Michael Hedges - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA, 11-12-1997

Here's a concert by the fantastic and underrated guitarist Michael Hedges. Guest poster Fabio from Rio was instrumental in having this album get posted. He's the one who found the video of this and suggested that we turn it into an audio album. He also has an interesting personal story about Hedges, so I've asked him to do the write-up and share that story. Take it away, Fabio:

It's been almost 30 years since we lost one of the greatest guitarists of the last century in a fatal car crash on a slippery road near Mendocino, CA, on December 2, 1997. It is a pity that so many people have never heard of him or his music. Hedges was not only a remarkable guitar player, but also a hugely talented composer and singer. He practically reinvented acoustic guitar playing, and many of his techniques and innovations have since been embraced and incorporated by guitarists all over the world. So, it is about time that more of Michael Hedges' music found its way onto the Albums That Should Exist blog, and this - his last known recorded concert, just weeks before his death - seems like a good place to start!

I saw Hedges live once, during his only visit to Rio, Brazil, in 1996, about a year before his untimely death. He performed in a small underground bar at a hotel near Copacabana Beach. By then, I had only recently been introduced to his music by my brother, who is also a guitarist. There were perhaps 40 people in the tiny venue, and we were seated at a table right next to Hedges. If I had stretched out my arm, I could literally have grabbed his leg!

After the concert, we and two other guys stuck around at the bar. Before long, Hedges — drinking something that looked like an almond milk power drink — showed up and started chatting with us. He talked to us for what seemed like ages, as if we were old childhood friends. He answered our questions, accepted some CDs of Brazilian music (apologizing that he had nothing from his side to give us in return), and even tuned an acoustic guitar to one of his signature tunings, showing us how to play some of his licks. It was basically an impromptu 15-minute masterclass! That gives you an idea of what a great guy he was.

But that was a different concert, and unfortunately it wasn't recorded. (At the time, I didn't tape the concerts I attended.) Here, about a year later, we have a good example of one of his typical late-period concerts. It consists of original instrumental pieces and songs he sang himself, some excellent covers, the occasional oddity (such as the recitations of "Jabberwocky" and "Oklahoma," and the brief, jokey "Free Bird" rendition that precedes "All Along the Watchtower"), and an overall wonderfully relaxed atmosphere, with plenty of laughs from the audience.

Hopefully, we'll have more Hedges here at ATSE soon. Paul and I have compiled a great collection of almost all the live covers performed by Hedges into a four-volume set, which we'll be sharing soon. And I have around 50 of his live concerts in my collection, so there should be plenty more to come eventually, if there's interest.

---

Thank you, Fabio. The only that I'd want to add to that is some information about the audio editing. The video sounded pretty good at first listen, but it turned out it need a lot of work. There was a lot of hiss, so I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program to get rid of most of that. The vocals during the talking bits didn't sound good either, so I ran all of those through the Adobe vocal enhancer. I also ran all the songs through MVSEP again to improve the balance between the lead vocals and the instruments. On top of all that, it turns out the audience was very quiet during the songs, except there was a LOT of coughing. Pretty much every song had at least one cough, sometimes more. So I had to remove those one by one. There might be a couple that I've missed, but it's way better than before.

So ultimately, this was essentially sounding like an audience boot at first, given that it was a fan-recorded video instead of a professional one. But after all those edits, I believe this sounds as good as most soundboard boots. 

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long.

01 Aerial Boundaries [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
02 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Michael Hedges)
03 talk (Michael Hedges)
04 Jitterboogie [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
05 Baal T'shuvah [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
06 Ragamuffin [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
07 talk (Michael Hedges)
08 Rickover's Dream [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
09 Free Swinging Soul (Michael Hedges)
10 Rough Wind in Oklahoma (Michael Hedges)
11 talk (Michael Hedges)
12 Silent Anticipations [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
13 talk (Michael Hedges)
14 Confortably Numb (Michael Hedges)
15 talk (Michael Hedges)
16 Arrowhead [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
17 talk (Michael Hedges)
18 Shell Shock Venus (Michael Hedges)
19 talk (Michael Hedges)
20 Because It's There [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
21 talk (Michael Hedges)
22 Ritual Dance [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
23 talk (Michael Hedges)
24 Like a Rolling Stone (Michael Hedges)
25 Jabberwocky (Michael Hedges)
26 The Rootwitch [Instrumental] (Michael Hedges)
27 talk (Michael Hedges)
28 Gimme Shelter (Michael Hedges)
29 Oklahoma (Michael Hedges)
30 talk (Michael Hedges)
31 Free Bird [Snippet] (Michael Hedges)
32 All Along the Watchtower (Michael Hedges)
33 talk (Michael Hedges)
34 No Expectations (Michael Hedges)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/41bkFHJp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/ehlRocIc4H0dw9p/file 

There was a lot of difficulty making this cover image. Technically, it's a screenshot taken from this exact concert. However, the footage was very low-res. So using Gemini, there was some pretty creative filling in of details to get this result. But this is how he would have really looked, with that harp guitar (for a portion of the concert), those clothes, and so on. Even for his helmet, because the screenshot was dark and murky there, I relied on a different photo of the custom-made, strange, beat-up helmet (that worked with his microphone) he was using at that time to make sure it was accurate.

Paul McCartney - Solo Rockers (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I recently posted three compilation albums of rockers from the solo careers of the four ex-Beatles, and three more compilation albums of ballads from them. All of those were put together by guest poster Mike Solof. But when Mike made those, he discovered there were a lot more rockers and ballads by Paul McCartney than any of the other ex-Beatles, since he's had a long and very prolific career. So Mike decided to make an extra rockers album just of McCartney songs, as well as an extra ballads one. Here's the rockers.

All the songs are taken from studio albums or singles. There are no special edits done by Mike this time. 

By the way, note that the range of years given in the title, 1969-2026, is for the entire project. On this album, the actual range ins 1972 to 2007. As usual, see the mp3 tags for all the details. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Junior's Farm (Paul McCartney)
02 Night Out (Paul McCartney)
03 Rinse the Raindrops (Paul McCartney)
04 Angry (Paul McCartney)
05 Beware My Love (Paul McCartney)
06 Used to Be Bad (Paul McCartney)
07 Rock Show (Paul McCartney)
08 Getting Closer (Paul McCartney)
09 Hi, Hi, Hi (Paul McCartney)
10 Jet (Paul McCartney)
11 Magneto and Titanium Man (Paul McCartney)
12 Fine Line (Paul McCartney)
13 Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney)
14 Ever Present Past (Paul McCartney)
15 Get Out of My Way (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5rb7nkZK 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sD7pOUGHyzFduOl/file

Now that this is an album only featuring McCartney, there's no need for Mike to use AI to create images of imagined Beatles reunions. So this is a real photo of McCartney in concert. Mike selected the picture though, so I don't know what year it's from or other details. 

