Elliott Smith - Live Acoustic Cover Versions, Volume 2, 1999-2003

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an album of Elliott Smith doing acoustic cover versions in concert. That dealt with the years 1997 to 1999. This one takes care of the rest of his all-too-brief career, from 1999 to 2003.

Here are the original artists for each song:

01 These Days - Nico / Jackson Browne
02 Chelsea Girls - Nico
03 Trouble - Jon Brion
04 Nighttime - Big Star
05 Little Maggie - traditional / Bob Dylan
06 Moonshiner - traditional / Bob Dylan
07 Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain - Willie Nelson
08 Friends - Led Zeppelin
09 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] - George Harrison
10 Out on the Weekend - Neil Young
11 Long, Long, Long - Beatles
12 Blackbird - Beatles
13 Golden Street - Minders
14 Hooray for Tuesday - Minders

Generally speaking, Smith plays songs from artists who are widely considered musical giants. The exception to that are the two songs by the Minders. The reason for that is because Smith was on the same concert bill with the Minders many times during this time period, and he presumably liked their music.

All the songs are officially unreleased. The sound quality varies. Many of the songs were only played in concert once or twice, so we're lucky to get any bootleg recording at all. That means most of these are audience boots, not from soundboards. But that's not so important for acoustic performances, like these. It's much trickier to record a full band properly. If any of these songs sounded poor I would demote them to bonus tracks, but I didn't need to do that.

Although I don't have any more albums of Smith's live acoustic covers to present, I do have an album of Smith performing covers live with a band. I'll post that soon.

01 These Days (Elliott Smith)
02 Chelsea Girls (Elliott Smith)
03 Trouble (Elliott Smith)
04 Nighttime (Elliott Smith)
05 Little Maggie (Elliott Smith)
06 Moonshiner (Elliott Smith)
07 Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (Elliott Smith)
08 Friends (Elliott Smith)
09 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] (Elliott Smith)
10 Out on the Weekend (Elliott Smith)
11 Long, Long, Long (Elliott Smith)
12 Blackbird (Elliott Smith)
13 Golden Street (Elliott Smith)
14 Hooray for Tuesday (Elliott Smith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tHYpikLh

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oL5cBzLyeYcVqhU/file

The photo of Smith in the album cover is from London in 2003.

Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder - The Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA, 9-3-1963

I'm amazed that I'm able to present this concert, because until a few days ago, I never had any idea that such a recording existed (and in excellent sound). Not to mention the fact that I never had a clue that Jackie DeShannon ever performed a concert like this!

In case you don't know, DeShannon has had a long career as a singer songwriter. She's best known as the singer of the 1960s hits "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" and "What the World Needs Now Is Love," as well as writing hits for others, such as "When You Walk in the Room" and "Betty Davis Eyes." She was very musical since she was a young child, hosting her own local radio show in Kentucky by the age of 11, and having her first single in 1956 at the age of 15. A long series of singles followed, nearly all of them flops. However, in early 1963, she had a minor hit with "Needles and Pins" in the US, though it was a number one hit in Canada.

Given that she already had spent eight years as a singles artist by 1963, what's strange is that this concert is fully acoustic, and almost all the songs she performs are traditional folk and blues songs. I had no idea DeShannon went through a phase where she was a full-on "folkie," but apparently she did that in 1963. That was the year she released her first studio album, simply called "Jackie DeShannon," and it was filled with folk songs, though it was given a mainstream glossy production. She claims she wanted to do an entire album of Bob Dylan covers, which would have been a bold move, because Dylan was just starting to break big in 1963. However, her record company nixed that idea, though she did get to put three Dylan covers on that album.

However, this concert is strange even given the fact that she released that folk album, because this concert occurred a few months after that album came out, and yet she played only one of the songs from it! She also didn't play any of her own songs, despite the fact that she already was a talented songwriter. (She would have a minor hit with her song "When You Walk in the Room" only a couple of months after this concert. The Searchers would have a much bigger hit with it a year after that.)

We're very lucky this concert was recorded at all. DeShannon didn't tour much, and I've never seen or heard of any concert bootleg from her until I came across this one. It exists because the Ash Grove, a folk music club in Los Angeles, recorded just about every concert in its club for years, going back to the early 1960s (though nearly all of those recordings remain unreleased). So not only does this recording exist, but it's a pristine soundboard! From 1963!

DeShannon was a very beautiful 22 year old at the time of this concert, as you can see from this album cover, but she wasn't just another pretty face. So it's no surprise to me that she plays these folk songs very well. She certainly would have excelled in this genre if she'd decided to continue with it. But the Beatles dominated the music world starting in early 1964, and she changed her style to catch the new trend. She even toured with the Beatles for a few months beginning in February 1964. Thus, her folkie phase probably lasted less than a year.

She played two sets in this one evening at the Ash Grove. She played a lot of the same songs in the two sets, and I'm not a fan of having the same song twice on the same album, so I haven't included the songs on the second set that are repeats from the first set. By eliminating the duplicates, this album turns out to be 43 minutes long, which would have been a fine album length for that era.

I also made big edits to two songs. The first song, "Key to the Highway," faded in partially through the song. I knew the song repeated the first verse as the last verse, so I copied the last verse back to restore the missing first verse. (That was a nice lucky break that the song repeats itself like that.) Also, the song "Trouble in Mind" is where her second set starts, and the recording had an announcer talk a lot over the intro to the song. So I found a section later in the song that repeated the intro, and i patched that in.

Note that Ry Cooder is also credited on this album. DeShannon was a capable guitar player herself, but she was accompanied for this concert by Cooder for the lead guitar parts, as well as David Cohen on a second acoustic guitar. (Note that this David Cohen is not the same one in Country Joe and the Fish. Instead he performed on many studio sessions, including with the famous “Wrecking Crew” in Los Angeles .) At this time, Cooder's musical career was just starting and he was a total unknown, so I'm sure his name wouldn't have been on the billing. His participation is only significant in hindsight, thanks to his later successful career. But you can hear him playing some nice guitar solos here and there.

By the way, the one disappointment I have with this concert is that the last song fades out after less than a minute. And that's particularly unfortunate, because it's a cover of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," the only non-traditional song played at the concert. Plus, since it fades out, I don't know if there are other songs after it that didn't get recorded. Plus, the first song of the first set also fades in, so there could be more missing songs there. But we're damn lucky to at least have this much.

01 Key to the Highway [Edit] (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
02 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
03 Frankie and Albert (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
04 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
05 Silver City Bound (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
06 Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
07 Betty and Dupree (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
08 Black Eye Blues (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
09 James Alley Blues (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
10 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
11 Ninety-Nine and a Half (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
12 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
13 Mean Old Bed Bug Blues (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
14 Trouble in Mind (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
15 Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
16 The House of the Rising Sun (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
17 talk (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
18 Dink's Song [Fare Thee Well] (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)
19 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right [Incomplete] (Jackie DeShannon with Ry Cooder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TuFp4ic3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QZxlCWqT6Ccncxn/file

I found it nearly impossible to find a good color photo of DeShannon from 1963 for the cover art. I had to resort to using a photo from her 1963 self-titled album. In February 2025, I upgraded it somewhat with the Krea AI program.

Keb Mo - Whittington Park, Greenwood, MS, 5-7-2011

I'm a big fan of Keb Mo's music. (His name is a slang version of his real name Kevin Moore, by the way.) However, I'm not a big fan of most of his albums, because I most enjoy Mo's music when he plays acoustic blues. Unfortunately, after his first couple of albums, his albums have moved in an "adult contemporary" direction, much like later day James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt albums.

That said, Mo is a talented singer, guitarist, and songwriter. Most of the time, he plays concerts with a full band, so the sound isn't that different from his glossy albums. But every now and then he plays a concert in solo acoustic format. He's done that less and less over the years, but this is a rare example of such a concert from the last decade. I'm guessing he was inspired to play solo acoustic because the concert was part of a festival celebrating the 100th birthday of blues legend Robert Johnson, who played solo acoustic on all of his relatively few recordings.

I've chosen this concert out of a bunch of possible concerts to post not only because of the solo acoustic format, but also because of the sound quality. This is an excellent soundboard recording, as good as any official live album. And the performance is top notch too. So what's not to like? The only slight downside is the concert is a bit on the short side, slightly longer than an hour.

