Covered: Van McCoy, Best Of: 1962-1985

Here's another artist for my "Covered" series. To remind you, this highlights the talents of songwriters by collecting cover versions of their songs. This time, the focus is on Van McCoy.

These days, McCoy is probably seen by many as a one-hit wonder, because he had one huge hit under his own name: "The Hustle." This instrumental was a huge hit in 1975. It went to Number One on the main U.S. singles chart, as well as on the soul chart. It reached at least the Top Ten in most other countries as well, including hitting Number Three in Britain. 

That was his only Top 40 hit in the U.S., so technically that makes him a "one-hit wonder" in that country. But he did have other hits in other countries. For instance, he had three more Top 40 hits in Britain. But more important, he had a very long and successful career as a songwriter and producer. The focus here will be just on the songwriting part though.

 

McCoy was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940. He started playing piano and singing in a church choir at a young age. He began writing songs at the age of 12. Eventually, he would have 700 of his songs recorded and released by himself or other musical artists. He started to study psychology at Howard University, but dropped out in 1960 to pursue a music career. 

 

He formed his own record company from the very start. He had a little success with his own recordings. His first single, "Mr. D.J.," was a minor hit in 1960. But he soon found more success writing and producing songs for others. He mostly concentrated on that, though he continued to release singles under his own name. His first really big hit as a songwriter was "Baby, I'm Yours." Singer Barbara Lewis took it to the Top Ten in 1965. He continued to write many more hits in the 1960s and 1970s. I've included the ones I liked the best here. Note these aren't necessarily all the biggest hits on the charts.

 

In the 1970s, he began focusing more on his own career. In the 1960s, he only released one album under his own name. But in the 1970s, he released ten. His solo career really took over after his 1975 hit "The Hustle." But he continued writing and producing songs for others as well. Unfortunately, his career was cut short, because he died of a heart attack on June 29, 1979, at the age of 39.

 

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more. It's surprisingly detailed compared to other similar entries:

 

Van McCoy - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 Stop the Music (Shirelles)
02 Getting Mighty Crowded (Betty Everett)
03 Giving Up (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 Baby, I'm Yours (Barbara Lewis)
05 It’s Starting to Get to Me Now (Irma Thomas)
06 Where Does That Leave Me Now (Nancy Wilson)
07 Before and After (Chad & Jeremy)
08 Let It All Out (O'Jays)
09 Stop and Get a Hold on Myself (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 When You're Young and in Love (Marvelettes)
11 You're Gonna Make Me Love You (Sandi Sheldon)
12 The Way to a Woman’s Heart (Billy T. Soul)
13 I Get the Sweetest Feeling (Jackie Wilson)
14 So Soon (Aretha Franklin)
15 Lost and Found (Kenny Carlton)
16 Nothing Worse than Being Alone (Ad Libs)
17 Right on the Tip of My Tongue (Brenda & the Tabulations)
18 Let Me Down Easy (Derrick Harriott)
19 The Hustle (Van McCoy)
20 This Is It (Melba Moore)
21 Heavy Love (David Ruffin)
22 Baby Don't Change Your Mind (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
23 Sweet Bitter Love (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pgC1na27

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/6J8Pg2jDSyrxSmE/file

The cover photo dates to 1975. I assume it's from an awards ceremony, but I don't know the details. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Elvis Presley - International Hotel, Las Vegas, NV, 8-24-1969, Late Show

Once upon a time, Elvis Presley was arguably the biggest music star in the world. But I've noticed his fame is fading faster than that of others from his era, as people who grew up with him keep dying. His peak was before my time too, and I surmise it helped a lot to have lived through those years to fully understand what a groundbreaking musical act he was at the time. While I'm not a huge Presley fan, I do want to post some things that can help people appreciate why he was so famous in the first place. I previously posted highlights from his 1968 comeback TV special, which was one of the pinnacles of his musical career. This concert represents another musical peak for him.

Presley had a great music career in the 1950s, but squandered most of the 1960s starring in a bunch of bad B-movies. However, the 1968 comeback TV special I mentioned above showed that he was musically revitalized and ready for something new. He followed that with the studio album "From Elvis in Memphis" in June 1969, which was a big critical and commercial success. Rolling Stone Magazine has rated this as one of the top 500 albums of all time.

After that, he wanted to try performing concerts again. Aside from the brief concerts he did in front a small studio audience for his 1968 comeback special, he hadn't performed a concert since 1961. But demand was very high now that he was suddenly hot again, with a new hit album and hit singles. In May 1969, the brand-new International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, booked Presley for fifty-seven shows over four weeks (usually twice a night), beginning July 31 and running until early September. His previous backing musicians declined to participate, afraid of losing the lucrative session work they had in Nashville. Instead, Presley found new, high quality accompaniment, led by lead guitarist James Burton.

These new concerts were a huge success. The hotel soon gave him a five-year contract in which he would play there each February and August, at an annual salary of $1 million. That was a remarkable sum for that era. He would go on to perform concerts frequently in the 1970s, instead of making more movies (until his death in 1977). 

His first run of concerts in Las Vegas in August 1969 was his best. He was very excited to be performing again, and to be received so well, so he was at the top of his game. Also, his music still leaned on rock and soul. Just one year later, his music would shift to more middle-of-the-road pop. Many of the concerts from this month have been officially released, including some box sets. But after some digging, I found this one which remains unreleased, yet has ideal soundboard sound quality. (All the shows were professionally recorded for a live album.) 

Most of the songs were hits from the 1950s and early 1960s, or covers of classics (including a version of "Words" by the Bee Gees, released the year before). However, he included two new hit songs. "In the Ghetto" was released in April 1969, and went all the way to Number Three in the U.S. singles chart, his first Top Ten hit since 1963. But "Suspicious Minds," released as a single just two days after this concert, did even better. It would go all the way to Number One, becoming his 14th and last Number One hit in the U.S. Rolling Stone Magazine would later rank it as one of the top 100 songs of all time.

If you want just one live album by Presley, I would suggest this one.

Here's an interesting quote from a "Newsweek" review from his first month of concerts in 1969:

"Dressed in a chic black tunic and bell bottoms that matched his long but neatly combed black-tinted hair. Elvis Presley stepped onstage last week at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and launched into the driving beat of 'Blue Suede Shoes'. The audience of 2,000, most of them over 30, roared and squealed in nostalgic appreciation. In spite of his updated look, Elvis hadn't changed at all in the nearly nine years since his last personal appearance. Shaking, gyrating and quivering, he again proved himself worthy of his nickname, 'The Pelvis.' Through nervousness caused him to sing 'Love my, me tender' for 'Love Me Tender', the pasty-faced enchanter quickly settled down to work his oleaginous charms, backed by a 30-piece orchestra, a five-man combo and a chorus of seven. Oozing the sullen sexuality that threw the America into a state of shock in the 50's, he groaned and swiveled through a medley of 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Don't Be Cruel', 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'All Shook Up' and 'Hound Dog'. It was hard to believe he was 34 and no longer 19 years old."

(By the way, I had to look up the word "oleaginous." Can you imagine a news magazine using a word like that in today's dumbed-down media environment? Anyway, it basically means "oily.") 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis Presley)
02 talk (Elvis Presley)
03 I Got a Woman (Elvis Presley)
04 talk (Elvis Presley)
05 All Shook Up (Elvis Presley)
06 talk (Elvis Presley)
07 Love Me Tender (Elvis Presley)
08 talk (Elvis Presley)
09 Jailhouse Rock - Don't Be Cruel (Elvis Presley)
10 Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley)
11 talk (Elvis Presley)
12 Hound Dog (Elvis Presley)
13 I Can't Stop Loving You (Elvis Presley)
14 Johnny B. Goode (Elvis Presley)
15 talk (Elvis Presley)
16 Baby, What You Want Me to Do (Elvis Presley)
17 Runaway (Elvis Presley)
18 Are You Lonesome Tonight (Elvis Presley)
19 Words (Elvis Presley)
20 Yesterday - Hey Jude (Elvis Presley)
21 talk (Elvis Presley)
22 In the Ghetto (Elvis Presley)
23 talk (Elvis Presley)
24 Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley)
25 talk (Elvis Presley)
26 Can't Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zLt7DwcT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/cXKfFw3k2drNVGR/file

I found two good photos I wanted to use for the cover. I couldn't decide which one I liked more, so I decided to use both. Both of them are from a 

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1969-1971

If you think I've posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" for Lulu, you're not wrong. I recently discovered a ton of Lulu's BBC material that I'd missed before. In fact, I found so much that previously I'd posted four volumes, but now I'll be posting a total of nine! The vast majority of the new stuff is from the 1970s, especially 1975, but there is some music from the late 1960s. There are so many changes that I got rid of the old "Volume 4" and I'm replacing it with this one. I'd guess about half of the songs on this revamped volume are new.

