Various Artists - The Carlsberg Concert - Songs and Visions, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 8-16-1997

This is a really fascinating concert, with a format I've never seen before. I highly recommend it. Basically, the idea was to get ten famous musicians to perform one classic song a year, in reverse order, going back to the start of rock and roll in 1955. The stars: Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige, Rod Stewart, and Eikichi Yazawa.

Occasionally, the "one song per year" format that meant having the star sing their own hits. For instance, Rod Stewart sang "Maggie May," Robert Palmer sang "Addicted to Love," and k.d. lang sang "Constant Craving." But more often, they sang songs they probably have never sang in public before or since. For example, Seal sang "Stairway to Heaven," Rod Stewart sang "In the Midnight Hour," Bon Jon Bovi sang "Sympathy for the Devil," and k.d. lang sang "I Will Survive!" 

Even more intriguingly, the stars sometimes sang unexpected duets. For instance, Seal and Steve Winwood teamed up to sing U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer sang a duet version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." The backing band was the same for all the songs, so there was no time wasted between songs. Stewart was the emcee, making very brief comments between all the songs. If you watch a video of this concert on YouTube, you'll see that each time he introduced a song, iconic images from the year the song was a hit were shown on a huge screen behind the stage.

For better or worse, the "one song per year" rule was only loosely enforced. Sometimes, they played two songs for one year, and more often years went by with no songs at all. They sometimes fudged the years songs came out. For instance, Rod Stewart in his banter implied that "Stairway to Heaven" was released in 1973, when it came out in 1971. The first and last songs were also wildly out of order. And the rule was only even loosely enforced until 1963. At that point, the concert turned into an Elvis Presley tribute, with seven Presley hits in a row. But those are just quibbles. The bottom line is that these big stars sang nothing but classic songs for the whole concert.

In terms of the stars, the one I had never heard of, and chances are you have never heard of, is Eikichi Yazawa. He is very little known in most Western countries, but he's a big star in Japan, filling stadiums there. He has the nicknames "The Boss" and "The King of Rock" there as well. The reason he isn't better known elsewhere is that his hits songs are sung in Japanese. He only did one song in this concert on his own, "Don't Be Cruel." I watched the YouTube video of it. He danced and held the stage with lots of charisma, but unfortunately one can hear a clear Japanese accent on his singing. Still, kudos for the concert organizers in giving him this big platform.

By the way, it may seem odd at first that one of the songs chosen was "Some Guys Have All the Luck," because it wasn't as big of a hit as the other songs here. But that's Robert Palmer had a hit with it in 1982, and then Rod Stewart had a pretty differently arranged hit with it in 1984. So it made perfect sense for the two of them to sing a duet version of it here. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only time they sang the song together.

I found two main sources for this concert. One was a high quality video file, and the other was a video downloaded from YouTube. It's a good thing I found two, because each of them had songs the other one didn't. Furthermore, "Don't Be Cruel" sung by Yazawa wasn't included on either one. But I managed to find a YouTube video of it, as mentioned above, and I included it in the proper order (since the video kept going with the next song). 

This is called "The Carlsberg Concert" because it was sponsored by the Carlsberg Beer Company. (You can see the company logo in the background in the cover image). It was conceived and directed by someone named Tony Hollingsworth. I had never heard of him before, but it turns out he came up with some really unusual and intriguing concerts. For instance, at the same time I found this one, I found another one where he paired big name American and British music stars like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jon Bon Jovi with Japanese musicians. I plan on posting that one as well, eventually. Here's his bio page. 

Tony Hollingsworth 

It seems this "one song per year" format has never been repeated in a big concert like this in the many years since. That's too bad. I had never heard about this concert until I randomly stumbled across it the other day. If you know of other "various artists" concerts that you think I should post at my blog, please let me know. It seems there are many of these, like this one, that once appeared on TV and have only existed in video format, so they've gone way under the radar when it comes to being audio bootlegs. 

The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. I did make a few fixes, such as brief volume drops, but nothing major. Oh, but one consistent problem was that all the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I boosted that for all the songs using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is two hours and 37 minutes long.

