Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 13: 2004-2006

In 2004, Bruce Springsteen took part in the "Vote for Change" concert tour, in which a bunch of famous musicians performed in an effort to promote the election of John Kerry for in the 2004 presidential election. As a part of this tour, Springsteen took part in duets with some big names. The first three songs are examples of that, as well as the last two songs on the previous album in this series (where he played with John Fogerty on one song and Neil Young on another).

There are more songs from 2004, and a few from 2005, where Springsteen generally did his usual covers of classic rock and soul hits.

But then, in 2006, he shifted gears dramatically, and went back into a "folkie" mode. He released a studio album called "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," which was composed entirely of folk songs previously performed by Pete Seeger. Since those are cover songs, they naturally will get on this series. The last four songs here are from that project. But these are all live versions, so these are different versions than the one on that studio album.

In terms of sound quality, this album is a mixed bag. Only four of the 13 songs have been officially released. The rest generally sound excellent, from soundboard bootlegs. But there are a couple of exceptions of somewhat rougher sound, such as "Running on Empty" and "It Takes Two."

01 Man on the Moon (R.E.M. & Bruce Springsteen)
02 Running on Empty (Jackson Browne & Bruce Springsteen)
03 Better Man (Eddie Vedder & Bruce Springsteen)
04 It Takes Two (Bruce Springsteen & Patti Scialfa)
05 Run Rudolph Run (Bruce Springsteen)
06 The Patriot Game (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Dirty Water [Acoustic Version] (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Rumble (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Millworker (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Eyes on the Prize (Bruce Springsteen & Marc Anthony Thompson)
11 John Henry (Bruce Springsteen)
12 Buffalo Gals (Bruce Springsteen)
13 Long Black Veil (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16404261/BRUCSPR2004-2006CovrSngsVol13_atse.zip.html

For pretty much all the cover art photos in this series so far, I've shown Springsteen playing a guitar. So, for variety's sake, this time I've gone with him playing a piano in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 2005.

Bonnie Raitt - Baby Mine - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1989)

Bonnie Raitt had one of the most dramatic late career popularity surges in the history of rock. To be honest, she never was that popular from the start of her career in the early 1970s until the late 1980s. She only had one Top 40 hit, a cover of "Runaway," in 1977. By the mid-1980s, a drug habit and changing musical trends meant she fell so low that she lost her record contract. She had to resume touring as a solo acoustic artist because she couldn't afford to pay a band. She turned 40 in 1989, which was practically the kiss of death for female musicians, given the usual focus on youth and beauty. But she kicked her drug habit and revitalized herself musically. Her 1989 album "Nick of Time" became an unexpected hit, selling five million copies and turning her into a musical superstar.

This stray tracks album covers the time of her musical rebirth. Most of the songs on it actually come before the release of "Nick of Time," but one can hear her musical revitalization throughout all of it. The second wind for her career began with the first song here, "Baby Mine," because during the recording of that song for a various artists compilation, she met producer Don Was of the band Was (Not Was). Was was produced "Nick of Time," and was instrumental in giving her the right production that allowed her to succeed so dramatically.

Raitt has always been very open to performing duets and other musical collaborations. There are a lot of those here. She collaborates with some of her very favorite musicians, like Little Feat, Dr. John, and NRBQ. Some of the songs come from other people's albums or various artists compilations, but more (seven out of the 12 songs) are from unreleased concert bootlegs. However, the sound on all of those are really good, probably soundboard recordings for most or all of them.

01 Baby Mine (Bonnie Raitt & Was (Not Was))
02 Somebody's on Your Case (Katie Webster & Bonnie Raitt)
03 Love Ain't No Triple Play (Dr. John & Bonnie Raitt with Bennie Wallace)
04 I'm Never Afraid [To Say What's on My Mind] (Bonnie Raitt)
05 El Salvador (Bonnie Raitt)
06 The End of the World (Bonnie Raitt & NRBQ)
07 The Last Time (Bonnie Raitt & NRBQ)
08 Man Sized Job (Bonnie Raitt with Little Feat)
09 Rock and Roll Doctor (Bonnie Raitt & Little Feat)
10 I'm in the Mood (John Lee Hooker with Bonnie Raitt)
11 Born in the Country (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Up the Country Blues [Ragtime Show] (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FEFhc3dW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/orS3GnU0MRXzsLJ/file

The cover art photo is of Raitt in concert in 1988. In 2025, I thought the image was still blurry and low-res, so I added detail with the Krea AI program.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 12: 2001-2004

Here's the next in my Bruce Springsteen cover songs series. I was too busy to post one yesterday, but I'm still usually posting one a day.

This one covers the years 2001 to 2004. During these years, Springsteen was back playing full blown rock and roll. (He'd go back into another folky phrase for a couple of years after this.) So this album is filled with the classic rock and soul songs he loves, mostly from the 1960s.

In terms of sound quality, this is another album where nearly all the songs are officially unreleased. All but two songs, in fact. That means the sound quality is variable, but generally pretty high.

The songs "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "I Thank You" have been heavily edited down. Both of them are duets between Springsteen and Sam Moore of "Sam and Dave" fame. They're fine performances, except in their original versions they went on way too long for my tastes. Both were about double the length they are here. I have no problem with long songs if there's a point to the length, but in both cases, Springsteen and Moore just kept singing the same choruses over and over and over and over again. So I cut the songs down to something close to their original studio versions.

Note also that I've included the song "All Along the Watchtower" even though I had a different version of that song on a recent volume of this series. That's because that previous version was all sung by Springsteen and played with a relatively obscure New Jersey band, while this version is a duet between him and Neil Young, with both of them trading vocals and lead guitar solos.

01 Jingle Bell Rock (Bruce Springsteen)
02 You Sexy Thing (Bruce Hornsby & Bruce Springsteen)
03 Kansas City - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen)
04 The Twist - The Peppermint Twist (Bruce Springsteen & Gary 'U. S.' Bonds)
05 Tell Me Why (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Seven Nights to Rock (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Diddy Wah Diddy (Bruce Springsteen)
08 My Ride's Here (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Get Out of Denver (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Hold On, I'm Coming [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen & Sam Moore)
11 I Thank You [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen & Sam Moore)
12 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Bruce Springsteen with Conor Oberst & John Fogerty)
13 All Along the Watchtower (Neil Young & Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328146/BrucSpr_2001-2004_CovrSngsVol12_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, to keep things interesting, I chose a rather unusual photo of Springsteen standing on a piano in front of band member Clarence Clemons. It was taken in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 2003.

Cat Stevens - Man with No Country - Non-Album Tracks (2001-2017)

In the mid-1970s, Cat Stevens converted to Islam. It became such a big part of his life that at the end of the 1970s, he gave up his musical career altogether. He didn't even play the guitar for a couple of decades. Then, in the 1990s, under the name "Yusuf Islam," he resumed making records, but all of his songs were about Islam, and appealed pretty much exclusively to a limited Islamic audience. In 2006, he finally resumed making secular music with his album "An Other Cup." Since then, he's made more secular albums and toured some, reconnecting with his classic older music.

This album collects his stray tracks for this second phase of his secular music career (so far). He hasn't done that much in terms of non-album tracks, but this album covers a nearly 20-year timespan, which is enough to collect an album's worth of good songs.

Note that I'm not a religious person, so I have no interest in his Islamic-themed music. But I did include one song from the tail-end of that era of his career, "I Look, I See." Yes, it has a religious theme, but it's also a damn fine pop song that in my opinion has the same songwriting magic of his classic late-1960s/early 1970s period. And by the way, I'm only calling him "Cat Stevens" here even though he generally called himself "Yusuf Islam," and then just "Yusuf," for most of this time period. On his most recent album he's gone back to calling himself "Cat Stevens," and I think it's pretty obvious that that's the name his music will be remembered by.