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison & Ringo Starr - Solo Ballads, Volume 1 (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Yesterday, I posted "Solo Rockers, Volume 1," featuring rocking songs from the solo careers of the four Beatles. It was created by guest poster Mike Solof. This is the exact same concept, also done by Mike, but with ballads. There are different definitions of ballads, but in this case we're talking about love songs usually done in a more mellow mode than the rockers.

For the rockers, Mike's selection of songs was pretty straightforward. But when it came to picking ballads from the Beatles' solo careers, it was harder going. He found enough for three volumes, the same as for the rockers. But in some cases, he chose to make some new "Mike's Mix" edits of songs that toned down or removed drums and some other elements to help the songs fit into the ballad mode. His edit of "Blow Away" by George Harrison on this volume is a good example. The original, which was a hit in 1979, is pretty close to a rocker. But Mike's edit transforms it pretty dramatically, and hopefully allows you to appreciate the song in a new way. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Bluebird (Paul McCartney)
02 Never without You [Mike's Mix 2026] (Ringo Starr)
03 Here Comes the Moon [Mike's Mix 2025] (George Harrison)
04 Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
05 So Bad (Lindsay Pagano & Paul McCartney)
06 I'm Yours (Ringo Starr)
07 Blow Away [Mike's Mix 2026] (George Harrison)
08 Heaven on a Sunday (Paul McCartney)
09 Old Dirt Road [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
10 Little Willow (Paul McCartney)
11 I'll Still Love You (Ringo Starr)
12 Dark Sweet Lady (George Harrison)
13 Love [Take 31] (John Lennon)
14 Baby's Request (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Hi6PcHRM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/opD0riXacqTFSaL/file

Mike chose some more AI artwork that he found on the Internet for the cover.

Eric Clapton - Going Down Slow - Non-Album Tracks (1996-1998)

Recently, I decided to make a renewed effort to post more of my non-album tracks albums. I have a lot of these I made a long time ago. I tend to forget about posting them though because I get distracted by other music that's newer to me. As an example, I have several more of these albums for Eric Clapton's long career. So far, I've posted albums up until 1996. Here's the next one.

The main thing that happened musically to Clapton during the 1996 to 1998 time period is he released his studio album "Pilgrim" in 1998. I've already posted an alternate version of that one that cuts down on the overproduction that troubled it. 

There's one track here that later ended up as a bonus track on the "Pilgrim" album: "Theme from a Movie that Never Happened." However, it's an acoustic instrumental that doesn't have much in common with that album. Most of the other songs here are instrumentals or blues, or both.

"Rock Me Baby" is a duet with B.B. King from one of King's studio albums. "Angelica" and "What Else" come from a studio album as well. The rest are unreleased. Most of those are from concert bootlegs. See the mp3 tags for further details about sourcing.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Roberta (Eric Clapton with Dr. John)
02 St James Infirmary (Eric Clapton & Dr. John)
03 Ruthie [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton & Legends)
04 Rock Me Baby (B. B. King & Eric Clapton)
05 I Got You [I Feel Good] [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton & Legends)
06 I Hardly Ever Do (Eric Clapton with Alan Darby)
07 Angelica [Instrumental] (T.D.F (Eric Clapton))
08 What Else [Instrumental] (T.D.F (Eric Clapton))
09 Going Down Slow (Eric Clapton with David Sanborn)
10 Theme from a Movie that Never Happened [Instrumental] (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VnTn2Csj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/VwH2gxYlIaahpJc/file

The cover image is a painting by David Lloyd Glover. 

Suzanne Vega - Cover Versions, Volume 2: 1997-2022

Here's the second and final volume of cover versions performed by Suzanne Vega. As I mentioned in my write-up for Volume 1, she's very rarely put any covers on her studio albums, but she's done some in concerts and in non-album projects. This completes all the ones I could find.

Most of the songs here are officially released. But there are four unreleased ones: "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Man Who Sold the World," "Femme Fatale," and "Dreaming." All of those come from concert bootlegs.

As for the officially released ones, three of them - "Behind Blue Eyes," "Solitaire," and "Have You Met Miss Jones" - are from a DVD called "Live at Montreux 2004." Three more are from a rarities album simply called "Rarities." That leaves three songs, which are from different "various artists" compilations.

By the way, in late 2025, Vega released a new studio album, "Flying with Angels." I think it's very good. If you haven't given it a listen yet, you should. I've been wanting to post a concert of her performing songs from that album, but I haven't come across anything with worthy sound quality yet. 

This album is 42 minutes long. 

01 Coventry Carol (Suzanne Vega)
02 Erie Canal (Suzanne Vega with Dan Zanes)
03 Behind Blue Eyes (Suzanne Vega)
04 Solitaire (Suzanne Vega)
05 Have You Met Miss Jones (Suzanne Vega)
06 Blowin' in the Wind (Vanessa Paradis & Suzanne Vega)
07 The Man Who Played God (Sparklehorse with Suzanne Vega)
08 Streets of Laredo (Suzanne Vega)
09 Femme Fatale (Suzanne Vega)
10 Walk on the Wild Side (Suzanne Vega)
11 Dopamine (Mitchell Froom with Suzanne Vega)
12 The Man Who Sold the World (Suzanne Vega)
13 Dreaming (Suzanne Vega)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6tJ2iy66 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/vkIJ2fVYijhItZ7/file

The cover image is from 1997. I don't know anything beyond that. The background was plain white. I didn't like that, so I pasted in the same background that appeared in the cover for Volume 1. 

Suzanne Vega - Cover Versions, Volume 1: 1986-1997

Generally speaking, Suzanne Vega has filled her albums with originals, and almost no cover versions. But that doesn't mean she's never performed covers, it's just that she's usually done them in concert or for non-album projects. She has an appealing, unique voice, and great taste in covers, so I've collected all the cover songs I could find (with worthy sound quality, that is). I was able to find enough for two albums. Here's the first one.

The first song here, "In a Lonely Place," needs an explanation. It was written by the Smithereens, and appears on the 1986 Smithereens album "Especially for You." The vocals were mainly sung by the band's lead singer Pat DiNizio, but Vega added prominent backing vocals. Musical associate Lil Panda is a big Suzanne Vega fan, and wanted to hear a version with just Vega singing. Using the latest audio editing technology, he somehow managed to nearly completely remove DiNizio's vocals. The other version is perfectly fine, but it's interesting to hear it done this way too. So that's why this song has "[LilPanda Vega Mix]" in the title.

