Kansas - Best Of / Sampler (1974-1980) (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's an album that came into being as a result of the Kansas concert that was posted here a few days ago. After guest poster Mike Solof suggested making an album of a concert from Kansas's 1979 Monolith tour, I agreed, but I mentioned that I was really familiar with the band's music. I only knew their big hits, especially "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." He really likes the band and thought that was a shame, so he offered to make a "best of" type album for newbies like me. I agreed again, and suggested that he post that on my blog too.

He went ahead and did that, so here we are. Of course, there are official "best of" albums for the band already. But Mike felt none of those had the ideal selection of songs that he wanted. He focused on just their 1970s heyday, because in the early 1980s they lost key members and became a kind of Christian rock band for a while, before returning to their roots (and getting some key members back) later in the decade. 

If you want to know more, Mike has made a PDF with his explanation, as he usually does. If you think some essential songs were left off, or there are songs that shouldn't have been included, leave a comment. Perhaps Mike will make an updated version.

Unusually for this blog, everything here is released and from the studio albums. But hopefully this is a sampler that will inspire some people to dive deeper into the Kansas catalog. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

Before I get to the usual song list, here's the song list with names of the albums each song is from, and the year that album was released: 

01 Song for America - Song for America (1975)
02 Journey from Mariabronn - Kansas (1974)
03 Down the Road - Kansas (1974)
04 Carry On Wayward Son - Leftoverture (1976)
05 The Wall - Leftoverture (1976)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere - Leftoverture (1976)
07 Point of Know Return - Point of Know Return (1977)
08 Dust in the Wind - Point of Know Return (1977)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You - Monolith (1979)
10 A Glimpse of Home - Monolith (1979)
11 People of the South Wind - Monolith (1979)
12 Loner - Audio-Visions (1980)

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Song for America (Kansas)
02 Journey from Mariabronn (Kansas)
03 Down the Road (Kansas)
04 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)
05 The Wall (Kansas)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere (Kansas)
07 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
08 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
10 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
11 People of the South Wind (Kansas)
12 Loner (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y1GhCvdC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/h9B4sSiXYzdWPLl/file

Mike found the photo of the band. I don't know the details of where or when it's from. 

Gilbert O'Sullivan - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Friday Night Is Music Night, Mermaid Theatre, London, Britain, 2-12-2016

I recently randomly stumbled across this concert by singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan. Since I've already posted three BBC albums by him, I decided to post it right away. It's a full concert with a complete orchestra backing him.

This is kind of the ultimate Gilbert O'Sullivan concert, due to the generous length, song selection, and many backing musicians. In addition to the orchestra mentioned above, O'Sullivan dueted with three different singers over the course of the concert.

I found this as a single file and then broke it into mp3s for each song. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 43 minutes long. 

01 talk by Ken Bruce (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
02 Thunder and Lightning (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
03 Private Eye (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
04 Out of the Question (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
05 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
06 Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
07 Where Would We Be [Without Tea] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
08 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
09 We Will (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Eleanor McEvoy)
10 Houdini Said (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
11 Miss My Love Today (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
12 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
13 I Guess I'll Always Love You (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Ayala)
14 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
15 Can't Think Straight (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
16 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
17 Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
18 Clair (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
19 You Got Me Going (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
20 No Way (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
21 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
22 No Matter How I Try (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
23 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Bobby Davro)
24 Showbiz (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Bobby Davro)
25 Young at Heart [We'll Always Remain] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
26 Or So They Say (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
27 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
28 Lost a Friend (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
29 Why, Oh Why, Oh Why (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
30 Hold On to What You Got (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
31 talk (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
32 What's in a Kiss (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
33 Alone Again [Naturally] (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
34 Matrimony (Gilbert O'Sullivan)
35 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/c7APnLEQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jg5q7cril5SKbSi/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Various Artists - Colombian Volcano Disaster Appeal Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 2-9-1986

Here's a really interesting benefit concert. There aren't a lot of musical acts, but the ones that took part gave interesting performances, often with some unusual song choices. The big stars were David Gilmour (formerly of Pink Floyd), Pete Townshend (formerly of the Who), Annie Lennox (of Eurythmics) and Chrissie Hynde (of the Pretenders).

In November of 1985, the Nevada del Ruiz volcano erupted, causing a natural disaster in Colombia. It melted glaciers and caused catastrophic flooding that killed over 25,000 people. A native Colombian musician, Chucho Merchan, with the help of Pete Townshend, organized this benefit concert to raise funds for the surviving victims and to help raise awareness of their plight. Highlights of the concert were broadcast in many countries around the world, and a DVD of parts of it was eventually released. 

I had been aware of this concert for a long time, but I could only find the sets from the main stars. I put songs from the David Gilmour and Chrissie Hynde sets on albums I've posted elsewhere on this blog. However, I recently found virtually the entire concert, with excellent sound quality. So that inspired me to post this, and sooner rather than later.

The first three acts were popular in Britain around the of this concert, though their popularity didn't last. Working Week was a British jazz-dance band that had a hit with the song "Venceremos (We Will Win)" in 1984, plus some other minor hits in 1985 and 1986. 

Jaki Graham, a British soul and dance singer, had three Top Ten hits in Britain in 1985 and 1986, with "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love," "Round and Round," and "Set Me Free." But curiously, it seems she was only given time to perform one song, and she chose a song that wasn't one of her hits. 

The Communards were a British synth-pop duo. They had two really big hits and some smaller hits in Britain, though they had no success in the U.S. In 1986, their version of "Don't Leave Me This Way" reached Number One in the British singles chart, and was the biggest hit of the year in that country. However, that single wouldn't be released until about six months after this concert, which explains why they didn't play it here. They also had another big hit with "Never Can Say Goodbye" in 1987. At the time of this concert, they'd only had one minor hit, "You Are My World," but they didn't play it here.

Here are their Wikipedia entries: 

Working Week (band) - Wikipedia 

Jaki Graham - Wikipedia 

The Communards - Wikipedia 

I don't feel the need to explain the other musical acts in this concert, since they're well known and I've posted albums by each of them at this blog already. However, the timing of how this concert fit into their careers is worth mentioning. David Gilmour started a full-time solo career in 1984 after Pink Floyd broke up in 1983. But he hadn't done much as a solo artist after putting out a solo album in 1984, so his appearance here was notable. He would lead a new version of Pink Floyd starting in 1987.

Similarly, Pete Townshend started a full-time solo career after the Who broke up in 1982. At the time of this concert, he'd only released one solo album, in 1985. But in this concert, he only performed three Who songs, plus "Save It for Later," a cover of an English Beat song. 

Annie Lennox was a member of Eurythmics at this time. However, at the time, she was taking a short break due to some trouble with her voice. That's probably why she only sang one song on her own (while also singing a duet at the end). It was very unusual for her to appear as a solo artist. Her solo career wouldn't really begin until her first solo album in 1992.

Similarly, Chrissie Hynde was a member of the Pretenders at this time. By 1986, the Pretenders had basically become Hynde plus whomever she wanted to work with. But I guess she was billed under her own name because she performed with some different musicians than her usual band at the time. Plus, it seems that freed her to play some more interesting songs. She only did two Pretenders songs, the first two in her set. Then she did covers by the Beatles ("In My Life"), the Righteous Brothers, ("Little Latin Lupe Lu"), Bob Dylan ("Property of Jesus"), and KC and the Sunshine Band ("Give It Up"). That probably was her most eclectic set list ever, and the fact the last song was a duet with Annie Lennox was even more interesting.   

By the way, I saw that both actors Peter Richardson and Harry Enfield spoke during the concert. So I figure one of them has to be the emcee talking between songs. It sounds like the same person talking each time, but I'm not familiar with their voices, so I don't know which one it would be. If anyone can tell, please let me know so I can fix the song title info.   

This album is exactly two hours long. 

