Bob Dylan & the Band - Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL, 1-4-1974

In September 2024, a big box set of the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 tour was released. Called, "The 1974 Live Recordings," it's a whopping 27 CDs in size. It includes all the soundboard and multitrack recordings that could be found from that tour. Way back in 1974, just a few months after the tour ended, a double album called "Before the Flood" was released, compiling songs from several concerts from the tour. I never liked that album much, for reasons I'll explain in a minute. So I decided to pick what I consider the best concert from this box set and make some changes that arguably makes this superior to what is on the box set.

I have two issues with the "Before the Flood" album. First, I usually prefer full concerts, warts and all, to live albums selected from multiple concerts. And second, it seemed to me that Dylan was just going through the motions, playing his "greatest hits" to please the large crowds without much enthusiasm on his part. 

It turns out that's exactly what happened. Dylan had been in seclusion pretty much since his 1966 motorcycle accident. He'd only done one full concert in all the years since then (at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969), plus a handful of guest appearances. The public demand to see him on tour was immense. Add to that the fact that his backing band in 1966 were just a bunch of unknowns, but had since been deemed "the Band," and had some hits and critically praised albums of their own. They were a big concert draw in their own right, so to see them back Dylan was extra special. The resulting tour was one of the biggest and most hyped tour in rock and roll up until that point, selling out everywhere.

Unfortunately, whoever booked the tour set up a punishing schedule, with two shows per days sometimes and almost no days off. As the tour went on, Dylan started to lose the power of his voice. He often resorted to shouting the songs more than singing them. Furthermore, he played fewer and fewer rarities as the tour went on, ending up with just his biggest crowd pleasers by the end. Unfortunately, the "Before the Flood" album is drawn from the end of the tour. But most Dylan fanatics are more interested in the beginning of the tour, when Dylan and the Band were excited instead of weary, Dylan was singing great, and they weren't afraid to play unusual songs.

But there are more problems with the box set. One is that some of the concerts were not professionally recorded in full, due to technical difficulties or negligence or the like. Another is that although the Band played many of their own songs in every concert on the tour, the box set contains absolutely NONE of those. 

The very first concert on the tour took place in Chicago on January 3, 1974. That one, plus the next one, also in Chicago, on January 4th, are the most interesting ones to me, in terms of the set list as well as the quality of the performance. But there's a pretty good sounding audience bootleg for the January 4th show, but only a very poor sounding bootleg for January 4th. So I decided to post the January 4th concert. 

I used the audience bootleg to fill in the missing Band songs, all ten of them (tracks 7-12 and 21-24). The sound quality on these isn't as good, and you'll probably notice that right away. But I still think they sound very listenable. I used some tricks with the UVR5 and MSVEP audio editing programs to make them sound a little better. For instance, I got rid of most of the crowd noise in the middles of sounds, generally only keeping the cheering at the starts and ends of songs. 

Another problem with this concert is that five of the Dylan songs were missing (probably due to technical problems). Those were: "Lay, Lady, Lady," "All Along the Watchtower," "Forever Young," "Something There Is about You," and "Like a Rolling Stone." Luckily for my purposes, all five of these songs happened have been performed the night before, even though there were many differences in the two set lists. So, for those five songs, I used the versions from January 3rd, since the sound quality was significantly better than the audience bootleg from the Fourth.

There was yet another problem with this concert recording. Namely, for both the January 3rd and 4th recordings, virtually all of the applause was quickly faded out at the ends of songs. This would have resulted in the loss of all banter between songs, but it so happened Dylan and the members of the Band almost never said a word between songs, so there probably wasn't anything lost there. However, it sounded annoying to me to have the applause cut off. So I did some editing, patching in extra applause after virtually every song, except for the Band ones, since they were sourced differently. It seems whoever was recording the concerts cut the applause off like that for all the early dates in the tour. Maybe it was to save on recording tape, I don't know.

Because it had been so long since Dylan had gone on tour, many of the songs were being played for the first time on these two Chicago nights. For instance, even though "All Along the Watchtower" had been written way back in 1967, and Dylan would go on to perform that song in concerts more than any other (2300 plus and growing as I write this), he'd never played it in concert before this. Others had only been done rarely. For instance, "Hero Blues" and "Song to Woody" had only been performed a couple of times back in 1962 and/or 1963. Dylan and the Band released a new studio album right as the tour was starting, called "Planet Waves." They only played a few songs from the album on tour though, and they gradually dropped out of the set lists as the tour went on. But this concert has "Tough Mama," "Something There Is about You," and "Forever Young," plus the outtake "Nobody 'Cept You." Additionally, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" had only been released the year before on a movie soundtrack, and was being played for the first time as well.