01 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Rod Stewart, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige & Steve Winwood)
02 talk (Rod Stewart)
03 Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton)
04 talk (Rod Stewart)
05 Kiss from a Rose (Seal & Mary J. Blige)
06 talk (Rod Stewart)
07 Keep the Faith (Jon Bon Jovi)
08 Sympathy for the Devil (Jon Bon Jovi)
09 talk (Rod Stewart)
10 Constant Craving (k.d. lang)
11 talk (Rod Stewart)
12 Nothing Compares 2 U (Rod Stewart & Mary J. Blige)
13 talk (Rod Stewart)
14 Ain't Nobody (Chaka Khan)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Bad Medicine (Jon Bon Jovi)
17 talk (Rod Stewart)
18 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Seal & Steve Winwood)
19 talk (Rod Stewart)
20 Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer)
21 Some Guys Have All the Luck (Robert Palmer & Rod Stewart)
22 talk (Rod Stewart)
23 Every Breath You Take (Chaka Khan & k.d. lang)
24 talk (Rod Stewart)
25 Another One Bites the Dust - Good Times (Mary J. Blige)
26 talk (Rod Stewart)
27 I Will Survive (k.d. lang)
28 talk (Rod Stewart)
29 Is This Love (Seal)
30 talk (Rod Stewart)
31 Tonight's the Night (Rod Stewart)
32 talk (Rod Stewart)
33 Stairway to Heaven (Seal)
34 talk (Rod Stewart)
35 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
36 talk (Rod Stewart)
37 Travelin' Band (Jon Bon Jovi)
38 Proud Mary (Jon Bon Jovi)
39 talk (Rod Stewart)
40 You're All I Need to Get By (Seal & Toni Braxton)
41 talk (Rod Stewart)
42 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)
43 talk (Rod Stewart)
44 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Mary J. Blige)
45 talk (Rod Stewart)
46 In the Midnight Hour (Rod Stewart)
47 talk (Rod Stewart)
48 Like a Rolling Stone (Seal, Jon Bon Jovi & Robert Palmer)
49 talk (Rod Stewart)
50 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer)
51 Dancing in the Street (Steve Winwood & Chaka Khan)
52 talk (Rod Stewart)
53 All My Loving (k.d. lang & Chaka Khan)
54 talk (Rod Stewart)
55 Love Me Tender (Toni Braxton)
56 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood)
57 That's All Right, Mama (Jon Bon Jovi)
58 All Shook Up (Robert Palmer)
59 Jailhouse Rock (Rod Stewart)
60 Don't Be Cruel (Eikichi Yazawa)
61 Heartbreak Hotel (Rod Stewart, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood & Eikichi Yazawa)
62 Hey Jude (Everybody) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6sqiV8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/l69yltKzWGqfd88/file

The cover image shows a promotional photo taken in conjunction with this concert. The version I found was very wide but vertically narrow, so I split it into two parts, to allow me to make everyone appear larger. From left to right, top row: Eikichi Yazawa, Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, and Jon Bon Jovi. From left to right, bottom row: Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, and Rod Stewart. Mary J. Blige seems to have missed the photo shoot. I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. 

Robert Palmer - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 4-14-1976

This is the first Robert Palmer BBC album I've posted, but in a way, it's the fourth one. That's because the second BBC volume for the band Alan Bown featured him on lead vocals, then he was one of two lead vocalists for the band Vinegar Joe, and I've posted two BBC volumes from that band. 

Kudos to the BBC for featuring Robert Palmer in 1976, because he'd had very little success in Britain up until that point. He released his first solo album, "Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley," in 1974, then his second one, "Pressure Drop," in late 1975. "Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" almost scraped the bottom of the Top 100 album charts in the U.S., but didn't even do that much in Britain, and "Pressure Drop" fared worse in both countries. It would be a slow climb from this point until he became a big star in the 1980s.

At this point, his musical style was fairly different from his 1980s style. For his first two albums, he was heavily influenced by the funky sounds of Little Feat and the Meters, and was backed by both bands on his albums and also went on tour with them. Even his appearance was different, as you can see from the cover photo, with his wearing casual clothes instead of a suit. But just because his music wasn't well known at the time didn't mean it was bad. In fact, if you look at his entry at the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com, his first two albums have the highest ratings of all his albums.

Unfortunately, he was only given a half an hour time slot. (This album is 29 minutes long.) I considered adding in more music, but I couldn't find anything else BBC related from this time period. If he did some studio sessions too, I couldn't find them. So I just left this as it is.