01 talk (emcee)
02 Inner City Blues [Make Me Wanna Holler] (Working Week)
03 Sweet Nothing (Working Week)
04 South Africa (Working Week)
05 Shot in the Dark (Working Week)
06 talk (emcee)
07 Heaven Knows (Jaki Graham)
08 talk (emcee)
09 Sentimental Journey (Communards)
10 Forbidden Love (Communards)
11 Don't Slip Away (Communards)
12 talk (emcee)
13 talk (Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly)
14 Moonlight Shadow (Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly)
15 talk (emcee)
16 You Know I'm Right (David Gilmour)
17 Run like Hell (David Gilmour)
18 Out of the Blue (David Gilmour)
19 Comfortably Numb (David Gilmour)
20 talk (emcee)
21 I'm One (Pete Townshend)
22 talk (Pete Townshend)
23 Save It for Later (Pete Townshend)
24 Pinball Wizard (Pete Townshend)
25 Magic Bus (Pete Townshend)
26 talk (emcee)
27 Blame It on the Sun (Annie Lennox)
28 talk (emcee)
29 Time, the Avenger (Chrissie Hynde)
30 Back on the Chain Gang (Chrissie Hynde)
31 talk (Chrissie Hynde)
32 In My Life (Chrissie Hynde)
33 Little Latin Lupe Lu (Chrissie Hynde)
34 Property of Jesus (Chrissie Hynde)
35 Give It Up (Chrissie Hynde & Annie Lennox)
36 talk (emcee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t9XbbPYK 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DEK86KzNjctEOg0/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a video. It shows Chrissie Hynde and Annie Lennox together, on the last song in the concert. The video was very low-res and blurry, so the image has issues. But I was happy to at least come up with this, since I couldn't find any images of the two of them together. 

Gary U.S. Bonds - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-24-1981

Here's a BBC concert by Gary U.S. Bonds. It appears to be the only BBC concert he did, during the brief revival of his career in 1981.

Bonds had a rather strange career, and his strange stage name is a part of that. His real name is Gary Anderson. But early in his career, back around 1960, his record company insist that he call himself "U.S. Bonds." The thinking is that radio stations would mistake his records for obligatory public service announcements for the sale of U.S. bonds, which was a thing at the time, and thus he would get extra exposure. Whether he liked it or not, the name stuck, though he soon at least changed it to "Gary U.S. Bonds."

Bonds had a number of hits, all between 1960 and 1962, with "New Orleans" and "Quarter to Three" being the biggest. But then his career was basically forgotten for a long time. Between 1963 and 1980, he released over 20 singles, and none of them even made the charts. But then, in 1981, everything changed, due to music superstar Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen had long been a fan of Bonds' music, and performed "Quarter to Three" in many concerts. Springsteen was heavily involved in making Bonds' 1981 album, called "Dedication." He wrote three songs for it, including "This Little Girl," which became a Top Ten hit in the U.S. He and/or his E Street Band played on many songs, and he dueted with Bonds on another song, "Jole Blon." That helped the album reach Number 27 on the U.S. album chart. Music critic Dave Marsh later called it "one of the most successful comeback albums in rock and roll history." Springsteen would also be involved in two more albums by Bonds, in 1982 and 2004, though to less commercial success.

This concert leaned heavily on the "Dedication" album. Many of the songs are from it: "Jole Blon," "From a Buick 6" (a Bob Dylan cover),  "Daddy's Come Home," "The Pretender" (a Jackson Browne cover), "It's Only Love," (a Beatles cover), "Dedication," "Way Back When," "Your Love," and "This Little Girl" (those last two being Springsteen covers). In fact, only two songs aren't from the album, "Dear Lady Twist" and "Quarter to Three." Even his big 1960 hit "New Orleans" wasn't included (although that probably was a BBC editing decision, since this almost certainly consists of selections from a longer concert).

This is another album where I had help from a new volunteer named Ed. I gave him a long list of albums to choose to work from, and this was one he picked. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have posted it for a long time. Ed edited all the files to improve the mix. 

There was one problem with the recording. The last song, "Quarter to Three," ended badly. On the BBC recording, a BBC DJ began talking over the music, announcing that the time allotted for the concert had come to an end. Then the song came to a sudden stop. I used the MVSEP program to wipe the DJ's voice, saving a little more of the music. Then I faded the song out, while adding in a growing amount of crowd noise, to bring the concert to a more satisfying end. That's why that last song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Jole Blon (Gary U.S. Bonds)
02 From a Buick 6 (Gary U.S. Bonds)
03 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
04 Daddy's Come Home (Gary U.S. Bonds)
05 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
06 The Pretender (Gary U.S. Bonds)
07 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
08 Dear Lady Twist (Gary U.S. Bonds)
09 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
10 It's Only Love (Gary U.S. Bonds)
11 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
12 Dedication (Gary U.S. Bonds)
13 Way Back When (Gary U.S. Bonds)
14 Your Love (Gary U.S. Bonds)
15 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
16 This Little Girl (Gary U.S. Bonds)
17 talk (Gary U.S. Bonds)
18 Quarter to Three [Edit] (Gary U.S. Bonds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gth4teJz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/PExtveOGjFIloHW/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1981. But I don't know if it's from this exact concert or not, because I saw photos of him at that venue that year in different clothes, so he probably performed more than one concert there. 

B.B. King & Various Artists - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 8-30-1974

Here's another album from the "Midnight Special" TV show. It's a special one, because it's another musical themed episode. I believe this is the only show that exclusively focused on blues music, at least in the 1973 to 1975 time frame that I've investigated so far. The main host was blues legend B.B. King. However, there were a number of others blues figures too: Paul Butterfield, Jimmy Witherspoon, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Joe Williams, and Papa John Creach.

Normally, I edit these episodes down to just the music performed by the host, plus maybe one more musical act. But because this episode had a coherent theme, I included all the music. I did cut out some things, as I usually do, such as the theme song at the beginning, and announcements of commercial breaks, as well as announcements of who would be on the show in the next episode. The first track has "[Edit]" in the title, because I removed the usual theme song and replaced it with cheering in the background instead, using the MVSEP program to do so.

The sound quality is excellent throughout. The only problem was that the last song faded out before it really got going. So I don't even know what that song is. I just called it "Outro," since it had B.B. King giving some final words before the fade out started. I considered adding in some extra crowd cheering, but I decided to just keep it as it was, fading out into silence.

The music is excellent as well. I doubt there were many instances of the blues getting this kind of exposure on a national TV show, though admittedly one that was broadcast late at night. One special highlight is "Gettin' It Together," in which blues legends B.B. King and John Lee Hooker joined forces, assisted by violinist Papa John Creach. King and Hooker were actually long-time friends, with both of them starting their musical careers not far from each other, in the late 1940s. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (B.B. King)
02 Why I Sing the Blues (B.B. King)
03 talk (B.B. King)
04 Meet in the Bottom (Paul Butterfield's Better Days)
05 talk (B.B. King)
06 Nothing's Changed (Jimmy Witherspoon)
07 talk (B.B. King)
08 Boogie with the Hook [Edit] (John Lee Hooker)
09 talk (B.B. King)
10 Ball and Chain (Big Mama Thornton)
11 talk (B.B. King)
12 Who She Do (Joe Williams)
13 I Like to Live the Love (B.B. King)
14 talk (B.B. King)
15 Goin' Down Slow (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
16 talk (B.B. King)
17 John's Other [Instrumental] (Papa John Creach)
18 talk (B.B. King)
19 Gettin' It Together (B.B. King, John Lee Hooker & Papa John Creach)
20 talk (Wolfman Jack & B.B. King)
21 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King)
22 Love Is a Five Letter Word (Jimmy Witherspoon)
23 Tell Me Where to Scratch (Joe Williams)
24 talk (Wolfman Jack & B.B. King)
25 I Got Some Help I Don't Need (B.B. King)
26 Outro (B.B. King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gLzcWuLc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jkeglxL80nYZq0T/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert. From right to left: John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, & Papa John Creach.

