Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 1: Bobby McFerrin, Jackson Browne, Journey, Tracy Chapman, and More

On October 25, 1991 rock concert promoter Bill Graham died. The helicopter he was riding in went down in heavy fog as he returned home from a Huey Lewis and the News concert in Concord, California. Also killed were his companion, Melissa Gold, and his pilot, Steve Kahn. Federal investigators later said that Kahn was warned by air traffic controllers not to fly because of inclement weather. Just six days after that, a memorial rock concert for him was held in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco. About 300,000 fans attended. There's enough music from this concert for four albums. Here's the first one.

Graham could be called a music promoter, and that much is true, but he was a lot more than just that. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir called him "the most important non-musician in music." 

He's best known for owning the Fillmore and Winterland concert venues, but that's just a small part of the picture. There's no other promoter who has even come close to having the impact on music that he had, and I believe he's the only promoter inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He helped start and nurture the San Francisco music scene in the late 1960s, and helped a great many musical acts get their big breaks and then stay famous. 

Rabbi Robert Kirschner said of him, "There was a lot more to Bill than the Fillmore and Winterland and associations with the whole pantheon of rock 'n' roll in that era. He was also a visionary. He basically invented the whole idea of 'rock theater,' where you went to a concert for an immersion experience." His concerts were always special. For instance, when went to concerts at the Fillmore in the late 1980s, everyone who went could take home a free concert poster, as well as eat a free apple or two if they wanted. Who else would go the extra mile to improve a concert experience like that?!

And although he could be a ruthless businessman, he also was at the forefront of using music to promote social causes, especially to help fund charities. Neil Young had some moving words to say about that during this concert. "Bill Graham made us all look good. Gave us a chance to show you that we could do something good instead of just going on with our careers. He kept pushing us to do things for other people and making a place available for us to do it, so that there was no way out. Thank you, Bill."

There's a lot more that could be said about Graham and his remarkable career, but I'll direct you to his Wikipedia page for that:

Bill Graham (promoter) - Wikipedia

Suffice to say that he was beloved by many rock musicians, so they showed up for this memorial concert despite having only a couple of days to prepare. I'm sure many, many more would have wanted to play, but there was limited time available. Generally speaking, only the big name acts closest to him were chosen. 

For this first volume out of four, I gathered together all the musical acts that only performed a couple of songs each. Generally speaking, they are in the correct chronological order. However, Robin Williams, Journey, and Tracy Chapman all appeared after the next act, Santana, instead of before it. 

Also, note that I believe I've included all the music from the concert. The concert lasted about five and a half hours. The four volumes I've put together total four hours and fifteen minutes. The difference is the time between the acts.

There was just one non-musical performer at the concert, comedian Robin Williams. Normally, I like to keep things to just the music, but I've made an exception in this case to include his stand-up routine. But I stuck it at the end of this album, making it easier for you to keep it, skip it, or delete it. In fact, he performed just before Journey.

I've leave it to you to find out more about the performers if you want. But I have one comment to make about Journey. From 1977 until 1987, Steve Perry was the lead vocalist of that band. But in 1987, he felt burned out and quit the band. For the next several years, he retreated from the public eye and just tried to live a normal life. But he came out of semi-retirement for this concert. This end up being the last time Perry played with Journey.

You can find an entire article about it here:

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/last-journey-show-steve-perry/ 

Also, here's a Los Angeles Times about this memorial concert, written right after it took place:

Bay Area Plays Tribute to Graham : Memorial: About 300,000 gather for free concert at Golden Gate Park honoring the rock promoter who died 10 days ago in a helicopter crash. - Los Angeles Times 

All the music here is unreleased, I believe. I'm pretty sure the entire concert was broadcast on a local radio station, which is why we have an excellent sounding recording of all of it. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
02 talk (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
03 My Feet Can't Fail Me Now (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
04 talk by emcee (Bobby McFerrin)
05 talk (Bobby McFerrin)
06 Did I Hear You Say You Love Me (Bobby McFerrin)
07 talk (Bobby McFerrin)
08 The Star Spangled Banner (Bobby McFerrin)
09 talk by emcee (Jackson Browne)
10 For a Dancer (Jackson Browne)
11 talk (Jackson Browne)
12 World in Motion (Jackson Browne)
13 talk by emcee (Jackson Browne)
14 talk by emcee (Joe Satriani)
15 Always with Me, Always with You [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
16 talk (Joe Satriani)
17 The Crush of Love [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
18 talk by emcee (Joe Satriani)
19 talk by emcee (Aaron Neville)
20 Ave Maria (Aaron Neville)
21 talk by emcee (Aaron Neville)
22 talk by emcee (Journey)
23 talk (Journey)
24 Faithfully (Journey)
25 Lonely Road without You (Journey)
26 Lights (Journey)
27 talk by emcee (Tracy Chapman)
28 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)
29 Where the Soul Never Dies (Tracy Chapman)
30 talk by emcee (Tracy Chapman)
31 talk by emcee (Robin Williams)
32 Stand-Up Comedy Routine (Robin Williams)
33 talk by emcee (Robin Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BGA5GZ1u

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/XgCnvfog3Ukj8Gr/file

The cover image shows Steve Perry and Neal Schon of Journey at this exact concert. Perry is holding a microphone at the edge of the stage, and Schon is playing guitar. Oh, and I took the "Laughter, Love and Music" logo from a promotional poster for the event.

