SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 6: Jefferson Starship

The sixth major musical act to perform at the 1975 SNACK benefit in San Francisco was Jefferson Starship.

Jefferson Starship was the 1970s version of the 1960s band Jefferson Airplane. At the time of this concert, the band had just released the single "Miracles" earlier in the month. It would go on to reach Number 3 in the US chart, the band's biggest hit by far. However, the song wasn't performed at this concert. That's probably because the song was written by Marty Balin and co-sung with him and Grace Slick. Balin was only a sometimes member of the band at the time, and he wasn't at this concert.

The album "Miracles" was on, "Red Octopus," wouldn't be released until July. It would go on to be a huge seller, reaching Number One in the US album chart. The band played some songs from it, like "Fast Buck Freddie" and "Play on Love," that would have been brand new to the audience.

There was some drama going on behind the stage prior to this set taking place. The band's bassist Peter Sears got stuck in traffic trying to get to the concert, and the band felt they couldn't go on stage without him. The audience grew restless as everyone waited for Sears to show up. Promoter Bill Graham was getting frantic. He was going to have Joan Baez go on stage instead (and have Jefferson Starship take her time slot later), but at literally the last minute, Sears showed up and ran to the stage, allowing the band to go on after all.

By the way, I don't think I've mentioned this, but for all the sets, the lead vocals were too low. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals relative to the instruments.

This album is 39 minutes long.

47 Ride the Tiger (Jefferson Starship)
48 talk (Jefferson Starship)
49 Fast Buck Freddie (Jefferson Starship)
50 talk (Jefferson Starship)
51 Get Fiddler (Jefferson Starship)
52 talk (Jefferson Starship)
53 Play on Love (Jefferson Starship)
54 I Want to See Another World (Jefferson Starship)
55 Sweeter than Honey (Jefferson Starship)
56 talk (Jefferson Starship)
57 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Starship)
58 talk (Jefferson Starship)
59 Volunteers (Jefferson Starship)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16603897/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA__3-23-1975_06JffrsonStrship_atse.zip.html

Yet again, I could only find one photo of this act performing at this exact concert, so I used it. But it was another black and white one, so I colorized it with the help of the Palette program. The photo only should Paul Kantner on guitar and Grace Slick on vocals. I had to guess on the colors for Kantner (and I stuck with the colors chosen by the Palette program), but I read in a review of the concert that Slick wore all black.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 5: The Doobie Brothers

The fifth major musical act at the 1975 SNACK benefit in San Francisco was the Doobie Brothers.

I actually posted this set already, in June 2023. Unfortunately, it was later taken down to a copyright violation issue. So I'm going to roll the dice and try again here. Grab it fast!

Here's what I wrote when I posted it last time, with some minor changes.

This is a concert that seems to have slipped under the radar. But hopefully this post will help change that. I previously posted a Doobie Brothers concert from 1973. I said I wanted a concert of the band from the time when Tom Johnston was still the main lead vocalist, because he was replaced by Michael McDonald in 1975 (and then kicked out of the band in 1977). I said I had found what appeared to be the best bootleg from that era.

But then I came across this one. It's even better, because it's from two years later, which means more classic songs were included, especially their Number One hit "Black Water." I think this bootleg has gone under the radar because it's part of the SNACK benefit concert, which had lots of other big name artists, like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Santana, Jefferson Starship, and the Grateful Dead. 

Note that when I posted this, I included two bonus tracks from a different 1975 concert. Perhaps the copyright issue was with those tracks, since I'm pretty sure this entire show remains officially unreleased. We shall see. This version doesn't include those bonus tracks.

This album is 33 minutes long.

34 talk (Doobie Brothers)
35 Jesus Is Just Alright (Doobie Brothers)
36 talk (Doobie Brothers)
37 Neil's Fandango (Doobie Brothers)
38 talk (Doobie Brothers)
39 Take Me in Your Arms [Rock Me a Little While] (Doobie Brothers)
40 talk (Doobie Brothers)
41 Black Water (Doobie Brothers)
42 talk (Doobie Brothers)
43 I Been Workin' on You (Doobie Brothers)
44 Long Train Runnin' (Doobie Brothers)
45 talk (Doobie Brothers)
46 China Grove (Doobie Brothers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16603893/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA__3-23-1975_05DobiBrthrs_atse.zip.html

The photo I used for the cover does not come from this exact concert. However, I picked one that looks like it could have, with the same daytime appearance, complete with tarp and scaffolding in the background. This one is actually from a concert at the Oakland Coliseum June 29, 1975. It only shows one person, who I believe is lead guitarist Patrick Simmons. The photo was in black and white, but I colorized it using the Palette program.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 4: Santana

The fourth major musical act at the 1975 SNACK benefit in San Francisco was Santana.

There's not much to say about this set. Santana did their usual Latin soul music thing with lots of tasty lead guitar from Carlos Santana. Most of the songs were better known songs from earlier albums, with the exception of one new one, "Let the Children Play."

During their set, a large group of people tried to scale a 70-foot high wall in the stadium in order to get in free, but they were foiled by the stadium security forces.

After the set, there were speeches by baseball hero Willie Mays and football hero Gene Washington.

This album is 36 minutes long.

25 talk by Bill Graham (Santana)
26 Incident at Neshabur [Instrumental] (Santana)
27 Let the Children Play (Santana)
28 Oye Como Va (Santana)
29 talk (Santana)
30 Toussaint L'Overture [Instrumental] (Santana)
31 talk (Santana)
32 Soul Sacrifice [Instrumental] (Santana)
33 Black Magic Woman - Gypsy Queen (Santana)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16604655/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA__3-23-1975_04Sntna_atse.zip.html

Once again, I could only find one photo of Santana from this exact concert, so I used it. Once again, it was in black and white. So I colorized it with the help of the Palette program. I did find a mention that lead guitarist Carlos Santana wore "a knee-length white sweater trimmed in blue, with a photo of guru Sri Chinmoy pinned at his throat," so I made sure the colors reflected that.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 3: Tower of Power

The third major music act to perform at the 1975 SNACK benefit in San Francisco was Tower of Power.

Tower of Power was formed in 1968. The American band focused on soul and funk music with an emphasis on horns. They were a big band at the time of this concert, with ten band members. They had their biggest success in the early 1970s. 

A few months prior to this concert, they changed lead singers, from Lenny Williams to Hubert Tubbs.

This album is 32 minutes long.

16 talk (Tower of Power)
17 Oakland Stroke (Tower of Power)
18 What Is Hip (Tower of Power)
19 talk (Tower of Power)
20 Down to the Nightclub [Bump City] (Tower of Power)
21 talk (Tower of Power)
22 Sparkling in the Sand (Tower of Power)
23 You're the Most [To Say the Least] (Tower of Power)
24 You're Still a Young Man (Tower of Power)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16603876/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA__3-23-1975_03TwerofPowr_atse.zip.html

I found only one photo of the band from this exact concert, and I used it here for the cover. However, I had to crop out some of the band members on the left and right because it was a long rectangular photo that I needed to fit into a square space. I also colorized the photo with the help of the Palette program, and then some Photoshop fixing.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 2: The Grateful Dead

The second major act to perform at the 1975 SNACK benefit was the Grateful Dead. 

Note that this was a very unusual concert for the Grateful Dead. That probably explains why the band appeared quite early in the day, to lower expectations. 1975 was a strange year for the band. They went on touring hiatus in October 1974, and only resumed touring on a regular basis in June 1976. In 1975, they just played four concerts, including this one.

