Various Artists - Heart Beat 86, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, Britain, 3-15-1986

Here's an impressive 1986 benefit concert with performances by the Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Robert Plant, George Harrison, Roy Wood, UB40, the Fortunes, and more. It's completely unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent.

The inspiration for the concert began with Bev Bevan, the drummer for ELO. He was inspired by the Live Aid benefit concert in 1985, and wanted to do something for his hometown of Birmingham, England. All the proceeds went to benefit the Birmingham Children's Hospital. The concert ended up having a unusual Birmingham focus, with the vast majority of the musical performers originally coming from Birmingham. Some acts that hadn't been in the spotlight for some time, such as the Fortunes and Applejacks, got back together for this concert.

The concert was massive, nine hours long. Big acts like ELO and the Moody Blues played sets that lasted an hour or so. However, this album only contains an hour and a half of that. That's because all I could find was the portion that was later broadcast on BBC TV and radio. Parts of it also was broadcast on MTV in the US, and two songs ("The Voice" and "Lucille") come from that, with slightly lower sound quality. If anyone has any more of this, please let me know so I can add it in. But while it's sad that so much of the concert is missing, at least what is here has excellent sound quality.

One big act to perform was Robert Plant. Although he was having a very successful solo career, he avoided that kind of music and played rockabilly covers with the backing band the Big Town Playboys instead.

I think the ELO set is particularly interesting. Normally, ELO concerts were big productions, with lots of orchestral instruments and backing tapes and so on. This was a much more stripped down kind of performance, but the band showed they could still rock. It also was the band's first concert in four years. They would only play an additional handful of concerts in 1986 before breaking up. I'd especially love to hear the rest of their set, because I don't know of any other concert recording by the original ELO from after 1978 with this level of sound quality.

The Moody Blues were the last big act of the concert. But then everyone from all the earlier acts joined them on stage for a finale. Three songs were played: "Lucille," "Money (That's What I Want)," and "Johnny B. Goode." Unfortunately, I couldn't find a recording of "Money." But probably the highlight of the concert was "Johnny B. Goode," because a very unexpected guest star showed up on stage: George Harrison. He sang lead vocals on part of the song. But just having him there was a big deal, since he'd been pretty reclusive for the last decade or so. Apparently, even most of the other musicians were starstruck to be on the same stage as the ex-Beatle. 

By the way, it was hoped that there would be a reunion of the 1960s band the Move, since two major figures from that band, Jeff Lynne of ELO and Roy Wood, were at the concert. Plus, this was all about highlighting the best musical acts from Manchester, and the Move definitely were one of those. It was announced the Move would reunite for the concert, but band member Carl Wayne didn't show up for some reason, so the reunion never happened. This was the closest to a Move reunion ever. That is no longer possible since Wayne passed away in 2004.

Note also that Denny Laine performed a set. However, his set was plagued by sound problems, and none of it was included in the BBC broadcast. He did sing lead on one verse of "Johnny B. Goode" for the final encore though. Also, Dave Edmunds was at the concert, but only had a minor role, playing a guitar solo on the song "Lucille" during the encore. And Noddy Holder, the lead singer of Slade, was at the concert, but his only role was singing a verse of "Lucille."

One final note. The emcee, Oliver Spencer (formerly known as Roger Spencer), used to be a member of the 1960s band Idle Race, also from Birmingham. The BBC recording included some stand-up comedy he did between acts, but I cut most of that out, since it doesn't have the same relistening value as the music.

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Share It with You (Steve Gibbons Band)
02 B.S.A. (Steve Gibbons Band)
03 talk (Oliver Spencer)
04 Let It Be Me (Fortunes)
05 talk (Fortunes)
06 You've Got Your Troubles (Fortunes)
07 talk (Oliver Spencer)
08 See My Baby Jive (Roy Wood)
09 Are You Ready to Rock (Roy Wood)
10 talk (Roy Wood)
11 I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day (Roy Wood)
12 talk (Oliver Spencer)
13 I Got You Babe (UB40 & Ruby Turner)
14 Tell Me When (Applejacks)
15 talk (Oliver Spencer)
16 She Walks Right In (Robert Plant)
17 Come On (Robert Plant)
18 [Every Time I Hear] That Mellow Saxophone (Robert Plant)
19 He's in Town (Rockin' Berries)
20 talk (Oliver Spencer)
21 Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra)
22 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
23 Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra)
24 Rockaria (Electric Light Orchestra)
25 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
26 Hold On Tight (Electric Light Orchestra)
27 Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
28 talk (Oliver Spencer)
29 Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues)
30 Question (Moody Blues)
31 Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
32 The Voice (Moody Blues)
33 Lucille (Noddy Holder, Roy Wood, Dave Edmunds & Everyone)
34 talk (Oliver Spencer)
35 Johnny B. Goode (George Harrison, Denny Laine, Robert Plant & Everyone)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dCPAH

The cover photo shows Jeff Lynne and George Harrison during the "Johnny B. Goode" finale from this exact concert. The photo was originally in black and white, but I used the Palette program to colorize it, then made some additional changes in Photoshop. Note that Lynne and Harrison were just starting to get to know each other around this time. They would go on to become good friends, as well as band mates in the Traveling Wilburys.

Gene Clark with John York: Folk City, New York City, 6-22-1984, Late Show

Back in March 2023, I posted a 1985 acoustic concert by Gene Clark. This is a 1984 acoustic concert by Gene Clark, and it's not terribly different. However, that 1985 one is an audience bootleg, whereas this is an excellent soundboard bootleg. The 1985 concert is significantly longer, but if you were to only listen to one, I'd recommend this one.

Clark is best known for being the main lead singer of the Byrds in the early years of that band (1964 to 1966). He released a lot of great music as a solo artist, but his solo career never took off commercially. It sounds like this concert was performed in front of a small audience at a club. That is exaggerated by the fact that the soundboard clearly recorded everything on stage but almost nothing from the audience, which happens with soundboards sometimes, so it sounds almost like there was no audience at all. I tried to boost the volume of the applause, but I could only do so much.

By 1984, Clark's music, while excellent, was out of step with current trends, dominated by New Wave and synths. So the main way he got people to come to his concerts was by playing up nostalgia for the Byrds. Thus, in this concert he was supported by John York, another former member of the Byrds. Clark and York were never members of the Byrds at the same time (York was a Byrd in 1968 and 1969), so it was an odd pairing. But York did a really nice job singing harmonies on most of the songs. He also sang a couple of songs he wrote, such as "You Only Love Cocaine." I thought they were pretty good, considering that he never even managed to put out a solo album until the 1990s, way after this concert.

Clark had a habit of repeatedly sabotaging his music career, starting with leaving the Byrds way too early in 1966. His solo careers remains severely underappreciated. If you haven't checked out his solo stuff yet, this is a good place to start, due to the sound quality and solid performance.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
02 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Gene Clark with John York)
03 Long Black Veil (Gene Clark with John York)
04 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
05 You Only Love Cocaine (Gene Clark with John York)
06 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
07 She Don't Care about Time (Gene Clark with John York)
08 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
09 Why Did You Leave (Gene Clark with John York)
10 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
11 Me and J.D. (Gene Clark with John York)
12 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
13 Chimes of Freedom (Gene Clark with John York)
14 Mr. Tambourine Man (Gene Clark with John York)
15 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
16 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Gene Clark with John York)
17 Full Circle Song (Gene Clark with John York)
18 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
19 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Gene Clark with John York)
20 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Gene Clark with John York)
21 Eight Miles High (Gene Clark with John York)
22 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
23 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Gene Clark with John York)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15972577/GeneCl_1984_FolkCtyNwYorkCty__6-22-1984_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot from a 1984 TV show.

Leonard Cohen - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1967-2008)

I recently decided to reorganize some of my Leonard Cohen music so I could post more of his albums here. As part of that, I've found enough for four BBC albums. I posted one BBC album already, and I'll explain more about that one below. Plus, I found two more BBC concerts. So that leaves this, which is kind of the scraps of everything else he did for the BBC over his entire career. It deals with a whopping 41 years of music, but it's all consistently good stuff.

