Morgan James - Quarantunes, Volume 2 (2020)

In early 2020, shortly after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Morgan James posted 100 cover songs in 100 days, which she called "Quarantunes." All of them were performed with just her husband Doug Wamble on acoustic guitar. I've already posted Volume 1, and I have a bunch more to go. Here's Volume 2.

Hopefully I don't have to write much here because by now you should be familiar with Morgan James' musical style and voice, as well as the kind of songs she typically covers. 

This is the usual eclectic mix from her, with lots of songs one wouldn't typically expect to be done in the solo acoustic format.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 I Touch Myself - Divinyls
02 Crazy - Seal
03 One - U2
04 The Waiting - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
05 For All We Know - Hal Kemp / Isham Jones
06 The Nearness of You - Hoagy Carmichael & Ned Washington
07 American Tune - Paul Simon
08 Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell
09 Seven Days - Sting
10 Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House
11 Someday We'll All Be Free - Donny Hathaway
12 Ordinary World - Duran Duran
13 17 Days - Prince 

Here's the usual song list.

01 I Touch Myself (Morgan James)
02 Crazy (Morgan James)
03 One (Morgan James)
04 The Waiting (Morgan James)
05 For All We Know (Morgan James)
06 The Nearness of You (Morgan James)
07 American Tune (Morgan James)
08 Big Yellow Taxi (Morgan James)
09 Seven Days (Morgan James)
10 Don't Dream It's Over (Morgan James)
11 Someday We'll All Be Free (Morgan James)
12 Ordinary World (Morgan James)
13 17 Days (Morgan James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15267088/MorganJ_2020_QuarantnesVolume2_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art photo by taking a screenshot from one of the videos of the songs here.

Bobbie Gentry - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967-1968

I'm continue to prioritize posting BBC sessions whenever I can. In making these, I've noticed that the vast majority of artists with enough material for BBC albums are British. Of course that makes sense for logistical reasons. But there are a few exceptions, usually American artists. Surprisingly, Bobbie Gentry is one of them. It seems she had an occasional BBC TV show. It only ran an average of couple of times a year for about three years, but she performed a lot of songs per episode.

There is an official Bobbie Gentry BBC album. Also, the 2018 box set "The Girl from Chickasaw County" included all the BBC performances from that, plus more. However, they missed a lot. I found lots of other performances she did for BBC TV and other TV shows, enough for three albums. I'm not sure why some of these haven't been officially released, as some of them come from the exact same BBC TV episodes as some songs that were released. But for whatever reason, I'm fixing that here. However, as usual, I'm only including one version of each song. That's especially important in her case, or I'd end up with a bunch of different versions of "Ode to Bobby Joe."

Gentry has a relatively limited discography, since she only put out albums from 1967 to 1971, then a small trickle of songs after that. So it's a pleasant surprise for me to find that she did a lot of songs on her BBC TV show and other TV shows that she never did in the studio.  As an example, consider that the first six of seven songs here were never officially released in any format back in the day, and all seven still remain unreleased.

I've included two songs only as bonus tracks. The bonus track version of "Louisiana Man" was performed just by Gentry. But I've included a different version that was a duet between her and the Hollies that I think is more interesting. Still, since the other version has been officially released, I figure it at least merits inclusion as a bonus track. The song "My Dog Sargent" is kind of a jokey lark of a song that she wrote when she was a little kid. I don't consider it worthy of repeat listenings, but it has been officially released as a BBC performance, so I included it as a bonus track. 

This album is 55 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

UPDATE: On February 10, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I added three songs that I'd missed, all unreleased performances from her BBC TV show. (They're the last three tracks.) I also got rid of the audience cheering for the few songs that had cheering.

01 The Look of Love (Bobbie Gentry)
02 Lazy Willie (Bobbie Gentry)
03 The Story I'm about to Tell You [The Ballad of High Noon] (Bobbie Gentry)
04 I Wonder as I Wander (Bobbie Gentry)
05 Peaceful (Bobbie Gentry)
06 Bugs (Bobbie Gentry & Donovan)
07 There Is a Mountain (Bobbie Gentry & Donovan)
08 Mornin' Glory (Bobbie Gentry)
09 Sunday Best (Bobbie Gentry)
10 Hurry, Tuesday Child (Bobbie Gentry)
11 Louisiana Man (Bobbie Gentry & the Hollies)
12 Mississippi Delta (Bobbie Gentry)
13 Papa, Won't You Let Me Go to Town with You (Bobbie Gentry)
14 I Saw an Angel Die (Bobbie Gentry)
15 Ode to Billie Joe (Bobbie Gentry)
16 You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' (Bobbie Gentry & Long John Baldry)
17 Come Away Melinda (Bobbie Gentry)
18 Here, There and Everywhere (Bobbie Gentry)

Louisiana Man (Bobbie Gentry)
My Dog Sargent (Bobbie Gentry)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9snM2azf

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ly9rBsZFLPsXksh/file

The image I chose for the cover art doesn't have the best resolution. But I chose it because it actually comes from one of her 1967 BBC TV shows. I took a screenshot from a video of her playing "Ode to Billy Joe." In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the help of the Krea AI program.

Joe Cocker - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 10-19-1969

As I mentioned in a previous post, in my opinion, the peak years in Joe Cocker's long career was from about 1968 to 1971. There's only two really good live recordings from this time period that are widely available. One is his 1969 Woodstock appearance. That's great, but it's a relatively short concert, since there were lots of other big acts on the bill. The other is the official "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" album documenting his 1970 tour. But that was with a new band and many new songs compared to what he'd done in 1968 and 1969. I wanted a good live album from him with the band he got famous with, the Grease Band.

Luckily, I've been able to find one excellent sounding bootleg from that time. On top of that, there are a few live songs from that time that have come out here and there on official archival releases. So I've used the bootleg (from the Fillmore West) as the basis of this album, then I've added in the other songs at the end. All together, this makes for an hour and 48 minutes of music, which is enough for what would have been a full concert back in those days, even though this one does come from multiple sources. (Note that I didn't use any of the exact performances from the Woodstock show, since that's a fine show all by itself.)

When I first posted this album in 2021, I didn't include the first two songs: "Do I Still Figure in Your Life," "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window." That's because they sounded much worse than the others, especially with very low vocals. But I later discovered versions of those songs where someone else patched in vocals from a different 1969 performance. That sounds exactly like something I'd do, but it wasn't me this time, but someone named Mr. Sifter. Anyway, they've been added in, and that's why those two have "[Edit]" in their titles. 

It's likely there was more at the start of the concert, since there's no proper into to it, but I don't know how many other songs might be missing. Similarly, the end of the concert was cut off, and we don't know what songs were played there either, though I would bet that "With a Little Help from My Friends" was one of them.

"I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Hitchcock Railway" were also recorded at the Fillmore West, and in the same month. But I don't know the exact date, and he played several nights of shows there, so I don't know if those are from the exact same concert or not. "Dear Landlord" comes from an archival release with poor documentation, so I only know they come from a concert in Detroit in 1969. 

Finally, how could I post a Joe Cocker concert from 1969 without including "With a Little Help from My Friends?" But the different sources I used didn't have that, strangely enough. To include a fitting version of that, I had to go back a little further in time, to a concert played in France in December 1968 and broadcast on French TV at the time. You can find video of it on YouTube. It's interesting, because it must have been recorded before he hit it big, since it shows him playing in a small club of only a hundred people or so.

There's only one sonic snag that bugs me with this concert, and that's that for many of the songs, the audience applause gets cut off quickly and/or isn't very loud. That's probably a consequence of these being soundboard recordings designed to capture the band on stage and not the audience. Happily though, it seems most or all of Cocker's banter between songs was captured, though I sometimes had to raise the volume of those a lot, resulting in some static for those bits.

Personally, I like this concert recording better than the famous "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" one. That album features a cast of thousands, almost literally. It was a huge band, with dozens of members, resulting in a full sound. Plus, many of the songs had other people guesting on lead vocals. This is just Cocker and a relatively small band, and I like hearing him better this way. 

UPDATE: On January 24, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. I added two songs at the beginning, "Do I Still Figure in Your Life" and "She Came in through the Bathroom Window," as I explained above. And I removed a different version of "Do I Still Figure in Your Life" from later in the album, since that one wasn't from this exact concert.