The other songs here generally come from tribute albums, or appearances on albums by other musical acts. (And they're presented in chronological order by year, as I usually do for albums like this one - see the mp3 tags for year and source details.) But there are a couple of exceptions, which are unreleased live versions. For "Chinese Bones," Vega had the honor of being a guest vocalist at a Grateful Dead concert. She chose to sing this Robyn Hitchcock song. And "Beyond Belief," maybe my favorite Elvis Costello song, comes from one of her own concerts.

This album is 43 minutes long. 

01 In a Lonely Place [LilPanda Vega Mix] (Smithereens & Suzanne Vega)
02 Stay Awake (Suzanne Vega)
03 Chinese Bones (Grateful Dead with Suzanne Vega)
04 Beyond Belief (Suzanne Vega)
05 China Doll (Suzanne Vega)
06 Cassidy (Suzanne Vega)
07 The Long Voyage (Hector Zazou with Suzanne Vega & John Cale)
08 Story of Isaac (Suzanne Vega)
09 Angel (Joe Jackson with Dawn Upshaw & Suzanne Vega)
10 Buy and Sell (Suzanne Vega) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1r77vBDH

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/CL2MWskBQNXJRTG/file

The cover image is from 1990. That's all I know about it. 

Various Artists - Musical Salad, Volume 1 (1939-2025) (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

As part of this music blog's ongoing Brian Wilson Week, here's another tribute to one of the most original musical minds of the Twentieth Century. If we've got our dates right, this should be appearing on June 17th, which happens to be National Eat Your Vegetables Day in the United States.

The idea for this collection emerged during a late-night Discord conversation with Fabio from Rio, when preparing the "Covered: Brian Wilson" discs. While discussing Brian Wilson's wonderfully eccentric song "Vegetables", we started wondering whether anyone else had ever written songs about vegetables. What began as a joke I made quickly turned into a challenge taken up by Fabio. A few days later, he returned with a surprisingly long list of candidates, and before long we realized there might actually be enough material for an entire compilation – or two.

The result is "Musical Salad." It's a collection of songs inspired by vegetables, salads, and assorted garden-related culinary adventures. Some tracks are genuinely great, some are bizarre, some are funny (either deliberate or not), and a few somehow manage to be all three at once. Taken together, they form one of the strangest and most entertaining themed collections we've assembled so far.

Note that there are many many songs that have a vegetable or something vegetable related in the title. We decided that wasn't good enough. The song has to actually be discussing something vegetable-related in the lyrics.  Furthermore, it had to hold up musically as well. I know this concept may seem strange. But just as your parents probably told you when faced with eating an unfamiliar vegetable for the first time, "try it, you'll like it." I was skeptical at first, but I think these ended up being fun albums.

There is a second volume coming, hopefully tomorrow.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Vegetables (Beach Boys)
02 Sam the Vegetable Man (Stuff Smith)
03 Cauliflower (Rattles)
04 The Onion Song (Marvin Gaye & Tammy Terrell)
05 Don't Touch Me Tomato (Phyllis Dillon)
06 Hot Potatoes (Kinks)
07 Eat Your Green Beans (Happy Campers)
08 Call Any Vegetable (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
09 Potatoes, Tomatoes, Gravy and Peas (Terry Scott Taylor)
10 Carrot Juice Is Murder (Arrogant Worms)
11 Eggplant (Train)
12 Leaf and Lime (High Llamas)
13 [Don't Give Me That] Broccoli (Phenomenauts)
14 Vegetable Town (Barenaked Ladies)
15 The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn (Johan Heldenbergh & Veerle Baetens)
16 Lettuce and Croutons with Fresh Daily (ScienZe)
17 Red Peppers (Peppes)
18 Hang On Little Tomato (Pink Martini)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wnZK6i25

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/zj3KlY4Ns9gV2Jq/file

The cover image was made by Fabio, using AI. Furthermore, he went above and beyond and used an AI art generator to create a visual picture of each of the songs. I was skeptical of that at first as well, especially since I'm not a big fan of AI art, or really AI much of anything. But I have to admit these pictures that Fabio made for the songs turned out really well. In fact, they turned out so well that I told Fabio they make me fear for the future, because if AI can make one of these in a matter of seconds, I don't see how people will be able to stay employed as artists. But that's a discussion for another time and place perhaps. Here is a sample of one such picture. This one illustrates the song "Carrot Juice Is Murder." You can find an entire booklet that he made with these AI created pictures as well as descriptions of each song in the download zip file.

Covered: Brian Wilson, Volume 2: 1980-2001 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

For Volume 2 of this “Covered” collection, covering the years 1980 to 2001, we begin to move firmly into Brian Wilson’s "influential songwriter" era. During the early and mid-1990s, his work started to gain broader recognition as something far greater than simply a catalog of breezy pop songs. One important factor was the release of the excellent "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys" box set in 1993, which included several rare recordings from the legendary (and then still unreleased) "Smile" album, along with material from other overlooked chapters of the Beach Boys’ story. The set helped spark renewed interest in both Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys' musical legacy.

By the late 1990s, a wide range of tribute albums began appearing, recorded by younger generations of musicians eager to acknowledge Brian’s influence. Indie artists such as Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, and Adventures in Stereo demonstrated a genuine affection for his music, helping introduce it to new audiences. This volume also offers a first glimpse of the Wondermints, who would later become Brian Wilson’s backing band and play a crucial role in bringing a modern version of "Smile" to life in the early 2000s.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 The Farmer's Daughter (Fleetwood Mac)
02 Go Away Boy (Honeys)
03 Dead Man's Curve (Eddie Meduza)
04 She Knows Me Too Well (Wondermints)
05 California Girls (David Lee Roth)
06 Fun, Fun, Fun (Joan Jett)
07 Be True to Your School (Cynics)
08 I Know There's an Answer (Sonic Youth)
09 Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight (Vacant Lot)
10 Surfin' (Dave Goelz & the Surf Rats)
11 Girl Don't Tell Me (Fuzzy)
12 Everything I Need (Wilsons with Brian Wilson)
13 In My Room (Marilyn Scott)
14 Little Honda (Yo La Tengo)
15 Wonderful (Adventures in Stereo)
16 Honkin' Down the Highway (Radio Sweethearts)
17 Rainbow Eyes (Kle)
18 Stevie - My Diane (Saint Etienne)
19 Surfer Girl (Paul Simon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qvGze9yR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Upv0FegAFyf6FTM/file

The cover image is from 1978. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 3: 1990-2003

This is the third out of six "Covered" volumes for George Harrison.