Most of the songs here are cover versions, though there are a few originals, such as the previously mentioned "I Look, I See," as well as "Indian Ocean," "My People," and "He Was Alone." It's clear he's a big Beatles fan, and especially a George Harrison fan, because he covers two Beatles songs, one of them written by Harrison, and two Harrison solo songs. That makes perfect sense, because he and Harrison have shared an intense interest in religious matters.

Most of the songs have been officially released. Only four have not. But those four generally sound as good as official releases. The only one that doesn't is his version of "Somewhere," a song originally from "West Side Story." The sound quality on that is a bit rough, but still very acceptable. The rest of the songs come from singles, various artists compilations, and the like.

As I write this in 2021, Stevens is 71 years old. Yet I swear his voice sounds exactly like he did in the 1970s. It's uncanny, like he just popped out of a time machine. His musical sensibilities are very much the same too. Basically, if you enjoy his classic era stuff, you should like this.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Peace Train [Acappella Version] (Cat Stevens)
02 I Look, I See (Cat Stevens)
03 Indian Ocean (Cat Stevens)
04 Man with No Country (Cat Stevens)
05 Saturn (Cat Stevens)
06 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Cat Stevens)
07 All Things Must Pass (Cat Stevens & Klaus Voormann)
08 The Day the World Gets 'Round (Cat Stevens & Klaus Voormann)
09 How Long - Peace Train Blues (Cat Stevens)
10 My People (Cat Stevens)
11 The Long and Winding Road (Cat Stevens)
12 Somewhere (Cat Stevens)
13 He Was Alone (Cat Stevens)
14 Here Comes the Sun (Cat Stevens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687687/CATSTVNS2001-2017_MnwithNoCountry_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a Stevens concert in Dublin in 2006.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 11: 1998-2001

In the last volume in this Bruce Springsteen cover songs series, Springsteen was frequently in acoustic mode. For this album, he went back to rocking out. This coincided with the first significant touring he did with the E Street Band since about 1985.

Note that I already posted a version of the song "In the Midnight Hour" earlier in this series. But that version was just Springsteen, whereas this version is a duet between him and Wilson Pickett. Speaking of duets, you may have noted some of those on previous volumes of this series. This one has more than any before, with eight out of the 13 songs being duets. Some are with band members, such as his wife Patty Scialfa. But more and more, other artists wanted to collaborate with him. So you'll see many more duets before this series is finished.

George Harrison died in 2001. That's why you see Springsteen paying tribute to him with covers of two of his songs, "Something" and "My Sweet Lord."

In terms of sound quality, surprisingly, just like the last album in this series, every single song is officially unreleased. That means that some of the songs sound a bit rough. Most of them come from soundboard recordings, but a few come from audience recordings. You can usually tell by the loud cheering over the music. "Jambalaya" is a particularly bad case of this, and I almost left it off, but it had an overall clarity that made me decide to include it. The two Harrison songs and a couple others have similarly rough sourcing.

01 Wanted Dead or Alive (Jon Bon Jovi & Bruce Springsteen)
02 Oh What a Beautiful Mornin' (Bruce Springsteen)
03 In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett & Bruce Springsteen)
04 Until the Good Is Gone (Bruce Springsteen & Steven Van Zandt)
05 Christmas [Baby Please Come Home] (Bruce Springsteen with Patti Scialfa)
06 Blue Christmas (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Bruce Springsteen & Patti Scialfa)
08 Mystery Train (Bruce Springsteen)
09 It's All Over Now (Bruce Springsteen & Nils Lofgren)
10 All Just to Get to You (Joe Ely & Bruce Springsteen)
11 Something (Bruce Springsteen)
12 My Sweet Lord (Bruce Springsteen)
13 The End of the Innocence (Bruce Hornsby & Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687638/BRUCSPRNGSTN1998-2001_CovrSngsVol11_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, there are so many albums in this series that I didn't want to repeat some standard thing, such as Springsteen standing there with a guitar. So I went with this rather strange photo of Springsteen jumping off a piano. Judging from the height of Steven Van Zandt standing by, I'd guess he was about five feet off the ground when he jumped.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Fortune Faded - Non-Album Tracks (2002-2003)

A couple of days ago, the Red Hot Chili Peppers announced that their lead guitarist Josh Klinghoffer left the band and will be replaced by John Fruiscante. It's the second time Fruiscante has rejoined the band. I consider this very good news. Klinghoffer was good, but Fruiscante was a key songwriter for the band's best albums, including "Blood Sugar Sex Magik," "Californication," and "Stadium Arcadium." In celebration of that, I'm posting more from the band.

In 2002, the band released the album "By the Way," which was followed by "Stadium Arcadium" in 2006. In my opinion, they definitely should have released an album in between, in 2003 or 2004. Actually, the band planned to release an album around then, and recorded more than enough material. They recorded at least 16 new songs, but guitarist Fruiscante vetoed putting them out as a new album, saying that his style and musical tastes had changed, and he wanted the band to go in a different direction. Apparently, only four of those songs have been released. "Fortune Faded" and "Save the Population" came out as part of a new "Greatest Hits" album, and "Bicycle Song" and "Runaway" were released as bonus tracks for the 2002 album "By the Way." The rest apparently remain in the vaults and even the song titles aren't known. One band member said a few years ago that he hopes the "lost album" will be released someday.

However, despite the fact that I don't have the vast majority of those songs, there are many more songs from that time period that are publicly available. In fact, there are so many that I'm posting this album of songs mostly from 2002 (only two of them are from 2003), and later I'll post another album of songs from 2003 to 2004. (That one includes "Save the Population," in case you're wondering why it's not here.)

Every single song on this album has been officially released. There's "Fortune Faded" from the "Greatest Hits" album plus the two bonus tracks mentioned above. All the rest are B-sides for "By the Way" singles, plus a B-side to a "Fortune Faded" single.

Personally, I think the band was in a very good creative phase at this time, so these are a pretty solid bunch of songs. A lot of them were good enough to go on an album like "By the Way," and it was probably just quirky opinions of this or that band member that caused some of the strong songs to come out as B-sides and the like instead.

01 Fortune Faded (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 Runaway (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 Bicycle Song (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
04 Time (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
05 Nothing to Lose [Edit] (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
06 Someone (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
07 Out of Range (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
08 Body of Water (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
09 Rivers of Avalon (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
10 Eskimo (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15259271/TRedHChilP_2002-2003_FortneFded_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, my first instinct was to use the cover to the "Fortune Faded" single. But it turns out it's a terrible cover, with just the band name and song title printed on a solid white background. Instead, I found a concert poster from 2003 that I really liked. I squished it vertically some so more of the artwork would fit, and I added the words "Fortune Faded" at the bottom.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 10: 1995-1997

Here's volume 10 in the Bruce Springsteen cover songs series. This one deals with the years 1995 to 1997.

As the last volume hinted, the music changed somewhat because Springsteen when in a "folky" direction around 1996, with the all-acoustic "The Ghost of Tom Joad" album and subsequent all acoustic-tour. The first few songs from 1995 are still rocking. But most of the songs from 1996 and 1997 are folk songs.

Note that the song "Tom Joad" (a.k.a. "The Ballad of Tom Joad") is a different song than the Springsteen original "The Ghost of Tom Joad." The name "Tom Joad" comes from a character in the John Steinbeck novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

Regarding sound quality, it turns out that every single song on this album is officially unreleased. As I've mentioned previously, Springsteen has officially released on-line recordings of many dozens of his concerts in recent years, but not many of them deal with the 1995 to 1997 era. However, luckily, the sound quality is good on these.

Speaking of bands, one thing I really like about Springsteen is that he loves music so much that even when he's not on tour, he often drops into local clubs in New Jersey and joins in with bands that play his type of music. In the case of "All Along the Watchtower" here, he joined Solar Circus, a local New Jersey band that few had heard of. The version of the song isn't that great, since he was just winging it with a band he didn't know from Adam, but I've included it because he sang lead vocals.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention for the past couple of albums is that from about 1988 until 1999, Springsteen pretty much played all his concerts without the E Street Band. (However, he often played with this or that member of the band during those years.) I haven't been that clear about labeling his backing bands during this series. But assume it's not the E Street Band for the years mentioned above.