01 talk (Joe Cocker)
02 Do I Still Figure in Your Life [Edit] (Joe Cocker)
03 She Came in through the Bathroom Window [Edit] (Joe Cocker)
04 talk (Joe Cocker)
05 Let It Be (Joe Cocker)
06 talk (Joe Cocker)
07 The Letter (Joe Cocker)
08 talk (Joe Cocker)
09 Something (Joe Cocker)
10 talk (Joe Cocker)
11 Feelin' Alright (Joe Cocker)
12 Something to Say (Joe Cocker)
13 talk (Joe Cocker)
14 Something's Coming On (Joe Cocker)
15 talk (Joe Cocker)
16 Bye Bye Blackbird (Joe Cocker)
17 talk (Joe Cocker)
18 Let's Go Get Stoned - Slow Down - Let's Go Get Stoned (Joe Cocker)
19 I Shall Be Released (Joe Cocker)
20 I Don't Need No Doctor (Joe Cocker)
21 talk (Joe Cocker)
22 Hitchcock Railway (Joe Cocker)
23 talk (Joe Cocker)
24 Dear Landlord (Joe Cocker)
25 With a Little Help from My Friends (Joe Cocker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fYmdMFu5

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/EjoQTDnGZj2PPAD/file

The cover art photo comes from a 1969 concert, but I don't know which one.

Various Artists - Covered: Neil Diamond, Volume 2: 1970-2019

While I'm at it, here's the second of two of my "Covered" series albums for Neil Diamond.

As I explained with the first volume, I music prefer the poppy music from early in Diamond's career, when he did songs like "I'm a Believer" and "Cherry, Cherry," to his later focus on cheesy ballads like "Don't Bring Me Flowers" and "Heartlight." So you won't find covers of either of those latter two hits here, or some others like them. In some cases, I did pick some of his more mellow songs, but I generally went with rocking versions.

If there's any classic song you feel was unjustly left off this album and Volume 1, please let me know. But hopefully also let me know of a good cover version of that song. If you do, I will strongly consider adding it in. 

All the songs here have been officially released, except for the Gladys Knight version of "Love on the Rocks." I like that song and wanted to include it, but I had a hard time finding a version that wasn't overproduced and cheesy. I found a YouTube video of Knight doing the song for a TV show, and converted it to mp3. The Elvis Presley version of "Sweet Caroline" is from a concert album, but I minimized the audience noise to help it fit in with the other studio tracks.

This album is 44 minutes long. Volume 1 is just a little bit longer.

01 Sweet Caroline (Elvis Presley)
02 Song Sung Blue (Vikki Carr)
03 Play Me (Harry Belafonte)
04 I Am... I Said (Bunny Scott)
05 Sunflower (Glen Campbell)
06 Forever in Blue Jeans (Tommy Overstreet)
07 Love on the Rocks (Gladys Knight)
08 Red, Red Wine (UB40)
09 Solitary Man (Chris Isaak)
10 Cracklin' Rosie (Shane MacGowan & the Popes)
11 Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon (Urge Overkill)
12 America (Me First & the Gimme Gimmes)
13 Hello Again (Fun Lovin' Criminals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uWmd1saT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rnJaRCdgNxj5R8h/file

The cover art photo dates to 1979.

Various Artists - Covered: Neil Diamond, Volume 1: 1964-1970

I've realized lately I have a lot of artists to add to my "Covered" series. I still have some more who started their careers before the 1960s, but I was listening to this one yesterday and feel like posting it now. 

Generally speaking, this series focuses on songwriters who aren't famous for performing their own songs. Neil Diamond doesn't fit this rule. He has had massive success on his own. Yet he also started out as a stereotypical Brill Building professional songwriter for others, much like Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, and so on. So I've collected two albums of songs that treats Neil Diamond solely as a songwriter, with none of his own performances included. If you like his music career, this may allow you to enjoy his songs in a different way. If you are put off by his slick, show-biz presentation and don't like his records, this may allow you to realize how good many of his songs are anyway.

Neil Diamond (his birth name, by the way) released his first solo single in 1962. But his early solo efforts went nowhere. Instead, he started making his way in the music business as a professional songwriter, working in the Brill Building with the other songwriters mentioned above. He began having success on his own with "Solitary Man" in 1966. That same year, he found huge success as a songwriter when the Monkees covered his song "I'm a Believer," turning it into the biggest selling song of the year. Over the next few years, the songs he did for others went down because he had more and more hits on his own.

When it comes to his music, I much prefer his poppy late 1960s style over his sappy ballads with increasingly predominated in the 1970s and afterwards. I have included some of the best of his slower material, but I often chose cover versions which treated the songs very differently. His songs have often been done in very different ways, with reggae artists in particular often covering his songs.

Some of his biggest early hits aren't included here. That's because I chose covers of them that were done many years later. Those will turn up on Volume 2.

I tried not to include more than one song by the same artist. But I bent that rule in a couple of cases. For instance, the Monkees did such definitive versions of three of his songs that I had to use their versions for all three. I also have included two songs done by Elvis Presley, though only one of them appears on this album.

01 Just Another Guy (Cliff Richard)
02 Sunday and Me (Jay & the Americans)
03 I'm a Believer (Monkees)
04 Love to Love (Thyme)
05 A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You (Monkees)
06 The Boat that I Row (Lulu)
07 Look Out [Here Comes Tomorrow] (Monkees)
08 It Comes and Goes (Melodians)
09 You Got to Me (Gene Pierson)
10 Kentucky Woman (Deep Purple)
11 And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind (Elvis Presley)
12 Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show (Peggy Lee)
13 The Boy with the Green Eyes (Wool)
14 Cherry, Cherry (Jonathan King)
15 Holly Holy (Fabulous Flames)
16 Glory Road (Arthur Alexander)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/o1Fb67V9

alternate link:

https://bestfile.io/en/3BhBdOQrkC12Ar0/file

Normally, I only colorize a photo for an album cover if a good color one doesn't already exist. There are tons of photos of Neil Diamond, obviously. But for this album I wanted a photo of him when he was just starting out. The best photo I could find from that time was in black and white, apparently dating to 1966. So I colorized it. 

I find it amusing to think how this straight-laced looking guy in his three-piece suit would have long hair, open shirts, and lots of Las Vegas glitter and glamour not that many years later. 

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Joe Cocker - Something's Coming On - Non-Album Tracks (1963-1969)

In 1968, Joe Cocker seemingly came out of nowhere with his version of the Beatles song "With a Little Help from My Friends." It went to number one in Britain and some other countries. But in fact, his musical career had started years before; it's just that he'd had very little success up until that point. He's a stray tracks collection dealing with his early years.

Joe Cocker was his real name. But around 1960, he started a musical career using the name Vance Arnold. For simplicity's sake, I'm using his real name for all the songs here. The first eight songs date to 1963 and 1964, during his "Vance Arnold" phase. In my opinion, his voice doesn't have his distinctive gruffness. These are generally basic R&B covers, nothing to get that excited about. His one chance for an early break was with a cover of the Beatles song "I'll Cry Instead." It was released as an A-side in 1964, and his record company heavily promoted it. But it didn't even make the charts, and the record company dropped him.

Cocker took at least a year off from his music career around 1966. When he came back, he started using his real name and had a new band. The next two songs here, "I've Been Trying" and "Saved," are extremely rare. I could barely find any versions on the Internet, and the one I did find was filled with pops and scratches. Luckily, my musical friend MZ sent me a very good sounding copy without those problems. They're live tracks from an obscure EP featuring multiple artists called "Rag Goes Mad at the Mojo."

The rest of the songs here are from the beginning of Cocker being famous. You could start to hear the voice he became known for with the 1967 EP songs, but the rest definitely sound like the Cocker you'd expect. Three songs are B-sides to his singles in 1968 and 1969. The last two come from an archival box set and date to 1969.

All or nearly all of the songs here are covers. As I said above, the songs from 1963 and 1964 aren't that great, but they have their moments. The rest though, are definitely prime Joe Cocker. I'm not a fan of much of his long career (he died in 2014 at the age of 70), but I really like what he did from around 1968 to 1971, when he was most heavily influenced by R&B music. I plan on posting a couple more albums from him that all focus on this period (BBC sessions and live stuff). I don't plan on posting any more stray tracks albums dealing with the early 1970s onwards though, especially since I didn't see much of note that didn't get on his studio albums in those years.