Technically, this act was billed as "Jerry Garcia and Friends." But actually, it was every member of the Grateful Dead plus Merl Saunders on organ and Ned Lagin on keyboards. 

What really sets this concert apart for the band though was the set list. For one thing, they were used to playing two hours or longer each concert. But here, they were limited to a 30-minute long set. (They went a little over.) They decided to fill nearly all of that with a completely instrumental performance, except for the encore. Furthermore, their big instrumental section was music that they'd never put on record or performed in public yet. According to media reports, they called the entire thing "Space Age." However, later in 1975 they would release the studio album "Blues for Allah" and most of it was on that album in different forms, so we can assign names to the parts of the instrumental sections.

That was a pretty ballsy move to perform such experimental music, especially in front of a crowd that mostly did not consist of their usual "Deadhead" fan base. The only thing they did to appeal to the masses was the encore, a lively cover of the Chuck Berry standard "Johnny B. Goode," with vocals. This has to be one of the most unique concerts the band ever did. The only times they played versions of this "Blues for Allah" song making up most of their set was in their four 1975 concerts.

This album is 37 minutes long.

Note that the track numbering continues where the numbering for the previous album from this concert left off. All the rest of the albums from the concert follow that same pattern.

08 talk by Bill Graham (Grateful Dead)
09 Blues for Allah [Instrumental Version] (Grateful Dead)
10 Milking the Turkey [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
11 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
12 Milking the Turkey [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
13 Blues for Allah [Reprise] [Instrumental Version] (Grateful Dead)
14 talk (Grateful Dead)
15 Johnny B. Goode (Grateful Dead) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16603877/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA__3-23-1975_02GrteflDed_atse.zip.html

I was ready to post the albums from this concert weeks ago, but I was held up by the cover art. I found photos for six of the eight acts from this exact concert, but all of them were in black and white. So it took me a while to get around to colorizing them with the help of the Palette program. This photo only shows the band's two lead singers, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. I know I got the colors right for Garcia, because I found a color photo of just him. I preferred this one though. I had to guess the colors for Weir, and stuck pretty closely to what the Palette program chose.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 1: Graham Central Station

It's time for me to post another big rock festival. This one is the SNACK Benefit in San Francisco in 1975. SNACK stood for "Students Need Athletics, Culture and Kicks." This concert was a charity benefit organized by rock promoter Bill Graham after he found out the San Francisco school district was going to make drastic budget cuts, including eliminating all after school sports and other extracurricular activities. 

Since this is the first of eight albums containing the sets from the SNACK concert, here's where I'll give some background to the concert as a whole. If you want to know more, here's the Wikipedia entry about it:

SNACK Benefit Concert - Wikipedia

You can also read an interesting Rolling Stones Magazine article about it here:

Dylan, Brando and Co. Work for Snack (rollingstone.com)

Bill Graham called up famous musicians he knew and convinced them to perform at this concert. He later told the media, "The children will not have musical instruments. There will be no football practices. There will be no cheerleaders. No after-school tutoring. ... We make our living from the youth of San Francisco. This is one way we hope to thank them." The school district was facing a two million dollar shortfall. The concert didn't raise that much money, considerably less than a million dollars. However, the date before the concert, the district announced they had "found" two million dollars in the budget due to an accounting error, eliminating most of the shortage and saving the cuts from happening. I'm sure the district was embarrassed into doing this due to bad publicity, so the concert was successful in its goal.

The concert was held in a huge sports stadium, resulting in an audience of 60,000 people. That made it the largest benefit concert in rock history up until that point. In addition to a bunch of famous music acts, some famous celebrities gave speeches between the music sets, including Willie Mays, Marlon Brando, and Jesse Owens.

Now let me discuss this exact album. The albums in this concert are sorted chronologically by the times the acts went on stage. The American funk band Graham Central Station was the first major act to perform. (Latin jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri actually went on first, but I don't have that set.) In 1974, Graham Central Station released their first two albums. They had a minor hit with the song "Can You Handle It."

The band has only ever released one live album, and that's from way later, a 1992 album by a reunited version of the band. So it's good to get a live recording of the band in the mid-1970's prime. Their commercial peak was actually be 1975, when they had their biggest hit, "Your Love," later in the year.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 The Jam (Graham Central Station)
02 Feel the Need (Graham Central Station)
03 We've Been Waiting (Graham Central Station)
04 Release Yourself (Graham Central Station)
05 Can You Handle It (Graham Central Station)
06 People (Graham Central Station)
07 It Ain't No Fun to Me (Graham Central Station)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16603879/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA__3-23-1975_01GrhmCntrlStaton_atse.zip.html

I was able to find photos from this exact concert for the cover art for all the acts except two. One of those two was Graham Central Station. Instead, I found a photo of the band at Munich TV Studios in Munich, Germany, on January 23, 1975. Using Photoshop, I removed the band from their background and put in a background that would match all the other covers from this concert. The end result isn't great, but hopefully it's good enough to get the job done. 

The logo at the top left was taken unchanged from promotional materials for the concert.

The Specials - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-26-2009

I hadn't planned on posting this, because I prefer music from artists when they were in their prime, and this concert took place long after the Specials had their prime in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, I made an exception here because the band reunited in 1993 and stayed together after that, but it wasn't until some months before this concert that Terry Hall, the band's original lead singer until 1981, rejoined the band. So this was an important reunion of sorts. Hall was the singer on the original versions of most or all of these songs.

Another reason I posted this is because the bootleg recording of this show sounded excellent in general, but had one big flaw that I could fix: the lead vocals were way too low in the mix. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to bring up the vocals. It sounds much better now.

Virtually all of the songs here were originally done in the 1979 to 1981 time frame. The band continued until about 1986 without Hall (as "Specials AKA"), and had some hits, including "Free Nelson Mandela," but I guess Hall didn't feel comfortable doing those.

The album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Specials)
02 Do the Dog (Specials)
03 Gangsters (Specials)
04 It's Up to You (Specials)
05 Rat Race (Specials)
06 Monkey Man (Specials)
07 talk (Specials)
08 Blank Expression (Specials)
09 Too Hot (Specials)
10 Doesn't Make It Alright (Specials)
11 talk (Specials)
12 Concrete Jungle (Specials)
13 Friday Night, Saturday Morning (Specials)
14 Man at C&A (Specials)
15 A Message to You, Rudy (Specials)
16 talk (Specials)
17 Do Nothing (Specials)
18 Hey Little Rich Girl (Specials)
19 Nite Klub (Specials)
20 Too Much, Too Young (Specials)
21 You're Wondering Now (Specials)
22 Ghost Town (Specials)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16604043/TSPECLS2009BBSssonsVlum4GlstnbrFstivlWrthyFrmPiltnBitin__6-26-2009_atse.zip.html

The photo of lead singer Terry Hall is from this exact concert. I couldn't find any good photos showing the entire band.

Various Artists - KHJ Second Annual Appreciation Concert, Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA, 4-29-1967

Here's a really special concert, in my opinion. It's a totally unreleased, and even rarely shared as a bootleg, concert from the magic year of 1967. Check out the acts: Buffalo Springfield, the Fifth Dimension, Brenda Holloway, the Seeds, Johnny Rivers, and the Supremes! Those are all acts who have little to no unreleased live recordings, and in some cases virtually no live recordings at all.