Note also that I radically overhauled "Volume 3." I added a bunch of songs to that, and moved some other songs from that one to this one. So if you're interested in this at all, I strongly suggest you download the revised version of that album. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/10/lulu-bbc-sessions-volume-3-1968-1972.html

The first song is the only one not actually from the BBC. It's a duet with Johnny Cash, from Cash's own TV show. Most of the next bunch of songs are from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." Specifically, tracks 2 through 11 (with the exception of "Boom Bang a Bang," which was from a BBC TV special), plus track 19. These come from a musical associate named Marley, who sent me a bunch of performances from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." So a big thanks to him.

I mentioned in the previous volume that Lulu had her own BBC TV show from 1968 to 1975. I haven't been able to find many songs from her TV show from this time period, but I did find a handful from 1970. Those make up tracks 12 through 17. Track 18 ("Saved") is from another BBC TV show.

All of the performances here are officially unreleased. One snag with the new "Top of the Pops" tracks is that most of them had BBC DJs talking over the music. But I was able to remove the talking and keep the underlying music thanks to the X-Minus audio editing program. Those are the ones with " [Edit]" in their titles. I also got rid of the crowd noise as best I could for the songs that had that, mostly the TV show-sourced ones.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Games People Play (Lulu & Johnny Cash)
02 Oh Me, Oh My [I'm a Fool for You Baby] [Edit] (Lulu)
03 Sweep Around Your Own Back Door [Edit] (Lulu)
04 The Letter [Edit] (Lulu)
05 Boom Bang a Bang (Lulu)
06 Feelin' Alright [Edit] (Lulu)
07 Marley Purt Drive [Edit] (Lulu)
08 Mr. Bojangles [Edit] (Lulu)
09 Dirty Old Man [Edit] (Lulu)
10 Hum a Song [From Your Heart] [Edit] (Lulu)
11 Show Me [Edit] (Lulu)
12 Girl Talk (Lulu & Cass Elliot)
13 Sugar, Sugar (Lulu, Dudley Moore & Cass Elliot)
14 Keep the Customer Satisfied (Lulu)
15 Sweet Little Sixteen - Long Tall Sally - Blue Suede Shoes (Lulu)
16 Free the People (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)
17 Joy to the World (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)
18 Saved (Lulu)
19 Help [Edit] (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iCGFCJJK 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/uYCahxSGauK9xJd/file

The cover art photo comes from a BBC TV show in 1971, but I don't know the details.

King Crimson - Chesterfield Jazz Club, Chesterfield, Britain, 9-6-1969

Here's a 1969 concert from King Crimson. This band has had many personnel changes over the decades, with only band leader Robert Fripp staying as a constant. Out of all the band's variations, I like their first one the best, the band that recorded the 1969 album "In the Court of the Crimson King." This band was phenomenal live, mixing jazz with rock and helping to kick off the prog rock genre. In 1970 though, the band personnel completely changed, with only Fripp remaining. This is probably the best sounding full length concert from the 1969 era of this band.

Note that this concert has been officially released. But I'm posting it here because it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. No live recordings from the 1969 version of this band were released until decades later. In 1997, a four CD box set of live recordings was released, called "Epitaph." It contained a version of this concert, but it was missing a few songs, and the sound quality wasn't that good. Then in 2010, a much, much bigger box set was released, called "The Complete 1969 Recordings." That's where I sourced this concert from. It's the complete concert, and the sound quality is better. The box set it comes from is made up of 26 CDs! I figure that not many people are going to splurge for a box set that enormous, which is why I liberated this as a stand-alone album.

The sound quality is pretty good, though not excellent. It originally comes from an audience bootleg instead of a soundboard or FM radio broadcast. But honestly, sometimes audience boots can sound as good as many soundboards, and that's the case here. The one big snag is that there is almost no crowd noise. One interesting thing is that some of the songs are not from the band's debut album, "In the Court of the Crimson King." For instance, there is a cover of the Donovan song "Get Thy Bearings." Also, the last half hour is almost entirely instrumental music that doesn't come from the album. 

Note that this concert took place after the debut album was recorded, but about a month before it was released. So the audience probably didn't know any of these songs beforehand. 

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long. 

01 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson)
02 [Why Don't You Just] Drop In (King Crimson)
03 talk (King Crimson)
04 Epitaph (King Crimson)
05 Get Thy Bearings (King Crimson)
06 talk (King Crimson)
07 I Talk to the Wind (King Crimson)
08 The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson)
09 Mantra [Instrumental] (King Crimson)
10 Travel Weary Capricorn (King Crimson)
11 Improv [Instrumental] (King Crimson)
12 Mars [The Devil's Triangle] [Instrumental] (King Crimson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vM1jL7xd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/q8h3Y7nzttXztUO/file

The cover image is from a concert in Hyde Park, London, on July 5, 1969. The band opened for the Rolling Stones in front of a huge audience of at least a couple hundred thousand people. That's Robert Fripp on guitar on the left and Ian McDonald on saxophone on the right.

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 5: 1969-1970 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here’s another album of Dionne Warwick singing all the songs written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. Once again, thanks to Mike Solof for putting these albums together.

Warwick, David, and Bacharach had a great thing going from about 1963 until 1970. They had hit after hit after hit. The end of this album marks the end of that golden era. The three of them would still collaborate together, but much more intermittently. There are two more volumes dealing with those later years.

This album is 53 minutes long.

061 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Dionne Warwick)
062 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Dionne Warwick)
063 Dream Sweet Dreamer (Dionne Warwick)
064 Knowing When to Leave (Dionne Warwick)
065 Let Me Go to Him (Dionne Warwick)
066 Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets (Dionne Warwick)
067 Paper Mache (Dionne Warwick)
068 The Wine Is Young (Dionne Warwick)
069 Check Out Time (Dionne Warwick)
070 Make It Easy on Yourself (Dionne Warwick)
071 The Green Grass Starts to Grow (Dionne Warwick)
072 The Very First Person I Met [In California] (Dionne Warwick)
073 They Don't Give Medals to Yesterday's Heroes (Dionne Warwick)
074 Walk the Way You Talk (Dionne Warwick)
075 The Look of Love (Dionne Warwick)
076 Who Gets the Guy (Dionne Warwick)
077 Only Love Can Break a Heart (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nMDebKmr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4j7hPKMNNw5COdY/file

The cover photo shows her on the Engelbert Humperdinck TV Show some time in 1969. 

The Carpenters - Full Acappella, Volume 1: 1966-1976

Back in 2018, I posted an album by the Carpenters called "Near Acappella." It featured versions of their best songs done with very minimal instrumental backing, usually just vocals, bass, and drums. Lately, I've been collaborating with Fabio from Rio on some albums. He shares my appreciation for the vocals of Karen Carpenter. I don't know what it is, but there was something very special and unique about her singing. So Fabio wanted to make a "Full Acappella" album, and he did most of the heavy lifting to make it happen. It turns out we had enough material for two albums. Here's the first one.

The rest of this write-up here was written by Fabio:

Inspired by Paul's "Near Acappella" Carpenters collection from some years ago, I decided to check if there were "full acappella" versions of Carpenters songs available, since in recent years audio tools (with or without AI) have gotten better separating vocals from instrumentals. It turns out there are indeed a lot of acappella versions of Carpenters songs out there, so I selected the best ones I could find. At first, the album I made from the acappella versions I found made for a relatively short album. So Paul suggested "two or three more tracks." But I got excited with my "new toy" (the MVSEP online tool that makes it possible to segregate all kinds of tracks from a multitrack source) and ended up creating an additional dozen tracks myself, while also finding some more. That ended up being too much for a single disc. So, as per another suggestion by Paul, this became a "twofer", or two volume collection. These albums may be considered twin siblings of the earlier "Near Acappella" collection.

I got about half of the tracks from YouTube channels or Facebook fan groups, and the remaining were done with MVSEP. I used Audacity software to exclude instrumental breaks, intros, and outros, as well as cleaning up the occasional odd instrument (a drum roll, a sax riff), in order to keep this new collection truly "full acappella." All those that have "[Edit]" in their titles had some additional cleaning done by Paul or me (other than what was already done by whoever shared the acappella tracks originally).

We (myself and Paul) discussed a bit about pros and cons of including harmony vocals (by Richard and/or backing singers, or even occasionally a full choir, like in "Sing" and "Goodnight"). Paul was inclined to keep only Karen's leading vocals. But I argued that a full album with just Karen's voice, regardless of how beautiful it is, could sound a bit monotonous, while the harmony vocals help to provide additional color and variety. So, in the end, we decided to keep them.