01 Here with You Tonight (Robert Palmer)
02 Gotta Get a Grip on You (Robert Palmer)
03 Which of Us Is the Fool (Robert Palmer)
04 River Boat (Robert Palmer)
05 Pressure Drop (Robert Palmer)
06 Sailing Shoes (Robert Palmer)
07 Hey Julia (Robert Palmer)
08 Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley (Robert Palmer)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15942233/RobrtPalmr_1976_BBSessonsVolum1InConcrtPrisTheatrLondnBrtain__4-14-1976_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good color photos of Palmer in 1976. So I used one from a concert in Utrecht, Netherlands, in 1977.

VinegarJoe - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: BBC in Concert, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 12-1-1973

Here's the second and last of what I have of the British band Vinegar Joe at the BBC. In case you missed the Volume One post, Vinegar Joe had Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks as co-lead vocalists in the early 1970s, before they both became famous with their solo careers. The first volume contained BBC studio sessions. This one contains live material.

Most of this, tracks 8 through 17, consist of the 1973 BBC concert mentioned in the title. But that's rather short, at 28 minutes. (I'm guessing the BBC gave them a half-hour time slot.) I happen to have a few songs from a different concert in Belgium in 1972, so I added those to the front. That recording survives in very good quality because it was the TV show "Pop Circus."

It's a bit odd that the eighth track is a BBC DJ introducing the start of the concert. I considered changing the order, putting the 1972 concert after the 1973 one. I also considered moving just that DJ intro to the very start of the album. But ultimately I decided to just keep it like this.

By the way, note that I found some different versions of the 1973 concert on popular bootleg trading websites. Pretty much all of the different versions have different dates. Some say it took place in 1972, some just say 1973 without giving a year, and so on. But rest assured all these are the same concert, and I did the research to get the date correct. (For one thing, the band played songs from their album "Six Star General," released in October 1973, so it makes sense the concert took place after that album was released.)

That 1973 concert was kind of a last hurrah for the band. They broke up only a few months later, in the spring of 1974.

01 So Long (Vinegar Joe)
02 talk (Vinegar Joe)
03 See the World (Vinegar Joe)
04 Rock and Roll Gypsies (Vinegar Joe)
05 talk (Vinegar Joe)
06 No One Ever Do (Vinegar Joe)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Vinegar Joe)
08 talk (Vinegar Joe)
09 Let Me Down Easy (Vinegar Joe)
10 Food for Thought (Vinegar Joe)
11 Talkin' about My Baby (Vinegar Joe)
12 talk (Vinegar Joe)
13 Giving Yourself Away (Vinegar Joe)
14 talk (Vinegar Joe)
15 Black Smoke from the Calumet (Vinegar Joe)
16 talk (Vinegar Joe)
17 Proud to Be a Honky Woman (Vinegar Joe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274969/VinegarJ_1973_BBC_Sessions__Volume_2-_BBC_in_Concert__Golders_Green_Hippodrome__12-1-1973_atse.zip.html

I was only able to find a small number of color photos of the band in concert. The one I chose for the cover is from the Reading Festival in August 1972. I like it because it shows the band's two lead vocalists, Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks.

Vinegar Joe - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1972-1974

I recently posted a couple of BBC albums of the British band Alan Bown. Being in that band was the first big break in the career of singer Robert Palmer. He then went on to join this band in 1971. It broke up in 1974. Palmer then went on to a very successful solo career.

But he wasn't the only one. Vinegar Joe was unusual in that it had two lead singers, a man and a woman. The man was Palmer and the woman was Elkie Brooks. She also would have a successful solo career in Britain, with 13 hits in that country. But Palmer and Brooks typically didn't sing together in harmony like, say, the Everly Brothers. Instead, Palmer would usually sing one song and Brooks would sing another.

The band released three albums from 1972 to 1974, but despite their obvious talents, they never had a hit album or single. You can read more about the band here:

Vinegar Joe (band) - Wikipedia

Everything here is officially unreleased. The songs are from 1972, except for the last two. All but one are from BBC studio sessions. That one is "Lawdy Miss Clawdy," which come from a concert in Stockholm, Sweden, that was filmed for TV. The sound quality is generally very good, although there is some variation.

There's one bonus track. It also sounds pretty good. The reason it's a bonus track is because another version of the song is already on the album. The bonus track version comes from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show.

You may not this is called "Volume One." I have a second volume, which consists of a short BBC concert.