The reason this is unreleased and even rarely shared as a bootleg, has to do with sound quality. The concert was professionally recorded, probably by the radio station that promoted the show, KHJ. But there was one problem that was essentially a fatal flaw, making this nearly unlistenable. The concert took place at the famous Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California. In early 1967, this venue was updating their sound system. They introduced a new piece of equipment, the radio mic. Unfortunately, there were technical problems with this. A high-pitched squeal could be heard through the entire recording that apparently was heard by the audience there at the time.

Due to this problem, I had been aware of this recording for years, and intrigued by the list of acts, but I never added it to my music collection due to that fatal flaw. However, recently I remembered it, and realized that the technological advancements in audio editing could possibly get rid of that annoying squeal. So I gave it a try. The good news is, I got rid of the vast majority of the problem. The bad news is, I couldn't get rid of it entirely. But I believe this is now very listenable. Even when the squeal can be heard, it's much lower in the mix.

Actually, the squeal wasn't as bad as it sounds at first because it really was only a problem during times of relative quiet, usually between songs. When there was a full band playing, the squeal usually disappeared entirely. So my challenge was to get rid of the squeal whenever it showed up. Using the UVR5 program, I split the songs into different tracks (vocals, drums, bass, and other). I often found the squeal would only be on one track, which I could then reduce or eliminate entirely. For instance, during the banter between songs, much of the squeal would be on the "other" track, and all I needed was the "vocals" track. 

When that wasn't enough, I also used noise reduction with the Audacity program. People rightly object to the use of this technique because it degrades the music. But I've found it usually doesn't cause a problem when it's only used for talking between songs, so that's all I used it for here. Sometimes, even that wasn't enough, so I would manually drastically lower the volume of the squeal whenever it appeared during significant pauses in the banter.

I'd say I was about 90 percent successful overall. The squeal is still there in some places where I couldn't get to it without harming the music. One example is the song "Yesterday" by the Supremes. That one was quiet enough for the squeal to show up. But because it was a song and not just banter, I couldn't use noise reduction and other techniques. Luckily, there are only a couple other songs like that.

Otherwise, the recording is surprisingly good for a 1967 bootleg. At times, the vocals microphone would max out, especially when backing vocals were added. So some parts sound a bit rough. But overall, this is a good soundboard quality bootleg. Considering the acts involved, the recording is pretty amazing, in my opinion.

The only other significant problem I had was with the song "Do What You Gotta Do" by Johnny Rivers. The first half and then some was completely missing. As an experiment, I found his studio version from a 1967 album, and I tried filling in the missing section with that. I think it worked out okay, though not perfectly. The fact that it even comes close to matching is an indication of the overall quality of this boot. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

Now, let me discuss the musical content here. This concert was put on by the Los Angeles radio station KHJ, and they used it as a way to promote themselves and especially their DJ's. I must admit I cut out a lot of what I consider unnecessary DJ chatter between the acts, while keeping all the music. Some of the DJs went on and on way too long. For instance, the DJ who introduced the Seeds took six minutes for the introduction, repeating the fact that he was holding flowers to give the band over and over. I suspect the band wasn't ready, so he was stalling for time. Still, it's painful to hear. I cut those six minutes down to one. I did a lot of editing with the others, cutting things down to just the basic introductions of each act, and getting rid of a lot of the radio station promotion and hype. 

There also was a section in the middle of the Supremes set where Berry Gordy, the head of Motown Records, gave a speech and presented an award. I thought that was somewhat interesting, since Gordy is a famous figure, so I kept most of his speech. But I cut out a lot of that section too, including the entire speech by the person who received the award.

Let's consider the acts involved here. The sheer musical diversity is pretty amazing. Every single act in the concert is interesting to me. Note that the more popular acts came later, with each succeeding act getting more stage time. The first two acts only got 16 minutes each, but the final act, the Supremes, got 48 minutes.

These days, I think people would be most interested to hear Buffalo Springfield's set. Unfortunately, it was only four songs long. But on the plus side, it's historic, because it included the very first public performance of "Mr. Soul," which was on the verge of being released as a single at the time. Even though the Buffalo Springfield set is only 16 minutes long, it's still a gem due to the rarity of live recordings by them with this quality.

The Fifth Dimension were just starting to get popular when this concert happened, which is why they only had a short set at the start of the concert. Their debut album, "Up, Up and Away," wouldn't be released until a couple of months after this concert. They had released a few singles already, but their first really big hit, also "Up, Up and Away," hadn't been released yet either. But they did play it here. I'm not aware of ANY Fifth Dimension bootlegs, and their one live album, simple called "Live," is from 1971, with a very different set list.

Brenda Holloway was a Motown act. She was often ignored by Motown. Consider how she released tons of singles in the 1960s, but was only allowed to release one album, in 1964. At the time of this concert, she hadn't had a hit in two years. But she was promoting her latest single, "Just Look What You've Done," which would prove to be a minor hit (in the Top Twenty of the Soul chart), and should have been a bigger hit. She never released a live album in the 1960s and I'm not aware of any bootlegs by her either.

The Seeds were a garage rock band was a very simple and primitive sound. Their most famous song, "Pushin' Too Hard," only uses two chords, and most of their other songs are just like that, and sound similar to each other. Yet somehow there's charm in their simplicity. The Seeds only had two national hits, "Pushin' Too Hard" and "Can't Seem to Make You Mine," both of them scraping around the bottom of the Top Forty. But they were based in Los Angeles and much more popular there, which explains why they got a more prominent billing and longer set time than some other acts here. The Seeds never released a live album in the 1960s (although there is one studio album with fake crowd noise added, bizarrely). I could only find one bootleg from the 1960s, an Anaheim concert in 1968, but the sound quality of that is a lot poorer than this.

Johnny Rivers was a big star in 1967. He'd had a bunch of big hits, including the self-composed "Poor Side of Town," which was Number One in 1966. His version of the Motown classic "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" was a Number Three hit around the time of this concert, an even bigger hit than the original by the Four Tops. But he was possibly even better known for his series of live albums, which were all good sellers. Between 1964 and 1967, he released no fewer than five live albums! That said, this is probably a better set list than any of those albums, because it contains all of his biggest hits by that point in his career. 

One interesting side note is that Rivers played with an orchestra, and it was conducted in person by none other than Jimmy Webb. Webb would go on to become a famous songwriter, with many classic hits written by him but performed by others. But at the time of this concert he was just starting to find success with his songs. He wrote seven songs on Rivers most recent album at the time, but none of them were hits. However, "Up, Up and Away," played by the Fifth Dimension earlier in the concert, would be the first big hit for him a couple of months later, reaching the Top Ten.

That takes us to the closing act, the Supremes. They were the jewel in the crown for Motown, having hit after hit after hit all through the 1960s. At the time of this concert, the Supremes were promoting their latest single, "The Happening." It would hit Number One a few weeks after this concert. The Supremes did release a few live albums, including one in 1965 and another in 1968. But I'm not aware of any bootlegs by them, so this is an interesting addition.

I believe that at the time of this concert, band member Florence Ballard was having trouble due to alcoholism and depression. As a result, she was missing many concerts. This led to her being replaced by Cindy Birdsong, a member of the Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles. I believe that Birdsong was on stage here, not Ballard. Ballard returned to the Supremes in May, but performed badly. She was permanently replaced by Birdsong in July.

