Bill Withers with Bobby Womack & Buddy Miles - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 3-22-1974

Here's another episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. This one is hosted by singer-songwriter Bill Withers. But it's kind of a soul music triple header, because there are two guest stars, Bobby Womack and Buddy Miles, and they have larger roles than usual.

Normally when posting these Midnight Special episodes, I just have the main artist plus sometimes a guest artist. But this episode ended with Withers singing one of his songs with both Womack and Miles, so it made sense to include all three of them. That's especially so since they performed similar kinds of music.

The episode was rather short, however, so I added in some extra songs from other episodes. It turns out Withers only performed one more song for the show, "Lovely Day," in 1977. That isn't publicly available yet (with the episodes being rereleased one per week on YouTube), so I didn't have the option of including that one. However, both Womack and Miles performed the occasional song prior to this, so I included more of their songs. "Harry Hippie" by Bobby Womack is from an August 3, 1973 episode. "It's All Over Now" by Bobby Womack is from a June 15, 1973 episode. And "Life Is What You Make It" by Buddy Miles is from a June 7, 1974 episode. That's not all either of them did on the show, but hopefully some other stuff will come out on other albums I post eventually.

I edited the first track, where emcee Wolfman Jack is introducing the guests for the show. I removed the names of the other guests not included here. In case you're curious, they were Rory Gallagher, Montrose, Melissa Manchester, and Cliff de Young. I also got rid of the theme song playing in the background, and replaced it with more applause. And unfortunately, the last song, "Railroad Man," got abruptly cut off, due to the TV broadcast ending. Since it was a unique version with all three stars, I couldn't find a different version to finish it off. Instead, I faded it out and faded in some applause. So that's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. 

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers)
03 talk (Bill Withers)
04 Lookin' for a Love (Bobby Womack)
05 talk (Bill Withers)
06 You Really Got Me (Buddy Miles)
07 The Same Love that Made Me Laugh (Bill Withers)
08 Nobody Wants You When You're Down and Out (Bobby Womack)
09 Lean on Me (Bill Withers)
10 Harry Hippie (Bobby Womack)
11 talk (Bill Withers)
12 Green Grass (Bill Withers)
13 It's All Over Now (Bobby Womack)
14 Life Is What You Make It (Buddy Miles)
15 Railroad Man [Edit] (Bill Withers, Bobby Womack & Buddy Miles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zdBKEC8X

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Gu1S6BkLihVSfcf/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. From right to left: Bobby Womack, Bill Withers, and Buddy Miles.

Bill Withers - Beat Club, Bremen, Germany, 3-23-1972

Soul great Bill Withers died last week, on March 30, 2020. He was 81 years old. In honor of his passing, I wanted to post something from him. Unfortunately, like a lot of soul artists, there isn't that much material that hasn't already been released. But after some searching I found something I really like, and here it is.

Withers had a rather unusual career. When he started playing music professionally, he already was in his late 30s. Then he only stayed in the music industry for about a decade before effectively retiring. And even in that decade, he didn't tour that much more make many live TV or radio appearances. Luckily, he released an excellent double album of a 1972 concert called "Live at Carnegie Hall," so at least there's that.

My challenge was to come up with something that didn't just duplicate the live versions of the "Carnegie Hall" album. I think I found it with an appearance he made on the German TV show "Beat Club." It's from around the same time as "Carnegie Hall," but he played a couple of different songs. More importantly, the "Beat Club" performances were all done in a studio with no studio audience, so the overall feel is different. That also means the songs aren't bothered by audience noise.

The "Beat Club" performance is only about half an hour long. I've added some other things to that, essentially gathering up all the remaining live material I had from him. He did a performance for the BBC a few months after the "Beat Club" one that was very similar, except it was in front of an audience. I included the one unique song from that, "Grandma's Hands." Plus, I also added in some of his between song banter from the BBC in front of the "Beat Club" performances. It sounds a bit odd, but trust me, it works.

He did two unique songs for the US TV show "Soul!" in 1971, so I added those at the start. I also included "Better Days," which is from a 1971 movie soundtrack. It's the one officially released track here. It's also the only non-album track of his I could find. I added three more live songs at the end, two from 1974 and one all the way from 1982. That last performance was effectively the end of his musical career - he only performed songs in public a few times after that.

So this is a bit of a stretch to call this the "Beat Club" show, since seven of the songs are from other sources, but oh well. The important thing, in my opinion, is that it's a solid and consistent listen. Note that all of his big hits are included with the exception of "Lovely Day." I couldn't find any live versions of that one.

01 I'm Her Daddy (Bill Withers)
02 Grits Ain't Groceries [All Around the World] (Bill Withers)
03 Better Days (Bill Withers)
04 talk (Bill Withers)
05 Lonely Town, Lonely Street (Bill Withers)
06 Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers)
07 talk (Bill Withers)
08 Use Me (Bill Withers)
09 talk (Bill Withers)
10 Kissin' My Love (Bill Withers)
11 Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
12 Harlem - Cold Baloney (Bill Withers)
13 talk (Bill Withers)
14 Grandma's Hands (Bill Withers)
15 Hope She'll Be Happier (Bill Withers)
16 You (Bill Withers)
17 Just the Two of Us (Bill Withers & Grover Washington, Jr.)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191081/BillWithrs_1972_BeatClbBremnGermany__3-23-1972_atse.zip.html

For the cover art photo, I could have used a screenshot of the "Beat Club" performance, since a video of that exists on YouTube. But it was somewhat low resolution. So instead I've chosen a photo from a 1973 concert in France.