Before I go any further, let me explain some reorganizing I did. I previously had two songs Cohen performed for the BBC in 1967 on a stray tracks album called "Out of the Land of Heaven." I've made a bunch of changes to that album, including moving those two songs here, where they're a better fit. I recommend you redownload that album if you had it already. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/05/leonard-cohen-out-of-land-of-heaven.html

Those two 1967 songs are the first two tracks here. They're from a BBC TV show hosted by singer Julie Felix, and one of them is a duet with Felix. As mentioned above, I had previously posted a Cohen BBC album. That one is a short concert done in a studio in 1968. Since the two 1967 songs come first, I'm calling this album "BBC Sessions, Volume 1," and I've renamed the 1968 concert "BBC Sessions, Volume 2," and given it a new album cover and so forth. I recommend you redownload that one if you're a stickler for these kinds of things. Here's the link to that one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/01/leonard-cohen-leonard-cohen-sings.html

1968 was a big year for Cohen and the BBC. Not only did he do that concert that makes up Volume 2 in this series, he also did a studio session for BBC DJ John Peel. He played five songs. Only four were broadcast, but all five have somehow been bootlegged. Those make up tracks 3 through 7 of this album.

After that, we have the first big time jump. In 1976, Cohen played a couple of songs with singer Judy Collins on a TV show. In 1966, Collins recorded a version of Cohen's song "Suzanne," and put it on her album "In My Life." This was the first public revelation of Cohen's songwriting brilliance, and it led to him getting a record contract. So it was only fitting that Cohen and Collins performed a duet of "Suzanne" in this 1976 performance, as well as a duet of his "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye." 

By the way, note that this album has no less than three versions of "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye." Normally, I wouldn't want that, but I figure it's okay in this case, because one is a duet with Julie Felix, another is Cohen by himself, and the third is a duet with Judy Collins.

Then there's another big time jump, to 1993. He was promoting his 1992 album "The Future," which in my opinion at least ties for his best album of his career. As part of his promotion, he performed three songs on the BBC TV show "Later... with Jools Holland." Those are tracks 11 through 13.

Finally, in 2008, Cohen played at the annual Glastonbury Festival. Virtually everything from this festival is broadcast on the BBC. But oddly, either his set wasn't broadcast or I can't find it anywhere. There are a few videos of songs from it up on YouTube, but they sound pretty poor. So there's only one song here from that, "Hallelujah." It's from the 2022 official album "Hallelujah and Songs from His Albums." It's the only rarity from that album. It also happens to be the only officially released song on this album.

I'll be posting BBC concerts from 1979 and 1988 after this. If you know of anything else he did for the BBC that I missed, please let me know so I can add it in. Hopefully too the full Glastonbury performance will be made available.

Oh, there's a bonus track, "The Stranger Song." This dates all the way back to May 1966. It was done for a CBC TV show in Canada called "Take 30." That's only a bonus track since it was done for the CBC, not the BBC. But I figure it at least merits bonus track status here, since it almost certainly was the first time he sang on of his songs on a TV show.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen with Julie Felix)
02 The Stranger Song (Leonard Cohen)
03 You Know Who I Am (Leonard Cohen)
04 Bird on the Wire (Leonard Cohen)
05 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)
06 Dress Rehearsal Rag (Leonard Cohen)
07 So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen)
08 Suzanne (Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen)
09 talk (Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen)
10 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen)
11 Democracy (Leonard Cohen)
12 The Future (Leonard Cohen)
13 Dance Me to the End of Love (Leonard Cohen)
14 Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)

The Stranger Song (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15970804/LeonardC_1967-2008_BBSessonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took of Cohen and Judy Collins singing on TV in 1976.

Elton John - Cover Versions, Volume 1 (1970-1975)

Elton John is such a prolific songwriter (along with his co-composer Bernie Taupin) that he's only very rarely included cover songs in his studio albums. However, he has done a fair number over the years that tend to be done only in concert, or as B-sides, or on various artists compilations or the like. So I thought it would be interesting to compile them all together. Looking over his entire career, I found enough for five volumes. I avoided anything from his studio albums (including one I made and posted here, "Hits '70.") But otherwise, I considered pretty much everything else fair game. Here's Volume 1.

Five of the songs here are officially released. "Honey Man," a duet with Cat Stevens, is from a Cat Stevens box set. "Love Song" is a rare case of a cover that made it onto one of John's early studio albums. But this is a live version, taken from the album "Here and There," and done as a duet with the song's composer, Leslie Duncan. "One Day at a Time" and "Sugar on the Floor" are B-sides. The studio version of "Pinball Wizard," originally by the Who, was a big hit for John in 1975. But this is a live version, released as a bonus track. 

The other six songs are all unreleased, and generally taken from concert bootlegs. "Get Down," a duet with Gilbert O'Sullivan, is from a TV special. Generally speaking, these all come from soundboards with excellent sound quality.

I'm not that big of an Elton John fan, so it's possible that I've missed some things. If you think I have, let me know and I'll consider adding them in.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Honky Tonk Women (Elton John)
02 My Baby Left Me - Get Back (Elton John with Leon Russell)
03 Honey Man (Cat Stevens & Elton John)
04 Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On (Elton John)
05 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Elton John)
06 Love Song (Elton John with Lesley Duncan)
07 I Saw Her Standing Her (Elton John)
08 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Elton John)
09 One Day at a Time (Elton John)
10 Pinball Wizard (Elton John)
11 Sugar on the Floor (Elton John)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15955284/EltonJn_1970-1975_CovrVrsionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

I don't know anything about the cover photo except that it's from early 1973. I picked it because who plays piano like that?

Aretha Franklin - Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Detroit, MI, 11-12-1986

Aretha Franklin is best known for her music of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but she had a pretty successful career resurgence in the mid-1980s. However, she never released a live album in or from the 1980s, except for an all-gospel one. I've found a few bootlegs from this time period, but I thought they were lacking due to sound quality or other reasons. However, I've put together one here that I think is excellent. It's all from the same concert, but it comes from two very different sources. So I don't think there's any version that presents it as one full show like this.

This was special concert for Franklin, because it was taped for a TV special, simply called "Aretha!" I found an old New York Times article that quoted Bonnie Burns, the producer of the special: ''Aretha had been approached for years about doing her own television special, but she declined all the offers. But now she thought the time was right, and we gave her creative approval on all elements of the show - she picked the songs, the wardrobe, the musicians, and she wants to do it in Detroit, because that's her home base."

The TV show was only an hour long, however. But songs from the concert were also selected for a radio show called "Music Machine." Many of the songs selected for that were different. So I compiled all the songs I could find. However, I couldn't find a complete set list for the concert. I had to make educated guesses about the song order (since the order was largely the same for both, just with different songs added or removed). I may be a little off, but the vast majority should be correct.

In case you're curious, here's some more comments about the concert that producer, from the same New York Times article: "[Franklin] wanted it to define musically the last 25 years for her. First she does a chunk of old hits, then a chunk of newer stuff, and then a few songs that just meant something to her personally - like 'Love All the Hurt Away,' which she recorded as a duet with George Benson, although here she sings both parts herself. And then comes the big gospel numbers, because that's so much of her roots."

This concert is an hour and 18 minutes long. It could be that there were additional songs not included in either source. However, this is just about the length of a typical concert from that era, so if something's missing, it probably isn't much.

01 I Can't Turn You Loose (Aretha Franklin)
02 Get It Right (Aretha Franklin)
03 Love All the Hurt Away (Aretha Franklin)
04 I Never Loved a Man [The Way I Love You] (Aretha Franklin)
05 Today I Sing the Blues (Aretha Franklin)
06 Won't Be Long (Aretha Franklin)
07 Try a Little Tenderness (Aretha Franklin)
08 Rock-a-bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody (Aretha Franklin)
09 Skylark (Aretha Franklin)
10 Respect (Aretha Franklin)
11 Chain of Fools (Aretha Franklin)
12 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin)
13 Angel (Aretha Franklin)
14 Who's Zoomin' Who (Aretha Franklin)
15 talk (Aretha Franklin)
16 These Dreams (Aretha Franklin)
17 Dr. Feelgood [Love Is a Serious Business] (Aretha Franklin)
18 Freeway of Love (Aretha Franklin with Clarence Clemons)
19 Look to the Rainbow (Aretha Franklin)
20 Oh It Is Jesus (Aretha Franklin)
21 The Old Landmark (Aretha Franklin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15970773/ArethaF_1986_MuscHallCentrforPrformngArtsDtroitMI__11-12-1986_atse.zip.html

The cover is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert.

Joe Jackson - BBC Sessions, Volume 1B: In Concert, Guildhall, Portsmouth, Britain, 12-14-1979

Bad news: the Joe Jackson BBC Sessions, Volume 1 that I posted last week was taken down due to the copyright police. That's concerning, because that probably means I'll run into trouble with the next couple of Jackson BBC albums I plan on posting, since material from all of those are on an official BBC album. I guess I'll test the waters soon with the next one and see if there's trouble. The whole copyright check thing seems incredibly random, to be honest. 

