the way. (The "few more on the way" ones won't be included in this poll.) But aside from those, there are many, many more I possibly could make. I've just compiled a list of all the musical acts who have appeared on that show enough so that I could make a viable live album from them (meaning one that's at least half an hour long), though often I would have to compile appearances from more than one episode to get that much. Some acts (with the Kinks and Gordon Lightfoot being two that come to mind) don't have enough material yet, but eventually will if more episodes keep getting posted in chronological order. The show goes all the way to 1981, so there's a lot to come, including many acts that haven't appeared on the show yet. This poll is just about what I can do with the material that has been posted already.

So here's a list. I don't want to make albums out of all of these. That would be way too much. But some, for sure. To decide which ones, it will help me to see how great the popular demand is. So I would ask you to vote for the ones you're the most interested in. Each person should vote no more than ten times. If you do vote more, I'll only count the first ten. 

Keep in mind that one interesting thing about this show is how it gives us live music from musical acts that haven't put out much, or any, live music at all, be it official albums or bootlegs. (As an example, if I look ahead to the acts on the show in the late 1970s, there will eventually be enough material for me to post a Jackie DeShannon album, which I'm psyched about because there's almost no live recordings from her whatsoever.) So you might want to keep the rarity factor in mind as well when voting. Another thing worth mentioning is that some of these acts were on the show multiple times during this time period, enough for me to make multiple albums from them. But I've have to look closer to figure that out. 

This time, I'm not necessarily going to just post the ones that get the most votes. But I will keep these vote results in mind in determining which ones to do. There are 53 options in all. Thanks!

And by the way, if you want to see more detail of what was performed on each of the shows, I just found a very good webpage for that. Note the existing shows that are the subject of this poll only go up until September 1975. At their current posting pace, it'll probably take two or three more years until all the other episodes get posted as well. 

The Midnight Special - Aired Order - All Seasons - TheTVDB.com 

Paul Anka
Hoyt Axton
Joan Baez
Bee Gees
Chuck Berry
Blood, Sweat & Tears / David Clayton-Thomas
James Brown
Byrds / Roger McGuinn
Canned Heat
Ray Charles
Mac Davis
Fats Domino
Jose Feliciano
Dr. Hook
Earth, Wind & Fire
ELO
Faces
Four Tops
Golden Earring
Guess Who
Waylon Jennings
B.B. King
Jerry Lee Lewis
Little Anthony & the Imperials
Curtis Mayfield
Steve Miller Band
Anne Murray
Randy Newman
Ohio Players
Olivia Newton-John
Wilson Pickett
Pointer Sisters
Billy Preston
Helen Reddy
Righteous Brothers
Marty Robbins
Smokey Robinson
Linda Ronstadt
Rufus / Chaka Khan
Todd Rundgren
Leon Russell
Leo Sayer
Seals & Crofts
Neil Sedaka
Spinners
Stylistics 
Ike & Tina Turner
Barry White
Paul Williams
Edgar Winter Group
Bill Withers
Bobby Womack
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

Andrew Gold - Old Grey Whistle Test, New Victoria Theatre, London, Britain, 11-23-1976

Here's another result from the recent cache of "Old Grey Whistle Test" episodes I recently discovered. This is a short concert by American singer-songwriter Andrew Gold.

Gold was first successful as a record producer and studio musician. He produced and played on some hit albums before his own solo career took off. For instance, he had a key role in developing Linda Ronstadt's hits in the mid-1970s. His first album, simply titled "Andrew Gold," was released in 1975 and didn't get much attention. But his second album, released in late 1976, included the hit "Lonely Boy." His next album in 1978 would have two more hits, but that's after this concert.

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

Andrew Gold - Wikipedia 

Note that when I put this together, I wasn't aware that it had been officially released. It turns out it came out as part of a box set called "Lonely Boy: The Asylum Years Anthology." I've decided to post it anyway because that's a pretty obscure release, and I want to post most of the episodes from this BBC TV show that I can find. 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bob Harris (Andrew Gold)
02 Heartaches in Heartaches (Andrew Gold)
03 That's Why I Love You (Andrew Gold)
04 talk (Andrew Gold)
05 Endless Flight (Andrew Gold)
06 Do Wah Diddy (Andrew Gold)
07 talk (Andrew Gold)
08 Learning the Game (Andrew Gold)
09 Angel Woman (Andrew Gold)
10 Hope You Feel Good (Andrew Gold)
11 talk (Andrew Gold)
12 One of Them Is Me (Andrew Gold)
13 talk (Andrew Gold)
14 Lonely Boy (Andrew Gold)
15 talk (Andrew Gold)
16 Go Back Home Again (Andrew Gold)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Fh1jhoiA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/etjjPt1qcgh7J3s/file

