Various Artists - Fifty Years of Country Music, Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, TN, 1-22-1978

Every now and then, I randomly stumble across some really interesting concerts on YouTube. (If you do as well, please let me know.) It seems there are many "various artists" concerts like this, often tributes, that one can find on video sometimes but have never been converted to an audio bootleg. I've seen a bunch of country-themed ones, such as annual awards ceremonies, that are just okay. But this one from 1978 stands out as exceptional. It was a three-hour TV special celebrating the last 50 years of country music. Just look at the names of all the stars in the song list and hopefully you'll see why I thought this was worth my time to convert this and post it here.

I'm not quite sure why the producers considered 1978 the 50th anniversary of country music. It was never explained in the banter of the show. I looked it up, and the first country records were recorded in 1922 and 1923. But a pivotal moment was the "Bristol sessions" in 1927, when both future country music legends Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family were recorded for the first time. That's probably what they were referring to here, since the special contained mini-tributes to country legends Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Bob Wills, and Hank Williams, so obviously they were thinking of Rodgers and the Carter Family specifically.

As I mentioned above, this TV special was three hours long, but if you remove the time spent on commercials, that leaves you with two and a half hours. That was divided into third. Glen Campbell hosted the first third, Dolly Parton hosted the middle third, and Roy Clark hosted the last third. So the three of them prominently feature in this, not just talking but singing lots of songs. At the end, all three of them came together to sing a final Hank Williams medley.

There are a couple of frustrations to watch out for. One is that to cram in as many songs as possible in the limited time allotted on TV, frequently shortened versions of songs were performed, often just a minute or two. Another is that although Gene Autry was still alive (he lived until 1998), a recording of him in his prime was used instead of a live recording. Normally, I edit out that kind of thing, but I kept it in here since it was short and I wanted to keep the banter talking about him.

Generally speaking, the recording I found of this on YouTube was complete and had pretty good sound quality. However, there were some exceptions. One problem was that the song "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell got abruptly cut off after about a minute. I found another live recording of Campbell singing that song from the 1970s and I used that to patch in the missing portion. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, most of "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash was missing. Luckily, I found another YouTube video of that song from this exact concert, so I was able to fill that in. I ended up splicing the two versions together because the other version was missing some of the intro. 

There were some other problems here and there. For instance, sometimes the overall volume would fluctuate. So I had to make fixes for that. Also, there usually were "coming up next" type teasers before commercial breaks. I got rid of all of those. And when there were commercial breaks, that often meant abrupt cuts. I carefully edited each of those, usually patching in some more applause to smooth over where there was a start and stop gap due to commercials.

On the plus side, in my opinion country music was a lot better back in the 1970s than it is today, with many legends still alive and even in their primes. Remarkably, this really is a pretty good history of fifty years of country music. Also, it's interesting for the duets and combinations, such as Glen Campbell singing a song with Ray Charles and Johnny Cash singing a song with Roy Clark. This special remains unreleased on video and audio, but it shouldn't be forgotten. 

This album is two hours and 28 minutes long.