So here's how I plan on getting around that album being banned. First off, I've posted it at YouTube. Speaking of random copyright checking, that's been up at YouTube for a few days and hasn't had any copyright problems, even though this blog and YouTube are both owned by Google. But anyway, here's the link to that:

Joe Jackson: BBC Sessions, Volume 1- Hatfield Polytechnic, Britain, 11-29-1979 (FULL CONCERT) - YouTube

If you go to the bottom of the text I posted there, you'll find the download link.  That's a workaround I'll probably be using with other copyright issues like this in the future.

But also, this is a very unique case in that, as I mentioned in my write-up about Volume 1, Jackson did two concerts for the BBC within two weeks of each other that were very similar. I wasn't planning on posting the second one, since most of the songs played were on the other one, and it's significantly shorter. But I'm making lemonade out of lemons and posting it here as "BBC Sessions, Volume 1B." It's an alternate, in case you don't get the "real" Volume 1, for whatever reason. The nice thing about this other show, in Portsmouth, is that none of the songs on it made it to Jackson's official BBC album, so I'm hoping and assuming there won't be any copyright trouble with this one.

Note that there were four songs played here that weren't on the Volume 1 show. "Geraldine and John," "Kinda Kute," "The Harder They Come," and "Pretty Boys." I've put those four at the end of Volume 1 as quasi bonus tracks. So if you have that, it's pretty easy to go without this one.

This album is 32 minutes long.

01 Look Sharp (Joe Jackson)
02 Friday (Joe Jackson)
03 talk (Joe Jackson)
04 Geraldine and John (Joe Jackson)
05 talk (Joe Jackson)
06 Kinda Kute (Joe Jackson)
07 The Harder They Come (Joe Jackson)
08 Pretty Boys (Joe Jackson)
09 Don't Wanna Be like That (Joe Jackson)
10 talk (Joe Jackson)
11 I'm the Man (Joe Jackson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15968352/JoeJacks_1979e_BBSessonsVolum1bInConcrtGuildhllPrtsmouthBrtain__12-14-1979_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Brussels, Belgium, in June 1979.

Leonard Cohen - Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley, CA, 11-15-1970

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I was lucky to get a copy of the 1970 copyright extension release for Leonard Cohen. Since it's been out since late 2020 (and I write this in November 2023), yet virtually nobody seems to have a copy, I was to help make this music accessible. So here's another concert that was part of that release.

The good news is the sound quality is excellent, just as good as the 1970 Royal Albert Hall concert I posted from the release I recently posted. The bad news is this one has the same flaw as that one, namely that all the banter has been removed, as well as most of the applause at the ends of songs. But this one actually was a bit worse is that even some music at the starts and ends of songs was missing. I fixed all those cases by using bits from the Royal Albert Hall show. The more serious cases have "[Edit]" in the titles.

Another disappointment is that the set lists between the Royal Albert Hall show are very similar, although the song order is somewhat different. Only the Royal Albert Hall show included the songs "Avalanche" and "Don't Pass Me By (A Disgrace)," and only this one included the song "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy." Some bits of spoken poetry are different too. 

However, this concert has two obviously improvised songs, and there's nothing similar to that in the other concert. "In the Interests of Those Who Are Not on the Stage" is short and simple. But "News from the Authorities" is six minutes long, and is quite amusing and creative for being thought up on the spot. 

For the Royal Albert Hall show, I had the idea to add in the banter that had been deleted by using banter from a concert that took place four days earlier. I thought that worked out nicely. I wanted to do that here as well, but I couldn't find the raw material to do it. There are only a few bootlegs from the 1970 tour, and most of them either sound terrible or were recorded by bootleggers who cut out the banter in order to save tape space. (That was a common practice back in that era.) 

As a result, if you're a purist, you'll be happier with this version. However, I still did another kind of edit that I did for the other show: I fleshed out the applause after every song, In fact, I used the same applause from the other show, since all applause basically sounds the same.

By the way, this concert was rather odd in that the song "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" was played twice. But by chance, most of the first version was missing. I'm guessing there was a problem with the recording there, because the end of the previous song, "The Stranger Song," was missing too. I fixed "The Stranger Song," but since there were two versions of "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" anyway, I decided just to not include the mostly missing version.

Overall, if you're not a big Cohen fan, you probably don't need this and the Royal Albert Hall show, since the set lists are so similar and even the performances are very similar. However, this one does have those two fun improvised songs, as well as a unique spoken poem ("As the Mist Leaves No Scar") and a unique song ("Seems So Long Ago, Nancy").

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long. That's significantly shorter than the Royal Albert Hall show, mostly due to the lack of "Please Don't Pass Me By," which is 13 minutes long.

01 The Stranger Song [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
02 Bird on the Wire (Leonard Cohen)
03 So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen)
04 News from the Authorities [Improvised Song] (Leonard Cohen)
05 In the Interests of Those Who Are Not on the Stage [Improvised Song] (Leonard Cohen)
06 Dead Song [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
07 Lady Midnight (Leonard Cohen)
08 One of Us Cannot Be Wrong (Leonard Cohen)
09 Joan of Arc (Leonard Cohen)
10 Tonight Will Be Fine (Leonard Cohen)
11 The Partisan (Leonard Cohen)
12 Sisters of Mercy (Leonard Cohen)
13 Diamonds in the Mine (Leonard Cohen)
14 Story of Isaac (Leonard Cohen)
15 Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen)
16 Sing Another Song, Boys [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
17 Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)
18 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)
19 As the Mist Leaves No Scar [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
20 You Know Who I Am (Leonard Cohen)
21 Seems So Long Ago, Nancy (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15965229/LeonardC_1970c_BerkelyCmmunityTheatrBerkelyCA__11-15-1970_atse.zip.html

The cover is based on a poster from this exact concert. However, I had to make a few changes to get the rectangular poster fit in a square space. For instance, I vertically squished the text quite a lot.

Various Artists - Tower of Song - A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen, Centre Bell, Montreal, Canada, 11-6-2017

Leonard Cohen died in 2016 at the age of 82. Exactly one year later, his son Adam Cohen put on a memorial concert. Leonard had specifically asked that such a concert be held in Montreal, Canada, so that's where it happened. It was broadcast on Canadian television and radio through the CBC, and later sold as a DVD, but it has never been released as an album. But it was professionally recorded thanks to the broadcasts, so it sounds great here.

This album is based on the CBC radio broadcast, which had great sound quality. (The DVD misses a bunch of songs.) However, there was a big problem with that broadcast, in that someone did a voiceover to talk over all the applause between songs, usually to introduce the next performer. This was very annoying since it was clearly added later and not part of the actual concert. Worse, the voice sometimes went over to the start of the next song. So thank God for audio editing programs like UVR5. I was able to use that to wipe out the voiceover which keeping the underlying applause and/or music. This means there are no verbal introductions of the performers. I don't know if that was the case in the actual concert or not. But you can just look at the song list here.

I also had a few problems with some missing music. Two songs weren't included in the radio broadcast, for whatever reason: "Tower of Song" and "Everybody Knows." That's when the DVD came in handy, because those ones happened to be included. But there was a problem with another song that I couldn't solve, "Closing Time." This was the last song of the concert, and it appears the radio show ran out of time, because it cut the song off before it ended. To make matters worse, the DVD didn't include that song. So there was nothing I could do. I added a chorus to the end of the song so the ending wouldn't seem so weird (which is why it has "[Edit]" in the title. But I didn't have a way to give the music a proper ending after that, so I still had it fade out.

Now, let's get to the performers. I really like the list of performers, including some big names, like Sting and Elvis Costello. But one has to put a kind of asterisk next to the performance of "Tower of Song," with no less than Willie Nelson, Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel, Chris Martin & Leonard Cohen all singing lead vocals on it! That was prerecorded elsewhere, probably due to those artists not being able to attend the concert in person. And note the involvement of Cohen on that song. I'm guessing a recording from a concert before his death was used and cleverly edited in to go with the other voices. A similar recorded performance happened to Cohen's voice on "A Thousand Kisses Deep."

Note that I wanted to keep the focus on the music, so I cut out some non-musical bits. For instance, there was a long speech by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. I removed all of that. However, I did keep the recitation of a poem by actor Seth Rogen, since that was an interesting poem by Cohen.

If you're a fan of Cohen's songs at all, you really should give this a listen. Pretty much all the performances were solid, though I think k. d. lang was the highlight with her version of "Hallelujah."

This album is an hour and 57 minutes long.