If you're a Dylan fanatic, you should get the entire box set. If you're not though, I'd easily recommend this over the "Before the Flood" album, even though the Band songs sound a little worse.

This album is an hour and 57 minutes long.

01 Hero Blues (Bob Dylan & the Band)
02 Lay, Lady, Lay (Bob Dylan & the Band)
03 Just like Tom Thumb's Blues (Bob Dylan & the Band)
04 It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob Dylan & the Band)
05 Tough Mama (Bob Dylan & the Band)
06 Ballad of a Thin Man (Bob Dylan & the Band)
07 Stage Fright (Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Bob Dylan & the Band)
09 King Harvest [Has Surely Come] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
10 Long Black Veil (Bob Dylan & the Band)
11 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 Up on Cripple Creek (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob Dylan & the Band)
15 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan & the Band)
16 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan & the Band)
17 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Bob Dylan & the Band)
18 The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Bob Dylan & the Band)
19 Nobody 'Cept You (Bob Dylan & the Band)
20 It's Alright, Ma [I'm Only Bleeding] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
21 Rag Mama Rag (Bob Dylan & the Band)
22 When You Awake (Bob Dylan & the Band)
23 The Shape I'm In (Bob Dylan & the Band)
24 The Weight (Bob Dylan & the Band)
25 Forever Young (Bob Dylan & the Band)
26 Something There Is about You (Bob Dylan & the Band)
27 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan & the Band)
28 Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.imagenetz.de/m9B4n

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4v5gopbk

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3yBhONV52L7qIXC/file

Luckily, the cover photo comes from one of the two Chicago concerts in January 1974, though I'm not sure which one. It probably was this one though, because the first night had a bunch of furniture on stage to try to create a homey atmosphere, but that was dropped by the second show.

The Band - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 9-14-1974

Here's a concert that was brought to my attention by musical associate MZ. Apparently, this has been kicking around on the Internet for years (and you can even find video of it on YouTube), but it passed my attention. There isn't much live music with high sound quality for the Band between about 1971 and their final concert, the Last Waltz, in late 1976, so this helps fill that gap.

This concert was a pretty big deal, mainly because of the headlining act, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). This was CSNY's sole concert in Europe for their big 1974 reunion tour. Furthermore, the opening acts were pretty great as well, with Jesse Colin Young, the Band, and Joni Mitchell. Good audio exists for the CSNY set, but it wasn't a good one musically, as they were too high on drugs and were having increasing ego clashes near the end of their tour. I've posted a CSNY concert from only a few days earlier in New York that's much better. I've never seen any sign of the Jesse Colin Young or Joni Mitchell sets existing with high quality, but for some reason the Band one does, so here it is.

The Band was already in a looking back mode in 1974. Earlier in the year, they went on a long concert tour with Bob Dylan, mostly going over the great music they did together back in the 1960s. There are some excellent sounding recordings from that tour, but the Band mostly backed Dylan on his songs and did relatively few of their own. For this show, they mostly played songs from their first three albums, "Music from Big Pink," "The Band," and "Stage Fright." Their most recent album, "Moondog Matinee," came out a year earlier and was an all-covers album. They did only one from that, "Mystery Train." But they also did a cover, "Hard Times (The Slop)" that they apparently never recorded in the studio. Otherwise, it was pretty much all classic originals, one after another.

The sound quality is excellent, since this is a soundboard, augmented by a second source. There's not much audience cheering at the end of songs (even though they played a huge stadium venue here), but that happens sometimes with soundboards. There's also basically no banter between songs, but I think they just weren't an act that talked much.

This concert is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 Introduction (Band)
02 Hard Times [The Slop] (Band)
03 Just Another Whistle Stop (Band)
04 Stage Fright (Band)
05 The Weight (Band)
06 The Shape I'm In (Band)
07 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)
08 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Band)
09 Across the Great Divide (Band)
10 Endless Highway (Band)
11 Smoke Signal (Band)
12 I Shall Be Released (Band)
13 The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show (Band)
14 Mystery Train (Band)
15 The Genetic Method - Chest Fever (Band)
16 Up on Cripple Creek (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15896062/TBnd_1974_WemblyStdiumLondnBrtain__9-14-1974_atse.zip.html

 I couldn't find any good photos of the entire group from this concert. I considered taking a screenshot from one of the YouTube videos of this concert, but the quality is rather low. (I believe two of the songs from this are on the DVD of the band's box set "A Musical History," so if anyone has that in high quality, please let me know. Maybe I could get a better photo from that.) Weirdly though, I did find good photos of four of the individual band members from this exact concert, so I used those. That's Richard Manuel on the top left, Rick Danko on the top right, Garth Hudson on the bottom left, and Robbie Robertson on the bottom right. Ironically, the one left out because there's no good photo is Levon Helm, who sang a majority of the lead vocals.

