Jimi Hendrix - Northern California Folk-Rock Festival, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, CA, 5-25-1969

I haven't posted a lot of live music by Jimi Hendrix for a couple of reasons. For one, there are a ton of official live albums that have been released. And for another, there are lots of widely available bootlegs as well. I'd rather spend my time posting interesting things from lesser shared musical acts. But I'm making an exception here because I think I significantly improved the quality of this recording, as I will explain in a minute.

First though, I want to explain why I developed an interest in this particular Hendrix concert. I was trying to look up some information about Santana relating to the closing of the Fillmore West concerts I recently posted, and I came across the helpful www.santanamigos.com website. I happened to come across some quotes in it from Carlos Santana where he extensively praised this very Hendrix concert. Here are the quotes. This first one is from a 1994 interview:

"The first time I saw Jimi was at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds in San Jose. It was probably the most incredible concert I ever heard in my life. I have never heard him play better after that. The show was absolutely incredible. Jimi was at the peak of his art. At one moment he would get caught inside a proton or a neutron, and the next minute he would throw you to the Milky Way. I've never been exposed to that drastic form of expression. Somebody actually recorded it that day. I listen to it and I'm still blown away. You can hear all these waves of spirits crying through his guitar. We were like - 'Oh my God! How can he do this?' It was scary, I had never heard anybody express electric music the way he did that day. It was incredible to be assaulted with all these screaming winds. He would really control that instrument like a jazz player or a blues player would. It was like controlling a demon and making it sing."

He discussed this concert some more in a 1995 interview:

"I saw him at Santa Clara Fairgrounds in San Jose in '69 but I didn't get to talk to him then - I still didn't know him. I think that was the best concert that I ever heard him play. He had supreme confidence that day. There was nothing in his mind about business or chicks or anything that I could tell because he just came out like Michael Tyson, when Michael Tyson would knock guys [out] in three seconds. There's a certain 'stance'. That's what Miles Davis said: 'I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands, you know.' He had a certain stance, man. He was all over that Strat and had supreme confidence, that's all I can say."

After reading those quotes, I thought, "Wow, I really need to listen to a recording of this concert." After all, if there's someone who knows a thing or two about playing great lead guitar, it's Carlos Santana. So I found the bootleg recording he mentioned. 

However, I quickly realized there was a big problem with it. It's an audience bootleg, and it recorded Hendrix's lead guitar very nicely. But everything else was buried way back in the mix. The drums, bass, and especially the lead vocals were very hard to hear. In a way, this isn't so bad, since it allows one to hear Hendrix's amazing guitar work very clearly. Still, I tried to fix it. It turns out I couldn't do much to improve the drums or bass. The MVSEP program I used didn't detect enough for me to be able to adjust the volume. I did boost the drums some, but only in some sections of songs. Still, I figured that was an improvement.

However, it turns out I was able to make a massive change to Hendrix's vocals. They went from being almost inaudible to the expected volume level in most cases. In my opinion, this really improves the recording. It's still an audience boot, and it still has issues, but it's quite listenable now. 

Now, here's a little background about this concert, as I understand it. Hendrix played with the Experience. It was one of their last concerts, as they would break up a month later. These were the other acts that were supposed to perform at the festival: Jefferson Airplane, the Chambers Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Eric Burdon, Spirit, Canned Heat, Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Youngbloods, the Steve Miller Band, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Taj Mahal, Noel Redding, Lee Michaels, Blues Image, Santana, Elvin Bishop, Poco, People!, Lynn County, the Loading Zone, Sweet Linda Divine, Cat Mother, Doc Watson & New Lost City Ramblers. 

However, it seems not all of those acts actually appeared. There had been a "Northern California Folk-Rock Festival" in 1968, and that had gone pretty well, with a handful of big name musical acts performing. However, it turns out both Hendrix and Led Zeppelin were advertised to appear at this 1969 version despite not actually being contacted by the promoter, Bob Blodgett, to do so. Probably, that was a tactic to boost sales. This resulted in Led Zeppelin suing Blodgett, and they didn't perform. To safe face, at the last minute, Blodgett paid Hendrix $30,000 to perform. So luckily we got this recording. I haven't found any other recordings from the 1969 festival though. I did find an article from the time saying that Eric Burdon was a major cancellation, but he may have been the only other big name not to show. I've included that article in the download zip, since most of it talks about Hendrix's performance.

Also, another rock festival took place nearby over the same weekend, as kind of a hippie protest against Blodgett, called the Aquarian Festival. About 20,000 people attended that one, while about 60,000 people attended this one. Here's a link to another article that talks about that conflict:

The Northern California Folk Rock Festival 2 | Aquarian Family Festival in San Jose, CA | Music & Nightlife

It's not mentioned in that article, but I read elsewhere that the debacle over this festival basically ended Blodgett's career as a music promoter. Even though he ultimately did get Hendrix to perform, it wasn't enough to save his reputation due to the original false advertising he did.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from die-hard Hendrix fans, if they think Hendrix's performance here was really as exceptional as Carlos Santana says it was. I found another quote where Santana said he saw about eight or nine Hendrix concerts in total. Perhaps he was just the most impacted by seeing him for the first time?

By the way, I find it interesting that most of the last twenty minutes long was a medley that was mostly instrumental. And that included very early versions of two songs, "Message to Love" and "Room Full of Mirrors," that he would play a lot more in 1970. 

The Wikipedia entry for this festival is short and doesn't say much, but it has a nice version of the concert poster:

Northern California Folk-Rock Festival (1969) - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
02 Hear My Train A-Comin' (Jimi Hendrix)
03 Fire (Jimi Hendrix)
04 Drum Solo [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
05 Spanish Castle Magic (Jimi Hendrix)
06 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
07 Red House (Jimi Hendrix)
08 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
09 I Don't Live Today (Jimi Hendrix)
10 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
11 Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
12 Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
13 talk (Jimi Hendrix)
14 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Jimi Hendrix)
15 Message to Love [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
16 Room Full of Mirrors (Jimi Hendrix)
17 Sunshine of Your Love [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)
18 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] [Reprise] [Instrumental] (Jimi Hendrix)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HdXvyeSK

The text at the top, plus the yellow framing, is from a concert poster for this concert. In the middle, I put a photo of Hendrix that also is from this exact concert. 

In September 2026, I used the Ask Gemini program to improve the image quality.

Joni Mitchell - The White Swan, Leicester, Britain, 9-16-1967

I thought I'd found and posted all the Joni Mitchell bootlegs from the early part of her career with worthy sound quality, but I recently discovered one that I had missed. The sound quality was a little iffy, but I made some edits that make it sound as good as soundboards from this time period.

There are two things I especially like about concert recordings from Mitchell around 1967 and 1968. One is that she played a lot of songs that would go unreleased. That's the case here. Five songs from this set weren't released until decades later: "Come to the Sunshine," "Dr. Junk," "Eastern Rain," "Play Little David," and "Go Tell the Drummer Man." One more, "The Wizard of Is," still hasn't been released. That's because it's obviously heavily based on "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen, making it her least impressive original song, in my opinion. But still, even that one is interesting to hear.

The second thing I especially like is that she was very chatty between songs. She talked before most songs here, shedding light on her personality and her life at the time.

Now, let me get to the sound quality issue. The original recording was an audience bootleg, and those often have problems. When I found this, there was a certain amount of murkiness and echo on all the songs, as well as hiss. Happily, advances in audio editing technology often make fixing that sort of thing possible. I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program, using the "denoise" filter to get rid of the hiss. Then I ran all the songs through that program again, using the "reverb removal" filter. It's amazing what those filters can do. But the banter between songs was still hard to understand. So I ran all of those through Adobe's vocal enhancer program. 