Gerry Rafferty (with the Humblebums and Stealers Wheel) - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1970-1972

Here's a collection of BBC studio sessions by singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty. During this time, he was in two bands, the Humblebums and Stealers Wheel, while also putting out music as a solo artist. So this includes material from all of those bands.

Today, Rafferty is best known for the songs "Stuck in the Middle with You," "Right Down the Line," and "Baker Street." (You might not recognize the title "Baker Street," since it's only mentioned once in the song, but I'll bet you recognize the saxophone riff. Weirdly, the song didn't reach Number One in the U.S. despite being a massive hit in 1978, but it stayed at Number Two for six weeks!) But he was a very talented singer and songwriter who deserves to be known for a lot more than just those three songs. (I use the past tense, because he died in 2011 at the age of 63.)

 In 1969, Rafferty joined the band the Humblebums. The band had already existed for a few years, and was led by Billy Connolly. Connolly wouldn't have great success as a musician, but he would transition to becoming a world famous comedian and actor. When Rafferty joined, the Humblebums split between songs written and sung by Connolly and songs written and sung by Rafferty. The songs here generally are the Rafferty ones. By Connolly's own admission, Rafferty was leagues ahead of him musically, while Connolly excelled in comedic stage banter, which is missing here.

The Humblebums split in 1971. That same year, Rafferty put out his first solo album, "Can I Have My Money Back?" It was largely ignored due to poor record company support, but got good reviews. However, by the start of 1972, Rafferty joined another band, Stealers Wheel. This was a collaboration with singer-songwriter Joe Egan, with both of them writing and singing songs. I'll have more songs from Stealers Wheel in Volume 2. But for now, that band is represented by the last four songs on this album.

The songs here come from a variety of BBC sources, all of them unreleased. The first nine songs come from four different BBC radio shows in 1970. Four of those songs have "[Edit]" in their titles due to the common problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. As I usually do, I used the UVR5 program to wipe the talking while keeping the music.

Track 10, "Can I Have My Money Back," is from an appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1971. Then the last four tracks are from an appearance on the "Top Gear" BBC radio show in early 1972.

Two songs, "A Little of Your Time" and "Oh No," have been bumped down to mere bonus track status, due to poor sound quality. Both of those are from the same BBC studio session in 1970.

This album is 47 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

01 Rick Rack [Edit] (Humblebums)
02 Everybody Knows That [Edit] (Humblebums)
03 Mother [Edit] (Humblebums)
04 Please Sing a Song for Us [Edit] (Humblebums)
05 Mary of the Mountains (Humblebums)
06 Cruising (Gerry Rafferty)
07 Keep It to Yourself (Gerry Rafferty)
08 My Singing Bird (Gerry Rafferty)
09 All the Best People Do It (Humblebums)
10 Can I Have My Money Back (Gerry Rafferty)
11 We're on the Right Track (Stealers Wheel)
12 I Get By (Stealers Wheel)
13 Jose (Stealers Wheel)
14 Mary Skeffington (Stealers Wheel)

A Little of Your Time (Humblebums)
Oh No (Humblebums)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UzwqhSKE 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Tp6dht2NBwqFrDT/file

The cover photo was taken in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1972. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Songwriters' Circle Redo

Earlier in 2025, I posted an episode of the BBC TV show "Songwriters' Circle," that had the singer-songwriters Graham Gouldman, Ron Sexsmith, and Fran Healy take turns performing their songs. Unfortunately, I had to piece that together from various YouTube videos, and a couple of songs (plus spoken intros to other songs) were missing. But recently, a kind person named Alan sent me the entire show, with excellent sound quality. So I redid the album from scratch.

Here's the link to the updated version: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/02/graham-gouldman-fran-healy-ron-sexsmith.html

And thanks to Alan. I love it when these sorts of flaws get fixed. 

John Fogerty - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-23-2007

Here's John Fogerty, formerly of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), performing at the massive annual Glastonbury Festival in 2007.

Note that he also performed at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival, and I've posted that album already. Both of his performances were broadcast by the BBC, since they broadcast most of that festival every year. So I've made this one "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" and renamed the 2025 one to be "BBC Sessions, Volume 2." If you want to get the renamed version of that other one, with updated cover art and mp3 tags, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/08/john-fogerty-bbc-in-concert-glastonbury.html

This concert was in a very big pile I have of BBC concerts I want to post here eventually. But recently, a volunteer named Ed said he wanted to help get albums ready. He picked this one as one of the first ones he wanted to help with, so it moved up to the top of the pile. He worked on improving the sound balance and such.

Fogerty released the studio album "Revival" in 2007. I consider it one of his best solo albums, so I was surprised and disappointed to see that he didn't include a single song for it. But then I realized that this concert took place in June 2007, and "Revival" wasn't released until October. So he probably wasn't ready to play those in concert until after the album came out.

But it also was a bit strange that he practically played nothing but CCR songs, or cover songs associated with CCR, like "Cotton Fields" and "I Heard It through the Grapevine." The only song from his solo career was the last one, "Rockin' All Over the World." That's a bit unfortunate, because while he wrote many great CCR songs, he wrote many great solo career songs as well.

Weirdly, this concert is missing just one song, according to the setlist.fm song list. "Travelin' Band" was the first song performed. Two songs, "Green River" and "Ramble Tamble," came from a different source than the usual BBC broadcast, but essentially had the same sound quality. 

This album is an hour and 10 minutes long. 

01 talk (John Fogerty)
02 Green River (John Fogerty)
03 talk (John Fogerty)
04 Who'll Stop the Rain (John Fogerty)
05 Sweet Hitch-Hiker (John Fogerty)
06 Lookin' Out My Backdoor (John Fogerty)
07 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty)
08 Ramble Tamble (John Fogerty)
09 Midnight Special (John Fogerty)
10 I Heard It through the Grapevine (John Fogerty)
11 Lodi (John Fogerty)
12 Cotton Fields (John Fogerty)
13 Have You Ever Seen the Rain (John Fogerty)
14 Up Around the Bend (John Fogerty)
15 Keep On Chooglin' (John Fogerty)
16 Down on the Corner (John Fogerty)
17 Good Golly, Miss Molly (John Fogerty)
18 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty)
19 Fortunate Son (John Fogerty)
20 Rockin' All Over the World (John Fogerty)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3kHEWe6F 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/O34rtLaq6qCZFSL/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Kansas - Monolith Live - Springfield Civic Center, Springfield, MA, 9-2-1979 - Studiofied (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's a concert by the American prog rock band Kansas. 

This is a Mike Solof guest post. Kansas are best known for their songs from earlier in the 1970s, like "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." But Mike believes the band's 1979 album "Monolith" is very underrated. It turns out there's really only one bootleg recording of the tour promoting Monolith with soundboard quality. But while the sound quality was fundamentally good, there were issues. For instance, it was in stereo, but there was very little separation. Mike went to great lengths to improve the sound quality still further, running each song through the MVSEP program nine times or more, to separate out each of the instruments and then put them together with better stereo separation. He also stripped out all of the crowd noise, so one can better hear the band's instrumentation without crowd noise getting in the way.

As usual, there are more details in the PDF file Mike wrote that's included in the download zip. But if you like Kansas, this could be their ultimate live album from the end of their prime era. 

This album is hour and 23 minutes long.

01 Intro (Kansas)
02 On the Other Side (Kansas)
03 People of the Southwind (Kansas)
04 Away from You (Kansas)
05 talk (Kansas)
06 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
07 Closet Chronicles (Kansas)
08 The Wall (Kansas)
09 Reason to Be (Kansas)
10 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
11 Angels Have Fallen (Kansas)
12 Opus Insert (Kansas)
13 Stay Out of Trouble (Kansas)
14 The Spider [Instrumental] (Kansas)
15 Portrait [He Knew] (Kansas)
16 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
17 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
18 talk (Kansas)
19 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HDWyJ3Hd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/XteNaMyxGhpOgNR/file

The cover photo is the front design from a T-shirt sold during the band's 1979 tour. I added some text at the bottom.

