Covered: Neil Young, Volume 2: 1990-1995

Phew! I had a hell of an adventure getting to Peru yesterday. Perhaps I’ll vent and explain what happened when I have some time. But I’m here and things are back on track, which is what matters. Anyway, here’s some more Neil Young. I’ll try to post another Dionne Warwick album next, when I have a chance.

The rest of the notes here are written by Fabio from Rio. Take it away Fabio:

By the early 1990s, Neil Young was experiencing a somewhat surprising cultural resurgence. After a creatively uneven decade in the eighties, he had his own creative revival starting at the end of that decade. Around the same time, a new generation of alternative rock musicians began openly citing him as a major influence. Bands associated with the emerging grunge and indie scenes embraced both the raw guitar power of albums like "Rust Never Sleeps" and the emotional directness of his acoustic work. Young himself responded by reconnecting with heavier sounds and younger audiences, eventually earning the affectionate nickname "the Godfather of Grunge." The covers collected in this volume reflect that moment of rediscovery, when artists from alternative rock, indie folk and roots music revisited Young's catalog and helped introduce it to a new generation of listeners.

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Note that Fabio wrote individual paragraphs about all the songs in this volume. To see that, please look at the Word file added to the download zip file. Thanks again to Fabio for his help putting these albums together. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long.  

01 Powderfinger (Cowboy Junkies)
02 Cortez the Killer (Matthew Sweet & the Indigo Girls)
03 Interstate (Sand Rubies)
04 Heart of Gold (Lawrence Gowan)
05 Don’t Let It Bring You Down (Amanda Marshall)
06 Tell Me Why (Hemingway Corner)
07 Harvest (Jeff Healey Band)
08 Pardon My Heart (Malcolm Burn)
09 Barefoot Floors (Nicolette Larson)
10 Fuckin' Up (Pearl Jam)
11 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Breits)
12 Tired Eyes (Cowboy Junkies)
13 Down by the River (Indigo Girls)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dUYRqpqy

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/6xQ6ddT3EFOars0/file

The cover photo dates from 1967. I used the Krea AI program to improve some details. Note that when I first posted this album, I used a cover image that got some complaints. I decided I could do better, and found a different photo. I replaced it about two weeks later.

Various Artists - BBC In Concert, Giants of Motown, NEC, Birmingham, Britain, 4-6-1992

Here's a pretty interesting BBC concert. It's from a Motown package tour in 1992. It features many of the big Motown names who were touring in 1992, though certainly not all. The first part stars Edwin Starr, the Marvelettes, the Supremes, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Then the second half features the Temptations and the Four Tops, performing separately and also doing some songs together.

Note that some key members were missing. A key missing person was Diana Ross, who sang the lead vocals on nearly all Supremes songs. So some other former members of the Supremes had to bill themselves as the "Former Ladies of the Supremes" for legal reasons. They were Jean Terrell, Scherrie Payne, and Lynda Laurence. Terrell was the lead singer who replaced Ross in 1970. The other two also were only members of that group after Ross left. 

So the Supremes were more like the 1970s version, which was practically a different group with the same name. They did have some big hits though, including "Up the Ladder to the Roof" and "Stoned Love," both of which were performed here, and were originally sung by Terrell.

 

However, most of the other groups fared better. There was personnel turnover, but key lead singers remained. For instance, Gladys Horton was the lead singer on all the Marvelettes records, and Martha Reeves was the lead singer for all the Vandellas records. The Four Tops were amazingly consistent, keeping the same four members from 1953 until 1997. 

The situation with the Temptations was more complicated, since that band had a lot of personnel turnover even during their most popular eras, including quite a few different lead singers. At the time of this concert, the band consisted of Ali-Ollie Woodson (lead tenor), Otis Williams (baritone), Ron Tyson (tenor), Richard Street (second tenor) and Melvin Franklin (bass). Williams and Franklin were original members.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this Giants of Motown "tour" may have just done these two concerts, in London and Birmingham. I can't find any references to any other concerts. So it's a lucky thing one of them was recorded by the BBC.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I do have "[Edit]" in the titles of a couple of songs, but it's been so long since I edited this that I forget why.  

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 25 Miles (Edwin Starr)
02 S.O.S. [Stop Her on Sight] (Edwin Starr)
03 War - I Heard It through the Grapevine (Edwin Starr)
04 H.A.P.P.Y. Radio (Edwin Starr)
05 Too Many Fish in the Sea (Gladys Horton & the Marvelettes)
06 talk (Gladys Horton & the Marvelettes)
07 When You're Young and in Love (Gladys Horton & the Marvelettes)
08 Please Mr. Postman [Edit] (Gladys Horton & the Marvelettes)
09 You Keep Me Hangin' On (Former Ladies of the Supremes)
10 Band Intros (Former Ladies of the Supremes)
11 Reflections (Former Ladies of the Supremes)
12 Where Did Our Love Go - Baby Love - My World Is Empty without You (Former Ladies of the Supremes)
13 Up the Ladder to the Roof (Former Ladies of the Supremes)
14 Stoned Love (Former Ladies of the Supremes)
15 talk (emcee)
16 [Love Is like A] Heat Wave - Nowhere to Run (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
17 Jimmy Mack (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
18 talk (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
19 Third Finger, Left Hand (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
20 talk (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
21 Dancing in the Street (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
22 Superstar [Remember How You Got Where You Are] (Temptations & the Four Tops)
23 Something about You (Temptations & the Four Tops)
24 Papa Was a Rolling Stone - Baby, I Need Your Loving (Temptations & the Four Tops)
25 talk (Temptations & the Four Tops)
26 7 Rooms of Gloom (Temptations & the Four Tops)
27 Girl [Why You Wanna Make Me Blue] (Temptations)
28 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Temptations)
29 Ain't Too Proud to Beg (Temptations)
30 Ball of Confusion [That's What the World Is Today] (Temptations)
31 Just My Imagination (Temptations)
32 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Temptations)
33 Get Ready (Temptations)
34 Treat Her like a Lady (Temptations)
35 My Girl (Temptations)
36 I Can't Get Next to You (Temptations)
37 Baby, I Need Your Loving (Four Tops)
38 When She Was My Girl (Four Tops)
39 Bernadette (Four Tops)
40 It's the Same Old Song (Four Tops)
41 Walk Away Renee (Four Tops)
42 Reach Out, I'll Be There - Standing in the Shadows of Love (Four Tops)
43 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch] [Edit] (Four Tops)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NJBgHJ2c