---

There's more to Fabio's comments, including explanations of the sources of all the songs. Check out the Word file included in the download zip for that. However, here's one final comment from him, about the bonus track: 

While mining for tracks, I found two already done acappella versions of "We've Only Just Begun": one with only Karen's lead vocal track, and another with lead vocals and harmony vocals. Both are good - the "lead singing only" is more intimate and a bit melancholic, while the "lead vocals with harmonies" is quite exquisite. So, I suggested to Paul that we could keep them both, one at the official track list and another as a bonus track for Volume 1.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 I'll Be Yours [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
02 Goodnight (Carpenters)
03 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters)
04 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Baby It's You (Carpenters)
07 Rainy Days and Mondays [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 [A Place to] Hideaway (Carpenters)
09 Sometimes (Carpenters)
10 A Song for You (Carpenters)
11 Goodbye to Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 From the Heart Comes the Soul (Carpenters)
14 Aurora (Carpenters)
15 Only Yesterday [Edit] (Carpenters)
16 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)
17 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
18 Eventide (Carpenters)
19 Good Friends Are for Keeps (Carpenters)
20 Ordinary Fool [Edit] (Carpenters)

We've Only Just Begun [Harmony Vocals Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/En3Makbp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2L3B4h5poc7r7wm/file

I don't know anything about the cover image except it's Karen Carpenter "circa 1970." The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

The Rascals - Live on TV: 1966-1970

A few weeks ago (writing this in February 2026), I posted a concert that included a set by the Rascals (originally known as the Young Rascals). A frequent commenter here, Sax and Guitar, saw that and emailed me with an album he'd made of performances the Rascals did for various TV shows in the 1960s, and he suggested that I posted it. It turns out I'd already made an album like that that I'd just never gotten around to posting. (I have hundreds if not thousands of albums like that that I need to post. Sigh!) In fact, the songs on his version were basically exactly the same as mine, since we both went looking for the same things at YouTube. Thanks to his push, I decided to post my Rascals collection sooner rather than later, so here it is.

Before I say more, here's the concert I mentioned above, that includes a set by the Rascals: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2026/01/various-artists-khj-third-annual.html

That concert is a real treasure, because publicly available recordings of the Rascals performing live in the 1960s are rarer than hen's teeth. Besides that, all we seem to have from the 1960s are occasional TV appearances. Some TV shows had them lip-sync to records. But Sax and Guitar and I collected all the ones that were genuinely performed live.

All the performances here are unreleased. I used MVSEP to boost the vocals on songs where the vocals were low in the mix, which was most of them. Also, most of the songs had most or all of the applause at the ends cut off. So I edited the applause to bridge the songs together. Typically, the applause at the end of one song continues until the next song starts. 

Sax and Guitar wrote a nice little write-up meant to go with this album. It includes a short history of the band during this time period. I've included that as a Word file in the download zip.

Note that Sax and Guitar already has two other albums he's helping with, with hopefully more to come, knock on wood. Thanks to him for helping to get this album finished off. 

01 Good Lovin' (Rascals)
02 Mickey's Monkey - Love Lights [Turn On Your Lovelight] (Rascals)
03 I've Been Lonely Too Long - Come On Up (Rascals)
04 Since I Fell for You (Rascals)
05 A Girl like You (Rascals)
06 Groovin' (Rascals)
07 Do You Feel It (Rascals)
08 A Beautiful Morning (Rascals)
09 Carry Me Back (Rascals)
10 In the Midnight Hour (Tom Jones & the Rascals)
11 Glory, Glory (Rascals)
12 People Got to Be Free - Oh Happy Day (Rascals with Barbara McNair)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Ypr5L16V 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/P2jGus4SU9ctROL/file

The cover photo was selected by Sax and Guitar. I don't know the exact details about it, but I believe it's from 1967. I used Krea AI to improve the detail.

Covered: Shel Silverstein - Volume 1: 1963-1972

Here's the next songwriter in my Covered series: Shel Silverstein. To say Silverstein was a colorful character is putting it mildly. Among his many talents was songwriting. I've found enough good covers of his songs for two volumes. Here's the first one.

Silverstein was born in Chicago in 1930, and raised there. He went to college, then spent a few years in the U.S. army. After that, he started to get known for his cartoons published in magazines. He especially had many of his cartoons published in Playboy Magazine, from the 1950s into the 1970s. He developed another creative career as the author of children's books. He eventually sold 20 million books. His most acclaimed books include "The Giving Tree," "Where the Sidewalk Ends," and "A Light in the Attic." He also had success writing for plays, movies, and TV shows.

So he was a creative Renaissance Man. But out focus here is on his songwriting. He was a music performer too, and released many albums, with the first one coming out in 1959. But he had a gruff voice with limited range. Also, it seems he very rarely performed in public, probably because he had so many other creative projects going on to want to go on long tours. So he was much more successful having others cover his songs.

His songwriting career started fairly slowly. He only had a few successes for most of the 1960s. But that changed drastically in 1969, when Johnny Cash had a huge hit with "A Boy Called Sue." That was such an unusual song, with lots of comedy, that many other musical acts went looking for other songs he'd written. It turns out his biggest fans were the band Dr. Hook. Their debut album "Doctor Hook," released in 1972, consisted entirely of songs written by Silverstein. And their second album, "Sloppy Seconds," released later in 1972, also consisted entirely of his songs! Those albums gave Dr. Hook their first two big hits, "Sylvia's Mother" and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone."

That takes us to the end of 1972. I'll write more about him in the second and last volume.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Hey Nelly Nelly (Judy Collins)
02 In the Hills of Shiloh (Modern Folk Quartet)
03 25 Minutes to Go (Johnny Cash)
04 The Mermaid (Glen Yarbrough)
05 Boa Constrictor (Johnny Cash)
06 The Unicorn (Irish Rovers)
07 A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
08 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
09 One's on the Way (Loretta Lynn)
10 I Call That True Love (Dr. Hook)
11 The Taker (Kris Kristofferson)
12 Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball (Dr. Hook)
13 On Susan's Floor (Gordon Lightfoot)
14 Sylvia's Mother (Dr. Hook)
16 The Cover of Rolling Stone (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Vdghqyqe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/YfWSztH9v8E8ui0/file

The cover image is from 1972.

Spirit - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 3-6-1969, Late Show

In previous posts, I've lamented the lack of live recordings of Spirit during their peak years, 1967 to 1970, with worthy sound quality. But that's starting to change as I find a bit more. This one has some sound issues, but overall it's still one of their best live recordings from the 1960s.

This is the late show. I wonder if it's incomplete, because it didn't include any of their three best known songs up to that point in their career, "Fresh Garbage," "Mechanical World," and "I Got a Line on You." Perhaps some or all of those were played in the early show, and they didn't want to repeat themselves. Or this might be incomplete. It seems pretty short, but I believe they were the opening act for Ten Years After, and it does have what sounds like the beginning and the end.

The band started with an instrumental that I thought was just terrible, virtually unlistenable, which I just called "Intro." For two minutes, they simply hit the same chord over and over again, with nothing else happening. I cut it down to a mere seventeen seconds (which is why that has "[Edit]" in its title). At that length, it's fine. But at two minutes, it's an ordeal to hear. Strange. 

Anyway, another curious inclusion here is a song which I have titled "Boogie," but I don't know if that's the real name. I also don't know if it's a cover or an original. They explained that they had been touring with the likes of Canned Heat, and they'd heard a lot of boogie songs, so they felt compelled to try one out. If anyone has a better name for this song and/or knows anything more about it, please let me know.

As I mentioned above, the sound quality is pretty good, but not great. The three other Spirit concerts I've posted so far (from the Texas International Pop Festival in 1969, Boston in 1969, and the Fillmore West in 1970) sound better. But this is still worthy of listening to, in my book, especially since there's so little live recordings from this era. And they were interesting in concert, thanks in part to the jazz backgrounds of some band members.

This album is 33 minutes long.

01 talk (Spirit)
02 Intro [Instrumental] [Edit] (Spirit)
03 New Dope in Town (Spirit)
04 It Shall Be (Spirit)
05 Poor Richard (Spirit)
06 talk (Spirit)
07 Darlin' If (Spirit)
08 Aren't You Glad (Spirit)
09 Boogie (Spirit)
10 talk (Spirit)
11 Uncle Jack (Spirit)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ECjkTHtg

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/evOK830TvZYD03a/file

The cover photo was taken at a concert at the Palladium, in Birmingham, Michigan, in March, 1970. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. Also, there were a couple of large heads of audience members at the bottom, but they were blurry and washed out, and didn't look good. So I replaced them with other heads in the same spots, and added a couple more, so I could extend the image further down the bottom. 

From right to left: Randy California, Ed Cassidy, and Jay Ferguson. 