I had a lot to say about the development of Harrison's songwriting in Volumes 1 and 2. But after a flurry of activity in the late 1980s with his very successful "Cloud Nine" album and two albums with the Traveling Wilburys, his music career slowed waaaay down for the rest of his life. In fact, after a short tour of Japan with Eric Clapton in 1992, he pretty much retired from the music business for the rest of his life. He made slow progress on another studio album, "Brainwashed," but it wasn't released until 2002, a year after his death. 

Yet even though he spent many years away from music (with 15 years between his last two solo albums!), he did enough to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 for his solo career, in addition to already being inducted in 1987 for being a member of the Beatles.

That brings us to his unfortunate death. He died on November 29, 2001, at the age of 58. On December 30, 1999, Harrison was attacked in his home by an insane man. He was stabbed over 40 times, and barely survived. He died in 2001 of lung cancer, probably a result of a life of smoking. But friends and family say he was physically strong until the knife attack on him in 1999, and quite weak after that. So they blamed the attack for putting him in a condition where he was unable to fight off the cancer.

At any rate, Harrison's songs weren't covered much in most of the time frame here. Only the first four songs in this volume were recorded prior to his death in 2001. But after he died, there was a flood of tribute concerts and cover versions to celebrate his great musical career.

One thing I want to address here is his role in the Traveling Wilburys, the short-lived supergroup consisting of Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison. I've tried to include covers of all the good songs Harrison wrote or co-wrote from his Beatles career and his solo career, at least when there are worthy cover versions of them. But with the Traveling Wilburys, I wanted to be more selective. Technically, all the songs on both of that band's albums were co-written by all the members. But in reality, most of them were primarily, or sometimes entirely, written by one member. So it doesn't make sense for me to include a cover of a song like "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" here, when that one clearly sounds like a Bob Dylan song. 

Thus, I did a little digging to figure out which Traveling Wilburys songs could be considered written or co-written by Harrison. Luckily, the band members gave some interviews where they talked about the songwriting process and who did what. I may well have missed some information though, so if anyone thinks I missed some songs by this band that are worthy of inclusion, please let me know.

Another problem I ran into with the Traveling Wilburys is that a few of their songs have been covered a lot, but many of them have very few covers. I had particular trouble with the song "Wilbury Twist." I found a Tom Petty interview where he explained that he co-wrote that one with Harrison, so that meant it merited inclusion. But I didn't find any cover versions I liked. So in the end, I just included the Traveling Wilburys version. I have a rule not to include songs by the songwriter highlighted by the "Covered" series unless there's some special reason. But in this case, a majority of the lead vocals are sung by other members in the band, so it's not exactly a cover of Harrison being the main singer anyway. 

This album is one hour long.

01 Wilbury Twist (Traveling Wilburys)
02 That Kind of Woman (Gary Moore)
03 Cheer Down (Rainer, Joey Burns & John Convertino)
04 I Me Mine (Elliott Smith)
05 Horse to the Water (Jools Holland, Sam Brown & Jim Capaldi)
06 For You Blue (Paul McCartney)
07 Isn't It a Pity (Eric Clapton & Billy Preston)
08 You (Lisa Mychols)
09 When We Was Fab (Wendy Ip)
10 Love You To (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 Wah-Wah (Jeff Lynne & Eric Clapton)
12 Savoy Truffle (They Might Be Giants)
13 Old Brown Shoe (Leslie West)
14 Devil's Radio (Masters of Reality)
15 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] (Dave Davies)
16 Long, Long, Long (Elliott Smith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TKHomhYi 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2USkcxm1qimgtCf/file

The cover image is from 1986. 

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 1: 1966-2001 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Back in March 2026, I posted no less than ten volumes of the "Covered" series for Neil Young. Surely, you'd think, that's enough. Ten volumes is more than any of the other dozens of artists in the "Covered" series. But no, there's more! In making those ten albums, guest posted Fabio from Rio did most of the hard work, collecting hundreds of different cover versions, and presenting them to me in an organized fashion. But I did most of the selecting of which songs made the final cut. This, by contrast, represents Fabio's choices for the best of the rest. I had a little say, but just a song or two here and there where I suggested a different version or something like that. 

Fabio found enough for four volumes of "Covered" alternates. Here's the first one. Across these four volumes, about half the songs are different versions of songs that were included on the previously posted ten Neil Young "Covered" volumes. But the other half are songs that didn't feature on those volumes at all.

Fabio has written some liner notes, which are included in the download zip. But since these volumes are more like an addendum to those earlier ten volumes, he wrote just one essay for all four volumes, without song-by-song explanations.

For some musical acts in the "Covered" series, they had a lot of hits, and the choices of which covers to pick is pretty straight forward - the hit versions. But with Neil Young, it was much more subjective, since there have been tons of covers, but very few hits. So one person's trash is another person's treasure. You may well like some of these better. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Guess Who)
02 Down to the Wire (Yellow Hand)
03 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Carpenters)
04 Down by the River (Buddy Miles)
05 Til the Morning Comes (Francoise Hardy)
06 I Believe in You (Linda Ronstadt)
07 Hold Back the Tears (Jessi Colter)
08 Revolution Blues (Band of Blacky Ranchette)
09 Already One (Aaron Springfield)
10 Human Highway (Jim Witter & Cassandra Vasik)
11 Borrowed Tune (Marc Jordan)
12 Pushed It Over the End (Rich Hand)
13 Big Time (Black Crowes)
14 The Old Laughing Lady (Stereophonics)
15 Motion Pictures (Mercury Rev)
16 Mellow My Mind (Hederos & Hellberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kra1ih4k

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yfTyPoRmZ7KvcBd/file

The cover image is from 1969 or 1970. It was taken from a black and white photo of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 5: 1987-1997 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. This is the fifth and final album of "Baez Sings Baez," naturally featuring Joan Baez. It makes the argument that Baez has been a talented songwriter, by compiling together all the songs she wrote or co-wrote.

Baez's music career has been slowing down as she gets older, which is how things naturally go. Her songwriting has slowed down as well. Most of the songs here are from 1987 to 1992. Only track 12 is from 1997. Since then, Baez has only released three studio albums, and none of them have included any of her own songs.

Fabio wanted to end this with a recent (2025) duet between Baez and Jesse Welles. The odds are good the song was written by Welles. But still, Fabio wanted it to show how Baez is staying alive and lending her voice to political and social causes.

There's a lot more to say. But you'll need to read the notes Fabio wrote for that, which are included in the download zip. Thanks again to Fabio for putting these albums together.

This album is 57 minutes long. 