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/amUebhRMAqADjoo/file

The cover photo is a promotional poster for this concert. It actually was meant to promote two concerts: this one, and one in Wembley Arena, in London, one day earlier. So I put a photo from this concert in the square that had the details about the London concert. The photo was very low-res, so it wouldn't have made a good cover on its own. This poster was pretty low res as well, but I was able to clean it up with the use of Photoshop and Krea AI.

Covered: Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly: 1980-2019

I don't keep a close eye on music news, but yesterday I happened to hear that songwriter Billy Steinberg died. Specifically, he died on February 16, 2026, at the age of 75. That probably doesn't mean anything to most people, because I don't think he's very well known as far as songwriters go. But it meant something to me, because I had already made a "Covered" album of the songs he and songwriting partner Tom Kelly made. (It's one of several dozen "Covered" albums I've made but haven't gotten around to posting yet.) Due to his death, I decided to post this sooner rather than later.

Steinberg and Kelly wrote a lot of hits from the 1980s to the 2000s that you probably know without ever knowing who wrote them. Even though they were male, somehow they had the most success with females covering their songs. They had five Number One hits in the U.S., all sung by women: "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (1984), "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper (1986), "Eternal Flame" (co-written with Susanna Hoffs and recorded by the Bangles in 1989), "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston (1987), and "Alone" by Heart (1987).

Billy Steinberg was born in Fresno, California, though his family moved to Palm Springs when he was a teenager. After graduating from college, he formed a band called Billy Thermal. However, they didn't have any success, and one album they recorded around 1980 wasn't released until decades later, after he made a name for himself as a songwriter. He had his first songwriting success with "How Do I Make You," which was a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1980.  

Tom Kelly was born in a small town in Illinois in 1952. He went to a college in that state, but dropped out to pursue a music career. He was a backing musician for Dan Fogelberg in 1976 and 1977. He also did a lot of session work, for instance singing backing vocals on Toto albums. He had his first songwriting success with "Fire and Ice," a minor hit for Pat Benatar in 1981.

Both Steinberg and Kelly independently had songs on Benatar's 1981 album, "Precious Time." They met at a party that year, and soon began writing together. Previously, both of them had written lyrics and music. But they soon fell into a pattern where Steinberg generally wrote the lyrics while Kelly wrote the music. Their really big break as a songwriting team was "Like a Virgin" by Madonna. After that, they were in high demand. What's on this album is just the cream of the crop of the many dozens of songs they wrote for well-known musical acts.

Their partnership continued very fruitfully until the mid-1990s. At that point, Kelly tired of songwriting and dropped out of the music business. He'd already had enough success to live on the royalties he'd made. However, Steinberg kept going with new songwriting partners. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, he mostly wrote with Rick Newels, who already was a successful professional songwriter. From the mid-2000s to about the mid-2010s, he mostly wrote with Josh Alexander.

Steinberg had a lot of songwriting success after he stopped working with Kelly. But I listened to his big hits and, to be honest, didn't like them very much after about 2000. They suffer the same problems as most popular pop music since about 2000: formulaic and forgettable. So I generally didn't include most of those. To be honest, even a lot of their earlier stuff was formulaic and forgettable, but sometimes, in fact many times, they had some real winners.

But in case you're curious, Steinberg's biggest later hits include "I Turn to You" by Melanie C (2000), "Love Doesn't Have to Hurt" by Atomic Kitten (2003), "Too Little Too Late" by JoJo (2006), "Don't Hold Your Breath" by Nicole Scherzinger (2011), and "Give Your Heart a Break" by Demi Lovato (2012). After that, the hits petered out, although some older songs keep getting rerecorded and making the charts again, especially "Alone" and "I Drove All Night." For instance, Alyssa Reid went all the way to Number Two in the British charts with "Alone" in 2012, although it was titled "Alone Again" and had the now practically obligatory rap section.

I'm not a fan of Whitney Houston's version of "So Emotional." But since it was a massive Number One hit, I wanted to include it in some form. I found a radically different cover version by Jon McLaughlin from 2019 that I like much better, so I used that instead. Had it not been for that song, this album would end in 2000.

Here are their Wikipedia pages: 

Billy Steinberg - Wikipedia

Tom Kelly (musician) - Wikipedia  

That album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 How Do I Make You (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Fire and Ice (Pat Benatar)
03 Like a Virgin (Madonna)
04 Sex as a Weapon (Pat Benatar)
05 True Colors (Cyndi Lauper)
06 Eternal Flame (Bangles)
07 Alone (Heart)
08 In Your Room (Bangles)
09 I Touch Myself (Divinyls)
10 My Side of the Bed (Susanna Hoffs)
11 I Drove All Night (Roy Orbison)
12 Night in My Veins (Pretenders)
13 Lucky Love [Acoustic Version] (Ace of Base)
14 I'll Stand by You (Pretenders)
15 Falling into You (Celine Dion)
16 California (Belinda Carlisle)
17 One and One (Edyta Gorniak)
18 Everytime It Rains (Ace of Base)
19 The Consequences of Falling (k.d. lang)
20 So Emotional (Jon McLaughlin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4xNLLW9p 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/uxa5jlpb5sQPr8t/file

I don't know the details of the cover photo. But that's Tom Kelly on the left and Billy Steinberg on the right. There are patches of white in Steinberg's hair, which went completely white in later photos of him. 

