Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Nakano Sun Plaza, Tokyo, Japan, 10-21-1986

Just a few days ago, I posted Volume 4 in a series of BBC albums by Joe Jackson. Here's Volume 5, from 1986.

Note that involves yet another renumbering. I already posted a Volume 5, which is a 1995 concert. This one slipped my attention, since it usually isn't mentioned as a BBC concert. But I found it on the BBC website, so it definitely is. Thus, that 1995 concert has become Volume 6. You can find an updated link to it here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/02/joe-jackson-bbc-sessions-volume-5-in.html

This concert took place a few months after the release of Jackson's album "Big World." So naturally a lot of songs are from that. But it's a complete and generously long concert, so there are also lots of songs from earlier in his career.

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

This album is an hour and 44 minutes long.

01 One More Time (Joe Jackson)
02 talk (Joe Jackson)
03 Wild West (Joe Jackson)
04 talk (Joe Jackson)
05 Right and Wrong (Joe Jackson)
06 You Can't Get What You Want [Til You Know What You Want] (Joe Jackson)
07 talk (Joe Jackson)
08 [It's A] Big World (Joe Jackson)
09 Home Town (Joe Jackson)
10 On Your Radio (Joe Jackson)
11 Shanghai Sky (Joe Jackson)
12 talk (Joe Jackson)
13 Fifty Dollar Love Affair (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 Cancer (Joe Jackson)
16 Be My Number Two (Joe Jackson)
17 Breaking Us in Two (Joe Jackson)
18 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson)
19 Survival (Joe Jackson)
20 Soul Kiss (Joe Jackson)
21 talk (Joe Jackson)
22 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
23 talk (Joe Jackson)
24 The Jet Set (Joe Jackson)
25 talk (Joe Jackson)
26 Monday Papers [Sunday Papers] (Joe Jackson)
27 talk (Joe Jackson)
28 Tonight and Forever (Joe Jackson)
29 talk (Joe Jackson)
30 Jack You're Dead - What's the Use of Getting Sober - Jumpin' Jive (Joe Jackson)
31 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
32 Man in the Street (Joe Jackson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GFiBApCp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hK4OUtEX2bqUscJ/file

The cover photo is from a concert in 1986 Arnhem, Netherlands, on December 14, 1986.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Sight and Sound, Regal Theatre, Hitchin, Britain, 1-22-1983

Back in December 2023, I posted "Volume 3" of Joe Jackson's BBC Sessions series. It's a 1982 concert. Unfortunately, it got banned by the copyright police in a matter of days. Because of that, I decided not to post "Volume 4," since it was drawn from the exact same source material, an official live album called "At the BBC." Instead, I later skipped to posting "Volume 5," and only posted "Volume 4" on SoulseekQT. Now, finally, I'm posting this. But get it quickly because it might not be here for long!

Perhaps this won't be banned, because this is no longer the same as the version on the official live album. I recently realized that the episode this BBC TV show this was taken from, "Sight and Sound," was posted on YouTube. Furthermore, that version is about two minutes longer than the live album version. All the songs are the same. However, the YouTube version has banter before some songs that the live album does not. Plus, the applause at the ends of songs is longer. So I patched in the extra stuff from the YouTube video. The sound quality is lower, but it doesn't matter much since it's only cheering and talking. Now, there are three more tracks, and every track is at least a little different.

This concert took place after the release of his 1982 studio album "Night and Day." That means it's only about six months after the concert that makes up "Volume 3" in this series, and there was no new album released since then. There probably were two concerts without much time between them because one was targeted for TV and the other for radio. Luckily for us, they're both relatively short concerts, and he had so many popular songs that only two songs were included on both albums, "Look Sharp" and "Steppin' Out." He was probably at the peak of his popularity, thanks in large part to "Steppin' Out," his biggest hit.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 talk (Joe Jackson)
02 On Your Radio (Joe Jackson)
03 Another World (Joe Jackson)
04 talk (Joe Jackson)
05 Sunday Papers (Joe Jackson)
06 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
07 talk (Joe Jackson)
08 Is She Really Going Out with Him (Joe Jackson)
09 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson)
10 A Slow Song (Joe Jackson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JLsDZfSA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/Zbacy8Tmk7IuD9c/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Werchter, Belgium, on July 8, 1984.

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-27-1982, Part 2: Joe Jackson

The second act on the third day of the 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival was Joe Jackson.