Oh, one last thing. If you think the cover looks familiar, that's because I used it for the cover of "Volume 4" when I posted that a couple of days ago. But Fabio and I realized that cover image was too far off chronologically. So we found a more appropriate cover for "Volume 4," from 1982, and moved that one to this volume. So you might want to redownload that earlier volume, if you care about covers.

01 Recently (Joan Baez)
02 James and the Gang (Joan Baez)
03 Blues Improv (Joan Baez & Odetta)
04 China (Joan Baez)
05 Warriors of the Sun (Joan Baez)
06 Speaking of Dreams (Joan Baez)
07 Play Me Backwards (Joan Baez)
08 Isaac and Abraham (Joan Baez)
09 I'm with You (Joan Baez)
10 The Dream Song (Joan Baez)
11 Edge of Glory (Joan Baez)
12 Lily (Joan Baez)
13 No Kings (Jesse Welles & Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KXqi9dhf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/g3JwcWvelfTSjbD/file 

The cover image is from 2000. I don't know the details.

Various Artists - 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/d2ZX8iYV

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/mbkA9S64SvICLiu/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. 

Various Artists - Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 2: 1994-2004 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the second "Covered" volume for Tom Waits. Like the Covered albums made for other musical acts, the talent of a songwriter is shown through cover versions, rather than that person performing their own songs.

And like the rest of this series for Waits, most of the heavy lifting in making this album is thanks to Fabio from Rio. He basically found a zillion Waits covers, then whittled them down to his favorites. That was still a very large number, so I then listened to them and whittled them down a lot more.

Fabio also answered my request to do the write-ups for each album in this series. So here's what he had to say about this one. And thanks, Fabio, for all your work on these albums. Take it away:

--- 

Around the mid-1980s, Waits began to break away from conventional arrangements. The music became more percussive and raw, foreshadowing a major stylistic shift. This period marks the end of his "classic singer-songwriter" phase and the start of a more radical artistic reinvention. Waits embraced experimental instrumentation, junkyard percussion, polyrhythms, and global folk influences. His work became deeply theatrical, influenced by Brecht, Weill, and his collaborations with his wife Kathleen Brennan. Songs feel like surreal street operas populated by grotesques and dreamers. This second volume includes mostly songs from that period.

The best known cover here is probably "Way Down in the Hole," due to its use in the HBO series "The Wire." (The Blind Boys from Alabama's version was used as the first season opening music, and other versions were selected for the remaining four seasons, including Waits' own original version.) Norah Jones' delicate outtake "Picture in a Frame" also got some recognition, especially after its inclusion in special editions of her breakthrough album "Come Away With Me."

"I Don't Wanna Grow Up" sounds so natural in the Ramones' catalog that many listeners assume it is an original. It was used as the opening track and first single of their last studio album. Waits' version (from the excellent 1992 album "Bone Machine") is way darker. 

"Little Boy Blue" was only performed by Waits in the movie "One from the Heart." Here we have a bluesy version by jazz singer and pianist Holly Cole. Other highlights of the volume include Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Whistling Past the Graveyard" and John Hammond's "Big Black Mariah" (which is taken from an album he did fully dedicated to Waits songs). 

On the mellower side, there are soft-sounding melodic folk versions by Shawn Colvin and Valerie Carter that prove Waits can write poignant ballads. Overall, another very nice flowing album with well performed covers that honor Waits' music.

--- 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 The Heart of Saturday Night (Shawn Colvin)
02 Whistling Past the Graveyard (Screamin' Jay Hawkins)
03 16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six (Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band)
04 I Don't Want to Grow Up (Ramones)
05 Better Off without a Wife (Pete Shelley)
06 Little Boy Blue (Holly Cole)
07 Whistle Down the Wind (Valerie Carter)
08 The Briar and the Rose (Niamh Parsons)
09 Dirt in the Ground (Christine Collister)
10 Heartattack and Vine (Popa Chubby)
11 Invitation to the Blues (Jennifer Warnes)
12 Big Black Mariah (John Hammond)
13 Picture in a Frame (Norah Jones)
14 Way Down in the Hole (Blind Boys from Alabama)
15 Jockey Full of Bourbon (Los Lobos)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MNjwyd5t

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/mxY4ZbqkQbuXcpA/file

The cover photo was taken in San Francisco in 2002.

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 1996-1997

Here's another BBC album by singer-songwriter Richard Thompson. This one is a collection of studio sessions.

In 1996, Thompson released the double album "You? Me? Us?" In my opinion, it wasn't as strong as most of his previous solo albums, and probably would have been better as a single album. Then in 1997, he released the album "Industry," with Danny Thompson (no relation). Half of the songs were his, and half were instrumentals by Danny. The songs by Richard were great, but the instrumentals mostly seemed like filler. 

Considering both of those albums were flawed, it's nice to have this collection, because it mostly consists of the strongest songs from both of those albums. There are a couple of songs from other albums, such as "Beeswing" and "Keep Your Distance," but not many. I count five songs from "You? Me? Us?" and three songs from "Industry." One song, "Bathsheba Smiles," was unreleased at the time and would appear on his next studio album, "Mock Tudor."

Most of the songs, tracks two through seven and nine through eleven, come from two sessions on the Andy Kershaw radio show. The first track is from the Bob Harris radio show, and the last one is from the Cambridge Folk Festival. (Highlights or even full sets of that festival are often broadcast by the BBC.) All of those songs are unreleased. That leaves just one officially released song, "Lotteryland." It also comes from one of the Andy Kershaw sessions, but it came out on the "The Live and Music Of" box set.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Beeswing (Richard Thompson)
02 Cold Kisses (Richard Thompson)
03 Dark Hand Over My Heart (Richard Thompson)
04 Hide It Away (Richard Thompson)
05 The Ghost of You Walks (Richard Thompson)
06 Train Don't Leave (Richard Thompson)
07 She Cut Off Her Long Silken Hair (Richard Thompson)
08 Lotteryland (Richard Thompson)
09 Drifting through the Days (Richard Thompson)
10 Bathsheba Smiles (Richard Thompson)
11 Keep Your Distance (Richard Thompson)
12 Sweetheart on the Barricade (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3fdocN5N

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/mcle0yKdfdbG1ps/file 

The cover photo is from a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, in London, on May 5, 1996.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: In Concert, NEC Arena, Birmingham, Britain, 3-8-1997

Here's another BBC concert album by the Moody Blues, from 1997.

At the time of this concert, the Moody Blues hadn't released a new album in six years, "Keys to the Kingdom," in 1991. Only one song from it was performed here, "Lean on Me [Tonight]." Otherwise, they performed their hits from the 1960s to the 1980s, with a full orchestra backing them.