Covered: Shel Silverstein, Volume 2: 1974-2010

Here's the second and final volume celebrating the songwriting of Shel Silverstein for the "Covered" series.

As with all these Covered albums, the songs are in loose chronological order, usually by year. Silverstein was active writing lots of new songs in the 1970s, and a lot of cover versions resulted. Some of his songs were hits, especially on the country charts. But, typically, his songs were more memorable and interesting than the usual hit material. Not many songwriters could write children's songs, funny songs, and even erotic songs. (Hopefully not all in the same song though!)

Silverstein gradually slowed his songwriting, as people do. He only released one album of new songs after 1985. So a lot of the later songs here were actually originally written earlier, sometimes much earlier. He died of a heart attack in 1999, at the age of 68.

It just occurred to me that I don't think I included a link to his Wikipedia page in the Volume 1 write-up, so here it is:

Shel Silverstein - Wikipedia 

To be honest, I know the well known songs written by Silverstein, but not all the lesser known ones. But he's the type of songwriter who wrote quirky gems. So if any of you know of some excellent songs he wrote that I left out, and especially covers of them, please let me know and I'll consider adding them in. 

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Marie Laveau (Bobby Bare)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris)
03 Alimony (Bobby Bare)
04 I Got Stoned and I Missed It (Dr. Hook)
05 The Danger of a Stranger (Stella Parton)
06 More like the Movies (Dr. Hook)
07 The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (Marianne Faithfull)
08 Put Another Log on the Fire (Bill & Boyd)
09 Numbers (Bobby Bare)
10 I'm Checkin' Out (Meryl Streep)
11 Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (Tori Amos)
12 The Twistable, Turnable Man Returns (Andrew Bird)
13 The Winner (Kris Kristofferson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Mha2Sjvi

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/FojQ9dwYjS5kuAi/file

I don't know when or where the cover photo was taken. Clearly though, he's older than in the Volume 1 photo, judging from the grey in his beard. The original photo was a black and white one, showing him in a crouching pose in front of some trees. I stripped out the background. Then I used the Kolorize program to colorize the picture.

Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 1: 1973-1994

It's high time I post more for the "Covered" series, highlighting great singer-songwriters. This time, we're looking at the songs of Tom Waits. Enough material has been found for four volumes. Here's the first one. As with all albums in this series, the focus is on cover versions, instead of versions done by the songwriter.

First off, I've gotta say I wouldn't be posting this now had it not been for the help of musical friend Fabio from Rio. It was he who suggested making Covered albums for Waits. I would have wanted to tackle him eventually, but that probably would have been well into the future. I have an issue with Waits: I can't stand his voice. As a result, even though it's easy for me to see he's a very talented songwriter, I haven't been that familiar with his songs. But Fabio is a big fan. He sent me literally hundreds of Waits cover versions, with recommendations on the best ones. I went through that and narrowed it down quite a lot. Hopefully this will make a strong collection that can turn the curious on to Waits' music.

Fabio from Rio helped with all aspects of putting this together. He even wrote the write-ups for the four volumes for Waits. So first I'm posting the relevant Wikipedia page:

Tom Waits - Wikipedia 

And now, take it away, Fabio (and a big thanks to him for all his work on this!):

For the general public, Tom Waits is "that guy with the raspy wino voice and the weird songs. Wasn't he one of the convicted fellows in that offbeat Jim Jarmusch movie?" A few music aficionados may also know him as the writer of songs like Springsteen's "Jersey Girl" or Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train", but that is usually where the story ends.

What many are not aware of is that Waits is widely recognized by his peers and by musical experts as an exceptional and influential songwriter. He is praised for his unique voice, vivid storytelling, poetic lyrics, and innovative musical style that blends genres like blues, jazz, vaudeville, and experimental rock. Waits is also known for creating three-dimensional characters and detailed narratives, often exploring life on the fringes. His lyrics are celebrated for their specificity, humor, melancholy, and ability to evoke strong moods, often drawing comparisons to Beat poets and Mark Twain.

Waits is a "songwriters' songwriter," with songs covered by literally hundreds of artists, many of them great composers themselves. He has been subject to many tributes. While searching for tracks for that project, I collected about three dozen different albums fully dedicated to his songs, and around 400 assorted covers, adding up to almost 1,200 tracks and 80-plus hours of music!

I initially selected about 220 different tunes (an almost fully comprehensive "Tom Waits songbook" that would comprise about 15 hours) which Paul wisely helped reduce to around 60 tracks across four volumes. We could have another four or eight volumes with additional top-notch Tom Waits songs - there is enough quality material for that - but I feel this reduced version is just the right size for a first dive into Tom Waits vast catalog. I hope you enjoy it!

Some listeners may find Waits' music difficult to approach due to his peculiar tone (which, contrary to popular belief, was not destroyed by booze and cigarettes, but was conscientiously cultivated as a vocal persona, as he mentioned in some interviews). The fact that some of his more experimental work sounds like monkeys loose in a crystal store doesn't help either. For those, a "Covered" collection focusing on his more melodic output is a great starting point, where one may discover the essence of Waits' music (often through soothing, frequently female, voices).

This first volume includes performances from a long range of years (1973 to 1994), but most of the songs here were composed during Waits' early and middle phases (the seventies and early eighties). His first albums feature piano-led ballads, romantic melancholy, and a relatively smooth, crooning voice. The character is that of a late-night drifter, nostalgic and tender. As his career progressed, Waits' voice grew tougher (both literally and figuratively) and his narratives darker and more cinematic. His late seventies and early eighties albums introduced sardonic humor, social misfits, and a sharper sense of irony, while still rooted in jazz, blues, and cabaret traditions.

