Various Artists - BBC Electric Proms, Stax Records: 50 Years of Soul, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 9-1-2017

I've been doing a lot of searching for BBC concerts these days, because their sound quality is almost always fantastic and they're often surprisingly overlooked bootlegs. I've come across some unexpected things, and this is one.

Stax Records was founded in 1957. It was the most prominent American record label for what became known as "southern soul," which had a more rough sound than soul music in the north, like that in Detroit (Motown) or Chicago. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Stax Records was the home to many soul stars like Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Booker T. & the MGs, the Staples Singers, and many more.

You can read more about the record company at Wikipedia if you're not already familiar:

Stax Records - Wikipedia

In 2017, the BBC put on a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Stax. It featured most of the Stax stars who were still alive all those years later - Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Steve Cropper, and Booker T. Jones. In addition, it featured some younger British soul stars who were influenced by Stax: Beverley Knight, James Morrison, and Ruby Turner. There also was Tom Jones, who was star back in the Stax heyday, and was still going strong 50 years later. The show was emceed by British pianist Jools Holland, and backed by Holland, his band, and his orchestra (frequently used for his BBC TV show).

This concert got rare reviews at the time, and deservedly so. Both the younger and older artists did well. This was a "last hurrah" for most of the older artists, due to the passage of time. 

I've already highlighted the singing skills of Beverley Knight with a series of cover versions albums. I didn't include her covers here, since I knew I'd be posting this. So if you like those albums, there's more of her here to like.

I left off one song on purpose. The concert ended with an encore of "Sweet Soul Music." But it was done to start the show, and done much better. The encore seems unplanned, and frankly it wasn't very good, with too many people trying to sing lead vocals and tripping over each other. This concert is stronger without it.

This concert is an hour and nine minutes long. The sound quality is as good as you'd expect from the BBC, sounding like an officially released album.

01 talk (Jools Holland)
02 Sweet Soul Music (Tom Jones, Beverley Knight & James Morrison)
03 talk (Jools Holland)
04 Hard to Handle (Tom Jones)
05 talk (Jools Holland)
06 I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down (Tom Jones & Sam Moore)
07 talk (Jools Holland)
08 Soul Man (Sam Moore)
09 talk (Jools Holland)
10 B-A-B-Y (Beverley Knight)
11 talk (Jools Holland)
12 I Forgot to Be Your Lover (William Bell)
13 talk (Jools Holland)
14 Private Number (William Bell & Beverley Knight)
15 talk (Jools Holland)
16 Knock on Wood (Eddie Floyd)
17 talk (Jools Holland)
18 Try a Little Tenderness (James Morrison & Steve Cropper)
19 talk (Jools Holland)
20 Green Onions [Instrumental] (Booker T. Jones & Steve Cropper)
21 talk (Jools Holland)
22 I'll Take You There (Ruby Turner)
23 talk (Jools Holland)
24 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Tom Jones & Steve Cropper)
25 talk (Jools Holland)
26 Blues for New Orleans [Instrumental] (Booker T. Jones)
27 talk (Jools Holland)
28 Walking the Dog (Sweetie Irie & Nadia Rose)
29 talk (Jools Holland)
30 Hold On, I'm Coming (Sam Moore & Beverley Knight)
31 talk (Jools Holland)
32 634-5789 (Eddie Floyd & James Morrison)
33 talk (Jools Holland)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701201/VA-BBElectrcPrmsStaxRecrds50YearsSoulRoylAlbrtHall__9-1-2017_atse.zip.html

I found a bunch of good photos of this exact concert (for once). I could have used a photo showing many different stars here, but each of them would be so small that you could barely tell who they are. I decided it was better to chose a picture with just three of the stars, to better show the spirit of the concert. This picture has James Morrison singing into a microphone, with Beverley Knight and Tom Jones looking on.

For the text, I used the Stax Records logo at the top, plus the BBC logo at the bottom. I also found special lettering for the Electric Proms, a series of special BBC summer concerts that ran for a few years.

Beverley Knight - Soul Covers, Volume 4 (2014-2021)

This is the fourth and last of my compilations of Beverley Knight singing covers of classic soul songs. If you missed the previous three volumes, this is your last chance. She has a "diva" voice that can hit any note and she knows how to use it (and not overuse it), and she has great taste in which songs to cover. So what's not to like?

I call these "Soul Covers" because she always sings with lots of soul. But some of the songs she does fall out of the soul/R&B genre. For this volume, she ranges from the classic 1930s torch song "Stormy Weather" to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" to "Touch Me," a huge house music hit in the early 2000s.

All but one song here is unreleased. That one, "Baby I'm a Star," comes from a relatively obscure various artists compilation of Prince songs done in reggae style called "Purple Reggae." As for the rest, the sound quality varies. Most sound great, but a few come from audience bootlegs. For instance, she did a tour in 2018 in which she played mostly Stevie Wonder covers. I would have loved to include more, but I could only find two that sounded good enough for my standards, and those just barely made it. 

