Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 6: October to November 1969

Here's the sixth volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. This also is the first album from the show's second (and final) season. Note the big time jump, between Volume 5 ending in January 1969 and this one starting in October 1969 - that's most of a year.

This show tended to have a lot of repeat guests. Consider the soul group Checkmates, Ltd. This already was their third episode. Many of the other guests on volume made or would make appearances on other volumes as well. I think it was especially common for a musical act to appear on an episode in the show's first season, and then another one in the second season.

There are more incidents of "[Edit]" - four - in this volume than in any previous ones. That's because there was more talking over the music in the second season. One particularly annoying aspect was that each episode of this season ended had a brief spoken advertisement for T.W.A. Airlines over the final song. In most cases, I was able to successfully wipe such talking while keeping the underlying music, thanks to the UVR5 audio editing program.

There's a surprising number of songs performed on this T.V. that were never officially released in any form. Consider the duet between Linda Ronstadt and Billy Eckstine. If you listen to the banter before the song started, it seems Ronstadt was very reluctant to sing it, and had to be coaxed into it. That could be prepared dialogue, but in the case, it seemed like a genuinely spontaneous performance to me. As far as I can tell, this was the one and only time Ronstadt performed that song in public.

The duet between Checkmates, Ltd. and Carla Thomas on "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" is similarly unique to this TV show. I also couldn't find any release of "Soul Man" by Bill Medley (who was one half of the Righteous Brothers). Similarly, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" was never released by Sonny & Cher (or by solo Cher, for that matter). It also seems Carla Thomas never released any version of "Abraham, Martin and John." And it's a similar case with the other volumes.

If anyone knows the name of the instrumental performed by Canned Heat, please let me know so I can give it a proper name. 

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 Walkin' Down the Line (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Living like a Fool (Linda Ronstadt)
03 Hitchcock Railway [Edit] (Joe Cocker)
04 Something (Joe Cocker)
05 God Bless the Child [Edit] (Linda Ronstadt & Billy Eckstine)
06 Soul Man (Bill Medley)
07 What's Wrong (Sweetwater)
08 For Once in My Life (Bill Medley)
09 Why Oh Why - Hey Jude (Sweetwater)
10 Sweet Caroline (Checkmates, Ltd.)
11 Where Do I Go (Carla Thomas)
12 The Japanese Transistor (Biff Rose)
13 Molly (Biff Rose)
14 Abraham, Martin and John (Carla Thomas)
15 Proud Mary (Checkmates, Ltd.)
16 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay [Edit] (Checkmates, Ltd. & Carla Thomas)
17 For Once in My Life [Edit] (Sonny & Cher)
18 Can't Take My Eyes Off You (Sonny & Cher)
19 Future Blues (Canned Heat)
20 My Time Ain't Long (Canned Heat)
21 Instrumental (Canned Heat)
22 Take Me for a Little While (Sonny & Cher)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aKqnxAQ1

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/6VNID5vPpmlP32t/file

For this series, it was hard for me to pick the cover art, because I could take screenshots of any of the musical acts, and there are always a few good ones to choose from. I didn't choose Linda Ronstadt because she gets a cover later in this series. A key reason I decided on a picture of Cher is because the screenshot I took shows comedian Bill Cosby playing bass in the background. (One can see some of his faced, with sunglasses and cigar, and a little bit of his hands on an upright bass.) 

At the time, Cosby was a widely beloved star. But nowadays, he has been revealed to be a serial rapist. So his appearance on this show can be seen in a whole new light. And he didn't appear just on this episode, he appeared on a LOT of them. I'd guess about a dozen, probably more than any other famous guest. A lot of the time, as in the episode shown on the cover here, he wasn't doing a stand-up routine, but instead was just kind of lurking around. In hindsight, it's super creepy to imagine what Crosby might have been doing behind the scenes with all the beautiful women there. It's symbolic of how the whole carefully constructed image of Playboy has also been torn down, now that we know more. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 5: December 1968 to January 1969

Here's the fifth volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. There are 11 in all. 

Just the first three songs were recorded in 1968. The rest date from 1969. As usual with the albums I post, check out the mp3 tags for more detail. I organized these by recording date. The broadcast dates usually took place a few months later.