In my opinion, these three fixes make this sound much better than before. Now, this sounds just as good as the 1967 soundboard concerts I have, in my opinion. It helps that she was performing in front of a small, respectful, quiet audience, so I didn't have to do additional work to get rid of crowd noise during the songs. 

According to the excellent jonimitchell.com website, Mitchell performed five concerts in Britain in August and September 1967. I believe it was the first time she performed outside of North America. Two of those were at this venue, separated by a couple of weeks. This was the second one. So it's likely some part of the audience was already starting to become familiar with her songs from the first one. (She hadn't released any records yet.)

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Play Little David (Joni Mitchell)
02 talk (Joni Mitchell)
03 Come to the Sunshine (Joni Mitchell)
04 talk (Joni Mitchell)
05 Chelsea Morning (Joni Mitchell)
06 The Wizard of Is (Joni Mitchell)
07 talk (Joni Mitchell)
08 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
09 talk (Joni Mitchell)
10 Night in the City (Joni Mitchell)
11 talk (Joni Mitchell)
12 Song to a Seagull (Joni Mitchell)
13 Morning Morgantown (Joni Mitchell)
14 talk (Joni Mitchell)
15 Dr. Junk (Joni Mitchell)
16 Eastern Rain (Joni Mitchell)
17 The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell)
18 Michael from Mountains (Joni Mitchell)
19 Go Tell the Drummer Man (Joni Mitchell)
20 talk (Joni Mitchell)
21 I Don't Know Where I Stand (Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WS1cyn2o

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/7ZhcPpIHmzXuic8/file

I really like this cover. She looks so very happy. It was taken during her short tour of Britain in August and September 1967. It's taken in some street in London. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Steppenwolf - Konserthuset, Gothenburg, Sweden, 9-20-1972

For a long time now, I've been wanting to post something by the band Steppenwolf, but I never came across anything I considered worthy, mostly due to sound quality issues. But I recently stumbled across a bootleg concert recording that not only sounds good, it sounds fantastic. In fact, it sounded so good, I quickly went to the end of the first song to check if there was audience applause (there was), since it sounded as clear and clean as a studio recording.

The reason this sounds so good is that it was broadcast on a Swedish radio station at the time, and someone made a great copy of that. This really should be an official live album. It's rather short, but it has my four favorite songs they did: "Born to Be Wild," "The Pusher," "Magic Carpet Ride," and "Monster."

Actually, "Born to Be Wild" isn't from the Swedish radio broadcast. I went looking for a version of that song in 1972, since it's probably their best known song, and I find it hard to understand why it wasn't in the main concert. (Perhaps the broadcast was edited down from a longer concert, I don't know). Luckily, I found a version of the song performed for the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show. Not only was that also recorded in 1972, it was recorded only six days later. Unfortunately, it faded out. I wanted a proper ending, so I found another version, from the "Midnight Special" TV show, and patched about a minute of that on to the end. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title. I also edited the applause of a couple of the previous songs because the cheering got cut off too soon.

At the time of this concert, the band was in the process of breaking up. They had a farewell concert in the U.S. in February 1972. But they were persuaded to make one more tour of the U.S. and Europe later in the year. Lead singer John Kay wanted to depart for a solo career. So for this tour, half of each concert was John Kay solo, and half was Steppenwolf. We only have the Steppenwolf portion of this one. The band reunited yet again in 1974, only to disband again in 1976. There were still later reunions after that. But I'd consider 1972 the end of their most creative era. 

This album is 41 minutes long, 36 minutes if you don't include the last song from a different source.

01 Ride with Me (Steppenwolf)
02 talk (Steppenwolf)
03 Foggy Mental Breakdown (Steppenwolf)
04 talk (Steppenwolf)
05 Tighten Up Your Wig (Steppenwolf)
06 talk (Steppenwolf)
07 Monster (Steppenwolf)
08 Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf)
09 The Pusher (Steppenwolf)
10 Born to Be Wild [Edit] (Steppenwolf) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MULtqBCq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/KzzhyUS1GoVrJbb/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" video of that last song. I used Krea AI to improve the detail. Lead singer John Kay is the one holding a microphone and wearing sunglasses.

Various Artists - Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 4: 2013-2023 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the fourth and last album in the "Covered" series celebrating the songs of Tom Waits by collecting cover versions.

Once again, I have to thank Fabio from Rio for being the prime mover behind putting these Waits albums together. He selected a large number of songs, and I narrowed it down to a reasonable amount. And one again, Fabio was nice enough to do the write up. So, take it away, Fabio:

--- 

Waits released his last studio record to date ("Bad as Me") in 2011. His later works revisit all earlier phases in fragmented, refined form. Waits alternates tender ballads with abrasive rhythm experiments, presenting a distilled, self-aware summary of his artistic language rather than a new stylistic break.

This last volume with performances from the 2010s and 2020s is mostly filled with female voices, hinting that, musically, Waits has become something of a ladies' man — at least for a younger generation of singers.

Here again we have a wild range of different styles, from forties-like doo-wop (Ice Cream Man) to eighties-drum-machine-electro-pop ("All Stripped Down"), from jazz and blues rock ("Fumblin' with the Blues", "Shore Leave") to americana and alt-country ("Walk Away", "Blue Skies").

We will also find adult contemporary ("In-Between Love"), dark cabaret ("Little Drop of Poison", "Starving in the Belly of a Whale"), R&B ("Such a Scream"), and confessional ballad ("Martha") in the mix.

Tom Jones makes "Bad as Me" his own. "Emotional Weather Report" is a deep cut taken from the little-known jazz and spoken-word Waits seventies album "Nighthawks on the Radio", which highlights Tom Waits' deadpan humor. 

Other standouts are Rosanne Cash's "Time" and Aimee Mann's version for "Hold On" - which kind of reminded me, in spirit if not in sound, of the acappella version sung by Emily Kinney as Beth Greene in "The Walking Dead" - one of the most poignant moments of the entire series(*). 

(*) You can check it out (along with Tom Waits' original version) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNeGLUAUbgQ&list=RDGNeGLUAUbgQ 

---

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Walk Away (Steel Wheels)
02 Bad as Me (Tom Jones)
03 Emotional Weather Report (Marissa Mulder)
04 All Stripped Down (Lisa Bassenge)
05 Ice Cream Man (Hazelnuts)
06 Blue Skies (Lisa Bassenge)
07 In Between Love (Jennifer Porter)
08 Such a Scream (Good Paper of Rev. Rob Mortimer)
09 Fumblin' with the Blues (Natascha & the Spy Boys)
10 Little Drop of Poison (Ellie Gunn and the Firethornes)
11 Hold On (Aimee Mann)
12 Time (Rosanne Cash)
13 Starving in the Belly of a Whale (Belladone)
14 Martha (Jackie Greene)
15 Shore Leave (Nickel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iGci1BC9

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/taTjklwbZnegYK6/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from a video of an interview he did around 2020.

Roberta Flack - With These Hands - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1971)

This is a collection of non-album tracks for Roberta Flack that I recently found. They make up an excellent album from what I consider the peak of her career.

I've already posted some albums of non-album tracks from around this time period. So I was pleasantly surprised to find an entire album's worth more. That's because her 1970 album, "Chapter Two," and her 1971 album, "Quiet Fire," were recently rereleased with lots of bonus tracks. The first song here is the only "Chapter Two" bonus track, while the rest are all "Quiet Fire" bonus tracks.

I don't know why these songs weren't officially released at the time, because they sound as good to me as the ones on her albums. Perhaps it was that many of them were classic hits already, and she wanted to do more obscure material. But in any case, this makes for a very nice album all these years later.  