01 talk (Keb Mo)
02 Love in Vain (Keb Mo)
03 Rita (Keb Mo)
04 Angelina (Keb Mo)
05 Muddy Water (Keb Mo)
06 Henry (Keb Mo)
07 France (Keb Mo)
08 Tell Everybody I Know (Keb Mo)
09 Kind Hearted Woman Blues (Keb Mo)
10 Government Cheese (Keb Mo)
11 Suitcase (Keb Mo)
12 Shave Yo' Legs (Keb Mo)
13 talk (Keb Mo)
14 Loola Loo (Keb Mo)
15 talk (Keb Mo)
16 Whole 'Nutha Thang (Keb Mo)
17 All She Wants to Do Is Dance (Keb Mo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260579/KebM_2011_WhittingtnParkGreenwoodMS__5-7-2011_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I'm happy to say that I was able to find an actual photo of Keb Mo in the concert that makes up this album.

Carole King - So Goes Love - More Legendary Demos, Volume 2 (1966-1969)

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the first of three albums containing Carole King's demos of songs that she wrote that were usually performed by others. This is the second album in that series. In my opinion, it's even better than the first one, as she moved away from her early 1960s Brill Building style to her more sophisticated "Tapestry" style.

King wrote some big hits in the late 1960s - the time period covered here - such as "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by the Monkees and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin. (A couple more hits are not on this album because the demos haven't been made public, such as "Don't Bring Me Down" by the Animals and "Goin' Back" done by both Dusty Springfield and the Byrds.) But she had less success than before, because the trend was for music acts to write their own songs.

Yet, as I mentioned above, her songwriting was getting better and better. Most of the songs here at least got covered by some artists at some point, though some were obscure acts. And I think a couple of the songs near the end of the album never got covered at the time at all. King was more than capable of performing her own songs, as her massive 1971 album "Tapestry" would prove. She was all but forced to start her own musical career in the late 1960s, with her first album coming in 1968 (called "Now That Everything's Been Said").

I haven't included anything from that album, or her other studio albums, since this is a collection of demos. But I did include the songs from an obscure single she put out in 1966 ("A Road to Nowhere" backed by "Some of Your Lovin'") since the songs never made it on any album. Plus, those two songs essentially sound the same as her demos, which are much more produced than typical demos.

In addition to those two songs from the single, five more songs have been officially released. All of those were included on the archival album "The Legendary Demos." The remaining 11 songs are still officially unreleased. But the sound of those are pretty good, since they're all well-produced demos that were done in the studio.

I think this is a fantastic album, because King is an ace songwriter who performs and produces well. But also, many of the songs are good but obscure, because King never put them on any of her albums and other artists were shying away from recording her songs towards the end of the 1960s. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On August 6, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I discovered two songs I'd previously missed: "Sweet Young Thing" and "As We Go Along."

01 A Road to Nowhere (Carole King)
02 Some of Your Lovin' (Carole King)
03 Sweet Young Thing (Carole King)
04 Like Little Children (Carole King)
05 So Goes Love (Carole King)
06 Pleasant Valley Sunday (Carole King)
07 I Won't Be the Same Without Her (Carole King)
08 Sometime in the Morning (Carole King)
09 Take a Giant Step (Carole King)
10 Yours until Tomorrow (Carole King)
11 A Man without a Dream (Carole King)
12 As We Go Along (Carole King)
13 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Carole King)
14 Dear Marm (Carole King)
15 Lady Pleasure [with the Sunshine Eyes] (Carole King)
16 Image Collector (Carole King)
17 Porpoise Song [Theme from 'Head'] (Carole King)
18 If I'm Late (Carole King & Gerry Goffin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kq1nWLBp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/hySrG0FbvdQBE9f/file

For the album cover, I used the same template as the cover for the first album in this series, but I changed the basic color to yellow. The photo of King in the middle is from 1970. I would have preferred to use a photo of her from the late 1960s, but I couldn't find any good color ones.

Petra Haden - Acapella 4: The Sheltering Sky (2017-2019)

To refresh your memory, Petra Haden is very talented, both as a violinist and a vocalist, but she isn't very well known. She has a particular talent for singing acappella versions of songs in which she sings all the instruments to create a full sound. So here's more in that vein.

All these songs are unreleased on any album, but have been posted at Haden's YouTube webpage. Since it had been six months since I last checked, I looked again and found she'd done one song since then, a cover of a Radiohead song. Naturally, I added it to the end of the album. Unfortunately, that's the only song she's done for all of 2019. I hope she keeps going with more of her acappella covers in the future, and more frequently.

As with past volumes in this series, some of the songs have sung words and others just have wordless vocals. The most of the ones with words are all well known, so I won't bother to list who did the originals. But there are few songs that weren't hits, so I'll detail those. "There in a Dream" is by Charlie Haden, a jazz bassist who also happens to be Petra's father. "Stonehenge" is by the hilarious Spinal Tap. The wordless ones are lesser known. "The Sheltering Sky" is by King Crimson. "Hope" is by Robert Fripp (of King Crimson). "Throughout" is by Bill Frisell."

01 The Sheltering Sky (Petra Haden)
02 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Petra Haden)
03 Carol of the Bells (Petra Haden)
04 Hope (Petra Haden)
05 There in a Dream (Petra Haden)
06 Throughout (Petra Haden)
07 In the Air Tonight (Petra Haden)
08 Boys of Summer (Petra Haden)
09 Let 'Em In (Petra Haden)
10 Stonehenge (Petra Haden)
11 Idioteque (Petra Haden)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15849845/PetraH_2017-2019_Acapella4Th_SheltringSky_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I chose a photo of Haden from 2014. There are more recent photos, but I thought this is a particularly nice one.

Bonnie Raitt - Blender Blues - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1972)

With this post, I'm starting a series of stray tracks albums for Bonnie Raitt. It turns out that she's one of those artists like Norah Jones or Sheryl Crow who has done a ton of guest artist collaborations, duets, and songs played only in concert, so I've been able to make a lot of albums for her.

At the start of Raitt's career, she wasn't famous enough to appear on various artists compilations and soundtracks and the like, so all the songs here are songs she played in concert that she never put on any of her albums. In 2018, I posted a great acoustic concert from 1971, which was the same year she released her first album. Nine of the 14 songs here are from that concert. Additionally, there's one song from a 1970 concert, and four songs from two 1972 concerts.

This early in her career, Raitt didn't have enough money to pay for a band when playing in concert, so she did all her shows solo acoustic. I'm glad, because I love music stripped down to solo acoustic style, and I think it suits her well. She straddles the line between folk and blues, much like her first few solo albums. Virtually all the songs are covers, but "Blender Blues" is a rare original. I assume she never put that on any album because it was too raunchy, but that's a shame because it's a fun song.

I really wish Raitt would have released another album or two in the early 1970s, because she does a great job with these songs. A lot of the songs are famous, but she makes them her own with her unique vocals and guitar style.

01 Woodstock (Bonnie Raitt)
02 Something in the Way He Moves (Bonnie Raitt)
03 You Can Close Your Eyes (Bonnie Raitt)
04 In My Reply (Bonnie Raitt)
05 Your Song (Bonnie Raitt)
06 Set You Free This Time (Bonnie Raitt)
07 Candy Man (Bonnie Raitt)
08 Can I Get a Witness (Bonnie Raitt)
09 Country Road (Bonnie Raitt)
10 Love in Vain (Bonnie Raitt)
11 Going Down to Louisiana - Rollin' and Tumblin' (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Richland Woman Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
13 Walk On By (Bonnie Raitt)
14 Blender Blues (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2kqv8yc3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/HNQLjCFS31jbS6q/file

The photo I used for the cover art dates to September 1972.

Rockpile - A Mess of Blues - Non-Album Tracks (1977)

I'm very happy to present this album. I really love Rockpile, and I think this is great music that really rocks. You should check it out.

I should explain a bit about Rockpile, because they were a band with a rather unusual history. They basically were the merger of the careers of Dave Edmunds (on vocals and guitar) and Nick Lowe (on vocals and bass), with Billy Bremner (on vocals and guitar) and Terry Williams (on drums) rounding out the group. Edmunds would sing about half the songs and Lowe the other half, with Bremner getting to sing a song every now and then.

What made them unusual was that the band was together for about five years, and yet they only put out one studio album, near the end of their time together. This is because Edmunds was on one record label and Lowe was on another, and both wanted to pursue solo careers. So Rockpile was the backing band on all the songs for one of Lowe's solo albums and two of Edmunds', as well as backing some songs on their other solo albums. But while that was going on, neither Lowe or Edmunds did solo concerts. Nearly all their concerts from 1977 to the end of 1980 were done with Rockpile. Such concerts were billed as "Rockpile" despite the band not having any albums or even singles released. I guess word of mouth spread who Rockpile really was.

