Norah Jones - Home Concerts 3, New York City, 4-29-2020 (Willie Nelson Tribute)

As the coronavirus lockdown goes on, Norah Jones has really been killing it. She keeps putting on interesting mini-home concerts once or twice a week. Just yesterday, she did an extra special concert that was her most interesting one yet, in my opinion. On the date of country legend Willie Nelson's 87th birthday, she did a special Willie-Nelson-themed show. All the songs were written by Nelson, with the exception of one song, "Remember Me," which is a song Nelson covered on one of his albums.

This is a fairly short show at 27 minutes. I could have waited until she did another mini-concert and then bundled this one with that one. But I think it's good to present this on its own due to its consistent Willie Nelson theme. The vast majority of the songs are songs Jones hasn't officially released. (I do have her doing "Crazy" and "Funny How Time Slips Away" on earlier stray tracks albums I've put together, with the latter being a duet version with Nelson.)

The sound quality here is just fine. One exception is that she tends to talk very quietly between songs. But I was able to easily fix that by raising the volume on all those talking bits.

Finally, viva Willie Nelson, who as I write this in 2020, is still going strong musically at 87 years old!

01 Funny How Time Slips Away (Norah Jones)
02 talk (Norah Jones)
03 I Gotta Get Drunk (Norah Jones)
04 talk (Norah Jones)
05 Permanently Lonely (Norah Jones)
06 talk (Norah Jones)
07 Remember Me (Norah Jones)
08 talk (Norah Jones)
09 Crazy (Norah Jones)
10 talk (Norah Jones)
11 Night Life (Norah Jones)
12 talk (Norah Jones)
13 Hands on the Wheel (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603563/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts3__4-29-2020_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I could have gone with a screenshot of Jones playing these songs. But she doesn't really look any different than she did for the covers in the last two home concert albums of hers I've put together. So instead, I thought it was fitting to use a photo of Jones and Nelson together. The photo is from a concert appearance they did together in 2003.

Neil Finn - Home Concerts 3, Los Angeles, CA, 4-5-2020 to 4-7-2020

Neil Finn of Crowded House (and lately, Fleetwood Mac) has been so prolific with his home concerts in recent weeks that I'm going to need to post more from him just to keep up. So here's the third album compiling his daily home concerts.

But before I go any further, I need to address the elephant in Neil Finn's room. Are you familiar with the New Zealand TV sitcom "Flight of the Conchords?" It's very funny; I highly recommend it. Anyway, the musical duo starring in that show have a bumbling, meek manager named Murray, played by Rhys Darby. I swear, Neil Finn sounds EXACTLY like Murray! I'm only including Finn's songs and not his talking between songs, so you probably can't tell, but trust me on this. I even lived in New Zealand for a year, so I know it's not just the general Kiwi accent. Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. Every time I listen to his home concerts and hear him talking, I have to laugh because I think it's Murray talking.

As far as this album goes, it's more of the same good stuff. Here are the cover versions he does:

Sweet Baby James - James Taylor
There Is a Light that Never Goes Out - Smiths
Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel
Will You Love Me Tomorrow - Carole King / Shirelles
Throw Your Arms Around Me - Hunters and Collectors
Changes - David Bowie

That's not including songs from Finn's earlier bands, such as "Four Seasons in One Day," a Crowded House hit.

01 As Sure as I Am (Neil Finn)
02 Time Immemorial (Neil Finn)
03 Golden Child (Neil Finn with Sharon Finn)
04 Sweet Baby James (Neil Finn)
05 Four Seasons in One Day (Neil Finn)
06 Spirit of the Stairs (Neil Finn)
07 There Is a Light that Never Goes Out (Neil Finn with Johnny Marr)
08 Whispers and Moans (Neil Finn)
09 Love Is Emotional (Neil Finn)
10 Homeward Bound (Neil Finn)
11 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Neil Finn)
12 Throw Your Arms Around Me (Neil Finn)
13 Won’t Give In (Neil Finn)
14 Log Cabin Fever (Neil Finn)
15 Changes (Neil Finn)
16 She Goes On (Neil Finn)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363157/NEILFNN2020HmeConcrts03LsAnglesCA__4-5-2020_to_4-7-2020_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/txAqT8pn

For the album cover art, I decided it would be nice to have a close-up photo of Finn's head. I couldn't find any really good recent ones, so this one is from about five years ago. But he looks pretty much exactly the same now, except for whiter hair.

Etta James - Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino de Montreux, Montreux, Switerland, 7-9-1977

In recent days I've been posting mostly acoustic music, generally from 2020 home concerts. I thought it's time for something a little more lively. Also, it seems I never get to post enough soul music. So here's a bootleg of a great Etta James concert from 1977.