Jimi Hendrix - Northern California Folk-Rock Festival, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, CA, 5-25-1969

I haven't posted a lot of live music by Jimi Hendrix for a couple of reasons. For one, there are a ton of official live albums that have been released. And for another, there are lots of widely available bootlegs as well. I'd rather spend my time posting interesting things from lesser shared musical acts. But I'm making an exception here because I think I significantly improved the quality of this recording, as I will explain in a minute.

First though, I want to explain why I developed an interest in this particular Hendrix concert. I was trying to look up some information about Santana relating to the closing of the Fillmore West concerts I recently posted, and I came across the helpful www.santanamigos.com website. I happened to come across some quotes in it from Carlos Santana where he extensively praised this very Hendrix concert. Here are the quotes. This first one is from a 1994 interview:

"The first time I saw Jimi was at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds in San Jose. It was probably the most incredible concert I ever heard in my life. I have never heard him play better after that. The show was absolutely incredible. Jimi was at the peak of his art. At one moment he would get caught inside a proton or a neutron, and the next minute he would throw you to the Milky Way. I've never been exposed to that drastic form of expression. Somebody actually recorded it that day. I listen to it and I'm still blown away. You can hear all these waves of spirits crying through his guitar. We were like - 'Oh my God! How can he do this?' It was scary, I had never heard anybody express electric music the way he did that day. It was incredible to be assaulted with all these screaming winds. He would really control that instrument like a jazz player or a blues player would. It was like controlling a demon and making it sing."

He discussed this concert some more in a 1995 interview:

"I saw him at Santa Clara Fairgrounds in San Jose in '69 but I didn't get to talk to him then - I still didn't know him. I think that was the best concert that I ever heard him play. He had supreme confidence that day. There was nothing in his mind about business or chicks or anything that I could tell because he just came out like Michael Tyson, when Michael Tyson would knock guys [out] in three seconds. There's a certain 'stance'. That's what Miles Davis said: 'I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands, you know.' He had a certain stance, man. He was all over that Strat and had supreme confidence, that's all I can say."

After reading those quotes, I thought, "Wow, I really need to listen to a recording of this concert." After all, if there's someone who knows a thing or two about playing great lead guitar, it's Carlos Santana. So I found the bootleg recording he mentioned. 

However, I quickly realized there was a big problem with it. It's an audience bootleg, and it recorded Hendrix's lead guitar very nicely. But everything else was buried way back in the mix. The drums, bass, and especially the lead vocals were very hard to hear. In a way, this isn't so bad, since it allows one to hear Hendrix's amazing guitar work very clearly. Still, I tried to fix it. It turns out I couldn't do much to improve the drums or bass. The MVSEP program I used didn't detect enough for me to be able to adjust the volume. I did boost the drums some, but only in some sections of songs. Still, I figured that was an improvement.

However, it turns out I was able to make a massive change to Hendrix's vocals. They went from being almost inaudible to the expected volume level in most cases. In my opinion, this really improves the recording. It's still an audience boot, and it still has issues, but it's quite listenable now. 

Now, here's a little background about this concert, as I understand it. Hendrix played with the Experience. It was one of their last concerts, as they would break up a month later. These were the other acts that were supposed to perform at the festival: Jefferson Airplane, the Chambers Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Eric Burdon, Spirit, Canned Heat, Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Youngbloods, the Steve Miller Band, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Taj Mahal, Noel Redding, Lee Michaels, Blues Image, Santana, Elvin Bishop, Poco, People!, Lynn County, the Loading Zone, Sweet Linda Divine, Cat Mother, Doc Watson & New Lost City Ramblers. 

However, it seems not all of those acts actually appeared. There had been a "Northern California Folk-Rock Festival" in 1968, and that had gone pretty well, with a handful of big name musical acts performing. However, it turns out both Hendrix and Led Zeppelin were advertised to appear at this 1969 version despite not actually being contacted by the promoter, Bob Blodgett, to do so. Probably, that was a tactic to boost sales. This resulted in Led Zeppelin suing Blodgett, and they didn't perform. To safe face, at the last minute, Blodgett paid Hendrix $30,000 to perform. So luckily we got this recording. I haven't found any other recordings from the 1969 festival though. I did find an article from the time saying that Eric Burdon was a major cancellation, but he may have been the only other big name not to show. I've included that article in the download zip, since most of it talks about Hendrix's performance.

Also, another rock festival took place nearby over the same weekend, as kind of a hippie protest against Blodgett, called the Aquarian Festival. About 20,000 people attended that one, while about 60,000 people attended this one. Here's a link to another article that talks about that conflict:

The Northern California Folk Rock Festival 2 | Aquarian Family Festival in San Jose, CA | Music & Nightlife

It's not mentioned in that article, but I read elsewhere that the debacle over this festival basically ended Blodgett's career as a music promoter. Even though he ultimately did get Hendrix to perform, it wasn't enough to save his reputation due to the original false advertising he did.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from die-hard Hendrix fans, if they think Hendrix's performance here was really as exceptional as Carlos Santana says it was. I found another quote where Santana said he saw about eight or nine Hendrix concerts in total. Perhaps he was just the most impacted by seeing him for the first time?

By the way, I find it interesting that most of the last twenty minutes long was a medley that was mostly instrumental. And that included very early versions of two songs, "Message to Love" and "Room Full of Mirrors," that he would play a lot more in 1970. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Hear My Train A-Comin' (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Fire (Jimi Hendrix)
04 Drum Solo [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Spanish Castle Magic (Jimi Hendrix)
06 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
07 Red House (Jimi Hendrix)
08 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
09 I Don't Live Today (Jimi Hendrix)
10 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
11 Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
12 Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
13 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
14 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Jimi Hendrix)
15 Message to Love [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
16 Room Full of Mirrors (Jimi Hendrix)
17 Sunshine of Your Love [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
18 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] [Reprise] [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jN326S4x

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/mx8Ys4AuS35kU8A/file

The text at the top, plus the yellow framing, is from a concert poster for this concert. In the middle, I put a photo of Hendrix that also is from this exact concert. 

The Wikipedia entry for this festival is short and doesn't say much, but it has a nice version of the concert poster:

Northern California Folk-Rock Festival (1969) - Wikipedia 

Jimi Hendrix & Various Artists - Jimi Hendrix as Session Musician, Volume 3: 1969-1970

Here's the third and last album showcasing the session work by Jimi Hendrix, arguably the greatest lead guitarist of all time. This deals with the last two years of his life, 1969 and 1970.

By 1969, Hendrix was a big star. He loved performing live, and often dropped in as a guest in concerts put on by other musicians he liked, especially when they played in small clubs near where he lived. However, he still didn't guest on records that much, especially those that got released while he was alive. 

A couple examples of him doing this are "Yes I Need Someone" and "The Clown" by Eire Apparent. Hendrix actually produced the entire debut album by this band from Northern Ireland, and these are just two of the songs from it. Unfortunately, he mostly kept a low profile with his guitar playing on this album, with these two songs probably showing the most playing by him. His Experience band mates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell also played on many of the songs. The band broke up after that single album. 

Another song released in his lifetime was "Old Times, Good Times," which came out on the 1970 debut solo album by Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame), simply called "Stephen Stills." Hendrix and Stills formed a musical connection and often jammed with each other, but very little of it saw the light of day. "30 Dollar Fine" and "No-Name Jam (Instrumental)," and "White Nigger (High and Dry)" are all Stills songs with Hendrix that didn't get officially released until decades later. In fact, "White Nigger (High and Dry)" is still unreleased, probably due to song title, obviously now considered quite offensive.

A song that almost came out in Hendrix's lifetime is "The Everlasting First," released by Love. This came out at the very end of 1970, a couple of months after Hendrix's death. Hendrix had a natural bond with Arthur Lee, the lead singer and main songwriter of Love, due to both of them being Black men in a overwhelmingly Causasian rock world at the time. This song was cowritten by Hendrix and Lee. The two of them actually knew each other before either of them became famous. Hendrix even played guitar on a song written by Lee back in 1964. 

Generally speaking, the other songs here came out much later, on archival releases. Tracks 3 and 4 are from the "West Coast Seattle Boy" box set. Track 6 is from "The Experience Sessions." Track 10 is from "People, Hell and Angels." Track 13 is a jam session, and remains unreleased. Track 5, "Doriella Du Fontaine," is a curious case, because the lead vocals weren't added until 1973. That's from "Change the Beat: The Celluloid Records Story."