I've made four stray tracks albums for Rockpile; this is the first one. It would have been easy for me to simply collect the performances from the various Edmunds and Lowe solo albums and put them together to make Rockpile albums. But I didn't do that, because I think all those albums are really good as they are. Instead, I limited myself to everything else I could find. Since Rockpile was a very active live band, that mainly meant using recordings from live shows.

All the performances here are from 1977. About half the songs are different versions of songs from either Edmunds' or Lowe's solo albums at the time. Three more songs are versions of songs from Edmunds albums in 1970 or 1972 ("Down, Down, Down," "The Promised Land," and "I Hear You Knocking").

That leaves four songs. "A Mess of Blues" is a cover of a song made famous by Elvis Presley. "Downtown Hoedown" was recorded by Billy Bremner right before he joined Rockpile, but not released until many years after the band broke up. "Annie's Back - I Need Love" are a medley of obscure covers sung by Bremner. And "As Lovers Do" was the B-side to a Edmunds single. I've included it because it was a duet with Lowe.

01 Heart of the City (Rockpile)
02 Ju Ju Man (Rockpile)
03 Down, Down, Down (Rockpile)
04 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Rockpile)
05 Back to School Days (Rockpile)
06 They Called It Rock (Rockpile)
07 A Mess of Blues (Rockpile)
08 I Hear You Knocking (Rockpile)
09 Downtown Hoedown (Billy Bremner)
10 The Promised Land (Rockpile)
11 Let's Talk about Us (Rockpile)
12 Annie's Back - I Need Love (Rockpile)
13 As Lovers Do (Dave Edmunds with Nick Lowe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266518/Rockpl_1977_AMssBlues_atse.zip.html

I haven't been able to find lot of good color photos of Rockpile in color. For the album cover, I found a cover of a Rockpile bootleg that looked great. So I used it with only minor changes. I don't know where or when the photo is from.

Pete Townshend - Looking for Words - Non-Album Tracks (1997-2001)

I must say I'm disappointed with what Pete Townshend has done with his music career since the early 1990s. 1993 is the last time he's released a solo album of new music, remarkably enough. He spends a lot of time touring with the Who, but they've only put out one album of new music since 1982 ("Endless Wire" in 2006), and they've become a nostalgia act leaning on their long ago glory days. (Reportedly the Who will release a new studio album in the next year, so I hope they come up with something good and new.)

What frustrates me is that Townshend is a musical genius who could do so much better. Other artists of his age and caliber such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Ray Davies, and so on have continued to put out new music on a fairly regular basis. But what this album of stray tracks shows is that Townshend has been making new music all along, it's just that he doesn't seem particularly interested in gathering it into albums and sharing it with the public. And that's just considering what's publicly available. The indications are he's done a lot more with his home recording than has even been bootlegged.

Anyway, this album is a mix of all sorts of different things. I named it after the song "Looking for Words" (which ironically has words) because Townshend made a lot of instrumentals during these years. There are five here. More songs are covers, or duets with famous people of songs from earlier in his career ("So Sad about Us" and "Heart to Hang Onto"). I only could two new original songs with lyrics "Looking for Words" and "Can You Help the One You Really Love." That said, the album is still a solid listen for any Pete Townshend fan.

About half the album is officially unreleased stuff, mostly cover versions done in concert. The sound quality of those are pretty good, and of course the officially released stuff sound excellent. 

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Prelude 970519 [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
02 Christine's Tune [Devil in Disguise] (Pete Townshend)
03 Embraceable You (Pete Townshend)
04 Going Up the Country (Pete Townshend with Taj Mahal)
05 On the Road Again (Pete Townshend)
06 Hinterland Rag [Piano Rag for Three Hands] [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
07 Heart to Hang Onto (Pete Townshend & Eddie Vedder)
08 Can You Help the One You Really Love (Pete Townshend)
09 Collings [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
10 So Sad about Us (Pete Townshend & Paul Weller)
11 Variations on Dirty Jobs [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
12 Looking for Words (Pete Townshend)
13 St. James Infirmary (Pete Townshend)
14 Wired to the Moon [Part 2] [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fwf5BD8f

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qjiE8IeplLhebPF/file

I don't know what year the photo I used for the album cover is from. I'm guessing it's from roughly around the era of this album, give or take. But I wanted to use it since it's a rare chance to see Townshend tinkering in his home recording studio.

Cat Stevens - Vina del Mar Festival, Quinta Vergara, Vina del Mar, Chile, 2-27-2015

In the past few years, Cat Stevens has had a really impressive career renaissance that I think most people have missed. In my opinion, in terms of live shows, this is the best representation of that. His voice sounds exactly the same as it did in the 1970s. Really!

In my opinion, Stevens' creative heyday was in the early 1970s, and his record sales reflect that. As the 1970s went on, his songwriting declined and the production on his records got worse. He quit the music industry entirely by the end of that decade, and devoted his life to his new religion of Islam. For a time, he changed his name to Yusuf Islam, and then just to Yusuf. For his most recent album, released in 2017, he's gone back to "Cat Stevens," so I'm calling him that for consistency's sake.

In the 1990s, Stevens gradually returned to music, but he put out albums about Islam and sang mostly in Arabic, so that had limited appeal. He returned to English secular music with the 2006 album "An Other Cup," and then with the album "Roadsinger" in 2009. But in my opinion, although the production on those albums was okay, his songwriting didn't have the special magic of his 1970s heyday.

That takes us to 2014, and this concert. He put out the album "Tell 'Em I'm Gone," which was mostly filled with bluesy covers. But they were done really well, and the few originals on it were the best songs he did since the 1970s, in my opinion. He's followed that with a 2017 album, "The Laughing Apple," which I think is even better. It sounds exactly like it was recorded in 1971, and a lot of the songs on it actually were written in the late 1960s. If you're a Cat Stevens fan, you really need to check it out. It's amazing to me that he has his mojo back after so many years.

Since 2014 especially, Stevens has been touring a fair amount, doing his first tours of the US and Europe since the 1970s. But unfortunately, he hasn't put out a live album, and all the bootlegs from that time that I've sampled have average to poor sound quality.

Except for this one show, thankfully. Apparently, this concert was professionally recorded and shown on TV in Chile. The video of it has made its way to YouTube (where you can still watch it), and it's been seen by a couple of million people. Unfortunately, I downloaded that video, and it's only in mono. But I discovered the concert organizers uploaded each individual song to YouTube as well, and those are in stereo.

So that's what this is, a compilation of all those stereo YouTube videos, converted to mp3 and put in their proper order. One snag was that the individual videos generally faded out in the middle of the applause at the end of each song, and the next song would begin with the clapping still going on. So I went through all the songs and carefully removed all the annoying fade ins and fade outs while still keeping the applause. I also cut out several minutes of announcers talking in Spanish at the beginning of the concert, then again at the start of the encore to give Stevens an award, and more at the very end.

The end result is an hour and a half concert that probably has the best sound quality of any live recording of Stevens' entire career (since recording technology wasn't as good in the 1970s). The setlist is great. He does his classic 1960s and 1970s songs, with a few covers from his 2014 album sprinkled in. It's played with a full band (including Alun Davies, who has been his right hand man and lead guitarist since 1970, incredibly enough).

01 Wild World (Cat Stevens)
02 Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
03 The First Cut Is the Deepest (Cat Stevens)
04 Here Comes My Baby (Cat Stevens)
05 talk (Cat Stevens)
06 Dying to Live (Cat Stevens)
07 talk (Cat Stevens)
08 You Are My Sunshine (Cat Stevens)
09 Oh Very Young (Cat Stevens)
10 [Remember the Days of the] Old Schoolyard (Cat Stevens)
11 Sad Lisa (Cat Stevens)
12 Miles from Nowhere (Cat Stevens)
13 talk (Cat Stevens)
14 People Get Ready (Cat Stevens)
15 Maybe There's a World - All You Need Is Love (Cat Stevens)
16 talk (Cat Stevens)
17 If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Cat Stevens)
18 talk (Cat Stevens)
19 How Can I Tell You (Cat Stevens)
20 talk (Cat Stevens)
21 Roadsinger (Cat Stevens)
22 Moonshadow (Cat Stevens)
23 talk (Cat Stevens)
24 The Devil Came from Kansas (Cat Stevens)
25 Trouble (Cat Stevens)
26 Sitting (Cat Stevens)
27 talk (Cat Stevens)
28 Big Boss Man (Cat Stevens)
29 Rubylove (Cat Stevens)
30 Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens)
31 talk (Cat Stevens)
32 Peace Train (Cat Stevens)
33 talk (Cat Stevens)
34 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)
35 talk (Cat Stevens)
36 Another Saturday Night (Cat Stevens)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gtsiD

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XvhenLiP

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FfmKNO2x18fe03D/file

For the album cover, I've used a photo of Stevens from 2015, but it's from the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ceremony about two months after this concert.

