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 - Songwriters Special, Austin City Limits, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 9-11-1991

I recently stumbled across this on YouTube. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I decided to post it straight away. It's a special episode of the Austin City Limits TV show from 1991, called "Songwriters Special." It's basically a songwriters' circle, with four different musical acts taking turns: Nanci Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls, and Julie Gold.

I found a blog post by Julie Gold about this concert. She said that Nanci Griffith was selected as the host, and Griffith got to pick the other musical acts. However, each of the acts played the same number of songs (three), and then everyone joined in on the finale, a cover of "No Expectations" by the Rolling Stones.

Chances are you haven't heard of Julie Gold, because her music career has been very low profile. However, she was chosen because she was the songwriter behind Griffith's biggest hit, "From a Distance," which she performed here. She also wrote a song appearing on Griffith's next album at the time, called "Heaven." She would go on to write several more songs covered by Griffith.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about her:

Julie Gold - Wikipedia 

This album remains unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good. I downloaded the YouTube video, converted it to audio format, and broke it into mp3s. 

This album is 55 minutes long. 

01 It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go (Nanci Griffith)
02 talk (Nanci Griffith)
03 You've Never Had It So Good (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
04 talk (Nanci Griffith)
05 talk (Indigo Girls)
06 Hammer and a Nail (Indigo Girls)
07 talk (Nanci Griffith)
08 From a Distance (Julie Gold)
09 talk (Nanci Griffith)
10 Late Night Grande Hotel (Nanci Griffith)
11 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
12 I Am a Town (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
13 talk (Indigo Girls)
14 Fare Thee Well (Indigo Girls)
15 Heaven (Julie Gold)
16 talk (Nanci Griffith)
17 Listen to the Radio (Nanci Griffith)
18 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
19 I Feel Lucky (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
20 talk (Indigo Girls)
21 Jonas and Ezekiel (Indigo Girls)
22 talk (Julie Gold)
23 Temporary Worker (Julie Gold)
24 talk (Nanci Griffith)
25 No Expectations (Nanci Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls & Julie Gold)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CR4CKJX5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/sAVcPay4fNv5Hl8/file

I got lucky with the cover art. I found a photo taken backstage of all the musical acts at this concert. The original version of the photo was black and white, but I found a colorized version. It had issues though, so I recolorized it. I looked at the YouTube video of the concert to get in the general ballpark of the colors of the clothes they were wearing. 

From left to right, that's Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Julie Gold, Nanci Griffith, and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Austin City Limits Studio, Austin, TX, 10-10-1989

Here is the third and last album of guitar wizard Stevie Ray Vaughan performing for the BBC. Sadly, he died a year later. So it's unlikely for there to be more BBC material unless I missed something from earlier. This is a concert.

This one is rather strange for a "BBC concert," because it clearly originally was an episode of the U.S. TV show "Austin City Limits." However, it was also broadcast on BBC radio. You can even find it listed on the BBC website as part of their "In Concert" series. This kind of thing seemed to have happened more than I'd first realized when starting out with my big BBC project. I'm guessing there were times when a musical act was really popular and the BBC wanted to feature them, but they couldn't arrange to record them. For instance, perhaps they weren't going to Britain that year. So instead the BBC would simply buy the rights to someone else's radio or TV broadcasts. 

That's one reason I'm really enjoying gathering this BBC material, because they so often managed to feature musical acts at their commercial and/or creative peaks, because the BBC had the power and money to do that kind of thing. The one glaring exception is when a musical act got so popular that they decided not to do any radio or TV broadcasts at all. That certainly happened sometimes. A classic example was the Beatles stopping all BBC broadcasts in mid-1965, even though they kept touring for another year.

Anyway, I digress. Getting back to this recording, although you can easily find video of this show on YouTube and elsewhere, it hasn't been released in audio format. In fact, I was surprised that I couldn't even find any audio bootlegs of this, only a few songs here and there. So I put it together myself, based on a high quality video source. The sound quality is excellent. But one problem was that there often wasn't enough audience applause at the ends of songs. Probably, there were cutaways to commercials or an emcee talking. So in many cases I patched in applause from the ends of other songs to give adequate space after every song. 