01 Stars [Edit] (Glen Campbell)
02 Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell)
03 emcee (Introduction)
04 talk (Glen Campbell)
05 Wabash Cannonball (Roy Acuff & His Smoky Mountain Boys)
06 talk (Glen Campbell)
07 I'll Get Over You (Crystal Gayle)
08 talk (Glen Campbell)
09 That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine (Gene Autry)
10 talk (Glen Campbell)
11 Back in the Saddle Again (Glen Campbell)
12 Southern Nights (Glen Campbell)
13 talk (Glen Campbell)
14 Louisiana Man (Doug Kershaw)
15 talk (Glen Campbell)
16 I'll Go to My Grave Loving You (Statler Brothers)
17 You and Me (Tammy Wynette)
18 Love Put a Song in My Heart (Johnny Rodriguez)
19 talk (Glen Campbell)
20 Take These Chains from My Heart (Ray Charles)
21 talk (Ray Charles & Glen Campbell)
22 Bye Bye Love (Glen Campbell & Ray Charles)
23 talk (Glen Campbell)
24 Gentle on My Mind (Glen Campbell)
25 Honey Come Back (Glen Campbell)
26 By the Time I Get to Phoenix - Wichita Lineman [Edit] (Glen Campbell)
27 Galveston - Country Boy [You've Got Your Feet in L.A.] (Glen Campbell)
28 talk (emcee)
29 Here You Come Again (Dolly Parton)
30 talk (Dolly Parton)
31 Blue Moon of Kentucky (Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
32 talk (Dolly Parton)
33 Muleskinner Blues (Dolly Parton & Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys)
34 talk (Dolly Parton)
35 Our Love Is Home Grown (Earl Scruggs)
36 talk (Dolly Parton)
37 Walking After Midnight (Loretta Lynn)
38 Sweet Dreams (Loretta Lynn)
39 Back in Baby's Arms - Crazy (Loretta Lynn)
40 talk (Dolly Parton)
41 I Just Wish You Were Someone I Love (Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers)
42 The Cowgirl and the Dandy (Dolly Parton)
43 talk (Dolly Parton)
44 Keep on the Sunny Side - Wildwood Flower (Carter Family)
45 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Carter Family)
46 Hello Stranger (Carter Family)
47 talk (Dolly Parton)
48 If You're Ever in Nashville (Carlene Carter)
49 talk (Dolly Parton)
50 talk (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
51 Ida Red (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
52 talk (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
53 Faded Love (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
54 Roly Poly (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
55 San Antonio Rose (Merle Haggard & the Texas Playboys)
56 talk (Dolly Parton)
57 The Seeker - All I Can Do (Dolly Parton)
58 Jolene (Dolly Parton)
59 Two Doors Down (Dolly Parton)
60 I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)
61 talk (emcee)
62 Rocky Top (Roy Clark)
63 talk (Roy Clark)
64 In the Jailhouse Now - Jimmie Rodgers' Last Blue Yodel [Women Make a Fool Out of Me] (Ernest Tubb & the Texas Troubadours)
65 Waiting for a Train (Ernest Tubb & the Texas Troubadours)
66 talk (Roy Clark)
67 talk (Roy Clark & Minnie Pearl)
68 It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels (Kitty Wells)
69 You're the One (Oak Ridge Boys)
70 talk (Roy Clark & Mel Tillis)
71 Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town (Mel Tillis)
72 talk (Roy Clark & Charlie Rich)
73 Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich)
74 talk (Roy Clark & Johnny Cash)
75 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
76 One Piece at a Time [Edit] (Johnny Cash)
77 Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash & Roy Clark)
78 Ghost Riders in the Sky [Instrumental Version] (Roy Clark)
79 talk (Roy Clark)
80 Instrumental (Chet Atkins)
81 talk (Roy Clark)
82 Instrumental (Stoney Mountain Cloggers)
83 Hey Good Lookin' (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
84 Your Cheating Heart (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
85 Cold, Cold Heart (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
86 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
87 I Can't Help It [If I'm Still in Love with You] - You Win Again (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
88 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - I Saw the Light (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
89 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Roy Clark, Dolly Parton & Glen Campbell)
90 talk (Roy Clark)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VhNfssNn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LzjSJer5qXloFoA/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I made it from screenshots taken from the last medley in the concert, when Roy Clark, Dolly Parton and Glen Campbell were singing together. However, the YouTube video I was using was very low-res. So I had to resort to taking close up screenshots of each of their heads, plus one of all three of them together, and then putting it together in Photoshop. I used the Krea AI program to help clean it up. That's a big portrait of Hank Williams on the wall in the background.

Various Artists - An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, 4-6-1999

I've previously posted "All-Star Tribute" concerts for Paul Simon and Brian Wilson. I discovered they were part of a short-lived annual tradition at the TNT TV network. There are only a couple more, so I plan on posting them too. Here's the next one, an "All-Star Tribute" to country legend Johnny Cash.