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

Labi Siffre - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Hexagon Theatre, Reading, Britain, 5-14-1989

This is quite a surprise. I thought I'd posted all the BBC material that exists for singer-songwriter Labi Siffre. But a couple of days ago, an anonymous helper sent me this concert. To say it has been hard to find is an understatement. Once I knew the details about its existence, I did an Internet search and only found one mention of it. So hopefully this will bring it back into circulation.

Siffre had a few hits in Britain in the early 1970s, but his music career essentially petered out by the end of that decade. However, in the mid-1980s, he watched a TV documentary about Apartheid in South Africa, and that inspired him to write the song "(Something Inside) So Strong." When it was released in 1987, it went all the way to Number Four in the British singles chart. This gave his career a second wind. He released the album "So Strong" in 1988 (his first since 1975), which contained two more minor hits, "Listen to the Voices" and "Nothin's Gonna Change."

Be aware that the music is quite different from his 1970s stuff. That was very acoustic based. Whereas his late 1980s sound was more typical of that era, with a full band, synths, heavy drums, and so forth. In fact, I was surprised (and disappointed) that he seemed to entirely turn his back on his earlier music. He didn't play any of his earlier hits. His new music isn't bad, but it is a big change. One thing that remained consistent though was his interest in socially progressive topics in his lyrics, like fighting racism.

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 Lovers (Labi Siffre)
02 Listen to the Voices (Labi Siffre)
03 Schooldays (Labi Siffre)
04 Hard Road (Labi Siffre)
05 And the Wind Blows (Labi Siffre)
06 All I Wanna Do (Labi Siffre)
07 Never Let You Down (Labi Siffre)
08 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Labi Siffre)
09 I Will Always Love You (Labi Siffre)
10 talk (Labi Siffre)
11 With a Little Love (Labi Siffre)
12 Snowman (Labi Siffre)
13 talk (Labi Siffre)
14 Nothin's Gonna Change (Labi Siffre)
15 I'm Alright (Labi Siffre)
16 Hard Road [Second Version] (Labi Siffre)
17 [Something Inside] So Strong (Labi Siffre)
18 Home (Labi Siffre)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vEHzj6ZQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DE75rjUpf71GXyE/file

The cover photo is from the Prince's Trust concert in London in 1987. I've posted that concert here. It features Siffre performing one song, "(Something Inside) So Strong."

Brandi Carlile - Returning to the Campfire, Maple Valley, WA, 10-21-2025

A commenter named nytvf recently mentioned that Brandi Carlile was having a free Internet livestream of a campfire concert. Carlile and her usual musical collaborators, the twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth, sat around an actual campfire in the woods and sang songs and played acoustic guitars. (There was no audience except for some of their children who joined them for the last couple of songs.) Here's the result from just a few days after the event.

This concert had one big sonic flaw: since they were performing in front of a real fire, there was frequent crackling sounds from the fire. It sounded like the pops and scratches of a worn out vinyl record, only worse. I decided not to post this album unless I could get rid of the crackling noises. Thankfully, audio editing technology has come a long way in recent years. First, I ran the entire recording through the Izotope 10 program. It has a de-pop feature. Then I ran the whole thing through the MVSEP program. I split the "drums" from the rest of the music. There were no actual drums, but what showed up on the drum track was the crackling from the fire. I didn't get rid of all of it, but I'd estimate I got rid of 95 percent of it. You'll still here the occasional sound, but nothing like how it was.

This free concert was timed to promote Carlile's new album "Returning to Myself," which was released just three days later. Note the name of this concert given in the promotion, "Returning to the Campfire," is a reference to the name of the album. The album has gotten very good reviews, some of the best of her career. Only three songs were performed from that album, however: "A War with Time," "Church and State," and "Returning to Myself." The rest are originals from earlier albums, plus two cover songs: "High and Dry" by Radiohead and "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent (not counting the occasional crackle).