This album is 36 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Early Monday Morning (Vinegar Joe)
02 Rusty Red Armour (Vinegar Joe)
03 Leg Up (Vinegar Joe)
04 Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Vinegar Joe)
05 Rock and Roll Gypsies (Vinegar Joe)
06 So Long (Vinegar Joe)
07 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Vinegar Joe)
08 Dream My Own Dreams (Vinegar Joe)
09 Proud to Be a Honky Woman (Vinegar Joe)

Rusty Red Armour (Vinegar Joe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274963/VinegarJ_1972-1974_BBC_Sessions__Volume_1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a dressing room after a concert in Aylesbury, Britain, in December 1972. Elkie Brooks is the lone female, in the red dress. Robert Palmer is in the back row in a white T-shirt, which is head turned to the side.

Alan Bown (with Robert Palmer) - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1969-1971

Here's the second and last BBC Sessions album for the band Alan Bown. By chance, this album is great for highlighting the start of the career of Robert Palmer. So if you're a fan of his music, you may want to listen to this, even if you care nothing about Alan Bown.

Robert Palmer would later go on to much bigger fame and fortune with hits like "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistible" in the 1980s. From 1966 to 1969, the lead vocalist for the band was Jess Roden. But he decided to leave in 1969 for a solo career. He was replaced by Palmer in time for the 1969 single "Gypsy Girl." That happens to be the third song here. Palmer left in October 1970 to join the band Vinegar Joe. It so happens the all the remaining songs are from the time Palmer was in the band except for the last two. The last two were  recorded in July 1971. The band stayed together until 1972.

As a result, the vast majority of the songs here are sung by Palmer. I think only the first one and last two were not. Most of the songs are from the 1970 album "Listen." That was released in late 1970 as Palmer was leaving the band. They were recorded at the last minute by a new vocalist, so the Palmer versions have never been released. (Ironically, the exact same thing happened when he came into the band. Roden, the previous lead vocalist, had his album vocals wiped by Palmer's versions for most of the songs.) Because of that, one can hear the Palmer versions here, almost like a lost album from Palmer's long music career.

All but one of these versions of the songs here are officially unreleased. The one exception, "Movie Star Baby," has come out on a various artists compilation of obscure BBC recordings. However, the vast majority come from pristine transcription discs, so the sound quality is really good. There are three exceptions. Two songs, "Crash Landing" and "Make Up Your Mind," come from a BBC concert hosted by DJ John Peel. I'm guessing this was a longer show of at least half an hour yet somehow only two fell into my hands. If anyone has the rest of the show, please let me know. Also, the song "Curfew" comes from a BBC TV show called "Disco 2." That show later evolved into the better known "The Old Grey Whistle Test." I found that because a video of it survives on YouTube. Unfortunately the picture quality is crappy and it black and white even though the sound quality is fairly good. But even so, it's interesting, because it's probably the earliest TV footage from Palmer's long music career.

As with Volume One, many songs have "[Edit]" in their names. That's from the usual problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. As usual, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to fix that.

Personally, I like this volume more than the first one. For one thing, you have the Robert Palmer factor. But also, nearly all the songs are original (at least "I Got a Line on You" is a cover), and the band was moving into an interesting progressive rock direction. It's too bad they broke up not long after this. They probably would be a lot better known if they'd stuck around.

This album is 54 minutes long.

UPDATE: On May 15, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I added two songs I'd previously missed, "Hobby Horses Head" and "Find a Melody."

01 My Friend [Edit] (Alan Bown)
02 Movie Star Baby [Edit] (Alan Bown)
03 Gypsy Girl [Edit] (Alan Bown)
04 I Got a Line on You [Edit] (Alan Bown)
05 Friends in St. Louis [Edit] (Alan Bown)
06 All I Can [Edit] (Alan Bown)
07 Loosen Up [Edit] (Alan Bown)
08 Strange Little Friend [Edit] (Alan Bown)
09 Crash Landing (Alan Bown)
10 Make Up Your Mind (Alan Bown)
11 Curfew (Alan Bown)
12 Make Us All Believe [Edit] (Alan Bown)
13 Pyramid [Edit] (Alan Bown)
14 Find a Melody (Alan Bown)
15 Hobby Horses Head (Alan Bown)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iHeddCZA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wJUmhY0f6dJKLvE/file

I had to look high and low to find any decent photo of the band with Robert Palmer in it. I finally succeeded by searching the Facebook page of a fan club of the band. This is from 1969. Palmer is standing on the far right, holding a hand to his mouth, smoking a cigarette. It was in black and white, but I colorized it.

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.