In 1999, Cash's health was in serious decline. He wouldn't die until 2003, at the age of 71. But by 1999, he rarely gave public performances. As he mentioned in his stage comments here, he hadn't performed on stage in the past year and a half. After this, he would only make about half a dozen additional musical performances, none of them full concerts. So although he did sing at the very end of this concert, maybe with his health in mind he only sang two songs.

The rest of the concert featured an impressive roster of musical stars singing songs made famous by Cash. It should be noted that the biggest stars, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and U2, weren't actually there but videotaped musical performances that were played at the concert. 

Unfortunately, one person who couldn't sing at this concert was Cash's famous musical daughter Rosanne Cash. This concert happened to take place during a three-year time period in which Rosanne was unable to sing due to a polyp on her vocal chords. She did, however, give a brief speech.

Most of the concert was emceed by actor Jon Voight. However, some of the other banter was by singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin, actor Kevin Bacon, and actor Tim Robbins. There were some additional parts that I cut out. These were narrated video tributes to different stages of Cash's life. I cut those out because they were mainly meant to be seen, not heard.

Like the other "All-Star Tributes" in this series, this concert remains officially unreleased. I found the video of it on YouTube, then converted that to audio. The sound quality is excellent throughout.

This album is an hour and a half long.

01 Jackson - Orange Blossom Special (Sheryl Crow & Willie Nelson)
02 talk (Jon Voight)
03 I Guess Things Happen That Way (Chris Isaak)
04 Get Rhythm Intro (Chris Isaak)
05 Get Rhythm (Chris Isaak)
06 talk (Jon Voight & John Carter Cash)
07 talk (Willie Nelson)
08 I Still Miss Someone (Willie Nelson)
09 talk (Jon Voight)
10 talk (June Carter Cash)
11 Ring of Fire (June Carter Cash)
12 talk (Jon Voight)
13 Train of Love (Bob Dylan)
14 talk (Jon Voight)
15 The Man in Black (Mavericks)
16 talk (Jon Voight)
17 The Ballad of Ira Hayes (Kris Kristofferson)
18 talk (Kris Kristofferson)
19 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Trisha Yearwood with Kris Kristofferson)
20 talk (Larry Gatlin)
21 Ghost Riders in the Sky (Brooks & Dunn)
22 talk (Jon Voight)
23 Tennessee Flat Top Box (Lyle Lovett)
24 talk (Lyle Lovett)
25 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
26 Give My Love to Rose (Bruce Springsteen)
27 talk (Jon Voight)
28 Flesh and Blood (Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
29 talk (Kevin Bacon)
30 Delia's Gone (Wyclef Jean)
31 talk (Jon Voight)
32 talk (Dave Matthews)
33 Long Black Veil (Dave Matthews & Emmylou Harris)
34 talk (Jon Voight)
35 talk (Rosanne Cash)
36 talk (Marty Stuart)
37 Belshazzar (Marty Stuart with the Fairfield Four)
38 talk (Jon Voight & Bono)
39 Don't Take Your Guns to Town (U2)
40 talk (Jon Voight)
41 talk (Tim Robbins)
42 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
43 talk (Johnny Cash)
44 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/VysgekNb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FO4eXOKBVGBjELk/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/dmd9S

The cover shows John Mellencamp with Johnny Cash at this exact concert. Curiously, Mellencamp didn't appear in any of the songs. Perhaps he had a song or two that got cut out of the TV broadcast, or perhaps he had a non-performing role, I don't know. But I thought it was a good photo to show how Cash was honored.

Tom Jones - This Is Tom Jones, Volume 3 (1969)

Here's another volume of Tom Jones singing on his TV show "This Is Tom Jones." For the previous two volumes, I suggested that the duets he did were a highlight. For this volume, that was kicked up a notch or two: ten out of 14 songs here are with other artists.