Probably the most notable thing about the music here is the performance of the Grateful Dead. As I've mentioned previously, most of the music from this T.V. show has languished in obscurity (though I hope these posts are starting to change that). However, the Dead's performance has gotten around some, especially among Deadheads. As it should, because it's a rare treat to see them on T.V. all the way back in early 1969. Three of their songs are included here. "Mountains of the Moon" is special, because it was only performed 15 times by the band, and this was just the second time. The version of "St. Stephen" was very good too. The only disappointment is that the makers of the show faded the song out while the band was jamming on it. I also included what I could of a third song, "Turn On Your Lovelight." But this is less than half a minute. Basically, it was just a snippet that played as the credits rolled at the end of that episode.

An interesting fact is that the Dead's sound engineer, Owsley "Bear" Stanley, secretly put L.S.D. in the coffee that everyone on the set was drinking! So everyone from Hugh Hefner to the stagehands was tripping on acid during the taping of this episode. You can read more about this incident here:

https://www.openculture.com/2021/01/when-the-grateful-dead-performed-on-hugh-hefners-playboy-after-dark.html

That article also contains a link to the Dead's performance, if you want to see it and not just hear it. And there's another link to a later interview of drummer Bill Kreutzmann in which he talked about the spiking of the coffee. 

While that was probably the most interesting musical performance, there are many other good performances on this episode, with lots of rock and soul. Note, by the way, two songs with "[Edit]" in their titles. Sometimes, for this show, there were other people talking over parts of the music. In the second season this would get much worse, to the point that brief advertisements were even spoken over the end of the last song of each episode. So when you see "[Edit]" in this series, that's usually why.

I would also like to point out how odd it was that the Clara Ward Singers performed for this show. Consider that they exclusively sang gospel songs in churches. I wonder if they were appalled at all the "heathen" appearances and behavior all around them. But kudos to Hefner and Playboy for putting a wide variety of musical styles on this T.V. show. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 River Deep, Mountain High (Bobby Doyle)
02 Blowin' in the Wind (Bobby Doyle)
03 Wear It on Our Face [Edit] (Checkmates, Ltd.)
04 Mountains of the Moon (Grateful Dead)
05 St. Stephen (Grateful Dead)
06 The Great Electric Experiment Is Over (Noel Harrison)
07 Hello Sun (Noel Harrison)
08 Turn On Your Lovelight [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
09 Turpentine Moan (Canned Heat)
10 On the Road Again (Canned Heat)
11 Mendocino (Sir Douglas Quintet)
12 She's about a Mover (Sir Douglas Quintet)
13 Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho (Clara Ward Singers)
14 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Clara Ward Singers)
15 Chicken Wolf (Steppenwolf)
16 Don't Cry (Steppenwolf)
17 Get Out My Life Woman (Joe Williams & Joanne Vent)
18 Hurry On Down (Joe Williams)
19 That Face (Joe Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1vPw9aH6

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rd6je9jcQYVFtLU/file

The cover photo shows Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. This is a screenshot I took from the video of one of the episodes here.

Canned Heat - Marianhill, Arcen, Netherlands, 8-12-1971

I've been looking for a really good concert bootleg for the band Canned Heat, and I recently found this one. It took place in the Netherlands. I'm not sure, but I think it was broadcast by a Dutch radio station, thus explaining the excellent sound quality.

Unfortunately, one of the band's two lead singers and leaders, Alan Wilson, died in 1970. So he's not on this recording. But on the plus side, two of the band's three hits are here: "Let's Work Together" and "Goin' Up the Country." The version of "Goin' Up the Country" is very different from the hit version, being much faster and more rocking. Personally, I don't like it as much, but I give them points for trying something different anyway.

On most of the songs, the lead vocals were rather low in the mix. I fixed that by using the MVSEP program.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Let's Work Together (Canned Heat)
02 talk (Canned Heat)
03 Hill's Stomp [Instrumental] (Canned Heat)
04 talk (Canned Heat)
05 That's All Right (Canned Heat)
06 talk (Canned Heat)
07 Goin' Up the Country (Canned Heat)
08 Long Way from L.A. (Canned Heat)
09 Pay My Rent Boogie (Canned Heat)
10 talk (Canned Heat)
11 Utah (Canned Heat)
12 Big City (Canned Heat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PGKKGhXT

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/t9jnzbFquZWWqa1/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, on October 11, 1971. At the center is lead singer Bob Hite.