Another one, You Are the Sunshine of My Life," was a contender, but I ultimately dropped that to bonus track status to keep my standards high.

Let's hope that Knight keeps going strong with her career so that someday I'll be able to post a "Volume 5." But for now, this is it.

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

01 Baby I'm a Star -  Prince
02 I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton / Whitney Houston
03 Stormy Weather - Ethel Waters
04 Master Blaster - Stevie Wonder
05 Ribbon in the Sky - Stevie Wonder
06 Touch Me - Rui da Silva with Cassandra Fox
07 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
08 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
09 Memory - Elaine Page
10 I Wanna Be Your Lover - Prince
11 Stand by Me - Ben E. King
12 Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
13 Don't Leave Me This Way - Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes / Thelma Houston
You Are the Sunshine of My Life - Stevie Wonder

And here's the usual song list:

01 Baby I'm a Star (Radio Riddler with Beverley Knight)
02 I Will Always Love You (Beverley Knight)
03 Stormy Weather (Beverley Knight)
04 Master Blaster (Beverley Knight)
05 Ribbon in the Sky (Beverley Knight)
06 Touch Me (Beverley Knight)
07 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Beverley Knight)
08 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Beverley Knight)
09 Memory (Beverley Knight)
10 I Wanna Be Your Lover (Beverley Knight)
11 Stand by Me (Beverley Knight)
12 Wish You Were Here (Beverley Knight)
13 Don't Leave Me This Way (Sophie Ellis-Bextor & Beverley Knight)

You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Beverley Knight)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15423680/BeverlyKn_2014-2021_SoulCovrsVolume4_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from 2016 concert in London.

Beverley Knight - Soul Covers, Volume 3 (2010-2013)

I haven't gotten much feedback on this series yet, but I'll keep posting it in hopes that someone is digging it. Here's Volume 3 out of 4, containing nothing but cover versions.

As I've explained with previous posts, Beverley Knight is a British soul singer who has won some fame in Britain, but is virtually unknown in the US and most of the rest of the world. If you haven't heard of her, know that she has a fantastic voice and a great choice in cover songs.

Many of the songs here are most recent than the classic soul songs from the 1960s and 1970s that are frequently covered. That's because a big chunk of the songs originally appeared on a 2011 album "Soul UK" where she favored those types of songs (and limited herself to just covering British artists). However, none of the versions here are the exact ones from that album. Instead, they're generally taken from in person radio show appearances and TV or radio broadcasts. Most of the songs are officially unreleased as a result. But three of them, tracks 2 through 4, are live versions that appeared as bonus or EP tracks.

Here's a list of the original artists who made the songs famous:

01 Amazing Grace - John Newton
02 Always and Forever - Heatwave
03 Fairplay - Soul II Soul
04 Damn - Lewis Taylor
05 When You Gonna Learn - Jamiroquai
06 One More Try - George Michael
07 Cuddly Toy - Roachford
08 Keep This Fire Burning - Robyn
09 Mama Used to Say - Junior
10 A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
11 Bring It on Home to Me - Sam Cooke
12 Twist and Shout - Isley Brothers / Beatles

Here's the usual song list:

01 Amazing Grace (Beverley Knight)
02 Always and Forever (Beverley Knight)
03 Fairplay (Beverley Knight)
04 Damn (Beverley Knight)
05 When You Gonna Learn (Beverley Knight)
06 One More Try (Beverley Knight & the ACM Gospel Choir)
07 Cuddly Toy (Beverley Knight)
08 Keep This Fire Burning (Beverley Knight)
09 Mama Used to Say (Beverley Knight)
10 A Change Is Gonna Come (Beverley Knight)
11 Bring It on Home to Me (Vintage Trouble & Beverley Knight)
12 Twist and Shout (Beverley Knight)

Personally, I like all these covers even though I wasn't familiar with many of the original versions. As I said, she has excellent taste in picking cover versions to sing.

This album is 51 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15423685/BeverlyKn_2010-2013_SoulCovrsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover photo might look a bit fake due to the lighting, but it's a real, untouched photo. It was taken at the 2013 Cornbury Music Festival in Oxford, Britain.

Beverley Knight - Soul Covers, Volume 2 (2007-2010)

Here's the second of four albums I've made of British singer Beverley Knight performing classic soul songs.

As I mentioned in my post for Volume 1, until recently I'd never heard of Knight, since I'm American and she's only a star in Britain. But if you like soul music from the 1960s and 1970s, you don't need to know much about her to enjoy this. In short, she has an incredible "diva" voice, but also knows not to get carried away with oversinging to show off, and she has great taste in covers.

The vast majority of the songs on Volume 1 were officially released, but this time all but one performance is unreleased. (The one exception is "Rock Steady.") Some of the songs here were done by her on record, but I avoided those versions in favor of performances done on TV or radio shows, and concerts. These pretty much all have very good sound quality, because I was selective. The vast majority of these were done on TV or radio shows, so they were professionally recorded.