In Concert Against AIDS, Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, CA, 5-27-1989, Part 3: Tracy Chapman

Here's the third out of four albums I made from the "In Concert Against AIDS" concert in 1989. This one consists of a set by singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman.

By 1989, Chapman was a big star, after her self-titled debut album sold about 20 million copies. At the time of this concert, she was still a few months away from releasing her second album, "Crossroads." A couple of songs she performed, "Subcity" and "All That You Have Is Your Soul," would appear on that album.

None of the other musical acts spoke about AIDS in their banter between songs, but she did. Here's how a Los Angeles Times article at the time put it: "Chapman, known for her pointed avoidance of between-song chatter, told a respectful audience that the occasion demanded talk as well as music. She decried a lack of government commitment to fighting AIDS, then called for listeners to have personal commitment that might lead to change."

Note however that while the other musical acts didn't directly address the issue, there were video presentations between the sets about AIDS, as well as a lot of informational pamphlets handed out, and the like. 

The music is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 50 minutes long.

24 talk by Bill Graham (Tracy Chapman)
25 talk by Danny Glover (Tracy Chapman)
26 Why (Tracy Chapman)
27 She's Got Her Ticket (Tracy Chapman)
28 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
29 talk (Tracy Chapman)
30 Subcity (Tracy Chapman)
31 For You (Tracy Chapman)
32 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
33 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
34 talk (Tracy Chapman)
35 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)
36 Talkin' bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uEoyX6dx

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/K2KcpYBo4tsDdKK/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Tracy Chapman & Natalie Merchant - Donmar Warehouse, London, Britain, 3-25-1988

I'm extra psyched to be presenting this album. It's actually two acoustic sets making up one concert. The first half features Natalie Merchant when she was still the lead singer for the band 10,000 Maniacs, and the second features Tracy Chapman. They're linked by a duet, but also by more, as I will explain. 

I had been aware of this concert for a long time. I put the duet of Merchant and Chapman singing " Where the Soul Never Dies" on a stray tracks album a few years ago, in fact. But I never considered posting it because I thought the sound quality was a little lacking. However, with the improvements in audio editing technology in recent years, I thought I'd give it a try. I think it sounds very good.

Before I say more about the recording, let me share the interesting story behind how this concert came to be. 

In 1987, Tracy Chapman was a struggling musician living in Boston, performing in small clubs and sometimes on street corners. But that year, she finally got her big break and got signed to a major record label, Elektra Records. Meanwhile, Natalie Merchant was becoming a star as the main singer and songwriter for the band 10,000 Maniacs. In the summer of 1987, they released their third album, "In My Tribe." It made the Top Forty in the U.S. album charts, putting them on the map as a nationwide popular act.

It so happened that 10,000 Maniacs was also signed to Elektra Records. One day, in late 1987, she discovered a demo tape of some of Chapman's songs while visiting the record company's New York City office. She was very impressed, so much so that she actually cried from being emotionally moved by the songs. In late 1987 and early 1988, Chapman recorded her debut album. It would be released in April 1988 under the title "Tracy Chapman." 

Then, in late February 1988, Elektra Records had Chapman perform a special concert in Boston to help build anticipation for her upcoming album. Even though only 150 people could fit in the club, lots of journalists and music industry insiders were invited. Merchant heard about the concert. She was so interested in that demo tape she'd heard that she flew to the concert and met Chapman after the show. Merchant later said, "I felt a kinship because her record was made from the soul rather than to make money. There was similarity between us in the lyrical sentiment and musical quality." A few days later, Merchant sent Chapman a copy of her "In My Tribe," album, and the two began communicating.

This soon led to Merchant inviting Chapman to a concert in London the following month. Actually, it was two concerts, on March 24th and 25th, both at the Donmar Warehouse, which only held about 200 people. This was designed to introduce Chapman to a European audience, as she'd never performed outside the U.S. before. At this point, Merchant had never really done any solo concerts, only concerts with 10,000 Maniacs. But she pushed herself to perform solo in order to help Chapman promote her upcoming album in this way. And even though Merchant was a star and Chapman was an unknown, Merchant opened the concert to help give Chapman a bigger spotlight. The effort worked, because some British journalists attended one or both of the concerts and started to spread word about her music in Britain. Chapman then played a few more solo concerts in Britain, opening for John Martyn, before returning to the U.S.

When Chapman's debut album was released in April 1988, it was out of step with the musical trends of the time. So at first, it did reasonably well, but not great. The album sold 250,000 copies by June. That month, she got to take part in a concert honoring Nelson Mandela that was broadcast worldwide. That caused her sales to skyrocket. A couple of months later, her album reached Number One in the U.S. album chart. Eventually, it went on to sell over 20 million copies. It also helped open the door for many other acoustic-based singer-songwriter types.