01 Highway 61 Revisited (Bruce Springsteen with Wolfgang Niedecken & His Leopardefellband)
02 All Along the Watchtower (Bruce Springsteen & Solar Circus)
03 Shake, Rattle and Roll (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Forever Young (Bob Dylan & Bruce Springsteen)
05 Angel Eyes (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad [Blowin' Down This Road] (Bruce Springsteen & Joe Ely)
07 Oklahoma Hills (Arlo Gurthrie, Bruce Springsteen & Joe Ely)
08 Tom Joad [The Ballad of Tom Joad] (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Riding in My Car (Bruce Springsteen)
10 I Don't Want to Go Home (Bruce Springsteen & Steven Van Zandt)
11 One Headlight (Wallflowers & Bruce Springsteen)
12 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687641/BRUCSPRNGSTN1995-1997_CovrSngsVol10_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of Springsteen on "The Late Show with Jay Leno" in 1995.

Joni Mitchell - The 2nd Fret, Philadelphia, PA, 1967

This is the third and last of three Joni Mitchell concerts in 1967 at the 2nd Fret in Philadelphia. All three are excellent performances with excellent sound quality.

The big question I have for this concert is what date did it take place? I found this on a bootleg that gave a rough date of "November 1966." But that same bootleg noted that was probably wrong, because at one point in the between song banter, Mitchell commented, "In Canada, this year is Expo." That's a reference to Expo67, a celebration of Canada's 100th anniversary as a country in 1967. So it almost certainly took place in 1967.

But when within that year? The bootleg says it's from the 2nd Fret. That seems highly likely, because the only soundboard quality bootlegs of her from 1967 were recorded there by Philadelphia DJ Gene Shay, and this is a soundboard recording. But the exact date is much harder to pinpoint, because Mitchell played that club at least 39 times in 1967, over a series of stands from January to October.

I tried to listen carefully to her talking between songs for clues about when it was recorded, but I didn't find much. Before "The Circle Game," she told an entertaining story about how she filmed a promotional video for that song in a field with some cows. That was for a Canadian TV program called "Mon Pays, Mes Chansons," which was recorded in late 1966 and broadcast in February 1967. So I'm guessing it probably dates to early 1967, when that incident was still relatively fresh in her mind.

By the way, the video with the cows that she discussed can be seen on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s8vHSB1eRo

She also mentioned in passing that folk singer Tom Rush was probably her biggest booster, because he played two of her songs, "Urge for Going" and "The Circle Game." Rush released his version of "Urge for Going" in 1966, but didn't release any music in 1967, so his version of "The Circle Game" didn't come out until 1968. But he certainly played in in concert a lot in 1967, a fact she mentioned in a 1967 radio interview. That also suggests an early 1967 date to me, because as 1967 went on, more and more prominent musicians covered her songs.

if I had to guess, since we have one known bootleg of her recorded at the 2nd Fret on March 17, 1967, I think it makes sense this was recorded around that same month. But that's just a guess. All we can really say with reasonable certainty is that it's from 1967, due to her Expo comment.

As far as the music goes, it's a set of about 30 minutes, which fits with all the other 2nd Fret recordings of her that year. The last two songs actually are from a different source, and probably were recorded on a different date. All I know about them is that they also are from the 2nd Fret some time in 1967. So they fit nicely as extra tracks here.

The various bootlegs of her 1967 2nd Fret shows typically have some extra songs added that come from early TV and radio performances. I've collected the best of those from lots of different sources and will be posting those separately.

01 Brandy Eyes (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Urge for Going (Joni Mitchell)
04 talk (Joni Mitchell)
05 What's the Story, Mr. Blue (Joni Mitchell)
06 talk (Joni Mitchell)
07 Eastern Rain (Joni Mitchell)
08 talk (Joni Mitchell)
09 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell)
10 talk (Joni Mitchell)
11 Night in the City (Joni Mitchell)
12 A Melody in Your Name [Edit] (Joni Mitchell)
13 The Gift of the Magi (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jshohShJ

See the previous two 2nd Fret concerts I posted for a detailed explanation of the artwork at the top and the bottom of the cover. Regarding the center photo, I couldn't find any good photos of her in concert from 1967, so I had to resort to one from 1968. It was taken at the Riverboat Coffee House in Toronto, Canada, in April 1968. I like how the wall in the background gives a sense of how she was playing at small clubs at the time. I colorized it.

Pete Townshend - Who Demos, Volume 4: 1969: Tommy

Earlier this month, the Who released a studio album of all new material, simply called "Who." It's their first new album since "Endless Wire" in 2006. It's surprisingly good, and certainly better than "Endless Wire." A lot of Who fans are saying it's the band's best since "Who Are You" in 1978 or "Who by Numbers" in 1975.

In celebration of that new release, I wanted to post something Who-related, and this Pete Townshend album of demos is next on my "to do" list. But first, note that I'm adding two bonus tracks from the new Who album to an album I've already posted. Most versions of the new album come with three bonus tracks. But one of them, "Got Nothing to Prove," is actually a Pete Townshend demo from 1966 with some new overdubs to give it more of a full, Who-like sound. It's a nice song, but in my opinion it seems extremely out of place on the new album. Townshend's voice alone places it in the 1960s.

Furthermore, the Who have released another bonus track, "Sand." But this one is only available on the Japanese version of the new album! Either that, or one can buy it on a "deluxe" version of the new album, with only this one extra song, for $50. Just like "Got Nothing to Prove," "Sand" really is a Townshend demo from 1966, with new overdubs to give it a fuller sound. I think it's an even better song, but it also feels extremely out of place in context of the new album. I think it's unreasonable for fans to have to pay $50 or track down a Japanese album just for one song.

Thus, I've just added both of these songs to my album of 1966 Who stray tracks, "Ready Steady Go." It's debatable if these are Who songs or Pete Townshend songs. Even though Townshend is probably the only member of the Who on both of them, I've decided to consider them Who songs, since they're released that way, and they've been fleshed out to fit with a Who sound.

Here's the link to the updated version of my 1966 Who album, with the two songs added:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-who-ready-steady-who-various-songs.html

Now, let me get to this album. This is very straight forward. These are all Pete Townshend demos of the Who's 1969 album "Tommy," listed in the same order as that album. "Tommy" was released in mid-1969, but most if not all of the demos actually date to 1968.

All these demos have been officially released, as part of a "super deluxe" edition of "Tommy" released in 2013. Normally, I wouldn't want to post released material like this. But I'm making an exception so there won't be a whole in my long chronological series of albums collecting Pete Townshend's demos of Who songs.

By the way, the instrumental "Dream One" appears here but not on the final "Tommy" album. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 Overture [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
02 It's a Boy (Pete Townshend)
03 1921 (Pete Townshend)
04 Amazing Journey (Pete Townshend)
05 Dream One [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
06 Sparks [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
07 Eyesight to the Blind [The Hawker] (Pete Townshend)
08 Christmas (Pete Townshend)
09 The Acid Queen (Pete Townshend)
10 Underture [Dream Two] [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
11 Do You Think It's Alright (Pete Townshend)
12 Pinball Wizard (Pete Townshend)
13 There's a Doctor (Pete Townshend)
14 Go to the Mirror (Pete Townshend)
15 Success (Pete Townshend)
16 Tommy Can You Hear Me (Pete Townshend)
17 Smash the Mirror (Pete Townshend)
18 Sensation (Pete Townshend)
19 Miracle Cure (Pete Townshend)
20 Sally Simpson (Pete Townshend)
21 I'm Free (Pete Townshend)
22 Welcome (Pete Townshend)
23 We're Not Gonna Take It (Pete Townshend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HM5zuHjk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0kPHXmdCcQxzoNh/file

For the cover art, I used a photo of Townshend in his home studio around 1968 or 1969. But it didn't seem "Tommy"-esque enough for me. So I overlaid the "Tommy" album cover and let that show around the edges. Finally, I tinted to photo blue to better match the "Tommy" artwork.

