Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 10-12-1979

Here's another album from the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Jukes. It also features blues great Junior Wells as a guest star. Wells sang and played his harmonica on two songs in the middle of the show, plus another one near the end.

I wanted to use the intro to the band's Wikipedia entry, but it's very badly written. It defines the band almost entirely in terms of their connections to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And while it's true they had a lot of links to that band, they have been a fine band in their own right as well.

Here's the Wikipedia entry anyway: 

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes - Wikipedia 

The popularity of the band peaked in the late 1970s, in my opinion. So this is a good time for this concert. At the time, I believe Little Steven Van Zandt was still one of the band's two main leaders and songwriters, along with Southside Johnny. Van Zandt left the band in 1980, probably due to his commitments to being a member of the E Street Band. 

Junior Wells is very famous in the blues world. He's especially known for his collaboration with Buddy Guy over several decades, with Wells playing harmonica and Guy playing lead guitar.

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Junior Wells - Wikipedia 

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 All I Want Is Everything [Edit] (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
02 Your Reply (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
03 talk (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
04 Living in the Real World (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
05 I'm So Anxious (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
06 talk (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
07 Little by Little (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells)
08 Hoodoo Man (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells)
09 I Don't Want to Go Home (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
10 Paris (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
11 Trapped Again (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
12 Vertigo (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
13 Bring It on Home to Me (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
14 Havin' a Party (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
15 Messin' with the Kid (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells)
16 Hearts of Stone (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QfLwpvZR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/dy4MNN7jhWnt2XG/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from this exact video. Junior Wells is the one wearing a hat. 

Bonnie Raitt with Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-17-1974

Here's another one of the "PBS Soundstage" shows that had an interesting guest star. In this case, the main star was Bonnie Raitt, and the guest star was the blues duo of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.

Raitt's first album came out in 1971. For her first few albums, she leaned more heavily into the blues than she did with her later albums. So it's not too surprising that when she was allowed to pick guest stars for her Soundstage episode, she chose the likes of Guy and Wells. Even long after her more bluesy phase of her career, she's frequently made sure to pay tribute to her musical roots. 

Guy and Wells had a musical partnership that lasted decades, with Guy playing lead guitar and Wells playing harmonica, and both of them singing. The concert started with just Guy as the star, singing "Man of Many Words," a song from the 1972 album "Play the Blues" by Guy and Wells. Then Wells joined him on stage and sang the next two songs. 

After that, Guy and Wells left and most of the show was devoted to a fairly typical Bonnie Raitt set for the time. Note that she did a version of "Don't Fight It," a Wilson Pickett song she never put on album. But for the second to last song, "Everybody's Crying Mercy," Wells returned to the stage and sang the song with her. Then Guy also got back on stage and the three of them finished the concert with "Long Lonesome Road."

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

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
02 Man of Many Words (Buddy Guy)
03 talk (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
04 Little by Little (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
05 talk (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
06 I Wouldn't Have to Sing the Blues (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
07 talk (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
08 Mystery Train (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
09 Love Me like a Man (Bonnie Raitt)
10 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
11 Any Day Woman (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Under the Falling Sky (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
14 Write Me a Few of Your Lines - Kokomo Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
15 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
16 Women Be Wise (Bonnie Raitt)
17 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
18 Angel from Montgomery (Bonnie Raitt)
19 Don't Fight It (Bonnie Raitt)
20 talk (Bonnie Raitt with Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
21 Everybody's Crying Mercy (Bonnie Raitt & Junior Wells)
22 Long Lonesome Road (Bonnie Raitt with Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pkU5F8m2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/U6yPVcbWMGXDmVP/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's Raitt with Junior Wells on harmonica. I wish I could have found a picture with Buddy Guy in it too, but this was the best one I could find.

Muddy Waters & Friends - Blues Summit, PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 7-18-1974

Pretty much since I started this blog in 2018, I've wanted to post an album by blues legend Muddy Waters, but I couldn't find anything worthy. Now I have. This was the very first episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show (after they changed their name from "Made in Chicago" and became a national program, that is), and no doubt they wanted this to be first so they could start with a bang. The episode was titled "Blues Summit," and for good reason. Waters led the show and sang most of the song, but good portion of the biggest names in blues music still alive and active at that time joined him on stage: Junior Wells, Johnny Winter, Dr. John, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, Pinetop Perkins, Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, and Nick Gravenites. Wow, what a collection of talent!