I'm a big Etta James fan. She had a long career that started in the 1950s and ended with her death in 2012. But, in my opinion, her music was most vital in the 1960s and 1970s. She also was an impressive live performer. However, there's very little recorded live music from her 60s and 70s heyday. There's a wonderful live album from 1963 called "Rocks the House." If you don't have it and you like her music, you should get it. But that's it in terms of official releases, even including archival releases. When it comes to bootlegs as well, there's next to no live recordings from that era.

Luckily, there's one notable exception. Starting in 1975, she began playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. She didn't do it every year, but when she did, her set usually got professionally recorded and played on the local radio. This concert dates to 1977, mostly. The last song, a cover of "Take It to the Limit" by the Eagles, is from the 1978 festival, and is the only song from that show that I could find. If the website setlist.fm is correct, this is her entire 1977 performance. Her 1978 appearance largely had the same setlist, with "Take It to the Limit" as an exception, so we're lucky that one song has somehow made it to bootleg when the rest of the concert hasn't.

The sound quality on all of this is fantastic, as good as you'd expect from an official live album. For the original version of this concert that I posted, there were issues with the applause at the end of the songs, plus a lack of banter between songs. But I have since updated it with a better source that fixed those things. So, no worries. ;)

I'm going to end my comments here with a plea for help. As good as this 1977 concert is, I'm even more interested in having and sharing her 1975 appearance at Montreux. I've been able to find five songs from it. A video of four of the songs is on YouTube. But, in fact, she played 11 songs that year, a much longer set than her 1977 one. The entire 1975 concert was released in 2015 on an album simply called "1975," as you can see here:

https://www.discogs.com/Etta-James-Etta-James-1975-Recorded-Live-At-Montreux-Jazz-Festival/release/7805148

But only a 1,000 copies of that were sold, and it quickly went out of print. I can't find it or buy it anywhere. I think that should be made more widely available. So if anyone has it and is willing to share it, please let me know. 

This 1977 concert is 57 minutes long, including the one song from 1978. I suspect the 1975 Montreux show is the one and only excellent concert recording of a full concert (meaning well over an hour) that we're ever likely to be able to hear. It also would be great to have because the 1975 and 1977 set lists are very different, with only two songs played at both shows.

Note that if you're a Randy Newman fan, it's a special treat that she does two Randy Newman songs here, "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and "Sail Away." She knocks them out of the park.

UPDATE: On October 29, 2020, I was contacted by Dave Lowrey. He says he actually played bass during this concert! He shared a slightly better version of the concert. Most of it was exactly the same, including the same sound quality. But it had one song that had been missed, "I'd Rather Go Blind." It also had all the banter between songs, and the proper audience reactions after each song. That added 12 minutes to the length of the album. Furthermore, I was able to fix the location of one of the songs. ("Tell Mama" started the concert instead of ended it.) So thank you very much, Mr. Lowrey!

01 Tell Mama (Etta James)
02 talk (Etta James)
03 I'd Rather Go Blind (Etta James)
04 Groove Me (Etta James)
05 talk (Etta James)
06 At Last - Trust in Me (Etta James)
07 A Sunday Kind of Love (Etta James)
08 talk (Etta James)
09 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Etta James)
10 talk (Etta James)
11 Sail Away (Etta James)
12 Rock Me Baby (Etta James)
13 talk (Etta James)
14 Take It to the Limit (Etta James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260283/EttaJms_1977_MontreuxJzzFestival__7-9-1977_atse.zip.html

The photo comes from the actual concert in question, I'm happy to say.

Melissa Etheridge - Bruce Springsteen Tribute - Home Concert, Los Angeles, CA, 4-24-2020

You know who has been remarkably musically prolific during the coronavirus lockdown? Neil Finn on Crowded House. He's been putting on a mini-concert at home nearly every single day (and I've started posting albums compiled from those). But you know who has been even MORE prolific than him? Melissa Etheridge. She started a day or two earlier, and has been putting on a mini-concert every single day without fail. It really is remarkable. I wish more musicians would follow the leads of Finn and Etheridge and go wild recording and posting whatever they want.

As it so happens, I'm not that big of a Melissa Etheridge fan. I like some of her stuff, but I'm about at the "greatest hits" level. She's had a lot of very good hits, but her albums aren't consistent enough for my tastes. That said, she has an undeniably impressive voice. So when she covers classic songs, she really shines. I'm not going to post all or most of her many 2020 home concerts. That would be way too much. But I will post what I consider are some of the highlights.

One entire home concert has been a highlight, the one she did on April 24, 2020. While most of the rest of her home concerts have focused on her own songs, this one was devoted entirely to Bruce Springsteen songs. It turns out she's a huge Springsteen fan, and his music was a big influence on her career. So this is a recording that both Melissa Etheridge and Bruce Springsteen fans should enjoy.