Of course it's a tragedy that he died as young as he did. But it's especially tragic because, in my opinion, he was getting better and better as a songwriter and guitar player, probably helped by the fact that he'd stopped abusing drugs and alcohol. So of the three BBC albums I've posted by him, I think this one is the best.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 The House Is Rockin' (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
02 Tightrope (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
03 talk (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
04 May I Have a Talk with You (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
05 Mary Had a Little Lamb (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
06 Leave My Girl Alone (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
07 Crossfire (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
08 Look at Little Sister (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
09 Superstition (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
10 talk (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
11 Cold Shot (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
12 Couldn't Stand the Weather (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
13 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
13 Riviera Paradise [Instrumental] (Stevie Ray Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1K9ZaGFE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/S9ykouDU5WbkFrP/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Tracy Chapman - Austin City Limits, Zilker Metropolitan Park, Austin, TX, 8-3-2003

Tracy Chapman was massively popular in the late 1980s and through much of the 1990s. Her debut album "Tracy Chapman" sold about 20 million copies worldwide, and her 1995 album "New Beginning" sold five million copies in the US alone. But strangely, I've found it very difficult to find any concert recordings at a soundboard level after about 1991. That's not helped by the fact that she's never released a live album. I've previously posted a 2008 concert by her, but that was just a very good audience bootleg. Finally, I've found a worthy later live recording, and here it is.

The reason this sounds so good is because it's from the TV show "Austin City Limits." It seems to me Chapman didn't do a lot of the usual promotional appearances most music stars do. She wasn't that interested in fame, and in fact he music career pretty much stopped altogether after about 2008, with no more album releases or tours from then until now (as I write this in late 2023). But I came across an article about this concert that said the producer of "Austin City Limits" was a big fan of Chapman's music, and pushed hard to get her on the show.

This concert remains unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. Unfortunately though, it looks like it was edited down to fit in a one hour time slot. There also is no banter, except for one extended discussion she had about seeing seeing bats in Austin, of all things.

I'm not a fan of a lot of Chapman's studio albums after the first couple. I often don't like the production, which seemed to be moving in the dreaded "adult contemporary" direction, and a few weak songs would drag down the good ones. But in this concert she played a mix of newer (at the time) songs with the well known ones mostly from her debut album, and I think all the songs here are really good. This was why I was keen to hear an excellent sounding concert from her later years, to put her later songs in a better way. 

By the way, the full video of this concert is available on YouTube if you want to watch it and not just hear it. And if you have other concerts from her of this caliber from after 1911, please let me know so I can share them.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Say Hallelujah (Tracy Chapman)
02 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
03 Smoke and Ashes (Tracy Chapman)
04 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
05 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
06 Another Sun (Tracy Chapman)
07 talk (Tracy Chapman)
08 Telling Stories (Tracy Chapman)
09 You're the One (Tracy Chapman)
10 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
11 Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman)
12 I Am Yours (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Q3PMBnkU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/TMnqIVRkxz1w4B1/file

The cover is a screenshot I took of a YouTube video of this exact concert. In January 2025, I sharpened it a bit with the Krea AI program.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Austin City Limits Festival, Zilker Park, Austin, TX, 10-9-2022

A video of this concert that took place just two weeks ago popped up for me on YouTube yesterday. It was professionally filmed and recorded, I guess in connection with the "Austin City Limits" TV show. I found a higher quality version elsewhere, then concerted that to individual mp3 files.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are having a late career renaissance. With lead guitarist John Frusciante back in the band for the third time, they've put out two albums of 75 minutes of music apiece in 2022! Admittedly, both albums are too bloated (a common problem with the band). But if you cut them down to normal album length of about 45 minutes each, you'd have two very solid albums. Furthermore, if you watch the YouTube video of this concert, it's hard to believe a couple of the band members are 60 years old already. They bounce around with the energy even most 20 year olds don't possess. May they keep going forever.