Curtis Mayfield with Canned Heat - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-8-1973

Here's another episode of that great TV show, "Midnight Special." This one stars soul singer-songwriter Curtis Mayfield, with Canned Heat as his guest star.

One of the things I like most about the Midnight Special show was how it often had different musical acts perform together. But I never would have expected Curtis Mayfield and Canned Heat to perform a song together. Yet they did here, with show host Wolfman Jack singing on it too. And it appears to have been a song made up just for the occasion, as you can tell by the title Mayfield gave to it when he introduced it: "A Little Midnight Special Boogie on You."

At the time, Mayfield was a very big star. He had led the band the Impressions for most of the 1960s. Then as a solo star, he had a massive success with the soundtrack to the movie "Super Fly." The album went to Number One in the U.S. album chart, and actually made more money than the movie it was supporting. Two songs from it, "Superfly" and "Freddie's Dead," made the Top Ten singles chart. Then, in May 1973, Mayfield released the album "Future Shock." 

Mayfield was on the show a good number of times in 1973 and 1974, though he usually didn't play many songs each time. He hosted the show for the June 8, 1973 episode, and that makes up the bulk of the music here. He hosted it again in 1974, and that will be the focus of another album I plan on posting. But I've also worked in songs from two other episodes. "Freddie's Dead" comes from the February 23, 1973 episode. And "Future Shock" and "Right On for the Darkness" come from the September 14, 1973 episode. Between those three episodes, we get four songs from the "Future Shock" album ("Future Shock," "Right On for the Darkness," "If I Were Only a Child Again," and "Back to the World"), plus the two big hits from "Superfly."

Also, there are the Canned Heat songs. At the time, that band was on the decline. Earlier in 1973, they released their seventh album, "The New Age." It was their first one to not even make the Top 100 album chart in the U.S. One problem was that musical tastes were changing, and the band's boogie and blues was going out of style for a while. Another problem was the band was in a mess. One original member had died and two more had just left, leaving only two, plus replacements. And some band members were deep into drug addictions. 

Despite all that, they put on a good performance here. "Harley Davidson Blues" was a song from their latest album. "Let's Work Together" was one of their earlier hits. Then there's the collaborative song with Mayfield and Wolfman Jack mentioned above.

As usual with these Midnight Special albums, I had to do a lot of editing to make it flow well. I patched in extra applause to the ends of most every song, for instance. I also left out a lot of music to keep a coherent focus. In case you're curious, the other musical acts on the main episode featured here were the Spinners, Jose Feliciano, Tufano-Giammarese, Ravi Shankar, and Leroy Hutson.

This album is 34 minutes long. 

01 Superfly (Curtis Mayfield)
02 talk (Curtis Mayfield)
03 Let's Work Together (Canned Heat)
04 Freddie's Dead (Curtis Mayfield)
05 Harley Davidson Blues (Canned Heat)
06 If I Were Only a Child Again (Curtis Mayfield)
07 Back to the World (Curtis Mayfield)
08 talk (Curtis Mayfield)
09 A Little Midnight Special Boogie on You (Canned Heat, Curtis Mayfield & Wolfman Jack)
10 Future Shock (Curtis Mayfield)
11 Right On for the Darkness (Curtis Mayfield)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xjMHAzJK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/oLmTgxOys7sLTt1/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert. From left to right: Curtis Mayfield, Bob Hite of Canned Heat, and Wolfman Jack. 

Various Artists - Monterey International Pop Festival, Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey, CA, 6-17-1967, Afternoon Show

Here's the second out of five albums I'm posting that make up the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. As I mentioned in the first album, the festival was broken up into five parts, and one had to buy tickets for each part. This part consisted of the afternoon show on June 17th, the second day of the festival.

Generally speaking, the different parts didn't really have musical themes, except for this one, because most of the musical acts in this part were heavily influenced by the blues.

As I mentioned in the write-up for the first part, I'm mostly just posting what a person named Simon put together in 2022, with some additions based on material made available since then. As with all the parts, I'm including a PDF Simon made that explains the different sourcing for each of the songs.

Also in my write-up for the first part, I mentioned a Wikipedia link that lists the known songs from the festival, including the ones where there's no publicly available recording. It's worth mentioning that link again:

Monterey Pop Festival set list - Wikipedia 

Let's review what's still missing. Canned Heat is known to have played the three songs included here, but also an unknown number of additional songs. The Big Brother and the Holding Company set is complete. This was the concert that turned that band's main lead singer, Janis Joplin, into a big star. In fact, they're the only band to play two sets in the festival. That's because their set here was one of the highlights, but a documentary film crew headed by D.A. Pennebaker failed to record any good footage of the band. So they were brought back to play a few songs on the third and final day.