Robyn Hitchcock - Shadow Cat - Alternate Version (1999)

I've been posting Robyn Hitchcock albums chronologically, but I when I got to 1999, I didn't post "Shadow Cat." That's because it's an officially released album that came out that year. I generally have a policy not to post official albums unless I've changed them in a significant way, so the artists can at least get some of what's left of a shrinking amount of royalty payments.

But I've changed my mind for a few reasons. One, "Shadow Cat" is an obscure Hitchcock album, even by his standards as more of a niche artist. It's actually a compilation of songs he did all through the 1990s. However, there's no information about when most of them were recorded. For the few that did have that info, I put those songs on the albums I made for those years of his career. So, if you're following my reorganization of his musical catalog, it's good to have what's left of "Shadow Cat," which is still enough to make up a full album.

On top of that, I recently came across a couple of unreleased songs from this time period (one is from 1999 and the other from 1998). Remarkably enough, both of them were created on the spot. Hitchcock has long had a habit of doing this, usually when someone in the audience said something that struck his fancy. For instance, I have a recording of someone shouting for him to sing "something about the IMF," so he came up with a song on the spot called "Something about the IMF!"

But normally, these spontaneous songs are done when it's just Hitchcock playing solo, because only he knows where he's going to take the song from moment to moment. But these two spontaneous songs are an extra treat because both of them were done with a full band. In both cases, they were played at a club called the Largo in Los Angeles, California. A talented musician there named Jon Brion is permanently based there, and he usually plays as part of a house band whenever Hitchcock comes to town. (He does this for many other artists, for instance Glenn Tilbrook and Aimee Mann.) Brion is known for being able to play along with just about any song, even one he's never heard before, even if it's a song that's being made up at that moment.

The two extra songs are "Gonna Build a Bonfire" and "Pigeon Lips (Shania)" (though of course the song titles are just guesses). "Pigeon Lips (Shania)" in particular is a real hoot. Someone in the audience suggested the phrase "Pigeon Lips" and Hitchcock started singing a song about that. But halfway through it somehow turned into a mocking song about country musician Shania Twain, while also going through drastic musical changes! Grant Lee Philips is also part of the creative madness. Unfortunately, I don't have more of the recording, but apparently it was part of a longer "suite" of songs spontaneously created in that concert about carrier pigeons, of all things. The comedian Paul F. Tompkins was also there and helping out.

So here you have "Shadow Cat," minus a few songs, and plus a couple other songs.

01 For Debbie Reynolds (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Never Have to See You Again (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Love Affair (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 The Wind Cries Mary (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 High On Yourself (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 The Cat Walks Her Kind of Line (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 The Green Boy [Acoustic Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Beautiful Shock (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Baby-Doll (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Shadow Cat (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Gonna Build a Bonfire (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Pigeon Lips [Shania] (Robyn Hitchcock, Grant Lee Phillips & Jon Brion)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122241/RobynH_1999_ShadwCtAlternate_atse.zip.html

The cover is the exact official cover to the "Shadow Cat" album, unchanged.

Robyn Hitchcock - Obliteration Pie - Alternate Version (2003)

In 2003, Robyn Hitchcock released the album "Luxor." But he usually has many more songs than can fit on an album, and it's rare that he writes a bad song, so his outtakes are generally pretty good. Thus it was a good idea that he released an album that mostly consisted of "Luxor" outtakes called "Obliteration Pie."

However, the album only came out in Japan, and wasn't released until 2005. Furthermore, it was a hodge-podge, because it also included some a couple of live performances, as well as some old songs that were rerecorded with different arrangements in 2005. Furthermore, the musical style varies wildly from a cover of the disco song "Funky Town" to an acoustic instrumental to a live track that's just a spoken dialogue. It's as if Hitchcock was deliberately trying to make an album that didn't have a good musical flow.

This is my attempt to make "Obliteration Pie" sound like a coherent album. I removed the live tracks, since they are well known songs of his ("My Wife and My Dead Wife" and "Chinese Bones") with nothing special about them in terms of the performances or arrangements. I also removed the rerecorded songs done in 2005 (I'm putting them on a 2005 compilation instead). That leaves the actual "Luxor" outtakes. I've reordered them for a better listening experience.

Note that one of these outtakes, "(A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs," is a song that Hitchcock would become very fond of. He would put a different version of it on his 2006 album "Ole! Tarantula," and he still plays it in concert. I'm including it here because this is its first studio recording, and this version is different than the "Ole! Tarantula" one.

The seven "Luxor" outtakes on "Obliteration Pie" only make for 33 minutes of music, which is a bit short for a typical album. So I've included two more songs from 2003 to fill it out. One, "Uncorrected Personality Traits," is a very well known number from his 1994 album "I Often Dream of Trains." But that version, and nearly all of his live versions, are done acappella. This version is done with acoustic guitar, so it's quite different. The other additional song is an original, "You Want Me to Go," that has never been released anywhere.

01 City of Women (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Funkytown (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 My Dreams Are Scars (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Butterfly (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 I Fall into Your Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 [A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations] Briggs (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Madelaine (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Let the Sun Begin (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Uncorrected Personality Traits [Non-Accapella Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 You Want Me to Go (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Little Kara Discovers the Ice Cream Van (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122306/RobynH_2003_ObliteratinPieAlternate_atse.zip.html

The album cover is just the official "Obliteration Pie" cover, completely unchanged.

Neil Young & the Ducks - The Summer of Duck - Various Live Songs (1977)

I just posted a full concert of Neil Young playing as part of the Ducks in 1977. As part of that, I wrote a lot of text about why the heck Young spent the summer of 1977 in Santa Cruz, California, as just one member of an obscure band nobody had ever heard of. Please read that to get up to speed on the whole story before continuing here.

As I explained in that post, I wanted to post all the "must have" Ducks songs for someone into Neil Young's music. I decided the best way to do that was post the only complete Ducks concert that's publicly available (as a bootleg). That was my previous post. This is the "leftovers," all the songs the Ducks did that are in good quality that weren't played in that concert.

No Ducks music has ever been officially released (yet). Luckily, it turns out that although there are only a few Ducks bootlegs out there, most of what exists is in excellent soundboard sound quality. This is probably due to the fact that a mobile recording studio was seen at most or all of the Ducks' 20 or so concerts in the summer of 1977. Apparently the plan was to record a live concert, though sadly that never happened.

I'm guessing that the concert I posted (played at the Catalyst on August 22, 1977) comes from those professionally done recordings. On top of that, three more hours of Ducks' soundboard recordings have emerged. I'll bet they're from the same source. Unfortunately, those three hours have no information whatsoever regarding which concerts they're from. Neil Young fans have figured out the exact songs the Ducks played at each of their concerts, and these songs appear to be drawn from many concerts, in no understandable order.

I found 12 songs on these undated recordings, for a total of 47 minutes' worth of music. By chance, that's an ideal album length. Since the recordings were in no special order, I reordered them to match what the Ducks would do in concert. The recordings often had two versions of the same song, so I was able to pick the best versions. The band members were very democratic, and usually each band member would sing one song until all four were done, and then they would repeat that process. I tried to follow that pattern. However, I was short one song for Jeff Blackburn and John Craviotto, and I have one instrumental, so I had to vary that pattern up a little bit. (By the one, one of Bob Mosley's songs, "Leaving Us Now," is sung by Craviotto, so I put that in what would be Craviotto's spot.)

On the Catalyst concert I just posted, there was a lot of dead air between songs (no talking, just the tuning of instruments). I removed a lot of that for that concert. There was a little bit of that here, but not nearly as much, as the three hours of recordings seem to have already been a "best of" selection that removed that unnecessary stuff. But still, I did a little trimming where I thought it could help tighten things up. I didn't remove any of the talking between songs. There isn't much of that in any case.

As with the Catalyst concert, Neil Young was "just one of the guys," so he only sings four out of the 12 songs here. But he plays all the lead guitar for everyone's songs, and does some back-up vocals too. If you like the Catalyst concert, this is more of the same good stuff. What's surprising is how talented the other members of the Ducks are, including with their songwriting.

As far as I know, there's just one Ducks concert that was recorded as an audience bootleg. That's their last show, on September 1, 1977. I obtained that bootleg, checked the song list against the other Ducks music I had, and only found one unique song, a version of Young's "Homegrown." So I've added that as the last song here. Even though it's from an audience recording instead of a soundboard, the sound quality is nearly as good.

Also, note that while there is some crowd noise between songs on the Catalyst concert, there's almost none here. That has nothing to do with me. It's just that some soundboards capture more of the audience than others, and these capture very little. It's no big deal, but I just thought I'd point that out in case you're curious why it's so quiet after each song ends.