Lou Rawls - Latin Casino, Cherry Hill, NJ, 5-24-1977

Here's an obscure yet great sounding concert bootleg starring soul singer Lou Rawls. I hope it won't stay obscure after I post this.

Rawls had a lot of hit singles between 1965 and 1971, especially on the U.S. R&B singles chart. But after that, his career stalled for a few years. Then, in 1976, he changed record companies and changed his management. That led to his comeback hit in late 1976, "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine," which sold over a million copies. He also didn't have any big hits after 1977. (He died in 2006 at the age of 72.) So 1977 is a good time for a concert recording from him.

The music here is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. It must be a soundboard or FM radio broadcast. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Groovy People (Lou Rawls)
02 This Song Will Last Forever (Lou Rawls)
03 Tobacco Road (Lou Rawls)
04 Natural Man (Lou Rawls)
05 talk (Lou Rawls)
06 Pure Imagination (Lou Rawls)
07 Charge Card Blues Medley (Lou Rawls)
08 It Was a Very Good Year (Lou Rawls)
09 talk (Lou Rawls)
10 Old Folks (Lou Rawls)
11 You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine (Lou Rawls)
12 talk (Lou Rawls)
13 Let's Fall in Love All Over Again (Lou Rawls)
14 All the Way (Lou Rawls)
15 See You When I Get There (Lou Rawls)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vCtfiufM 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SYwUa7VQ62p6Uan/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on an ABC TV show called "Thursday Night Special" in 1977.

Chicago - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 6-2003

Here's another episode of the excellent "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars the band Chicago.

By 2003, the band was long past their 1970s heyday, and they'd lost some key members. It's too bad the show couldn't have had them on during that decade. But still, it's a solid bunch of classic songs. And I'm posting pretty much all the Soundstage episodes I can find, so I'm posting this one too.

If I recall, this is from a DVD, so it's longer than the usual episodes for this show. And that also means the sound quality is excellent.  

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long. 

01 Make Me Smile - So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Chicago)
02 Anxiety's Moment - West Virginia Fantasies - Colour My World (Chicago)
03 To Be Free - Now More than Ever (Chicago)
04 talk (Chicago)
05 If You Leave Me Now (Chicago)
06 Dialogue (Chicago)
07 talk (Chicago)
08 Hard Habit to Break (Chicago)
09 Saturday in the Park (Chicago)
10 Beginnings (Chicago)
11 Just You 'N' Me (Chicago)
12 talk (Chicago)
13 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
14 Feelin' Stronger Everyday (Chicago)
15 I'm a Man (Chicago)
16 Hard to Say I'm Sorry - Get Away (Chicago)
17 Free (Chicago)
18 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
19 talk (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wLLgZpQj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/eeX7HnPFOy1vwPM/file

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

Jimmy Cliff - Wolf Lake Memorial Park Pavilion, Hammond, IN, 7-16-2014

Yesterday (November 24, 2025), the world lost another musical great, Jimmy Cliff. He was 81 years old. I wanted to post something to pay tribute to his musical legacy. I looked around, and to my pleasant surprise, discovered this concert. Someone posted it at a bootleg sharing site for the first time just yesterday, also to pay tribute to him. So you haven't heard this before.

This comes from a soundboard, and the sound quality is excellent. However, there was one problem with the recording: it captured what was heard on stage great, but there was almost no sound of the audience. So I ran every song through the MVSEP program, splitting the crowd noise from everything else. Then I greatly (and I do mean greatly) boosted the crowd noise at the ends of songs and other appropriate places, like during singalongs. So this version sounds even better than the one that first appeared just yesterday.

Cliff put out a lot of classic reggae music in the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s. But then he put out mere okay albums for a long time. However, in 2012, he had an excellent comeback album appropriately titled "Rebirth." It won a Grammy for the best reggae album of the year, and Rolling Stone Magazine named it one of the best 50 albums of 2012. Even though this concert took place well over a year after the release of that album, he was still touring to support it. Four songs here come from that album: "Rebel Rebel," "World Upside Down," "One More," and "Children's Bread."

This is a fairly long concert, which gave Cliff time to play most of his best known songs. He also managed to weave in a kind of personal musical history, which included him performing some of his earliest songs, like "King of Kings" and "Miss Jamaica" from the early 1960s, but also some cover songs that were influences on him, like "Honor Your Mother and Father," "Judge Not" (written by Bob Marley before he was famous), "Hold Me Tight," and "Cupid." All in all, this is a great concert recording to remember him by.

This album is an hour and 58 minutes long.

01 Bongo Man - Rivers of Babylon (Jimmy Cliff)
02 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
03 King of Kings (Jimmy Cliff)
04 Miss Jamaica (Jimmy Cliff)
05 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
06 Hard Road to Travel (Jimmy Cliff)
07 You Can Get It If You Really Want (Jimmy Cliff)
08 Wild World (Jimmy Cliff)
09 Rebel Rebel (Jimmy Cliff)
10 Under the Sun, Moon and Stars (Jimmy Cliff)
11 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
12 Vietnam (Jimmy Cliff)
13 World Upside Down (Jimmy Cliff)
14 Treat the Youths Right (Jimmy Cliff)
15 Rub-A-Dub Partner - Reggae Movement (Jimmy Cliff)
16 Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
17 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
18 Honor Your Mother and Father (Jimmy Cliff)
19 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
20 Judge Not (Jimmy Cliff)
21 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
22 Hold Me Tight (Jimmy Cliff)
23 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
24 Cupid (Jimmy Cliff)
25 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
26 The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff)
27 I Can See Clearly Now (Jimmy Cliff)
28 Reggae Night (Jimmy Cliff)
29 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
30 One More (Jimmy Cliff)
31 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
32 Welcome Home (Jimmy Cliff)
33 Wonderful World, Beautiful People (Jimmy Cliff)
34 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
35 Sitting in Limbo (Jimmy Cliff)
36 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
37 Children's Bread (Jimmy Cliff)
38 talk (Jimmy Cliff)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/68X6ncJE

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/Ey7q5QBV8qvDarH/file

The cover photo is from the Austin City Limits Festival at Zilker Park, in Austin, Texas, on October 10, 2014.

The O'Jays with James Brown - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 9-14-1974

Damn, there's so much good music I'm discovering from these "Midnight Special" TV shows. It's going to take me months to get through it all, I'm sure. (And there's more episodes being reposted weekly.) Here's an episode with the O'Jays as the main host. But James Brown is a prominently featured guest too. So this is a non-stop, funky soulfest.

The O'Jays were very big in 1973. In 1973, their song "Love Train" reached Number One on the main U.S. singles chart, and in 1974, "For the Love of Money" made it all the way to Number Three. Plus they had even more success on the U.S. R&B singles chart. So it made sense they would be hosts for an episode of this show.

James Brown was also doing very well. While he didn't have any really big hits, he had a seemingly continual stream of Top Forty hits. Three of the songs he performed here, "The Payback," "Papa Don't Take No Mess," and "My Thang," were Top Forty hits in 1974 (again, I'm referring to the main singles chart, not the R&B chart, where he did even better). Unfortunately, his winning streak would soon come to an end for a long time. After 1974, he wouldn't have another Top Forty hit until 1985. 

When I made a poll about potential Midnight Special albums, I put James Brown on there. I thought I would have enough material for an album by him, but unfortunately it turns out there's only enough for this shared album with the O'Jays. At least for now, that is. In 1976, he would actually host the show twice. So I'll hopefully have an album for that once it gets posted on YouTube.

The O'Jays were on the show twice before this, both in 1973. For one of them, they did a duet version of "Love Train" with Lou Rawls. I think I'll stick that on a different album eventually. For another, the May 11, 1973 episode, the did a version of "Love Train" on their own. That was lucky for me, because the version here was mostly cut off, due to the TV broadcast ending. So I was able to take the last two plus minutes of that 1973 version to finish off the version here. That's what that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

The only song that's from a different episode is "Get on the Good Foot." James Brown returned to the show just one month later, playing two songs for the October 18, 1974 episode: "Papa Don't Take No Mess" and "Get on the Good Foot." I didn't include that version of "Papa Don't Take No Mess" since he did a version of it here already. But I did include the rare "Get on the Good Foot" (especially since it's possibly my favorite James Brown song). 