Robbie Robertson - The Right Mistake - Non-Album Tracks (2011-2019)

I just posted an album of stray tracks by Robbie Robertson, to mark his recent passing (as I write this in August 2023). I prepared two such albums at the same time to make sure their lengths were reasonable, so I might as well post the other one while I'm at it.

The first four songs are all bonus tracks from different versions of his 2001 studio album "How to Be Clairvoyant." "I Shall Be Released" was played with Eric Clapton at the 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival. The next song, "The Money Chant," is from "The Wolf of Wall Street" movie, but apparently it's never been officially released. "Hiawatha and the Peacemaker" comes from a record that was included with a book. "Happy Holidays" was only released on the Internet. The last song, "Theme from 'The Irishman,'" naturally comes from "The Irishman" movie soundtrack. It continues his long involvement with Martin Scorsese movie soundtracks.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 He Don't Live Here No More [Demo] (Robbie Robertson)
02 This Is Where I Get Off [Demo] (Robbie Robertson)
03 The Right Mistake [Demo] (Robbie Robertson)
04 In the War Zone (Robbie Robertson)
05 I Shall Be Released (Robbie Robertson with Eric Clapton)
06 The Money Chant (Robbie Robertson with Matthew McConaughey)
07 Hiawatha and the Peacemaker (Robbie Robertson)
08 Happy Holidays (Robbie Robertson)
09 Theme for 'The Irishman' [Instrumental] (Robbie Robertson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15577813/RobbieR_2011-2019_TheRghtMstake_atse.zip.html

The cover photo looks to me like it was taken in a church, but apparently it's from the Village Studios in Los Angeles, taken in 2011.

Robbie Robertson - Shine Your Light - Non-Album Tracks (2000-2011)

Lots of great musicians seem to be dying lately, as I write this in August 2023. The latest is Robbie Robertson. He was the lead guitarist and main songwriter for the Band, writing classics like "The Weight " and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." He almost never sang lead vocals with the Band, but he had a fairly successful solo career after they broke up in the late 1970s. He was 80 years old when he died.

I thought I'd post some music by him to mark his passing. I had previously posted two stray tracks albums from his solo career that started in the early 1980s. I had hesitated to post another one, because I had enough material for one long album, but not quite enough for two short ones. I was waiting for some more songs from him to make two decent sized albums. But now that he's passed, there probably won't be any more new music. So I redid the two albums I'd already posted, since they were rather long. 

After some rearranging, I have enough material for four albums. But the downside is that you should redownload the first two, if you don't want to miss some songs and have duplicates. Note also that I added one song to the first one and two to the second one. Those two are unreleased studio tracks that definitely shouldn't be missed. So here are the links for those:

The Far Cry of Lonely Trains

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/02/robbie-robertson-far-lonely-cry-of.html

Bad Intentions

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/robbie-robertson-bad-intentions-various.html

Now, on to this album. Robertson only released six studio albums in his career, but he had enough extra material for four non-album track albums. I suppose that had to do with the fact that he was involved in many movie soundtracks. The first four songs here come from soundtracks, in fact. 

The unreleased song "World on Fire" is sung with Sarah MacLachlan. It's a studio outtake, so it sounds as good as the others. Another unreleased song, "Straight Down the Line," is from a TV show performance. That song was included on his studio album "How to Become Clairvoyant," but he performed live so very rarely that I figured it was worth including a live version here. "Who Do You Love" is a duet with Eric Clapton that was released on DVD only. "Going to the River" is from a Fats Domino tribute album. The last three songs are bonus tracks from various versions of "How to Become Clairvoyant."

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Amazing Grace [Instrumental] (Robbie Robertson)
02 Carry Me (Robbie Robertson)
03 Out of the Blue [Instrumental Version] (Robbie Robertson)
04 Shine Your Light (Robbie Robertson)
05 World on Fire (Sarah McLachlan with Robbie Robertson)
06 Going to the River (Robbie Robertson with Galactic)
07 Who Do You Love (Eric Clapton & Robbie Robertson)
08 Straight Down the Line (Robbie Robertson)
09 Catwalk (Robbie Robertson)
10 Houdini (Robbie Robertson)
11 Madame X [Instrumental] [Demo] (Robbie Robertson & Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15577817/RobbieR_2000-2011_ShneYourLght_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a Vanity Fair Oscar party in Los Angeles in 2005.