Waits started as a folk singer/songwriter in the early seventies, with heavy jazz influences, when his voice was still not so rough. You can hear this in the first selection of this collection, "Rosie," from his 1973 first album. It's the only song in these four volumes that is the composer's own interpretation. He also first caught the ear of the public with an early cover of "Ol' 55" by The Eagles (which we skipped in favor of Sarah McLachlan's 1993 version, which both Paul and myself prefer). Other famous interpreters at the first volume are Johnny Cash and Marianne Faithfull (with songs Tom composed specifically for them), and also 10,000 Maniacs, Elvis Costello, Crystal Gayle and Canned Heat, which showcases the full range of styles and performers reached by Waits' compositions.

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Thanks again, Fabio. I'll just add that there were only a few cases where Waits wrote hit songs, so we weren't tied down much by that factor. ("Downtown Train" is probably his biggest hit, thanks to the 1989 Rod Stewart version, included here.) And often, his songs didn't get a lot of covers until many years after they were written. So if you don't see some of his songs you really like from this era, wait before you judge. There's a good chance those songs could show up on one of the later volumes.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Rosie (Tom Waits)
02 Foreign Affair (Manhattan Transfer)
03 Jersey Girl (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Is There Any Way Out of This Dream (Crystal Gayle)
05 I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love with You (10,000 Maniacs)
06 Strange Weather (Marianne Faithfull)
07 Downtown Train (Rod Stewart)
08 Gun Street Girl (Canned Heat)
09 San Diego Serenade (Nanci Griffith)
10 Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda] (Rod Stewart)
11 More than Rain (Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet)
12 Ol' 55 (Sarah McLachlan)
13 Down There by the Train (Johnny Cash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FBZaqvMS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/IJ5fbwJ3YDrAHXl/file

The cover photo was taken in Chicago, Illinois, on May 30, 1986.

Tony Joe White - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, American Music Festival, Crystal Palace Bowl, London, Britain, 7-2-1992

I recently posted two Tony Joe White BBC albums from the 1970s. This one is from much later, 1992, when he had a career revival.

White had a lot of commercial and critical success in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But he didn't have much success in the late 1970s and through most of the 1980s. Things started to turn around for him in 1989, due to his songwriting. Four of his songs were chosen for Tina Turner's 1989 album "Foreign Affair." Two of those were hits, "Steamy Windows" and "Undercover Agent for the Blues." (Both of those songs are performed here.) That gave his own music career a new lease on life, resulting in a new record contract. His 1991 album "Closer to the Truth" was mostly ignored in the U.S., but it sold pretty well in Europe and Australia. All the songs here are from that album, except for "Polk Salad Annie," which was a big hit for him in 1969.

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

This album is 29 minutes long. 

01 talk (Tony Joe White)
02 Undercover Agent for the Blues (Tony Joe White)
03 Tunica Motel (Tony Joe White)
04 Bi-Yo Rhythm (Tony Joe White)
05 [You're Gonna Look] Good in Blues (Tony Joe White)
06 Polk Salad Annie (Tony Joe White)
07 Steamy Windows (Tony Joe White)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SRWG57A3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/user/files/T03k8COYKPK3JVY/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Hamburg, Germany, in February 1992. 

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1992-1994

Here's another BBC album by singer-songwriter Richard Thompson. This one consists of studio sessions, with all the performances in solo acoustic mode.

Actually, this album only consists of two studio sessions, both for BBC DJ Andy Kershaw's radio show. The first 10 tracks come from a session in 1992, when Thompson was touring to support his 1991 album "Rumour and Sigh." The remaining tracks are from a session in 1994, when Thompson was touring to support his album from that year, "Mirror Blue." Most of the songs are from those two albums, though there are some surprise choices thrown in as well.

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

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 I Ride in Your Slipstream (Richard Thompson)
02 Now that I Am Dead (Richard Thompson)
03 Withered and Died (Richard Thompson)
04 King of Bohemia (Richard Thompson)
05 I Misunderstood (Richard Thompson)
06 I Feel So Good (Richard Thompson)
07 talk (Richard Thompson)
08 King of Bohemia (Richard Thompson)
09 The Bloater - Job of Journeywork [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
10 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (Richard Thompson)
11 For the Sake of Mary (Richard Thompson)
12 Taking My Business Elsewhere (Richard Thompson)
13 I Can't Wake Up (Richard Thompson)
14 Mingus Eyes (Richard Thompson)
15 Easy There, Steady Now (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cHgk6XpK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/437N8eR52xaKTxj/file

The cover photo is from a concert at The Barns at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia, on March 10, 1992.

Buffy Saint-Marie - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-11-1992

Here's a BBC concert by American singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. 

I've already discussed Sainte-Marie some when I posted a "Songwriters' Circle" album that she was involved in. You can read more about her there, including a Wikipedia link to even more:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/01/donovan-buffy-sainte-marie-roger-cook.html

I'll just add some more information relevant to this album. Sainte-Marie had a successful career in the 1960s and early 1970s. But then she went 16 years without releasing an album of new music. That changed in 1992, with her album "Coincidence and Likely Stories." It was mostly ignored in the U.S., failing to make the charts. But it got a better reception in Britain, even resulting in two minor hit singles there. "The Big Ones Get Away" in particular made the Top Forty. So the songs here are about an even split between those from her most recent album at the time and her best known songs from earlier in her career.

This concert has been pretty much impossible to find on the Internet, as far as I could tell. But musical associate Progsprog had a copy and passed it on to me. So a big thanks to him. 

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

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
02 Getting Started (Buffy Saint-Marie)
03 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
04 The Piney Wood Hills (Buffy Saint-Marie)
05 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
06 The Big Ones Get Away (Buffy Saint-Marie)
07 I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again (Buffy Saint-Marie)
08 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
09 Disinformation (Buffy Saint-Marie)
10 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
11 Universal Soldier (Buffy Saint-Marie)
12 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
13 Fallen Angels (Buffy Saint-Marie)
14 Until It's Time for You to Go (Buffy Saint-Marie)
15 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
16 Bad End (Buffy Saint-Marie)
17 Soldier Blue (Buffy Saint-Marie)
18 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
19 The Priests of the Golden Bull (Buffy Saint-Marie)
20 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
21 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Buffy Saint-Marie)
22 talk (Buffy Saint-Marie)
23 Starwalker (Buffy Saint-Marie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/STUM34h7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/chFZzhQhYHoMKP7/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Paris, France, on February 22, 1993. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 6: Santana

Here's the sixth and final album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by Santana. 