When I made a compiled album like this, I typically title it after one of the songs, if there's no better option. But in this case, on a whim, I decided to call it "The Summer of Duck." I wasn't there, but it seems that Young's time with the Ducks was a very big deal for Santa Cruz in the summer of 1977. A kind of "Duckmania" happened in the town, with a lot of playfulness over the "Duck" name. For instance, all the duck whistles were sold out for miles around, and people would blow their duck whistles between songs in the concerts. (You can hear this if you listen carefully, especially on the Catalyst concert.) The band members, including Young, liked making lots of duck jokes, such as punning off words like "bill" and "quack." So "The Summer of Duck" somehow seemed fitting as a play on "The Summer of Love" ten years earlier, especially since we don't know when these songs were recorded, except that they were recorded that summer.

By the way, just as I did with the Catalyst concert, I've added the last names of the songwriters for each song in the "comment" mp3 tag field. Hopefully, that can help you appreciate who did which song.

01 Human Highway (Neil Young & the Ducks)
02 Sailor Man (Neil Young & the Ducks)
03 Wide-Eyed and Willing (Neil Young & the Ducks)
04 Honky Tonk Man (Neil Young & the Ducks)
05 Long May You Run (Neil Young & the Ducks)
06 Trucking Man (Neil Young & the Ducks)
07 Hey Now [Instrumental] (Neil Young & the Ducks)
08 Little Wing (Neil Young & the Ducks)
09 Love You Forever (Neil Young & the Ducks)
10 Car Tune (Neil Young & the Ducks)
11 Leaving Us Now (Neil Young & the Ducks)
12 Homegrown (Neil Young & the Ducks)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zbafJ7Pk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uBvD3srss8knC6u/file

alternate:

https://www.upload.ee/files/16696720/NELYNG1977_DcksTheSmmerofDckSntaCruzCA__8-1977_atse.zip.html

There are very few quality photos of the Ducks together. However, I found this one, and it's in color. It was taken backstage at the Catalyst. From left to right, the band members are: Bob Mosley, John Craviotto, Jeff Blackburn, and Neil Young.

Neil Young & the Ducks - The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA, 8-22-1977

I've been planning to post more of Neil Young's music, and I want to post albums in a more chronologically consistent way, after I'd posted a few things out of order. However, I've been stuck from moving forward due to not knowing how to deal with his time playing with the Ducks in 1977. But I've figured it out: first, I'm posting this bootleg concert, the only compete concert of Young and the Ducks recorded in soundboard quality. Then I'll post another album of all the bootlegged songs they did that weren't played at this concert, also in soundboard quality.

I should probably explain the whole Neil Young and the Ducks saga. It's very little known episode in Young's career, since absolutely none of the Ducks' music has ever been officially released.

The story begins with Moby Grape. They were a critically acclaimed San Francisco rock band in the 1960s, though they didn't sell a lot of records. If you haven't heard their 1967 debut album, simply called "Moby Grape," you should definitely do so. It's a five star album for sure, and it's unusual in that all five of the band members were good songwriters. Unfortunately, the band never hit the heights of that first album again, though they stayed together until the early 1970s.

By the mid-1970s, the band had already reformed for the first of many times, with two original singer songwriter members, Jerry Miller and Bob Mosley. Another talented singer songwriter, Jeff Blackburn, joined them. He had been half of the folk duo Blackburn and Snow, which put out one album in the late 1960s. A drummer, John Craviotto, also joined them. Unfortunately, after Moby Grape broke up, their former manager kept the rights to the band's name and wouldn't let them use it. So they were calling themselves "The Jeff Blackburn Band," even though they essentially were Moby Grape plus Blackburn.

Neil Young knew Blackburn, Miller, and Mosley due to bumping into them in the late 1960s rock music world. Young also was a big fan of Moby Grape's music, which isn't surprising since that first great Moby Grape album sounds a lot like the stuff Buffalo Springfield was doing at the same time. In early 1977, he began occasionally jamming with them. But then Miller, the lead guitarist, quit. The others asked Young to join their band.

Amazingly enough, Young agreed and actually did it! This is pretty wild when you consider that he was one of the most famous musicians in the world in the mid-1970s. And while Moby Grape and Blackburn had some limited fame and success in the 1960s, by the mid-1970s they were toiling in obscurity, probably not even capable of getting a decent record contract. In 1977, disco and punk were the hot trends, and nostalgia for 1960s music hadn't kicked in yet. But Young is notorious for following his musical muse, and he was having fun playing with the Ducks.

The band was based in Santa Cruz, California, so Young moved there and spent all of the summer of 1977 totally focused on the band. Apparently, part of his contract with his occasional band Crazy Horse stipulated that he couldn't tour with any other band. But a loophole allowed him to play with the Ducks, so long as they only played within the city limits of Santa Cruz. Thus, Young and the Ducks played about twenty shows there, mostly in July and August.

The band was surprisingly democratic. Young was treated as just another band member. When it came to concerts, each of the four band members sang about one-forth of the songs. The drummer John Craviotto couldn't write songs like the others, but he could sing well, so he would generally sing cover versions of classic rock and roll songs. Blackburn and Mosley were both talented songwriters and singers, so they were able to rise to the occasion of competing with Young. (In fact, during the summer of 1977, Blackburn co-wrote a song with Young, the classic "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," although unfortunately the Ducks never played it live.)

So keep in mind that Young only writes and sings about one-fourth of the songs in this concert. They truly were "The Ducks" and not "Neil Young and the Ducks" (even though I'm calling them that so that Neil Young fans don't miss the album). But Young is the lead guitarist for everything, and his guitar is all over this concert. Plus, as I mentioned above, the other band members were all talented, with good original songs. I'm sure Young wouldn't have joined them otherwise.

Unfortunately, the saga of the Ducks ended much too soon. No doubt, Young enjoyed being "just one of the guys" for a while instead of a big star, and at first that's how it was. In the early summer, the band played to the locals in small clubs with little to no advance notice, and everyone was having a great time. But as the summer went on, the fact that Young was living and frequently playing in Santa Cruz started to spread. People came from far and wide to see him, and things started to get crazy. Young was increasingly hassled by strangers, and his place was even robbed. The band had to play in venues that seated a thousand people instead of ones that seated a hundred.

The special vibe Young felt was over. He skipped town at the end of the summer, and the Ducks were no more. Young had paid for a mobile recording unit to record most or all of the band's concerts, and it was expected that a live album would result, but no such album ever came out.

(By the way, due to the rise of the Internet and social media, what Young did then simply wouldn't be possible for a big star today. Hordes of fans would have ruined the special vibe in a matter of days.)

The other band members kept going under a variety of names, but without Young in the band they went back to toiling in obscurity without a record contract. Apparently, Blackburn is still playing concerts to this day, even though I don't think he's ever put out an album. Unfortunately, Mosley was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 1960s. He was still fully functional in 1977 and still writing good songs, but by the 1990s he was homeless due to mental illness. Some former Moby Grape members found him living by the side of a freeway in San Diego and helped him out, leading to him recording a solo album in 2005. I don't know what's happened to him since, but it seems he's still alive.

One well known rock critic, Jeff Tamarkin, has said of Moby Grape: "The Grape's saga is one of squandered potential, absurdly misguided decisions, bad luck, blunders and excruciating heartbreak, all set to the tune of some of the greatest rock and roll ever to emerge from San Francisco. Moby Grape could have had it all, but they ended up with nothing, and less." The story of the Ducks fits into that larger story, which I don't have time to explain here. The other guys, Mosley, Blackburn, and Craviotto, still had a lot of talent in 1977. The lucky stroke of luck of Young joining their band could have propelled them back into the musical big leagues if only the Ducks had managed to release at least one album. But they didn't, so it became just one more heartbreak for them.

But at least we have this album, and the other album I'll post shortly. Also, I hope that Young will eventually release some Ducks music, maybe as part of a long-awaited "Archives 2" project. I hope he does that while the other guys are still alive, so they'll be able to see that the Ducks weren't totally forgotten after all.

Regarding the recording of this concert, as I mentioned above, it's an excellent soundboard, probably from that mobile recording unit that Young had at most or all of the Ducks' concerts. I did make a major change though. There was a LOT of dead air between songs. Typically, there was a minute or so of relative quiet between songs while the band members tuned up and got ready. I deleted all of this boring stuff without cutting out anything important. Whenever anyone on stage said anything, I kept that. But as you'll see when you listen, there isn't much commentary, maybe just a sentence or two here or there. By removing the dead air, I shortened the concert by at least 20 minutes. I think it makes for a much better listening experience. It still is one hour and 45 minutes long.