The Band - Islands - Alternate Version (1977)

Having just posted my alternate version of the Band album "Northern Lights - Southern Cross," I might as well post the last album of theirs that I've made an alternate version for, "Islands."

I post a lot of stray tracks albums here, and that's essentially what the official album "Islands" is. Robbie Robertson, the band's main songwriter, disbanded the group in 1976, with their last concert (called "The Last Waltz") taking place near the end of the year. However, they still owed one more studio album to their record company. So they cobbled together some older outtakes and a few leftover new songs and made the album. 

Given that background, it's no surprise that it's considered one of their weaker albums. It's also rather short, at only 35 minutes. That said, there are some very good songs on it, as well as some forgettable ones. Plus, there were some other songs done around that time that can be added to strengthen it quite a lot. 

There are ten songs on the official version of the album. I've removed three of them: "Street Walker," "Ain't That a Love of Love" (a cover), and the instrumental "Islands." Instead, I've added seven songs, making this a significantly longer album.

The first added song here is "Twilight." It's a very good song, but for some reason was only released as a single in 1976. It's puzzling why it wasn't included on "Islands," especially since the album was short. 

Three more songs come from the soundtrack to the movie "The Last Waltz." The vast majority of that triple album consists of the concert performed in 1976 with lots of famous guests. But there were some studio tracks included as well. Some are remakes of older songs that don't fit here. But there are three really good previously unreleased ones: "Out of the Blue," "Evangeline," and "The Well." Logically, those should have gone on "Islands." But it seems the Band had troubles with their record company. "The Last Waltz" was put out by a different record company, and the songs going on that album probably had to do with that record company dispute.

Another added song is "Home Cookin'." It was unreleased at the time, but was released much later on the box set "Across the Great Divide." 

Finally, there are two songs that come from a bootleg of a recording session: "Hard Times" and "Steppin' Up in Class." These are both covers. Eric Clapton was recording a studio album in 1976, and he had the Band play on a couple of his songs. So these are outtakes from that, which means Clapton plays on them too. The vocals to the song "Steppin' Up in Class" were somewhat buried in the mix, so I used the audio editing program X-Minus to make them clearer and cut out some rambling parts.

The official version of "Islands" is just a so-so album. But I think this version is much stronger.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Twilight [Single Version] (Band)
02 Out of the Blue (Band)
03 Evangeline (Band with Emmylou Harris)
04 The Well (Band)
05 Hard Times (Band with Eric Clapton)
06 Home Cookin' (Band)
07 Right as Rain (Band)
08 The Saga of Pepote Rouge (Band)
09 Livin' in a Dream (Band)
10 Knockin' Lost John (Band)
11 Georgia on My Mind (Band)
12 Steppin' Up in Class [Edit] (Band with Eric Clapton)
13 Christmas Must Be Tonight (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15910375/TBnd_1977_IslndsAlternate_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I simply used the official cover. But I wanted it to be somewhat different, to show this is an alternate versions. So I made two changes. One, I zoomed in a little more, so there's less black area around the edges. And two, I made the letters of "The Band" in the middle mostly see-through. (I used some Photoshop tricks to fill in that area with more sunset colors.)

The Band - Northern Lights - Southern Cross - Alternate Version (1975)

Putting the Wild Honey Orchestra tribute concert to the band together the other day put me in the mood for more music from the Band. So here's something directly from them. It's my alternate version of their 1975 album "Northern Lights - Southern Cross."

Actually, this album is already a very good one, one of their best. But there are a few stray tracks from that time period one can add to make it even better. I removed one so-so song, "Ring Your Bell." Then I added three songs originally from "The Basement Tapes:" "Ain't No More Cane," "Don't Ya Tell Henry," and "Bessie Smith."

Now, you may well ask, "Why the heck add those three? 'The Basement Tapes' are a collection of songs Bob Dylan and the Band recorded in 1967." That's true, except for those three songs I mentioned. I believe there's been kind of conspiracy about the origins of these songs. In 1975, Robbie Robertson, the main songwriter for the Band, was given the task of putting "The Basement Tapes" together. Even though the vast majority of the songs were written and sung by Dylan, apparently Dylan wasn't interested in being involved in putting the archival album together. 

My theory is that Robertson saw an opportunity to beef up the percentage of Band songs by recording a few new ones and pretending they were from 1967 with the others. That way, "The Basement Tapes" were seen as more of a collaborative effort between Dylan and the Band, when in fact the vast majority of songs were Dylan's. As it was, eight of the 24 songs on the album were by the Band. Without those extra three, it would have been a partly five by the Band compared to 19 by Dylan. (Many, many more excellent Dylan songs not included, enough for me to have made a double album that I've posted here called "More Basement Tapes.")