That's not to say the rest of his career is without merit, because he had a decent share of good songs. I've already posted a 1983 benefit concert featuring lots of big names, that includes about half an hour of Cocker singing while backed on lead guitar by Eric Clapton. So if you're a fan of his stuff, you should check that out here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/01/various-artists-arms-benefit-concert_11.html

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Sixteen Tons (Joe Cocker)
02 Money [That's What I Want] (Joe Cocker)
03 Georgia on My Mind (Joe Cocker)
04 Ride On Josephine (Joe Cocker)
05 You Better Move On (Joe Cocker)
06 You Win Again (Joe Cocker)
07 I'll Cry Instead (Joe Cocker)
08 Those Precious Little Words (Joe Cocker)
09 I've Been Trying (Joe Cocker)
10 Saved (Joe Cocker)
11 The New Age of Lily (Joe Cocker)
12 Something's Coming On (Joe Cocker)
13 She's Good to Me (Joe Cocker)
14 Wake Up Little Susie (Joe Cocker)
15 The Weight (Joe Cocker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yaYkNJ7a

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WJ19iKlpvSJm9hq/file

I don't know what year the cover art photo dates from, or any other details about it. But based on his looks, haircut, and clothes, I would guess it's from around 1968. In 1969, his hair got a lot longer and he began wearing hippie-styled clothes. I added the record company logo because at least some versions of his first couple of albums in the late 1960s had that logo on it.

Oh, I forgot to mention this photo was originally in black and white, but I colorized it. I also later improved it with the Krea AI program.

The Faces - Shake, Shudder, Shiver - Non-Album Tracks (1969-1970)

This is the first album I've posted by the Faces. There will be many more to come. I have four stray tracks albums (this being one of them), and seven BBC albums. If you don't know already, the Faces morphed out of the Small Faces. Key singer and songwriter Ronnie Lane remained, but the main lead singer and songwriter Steve Marriott was replaced by Rod Stewart. From 1970 to 1975, Stewart essentially had two musical careers going on at once, as a solo artist and as a member of the Faces. But during those years, all of his concerts were done solely with the Faces.

Before I continue, I just want to point out that, yes, I know that technically the band is known as "Faces," not "the Faces." But I'm sorry, I can't do that because it doesn't sound right to me. In the same way, the Eagles will always be the Eagles (and not the technically correct "Eagles." If you start a band and you name it the plural of a noun, expect people to put a "the" there.

Anyway, the Faces have lots of stray tracks. I'm using the rule of not including any versions from Rod Stewart or Ronnie Lane solo albums. But if the Faces did a different version of one of those songs in concert or at the BBC or something like that, I would use that.

The first three songs here are studio rehearsals done back in 1969, while the band was working on their first album. Unfortunately, even though these come from the band's official box set "Five Guys Walk into a Bar..." the sound quality isn't great. In particular, the lead vocals are low in the mix. I felt obliged to include them, since they are stray tracks. Happily, the sound improves for the rest of the album.

Most of the remaining songs are B-sides or bonus tracks. One song, "Blues Deluxe (Gambler's Blues)" is unreleased. It's a song Stewart used to sing with the Jeff Beck Group. That one, plus the last two, were recorded in concert.

In my opinion, this album has it's moments, but it's not great. I feel the band was finding itself, and would soon get much better. 

01 I Feel So Good (Faces)
02 Shake, Shudder, Shiver (Faces)
03 Evil (Faces)
04 Behind the Sun (Faces)
05 Rear Wheel Skid [Instrumental] (Faces)
07 Blues Deluxe [Gambler's Blues] (Faces)
08 Love in Vain (Faces)
09 Too Much Woman [For a Henpecked Man] (Faces)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116246/TFacs_1969-1970_ShkeShudderShiver_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in May, 1970.

Dennis Wilson - Bambu - Alternate Version (1979)

I wasn't sure whether to post this album or not, because it's kind of been officially released. But then again, kind of not. (I'll explain more below.) But before I leave the Beach Boys' 1970s music, I decided to post this after all. I figure if I don't, many people are likely to overlook it.

Before I go on, let me make clear that Dennis Wilson was one of the original members of the Beach Boys, if you don't know that already. He was the brother to the band's main songwriter, Brian Wilson, and also brother to arguably the band's best singer, Carl Wilson. At first, for most of the 1960s, Dennis was mostly along for the ride as the band's drummer. But he slowly developed into an excellent singer and songwriter. He was very much in a similar role as George Harrison of the Beatles though, because the other members of the band didn't fully appreciate his talents and usually only allotted him one or two songs per album. He put out one solo album in 1977,  "Pacific Ocean Blue." It's great. In my opinion it's easily the best solo album by any of the Beach Boys, including being better than any of Brian Wilson's many solo albums. But it was little noticed at the time, though it has slowly gained a following over the decades.

Dennis attempted to record a follow-up solo album, to be called "Bambu." (Apparently that was named after cigarette rolling paper and not the Asian plant.) It was more or less finished in 1979. But he was a tortured soul, and his life was slowly falling apart, helped along by lots and lots of drugs. He never got his act together enough to definitively finish it and release it. Things spiraled further down for him after that. He died at the end of 1983 due to drowning while drunk, but if that didn't kill him something else probably would have before long, because his life was so out of control by then. 

Now, let me explain when I said this album has kind of been officially released. In 2008, a deluxe edition of "Pacific Ocean Blue" came out, and all of "Bambu" was included as a second disc. Then, in 2017, a vinyl album version of "Bambu" was released for a limited time as part of that year's Record Store Day. So it's out there, but you couldn't go out and buy just that album in a store today. 

To make matters worse, the 2008 and 2017 versions are different, with differing song orders and a few songs on one but not the other, and vice versa. Personally, I think both versions are imperfect. The main issue for me is they have some songs, mostly instrumentals, that aren't as good as the rest, such as "Common," "Album Tag Song," and "Piano Variations on Thoughts of You." I've honed it down to what would have made the best album of 45 minutes or less, which was the typical length of that era.

Note that I also didn't include "Love Surrounds Me," because it was included on the 1979 Beach Boys album "L.A. (Light Album)." He also donated "Baby Blue" to that album. However, there's an alternate version to that song that's pretty good and somewhat different, so I've added that at the end as a quasi-bonus track.

Also, I've included a slightly different version of "Constant Companion" from a bootleg. Most of it is identical to the official version, but there's an extra instrumental section that's about 15 seconds long at the end.

A lot of people think that everything good the Beach Boys did was due to the genius of Brian Wilson. And while Brian undoubtedly was a genius, most of the band's songs after 1967 were written by other band members. In a better world, the Beach Boys could have been mainly led by Dennis Wilson from the mid-1970s onwards, if his personal demons hadn't gotten the best of him. As Fleetwood Mac songwriter Lindsey Buckingham said of him, "I knew him pretty well... He was crazy, just like a lot of other people, but he had a really big heart, and he was the closest thing to Brian there was too. He was halfway there."

If you're not aware of Dennis Wilson's solo work already, I hope you'll check this out, and also listen to "Pacific Ocean Blue."

01 Under the Moonlight (Dennis Wilson)
02 It's Not Too Late (Dennis Wilson)
03 Love Remember Me (Dennis Wilson)
04 Wild Situation (Dennis Wilson)
05 Are You Real (Dennis Wilson)
06 He's a Bum (Dennis Wilson)
07 Cocktails (Dennis Wilson)
08 I Love You (Dennis Wilson)
09 Constant Companion [Alternate Version] (Dennis Wilson)
10 Time for Bed (Dennis Wilson)
11 All Alone (Dennis Wilson)
12 Mexico [Edit] [Instrumental] (Dennis Wilson)
13 Baby Blue [Alternate Version] (Dennis Wilson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700626/TBECHBYS1979_BmbuAlternte_atse.zip.html

The album cover is the same as the 2017 version, mostly. I tweaked with the contrast to make it sharper. I also removed the text "The Caribou Sessions" from under the word "Bambu," since I thought that was unnecessary.

Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1966-1968

Here's the first of two albums of BBC sessions for Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity. 

Sadly, like too many 1960s musical artists these days, this band's BBC recordings still remain entirely unreleased (unless you count "grey market" releases, which I don't). Also, I couldn't find some key songs I figured belonged in a collection like this (such as "Save Me," which they frequently did live). So while a majority of the songs here are from BBC sessions, I went looking for other TV or radio appearances and added the good songs I could find from those. All of those performances also remain officially unreleased (again, unless you could the grey market releases). It seems this band was especially popular in France, because most of the extra songs I found come from French TV shows. 

The first song is from a BBC session in 1966 that took place without Julie Driscoll. Tracks 2 through 4 are from a late 1967 BBC session. Tracks 5 through 7 are from two French TV shows and a British TV show. Tracks 8 and 9 plus track 12 are from three different BBC sessions in 1968. That just leaves tracks 10 and 11, which are from another French TV show.