In June 1982, Jackson released the studio album "Night and Day." It turned out to be the most commercially successful album of his long music career. So he was probably at the height of his popularity when he performed at this festival.

Not surprisingly, he played songs from his latest album: "Steppin' Out," "Another World," and "A Slow Song." There's some other key songs of his that he apparently didn't play, including from that album. That makes me wonder if this in fact is the full set. I do know some of the other sets from the festival were missing songs, but I haven't seen any definitive setlists from the festival, so I don't know if this is complete or not.

As an aside, I wanted to post a 1982 BBC album from him, but I wasn't able to do the copyright violation issues. (Another album I posted from the exact same source was banned.) This is a fairly good substitute, since it's another 1982 concert with excellent sound quality.

This album is 45 minutes long.

17 talk (Joe Jackson)
18 On Your Radio (Joe Jackson)
19 Another World (Joe Jackson)
20 Sunday Papers (Joe Jackson)
21 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
22 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson)
23 Got the Time (Joe Jackson)
24 talk (Joe Jackson)
25 A Slow Song (Joe Jackson)
26 talk (Joe Jackson)
27 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
28 talk (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17314988/VA-JmicaWrldMsicFstvlMntgoByJmica__11-27-1982Prt02JoJcksn_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EagqaSje

I couldn't find any good photos of Jackson at this festival. So instead I'm using a photo of him at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois, on September 24, 1982. I used the Krea AI program to improve the image some.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Britain, 1-30-1995

Here's another BBC album performed by Joe Jackson. This time, it's a concert from 1995.

In 1994, Jackson released the studio album "Night Music." He was getting into classical music at the time, and it's a mix of classically inspired songs with more typical pop songs. It was not well received. If one looks at the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com ratings as I write this in February 2024, it has the lowest ratings of all of his albums up to that point in his career. (He would do a couple more classically influenced albums that also would not be well received.) 

So this concert is a mixture of songs from "Night Music" plus his usual assortment of popular tracks from his previous albums. However, I must say the "Night Music" songs come across better in this concert than they do on the studio album. Most are just songs that could have easily fit on his earlier albums. "Ever After" in particular is a standout. But also, there are a couple of classically inspired instrumentals, "Nocturne No. 2" and "Nocturne No.4," that are actually totally rearranged from the album versions, done just as solo piano pieces. I like them a lot better this way.

The concert recording has excellent sound quality, even though it's a bootleg. But there was a major problem: apparently the BBC cut out some songs to fit the concert into a certain time slot. Five songs were missing: "Nocturne No. 4," Nocturne No. 2," "The Other Me," "Tango Atlantico," and "Steppin' Out." I was able to find one other concert bootleg from this tour, from New York City in November 1994, to get good versions of "Nocturne No. 4," Nocturne No. 2," and "Steppin' Out." However, "The Other Me" and "Tango Atlantico" were not played at that other concert and I couldn't find any other good versions of them from that tour, so those two haven't been included. 

I suspect also that some of the banter between songs got cut out due to BBC edits. For instance, Jackson never introduced his band members, which was something he's always done. But at least some banter did survive.

By the way, "Is She Really Going Out with Him - It's Different for Girls" is an unusual case. Both those songs were early hits from him. But on this performance, he played the music to "Is She Really Going Out with Him" with the lyrics to "It's Different for Girls." Then, later in the song, he played the music to "It's Different for Girls" with the music to "Is She Really Going Out with Him!" So it's a medley, but not like you would normally expect.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any evidence of Jackson performing for the BBC after this concert. So the BBC series for him ends here, unless something else turns up.

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 20, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same, but I renamed the album from "Volume 5" to "Volume 6," after finding a BBC concert that I'd missed. So I redid the cover art and mp3 tags as well.

01 Home Town (Joe Jackson)
02 Real Men (Joe Jackson)
03 talk (Joe Jackson)
04 Nocturne No. 4 [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
05 Is She Really Going Out with Him - It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
06 Stranger than Fiction (Joe Jackson)
07 talk (Joe Jackson)
08 Sea of Secrets (Joe Jackson)
09 Nocturne No. 2 [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
10 talk (Joe Jackson)
11 The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy (Joe Jackson)
12 talk (Joe Jackson)
13 Ever After (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 Only the Future (Joe Jackson)
16 Another World (Joe Jackson)
17 Chinatown (Joe Jackson)
18 Breaking Us in Two (Joe Jackson)
19 You Can't Get What You Want [Til You Know What You Want] (Joe Jackson)
20 Got the Time (Joe Jackson)
21 What's the Use of Getting Sober (Joe Jackson)
22 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
23 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/j8w4g6iV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iYUMaqDT59j2DoC/file

I couldn't find any good photos of Jackson in concert from 1995. I ultimately had to resort to using one from 1997, from a concert in Paris.