This is an excellent concert, with great sound quality. There are no problems to fix. The one surprise for me is that they played so few new songs, considering they have dozens of new songs. There are three songs from the "Unlimited Love" album released in early 2022 ("Aquatic Mouth Dance," "The Heavy Wing," and "Black Summer") and just one, "Eddie," from the "Return of the Dream Canteen" album, which came out a few days after this concert. There's also a cover of the Ramones song "I Remember You."

This concert is an hour and 22 minutes long. I trimmed some dead air moments between songs, especially before the encore, where I cut out about two minutes of cheering.

01 Intro Jam [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 Can't Stop (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 Drum Solo [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
04 Dani California (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
05 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
06 Scar Tissue (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
07 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
08 Aquatic Mouth Dance (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
09 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
10 I Remember You (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
11 Snow [Hey Oh] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
12 Pea (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
13 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
14 Eddie (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
15 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
16 London Calling - Right on Time (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
17 Soul to Squeeze (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
18 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
19 The Heavy Wing (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
20 Black Summer (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
21 John and Flea Jam [Instrumental] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
22 Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
23 Give It Away (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
24 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
25 By the Way (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
26 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16088828/TREDHCHILP2022b_AustinCtyLimitsFestivlAustnTX__10-9-2022_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is taken from this exact concert, I'm happy to say.

Ray Davies - Austin City Limits, ALC Studios, Austin, TX, 7-24-2006

It feels like a long time since I've posted anything Kinks-related. Too long. So here's something by Ray Davies, lead singer and chief songwriter of my second favorite band in the world (after the Beatles).

In 2006, Davies released "Other People's Lives," his first studio album since the Kinks broke up in 1996. (That was a surprisingly long time, but apparently he held out for a good record deal.) He did some promotion in the wake of the release of the album, and that included an appearance on the TV show "Austin City Limits."

Unfortunately when it comes to Davies' solo career, there are lots of bootlegs, but most of them have middle to poor sound quality. This Austin City Limits show is a welcome exception. The good news is that it was professionally recorded for the TV show, and sounds great. The bad news is that only the songs that made it to the hour-long show have been bootlegged, for 46 minutes of music. He played another handful of songs that aren't included here.

It so happens that I have some other live appearances he did on TV shows around that time. So I've added four of those as sort of bonus tracks at the end. They actually are from 2005 to 2008, but I figure that's close enough for horseshoes. With those four extra songs included, this album stretches to an hour and two minutes long.

One problem with the Austin City Limits recording is that the audience applause at the end of songs was often quickly faded out. It didn't sound natural to me. So, using the few songs where there was a more extended audience reaction, I did some audio editing to extend the applause for the other songs.

01 I'm Not Like Everybody Else (Ray Davies)
02 Where Have All the Good Times Gone (Ray Davies)
03 talk (Ray Davies)
04 After the Fall (Ray Davies)
05 Next Door Neighbour (Ray Davies)
06 talk (Ray Davies)
07 Over My Head (Ray Davies)
08 talk (Ray Davies)
09 Run Away from Time (Ray Davies)
10 talk (Ray Davies)
11 20th Century Man (Ray Davies)
12 talk (Ray Davies)
13 The Tourist (Ray Davies)
14 A Long Way from Home (Ray Davies)
15 talk (Ray Davies)
16 The Getaway [Lonesome Train] (Ray Davies)
17 talk (Ray Davies)
18 All Day and All of the Night (Ray Davies)
19 Thanksgiving Day (Ray Davies)
20 In a Moment (Ray Davies)
21 Working Man's Cafe (Ray Davies)
22 Morphine Song (Ray Davies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289093/RayDvs_2006c_AustnCtyLimitsALCStdiosAustinTX__7-24-2006_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the Austin City Limits concert.