That just leaves the three bonus tracks. These all sound fine, despite the fact they're all still unreleased. But the reason I made them bonus tracks is because they actually are from concerts where Hendrix guested, and the theme here is him guesting with studio sessions. Perhaps someone could help me find enough songs for a full album (or albums?) of Hendrix being a guest star in concerts, then I could move these to that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, a lot of the recordings of his guest appearances have poor sound quality. "Baby's Gone Away" and "The Sky Is Crying" come from the Newport 69 Festival in Northridge, California. "Mother Earth" is from a concert at a club in London on September 16, 1970. I'm not sure, but I think that might be his last public performance, because he died of a drug overdose just two days later, on September 18, 1970. I don't remember why I put "[Edit]" since I did that a long time ago. But I think I cleaned up a lot of the audience noise (it being from an audience boot), and possibly boosted the vocals.

This album is 52 minutes long, not including the three bonus tracks.

01 30 Dollar Fine (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
02 Yes I Need Someone (Eire Apparent with Jimi Hendrix)
03 Instant Groove (King Curtis with Jimi Hendrix)
04 Mastermind (Larry Lee with Jimi Hendrix)
05 Doriella Du Fontaine (Lightnin' Rod with Jimi Hendrix & Buddy Miles)
06 Noel's Tune [Instrumental] (Noel Redding with Jimi Hendrix)
07 The Clown (Eire Apparent with Jimi Hendrix)
08 No-Name Jam [Instrumental] (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
09 The Everlasting First [Extended Version] (Love with Jimi Hendrix)
10 Mojo Man (Albert Allen & the Ghetto Fighters with Jimi Hendrix)
11 Old Times, Good Times (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
12 White Nigger [High and Dry] (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
13 Dreamin' [Instrumental] (Eric Oxendine with Jimi Hendrix & Richie Havens)

Baby's Gone Away (Jimi Hendrix with Buddy Miles & Lee Oskar)
Mother Earth [Edit] (Eric Burdon & War with Jimi Hendrix)
The Sky Is Crying (Buddy Miles with Jimi Hendrix & Lee Oskar)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/n4ipEFiN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SmqRzx0abYg8ATZ/file

The cover photo shows Jimi Hendrix with Stephen Stills, presumably in a recording studio. I don't know any details about where or when the picture is from. The original was in black and white, which I colorized with the help of the Kolorize program. It also was dark and murky. I ran this through the Krea AI program a couple of times until it looked a little better. 

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. 

Fleetwood Mac - Cue Club, Gothenburg, Sweden, 11-2-1969

I've delved very deeply into early Fleetwood Mac, posting 36 albums of their music from 1967 to 1971, so I don't know how I missed this one until now. This is peak Peter Green-era, with fantastic sound quality.

(A couple of years ago, I actually put one song "Gothenberg Improv" (which is just a guess at a title) from this exact concert on the album "Live and Rare, Volume 2," and yet I missed the whole concert somehow. Maybe I got that from some compilation and failed to find the rest of it, until a few days ago.)

This is a complete concert that either is a soundboard or was broadcast on Swedish radio at the time. Either way, the sound quality is as good as it gets for the era. Better still, the band was firing on all cylinders. Peter Green, the band's main singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist at the time, was at the height of his creative powers. (He would have increasing troubles in early 1970 and leave the band in the middle of that year.) At the time, the band had another lead guitarist, Danny Kirwan, and their guitar interplay was peaking here as well.

The band had released the hit album "Then Play On" a couple of months earlier, as well as the hit song "Oh Well, Part 1." But this concert also includes the hit song "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown)," which wouldn't be released until May 1970. It's possible this was the first time it was performed in concert. (Setlist.fm lists the first performance later in November, but it sometimes is incomplete.)

There was only one problem with this concert, and that has to do with the last song, "The Green Manalishi." The entire first three minutes were missing. The recording began right as the vocals part of the song ended, and a long instrumental jam began. I used another version (from the Warehouse in New Orleans in January 1970) for those three minutes. The last minute or so was missing as well. I used the same source to fix that also. So that's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long. 

01 Rattlesnake Shake (Fleetwood Mac)
02 Underway [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
03 World in Harmony [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
04 Red Hot Mama (Fleetwood Mac)
05 Got to Move (Fleetwood Mac)
06 Gothenburg Improv [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
07 Coming Your Way (Fleetwood Mac)
08 Stranger Blues (Fleetwood Mac)
09 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
10 Albatross [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
11 Oh Well, Part 1 (Fleetwood Mac)
12 The Green Manalishi [With the Two-Prong Crown] [Edit] (Fleetwood Mac) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jqYAECRo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NXXZ9uK3jSWqeVZ/file

The cover photo of Peter Green is from an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" BBC TV show (not to be confused with the radio show of the same name) at Lime Grove Studios, in London, on October 23, 1969. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Moby Grape - Rai Congrescentrum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2-12-1969

Here's a really nice sounding short live radio show by the American band Moby Grape, from 1969.

I recently posted the most complete version available of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. That contains a short set by the band Moby Grape. Hearing that made me want to hear more of them in concert in their 1960s prime. But then I remembered I'd gone down that road before, and the problem is there just isn't that much live stuff with worthy sound quality. I did previously find some bits and pieces, which I put together as the album "Live 1967." You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/moby-grape-live-1967.html

But I took a deeper dive to see if there was anything else I'd missed, and found this concert. The problem was the band didn't stay together for long. It was a gathering of five talented singer-songwriters, which meant five creative types all with their own agendas, so perhaps it wasn't surprising it didn't last. Skip Spence was the first to go after having a mental breakdown in 1968. Then, after the band did a short tour of Britain and the Netherlands in February 1969, bassist Bob Mosley shocked the rest of the band by quitting and joining the U.S. Marines. That left just three band members. They put out one album later in 1969, and then broke up. There were the almost inevitable later reunions, but I wanted a live album of them in their 1960s heyday.

Luckily for us, there's this recording, from that tour that took place just before Mosley left the band. It was recorded by a Dutch radio station, so the sound quality is generally much better than bootlegs of the band from that era. As I mentioned above, I've found bits and pieces, a couple of songs here and there, but this is the closest thing to a full concert from the band in the 1960s I could find, even though this also is relatively short. 

The sound quality was already pretty good. But I noticed the vocals were relatively low in the mix, so I fixed that with the help of the MVSEP audio editing program. For a couple of the songs, the vocals volume bounced around between loud and quiet somewhat, so I fixed that line by line. I believe this now sounds much better.

Strangely, two songs were performed twice, "Murder in My Heart for the Judge" and "Omaha." Also, there's no banter between songs at all. I'm guessing these are highlights chosen by the radio station from a longer concert. If they did an early and late show, which was common in that era, that could explain the repeats. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 I Am Not Willing (Moby Grape)
02 Trucking Man (Moby Grape)
03 Sitting by the Window (Moby Grape)
04 Fall on You (Moby Grape)
05 Murder in My Heart for the Judge (Moby Grape)
06 Miller's Blues (Moby Grape)
07 Omaha (Moby Grape)
08 Murder in My Heart for the Judge [Second Version] (Moby Grape)
09 If You Can't Learn from My Mistakes (Moby Grape)
10 Omaha [Second Version] (Moby Grape)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ktCpK8ch

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FSEgk1RFFxNrjD8/file

I couldn't find any good photos of the band in 1969. However, I found an interesting looking concert poster headlining the band from that year, specifically at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco in March. I did some cleaning up, especially at the bottom, cropping it there and adding some text.

Covered: Hank Williams, Volume 1: 1954-1995

It's time for more from my "Covered" series, highlighting widely covered songwriters. This one celebrates the music of Hank Williams, who has been called "the father of country music." I've found enough for two albums. Here's the first one.

There's no doubt that Williams was a pivotal musical figure. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, which is saying a lot, considering that magazine doesn't pay much attention to country music. Encyclopedia Britannica called him "country music's first superstar" and an "immensely talented songwriter and an impassioned vocalist." AllMusic.com said that he "established the rules for all the country performers who followed him and, in the process, much of popular music."

So far with this "Covered" series, I've generally selected songwriters from the rock and roll era, meaning 1955 and after. But Williams was from earlier. His recording lasted from 1947 to 1953. He died in 1953 at only the age of 29. His cause of death is controversial, but it seems he died of a heart attack caused by misuse of drugs and alcohol. 

I eventually want to go back and make "Covered" albums of songwriter greats like him from earlier eras. However, in Williams' case, his music often doesn't appeal to those who don't like country music. So instead of just going with the big hit versions of his songs, I made a concerted effort to pick covers that I liked but also often weren't country versions, or at least weren't hard-core country versions. So if you're not a big country music fan, you might still want to give this a try. There are some country versions early on, but less so as this album goes on, and even less so on the second volume. 