Joe Jackson - Radio Clyde, The Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Britain, 8-8-1982

I'm still smarting over the fact that my post of Joe Jackson's "BBC Sessions, Volume 2" got banned here due to a copyright issue. There is a workaround if you look at that post, but still, it's not an ideal situation.

Then I stumbled across this 1982 bootleg. I've decided to post it as an alternate, since it's from the same tour. Actually, it's superior in the sense that the sound quality is just as good, but it's an hour and 34 minutes long, compared to 55 minutes for the BBC concert.

The reason this sounds as good is because it's also a radio broadcast. But instead of the BBC, it was broadcast on a Scottish station called Radio Clyde. That's fitting, since this was recorded in the Scottish city of Glasgow. I believe absolutely nothing from this concert has been officially released, so I assume the copyright police won't try to block it, like the other one.

There were only a couple of problems. At the end of the song "Cancer," a radio DJ spoke over the music for about ten seconds. In a way that was lucky, because it allowed me to identify the radio station source, since the bootleg didn't mention it. But I used the UVR5 audio editing program to wipe the DJ talking and keep the music. Also, the first second or two of "Breaking Us in Two" was missing. I used a bit of the BBC concert to patch that in. So that's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their names.

By the way, the only song on "BBC Sessions, Volume 3" that isn't here is "Tuxedo Junction."

01 One to One (Joe Jackson)
02 On Your Radio (Joe Jackson)
03 Sunday Papers (Joe Jackson)
04 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
05 talk (Joe Jackson)
06 Cancer [Edit] (Joe Jackson)
07 talk (Joe Jackson)
08 Real Men (Joe Jackson)
09 talk (Joe Jackson)
10 Is She Really Going Out with Him (Joe Jackson)
11 Friday (Joe Jackson)
12 Breaking Us in Two [Edit] (Joe Jackson)
13 Fools in Love (Joe Jackson)
14 Another World (Joe Jackson)
15 Target (Joe Jackson)
16 T.V. Age (Joe Jackson)
17 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
18 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson)
19 Beat Crazy (Joe Jackson)
20 One More Time (Joe Jackson)
21 A Slow Song (Joe Jackson)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fTeD4

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7dU9f4JP

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NveD3lsNLZaGBi2/file 

This photo shows Jackson at a concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on October 1, 1982.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 8-15-1982

I have a problem with posting this Joe Jackson BBC album. When I posted Volume 1 in this series, it was taken down due to a copyright violation. Much of that album was sources from the official album "Live at the BBC." Unfortunately, this entire album is sourced from that too. So I figure if I post this, I might get in more trouble. And I don't want to risk it because I don't know how much danger I'm in. For instance, there's no "three strikes and you're out" policy, or any other policy I know of.

As a result, I'm not going to post a link to a download file. However, if it so happens that someone else posts a link in the comments section, I'm not going to stop them. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

But even though I'm not posting a link (cough), I can still talk about this music. Much changed for Jackson since the previous BBC album I posted, which was a 1980 concert. In 1981, he put out an album that was a tribute to swing and jump blues songs from the 1940s, called "Jumpin' Jive." Then, in 1982, he released the album "Night and Day." It was a collection of original songs, but it moved in a jazzier direction, and was especially influenced by the songwriting of Cole Porter. That was the album he was promoting with this concert, and most of the songs are from it.

This concert is 55 minutes long.

01 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
02 Cancer (Joe Jackson)
03 Real Men (Joe Jackson)
04 Breaking Us in Two (Joe Jackson)
05 Fools in Love (Joe Jackson)
06 Chinatown (Joe Jackson)
07 Target (Joe Jackson)
08 T. V. Age (Joe Jackson)
09 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
10 Tuxedo Junction (Joe Jackson)
11 Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aCZBaYfD

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/oP7OAzm0yZKFsao/file

The only thing I know about the photo used on the cover is that it was taken at a concert in New York City in 1982.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Hammersmith Palais, London, Britain, 10-27-1980

I've been having some trouble posting Joe Jackson's BBC material. I tried to post Volume 1 here, but it got taken down due to a copyright issue. I then tried posting it to YouTube, and it survived for a while, but it recently got taken down there too. So I posted a Volume 1B concert instead, with very similar material. (Don't look now, but you just might see the link to Volume 1 in the comment section there.) Anyway, I don't think I'm going to have any trouble with this one, because unlike Volume 1, none of the performances here have been officially released. Knock on wood, and get it while you can.

