Jesse Winchester - Bottom Line, New York City, 5-1-1977

I've been wanting to post a Jesse Winchester concert for years. But I wanted it to be a really good one, and one that includes the song "Biloxi." That's my favorite song of his. I finally found a bootleg recording that checks both of those boxes, so here it is.

Winchester was born and raised in the South of the U.S., specifically Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. But in 1966, when he was 18, he received a draft notice that indicated he was likely to serve in the Vietnam War. He reacted by moving to Montreal, Canada. Shortly after moving there, he began writing songs and performing them in local clubs. In 1970, he was discovered by Robbie Robertson of the Band, who produced his debut album, the cleverly titled "Jesse Winchester." It was very well received critically, and more albums followed. 

However, his success was hobbled by the fact that he couldn't perform in the U.S., since he was still avoiding the draft. But in 1976, with the Vietnam War over, U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardoned all draft resisters, including Winchester. So this concert comes from the first year he was able to perform anywhere in the U.S. since his music career began.

He died in 2014, at the age of 69. Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Winchester

This is an excellent sounding recording because it was broadcast live on the radio. It remains unreleased. There were problems with a couple of songs though, including my favorite, "Biloxi," as well as "Let the Rough Side Drag." There were a couple of minor skips on both. But I managed to fix them. That's why those two have "[Edit]" in their titles. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 talk (Jesse Winchester)
02 Payday (Jesse Winchester)
03 talk (Jesse Winchester)
04 Tell Me Why Did You Like Roosevelt (Jesse Winchester)
05 Bowling Green (Jesse Winchester)
06 Midnight Bus (Jesse Winchester)
07 talk (Jesse Winchester)
08 Biloxi [Edit] (Jesse Winchester)
09 talk (Jesse Winchester)
10 Let the Rough Side Drag [Edit] (Jesse Winchester)
11 talk (Jesse Winchester)
12 Indian Killed the Woodcock - The Sugarfoot Rag [Instrumental] (Jesse Winchester)
13 talk (Jesse Winchester)
14 Seems like Only Yesterday (Jesse Winchester)
15 talk (Jesse Winchester)
16 My Songbird (Jesse Winchester)
17 Black Dog (Jesse Winchester)
18 Mississippi You're on My Mind (Jesse Winchester)
19 talk (Jesse Winchester)
20 Twigs and Seeds (Jesse Winchester)
21 Rhumba Man (Jesse Winchester)
22 Isn't That So (Jesse Winchester)
23 Yankee Lady (Jesse Winchester)
24 talk (Jesse Winchester)
25 I Can't Stand Up Alone (Jesse Winchester)
26 The Brand New Tennessee Waltz (Jesse Winchester)
27 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Jesse Winchester)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KGS39x2g

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rQuFHiHR8NRlNpb/file

The cover image is not from this exact concert, but it's close. It's from the same venue, but seven days later, on May 7, 1977. Probably, he was playing a series of consecutive shows.

Little Feat & Friends - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-10-1977

Here's a very interesting episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The main host of the episode was the band Little Feat. But Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, and Jesse Winchester were on the show too, and all four of these musical acts performed together in various combinations. 

If you've been paying attention at all to this blog in the last week or so (as I write this in late October 2025), you'll notice I've been posting a lot of albums based on Midnight Special episodes lately. So far, only the shows from 1973 to 1975 have been posted in high quality on YouTube, with a chronological rollout slowly continuing. But occasional shows from later years were already bootlegged. There aren't many cases of that, and most of them are incomplete and/or have lesser sound quality. But I found this one in full with excellent quality, so I've decided to post it already. No doubt it's survived as a bootleg when most other episodes didn't because of the special collaborations.

The musical acts mentioned above were not the only ones on the show. In addition, Neil Young appeared for one song, and Weather Report performed three songs. I didn't include the Young song, because it wasn't really from the episode, but it was a video of him performing "Like a Hurricane" at some unknown concert. Had he actually been there, I would have included it, and I'll bet he would have interacted with some of the others too. (Most likely Emmylou Harris, since she sang backing vocals on some of his songs right around this time.) As for Weather Report, I didn't include them because they didn't fit in musically with the others, and there was no collaboration between them and the others. This is another case where I feel less is more, by having musical cohesion to the album.

I took the music from a bootleg. But I patched in more applause at the ends of some songs to help smooth the transitions between songs. And there were edits to two songs. I edited Wolfman Jack's introduction to get rid of the mentions of Neil Young and Weather Report. "Rock and Roll Doctor" by Little Feat was more difficult. This was another case of the show ending in the middle of song. So I found a soundboard bootleg of a Little Feat from Kansas City in 1977, and used that version of "Rock and Roll Doctor" to finish off the last three minute or so.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris with Little Feat)
03 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat with Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt & Jesse Winchester)
04 talk (Little Feat)
05 Runaway (Bonnie Raitt)
06 talk (Emmylou Harris)
07 Rhumba Man (Jesse Winchester)
08 Old Folks Boogie (Little Feat)
09 talk (Little Feat & Jesse Winchester)
10 I Can't Stand Up Alone (Jesse Winchester with Emmylou Harris & Bonnie Raitt)
11 talk (Jesse Winchester)
12 Home (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Little Feat)
14 Nothing but a Breeze (Jesse Winchester with Emmylou Harris)
15 Rocket in My Pocket (Little Feat)
16 My Songbird (Emmylou Harris)
17 Sugar Mama (Bonnie Raitt)
18 talk (Little Feat)
19 Rock and Roll Doctor [Edit] (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fDdTEYhP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/B1Dw5Vdo0jkhFj3/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's actually a combination of two different screenshots. At one point in the YouTube video, the camera panned from Lowell George to Emmylou Harris, then to Bonnie Raitt. The three of them were never in the frame at the same time. But I was able to take the two screenshots and stitch them together to get all three of them together.