There are a lot of big names here: Bobby Darin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Wilson Pickett, the Moody Blues, "Mama" Cass Elliot, Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, and Little Richard. (I must confess I'm not that familiar with Diahann Carroll, but she won Tony, Globe Globe and Emmy awards.) 

The one I want to draw attention to is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). How weird is it that those guys did a duet with Tom friggin' Jones?! Jones sang lead on David Crosby's "Long Time Gone." What's even more interesting is how good it is. You can find a YouTube video of the performance, which has over 2 million views as I write this (in March 2022). There are thousands of comments, and nearly all of them are full of praise. One I particularly liked said, "Am I crazy or is this one of the greatest live rock and roll performances of all time?" In :Shakey," a biography of Neil Young, Young's manager Elliott Roberts said CSNY was embarrassed about appearing with Jones, who was the epitome of cheesy at the time. Roberts said that Young ripped him about it for years afterwards. But if you watch the video, it looks obvious to me that CSNY were smiling widely and having a good time. Stills in particular seemed inspired by the competition and sang his vocal part an octave higher than he usually did.

Of course, Jones was the epitome of cheesy - as "show-biz" as it gets. But he also was a damn good singer. And look at the list of classic songs here, and the legends he sang with. There's lots of good music here.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 You Keep Me Hangin' On - More Today than Yesterday (Tom Jones & Diahann Carroll)
02 Let It Be Me (Tom Jones)
03 Worried Man Blues - Aquarius-Let the Sunshine In (Tom Jones & Bobby Darin)
04 Fly Me to the Moon (Tom Jones)
05 Long Time Gone (Tom Jones & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Hi-Heeled Sneakers (Tom Jones)
07 Lodi (Tom Jones)
08 Barefootin' - In the Midnight Hour - Hey Jude (Tom Jones & Wilson Pickett)
09 It's a Hang Up Baby (Tom Jones with the Moody Blues)
10 When This Battle Is Over (Tom Jones & Cass Elliot)
11 Walk the Line (Tom Jones, Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
12 Working in the Coal Mine- Dark as a Dungeon - Sixteen Tons - John Henry (Tom Jones & Johnny Cash)
13 Rip It Up (Tom Jones & Little Richard)
14 Send Me Some Lovin' - Good Golly, Miss Molly (Tom Jones & Little Richard)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700842/TOMJNS1969_ThisIsTmJnsVolum3_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I wanted to get a good picture of CSNY with Jones. Unfortunately, CSNY were scattered all over the stage, and it was rare to get more than a couple of them in the frame at any one time. So I went with one of Crosby staring at Jones.

Joni Mitchell - Looking Out for Love - On TV and Radio (1969)

Woo-hoo! Boy, am I excited! I just found out that Joni Mitchell is going to release a box set called "Archives, Volume 1: The Early Years, 1963-1967." It's coming out next month, and it consists ENTIRELY of previously unreleased material. I think this is going to be the best archival release by anyone in many years! Most of it has never even been bootlegged before. You can read more about it here:

https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/joni-mitchell-archives-volume-1-the-early-years-1963-1967-box-set/

In celebration of that coming release, I want to post something else by her. I'd started out posting an "On TV and Radio" series of albums by her back in February 2020, but I got sidetracked and I haven't continued it. You can find the first volume of that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/02/joni-mitchell-born-to-take-highway-on.html

The thinking of this series is that it gathers stray songs here and there from TV or radio performances that don't fit anywhere else and are significant in some way. By significant, I mean otherwise unreleased originals or covers, or duets, or live versions of her songs that haven't been recorded well on concert bootlegs. The sound quality is variable. But hopefully this will tie people over for another year or more, when the next volume in her "Archives" box set series will be released. I'm optimistic most of this material will be released on that - maybe not the exact same performances in every case, but at least the songs.

The only otherwise unreleased original here is "Looking Out for Love." It's really more of a song snippet, just a minute and a half long, but hey, it's a Joni original from her most popular time period. It also contains some rare cover versions: "I Still Miss Someone," "Long Black Veil," "I Shall Be Released," and "Let's Get Together." The first two of those are duets with Johnny Cash from his TV show. I have a couple more performances and some banter from her two appearances on that show.