It's a bit unusual in that about half of the set prominently features guest stars Ry Cooder and Steve Miller. No doubt, lead guitarist Carlos Santana took advantage of the fact that these two other talented guitarists were at the venue, since they had performed in earlier sets. Mostly, Cooder and Miller jammed on guitars with Santana, but Miller also did the lead vocals on the blues classic "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)."

I'm guessing that John Lee Hooker, who played a set earlier in the evening, went to sleep already, since he was well over 70 years old by this time. Had he been awake, he probably would have wanted to join in on "The Healer," because it's a song from Hooker's 1989 album of the same name. Santana co-wrote it and performed on it. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

01 talk (Santana)
02 Peace on Earth... Mother Earth... Third Stone from the Sun (Santana)
03 Somewhere in Heaven (Santana)
04 Viva La Vida [Life Is for Living] (Santana)
05 Savor [Instrumental] (Santana)
06 talk (Santana)
07 The Healer [Instrumental] (Santana with Ry Cooder)
08 talk (Santana with Ry Cooder)
09 All Your Love [I Miss Loving] (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)
10 Sacred Fire [Instrumental] (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)
11 Why Can't We Live Together (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)
12 Exodus (Santana with Ry Cooder & Steve Miller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/W1VeBVud

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tvlzB8CYRYgsZ6o/file

The cover photo of Carlos Santana is from this exact concert.

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 5: Jackson Browne

Here's the fifth album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by Jackson Browne.

In late 1993, a year after this concert, Browne would release the album "I'm Alive." But he already performed a three songs from it at this concert: "I'm Alive," "All Good Things," and "Miles Away." Many of the other songs played were from his 1980s albums.

This set includes a nice guest appearance by Bonnie Raitt on two songs, with her singing and playing slide guitar. Browne and Raitt were friends and usually played together when they were nearby. Raitt was scheduled to headline the similar themed benefit concert in the same venue one day later, so it made sense she was there watching this concert too. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 talk (Jackson Browne)
02 Before the Deluge (Jackson Browne with David Lindley)
03 talk (Jackson Browne)
04 I'm Alive (Jackson Browne)
05 talk (Jackson Browne)
06 Miles Away (Jackson Browne)
07 talk (Jackson Browne)
08 Soldier of Plenty (Jackson Browne)
09 In the Shape of a Heart (Jackson Browne)
10 talk (Jackson Browne)
11 World in Motion (Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt)
12 talk (Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt)
13 Here Come Those Tears Again (Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt)
14 talk (Jackson Browne)
15 All Good Things (Jackson Browne)
16 talk (Jackson Browne)
17 Lawless Avenues (Jackson Browne)
18 talk (Jackson Browne)
19 The Pretender (Jackson Browne)
20 talk (Jackson Browne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/55ERHawF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zyYdIN2dwvMuAK9/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 4: The Steve Miller Band

Here's the fourth album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by the Steve Miller Band. 

This set was a little different from most Steve Miller Band concerts in that Miller and his band mates played on acoustic instruments. While most of his set was devoted to his big hits from the 1960s and 70s, he also played some blues covers. None of the songs played came from recent albums. (He would have a comeback album of sorts the next year with "Wide River.")

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 talk (Steve Miller Band)
02 Fly like an Eagle (Steve Miller Band)
03 Seasons (Steve Miller Band)
04 Honey, Where You Going (Steve Miller Band)
05 talk (Steve Miller Band)
06 Mercury Blues (Steve Miller Band)
07 talk (Steve Miller Band)
08 I'm Tore Down (Steve Miller Band)
09 Gangster of Love (Steve Miller Band)
10 Living in the U.S.A. (Steve Miller Band)
11 talk (Steve Miller Band)
12 Dance, Dance, Dance (Steve Miller Band)
13 talk (Steve Miller Band)
14 Rock'n Me (Steve Miller Band)
15 Take the Money and Run (Steve Miller Band)
16 talk (Steve Miller Band)
17 Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band)
18 talk (Steve Miller Band)
19 The Joker (Steve Miller Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/F6iCiLoJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BSLcAPbow7uvuFq/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 3: John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder

Here's the third album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by blues legend John Lee Hooker. For his entire set, he was backed on slide guitar by Ry Cooder.

If you're a fan of blues music, you should know John Lee Hooker, who is one of the biggest names in the genre. (He died in 2001 in his 80s, his exact age being uncertain.) He had a very long music career, starting with the classic hit single "Boogie Chillen," which was the best selling race record in 1949. By the 1980s, it seemed his best years were behind him. But in 1989, he had a career revival that started with the album "The Healer." It was a hit (for the blues genre), thanks in large part to many guest stars on it, such as Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, and Los Lobos. He repeated the guest star formula with his 1991 album "Mr. Lucky."

However, his relatively short set was pretty different from those albums. He performed without any backing other than Cooder, and generally played songs from much earlier in his career. But it does seem worth mentioning that Cooder helped produce "Mr. Lucky," so I'd guess that's how they started musically collaborating. 

This album is 24 minutes long. 

01 talk (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
02 Lonely Man (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
03 talk (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
04 Serve Me Right to Suffer (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
05 Hobo Blues (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
06 Crawling King Snake (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pM3c2HEf 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Y9DY1Rm1QRX0CmD/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. That's Hooker on the left (wearing a hat) and Cooder on the right. I used Photoshop to move them a few feet closer together.

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 2: John Trudell

Here's the second album from the "All Our Colors" benefit concert in 1992. For an overview of the concert as a whole, check out my write-up for Part 1. This is a set by John Trudell.