I was a bit surprised that the O'Jays and James Brown didn't perform a song together. They would have made a good match. Oh well. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As usual for this show, I did a lot of editing, adding in audience applause to smooth the transitions between songs.

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 Put Your Hands Together Intro (O'Jays)
02 Put Your Hands Together (O'Jays)
03 People Keep Tellin' Me - Time to Get Down (O'Jays)
04 This Air I Breathe - 992 Arguments (O'Jays)
05 Backstabbers - People Keep Tellin' Me (O'Jays)
06 The Payback (James Brown)
07 Cold Sweat (James Brown)
08 Papa's Got a Brand New Bag (James Brown)
09 For the Love of Money (O'Jays)
10 Hell (James Brown)
11 Papa Don't Take No Mess (James Brown)
12 Sunshine (O'Jays)
13 My Thang (James Brown)
14 Get on the Good Foot (James Brown)
15 Love Train [Edit] (O'Jays) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/w6CJgGNb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/haNPB3PzACjWgPz/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Alison Moyet - Plenary Hall, Melbourne, Australia, 6-1-2025

Here's a concert recording from just five months ago as I post this in November 2025, starring Alison Moyet.

I don't post music from the recent past like this very often. One of the main reasons for that is sound quality. One can find a steady steam of audience recordings of concerts that happened mere days ago, but I try to avoid audience boots due to the sound quality issue. However, this one is different. It's a rare IEM (in ear monitor) recording. That's a broadcast within the concert venue so the band members can hear what the others are doing. Somehow, someone made a bootleg out of that here. The sound quality is like an excellent soundboard or FM radio broadcast, which is rare for a concert only a few months old.

Moyet was touring to support her new album "Key." This was her first album in seven years. It mostly consists of rerecordings of songs from earlier in her career, but given different arrangements, and most of the songs are deep cuts.

While the sound quality is great overall, there was one problem: for her banter between songs, there was a lot of reverb or echo on her voice. So I ran all the banter tracks through the Adobe voice enhancement program, which brings clarity to voices. 

This album is an hour and 35 minutes long. 

01 Fire (Alison Moyet)
02 talk (Alison Moyet)
03 More (Alison Moyet)
04 talk (Alison Moyet)
05 Such Small Ale (Alison Moyet)
06 talk (Alison Moyet)
07 Nobody's Diary (Alison Moyet)
08 talk (Alison Moyet)
09 The Impervious Me (Alison Moyet)
10 So Am I (Alison Moyet)
11 Can't Say It like I Mean It (Alison Moyet)
12 This House (Alison Moyet)
13 Changeling (Alison Moyet)
14 Beautiful Gun (Alison Moyet)
15 Only You (Alison Moyet)
16 talk (Alison Moyet)
17 Ordinary Girl (Alison Moyet)
18 It Won't Be Long (Alison Moyet)
19 Is This Love (Alison Moyet)
20 talk (Alison Moyet)
21 All Signs of Life (Alison Moyet)
22 Footsteps (Alison Moyet)
23 Whispering Your Name (Alison Moyet)
24 talk (Alison Moyet)
25 All Cried Out (Alison Moyet)
26 talk (Alison Moyet)
27 Situation (Alison Moyet)
28 Love Resurrection (Alison Moyet)
29 Don't Go (Alison Moyet)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/siFYhMye 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/LRi2HgKFXLC669M/file

The cover photo is from the Latitude Festival at Henham Park in Southwold, Britain, on July 27, 2025.

The Bee Gees with Helen Reddy - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 9-12-1975

Here's another episode of the Bee Gees hosting the "Midnight Special" TV show. They were joined by Helen Reddy, who is originally Australian, just like the Bee Gees are.

The Bee Gees sure were on the Midnight Special show a lot. I am in the process of posting no less than five albums from them. Four of those are from 1973. I've already posted one of those. Then, after skipping the show in 1974, they were on it enough in 1975 to justify making this album. Unfortunately, they would not appear on the show again after that. In 1977, they would be the main stars on the "Saturday Night Fever" albums, which would go on to sell 40 million copies (the best selling album of all time until Michael Jackson's "Thriller") and turn them into global superstars. So, at that point, I think they became too big to appear on a mere very late night TV show like the Midnight Special. 

The Bee Gees managed to have at least one hit single every year since becoming stars in 1967, but 1973 and 1974 were relative down years for them. However, they came back in a very big way in 1975. Their 1975 album "Main Course" contained two big hits, "Jive Talkin'" and "Nights on Broadway." "Jive Talkin'" in particular went all the way to Number One in the U.S. singles chart. More importantly, it gave the band a new musical direction, after they had mainly been known for ballads. Here's what the Wikipedia entry for the album says: "This album marked a great change for the Bee Gees as it was their first album to include mostly R&B, soul, disco and funk-influenced songs, and created the model for their output through the rest of the 1970s. It rejuvenated the group's career and public image, particularly in the US, after the commercial disappointment of their preceding albums."

This album has them in transition. It includes versions of "Jive Talkin'," "Nights on Broadway," and "Winds of Change" from their latest "Main Course" album. But pretty much everything else are versions of hits from their earlier style.

The reason Helen Reddy was included is because she did a duet with the Bee Gees on their song "To Love Somebody." For some reason I can't figure out, she was the host of the Midnight Special a remarkable number of times, including a majority of the 1975 shows. This is a combination of two episodes, both of them hosted by Reddy. The first nine tracks are from September 12, 1975, as mentioned in the title of this album, and the rest are from October 10, 1975. 

This includes all the songs done by both the Bee Gees and Reddy from those two shows. The Bee Gees performed more of the music in these two episodes combined, 29 minutes, compared to 23 minutes for Reddy, despite the fact that Reddy was the host of both shows. That's because Reddy was more of a nominal host in 1975, since she was hosting practically every single show that year.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As typical with this show, I did a lot of editing, smoothing transitions between songs by adding applause to hide commercial breaks.

This album is 47 minutes long. 

01 talk (Helen Reddy)
02 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
03 talk (Bee Gees)
04 Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady (Helen Reddy)
05 talk (Helen Reddy)
06 To Love Somebody (Bee Gees & Helen Reddy)
07 Mama (Helen Reddy)
08 Nights on Broadway (Bee Gees)
09 I Am Woman (Helen Reddy)
10 This Must Be Wrong (Helen Reddy)
11 New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Bee Gees)
12 Run to Me - World (Bee Gees)
13 Holiday (Bee Gees)
14 I Can't See Nobody (Bee Gees)
15 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Bee Gees)
16 You're My Home (Helen Reddy)
17 Wind of Change (Bee Gees)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KLiLaPo5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NM6zH66arcKtBgS/file

The cover image is a screenshot of Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and Helen Reddy, taken from this exact concert. I used Photoshop to move them closer together. I also used Krea AI to improve the image detail.

Tori Amos - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 5-2-2003

Here's an episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" TV show, starring Tori Amos.

Amos had most of her commercial success in the 1990s and early 2000s. All five of her 1990s albums reached Platinum status (sales of a million or more) is the U.S. Her last Gold status album (sales of half a million or more) was in 2002, with "Scarlet's Walk," the album she was touring to support at the time of this concert. Also, if you look at the crowd-sourced ratings of her albums at rateyourmusic.com, her albums through "Scarlet's Walk" are her most highly rated ones. So this was a good time for a Soundstage episode from her.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 A Sorta Fairytale (Tori Amos)
02 Bliss (Tori Amos)
03 Horses (Tori Amos)
04 talk (Tori Amos)
05 Black-Dove [January] (Tori Amos)
06 Wednesday (Tori Amos)
07 China (Tori Amos)
08 Jackie's Strength (Tori Amos)
09 Taxi Ride (Tori Amos)
10 Precious Things (Tori Amos)
11 Cornflake Girl (Tori Amos)
12 Tombigbee (Tori Amos)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h6BiUcE4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hd6btu8h5c04mHk/file 

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

Roy Orbison & Various Artists - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-15-1974

Here's a special theme edition of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The show's emcee Wolfman Jack called it the show's third "solid gold" show. What "solid gold" meant was what people were already starting to call "oldies," meaning musical acts that had hits in the 1950s and early 1960s, but generally stopped having them by the 1970s. Roy Orbison was the show's host. But in this case, that was a nominal position. He got to perform four songs, while the other guest stars got three or two.