Here's another BBC concert. This one isn't that different from the concerts in Volumes 1 and 1B, because this took place only about ten months later. He'd released his third album in the meantime, "Beat Crazy!" and there are four songs here from that (tracks 4, 5, 8, and 9). But overall, he was still in his "angry young man" mode. That would drastically change with his next album and beyond.

The sound quality on this concert is excellent. No complaints from me.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 talk (Joe Jackson)
02 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
03 talk (Joe Jackson)
04 Biology (Joe Jackson)
05 Beat Crazy (Joe Jackson)
06 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
07 talk (Joe Jackson)
08 Crime Don't Pay (Joe Jackson)
09 Pretty Boys (Joe Jackson)
10 On Your Radio (Joe Jackson)
11 Friday (Joe Jackson)
12 Is She Really Going Out with Him (Joe Jackson)
13 Don't Wanna Be like That (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 Got the Time (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15983400/JoeJacks_1980c_BBSessionsVolum2InConcrtHmmersmthPalaisLondnBrtain__10-27-1980_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a concert in Passaic, New Jersey, in February 1980.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1B: In Concert, Guildhall, Portsmouth, Britain, 12-14-1979

Bad news: the Joe Jackson BBC Sessions, Volume 1 that I posted last week was taken down due to the copyright police. That's concerning, because that probably means I'll run into trouble with the next couple of Jackson BBC albums I plan on posting, since material from all of those are on an official BBC album. I guess I'll test the waters soon with the next one and see if there's trouble. The whole copyright check thing seems incredibly random, to be honest. 

So here's how I plan on getting around that album being banned. First off, I've posted it at YouTube. Speaking of random copyright checking, that's been up at YouTube for a few days and hasn't had any copyright problems, even though this blog and YouTube are both owned by Google. But anyway, here's the link to that:

Joe Jackson: BBC Sessions, Volume 1- Hatfield Polytechnic, Britain, 11-29-1979 (FULL CONCERT) - YouTube

If you go to the bottom of the text I posted there, you'll find the download link.  That's a workaround I'll probably be using with other copyright issues like this in the future.

But also, this is a very unique case in that, as I mentioned in my write-up about Volume 1, Jackson did two concerts for the BBC within two weeks of each other that were very similar. I wasn't planning on posting the second one, since most of the songs played were on the other one, and it's significantly shorter. But I'm making lemonade out of lemons and posting it here as "BBC Sessions, Volume 1B." It's an alternate, in case you don't get the "real" Volume 1, for whatever reason. The nice thing about this other show, in Portsmouth, is that none of the songs on it made it to Jackson's official BBC album, so I'm hoping and assuming there won't be any copyright trouble with this one.

Note that there were four songs played here that weren't on the Volume 1 show. "Geraldine and John," "Kinda Kute," "The Harder They Come," and "Pretty Boys." I've put those four at the end of Volume 1 as quasi bonus tracks. So if you have that, it's pretty easy to go without this one.

This album is 32 minutes long.

01 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
02 Friday (Joe Jackson)
03 talk (Joe Jackson)
04 Geraldine and John (Joe Jackson)
05 talk (Joe Jackson)
06 Kinda Kute (Joe Jackson)
07 The Harder They Come (Joe Jackson)
08 Pretty Boys (Joe Jackson)
09 Don't Wanna Be like That (Joe Jackson)
10 talk (Joe Jackson)
11 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8NRGQy5N

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2Fn9fiUtmpVRcFS/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Brussels, Belgium, in June 1979.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Rock Goes to College, Hatfield Polytechnic, Hatfield, Britain, 11-29-1979

As part of my big BBC project, it's time to see what Joe Jackson has done for the BBC. It hasn't been a priority for me because there already is the official album "At the BBC," which has lots of songs from three BBC concerts. But that album is flawed because it's missed a lot.