I'm supported in my theory by an account by engineer Rob Fraboni. He was intimately involved in the production of "The Basement Tapes" in 1975. He claims the three songs I mentioned were in fact recorded in 1975, plus one more, a cover of the Chuck Berry song "Going Back to Memphis," which remained unreleased. Fraboni also says the Band overdubbed many vocal and instrumental parts to other Basement Tapes songs at that time, again making them sound more like collaborative efforts instead of Dylan-dominated ones.

The song "Don't Ya Tell Henry" was written by Dylan, and a version was recorded in 1967 as part of the Basement Tapes sessions. But it was a sloppy, drunken version with Dylan on lead vocals. It seems the Band basically took the song for their own by recording a 1975 version with Band members doing the lead vocals.

"Ain't No More Cane" is a traditional song. But it has a similar story in that Dylan sang the lead on it in the actual Basement Tapes sessions. The Band liked both of these songs, and performed them in concert as far back as the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The 1975 version again has Band members doing the lead vocals instead of Dylan.

"Bessie Smith" is a greater mystery. The Band never played it in concert, so it could have been written as late as 1975, even though it fits in perfectly with other Basement Tapes songs.

If that's what they did, that's fine with me. "The Basement Tapes" are a great album, including the newly recorded Band songs and overdubs and all. But what's silly is that the pretense continues that those songs were recorded much earlier. For instance, in 2000, an expanded version of the 1971 Band album "Cahoots" was released. "Bessie Smith" was added to it, and the liner notes state it was recorded in 1970. But it's the only song on that re-release that lack any recording details. Similarly, when the Band box set "Across the Great Divide" was released in 1994, the liner notes claim that "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Ain't No More Cane" were recorded in an "unknown studio" on an unknown date in either 1967 or 1968. 

Those three songs are literally the only ones with such vague recording details, and they're also the exact ones that Fraboni claims were actually recorded in 1975. I believe Fraboni, especially since the motive of wanting to secretly beef up the Band's involvement in the Basement Tapes makes perfect sense. If that's the case, then these three songs were recorded around the same time as the "Northern Lights - Southern Cross" ones and belong as bonus tracks or the like with that album. So that's why I've included them here.

This album is 48 minutes long.

I've included "Twilight" as a bonus track. The sound quality is just as good as the others. The reason it's a bonus track is because this is an early version. The song would be released as a stand-alone single in 1976, and in my opinion that version is very different, more rocking, and better. So I'm including that in my alternate version of the Band's "Islands" album.

01 Ophelia (Band)
02 Forbidden Fruit (Band)
03 Ain't No More Cane (Band)
04 Acadian Driftwood (Band)
05 Jupiter Hollow (Band)
06 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
07 Rags and Bones (Band)
08 Bessie Smith (Band)
09 Hobo Jungle (Band)
10 It Makes No Difference (Band)

Twilight [Early Version] (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700645/TBND1975_NrthrnLghtsSuthrnCrssAltrnate_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used the exact same photo as that on the official cover. However, I zoomed in more, allowing the band members and the fire to be larger. I also redid the lettering, using the same font and color.

Robbie Robertson - Bad Intentions - Non-Album Tracks (1992-1998)

I get the impression that Robbie Robertson has been in musical semi-retirement ever since he broke up the Band around 1976. He's never gone on tour, and I only know of one full-length concert he did in his decades as a solo artist, which I've posted at this blog. He takes his sweet time between albums, and doesn't promote them much. Probably he's made a ton of money from writing band classics like "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," so he can treat his music career more like a hobby than a way to earn a living.

Be that as it may, he's actually released a lot of songs that haven't come out on his studio albums. He's only put out six studio albums since his solo career began in the 1980s until now, but I've found enough material for four stray tracks albums. 

Three songs, tracks 2, 3 and 4, are from the "Jimmy Hollywood" movie soundtrack. In addition, there is a live cover version ("I Shall Be Released"), a B-side ("Deneta"), two album bonus tracks ("Holy Hell" and "Pray"), two songs from albums by other artists ("Canon (Part 2)" and "Moosonee Shout of Rage"), and three unreleased songs. 

The two unreleased songs, "Between Dog and Wolf" and "We Don't Know Their Kind of Songs," seem to be studio outtakes and sound very good.

This album is 53 minutes long.

UPDATE: On August 17, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I moved two songs from the previous album in this series to this one ("Canon (Part 2)" and "Slo Burn"). Then I moved eight songs from this album to the next one in the series. Finally, I added three songs I'd previously missed, "Between Dog and Wolf," "We Don't Know Their Kind of Songs," and "Moosonee Shout of Rage."