The sound quality for these is usually very good, but not always excellent. Some are a bit muddy. Also, a handful of the actual BBC performances suffered the usual problem of BBC DJs talking over the beginnings or ends of songs. You can see which ones I fixed due to the "[Edit]" markings in their names. I used the X-Minus sound editing program to wipe the talking while keeping the underlying music.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 She's a Woman [Instrumental] (Brian Auger & the Trinity)
02 A Kind of Love-In [Edit] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
03 A New Awakening [Edit] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
04 Shadows of You [Edit] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
05 Tramp (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
06 Save Me (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
07 Season of the Witch (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
08 Why [Am I Treated So Bad] [Edit] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
09 This Wheel's on Fire [Edit] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
10 A Day in the Life [Instrumental] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
11 Bumpin' on Sunset [Instrumental] (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
12 The Road to Cairo (Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SmYJx2yX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/aAuhMMXS4ja8lG5/file

For the two stray tracks albums I made, I used cover photos of only Driscoll and Auger. But for this one, I found a photo of the whole band. I don't know when or when it's from exactly. I changed the color of the background curtains a bit to better fit with the other colors. I later used the Krea AI program to improve the quality.

Aimee Mann - Murder Backstage - Non-Album Tracks (2014-2019) (NOTE: sound quality warning)

I have to start my comments with a big fat WARNING: the sound quality for this album is not up to my usual standards! If you're familiar with this blog, you've probably noticed that I try to maintain certain a sound quality level, but sometimes there's a song or two just below that that is still interesting, so I include those as bonus tracks. Well, this is basically an entire album of songs at the bonus track level. Most of these come from audience bootlegs that are somewhat muddy or muffled, and/or have some crowd noise through the song. There still are a lot of great Aimee Mann songs here though, some of them very amusing. So you may want to give this a listen, at least once, if you're a fan of her music. But beware of the sound quality issue.

I just posted another Aimee Mann stray tracks album covering largely the same time period, which I call "Can't You Tell." Basically, I put all the excellent sounding songs on that one, and all the dodgy sounding ones here. 

Why are there so many songs with iffy sound from these years? I think there are two reasons. The first is that Aimee Mann has taken part in an annual Christmas concert each year with lots of unique songs, especially comedic and/or parody songs. Six of the songs here come from two of those concerts, but all I've been able to find are audience bootlegs that don't sound that great. That's too bad, because some of the songs are freaking hilarious. I especially enjoy her parody of her big hit "Voices Carry" with her 1980s band Til Tuesday, called "This Is Gary." And there's a parody of the hit musical song "Jesus Christ Superstar" that gets Jesus and Santa Claus all mixed up, called "Jesus Claus Santa Christ." It would be great to hear a better version of these where the words were clearer. If you know of such a recording, please let me know.

The other main problem is that Mann has been in the habit of taking part in yearly musical cruise ship voyages, like many other famous people do recently. She tends to play some unusual songs on that cruises, especially as she has a tradition of singing a song by famous musicians who died in the past year. She did that here with four covers. Unfortunately, these cruises are usually poorly bootlegged by people with cell phones, if they get bootlegged at all. There were a bunch of additional songs I didn't even include here because the sound quality was worse. 

So yeah, be warned. But if you don't mind the rough sound, there are many good performances here. I think having all of these together helps, so hopefully you adjust to the sound quality issue instead of having jarring switching from excellent to dodgy sound and back again repeatedly.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Give Me Another Chance (Aimee Mann & Susanna Hoffs)
02 Murder Backstage [Baby it's Cold Outside] (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
03 What Are You Doing New Year's Eve (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
04 It's Christmas Time (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
05 This Is Gary [Voices Carry] (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
06 Jesus Claus Santa Christ [Jesus Christ Superstar] (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
07 Calling On Mary [Acappella Version] (Aimee Mann)
08 Queen Jane Approximately (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
09 Keep the Customer Satisfied (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann] with John Roderick)
10 Love Is All Around (Aimee Mann)
11 Wichita Lineman (Aimee Mann)
12 Life of Bug (Aimee Mann)
13 Sister Golden Hair (Aimee Mann & Jonathan Coulton)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687560/AIMEMNN2014-2019_MurdrBackstage_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a 2014 news article about that year's Christmas concert. I cropped it from a larger photo that had Ted Leo, her musical partner in the band the Both, in it. I believe the colorful animals were added in after the fact, but not by me. There are more added Christmas-y elements like that in the complete photo.

Aimee Mann - Can't You Tell - Non-Album Tracks (2013-2018)

I've wanted to post the next in my series of Aimee Mann stray tracks albums for some time now. But there was a problem: a bunch of the songs had poor sound quality. I waited, hoping to find better versions, but it became clear eventually that wasn't happening. Then a solution came to me: I rearranged the songs for the next two stray tracks albums so that one of them was all the excellent sounding songs and the other was all the poorer sounding ones. It turns out there were just enough for a decent length album of each. So this is the album of songs that sound great.

I think Aimee Mann is an excellent songwriter. But all too often, her studio albums have suffered from a certain kind of sameness, with the songs being serious and having similar mid-tempos. So I actually find her stray tracks albums more interesting and listenable. She has a great sense of humor, and it shows up in some of these songs in a way you hardly ever see on her studio albums. Take for instance the song here "I'm Cured," which is a love song from the point of view of a cold virus infecting a person! It's amusing, yet it's also just a good, catchy song. Furthermore, most of the songs here are originals, but she varies things up some more with some choice covers: "Yesterday Once More" (by the Carpenters), "River" (by Joni Mitchell), and "Drive" (by the Cars). Plus, "TV Themes Medley" is a bunch of short snippets of covers of TV theme songs done together.

Most of the songs here have been officially released, with the usual mixture of bonus tracks, singles, various artists compilations, soundtracks, and appearances on other artist's albums. Two of the songs are officially unreleased ("Woe Is Me" and "TV Themes Medley"), but you wouldn't know it by the sound quality.

This album is 49 minutes long. If you're an Aimee Mann fan, I strongly suggest you get this. As for the other one with poorer sound quality that I'll be posting at the same time, that depends on what kind of sound quality standards you have.

Oh, and her song about Donald Trump, "Can't You Tell," is freaking brilliant political commentary, if you ask me. I included it on my three album collection of songs criticizing Trump that I posted here shortly before the 2020 presidential election, so you might be familiar with it already from that:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/10/various-artists-rock-trump-out-volumes_24.html

UPDATE: On September 1, 2021, I added the song "Swanee River" to this album. I'd been looking for this song for ages, and a commenter found it for me. It's a bonus track to her 2017 album "Mental Illness," but it must have only been on some limited editions, because it seems to be extremely rare.

01 There's Nothing Left to Do [Let's Make This Christmas Blue] (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
02 Woe Is Me (Aimee Mann)
03 I'm Cured (Aimee Mann)
04 TV Themes Medley (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
05 You're a Gift (Both [Ted Leo & Aimee Mann])
06 Can't You Tell (Aimee Mann)
07 Yesterday Once More (Aimee Mann)
08 Throw You Over (Aimee Mann)
09 Swanee River (Aimee Mann)
10 Baby Who Knows (Kimon Kirk with Aimee Mann)
11 Paper Boats (Aimee Mann)
12 River (Aimee Mann)
13 Drive (Aimee Mann)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687550/AIMEMNN2013-2018_CantYuTell_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a 2013 concert.

Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren - Sunday Mornings with Elle and Toni, Volume 8: 2019-2020

Here's the latest in the long series of Elle Cordova and Toni Lindgren playing cover songs once every Sunday morning (except for the weeks when their down their own material). Since I've posted a bunch of these already, I'll skip any explanation, hoping you know the drill. As usual, it's a great bunch of songs, done in their usual low-key, charming manner.

The only other comment I want to make is that if you look closely at the credits, two of the songs are with Elle Cordova and Mary Spender, and another is with Elle Cordova with the Petersens. I'm glad to see those latter two working together, since I've posted some albums by the Petersens on their own.

This album is 45 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Just What I Needed - Cars
02 Look at Miss Ohio - Gillian Welch
03 Here Comes the Sun - Beatles
04 Stand by Me - Ben E. King
05 Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac
06 Can't Help Falling in Love - Elvis Presley
07 Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
08 Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
09 Islands in the Stream - Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers
10 Moon River - Henry Mancini
11 Let It Be Me - Everly Brothers
12 Who Said Loving You Was Wrong - Sammy Copley
13 Willin' - Little Feat
14 Delta Dawn - Tanya Tucker 

Here's the usual song list:

01 Just What I Needed (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
02 Look at Miss Ohio (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
03 Here Comes the Sun (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
04 Stand by Me (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
05 Second Hand News (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
06 Can't Help Falling in Love (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
07 Wish You Were Here (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
08 Fast Car (Elle Cordova & Mary Spender)
09 Islands in the Stream (Elle Cordova & Mary Spender)
10 Moon River (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
11 Let It Be Me (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
12 Who Said Loving You Was Wrong (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
13 Willin' (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
14 Delta Dawn (Elle Cordova & the Petersens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363709/ELLECRDVATNILINDRN2019-2020SndyMrnngswthEllTniVlum8_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HXPSno3A

The cover art is a screenshot I took from one of the videos of the songs here. I did it recently enough to remember it's from "Moon River."