Oh, one other thing. When I first heard music by the Ducks, it took me a while to get into it, because I expected all or mostly Neil Young songs, when in fact it's mostly songs by the other band members. To help myself sort out who sang and wrote what, I looked up the songwriters for each song. Then I added that info to the "comment" mp3 tags. That can help you learn to identify the different styles of each of the singer songwriters.

Note that the song "Gone Dead Train" appeared on a Crazy Horse album in 1971. Young played guitar on that, and the rest of that album, but he didn't write it or sing it. And in this concert, he doesn't sing it either. Young's songs are a mix of old (like "Mr. Soul" and "Are You Ready for the Country") and songs that were then new (such as "Comes a Time," "Sail Away," and "Cryin' Eyes," which wouldn't be released until 1987). His long instrumental "Windward Passage" still is officially unreleased.

01 talk (Neil Young & the Ducks)
02 Deeper Mystery (Neil Young & the Ducks)
03 Gypsy Wedding (Neil Young & the Ducks)
04 Sail Away (Neil Young & the Ducks)
05 I'm Tore Down (Neil Young & the Ducks)
06 Behind the Sun (Neil Young & the Ducks)
07 Only Loving You (Neil Young & the Ducks)
08 Cryin' Eyes (Neil Young & the Ducks)
09 Bye Bye Johnny (Neil Young & the Ducks)
10 Your Time Will Come Around (Neil Young & the Ducks)
11 Do Me Right (Neil Young & the Ducks)
12 Are You Ready for the Country (Neil Young & the Ducks)
13 Silver Wings (Neil Young & the Ducks)
14 Two Riders (Neil Young & the Ducks)
15 Your Love (Neil Young & the Ducks)
16 Gone Dead Train (Neil Young & the Ducks)
17 Mr. Soul (Neil Young & the Ducks)
18 Hold On Boys (Neil Young & the Ducks)
19 Poor Man (Neil Young & the Ducks)
20 I'm Ready (Neil Young & the Ducks)
21 Comes a Time (Neil Young & the Ducks)
22 Windward Passage (Neil Young & the Ducks)
23 talk (Neil Young & the Ducks)
24 Younger Days (Neil Young & the Ducks)

https://www.imagenetz.de/byzmk

I had a hard time finding any photos of the Ducks in concert. Luckily, I did find one, which I've used here. I'm not sure what Santa Cruz venue it's from, but it's not the Catalyst, which is larger.

U2 - A Celebration - Non-Album Tracks (1981-1983)

As I mentioned in a previous U2 post, U2 has way more stray tracks than most people think. Generally speaking, there's at least one album's worth of quality stray tracks for every studio album they've put out, sometimes more. But this is the exception. This covers both the "October" (1981) and "War" (1983) album time period, and even then, it's a rather short album. But the song quality is generally excellent. If you like early U2, you really should get this.

The reason there are so few stray tracks from the "October" era is obvious. Not long before the band went to record that album, a notebook their main songwriter Bono had that contained lyrics and musical ideas was lost. The band was forced to improvise, coming up with new ideas in the studio while facing a deadline.

I'm not sure why there are so few stray tracks from the "War" era. In 2008, "War" was released with an entire second disc of extra songs, but nearly all of them were edits, remixes, or live versions. Only one previously unreleased song was included, "Angels Too Tied to the Ground." But maybe there are more that just are unknown and unbootlegged. I've included on song, "Be There," which is a very good and fully realized "War" outtake. I have no idea why that one hasn't been officially released, at least.

What makes up about half of this album are songs that were officially released at the time as A- or B-sides. In particular, "A Celebration" is a great song, and an A-side, that was released in 1982, right between "October" and "War." It was a middling hit in Britain at the time, but for some reason the band has downplayed it, never playing it in concert in later years and never putting it on any best of compilations. Generally speaking, I like to put songs in chronological order by year on albums like this one. But "A Celebration" worked too well as the first song, so I moved the only song from 1981 a little further back.

By contrast, the band likes the B-side much more. "Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl" has been played live a lot, and made it on the "Under a Blood Red Sky..." live album with the shortened title "Party Girl." They still play it occasionally, decades later.

For their first decade at least, U2 was known for only playing their own songs in concert. But they did play a cover version every so often. "Southern Man" is their version of the famous Neil Young song.

I've included one of the many "War" remixes as a bonus track. I normally am not very interested in remixes, but this one rises above the usual. This version of "New Year's Day" stands out because not only is some of the instrumentation different, but it contains some lyrics that are totally different from the album version.

01 A Celebration (U2)
02 Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl (U2)
03 J. Swallo (U2)
04 Be There (U2)
05 Southern Man (U2)
06 Endless Deep [Instrumental] (U2)
07 Angels Too Tied to the Ground (U2)
08 Treasure [Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop] (U2)
09 Untitled [Instrumental] (U2)

New Year's Day [US Remix] (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uDUjbf1e

For the album cover, I used the cover of the "A Celebration" single. But that single had the black circle of text in the middle in a small size. I enlarged it several times over, until it dominates the album cover. I just thought it looks better that way.

The Duckworth Lewis Method - Gentlemen and Players - Acoustic Versions (2009-2013)

Some weeks ago, I posted an album by the Duckworth Lewis Method, a relatively obscure group that writes and sings songs entirely about the sport of cricket. That was no joke. I posted that because I think they great. I have no interest in cricket whatsoever, but it doesn't matter for me, nor should it for you, because they write excellent songs and perform them well. They're a relatively new band (their two albums (so far) were released in 2009 and 2013), but they're heavily inspired by the music of the 1960s and 1970s.

This album consists of acoustic versions of songs from their two albums, with a couple of non-album cover versions thrown in. So this plays much like an acoustic version of their best songs. If you want one album to be introduced to the band, this is a good way to go, probably more than the other album of their that I posted.

By the way, the link to that one is here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-duckworth-lewis-method-on-with-show.html

All the songs here are officially unreleased, but the sound quality is consistently very good anyway. About half of the songs were recorded in the studio, sometimes for radio shows. The other half were played live, but from intimate appearances at record stores on or TV.

This and the above link are all I have to post from the Duckworth Lewis Method. However, I'm very impressed with the music of Thomas Walsh (who writes and sings about half of these songs) and his band Pugwash. I hope to post a lot of Pugwash stuff in the future.

01 Flatten the Hay [Acoustic Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
02 Meeting Mr. Miandad [Acoustic Demo] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
03 Norwegian Wood [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
04 Mason on the Boundary [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method with Matt Berry)
05 The Age of Revolution [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
06 What Becomes of the Broken Hearted [Acappella Mix] (Duckworth Lewis Method with Matt Berry)
07 Gentlemen and Players [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
08 Out in the Middle [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
09 Test Match Special [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
10 Boom Boom Afridi [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
11 Third Man [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)
12 It's Just Not Cricket [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method with Henry Blofeld)
13 The Nightwatchman [Acoustic] (Duckworth Lewis Method)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328237/DuckwrthLwisM_2009-2013_GentlemnPlayrsAcoustic_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a band publicity photo. I think it dates from 2009. I took the text of the band's name from some other publicity material.

Lucinda Williams - Pretty Little Poison - Non-Album Tracks (1994-1998)

In 1992, Lucinda Williams released her acclaimed album "Sweet Old World," and in 1998 she released her even more acclaimed album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." The six years between albums was a very long time for someone still in the early arc of their career. This album shows she still recorded a lot of good music in those "missing years." If you enjoy "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," you should enjoy this.

All but one song is officially released, and that one song was recorded for radio, so the sound quality is uniformly excellent. Most songs come from tribute albums and other various artists collections, as well as duets that appeared on other people's albums. Two of the songs are bonus tracks from "Car Wheels."

A majority of the songs are covers, including: "You Don't Have Very Far to Go" (Merle Haggard), "Positively 4th Street" (Bob Dylan), "Cowboys to Girls" (The Intruders), "Apartment No. 9" (Tammy Wynette), "You're Still Standin' There" (Steve Earle), "Here in California" (Kate Wolf), and "Come to Me Baby" (Howlin' Wolf).

I thought the song "Blaze" was merely an early version of the song "Drunken Angel" found on her 1998 album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." But after listening to this new version carefully, I realized that although the songs are about the same person and the phrase "drunken angel" is mentioned in "Blaze," they're really different songs.