I'd be curious what people think of this concert, and especially if any of the lingering squeal sound is still bothersome.

This album is two hours and 24 minutes long.

01 talk by Gary Mack (Buffalo Springfield)
02 Pay the Price (Buffalo Springfield)
03 talk (Buffalo Springfield)
04 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Buffalo Springfield)
05 For What It's Worth (Buffalo Springfield)
06 Mr. Soul (Buffalo Springfield)
07 talk by Gary Mack (Buffalo Springfield)
08 talk by Johnny Williams (Fifth Dimension)
09 It's Not Unusual (Fifth Dimension)
10 Go Where You Wanna Go (Fifth Dimension)
11 On Broadway (Fifth Dimension)
12 talk (Fifth Dimension)
13 Up, Up and Away (Fifth Dimension)
14 The Beat Goes On (Fifth Dimension)
15 talk by Bobby Tripp (Brenda Holloway)
16 Happy Together - Sunny (Brenda Holloway)
17 talk (Brenda Holloway)
18 Just Look What You've Done (Brenda Holloway)
19 Every Little Bit Hurts (Brenda Holloway)
20 talk by Humble Harve (Seeds)
21 talk (Seeds)
22 Tripmaker (Seeds)
23 talk (Seeds)
24 Pushin' Too Hard (Seeds)
25 talk (Seeds)
26 Mr. Farmer (Seeds)
27 talk (Seeds)
28 Up in Her Room (Seeds)
29 talk (Seeds)
30 Can't Seem to Make You Mine (Seeds)
31 talk by Humble Harve (Seeds)
32 talk by Johnny Mitchell (Johnny Rivers)
33 Seventh Son (Johnny Rivers)
34 California Dreamin' (Johnny Rivers)
35 Mountain of Love (Johnny Rivers)
36 Do What You Gotta Do (Johnny Rivers)
37 The Tracks of My Tears (Johnny Rivers)
38 talk (Johnny Rivers)
39 Baby, I Need Your Lovin' (Johnny Rivers)
40 Memphis, Tennessee (Johnny Rivers)
41 talk (Johnny Rivers)
42 Poor Side of Town (Johnny Rivers)
43 talk (Johnny Rivers)
44 Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers)
45 tallk by Don Steele (Supremes)
46 You Keep Me Hangin' On (Supremes)
47 Stop in the Name of Love - Come See about Me - My World Is Empty without You - Baby Love (Supremes)
48 Michelle (Supremes)
49 More [Theme from Mondo Cane] (Supremes)
50 talk (Supremes)
51 Back in My Arms Again (Supremes)
52 talk (Supremes)
53 Love Is Here and Now You're Gone (Supremes)
54 Yesterday (Supremes)
55 You Can't Hurry Love (Supremes)
56 talk (Supremes)
57 talk by Berry Gordy (Supremes)
58 talk (Supremes)
59 The Happening (Supremes)
60 Somewhere (Supremes)
61 I Hear a Symphony (Supremes)
62 talk (Supremes)
63 You Send Me - For Sentimental Reasons - Cupid - Chain Gang - Bring It on Home to Me - Shake (Supremes)
64 talk by Gary Mack (Supremes)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bgXf3

I couldn't find any photos of the acts on stage at this concert. However, I did find a promotional poster for the concert, so I decided to use that as the basis of the cover. I made some edits to get everything to fit in the necessary square space and to look nice. I greatly enlarged the title in purple at the top, and I cut out some other text. But all the rest of the text is original and unchanged.

Elton John - Cover Versions, Volume 4: 2000-2002

I've been gradually posting a series of non-album cover versions by Elton John. However, when I posted Volume 3 in this series at the end of 2013, I ran into some copyright violation trouble. The link was taken down. Despite that, I'm going to foolishly post Volume 4 anyway. But there will be no direct download link. Instead, look to the comments section for a link to another website. Let's see how that works out.

It seems Elton John was really into performing cover songs in the early 2000s. Volume 2 stretches over nearly two decades, whereas this volume stretches over only about two and a half years. 

Nearly all of the songs were done in concert. There are only two exceptions, which are from studio albums: "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" and "Teardrops." One more song was done live but has been officially released: a duet of "Stan" with Eminem at the Grammy Awards in 2001. That's from an Eminem greatest hits album. Everything else is unreleased and from concert bootlegs.

During this time period, Elton John was doing many concerts as a co-headliner with Billy Joel. Typically, they played lots of songs together, and sometimes sang each other's songs. Four of the songs here are with Joel. 

There was a glitch in "Piano Man" that I managed to fix. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in the title.

By the way, just a couple of days ago I posted a 2001 Brian Wilson tribute concert. Two of the songs here happen to also be from that.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Free Man in Paris (Elton John)
02 Come Together (Elton John)
03 Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On (Elton John)
04 Just the Way You Are (Billy Joel & Elton John)
05 You May Be Right (Billy Joel & Elton John)
06 Stan (Eminem & Elton John)
07 God Only Knows (Elton John)
08 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Elton John & Brian Wilson)
09 Piano Man [Edit] (Billy Joel & Elton John)
10 Teardrops (Elton John & Lulu)
11 Here Comes the Sun (Elton John & Billy Joel)
12 Answering Bell (Elton John & Ryan Adams)

NOTE: There is no download link, as mentioned above, but check out the comments section. You may also find a link to Volume 3 there.

The cover photo comes from a concert in Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 20, 2000.

Neil Finn - Acoustic Radio Sessions, Volume 1: 1996-1999

At the end of last year (2023), I posted two albums consisting of unreleased acoustic radio sessions by the New Zealand/Australia band Crowded House. The material for these albums was given to me years ago by someone whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. At the same time, he provided me with material for three albums of acoustic radio sessions by Neil Finn, the main singer-songwriter for Crowded House. Here's the first of those three.

Just like the Crowded House material, this all has excellent sound quality, despite being totally unreleased. And also just like that material, this had fallen into total obscurity. I doubt any of this would survive to be shared on the Internet had it not been for that one fan recording it at the time and passing it on to me. So I wish to thank that person yet again.

Most of the songs here were originally done by Crowded House, which put on a final concert in 1996 (though they reunited years later). But there's a few cover songs rarely done by Finn elsewhere, such as "Southern Man" and "I Can See Clearly Now." Also, four of the songs here were performed by Neil Finn with his brother Tim Finn, another talented singer-songwriter and sometime member of Crowded House. Tim Finn was also the leader of Split Enz, a band in which Neil Finn was a member for most of their successful years. Split Enz had a big hit with the song "I Got You," written by both Finn brothers, and that song was performed here as well.

All the songs are from in-person radio station performances around the world. Only one, "12 Guitars," was done before an audience. A few were from BBC performances, but not enough for me to deem this a BBC album.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Better Be Home Soon (Neil Finn)
02 Angels Heap (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn])
03 Six Months in a Leaky Boat (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn])
04 Suffer Never (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn])
05 Weather with You (Finn Brothers [Neil Finn & Tim Finn])
06 I Got You (Neil Finn)
07 Last One Standing (Neil Finn)
08 Southern Man (Neil Finn)
09 Try Whistling This (Neil Finn)
10 Falling Star (Neil Finn)
11 She Will Have Her Way (Neil Finn)
12 What I Get Paid For (Neil Finn)
13 King Tide (Neil Finn)
14 Only Talking Sense (Neil Finn)
15 12 Guitars (Neil Finn)
16 I Can See Clearly Now (Neil Finn)
17 Four Seasons in One Day (Neil Finn)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16588415/NELFNN1996-1999AcustcRdoSssonsVlum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from the Concert for Linda McCartney at London's Royal Albert Hall in April 1999.