Brad Paisley & Friends - An Acoustic Evening with Brad Paisley, BBC, London, Britain, 11-6-2014

Here's something out of left field compared to my usual stuff, especially for a BBC album. When it comes to TV entertainment, I enjoy stand-up comedy. The other day, I was looking through Netflix options and saw "Brad Paisley's Comedy Rodeo." It's a comedy special from 2017, with country star Paisley as the host, plus a handful of comedians doing short stand-up sets. I have to admit I pay virtually no attention to modern country music at all. I have only a vague idea of who the biggest stars are. I'd heard of Brad Paisley, but I couldn't name a single song he did. I'm sure there's a lot of good music there, but I haven't had time to sort the wheat from the chaff.

However, after watching that show, I decided several things. 1) Paisley obviously has musical talent. (He was on stage for much of the special, and played comedic parody versions of some of his songs.) 2) A problem I have with modern country music is that it's so formulaic, but he seems to push the envelope with songs about topics you don't usually hear in that genre. 3) I knew Paisley almost always plays with a band, and he's known for his lead guitar playing. But for this special, he just played solo acoustic guitar. If you've followed this blog, you'll have noticed I have a special fondness for songs done in the solo acoustic format.

So, based on all that, I wasn't intrigued enough to check out much of his usual studio albums, but I thought it would be interesting to hear him do a solo acoustic concert. After a search, I found one such concert that stood out from all the others in terms of sound quality, and it's this show here. After watching it on YouTube, I decided it's good enough to convert to mp3s and share with you. 

As I'd expected, Paisley does do well playing solo acoustic. Not only are the songs here pretty good, they cover all sorts of unusual topics. For instance, he's got a song that mocks reality show celebrity culture ("Celebrity"), a song about living a more interesting alternate life on the Internet ("Online"), a positive song about Barack Obama being the first black US president ("Welcome to the Future"), and more. 

It turns out that while the vast majority of the songs on Paisley's albums are written by him, they're almost always co-written with a few professional songwriters. For this special, he had three of those collaborators on stage with him - Chris Dubois, Kelley Lovelace & Lee Thomas Miller. Paisley did the vast majority of the singing, but the others would sing bits of the lead vocals here and there, and sing back-up. The four of them also talked a lot between songs, sharing the ideas and inspirations behind the songs. I found all that entertaining, even for someone like me who didn't know Paisley or his songs from a hole in the ground.

I still haven't checked out any of Paisley's studio albums. Maybe I will eventually, but from the little I've heard, they have the generic slick modern country production sound that I'm not a fan of. That said, I dig this concert and I'm glad to have it in my music collection. I hope you'll feel the same, even if you're like me and you're not into modern country music in general. 

(And by the way, if you are a fan of that genre and know of any artists you think rise above the usual and would appeal to someone like me, please let me know.)

This concert is 59 minutes long. I suspect it was edited down to fit for an hour-long BBC TV show.

01 Southern Comfort Zone (Brad Paisley & Friends)
02 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
03 Put a Little Mud on the Tires (Brad Paisley & Friends)
04 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
05 The World (Brad Paisley & Friends)
06 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
07 Celebrity (Brad Paisley & Friends)
08 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
09 Online (Brad Paisley & Friends)
10 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
11 Online [Reprise] (Brad Paisley & Friends)
12 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
13 I'm Still a Guy (Brad Paisley & Friends)
14 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
15 Letter to Me (Brad Paisley & Friends)
16 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
17 This Is Country Music (Brad Paisley & Friends)
18 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
19 Harvey Bodine (Brad Paisley & Friends)
20 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
21 Welcome to the Future (Brad Paisley & Friends)
22 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
23 Perfect Storm (Brad Paisley & Friends)
24 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
25 Alcohol (Brad Paisley & Friends)
26 talk (Brad Paisley & Friends)
27 The Mona Lisa (Brad Paisley & Friends)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328125/BradPais_2014_AnAcoustcEvningwithLondnBrtain__11-6-2014_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a screenshot I took from the YouTube video. By the way, the title of the BBC show was actually "An Evening with Brad Paisley," but I added the "acoustic" to make that aspect clear.

The Ballroom - Sunshine Today - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

Have you ever heard of the musical genre "sunshine pop?" Think of the mid- to late 1960s cheery pop music of the Mamas and the Papas, the Association, and the 5th Dimension, coming out of folk rock and usually with lots of vocal harmonies. I like that kind of music when it's done well. There's something about the naive optimism of the music from that time that's really appealing to me, especially compared to the jaded cynicism that's common these days. 

Anyway, one of the leading lights of sunshine pop was a musician and producer named Curt Boettcher. In 1966, he formed a group with Sandy Salisbury, Jim Bell, and Michele O'Malley called the Ballroom. The band didn't stay together that long, maybe six months. They made very little impact at the time, only releasing one single that didn't go anywhere, and they only played a concert or two in their home base of Los Angeles. But it turns out they recorded an album's worth of songs that is excellent, in my opinion. I consider this just as good as any album by the three groups mentioned above (Mamas and the Papas, the Association, and the 5th Dimension), but those groups had the luck and/or persistence that this group didn't have.

After the Ballroom broke up, Boettcher went on to slightly more success with the bands Sagittarius and the Millennium. I like both of those groups a lot too, and plan on posting albums by them later, but it makes sense to start with this one. Sandy Salisbury would end up being a key member of the Millennium also. But a big difference between this band and those two bands is the Ballroom's songs are mainly sung by a woman, Michele O'Malley. So that makes the Mamas and the Papas comparison even stronger.

In putting this album together, I included most, but not all, of the band's recordings. The first ten songs were part of an album that was almost released in early 1967, to be simply called "The Ballroom," while the rest are from other recordings the band did. I deliberately left off a few songs that were later done by the Millennium ("5 A.M.," "The Island," and "Karmic Dream Sequence") because the Millennium versions are much better known, and I think of them as Millennium songs. I've also excluded a couple of weak tracks, and well as some that are by related Boettcher-led groups that aren't actually by the Ballroom. For instance, there's a Ballroom compilation called "Preparing for the Millennium" that ends with a few songs that are labelled as Ballroom songs but actually are Koettcher solo demos.

In my opinion, this band had the songs, the talent, and the production to be a big success. I find it telling that the first song here, "Spinning, Spinning, Spinning," was covered by a New Zealand band in 1968, and had a number one hit with it in that country. I also think the song "I'm Not Living Here" should have been a big hit.

It's too bad this band never had a chance it deserved in the 1960s. But as time goes on, forgettable music is forgotten, and the good stuff lives on. The related band Sagittarius and the Millennium have developed growing cult followings. The Ballroom should be remembered and enjoyed along with them.

This album is 50 minutes long. Most of the songs are written by Boettcher, or Salisbury, or other people in their musical circle, except for the covers "Baby, Please Don't Go" and "Sun Arise."

01 Spinning, Spinning, Spinning (Ballroom)
02 You Turn Me Around (Ballroom)
03 Would You Like to Go (Ballroom)
04 Forever (Ballroom)
05 Love's Fatal Way (Ballroom)
06 It's a Sad World (Ballroom)
07 Magic Time (Ballroom)
08 Musty Dusty (Ballroom)
09 I'll Grow Stronger (Ballroom)
10 Baby, Please Don't Go (Ballroom)
11 I'm Not Living Here (Ballroom)
12 Lead Me to Love (Ballroom)
13 Sun Arise (Ballroom)
14 A Time for Everything (Ballroom)
15 Believe You (Ballroom)
16 Opus to a Friend (Ballroom)
17 Sunshine Today (Ballroom)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15852639/TBallrom_1967_SnshineToday_atse.zip.html

Since the Ballroom was a short-lived obscure band that pretty much only existed in the studio, there are virtually no photos of them. In fact, I've only come across two photos, period. One of them has been used as an official album cover already. I actually like the other one better, and that's the one used here. The original was in black and white, but I've colorized it.