So it turns out this concert (and the one at the same venue the day before) was important for both Merchant and Chapman. For Merchant, it was the start of her doing solo work, though it would still be a few years before she left 10,000 Maniacs. And for Chapman, it helped build her reputation at a key time, when her debut album was still a few weeks away from being released.

Merchant further helped Chapman by having her be the opening act for 10,000 Maniacs for a few months, back before the Nelson Mandela concert. Merchant later commented, "She certainly doesn't need any help from me in retrospect. I played with her in England and had her tour with us to get my crowd to see her rather than have her relegated to women's bins or folk bins in the stores. When she toured with us not many people had heard the album, but people sat completely enthralled and she got standing ovations most nights." 

Thanks to this essay, where I found much of the information here:

https://tracychapmanonline.substack.com/p/tracy-chapman-natalie-merchant-10000-maniacs 

Now, let's get to this recording. I found recordings of the two sets separately, and put them together. But I'm sure they're from the same source. It's an audience bootleg, but a pretty good one. Because the crowd was small, there was almost no crowd noise during the songs. However, the big problem that stopped me from posting this in the past was hiss. So I tried something new. MVSEP has a conversion setting called "Denoise." I tried it, and it did a really great job of getting rid of the hiss, even during the songs, while keeping everything else. This works better than "noise reduction," which often harms the music. 

So that fixed most of the problem. However, the sound of Merchant's set was a bit rougher. The songs sounded pretty good, but the banter was often hard to understand. So I ran the talking tracks through Adobe's "Enhance Speech" program, which specifically helps with the clarity of speech. That helped a lot. The one remaining problem after that was that the first minute or so of Chapman's "For My Lover" was missing. Luckily, that song has some repetition in it, and the verses that were lost were repeated later in the song. So I just copied parts of the song to fill in the missing portion. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

On a final note, some of the songs performed in this concert still haven't been officially released. "After Talking to Myself" by Natalie Merchant has been performed in concert a few times, but it's not even known what the song title is. And Chapman played some songs that would show up on her second album "Crossroads," like "Born to Fight" and "This Time," plus, "If I" and "Be My Baby," which remain unreleased. And their duet of the traditional song "Where the Soul Never Dies" also remains unreleased by both of them.

This album is an hour and 38 minutes long. The Natalie Merchant set is 43 minutes long, and the Tracy Chapman one is 56 minutes long. (Also, just as a nitpicky thing, some versions of this bootleg I've seen list March 20th as the date, but I believe the more accurate date is there were two shows, on March 24th and 25th, and this is from the 25th.)

By the way, note that on the same day I'm posting this, I've added three songs to the Chapman "Acoustic Demos" album I made. All three of them are still unreleased songs recorded way back in 1986, in great sound quality, so you really should give those a listen. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/10/tracy-chapman-acoustic-demos-1986-1988.html 

01 talk (Natalie Merchant)
02 A Campfire Song (Natalie Merchant)
03 talk (Natalie Merchant)
04 Gun Shy (Natalie Merchant)
05 talk (Natalie Merchant)
06 Everyone a Puzzle Lover (Natalie Merchant)
07 talk (Natalie Merchant)
08 Don't Talk (Natalie Merchant)
09 talk (Natalie Merchant)
10 The Painted Desert (Natalie Merchant)
11 talk (Natalie Merchant)
12 Lilydale (Natalie Merchant)
13 What's the Matter Here (Natalie Merchant)
14 Maddox Table (Natalie Merchant)
15 talk (Natalie Merchant)
16 Verdi Cries (Natalie Merchant)
17 talk (Natalie Merchant)
18 Like the Weather (Natalie Merchant)
19 After Talking to Myself (Natalie Merchant)
20 talk (Tracy Chapman)
21 Why (Tracy Chapman)
22 If I (Tracy Chapman)
23 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
24 This Time (Tracy Chapman)
25 Behind the Wall (Tracy Chapman)
26 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
27 talk (Tracy Chapman)
28 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
29 talk (Tracy Chapman)
30 If Not Now (Tracy Chapman)
31 For My Lover [Edit] (Tracy Chapman)
32 Born to Fight (Tracy Chapman)
33 talk (Tracy Chapman)
34 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
35 talk (Tracy Chapman)
36 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
37 talk (Tracy Chapman)
38 Be My Baby (Tracy Chapman)
39 Where the Soul Never Dies (Tracy Chapman & Natalie Merchant)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/X4dRftSL

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/SojSNsOlHUBpier/file

The cover photo of Merchant and Chapman is from this time period, though I don't know the exact details. The background was white, but I used Photoshop to change it to black. I also used Krea AI to improve the image quality.

Tracy Chapman - Austin City Limits, Zilker Metropolitan Park, Austin, TX, 8-3-2003

Tracy Chapman was massively popular in the late 1980s and through much of the 1990s. Her debut album "Tracy Chapman" sold about 20 million copies worldwide, and her 1995 album "New Beginning" sold five million copies in the US alone. But strangely, I've found it very difficult to find any concert recordings at a soundboard level after about 1991. That's not helped by the fact that she's never released a live album. I've previously posted a 2008 concert by her, but that was just a very good audience bootleg. Finally, I've found a worthy later live recording, and here it is.