This is a must-have for any serious blues fan. It's a great performance with excellent sound quality. So I was surprised how hard it is to find. It had eluded all my previous searches for this sort of thing until a couple of days ago, when I started to hone in on finding Soundstage episodes. I discovered that it was released on DVD (but not on CD) in 2015. However, I had great trouble finding this. For instance, it wasn't on YouTube, other than a lower quality version recorded off the TV that was missing the last two and a half songs. I couldn't even find it on SoulseekQT, and they generally immediately have what I want 99 percent of the time, or, very rarely, it isn't there at all. But luckily, after a couple of days, I finally got a Soulseek hit on someone who had the DVD. I promptly converted that to mp3s, and here you are.

I only had a couple of issues with the recording. There was a voiceover on an instrumental section of the first song, "Blow Wind Blow." That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title, because I removed that talking while keeping the underlying music, thanks to the UVR5 program. The next track was several minutes of people milling backstage and talking to each other. It's a lot more interesting to see the video of blues legends interacting than what can be heard here, so I deleted that track. If interested, check out the YouTube video of it.

The list of artist names per song is woefully incomplete. It would have taken me a long time to figure out exactly who played on what, and then I would have had some very long file names. So instead of that, I generally stuck to mentioning Muddy Waters (since he stayed on stage the entire concert), plus whoever happened to sing lead vocals on any given song, if it was someone instead of, or in addition to, him. That leaves a lot of people unmentioned. For instance, Buddy Miles, a star in his own right, played drums for most of the show, but he isn't mentioned in any of the song credits because he didn't sing lead vocals. 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Blow Wind Blow [Edit] (Muddy Waters)
02 talk (Muddy Waters)
03 Long Distance Call (Muddy Waters)
04 talk (Muddy Waters)
05 Messin' with the Kid (Muddy Waters with Junior Wells & Nick Gravenites)
06 talk (Muddy Waters)
07 Stop Breaking Down (Muddy Waters with Junior Wells)
08 talk (Muddy Waters)
09 Mannish Boy (Muddy Waters)
10 talk (Muddy Waters)
11 Wang Dang Doodle (Muddy Waters with Willie Dixon & Koko Taylor)
12 talk (Muddy Waters with Johnny Winter)
13 Walking through the Park (Muddy Waters with Johnny Winter)
14 Hoochie Coochie Man (Muddy Waters with Willie Dixon)
15 talk (Muddy Waters)
16 Sugar Sweet (Muddy Waters with Dr. John)
17 I Got My Mojo Working (Muddy Waters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/U8RWbQui

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bPTOCcglRs8dIOc/file

As I watched the video of this concert, I kept an eye out for a spot where I could take a good screenshot for the cover image. But the quality was low-res, and it was rare to get more than one person on screen at the same time, since long distance shots were ruined by the low picture quality. Luckily, I found an image of the DVD cover. That had pictures of four of the stars, taken from the concert, so I used those. That's Muddy Waters at the top left, Johnny Winter at the top right, Dr. John at the bottom left, and Junior Wells at the bottom right. I was able to improve the image quality somewhat with the Krea AI program.

Newport Folk Festival, Festival Field, Newport, RI, 7-25-1968 to 7-28-1968, Part 10 - Buddy Guy & Junior Wells

This is the last of ten albums featuring the biggest names from the 1968 Newport Folk Festival. This time, it's a set from the blues duo Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.

Guy and Wells were successful solo artists, but they also had a long and successful partnership, sometimes working as a duo from the 1960s until Wells died in 1998. I believe they started performing together around 1966, but they wouldn't release their first album as a duo until 1972. I can't say this with total certainty, but I think this is their best and only concert recording as a duo from the 1960s.

Guy and Wells did different types of blues together. They've even done some acoustic albums which I particularly like. But at this phase of their career, they mostly played a more rocking and lively form of blues, sometimes even veering into soul music. This was helped by the fact they were assisted by a horn section. You can see that here by the fact that they finished with a cover of "I Got You (I Feel Good)," the soul classic by James Brown.

This concert is 39 minutes long.

129 talk by George Wein (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
130 Intro [Instrumental] (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
131 One Room Country Shack (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
132 Checkin' on My Baby (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
133 talk (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
134 Hoodoo Man Blues (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
135 Messin' with the Kid (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
136 talk (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
137 Help Me (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
138 talk (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)
139 Call It Stormy Monday - I Got You [I Feel Good] (Buddy Guy & Junior Wells)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17205342/VA-NEWPRTFLKFESTIVL196810BuddyGy_JniorWlls.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Cg8bXPax

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

UPDATE: On October 5, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.