The rest of the songs are live versions of songs that generally didn't make it on any of the concert bootlegs I've posted at this site.

I have a couple more albums in this series. I'll try to get to posting them sooner rather than later.

Oh, one more thing. Back in 2018, I posted an album containing other musicians performing Mitchell's songs that not only have never been officially released, but have never even appeared on publicly available bootlegs. They were able to do this due to a music book that contains the sheet music to some of her ultra rare songs. I found two more such songs, "Daisy Summer Piper" and "Cara's Castle," that emerged on YouTube earlier in 2020. "Cara's Castle" is going to appear on the new archival box set, but "Daisy Summer Piper" and most of the other songs on this collection still won't. Hopefully, they'll make it on the next box set in the series. If this sounds interesting to you, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/various-artists-unreleased-and-unknown.html

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 I Still Miss Someone (Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash)
05 I Shall Be Released (Joni Mitchell, Cass Elliott & Mary Travers)
06 Looking Out for Love (Joni Mitchell)
07 Let's Get Together (Joni Mitchell)
08 talk (Joni Mitchell)
09 Rainy Night House - Blue Boy (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 I Think I Understand (Joni Mitchell)
12 talk (Joni Mitchell)
13 The Fiddle and the Drum (Joni Mitchell)
14 talk (Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash)
15 The Gallery (Joni Mitchell)
16 talk (Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash)
17 Long Black Veil (Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256294/JoniMchl_1969_LookngOutforLve_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a TV show appearance she did in 1969. I believe it's the one where she played "I Shall Be Released."

Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash - Irving Plaza, New York City, 7-9-1996

In my opinion, there are two Johnny Cash concert recordings from the later half of his career that tower above all others. I posted one of them here already, of him in Austin, Texas, in 1994. This is the other one. Although it's a bootleg, it's from a radio broadcast and sounds as good as an official album. There are no official albums from his 1990s career revival. If you're a fan of his music at all, you really should get this one. Since it comes from the very end of his touring years, it serves as a good career retrospective.

In 1994, Cash put out the "American Recordings" album, which marked the start of his late career revival. He followed that up with the "Unchained" album in 1996. The Austin concert I mentioned above featured many songs from "American Recordings." This concert only included one song from that. But it has a middle section with six songs in a row that all come from "Unchained." I really like that, because while he put out a handful of excellent albums in the years before he died in 2003, he effectively stopped touring after supporting "Unchained" in 1996 and 1997. He only made some short appearances where he played older hits. So this is the best example of him playing any songs he recorded in his last years.

Aside from that stretch of "Unchained" songs, the rest of the concert has the standard Johnny Cash hits set list. But he was still in good shape in 1996, vocally and energetically. There's a long stretch near the end of the show where his wife June Carter Cash plays some songs with him and some by herself. She plays so much that I've added her to the billing.

Johnny Cash talks some between songs, though not nearly as much as he did during the Austin show. He mostly comments on his new songs. His wife was much more talkative when she was on stage. I didn't have to make many sonic adjustments since this sounded excellent already, but I broke the talking into separate tracks, and sometimes boosted the volume when the talking grew faint.