The reason this sounds so good is because it's from the TV show "Austin City Limits." It seems to me Chapman didn't do a lot of the usual promotional appearances most music stars do. She wasn't that interested in fame, and in fact he music career pretty much stopped altogether after about 2008, with no more album releases or tours from then until now (as I write this in late 2023). But I came across an article about this concert that said the producer of "Austin City Limits" was a big fan of Chapman's music, and pushed hard to get her on the show.

This concert remains unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. Unfortunately though, it looks like it was edited down to fit in a one hour time slot. There also is no banter, except for one extended discussion she had about seeing seeing bats in Austin, of all things.

I'm not a fan of a lot of Chapman's studio albums after the first couple. I often don't like the production, which seemed to be moving in the dreaded "adult contemporary" direction, and a few weak songs would drag down the good ones. But in this concert she played a mix of newer (at the time) songs with the well known ones mostly from her debut album, and I think all the songs here are really good. This was why I was keen to hear an excellent sounding concert from her later years, to put her later songs in a better way. 

By the way, the full video of this concert is available on YouTube if you want to watch it and not just hear it. And if you have other concerts from her of this caliber from after 1911, please let me know so I can share them.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Say Hallelujah (Tracy Chapman)
02 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
03 Smoke and Ashes (Tracy Chapman)
04 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
05 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
06 Another Sun (Tracy Chapman)
07 talk (Tracy Chapman)
08 Telling Stories (Tracy Chapman)
09 You're the One (Tracy Chapman)
10 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
11 Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman)
12 I Am Yours (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Q3PMBnkU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/TMnqIVRkxz1w4B1/file

The cover is a screenshot I took of a YouTube video of this exact concert. In January 2025, I sharpened it a bit with the Krea AI program.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 2 - Tracy Chapman

This album continues right where the previous one left off. That's because these are different sets from a benefit concert that was five and a half hours long. The first set mainly featured Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour. This one is Tracy Chapman's set. The next three are the sets of Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen.

I explained the basics about this concert in Part 1, the Youssou N'Dour set. Read that if you want to know more, including a Wikipedia link about the tour. But the gist is that these artists got together for a short world tour to promote the work of the non-profit Amnesty International and its campaigns against human rights abuses.

Chapman was a natural fit for such a concert, since she's often sung about political and social issues. But note that this concert came very early in her career. Her debut album "Tracy Chapman" was released in April 1988. It would go on to sell about 20 million copies! This concert only took place about six months after that album's release.

One interesting thing about this concert is that there doesn't seem to have been an emcee. Instead, each artist was introduced by the previous one. So the first track here is the introduction by Youssou N'Dour.

As I mentioned in my Part 1 write-up, there has been an official album of this concert, but it's only a double album, so it merely contains highlights from the full show, which is over five and a half hours long. Luckily, a soundboard bootleg of the entire thing exists, and the sound quality here is excellent.

This album is 33 minutes long. For whatever reason, Chapman's set is the shortest. All of the songs are from her debut album except "Freedom Now," which would go on her second album. She mostly played solo acoustic, even doing one song acappella. However, Branford Marsalis contributed a saxophone solo on one song.

Since I consider this to be a part of the entire concert, I've had the track number start with 14, so you can put all the parts together in one folder and have them be in the proper order.

14 talk by Youssou N'Dour (Tracy Chapman)
15 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
16 Why (Tracy Chapman)
17 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
18 Behind the Wall (Tracy Chapman)
19 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
20 talk (Tracy Chapman)
21 Freedom Now (Tracy Chapman)
22 Mountain O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
23 Talkin' Bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451322/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part2-_TrcyChapmn.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.

Various Artists - Bridge School Benefit 1988, Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA, 12-4-1988

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm a big fan of the annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts, and I recently was given soundboard versions of most of the complete shows from 1988 to 1999. All I had of the 1986 show with excellent sound quality was the Bruce Springsteen set, which I just posted. But I have the entire 1988 show, so here it is. There has been a very good audience bootleg circulating for years, so good that one might even mistake it for a soundboard. But this is an actual soundboard and it sounds even better than that other version.

I have a particular fondness for this show, because it was one of the first concerts I attended, when I was a teenager. Consider the list of performers: Neil Young, Nils Lofgren, Billy Idol, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir (the two leaders of the Grateful Dead), Tom P. and the Heartbreakers, Tracy Chapman, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). The vast majority of those are musical legends, in my book. 

The one artist that the crowd looked at skeptically was Billy Idol, because all the performances were supposed to be acoustic or at least semi-acoustic in nature and one doesn't think of "Billy Idol" and "acoustic" in the same sentence. But he played a genuinely acoustic set and get a good reaction.

The soundboard recording was generally great, but it had some problems. I mostly fixed them. The most glaring problem was that portions of two songs were missing: "Comes a Time" by Neil Young and "Gates of Eden" by Bob Dylan. Luckily, I had that very good audience bootleg I mentioned above. I used that to patch in the missing bits, which is why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. I also used that audience bootleg to fill in some other missing bits, such as intros to a couple of the performers. (The voice making the intros belongs to actor Timothy Hutton.) But some intros either didn't happen or are missing from both versions, for instance with Bob Dylan's set. With Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the recording cut in part way through the artist name in both versions, only a couple seconds apart.