Joni Mitchell - The 2nd Fret, Philadelphia, PA, 10-12-1967

Here's another Joni Mitchell concert from the 2nd Fret club in Philadelphia in 1967. If you're a fan of early Joni Mitchell, all three of these 2nd Fret concerts are very worth getting. The sound quality is great, and the performances are great, with lots of rare and even unreleased songs, as well as plenty of entertaining banter between songs.

This recording contains two sets of about thirty minutes each. One can hear an announcer introduce Mitchell at the start of each set, so it all seems pretty clear. It seems that all of her 2nd Fret recordings can be broken up into sets of about 30 minutes, often with an announcer introducing her at the beginning of each set. For instance, I know when the first set ends and the second begins, because we can hear an announcer introducing her at the start of "Little Green," a song that's about halfway through this recording. I've labelled the early and late set info in the mp3 tags.

Anyway, regarding the sound quality, this one sounds excellent. As with the other concerts in this series, I carefully adjusted the volume within songs, and especially for the between song better, to make a better listening experience. The same problems I mentioned in the first album in this series happened here, but I think I pretty much fixed them. For instance, I once again removed some prolonged guitar tuning, except in cases where she was talking while tuning.

By the way, it appears Mitchell knew she was being recorded, because at one point, she had a verbal interaction at the start of a song ("I Don't Know Where I Stand") with the person recording the bootleg. We can only hear her side of the interaction. I think she says: "Are you rewinding, sir? ... Oh, you are? ... We're on the air? Oh no! ... That always scares me. Air fright."

I'm pretty sure the person she was talking to was Gene Shay, a Philadelphia folk music DJ who had her on his radio show multiple times in 1967 and 1968 before she was famous, when almost nobody else would. It's believed he's the one who recorded all three known 2nd Fret bootlegs, in order to play excerpts from them on his radio show at a later date, which he in fact eventually did. (But most of the time, when she was on his show she performed a few songs live between interview segments. I'll post some of that stuff at a later date.)

01 Night in the City (Joni Mitchell)
02 Come to the Sunshine (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Conversation (Joni Mitchell)
07 I Had a King (Joni Mitchell)
08 talk (Joni Mitchell)
09 Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)
10 Little Green (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Marcie (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 The London Bridge Song (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 Ballerina Valerie (Joni Mitchell)
17 Michael from Mountains (Joni Mitchell)
18 talk (Joni Mitchell)
19 Go Tell the Drummer Man (Joni Mitchell)
20 I Don't Know Where I Stand (Joni Mitchell)
21 talk (Joni Mitchell)
22 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pKM7vcaB

For the cover art, check my comments for the first album in this 2nd Fret series. In short, I used bits of an actual 2nd Fret poster or handbill of a Mitchell concert there in 1967 for the top and bottom sections. The main difference here is the middle picture. For this show, I used a photo of her performing on the Canadian TV show "The Way It Is" in December 1967. It was the closest good photo I could come up with. Since it's in black and white, I colorized it.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 9: 1992-1995

Your daily dose of Bruce Springsteen cover song albums continues. I don't have anything from 1991, because Springsteen didn't tour that year and only made a few guest appearances at small clubs. So it's on to 1992 through 1995.

Only four of 12 songs are officially released this time around. But the unreleased tunes have pretty good sound quality all the way through.

Note that "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" is a famous soul song written by Wilson Pickett and others in 1966. The song Springsteen sings here bears only a faint resemblance to that, mainly the title. There's an older gospel song with that same title. I listened to that, and I don't think it's that song either. How many songs with that rather strange title are there?! If anyone can clarify what this is a cover of exactly, I'd appreciate it.

So far on these covers albums, Springsteen stuck to doing well known classic rock and soul hits. But on this album he veered into country and folk some, especially with the obscure 1959 Louvin Brothers song "Satan's Jeweled Crown," as well as the traditional "Lonesome Valley." He would dive full on into folky music for his 1996 album "The Ghost of Tom Joad."

On a different note, I made a drastic edit to the version of the Bob Dylan song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" here. This was performed by Springsteen and Wolfgang Niedecken & His Leopardefellband. (I have no idea what that rather obscure German group got so lucky.) It went on for several more minutes, which I thought was too long. There were some sound glitches too. So I cut out the segment of the song with the sound problem, and cut out a verse sung in German by Niedecken for good measure. The song still ends up being six minutes long after those edits.

By the way, there's an interesting story behind the cover of "Come Together." In 1994, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was having a big concert in New York City, which I think was shown on TV. Elton John and Rod Stewart were supposed to perform a duet of the song in tribute to John Lennon, who was going to be posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist. But there was an earthquake in Los Angeles that day where Stewart lives, and he was unable to fly to New York. The organizers searched at the last minute for some other big name to sing the song, and begged Springsteen to do it. But he turned them down multiple times. Finally, with time running out, he and Axl Rose agreed to do a duet of it. But due to the lack of time, they didn't have a chance to practice it, and only managed to look at a lyric sheet and divy up who would sing what. It may not be the best performance in the world, but I've gotta give them kudos for having the guts to wing it like that.

01 Ninety-Nine and a Half [Won't Do] (Bruce Springsteen)
02 Warm and Tender Love (Bruce Springsteen)
03 Many Rivers to Cross (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Across the Borderline (Bruce Springsteen)
05 Viva Las Vegas (Bruce Springsteen)
06 It's All Right (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Satan's Jewel Crown (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Lonesome Valley (Bruce Springsteen, Joe Ely & Soozie Tyrell)
09 Come Together (Bruce Springsteen & Axl Rose)
10 [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66 (Bruce Springsteen with John Eddie)
11 Down the Road Apiece (Bruce Springsteen with Wolfgang Niedecken & His Leopardefellband)
12 Knockin' on Heaven's Door [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen with Wolfgang Niedecken & His Leopardefellband)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373094/BRUCSPR1992-1995CovrSngsVol9_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo shows Springsteen playing in Paris in 1992.

The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton - John Mayall's 70th Birtthday Concert - Clapton Version (2003)

I recently posted a couple of albums by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, from the short time Eric Clapton was a part of that band in the mid-1960s. I've got one more thing from them that took place much later. Clapton reunited with that band one time only, as far as I know, which was for Mayall's 70th birthday in 2003.

The entire birthday concert was released on CD and DVD. However, as I've mentioned previously, I'm not a big fan of Mayall's singing, though I'll admit he'd gotten a lot better by the time of this concert, compared to his 1960s work. I'm mainly interested in this for the guitar work of Eric Clapton. So I've edited the over two-hour-long concert down to just the songs that feature Clapton on them.

If you add up all the songs with Clapton, it comes to exactly one hour. Jazz trombonist Chris Barber also features on some of those songs. Guitarist Mick Taylor, who was a member of the Rolling Stones in the late 1960s and early 1970s, joined on on the last song. (He's the main guest star for most of the songs I didn't include here.)

This concert gives Clapton a chance to wail away on his blues guitar in a way he hasn't done that much for the past several decades. The song "Have You Heard" is a particular soloing showcase that goes on for 18 minutes. He also sings lead vocals on two songs, "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "I'm Tore Down."

Since this has been officially released, the sound quality is excellent. I had one quibble with the recording though, and that's how the applause after each song went on and on. So I cut that back to more typical lengths, and shaved a few minutes off the length of the recording as a result.