For her home concerts, Etheridge has spent a large portion of them just talking, sometimes sharing long stories. This concert is no exception. She met Springsteen a bunch of time, and has sung duets with him on stage, so she has some interesting and relevant stories to tell. That said, sometimes she's gone off on less interesting tangents. So I've edited her comments to keep their length down to more reasonable levels. But even after my edits, sometimes she talks for two or three minutes between songs. If that's too long for you, you can just delete those tracks and reduce a 53-minute-long concert into a 37-minute-long one.

For the most part, these songs are just Etheridge on acoustic guitar or piano. But it turns out she can play many instruments and has a skill at looping. That means recording a sample of some music, such as a short snippet of a drum beat, and then repeating (or looping) it to provide the backing track for a song. For a couple of songs here, especially "She's the One" and "Born to Run," she does all the looping herself, live, adding multiple instruments. Building up the tracks is an impressive thing to watch on video, but I don't think it stands up to repeated listenings. So I edited out the couple of minutes it took for her to build up the instrumentation for each of those songs. If you're interested, watch the video of her doing it on YouTube.

Also note that one of the songs here, "Thunder Road," is kind of a ringer in that it's not from this concert at all. She played it a couple of weeks earlier during one of her other home concerts. It's a piano performance, and she did it on a day just for piano-based songs. Since that is a Springsteen song, I took that version, as well as her story that preceded it, and added it in to the concert. I put both of those just before her final comments, to make it seem as if they were part of the same show.

01 Darkness on the Edge of Town (Melissa Etheridge)
02 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
03 The River (Melissa Etheridge)
04 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
05 Pink Cadillac (Melissa Etheridge)
06 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
07 She's the One (Melissa Etheridge)
08 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
09 I'm on Fire Intro (Melissa Etheridge)
10 I'm on Fire (Melissa Etheridge)
11 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
12 Born to Run (Melissa Etheridge)
13 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
14 Thunder Road (Melissa Etheridge)
15 talk (Melissa Etheridge)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/x93ffSpk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/ABChmA9hQktFvsi/file

The cover art needs a special explanation. I could have simply used a screenshot from her YouTube video of this concert. But at one point she told a story about a duet she sang in concert in 1995 with Springsteen. To illustrate the story, she held up a photo of her and him singing together at the concert. So I took a screenshot of that photo. It's true the photo is rather low-res, but it's a good photo of the two of them that I couldn't find anywhere else on the Internet, and I thought it made for a fitting cover.

I'm writing this paragraph much later, in January 2025. All hail our new AI overlords! I kid, but I just fixed the cover pic using the Krea AI program. I had to run it through the program a few times, but somehow it turned the very blurry and blobby original into something resembling an actual photograph.

Robyn Htichcock - Tin Angel, Philadephia, PA, 3-26-1995, Late Show

I just posted Robyn Hitchcock's early show at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia, on March 26, 1995. This is the late show from the same night. Like the early show, this has never been made public anywhere before now. See my write-up from the early show for more details. But note that this is a fantastic sounding soundboard recording, as good as you could hope for.

One of my musical friends, Lil Panda, was involved in the recording of this. He told me that he only attended the early show. But the kind person running the soundboard let him keep his recording device plugged in for the late show, allowing him to pick it up later. That worked out as planned, except the tape ran out before the show ended. So, while the early show recording is 59 minutes long, this one is only 33 minutes long.

The last song, "Filthy Bird," got cut off halfway through. So I used the recording of that song from the "Storefront Hitchcock" live album, matched the pitch and tempo, and then patched in the last minute or so from that, so it sounds complete.

Although this is a relatively short recording, it's still worth listening to because of the varied set lists, as well as all the entertaining banter between songs. Only two songs, "Egyptian Cream" and "I Something You," were played in both the early and late shows.

01 Radio Storm [Driving Aloud] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Madonna of the Wasps (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Chinese Water Python [Instrumental] (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Glass Hotel (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Statue with a Walkman (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Egyptian Cream (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 I Something You (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Filthy Bird [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15429715/RobynH_1995_TinAnglPhiladphiaPA__3-26-1995__LateShw_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from an early 1996 concert. Although I didn't find any specific text to prove it, I believe it's from the same concert as the photo I used for the early show. He appears to be wearing the same clothes, and even the grainy nature of the photo is the same.

Robyn Htichcock - Tin Angel, Philadephia, PA, 3-26-1995, Early Show

I am very delighted to present this Robyn Hitchcock solo acoustic concert, because it's a pristine soundboard that I know for a fact has never been available anywhere before. 