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Midnight Cowboy (Roberta Flack)
02 What's Going On (Roberta Flack)
03 Free at Last (Roberta Flack)
04 Chasin' the Sunshine (Roberta Flack)
05 Here, There and Everywhere (Roberta Flack)
06 O-o-h Child (Roberta Flack)
07 With These Hands (Roberta Flack)
08 Superstar [Groupie] (Roberta Flack) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uyTa5KfK

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2JNZyu1zumLlqsq/file

The cover photo is from a promo photo taken around 1971. I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 5: Van Morrison, Linda Tillery, Lydia Pense, and More

Here's the fifth set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. So this is the very last album of the series. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set is a spontaneous jam session featuring pretty much any musician who wanted to be on stage.

Promoter Bill Graham wanted his final night of the week of concerts closing the Fillmore West to go out with a bang. So the radio station broadcast on KSAN continued until the early morning hours as the jamming continued. Surprisingly, Van Morrison didn't get a set of his own at any point that week. But maybe that was in order to save him as a surprise for this final jam session, I don't know. For the song list below, I'm only including the prominent lead vocalists for the songs that had vocals. You can see Van Morrison sang on most of the songs. But Linda Tillery of the band the Loading Zone sang quite a lot, as did Lydia Pense, of the band Cold Blood. 

But those weren't the only ones on stage. I found information that at least these other musicians were on stage during this jam session: Carlos Santana, Sam Andrew (Big Brother & the Holding Company), Michael Bloomfield, Jack Casady (Hot Tuna), John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), Vince Guaraldi, George Hunter (an artist who did many record covers), George Marsh (the Loading Zone), Bernard Purdie (a jazz drummer), and members of Tower of Power. The biggest surprise there for me is Vince Guaraldi, a jazz musician best known for his soundtracks to Charlie Brown TV specials.

It's clear no songs were carefully practiced for this jam session in advance. So the musicians stuck to simple songs that most everyone on stage was likely to know, or at least could fake it, such as "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven." 

A Rolling Stone Magazine article written just after the concert had this to say about the final jam session: "[Bill] Graham and his staff pelted the audience with gifts – paper plates, beer, champagne, and ice cubes. Sometime between 4 and 5 A.M., everyone gave up and went home. About 40 fans stuck around to shake hands with Graham, then left him to wander alone among the amps and debris." 

We actually have a photo of Graham "wandering alone among the amps and debris," so, what the heck, I'll show that here. 

It sounds like the Fillmore West was a great venue, and certainly a lot of phenomenal music was performed there during its relatively brief run, from 1968 to 1971. At least it went out in proper style with these concerts. 

This album is 55 minutes long. 

01 talk (Jam Band)
02 Rock Me Baby (Van Morrison & Linda Tillery)
03 I Found a Love (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
04 Flute and Guitar Jam [Instrumental] (Jam Band)
05 talk (Jam Band)
06 Roll Over Beethoven (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
08 Johnny B. Goode (Van Morrison, Linda Tillery & Lydia Pense)
09 My Angel Baby - Sh-Boom - Blue Moon - My Angel Baby (Linda Tillery)
10 Final Jam [Instrumental] (Jam Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Wh56F1Mw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/fBIQ5OtldjBWT6P/file

Once again, I got lucky with the cover art. The cover only shows Van Morrison, but apparently it comes from this exact concert. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 4: Santana & Mike Bloomfield

Here's the fourth set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set is kind of a continuation of the previous set by Santana. But it's separate from that because the band was joined by lead guitarist Mike Bloomfield all the way through. Plus, there were other guests. Most notably, Van Morrison showed up near the end to sing his song "I've Been Working."

This essentially was one long jam. I broke the music into two tracks, but the song "I've Been Working" sort of emerged from the jam without a clear break. I also don't know if the name of the jam, "Feel It Jam," means anything. I just copied that name from a bootleg.

I don't know who else performed on these jams, though it's a good bet there were others. If anyone knows, please let me know. If I recall correctly, at one point, someone on stage mentioned the name John Cipollina, so I figure he was involved. He had been one of the lead guitarists for Quicksilver Messenger Service, but he'd quit the band about six months prior to this concert. So probably this was a way for him to be involved in the final Fillmore West concerts without taking part in the Quicksilver Messenger Service performance the night before.

This music was followed by another jam session featuring some different performers. That'll be the final set from this series of concerts. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Feel It Jam [Instrumental] (Santana & Michael Bloomfield)
02 I've Been Working (Van Morrison, Santana & Michael Bloomfield)
03 talk (Santana) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BXEhUMpq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/WJ53WQC8NTU2xEn/file

Boy, did I get lucky with the cover photo for this album. I didn't expect to find any photos of Mike Bloomfield and Carlos Santana together. But I found one from this exact concert! The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 3: Santana

Here's the third set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Santana.

I've already posted a lot of music by Santana, so I don't feel the need to introduce the band here. However, I will note a bit about what the band was doing at the time of this concert. They had just finished recording their third album, "Santana III," but it wouldn't be released until September, a couple of months away. Still, that didn't stop them from performing five songs from that album: "Batuka," "Gumbo," "No One to Depend On," "Taboo," and "Toussaint L'Ouverture." Neal Schon had recently joined the band as a second lead guitarist, so you can hear his playing here.

Right after this set ended, Carlos Santana and much of the band played more music with lead guitarist Mike Bloomfield and others. But I'll be posting a different album for that.

I believe this is the only set from the closing of the Fillmore West that has been officially released in full. But I'm posting it here anyway so one can get all of the sets. You can find it on the deluxe edition of "Santana III." It's very fortunate that this has been officially released, because it also happens to be the only set from these five days of concerts that wasn't broadcast on the radio at the time, and thus wasn't bootlegged. I found this explanation at the santanaamigos.com music blog:

"It is rumored that the band (afraid of being bootlegged heavily with this show), did not permit KSAN to broadcast the official band segment. Reportedly, KSAN was set up completely but the plug literally got pulled out at the very last moment by some Santana roadies! It wasn't until the final part of 'Soul Sacrifice' that the broadcast lines were re-opened." 

For a long time, I only had two songs from this set, "Incident at Neshabur" and "In a Silent Way," because they had been officially released as part of the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Thank goodness somebody had recorded it after all.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Batuka [Instrumental] (Santana)
02 No One to Depend On (Santana)
03 Toussaint L'Overture [Instrumental] (Santana)
04 Taboo (Santana)
05 Jungle Strut [Instrumental] (Santana)
06 Black Magic Woman - Gypsy Queen (Santana)
07 Incident at Neshabur [Instrumental] (Santana)
08 In a Silent Way [Instrumental] (Santana)
09 Savor [Instrumental] (Santana)
10 Para los Rumberos [Instrumental] (Santana)
11 talk (Santana)
12 Gumbo [Instrumental] (Santana)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qUkpk1Qp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/hNNtLE3IuMcPEb2/file

The cover photo of Carlos Santana is from this exact concert.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 2: Creedence Clearwater Revival

Here's the second set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR).

I previously posted this music in 2023. So I'm deleting that album and replacing it with this one. Back when I posted it for the first time, I noted that there aren't many well recorded CCR concerts, and this one seems to be the best one. I think that's still true. I like it even better than a couple of official live albums.

CCR had been a foursome ever since it was formed in the mid-1960s. But in January 1971, Tom Fogerty, lead singer John Fogerty's brother, quit. This was the very first concert by the band as a threesome. Apparently, their appearance was a surprise, since they hadn't been mentioned in the promotion for the concert. 

I made some comments in the 2023 version which I'll copy and paste here: 

The bootleg has been traded a long time, but it didn't sound that impressive to me. However, I discovered a version that has been recently remixed, and it sounds significantly better. But there still was a problem: the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I used the audio editing program X-Minus to boost them up. Now, this finally is the live CCR I had been looking for. I also like that it's from 1971, near the end of the band's existence, allowing them to pick the best songs from all their albums. There are even three songs from the band's final album, "Mardi Gras," which wouldn't be released until 1972.