01 talk (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
02 No Big Hurry (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
03 talk (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
04 Please Mr. Lofton (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton & Chris Barber)
05 Hideaway [Instrumental] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton & Chris Barber)
06 All Your Love [I Miss Loving] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
07 Have You Heard (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
08 Hoochie Coochie Man (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton & Chris Barber)
09 I'm Tore Down (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton & Chris Barber)
10 talk (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
11 Talk to Your Daughter (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor  & Chris Barber)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15852699/TBluesbreakrs_12003_JhnMayalls70thBirtthdyConcert_atse.zip.html

The cover features Mayall and Clapton from the concert. It's a different cover and photo than the one for the official album. And no, Clapton isn't choking Mayall! ;)

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 8: 1988-1990

Here's the next Bruce Springsteen live covers album. Technically, this one covers 1988 to 1990, but in fact all the songs are from 1988, except for the last one, which is from 1990. (He didn't tour in 1989 or 1990, but did two benefit concerts in 1990.)

For the last album in this series, a few of the songs had rather rough sound quality, because they came from audience bootlegs recorded at small clubs. This time around I'm happy to say, pretty much every song sound fantastic. In fact, it may have the best overall sound quality in the series so far. It helps that eight out of the 12 songs have been officially released, which is a high ratio. But even the ones from bootlegs sound great.

By the way, you might think the first song, "For Your Love," is a cover of the famous Yardbirds hit from 1965. That's exactly the sort of song Springsteen would cover, and he played it when his musical career was just starting out in the mid-1960s. But in fact it's a more obscure song by Ed Townshend from 1958. The other songs are all the usual suspects.

Springsteen has played all of "Born to Be Wild" in concert a few times. But the bootlegs I heard were of poor quality. So instead I've used a version that was played as part of a medley. I've extracted it from the medley and given it a finish with audience noise in the end. But it's rather short, at only two minutes long. I figured meeting basic sound quality standards was more important than getting a version that lasted a minute or two longer.

I've specified that "Bad Moon Rising" is the "acoustic version," because I'm including a full-band rocking version in a later volume in this series. It's exactly the same for "Highway 61 Revisited." I include acoustic and electric versions like that for just two more songs in the entire series. (There are other acoustic performances in this album series, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" on this album, but I don't feel the need to point that out unless there's more than one version of the same song across the series.)

By the way, it was pointed out to me today that I'd overlooked the cover song "Trapped," which had some official releases in the early to mid-1980s. So I've just added that to volume 6 of this series (1981-1984). If you've downloaded that, you might want to do it again, to grab that song too.

01 For Your Love (Bruce Springsteen)
02 Lonely Teardrops (Bruce Springsteen)
03 Born to Be Wild [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Vigilante Man (Bruce Springsteen)
05 Blowin' in the Wind (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Bad Moon Rising [Acoustic Version] (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Who Do You Love (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Boom Boom (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Quarter to Three (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Chimes of Freedom (Bruce Springsteen)
11 Every Breath You Take (Sting & Bruce Springsteen)
12 Highway 61 Revisited [Acoustic Version] (Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne & Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373083/BRUCSPR1988-1990CovrSngsVol8_atse.zip.html

I don't know the date or location of the cover art photo. It's clearly from the 1980s, probably the mid-1980s. But it's such a great pose that I decided to use it here even if it doesn't exactly fit. Also, I didn't find any really good photos specifically dated to the late 1980s.

Lucinda Williams - Pyramid of Tears - Non-Album Tracks (2004-2006)

Here's the latest stray tracks album for Lucinda Williams. This is a particularly good bunch of non-album tracks.

All of the songs come from official sources, so the sound quality is uniformly excellent. A majority of songs are duets that Williams performed for other people's albums. It also includes three songs from tribute albums and a song from a soundtrack. Some of these are covers of famous songs, such as "A Song for You," "Sleepless Nights," and "Gentle on my Mind." I don't know who wrote the others, but I presume they mostly weren't written by Williams.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Pyramid of Tears (Lucinda Williams)
02 Factory Girls (Flogging Molly & Lucinda Williams)
03 Sleepless Nights (Lucinda Williams)
04 A Song for You (Lucinda Williams)
05 There's a Story in Your Voice (Elvis Costello & Lucinda Williams)
06 Overtime (Lucinda Williams & Willie Nelson)
07 Sins of a Family (P. F. Sloan & Lucinda Williams)
08 A Cut So Deep (John Brannen & Lucinda Williams)
09 Hurry Up Sunrise (North Mississippi Allstars with Lucinda Williams)
10 Gentle on My Mind (Lucinda Williams)
11 Careless Darling (Ramblin' Jack Elliott & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16695517/LUCNDAWLLMS2004-2006_PyramdofTers_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a 2004 concert.

Joni Mitchell - The 2nd Fret, Philadelphia, PA, 3-17-1967

So far, I haven't posted much of Joni Mitchell's music. But she's one of the all-time greats, in my opinion, and I'm going to post a lot more, starting here.

Mitchell has taken a "don't look back" approach to her musical career, She's released almost nothing of an archival nature, especially when it comes to her early career. That's understandable in that her early years (the 1960s through mid-1970s) are seen as the most popular and critically praised part of her career. She's probably wanted to deemphasize that in relation to her more recent works. Very little of her studio work has been leaked to bootlegs as well.

Thus, when it comes to non-official stuff, we pretty much just have her live performances. I've already compiled two albums of mostly original songs from her very early years that never were officially released. 

Another way, maybe in addition to those compiled albums, to enjoy her very early music is to listen to some full concert bootlegs. It so happens that there are a number of excellent sounding soundboard recordings from 1967 and 1968, even though she wasn't that popular yet. In fact, we have more pristine sounding concert bootlegs from early years than most later years when she was many times more popular.

The main reason for this lucky break is due to one man: Gene Shay. He was a folk music DJ in Philadelphia back in those years, and he was an early promoter of her music. He had her play live on his radio show several times in 1967 and 1968, though only for a few songs each time. More importantly, he also recorded a bunch of her concerts, apparently using professional equipment, and with Mitchell's permission. I'm not sure how much he recorded, but all or some of her concerts from four different nights - all at the 2nd Fret in Philadelphia - have leaked to the public. So I'm starting my posting of Mitchell's concerts with those.

It's widely believed that the first of these concerts dates to November 1966. Heck, there's even a grey market release in Europe of that concert, and it has that year in its name. I made that mistake when I put together those two stray tracks albums mentioned above. (I have since fixed that error.) But I looked deeper, and it turns out that all of the songs from that bootleg are exact duplicates of songs from other 2nd Fret bootlegs in 1967. So ignore that one. Since that one effectively doesn't exist, that means the first of these excellent concert recordings comes from March 17, 1967.

Or maybe not! The recording includes two sets of about thirty minutes each. It seems nearly certain that both sets are complete, because both start with an announcer introducing Mitchell, and the between song banter and other clues indicate both sets are complete. However, the two sets might be from different nights, because in the second set she apologized for playing two songs she did in the first set, and yet those songs weren't played in the first set of this recording! But Shay played them on his radio show after she became more famous, and he believed they were from March 17, 1967, so who knows. Perhaps she did three sets, or they're from two nights close to each other, or something like that. 

I'll assume both sets are from March 17, 1967, until evidence suggests otherwise. For what it's worth, her official website jonimitchell.com has an extensive concert date database, and that lists these songs as being performed on March 17, 1967. But that doesn't clear up in there was an unrecorded first set or something like that.

Regardless, the bottom line is we have a full hour of recorded live music from her, that sounds just as good as many professionally recorded officially released albums at that time. The recording was not without its flaws. But I went through each song, as well as the plentiful between song banter, and I think I fixed most of the issues. The main problem I noticed was that songs often started loud but then got quiet by the end of the song, when you'd expect the volume to stay roughly constant for the whole song. This happened many, many times. My guess is that Mitchell was fairly new to performing with a microphone, and started each song singing right into it, but then forgot and started to lean away from it. It wasn't a huge effect, but it was there. Luckily, it was easily fixable by gradually boosting the volume for the later portions of the affected songs.

One great thing about listening to these early recordings is that Mitchell was very chatty between songs, talking extensively before almost every song, sometimes for several minutes at a time. One can learn a lot about her, and her songs, from listening to her entertaining dialogue. The downside is that there were some volume issues with that banter as well, usually because it was too quiet. It seems clear that at times she spoke off mike, and the volume went way down. But that also was very fixable just by adjusting the volume levels.