One great thing about soundboards is that the songs are clear because there's very little crowd noise. But, taken to extremes, that can be weird when there's almost no cheering when the songs end. Strangely, there was a lot of variability with the crowd noise in this soundboard recording: sometimes the cheering sounded normal, and other times there was almost no cheering heard at all, especially at the ends of sets. So I used the audience bootleg version to patch in more applause whenever necessary, using the actual applause from that song. As a result, the applause may vary a bit from song to song, with some guess work on my part as to how loud the reaction actually was, but there should be a decent crowd response after each and every song.

Another thing I did was trim some dead air. For instance, the Tom P. set started with over a minute of guitar tuning. (I'm not using his full name due to copyright issues.) I cut all that out. I also cut back on some of the cheering. For instance, the applause might go on for two minutes after a set ended, but I'd cut that after only a minute. I figured this concert was long enough as it is.

Note that Neil Young, who brought the concert together along with his wife Pegi Young, played a short set to start the show. On the last number, "American Dream," Crosby, Stills and Nash walked onto stage during the song to sing harmony vocals. That's why you get a huge surge of applause partway through the song, even on the soundboard version, because the audience recognized who they were. Then Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young came back to do the last set of the night. By the way, I've previously posted the CSNYset at this blog, together with their 1986 Bridge School Benefit show. I'm keeping that post up if you just want their set.

Here's some other random notes. Billy Idol was backed by a couple other musicians, but still basically had an acoustic sound. Bob Dylan was assisted only by guitarist G. E. Smith. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead were also assisted by bassist Rob Wasserman. When Tom P. performed at the 1986 Bridge School Benefit, it was just him on stage. But this time he was assisted by all of his backing band, the Heartbreakers. So that was more of a semi-acoustic set, especially due to the presence of some drumming. Also, if you look closely at the credits, you'll see that Neil Young backed Nils Lofgren for a song, and Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir for a song. He played harmonica and sang backing vocals. Finally, Tracy Chapman and Nils Lofgren joined CSNY for the very last song, "Teach Your Children."

This album is three hours and 52 minutes long. That makes it the longest album I've posted at this blog so far, beating out a 1975 Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder concert by only one minute. Currently, I'm only offering it as a single download. But if there's a demand to break this up into pieces, I could do that too.

01 talk (Neil Young)
02 Comes a Time [Edit] (Neil Young)
03 Sugar Mountain (Neil Young)
04 This Note's for You (Neil Young)
05 talk (Neil Young)
06 American Dream (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
07 talk (Nils Lofgren)
08 Dreams Die Hard (Nils Lofgren)
09 talk (Nils Lofgren)
10 Live Each Day (Nils Lofgren)
11 Believe (Nils Lofgren with Neil Young)
12 talk (Nils Lofgren)
13 Keith Don't Go (Nils Lofgren)
14 No Mercy (Nils Lofgren)
15 talk (Billy Idol)
16 Untouchables (Billy Idol)
17 talk (Billy Idol)
18 Sweet Sixteen (Billy Idol)
19 talk (Billy Idol)
20 Bo Diddley (Billy Idol)
21 talk (Billy Idol)
22 To Be a Lover (Billy Idol)
23 talk (Billy Idol)
24 Prodigal Blues (Billy Idol)
25 San Francisco Bay Blues (Bob Dylan)
26 Pretty Boy Floyd (Bob Dylan)
27 With God on Our Side (Bob Dylan)
28 Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)
29 Gates of Eden [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
30 Forever Young (Bob Dylan)
31 talk (Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir)
32 Wang Dang Doodle (Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir with Neil Young)
33 Friend of the Devil (Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir)
34 Throwing Stones (Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir)
35 Ripple (Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir)
36 Even the Losers (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
37 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
38 Blue Moon of Kentucky (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
39 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
40 The Wild One, Forever (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
41 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
42 Refugee (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
43 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
44 Don't Come Around Here Anymore (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
45 The Waiting (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
46 talk (Tracy Chapman)
47 If Not Now (Tracy Chapman)
48 What Child Is This (Tracy Chapman)
49 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
50 Mountain O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
51 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)
52 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 Helplessly Hoping (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
56 This Old House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
58 Southern Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
59 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
60 Don't Say Goodbye (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
61 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
62 Compass (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
63 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
64 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
65 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
66 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Tracy Chapman & Nils Lofgren)

UPDATE: On June 8, 2023, the link has been removed due to a request by people associated with the Bridge School Benefits. Sorry about that.

The cover is the promotional poster for this concert. I cropped it and stretched it horizontally a bit to get it to fully fit into a square shape.