The other performers on this show: Drifters, Del Shannon, Jackie Wilson, Bobby Vee, Lloyd Price, Duane Eddy, and Tommy Roe. That's a pretty impressive list, if you were looking for stars from that earlier era. 

Listening to this sounds a lot like listening to an oldies radio station playing one classic hit after another, except everything here was performed live. And while their hit-making days were generally over, they were all still relatively young and still in full capacity of their musical powers. 

This show started and edited a little different than most shows. Typically, the show started with about a minute of the song "Midnight Special," performed by Johnny Rivers. (I usually try to edit that out.) But this one began with just a few seconds of comments by Wolfman Jack, then bang, right into the first song. It also ended differently, with some final comments first by Wolfman Jack, and then Roy Orbison. As Orbison talked, the "Midnight Special" finally started to play, and then faded out. I got rid of that, and replaced it with audience applause. So that's why that track has "[Edit]" in its title. 

As usual with this show, the music is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. Also as usual, I did a lot of editing to smooth over the gaps between songs by adding in extra audience applause. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long. I guess the usual format mentioned above allowed this episode to have slightly more music in it than usual. The show was an hour and a half long, but that included commercials, so this length is about as long as these albums from the show can get. 

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 Oh, Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison)
03 talk (Roy Orbison)
04 Up on the Roof (Drifters)
05 talk (Roy Orbison)
06 Runaway (Del Shannon)
07 talk (Roy Orbison & Del Shannon)
08 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Jackie Wilson)
09 talk (Roy Orbison)
10 Take Good Care of My Baby (Bobby Vee)
11 talk (Wolfman Jack)
12 Personality (Lloyd Price)
13 talk (Roy Orbison)
14 Rebel-'Rouser [Instrumental] (Duane Eddy)
15 talk (Jackie Wilson)
16 Dream Baby [How Long Must I Dream] (Roy Orbison)
17 Save the Last Dance for Me (Drifters)
18 Hats Off to Larry (Del Shannon)
19 talk (Roy Orbison)
20 Sheila (Tommy Roe)
21 The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (Bobby Vee)
22 Lonely Teardrops (Jackie Wilson)
23 Stagger Lee (Lloyd Price)
24 Running Scared (Roy Orbison)
25 talk (Roy Orbison & Wolfman Jack)
26 Everybody (Tommy Roe)
27 Ramrod [Instrumental] (Duane Eddy)
28 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
29 Keep Searching (Del Shannon)
30 Only the Lonely (Roy Orbison)
31 Jam Up Jelly Tight (Tommy Roe)
32 Devil or Angel (Bobby Vee)
33 talk (Wolfman Jack)
34 talk [Edit] (Roy Orbison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cSheycvb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/pFyuyT0alyzHswm/file 

The cover image shows Wolfman Jack interviewing Roy Orbison (in the sunglasses). It's a screenshot I took from this exact concert.

Katharine McPhee with Eric Benet - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 10-10-2017

Here's another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show, from 2017. This one stars Katharine McPhee with Eric Benet as a guest star.

I have to admit that I'd never heard of McPhee before putting this album together. She rose to fame by making it to the final round in the "American Idol" TV show in 2005. That led to a record contract. That didn't lead to a huge music career, but she did have some success. In particular, her self-titled debut album did pretty well, reaching Number Two on the U.S. album chart in 2007. And she had two Top Forty singles around that time, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Over It."

She's also had success as an actress and a model. Here's here Wikipedia entry if you want to know more about her:

Katharine McPhee - Wikipedia 

What I like about this album, and the reason I'm posting it here, is because it consists entirely of covers, usually of classics from the "Great American Songbook." In November 2017, one month after this concert, she released the album "I Fall in Love Too Easily," consisting entirely of covers of these types of songs. So she stuck to that style, not even performing her 2007 hit "Over It." She has a nice voice, and it's hard to go wrong with these kinds of songs.

I similarly knew nothing about Eric Benet before posting this album. His role is pretty minor here, singing duets with McPhee on two songs. He put out a couple of albums in the late 1990s that did well, but his sales declined after that. Here's the Wikipedia entry about him:

Eric Benét discography - Wikipedia 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Blame It on My Youth - You Make Me Feel So Young (Katharine McPhee)
02 I'll Be Seeing You - Some Other Time (Katharine McPhee)
03 Night and Day (Katharine McPhee)
04 I Fall in Love Too Easily (Katharine McPhee)
05 Sooner or Later (Katharine McPhee)
06 It Never Entered My Mind (Katharine McPhee)
07 talk (Katharine McPhee)
08 Everything Must Change (Katharine McPhee & Eric Benet)
09 The Last Time (Katharine McPhee & Eric Benet)
10 I've Grown Accustomed to His Face (Katharine McPhee)
11 Who Can I Turn To (Katharine McPhee)
12 All the Way (Katharine McPhee)
13 Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Katharine McPhee)
14 That's Life (Katharine McPhee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EA71R4s3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/rMONQ8vJ8HYkB8z/file 

The cover image is a screenshot from this exact concert. 

Randy Newman with Dr. John & Maria Muldaur: The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 9-27-1974

Here's another episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The host of this episode was singer-songwriter Randy Newman. He was one of the top vote getters in the poll I posted asking for most desired episodes from this show, getting the sixth most votes. But this show is shared with Maria Muldaur and Dr. John as well, with both of them getting nearly as much time as Newman.

This 1974 episode was nearly the only time Newman appeared live on the show. (He would perform one more song in 1978.) He was allowed to play eight songs, which is more than usual for this show, but then again, his songs tend to be rather short. Normally, with these shows, I just post the music from the host, plus sometimes one other guest, sometimes not, and ignore the rest. But for this one, I chose two include two guests. That's because Dr. John and Muldaur played a song together, "Three Dollar Bill," as can be seen on the cover image, and I thought their musical styles fit well with Newman's. 

All the songs come from this concert, except for two. It turns out the only other time Muldaur performed for the show was in the February 22, 1974 episode, when she played two songs, including her Number One hit "Midnight at the Oasis." So I slipped those two into the show near the end, tracks 20 and 21. Dr. John also performed two songs for the show in 1973, but I've included them on a Gladys Knight and the Pips album already. He would return to the show later as a guest in 1977 and 1979. Hopefully, I'll post those songs when they become available.

In case you're curious, the only other musical acts on this episode were Flo and Eddie of the Turtles, and Ry Cooder. Flo and Eddie performed four songs, but I didn't think they made a good fit with Newman and the others, so I didn't include them. Cooder only performed one song.   