I cut out quite a lot of unnecessary stuff between songs. There was a lot of guitar tuning, plus radio station call letters (this was broadcast on a local radio station, which explains the sound quality), talk by promoter Bill Graham, and so on. (The Bill Graham talk was leading up to introducing a speech by poet Allen Ginsburg that took place just after this concert, but I cut that since the speech is missing.) I kept all the actual banter by the band members. 

By the way, I found a newspaper article about this performance. It's from 2022, but it contains some good information about CCR and the closing of the Fillmore West in general. It's also where I got the cover photo.

Rock of ages: Creedence Clearwater Revival played the Fillmore West’s final show in 1971  

None of the songs here were released on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. So I believe everything here remains unreleased. 

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 Born on the Bayou (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
02 Green River (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
03 It Came from Out of the Sky (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
04 Door to Door (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
05 talk (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
06 Travelin' Band (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
07 Fortunate Son-Commotion (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
08 talk (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
09 Lodi (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
10 talk (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
11 Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
12 Proud Mary (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
13 Up Around the Bend (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
14 Hey Tonight (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
15 talk (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
16 Sweet Hitchhiker (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
17 talk (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
18 Keep On Chooglin' (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gQUvHxZc

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/CsiVQyhTJbi1wMY/file

The cover image highlighting John Fogerty on guitar is from this exact concert. When I first posted this in 2023, I colorized it from black and white. I generally went with the colors suggested by the program Kolorize, which meant a grey suit for Fogerty. However, when I got ready to repost this, I ran across a review written at the time by someone at the concert who mentioned that Fogerty's suit was "shocking turquoise." So I used Photoshop to change the color to something closer to that. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-4-1971, Part 1: Tower of Power

Here's the first set from the fifth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Tower of Power.

Here's what the Wikipedia introductory paragraph has to say about the band:

"Tower of Power is an American R&B and funk band and horn section, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing since 1968. The band has had a number of lead vocalists, the best-known being Lenny Williams, who fronted the band between early 1973 and late 1974, the period of their greatest commercial success. They have had eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Their highest-charting songs include 'You're Still a Young Man,' 'So Very Hard to Go,' 'What Is Hip?,' and 'Don't Change Horses (in the Middle of a Stream).'"

Here's the link to the full entry:

Tower of Power - Wikipedia 

This, the final night of the concerts closing the Fillmore West, had some of the biggest name acts. That was less so for Tower of Power. In a couple of years they would become pretty big, but they were relatively unknown in 1971. At the time of this concert, they had only released one album, "East Bay Grease," which barely missed the bottom of the Top 100 on the U.S. album charts in 1970. 

However, the band was already playing songs that would appear on their next album, "Bump City," released in 1972. Specifically, they played "Skating on Thin Ice," "You Got to Funkifize," and "You're Still a Young Man" from that album. "You're Still a Young Man" would prove to be the band's breakthrough hit, making the Top 40 in the U.S. singles chart in 1972.

On song from this concert, "Back on the Streets Again," made it onto the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Everything else here is unreleased. 

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Tower of Power)
02 Let a Woman Be a Woman, Let a Man Be a Man (Tower of Power)
03 talk (Tower of Power)
04 Social Lubrication (Tower of Power)
05 talk (Tower of Power)
06 Back on the Streets Again (Tower of Power)
07 talk (Tower of Power)
08 You're Still a Young Man (Tower of Power)
09 talk (Tower of Power)
10 Skating on Thin Ice (Tower of Power)
11 talk (Tower of Power)
12 You Got to Funkifize (Tower of Power)
13 You're Gonna Need Me (Tower of Power)
14 The Skunk, the Goose, and the Fly (Tower of Power)
15 talk (Tower of Power)
16 Sparkling in the Sand (Tower of Power)
17 Knock Yourself Out (Tower of Power)
18 Don't Fight It (Tower of Power)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/M8jS16ma

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Nny1j72TFsTaRn2/file

I couldn't find anything from this exact concert, so I used a screenshot taken from the band performing on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" TV show in 1973 instead. When I first posted the cover image, it was pretty bad. In 2026, I went back to that same video and took a different screenshot. Then I used the Ask Gemini program to improve the quality. It looks okay now, I think.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-3-1971, Part 3: Quicksilver Messenger Service

Here's the third (and final) set from the fourth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Here's the Wikipedia intro paragraph about the band:

"Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. The band achieved wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, and several of their albums ranked in the Top 30 of the Billboard Pop charts. They were part of the new wave of album-oriented bands, achieving renown and popularity despite a lack of success with their singles. Though not as commercially successful as contemporaries Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver was integral to the beginnings of their genre. With their jazz and classical influences and a strong folk background, the band attempted to create an individual, innovative sound. Music historian Colin Larkin wrote: "Of all the bands that came out of the San Francisco area during the late '60s, Quicksilver typified most of the style, attitude and sound of that era." 

Here's the link to the entire entry:

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Wikipedia

The band gained and lost a lot of key members by the time this concert took place. The idea of the band came from Dino Valenti, a songwriter, and John Cipollina, a talented lead guitarist. But before the band could really get started, Valenti was arrested for drug possession and had to spend a year in prison, causing him to miss out on the first couple of years in the band. However, he rejoined in 1969. After that, the vast majority of the band's songs were written by Valenti. (He was a very talented songwriter, best known for writing the classic "Let's Get Together," made famous by the Youngbloods.) But by the end of 1970, Cipollina left the band.

At the time of this concert, the band consisted of Gary Duncan (lead guitar), Greg Elmore (drums), Dino Valenti (lead vocals and guitar), and David Freiberg (bass and keyboards). While the loss of Cipollina and his lead guitar playing was unfortunate, Duncan was a talented lead guitar player as well, who had been with the band from the beginning (though he quit and rejoined in 1969). 

So, to sum up, this band was different from the version that peaked in 1967 and 1968, mainly due to Valenti dominating the new version of the band. But it was arguably just as good, only different. Valenti's songwriting definitely helped matters. Around this time, he write the band's two most successful songs in terms of radio play, "Fresh Air" and "What about Me." Both of them were performed in this concert.

The song "Fresh Air" was included on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Everything else here is unreleased.  

This album is two hours and 14 minutes long.

01 Fresh Air (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
02 Baby Baby (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
03 talk (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
04 Dr. Feelgood (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
05 Much to Say (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
06 Words (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
07 Mona (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
08 Subway (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
09 Ain't That a Shame (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
10 Doing Time in the U.S.A. (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
11 Mojo (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
12 Come On Along (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
13 The Truth (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
14 Roadrunner (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
15 The Hat (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
16 Who Do You Love (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
17 What about Me (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
18 Call on Me (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
19 Motorcycle Blues (Quicksilver Messenger Service)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HUCUfCi8

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/qLyxl34v56of6zw/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot of band member Gary Duncan I took from the "Fillmore" movie. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-3-1971, Part 2: Hot Tuna

Here's the second set from the fourth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Hot Tuna.

If there's one band that should have taken part in this series of concerts but didn't, it's Jefferson Airplane. They were one of the most iconic bands performing many times at the Fillmore West. But the band was in the middle of falling apart in 1971. According to setlist.fm, they only performed four concerts that year. So, while that band is missing, at least we get Hot Tuna. It started as a side project for Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the lead guitarist and bassist for Jefferson Airplane respectively, but ending up dominating the rest of their music careers.

Here's the Wikipedia introduction for the band:

"Hot Tuna is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitar/vocals) and Jack Casady (bass). Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the years, the band's center has always been Kaukonen and Casady's ongoing collaboration." 