Tracy Chapman - WMFO Studio, Tufts University, Medford, MA, 1-2-1984

Here's something I'm excited to present.  In 1988, Tracy Chapman's debut album, simply called "Tracy Chapman," was released. It was an instant classic, going on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of several dozen of the best selling albums of all time. I think that album and her second one are by far her best albums. Over the years, I got the suspicion that she had dozens of songs she'd written in the 1980s that she never released. Even decades later, there haven't been any archival releases or deluxe editions or the like. I've posted an album of unreleased songs she played in concert from 1988 to 1991, which I called "Where the Soul Never Dies," and in my opinion that also is some of her best work. But almost no recordings of her prior to her 1988 debut have been publicly available.

Until now, that is. I recently came across this radio show on a torrent site of concerts bootlegs. It was from earlier this year (2021), so maybe it hasn't been publicly available prior to that. I don't know, but it's been extremely low profile in any case. Even now, if you Google anything about this show, almost nothing comes up. 

That really surprises me, because it's great! It dates all the way back to 1984, four years prior to her debut album, at a time when she was a musical unknown. But it's as I suspected: this early work of hers is some of her best. There are many unreleased songs by her, and they are really good. Consider this includes songs like "Talkin' about a Revolution" and "Baby Can I Hold You," two of the most popular songs on that debut album that sold all those millions of copies. She clearly had serious songwriting skills even prior to 1984. But those two, plus "Born to Fight," which would appear on her second album, are the only songs to be released later. There's another 12 songs still unreleased. I think Chapman is making a big mistake keeping all this early work of hers unreleased and unheard.

At the time, Chapman was a student at Tufts University, and WMFO was the college radio station. It sounds like one of the DJs had her on for about an hour, interviewing her and letting her play her songs on acoustic guitar. I've edited this slightly to remove some of the unnamed DJ's comments, while keeping all of Chapman's comments. Her talking is interesting, but the vast majority of the time is her singing and playing her songs. Most of them are pretty short, so she manages to do 15 songs in only 42 minutes, including time for the talking too.

I made a few minor changes to improve the listening experience. There was a certain amount of hiss throughout the show. I used noise reduction to greatly reduce that, but only during the talking tracks. Then, in a 2026 revision, I used the MVSEP's program "denoise" function to get rid of the noise for the songs as well.

Also, whoever recorded the show clearly turned the tape recorder off and on between songs sometimes. I strongly suspect there's more talking that got lost. I know this because sometimes the recording stopped in mid-sentence. I made some edits to salvage as much of Chapman's comments as possible. For instance, if she said, "...is a song I wrote..." and from context one can figure out she started the sentence with "This," I would find another instance from the show when she said "this," and patch it into the sentence, allowing one to her "This is a song I wrote..." I'm pretty sure I made these edits so carefully that you won't even notice them.

Anyway, if you're a Tracy Chapman fan at all, this is a must have. The sound quality is surprisingly good for being something this early in her career. Plus, you have all those unreleased songs. I believe two of those songs are also included in different versions on my early stray tracks album "Where the Soul Never Dies" mentioned above, "My Sweet One," and "Missile Blues." But the other ten don't seem to even have been bootlegged on anything else. 

That makes me think there probably are even more quality early original songs of hers that remain frustratingly obscure. If you know of others than the ones here and on "Where the Soul Never Dies," please let me know so I can hopefully share them with others. 

UPDATE: On January 26, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. The song list is the same. However, I ran all of the songs through the MVSEP "denoise" filter, to get rid of hiss. I think they sound better now.

01 talk (Tracy Chapman)
02 My Sweet One (Tracy Chapman)
03 talk (Tracy Chapman)
04 Born to Fight (Tracy Chapman)
05 talk (Tracy Chapman)
06 Stormy Skies (Tracy Chapman)
07 talk (Tracy Chapman)
08 This Joy Called Love (Tracy Chapman)
09 talk (Tracy Chapman)
10 Missile Blues (Tracy Chapman)
11 talk (Tracy Chapman)
12 Tell Me Why (Tracy Chapman)
13 talk (Tracy Chapman)
14 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
15 talk (Tracy Chapman)
16 When the Sun Goes Down (Tracy Chapman)
17 Beauty Is My Slave (Tracy Chapman)
18 talk (Tracy Chapman)
19 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
20 talk (Tracy Chapman)
21 Box Car Willy (Tracy Chapman)
22 talk (Tracy Chapman)
23 So Long (Tracy Chapman)
24 talk (Tracy Chapman)
25 Knocking (Tracy Chapman)
26 Everybody's Looking (Tracy Chapman)
27 talk (Tracy Chapman)
28 Suicide (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2rYAmvqh

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/melcZZpJdFX6Lqf/file

As I mentioned, I'm very psyched to find this early music of hers, so it's only fitting that I had another stroke of luck and found a worthy early photo to use as the cover art. By chance, the only really early photo of her I could find is from a 1984 newspaper article about her. It was in black and white, so I colorized it. There also were some large letters on that big white piece of paper on the wall behind her. It wasn't enough to make sure what was written there, but I found the letters distracting, so I used Photoshop to make them disappear.

In January 2025, I used the Krea AI program to improve the image.