01 Canon [Part 2] (Hal Willner with Robbie Robertson)
02 Slo Burn [Instrumental] (Robbie Robertson & the Gil Evans Orchestra)
03 Bad Intentions (Robbie Robertson)
04 Let the Good Times Roll (Robbie Robertson & Cassandra Wilson)
05 Deneta (Robbie Robertson)
06 Moosonee Shout of Rage (Jazz Chromatic Ensemble with Robbie Robertson)
07 I Shall Be Released (Robbie Robertson, Elvis Costello & Rita Coolidge)
08 Holy Hell (Robbie Robertson)
09 Pray (Robbie Robertson)
10 Between Dog and Wolf (Robbie Robertson)
11 We Don't Know Their Kind of Songs (Robbie Robertson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15598731/RobbieR_1992-1998_BadIntntions_atse.zip.html

The cover photo features Robertson at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York in 1994.

The Band - Woodstock Festival, Max Yasgur's Farm, Bethel, NY, 8-17-1969

In 2019, all the music from the famous three-day-long 1969 Woodstock Festival was officially released.  It was called, "Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive." That's great, but it was a huge box set, containing a few dozen CDs, and it was only made available in limited numbers for one time only. Apparently, exactly 1969 copies were officially available to be sold, to mark the year of the concert. Of course, all of those were sold, and it's been out of print since then.

In the years prior to that, the complete Woodstock sets of some famous artists were officially released on a wider basis, and even more came out around the time of that box set. Here are the artists that I believe have had their performances released on individual albums:

Santana
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone
Jefferson Airplane
Joe Cocker
Johnny Winter
Butterfield Blues Band
Jimi Hendrix

I don't want to post the sets from any of those artists, since they are easy to get. But the rest of the festival is very hard to find, and now that it's been a year since the release of that already out of print box set, it seems that's all that is likely to come out. So I want to post the sets of some other artists that I like. (I've already posted the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young set.) One great thing about that festival is that the whole thing was recorded in soundboard quality, so we have excellent recordings from a time we might not otherwise have them.

So here's another Woodstock performance, from the Band. There is one really great live album by the Band from relatively early in their career, "Rock of Ages." But even that comes from concerts at the very end of 1971. In mid-1969, their set list was very different. Their second album - "The Band" - was due to be released only a few weeks after this concert, but they didn't play any songs from it. So their concert set list was largely based on their landmark 1968 album "Music from Big Pink," plus a couple of Motown covers ("Don't Do It" and "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever"). But most intriguingly, they did a couple of songs from "The Basement Tapes," recorded in 1967, that wouldn't get released until 1975: "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Ain't No More Cane." (Note that I included both of those exact performances on my Band stray tracks album "The Basement Tapes.")

The concert is 48 minutes long. It's well performed, and as I said, the sound quality is great. The only odd thing, in my opinion, is there was virtually no talking from anyone in the Band, except for a couple of "thank yous" at the ends of songs. There doesn't seem to be the usual emcee announcement at the start or the end either, though there is one before their encore.

01 Chest Fever (Band)
02 Don't Do It [Baby Don't Do It] (Band)
03 Tears of Rage (Band)
04 We Can Talk (Band)
05 Long Black Veil (Band)
06 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
07 Ain't No More Cane (Band)
08 This Wheel's on Fire (Band)
09 I Shall Be Released (Band)
10 The Weight (Band)
11 talk (Band)
12 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700631/TBND1969a_WodstckFestivlNY__8-17-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the concert in question. Unfortunately, it only shows four of the five members of the Band.

Robbie Robertson - The Far, Lonely Cry of Trains - Non-Album Tracks (1980-1991)

Robbie Robertson is best known as the writer of many classic hits by the Band, such as "The Weight," Up on Cripple Creek," and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." He broke up the Band in 1976 and has been a solo artist ever since. His output has been sporadic, putting out only one or two new albums every decade, and he's very rarely performed in public. I suppose he's treated his solo career more like a hobby than a career, because he'll always be rich from his songwriting royalties.

That said, what he has released solo has been of a high and consistent standard, in my opinion. That extends to his stray tracks. His solo work isn't that well known though, probably due to his voice, as well as his low profile. Personally, I like his voice. It has a limited range, true, but it's expressive and full of character, much like the voices of Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen.

I've managed to find three albums' worth of Robertson's stray tracks. Since he's only put out five studio albums in four decades, they add a lot to his musical legacy. All of these are studio recordings, which isn't that surprising considering how rarely he's played in public since leaving the Band. Three of them (tracks 3,4 and 5) are officially unreleased. Their sound quality is a bit lower than the rest, but only a bit.