And here's the link to the full article: 

Hot Tuna - Wikipedia  

Sometimes, Hot Tuna played in acoustic mode, usually just Kaukonen and Casady, and sometimes they played in electric, full band mode. For this concert, they played as a full band, with fiddler Papa John Creach and drummer Sammy Piazza.

One song here, "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," was released on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Eventually, all of it was released as "Live at the Fillmore West, 3rd July 1971." But that's a "grey market" release. Meaning even though it's often sold in stores, the band didn't approve it and they don't get any royalties from it. 

This album is an hour and 40 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Hot Tuna)
02 That'll Never Happen No More (Hot Tuna)
03 talk (Hot Tuna)
04 How Long Blues (Hot Tuna)
05 Candy Man (Hot Tuna)
06 New Song [For the Morning] (Hot Tuna)
07 talk (Hot Tuna)
08 Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (Hot Tuna)
09 Uncle Sam's Blues (Hot Tuna)
10 talk (Hot Tuna)
11 John's Other [Instrumental] (Hot Tuna)
12 Rock Me Baby (Hot Tuna)
13 I Want You to Know (Hot Tuna)
14 I Know You Rider (Hot Tuna)
15 Been So Long (Hot Tuna)
16 Come Back Baby (Hot Tuna)
17 Feel So Good (Hot Tuna) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TsyTRqqz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/gzMujewRy9pf2J9/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from the "Fillmore" movie. It shows Jorma Kaukonen holding a guitar, and Jack Casady, the bassist, with his back to the camera.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-3-1971, Part 1: Sons of Champlin

Here's the first set from the fourth day out of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the Sons of Champlin. 

Here's the Wikipedia introductory paragraph about the band:

"The Sons of Champlin are an American rock band, from Marin County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, formed in 1965.They are fronted by vocalist-keyboardist-guitarist Bill Champlin, who, after leaving the group in 1977, joined the rock band Chicago from 1981 to 2009, reforming the Sons of Champlin in 1997. They brought to the late '60s music scene in the Bay Area a soulful sound built around a horn section, Hammond B3 organ, sophisticated arrangements, philosophical themes, Bill Champlin's songwriting and blue-eyed soul singing, and Terry Haggerty's unique jazz-based guitar soloing. They are one of the enduring 1960s San Francisco bands, along with Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Moby Grape."

Here's the link to the rest of the entry:

Sons of Champlin - Wikipedia

I have a bit to add about what the band was doing around the time of this show. The band was pretty unstable in their early years. For instance, they broke up in 1970, only to get back together and break up again in 1971. Then they got together again. Each time, the personnel changed, though Bill Champlin remained a constant. After their 1971 break-up, which happened in April, they soon reemerged, but with the name "Yogi Phelgm." A pretty bizarre name, even for that era! So that technically was their name during this concert. However, it was only a few months before they went back to being called "Sons of Champlin," so that's what I'm calling them here.

One song, "Poppa Can Play," appeared on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. (Note, by the way, they're billed as "Sons of Champlin" on that.) Everything else here is unreleased.  

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Back to Macon [Bulldog] (Sons of Champlin)
02 talk (Sons of Champlin)
03 Who - Heaven Only Knows (Sons of Champlin)
04 Poppa Can Play (Sons of Champlin)
05 Beside You (Sons of Champlin)
06 Healthy Woman (Sons of Champlin)
07 Right On (Sons of Champlin)
08 talk (Sons of Champlin)
09 Without Love (Sons of Champlin)
10 Cold Sweat (Sons of Champlin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mBgpUfVg

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/nHoxeUIAjc0dHie/file

I couldn't find any good photos of this band in concert from 1971 or thereabouts. The best I could come up with was a video of a song they did on a TV show in 1968. I took a screenshot of Bill Champlin from that, then used the Krea AI program to improve the details.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-2-1971, Part 3: The Grateful Dead

Here's the third (and final) set from the third day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the Grateful Dead.

I had created all these albums in this series a year or two, but never got around to posting them on my blog. The recent death of Bob Weir (I'm writing this in January 2026) gave me the motivation to post them sooner rather than later, mostly so I could get to posting this set. Finally, here it is. But there's a lot more to come, with two more days of the series of concerts still to be posted.

This is a fitting tribute to the passing of Weir, I think because it's a good show of the band in their prime. In my opinion, they had many great years, but their absolute peak was probably 1970 or 1971.

This is a typical Grateful Dead concert for the era. It's long, at nearly three hours. (As is usual for Dead concerts, there was a lot of dead air between songs, but I generally cut that out.) And it consisted of two sets. The first one consisted mostly of shorter songs, often acoustic, while the second set is where the band got spacey and jammed a lot more. 

Some of this has been officially released. Two songs were released on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album: "Casey Jones" and "Johnny B. Goode." Then, in 2021, many more were released when the "Skull and Roses" live album from 1971 was rereleased in an expanded edition. There were ten songs from this concert on the extra disc (tracks 15, 17 through 22, 25, and 26). However, all those together make up about an hour and fifteen minutes. So that still is less than half of what's here.  

By the way, here's a good blogpost by a Deadhead about this very concert:

Grateful Dead Listening Guide: 1971 July 02 - Fillmore West 

This album is two hours and 41 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Grateful Dead)
02 Bertha (Grateful Dead)
03 Me and Bobby McGee (Grateful Dead)
04 Next Time You See Me (Grateful Dead)
05 China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead)
06 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
07 Playing in the Band (Grateful Dead)
08 Loser (Grateful Dead)
09 Ain't It Crazy [The Rub] (Grateful Dead)
10 Me and My Uncle (Grateful Dead)
11 Big Railroad Blues (Grateful Dead)
12 Hard to Handle (Grateful Dead)
13 Deal (Grateful Dead)
14 Promised Land (Grateful Dead)
15 Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)
16 Sugar Magnolia (Grateful Dead)
17 Sing Me Back Home (Grateful Dead)
18 Mama Tried (Grateful Dead)
19 That's It for the Other One (Grateful Dead)
20 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
21 That's It for the Other One [Reprise] (Grateful Dead)
22 Big Boss Man (Grateful Dead)
23 Casey Jones (Grateful Dead)
24 Not Fade Away (Grateful Dead)
25 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Grateful Dead)
26 Not Fade Away [Reprise] (Grateful Dead)
27 talk (Grateful Dead)
28 Johnny B. Goode (Grateful Dead)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xUZsaYbF

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/uJ3AYFRLyXngCGF/file

The cover photo of Jerry Garcia is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. It's from the "Fillmore" movie. Given Bob Weir's recent death, I wanted to use a photo that had Weir in it. But the only one like that I could find would have been very tricky to colorize, due to it being dark and murky. Plus, I'm not completely sure if it's from this exact concert or not. But here it is anyway. If nothing else, it's good way to help imagine the ambience of the concert, since it shows the audience too.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-2-1971, Part 2: The New Riders of the Purple Sage with Jerry Garcia

Here's the second set from the third day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the New Riders of the Purple Sage with Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead.

This is like deja vu all over again, because the previous set I just posted, of the Rowan Brothers, also featured Garcia playing on all the songs. And, just like that set, in this set, he played pedal steel guitar instead of his usual electric guitar. It's played quite differently, as you can see from the cover photo, and one has control over foot and knee pedals to help adjust the pitch of the notes. Around this time Garcia was enjoying learning how to play it well. For instance, that's Garcia playing pedal steel on the classic song "Teach Your Children" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

The Wikipedia introduction to this band is pretty short, and not that helpful, but here's what it says anyway:

"New Riders of the Purple Sage was an American country rock band. The group emerged from the psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco in 1969 and its original lineup included several members of the Grateful Dead. The band is sometimes referred to as the New Riders or as NRPS." 