Various Artists - An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson (Radio City Music Hall, New York City, 3-29-2001)

Here's something that any fan of the Beach Boys will certainly enjoy. I don't know much about the backstory for this one (maybe someone else can explain?) - I'm guessing it was an anniversary of some sort. But in 2001, a bunch of great musicians got together to celebrate the music of Brian Wilson. That's basically the same thing as celebrating the music of the Beach Boys, since I think all but one of the songs performed here was originally recorded and released by the Beach Boys. (The lone exception, "Love and Mercy," is from Wilson's more hit and miss solo career.) 

In my opinion, most of these kinds of tribute concerts have more dud performances than good ones. But this one is solid pretty much all the way through. It's hard to go wrong with Beach Boys songs, for starters. But also, a lot of big names took part, such as Paul Simon, Elton John, Billy Joel, Heart, David Crosby, Aimee Mann, and many more, and it's hard to go wrong with them as well. Plus, Brian Wilson himself joined in at the end.

Most or all of the performances are unique, meaning these particular artists never did these songs before, and probably not since. They were special versions just for this show.

This concert has never been released in any kind of audio format, as far as I know. But the songs here all come from a DVD that has been released. I edited it down somewhat to remove some speeches praising Wilson. I wanted to keep it more focused on the music. (One section I removed was a talk by Beatles producer George Martin about the song "Good Vibrations.")  However, I did keep all the talking that directly preceded or followed each song that was relevant.

Unfortunately, there was a lot more to this concert that was not included on the DVD, and I can't find it anywhere else. For instance, Wilson sang lead or co-lead on five songs at the end of this album. But in the concert, he sang a few more: "Lay Down Burden," "Do It Again," "Caroline, No," and "Surfin' U.S.A." If anyone has more than I do, please let me know so I can add it in.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
02 Our Prayer (Boys Choir of Harlem)
03 California Girls - Help Me, Rhonda (Ricky Martin)
04 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
05 Surfer Girl (Paul Simon)
06 Surf City (Go-Go's)
07 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
08 In My Room (David Crosby, Carly Simon & Jimmy Webb)
09 talk (David Crosby)
10 The Warmth of the Sun (Vince Gill)
11 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
12 I Get Around (Evan & Jaron)
13 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
14 God Only Knows (Elton John)
15 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
16 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
17 talk (Chazz Palminteri & Billy Joel)
18 Don't Worry Baby (Billy Joel)
19 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
20 Sail On Sailor (Darius Rucker & Matthew Sweet)
21 talk (Chazz Palminteri & Chynna Phillips)
22 You're So Good to Me (Wilson Phillips)
23 talk (George Martin)
24 Good Vibrations (Heart)
25 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
26 Surf's Up (David Crosby, Vince Gill & Jimmy Webb)
27 talk (Chazz Palminteri & Brian Wilson)
28 Heroes and Villains (Brian Wilson)
29 talk (Elton John)
30 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Elton John & Brian Wilson)
31 talk (Brian Wilson)
32 Barbara Ann (Brian Wilson & Everyone)
33 Fun, Fun, Fun (Brian Wilson & Everyone)
34 talk (Brian Wilson)
35 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson with the Boys Choir of Harlem)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16584567/VA-_2001AllStrTrbtetBrnWlsnRdoCtyMsicHllNwYrkC__3-29-2001_atse.zip.html

I have to admit, the cover is a bit fakey. I found a photo of Elton John, Billy Joel, and Paul Simon sharing the same microphone during a finale at this concert. But since it's a Brian Wilson tribute and he was there, I wanted him on the cover too. So I Photoshopped him in, using a photo that also comes from the finale at this concert. They were on stage together, just not this close. The lighting is pretty accurate. For instance, there's a shadow falling on his body that actually fell on someone else standing there.

Donovan - The Bottom Line, New York City, 4-10-1976

This is one of my favorite Donovan concert recordings, if not the favorite. It's unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent, due to the fact that it was professionally recorded for live broadcast on the radio at the time. It's a solo acoustic concert, mostly, which allows one to hear many of his songs in a different way. (There are two other musicians subtly backing him up.) And it came at an interesting point in his career, resulting in some lessen known but still very good songs to get played.

Donovan is very closely associated with the 1960s. As a cultural phenomenon, the 60's actually started a few years into the 1960s, maybe around 1963 or 1964, and ended a few years into the 1970s. By 1976, Donovan's hippie image seemed increasingly out of step with cultural trends at the time. Then 1977 came along, with punk and disco, and his popular declined even more. So 1976 was the tail end of his most popular and creative era. For instance, note the archival retrospective album for him, "Troubadour," deals with that whole period, 1964 to 1976. After 1976, Donovan found it hard to even get record contracts to make new albums. But he was still going pretty strong up through 1976. I think a lot of his 1970s output is underappreciated.

So this turns out to be a really good time for a concert recording. He was still writing and performing excellent new songs, such as "Dark Eyed Blue Jean Angel," while also doing his older hits.

There were a few problems with the bootleg recording though. One of them was that the DJ for the radio station broadcasting the concert often cut in for station identification between songs. With some audio editing, I was able to remove all of that DJ talk while still keeping the appropriate amount of cheering after each song. The songs with "[Edit]" in their names are all cases where I had to make significant edits to get rid of the DJ chatter. Also, on a few songs, but only a few, the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to fix that.

After those changes, this is a really top notch recording. If you're a Donovan fan at all, you should give it a listen.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 Sunshine Superman (Donovan)
02 There Is a Mountain (Donovan)
03 talk (Donovan)
04 Dark Eyed Blue Jean Angel [Edit] (Donovan)
05 talk (Donovan)
06 Laughing River (Donovan)
07 talk (Donovan)
08 Take Your Time (Donovan)
09 talk (Donovan)
10 Friends (Donovan)
11 Woman's Work [Edit] (Donovan)
12 talk (Donovan)
13 Catch the Wind (Donovan)
14 talk (Donovan)
15 My My They Sigh (Donovan)
16 Season of the Witch [Edit] (Donovan)
17 Black Widow [Edit] (Donovan)
18 Happiness Runs (Donovan)
19 talk (Donovan)
20 Lalena [Edit] (Donovan)
21 talk (Donovan)
22 Atlantis (Donovan)
23 I Love My Shirt (Donovan)
24 Mellow Yellow (Donovan)
25 Saturday Night (Donovan)
26 Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan)

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/16571793/DONVN1976ThBttmLneNwYrkC__4-10-1976_atse.zip.html

Wow, that's quite a suit Donovan is wearing. I wonder if they still make suits like that today. Anyway, I couldn't find any good photos of him in concert in 1976. This one is "circa 1975," but I don't know anything beyond that.

Beck - Liquid Room, Tokyo, Japan, 3-31-2003

There are tons of Beck concert bootlegs (and NO official live albums), but there are surprisingly few with soundboard-level quality, for some reason. I'm posting an audience bootleg here. But before you run away, sometimes audience boots can sound just as good as a solid soundboard boot, and this is such a case. It was a long mostly acoustic concert with a solid performance, interesting banter, and lots of interesting song selections, including a bunch of cover versions he never officially released. This is one of the best Beck live recordings, period.