Four of the songs here (tracks 1, 2, 6 and 8) are from movie soundtracks. "Tailgate" is a B-side. "Storyville" and "The Far, Lonely Cry of Trains" are bonus tracks. "Chief Seattle Speaks" comes from the album "One World."

Since the Band broke up in 1976, Robertson rarely played with the other former members of the Band. In particular, he had a bad falling out with singer and drummer Levon Helm. But in 1989, the Band took part in the annual Juno music awards. This was a big enough occasion for Robertson to reunite with two former Band members, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson. Robertson and Danko shared lead vocals on the classic Band hit "The Weight," which is especially interesting since Robertson didn't sing lead on the original version.

I'm pretty sure all the songs here are written or co-written by Robertson, with the exception of "The Fat Man," which is a Fats Domino song. That comes from the Carny movie soundtrack in 1980. There are some instrumentals he did on that soundtrack as well, but I didn't consider them strong enough for inclusion here, since they're mood music for the movie. "Christmas Must Be Tonight" is a song he wrote for the Band, but this solo version has a significantly different arrangement.

This album is 45 minutes long.

UPDATE: On August 16, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I removed two songs, "Canon (Part 2)" and "Slo Burn," moving them to the next album in this series instead. I added one song, "The Weight."

01 The Fat Man (Robbie Robertson)
02 Between Trains (Robbie Robertson)
03 Tear Down the Walls (Robbie Robertson)
04 Got It All Worked Out (Robbie Robertson)
05 Runaway Train (Robbie Robertson)
06 Modern Blues [Instrumental] (Robbie Robertson & Gil Evans)
07 Tailgate (Robbie Robertson)
08 Christmas Must Be Tonight (Robbie Robertson)
09 The Weight (Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson & Blue Rodeo)
10 Chief Seattle Speaks (Robbie Robertson)
11 Storyville (Robbie Robertson)
12 The Far, Lonely Cry of Trains (Robbie Robertson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15575721/RobbieR_1980-1994_FarLnelyCryTrains_atse.zip.html

The cover art uses a photo of Robertson from 1988.

Robbie Robertson - In Unity Concert, Palacongressi, Agrigento, Italy, 5-23-1995

Robbie Robertson was the main songwriter for the Band, but almost never the lead vocalist. He put an end to that group in the late 1970s and started a solo career in the 1980s in which he's been the singer. Some people don't like his limited voice, but I think he sings with lots of character, much like Leonard Cohen.

To be honest, it seems to me that Robertson has never gone all out with his solo career. His solo albums have been really good, but there are long gaps between releases. Also, he's almost never played live, after playing live quite a lot with the Band. Occasionally, he's played one or two songs here and there for TV appearances, but he's never gone on tour and he's never even played a single full concert.

He's never done a full concert, that is, except for this one. In 1994, he released his third solo album "Music for 'The Native Americans.'" His mother was a Native American who lived much of her life on a Canadian reserve. That album was all about him getting in touch with his Native American heritage, with songs on that theme and many Native American guest musicians too.

This concert is basically a live version of that album, which works for me, because it's my favorite of his solo albums. Robertson sings a majority of the songs and plays lead guitar on most of the rest. But he brought out most of the same Native American guest musicians who had been on the album, and gave them more of a chance to shine, playing a few songs not on Robertson's album. Most notably, this includes Buffy Saint Marie, a Native American who has had a long successful music career, and she sings one of her best known songs.

I'm not sure what the deal with this concert is. It took place in a small town in Sicily, in the south of Italy, which seems an odd location given the Native American theme. It was filmed for TV, and I got the music by converting the video feed to mp3s. The footage credits reveal there was an all-Italian film crew who recorded the concert for an Italian TV station. It's strange to me that the only full concert Robertson has done in his solo career so far took place in those conditions, but perhaps TV stations in other countries weren't interested in recording similar shows.

By the way, "Coolidge" is a musical group composed of Rita Coolidge (who had some country hits in the 1970s and 1980s), her sister Priscilla Coolidge, and her daughter Laura Satterfield. A couple of years after this, they changed their name to Walela and released a few albums of Native American-inspired music.