This concert was designed to support groups promoting the welfare and rights of Native Americans, so it was very fitting that Trudell performed. As Wikipedia puts it, he was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. (He died in 2015 at the age of 69.) He was more of a poet than a typical singer. As you can hear on this album, he spoke his poetry with a musical backing. 

In 1986, he put out his second album, "aka Graffiti Man." It slowly gained acclaim and popularity as a cassette-only release that spread through Native American gatherings. He released other albums after that. But in 1992, he redid "aka Graffiti Man" in a more professional manner, and had it released on CD and other formats, giving it wider release. A Rolling Stone Magazine review of the album stated that "Trudell employs basic rock, blues, traditional indigenous music, street shuffles, and folk songs to craft a compelling hybrid that encompasses many viewpoints and visions of reality." Most of the songs performed here come from that album.

Here's Trudell's Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

John Trudell - Wikipedia 

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 talk (John Trudell)
02 Grafitti Man (John Trudell)
03 Rockin' the Res (John Trudell)
04 Fables and Other Realities (John Trudell)
05 Beauty in a Fade (John Trudell)
06 Johnny Damas and Me (John Trudell)
07 Crazy Horse (John Trudell)
08 talk (John Trudell)
09 Somebody's Kid (John Trudell)
10 Bombs Over Baghdad (John Trudell)
11 talk (John Trudell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QunU6hLK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/laiIUHwlYvGU9JZ/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

All Our Colors Benefit, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, 10-10-1992 - Part 1: Mickey Hart & Friends

Christopher Columbus reached the Americas on October 12, 1492, landing on an island in the Bahamas he named San Salvador. Almost exactly 500 years to the day after that, there was a series of concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area not celebrating Columbus, but instead celebrating Native American resistance to colonialism. This is the first set available from the first day of these concerts. I could only find the first day concert with high quality sound, so that's the only concert I'm posting.

This first day concert was called "All Our Colors: The Good Road Concert," held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. The main acts were Mickey Hart and Friends, John Trudell, John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder, the Steve Miller Band, Jackson Browne, and Santana. I'll be posting all of that. White Boy and the Wagon Burners and Red Thunder also performed, but I don't have that music. There also were pow wow dance performances in the hours prior to the start of the formal music program.

The second day concert, which I won't be posting, was called "Healing the Sacred Loop: The Next 500 Years," and was also held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. The main acts were Cris Williamson, Todd Rundgren, Ry Cooder & David Lindley, Little Feat, Don Henley, and Bonnie Raitt. Then, on Monday October 12, 1992, a free concert was held at Crissy Field, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, with many of the same performers. I don't know why only the first day's concert is available with excellent sound quality, but it is what it is. If anyone has a worthy version of the other two concerts, please let me know.

These concerts were promoter Bill Graham's last big event that he was working on before he died in 1991. They were sponsored by the IITC Council (International Indian Treaty Conference), and the profits went to associated non-profits. 

Now, let me address this specific performance. Mickey Hart was one of two drummers for the Grateful Dead for decades. He also had a solo career that explored world music genres, especially through rhythm. Hart played drums during this set. But he was joined by many other musicians. Those included vocalists and multi-instrumentalists Bean, Tina, Candice  and Janelle of D'Cuckoo', Kitaro on keyboards, Michael Shrieve on drums, Marco Minnemann, Baba Olatunji of Planet Drum on percussion, and Steve Miller on guitar. As mentioned above, Miller would get his own set later in the concert. 

I have no idea what the actual names of these songs are, if they had specific names. If anyone knows, please let me know and I'll update the song list. 

Like all the other albums from this concert, the music is unreleased but the sound quality is excellent.  

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 talk (Mickey Hart & Friends)
02 Pow Wow Jam 1 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
03 Pow Wow Jam 2 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
04 Pow Wow Jam 3 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
05 Pow Wow Jam 4 (Mickey Hart & Friends)
06 Pow Wow Jam 5 (Mickey Hart & Friends)

 https://pixeldrain.com/u/1fC88dHS

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/B0rUk056QnViOn3/file 

The cover photo of Mickey Hart is from this exact concert. For the art framing the central photo, I used a promotional poster for the concert, and edited it to fit the space. 

Cliff Richard - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 11-28-1992

Man, I never would have imagined that I wound post nine Cliff Richard BBC albums. But here we are, with another BBC concert. To be honest, there are still other BBC concerts out there I haven't posted, mostly from way late in his career. But I'm posting this because it's another album I got recently from Progsprog, and as far as I can tell, it's currently publicly unavailable. So this should put it back in circulation.

The previous BBC concert by Richard that I've posted is from 1988. Between 1988 and 1992, he continued to have more hit singles in Britain. Surprisingly, the biggest one, "Saviour's Day," which reached Number One in Britain in 1989, wasn't included here. However, his most recent studio album in 1992 was simply called "The Album." It contained two Top Ten hits, "I Still Believe in You" and "Peace in Our Time," and both of those are here.

Other than that, this is a lively collection of his most popular songs, going back to the 1950s. Thanks again to Progsprog for making this available, because the sound quality is excellent.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 Move It (Cliff Richard)
02 talk (Cliff Richard)
03 Living Doll (Cliff Richard)
04 Daddy's Home (Cliff Richard)
05 Please Don't Tease (Cliff Richard)
06 On the Beach (Cliff Richard)
07 From a Distance (Cliff Richard)
08 Some People (Cliff Richard)
09 Devil Woman (Cliff Richard)
10 Miss You Nights (Cliff Richard)
11 Willie and the Hand Jive (Cliff Richard)
12 talk (Cliff Richard)
13 I Still Believe in You (Cliff Richard)
14 We Don't Talk Anymore (Cliff Richard)
15 Wired for Sound (Cliff Richard)
16 Peace in Our Time (Cliff Richard)
17 talk (Cliff Richard)
18 My Kinda Life (Cliff Richard)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HXVykqiH

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/brLzlr4E8IQ2ny0/file

The cover photo is from the World Music Awards in Monaco City, Monaco, on May 14, 1992.