Here's a list of the artists that made the songs famous:

01 Ain't That a Lot of Love - Homer Banks
02 Raspberry Beret - Prince
03 Think - It Takes Two - Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
04 Rock Steady - Aretha Franklin
05 I'm Every Woman - Chaka Khan
06 We Can Work It Out - Beatles
07 Joy to the World - Isaac Watts & Lowell Mason
08 Silent Night - Franz Xaver Gruber & Joseph Mohr
09 Disrespectful - Chaka Khan
10 Too Much Heaven - Bee Gees
11 We've Only Just Begun - Carpenters
12 Let It Be - Beatles
13 His Eye Is on the Sparrow - Mahalia Jackson

Here's the usual song list:

01 Ain't That a Lot of Love (Beverley Knight with Jools Holland)
02 Raspberry Beret (Beverley Knight)
03 Think - It Takes Two (Beverley Knight)
04 Rock Steady (Beverley Knight)
05 I'm Every Woman (Beverley Knight & Jocelyn Brown)
06 We Can Work It Out (Beverley Knight & Charlotte Church)
07 Joy to the World (Beverley Knight)
08 Silent Night (Beverley Knight)
09 Disrespectful (Chaka Khan & Beverley Knight)
10 Too Much Heaven (Beverley Knight)
11 We've Only Just Begun (Beverley Knight)
12 Let It Be (Beverley Knight)
13 His Eye Is on the Sparrow (Beverley Knight with Jools Holland)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15423694/BeverlyKn_2007-2010_SoulCovrsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a 2009 concert in Brighton, Britain.

Beverley Knight - Soul Covers, Volume 1 (1998-2007)

Here's something that I'm especially happy to post. I'd never even heard of British soul singer Beverley Knight until a weeks ago (writing this in May 2022). I randomly came across a YouTube video of her singing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and I was extremely impressed. I could immediately tell she has one of those rare outstanding voices, the kind that could go toe to toe with Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin.

So I looked more into her music career. It turns out she's had a fairly successful career in Britain, starting in 1995, where she's had a handful of Top 40 hits, though no huge smashes. She's even received a knighthood from the queen for her contributions to music. However, she hasn't made the charts anywhere else, and since I'm American, I'd missed her completely. In addition to her music career, she's had a lot of lead roles with singing theater parts. You can read more about her career here at her Wikipedia entry (which, by the way, says she's "widely labelled as one of Britain's greatest soul singers"):

Beverley Knight - Wikipedia

She could go far just on her voice, but it turns out she's a songwriter too, and has written or co-written most of the songs on her albums. I have issues with most R&B music from the 1980s on for a variety of reasons. To her credit, she avoids many problems with that music, such as bad production. She also doesn't oversing with vocal gymnastics that show off one's skills but don't actually serve the song (a continuing trend I blame on the huge success Whitney Houston had with it). That said, I'm more interested in her cover versions of classic songs, because it's a very, very high bar to come up with material as good as the classics.

So I went searching, mainly through YouTube, and found that she's performed enough cover versions for four volumes in this series. I deliberately didn't include any of the performances from her studio albums. However, I did find live versions of some songs from those albums, and I included those. I also included a couple of covers that were only released as B-sides, and well as some "stray tracks," like songs from various artists collections.

ON the other albums in this series, the vast majority of the songs are unreleased versions, usually from in-person radio show appearances or concerts. But this volume is unusual in that only five of the performances are unreleased. The sound quality of those is high, just as good as the released stuff.

One thing I like about her is that she has great taste in music, judging by her covers choices. Here's a list of the original artists for the songs here:

01 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - Aretha Franklin
02 Think [About It] - Lyn Collins
03 Hardtimes - Baby Huey
04 Feelin' Good - Nina Simone
05 Love’s in Need of Love Today - Stevie Wonder
06 Rock DJ - Robbie Williams
07 Is This Love - Bob Marley
08 Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
09 Where in the World - Jools Holland
10 Angels - Robbie Williams
11 Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin
12 Sweet Thing - Rufus with Chaka Khan
13 Endless Love - Lionel Richie
14 Time Is on My Side - Irma Thomas / Rolling Stones

And here's the typical song list:

01 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Beverley Knight)
02 Think [About It] (Beverley Knight)
03 Hardtimes (Courtney Pine with Beverley Knight)
04 Feelin' Good (Beverley Knight)
05 Love’s in Need of Love Today (Beverley Knight)
06 Rock DJ (Beverley Knight)
07 Is This Love (Beverley Knight & Jeff Beck)
08 Chain of Fools (Joe Cocker & Beverley Knight)
09 Where in the World (Jools Holland & Beverley Knight)
10 Angels (Beverley Knight)
11 Piece of My Heart (Beverley Knight)
12 Sweet Thing (Beverley Knight)
13 Endless Love (Lionel Richie & Beverley Knight)
14 Time Is on My Side [Nashville Acoustic Version] (Beverley Knight)

This album is 52 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15832871/BeverlyKn_1998-2007_SoulCovrsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of her dates to 2005. The background was plain white and didn't look good to me, so I added in a different background.