Mitchell has played most of her songs in unusual alternate tunings, going back to the very start of her musical career. That's great, but a downside to that is that she was forced to spend an unusually long time between songs tuning her guitar to change from one tuning to another. I've eliminated most of that, unless she was talking at the same time. That shaved a few minutes off the length of the recording.

This bootleg has been widely available for a long time. But I believe I've made it sound better than ever before, simply by carefully adjusting the volume and eliminating some dead air tuning time.

I've recently made edits and improvements to all four of the 2nd Set concerts recorded by Shay. So I plan on posting all three of them over the next few days.

01 talk (Joni Mitchell)
02 Morning Morgantown (Joni Mitchell)
03 talk (Joni Mitchell)
04 Born to Take the Highway (Joni Mitchell)
05 talk (Joni Mitchell)
06 Eastern Rain (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 Song to a Seagull (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Carnival in Kenora (Joni Mitchell)
13 talk (Joni Mitchell)
14 Brandy Eyes (Joni Mitchell)
15 talk (Joni Mitchell)
16 Winter Lady (Joni Mitchell)
17 talk (Joni Mitchell)
18 What's the Story, Mr. Blue (Joni Mitchell)
19 talk (Joni Mitchell)
20 Urge for Going (Joni Mitchell)
21 talk (Joni Mitchell)
22 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
23 talk (Joni Mitchell)
24 Night in the City (Joni Mitchell)
25 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gsi5CJ5z

Unfortunately, there are no known surviving photos of Mitchell playing at the 2nd Fret. (The jonimitchell.com website is extremely thorough, and they don't have any.) In fact, there are very few photos of her playing on stage from 1967 at all, and the good ones are all in black in white. I've used the closest good one I could find, from a Mariposa Folk Festival in August 1967. Since I generally dislike black and white photos, I've colorized it.

Also, thanks to that jonimitchell.com website, I was able to find a concert advertisement for Mitchell playing at the 2nd Fret in 1967. I used that for the top and bottom portions of the cover art. I did some tweaking, but I didn't change that much. For instance, I replaced all the text for better clarity, but I used the exact same font, with the same words in basically the same sizes and locations, except I changed the date and I added a mention of "Philadelphia, PA." 

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 7: 1984-1988

Once again, more of Bruuuuuuuce! This latest volume in the Bruce Springsteen cover songs album series deals with the years 1984 to 1988, arguably the peak of his popularity, when he was riding high on "Born in the USA," one of the most successful albums of all time.

By now, if you've been following this series, you've probably noticed that Springsteen really loves classic rock hits from the 1950s to the 1970s, with a special focus on the 1960s. That makes perfect sense, because it's the music he grew up with. So here's more of the same.

In terms of sound quality, seven of the 13 songs are officially released. I must admit some of the unreleased ones sound slightly rougher, for instance the version of "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide." He's played that ZZ Top song a bunch of times, but always only in small New Jersey clubs when he's not on tour. We're lucky to get any recording of him doing that at all.

The song "Do You Love Me" is from the start of a medley. But I edited the end, and added some crowd noise, to make it a stand-alone song.

"I'm a Coward" is the song "Gino Is a Coward," a 1960s soul hit by Gino Washington. Springsteen changed some of the lyrics, and the title, but it's basically the same song.

01 Drift Away (Bruce Springsteen & Steven Van Zandt)
02 I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide (Bruce Springsteen with La Bamba & the Hubcaps)
03 Wooly Bully (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Rockin' All Over the World (Bruce Springsteen)
05 Do You Love Me [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen)
06 War (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Stand by Me (U2 & Bruce Springsteen)
08 Remember When the Music (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Love Me Tender (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Have Love, Will Travel (Bruce Springsteen)
11 I'm a Coward [Gino Is a Coward] (Bruce Springsteen)
12 Sweet Soul Music (Bruce Springsteen)
13 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373081/BRUCSPR1984-1988CovrSngsVol7_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo dates from 1985.

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Hearts in Her Eyes - Non-Album Tracks (1993-1996)

I posted a Mary Chapin Carpenter stray tracks album last week. I wasn't planning on posting another one soon, since I have so many other artists with albums that deserve posting. But I got a surprising number of positive responses to that post, for someone who isn't considered a "big name" artist, and I am influenced by feedback. So here's another one.

This album kind of frustrates me for the songs that Carpenter never officially released. There are four songs here that are taken from concert bootlegs and are still officially unreleased in any form, and they're all great. "Hearts in Her Eyes" was a song first done by the Searchers in 1979, long after their commercial heyday. The Searchers should have had a hit with it, but they were totally out of fashion in 1979. Based on this live recording, Carpenter definitely should have had a big hit with it. "Party Doll" is a song originally by Mick Jagger, put on one of his solo albums. Carpenter did release a version of it in 1999, and even named an album after it. But that was a ballad version. This is a rocking version, which is way better. "Train of Love" was made famous by Johnny Cash, and Carpenter nails that one too.

Finally, there's "Girls with Guitars." This song was actually written by Carpenter, so the fact that she's never released it in any version baffles me. Wynonna Judd covered it, and had a Top 10 country hit with it in 1994. Even so, Carpenter should have a least put it on an album. Based on this live version, I think her version would be much better than Judd's. I think it's one of Carpenter's very best songs.

The rest of the songs are all released studio tracks from B-sides, soundtracks, and the like. The sound quality is noticeably better on these than the four live songs from bootlegs. Some of them are cover versions, including an intriguing version of the huge 1960s hit "Downtown" where the tempo is slowed way down.

Personally, I like Carpenter's 1990s era the best. Most of the songs here are upbeat and similar in sound to her big hit album "Come On Come On." I think this is a really solid set of songs.

I've added "That's the Way Love Goes" as a bonus track. For once, it's not due to sound quality issues. Instead, it's because it's a duet between Carpenter and Shawn Colvin, and it's more vocally dominated by Colvin. So it probably belongs on a Colvin album instead. But I figured what the heck, why not include it as a bonus track here anyway.

01 Hearts in Her Eyes (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
02 Party Doll (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
03 Train of Love (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
04 When You Were Mine (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
05 Willie Short (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
06 Girls with Guitars (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
07 Can't Take Love for Granted [Rocking Version] (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
08 10,000 Miles (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
09 Downtown (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
10 Grow Old with Me (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

That's the Way Love Goes (Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZAadR5X8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zQYVrchaS785TvL/file

The cover art photo shows Carpenter at the 1993 Country Music Awards. I found some of the background distracting, so I erased the distracting bits.

In February 2025, I upgraded the cover image with the use of the Krea AI program.

Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack - Voodoo Knife - Selected Best Tracks (1982)

Here's a type of album I almost never do. Some people like to compile albums that never existed, such as picking the best of the Beatles' solo songs to create albums they might have recorded had the Beatles stayed together after 1970. With a few exceptions, such as some of my Crosby, Stills, Nash (and/or) Young albums, I try to stay more grounded in what actually happened. But I'm going to break that rule and make another speculative album.

In 1982, Nick Lowe recorded and released his first true solo album without Rockpile, "Nick the Knife." Also in 1982, Paul Carrack recorded and released his second solo album, "Suburban Voodoo." At first glance, the two albums seemingly have nothing to do with each other. But actually, they're so closely related that I've taken the best songs from both and made one album out of them. I've even combined the two album titles to create the title "Voodoo Knife." It's nonsensical, but it works for me.

So why the heck did I do this? For starters, the exact same band, Noise to Go, which included both Lowe and Carrack, played on all the songs for both albums. Lowe also produced Carrack's album. Furthermore, he wrote or co-wrote six of the songs on it. These two albums were the start of a fruitful collaboration between Lowe and Carrack. From 1982 to 1985, they did all their concert tours together. Lowe had just spent the previous four or five years collaborating with Dave Edmunds and the rest of the band Rockpile, so this was kind of Rockpile 2.0, with Carrack replacing Edmunds.