01 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
02 Get Rhythm (Johnny Cash)
03 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
04 [Ghost] Riders in the Sky (Johnny Cash)
05 A Cowboy's Prayer - Oh, Bury Me Not (Johnny Cash)
06 talk (Johnny Cash)
07 I Never Picked Cotton (Johnny Cash)
08 talk (Johnny Cash)
09 Unchained (Johnny Cash)
10 Rowboat (Johnny Cash)
11 talk (Johnny Cash)
12 Rusty Cage (Johnny Cash)
13 talk (Johnny Cash)
14 Southern Accents (Johnny Cash)
15 Memories Are Made of This (Johnny Cash)
16 talk (Johnny Cash)
17 Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
18 talk (Johnny Cash)
19 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash)
20 talk (Johnny Cash)
21 Jesus in My Soul (Earl Ball with Johnny Cash)
22 talk (Johnny Cash)
23 Jackson (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
24 If I Were a Carpenter (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
25 talk (June Carter Cash)
26 Wabash Cannonball (June Carter Cash)
27 talk (June Carter Cash)
28 Wildwood Flower (June Carter Cash)
29 talk (June Carter Cash)
30 I Used to Be Somebody (June Carter Cash)
31 talk (June Carter Cash)
32 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (June Carter Cash)
33 Big River (Johnny Cash)
34 I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash)
35 Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash)
36 I'll Be Waiting (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kx4Zz

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WLW5LcGm

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nJ9C9RuVyo7g6jB/file 

I couldn't find any photos of Cash at this exact concert. But I did find a good one of him playing at the House of Blues in 1996, so I used that. Tom Petty was standing to his side, but I had to crop him out of the photo since he wasn't part of this concert. I hope whatever live recordings there are of Cash and Petty playing together get officially released someday.

Johnny Cash - Sin and Redemption: Live Acoustic American Recordings (1994)

This is kind of a follow up to the Johnny Cash concert in Austin, Texas, in 1994 that I posted here a couple of days ago. 1994 was a special time for Cash's concert performances. He was supporting his 1994 solo acoustic album "American Recordings." So, as far as I know, it was the first and only time he played a significant number of songs in solo acoustic format in concert.

There was a whole solo acoustic section in the 1994 concert I recently posted. But it turns out he changed his set list from night to night, and he played many more songs in that format in other shows. So I've made this album to gather together all the other solo acoustic performances I could find from 1994 that either have great sound quality, or are different songs than the ones in the Austin, Texas show I posted, or both.

This album is possible mainly due to two sources. An hour-long 1994 concert recorded in Manhattan was played on TV, and has excellent sound quality. Another 1994 concert of similar length recorded in Montreux, Switzerland, was released as the DVD "Live in Montreux," but never released as an album. That has excellent sound quality too. The first 30 minutes of this album come from those two sources.

The last ten minutes come from two other sources that are mere audience bootlegs. The sound quality for these are noticeably worse, but still fairly good. The songs are more interesting though. Generally speaking, Cash only played songs from the "American Recordings" in solo acoustic format. But here he dipped back to play two songs he first did in the 1970s, "The Ballad of Barbara" and "Flesh and Blood," in that format. Plus there's "Like a Soldier," an "American Recordings" song I couldn't find live in that format from any better source.

One nice thing about all these songs is that Cash talks before the vast majority of them, and his between song banter is entertaining. It's also different than the banter before the same songs from the Austin, Texas show.

Speaking of that show, here are the songs on this album that aren't on that one: "Let the Train Blow the Whistle," "Redemption," "The Man Who Couldn't Cry," and "Thirteen," plus the three I mentioned above, "The Ballad of Barbara," "Flesh and Blood," and "Like a Soldier." There also are a few solo acoustic performances at the Austin, Texas, show that aren't here: "A Cowboy's Prayer," "Oh, Bury Me Not," "Down There by the Train," and "Death and Hell." I thought about including those exact same performances on this album, but I figured that was redundant, because anyone interested enough to get this would almost certainly have that concert too.

By the way, in Cash's between song banter, both here and in the Austin, Texas, show, he mentioned multiple times how "sin and redemption" was the theme to the "American Recordings" album. So that's why I named this "Sin and Redemption."

