T. Rex - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1970-1971

On this, the fourth volume of T. Rex performing for the BBC, the band finally sounds like the T. Rex that one hears on the radio. The three previous volumes had a more acoustic sound. This volume starts acoustic, and turns full band electric partway through. But also, main band member Marc Bolan changed his songwriting, writing simpler songs that aimed for the charts. 

He had success right off the bat. The first song here, "Ride a White Swan," reached Number Two in the singles charts in Britain, his biggest success by far at that point. Two other songs here reached Number One: "Hot Love" and "Get It On (Bang a Gong)," with "Jeepster" just missing at Number Two. So this is much more commercial than the previous albums. If you're only a casual fan, you might want to download this even if you missed the previous volumes.

As with the previous volumes, this is sourced from the official box set "Marc Bolan at the BBC." All the songs come from that. However, I made changes to three songs, the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles. That's because they had the common BBC problem from that era of BBC DJs talking over the music. I got rid of the talking with the usual method, using the UVR5 audio editing program.

Note that there are two versions of the song "Hot Love." I kept both because one is acoustic and the other is with a full band. Other than that, there were surprisingly few repeats. There also was a second version of "Jewel," but I didn't include it because that version was almost identical to the version included here.

There are two bonus tracks, "Funk Music" and "My Baby's like a Cloud Form." Although they're from the box set too, they both come from a BBC session that apparently was poorly recorded, because their sound quality is a lot worse than everything else here.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Ride a White Swan (T. Rex)
02 Jewel (T. Rex)
03 Elemental Child (T. Rex)
04 Sun Eye (T. Rex)
05 Hot Love [Acoustic Version] (T. Rex)
06 Summertime Blues (T. Rex)
07 Woodland Rock [Edit] (T. Rex)
08 Beltane Walk (T. Rex)
09 Hot Love (T. Rex)
10 Jeepster [Edit] (T. Rex)
11 Get It On [Bang a Gong] (T. Rex)
12 Electric Boogie [Edit] (T. Rex)
13 Sailors of the Highway (T. Rex)
14 Girl (T. Rex)

Funk Music (T. Rex)
My Baby's like a Cloud Form (T. Rex)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9xpUG1w2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2R6WxSHfZtbjnO8/file 

The cover photo shows T. Rex on a British TV show in February 1971, probably "Top of the Pops." I picked the photo to show how the band, previously an acoustic duo, evolved into a full band by 1971. There's another drummer who is out of the frame.

T. Rex - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Live 1970

It's time for another T. Rex BBC album. This one is all concert material from 1970. However, it's actually two short concerts put together.

The first concert makes up tracks 1 through 14, for a total of 33 minutes. It was performed on January 1, 1970. The second concert makes up tracks 15 until the end. This one took place on December 10, 1970. So even though they both took place in 1970, they were almost one year apart. Both concerts are sourced from the "Marc Bolan at the BBC" box set.

Up until late 1969, Marc Bolan, lead singer and songwriter, was backed by Steve Peregrin Took on percussion and backing vocals. But by the time of the January 1970 concert, Took had been replaced by Mickey Finn, also on percussion and backing vocals. Furthermore, the band name changed in mid-1970, from "Tyrannasaurus Rex" to just "T. Rex."

Although the two concerts are separated by time, they are similar in many ways. For one thing, they were performed in the exact same venue, BBC's Paris Theatre in London. They both were hosted by BBC DJ John Peel, and he spoke most of the banter between songs for both shows. They also were both acoustic in nature, with Bolan playing acoustic guitar and Finn generally playing bongos.

The concerts luckily mostly feature different songs. However, two songs, "Deborah" and "Elemental Child," were played at both concerts. The commercial fortunes also drastically changed between the two concerts. In October 1970, the duo's single "Ride a White Swan" was released. Not only was this their first, it went all the way to Number Two in Britain by the time of this concert.

Not long after the second concert here, in early 1970, T. Rex's sound and image significantly changed. Bolan switched to an electric guitar and was usually backed by a full band. And he began wearing outrageous, daring clothes instead of the hippie-styled clothes he'd been wearing until then. This was considered the birth of the "glam rock" music trend.

This album is an hour and sex minutes long.

01 talk (T. Rex)
02 Hot Rod Mama (T. Rex)
03 talk (T. Rex)
04 Deborah (T. Rex)
05 talk (T. Rex)
06 Pavilions of Sun (T. Rex)
07 talk (T. Rex)
08 Dove (T. Rex)
09 talk (T. Rex)
10 By the Light of the Magical Moon (T. Rex)
11 talk (T. Rex)
12 Elemental Child (T. Rex)
13 talk (T. Rex)
14 The Wizard (T. Rex)
15 talk (T. Rex)
16 Deborah (T. Rex)
17 talk (T. Rex)
18 Elemental Child (T. Rex)
19 talk (T. Rex)
20 Woodland Bop - Conesuala - The King of the Mountain Cometh - Woodland Bop (T. Rex)
21 talk (T. Rex)
22 Ride a White Swan (T. Rex)
23 talk (T. Rex)
24 Jewel (T. Rex)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16189489/TREEX1970_BBSssnsVlum3Lve1970_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Marc Bolan was taken at the Mayfair Club in London in either 1970 or 1970. My guess would be 1970.

T. Rex - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1968-1969

I have a lot to post when it comes to T. Rex and the BBC - six albums in all. So it's time for another.