For this first volume, I had to deal with the fact that Jackson performed two concerts for the BBC within two weeks of each other in late 1979. One was for the TV show "Rock Goes to College" and the other one was for the radio show "In Concert." As you'd suspect with the shows being so close to each other in time, the set lists are very similar. I felt there would be too much repetition to post both in full here, especially because I've already posted a late 1979 concert from him. So I've posted all the songs from the "Rock Goes to College" show in Hatfield, Britain, and only the songs from the "In Concert" show in Portsmouth, Britain, that weren't played at the Hatfield show.

Most of the Hatfield show was included on the "At the BBC" album, but not all. Two songs, "Look Sharp" and "Baby Stick Around," were not included. I stuck them at the end since I don't know the correct song order for the concert and I didn't see a good spot to slip them in. Chances are though they weren't at the end, since he usually didn't end his concerts with those songs at that time.

That leaves the songs from the other concert, at Portsmouth. Those are tracks 14 to 18. They're all unreleased. He wasn't likely to end a concert with the song "Pretty Boys," but it's a popular song, so it's a good one to end on.

The sound quality is generally excellent. The two unreleased Hatfield show songs probably sound less good than the rest.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. The Hatfield portion is 46 minutes long.

01 talk (Joe Jackson)
02 Sunday Papers (Joe Jackson)
03 One More Time (Joe Jackson)
04 Friday (Joe Jackson)
05 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
06 Don't Wanna Be like That (Joe Jackson)
07 Happy Loving Couples (Joe Jackson)
08 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
09 Got the Time (Joe Jackson)
10 Is She Really Going Out with Him (Joe Jackson)
11 Come On (Joe Jackson)
12 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
13 Baby Stick Around (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 Geraldine and John (Joe Jackson)
16 Kinda Kute (Joe Jackson)
17 The Harder They Come (Joe Jackson)
18 Pretty Boys (Joe Jackson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RPtKFkfU 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XVmfu8LwSMMrn9e/file

The cover photo is from an unknown concert in 1979. But one can tell from the way that he's holding up a newspaper that it was most likely taken during the performance of the song "Sunday Papers."

Joe Jackson - Rainbow Music Hall, Denver, CO, 5-6-1979

I like most of Joe Jackson's music, and his latest album, 2019's "Fool," is excellent. That said, my favorite era of his music is 1979, with his "Look Sharp!" and "I'm the Man" albums. Jackson has released some live material here and there, but generally from 1980 onwards. (There are five songs from 1979 on his "At the BBC" collection.) So since there's no official 1979 live album, this is my attempt to create something that could stand in for that.

Luckily, it turns out that a handful of Jackson's 1979 were professionally recorded and played on radio stations at the time. So I listened to the best bootlegs of the "Look Sharp!" tour from the middle of 1979, most of which come from those radio shows, and I found the one I thought was the best, especially in terms of sound quality. That was a show at the Rainbow Music Hall in Denver, Colorado, in May 1979. It clearly is a soundboard, so much so that there isn't much audience noise at the ends of songs. I didn't attempt to boost the volume of the cheering. But I did break the talking between songs into their own tracks, and I often raised the volume of those comments.

The Denver show is 56 minutes long. That was fairly long for his concerts in that year, which all seem to have been an hour long or less. However, this album isn't just the Denver show. I've added six songs to the beginning of the album from other concerts around the same time that didn't get played at the Denver show. That makes it n hour and 18 minutes long.

Thanks to these added songs, every single song from the "Look Sharp!" album is included, as well as five songs from the "I'm the Man" album, which had yet to be released at the time. There also are four cover songs: "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" by Ben Bernie and His Orchestra, "Pressure Drop" by Toots and the Maytals, "Come On" by Chuck Berry, and "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino. I've included versions of all four of those on the "The Harder They Come" stray tracks album, but those are different versions.

01 [Do The] Instant Mash (Joe Jackson)
02 Friday (Joe Jackson)
03 talk (Joe Jackson)
04 Fools in Love (Joe Jackson)
05 talk (Joe Jackson)
06 Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries (Joe Jackson)
07 talk (Joe Jackson)
08 Pressure Drop (Joe Jackson)
09 talk (Joe Jackson)
10 Geraldine and John (Joe Jackson)
11 One More Time (Joe Jackson)
12 Pretty Girls (Joe Jackson)
13 talk (Joe Jackson)
14 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
15 talk (Joe Jackson)
16 Sunday Papers (Joe Jackson)
17 Baby Stick Around (Joe Jackson)
18 talk (Joe Jackson)
19 Is She Really Going Out with Him (Joe Jackson)
20 talk (Joe Jackson)
21 It's Different for Girls (Joe Jackson)
22 Kinda Kute (Joe Jackson)
23 talk (Joe Jackson)
24 Happy Loving Couples (Joe Jackson)
25 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)
26 Throw It Away (Joe Jackson)
27 talk (Joe Jackson)
28 Got the Time (Joe Jackson)
29 talk (Joe Jackson)
30 Come On (Joe Jackson)
31 Ain't That a Shame (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693438/JOJCKSN1979b_RinbwMsicHallDenvrCO__5-6-1979_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I could have chosen an ordinary photo of Joe Jackson from 1979. But I found one of him wearing novelty oversized sunglasses, and I thought it would be more interesting to use that one.