The Beach Boys - Full Sail - Non-Album Tracks (1979-1981)

I've been posting Beach Boys stray tracks albums off and on for quite some time now. For the 1960s and early 1970s, they only consisted of songs not on the band's studio albums. From the mid-1970s onwards though, their albums were so hit and miss that I've made these albums from every good song I could find, on their albums or not. 

With this album, I feel like I've come to the end of an era. In terms of releasing new music, the Beach Boys started going downhill after their 1973 album "Holland." All through the rest of the 1970s though, they continued to put out enough good music for nearly an album a year, if only they'd done a better job of figuring out which songs were worthy of their albums. However, after about 1980, they basically became an oldies band that made money through concerts. They didn't put out as much music as before, and what they did often was really bad. I still plan on posting more stray tracks albums after this one, but it'll be rough going finding the occasional good songs among many bad ones.

That said, they still were decent through the time period featured here. In 1979, they released the album "L.A. (Light Album)." I have four songs from that here, plus two more songs from it on the previous stray tracks album. (I also included a live version of "Angel Come Home" that I find superior to the "L.A. (Light Album)" version.) In 1980, they released the album "Keepin' the Summer Alive." I only have four songs from that total, all of them here. Furthermore, I've added five more non-album songs, three of them still unreleased. So yeah, you basically have to pick the best from two albums plus a bunch of other songs to get one decent album. This isn't a lost "Pet Sounds" masterpiece by any means. But had they put out an album much like this around 1980, I think it would have been much better received.

A couple of the unreleased songs are interesting enough for further comment. "Stevie," in my opinion, is a really good song, sounding like the Beach Boys in their prime. It turns out it's a song about Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks. It seems Brian Wilson had a bit of a crush on her from afar. I suspect the reason the song wasn't released then was because of the somewhat embarrassing subject matter. It's been reported that it was seriously considered for inclusion on the 2013 box set "Made in California," but didn't quite make it. Perhaps Wilson was still embarrassed, and nixed it?

The other unreleased song I want to mention is "Oh Lord." This powerfully emotional song was much better than anything on an album like "Keepin' the Summer Alive." Apparently, it was written too late to be considered for that album. But it's been reported a full Beach Boys version was done for their next album, the 1985 album simply called "The Beach Boys." That's a terrible album, and this song would have stuck out like a sore thumb on it. But still, it would be interesting to hear the full band version someday.

01 Country Pie (Mike Love & Celebration)
02 Lady Lynda (Beach Boys)
03 Night Bloomin' Jasmine (Brian Wilson)
04 Full Sail (Beach Boys)
05 Angel Come Home (Beach Boys)
06 Love Surrounds Me (Beach Boys)
07 Sumahama (Beach Boys)
08 Goin' On (Beach Boys)
09 Livin' with a Heartache (Beach Boys)
10 Santa Ana Winds (Beach Boys)
11 Endless Harmony (Beach Boys)
12 Stevie [Edit] (Brian Wilson with Dennis Wilson)
13 Oh Lord (Brian Wilson & Dennis Wilson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17168583/TBECHBYS1979-1981FllSail_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NA7TfZ98

I believe the album cover dates to 1976. That doesn't quite fit the time period here, but I used it because it fits the album title so well. It's a rather low res photo though, and it seems to have some color and contrast issues that I can't entirely fix. If anyone can find a better version, please let me know, so I can replace it.

UPDATE: On September 27, 2024, I used the program Krea AI to upgrade the image. That fixed the issues I had.

Louis Jordan - Radio Shows, 1944-1946

Recently, I posted a Louis Jordan album here. I'm kind of amazed that I was able to post some music of his that was unreleased (or only released on "grey market" quasi-bootlegs), because his music dates so far back that you'd think all of it would have either been officially released by now or lost forever. But it turns out there's more unreleased Louis Jordan music out there. I don't know of any decent sounding live recordings in front of an audience from his 1940s prime era, but this is close. These are different performances of his songs that were played on radio shows.

What radio shows exactly these come from is mostly a mystery to me. The source bootleg recordings I found had little to no documentation. I've had to piece much of this together using guesswork and logic. For instance, knowing when each of his singles came out allowed me to guestimate the years for these sessions. That said, the majority of these performances come from radio shows done by the US military during World War II. American soldiers were stationed all over the world, and they wanted to be entertained. Louis Jordan was one of the most popular musical artists of the era, especially with black audiences, so it made sense that he performed on armed forces radio a lot. And since those radio performances were shipped out all over the world (on what were called V-discs), some of them survived to this day.

I find this is an interesting slice of life for life in the 1940s, especially life during World War II. If you listen to the lyrics, you'll notice that some of the songs specifically address issues of the time, such as shortages in "You Can't Get That No More" or going from the military back to civilian life in "Reconversion Blues." And the title of "(My Feet Are Killing Me Marching In) The Infantry Blues" speaks for itself.

I'm really surprised that these recordings haven't been properly released, because the sound quality is pretty good. There even are some songs that he didn't release otherwise, such as "Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe," "You Was Right Baby," and "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," or only came out in different versions much later, like "Ofay and Oxford Gray." By the way, that latter song is an appeal to racial harmony that wasn't released at the time because dealing with any racial issue apparently was too hot of a topic to touch.

I have another album of his US military radio shows from 1943, but the sound quality is a little bit poorer. Please let me know if you're interested in that. I'm veering so far from the rest of the music I post here that I have doubts if many people are interested.

If you're not that familiar with Louis Jordan's stuff, you might want to give this a shot. This isn't exactly a "best of," but his popularity was peaking during these years, and many of his biggest hits are here. The other songs are almost always lively and entertaining.

This album is 58 minutes long. And by the way, if anyone can help me pin down the exact sourcing for some of the song's mp3 tags, I'd appreciate it.

01 Knock Me a Kiss (Louis Jordan)
02 Five Guys Named Moe (Louis Jordan)
03 Jumpin' at the Jubilee (Louis Jordan)
04 talk (Louis Jordan)
05 You Can't Get That No More (Louis Jordan)
06 The End of My Worry (Louis Jordan)
07 I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town (Louis Jordan)
08 Better Off without You (Louis Jordan)
09 talk (Louis Jordan)
10 The Chicks I Pick Are Slender and Tender and Tall (Louis Jordan)
11 talk (Louis Jordan)
12 [My Feet Are Killing Me Marching In] The Infantry Blues (Louis Jordan)
13 How High Am I (Louis Jordan)
14 Hey, Now Let's Live (Louis Jordan)
15 talk (Louis Jordan)
16 Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby (Louis Jordan)
17 Caldonia (Louis Jordan)
18 talk (Louis Jordan)
19 Bahama Joe (Louis Jordan)
20 Nobody but Me (Louis Jordan)
21 talk (Louis Jordan)
22 You Was Right Baby (Louis Jordan)
23 talk (Louis Jordan)
24 Ofay and Oxford Gray (Louis Jordan)
25 talk (Louis Jordan)
26 Reconversion Blues (Louis Jordan)
27 talk (Louis Jordan)
28 Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (Louis Jordan)
29 talk (Louis Jordan)
30 Don't Worry 'bout That Mule (Louis Jordan)
31 Pinetop's Boogie Woogie [Instrumental] (Louis Jordan)
32 Choo-Choo Ch' Boogie (Louis Jordan)
33 Let the Good Times Roll (Louis Jordan)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262607/LouisJ_1944-1946_RdioShows_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I wanted to do something that would fit the artistic style of the 1940s. That's really hard to get right this many decades later though. So I got around that problem by using a color poster to one of his 1940s movies. All I did was crop the rectangular poster to fit a square album cover space, then remove some text and add in some other text.

Morgan James - Quarantunes, Volume 1 (2020)

If you've been following this blog, you may have noticed that I've posted a lot of music by Morgan James, even though she's relatively unknown and isn't usually included in websites such as this one. If you think I've posted too much of her stuff then brace yourself, because I'm going to post a whole lot more! ;) In 2020, during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, she posted no less than a 100 cover songs she did in a 100 day time period. She called this series "Quarantunes," so that's what I'm calling it too. 

All of these covers featured just her on lead vocals, plus her husband Doug Wamble on acoustic guitar and occasional vocals. In other words, it's exactly like most of her acoustic covers albums I've posted here already. So if you liked those, you'll be sure the like this new series too.

As with the previous covers albums from Morgan James that I've posted, one thing I really like about her is that she does songs by a wide variety of artists. In fact, I'd guess this album has a wider range of source material than any other all-covers albums by anyone that I've posted at this blog so far. Consider she does songs by Duke Ellington and Hank Williams from the pre-rock and roll era all way to the Backstreet Boys and Robyn from the last couple of decades! Who else does that? Nobody I know.  And thanks to her excellent voice and the acoustic guitar arrangements, none of the songs sound out of place.