Tracy Chapman - Kulturpalast, Dresden, Germany, 11-20-2008

For a long time, I've been looking for a good bootleg Tracy Chapman concert that takes place after 1991. From 1988 to 1991, Chapman sold millions and millions of copies of her first two albums. But her popularity declined a lot after that, and I've found it next to impossible to find good concert bootlegs for those later years. Happily, a big Chapman fan recently contacted me and sent me this concert.

In my opinion, one big reason for Chapman's loss of popularity after her first two albums has to do with production. The later albums all had a boring "middle of the road" or "adult contemporary" gloss put on the songs that made them tend to sound the same. Whereas her early albums had much more of a stark, acoustic sound that fitted the songs a lot better. It turns out that in 2008, Chapman had a solo acoustic tour for the first time in nearly 20 years. This concert comes from that tour. As a result, it allows one to hear her later songs in a way that avoids the production issues.

This is an audience recording. But wait! It sounds great! Sometimes, a well recorded audience bootleg can sound every bit as good as a soundboard, and this is one of those times. The only snag was some volume issues. Namely, her voice was way too quiet in the talking between songs, and the audience clapping was way too loud at the end of songs. But I fixed both of those things by simply adjusting the volume levels for different parts of the recording.

The songs are a good mix between her early well known hits and her later stuff, which as I said above, sounds as good as the early stuff in this solo acoustic format. All of the songs are originals, except for the covers "Stand by Me" and "The House of the Rising Sun." The concert is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
02 talk (Tracy Chapman)
03 Sing for You (Tracy Chapman)
04 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
05 Crossroads (Tracy Chapman)
06 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)
07 talk (Tracy Chapman)
08 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
09 The Promise (Tracy Chapman)
10 talk (Tracy Chapman)
11 Our Bright Future (Tracy Chapman)
12 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
13 talk (Tracy Chapman)
14 Stand by Me (Tracy Chapman)
15 The House of Rising Sun (Tracy Chapman)
16 talk (Tracy Chapman)
17 Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman)
18 Save Us All (Tracy Chapman)
19 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
20 talk (Tracy Chapman)
21 She's Got Her Ticket (Tracy Chapman)
22 talk (Tracy Chapman)
23 Behind the Wall (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288240/TracyC_2008_KlturpalastDresdnGermany__11-20-2008_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find a photo from the exact concert in question for the covert art. However, this one is close in time. It comes from a concert in London that took place the same month as the Dresden one.

Tracy Chapman - Gothic Theatre, Englewood, CO, 2-19-1991

With all the protests about police brutality and racial injustice in the US lately, I've found myself listening to some of my old Tracy Chapman albums. She's got a lot of songs that deal directly with those issues, such as "Across the Lines" and "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution."

I've long felt that, after her first two albums, which were well done and sold many millions, Chapman's musical career was mishandled by her and/or her record company. One puzzler is that she's never released a live album. This could have been that album.

Part of the mishandling of Chapman's career, in my opinion, is that if anyone excels in the solo acoustic format, it's her. But after her first two albums, her other albums gave virtually all her songs a full-band production that made them sound generic and all too similar to each other. This concert, by contrast, is solo acoustic. That allows her lyrics and emotions to stand out.

Four of the songs are from her album "Matters of the Heart," which would come out one year after this concert. That album suffered from the production issues mentioned above, but those songs sound much better in this format. Two more songs, "Still I Cry" and "Missile Blues," have never been released. That another mishandling - she has lots of good songs that were inexplicably never released. I've included those two exact performances on my stray tracks collection "Where the Soul Never Dies" as well. The rest of the songs come from her first two albums.

This is a soundboard bootleg, and the sound quality is fantastic. She rarely spoke between songs, but when she did, I made those separate tracks and boosted the volume. The concert is an hour and two minutes long.

As an aside, I'm surprised by the lack of Tracy Chapman bootlegs on the Internet. I've only been able to find a few, and they all come from her commercial peak of 1988 to 1991. If you have any others, please let me know. Due to the production issues I mentioned above, I'd love to hear a good solo acoustic concert from later in her career. I'm also especially looking for the song "If I...", which is an original song from her first few years that she sometimes played live.

01 talk (Tracy Chapman)
02 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
03 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
04 Still I Cry (Tracy Chapman)
05 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
06 Open Arms (Tracy Chapman)
07 You Were in Love (Tracy Chapman)
08 Crossroads (Tracy Chapman)
09 If These Are the Things (Tracy Chapman)
10 talk (Tracy Chapman)
11 Dreaming on a World (Tracy Chapman)
12 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
13 Short Supply (Tracy Chapman)
14 talk (Tracy Chapman)
15 Missile Blues (Tracy Chapman)
16 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
17 All that You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288247/TracyC_1991_GthicTheatreEnglwoodCO__2-19-1991_atse.zip.html

I searched but didn't find any good photos of Chapman on stage in 1991. However, I found a nice one of her at a Nelson Mandela tribute concert in 1990, so I used that.

Tracy Chapman - Where the Soul Never Dies - Non-Album Tracks (1988-1991)

In 1988, Tracy Chapman released one of the most remarkable debut albums of all time, simply titled "Tracy Chapman." It went on to sell nearly 20 million copies. Wouldn't it be great if she'd done another album just like that, which hasn't been made public until now?