Joe Jackson - Live at The Savoy, New York City, 7-8-1981

If you like Joe Jackson's 1981 album "Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive," this is the concert for you. Personally, it's one of my favorite Jackson albums, so I really like this.

After three albums of all original music, Jackson put out an album entirely consisting of covers of swing and jump blues songs from the 1940s. For the concert tour to promote the album, he played all of the songs from it, plus a handful of additional covers in the same style, and absolutely none of his own songs. Apparently, this upset a lot of concert goers, and many left the shows early. But Jackson and his band were clearly having a heck of a good time anyway. This concert, and the album it is based on, is a great introduction to a really fun genre of music.

The songs that Jackson did in this concert but not on the "Jumpin' Jive" album are: "Minnie the Moocher," "Stompin' at the Savoy," "Texas and Pacific," and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." Additionally, the song "Knock Me a Kiss" was done at some other concerts on this tour, but not this one. So I've added at the end that as a bonus track from another show.

For many years, I had a bootleg of this album in just decent sound. However, today I went poking around the Internet and found a version with better sound, so that's what I'm posting. The show was played live on FM radio, so the bootleg comes from that.

01 Jumpin' with Symphony Sid (Joe Jackson)
02 Jack, You're Dead (Joe Jackson)
03 We the Cats [Shall Hep Ya] (Joe Jackson)
04 Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby (Joe Jackson)
05 San Francisco Fan (Joe Jackson)
06 You Run Your Mouth [And I'll Run My Business] (Joe Jackson)
07 You're My Meat (Joe Jackson)
08 What's the Use of Getting Sober [When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again] (Joe Jackson)
09 Stompin' at the Savoy (Joe Jackson)
10 Tuxedo Junction (Joe Jackson)
11 Minnie the Moocher (Joe Jackson)
12 Five Guys Named Moe (Joe Jackson)
13 Jumpin' Jive (Joe Jackson)
14 talk (Joe Jackson)
15 How Long Must I Wait for You (Joe Jackson)
16 Texas and Pacific (Joe Jackson)
17 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Joe Jackson)
18 Jumpin' Jive [Reprise] (Joe Jackson)
19 Knock Me a Kiss (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15847658/JoeJacks_1981_TheSavyNewYorkCity__7-8-1981_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I found a photo from Jackson's 1981 concert tour by Lynn Goldsmith. I like the unusual perspective, showing the full band as well as some of the audience. I also added in the pink lettering from a photo I found of 1981 concert tour T-shirt, and then added in the white text as well.

Joe Jackson - Night by Night - Cover Versions (2012-2017)

Here's the third and last of my albums compiling the cover versions Joe Jackson has played in concert. Well, at least it's the last one for a while. Hopefully he'll keep touring and keep playing different songs.

In 2012, Jackson released the studio album "The Duke," in which he covers songs made famous by Duke Ellington. Personally, I think this is one of Jackson's most disappointing albums. I love his 1981 album "Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive," which similarly looked back to swing and jump blues at the like. But on "The Duke" I felt he tried too hard to make things different with rearrangements and bringing in guest singers.

With this album, I feel I can partially fix that. The first four songs are also songs on "The Duke" studio album. But here they're done in concert with Jackson singing. In my opinion, they're done in a more appealing manner. The fifth song, "In a Sentimental Mood," is another song associated with Ellington, but it was only done by Jackson in concert. (I would have included more songs from the album, except even in concert he had guest singers sing the other songs.)

The rest of this album consists of Jackson's usual wide variety of covers. "Peter Gunn Theme" is particularly interesting, because he does a version of this famous instrumental with lyrics, based on an obscure version once done by Sarah Vaughan. The remaining covers are of songs by David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, and Bob Marley.

