Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers - The Van Sessions, Part 3 (2013-2017)

Way back in 2019, I posted two albums I made of the band Nicki Bluhm and Gramblers performing cover songs. They got some media attention for a few years through the gimmick of recording cover songs while the played inside a van driving down the road. For reasons I'll explain, I've gone back and made a third album of their van sessions. I also completely overhauled and added to the two albums I'd made already.

The one problem with these songs recorded in a van was that they were... genuinely recorded in a van! That meant a lot of ambient noise, such as the sound of gear shifts and nearby traffic. When I posted some songs back in 2019, I tried to clean that up as best I could, but there wasn't much I could do, given the tools available at the time. But recently I discovered a relatively new tool for the MVSEP program called "denoise." It does a fantastic job of reducing hiss and other noise without damaging the music. One of the first thoughts I had when I started that was that I could finally get rid of the hiss on the two albums I'd made by this band. But then it occurred to me I could probably fix more songs they did that had even more hiss. There were some I had discarded because the hiss problem was too much.

So I went back to their old videos posted on YouTube and downloaded the songs I had previously skipped. To my delight, when I tried using the denoise function on them, all that hiss disappeared, even on the extreme cases! I swear, what audio editing technology can do these days is like magic. I found enough material for a third album, as well as drastically improving the sound quality for the songs I'd posted already.

Note however that I just redid the other two albums at the same time I'm posting this, and the new songs are scattered over all three albums. Eight out of 14 songs on this album are new.  But also, six out of 16 songs on Volume 1 are new, and four out of 15 songs on Volume 2 are new. So if you like this, you really should redownload the other two volumes as well. Between the new songs and the de-hissed old songs those albums are drastically improved. Here are the links:

Volume 1: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/04/nicki-bluhm-gramblers-van-sessions-part.html

Volume 2:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/04/nicki-bluhm-gramblers-van-sessions-part_16.html 

Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers were in existence from about 2010 to 2018. Nicki Bluhm has continued with a successful solo career, but she hasn't done anything like the van sessions. So this focuses just on the Gramblers time period. Even with the Gramblers, the actually van sessions started strong in 2011 and 2013, and then slowly trailed off. On this album, tracks 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, and 13 were actually recorded inside their van. The rest are from various sources. Tracks 1, 11, and 14 are from concerts. (I removed the applause from those.) The others are from webcasts and radio sessions and things of that nature, without an audience. Check out the mp3 tags for the exact details.

This album is 54 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original musical acts for each song: 

01 Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane
02 Lido Shuffle - Boz Scaggs
03 In the Mountains - Sarah Siskind
04 Dire Wolf - Grateful Dead
05 I Wanna Dance with Somebody - Whitney Houston
06 One Toke Over the Line - Brewer & Shipley
07 I Can Get Off on You - Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson
08 Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
09 Bird Song - Grateful Dead
10 Mr. Saturday Night - Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers
11 Statesboro Blues - Blind Willie McTell
12 Picture Book - Kinks
13 That's All - Genesis
14 Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Somebody to Love (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
02 Lido Shuffle (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
03 In the Mountains (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
04 Dire Wolf (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
05 I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
06 One Toke Over the Line (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
07 I Can Get Off on You (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
08 Blue Christmas (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
09 Bird Song (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
10 Mr. Saturday Night (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
11 Statesboro Blues (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
12 Picture Book (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
13 That's All (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
14 Piece of My Heart (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/o2xb6dLu

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/0I9h1P6yZA2NzaS/file

The cover is a screenshot I took of the band performing a song in their van. I used Krea AI to improve the detail.