Well, that's kind of the case with this album. It turns out that Chapman actually wrote many songs prior to her first album, and just about all of them have remained unreleased. I remember some years ago, when I was putting this album together, lists of dozens of her songs from before 1988, nearly all of which have never even been bootlegged. Hopefully, someday she'll be willing to share what she has in her private archives. In the meantime, luckily, there are an album's worth of songs that have been bootlegged, and even more luckily, nearly all of them were recorded in very high quality.

Are these songs as good as the ones on her debut album? Unfortunately, no. But still, I prefer these over the songs on most of her later albums. Eight of the songs here are Chapman originals. The rest are generally covers of all-time classics ("Imagine," "A Change Is Gonna Come," "Amazing Grace") or lesser known covers ("Where the Soul Never Dies" and "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles"). I included her song "Give Me One Reason," which would become a big hit for her in 1995, because this song is done in solo acoustic style.

Unfortunately, for one song, "When We Talk," I could only find a version with middling sound quality. So I've added that as a bonus track at the end.

01 Where the Soul Never Dies (Natalie Merchant & Tracy Chapman)
02 No Time (Tracy Chapman)
03 Why You Do Me Wrong (Tracy Chapman)
04 Be My Baby (Tracy Chapman)
05 Sweet One (Tracy Chapman)
06 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles [Leaving Blues] (Tracy Chapman)
07 Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman)
08 What Child Is This (Tracy Chapman)
09 A Change Is Gonna Come (Tracy Chapman)
10 Missile Blues (Tracy Chapman)
11 Still I Cry (Tracy Chapman)
12 Imagine (Tracy Chapman)
13 Amazing Grace (Tracy Chapman)

When We Talk (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15126433/TracyC_1988-1991_WheretheSoulNevrDies_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used the cover to the "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" single, and changed the text.

Tracy Chapman - Acoustic Demos (1986-1988)

Tracy Chapman burst onto the musical world in 1988, with her debut album eventually selling nearly 20 million copies. For a long time, pristine acoustic demos of five Chapman songs have been floating around the Internet. The demos are of unknown origin, but they appear to date from 1986. I also found one more acoustic demo from 1986, apparently from a very obscure compilation album.

Those six songs make up a nice listen, but one that's only about 20 minutes long. I couldn't find any other early demos. However, I found two more acoustic songs from 1986, both of them still officially unreleased in any form until today. "My Sweet One" and "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Leaving Blues)" come from an appearance on a local TV show called "Dead Air Live." There was a little audience noise, but I removed it with the help of the MVSEP audio editing program.

So, that makes up half an hour of music from 1986. I thought that was still a little short for an album. I did knew of two 1988 solo acoustic concert bootlegs that have such great sound that you could practically hear a pin drop. So I edited some songs from those shows by removing the audience noise, to make it seem they were more demos. And when I mean edit, I really mean edit. I aggressively removed every shriek and clap I could find, even in the middle of songs, by patching in bits from other parts of the songs.

I'm very happy with the results. I think a listener wouldn't be able to tell that some of these are studio demos and others are from a concert bootleg, because they all have the same excellent crowd-free sound quality. But give it a listen and decide for yourself.

This album contains every song from her 1988 debut album, "Tracy Chapman," except for one (the vocals-only "Behind the Wall") as well as four songs from her second album, "Crossroads." Both albums have fairly minimalistic arrangements on them, for the most part, but still, it's interesting to hear these songs done with just Chapman's unique voice and her acoustic guitar.

Additionally, there's two bonus tracks. One of them is an interview she did for the "Dead Air Live" TV show, apparently at the same time she performed the two songs here for that show. However, it seems the questions have been taken out, so it's just her talking the entire time. There was a lot of hiss on the recording, but I removed that with the MVSEP program.

The second one is a version of "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Leaving Blues)." (If indeed that is the title. Does anybody know for sure?) I found two interesting versions from 1986, and since there's so little music from her prior to her first album, I figured I should include both versions. So the slightly lower quality one got bonus track status. This bonus version is from a YouTube video I found of an performance she did for the National Women's Music Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Unfortunately, if she did any other songs then, I couldn't find them.

This album is 55 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

UPDATE: On October 29, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I added "My Sweet One" and two versions of "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Leaving Blues)," plus the bonus interview track. I only discovered them later.

01 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
02 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
03 This Time (Tracy Chapman)
04 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
05 For You (Tracy Chapman)
06 My Sweet One (Tracy Chapman)
07 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles [Leaving Blues] (Tracy Chapman)
08 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
09 Material World (Tracy Chapman)
10 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
11 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
12 She's Got Her Ticket (Tracy Chapman)
13 Born to Fight (Tracy Chapman)
14 Why (Tracy Chapman)
15 If Not Now... (Tracy Chapman)
16 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)

interview (Tracy Chapman)
Troubles, Troubles, Troubles [Leaving Blues] (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XV8NFUGd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/MF3RDFMPpRIIME3/file

I found a photo of Chapman busking in Harvard Square, Boston, in 1985, and I couldn't resist using it here.