01 I'm Beginning to See the Light - Take the 'A' Train (Joe Jackson)
02 Mood Indigo (Joe Jackson)
03 The Mooche - Black and Tan Fantasy [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
04 It Don't Mean a Thing [If It Ain't Got that Swing] (Joe Jackson)
05 In a Sentimental Mood [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
06 Peter Gunn Theme (Joe Jackson)
07 Life On Mars (Joe Jackson)
08 Big Yellow Taxi (Joe Jackson)
09 Night by Night (Joe Jackson)
10 Johnny Was (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15908763/JoeJacks_2012-2017_NghtbyNight_atse.zip.html

The cover art uses a photo of Jackson from 2015.

Joe Jackson - Dirty Love - Cover Versions (2003-2011)

Here's the second of three albums I've made of Joe Jackson playing cover versions. As with the previous album, nearly all of these are from concerts, with the audience noise removed.

This time around, he plays songs by: XTC, a music hall number, Steely Dan (twice), Frank Zappa, the Beatles (twice), Duke Ellington, Suzanne Vega, ABBA, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and David Bowie.

Most of the songs have excellent sound quality, with four coming from official releases. But a couple are a notch below, such as "Dirty Love." Still, I deemed those good enough to include.

01 Mayor of Simpleton (Joe Jackson)
02 Hello, Hello, Who's Your Lady Friend (Joe Jackson)
03 Any Major Dude Will Tell You (Joe Jackson)
04 Dirty Love (Joe Jackson)
05 I'm Looking through You (Joe Jackson)
06 Don't Get Around Much Anymore (Joe Jackson)
07 Reelin' in the Years (Joe Jackson)
08 Frank and Ava (Joe Jackson)
09 Knowing Me, Knowing You (Joe Jackson)
10 Anyone Who Had a Heart (Joe Jackson)
11 Music to Watch Girls By (Joe Jackson)
12 Inbetweenies (Joe Jackson)
13 Scary Monsters [And Super Creeps] (Joe Jackson)
14 Girl (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15908581/JoeJacks_2003-2011_DirtyLve_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on a 2008 photo.

Joe Jackson - You Can't Be Too Strong - Cover Versions, 1995 - 2003

Last week, Joe Jackson released a new album called "Fool." It's really good, and I'm not just saying that, because I have no incentive to hype him. To celebrate, I'm going to post more stuff from him.

Jackson is a great singer-songwriter. But since the late 1990s especially, he's peppered his concerts with occasional cover versions, and it turns out he's very good at singing other people's songs too. I've made three albums of all the covers he's done that I could find in suitable sound quality. Here's the first one.

When Jackson does covers, he often likes to do them completely solo, just himself and his piano. About half of the songs here are like that and the rest are with his band. The vast majority are done live. As I usually do, I removed the crowd noise whenever I could manage to do it without cutting anything important. Six of the songs here have been officially released.

There are a couple of songs where the sound quality is less than ideal. I'm thinking of "Drive-In Saturday," "Karma Police," and "Heroes." But I think they sound good enough. A notch below is "Junkie Girl," so I only included that as a bonus track for those who don't mind sound quality issues so much. There are even more covers I could have included except the sound quality was worse, and too bad for me to deem even as bonus tracks.

Here are the artists Jackson covers on this album: XTC, Radiohead, the Yardbirds, the Beatles (twice), Steely Dan (also the bonus track), the Lovin' Spoonful, David Bowie (twice), Graham Parker, Crowded House, Todd Rundgren, and Ron Sexsmith.

I made some significant edits to "For Your Love." Jackson has always played it as a medley with his own "Fools in Love." For this album, I had to split it from the medley to stand on its own. But it turns out he only played about half of the song, doing about a minute of soloing and a minute of singing. So I added in another instrumental section from a different part of the medley that fit musically, and then repeated the minute of singing at the end. I think it sounds like an entire song now, instead of half of one.

01 Statue of Liberty (Joe Jackson)
02 Karma Police (Joe Jackson)
03 Senses Working Overtime (Joe Jackson)
04 For Your Love [Edit] (Joe Jackson)
05 Eleanor Rigby (Joe Jackson)
06 King of the World (Joe Jackson)
07 Summer in the City (Joe Jackson)
08 Drive-In Saturday (Joe Jackson)
09 For No One (Joe Jackson)
10 You Can't Be Too Strong (Joe Jackson)
11 'Heroes' (Joe Jackson)
12 I Feel Possessed (Joe Jackson)
13 Couldn't I Just Tell You (Joe Jackson)
14 Don't Ask Why (Joe Jackson)

Junkie Girl (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15906925/JoeJacks_1995-2003_YouCntBeTooStrong_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from a still of a YouTube video of Jackson playing a song in the studio in 2001.