01 All I Want (Lucinda Williams)
02 Pancakes (Lucinda Williams)
03 Main Road (Lucinda Williams)
04 You Don't Have Very Far to Go (Lucinda Williams)
05 Positively 4th Street [Acoustic Version] (Lucinda Williams)
06 How Can I Sleep without You (Julian Dawson & Lucinda Williams)
07 Blaze (Lucinda Williams)
08 Cowboys to Girls (Chris Gaffney & Lucinda Williams)
09 You're Still Standin' There (Steve Earle & Lucinda Williams)
10 Breakfast in Bed (Donnie Fritts & Lucinda Williams)
11 The Farm (Lucinda Williams)
12 Apartment No. 9 (Lucinda Williams)
13 Pretty Little Poison (Robbie Fulks & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376593/LUCNDWLLMS1993-1998PrttyLittlPisn_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo of Williams in concert from either 1998 or 1999, I'm not sure.

Richard Thompson - Heavenly Alchemy - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (1990-1991)

A while back, I posted an album that consisted entirely of Richard Thompson's acoustic stray tracks from 1990. This is sequel to that. In this era, Thompson played a great variety of acoustic songs.

The album starts with a bang: "From Galway to Graceland" never appeared on any album, and first showed up on a box set. But it turned out to be one of Thompson's most beloved original songs.

The vast majority of the rest of the songs are cover versions. There are a couple of exceptions, such as "Days of Our Lives," which was done in a very different style on a 1990 French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson album. "Nobody's Wedding" and "Waltzing's for Dreamers" also are originals, from albums much earlier in Thompson's career. I've included them because it's rare to have acoustic versions of them.

"Heavenly Alchemy" is an unusual case. It's not really a song. Instead, Thompson recites Shakespearean poetry. I considered it interesting enough to include.

About half of the songs are officially unreleased. But all or nearly all of those come from excellent soundboard recordings, so the sound quality is solid for the whole album.  All but one of the songs were performed live, but I removed the crowd noise whenever possible.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 From Galway to Graceland (Richard Thompson)
02 My Generation - I Can't Explain - Substitute (Richard Thompson)
03 Bogie's Bonnie Belle (Richard Thompson)
04 Nobody's Wedding (Richard Thompson)
05 The Choice Wife [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
06 You'll Never Walk Alone (Richard Thompson)
07 Motherless Children (Richard Thompson)
08 Days of Our Lives (Richard Thompson)
09 Walk in the Room - Needles and Pins - Just like Tom Thumb's Blues (Richard Thompson)
10 Don't Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes at Me (Richard Thompson)
11 Hot Dog (Richard Thompson)
12 Heavenly Alchemy [Shakespeare Reading] (Richard Thompson)
13 Play with Fire (Richard Thompson with Henry Kaiser)
14 Waltzing's for Dreamers (Richard Thompson with Shawn Colvin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15268456/RichrdT_1990-1991_HeavnlyAlchmyAcoustc_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I found a photo of Thompson from 1991.

Pink Floyd - Zabrinskie Point - Alternate Version (1970)

In 1968 and 1969, director Michelangelo Antonioni made a Hollywood movie about the counterculture called "Zabrinskie Point." Since it was about the counterculture, he wanted music to match for the soundtrack. He used some existing songs by various bands, and got Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, and Kaleidoscope to compose new music for the film.

When the movie came out in early 1970, Pink Floyd only ended up with three songs on the soundtrack. But in fact they recorded a lot more, enough to have an entire album just from them. This is my attempt to create a "Zabrinskie Point" soundtrack featuring only Pink Floyd music.

I could have made this a very long album that gathers up absolutely everything Pink Floyd did that was considered for the soundtrack. But frankly, a lot of it isn't that good. Pink Floyd's "The Early Years" box set has no less than 16 outtakes from the soundtrack. I didn't include any of them, because they're all incidental film music, meant to help set a mood but not far removed from forgettable muzak. Many of them are alternate versions of songs I have included.

What I did instead was pick the strongest songs I could find, so this album would stack up with the other Pink Floyd albums from that era. I included the three songs that made it on the actual soundtrack album, plus two more songs that were bonus tracks released in the 1990s, and one of the songs from "The Early Years" box set. On top of that, I've included two more songs that were on "The Early Years," but slightly different unreleased alternate versions.

One more song, "The Violent Sequence," needs a little explanation. It almost made it to the official soundtrack, but the director decided it sounded too sad. If you listen to it, you'll immediately recognize it as an instrumental version of what would become "Us and Them" on the classic 1973 album "Dark Side of the Moon."

All the songs mentioned above make for a 39-minute long album, which is a decent length. But I've added three more songs that weren't connected to "Zabrinskie Point" at all, because I don't have a better place to put them. These come from another 1970 soundtrack, this one for a documentary about the human body called "The Body." The soundtrack is called "Music from the Body," and it's credited to Roger Waters, the main singer and songwriter for Pink Floyd at the time, and avant garde artist Ron Geesin. Most of the songs are experimental, strange sounding instrumentals that aren't to my taste. But it also includes three folky songs written and sung by Waters, and I've added them here. They sound exactly like lost Pink Floyd songs, and that's basically what they are. In fact, one of them, "Give Birth to a Smile," is performed by all four members of Pink Floyd, so I've credited it to the full band.

01 Heart Beat, Pig Meat [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
02 Country Song [The Red Queen] (Pink Floyd)
03 Aeroplane [Fingal's Cave] [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
04 Crumbling Land (Pink Floyd)
05 Alan's Blues [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
06 Oenone [Early Version] [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
07 Rain in the Country [Unknown Song] [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
08 Come in Number 51, Your Time is Up [Careful with that Axe, Eugene] [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
09 The Violent Sequence [Early Version of Us and Them] [Richard Wright Demo] (Pink Floyd)
10 Chain of Life (Roger Waters & Ron Geesin)
11 Sea, Shell and Stone - Breathe (Roger Waters & Ron Geesin)
12 Give Birth to a Smile (Pink Floyd)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Z6qVmzkS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/H6RgAMww5GuOhmh/file

The official "Zabrinskie Point" soundtrack seems to have had several different album covers, that I think were for different editions of the album. I picked a version that had the least text, with just the words "Zabrinskie Point" in big letters. Then I added "Pink Floyd" above it.

Dave Mason / Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog - World in Changes - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1970)

Have you ever heard of Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog (MCWF)? Probably not, I'd imagine. I'll explain about this band in detail below, but the short explanation is that it was a 1969 version of Traffic, except one that was led by Dave Mason, and without Steve Winwood. As far as I know, nobody has ever collected all of the few recordings of MCWF that exist, either officially or on bootleg, so I'm psyched to be presenting this for the first time. If you like the music of Traffic and/or Dave Mason, you should like this.

Dave Mason was in Traffic from the band's beginning in mid-1967 until when it broke up for the first time in late 1968. But it seems that he and Steve Winwood didn't get along that well. He left the group for a few months in early 1968, but returned in time to play a key role with the band's second album, simply called "Traffic." However, Winwood felt that Mason's style of music, more poppy and less jazzy, didn't fit in with where he wanted Traffic to go. Winwood led the effort to kick Mason out of Traffic, and apparently the two other band members (Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood) agreed.

But then something very strange happened. Not long after kicking Mason out of the group, Winwood left the band at the start of 1969 and joined the "supergroup" Blind Faith with Eric Clapton instead. Traffic then ceased to exist. But almost immediately, Mason hooked back up with the other two band members, Capaldi and Wood, and created a new band. They added a keyboard player, Wynder K. Frog, to help fill the void of not having Winwood's keyboard playing (though nobody could replace Winwood's incredible vocals).

The new band began playing concerts, with an emphasis on Mason's songs from Traffic as well as new songs he'd written. The band was well received, as they were widely seen as Traffic reborn, only with a new name. However, the band members didn't get along well with each other and didn't feel a musical chemistry. (I imagine the fact that the band was led by Mason, despite the fact that he had just been fired by the others a month or two earlier, didn't make for great chemistry!) Plus, apparently, they were all doing a lot of drugs and didn't feel that motivated. So after just three months together, the band broke up.

Mason went on to have a long solo career, starting with his acclaimed and popular 1970 album "Alone Together." Capaldi and Wood got back together with Winwood after Blind Faith broke up, and returned with the acclaimed and popular Traffic album "John Barleycorn" in 1970. Traffic stayed together for a few more years, though without Mason, though Mason did rejoin the band in mid-1971, just long enough to take part in recording the live Traffic album "Welcome to the Canteen." Frog, despite being a talented keyboard player, returned to musical obscurity.

MCWF would have left no recorded musical legacy whatsoever except for the fact that they played live on the BBC a couple of times in February 1969, and two of these songs were officially released on an obscure box set focused on the music of Traffic member Chris Wood called "Evening Blue." Plus, two MCWF instrumental studio recordings highlighting Wood's saxophone and flute soloing made it onto that box set too.