It turns out that most of this concert was released on the band's box set, "Timeless Flight." However, I didn't know it was a BBC concert until musical associate Progsprog sent me his copy. It turns out that had one extra song not on the box set, "The Voice." Perhaps the reason that didn't make it to the box set was because a BBC DJ talked extensively during the instrumental intro to that song. But thanks to the use of the MVSEP program, I was able to remove that talking (although there was a little damage to the quality of the underlying music). That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

According to the set list at setlist.fm, about eight more songs were performed. But this is all we have, since the concert was edited down for broadcast by the BBC.  

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 The Voice [Edit] (Moody Blues)
02 Gemini Dream (Moody Blues)
03 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Moody Blues)
05 Eternity Road (Moody Blues)
06 talk (Moody Blues)
07 Talking Out of Turn (Moody Blues)
08 I Know You're Out There Somewhere (Moody Blues)
09 Lean on Me [Tonight] (Moody Blues)
10 I'm Just a Singer [In a Rock and Roll Band] (Moody Blues)
11 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
12 Question (Moody Blues)
13 Ride My See Saw (Moody Blues)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eaPdhoyX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/KquhjyIjDnE6sUj/file

The cover photo is an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" TV show, on February 21, 1995. That's Justin Hayward on the left and John Lodge on the right. Lodge was further to the side, but I moved him closer to Hayward with the use of Photoshop.

Various Artists - A Celebration of Townes Van Zandt, University of Texas at Austin, Austin City Limits, Austin, TX, 12-7-1997

Here's something I only recently discovered, so it went to the top of my pile of albums to post, while it was still fresh in my mind. It's a tribute to singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, from 1997.

Van Zandt died on January 1, 1997 from heart failure. That wasn't that surprising, since he fit the profile of a "live hard and die young" kind of person. He had addictions with alcohol and heroin pretty much is entire adult life, and was manic depressive as well. But he was a much beloved figure in the Texas country music community. So most of his musical friends took part in this concert, put on by the "Austin City Limits" TV show, to honor his legacy.

As you can see from the cover photo, all the various singers were arranged in a large semi-circle facing the audience. There was a largely unseen band in the background supporting them. Each performer generally got one song, though Guy Clark got two, and sometimes there were duets or backing vocals.

If you're not familiar with the songwriting of Van Zandt, this is a good way to learn his best known songs. He didn't write many hit songs (with "Pancho and Lefty" being a big exception), but his songs were often covered by other country artists due to their quality.

As far as I know, everything here is unreleased. I found this on YouTube, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s. The sound quality is very good.  

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 To Live Is to Fly (Guy Clark)
02 talk (Guy Clark)
03 talk (Peter Roman)
04 No Lonesome Tune (Peter Roman with Nanci Griffith)
05 talk (Steve Earle)
06 Ft. Worth Blues (Steve Earle)
07 talk (Steve Earle)
08 talk (Nanci Griffith)
09 Tecumseh Valley (Nanci Griffith)
10 talk (John T. Van Zandt)
11 Highway Kind (John T. Van Zandt)
12 talk (John T. Van Zandt)
13 talk (Willie Nelson)
14 Pancho and Lefty [Edit] (Willie Nelson & Emmylou Harris)
15 talk (Emmylou Harris)
16 If I Needed You [Edit] (Emmylou Harris with Steve Earle)
17 talk (Rodney Crowell)
18 Heavenly Houseboat (Rodney Crowell with Emmylou Harris)
19 talk (Lyle Lovett)
20 Lungs (Lyle Lovett with Steve Earle)
21 talk (Lyle Lovett)
22 talk (Jack Clement)
23 For the Sake of the Song (Jack Clement)
24 talk (Guy Clark)
25 Don't Take It Too Bad (Guy Clark)
26 talk (Guy Clark & Susanna Clark)
27 White Freightliner (Everybody)
28 talk (Guy Clark)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/peaMv6Ki 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/fAfL3f83E5vmOhc/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left: Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, John T. Van Zandt, Nanci Griffith, Steve Earle, and Peter Rowan. The others were part of the circle (on the other side of Harris). But I chose not to fit them in, because if I did, everyone would have looked significantly smaller.

Various Artists - Music for Montserrat, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 9-15-1997

Here's a really interesting benefit concert from 1997. Just look at the list of big stars involved: Carl Perkins, Midge Ure, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Sting, Elton John, and Paul McCartney. Most of them performed two or three songs together, and all the big names got together with McCartney to sing some of his songs for the finale. All that, and the sound quality is excellent.

Montserrat is a small island in the Caribbean Sea, and it's still a colony of Britain. In 1979, George Martin, best known as the producer for nearly all the Beatles records, financed the building of a recording studio there. From 1979 to 1989, about 70 albums were recorded there, because musicians enjoyed recording in a beautiful, exotic locale. Many of them were by very big stars, such as "Synchronicity" by the Police and "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.   

Unfortunately, in 1989, the Category Four hurricane Hugo hit Montserrat. It destroyed 90 percent of all buildings on the island, including Martin's recording studio. The studio wasn't rebuilt. Then, in 1995, the main volcano on the island, Soufriere Hills volcano, erupted. The island was basically completely devastated again. Martin then led the effort to stage this benefit concert. All the musicians involved recorded albums on Montserrat. Ultimately, about a million and half British pounds were raised. Later, limited edition lithographs signed by McCartney and Martin raised another million and a half pounds. This money went to help people reconstruct their homes, as well as the building of a new cultural center for the island. 

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

Music for Montserrat - Wikipedia  

For this concert, Martin decided that less was more. He even mentioned in his banter during the concert that he turned down many musical acts who wanted to take part. The focus was just on the biggest stars. One exception was Arrow. He only had one minor hit in 1982, in Britain, "Hot Hot Hot." But he is Montserratian, so it made sense he would be involved. Also, "Hot Hot Hot" went on to be a bigger hit by Buster Poindexter in 1987. 

This concert has been released on DVD, but not in any audio format. So I started with the DVD, converting it to audio format then breaking it into mp3s. "Hot Hot Hot," plus "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett and "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" by Midge Ure, were not on the DVD. But luckily I found out they were performed by reading the Wikipedia entry about the concert. Then I found YouTube videos of them. Those had very good sound quality, because they were broadcast on TV. 

In addition to adding some missing songs, I cut some things. Mostly, I cut some interviews that were interspersed between the songs in the DVD. Martin plus some of the big stars like McCartney and Sting were interviewed. It's interesting stuff, but it wasn't part of the concert, so it got the axe. If you want to see that, check out the DVD.

Probably the highlight of the concert was McCartney's set at the end. As he said in the interview which I cut out, he had met the other stars in this concert many times over the years. However, he rarely actually played music with any of them. For instance, he said the last time he played with Clapton was when Clapton guested on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the White Album by the Beatles in 1968. But McCartney practiced with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Elton John, and really collaborated with tracks 42 to 46 at the end here.