During the time period of this album, 1968 and 1969, T. Rex was actually known as Tyrannosaurus Rex. But I'm just using "T. Rex" to keep it consistent across all the albums. Also for this time period, the band was a duo consisting of Marc Bolan (who sang and wrote all the songs) and Steve Peregrin Took. 

Like the previous volume, everything here is sourced from the official box set "Marc Bolan at the BBC." Also like that volume, I sometimes edited the songs to remove BBC DJs talking over the music. However, for this album I seem to have not kept track of which songs those were.

Note that tracks 15, 16, and 17 are actually poems spoken by Bolan.

For this album, Bolan was still pursuing the same musical style as on Volume 1. That had a more limited appeal compared to his glam rock style that begins with Volume 3.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Salamanda Palaganda (T. Rex)
02 Eastern Spell (T. Rex)
03 Wind Quartets (T. Rex)
04 The Friends (T. Rex)
05 Conesuala (T. Rex)
06 The Seal of Seasons (T. Rex)
07 Evenings of Damask (T. Rex)
08 The Travelling Tragition (T. Rex)
09 Pewter Suitor (T. Rex)
10 Chariots of Silk (T. Rex)
11 Once upon the Seas of Abyssinia (T. Rex)
12 Nijinsky Hind (T. Rex)
13 The Misty Coast of Albany (T. Rex)
14 Iscariot (T. Rex)
15 A Star of Youth [Poem] (T. Rex)
16 A Ship of Rhythm [Poem] (T. Rex)
17 The Winged Man with Eyes Downcast to the Moon [Poem] (T. Rex)
18 Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart (T. Rex)
19 Pavilions of Sun (T. Rex)
20 A Day Laye (T. Rex)
21 By the Light of the Magical Moon (T. Rex)
22 Wind Cheetah (T. Rex)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16129951/TREEX1968-1969_BBSessonsVlum2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows Bolan and Took. I'm not sure of the details of when and where it was taken.

T. Rex (John's Children and Tyrannosaurus Rex) - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967-1968

I've been reluctant to post BBC material from the British glam band T. Rex, because it's a rare case of the record companies actually doing things correct. In 2013, a six CD box set called "Marc Bolan at the BBC" was released, and it has everything one needs, including all the BBC performances of T. Rex band leader Marc Bolan from the start of his music career until his death. However, I decided to post this because I made a couple of important changes. For one, I removed all of the talking between songs (including many lengthy interviews). And two, I fixed all the instances when BBC DJs talked over the music. If you want all that talking between and over the music, the box sex is there for you. But this is version for the people who just want the music.

Like the box set, I've divided Bolan's BBC recordings into six albums. Here's the first one. This actually predates the existence of "T. Rex" per se. The first three songs are from his first band, John's Children. Then he formed a duo with Steve Porter, who changed his name to Steve Peregrin Took, called "Tyrannosaurus Rex." In early 1970, that name was shortened to just "T. Rex." But for consistency I'm just calling everything "T. Rex."

For pretty much Bolan's entire career, his song were instantly recognizable, due to his unique style. The one partial exception to that was the first band he was in, John's Children. That band had already been in existence for about a year when Bolan joined in 1967, and it already had a lead vocalist, Andy Ellison. Bolan joined only as lead guitarist after the band's guitarist left. So on the first three songs here, Ellison sings more than Bolan does. However, if you listen carefully, Bolan does sing some.

Bolan wrote and sang an excellent song for John's Children, "Desdemona." It was that band's first and only hit. Unfortunately, Bolan was only in the band for four months, and only took part in one BBC session, and they didn't do that song, so it's not here. I have three songs by John's Children at the start, but note they actually played four in their one BBC sessions. But for whatever reason, one of the songs, the cover "Daddy Rolling Stone," sounds significantly worse than the rest. So I've only included that one as a bonus track.

Everything else on this album is by Tyrannosaurus Rex, a.k.a. T. Rex, with Bolan on lead vocals. That's much more distinctive. BBC DJ John Peel was a big fan from early on, and many of these sessions were from Peel's show. In the middle of the song "Frowning Atahuallpa," there's a section where Peel recited some poetry written by Bolan. I kept that in, since it was part of the performance.

Bolan's early stuff is pretty unique, and it's not for everyone. Personally, I'm not that big of fan of this, although I do like a lot of his later stuff, after his style changed some. But I'm posting this for the sake of completeness. And if you are a Bolan fan, all his BBC material is essential, especially since virtually no live recordings exist from this early in his career.

01 Jagged Time Lapse [Edit] (John's Children [T. Rex])
02 The Perfumed Garden of Gulliver Smith (John's Children [T. Rex])
04 Hot Rod Mama [Edit] (John's Children [T. Rex])
05 Highways (T. Rex)
06 Dwarfish Trumpet Blues (T. Rex)
07 Scenescof (T. Rex)
08 Child Star (T. Rex)
09 Pictures of Purple People (T. Rex)
10 Hot Rod Mama (T. Rex)
11 Knight (T. Rex)
12 Frowning Atahuallpa (T. Rex)
13 Strange Orchestras (T. Rex)
14 Afghan Woman (T. Rex)
15 Deborah (T. Rex)
16 Mustang Ford (T. Rex)
17 Stacey Grove (T. Rex)
18 One Inch Rock (T. Rex)

Daddy Rolling Stone [Edit] (John's Children [T. Rex])

https://www.upload.ee/files/16064360/TRexx_1967-1968_BBSessonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover is a photo of John's Children. I thought it would be more interesting to show that than just a picture of Bolan from slightly later on.