01 Dance Me to the End of Love (Sting)
02 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Feist)
03 Who by Fire (Patrick Watson)
04 I'm Your Man (Sharon Robinson)
05 Democracy (Lumineers)
06 A Thousand Kisses Deep (Leonard Cohen [Recording])
07 Suzanne (Ron Sexsmith)
08 The Future (Elvis Costello)
09 Famous Blue Raincoat (Damien Rice)
10 So Long, Marianne (Adam Cohen with the Webb Sisters)
11 Hallelujah (k. d. lang)
12 Tower of Song [Recording] (Willie Nelson, Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel, Chris Martin & Leonard Cohen)
13 Sisters of Mercy (Sting)
14 Chelsea Hotel No. 2 (Lana Del Rey & Adam Cohen)
15 In My Secret Life (Bettye LaVette)
16 Everybody Knows (Courtney Love)
17 Field Commander Cohen [Poem] (Seth Rogen)
18 If It Be Your Will (Borns with the Webb Sisters)
19 The Partisan (Coeur de Pirate, Adam Cohen & Damien Rice)
20 Bird on a Wire (Elvis Costello)
21 Anthem (Sting)
22 Coming Back to You (Adam Cohen & Basia Bulat)
23 Closing Time [Edit] (Basia Bulat)

https://www.imagenetz.de/acxKz

The cover is the poster for this concert. However, I had to make some changes to get a rectangular poster to fit into a square space. I repositioned some things using Photoshop. I also updated some of the artist names at the bottom to better reflect who actually performed at the concert. For instance, it had mentioned Phillip Glass, who didn't show, and failed to mention some, like Ron Sexsmith, Courtney Love, and Bettye LaVette, who did show.

Warren Zevon - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 1-25-1988

As part of my big BBC project, I went looking to see what American singer-songwriter Warren Zevon did for the BBC, if anything. All I could find was this concert from 1988. I have a sneaking suspicion there could be more, but for now, this is it.

Yes, Zevon was a singer-songwriter (he died in 2003), but this is an upbeat and rocking concert with a full band. He played most of his best known songs, including his one big hit, "Werewolves of London." So this is a good introduction to his career in general, I think.

This concert is unreleased and seems to be pretty rare even as a bootleg. In the version I found, the applause at the ends of songs faded out and then faded back in with the next songs. But I found I could stitch them back together and get rid of the fades, and nothing was missing. 

In terms of sound quality, it's just as good as you'd expect from the BBC.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Lawyers, Guns and Money (Warren Zevon)
02 Detox Mansion (Warren Zevon)
03 Boom Boom Mancini (Warren Zevon)
04 talk (Warren Zevon)
05 Johnny Strikes Up the Band (Warren Zevon)
06 Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner (Warren Zevon)
07 talk (Warren Zevon)
08 Reconsider Me (Warren Zevon)
09 Excitable Boy (Warren Zevon)
10 Sentimental Hygiene (Warren Zevon)
11 Accidentally like a Martyr (Warren Zevon)
12 Werewolves of London (Warren Zevon)
13 Play It All Night Long (Warren Zevon)
14 Ain't That Pretty at All (Warren Zevon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15960310/WarrnZevn_1988_BBInConcrtHammrsmthOdeonLondnBrtain__1-25-1988_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Gent, Belgium, in February 1988. It looks almost like a sepia tinted photo, but that's actually full color. I guess he just had colored lighting on him at the time.

George Harrison with Billy Preston and Ravi Shankar - The Forum, Los Angeles, CA, 11-12-1974

George Harrison only went on tour twice as a solo artist, in 1974 and 1992. Up until recently, I had avoided any recordings from his 1974 tour, because I'd heard it was a musical disappointment, and because I'd heard there were no good bootleg recordings at the soundboard level. (There's never been an official album from the tour.) I'd glad to say that I was wrong on both accounts. This is a soundboard recording that's very nice in terms of sound quality. And I think people who listen this this will reassess the idea that the tour was a bust in terms of musical performance.

The posting of this album wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the always excellent music editing work of Captain Acid. I saw that he'd found a soundboard of most of one of the concerts from the tour (the Los Angeles Forum), and that's what made me consider posting something from this tour.  I'm using Captain Acid's remixing work for all the songs sourced to the Forum show. He sprinkled his usual magic dust on the recording to make it sound even better.

Unfortunately, the soundboard recording ended before the show did. So Captain Acid used an audience recording from a Seattle, Washington on November 4, 1974 for the last five songs. I listened to that portion and wasn't so impressed, because even Captain Acid can only do so much with poor source material. 

So I looked around for a better source for those remaining songs, and found it with a concert in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 22, 1974. Like the Seattle show, it was just an audience bootleg, but it was a better recording, for whatever reason. The main problem with it was the lead vocals were too low in the mix, but I used the UVR5 audio editing program to fix that. Furthermore, I took extra care with the banter between songs for the Fort Worth tracks, using the Enhanced Speech program by Adobe to add clarity to the words. The result was that portion now sounds nearly as good as a typical soundboard. I doubt you'll notice the difference between the two sources.

However, there were additional problems with the Forum section of the show. Three songs were incomplete: "Cheparte" was only missing about the last 30 seconds, "Hari's On Tour [Express]" was missing only the very beginning, and "Tom Cat" had over half missing. I used the Fort Worth tracks to fill in the missing portions. So that's why those songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Additionally, one song in the Forum section, "Sound Stage of Mind," was missing altogether, so I used the Fort Worth version for that. Finally, the first ten seconds or so of "Sue Me, Sue You Blues" sounded dull and muddy. Luckily, that spot was an instrumental bit that was repeated later in the song, so I patched in the better audio. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title too.

After all that editing, I think the whole show sounds pretty darn good. But what about the actual musical content? The shows on the tour got a lot of bad reviews. From what I read, I think there were four main reasons. 

One, Harrison was really into the music of India, and wanted to use the tour to introduce people to that. So a big section in the middle of the concert - about 32 minutes on this recording - prominently featured Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. Nowadays, many people are open to different types of world music, but back in 1974 a lot of people were hostile to that. They wanted to hear more Harrison songs instead. But I was pleasantly surprised by this section of the concert. It wasn't the type of Indian music that sounds alien to most Western ears. Instead, it was more of a union of Indian and Western music. In fact, Harrison and members of his band often played with the Indian musicians for that section of the concerts, and I believe that's the case here. For instance, I'm sure I could hear the organ of Billy Preston on some of the Indian songs. So give this section a try, you might just like it.

A second problem had to do with Harrison's voice. He was suffering from laryngitis even before the tour began, causing his voice to sound hoarse for the entire tour. That problem only got worse as the tour went on, because he played something like 49 concerts in 45 days, due to often doing two shows a day. Harrison realized this was a problem, but it would have cost him a ton of money to reschedule the tours, so he just suffered through it, hoarse voice and all. But, listening to this recording, I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah, his voice sounded different, but I quickly got used to it, and it certainly didn't ruin the show for me. We're lucky that the Forum show was relatively early in the tour. Later on, apparently his problem got worse, to the point that he was unable to hit many notes and Billy Preston often doubled the vocals to help out. 

A third problem had to do with song selection. At this point in Harrison's life, he was burned out on his Beatles experience and he was tired of most of the Beatles songs. Audiences expected him to play lots of Beatles songs, but for this concert, like all the concerts on the tour, he only sang four Beatles songs: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Something," "For You Blue," and "In My Life." He also largely avoided songs from his massively popular solo album "All Things Must Pass," only playing "What Is Life" and "My Sweet Lord."

A fourth and related problem had to do with song lyrics. Probably because he was tired of Beatles songs but felt obliged to play at least a few of them, he changed the lyrics to them. For instance, I've renamed "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" to "While My Guitar Tries to Smile" because of the new lyrics. Perhaps most controversially, he changed the lyrics to "In My Life," a song actually written and sung by John Lennon, with the final line changed from "In my life, I love you more" to "In my life, I love God more."

Yeah, in a better world I too wish he would have sung more Beatles songs and more "All Things Must Pass" songs, and I wish he wouldn't have changed the lyrics. People weren't exactly clamoring for songs like "Hari's On Tour [Express]" and "Maya Love." But we can't change the past. It's understandable that Harrison wanted to try new things, and play different and new songs.

By the way, one reason he didn't sing more expected songs was because simply he didn't sing lead at all on many songs. Probably that was related to his hoarse voice. Note, for instance, that two of his songs were instrumentals. Organist Billy Preston was a big star at the time, with three Number One hits in the U.S., and he performed all three: "Will It Go Round in Circles," "Nothing from Nothing," and "Outa-Space." A lot of people who attended the concerts say Preston stole the shows with his energy. Additionally, saxophonist Tom Scott was the leader of the band (which also included lead guitarist Robben Ford), and he had the spotlight on the instrumental "Tom Cat."