This album is two hours and 11 minutes long. 

01 talk (Brandi Carlile)
02 Mama Werewolf (Brandi Carlile)
03 talk (Brandi Carlile)
04 Fall Apart Again (Brandi Carlile)
05 talk (Brandi Carlile)
06 Every Time I Hear That Song (Brandi Carlile)
07 talk (Brandi Carlile)
08 Dying Day (Brandi Carlile)
09 talk (Brandi Carlile)
10 Returning to Myself (Brandi Carlile)
11 talk (Brandi Carlile)
12 Right on Time (Brandi Carlile)
13 talk (Brandi Carlile)
14 High and Dry (Brandi Carlile)
15 talk (Brandi Carlile)
16 The Story (Brandi Carlile)
17 talk (Brandi Carlile)
18 A War with Time (Brandi Carlile)
19 talk (Brandi Carlile)
20 Church and State (Brandi Carlile)
21 talk (Brandi Carlile)
22 The Sound of Silence (Brandi Carlile)
23 talk (Brandi Carlile)
24 I'll Always Know I Do (Brandi Carlile)
25 talk (Brandi Carlile)
26 You without Me - The Mother (Brandi Carlile)
27 talk (Brandi Carlile)
28 Broken Horses (Brandi Carlile)
29 talk (Brandi Carlile)
30 Downpour (Brandi Carlile)
31 talk (Brandi Carlile)
32 Someday Never Comes (Brandi Carlile)
33 talk (Brandi Carlile)
34 Hiding My Heart (Brandi Carlile)
35 talk (Brandi Carlile)
36 Hold Out Your Hand (Brandi Carlile)
37 talk (Brandi Carlile)
38 This Time Tomorrow (Brandi Carlile)
39 talk (Brandi Carlile)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Dv81h86e

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/JjtUSjyvcP5v0Yu/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the livestream broadcast. 

Volunteers?

Oh, one more thing. It's occurred to me that I keep finding albums to post at a much faster pace than I actually get around to posting them. I probably have a few thousand albums I could post if I only had the time to process the music (meaning cutting it up into mp3s for each song, editing problems, and so forth), make the cover art (including doing Internet searches to find the best photos), and write the write-ups. If anyone wants to help with any and all of that stuff, that could really speed things up. I could really use volunteers! If you're interested, please let me know what you think you'd be able to do, and I'll send you some tasks. Thanks.

Al Green Update, and More

I've been posting music from the treasure trove of Midnight Special TV episodes I discovered the other day. After finding that, I checked to see if I had already posted any music from that show, and I discovered just two: albums for Marvin Gaye and Al Green. For the Gaye one, the music didn't need any changing. However, I did just redo the cover art, so the fonts and such will be consistent with the other albums I'm posting from that show. Here's the link, if you want the revised version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/09/marvin-gaye-midnight-special-atlanta.html

It's a different story with the Al Green album though. It turns out the source I used when I posted it in 2020 had lots of flaws, such as incomplete songs and missing songs. So I just redid that album from scratch, using a much better source (again, taken from this new "treasure trove" I've found). So if you downloaded that one previously, I highly recommend you redownload it. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/05/al-green-midnight-special-nbc-studios.html

Also, in case you're curious, here's the "trove," if you want to take a look yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdQ3g_i8Nrs48a4TcCDU01Zw-7Qh4kukm

Currently, as I write this in late October 2025, there are 131 available there, with more coming all the time. In fact, a new one was just released in the last 24 hours. All of those are from 1973 to 1975 so far (plus the 1972 pilot episode). There were about 350 episodes in total, as the show ran all the way to 1981. So we can look forward to a steady stream of more music in the coming years.

You might want to take a look at what's on the different episodes, and see what interests you. I'm certainly not going to post everything, or even a majority of the music. I want to put together coherent albums from a single artist. Sometimes, there's enough from one album. But other times, there might be four songs from one episode, three songs from another, and two more from yet another. That kind of thing. Putting that all together would make at least a half hour long album from just one musical act. I'm open to suggestions regarding which albums to make from all this material.

(As an aside, sadly, some other similar musical TV shows from that era are not sharing their music on YouTube, or anywhere else. For instance, "Soul Train," "ABC In Concert," and "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert." I'll keep my eyes open, but there are only a few bootlegs of that material here and there. So we're very lucky Midnight Special is opening up their archive and sharing.