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.

Keith Richards - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-28-1992

Here's another episode of that great TV show, "PBS Soundstage." This episode stars Keith Richards, the lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones.

(Note that for one year, the program used the name "Center Stage" instead of "Soundstage." This is one of the shows from that year. But I'm calling it "Soundstage" to be consistent with all of the other many years of the show.) 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Richards was more serious about his solo career than he has been before or since. He put out two solo albums during that time, "Talk Is Cheap" in 1988, and "Main Offender" in 1992. He mostly played songs from those albums, but he also did a few Rolling Stones songs ("Gimme Shelter," "Time Is on My Side," and "Happy").

Because Richards was so famous, there actually were two episodes of this show. That's why, when they're combined like this, it totals a lot more than the usual hour-long episode.

This concert remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long. 

01 Take It So Hard (Keith Richards)
02 talk (Keith Richards)
03 Wicked as It Seems (Keith Richards)
04 talk (Keith Richards)
05 How I Wish (Keith Richards)
06 Gimme Shelter (Keith Richards)
07 talk (Keith Richards)
08 999 (Keith Richards)
09 talk (Keith Richards)
10 Yap Yap (Keith Richards)
11 talk (Keith Richards)
12 Hate It When You Leave (Keith Richards)
13 talk (Keith Richards)
14 Time Is on My Side (Keith Richards)
15 talk (Keith Richards)
16 Eileen (Keith Richards)
17 Will but You Won't (Keith Richards)
18 talk (Keith Richards)
19 Body Talks (Keith Richards)
20 talk (Keith Richards)
21 Could Have Stood You Up (Keith Richards)
22 talk (Keith Richards)
23 Happy (Keith Richards)
24 talk (Keith Richards)
25 Whip It Up (Keith Richards)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3sADEsXs

alternate:

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

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Various Artists - Songs in the Key of Brian - Remembering Brian Wilson (1975-2021) (GUEST POST BY FABIO FROM RIO)

One of the all-time great musical geniuses, Brian Wilson, died a few days ago, on June 11, 2025. He was 82 years old. I wanted to post something to mark his passing. Luckily, I've recently been collaborating with a new musical friend, who goes by the name Fabio from Rio. He's a big fan of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, and came up with the idea of creating an album consisting entirely of songs about Brian Wilson. So that's what this is. I gave him free reign, and only helped him some with suggestions on song selection.

I would have never come up with the idea for this album, because I had no idea that there would be enough songs about Brian Wilson to make up an entire album. I knew of the song "Brian Wilson" by Barenaked Ladies, since that was a hit back in the 1990s, but that was about it. But Fabio must be a really big fan, because he found so many songs that we had to cut some out to keep the album from getting too long.

The album starts with a rare demo written and sung by Wilson himself. It also ends with two more written and sung by him, including a rare live version of "Love and Mercy." Fabio explained the reasoning for this in an email, which I liked. I'll just paste in his explanation here:

"The Wilson tunes are bookends, as they serve to introduce and close the 'main event' (all the tracks written to him or about him) while bringing a personal Brian touch to the collection. The first song, a 1975, demo works as a prelude (acknowledging Brian's fragility and strength both simultaneously contained in his voice), 'The Last Song' is the epilogue, and 'Love and Mercy' is a coda." 

Regarding the rest of the songs, what Fabio calls the "main event," tracks 2 through 13, are basically divided into two parts. Tracks 2 through 8 are direct tributes to Brian. That's obvious by their titles, but it's not just that: the lyrics and musical style ooze reference and admiration for the man. That's followed by tracks 9 through 13, which are indirect tributes to Brian, or direct tributes to things related to him (the Beach Boys, his health shop, girls, his genius, family), all mentioning him either in the title or lyrics.

So, a big thanks to Fabio from Rio for coming up with the idea for this album and then finding and selecting the songs. As you could guess from the name, he's Brazilian, and hopefully in the future he'll be able to assist in sharing more music from Brazil. I like a lot of music from Brazil, despite not speaking Portuguese at all. I haven't really shared any music from Brazil until now, because I don't have worthy rarities. But he does, so look forward to that in the future. He also has some other plans, including creating one or more albums as a further tribute to Wilson that will consist of songs in a Beach Boys style composed by other musical acts. 

Fabio has also taped a great number of concerts in Brazil. You can find some of them on his YouTube page, here: 

https://www.youtube.com/@musicadequalidade2020/videos

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 In the Back of My Mind [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
02 The Love Songs of B. Douglas Wilson (Splitsville)
03 Mr. Wilson (Hormones)
04 Dear Brian (Chris Rainbow)
05 Brian Wilson Said (Tears for Fears)
06 Brian Wilson (Barenaked Ladies)
07 Mr. Wilson (John Cale)
08 Brian Wilson (Queers)
09 Crazy = Genius (Panic at the Disco)
10 Radiant Radish (Pearl & the Oysters)
11 Brian Wilson Is My Dad (Breakup Shoes)
12 Minnesota Girls (Shackletons)
13 Since God Invented Girls (Elton John)
14 The Last Song (Brian Wilson)
15 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Kn42WH9u

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/EMCkcQ343EW7g0m/file

The cover photo shows Wilson in 2007. I added the font colors and type to match those used on the cover of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album.

Covered: Will Jennings, Volume 2: 1988-1999

Here's "Volume 2" celebrating the songwriting of Will Jennings.

With "Volume 1," I showed that Jennings co-wrote many popular hits in the late 1970s and all through the 1980s. His winning streak continued through all of the 1990s in this volume.

Jennings co-wrote five Number One hits in the U.S. in Volume 1. He only co-wrote two in this volume: "Roll with It" and "My Heart Will Go On." But it was a fluke "Tears in Heaven" only reached Number Two (held back by "Save the Best for Last" by Vanessa Williams), since it was one of the top five best selling singles of the year. Rolling Stone Magazine also put it on their list of the top 500 songs of all time.