Al Kooper had been a keyboardist for the Blues Project since 1965, but he quit that band shortly before this festival. The Blues Project got their own spot later in the festival, but Kooper got a solo spot too. (He would go on to form Blood, Sweat and Tears a year later.) According to the Wikipedia set list above, he only played two songs, and one of them is here. But according to a Newsweek article I linked to in the first part, Kooper's set lasted about half an hour, so he probably played more.

There are eight songs here performed by the Butterfield Blues Band, led by Paul Butterfield. Apparently there did more songs. But each act was allowed to up to 40 minutes, and their set already totaled 33 minutes, so there's probably just one or two missing songs. There are just two songs here by the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and they played five. One of the missing ones is a cover of "Who Do You Love," which they usually ended with a long jam.  There are two Steve Miller Band songs here, but they played at least one more, "Living in the U.S.A." 

The last act for this part of the festival was the Electric Flag. This band was formed in the spring of 1967 by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, and it was led by him, Barry Goldberg, and Buddy Miles. This actually was their very first concert. They would put out a studio album in early 1968 called "A Long Time Comin'," but by then the band's sound had already changed, with founder Bloomfield having less of a role. In fact, he left the band just a couple of months after the album was released. This concert is truer to the original vision he had for the band. There are six songs by them here, which actually is two more than the ones on the Wikipedia set list, so I don't know if there are still more missing ones.

I could say a lot more about all the different performances, but I think the music is all good and generally speaks for itself. The sound quality is excellent throughout, especially considering the time period. A lot of that quality is due to the unusually good sound system. Here's what the Wikipedia article on the festival has to say about that:

"Also notable was the festival's innovative sound system, designed and built by audio engineer Abe Jacob, who started his career doing live sound for San Francisco bands and went on to become a leading sound designer for the American theater. Jacob's groundbreaking Monterey sound system was the progenitor of all the large-scale PAs that followed. It was a key factor in the festival's success and it was greatly appreciated by the artists. For instance, in the 'Monterey Pop' film, David Crosby can clearly be seen saying 'Great sound system!' to band mate Chris Hillman at the start of the Byrds' soundcheck."

Note that that, like all the parts from this festival, this sounds even better than what Simon put together, because I boosted the vocals for the songs that needed that, using the UVR5 audio editing program. About half of the songs needed the boost, though there didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. Some musical acts had low vocals across the board, or not, but often that was only the case for certain songs. Perhaps that's because this is a patchwork, put together from many different sources, both released and unreleased. 

By the way, here's a quote about the festival by Steve Miller: "I remember being really happy to be at Monterey, really excited. It was the first event I attended that was organized in such a really first-class way from top to bottom." 

And here are some quotes about the Big Brother and the Holding Company set, since that was the clear highlight of this part of the festival. Rock critic Keith Altham: "Janis Joplin was the staggering thing I saw on the whole show to me. Because I had never heard a woman sing like that. 'I told her afterwards, "you're the best female rock singer I've ever heard in my life.' She looked me up and down, smiled, and said, 'You get out much, honey?' I thought it was funny. She was very friendly. I liked her."

Record company executive Clive Davis: "When Janis (Joplin) took the stage, it was an unknown group to me totally, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and right from the outset it was something you could never forget. She took the stage, dominated, and was absolutely breathtaking, hypnotic, compelling, and soul shaking. You saw someone who was not only the goods but was doing something that no one else was doing. With that fervor, that intensity, and impact. So yes, that in effect, coupled with everything around me, the way people were dressing, what was going on in Haight Ashbury [the hippie district in San Francisco], the spirit in the air, and the feeling... I just said, 'You know, I am here at a very unique time. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it in my spine. I'm feeling it in my sense of excitement. I'm feeling it in the impact. It's not only musical changes, but in societal changes.'" 

Davis immediately had the record company he was working for, Columbia Records, sign the band to a record contract, even though they had to buy out the band's existing contract with another company to do so.  

This album is two hours and 27 minutes long. 