Joe Jackson - Mike's Murder - Alternate Version (1983)

Here's another Joe Jackson album. This is a (hopefully) improved version of the obscure 1983 soundtrack to the movie "Mike's Murder." All the songs on the album were by Jackson, but it was promoted as a soundtrack album with Jackson's name only in very tiny print on the cover, and it was a movie that hardly anybody saw. On top of that, half the album was instrumental, including a song that went on for 11 minutes. So few treated it as his next album.

I've made some changes. For starters, I thought that 11 minute instrumental, "Zerrio," went on way too long. It expressed all its ideas in seven minutes, and then went on for another four pointless minutes, in my opinion. So I edited out the last four minutes.

The album was 35 minutes to begin with, and that edit shortened it still further. To compensate, I looked around for other stray studio tracks Jackson did around that time. I found two. Unfortunately both were instrumentals for a guy known (at the time) for his pop songs, not his instrumental prowess. I added them in, but I also changed the song order slightly, so one doesn't get a few instrumentals in a row.

01 Cosmopolitan (Joe Jackson)
02 'Round Midnight [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
03 1-2-3 Go [This Town's a Fairground] (Joe Jackson)
04 Laundromat Monday (Joe Jackson)
05 Zemio [Edit] [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
06 Memphis (Joe Jackson)
07 Moonlight (Joe Jackson)
08 Breakdown [Instrumental] (Joe Jackson)
09 Soul Makossa [Instrumental] [Live] (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260385/JoeJacks_1983_MikesMurderAlernate_atse.zip.html

I used the official album cover, but with one key change. As I mentioned, the cover only mentioned Jackson's name in very small letters. Apparently, the record cover soon realized this was a problem, because some versions came with a sticker slapped on the front with Jackson's name in big letters. I used that text, except I made it a part of the cover instead of a haphazardly placed sticker. Also, I removed the original small text of his name, since that had been made redundant.

Joe Jackson - The Harder They Come - Non-Album Tracks (1980)

Joe Jackson is another artist I really like. I don't know of a lot of alternate albums one can make from his material (other than live stuff), but I do have a couple.

I particularly enjoy his earliest albums, when he had energetic yet witty and tuneful songs. It turns out one can make another album in the style of "Look Sharp!" if one gathers up various B-sides and live tracks. (As I usually do when adding live tracks with studio ones, I've generally edited the live tracks to remove the crowd noise.)

In 1980, Jackson put out a single with a cover version of "The Harder They Come" as the A-side. It was a minor hit, but I think it's mostly been forgotten due to it not appearing on any of his official albums at the time. I'm using this as the title of this alternate album, as well as using the single's cover art (with the minor change of removing the name of the B-sides and enlarging the remaining words to cover that up).

Seven of the 12 songs here are cover songs. But they're all done in the early Joe Jackson style and they sound like songs he could have written. I'm imaging this album could have come out in 1980, since all the songs are from 1979 or 1980 except for one, "Knock Me a Kiss," a B-side from 1981.

As it happens, the album is 36 minutes long, and only five seconds longer than his "Look Sharp!" album.

The songs "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Twenty Flight Rock" are cover versions. Unfortunately, the sound quality isn't that great, so I've only included those are bonus tracks. However, the sound on them is still pretty good, just not at the same level as the others.

01 The Harder They Come (Joe Jackson)
02 Out of Style (Joe Jackson)
03 Tilt (Joe Jackson)
04 Pressure Drop (Joe Jackson)
05 Come On (Joe Jackson)
06 Don't Ask Me (Joe Jackson)
07 You Got the Fever (Joe Jackson)
08 I Can't Give You Anything (Joe Jackson)
09 Enough Is Not Enough (Joe Jackson)
10 Knock Me a Kiss (Joe Jackson)
11 Ain't that a Shame (Joe Jackson)
12 Life Is a Bowl of Cherries (Joe Jackson)

Ain't Misbehavin'
Twenty Flight Rock

https://www.upload.ee/files/15906826/JoeJacks_1979d-1980_TheHardrTheyCome_atse.zip.html

The cover is the official cover for the "The Harder They Come" EP, but I made a change to replace three song titles in the bottom corner to just one song title.