Additionally, three more songs MCWF performed at the BBC were recorded on bootleg. (A few more songs they played at the BBC appear to have been lost.) When I found a bootleg of those three songs, I discovered that the volume wobbled, regularly alternating between loud and quiet. So I did some editing in a music program to try to level out the volume. I think it sounds a lot better now. These bootleg recordings don't sound as good as the officially released songs, but they're good enough.

As for the MCWF songs here, two of them are Traffic songs written and sung by Mason ("Cryin' to Be Heard" and "Feelin' Alright"), and two others are Mason songs that would wind up on his 1970 album "Alone Together" ("Waitin' for You" and "World in Changes"). The band also do a cover of a blues song ("Leaving Blues") and two instrumentals.

If you add that all up, it's only 33 minutes long, which is on the short side for an album. I had a few Mason solo songs that he didn't do with Traffic but predated his first solo album, so I've included those as well. All the songs are ordered chronologically.

Two of these extra songs are live versions of "Only You Know and I Know" and "World in Changes" done at the Big Sur Folk Festival in late 1969. Mason apparently didn't have a band at the time, and he wasn't scheduled to perform at the concert. But Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did play, and they let Mason play two songs during the middle of their set to help him get his solo career started. Just Stephen Stills stayed on stage with Mason, playing guitar and singing backing vocals a little bit.

Normally, I don't like putting more than one version of a song on an album. But this album has two versions of "World in Changes." I'm allowing that because this album is the logical spot for both versions to fit in my music collection. Plus, luckily, the versions are pretty different, since the live version Mason does with Stills is acoustic and the other version with MCWF is with a full band. I've titled this album "World in Changes," since I have two versions of the song.

01 Little Woman (Dave Mason)
02 On a Theme Of… [Instrumental] (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
03 Feelin’ Alright (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
04 World in Changes (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
05 Waitin' on You (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
06 Cryin' to Be Heard (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
07 Leaving Blues (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
08 Jarn 1 [Instrumental] (Mason, Capaldi, Wood & Frog)
09 Only You Know and I Know [Edit] (Dave Mason with Stephen Stills)
10 World in Changes (Dave Mason with Stephen Stills)
11 Satin Red and Black Velvet Woman (Dave Mason)
12 To Be Free (Dave Mason & Cass Elliot)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RokuVW8j

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sRmEosCAGsjn6hA/file

Since MCWF were only in existence a short time, and weren't that famous, there are almost no photos of the band. However, I did find one, from a newspaper article, so I'm using that as the cover art. It's a low resolution and grainy photo, but it's better than nothing. In case you're curious, the band members from left to right are: Capaldi, Mason, Wood, and Frog.

Over a year after first posting this, I decided to colorize the photo. It's still the worst quality photo I've used for any album cover, but at least now it's in color. ;) 

In 2025, six years after first posting this, I used the program Krea AI to improve the image quality. I had some problems with the hands of Frog on the far right. (AI programs are usually pretty terrible with fingers.) So I extended his jacket enough to cover as much as his hands as necessary until they looked fairly normal.

U2 - 11 O'Clock Tick Tock - Non-Album Tracks (1980)

I just posted an album of U2's very earliest songs, from 1978 to 1979. This is more of the same, but from 1980. More importantly, there are quantum leaps in songwriting quality and the band's musical talent. U2's studio album from 1980, "Boy," is very critically acclaimed, to the point that it's listed as one of Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." If you like that album, you should like this.

Four out of the 10 songs here are still officially unreleased. But generally speaking, the sound quality is good, and better than the earlier U2 collection. Three of the unreleased songs come from a February 1980 concert, but it was a well recorded soundboard. One of the officially released songs also comes from that show, and the sound quality of that one isn't noticeably different from the others which come from a bootleg.

The song "Saturday Night" is an early version of "Fire," which would appear on the 1981 album "October." However, it's only distantly related musically, with totally different lyrics.

I probably should explain some confusion about the song "Pete the Chop." This was a song the band wrote that their manager really liked, and he considered it a possible hit. But the band didn't like it much, even though they recorded a demo of it. The manager kept asking the band "Whatever happened to 'Pete the Chop?'" and pressing them to properly record and release it. The band never did. However, the manager's nagging inspired them to write another song called "Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop)" which is musically only slightly related to "Pete the Chop." The demo unfortunately has never been made publicly available, but the band played the song live a few times, so I've included one of those performances. I'll include "Treasure" on a later stray tracks album.

I have one bonus track this time around. It's a version of "Twilight," a song on the 1980 "Boy" album. But this is a different, earlier version, released as a B-side.

01 Saturday Night [Early Version of 'Fire'] (U2)
02 The Dream Is Over (U2)
03 Cartoon World (U2)
04 Jack in a Box (U2)
05 Speed of Life (U2)
06 Pete the Chop (U2)
07 Another Day (U2)
08 11 O'Clock Tick Tock (U2)
09 Touch (U2)
10 Things to Make and Do [Instrumental] (U2)

Twilight [Single Version] (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pZoNtahT

The most famous song on this album is "11 O'Clock Tick Tock," which appeared on the 1983 live album "Under a Blood Red Sky..." and it's still occasionally played in concert by them. So I've titled the album after that song, and I've used the cover arr from the single for the album cover, without any changes.

U2 - Inside Out- Non-Album Tracks (1978-1979)

I think U2 is a great band. Unfortunately, they've gotten a bad reputation due to some of Bono's behavior as well as musical and non-musical mistakes they've made in their later years. But I'm not going to let all that get in my way of enjoying their music, especially their great run from the early 1980s to the late 1990s.

So this is the first of many albums of stray tracks I plan to post from them. One thing many people don't know, unless they're serious U2 fans, is that the band has tons of high quality songs that never made it to any of their studio albums. In fact, for every studio album they're released, there is usually another album's worth of stray tracks, and sometimes even two!

This collection of stray tracks is strange because it dates from such an early point in U2's history, before their first album, 1980's "Boy." U2 was formed in 1976, but by all accounts they were pretty bad at first. They started out a mere local covers band, doing songs by some "cool" (by punk/new wave standards) artists like the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and David Bowie, but also doing songs by some very "uncool" ones like the Eagles, Peter Frampton, and the Moody Blues! It took a while for Bono to establish himself as a lead singer, and for the whole band to figure out how to write and play quality original material.

So this album is the sound of U2 still figuring out their sound. For instance, the first song "Inside Out" is pretty good, but it could easily be mistaken for an obscure garage rock song from 1966! Frankly, this very early U2 is merely okay compared to their later greatness. But I want to include all the original songs I could find (assuming the sound quality was good enough) because this material remains very little known. (I believe all the songs here are originals, except for "Glad to See You Go," which is originally by the Ramones.)

U2 has generally overlooked this phase of their career with their archival releases, so only four of the ten songs here have been officially released (not counting the two bonus tracks, which have been released too). The sound quality here isn't always outstanding, but all but one of the songs are studio recordings, so at least it's pretty decent.

Note that I've made major edits to the first two songs, "Inside Out" and "Tonight." That's because the only versions of these songs from U2's very first time in a recording studio that have been made publicly available are incomplete. In both cases, I'd guess we have about 3/4ths of the song before it gets abruptly cut off. So I've tried to flesh out the ends of the songs by repeating some parts from earlier in each song.

This album is fairly short, at 31 minutes. But it reaches a more typical album length if you include the two bonus tracks. I've only added them as bonus tracks because they are early versions of songs that made it onto U2's 1980 album "Boy." However, they're interesting versions, done in the studio and released on singles at the time, so they're worth hearing.

Also note that one song here, "Speed of Life," is actually from 1980. I've included it here because I have a different version (with vocals) that I'm putting on my next stray tracks album.

01 Inside Out [Edit] (U2)
02 Tonight [Edit] (U2)
03 Street Mission (U2)
04 The Fool (U2)
05 Glad to See You Go (U2)
06 Boy-Girl (U2)
07 False Prophet (U2)
08 Alone in the Light (U2)
09 Lost on a Distant Planet [The Magic Carpet] (U2)
10 Speed of Life [Instrumental Version] (U2)

Out of Control [Single Version] (U2)
Stories for Boys [Single Version] (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/44CP4jWV

U2 only had one official release prior to 1980, and that was a three song EP called "Three." So I've used the cover of that for my album cover here. However, I removed the name "Three" as well as the name of the three songs (which were above and below the main artwork) and replaced some of that text with my new title. (And by the way, the boy in the main photo, Peter Rowen, is the same boy who would be on the cover of the "Boy" and "War" albums, as well as some of the band's other releases.)