Charlie Rich with Anne Murray - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 4-26-1974

Here's another album I made from the trove of "Midnight Special" TV episodes I recently discovered. This one is particularly interesting, in my opinion, because Charlie Rich was a big country music star, but he never released a live album, and there aren't even any live bootlegs from his 1970s peak period. (At least not that I can find.) But now there's one with excellent sound, and a great song list.

Rich, who died in 1995, was unusual for country stars in that he sometimes made music in other genres, including jazz and rock. There actually is a section of this concert where he shows off songs he did in different genres. But from the late 1950s onwards, his career was only moderately successful. Then came 1973. He had two massive hits that year. "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl" both hit Number One, not only in the country singles chart, but in the main singles chart as well. More hits followed, leading to the Country Music Awards to name him "Entertainer of the Year" in 1974. Unfortunately though, he began drinking heavily in response to all this success, and his career suffered as a result. He did have some more hits, but essentially retired from music entirely in the early 1980s, with only one album after that.

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

Charlie Rich - Wikipedia 

Given all that, 1974 was a pretty ideal time for a concert recording. (His drinking would already become a big problem in 1975.) The approach I'm taking with these Midnight Special episodes is focusing on just one musical act, and removing the other ones from the episode. In this case, the other acts in the episode were the Staple Singers, Dobie Gray, the Treasures, and Anne Murray. However, I kept Murray's songs, because she sang a duet with Rich, and there was a good stylistic overlap.

The last three songs actually come from a different episode, on August 22, 1975. That one was hosted by Helen Reddy (who hosted many episodes), and Rich only had three songs. One of them, "Behind Closed Doors," is a repeat from the other concert. But I've included it here because that version had him doing it solo, and this one was done as a duet with Reddy.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As I'm doing with all of these Midnight Special episodes, I'm adding more crowd noise between songs to link them together. The only problem came with the song "Dance of Love." Near the end of the song, the shows main emcee, Wolfman Jack, spoke over the music for about ten seconds. I used the MVSEP program to wipe out his talking. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 Lonely Weekends (Charlie Rich)
02 talk (Charlie Rich)
03 Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs (Charlie Rich)
04 talk (Charlie Rich)
05 You Won't See Me (Anne Murray)
06 Break My Mind (Charlie Rich & Anne Murray)
07 talk (Charlie Rich)
08 Don't Put No Headstone on My Grave (Charlie Rich)
09 talk (Charlie Rich)
10 Jazz Instrumental (Charlie Rich)
11 talk (Charlie Rich)
12 Break-Up (Charlie Rich)
13 talk (Charlie Rich)
14 Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich)
15 The Most Beautiful Girl (Charlie Rich)
16 A Love Song (Anne Murray)
17 A Very Special Love Song (Charlie Rich)
18 Big Boss Man (Charlie Rich)
19 talk (Charlie Rich)
20 Dance of Love [Edit] (Charlie Rich)
21 Midnight Blues (Charlie Rich)
22 Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich & Helen Reddy)
23 Every Time You Touch Me [I Get High] (Charlie Rich)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VvnDTH1u

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/J23u5Oe0d4rwosJ/file 

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

The Manhattan Transfer - Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Televison Theatre, London, Britain, 2-22-1977

I mentioned recently that I found a bunch of episodes of the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show. Here's another one of those. It's a short concert by the Manhattan Transfer from 1977.

This group was pretty different compared to most music in the era. It's hard to describe what they were doing, but I think the best word is "retro." They played a variety of styles from earlier decades, such as vocal jazz, vocalese, swing, acappella, and rhythm and blues. Pretty much everything they did were cover versions.

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

The Manhattan Transfer - Wikipedia 

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I converted a video file to audio, then broke it into mp3s.