So yeah, ideally, the concerts could have been better, for a number of reasons. But overall, I was pleasantly surprised by both the sound quality and musical performance, and I hope you'll feel the same.

This album is an hour and 50 minutes long.

01 Hari's On Tour [Express] [Instrumental] [Edit] (George Harrison)
02 While My Guitar Tries to Smile [While My Guitar Gently Weeps] (George Harrison)
03 Something (George Harrison)
04 talk (George Harrison)
05 Will It Go Round in Circles (George Harrison & Billy Preston)
06 talk (George Harrison)
07 Sue Me, Sue You Blues [Edit] (George Harrison)
08 talk (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
09 Zoom, Zoom, Zoom (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
10 talk (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
11 Na Na Dahni (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
12 talk (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
13 Cheparte [Edit] (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
14 talk (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
15 I Am Missing You (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
16 talk (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
17 Dispute and Violence (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
18 For You Blue (George Harrison)
19 talk (George Harrison)
20 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] (George Harrison)
21 talk (George Harrison)
22 Sound Stage of Mind [Instrumental] (George Harrison)
23 talk (George Harrison)
24 In My Life (George Harrison)
25 talk (George Harrison)
26 Tom Cat [Instrumental] [Edit] (George Harrison & Tom Scott)
27 talk (George Harrison)
28 Maya Love (George Harrison)
29 talk (George Harrison)
30 Dark Horse (George Harrison)
31 talk (George Harrison)
32 Nothing from Nothing (George Harrison & Billy Preston)
33 Outa-Space [Instrumental] (George Harrison & Billy Preston)
34 talk (George Harrison)
35 What Is Life (George Harrison)
36 My Sweet Lord (George Harrison)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bfQYA

The cover photo of Harrison is from this tour, but I don't know the details.

Leonard Cohen - Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 5-10-1970 (NEW TO PUBLIC CIRCULATION!)

WHOA! I don't think I've ever been more excited to post an album than this one. If you're a Leonard Cohen fan at all, this is a must have. I think it's his best concert recording, and for all intents and purposes it's been unavailable to the public until now.

In the past few days, I was doing some searching for Cohen material in order to post more BBC albums from him. I happened to come across some mentions that there had been some copyright extension releases of his music. If you don't know what that is, in the European Union there's a law that if a music recording isn't made public within fifty years of the year it had been recorded, then it goes into the public domain. So the record companies of many musical artists, such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, and so on, have released music to the public just to maintain the rights. They typically do it just a few days before the end of the year where their rights will end, and they only make the music available for a few hours in the middle of the night for iTunes in some European country, hoping no one will notice. Then the music goes back into the vaults, so they can continue to own it without selling it. (Why?!) 

So what I read was this happened to some of Leonard Cohen's music. There were copyright releases for his music from 1967 (in 2017), 1970 (in 2020), and 1972 (in 2022). It's possible there were more that went completely undetected. I found a few obscure mentions of these releases, but I highly doubted it, because where's this music? All the copyright releases for the acts mentioned above, and more, have been heavily bootlegged. However, after doing some further digging, I got lucky and found the entire copyright extension release for 1970. For all intents and purposes, this stuff has never been in the public domain before now.

I plan on posting more of this, including some studio versions of previously unreleased songs, but I want to start with this concert, because it's amazing. Keep in mind that Cohen never really did any concerts prior to 1970, so this is about as far back as his live music goes. (He played a few songs here and there, but he had stage fright in those early years. He did do a significant BBC concert in 1968, which I've posted here, but that's about it.) So his 1970 tour (in Europe only) was a big deal for Cohen fans. This was the most important concert of the tour because it was held in London, at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall, which meant it was attended by media figures and other famous musicians. (It sold out, not surprisingly.) 

The great news is that the sound quality is freaking fantastic, all the way through! At times, it's easy to think these are studio versions, because there's a "you could hear a pin drop" type sound. And the performance is great too. (He played in acoustic mode, with backing vocalists and a lead guitarist, and not much else.) The only music that's ever been released from this exact concert is the last song, "Please Don't Pass Me By (A Disgrace)," which was a highlight of Cohen's "Live Songs" album, released in 1973. (If you're a big Cohen fan, it may be strange that you're unfamiliar with nearly all of this, but very familiar with the last song!) Why the entire concert hasn't been released yet is a true mystery to me.

Anyway, that's the good news. The bad news is that the copyright extension release only contained the music. What I mean is, as soon as the applause started at the end of each song, there was a quick fade out that sounded jarring to the listener. Furthermore, that release included no banter between songs whatsoever. That's because the record companies only had to briefly release the music in order to keep the copyright, not the banter or anything else, so they released the bare minimum. That's a big disappointment, because Cohen's comments are a big reason to hear his concerts.

However, I resolved to fix this problem. I went looking for a bootleg of this exact show, and I found one. Unfortunately, it's an obscure bootleg because the sound quality is terrible. For instance, during the banter, I couldn't make out the words and often could barely even figure out if Cohen was talking at all. So that tape was of no use to me whatsoever. Then I looked for other audience bootleg recordings from his 1970 tour. There were a few, but they all sounded pretty rough. The best of a bad lot was a concert in Frankfurt, Germany, which took place on May 6, 1970, just four days prior to this concert. I resolved to grab the applause and banter from that one and use it to fill in the missing bits of this concert.

To cut to the chase, it worked like a charm. In fact, I'm kind of shocked at just how well it worked. The key is that I used an audio editing program called "Enhanced Speech" by Adobe. It's only been around the last year or so (as I write this in November 2023). It really brings clarity to muddy recordings. Unfortunately, it only works for speech, not singing or music, so it has had limited use for me and my blog in general. But it was ideal for this situation, because the only thing I needed to fix was the banter. I had to do a lot of careful work, often going line by line and even sometimes word by word, but the end result is the banter now sounds almost like soundboard quality, fitting in well with the crystal clear music. There are only a few bits here and there where the Enhanced Speech program failed to work, usually because the source material was too muddy.

Also, fleshing out the applause worked out really nicely. It seems that clapping is the one thing that basically sounded the same on the two recordings. For all the songs on this album, the applause starts from one source, and fades into the second source. But it all sounds like the same generic cheering  to my ears. I was careful to make sure that the exact amount of cheering after each song is precisely how long that cheering actually took place in the Frankfurt concert. Most of the other bits between songs, like guitar tuning, sounded a lot rougher, and Enhanced Speech couldn't help with that, so I generally cut those bits out.

Now, you might complain that the music is from one concert and the banter is from another one, and it's true that is a bit weird. However, it turns out that since this was Cohen's first tour, he kept things simple, playing virtually the exact same songs every night, in the same order, and even usually making the same comments between songs. That really helped me out, because it meant I was able to find comments for virtually every song, since the set lists of the two concerts were only different by a song or two. (All the songs that don't have banter before them didn't have banter before them in the Frankfurt concert.) No doubt, it was a big help that the concerts were only four days apart. (For instance, Cohen only played "Please Don't Pass Me By" in concert four times in his entire career, and that included these two concerts.) There was only one bit of banter I cut out because it was specific for a German audience.

Two of the songs, "Diamonds in the Mine" and "Story of Isaac," have "[Edit]" in their titles because I had to do extra work on those. It seems Cohen got careless and pulled his mouth away from the microphone during parts of those songs, because the volume of the lead vocals dropped way down at times. But I was able to fix that using the audio editing program UVR5, going line by line in parts to boost the vocals back to normal levels. Oh, and the poem "Celebration" was only from the Frankfurt show. But it sounded so good after using the Enhanced Speech on it that I decided to leave it in.

The bottom line is, there was a lot of work that went into making this concert sound great, mostly by filling in the missing bits from the copyright extension release. But from your point of view as a listener, it should sound seamless, a pristine sounding concert from Cohen's first tour that effectively has never been publicly available until now. 

The only concert from this tour that's been made public is his set from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, which was released in full as "Live at the Isle of Wight 1970" in 2009. That was a more historically important concert, since he played in front of half a million people. But in terms of both the music and the recording quality, I think this clearly is the better concert. If nothing else, it's half an hour longer, so there are more songs and more banter (plus four short poem recitations, and none at the Isle of Wight). But also, there are obvious sonic advantages to the fact that he was playing in front of only 10,000 people instead of half a million. And it was a friendly crowd, allowing him to be relaxed and at the top of his game, whereas the Isle of Wight was a rather hostile crowd, and it was kind of a struggle all the way through. (For instance, singer Kris Kristofferson later commented about Cohen's set at the Isle of Wight: "I never have known why [the crowd] didn't just hoot him off the stage like they did with a lot of people, especially me!")