Furthermore, the two 1982 albums sound united. An AllMusic.com reviewer noted that Carrack's album "sounded very much like a Lowe album with Carrack singing." A Trouser Press reviewer similarly noted that Carrack's album "sounds like the souled-up flipside of 'Nick the Knife' - if anything, it's better. Yet it succeeds because of Lowe's production and composing presence, which complements Carrack's excellent voice with the kind of pop smarts that bring out his best."

On top of all that, both Lowe's and Carrack's albums had a bunch of excellent songs on each album, as well as a few duds on each. If one combines the two albums together, one gets all the good songs while jettisoning the rest. I think Lowe's 1977 album "Jesus of Cool" (a.k.a. "Pure Pop for Now People") and his 1979 album "Labour of Lust" are brilliant five-star albums. By combining the best of Lowe's and Carrack's 1982 albums, I think one gets an album that is very much at that same high level, and in the same rocking, catchy vein.

In putting this album together, I discarded three Lowe songs ("Let Me Kiss Ya," "Zulu Kiss," and "From Now On") and five Carrack songs ("I'm in Love," "What a Way to Go," "So Right, So Wrong," "Call Me Tonight," and "I Found Love"). Note though that Carrack also covered "From Now On," a song Lowe wrote, so it's included here as the Carrack version.

The end result is an album that's 42 minutes long, which is an ideal album length for that era. Lowe and Carrack both get seven songs. Personally, I think that if they'd combined efforts, they would have had a classic album that was a big seller. Instead, their separate 1982 albums just did okay, with the bright spot being Carrack getting a US Top 40 hit with "I Need You" (a song Lowe co-wrote, by the way). I've started the album with "Always Better with You," because that song is on my short list of songs most deserving of being a huge hit if only they'd gotten the right promotion and exposure and so on. It sounds very much like a 1960s Motown hit to my ears.

01 Akways Better with You (Paul Carrack)
02 Burning (Nick Lowe)
03 Lesson in Love (Paul Carrack)
04 Heart (Nick Lowe)
05 I Need You (Paul Carrack)
06 Stick It Where the Sun Don't Shine (Nick Lowe)
07 Queen of Sheba (Nick Lowe)
08 Don't Give My Heart a Break (Paul Carrack)
09 My Heart Hurts (Nick Lowe)
10 A Little Unkind (Paul Carrack)
11 Out of Touch (Paul Carrack)
12 Too Many Teardrops (Nick Lowe)
13 Raining, Raining (Nick Lowe)
14 From Now On (Paul Carrack)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16696726/NICKLWENPULCRRCK1982_VodooKnfeAltrnate_atse.zip.html

The cover art took a lot of work for me to do. Basically, I started with the cover of Carrack's "Suburban Voodoo" album. But I did a lot of rearranging with the yellow circles and new text to fit the new artist names and the new album name. I also removed the photo of Carrack in the middle and replaced it with a photo of Lowe and Carrack together, from around 1982. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any good color photos, so I tinted this one blue.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 6: 1981-1984

Here's the next Bruce Springsteen covers song album.

Springsteen toured in 1981 and again in 1984, so most of the songs here are from those two years. (The two songs from 1982 and 1983 are from guest appearances he did in small clubs.)

Note that the song "Shake" is an edit. It was part of the "Detroit Medley" that he often performs. I edited just that one song out of the longer medley, then added some audience noise at the end. But it's long enough to stand on its own as a song, and not just a snippet.

As usual, unless specified otherwise, all songs were performed with the E Street Band. The two songs from 1982 and 1983 mentioned above actually were done with different bands.

This time around, seven out of the 15 songs have been officially released. But it doesn't make much difference, since all the songs sound great. The two club performances probably sound a little rougher than the rest. Oh, plus, the first two songs, "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)" and "Run through the Jungle," sound a bit rough, and obviously come from audience bootlegs. Plus, Springsteen inexplicably said "Run through THIS Jungle," every single time.

01 Double Shot [Of My Baby's Love] (Bruce Springsteen)
02 Run through the Jungle (Bruce Springsteen)
03 Can't Help Falling in Love (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Follow That Dream (Bruce Springsteen)
05 I Fought the Law (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Jole Blon (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Shake [Edit] (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Sea Cruise (Bruce Springsteen)
09 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Deportee [Plane Wreck at Los Gatos] (Bruce Springsteen)
11 Come On Over to My House (Bruce Springsteen with Cats on a Smooth Surface)
12 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby (Bruce Springsteen with John Eddie)
13 Street Fighting Man (Bruce Springsteen)
14 Travelin' Band (Bruce Springsteen)
15 Jersey Girl (Bruce Springsteen)
16 Trapped (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373078/BRUCSPR1981-1984CovrSngsVol6_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I picked a photo showing Springsteen jumping high in the air. I had to crop it carefully to show how high he's jumping without making his body too small. Hopefully you can see what's going on. The photo was taken at a concert in Oakland in 1981.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 5: 1978-1980

Another day, another Bruce Springsteen covers album. This one covers 1978 to 1980.

I only have a couple of comments this time around. Ten out of the 14 songs are officially released, thanks to the many dozens of albums Springsteen has officially released in recent years. (All of them are digital only, by the way.) But the other four come from soundboards and sound great as well.

Note that the medley "Devil with a Blue Dress On - See See Rider - Good Golly Miss Molly - Jenny Take a Ride" is normally called the "Detroit Medley" by Springsteen fans. Springsteen has played that medley in concert hundreds of times, sometimes with songs added in or removed.

01 Good Rockin' Tonight (Bruce Springsteen)
02 It's My Life (Bruce Springsteen)
03 High School Confidential (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Sweet Little Sixteen (Bruce Springsteen)
05 Night Train (Bruce Springsteen)
06 You Can't Sit Down (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Devil with a Blue Dress On - See See Rider - Good Golly Miss Molly - Jenny Take a Ride (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Stay (Bruce Springsteen with Jackson Browne, Rosemary Butler & Tom Petty)
09 No Money Down (Bruce Springsteen)
10 This Land Is Your Land (Bruce Springsteen)
11 In the Midnight Hour (Bruce Springsteen)
12 Who'll Stop the Rain (Bruce Springsteen)
13 Merry Christmas, Baby (Bruce Springsteen)
14 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373082/BRUCSPR1978-1980CovrSngsVol5_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a concert at the Winterland in San Francisco in December 1978.

Bruce Springsteen - Cover Songs, Volume 4: 1976-1978

Here's the next in my series of Bruce Springsteen cover songs albums. This one covers 1976 to 1978, with most of the songs from 1978. That's good, because many die-hard Springsteen fans say that 1978 was the peak year for his live performances.

There's not much to say this time around. But I should mention something about one of the songs, "Heart Full of Soul." Springsteen never actually played this song in concert. Instead, this recording comes from on on-stage rehearsal that somehow got bootlegged. The recording isn't as good as the other songs, but hopefully it's good enough. I added crowd noise at the end, so it would fit in with the other songs.

Six of the 15 performances here have been officially released. Most of the rest sound just as good, but a couple sound a little worse than the others. "Honky Tonk" had a half-minute section in the middle where the volume dropped dramatically for no reason (and I'm sure that was due to the recording, not the performance). I think I fixed that.