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bob Harris (Manhattan Transfer)
02 That Cat Is High (Manhattan Transfer)
03 Four Brothers (Manhattan Transfer)
04 talk (Manhattan Transfer)
05 Heart's Desire (Manhattan Transfer)
06 Scotch and Soda (Manhattan Transfer)
07 Don't Let Go (Manhattan Transfer)
08 Java Jive (Manhattan Transfer)
09 Chanson D'Amour (Manhattan Transfer)
10 talk (Manhattan Transfer)
11 Candy (Manhattan Transfer)
12 Eldorado Rap (Manhattan Transfer)
13 talk (Manhattan Transfer)
14 Gloria (Manhattan Transfer)
15 Operator (Manhattan Transfer)
16 Tuxedo Junction (Manhattan Transfer)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/z7fif8A8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ReIw28R9W9LY1xO/file

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

Jim Croce - KMET, Los Angeles, CA, 7-18-1972

Yesterday, while putting together a Jim Croce "Midnight Special" album (which should be coming soon), I stumbled upon this radio show Croce did. It's very nice, but seems to have been little noticed until now. So I'm posting it to give it more exposure.

This is one of Croce's earliest live recordings. His musical career got little notice until about April 1972, when he released his first major label album, "You Don't Mess Around with Jim." With record company promotion, momentum began to build. But this was right before he became a star. His first single, "You Don't Mess Around with Jim," was released in June 1972 and was starting to climb the charts when this radio show happened. He would have his first national TV appearances a month later.

Because this comes from a radio broadcast, the sound quality is excellent. As the DJ notes at the end of the recording, there were only seven people in the studio, providing a little bit of clapping at the ends of songs. Croce performed in solo acoustic, backed only by Maury Muehleisen on second guitar and backing vocals. The date for this isn't firm, but Muehleisen's wife later guessed it took place on this date, or at least within a couple of days of that, based on records of his travel schedule at the time. 

This recording features some rare songs, especially the cover "Ol' Man River." Also, it's interesting to note that some of his later big songs were already fully formed at this early date. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" didn't make his debut album that had been recently released at the time. I'll bet nobody, including Croce, had any idea it would be a massive Number One hit in 1973.

This album is 31 minutes long. 

01 Roller Derby Queen (Jim Croce)
02 talk (Jim Croce)
03 Next Time, This Time (Jim Croce)
04 talk (Jim Croce)
05 These Dreams (Jim Croce)
06 talk (Jim Croce)
07 Rapid Roy [The Stock Car Boy] (Jim Croce)
08 Careful Man (Jim Croce)
09 Ol' Man River (Jim Croce)
10 talk (Jim Croce)
11 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Jim Croce)
12 talk (Jim Croce)
13 Dreamin' Again (Jim Croce)
14 You Don't Mess Around with Jim (Jim Croce)
15 talk (Jim Croce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tXQsuRJq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/E0OxqVjiAXngUBv/file

The cover photo comes from an appearance on the TV show "Rollin' on the River" in January 1973. I chose this one because it shows Maury Muehleisen in the background. Muehleisen performed with Croce for nearly all of his concerts, including this radio show. 

The Incredible String Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 11-23-1972

Once again, here's a BBC album by the Incredible String Band. It's a short concert from 1972.

I'm posting this due to the poll from some months back about which musical acts had the greatest demand for more BBC albums. I'm still having a hard time getting into the music of this group, but I only have one more album to go and then I can post albums from others chosen in that poll. 

This is all from one concert. However, only some of the tracks have been officially released, specifically: tracks 2, 6, 10, and 12. Those all appeared on the "Across the Airwaves" BBC compilation. But a bootleg source fills in the gaps and has the same sound quality. Actually, the vocals were low in all the unreleased songs, but I fixed that using the UVR5 program, so you shouldn't notice a difference in the sourcing now.

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 talk (Incredible String Band)
02 I Know That Man (Incredible String Band)
03 talk (Incredible String Band)
04 My Father Was a Lighthouse Keeper (Incredible String Band)
05 talk (Incredible String Band)
06 The Circle Is Unbroken (Incredible String Band)
07 talk (Incredible String Band)
08 Turquoise Blue (Incredible String Band)
09 talk (Incredible String Band)
10 The Old Buccaneer (Incredible String Band)
11 talk (Incredible String Band)
12 Black Jack David (Incredible String Band)
13 talk (Incredible String Band)
14 Jigs Medley [Instrumental] (Incredible String Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BzpVMQVi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ZZmTH8eIg92PGdi/file

The cover photo comes from the Lincoln Folk Festival in May 1972. 