Unfortunately, as often happens with this show, the last song, "Louisiana 1927," was cut off due to the broadcast coming to an end. The cut off happened during the last chorus in the song. So I was able to patch in the rest of the chorus from earlier in the song. But still, the song needed a proper ending for its last few seconds. I resorted to using a few seconds from a Newman concert on the "Live at the Record Plant" radio show in 1974. (I plan on posting all of that radio show episode eventually.) So that's why this one song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As usual with episodes from the TV show, I did a lot of editing by adding more applause to smooth the transitions between songs. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Mama Told Me Not to Come (Randy Newman)
02 talk (Randy Newman)
03 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman)
04 talk (Randy Newman)
05 Political Science (Randy Newman)
06 Davy and the Fat Boy (Randy Newman)
07 Sweetheart (Maria Muldaur)
08 talk (Randy Newman)
09 Let's Make a Better World (Dr. John)
10 talk (Dr. John)
11 Desitively Bonnaroo (Dr. John)
12 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)
13 Three Dollar Bill (Dr. John & Maria Muldaur)
14 Lover Man [Oh, Where Can You Be] (Maria Muldaur)
15 Squeeze Me (Maria Muldaur)
16 Rolling (Randy Newman)
17 Mos' Scocious (Dr. John)
18 He Gives Us All His Love (Randy Newman)
19 Mama Don't Allow [Edit] (Dr. John)
20 Don't You Feel My Leg (Maria Muldaur)
21 Midnight at the Oasis (Maria Muldaur)
22 talk (Randy Newman)
23 Louisiana 1927 [Edit] (Randy Newman) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4Ctrgf88

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/d7IVkVT0hXDttHL/file

For the cover image, I could have taken a screenshot of Randy Newman singing and playing the piano. But I figure there are plenty of those. Whereas there probably aren't any publicly available images of Maria Muldaur and Dr. John together. So I took a screenshot of that from this exact concert.

Electric Light Orchestra - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 1-17-1975

Here's an episode of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) performing for the "Midnight Special" TV show.

In my poll asking people which Midnight Special albums they wanted to see me make, ELO got the most votes. Also, I've seen it claimed that ELO performed more times on the show than any other musical act. I'm not entirely sure of that. The Bee Gees, at least, would be right up there as well. But certainly they were one of the most. They were the host of an episode in 1975, and most of this album comes from that. But it also gathers up songs they did for the show in 1973 and 1974.

The first song, "Kuiama," comes from a June 29, 1973 episode. The second song, "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle," comes from a November 23, 1973 episode. "Showdown" and "Bluebird Is Dead" come from a February 8, 1974 episode. There are some additional songs that were played that I'm not including, because they're repeats. Namely, between 1973 and 1975, "Showdown" was played twice, and "Roll Over Beethoven" was played three times.

The rest of the songs, tracks 5 to 13, come from the 1975 episode mentioned in the title. The only problem was the last song, "Roll Over Beethoven." After about a minute, the emcee Wolfman Jack started talking over the music, then the episode came to an end. Luckily, that was a song that had been performed by ELO on the show twice before. So I used the 1973 version to finish it off (which is why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title). But the one minute I saved from the 1975 version is interesting, because that was a longer instrumental intro than usual for the song. The first part of that intro references Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony," which is what you'll find on the studio version. But the second part of that intro references Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," which I think was rare for the band to do. 

I was curious what was going to happen to the banter between songs for the episode ELO was hosting, since the band's lead singer, Jeff Lynne, was obviously a very shy person and rarely spoke on stage. It turns out there was very little banter, and what there was, mainly a naming of the band members, was spoken by Bev Bevan, the band's drummer.  

I noticed the lead vocals seemed low for all of these songs. So I ran them through the UVR5 program and boosted the vocals relative to the instruments on most of the songs. 

ELO was on the show three more times after this, in 1976 and 1977, including hosting it once more. So I would like to make another album out of that material, once it all gets released on YouTube. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 Kuiama (Electric Light Orchestra)
02 Ma-Ma-Ma Belle (Electric Light Orchestra)
03 Showdown (Electric Light Orchestra)
04 Bluebird Is Dead (Electric Light Orchestra)
05 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Electric Light Orchestra)
06 Great Balls of Fire (Electric Light Orchestra)
07 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
08 Orange Blossom Special [Instrumental] (Electric Light Orchestra)
09 Eldorado Overture - Can't Get It Out of My Head (Electric Light Orchestra)
10 Laredo Tornado (Electric Light Orchestra)
11 Flight of the Bumblebee [Instrumental] (Electric Light Orchestra)
12 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
13 Roll Over Beethoven [Edit] (Electric Light Orchestra)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/w92oR4sv

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/7ROvDkjaZ03WyGS/file

The cover image of lead singer Jeff Lynne is a screenshot I took from the 1975 episode. I used Krea AI to help add detail.

Todd Rundgren - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-14-1975

Here's another episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. This one stars Todd Rundgren. Most of it is from 1975.

Rundgren never actually hosted an episode of this show. However, in early 1975, the show had an unusual episode that featured three musical acts, each of them getting one third of the time, uninterrupted. The three were Neil Sedaka, Spinners, and Todd Rundgren. (What an odd combination.) The show's host, Wolfman Jack, said this would be the first of many shows using this format. But it turned out to be the only one. 

I've used Rundgren's third of that show as the main part of this album. That makes up tracks 6 through 11. Tracks 1 through 3 come from a December 3, 1973 episode hosted by the Four Tops. The 1975 episode didn't really have a proper intro for Rundgren, given the weird format, so I used an intro spoken by various members of the Four Tops as the intro for this album. Tracks 4 and 5 come from a February 8, 1974 episode hosted by Ike and Tina Turner.

As I usually do with albums from this show, I added applause between songs to help with the flow. Often, the applause gets cut off by a commercial break or someone else talking, so I'll put in some extra applause until it tapers off to silence. Unfortunately, the last song, "Do Ya," a cover of a song originally by the Move, got cut off about two minutes into the song due to the TV broadcast ending. I found another live version from the 1975 album "Another Live," and used that to finish off the last two minutes of the song.

Note that for some of these songs, Rundgren was singing live to backing tracks he had prepared in advance. He mentioned that in track 6. But also, there was some more talk by the Four Tops in the 1973 show that I didn't include where they mentioned that as well for the two songs he did then. However, if you watch the video for the 1975, it's only "Real Man" where there's a backing track. For "Freedom Fighters," "The Seven Rays," and "Do Ya," he was backed by his band Utopia. For the two songs from the 1974 show, one can see he has a backing band then as well. 

It worked out very nicely how there were no repeat songs between his three appearances in 1973, 1974, and 1975. He hosted the show in 1978, plus another 1978 appearance. So when that eventually gets rereleased on YouTube, I look forward to making an album out of that as well. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

As an aside, Rundgren got the seventh most votes in my poll asking people which albums they most wanted to see made out of this Midnight Special material. 

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 talk by the Four Tops (Todd Rundgren)
02 Black Maria (Todd Rundgren)
03 Hello It's Me (Todd Rundgren)
04 Couldn't I Just Tell You (Todd Rundgren)
05 A Dream Goes On Forever (Todd Rundgren)
06 talk (Todd Rundgren)
07 Real Man (Todd Rundgren)
08 Freedom Fighters (Todd Rundgren)
09 The Seven Rays (Todd Rundgren)
10 Born to Synthesize (Todd Rundgren)
11 Do Ya [Edit] (Todd Rundgren)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/44aqCoan

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/iCwTQ3LTm5PsNE2/file

The cover photo is from Rundgren's 1973 appearance on the TV show.

Jimi Hendrix & Various Artists - Jimi Hendrix as Session Musician, Volume 3: 1969-1970

Here's the third and last album showcasing the session work by Jimi Hendrix, arguably the greatest lead guitarist of all time. This deals with the last two years of his life, 1969 and 1970.

By 1969, Hendrix was a big star. He loved performing live, and often dropped in as a guest in concerts put on by other musicians he liked, especially when they played in small clubs near where he lived. However, he still didn't guest on records that much, especially those that got released while he was alive. 

A couple examples of him doing this are "Yes I Need Someone" and "The Clown" by Eire Apparent. Hendrix actually produced the entire debut album by this band from Northern Ireland, and these are just two of the songs from it. Unfortunately, he mostly kept a low profile with his guitar playing on this album, with these two songs probably showing the most playing by him. His Experience band mates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell also played on many of the songs. The band broke up after that single album. 

Another song released in his lifetime was "Old Times, Good Times," which came out on the 1970 debut solo album by Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame), simply called "Stephen Stills." Hendrix and Stills formed a musical connection and often jammed with each other, but very little of it saw the light of day. "30 Dollar Fine" and "No-Name Jam (Instrumental)," and "White Nigger (High and Dry)" are all Stills songs with Hendrix that didn't get officially released until decades later. In fact, "White Nigger (High and Dry)" is still unreleased, probably due to song title, obviously now considered quite offensive.

