Michael Hedges - Cover Versions, Volume 1: 1979-1980

In my opinion, Michael Hedges is one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He's really underrated. But he also is very underrated as a vocalist. In concert, he sometimes played cover versions that showed off his singing more than his guitar playing, since he tended to stick to the original arrangements instead of doing his unusual alternate tuning style of his original songs. I like his cover versions so much that I collected all such songs I could find with worthy sound quality. I found enough for four volumes. Here's the first one.

Note that I got a lot of help from musical friend Fabio from Rio for this project. I collected enough songs for about two volumes. Then I told Fabio about that, he said he'd had something similar in the works. He'd collected many more songs that I'd missed, and passed them on to me. 

At the time period of this album, Hedges' musical career was just getting started, and he hadn't signed a record contract yet. Around 1979, he moved to Palo Alto, California, to study music at Stanford University, after studying music at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. Shortly after arriving, he began busking in the area, especially at the New Varsity Theater in Palo Alto. The owner of that theater really liked him, and often videotaped him performing songs in the theater courtyard for people waiting in line to watch movies. All of the songs in this volume come from these videotapes, which were posted on YouTube. 

I converted them to mp3s and cleaned them up with the MVSEP program, including removing the crowd noise. I think they sound excellent. One might think they were from a soundboard source, or even studio recordings.

In my opinion, one reason Hedges was so good was because he had great musical taste, so he was "standing on the shoulders of giants." You can see in the song selection here he was especially influenced by Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. All the performances here are solo acoustic. 

This album is one hour and three minutes long. 

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

01 [He Played Real Good] For Free - Joni Mitchell
02 Old Man - Neil Young
03 Blue - Joni Mitchell
04 Guinnevere - Crosby, Stills & Nash
05 Never Never Land - Joni Mitchell
06 Hello, It's Me - Todd Rundgren
07 Little Wing - Neil Young
08 Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell
09 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes - Crosby, Stills & Nash
10 New Mama - Neil Young
11 Cocaine Drain - John Hall
12 Edith and the Kingpin - Joni Mitchell
13 May You Never - John Martyn
14 Cortez the Killer - Neil Young
15 Mother Nature's Son - Beatles
16 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio - Joni Mitchell
17 I'm into Something Good - Herman's Hermits
18 You Can Close Your Eyes - James Taylor

Here's the usual song list: 

01 [He Played Real Good] For Free (Michael Hedges)
02 Old Man (Michael Hedges)
03 Blue (Michael Hedges)
04 Guinnevere (Michael Hedges)
05 Never Never Land (Michael Hedges)
06 Hello, It's Me (Michael Hedges)
07 Little Wing (Michael Hedges)
08 Big Yellow Taxi (Michael Hedges)
09 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Michael Hedges)
10 New Mama (Michael Hedges)
11 Cocaine Drain (Michael Hedges)
12 Edith and the Kingpin (Michael Hedges)
13 May You Never (Michael Hedges)
14 Cortez the Killer (Michael Hedges)
15 Mother Nature's Son (Michael Hedges with Mike Marshall & Darol Anger)
16 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio (Michael Hedges)
17 I'm into Something Good (Michael Hedges)
18 You Can Close Your Eyes (Michael Hedges)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hhAqnHtX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gLJrm1FsRxdFkFc/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from one of the 1980 videos taken at the New Varsity Theatre. The original was rather low-res, so I used the Gemini program to increase the quality.