One final note. This was the last major public appearance for Carl Perkins. He was in fine health at the time of this concert. But he died after a series of strokes in January 1998, at the age of 65. 

This album is two hours and 15 minutes long.

01 talk (George Martin)
02 talk (Carl Perkins)
03 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins)
04 talk (emcee)
05 talk (Midge Ure)
06 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Midge Ure)
07 Vienna (Midge Ure)
08 talk (George Martin)
09 talk (Phil Collins)
10 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
11 Take Me Home (Phil Collins with Ray Cooper)
12 talk (Arrow)
13 Hot Hot Hot (Arrow)
14 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
15 Volcano (Jimmy Buffett)
16 talk (Phil Collins)
17 talk (Mark Knopfler)
18 Going Home [Theme from Local Hero] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
19 talk (Mark Knopfler)
20 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler with Guy Fletcher)
21 talk (Mark Knopfler)
22 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler with Sting, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton & Ray Cooper)
23 talk (Phil Collins)
24 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
25 Fields of Gold (Sting)
26 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (Sting)
27 talk (George Martin)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Your Song (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Live like Horses (Elton John)
32 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
33 talk (Carl Perkins)
34 Broken Hearted (Eric Clapton)
35 Layla (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler)
36 talk (Eric Clapton)
37 Same Old Blues (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler & Phil Collins)
38 talk (George Martin)
39 talk (Paul McCartney)
40 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
41 talk (Paul McCartney)
42 Golden Slumbers (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
43 Carry That Weight - The End (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
44 talk (George Martin)
45 Hey Jude (Paul McCartney, Elton John & Everybody)
46 Kansas City - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Paul McCartney & Everybody)
47 talk (Paul McCartney & George Martin) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WN5He6az 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rtae3vnAgivMIJf/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: Carl Perkins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney. Sting is right behind Perkins, but all you can really see of him is his hand on the neck of a bass guitar. In the original photo, the neck of Sting's bass guitar went right over Knopfler's face. In my opinion, it kind of ruined the photo. But there were several photos no doubt taken minutes apart from each other from the same spot. I found one where Knopfler's face was fully visible and the bass guitar neck was lower, and I patched in just that part of the image, using Photoshop. I also used the Krea AI program to flesh out some of the detail.

Various Artists - The Carlsberg Concert - Songs and Visions, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 8-16-1997

This is a really fascinating concert, with a format I've never seen before. I highly recommend it. Basically, the idea was to get ten famous musicians to perform one classic song a year, in reverse order, going back to the start of rock and roll in 1955. The stars: Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige, Rod Stewart, and Eikichi Yazawa.

Occasionally, the "one song per year" format that meant having the star sing their own hits. For instance, Rod Stewart sang "Maggie May," Robert Palmer sang "Addicted to Love," and k.d. lang sang "Constant Craving." But more often, they sang songs they probably have never sang in public before or since. For example, Seal sang "Stairway to Heaven," Rod Stewart sang "In the Midnight Hour," Bon Jon Bovi sang "Sympathy for the Devil," and k.d. lang sang "I Will Survive!" 

Even more intriguingly, the stars sometimes sang unexpected duets. For instance, Seal and Steve Winwood teamed up to sing U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer sang a duet version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." The backing band was the same for all the songs, so there was no time wasted between songs. Stewart was the emcee, making very brief comments between all the songs. If you watch a video of this concert on YouTube, you'll see that each time he introduced a song, iconic images from the year the song was a hit were shown on a huge screen behind the stage.

For better or worse, the "one song per year" rule was only loosely enforced. Sometimes, they played two songs for one year, and more often years went by with no songs at all. They sometimes fudged the years songs came out. For instance, Rod Stewart in his banter implied that "Stairway to Heaven" was released in 1973, when it came out in 1971. The first and last songs were also wildly out of order. And the rule was only even loosely enforced until 1963. At that point, the concert turned into an Elvis Presley tribute, with seven Presley hits in a row. But those are just quibbles. The bottom line is that these big stars sang nothing but classic songs for the whole concert.

In terms of the stars, the one I had never heard of, and chances are you have never heard of, is Eikichi Yazawa. He is very little known in most Western countries, but he's a big star in Japan, filling stadiums there. He has the nicknames "The Boss" and "The King of Rock" there as well. The reason he isn't better known elsewhere is that his hits songs are sung in Japanese. He only did one song in this concert on his own, "Don't Be Cruel." I watched the YouTube video of it. He danced and held the stage with lots of charisma, but unfortunately one can hear a clear Japanese accent on his singing. Still, kudos for the concert organizers in giving him this big platform.

By the way, it may seem odd at first that one of the songs chosen was "Some Guys Have All the Luck," because it wasn't as big of a hit as the other songs here. But that's Robert Palmer had a hit with it in 1982, and then Rod Stewart had a pretty differently arranged hit with it in 1984. So it made perfect sense for the two of them to sing a duet version of it here. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only time they sang the song together.

I found two main sources for this concert. One was a high quality video file, and the other was a video downloaded from YouTube. It's a good thing I found two, because each of them had songs the other one didn't. Furthermore, "Don't Be Cruel" sung by Yazawa wasn't included on either one. But I managed to find a YouTube video of it, as mentioned above, and I included it in the proper order (since the video kept going with the next song). 

This is called "The Carlsberg Concert" because it was sponsored by the Carlsberg Beer Company. (You can see the company logo in the background in the cover image). It was conceived and directed by someone named Tony Hollingsworth. I had never heard of him before, but it turns out he came up with some really unusual and intriguing concerts. For instance, at the same time I found this one, I found another one where he paired big name American and British music stars like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jon Bon Jovi with Japanese musicians. I plan on posting that one as well, eventually. Here's his bio page. 

Tony Hollingsworth 

It seems this "one song per year" format has never been repeated in a big concert like this in the many years since. That's too bad. I had never heard about this concert until I randomly stumbled across it the other day. If you know of other "various artists" concerts that you think I should post at my blog, please let me know. It seems there are many of these, like this one, that once appeared on TV and have only existed in video format, so they've gone way under the radar when it comes to being audio bootlegs. 

The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. I did make a few fixes, such as brief volume drops, but nothing major. Oh, but one consistent problem was that all the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I boosted that for all the songs using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is two hours and 37 minutes long.