The rest of the article is quite long and informative, so here's the link for that:

New Riders of the Purple Sage - Wikipedia

I want to add a bit more to explain more about Garcia playing with this band in this concert. The New Riders of the Purple Sage were mainly led by musicians John Dawson and David Nelson. Both of them had musical ties to Garcia even before the band was formed in 1969. When it was formed, Garcia was essentially a full member. It was an outlet for Garcia to express his enjoyment of bluegrass and country music, and practice pedal steel guitar. In 1970 and 1971 especially, this band frequently was the opening act for Grateful Dead concerts, with Garcia and other Grateful Dead members sitting in on their set, and Dawson and Nelson would often perform on songs in the acoustic portion of the Dead's set.

By the time of this concert, the band members had written a bunch of original songs. However, they still hadn't released any music. Their first album would be released in August 1971, just a month later. Garcia's pedal steel playing was all over the album. However, by the end of 1971, Garcia essentially cut ties with the group, so they could stand on their own instead of being seen as a Grateful Dead side group. 

Note that three songs from this concert, "Down in the Boondocks," "Superman," and "The Weight," were eventually released as bonus tracks on the band's 1971 debut album. The song "Henry" was also included on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. The rest of the songs here remain unreleased. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Workin' Man Blues (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
02 Superman (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
03 I Don't Know You (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
04 Down in the Boondocks (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
05 Dirty Business (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
06 Glendale Train (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
07 Portland Women (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
08 talk (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
09 Henry (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
10 Sailin' (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
11 Last Lonely Eagle (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
12 Louisiana Lady (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
13 talk (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
14 Honky Tonk Women (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
15 talk (New Riders of the Purple Sage)
16 The Weight (New Riders of the Purple Sage)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FDcxEwqp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Ccby7L4aRfW28IG/file

I couldn't find any good photos of the New Riders of the Purple Sage from this exact concert, or even other concerts from around this time. But I did find a nice one of Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel guitar. And while it also isn't from this exact concert, it is from the Fillmore West, except the year before. (Specifically, a concert on June 5, 1970.) I thought it was a worthy picture to use, because it illustrates how playing pedal steel is very different from playing a typical guitar. 

Oh, also, the original picture was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-2-1971, Part 1: The Rowan Brothers with Jerry Garcia

Here's the first set from the third day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the Rowan Brothers with Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead.

First off, note that this third day of these closing concerts was basically "Jerry Garcia Day." That's because there were three musical acts, and Garcia performed with all three of them. For once in this series, I know the order of the performances, and the Rowan Brothers were first.

The main reason Garcia sat in for this show was because it was a chance for him to play pedal steel guitar in public, instead of his usual electric guitar, and he was really enjoying doing that around this time. David Grisman also played mandolin through this set. He would often collaborate with Garica, as well as Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, in later years. Furthermore, Bill Kreutzmann, one of the two drummers for the Grateful Dead, was the drummer for this set.

Here's some excerpts of what their Wikipedia entry has to say about them: 

"The Rowans, also known as The Rowan Brothers, are an American country-rock group, originally formed by the brothers Chris Rowan and Lorin Rowan. They were joined by another brother, Peter Rowan, for their second, third and fourth album. Chris and Lorin were raised close to Boston, but in the beginning of 1970, they moved to the West Coast to pursue their music. In 1971, they opened for Grateful Dead as their first gig in San Francisco. Their first album, The Rowan Brothers, was issued on Columbia Records. It was very well critically acclaimed, [but didn't sell well]. The album included such guests as Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann of Grateful Dead and was co-produced by David Grisman. The group had problems after the first record because their benefactor, Clive Davis, lost his job at Columbia. They were signed to Asylum Records as the Rowans and issued their next album in 1975, this time joined by their more famous brother, Peter Rowan, who brought in such hits as 'Midnight Moonlight' and 'Thunder on the Mountain.' After releasing three albums as a trio, Peter left the group to pursue bluegrass music."

Here's the link to the entry:

The Rowans - Wikipedia 

This album is 30 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Rowan Brothers)
02 Hickory Day (Rowan Brothers)
03 Heavens to Betsy (Rowan Brothers)
04 talk (Rowan Brothers)
05 Outside Clover (Rowan Brothers)
06 talk (Rowan Brothers)
07 Don't You Worry about a Thing (Rowan Brothers)
08 Better Off Dead (Rowan Brothers)
09 Peace and Happiness (Rowan Brothers)
10 Mama Don't You Cry (Rowan Brothers)
11 Livin' the Life on the Farm (Rowan Brothers)
12 talk (Rowan Brothers)
13 Move On Down (Rowan Brothers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zwLT8CNX

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/zyQxlTa8C3t0fOd/file

I couldn't find any good photos of the Rowan Brothers from this concert, or any other concert of this era, for that matter. I did find a photo of the two of them posing with guitars out on a hilltop with a forest behind them, in black and white. I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. I also got rid of the forest background, and replaced it with darkness. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-1-1971, Part 4: It's a Beautiful Day

Here's the fourth (and last) set from the second day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band It's a Beautiful Day. 

I'm guessing this was the last set on the night, mostly based on the fact that it was the longest set. But that's just a guess. If anyone knows these things, please let me know.

Here selections from the Wikipedia entry on the band:

"It's a Beautiful Day is an American band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1967, featuring violinist David LaFlamme and his wife, Linda LaFlamme, on keyboards, and vocalist Pattie Santos. ... Although they were one of the notable San Francisco bands to emerge from 1967's Summer of Love, the group never achieved the level of success that contemporaries such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana did, with whom they had connections. The band created a unique blend of rock, jazz, folk, country, classical, and world-beat styles."

Here's the link to the full entry:

It's a Beautiful Day - Wikipedia

I would add that if you're interested in classic rock, I suggest getting the band's debut album, the self-titled "It's a Beautiful Day," released in 1969. It's solid all the way through, and contains their hit "White Bird." Their follow up album, "Marrying Maiden," from 1970, is very good as well. Note also that Linda LaFlamme had left the band by this time.

Everything here is unreleased except for "White Bird." That came out on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album.

So far, I didn't have to make many edits to the albums I've posted in this series. But this album had some issues. A few of the songs were cut off, either at the beginnings or the ends. For those songs, I found other live versions from the time period with similar sound quality and patched in the missing parts. That's why three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. And if I recall, the vocals were low across the board, so I had to boost them in the mix using the MVSEP audio editing program. Actually, now that I think about it, I did that for some of the sets I've posted already, but I forget which ones. 

This album is an hour and 50 minutes long. 

UPDATE: The mp3 download zip was updated on August 3, 2026. Previously, there were three songs that were missing pieces, so I had fixed them by using parts from different performances. But I came across a different source that had those pieces. So I updated those three songs. 

01 Creed of Love (It's a Beautiful Day)
02 talk (It's a Beautiful Day)
03 Hot Summer Day (It's a Beautiful Day)
04 Bye Bye Baby [Instrumental] (It's a Beautiful Day)
05 Bitter Wine (It's a Beautiful Day)
06 White Bird (It's a Beautiful Day)
07 Hoedown [Instrumental] (It's a Beautiful Day)
08 20-20 Vision (It's a Beautiful Day)
09 Good Lovin' (It's a Beautiful Day)
10 Let a Woman Flow (It's a Beautiful Day)
11 Don and Dewey [Instrumental] (It's a Beautiful Day)
12 talk (It's a Beautiful Day)
13 Any Time (It's a Beautiful Day)
14 talk (It's a Beautiful Day)
15 Place of Dreams (It's a Beautiful Day)
16 Bombay Calling [Instrumental] (It's a Beautiful Day)
17 Wasted Union Blues (It's a Beautiful Day)
18 Time Is (It's a Beautiful Day)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BDWmNQa8

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/343Dqwzffh1MUQU/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the "Fillmore" movie. It shows the band's main lead singer Pantie Santos in the foreground and the band's other lead singer and main songwriter David LaFlamme behind her.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-1-1971, Part 3: The Elvin Bishop Group

Here's the third set from the second day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the Elvin Bishop Group.