I know that because I was involved with two other musical friends (Lil Panda and Daniel) to convert it from an old cassette to digital. Lil Panda had a hand in recording it all those years ago, but didn't have a means to concert it until a few days ago. So if you're a Hitchcock fan, you definitely should listen to this.

I've already posted the two Hitchcock shows from the night before, March 25, 1995, at the same venue. They're soundboard bootlegs too, thanks to the same taper. See the links here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/04/robyn-hitchcock-tin-angel-philadelphia.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/04/robyn-hitchcock-tin-angel-philadelphia_5.html

I'm posting the early and late shows from March 26, 1995 as well, with this one being the early show. Admittedly, the shows are somewhat similar. But luckily, Hitchcock plays different set lists each time. Plus, he has lots of entertaining banter between songs, and I understand he never repeats the same story twice.

What's especially remarkable is this early show contains an unreleased song, apparently called "I Stayed Too Long," though that's just a guess, that has never appeared anywhere else. There's a vast Hitchcock Internet database called The Asking Tree that has tracked the majority of his concert set lists through 2006, yet there's no evidence of this song ever being played at any other time. And it's not one of his many spontaneous improv songs; it appears to be a fully formed song.

As mentioned above, the sound on this is great, since the taper was allowed to plug in directly to the soundboard. But there was one problem: a quiet but steady hum. It sounds a bit like one holding a keyboard key down for the entire recording. I discovered that during the songs it's quiet enough to be completely drowned out by the music. But it was still noticeable during the talking between songs. So, for the talking tracks only, I used some noise reduction to greatly reduce the hum. Hopefully, you won't even notice it. Normally, I'm loathe to ever use noise reduction, but I think it's okay in this case since I never used it on any of the actual music.

Another problem was that the talking parts were considerably quieter than the songs. So I moved those to their own tracks and then boosted their volume. I consider that problem fixed now.

This early show is 59 minutes long. It starts without any sort of introduction or audience reaction, so it's possible there's more at the start that didn't get recorded. But if so, I think it's very little, considering that the early show from the night before was also 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Queen of Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 52 Stations (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 I'm Only You (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 De Chirico Street (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Egyptian Cream (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Chinese Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Queen Elvis (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 I Something You (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 One Long Pair of Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 I Stayed Too Long (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 The Yip Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Never Stop Bleeding (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Arms of Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Only the Stones Remain (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15272095/RobynH_1995_Tin_AngelPhiladephiaPA__3-26-1995__Early_Show_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is from a concert in early 1996.

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 2, New York City, 4-11-2020 to 4-23-2020

Today seems to be the day for home concerts - this is the third one I've posted in one day! This is also the second one I've posted from Norah Jones. Note that when I posted her first one a couple of weeks ago, I didn't think to call that "Home Concerts 1." But posting the second one reminded me to go back and change the title, the artwork, and the mp3 tags. So you might want to re-download that, if you're a stickler for that sort of thing.

This second album is very much like her first one. She plays some songs on guitar, and some on piano. Most of her songs are originals from her albums, but she sometimes throws in unexpected choices, usually cover versions. This one starts with a John Prine song ("That’s the Way that the World Goes Round"), to mark his recent death from the coronavirus. She also does covers by Tom Waits ("Far From Home," which is on one of her albums), Hank Williams ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"), and Tom Petty ("Angel Dream"). She doesn't talk much between songs, so whenever talking she does has been included.

For the first album, she played four songs on their own days, plus two "mini-concerts" of four songs each. I compiled them all together to make it sound like one performance. This time, there are no single songs. Instead, she did three mini-concerts, playing four songs each time. I'm guessing that's the format she'll keep using moving forward. The three mini-concerts together make for a 47-minute-long album.

The sound quality is excellent. The only caveat is that sometimes her voice is a bit quieter when she plays the piano, probably because her face is further from the microphone.

01 That’s the Way that the World Goes Round (Norah Jones)
02 talk (Norah Jones)
03 Waiting (Norah Jones)
04 Travelin' On (Norah Jones)
05 talk (Norah Jones)
06 Painter Song (Norah Jones)
07 talk (Norah Jones)
08 Long Way Home (Norah Jones)
09 talk (Norah Jones)
10 How I Weep (Norah Jones)
11 talk (Norah Jones)
12 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Norah Jones)
13 The Long Day Is Over (Norah Jones)
14 Wake Me Up (Norah Jones)
15 talk (Norah Jones)
16 Angel Dream (Norah Jones)
17 talk (Norah Jones)
18 It Was You (Norah Jones)
19 talk (Norah Jones)
20 Sunrise (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603561/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts2__4-11-2020_to_4-23-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a screenshot from one of her mini-concert YouTube videos. If it doesn't look very different from the cover for the first album in this series, that's because she sits at the same spot in the same room each time. Her piano is just out of view.