This album starts in 1954 and proceeds chronologically after that, so everything from here is after his death. In fact, Williams had a lot of success with people covering his songs during his life, but those generally are the hard core country type songs I've tried to avoid here. A pivotal cover was "Cold, Cold Heart" by Tony Bennett in 1951. Bennett was reluctantly convinced to cover it, doing it in a pop style. It was a Number One hit on the U.S. singles chart. This caused people in the music business to start to realize that Williams' songs could be popular outside of just the country music charts, and many covers followed. However, I didn't include Bennett's version or many other hit cover versions from that time period because I don't think they've dated well. But some songs from the time, including "Cold, Cold Heart," will appear on the second volume, done in more modern styles.

By the way, I have to say that I was surprised to find out that Williams co-wrote "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)." I had assumed that was a traditional New Orleans / Cajun song going way back. But Williams wrote it with Moon Mulligan, another country star, in 1952, basing the melody on a little-known traditional love song called "Grand Texas." His version was a massive hit, spending 14 weeks at Number One on the U.S. country singles chart. It also is his most covered song, with at least 500 recorded versions. Good luck going to New Orleans and not hearing it played a bunch of times!

Here's the Wikipedia entry about Williams, if you want to know more:

Hank Williams - Wikipedia 

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight (Tony Bennett)
02 Long Gone Lonesome Blues (Marty Robbins)
03 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Brenda Lee)
04 Moanin' the Blues (Marty Robbins)
05 Hey, Good Lookin' (Ray Charles)
06 Weary Blues from Waitin' (Vince Martin & Fred Neil)
07 Your Cheatin' Heart (Ray Charles)
08 Kaw-Liga (Charley Pride)
09 Settin' the Woods on Fire (Little Richard)
10 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Al Green)
11 Move It on Over (George Thorogood)
12 You Win Again (Rolling Stones)
13 Why Don't You Love Me like You Used to Do (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
14 I Saw the Light (Etta James)
15 Honky Tonk Blues (Huey Lewis & the News)
16 Mind Your Own Business (Saffire, the Uppity Blues Women)
17 Honky Tonkin' (The The)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CZJhCXUX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DLOTfNuLcZ1oCt7/file

I don't know what year the photo is from. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, Varsity Stadium, Toronto, Canada, 9-13-1969, Part 8: The Doors

This is the eighth and final album from the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. This one stars the Doors.

I've already discussed some thing about the Doors and their role in this festival in my write-ups for previous albums. For instance, I've mentioned how the festival's main promoter John Brower got desperate when he saw that the 1950s stars he'd booked for the festival weren't selling many tickets. In desperation, he decided to spend $25,000 to hire the Doors to be the headlining act. In order to do this, he resorted to borrowing the $25,000 from a man named Edjo, who was the leader of a biker gang. If the festival was a failure, he would be in fear of injury or even death.

Unfortunately, Brower made a big mistake in hiring the Doors, in terms of filling seats for the festival. In March 1969, the Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison was arrested in Miami, Florida for public indecency. Supposedly, he exposed his privates on stage. The other band members denied that, and it seems he only teased doing that. But there was a big backlash just the same. Many of their concerts were cancelled, and some of those that took place were poorly attended. 

Luckily for Brower, the last minute surprise of John Lennon performing at the festival saved his hide. He had at least $110,000 in expenses, mainly paying the other acts (with the Doors costing the most), but he made about $150,000 in ticket sales. So he was able to pay Edjo back. In fact, Edjo and his biker gang, the Vagabonds, were delighted by what happened. About 100 bikers rode their motorcycles with the Doors from the airport to the stadium where the festival took place. Then, when Lennon arrived a few hours later, they did a motorcade for him as well. 

As I mentioned in my write-up for Lennon's set, the emcee Kim Fowley had the brilliant idea of having everyone in the audience of 20,000 to hold up candles or lighters at the start of the set. This was apparently the first time this happened at a rock concert.

Brower later explained, "The only problem was that the bikers figured, 'Well that shit is okay for John Lennon, but we need to welcome the Doors with something real.' The next thing we knew, they had broken open a broom closet, took out all the sweeping brooms, took the fuel out of their Zippo lighters, torched them, and came out in front of the stage. You have to realize, Jim Morrison had a very powerful male personality and presence, so the bikers related to the Doors. They certainly weren't Beatles fans. It was absolutely nuts." 

As I also mentioned in a previous write-up, the Doors got to the festival several hours before they were due to perform, so they spent most of that time watching the other musical acts from the side of the stage. Many of these acts were the 1950s rock stars that the members of the Doors idolized when they were kids, and they were very impressed by what they saw and heard.  

As a result of all that, Morrison made a unique speech for him during the early part of "The End." He very rarely bantered between songs, but he wanted to say something about the festival. Here are his comments: "I can remember when rock and roll first came on the scene, and for me, it was a very liberating experience because it burst open whole new strange catacombs of wisdom that I couldn't remember and I didn't know about, and I couldn't see any equivalent for in my surroundings. And that's why, for me, this evening has been really a great honor to perform on the same stage with so many illustrious musical geniuses." 

D.A. Pennebaker was making a documentary about the festival, which was later released as the movie "Sweet Toronto." But Morrison refused to allow Pennebaker's film crew to record the Doors' set. In all likelihood, he was very cautious about recordings in the wake of the Miami incident earlier in the year. Already, he was looking to spend six months in prison. (He died in 1971 before the legal dispute could be resolved.) If some disaster happened on stage and it got recorded, he could have been in even more trouble. 

Unfortunately, it seems most of the excellent audio recordings of the concert were due to the recording work of Pennebaker's film crew. Since they didn't film the Doors, there's no soundboard-level audio recording of it either. Instead, all we have is an audience bootleg. But luckily, it's a pretty decent one, as audience bootlegs go. Furthermore, I used some of my usual tricks to improve the sound. I used the MVSEP program to get rid of all the crowd noise during the songs, while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs. I also used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals relative to the instruments, since that needed help. I think it sounds a lot better now.

The music here is unreleased. As I said above, the sound is pretty good, but not great. 

As far as the quality of the band's performance, here's what band member John Densmore later had to say about that. "I mean, you know, John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band walked out on stage and it was the biggest roar of the century and we're supposed to follow this group? Kim Fowley introduced us and we played the best we could. In my opinion, we were fine. We weren't great. We weren't lousy. We were fine. But everyone was so in awe of the Mop Top [Lennon]. It was great."

The band mostly played their concert staples. However there was one surprise in the fact that while they were in the middle of playing "Back Door Man," Morrison sang some of the lyrics to the song "Roadhouse Blues." He even sang a little bit of another song, "Maggie M'Gill." Both those songs would be released on the band's next album, "Morrison Hotel," released in 1970. In a couple other 1969 concerts they played little snippets of those songs, but they wouldn't be played in full until early 1970. 

As far as the festival as a whole, promoter John Brewer's original idea was to highlight 1950s rock stars like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and so on, who had largely been forgotten. He believes the festival was a success in that respect, saying, "Word went out about how great their performances were, which helped them enormously." Indeed, this was the start of a wave of nostalgia for 1950s rock and roll that would peak in the 1970s with retro bands like Sha Na Na and retro movies like "American Graffiti."

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 When the Music's Over (Doors)
02 Break On Through [To the Other Side] (Doors)
03 Back Door Man - Roadhouse Blues - Back Door Man (Doors)
04 The Crystal Ship (Doors)
05 Wake Up (Doors)
06 Light My Fire (Doors)
07 The End (Doors) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/imKzThdW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JX22YmRUOxzI4m2/file

As mentioned above, this performance by the Doors wasn't filmed. But surprisingly, it seems there are next to no photos from it either. I only found one, and that was blurry and generally bad. However, there is some photo and video of the band members back stage. I found a photo of Morrison watching the festival stage from the side and decided to use that as the closest decent thing I could find. Unfortunately, the photo was taken while the sun was still out and the band played when it was dark. So I used Photoshop to darken the image, and especially darken the sky in the background. So at least this gives you a good idea of what Morrison was looking like (he'd recently shaved his beard off) and a bit of what he was wearing.

Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, Varsity Stadium, Toronto, Canada, 9-13-1969, Part 7: John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band

Okay, it's time for a big one, the pinnacle of the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival, even though it wasn't the final musical act. The star was John Lennon, supported by his wife Yoko Ono and a great band that included famous lead guitarist Eric Clapton.

This is probably going to be one of the longest write-ups I ever did, if not the longest. But I find the story behind Lennon's involvement in this concert to be very fascinating, and I hope you will too. Seriously, someone could make an entertaining movie out of this, especially if you add in the drama of how Lennon got invited to the festival in the first place, which I discussed previously. 