This album is 47 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Alone Together - Arthur Schwartz & Howard Dietz
02 Lonely Avenue - Ray Charles
03 Solitude - Duke Ellington
04 Tired of Being Alone - Al Green
05 Meditation - Antonio Carlos Jobim
06 Azure - Duke Ellington
07 Islands in the Stream - Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers
08 Dancing on My Own - Robyn
09 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams
10 Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely - Backstreet Boys
11 Love Will Keep Us Alive - Eagles
12 The End of the Innocence - Don Henley
13 Mad World - Tears for Fears
14 So Lonely - Police
15 New York State of Mind - Billy Joel

Here's the usual song list:

01 Alone Together (Morgan James)
02 Lonely Avenue (Morgan James & Doug Wamble)
03 Solitude (Morgan James)
04 Tired of Being Alone (Morgan James)
05 Meditation (Morgan James & Doug Wamble)
06 Azure (Morgan James)
07 Islands in the Stream (Morgan James & Doug Wamble)
08 Dancing on My Own (Morgan James)
09 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Morgan James)
10 Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely (Morgan James)
11 Love Will Keep Us Alive (Morgan James)
12 The End of the Innocence (Morgan James)
13 Mad World (Morgan James)
14 So Lonely (Morgan James)
15 New York State of Mind (Morgan James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15266969/MorganJ_2020_QuarantnesVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a screenshot I took from one of the YouTube videos of one of the songs featured here.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1970-1972

Here's the fifth and final album in my series of the Moody Blues performing for the BBC.

Note that this album significantly changed when I updated it in June 2022. Previously, this had been called "Volume 4." But I moved much of the content, a 1969 BBC concert, to a new "Volume 4" album, making this one "Volume 5."

After removing many songs from the previous version of this album, I wanted to replace them with something. It just so happens I recently came into a contact with a person who has access to transcription discs of the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." To my surprise, those showed that the Moody Blues played some songs on the BBC in 1970 and 1972 that weren't included in their official album "Live at the BBC: 1967-1970," and generally haven't even been bootlegged. Those now make up tracks one through five, plus the last track.

Unfortunately, the Moody Blues played for the BBC on a regular basis through late 1970, then basically stopped. This isn't too surprising. Once a musical artist got fairly big, it was common for them to stop their BBC sessions. Take for instance the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Both of them played for the BBC a lot until they stopped in 1965. But the Moody Blues are generally considered to have a golden era from 1967 to 1972 and I wanted this to cover that entire era. To make matters worse, the band didn't seem to promote their music on any other TV or radio shows that I could find, unless it was done with lip-syncing.

So I did two things to make up for the lack of BBC or other similar recordings from 1970 to 1972. First, I found a recording of a concert the band did in 1970 that had excellent sound quality. (It was included on the band's "Timeless Flight" box set, but only as a DVD feature.) So I used that to get performances of songs (tracks six through nine) that appeared on the band's 1970 album "A Question of Balance" that otherwise weren't done for the BBC.

Unfortunately, after 1970, the situation becomes even more difficult. I couldn't find ANY bootlegs from 1971, 1972 or 1973 in worthy sound quality that would match the rest of this BBC series. Luckily, when I updated this album in 2022, I discovered they did a version of "Isn't Life Strange" exclusively for the BBC in 1972. So I used that.

But two of their biggest hits and best songs come from those years: "The Story in Your Eyes" and "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)." For "The Story in Your Eyes," it just so happens though that later releases of their 1971 album has a bonus track that 's an alternate version each of that song. So I've added it in, in lieu of anything that fits better. But unfortunately, I couldn't find any adequate version to use for "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)."

Still, all in all, this BBC series serves as kind of an alternate "best of" for their music from 1965 to 1972, though admittedly it's light on songs from their 1971 and 1972 albums.

This album is 40 minutes long.

UPDATE: On June 12, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I already described the changes I made up above, including changing the name of this album from "Volume 4" to "Volume 5."

01 Melancholy Man [Edit] (Moody Blues)
02 And the Tide Rushes In [Edit] (Moody Blues)
03 Minstrel's Song [Edit] (Moody Blues)
04 It's Up to You [Edit] (Moody Blues)
05 Don't You Feel Small [Edit] (Moody Blues)
06 Question (Moody Blues)
07 Tortoise and the Hare (Moody Blues)
08 Lazy Day (Moody Blues)
09 Candle of Life (Moody Blues)
10 The Story in Your Eyes [Alternate Version] (Moody Blues)
11 Isn't Life Strange (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700812/TMODYBLUS1970-1972_BBSessonsVolum5_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on "The Top of the Pops" TV show in 1971. Ironically, that kind of appearance is exactly what I was looking for musically and couldn't find. I believe they lip-synced on that show, so I couldn't use it.

Joan Osborne - Sendesaal Radio, Bremen, Germany, 11-9-2002

I'm a big fan of Joan Osborne. I have many stray tracks of hers to post. However, I've put those on the back burner because she's sang all over the place and I sometimes stumble across songs I want to add in. I don't want to do what I did with the likes of Sheryl Crow and Norah Jones, where I've had to keep updating and expanding the albums I've posted as I find more stuff.

Anyway, here's something that falls out of the range of those stray tracks albums. There are two outstanding features of his concert. For one, the sound quality is outstanding. It was recorded for a German radio station, so it sounds as good as an official live album. The second thing is that it's mostly acoustic. In fact, there were only two people on stage: Joan Osborne just doing lead vocals, and her long time guitarist Andrew Carillo on guitar. But it's a bit more complicated than that, because she played pre-recorded backing tapes for some of the more lively songs. That said, even when the backing tapes are used, the sound is still minimalistic. I like that, because it helps one focus on the quality of her singing.

This concert took place shortly after the release of her 2002 album "How Sweet It Is," which consisted entirely of covers of famous soul songs. As a result, all but three songs here are covers.

The concert is rather short. The bootleg I originally got this from added two songs to the end, which actually date from 2000 instead of 2002 like the rest. But I've chosen to keep them because they fit the minimalist sound so well. Plus, they have stunning sound quality, and they also fit with the general theme of doing soulful covers. The only snag is that "The Tears of a Clown" gets cut off before the end. These come from the eTown broadcast, and I've noticed those often end with a song getting cut off because they'll play music until the last second of the show. So I'm guessing that's what happened here, and this is no known recording of the rest. 

The concert is an hour and 14 minutes long if you include the two extra songs at the end, and an hour and eight minutes if you don't.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Why Can't We Live Together - Timmy Thomas
03 I'll Be Around - Spinners
05 Bold as Love - Jimi Hendrix
06 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] - Marvin Gaye
08 Smiling Faces Sometimes - Undisputed Truth
09 One of Us - Joan Osborne
11 Love's in Need of Love Today - Stevie Wonder
12 War - Edwin Starr
14 St. Teresa - Joan Osborne
16 Everybody Is a Star - Sly & the Family Stone
18 Make You Feel My Love - Bob Dylan
19 Righteous Love - Joan Osborne
20 Man in the Long Black Coat - Bob Dylan
21 The Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
22 Brick House - Commodores

 Here's the usual song list:

01 Why Can't We Live Together (Joan Osborne)
02 talk (Joan Osborne)
03 I'll Be Around (Joan Osborne)
04 talk (Joan Osborne)
05 Bold as Love (Joan Osborne)
06 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Joan Osborne)
07 talk (Joan Osborne)
08 Smiling Faces Sometimes (Joan Osborne)
09 One of Us (Joan Osborne)
10 talk (Joan Osborne)
11 Love's in Need of Love Today (Joan Osborne)
12 War (Joan Osborne)
13 talk (Joan Osborne)
14 St. Teresa (Joan Osborne)
15 talk (Joan Osborne)
16 Everybody Is a Star (Joan Osborne)
17 talk (Joan Osborne)
18 Make You Feel My Love (Joan Osborne)
19 Righteous Love (Joan Osborne)
20 Man in the Long Black Coat (Joan Osborne)
21 The Tears of a Clown (Joan Osborne)
22 Brick House (Joan Osborne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602891/JoanO_2002_SndesaalRadioBremnGermany__11-9-2002_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 2002 appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

Bettye LaVette - Heart of Gold - Non-Album Tracks (1969-1978)

A day ago, I posted an album of Bettye LaVette's stray tracks from most of the 1960s. This continues that, from 1968 to the end of the 1970s.