Anyway, please enjoy this, and spread the word to other Cohen fans. Also, if anyone out there knows about the 1967 and 1972 copyright extension releases, please let me know, and share, so I can help get it out there to people who are dying to hear it! It's ridiculous that record companies hoard music like this in their vaults for more than fifty years. What are they waiting for?! Most of the people who care will be long dead by the time they properly release any of that stuff, if they ever do.

This album is an hour and 44 minutes long.

01 talk (Leonard Cohen)
02 Bird on a Wire (Leonard Cohen)
03 talk (Leonard Cohen)
04 So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen)
05 talk (Leonard Cohen)
06 You Know Who I Am (Leonard Cohen)
07 Dead Song [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
08 Lady Midnight (Leonard Cohen)
09 talk (Leonard Cohen)
10 One of Us Cannot Be Wrong (Leonard Cohen)
11 The Stranger Song (Leonard Cohen)
12 For E.J.P. [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
13 Avalanche (Leonard Cohen)
14 talk (Leonard Cohen)
15 Joan of Arc (Leonard Cohen)
16 talk (Leonard Cohen)
17 Tonight Will Be Fine (Leonard Cohen)
18 talk (Leonard Cohen)
19 The Partisan (Leonard Cohen)
20 talk (Leonard Cohen)
21 Sisters of Mercy (Leonard Cohen)
22 Celebration [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
23 Diamonds in the Mine [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
24 Story of Isaac [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
25 talk (Leonard Cohen)
26 Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen)
27 talk (Leonard Cohen)
28 Sing Another Song, Boys (Leonard Cohen)
29 Travel [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
30 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)
31 Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)
32 Please Don't Pass Me By [A Disgrace] (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.imagenetz.de/cMdJ4

The cover photo is from this exact concert. However, the original was in black and white. I used the Palette program to help colorize it.

David Gilmour - Von Trapped Family Home Concerts, London, Britain, 4-2-2020 to 12-2020

How did I miss this one? I was oblivious until now, but during the height of the Covid pandemic, David Gilmour did a bunch of acoustic home concerts with his family, then posted everything to YouTube. I just happened to stumble across it the other day while looking for some other Gilmour music. People, if you see something interesting like this and think I might have missed it, please bring it to my attention.

Anyway, this is nothing like what you'd normally expect from David Gilmour's music. He's primarily known as the lead guitarist for Pink Floyd, but there isn't even a hint of lead guitar playing here, and there isn't a single Pink Floyd song. Instead, it's made up of cover songs (with a couple of exceptions) sung by Gilmour and his family while they were all in lockdown. The name "Von Trapped Family" is a joke they made, combining the Von Trapp family singers, made famous through "The Sound of Music" move, with the word "trapped," since they were feeling trapped at home due to the pandemic.  It has a feeling like a family singing songs around a campfire.

Note that the family involvement is no small thing. David Gilmour sang lead on the vast majority of the songs, but not always. For instance, he alternated lead vocals with his daughter Romany Gilmour on the song "The Magpie." Furthermore, his wife Polly Samson sang competent harmony vocals on most of the songs, though note this was a very casual affair and occasional mistakes were made by all involved. Other family members joined in from time to time, with other backing vocals and other instruments, such as harp.

More, annoyingly, there was a baby present for some of the songs, and that baby occasionally cried out or even tried (badly) to sing along. Luckily, this was only very occasionally, and I managed to edit out most of the baby noises. That was particularly a problem for the songs "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," "So Long, Marianne," and "Hickory Wind." I had to do a lot of careful editing on those, which is why they have "[Edit]" in their titles. And I edited pretty much all the songs at least a little bit, just not as much as those troublesome three. But there were times I couldn't get rid of the baby noises because they happened at the same time as the singing.

Here's a list of the original artists for all of the songs:

01 Yes, I Have Ghosts - David Gilmour
02 So Long, Marianne - Leonard Cohen
03 Bird on the Wire - Leonard Cohen
04 On an Island - David Gilmour
05 Fingerprints - Leonard Cohen
06 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye - Leonard Cohen
07 Hickory Wind  - Gram Parsons
08 Thanks for the Dance - Leonard Cohen
09 Dominoes - Syd Barrett
10 If It Be Your Will - Leonard Cohen
11 Octopus - Syd Barrett
12 Who by Fire - Leonard Cohen
13 Diamond Ring - Erik Darling
14 Nature Boy - Eden Ahbez
15 The Magpie - David Dodds
16 Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens

 If you look at that list, you'll notice a lot of Leonard Cohen songs. No less than seven of the 16 songs were written by Cohen. There's a very good reason for that. Gilmour's wife Polly Samson is an author, and right as the pandemic hit, in April 2020, she published the novel "A Theatre for Dreamers." It's based on true accounts of the life Leonard Cohen and other musicians and artists lived in Greece, years before Cohen started his music career. These home concerts were largely done as a way to promote the book.

In researching the book, Samson spent several years doing a deep dive into the life of Cohen and his friends. As her husband, Gilmour got into it too, for instance doing a lot of research for the book. As part of that overall effort, the entire family grew to be extremely familiar with Cohen's music, making it easy for them to sing many of his songs. 

The other songs are a pretty eclectic bunch. There are two Gilmour originals. "On an Island" is from his 2006 solo album by the same name. "Yes, I Have Ghosts" was cowritten with Samson and is directly tied to the content of her novel. Although there are no Pink Floyd songs per se, there are two written by Syd Barrett, who briefly led Pink Floyd to fame in 1967 before dropping out later that year. These songs are from his brief solo career that happened after that.

As I write this in November 2023, all of the videos of these songs are still up on YouTube, if want to see these performances. They're taken from longer videos that mostly consist of talking with Samson about her book and Gilmour about his music. Those are still available too.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Yes, I Have Ghosts (David Gilmour & His Family)
02 So Long, Marianne [Edit] (David Gilmour & His Family)
03 Bird on the Wire (David Gilmour & His Family)
04 On an Island (David Gilmour & His Family)
05 Fingerprints (David Gilmour & His Family)
06 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye [Edit] (David Gilmour & His Family)
07 Hickory Wind [Edit] (David Gilmour & His Family)
08 Thanks for the Dance (David Gilmour & His Family)
09 Dominoes (David Gilmour & His Family)
10 If It Be Your Will (David Gilmour & His Family)
11 Octopus (David Gilmour & His Family)
12 Who by Fire (David Gilmour & His Family)
13 Diamond Ring (David Gilmour & His Family)
14 Nature Boy (David Gilmour & His Family)
15 The Magpie (David Gilmour & His Family)
16 Morning Has Broken (David Gilmour & His Family)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15954509/DavdGlmour_2020_VonTrppedFmilyHomeConcrtsLondnBrtain__4-2-2020_to_12-2020_atse.zip.html

For the cover I wanted something that showed David Gilmour with some family members, since this was a family project. So I took a screenshot from one of the videos. He's holding a guitar in the middle. His wife Polly Samson is sitting next to him, petting their dog. I believe that's their daughter Romany playing the harp. There were others in the video, but they got cropped out.

Norah Jones - Unique Home Concert Songs, Volume 2 (2020)

To make sure I don't forget to post it, here's the second Norah Jones album that gathers up all the songs that were only on the home concert albums I posted here previously and not on any of her other albums.

As I did with Volume 1, I just want to make clear that everything here has been posted before, when I posted 14 albums of Jones' 2020 home concerts. But I figure that some people who may not want all 14 of those albums might be happy with just these two.

As with Volume 1, most or all of the songs are covers. That helps explain why she didn't put them on her usual studio albums.

There's not much else to say, so I'll leave it there.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Song of the Highest Tower (Norah Jones)
02 We'll Be Together Again (Norah Jones)
03 How Deep Is the Ocean (Norah Jones)
04 Straight Up (Norah Jones)
05 Amazing Grace (Norah Jones)
06 What a Difference a Day Makes (Norah Jones)
07 I'll Fly Away (Norah Jones)
08 Blue Christmas (Norah Jones)
09 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15950368/NorahJ_2020_UnqueHomeConcrtSongsVolum2_atse.zip.html

As I did with Volume 1, I made the album cover by putting together a montage of covers of the home concert albums I'd previously posted. I didn't have quite enough to fill up nine slots on both albums, so the last few are from other Norah Jones albums that I'd made.

Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne - Joan Osborne Sings Grateful Dead Songs, Volume 1 (2006)

Singer-songwriter Joan Osborne had the honor of singing lead vocals with the Dead, the successor band to the Grateful Dead, in 2003. However, she didn't sing lead all that much, and did more backing vocals, because the band still had Bob Weir as a member, who had been one of the two main lead vocalists for the entire duration of the Grateful Dead's existence. By 2006, she was lead vocalist again for the related band Phil Lesh and Friends. This time, she did a lot more of the lead vocals. It also so happens that all of the band's concerts from this year have been made available with soundboard quality. So I've gone through those and picked out all the songs where Osborne sang lead. That resulted in four albums. Here's the first one.

Before I go further, I should explain why I've specifically sought out the songs sung Osborne. The Grateful Dead and successor bands have had many excellent lead vocalists over the years, most especially the two main originals, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. But those vocalists were known more for having character than technical prowess. Osborne, in addition to being a successful singer-songwriter in her own right, has one of those special voices, a diva voice, if you will, that can expertly sing just about anything. So it's quite something to hear Grateful Dead songs sung by someone of her caliber, while at the same time one got the instrumental prowess of bassist Phil Lesh and his band mates.

Speaking of band mates, in 2003, in addition to Lesh and Osborne, the band consisted of Larry Campbell (guitar, violin, slide guitar, mandolin, and vocals), Rob Barraco (keyboards and vocals), and John Molo (drums), and either John Scofield, Barry Sless, or Trey Anastasio (guitar).

The songs are generally Grateful Dead originals or covers closely associated with the band. "Nobody's Girl" is a rare case of an original written after the Grateful Dead came to an end in 1995.

The songs are in chronological order of the concerts they occurred in. The range here is from February to June 2006. You can find the exact details in the mp3 tags, as usual.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 All Along the Watchtower (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
02 Caution [Do Not Stop on Tracks] (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
03 Sugaree (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
04 Nobody Girl (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
05 He's Gone (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
06 Cosmic Charlie (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
07 Mr. Charlie (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
08 Death Don't Have No Mercy (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15950784/JoanO_2006a_JoanOsbrneSngsGrtefulDdSngsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Osborne is from her time with Phil Lesh and Friends in 2006, but I don't know the exact details.

Jellyfish - Let This Dream Never End - Non-Album Tracks (1990-1991)

I'm a big fan of the 1990s band Jellyfish. I posted one album by them (a concert), back in early 2022, but I have a lot more to post, despite the fact that they only stayed together as a band long enough to put out two studio albums. This is a collection of stray tracks from around the time of the 1990 album "Bellybutton." If you're even just a casual fan of this band I suggest hearing this one, because it makes a solid album in its own right, with a majority of the songs being originals not found elsewhere.

The reason I was able to put this together is because of the official box set "Fan Club." That was a revelation, showing the band did much more than what came out on their two albums. Most of the songs here are from that, usually studio tracks, but a few are not. "No Matter What," a live version of the classic Badfinger song, is from the "Jellyfish Comes Alive" EP. A live cover of the Fleetwood Mac classic "Go Your Own Way" is from the unreleased Frankfurt concert that I previously posted here. The last two songs, "Hello" and "Will You Marry Me" are from the live album "Live at Bogart's."

In addition to the cover songs I've mentioned already, "Season of the Witch" was by Donovan and "Jet" was by Paul McCartney and Wings. I believe the rest are originals.

That's not including the bonus tracks, which are also covers. Unfortunately, they're from audience bootlegs and the sound quality just isn't up to snuff.

This album is 51 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

01 Let This Dream Never End (Jellyfish)
02 Season of the Witch (Jellyfish)
03 That Girl's a Man (Jellyfish)
04 Sugar and Spice (Jellyfish)
05 Mr. Late (Jellyfish)
06 No Matter What (Jellyfish)
07 Always Be My Girl (Jellyfish)
08 Queen of the U.S.A. (Jellyfish)
09 Deliver (Jellyfish)
10 Jet (Jellyfish)
11 Go Your Own Way [Edit] (Jellyfish)
12 Hello (Jellyfish)
13 Will You Marry Me (Jellyfish)

Little Bit of Love (Jellyfish)
The Logical Song [Edit] (Jellyfish)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15945823/Jellyfh_1990-1991_LetThsDreamNevrEnd_atse.zip.html

The cover is a publicity photo from 1990.

Norah Jones - Unique Home Concert Songs, Volume 1 (2020)

This is an unusual album for me to post, because everything I've posted here has been posted before. I've posted no less than 14 albums of Norah Jones' home concerts from 2020. That's a lot of music. That vast majority of that consisted of Jones playing songs that she'd already done elsewhere. I think it was interesting hearing them done in solo acoustic mode, usually quite different from the album versions, but they had been done before. So I thought it would be useful to gather up all the songs from those home concerts that were unique to just those concerts and never recorded anywhere else. It turns out there was enough for two albums. So this is the first one.

The songs here are presented in chronological order of when she performed them. She started in mid-March 2020, mere days after the Covid pandemic became a worldwide phenomenon, and this album continues until mid-June 2020. The vast majority of the songs are covers.

If you look at the mp3 tags, you can see which songs are from which albums I've made. But since many people don't know how to look at those, I'll also explain here. The first six songs are from "Home Concerts 1." The seventh song is from "Home Concerts 2." The eighth song is from "Home Concerts 3." The ninth song is from "Home Concerts 4." The tenth song is from "Home Concerts 5."

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 Patience (Norah Jones)
02 Joey (Norah Jones)
03 You and Me (Norah Jones)
04 Lucky (Norah Jones)
05 I Remember Clifford [Instrumental] (Norah Jones)
06 I Am Missing You (Norah Jones)
07 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Norah Jones)
08 Permanently Lonely (Norah Jones)
09 I'll Be Seeing You (Norah Jones)
10 Light Wind Blowing (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15950366/NorahJ_2020_UnqueHomeConcrtSongsVolum1_atse.zip.html

Instead of making a normal album cover, to show how this was a compilation of selected songs from albums I'd already made, I used a montage of the photos for the albums in the home concerts series.

Crowded House - Acoustic Radio Sessions, Volume 2: 1991-1994

I recently posted "Acoustic Radio Sessions, Volume 1" by Crowded House, and this one picks up right where that one left off. Like that one, these are generally full band performances, but they're done with all acoustic instruments. And like that one, all the performances here are unreleased, and come from in-person radio station appearances.

The first three songs are from 1991, the next three are from 1993, and the rest are from 1994. That roughly corresponds to the time the band was together, until reunions over a decade later. The songs here go through April 1994, and that month is when drummer Paul Hester quit the band. They played some concerts after that, with a final concert in 1996, but they didn't put out any more studio albums. So between this volume and the previous one, pretty much all the best known songs from the band's first era are included.

The sound quality is generally excellent. Three of the songs, tracks 8, 9, and 10, were played in front of a small audience, but that didn't overlap the music much. In case you're curious about the BBC, like I am, tracks 4 through 8 were done for a BBC radio show.

Thanks again to the person who sent me all this music a while back. Sorry it took so long for me to get around to posting it.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 World Where You Live (Crowded House)
02 Whole Lotta Love (Crowded House)
03 Four Seasons in One Day (Crowded House)
04 Locked Out (Crowded House)
05 Private Universe (Crowded House)
06 In My Command (Crowded House)
07 Nails in My Feet (Crowded House)
08 Distant Sun (Crowded House)
09 Pineapple Head (Crowded House)
10 Black and White Boy (Crowded House)
11 Fingers of Love (Crowded House)
12 Fall at Your Feet (Crowded House)
13 Catherine Wheels (Crowded House)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15945840/CrwdedHous_1991-1994_AcoustcRdioSessonsVolum2_atse.zip.html

I wanted to use a photo of Crowded House playing acoustic instruments from this era. I couldn't find a good one though, so I went with a publicity photo from 1991 instead.

Elton John & Leon Russell - BBC Sessions, Volume 15: Electric Proms, the Roundhouse, London, Britain, 10-28-2010

I've posted a ton of Elton John BBC albums, but I generally lost interest in the early 2000s, because most of his concerts consisted of his same old hits that he'd done plenty of times before. But this concert is different. John's music is heavily based on piano playing, and he was heavily influenced by the piano playing of Leon Russell, who had a peak of popularity in the early 1970s. In early 2010, John and Russell released an album together, "The Union." This concert heavily draws on that album, and features them in nearly equal measure, both in solo spots and together.