These days, Elvin Bishop is considered a one-hit wonder, because his song "Fooled Around and Feel in Love" went all the way to Number Three in the U.S. singles chart in 1976. But he had a much longer and more distinguished music career than the one-hit wonder label would suggest. He was the lead guitarist for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band from 1963 to 1968, though his lead guitar took a backseat to the playing of Mike Bloomfield for the two years Bloomfield was part of that band. 

After the Paul Butterfield Blues Band broke up, Bishop formed the Elvin Bishop Group. His first album in 1969 wasn't well received, because his lead vocals were considered weak. So he recruited soul singer Jo Baker to sing lead on most songs. She was the main lead singer from about 1970 to 1974, and can be heard singing most songs here. (By the time "Fooled Around and Feel in Love" was released in 1975, she was replaced by Mickey Thomas.) 

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Elvin Bishop:

Elvin Bishop - Wikipedia

And here's the entry for Jo Baker:

Jo Baker (singer) - Wikipedia  

Like most of the music in this series, most everything here is unreleased. However, two songs from this set were released on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album: "So Fine" and "Party 'Til the Cows Come Home." The sound quality is excellent, due to it being broadcast on local radio stations at the time. 

This album is an hour and 25 minutes long. 

01 talk (Elvin Bishop)
02 Stomp (Elvin Bishop)
03 talk (Elvin Bishop)
04 So Fine (Elvin Bishop)
05 talk (Elvin Bishop)
06 Get It (Elvin Bishop)
07 talk (Elvin Bishop)
08 Old Time Feeling (Elvin Bishop)
09 talk (Elvin Bishop)
10 Easy to Find (Elvin Bishop)
11 talk (Elvin Bishop)
12 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Elvin Bishop)
13 The Sky Is Crying (Elvin Bishop)
14 Crazy 'bout You Baby (Elvin Bishop)
15 talk (Elvin Bishop)
16 Party 'Til the Cows Come Home (Elvin Bishop)
17 talk (Elvin Bishop)
18 Party 'Til the Cows Come Home [Reprise] (Elvin Bishop)
19 talk (Elvin Bishop)
20 I'm Goin' Fishin' (Elvin Bishop)
21 talk (Elvin Bishop)
22 Let It Flow (Elvin Bishop)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YhckBRBt

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/GFFZCQy4gVl0i6I/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the "Fillmore" movie of this exact concert. It shows the band's usual lead singer, Jo Baker, instead of lead guitarist Elvin Bishop.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-1-1971, Part 2: Grootna

Here's the second set from the second day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Grootna.

The previous set I posted in this series was the obscure band Lamb. But this band is even more obscure, as shown by the fact that they don't even have a Wikipedia page (as I write this in January 2026). So I had to do some digging to come up with some information about them. They were only in existence for a short time, releasing a single album in 1971. It was produced by Marty Balin, a former member of Jefferson Airplane. He liked them so much that he poached two band members, including them in his next musical project, Bodacious DF. That seems to have ended Grootna.

The band was most noted for the lead vocals of Anna Rizzo. Here's a quick summary of the musical style I found in a rateyourmusic.com review: "Fairly tight, semi-commercial rock with some mild rural/ West Coast-y moves, and soul-ish female vocals, as well as good guitar and some honky tonk piano."

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 That's What You Get (Grootna)
02 Road Fever (Grootna)
03 talk (Grootna)
04 I'm Funky (Grootna)
05 talk (Grootna)
06 Crazy 'bout You Baby (Grootna)
07 talk (Grootna)
08 Full Time Woman (Grootna)
09 talk (Grootna)
10 You're Drivin' Me Crazy (Grootna)
11 I Can't Get No Nookie (Grootna)
12 Tend to Your Business (Grootna)
13 Live a Life of Joy (Grootna) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/F7kpx3CA

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/BJYwp8DjF52F8Zj/file

Somehow or another, I forget how, I found a low-res, black and white image of Grootna lead singer Anna Rizzo in concert. I colorized the image with the help of the Kolorize program, and I added detail with the help of the Krea AI program.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-1-1971, Part 1: Lamb

Here's the first set from the second day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Lamb. 

Also, by the way, note that I'm not sure at all about the order of the appearances on this day, and I'm just guessing based on the popularity of the different acts.

If you haven't heard of Lamb, don't feel bad, because they never got very well known. But one nice thing about posting these concerts from the closing of the Fillmore West is shedding light on lesser known bands that otherwise never got bootlegged. Keep in mind that all of these bands in this series were selected by famous promoter Bill Graham, so there's some quality control there.

 Here's some excerpts from their Wikipedia entry:

"Lamb was a San Francisco-based rock group. They tend to be remembered only for their appearance on the Fillmore: The Last Days concert album. They issued three albums: A Sign of Change (1970), Cross Between (1971) and Bring Out The Sun (1971). ... Their music blended jazz, folk music, singer-songwriter pop, gospel, and even some classical and avant-garde influences. Reminiscent in spots of such varied artists as Tim Buckley, Judy Collins (in her art-song phase), David Ackles, and Savage Rose (in that band's most gospel-soaked period), their records were ultimately idiosyncratic enough to defy ready comparison to anyone."

All the songs here are unreleased, and come from the same source, a live radio broadcast, except for the last one. That one, "Hello Friends," appeared on the official live album "Fillmore - The Last Days," which documents this series of concerts. I figure that got left out of the broadcast for some reason or another, but is still from the same show. I added it to the end. 

And here's the link to the whole entry:

Lamb (rock band) - Wikipedia 

This album is 36 minutes long.  

01 Joshua (Lamb)
02 Visions of Blackbirds (Lamb)
03 River Boulevard (Lamb)
04 talk (Lamb)
05 Together (Lamb)
06 talk (Lamb)
07 Paper Airplanes (Lamb)
08 I Need a Man to Be Good To (Lamb)
09 Real Believers (Lamb)
10 Old Fashioned Remedy (Lamb)
11 Hello Friends (Lamb)  

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uQvkXSpC

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/2qHK3jl0e9csy0P/file

The cover photo of lead singer Barbara Mauritz is a screenshot I took from the "Fillmore" movie. 

Problem Again

This is just a quick note that I've been banned from using Pixeldrain again, due to another copyright issue. This time, it was the acoustic version of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" album. The BestFile link still works for that one though. Previously, when I've been banned from Pixeldrain, it's only lasted a week. Let's hope that's the case this time too. Assuming it is, I'll backfill the links once it's working again. But in the meantime, it'll just be BestFile links. 

Oh, also, Pixeldrain has announced that the amount of time they allow until a link goes dead due to inactivity will be cut in half, from 120 days to 60 days. So far, I've almost never had any Pixeldrain links go dead, but I guess that will be changing.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 6-30-1971, Part 5: Elvin Bishop, Taj Mahal, and More

Here's the fifth set from the first day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set is different. Instead of featuring one musical act, it was a bonus jam session after all the acts scheduled to perform had finished their sets. 