Also, I want to take a moment to credit a couple of websites that helped me in the making of this album series. One is "Brucebase." I probably wouldn't have done the series at all, or at least done it badly, had it not been for that resource, which is like a Wikipedia for Springsteen concert information. It can be found here:

http://brucebase.wikidot.com/

The other webiste I want to mention is called "Covered by Bruce Springsteen." It's an entire website devoted just to documenting the cover songs he's played. That helped me figure out which songs to include. You can find it here:

https://www.coveredbybrucespringsteen.com/

01 We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Bruce Springsteen)
02 A Fine Fine Girl (Bruce Springsteen)
03 Mona (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Little Latin Lupe Lu (Bruce Springsteen)
05 Heart Full of Soul (Bruce Springsteen)
06 Heartbreak Hotel (Bruce Springsteen)
07 Rave On (Bruce Springsteen)
08 Raise Your Hand (Bruce Springsteen)
09 Honky Tonk (Bruce Springsteen)
10 Around and Around (Bruce Springsteen)
11 Not Fade Away (Bruce Springsteen)
12 Oh Boy (Bruce Springsteen)
13 Summertime Blues (Bruce Springsteen)
14 Twist and Shout (Bruce Springsteen)
15 Having a Party (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes & Bruce Springsteen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373084/BRUCSPR1976-1978CovrSngsVol4_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo of Springsteen in 1976.

The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton - I'm Your Witchdoctor - Non-Album Tracks (1965-1966)

I just posted an album of BBC performances by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton. As I explained in that post, the 2006 deluxe edition of that band's "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton" album included a long bonus disc of extra tracks. I decided it makes better listening to split that in two, along with adding some extra tracks. So that BBC album I just posted is the first part of that split, and this album is the second.

So what's on this album? I've used it as a catch-all of everything Clapton did with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers while he was a part of that band in 1965 and 1966. The first five songs are studio tracks. Four of those are A-sides and B-sides.

The next six songs are live tracks. They were professionally recorded for a live album that never got released. So their sound quality is excellent, although, oddly, there's virtually no audience noise at the end of each song. Instead, for most of them, there's some brief talking by band members that quickly fades out. Musically, I think these live tracks are the best part of this album. Clapton is able to stretch out with some great guitar soloing. Also note that Jack Bruce plays bass on these live tracks, but not with anything else recorded by the Bluesbreakers. Of course, Bruce and Clapton would go on to form Cream with Ginger Baker shortly after Clapton left the Bluesbreakers.

Finally, I've ended the album with three songs from a group known as "the Powerhouse." This is kind of an oddity. They weren't a real band; they were a group of musicians who got together one time only to record these three songs for a various artists compilation called "What's Shakin'." I figure they belong here more than anywhere else because they feature Clapton on guitar, and they were recorded in early 1966 while Clapton was still a part of the Bluesbreakers. In addition to Clapton on guitar, the songs feature Steve Winwood on vocals, Jack Bruce on bass, Paul Jones on harmonica, Pete York on drums, and Ben Palmer on piano.

It turns out this album is longer than the BBC Sessions one, at 48 minutes long. By putting the BBC performances on a separate album, I was able to avoid instances of the same song appearing on one album.

01. I'm Your Witchdoctor (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
02. Telephone Blues (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
03. On Top of the World (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
04. Lonely Years (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
05. Bernard Jenkins (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
06. Call It Stormy Monday (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
07. Intro into Maudie (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
08. It Hurts to Be in Love (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
09. Have You Ever Loved a Woman (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
10. Bye Bye Bird (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
11. Hoochie Coochie Man (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
12. Steppin' Out [Instrumental] (Steve Winwood & the Powerhouse)
13. I Want to Know (Steve Winwood & the Powerhouse)
14. Crossroads (Steve Winwood & the Powerhouse)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266625/TBluesbreakrs_1965-1966_ImYurWitchdoctor_atse.zip.html

I put some extra effort into the cover art in order to make it appear like an album that could have been released in 1966 or thereabouts. I used the cover to the "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton" album as a rough guide. I found a different photo of the band from that time period as the central focus.

The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton - BBC Sessions, 1965-1966

In March 1965, Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds because he felt they were becoming too poppy and commercial, and he wanted to play the blues. He joined John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers one month later, and stayed with them through July 1966. The best result of Clapton's time with the Bluesbreakers is the 1966 album "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton," also known as "The Beano Album."

But they recorded a lot of other music too. Nearly all of this was released as bonus material on the deluxe edition of that album in 2006. However, I felt the way that extra material is presented is not ideal. Extra studio tracks, live tracks, and BBC tracks were all put on one long bonus CD, mixed together without much logic.

So instead, I've split that extra stuff into two albums. This one contains all the BBC material, and the other one contains the rest. 

Thankfully, there was only one instance of BBC DJs talking over the music this time around, for the song "Burning My Fingers." So I did my usual thing of using the X-Minus audio editing program to remove the DJ talking. I suspect only one song was affected because the sessions were not for the usual pop-oriented BBC shows - one of the shows they did was called "Jazz Beat." It seems the DJs for those shows were more respectful of the music.

However, the vast majority of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles, not just that one. That's because I noticed that Mayall's voice was relatively low in the mix. I'm not a fan of Mayall's singing at all, but I don't like hearing a bad mix with the vocals too low. So I used X-Minus to boost his vocals for all the songs that have vocals.

I know that some people are more fans of Clapton than Mayall. (I'm one of them.) So this features just the BBC sessions where Clapton played guitar. (At the point in his career, he did almost no lead vocals.) 

Note that Clapton semi-quit the Bluesbreakers for the month of October 1965, and that happened to be when another BBC session took place. A guitarist by the name of Jeff Kribit from the little-known Dr. K's Blues Band took Clapton's place for the session. So I have not included those songs here ("Nowhere to Turn," "Cheatin' Woman," and "I'm Your Witchdoctor"). They're included on a different John Mayall BBC sessions album I've posted.

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 Crawling Up a Hill [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
02 Heartache [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
03 Crocodile Walk [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
04 Bye Bye Bird [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
05 Little Girl [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
06 Hideaway [Instrumental] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
07 Tears in My Eyes [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
08 Parchman Farm [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
09 Burning My Fingers [Burned My Fingers] [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
10 All Your Love [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
11 Steppin' Out [Instrumental] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
12 On Top of the World [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)
13 Key to Love [Edit] (Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266619/TBluesbreakrs_1965-1966_BBSessions_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I started with an alternate cover to the "Beano" album that was released only in certain markets, and inverted the colors. I liked how it looked. Then I replaced the photo with another one of the band. Finally, I fiddled with the text some, moving parts around and adding Clapton's name and the BBC title.

Fairport Convention - Reynardine - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1969

It's been a long time since I've posted any Fairport Convention, but I get around to everything on my "to do" list eventually. Here's the next from their late 1960s/early 1970s heyday, when both Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny were still in the band.

This is another album of BBC performances. The band has lots of great BBC material. It was enough for a four CD box set just of BBC stuff, and that didn't even cover all of it. I've taken that and broken it into more manageable album-length chunks of about 40 to 45 minutes each, organized chronologically.

The first seven songs here come from the box set I'd just mentioned. The last two are still officially unreleased. They're not actually from BBC performances. Instead, they were private rehearsals. But they sound just like the other tracks in terms of stellar sound quality as well as a lack of any audience noise. Plus, they're both key songs that don't duplicate any of the others. So I've added them in.

01 Autopsy (Fairport Convention)
02 Si Tu Dois Partir (Fairport Convention)
03 Percy's Song (Fairport Convention)
04 Reynardine (Fairport Convention)
05 Tam Lin (Fairport Convention)
06 Sir Patrick Spens (Fairport Convention)
07 The Lark in the Morning - Rakish Paddy - Foxhunter's Jig - Toss the Feathers (Fairport Convention)
08 Come All Ye (Fairport Convention)
09 Farewell, Farewell (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115379/FairprtC_1969d_ReynrdineBBSessionsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo needs some explanation, because I did some editing. It's of Fairport Convention in concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 1969. It features Sandy Denny in the foreground, with Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol in the background. The tricky bit is that it's actually two photos combined. One photo was pretty much like this, except Denny's head was bowed down in a strange position. I found another photo from the same series that had her head up in a much better way, but it was a close-up that didn't have Thompson and Nicol in the background. So I basically pasted in her head and part of her upper body from the close-up photo to overlay her bent head and create a better picture. The reason I did all that is because I've found very few good photos of the band in their heyday, especially in color.