By the time of this concert, Russell was near the tail end of his music career. He looked like a wizard, with long white hair and a beard, and he walked with a cane. He would die a few years later, in 2016. But both he and John were creatively revitalized by working together. On "The Union" album, the vast majority of songs were written by some combination of John, Russell, and John's long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin, who wrote a bunch of songs with Russell. And despite Russell's health issues, he still had no problem singing and playing piano with vigor.

The sound quality is excellent, despite this being entirely unreleased. However, boy, did I have a problem with the recording. It turns out there were microgaps through the entire thing. Generally, there were less than half a second long, but that was just long enough to notice a brief silence. So I had to carefully listen to the whole thing for the gaps, and then fix them one by one. Most songs had at least one such gap, and some had four or five. I've marked some of the most problematic ones by putting "[Edit]" in the titles, but really, I edited the vast majority of the songs here. 

But there was another problem. Occasionally, the BBC DJ spoke, for station identification or to tell the listener at home what was happening on stage. Most of the time, that talking took place between songs, and I was able to edit it out. But for about three or four songs, it overlapped with the starts of songs. In one case, it even kept going over some of the singing. So I had to do more editing of that. Luckily, in the one case where it overlapped the singing, the song started with a chorus, so I was able to patch in the vocals from a later chorus. 

But... sigh, this one was a real pain in the ass to fix. On the plus side, everything should sound great now. I may have missed a microgap here and there, but I'm pretty sure I got the vast majority of them, if not all of them.

This album is two hour and 35 minutes long.

01 talk (Elton John)
02 Burn Down the Mission (Elton John)
03 talk (Elton John)
04 Levon (Elton John)
05 Tiny Dancer [Edit] (Elton John)
06 talk (Elton John)
07 Ballad of a Well-Known Gun (Elton John)
08 talk (Elton John)
09 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Elton John with Plan B)
10 talk (Elton John)
11 Delta Lady [Edit] (Leon Russell)
12 A Song for You (Leon Russell)
13 This Masquerade (Leon Russell with Rumer)
14 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
15 If It Wasn't for Bad (Elton John & Leon Russell)
16 Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes (Elton John & Leon Russell)
17 Hey Ahab (Elton John & Leon Russell)
18 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
19 Gone to Shiloh (Elton John & Leon Russell)
20 Jimmy Rodgers' Dream (Elton John & Leon Russell)
21 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
22 There's No Tomorrow (Elton John & Leon Russell)
23 Monkey Suit (Elton John & Leon Russell)
24 The Best Part of the Day (Elton John & Leon Russell)
25 Dreams Come True (Elton John & Leon Russell)
26 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
27 I Should Have Sent Roses [Edit] (Elton John & Leon Russell)
28 When Love Is Dying (Elton John & Leon Russell)
29 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
30 Hearts Have Turned to Stone (Elton John & Leon Russell)
31 Never Too Old [To Hold Somebody] (Elton John & Leon Russell)
32 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
33 In the Hands of Angels (Elton John & Leon Russell)
34 Tight Rope (Leon Russell)
35 Prince of Peace - Out of the Woods (Leon Russell)
36 Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms - Stranger in a Strange Land [Edit] (Leon Russell)
37 Your Song [Edit] (Elton John)
38 Take Me to the Pilot [Edit] (Elton John)
39 Sad Songs [Say So Much] (Elton John)
40 The Bitch Is Back [Edit] (Elton John)
41 talk (Elton John & Leon Russell)
42 Hey Ahab (Elton John & Leon Russell)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jCXiv

For the cover, I wanted to have a photo of John and Russell together in concert. But both of them played pianos that were far apart on stage, so there weren't any good photos like that. So instead I found two photos from this exact concert, and positioned them to both fit on the cover.

David Gilmour - Meltdown Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London, Britain, 6-22-2001

David Gilmour was the lead guitarist of Pink Floyd for almost the entire duration of that band's existence. He'd led Pink Floyd since the band's former main lead vocalist and songwriter Roger Waters left around 1983. But by the time of this concert, he was tired of playing stadiums and doing everything big when the name "Pink Floyd" was involved. He hadn't done a proper solo tour since 1984. But he decided to do a different kind of concert in 2001, performing in semi-acoustic mode and playing more unexpected songs instead of all Pink Floyd classics.

The impetus for this different kind of tour was Robert Wyatt, the former lead singer of the prog rock band the Soft Machine. The annual Meltdown Festival is unusual in that every year a famous musical figure is the director, and gets to pick the acts that perform at the festival. Wyatt was the director for 2001, and one of the acts he picked was Gilmour. (Note that Wyatt also was a guest vocalist in this concert on the song "Comfortably Numb.") Gilmour hadn't been doing much musically at the time, but he spent several months practicing new songs and learning to do familiar songs in a new way that fitted the semi-acoustic format. He later commented that he was so nervous at first that his hands were shaking. But he liked the format enough to do six more concerts in this same format in 2001 and another eight in 2002.

Surprisingly, given all the effort he put into these concerts, he has never put out a concert album from any of them. However, a DVD based on this concert was released in 2002, called "David Gilmour in Concert." I took the audio from the DVD, so the sound quality is excellent. That DVD had a few songs at the end from other concerts on the tour. I haven't included those here. However, I will include most of those songs on a different album I plan on posting here later.

Because Gilmour felt free to play what he enjoyed playing instead of what audiences at Pink Floyd concerts expected, he played some unusual cover songs. "Terrapin" is a solo song by Pink Floyd founding member Syd Barrett. "Dimming of the Day" is by Richard Thompson. "Hushabye Mountain" is by Robert and Richard Sherman, and first appeared in the 1968 movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." But the oddest song of all was "Je Crois Entendre Encore," which is an aria from the Georges Bizet opera "Les Pecheurs de Perles." Gilmour sang it in French, a language he didn't actually speak.

Note also that this was the first performance of the original song "Smile." It would be included on the album "On an Island" five years later. And while the focus was not on Pink Floyd hits, he did play eight songs first done by that band. A couple of them were lesser known choices, like "Fat Old Sun," which is from the 1970 album "Atom Heart Mother."

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 Shine On You Crazy Diamond [Parts 1-5] (David Gilmour)
02 Terrapin (David Gilmour)
03 Fat Old Sun (David Gilmour)
04 Coming Back to Life (David Gilmour)
05 High Hopes (David Gilmour)
06 talk (David Gilmour)
07 Je Crois Entendre Encore (David Gilmour)
08 talk (David Gilmour)
09 Smile (David Gilmour)
10 Wish You Were Here (David Gilmour)
11 Comfortably Numb (David Gilmour with Robert Wyatt)
12 Dimming of the Day (David Gilmour)
13 Shine On You Crazy Diamond [Parts 6-9] (David Gilmour)
14 talk (David Gilmour)
15 A Great Day for Freedom (David Gilmour)
16 Hushabye Mountain (David Gilmour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15952402/DavdGlmour_2001_MeltdwnFstivalRoylAlbrtHallLondnBrtain__6-22-2001_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Gilmour comes from this exact concert.

Beck - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Brixton Academy, Brixton, Britain, 12-10-1996

Beck has had a great, long music career, but in terms of popularity he peaked early. His second major album, "Odelay" in 1996, sold about two million copies, about double the sales for any of his other albums. So late 1996 was a great time for a BBC concert.

Beck has frequently flipped between two modes: a mellow, acoustic mode, and an upbeat, rocking mode. This concert is almost entirely in the upbeat, rocking mode. He played all of his best known songs at the time, including his breakout hit "Loser," a song he hasn't played that much since due to growing tired of it.

Rather oddly, Beck played "Make Out City," and introduced it as such. But it's basically just a remix of his hit "Where It's At," and is easily recognized as such.

There's not much else to say. The sound quality is excellent throughout. Oh, and I believe everything here is unreleased.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Thunderpeel (Beck) (Beck)
02 talk (Beck)
03 Lord Only Knows (Beck)
04 Minus (Beck)
05 talk (Beck)
06 The New Pollution (Beck)
07 talk (Beck)
08 Derelict (Beck)
09 Loser (Beck)
10 talk (Beck)
11 Asshole (Beck)
12 One Foot in the Grave (Beck)
13 talk (Beck)
14 Pay No Mind [Snoozer] (Beck)
15 talk (Beck)
16 Make Out City [Where It's At Remix] [Edit] (Beck)
17 talk (Beck)
18 Devil's Haircut (Beck)
19 Sissyneck (Beck)
20 Debra (Beck)
21 Beercan [Edit] (Beck)
22 Jack Ass (Beck)
23 Sissyneck (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15952433/BeckH_1996c_BBSessonsVolum2InConcrtBrixtnAcadmyBrixtnBrtain__12-10-1996_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a concert in San Jose, California, in September 1996.