01 talk (Johnny Cash)
02 Delia's Gone (Johnny Cash)
03 Tennessee Stud (Johnny Cash)
04 Bird on a Wire (Johnny Cash)
05 talk (Johnny Cash)
06 Let the Train Blow the Whistle (Johnny Cash)
07 talk (Johnny Cash)
08 The Beast in Me (Johnny Cash)
09 talk (Johnny Cash)
10 Redemption (Johnny Cash)
11 talk (Johnny Cash)
12 Drive On (Johnny Cash)
13 The Man Who Couldn't Cry (Johnny Cash)
14 talk (Johnny Cash)
15 Thirteen (Johnny Cash)
16 talk (Johnny Cash)
17 Like a Soldier (Johnny Cash)
18 The Ballad of Barbara (Johnny Cash)
19 talk (Johnny Cash)
20 Flesh and Blood (Johnny Cash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602959/JohnnyC_1994_SinandRdemptionLiveAcoustic_atse.zip.html

The cover art shows Cash playing at the Glastonbury Festival in 1994. By the way, there's a bootleg of that concert with excellent soundboard sound quality too, but he played a short set, and none of the solo acoustic songs are different than the ones here.

Johnny Cash - Frank Ervin Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 12-8-1994

I haven't posted a lot of Johnny Cash music here, because there are a zillion official albums. But, surprisingly, there are some gaps. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that Cash's career was reborn in 1994 with the acclaimed "American Recordings" album, and all the albums for the rest of his life were strong. But there are no official live albums from that time period. Luckily, there are two excellent soundboard bootlegs from that time, one from 1994 and one from 1996. Here's the 1994 one.

The song selection is very good, in my opinion. Basically, he played a handful of songs from the all-acoustic "American Recordings" album. He played these an a couple more in solo acoustic format, mostly in the middle of the show. But a lot more of the show featured him playing the most famous songs from earlier in his career in a band format. It's about an hour and forty minutes long.

The sound quality is excellent, as good as you'd expect an official live album to be. But there was one problem. Since this came from a soundboard recording, it picked up what happened on stage perfectly well, but didn't record much crowd noise. It's strange to hear a song end to near silence. So after each song, I took what little crowd noise there was and carefully boosted it so the rise and fall in volume wouldn't be obvious. Sometimes, I had to take some crowd noise from the end of a different song and mix it in to make sure there was enough crowd response.

If you want just one Johnny Cash concert recording that's a good overview of his entire career, this is about as good as it gets. (He survived until 2003, but he only made a few guest appearances on stage after 1997.)

01 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
02 Get Rhythm (Johnny Cash)
03 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
04 [Ghost] Riders in the Sky (Johnny Cash)
05 talk (Johnny Cash)
06 A Cowboy's Prayer (Johnny Cash)
07 Oh, Bury Me Not (Johnny Cash)
08 Big River (Johnny Cash)
09 talk (Johnny Cash)
10 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash)
11 I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash)
12 Man in Black (Johnny Cash)
13 Remember the Alamo (Johnny Cash)
14 Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash)
15 talk (Johnny Cash)
16 Death and Hell (Johnny Cash)
17 talk (Johnny Cash)
18 Delia's Gone (Johnny Cash)
19 Bird on the Wire (Johnny Cash)
20 talk (Johnny Cash)
21 The Beast in Me (Johnny Cash)
22 Tennessee Stud (Johnny Cash)
23 talk (Johnny Cash)
24 Down There by the Train (Johnny Cash)
25 Drive On (Johnny Cash)
26 talk (Johnny Cash)
27 Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
28 talk (Johnny Cash)
29 Jackson (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
30 If I Were a Carpenter (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
31 talk (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
32 It Ain't Me, Babe (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
33 talk (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
34 Live Forever (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
35 talk (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
36 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash & Rosie Carter)
37 The Next Time in Town (Johnny Cash)
38 Guess Things Happen that Way (Johnny Cash)
39 The Ballad of Ira Hayes (Johnny Cash)
40 Home of the Blues (Johnny Cash)
41 Long Black Veil (Johnny Cash)
42 A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
43 Peace in the Valley (Johnny Cash)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gxTKo

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4FpSJL3W

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/YCLQMqCF9zcCjP4/file 

I couldn't find a photo of Cash at the concert in question. But I found one of him played the SXSW festival in Austin Texas earlier in the year. I used that, since at least it's the same town. I tried to imitate the style of his official albums from 1994 and after with the giant "CASH" text, and no first name, on the cover.