01 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Rod Stewart, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige & Steve Winwood)
02 talk (Rod Stewart)
03 Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton)
04 talk (Rod Stewart)
05 Kiss from a Rose (Seal & Mary J. Blige)
06 talk (Rod Stewart)
07 Keep the Faith (Jon Bon Jovi)
08 Sympathy for the Devil (Jon Bon Jovi)
09 talk (Rod Stewart)
10 Constant Craving (k.d. lang)
11 talk (Rod Stewart)
12 Nothing Compares 2 U (Rod Stewart & Mary J. Blige)
13 talk (Rod Stewart)
14 Ain't Nobody (Chaka Khan)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Bad Medicine (Jon Bon Jovi)
17 talk (Rod Stewart)
18 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Seal & Steve Winwood)
19 talk (Rod Stewart)
20 Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer)
21 Some Guys Have All the Luck (Robert Palmer & Rod Stewart)
22 talk (Rod Stewart)
23 Every Breath You Take (Chaka Khan & k.d. lang)
24 talk (Rod Stewart)
25 Another One Bites the Dust - Good Times (Mary J. Blige)
26 talk (Rod Stewart)
27 I Will Survive (k.d. lang)
28 talk (Rod Stewart)
29 Is This Love (Seal)
30 talk (Rod Stewart)
31 Tonight's the Night (Rod Stewart)
32 talk (Rod Stewart)
33 Stairway to Heaven (Seal)
34 talk (Rod Stewart)
35 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
36 talk (Rod Stewart)
37 Travelin' Band (Jon Bon Jovi)
38 Proud Mary (Jon Bon Jovi)
39 talk (Rod Stewart)
40 You're All I Need to Get By (Seal & Toni Braxton)
41 talk (Rod Stewart)
42 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)
43 talk (Rod Stewart)
44 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Mary J. Blige)
45 talk (Rod Stewart)
46 In the Midnight Hour (Rod Stewart)
47 talk (Rod Stewart)
48 Like a Rolling Stone (Seal, Jon Bon Jovi & Robert Palmer)
49 talk (Rod Stewart)
50 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer)
51 Dancing in the Street (Steve Winwood & Chaka Khan)
52 talk (Rod Stewart)
53 All My Loving (k.d. lang & Chaka Khan)
54 talk (Rod Stewart)
55 Love Me Tender (Toni Braxton)
56 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood)
57 That's All Right, Mama (Jon Bon Jovi)
58 All Shook Up (Robert Palmer)
59 Jailhouse Rock (Rod Stewart)
60 Don't Be Cruel (Eikichi Yazawa)
61 Heartbreak Hotel (Rod Stewart, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood & Eikichi Yazawa)
62 Hey Jude (Everybody) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6sqiV8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/l69yltKzWGqfd88/file

The cover image shows a promotional photo taken in conjunction with this concert. The version I found was very wide but vertically narrow, so I split it into two parts, to allow me to make everyone appear larger. From left to right, top row: Eikichi Yazawa, Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, and Jon Bon Jovi. From left to right, bottom row: Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, and Rod Stewart. Mary J. Blige seems to have missed the photo shoot. I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. 

Various Artists - Covered: Henry Mancini: 1959-1998

I have so much material for "Covered" series albums that I'm going to try to make another concerted effort to post a lot more of them. So here's another, focusing on the songwriting of Henry Mancini.

Mancini is a bit of a left field choice for the Covered series, since he mostly composed instrumental music for movies, and is far removed from rock and roll. But he was responsible for so many classic songs that I feel I can't leave him out. The intro to his Wikipedia article sums him up well, stating that Mancini "was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flutist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995."

Mancini was born in 1924 and grew up in rural Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, he studied at the prestigious Julliard School of Music in New York City for two years. But then he was drafted in the U.S. Army and fought in World War II from 1943 to 1945. After the war, he became a pianist and arranger for the Glenn Miller Orchestra (which continued despite the fact Miller died in World War II). In 1952, he got a job writing music for movies for Universal Pictures, a major movie studio in Hollywood. 

However, he didn't really become famous until after he left that company in 1958 to become an independent composer and arranger. One of his first jobs was writing the theme for a new TV show called "Peter Gunn." His song, the "Peter Gunn Theme," was a big hit for Duane Eddy, and has since become an often covered classic. It won an Emmy award and two Grammys, and put Mancini in high demand writing for more TV and movie projects.

Mancini typically only wrote music, usually instrumentals. But sometimes he would work with another songwriter who would write the lyrics. His next major hit, "Moon River," was such a case, with the lyrics written by famed songwriter Johnny Mercer. The version sung by actress Audrey Hepburn in the movie of the same name in 1961 went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as Grammys for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

After that, Mancini kept steadily releasing music for decades, including scores for dozens of movies. He recorded over 90 albums on his own, from big band to jazz to light classical. He became, and remains, one of the biggest names in the "easy listening" genre. 

For this album, I tried to boil the selections down to just his very best known songs, so that even people who aren't typically into can easy listening style can enjoy this. For instance, I find it hard to believe there's anyone out there who doesn't enjoy hearing the highly creative "Pink Panther Theme." Like that song, the vast majority of songs here are instrumentals. "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" wasn't actually written by him, but his arrangement changed the song so drastically that I've included it here anyway.

Most of Mancini's best known songs date from the 1960s. After that decade, he switched more to arranging songs written by other people, though he did sometimes write his own material. Some of the songs near the end of this album are covers of songs from much earlier in his career. I generally tried to avoid Mancini's own versions, as I usually do with these Covered albums. But I have two songs by him here since I couldn't find good versions of those ones otherwise.

He was still composing and arranging, though less prolifically, when he died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 70 years old. His music made such a cultural impact that in 2004 he was the subject of a U.S. postage stamp. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Peter Gunn Theme (Ray Anthony & His Orchestra)
02 Moon River (Audrey Hepburn)
03 Baby Elephant Walk (Lawrence Welk & His Orchestra)
04 Theme from Hatari (Henry Mancini & His Orchestra)
05 A Shot in the Dark (Shirley Scott)
06 The Shadows of Paris (Elsie Bianchi)
07 Pink Panther Theme (Those Fantabulous Strings)
08 Slow Hot Wind (Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66)
09 Two for the Road (Peggy Lee)
10 Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet [A Time for Us] (Johnny Mathis)
11 Send a Little Love My Way (Anne Murray)
12 Newhart (Henry Mancini)
13 Days of Wine and Roses (Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass)
14 Dreamsville (Dave Grusin with Diana Krall)
15 Charade (Monica Mancini)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NNf2DX2w

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/SpfGKosgrSb8HlG/file

The cover photo dates from 1985. I don't know any other details.

Various Artists - Covered: Will Jennings, Volume 2: 1988-1999

Here's "Volume 2" in the "Covered" series 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/oxVJBJqz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/GP48bePDz8txo8B/file

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