As I mentioned with that previous post, LaVette essentially has had two music careers. She was a struggling soul singer in the 1960s, with only a couple of minor hits, in 1962 and 1965. Then, after a couple of decades with very little interest or new recordings, she had a surprising career revival in the 2000s and she's been going strong ever since.

The time period covered here is a frustrating one, because she recorded a lot of great music, but hardly anyone heard it at the time. In addition to the music presented here, she recorded two albums that weren't released until decades later. One is now called "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart," and was recorded in 1969. The other has been released with the names "Souvenirs" and "Child of the Seventies," and was recorded in 1972. I highly recommend both of them, if you like her music at all.

What we have here is everything else she recorded in that time period. The vast majority of these songs were actually released at the time as singles, but they had very little impact. The problem was, record companies and producers and such knew LaVette had tons of musical talent, so they kept giving her chances with new singles, even though she hadn't had a hit in ages. But due to poor promotion or whatever, nothing caught on. 

Things more or less petered out as the 1970s went on. The last song here, "Doin' the Best I Can," is disco from those few years when everyone and their brother felt obliged to do disco. Personally, I don't like it and I think it doesn't fit with the rest, but I'm including it for completeness's sake. You can remove that and still have a very nice album.

This album is 50 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 20, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. I added a song I'd previously missed. It's a duet of LaVette with Joe Tex, singing Tex's hit song "Show Me" for a 1970 TV show. It's the only unreleased song on this album.

01 With a Little Help from My Friends (Bettye LaVette)
02 Hey Love (Bettye LaVette)
03 Ticket to the Moon (Bettye LaVette)
04 Show Me (Joe Tex & Bettye LaVette)
05 Never My Love (Bettye LaVette)
06 Stormy (Bettye LaVette)
07 Heart of Gold (Bettye LaVette)
08 You'll Wake Up Wiser (Bettye LaVette)
09 Waiting for Tomorrow (Bettye LaVette)
10 Livin' Life on a Shoestring (Bettye LaVette)
11 Behind Closed Doors (Bettye LaVette)
12 You're a Man of Words, I'm a Woman of Action (Bettye LaVette)
13 You Made a Believer Out of Me (Bettye LaVette)
14 Thank You for Loving Me (Bettye LaVette)
15 Feelings (Bettye LaVette)
16 Doin' the Best I Can (Bettye LaVette)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cdGoMyFd

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/MyK1dS79bx99OCa/file

The cover art photo is said to date from 1970. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it.

The Moody Blues - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1968-1969

This is the third out of four albums of the Moody Blues playing at the BBC.

This was a fairly straight-forward album to make. There is an official BBC album called "Live at the BBC, 1967-1970." All but two of the songs here come from that. 

Note the lack of "[Edit]" notations in the song titles, which means I didn't have to edit any of these to removing BBC DJs talking over the music. I suppose the Moody Blues were generally hosted by the more FM-styled DJs that didn't like to talk over the music, compared to the AM-styled ones who did.

However, this isn't entirely from that official BBC album. Two songs here, "Om" and "The Best Way to Travel" come from a different source. In 1968, the band played on a short-lived BBC TV show called "Colour Me Pop." They played seven songs on that show, but I've only included the two songs that they didn't play elsewhere on this album. Those come from the "Timeless Flight" box set, but only on the DVD portion of it.

UPDATE: On June 12, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. The last few songs had been from a 1969 BBC concert. I removed those, and put them on "Volume 4," which now consists entirely of that concert. Instead, I added a version of "Nights in White Satin" that was played on a Tom Jones TV show. I also added a bonus track, "The Morning: Another Morning," which is the other song played on that show. It's only a bonus track because another version, actually done for the BBC, is on this album.

Additionally, I moved some songs that had been on the next volume of this series to this album, so its length is about the same as it was before.

This album is 36 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
02 Dr. Livingston, I Presume (Moody Blues)
03 The Morning- Another Morning (Moody Blues)
04 House of Four Doors (Moody Blues)
05 Visions of Paradise (Moody Blues)
06 The Actor (Moody Blues)
07 Om (Moody Blues)
08 The Best Way to Travel (Moody Blues)
09 Tuesday Afternoon [Forever Afternoon] (Moody Blues)
10 So Deep within You (Moody Blues)
11 Lovely to See You (Moody Blues)
12 Send Me No Wine (Moody Blues)

The Morning- Another Morning (Moody Blues)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700813/TMODYBLUS1968-1969_BBSessonsVolum3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from 1969. If you look at their ultra-psychedelic cover photo from Volume 2, I think it's interesting how drastically they changed again, dropping that look entirely in favor of "normal" clothes.

Richard Thompson - Red Wine Promises - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (2002-2003)

I've been posting two kinds of stray tracks albums for Richard Thompson: songs done with a band, and songs done in the solo acoustic format. Here's another album with him in the solo acoustic format.

Six out of 12 songs here have been officially released. But I don't think you'll be able to tell the difference, because most of the unreleased ones come from in-studio radio station appearances, usually with no audience noise.

The time period of this album coincides with when Thompson started to do a lot of concerts with the "1000 Years of Popular Music" theme. That'll be the focus of my next album I post from him. But suffice to say that explains why he started doing covers of songs like "You'll Never Walk Alone," "Shenandoah" and even "Oops... I Did It Again" by Britney Spears. But note that none of these versions are actually from any of those "1000 Years" shows. It seems he liked some of the songs enough to play them elsewhere.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Les Flammes d'Enfer (Richard Thompson)
02 Red Wine Promises (Richard Thompson)
03 Madonna's Wedding (Richard Thompson)
04 Oops... I Did It Again (Richard Thompson)
05 You'll Never Walk Alone (Richard Thompson)
06 Poseidon (Judith Owen & Richard Thompson)
07 Alexander Graham Bell (Richard Thompson)
08 A Love You Can't Survive (Richard Thompson)
09 Word Unspoken, Sight Unseen (Richard Thompson)
10 Kidzz (Richard Thompson)
11 Shenandoah (Richard Thompson)
12 She Said It Was Destiny (Richard Thompson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15270957/RichrdT_2002-2003_RedWnePromisesAcoustc_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a concert in the Netherlands in June 2003.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 12: 2013-2014

It's time to post more Robyn Hitchcock music. I've been working my way chronologically through his career. I've probably posted more albums by him than anyone else, yet I'm still only to 2013. This is yet another album consisting entirely of his acoustic cover versions.

As is usually the case with the other albums in this series, all of the performances here are officially unreleased, and all of them come from concert bootlegs. That said, I was careful to keep the sound quality high by avoiding the dodgy sounding boots. 

The song "Box of Rain" has been heavily edited. I play the guitar, and I know first hand that the song is surprisingly difficult to play, with lots of tricky chord changes and sections. I believe this recording is the first and only time Hitchcock played the song in concert. To be honest, he flailed around some, struggling to find the right chords as well as sometimes flubbing the words. I edited it to remove the worst flubs, for instance when he went back and redid a line or two. It's better now, but you can still hear some missed chord changes and some incorrect lines. I'm keeping it here despite the flaws because it's a great song and he got the spirit of it despite the rough edges.

This time around, Hitchcock happened to heavily focus on playing the songs of many of the greatest names in music, with only the one-hit wonder "Funkytown" being a left field choice. He was especially in a Bob Dylan mode, playing four of his songs, including the very rare "I'm Not There (1956)" from the 1967 Basement Tapes sessions.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon & Garfunkel
02 Simple Twist of Fate - Bob Dylan
03 Funkytown - Lipps Inc.
04 Senor [Tales of Yankee Power] - Bob Dylan
05 Box of Rain [Edit] - Grateful Dead
06 Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie
07 Beware of Darkness - George Harrison
08 Dark Globe - Syd Barrett
09 Open the Door, Homer - Bob Dylan & the Band
10 Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
11 Dead Flowers - Rolling Stones
12 I'm Not There [1956] - Bob Dylan
13 Fancy - Kinks

Here's the usual song list:

01 The Only Living Boy in New York (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Simple Twist of Fate (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Funkytown (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Senor [Tales of Yankee Power] (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Box of Rain [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Ashes to Ashes (Robyn Hitchcock & Grant Lee Phillips)
07 Beware of Darkness (Robyn Hitchcock & Grant Lee Phillips)
08 Dark Globe (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Open the Door, Homer (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Suzanne (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Dead Flowers (Robyn Hitchcock & Steve-Kilbey)
12 I'm Not There [1956] (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Fancy (Robyn Hitchcock)

This album is 47 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274558/RobynH_2013c-2014_AcousticCoversVolume12_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is from a 2014 concert in Nashville.