I think, after several decades, it's hard for anyone to imagine just what a big deal it was for Lennon to perform at this concert. He was still a member of the Beatles, though he wouldn't stay one for long (and this concert would have a major impact on that, as we shall see). The Beatles stopped touring in 1966. Since then, Lennon had only performed a couple of times. He played one song in 1968 as part of the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus show. He performed as part of the Beatles on the rooftop of their recording studio in London earlier in 1969. And that was it for the last three years. None of the other Beatles had performed in public since 1966, and nobody expected Lennon would.

In the first album I posted from this festival, the Chicago set, I explained how the festival came to be, and how the recruitment of Lennon at the last minute saved the festival from cancellation due to poor ticket sales. Let me pick up that narrative, of what happened to Lennon after he agreed to perform in the festival, over the phone, and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, just one day before the festival was due to happen.  

The first thing Lennon had to figure out when he got off the phone was who would be in his band, especially on such short notice. His first idea was to include another Beatle, George Harrison. But Harrison turned him down, saying it would seem too much like a Beatles concert with both of them in it, and the popular demand would be that they just play Beatles songs, when he knew Lennon wanted to do something different. 

Lennon didn't push back too much on that. He knew Harrison had brought up valid points. Besides, he had someone else in mind he also was very interested in: Eric Clapton. As mentioned above, Lennon performed one song ("Yer Blues," from the Beatles' "White Album") in the 1968 Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus show, and Clapton had been the lead guitarist for Lennon then. Lennon had a very good rapport with Clapton in general at the time. In fact, during the Beatles' contentious "Get Back" sessions in early 1969, when Harrison quit the Beatles for a few days, Lennon suggested they might replace him with Clapton.

Unfortunately, the call asking Lennon to take part in the festival came at the last minute, almost literally. It was already the evening before the festival when Lennon got the phone call! Immediately, Lennon had people at the Apple Records office he was at try to call Clapton to see if he wanted to take part. The assumption was that Clapton would be willing if he could be reached, but nobody could reach him. People not only repeatedly tried calling Clapton's house in the middle of the night, but they tried calling his friends, as well as night clubs and any other likely places he could be late at night. But nobody knew where he was.

Meanwhile, Lennon had to figure out who the other members of the band would be. The choice for bass player was easy: Klaus Voormann. Voormann, a German, had met the Beatles when they were struggling and playing small clubs in Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s. He'd stayed friends with them ever since then, even designing the cover of their 1966 album "Revolver." He'd also become a very talented bass player, joining the band Manfred Mann from 1966 until 1969 and working a lot as a session musician. Lennon would use him a lot as bassist in future years.

The choice of drummer, though, was a very surprising one: Alan White. At the time, White was a teenager and essentially a complete known. He was drumming in the obscure band Griffin. But, by chance, Lennon and Ono attended a Griffin concert at a small club the night before. Lennon had been very impressed by White's drumming. (Indeed, White was a talented drummer who was destined for bigger things. In 1972, he would join the prog rock band Yes and stay with them for about 50 years.) 

Somehow, Lennon was able to find out the name of the Griffin drummer, then get his telephone number, and called him. But White later recalled, "I hung up on him. I thought someone was playing a prank. John Lennon's not going to call me." However, Lennon kept calling him back and managed to convince him that he really was John Lennon and he really did want him in his new band, to perform on a different continent the next day! White agreed, even though that meant cancelling a Griffin concert scheduled at the same time. "What was I going to say? No, to a Beatle? I don't think so."

Meanwhile, Lennon was desperate to get in contact with Clapton. He stayed up until five in the morning with an assistant, calling everyone they could think of, to no avail. The airplane to take Lennon and his new band to Toronto was due to fly out of London at 10 in the morning. However, around 9:30, Lennon called festival promoter John Brower from the airport and said he would have to cancel his role in the festival. Clapton couldn't be found in time, and Lennon wasn't willing to perform without him.

Brower was incredulous, and horrified. He'd borrowed $25,000 from a man named Edjo, who was the head of a biker gang, to pay the fee for the Doors to headline the festival. If the festival ticket sales bombed or the festival was canceled altogether, that biker had promised to severely beat Brower, for starters. Brower considered fleeing Canada just to save his life!

But luckily, with Lennon and others waiting at the airport, he was given the word that Clapton had been found after all. It turned out that Clapton had gone to bed early and slept during the entire search, far from his phone. A telegram had been sent to his house as part of the desperate search to find him. In the morning, Clapton's gardener saw the telegram, opened it, saw the urgency of it, and woke him up. Clapton was very willing to perform with Lennon at the festival. Still, there was no way Clapton could make it to the airport in time to catch the flight overseas. It seemed all was lost. Lennon said he would send Brower a bouquet of flowers as an apology.

Brower later recalled, "I saw Edjo [the biker gang leader] putting the flowers on my grave; everything was destroyed." He decided to try to call Clapton, now that Clapton was awake, and beg for help.

He claims he told Clapton on the phone, "Listen man, you've gotta help me. If John Lennon does not show up today, I am ruined. I have to leave my city. I have to leave my country. In fact, I'm going to come over there and move in with John Lennon, with my wife and kid, okay? You need to get him back on the phone and tell him he has to come.' Clapton started yelling, 'I don't get up at this time of the morning for anybody. Fucking Lennon gets us out here and then sends fucking flowers?'"

Clapton then immediately phoned Lennon back. Brower recalled, "He was furious. He just [told Lennon], 'What the fuck are you doing? There's some guy on the other end of the phone who is ruined if we don't go over there. He said he's going to come over and move in with you!' We later found out... that Lennon was mortified that Eric Clapton was mad at him. I mean, you just don't get Eric Clapton mad at you."

So Lennon scrambled to come up with a new plan. Arrangements were made to book a flight to Toronto that left at 3:15 in the afternoon, London time. It would be a tight schedule, but that would get them in Toronto in time to perform at the end of the festival, thanks to the time zone difference. While waiting at the airport, Lennon held an impromptu press conference, announcing to the world his involvement in the festival.

Now, Lennon had his band and the ability to get to the festival in time. But the band hadn't practiced whatsoever. They tried their best to do that during the plane flight. But it wasn't easy, because they didn't have amplified instruments, and White had to "drum" using the seat back in front of him. They could barely hear themselves over the noise of the airplane. At least they agreed on the songs they would play. However, while Lennon told the other band members that Ono would be singing a couple of songs, they didn't practice those at all. Voormann later said, "So, no rehearsal with Yoko. He kept it really away from us. He just wanted us to be surprised."

I normally don't add pictures to my write-ups, but since this one is so long, here's a photo of Lennon and Clapton trying to practice while on the plane flight. 

The drama continued when Lennon and his band arrived in Toronto. To their surprise, they were met at the airport by a biker gang led by Edjo, the same gang leader who had loaned Brower $25,000. There was a limousine waiting. Edjo and about 100 of his bikers led a motorcade from the airport to the stadium where the festival was taking place. Police joined the motorcade, redirecting traffic so Lennon's motorcade could blow through all the red lights, just as if he was a president or prime minister.

Lennon arrived at the stadium while Cat Mother was performing, and word somehow spread throughout the crowd, raising the anticipation. But Lennon and his band went to a grubby back room and essentially stayed cooped up there for a couple of hours until it was time for them to go on stage. They tried to practice some more, but they still didn't have adequate instruments to practice on. They apparently spent most of the time trying to figure out the lyrics to the songs they had chosen to sing. They wrote them all out so Lennon could read them on stage. When their performance actually began though, Lennon would forget about the notes and just winged it, except for reading the lyrics to his one new song, "Cold Turkey." 

Speaking of "cold turkey," in 1969, Lennon had become a heroin addict. So had Clapton. Both of them didn't dare sneak drugs on the plane. So they were very worried about falling apart if they couldn't find some drugs in Toronto - if not heroin, then at least something similar. Soon, Lennon asked Brower, "Can you get us some coke?" Brower later recalled that he replied, "Let's get six Cokes over here right away.' I looked back at the two of them like, 'No problem. No problem,' and they just had this horrified look on their faces. They were looking at each other like 'Where are we?' And Yoko goes, 'No, coke for the nose.'"

Brower was determined to do whatever it took to make sure the festival would be a success. He remembered he had a friend who did drugs and was attending the festival. He actually arranged a stage announcement to call that friend backstage. The friend soon showed up, and was able to find some cocaine. Brower said, "I went backstage to give it to John, and I swear to God he looked at me like, 'You're Jesus and this is the Lord's water.'" Lennon made sure Clapton got some of the cocaine as well.

That problem was solved. But still, Lennon was in a bad way. He was repeatedly throwing up due to nervousness from giving his very first concert as a solo performer. He even threw up again a few minutes before getting on stage. He also was tired from getting almost no sleep, due to spending most of the night trying to find Clapton.