01 talk (John Phillips)
02 talk (Canned Heat)
03 Rollin' and Tumblin' (Canned Heat)
04 talk (Canned Heat)
05 Dust My Broom (Canned Heat)
06 talk (Canned Heat)
07 Bullfrog Blues (Canned Heat)
08 talk (Chet Helms)
09 Down on Me (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
10 Combination of the Two (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
11 Harry (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
12 Roadblock (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
13 Ball and Chain (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
14 talk (Country Joe & the Fish)
15 Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine (Country Joe & the Fish)
16 talk (Country Joe & the Fish)
17 I-Feel-like-I'm-Fixin'-to Die Rag (Country Joe & the Fish)
18 talk (Country Joe & the Fish)
19 The Bomb Song (Country Joe & the Fish)
20 Section 43 [Instrumental] (Country Joe & the Fish)
21 Wake Me, Shake Me (Al Kooper)
22 Look Over Yonders Wall (Butterfield Blues Band)
23 Mystery Train (Butterfield Blues Band)
24 Born in Chicago (Butterfield Blues Band)
25 Double Trouble (Butterfield Blues Band)
26 Mary Ann (Butterfield Blues Band)
27 Driftin' Blues (Butterfield Blues Band)
28 One More Heartache (Butterfield Blues Band)
29 Droppin' Out (Butterfield Blues Band)
30 Dino's Song [All I Ever Wanted to Do] (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
31 If You Live (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
32 Mercury Blues (Steve Miller Band)
33 Super Shuffle [Instrumental] (Steve Miller Band)
34 talk (David Crosby)
35 Groovin' Is Easy (Electric Flag)
36 I'm Sick Y'All (Electric Flag)
37 Texas (Electric Flag)
38 talk (Electric Flag)
39 Over-Lovin' You (Electric Flag)
40 Night Time Is the Right Time (Electric Flag)
41 Wine [Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee] (Electric Flag)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1mXxvn3Y

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hpdZuZUHcB1hh9t/file

Like most of the cover art I've made for this festival, I had too many good options to choose from, so I broke the image into four smaller ones. From top left clockwise: Janis Joplin of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, Mike Bloomfield of the Electric Flag, and Paul Butterfield of the Butterfield Blues Band.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-30-1969, Part 5: Canned Heat

The fifth and final album from the first day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival is a set by the blues band Canned Heat. But don't worry, this is just the end of the first day of a three-day festival, so there's a lot more to come.

I know from various reports that Canned Heat were the last act of the first night. That meant they were a big deal, since they got an even more prized spot than Janis Joplin, who already was a big star. And they certainly were a very popular band by this time. They had two hit songs in 1968, "Going Up the Country," and "On the Road Again." They also made an impact performing at the Woodstock festival two weeks earlier.

The good news is, this is a soundboard recording, so the sound quality is excellent. The bad news is that it's incomplete, being just a little over half an hour long. Although no songs are cut off, there are several reasons I'm sure this is only about half of their performance. One is that they played for about an hour and ten minutes at the Woodstock festival, and a similar amount at the Atlanta festival, so it stands to reason they played a similar amount of time here. Also, this recording doesn't include versions of their two hit songs, "Going Up the Country" and "On the Road Again," but we know they played both of them at Woodstock. Finally, I found a mention that they didn't leave the stage until about 4:30 in the morning. The previous act, Janis Joplin, started shortly before one A.M. There's only half an hour recording of her set and half an hour recording of this one, and that isn't nearly until music to fill up three and a half hours.

It's likely this was the first half of the set, with their more popular songs coming towards the end, and thus missing here. I have no idea why a soundboard recording of some parts of some sets have survived and other parts are missing, but we should be grateful we have at least this much. Most of the other big festivals of 1969, like ones in Atlanta and Atlantic City, have been almost totally forgotten because of a lack of recordings, including bootlegs. (There are official live albums of Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers at the Atlanta festival, but the 1970 festival, not the 1969 one.)

This album is 31 minutes long.

01 talk (Canned Heat)
02 Bullfrog Blues (Canned Heat)
03 Rollin' and Tumblin' (Canned Heat)
04 talk (Canned Heat)
05 Blind Owl Blues (Canned Heat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BBab7mrP

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4CjV5Bq6OpiH3RT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Bob "Bear" Hite, one of the band's two lead singers. The original was black and white, and blurry and low-res. I colorized it using the Kolorize program. Then I ran it through the Krea AI multiple times, filling in a lot of detail.