A song that almost came out in Hendrix's lifetime is "The Everlasting First," released by Love. This came out at the very end of 1970, a couple of months after Hendrix's death. Hendrix had a natural bond with Arthur Lee, the lead singer and main songwriter of Love, due to both of them being Black men in a overwhelmingly Causasian rock world at the time. This song was cowritten by Hendrix and Lee. The two of them actually knew each other before either of them became famous. Hendrix even played guitar on a song written by Lee back in 1964. 

Generally speaking, the other songs here came out much later, on archival releases. Tracks 3 and 4 are from the "West Coast Seattle Boy" box set. Track 6 is from "The Experience Sessions." Track 10 is from "People, Hell and Angels." Track 13 is a jam session, and remains unreleased. Track 5, "Doriella Du Fontaine," is a curious case, because the lead vocals weren't added until 1973. That's from "Change the Beat: The Celluloid Records Story."

That just leaves the three bonus tracks. These all sound fine, despite the fact they're all still unreleased. But the reason I made them bonus tracks is because they actually are from concerts where Hendrix guested, and the theme here is him guesting with studio sessions. Perhaps someone could help me find enough songs for a full album (or albums?) of Hendrix being a guest star in concerts, then I could move these to that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, a lot of the recordings of his guest appearances have poor sound quality. "Baby's Gone Away" and "The Sky Is Crying" come from the Newport 69 Festival in Northridge, California. "Mother Earth" is from a concert at a club in London on September 16, 1970. I'm not sure, but I think that might be his last public performance, because he died of a drug overdose just two days later, on September 18, 1970. I don't remember why I put "[Edit]" since I did that a long time ago. But I think I cleaned up a lot of the audience noise (it being from an audience boot), and possibly boosted the vocals.

This album is 52 minutes long, not including the three bonus tracks.

01 30 Dollar Fine (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
02 Yes I Need Someone (Eire Apparent with Jimi Hendrix)
03 Instant Groove (King Curtis with Jimi Hendrix)
04 Mastermind (Larry Lee with Jimi Hendrix)
05 Doriella Du Fontaine (Lightnin' Rod with Jimi Hendrix & Buddy Miles)
06 Noel's Tune [Instrumental] (Noel Redding with Jimi Hendrix)
07 The Clown (Eire Apparent with Jimi Hendrix)
08 No-Name Jam [Instrumental] (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
09 The Everlasting First [Extended Version] (Love with Jimi Hendrix)
10 Mojo Man (Albert Allen & the Ghetto Fighters with Jimi Hendrix)
11 Old Times, Good Times (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
12 White Nigger [High and Dry] (Stephen Stills with Jimi Hendrix)
13 Dreamin' [Instrumental] (Eric Oxendine with Jimi Hendrix & Richie Havens)

Baby's Gone Away (Jimi Hendrix with Buddy Miles & Lee Oskar)
Mother Earth [Edit] (Eric Burdon & War with Jimi Hendrix)
The Sky Is Crying (Buddy Miles with Jimi Hendrix & Lee Oskar)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/n4ipEFiN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SmqRzx0abYg8ATZ/file

The cover photo shows Jimi Hendrix with Stephen Stills, presumably in a recording studio. I don't know any details about where or when the picture is from. The original was in black and white, which I colorized with the help of the Kolorize program. It also was dark and murky. I ran this through the Krea AI program a couple of times until it looked a little better. 

Genesis - More Seconds Out - Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland, 7-2-1977 - Studiofied (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

Here's another guest post by Mike Solof. It's a 1977 Genesis concert, with lots of bonus tracks from the same time period. This is part of Mike's relatively new "studiofied" series. The idea is to take a high quality concert bootleg and completely remove all the banter and crowd noise, so it sounds like a studio recording. This way, one can better appreciate the nuance in the performance.

There's lots more detail in the PDF Mike has included with the download zip, like he usually does. I'll just quickly note that tracks 1 through 15 come from the Zurich concert mentioned in the title. The rest are bonus tracks, given the same treatment, from 1976 or 1977. Further details about them can be found in the PDF.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is two hours and 38 minutes long.

01 Squonk (Genesis)
02 One for the Vine (Genesis)
03 Robbery, Assault and Battery (Genesis)
04 Inside and Out (Genesis)
05 Firth of Fifth (Genesis)
06 The Carpet Crawlers (Genesis)
07 In that Quiet Earth (Genesis)
08 Afterglow (Genesis)
09 I Know What I Like (Genesis)
10 Eleventh Earl of Mar (Genesis)
11 Supper's Ready (Genesis)
12 Dance on a Volcano (Genesis)
13 Los Endos (Genesis)
14 The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Genesis)
15 The Musical Box (Genesis)
16 Your Own Special Way (Genesis)
17 All in a Mouse's Night (Genesis)
18 The Cinema Show (Genesis)
19 White Mountain (Genesis)
20 Entangled (Genesis)
21 The Knife (Genesis)
22 It - Watcher of the Skies (Genesis)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uP9yJeKZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Nk5EZeo2G1Ahmco/file

The cover was selected by Mike. I don't know where he got it from. I added the subtitle text. 

Cold Blood - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 7-2-1974

Here's an episode of the "Live at the Record Plant" radio show. This one features the band Cold Blood.

Perhaps you haven't heard of Cold Blood, because they never had widespread success. I wasn't that familiar with them myself. But I heard this, since I want to post all the "Record Plant" episodes I can find, and I was very pleasantly surprised. They were a "jazz rock" band with a horn section, similar to early Chicago, or Tower of Power, or Blood, Sweat and Tears. But they had a female lead vocalist, Lydia Pense, who was reminiscent of the vocal talent of Janis Joplin. In fact, when Cold Blood started out in 1968 and was looking for a lead vocalist, it was Joplin who found out about Pense and recommended her to the band.

So that horn section plus soulful female lead vocals was a powerful combination. The problem was, they never had a hit single to bring them to wider public attention. The closest they got was in 1970, when their cover of a Sam and Dave song, "You Got Me Hummin'," made it to Number 52 in the U.S. singles chart, missing the all-important Top Forty. One key problem was that the band did very little songwriting of their own. But they had a knack for finding good cover songs that weren't overplayed. Pense had the looks, voice, and stage presence to be a big star. I think she would have been, had her band been signed to a record company that gave the band top material and promoted them well.

The band's first four albums, released from 1969 to 1973, are considered their best. Then musical trends started to change in the 1970s, and the band broke up in 1976. Pense suspended her musical career to raise a daughter. But she reformed the band in 1988, and they are still going as I write this in 2025. Here's their Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Cold Blood (band) - Wikipedia

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Valdez in the Country (Cold Blood)
02 Too Many People (Cold Blood)
03 Under Pressure (Cold Blood)
04 Feel So Bad (Cold Blood)
05 talk (Cold Blood)
06 When It's Over (Cold Blood)
07 talk (Cold Blood)
08 Simple Love Life - Consideration (Cold Blood)
09 Funky on My Back (Cold Blood)
10 talk (Cold Blood)
11 Down to the Bone (Cold Blood)
12 Simple Love Life [Reprise] (Cold Blood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5nF8NJSj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vV8c4a9aS6VgEuC/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took of Lydia Pense singing with the band on the "Underground" TV show in 1972. It was rather low-res, so I used Krea AI to sharpen it up some.

Dead Man Walks Again

I got a tip from a commenter the other day, pointing to an additional song from the "Dead Man Walking" 1998 concert that I posted here in 2022. I investigated further, and found out that the entire Tom Waits set from the show somehow was leaked to the public with excellent sound quality about a week ago (as I write this in mid-November 2025). That's eight songs, over half an hour long, almost like a mini-Tom Waits concert.

So I've updated the album with those extra songs included. Here's the link to the post if you want to update your version: 

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/02/various-artists-dead-man-walking.html

And thanks to aranyláz for giving me the tip!