Kim Fowley, a famous music producer, was the emcee for the festival, so he was the one to introduce Lennon to the stage. According to Fowley, shortly before Lennon was due to go on stage, he asked Lennon how he was doing, and Lennon replied something to the effect of: "I'm terrified. Imagine if you were in the Beatles as the only band you've only been in your life. The first time you are to step on stage with people that weren't in the Beatles. You’re about to go on stage with your wife, a friend, a friend, and a complete stranger with songs you had learned acoustically on an airplane on the way over from England with jet lag. You would be terrified. Do something so the kids don't know how scared I am."

Fowley came up with an idea to boost his spirits. He remembered a scene from a movie, "Our Lady of Fatima," where a bunch of children had held candles up together, and he asked everyone to do the same, to show their support and encouragement. You can hear Fowley doing this at the start of this album. It seemed to have really helped. Lennon later commented, "They all lit candles or lights up and it was really beautiful, you know, and the vibes were fantastic."

Remarkably, it appears this was the very first time lights were held up like this at a major concert. Due to the prominence of the festival, as well as a movie documentary about it, the practice spread, and it soon became a fairly common concert ritual. So kudos to Fowley for that.

Finally, the time came for Lennon to start playing music. He and his band ran through some classic rock songs from the 1950s, which was very much in keeping with the overall theme of the festival. They also played one Beatles song, "Yer Blues." Then they played "Cold Turkey." Lennon had just written this song about his recent heroin addiction (which, thankfully he was able to kick about a year later). This was the first time it was performed in public. Lennon would release it as a single a month later, and it would make the Top Forty in both the U.S. and Britain. Then he performed "Give Peace a Chance," which he had released as a single in July.

Overall, the band sounded ragged due to lack of practice, but they made up for it with enthusiasm. Plus, they played the kinds of simple, rocking songs where being ragged actually fit. Most people in the audience, which filled the stadium by now, probably were disappointed not to be hearing Beatles classics. ("Yer Blues" was a relative obscurity.) However, it seems they were in awe to be hearing Lennon sing anything, and they were very enthusiastic overall.

Lennon later recalled, "I can't remember when I had such a good time. Yoko was holding a piece of paper with the words to the songs in front of me. But then she suddenly disappeared into her bag in the middle of the performance and I had to make them up because it's so long since I sang them that I've forgotten most of them. It didn't seem to matter."

(Indeed, Ono spent most of the first half of the set inside a big white bag on the stage floor! That was an example of her performance art that helped attract Lennon to her. Robby Krieger of the Doors, who was watching from the side of the stage, later said, "I really thought it was cool that Yoko decided to do the whole show in a laundry bag. I really gained respect for her for that.") 

Clapton also recalled, "It was really refreshing to do these songs because they are very simple and uncomplicated. John and I really love that music. That's the kind of music that turned John on initially, and it's the same for me. In fact, I could go on playing 'Money' and 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' for the rest of my life."

So far, everything was going great. Lennon was particularly pleased at how the audience responded to his new song "Cold Turkey." He said, "The way that we got it together was like we'd all been playing together for years. Then, 'Give Peace a Chance,' which was just unbelievable."

Then it was time for Ono to sing her two songs. Keep in mind that not even the other band members other than Lennon knew what was going to happen next. For the first song, Lennon had merely told the others that he'd start playing a riff on his guitar and they should all repeat it over and over.

Nowadays, Ono is rather notorious for her screaming style. But at the time, the audience was in for a shock when she began her screaming singing. There hadn't been any concerts or albums with her singing like that, at least not that the wider public was aware of.

Voormann, the bassist, later recalled, "This scream came [from Ono]. I said, 'She must have stepped on a nail or something.' And Eric [Clapton] looked at me, 'What's this?!'" But the band gamely rolled with the punches and kept playing.

Ono's first song was somewhat palatable to the audience, since there at least was a kind of rock and roll beat to it. But her second song went on for much longer, and it was all Ono's wailing and guitar feedback. (The other band members kept rolling with the punches, with Clapton even singing some backing vocals to Ono.) Lennon said, "Yoko's first number had a bit of rhythm, but the second number was completely freaky. It was sort of the thing she did at Cambridge [earlier in 1969], but it was more like Toronto 1984."

Some people seemed to "get it," and others didn't. 

Voormann later said, "The funny thing is that when I was up there, I was behind Yoko, and I felt suddenly what she was doing. She was actually telling the people, in her way, that all those people are dying [in the Vietnam War]. Those tanks and bombs falling and dead bodies lying about. What she was doing was really, really felt like a dying bird. She couldn't have stood there and talked about it and said, 'Yeah, peace. Just think of Vietnam.' No. This was far ahead of its time. The audience didn't understand a thing."

By and large, it seems the audience was baffled by Ono's performance, but were fairly tolerant just because Lennon was involved. There was some booing, but it seems accounts of this were later exaggerated. Few people left, especially because the Doors were still due to perform next.

Lennon was encouraged by the crowd's reaction, overall. He later said in an interview, "A lot of the audience walked out, but the ones that stayed, they were in a trance, man. They just all came to the front." In a different later interview, he felt even more encouraged. ""All I can say is that there were maybe 25,000 people there and maybe 15 didn't like it. I didn't hear any booing. It's always the man from the daily paper who does!" He further added, "It gave me a great feeling, a feeling I haven't had for a long time. It convinced me to do more appearances, either with or without the rest of the Beatles. Everything went down so well."

Lennon was so excited about this concert performance that he wanted to immediately release it on album. However, his record company, Capitol Records, initially resisted the idea. "They said 'This is garbage, we're not going to put it out with her screaming on one side and you doing this sort of live stuff.' And they refused to put it out. But we finally persuaded them that people might buy this. Of course, it went gold the next day." 

The album was released later that year under the title "Live Peace in Toronto 1969," and it sold over 500,000 copies (which is gold status). This recording here is essentially the same as the official release. I'm including it so one can have the full recording and story of this festival in one place.

The songs sung by Lennon were on one side of the album and the songs sung by Ono on the other. At the time, the Lennon songs were praised by music critics and the Ono songs were panned. But interestingly, over time, some famous musicians claim they were more inspired by Ono's songs. For instance, Iggy Pop said that Ono's side of the record is "the part that stands out. The rest of it's just kinda pedestrian." Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction has made similar comments, stating that Ono's sound experiments were a cornerstone of his musical education. 

Personally, I think Ono's songs here make for an interesting listen once or twice, but it's not something I'd want to hear more often than that. Of course, you can choose to keep or delete those songs.

I have one final note to make about Lennon's performance. It seems undeniable that this was a pivotal moment in his music career and even his entire life, because it's when he fully committed to leaving the Beatles. Prior to this festival, he was drifting away from the Beatles, but he hadn't really figured out what would come next, and he lacked the confidence to leave the most famous band in the world. The success of this performance gave him that confidence.

Shortly after the concert was over,  he told his new band mates he would be leaving the Beatles. "I told Alan [White] I was leaving. I told Eric Clapton and Klaus [Voormann] that I was leaving. I announced it to myself and to the people around me. 'It's over.'" As soon as he returned to London the next day, he told his manager Allen Klein the same thing. Then he broke the news to the other Beatles on September 20th, about a week after the festival. However, they all agreed to keep that news quiet while they renegotiated their record contract. In the end, they didn't go public with the news until April 1970, but they were effectively broken up until then, with the four of them never all getting together a single time.

So this leads to a big question: would the Beatles have endured for much longer had it not been for the improbable chain of events that led to Lennon performing at the festival? My guess is maybe they would have stuck together for a few more months, but not longer than that. A break-up was in motion over many issues, mainly financial ones relating to a dispute over who would manage the band after Brian Epstein died. Plus, Lennon really wanted to go off and do his own thing with Ono, and he was just gathering the confidence to make the break. Had it not been this concert, something else would have come along soon that played the same role. (In fact, the same band with some other musicians added played another concert in December 1969, which was a benefit for the non-profit UNICEF.) And the Beatles had just finished recording the "Abbey Road" album in August, so they probably wouldn't have wanted to record a new album until well into 1970 anyway. The odds of them sticking together long enough to record another album had this festival never happened would have been extremely low, in my opinion.

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 talk (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
02 Blue Suede Shoes (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
03 Money [That's What I Want] (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
04 Dizzy Miss Lizzy (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
05 Yer Blues (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
06 talk (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
07 Cold Turkey (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
08 talk (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
09 Give Peace a Chance (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
10 talk (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
11 Don't Worry Kyoko [Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow] (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)
12 John, John [Let's Hope for Peace] (John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JyMeVpN6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oADkPwOhcIM78cY/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the "Revival69" documentary. I wanted to get an image that showed Lennon and Clapton. I succeeded, but we can only see the back of Clapton's head. The white blob on the floor at the bottom is Yoko Ono inside a large bag.