Robyn Hitchcock - Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 8-8-2004 (The White Album)

A few days ago, I posted a Robyn Hitchcock concert from 1996 that consisted entirely of songs Bob Dylan performed in a famous 1966 concert. That reminded me that I have some other albums of Hitchcock performing entire albums by others in concert that I haven't posted yet. I've been slow to post some of these because they come from audience bootlegs and the sound quality is merely good, not excellent. But with improving sound editing technology, there's a lot one can do. So I've fixed this one, and now it's good to go.

From 2003 until 2011, Hitchcock held a benefit concert most years at the small Three Kings club in London, and each time he performed one of his favorite albums by some other musical act, from start to finish. This, the second such concert, was his version of the classic "White Album" by the Beatles in 1968. Usually, he played some extra songs at the end of the concert. But since this was a double album, he just played every song from the White Album, in order, and nothing else.

Hitchcock was backed by a small band that included Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor, two members of his 1970s band the Soft Boys. They were occasionally joined by others, for instance on "Revolution 9" (where backing tapes were also used).

I only have a limited number of editing techniques that I know, but they were pretty useful for this album. First, I ran every song through the MVSEP program to remove the crowd noise during songs, while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs. Then, I ran all the songs through MVSEP again, this time boosting the vocals relative to the instruments. I think these edits made a big difference. Now, this sounds more like a soundboard than an audience bootleg, though it still sounds far from pristine.  

This album is the hour and 48 minutes long. 

01 Back in the U.S.S.R. (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Dear Prudence (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Glass Onion (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Wild Honey Pie (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Martha My Dear (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 I'm So Tired (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Blackbird (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Piggies (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Rocky Raccoon (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Don't Pass Me By (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Why Don't We Do It in the Road (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 I Will (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Julia (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 Birthday (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 Yer Blues (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Mother Nature's Son (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 Sexy Sadie (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 Helter Skelter (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Long, Long, Long (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 Revolution 1 (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 Honey Pie (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 Savoy Truffle (Robyn Hitchcock)
40 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
41 Cry Baby Cry (Robyn Hitchcock)
42 Revolution 9 (Robyn Hitchcock)
43 Good Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
44 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)

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

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/UaGH8rZEC5P12Kd/file 

For the album cover, I did a parody of the official Beatles cover. I basically just replaced the text "The Beatles" with Hitchcock's name, in the same light grey font. Then I added some additional information at the bottom.  

The Temptations - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-27-1975

Here's another album from the motherlode of "Midnight Special" TV show episodes I recently discovered. This is a concert by the Temptations in 1975.

As I explained in my previous Sly and the Family Stone post, each episode of this TV lasted an hour and a half, and typically featured a handful of different musical acts. For each episode, one of those acts was considered the host, and got to play more songs than the other acts. The Temptations were the host of this episode. The other acts were Ace, Jessi Colter, Leo Sayer, and Rose Banks. I've stripped the episode down to just the Temptations parts, and connected songs by adding more audience cheering between them, to make it sound as if it was one continuous concert by just this one act.

I'm happy to post this, because concert recordings of the Temptations from their peak years in the 1960s and early 1970s are very rare. 1975 is a particularly good time for a concert, because it turned out to be the last of their peak years. From 1964 to 1975, they had a steady stream of hit singles, and Gold rated albums (meaning sales of 500,000 or more in the U.S.). "Happy People" was a Number One hit on the U.S. R&B singles chart in 1974, and then "Shakey Ground" also was a Number One on that chart in 1975. But those would be the band's last number ones (although they occasionally would get close in later years). 

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I converted a YouTube video to audio, then broke it into mp3s. 

This album is 29 minutes long. 

01 Midnight Special (Temptations)
02 Cloud Nine - My Girl - Get Ready [Instrumental Version] (Temptations)
03 Glasshouse (Temptations)
04 Welcome to Our Show (Temptations)
05 The Way You Do the Things You Do - Girl [Why You Wanna Make Me Blue] - My Girl - Get Ready (Temptations)
06 Ain't Too Proud to Beg - Cloud Nine - I Can't Get Next to You (Temptations)
07 Just My Imagination [Running Away with Me] - Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Temptations)
08 Memories - Firefly (Temptations)
09 talk (Temptations)
10 A Song for You (Temptations)
11 Shakey Ground (Temptations)
12 Happy People (Temptations) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mPWkSr8B

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/CPrTrCOgLyjCtkp/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. The image was rather blurry, but I used the Krea AI program to add detail.