I luckily found this set on YouTube, then converted it to audio format and broke it into mp3s. The text for that contained some informative text taken from Wolfgang's Vault, so I'll repeat that here: 

"As many may already know, on the final night (July 4th) of the closing week festivities at Fillmore West a lengthy jam session occurred, featuring many great musicians and singers. What few remember is that a similar event occurred earlier in the week (on the first night, June 30th). It was this jam session, in fact, that provided the two tracks that made it onto the 'Fillmore: The Last Days' live release. The core band includes Elvin Bishop on lead guitar, Stephen Miller (from Elvin's band) on organ, David Brown (from Boz Scaggs' band) on bass and Michael Shrieve (from Santana) on drums. This was one of the few sets not broadcast locally, and until these pre-production reels were recently discovered in the Bill Graham Archive, nobody was aware that most of this jam session existed on tape. This part of the session features Lester Chambers of The Chambers Brothers on lead vocals. On 'Have You Ever Been Mistreated,' Chambers sings in an unfamiliar falsetto and on 'You Better Believe,' sings in his distinctive voice, with the Pointer Sisters punching out their gospel-fueled vocals between each line of the verses. A truly captivating performance." 

I have some more information to add. This set also included some lead vocals by Linda Tillery, who was the lead singer for the band the Loading Zone. And Jo Baker was involved as well. She sang lead on some songs in the Elvin Bishop Group at the time. The Pointer Sisters sang lead vocals on one song. Their involvement here is especially interesting because they were just starting out. They signed a record contract at some point in 1971, and released a single later that year, as well as another one in 1972. But their debut album wouldn't come out until 1973.

The credits in the song list are only for the main lead vocalists. Many others were involved, but it's pretty much for me to tell who was playing on each song. But, for instance, the Pointer Sisters were an opening act for the Elvin Bishop Group in 1971, and doing a lot of backing vocals in studio sessions. So they sang some backing vocals here as well. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 We Gonna Rock (Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop & Boz Scaggs)
02 Long and Tall (Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop & Boz Scaggs)
03 You Got Me Hummin' (Pointer Sisters)
04 I Found a Love (Linda Tillery)
05 Why I Sing the Blues (Linda Tillery)
06 Have You Ever Been Mistreated (Lester Chambers)
07 You Better Believe (Lester Chambers)
08 talk (Elvin Bishop)
09 Blues Jam (Elvin Bishop & Everyone)
10 talk (Elvin Bishop)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2x78nZby

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/kq2pNq5x6Li4Q5X/file

I thought it would be tough to find a good cover photo for this album, since there wasn't one main musical act this time. So I was tickled pink to discover a photo of Boz Scaggs, Taj Mahal, and Elvin Bishop from this exact concert. It must be from the first two songs. That's Scaggs, Mahal, and Bishop from right to left. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 6-30-1971, Part 4: Stoneground

Here's the fourth set from the first day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Stoneground.

Here's what their Wikipedia entry has to say about them:

"Stoneground was an American rock band formed in 1970 in Concord, California. Originally a trio, Stoneground expanded to a 10-piece band by the time of their self-titled 1971 debut album. The group appeared in two films and released three albums before singer Sal Valentino quit in 1973. Three other band members — Cory Lerios, Steve Price and David Jenkins — left to form the pop group Pablo Cruise. Stoneground continued as an act through 1982, with only Tim Barnes and Annie Sampson remaining from the early incarnation of the band. Barnes and Price led a re-formed Stoneground in 2003 and released a studio album the following year."

Here's the link if you want to read the full Wikipedia entry:

Stoneground - Wikipedia

I just want to add that most of the songs here are originals, but they did some interesting covers. For instance, they started with two Bob Dylan songs, and also covered two Johnny Cash songs ("Get Rhythm" and "Big River"). But what really impressed me was a cover of "Total Destruction to Your Mind," a great but obscure song by the soul music singer Swamp Dogg. 

One song, "Passion Flower," appeared on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album. Everything else here is unreleased.

This album is exactly one hour long. 

01 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Stoneground)
02 If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Stoneground)
03 See Ya Later (Stoneground)
04 I'm Always Looking for You (Stoneground)
05 You Wanna See Me (Stoneground)
06 Me and the Devil (Stoneground)
07 talk (Stoneground)
08 Passion Flower (Stoneground)
09 talk (Stoneground)
10 Get Rhythm (Stoneground)
11 talk (Stoneground)
12 Richland Women (Stoneground)
13 Chicken Fried (Stoneground)
14 I Wish (Stoneground)
15 talk (Stoneground)
16 Total Destruction to Your Mind (Stoneground)
17 Big River (Stoneground)
18 talk by Bill Graham (Stoneground) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BaZyfvUw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NhBHzbizXa0OyXC/file

Stoneground is not that famous of a band, so I had a hard time finding any good color photos of them in concert. However, it turns out they appeared on the German TV show "Beat Club" in 1971. I took screenshots of each of the two lead singers, then Photoshopped them so both could fit on the cover.

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 6-30-1971, Part 3: Flamin' Groovies

Here's the third set from the first day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the band Flamin' Groovies.

In my write-up for the second set, I said I'm going to keep my write-ups short, and mostly rely on Wikipedia information. But this one is different, because it's one of only two sets from these closing of the Fillmore West concerts I previously posted on this blog. So I'm deleting that post and making this new one, but largely keeping the old write-up. This version also has a new cover photo, taken from this exact venue (though on a different date).

In case you're not familiar, (the) Flamin' Groovies were an American rock band that always seemed to have a retro sound, even though they were formed in 1965. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, they had a kind of proto-punk sound reminiscent of the Rolling Stones when they were in their mid-1960s bluesy mode. Then, in 1971, Roy Loney, one of the band's lead vocalists, left the band. He was replaced by Chris Wilson, who led the band in more of a Beatles / power pop direction. Their other lead singer, Cyril Jordan, stayed with both versions of the band. They never had much commercial success, but they're kind of a hidden treasure if you're into rootsy rock and roll.

Here's their Wikipedia page, if you want to know more:

Flamin' Groovies - Wikipedia

There have been a bunch of official live albums by the band, but they're generally either from way past the band's prime or the sound quality is middling at best. One key exception is this concert. It has been officially released at different times under different names: "Slow Death, Live!," "Bucket of Brains," and "The Flamin' Groovies in Person." I'm posting it here because I was able to significantly improve the sound quality by the simple trick of boosting the lead vocals relative to the instruments (using the UVR5 audio editing program).

This seems to be the only soundboard quality live recording of the original line-up of the band. Roy Loney left the band in 1971, but that happened shortly after this concert. It seems the band wasn't high profile and/or wealthy enough to professionally record their concerts. This is a lucky exception, because this comes from a series of concerts marking the closing of the Fillmore West concert venue in San Francisco, that included lots of famous acts like the Grateful Dead, Santana, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The performances were professionally recorded and broadcast on San Francisco radio stations, including this set by Flamin' Groovies. 

Flamin' Groovies played cover versions more often than not. But they could write very good originals as well. For instance, in my opinion, two of the songs here, "Slow Death" and "Teenage Head," are classic originals that should be much better known. "Road House" and "Doctor Boogie" are also originals, but the rest are covers.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 I Can't Explain (Flamin' Groovies)
02 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Flamin' Groovies)
03 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
04 Have You Seen My Baby (Flamin' Groovies)
05 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
06 Road House (Flamin' Groovies)
07 Doctor Boogie (Flamin' Groovies)
08 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
09 Slow Death (Flamin' Groovies)
10 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
11 Shakin' All Over (Flamin' Groovies)
12 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
13 Teenage Head (Flamin' Groovies)
14 Louie, Louie (Flamin' Groovies)
15 Walking the Dog (Flamin' Groovies)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RW7qv8tm

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MpOvtLq3gFsznTF/file

The cover photo comes from a concert at the Fillmore West, but from a different date. Specifically, it's from a concert on May 15, 1970. The version I found was in black and white. But I used the program Kolorize to colorize it.