In 2003, Beck was still touring to support his acclaimed and most acoustic 2002 album "Sea Changes." So naturally there are lots of songs from that. 

For most of the first half, it was basically a solo acoustic concert. But other band members gradually joined in here and there. By the song "The Golden Age," it sounds like the full band was playing. Then the rest of the concert continued in more of a full-band sound while still retaining an acoustic vibe.

I had very little problem with the sound on this one, until the second half. When the full band joined in, Beck's vocals were drowned out a bit by all the instruments, compared to before. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program for all the songs from "The Golden Age" on to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments. So even if you had this concert already, this version sounds better.

By the way, here are the covers: "Kangaroo," "Love," "Do You Realize," "Magnolia," "She Thinks I Still Care," "No Expectations," "Sleepless Nights," and "Sunday Morning." Note that I added a bunch of the cover versions from this exact concert to the stray tracks album I made for this time period. Oh, and there's a very strange "goth version" of "Loser" that's almost unrecognizable.

This album is just a few seconds shy of two hours long.

01 talk (Beck)
02 Guess I'm Doing Fine (Beck)
03 talk (Beck)
04 Kangaroo (Beck)
05 talk (Beck)
06 The Cherry Blossom Song (Beck)
07 talk (Beck)
08 Lost Cause (Beck)
09 talk (Beck)
10 Nobody's Fault but My Own [Harmonium Version] (Beck)
11 talk (Beck)
12 Love (Beck)
13 talk (Beck)
14 Do You Realize (Beck)
15 Asshole (Beck)
16 talk (Beck)
17 Debra (Beck)
18 talk (Beck)
19 Magnolia (Beck)
20 talk (Beck)
21 She Thinks I Still Care (Beck)
22 talk (Beck)
23 Side of the Road (Beck)
24 Round the Bend (Beck)
25 No Expectations (Beck)
26 talk (Beck)
27 Sleepless Nights (Beck)
28 talk (Beck)
29 The Golden Age (Beck)
30 talk (Beck)
31 Dead Melodies (Beck)
32 It's All in Your Mind (Beck)
33 talk (Beck)
34 Already Dead (Beck)
35 talk (Beck)
36 Ship in the Bottle (Beck)
37 Canceled Check (Beck)
38 talk (Beck)
39 We Live Again (Beck)
40 talk (Beck)
41 Loser [Goth Version] (Beck)
42 Little One (Beck)
43 Sexx Laws (Beck)
44 Get Real Paid (Beck)
45 Nicotine and Gravy (Beck)
46 talk (Beck)
47 Sunday Morning (Beck)
48 Lazy Flies (Beck)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dgh37

Luckily, the cover art is a photo from this exact concert, the only one I could find. From left to right, that's Joey Waronker, Smokey Hormel, JMJ, and Beck. There was one more band member, Greg Kurstin, who is not shown in this cover.

Bonnie Raitt - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: BBC 4 Sessions, Stoke Newington Town Hall, London, Britain, 6-17-2013

I've posted three BBC albums by Bonnie Raitt, all of them unreleased concerts with a band. Here's a fourth one, also an unreleased concert with a band. This is also the last one that I know of, at least up until now (2024).

The previous BBC concert took place in 2003, so this is ten years later, with many different songs. She was touring to support her 2012 album "Slipstream." Naturally, there are a lot of songs from that.

I'm glad to say the sound quality is excellent. For once, I hardly had to make any edits, other than breaking the banter into separate tracks. 

The songs are mostly what you'd expect, but she finished with a cover of the Elvis Presley hit "A Big Hunk o' Love," which she's never put on an album.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
02 Used to Rule the World (Bonnie Raitt)
03 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
04 Right Down the Line (Bonnie Raitt)
05 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
06 Thing Called Love (Bonnie Raitt)
07 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
08 Million Miles (Bonnie Raitt)
09 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
10 Love Has No Pride (Bonnie Raitt)
11 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Nick of Time (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
14 Marriage Made in Hollywood (Bonnie Raitt)
15 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
16 Love Me like a Man (Bonnie Raitt)
17 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
18 I Can't Make You Love Me (Bonnie Raitt)
19 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
20 A Big Hunk o' Love (Bonnie Raitt)
21 talk (Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16576793/BONNRITT2013BBSssonsVlum4BB4SssonsNwngtnTwnHllStkeBrtin__6-17-2013_atse.zip.html

There's a video of this concert on YouTube the last I checked. The cover photo is a screenshot taken from that video.

Fleetwood Mac - Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, TN, 10-12-1982

I recently decided I wanted a concert recording from Fleetwood Mac's 1982 tour. This was the last tour with the band's most popular "Rumours" line-up all the way until 1997. So I came up with this one.

There's a disc of live recordings from this tour on the 2016 super deluxe edition of the band's 1982 album "Mirage." However, there are some problems with it. The songs come from two concerts (in Los Angeles) instead of one, and they're in a seemingly random order. Also, many songs played each night on the tour weren't included, and all the banter was cut out. I wanted a full concert with all the songs and banter, in the correct order, with the best possible sound. I looked around and found this Memphis concert was the only soundboard bootleg from the tour. (An Oakland concert from this tour is supposedly a soundboard, but in my opinion it's just an average audience boot.) So this is what I worked with.

However, there were some audio problems with it. The biggest was the lead vocals were down in the mix, a lot more on some songs than others. I used the audio editing program UVR5 to fix that. Also, the cheering at the end of each song had an annoying buzzing sound in it every single time. So I generally turned that way down and used the cheering from the super deluxe edition live tracks instead, while keeping shouted thank yous and things like that. The cheering was also really quiet, as it often is with soundboards. So at the same time I made sure to make it a lot louder.

Also, the band played the same exact songs in the same order every night of this tour, so it was easy to see that three songs were missing from the bootleg: "Love in Store," "Not That Funny," and "I'm So Afraid." By luck, the super deluxe edition live disc included all of those, so I used those versions. 

But also, parts of two other songs were missing. About the first minute of "Second Hand News" was gone, as well as the first minute of "Landslide." Neither of those were on the super deluxe edition live disc. So instead I resorted to using the Oakland audience boot for those. I removed the crowd noise on those parts using the MVSEP audio editing program so the sound would fit with the rest. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Also, about five seconds of "Sisters of the Moon" was missing in the middle of the song. Luckily, it was in an instrumental riff section, so I was able to patch that up with music from elsewhere in the song. So that one has "[Edit]" in the title too.

Previously, this Memphis concert recording wasn't very popular due to the sound flaws and missing songs and sections of songs and so forth. But I feel it's sounding really great now. In my opinion, this now has to be the best recording from the band's 1982 tour, even more than the songs on the super deluxe edition, since this is a complete concert with essentially the same sound quality.

The band did a really long tour in 1979 and 1980 to support their 1989 album "Tusk." That resulted in a live album, simply called "Live." But that tour was a disaster filled with the typical drug and ego problems of famous bands. It nearly broke up the band. Key band members were often so high they were barely functional on stage. The 1982 tour was much more professionally done, resulting in better music. So I think this is better than the "Live" album too.