01 Ghost Dance (Robbie Robertson)
02 talk (Robbie Robertson)
03 Mahk Jchi [Heartbeat Drum Song] (Ulali with Robbie Robertson)
04 Golden Feather (Robbie Robertson)
05 Eagle Dance (Robbie Robertson & the American Indian Dance Theater)
06 Cherokee Morning Song (Coolidge with Robbie Robertson)
07 It Is a Good Day to Die (Robbie Robertson)
08 Crazy Horse (John Trudell & Bad Dog with Robbie Robertson)
09 Skinwalker (Robbie Robertson)
10 talk (Robbie Robertson)
11 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Buffy Saint Marie with Robbie Robertson)
12 Coyote Dance - Hoop Dance (Robbie Robertson & the American Indian Dance Theater)
13 Ancestor Song (Robbie Robertson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697046/ROBBIRBERTSN1995_InUntyConcrtPlcongressiAgrigntoItaly__5-23-1995_atse.zip.html

The concert is available on YouTube. I took a screenshot of it for the cover art. I took another screenshot for the "In Unity Concert" title.

Bob Dylan & the Band - More Basement Tapes - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

In 1967, Bob Dylan and the Band recorded a huge amount of music that would become known as "The Basement Tapes." None of it was released at the time. But a two album compilation was released in 1975, and is included on many best albums of all time lists. A few songs were released here and there, such as "The Mighty Quinn" or "I'm Not There," but only a few.

Then, in 2014, the archival box set "The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete" came out. It's huge! It contains 138 recordings of 115 different songs, the vast majority of them previously unreleased. That totals over six and a half hours of music. All that is great, but it's actually too much of a good thing for me, unless I'm in a rare mood to take a really deep dive into this phase of Dylan's career.

A much shorter two CD version was released as well. But the problem with that is that there's a big overlap between the music on that and the 1975 version. I grew up on that 1975 album and I know all those songs really well. What I wanted was a compilation containing the best songs of everything NOT on that album (including the few that did get released here and there on other albums over the decades), with an emphasis on Dylan's original songs. Frankly, most of those six and a half hours are Dylan and the Band running through cover versions without knowing them well. It's for serious fans only.

Since I didn't see any collection like that, I made my own, which is this one. It turns out it's nearly exactly the same length as the 1975 "Basement Tapes" double album, except it's all different songs. (Almost: I included an early version of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" because the lyrics are almost entirely different. Plus, I included "Don't Ya Tell Henry," but this version of a Dylan original is sung by Dylan, whereas the 1975 version is sung by the Band.)

All but a few of the songs are Dylan originals. I believe the only cover versions are: "I Don't Hurt Anymore," "All American Boy," and "900 Miles from My Home." I ordered the songs in the order they were recorded, just as the box set did.

In my opinion, this album isn't as good as the 1975 "Basement Tapes," but it's a damn good album nonetheless. There are lots of songs here that could and should have been included on the 1975 one but weren't because Band guitarist Robbie Robertson put that album together and he didn't happen to fancy them. Then the songs languished in obscurity for decades, except for a lucky few. Although the 2014 box set helped, many have continued to be obscure because they were buried in a mountain of music that only serious Dylan fans have gone through carefully. This album should be as well known as Dylan's other 1960s albums.

By the way, this album is an hour and 23 minutes long, whereas the 1975 album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 Under Control (Bob Dylan & the Band)
02 I'm Your Teenage Prayer (Bob Dylan & the Band)
03 I Don't Hurt Anymore (Bob Dylan & the Band)
04 Baby, Won't You Be My Baby (Bob Dylan & the Band)
05 I Can't Make It Alone (Bob Dylan & the Band)
06 One for the Road (Bob Dylan & the Band)
07 I'm Alright (Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 I'm Not There (Bob Dylan & the Band)
09 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere [Take 1] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
10 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & the Band)
11 The Mighty Quinn [Quinn the Eskimo] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 All-American Boy (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 Sign on the Cross (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Get Your Rocks Off (Bob Dylan & the Band)
15 Don't Ya Tell Henry [Dylan Vocal] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
16 My Woman She's A-Leavin' (Bob Dylan & the Band)
17 Santa Fe (Bob Dylan & the Band)
18 Dress It Up, Better Have It All (Bob Dylan & the Band)
19 Minstrel Boy (Bob Dylan & the Band)
20 Silent Weekend (Bob Dylan & the Band)
21 What's It Gonna Be When It Comes Up (Bob Dylan & the Band)
22 900 Miles from My Home (Bob Dylan & the Band)
23 Wild Wolf (Bob Dylan & the Band)
24 Gonna Get You Now (Bob Dylan & the Band)
25 All You Have to Do Is Dream (Bob Dylan & the Band)
26 Any Time (Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15105790/BobD_1967b_MoreBasemntTapes_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I got lucky. It appears an alternate photo of the cover art for the 1975 "Basement Tapes" album was taken at the same photo session, and then never used. So that's what I have here, with some text added. It was a wide rectangular photo, so I had to crop some of it in order to fit it in a square space.