Johnny Cash - American Outtakes (1993)

I'm kinda surprised I haven't posted this album yet, because it's exactly what this blog is all about. It's a classic example of an album that should exist, and I'm baffled that it still hasn't been officially released. If you're a Johnny Cash fan at all, you need to hear this.

I'm not a huge country music fan, but I am a big Johnny Cash fan. To me, he's one of the greatest musicians of all time. But after decades of success, his career had reached a low point in the early 1990s. His still had his vast musical catalog, of course, but few were interested in his new albums. Then producer Rick Rubin stepped in. He gave Cash's career a rebirth with the album "American Recordings," recorded in 1993 and released in 1994. Cash was recorded in totally stripped down mode, just him and his acoustic guitar, and he was given a bunch of very interesting songs to play. Personally, I consider "American Recordings" a five-star album, and it's my favorite Cash album.

But it turns out the 13 songs on "American Recordings" were far from the only songs recorded for that album. He played dozens more, then he and Rubin picked out their favorites for the album. So what happened to all the rest? In 2003, the same year Cash died, the box set "Unearthed" was released, and many more songs that Cash recorded in 1993 in acoustic mode appeared on that. But, surprisingly, many were not included on that, and remain officially unreleased to this day.

In the late 1990s, a bootleg appeared called "American Outtakes" that was nothing but outtakes from the 1993 Rubin-produced recording sessions. That came out before "Unearthed," so some songs on it later were officially released. What I've done here is remove all the released songs. Happily, that still leaves 45 minutes' worth of music, which is an ideal album length, in my opinion.

The bootleg has excellent sound. However, I've edited many of the songs, because the bootleg took a "warts and all" approach, including false starts. Most of those are just Cash playing a few seconds of the song and then stopping, often because he has to cough. So unless you're a big fan of hearing people cough, you're not missing anything from having the false starts removed. I also made an edit to "All of God's Children Ain't Free" because that, alone of all of the songs on the album, ended prematurely, right in the middle of a chorus. I patched in the rest of the chorus from earlier in the song to give it a proper ending.

Is this album as good as "American Recordings?" No. That album has some really great songs, many of them specifically written for it. This is more of a collection of traditional songs, and redone songs from earlier in Cash's career. But still, as Cash albums go, it's one of my favorites. Since Cash died in 2003, there have been some archival albums released, including some from the very end of his life when his voice was failing him. I honestly don't understand why that material has been released, and yet this hasn't, back when his voice and musical powers were at the best.

By the way, not all the songs are just Cash and his acoustic guitar. "I Witnessed a Crime" has Billy Gibbons, the guitarist from ZZ Top, playing guitar on it. Also, the last two songs have some other instruments on them. But they don't have drums of them, and they're still acoustic in nature.

01 What On Earth Will You Do for Heaven's Sake (Johnny Cash)
02 The Drifter (Johnny Cash)
03 I Witnessed a Crime (Johnny Cash with Billy Gibbons)
04 The Next Time I'm in Town (Johnny Cash)
05 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
06 Friends in California (Johnny Cash)
07 The Wonder of You (Johnny Cash)
08 East Virginia Blues (Johnny Cash)
09 Go On Blues (Johnny Cash)
10 Go Where I Send Thee (Johnny Cash)
11 Loving Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Johnny Cash)
12 T for Texas [Solo Version] (Johnny Cash)
13 Bad News (Johnny Cash)
14 All of God's Children Ain't Free (Johnny Cash)
15 One More Ride (Johnny Cash)
16 Don't Sell Daddy Any More Whiskey (Johnny Cash)
17 The Devil (Johnny Cash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602890/JohnnyC_1993_AmericnOuttakes_atse.zip.html

There have been various versions of this bootleg released, with various titles and covers. I picked a cover that I particularly liked. It's very much in line with the look of the "American Recordings" cover. I shortened the title.