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 Second Hand News [Edit] (Fleetwood Mac)
02 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
03 The Chain (Fleetwood Mac)
04 Don't Stop (Fleetwood Mac)
05 Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)
06 Oh Well, Part 1 (Fleetwood Mac)
07 Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)
08 Brown Eyes (Fleetwood Mac)
09 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
10 Eyes of the World (Fleetwood Mac)
11 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
12 Gypsy (Fleetwood Mac)
13 Love in Store (Fleetwood Mac)
14 Not That Funny (Fleetwood Mac)
15 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
16 Never Going Back Again (Fleetwood Mac)
17 Landslide [Edit] (Fleetwood Mac)
18 Tusk (Fleetwood Mac)
19 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
20 Sara (Fleetwood Mac)
21 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
22 Hold Me (Fleetwood Mac)
23 You Make Loving Fun (Fleetwood Mac)
24 I'm So Afraid (Fleetwood Mac)
25 Go Your Own Way (Fleetwood Mac)
26 Blue Letter (Fleetwood Mac)
27 Sisters of the Moon [Edit] (Fleetwood Mac)
28 Songbird (Fleetwood Mac)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mkgpa

The cover photo shows four out of the five band members in concert in 1982. Drummer Mick Fleetwood is the one not shown. I don't know exactly where and when the photo was taken.

Richard Thompson - The Fairport Convention Era - Home Concert, London, Britain, 9-27-2020

In 2020, the worst year of the Covid pandemic, Richard Thompson performed a few home concerts that were broadcast over the Internet. I could be wrong, but I believe I've already posted all but one of them at this blog. Here, finally, is the last one. 

Richard Thompson was a member of Fairport Convention from 1967 to 1971, the most celebrated years of the band's long musical history. For this solo acoustic home concert, he decided to perform just songs from his Fairport Convention era. I'm not aware of any other concert where he had this exclusive focus, this this is a special treat for both Richard Thompson solo and Fairport Convention fans.

The reason I've never posted this before is because when the concert happened, it was one of those "pay to view" deals. I don't want to deny Thompson of a revenue stream, especially considering it's become increasingly hard for musicians to make a living. But I figure enough time has passed, and I checked the download page for this, and it's defunct. There's no way to pay for it. (By the way, if anyone has any more of these types of "pay to view" shows from artists that are also expired, please let me know so I can help share them.) 

Thompson performed the concert with just his acoustic guitar. Because it was in his home, there was no audience. However, his girlfriend Zara Phillips, who is a talented musician in her own right, joined him near the end of the concert to sing song harmony vocals. He largely played the songs in chronological order of the years the songs were recorded. However, he saved up some harmony one for the end with Phillips.

This concert is especially interesting because Thompson only sang on a minority of songs when he was in Fairport Convention, since the band had other sings, especially Sandy Denny. But in this concert, he sang some songs in public for the very first time that were sang by Denny and others, in order to show off a full picture of the band in that era. He also played a few songs from his first solo album, "Henry the Human Fly" from 1972, apparently since he linked that with the Fairport years in his mind.

There's a lot of interesting banter between songs. In recent years especially, Thompson has an annoying habit of coughing quite a lot when he's on stage. (I'm guessing this is related to a stuttering problem he's had his whole life.) So I edited out most of the coughs.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (Richard Thompson)
02 Jack O'Diamonds (Richard Thompson)
03 talk (Richard Thompson)
04 One Sure Thing (Richard Thompson)
05 talk (Richard Thompson)
06 She Moves through the Fair (Richard Thompson)
07 talk (Richard Thompson)
08 Who Knows Where the Time Goes (Richard Thompson)
09 talk (Richard Thompson)
10 Reynardine (Richard Thompson)
11 talk (Richard Thompson)
12 Matty Groves (Richard Thompson)
13 talk (Richard Thompson)
14 The Deserter (Richard Thompson)
15 talk (Richard Thompson)
16 Crazy Man Michael (Richard Thompson)
17 talk (Richard Thompson)
18 Sir Patrick Spens (Richard Thompson)
19 talk (Richard Thompson)
20 Sloth (Richard Thompson)
21 talk (Richard Thompson)
22 Now Be Thankful (Richard Thompson)
23 talk (Richard Thompson)
24 Roll Over Vaughan Williams (Richard Thompson)
25 talk (Richard Thompson)
26 The Poor Ditching Boy (Richard Thompson)
27 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
28 I Still Miss Someone (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
29 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
30 Gone, Gone, Gone (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
31 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
32 Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
33 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
34 Genesis Hall (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
35 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
36 Meet on the Ledge (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
37 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16559256/RICHRDTHMPSN12020gTFirprtCnvntinEraHmCncrtLndnBitin__9-27-2020_atse.zip.html

I used a promotional advertisement for the cover. The only change I made was that I swapped the text at the bottom.

Dwight Twilley - Moon Shadow, Atlanta, GA, 6-17-1984

Dwight Twilley is a frequently overlooked and underrated rocker. He's best known for two Top Twenty hits in the U.S., "I'm on Fire" in 1975 and "Girls" in 1984. But he had a long and fruitful music career before dying in 2023 at the age of 72. He released dozens of albums, but he had lots of trouble with his record companies, so they never got the attention they deserved. 

I believe there are only two official live albums from his long career. "Live from Agora" was recorded very early in his career, in 1976. "Live: All Access" was recorded relatively late, in 2006. So I figured it would be nice to have one from the middle of his career, when he arguably was in his prime.

I've come across very few bootlegs from him, and this one seemed to be the best and most popular. However, it had one very serious flaw: the lead vocals were way, way down in the mix. But that's something I could fix, so I did, using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This mostly consists of originals, including his two hits, "I'm on Fire" and "Girls." So it's a good introduction to his music, almost like a best of collection. It ends with two classic covers.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 talk (Dwight Twilley)
02 Little Bit of Love (Dwight Twilley)
03 T.V. (Dwight Twilley)
04 Betsy Sue (Dwight Twilley)
05 talk (Dwight Twilley)
06 Long Lonely Nights (Dwight Twilley)
07 Jungle (Dwight Twilley)
08 I'm on Fire (Dwight Twilley)
09 talk (Dwight Twilley)
10 You Can Change It (Dwight Twilley)
11 Runaway (Dwight Twilley)
12 Looking for the Magic (Dwight Twilley)
13 Don't You Love Her (Dwight Twilley)
14 Somebody to Love (Dwight Twilley)
15 Band Introductions (Dwight Twilley)
16 talk (Dwight Twilley)
17 Girls (Dwight Twilley)
18 C.C Rider - Jenny Jenny (Dwight Twilley)
19 Money [That's What I Want] (Dwight Twilley)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16541817/DWIGHTTWLLY1984MonShdwAtlntGA__6-17-1984_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Twilley comes from an appearance on the "American Bandstand" TV show in March 1984.

The Allman Brothers Band - Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 1-5-1980

Today (April 18, 2024), another musical legend passed away. This time, it was Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band. He was a key lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and songwriter in the band from its inception in 1969 until 2001. As I often do in such occasions, I wanted to post some music to pay tribute. I've already posted a ton of stuff by the Allman Brothers Band, but I decided this unreleased soundboard concert fits the bill.

One reason I don't post more live concerts from certain musical acts is because so many full concerts have already been officially released by them already. That's definitely the case with the Allman Brothers Band. There's a particular focus on their indisputably greatest era, the early 1970s (especially when Duane Allman was still alive). But the band had other peaks during their long musical career, and some have few to no official live albums to represent them.