I found an article that talked a bit about Jennings' involvement with "Tears in Heaven." Eric Clapton wrote the music and lyrics for the first verse, with lyrics about the tragic and untimely death of his young son. However, he got stuck at that point. He'd been impressed with Jennings being involved co-writing many hits for Steve Winwood, so Clapton recruited him to help. Jennings not only wrote the lyrics of the other verses, he wrote both the music and lyrics of the bridge. So that's a good example showing that while he was best known for his lyric writing, he was capable with music composition too.

The biggest hit here, though, has to be "My Heart Will Go On," the theme song for the blockbuster "Titanic" movie. It was a Number One song in the U.S., Britain, and over twenty more countries. It was the best selling single of 1998, and is currently listed as the tenth best selling single of all time, as I write this in 2025! It basically won all the awards, including Academy Award for Best Original Song, Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Grammy Award for Record of the Year, and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. 

The music to the song was written by James Horner. He didn't write many other big hits, but he did the scores to well over 100 movies. Originally, director James Cameron just wanted the theme song to be an instrumental. But Horner felt it needed lyrics, so he secretly got Jennings to write the lyrics, since he'd worked with Jennings on a few songs previously. After Cameron heard it, he wasn't keen on having vocals. But he was under intense pressure from the movie studio to make a profit since "Titanic" was the most expensive movie ever made up until that point. So Cameron ultimately gave the okay, and was glad he did, since the song helped make the movie the top grossing film of all time up until then.

After that though, Jennings didn't have many more hits. No doubt, at that point, he could have retired and slept on a hill of money from his "My Heart Will Go On" profits alone. He did have some more music projects into the early 2000s, but seems to have retired by about 2005. He died in 2024 at the age of 80.

As with "Volume 1," all the songs here are the original versions, which were usually hits. I could have included many more lesser hits, but I generally wanted to limit these volumes to the bigger hits, which usually were the best songs. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Roll with It (Steve Winwood)
02 If We Hold On Together (Diana Ross)
03 Don't You Know What the Night Can Do (Steve Winwood)
04 Many a Long and Lonesome Highway (Rodney Crowell)
05 Holding On (Steve Winwood)
06 The Blues Come Over Me (B.B. King)
07 Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
08 What Kind of Love (Rodney Crowell)
09 Help Me Up (Eric Clapton)
10 My Heart Will Go On [Love Theme from Titanic] (Celine Dion)
11 I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You (Tina Arena & Marc Anthony)
12 Please Remember Me (Tim McGraw)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3Pu5JVo1 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/XOU3PDIFFAyEJhE/file

The cover photo is from 1999. In full picture, Jennings is holding a Grammy Award in his hands.

Lindsey Buckingham - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-18-1992

Here's yet another episode of "PBS Soundstage." I have so many of these to post. This one features Lindsey Buckingham, one of the main singer-songwriters in Fleetwood Mac. He's actually done two episodes of this show. This one is from 1992, and I'll later post one from 2003.

In 1987, Buckingham left Fleetwood Mac after he'd helped them sell tens of millions of albums since the mid-1970s. It sounds like drugs and rock and roll excess were getting out of hand in that band, and he had to leave the band for his own preservation. He would eventually rejoin Fleetwood Mac in 1997, but at the time of this concert that probably seemed far from a certain thing. He'd already released solo albums in 1981 and 1984 while still a member of Fleetwood Mac. But his 1992 album "Out of the Cradle" was the first one when his solo career was his main focus. 

If you listen to the banter between songs, at one point he said this was his very first full solo concert. I looked it up, and that's not exactly true. He actually did four club shows just prior to this one. But it's true in a larger sense, because those were warm-ups for this one, which was his first solo concert of importance, since it was broadcast nationwide.

Overall, this bootleg recording sounds excellent. But I had a lot of editing trouble with it, which is why a bunch of songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Technically, this is from the one year the program was called "Center Stage" instead of "Soundstage," though I'm calling it "Soundstage" for consistency's sake. Unfortunately for me, this was one of those shows where whoever edited it decided to spice things up by occasionally including interview segments. But while the show generally did that between songs, or while the concert kept playing in the background, in some cases here, sometimes songs were completely cut partially through. So in those cases I had to find other performances of the same song from the same tour and patch them in. For some songs, like "Go Insane," "Big Love," and "Street of Dreams," that meant adding in a couple of minutes for each song. For others, the editing was relatively minor. For instance, "The Chain" only had some interview talk over the cheering at the end of the song.

But the bottom line is all those interview parts are gone, and this should just be pure concert. Hopefully it will sound seamless to you. If you want those other bits, I recommend you watch the video of this on YouTube. 

And speaking of video, I couldn't find any good audio bootlegs of this, but I did find a high quality video. So I converted that to audio and broke it into mp3s. 

This album is an hour long.

01 talk (Lindsey Buckingham)
02 Don't Look Down (Lindsey Buckingham)
03 You Do or You Don't (Lindsey Buckingham)
04 The Chain [Edit] (Lindsey Buckingham)
05 Big Love [Edit] (Lindsey Buckingham)
06 talk (Lindsey Buckingham)
07 Go Insane [Edit] (Lindsey Buckingham)
08 Trouble (Lindsey Buckingham)
09 Tusk (Lindsey Buckingham)
10 I'm So Afraid (Lindsey Buckingham)
11 Street of Dreams [Edit] (Lindsey Buckingham)
12 talk (Lindsey Buckingham)
13 Never Going Back Again (Lindsey Buckingham)
14 All My Sorrows [All My Trials] [Edit] (Lindsey Buckingham)
15 This Is the Time (Lindsey Buckingham)
16 Go Your Own Way [Edit] (Lindsey Buckingham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ihE4wmLg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MPXhMwG8ClPHB9S/file

The cover is from this exact concert.