The late 1970s are one such time. The Allman Brothers Band broke up in 1976 due to the usual drug and ego problems faced by famous musical acts. But in 1979, they reunited (with slightly different personnel) and put out the album "Enlightened Rogues." Personally, I really like it, and consider it almost as good as their late 1960s and early 1970s stuff. But they were way out of step with the music times, with disco and punk and new wave and so on. They put out a couple more albums in the early 1980s that weren't nearly as good, so the era tends to get overlooked. But for a while, in 1979 and 1980, the band was rejuvenated and musically inspired.

This is also a particularly good time to highlight Dickey Betts, because he played a large role in the band in the late 1970s. It took a while to develop his singing and songwriting chops. He didn't sing lead on an Allman Brothers Band album until 1972's "Eat a Peach," with "Blue Sky." But by "Enlightened Rogues" he dominated, writing five songs on the album compared to only one song by the band's other big songwriter, Gregg Allman. (Two other songs were covers.)

For some reason, this concert was professionally filmed and recorded, though there doesn't seem to have been any official release as a result. One can find the film footage on YouTube, but it's pretty low-res, and in black and white. 

Overall, the sound quality is excellent, like an official album. However, there were problems with two songs (which is why both have "[Edit]" in their names). For "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," a chunk of the song is missing. (It's near the end, at least eight minutes into it.) I don't know how much is missing, but it could be a few minutes. I did an edit to try to hide the missing section, while keeping as much of the music as I could. For "Whipping Post," only a few seconds were missing. But unfortunately those few happened during a vocal line that wasn't repeated elsewhere. So I found a different soundboard recording of the song from 1979 and used that to patch in the missing bit.

If you haven't heard "Enlightened Rogues" before, this is a good way to get into it. It's a low-key album, without lots of long solos, but the songwriting and performance is very solid. Tracks 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9 come from it.

This album is two hours and 31 minutes long.

01 Don't Want You No More - It's Not My Cross to Bear (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Can't Take It with You (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Blue Sky (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Blind Love (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Crazy Love (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Just Ain't Easy (Allman Brothers Band)
08 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Try It One More Time (Allman Brothers Band)
10 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
11 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
12 Southbound (Allman Brothers Band)
13 Jessica [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
14 Whipping Post [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
15 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
16 Pegasus - Drums - Pegasus [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
17 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
18 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
19 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Allman Brothers Band)
20 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
21 Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jnZBq

The cover photo shows Gregg Allman on keyboards on the left and Dickey Betts on guitar on the right. This actually is a Photoshopped merging of two photos. Both were taken in Oakland, California, on May 17, 1979. The one of Allman had someone else standing right where I put Betts, so the size and placement and such should be roughly correct.

Electric Light Orchestra - Zoom Tour Live, Stage 36, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA, 4-24-2001

In 1986, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) called it quits. Jeff Lynne, the band's lead singer and songwriter, went on to produce many albums and occasionally released an album of his own. In 2001, he put out a new ELO album, "Zoom." The plan was to tour to support the album, but ticket sales were below expectations, so the tour was cancelled. However, he did one full-length concert and had it filmed. It was later released as a DVD called "Zoom Tour Live." But it was never released in full in any audio format. I'm filling that gap by posting it here.

Note that I said it was never released "in full" in any audio format. In 2013, the album "Electric Light Orchestra Live" was released, consisting of highlights from this concert. But it was only 50 minutes long. That means an entire hour of the concert was left out.  

Note that four songs from the album, "Twilight," "Sweet Talkin' Woman," "Secret Messages," and "Confusion," weren't included on the DVD. So naturally I've included them here. However, there were still two problems. One, I didn't have an accurate complete set list, so I didn't know exactly where to insert these. I ultimately decided to bunch them together in the middle, since they didn't fit well either at the beginning or the end. The second problem was that there was no banter included with these four songs. There was nothing I could do about that.

Two more songs, "Rock 'n' Roll Is King" and "All She Wanted," weren't included in either the DVD or the live album. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have been bootlegged either, so they're not here at all.

When the ELO album "Zoom" came out in 2001, some people claimed that it was misleading to call it an ELO album, because Lynne pretty much did all the singing and played almost every instrument on every song. Only one other previous member of ELO, keyboardist Richard Tandy, played on the album, and he only played on one song. But Tandy played on all the songs in this concert, including the seven songs from "Zoom." And due to the necessity of having a band to perform a concert, this sounds different than "Zoom," carefully put together in the studio basically by one person.

This album is an hour and 52 minutes long.

01 Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra)
02 Evil Woman (Electric Light Orchestra)
03 Showdown (Electric Light Orchestra)
04 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
05 Strange Magic (Electric Light Orchestra)
06 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
07 Livin' Thing (Electric Light Orchestra)
08 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
09 Alright (Electric Light Orchestra)
10 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
11 Lonesome Lullaby (Electric Light Orchestra)
12 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
13 Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra)
14 Confusion (Electric Light Orchestra)
15 Twilight (Electric Light Orchestra)
16 Secret Messages (Electric Light Orchestra)
18 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
17 Sweet Talkin' Woman (Electric Light Orchestra)
19 Turn to Stone (Electric Light Orchestra)
20 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
21 Just for Love (Electric Light Orchestra)
22 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
23 10538 Overture (Electric Light Orchestra)
24 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
25 Easy Money (Electric Light Orchestra)
26 Mr. Blue Sky (Electric Light Orchestra)
28 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
27 Ma-Ma-Ma Belle (Electric Light Orchestra)
30 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
29 One Summer Dream (Electric Light Orchestra)
31 Tightrope (Electric Light Orchestra)
32 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
33 State of Mind (Electric Light Orchestra)
34 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
35 Can't Get It Out of My Head (Electric Light Orchestra)
36 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
37 Moment in Paradise (Electric Light Orchestra)
38 Ordinary Dream (Electric Light Orchestra)
39 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
40 Shine a Little Love (Electric Light Orchestra)
41 Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
42 Roll Over Beethoven (Electric Light Orchestra)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kbs85

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

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1982-1992

I'm gradually moving forward chronologically with BBC albums by the British band Squeeze. The first one was a collection of BBC studio sessions, then the next three were BBC concerts. Now, with this fifth album in the series, it's back to another collection of BBC studio sessions.

It seems Squeeze didn't do studio sessions for the BBC very often during this era, because this album deals with a ten-year time period. The first four tracks are from a 1982 session, then there's a big time jump to a 1989 session for the next four tracks. That's followed by a single song from 1990, "Another Nail in My Heart," which comes from an appearance on a BBC TV show. Finally, the last four songs are from a 1992 session.

Virtually all the songs here are released, from the album "The Complete BBC Sessions." The sole exception is that sole song from 1990, "Another Nail in My Heart," which is unreleased.

Oddly, the band seemed to avoid playing hits for the 1982 and 1989 sessions. But the 1992 session was composed entirely of older hits, done in acoustic styles.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Onto the Dance Floor (Squeeze)
02 Elephant Girl (Squeeze)
03 I Can't Hold On (Squeeze)
04 The Apple Tree (Squeeze)
05 She Doesn't Have to Shave (Squeeze)
06 Footprints in the Frost (Squeeze)
07 Is That Love (Squeeze)
08 Melody Motel (Squeeze)
09 Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
10 Take Me, I'm Yours (Squeeze)
11 Up the Junction (Squeeze)
12 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell] (Squeeze)
13 Tempted (Squeeze)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16527319/SQUZE1982-1992BBSssonsVlum5_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a promo photo from 1988. I don't know other details.