Howlin' Wolf with Detroit Junior - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-23-1973

Enjoy your daily dose of Ebbets Field radio broadcasts while they last. Here's a concert by blues legend Howlin' Wolf. I've been wanting to post some music from his for ages, but I didn't have anything I considered worthy. Now, finally, I do. However, be mindful that only the second half of this recording actually features Howlin' Wolf. The first half mostly stars another blues musician, Detroit Junior.

It's important to keep in mind that Howlin' Wolf's health was in a bad way by the time this concert happened. He was only 62 years old in 1973. Sure, that's old, but not so old compared to some blues musicians. For instance, B.B. King performed over 300 concerts a year well into his 80s, and kept touring until one year before his death at the age of 89. But starting in 1969, Wolf had a number of serious health issues. He had a heart attack that year. The next year, he got in a serious car accident that forced him to be on dialysis for the rest of his life. Then in 1971, he had another heart attack. His blood pressure and kidneys kept getting worse. Despite all that, he kept touring occasionally and even increased the number of concerts he did in 1973. He would keep touring in 1974 and 1975 until his health issues just got to be too much. He died in early 1976 at the age of 65.

Due to these many problems, his band leader Eddie Shaw put his foot down and limited Wolf to just six songs per concert. In this concert he only did five songs, but one of them, "Goin' Down Slow," lasted over nine minutes, so that easily counted for two.

I don't want to summarize Wolf's entire career. Here's Wikipedia for that:

Howlin' Wolf - Wikipedia 

Unfortunately, only performing six songs that last a total of about 30 minutes isn't good value for a typical concert-goer, even if it was to see a blues legend. So that's why the first half of the concert was dominated by Wolf's backing band, especially singer and pianist Detroit Junior (birth name Emery Williams, Jr.). He was a reasonably well known blues figure in his own right. Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Detroit Junior - Wikipedia

Someone else worth a mention is Hubert Sumlin. He didn't do any singing in this concert, but he was the lead guitarist. He joined Wolf's band in 1954, and was basically his musical right hand man for the rest of Wolf's life. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 43 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Here's his entry:

Hubert Sumlin - Wikipedia

Although Wolf's health was failing, he still sounded exactly like you'd expect. In my opinion, 1973 was his last good year before his health problems started to be really noticeable in his music. That was the year he released his last studio album, "The Back Door Wolf," which is an album I quite like.  

This album is 58 minutes long. Just the Howlin' Wolf portion is 28 minutes. 

01 talk by emcee (Detroit Junior)
02 Talk to My Baby (Detroit Junior)
03 talk (Detroit Junior)
04 I Can't Stop Loving You [Instrumental] (Detroit Junior)
05 talk (Detroit Junior)
06 Your Love Is Creeping Away from Me (Detroit Junior)
07 talk (Detroit Junior)
08 Baby Workout (Detroit Junior)
09 talk (Detroit Junior)
10 How Blue Can You Get (Detroit Junior)
11 talk (Detroit Junior)
12 What'd I Say (Detroit Junior)
13 talk (Detroit Junior)
14 Little Red Rooster (Howlin' Wolf)
15 Going Down Slow [Edit] (Howlin' Wolf)
16 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
17 Killing Floor (Howlin' Wolf)
18 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
19 Shake for Me (Howlin' Wolf)
20 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
21 Goodbye Instrumental (Howlin' Wolf)
22 talk by emcee (Howlin' Wolf)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qzeCBjBo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uOMFPh1ttZRG1L6/file

The cover image is from a concert at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, in the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans, on April 12, 1973.

Little Feat - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 7-19-1973, Late Show

Yesterday, I posted Little Feat's early show at the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, in 1973. This is the late show.

As I mentioned in my write-up for the early show, it seems this one was the one that was actually broadcast live on a local radio station at the time. The emcee at the end of the early show told the people leaving they could hear the late show with their car radios as they drove home. But this show lacks the usual expected encore because the band was opening for Zephyr, and had run out of time. (Zephyr broke up around 1970, but did a few reunion shows in the Denver area around this time.)

There's some overlap in song selection between the early shows and late shows, with five songs being played in both. But five songs were only played in the early show: "Hamburger Midnight," "On Your Way Down," "Willin'," "Cold, Cold, Cold," and "Fat Man in the Bathtub." Meanwhile, six songs were only played in the late show: "A Apolitical Blues," "The Fan," "Texas Rose Cafe," "Snakes on Everything," "Cat Fever," and "Sailin' Shoes."

This album is an hour long.

01 talk (Little Feat)
02 A Apolitical Blues (Little Feat)
03 Two Trains (Little Feat)
04 Got No Shadow (Little Feat)
05 The Fan (Little Feat)
06 talk (Little Feat)
07 Texas Rose Cafe (Little Feat)
08 talk (Little Feat)
09 Snakes on Everything (Little Feat)
10 talk (Little Feat)
11 Cat Fever (Little Feat)
12 talk (Little Feat)
13 Walkin' All Night (Little Feat)
14 talk (Little Feat)
15 Sailin' Shoes (Little Feat)
16 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)
17 Tripe Face Boogie (Little Feat)
18 talk (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4Ca8kMnq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Cor6zSPJrrheyHK/file

The cover image focusing on band member Lowell George is from an episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show, broadcast on August 9, 1974. I wanted to have a picture of the band in 1973, but there were surprisingly few of those, and none that were very good. I used the same source for the early show.

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 1: 1966-2001 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Back in March 2026, I posted no less than ten volumes of the "Covered" series for Neil Young. Surely, you'd think, that's enough. Ten volumes is more than any of the other dozens of artists in the "Covered" series. But no, there's more! In making those ten albums, guest posted Fabio from Rio did most of the hard work, collecting hundreds of different cover versions, and presenting them to me in an organized fashion. But I did most of the selecting of which songs made the final cut. This, by contrast, represents Fabio's choices for the best of the rest. I had a little say, but just a song or two here and there where I suggested a different version or something like that. 

Fabio found enough for four volumes of "Covered" alternates. Here's the first one. Across these four volumes, about half the songs are different versions of songs that were included on the previously posted ten Neil Young "Covered" volumes. But the other half are songs that didn't feature on those volumes at all.

Fabio has written some liner notes, which are included in the download zip. But since these volumes are more like an addendum to those earlier ten volumes, he wrote just one essay for all four volumes, without song-by-song explanations.

For some musical acts in the "Covered" series, they had a lot of hits, and the choices of which covers to pick is pretty straight forward - the hit versions. But with Neil Young, it was much more subjective, since there have been tons of covers, but very few hits. So one person's trash is another person's treasure. You may well like some of these better. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Guess Who)
02 Down to the Wire (Yellow Hand)
03 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Carpenters)
04 Down by the River (Buddy Miles)
05 Til the Morning Comes (Francoise Hardy)
06 I Believe in You (Linda Ronstadt)
07 Hold Back the Tears (Jessi Colter)
08 Revolution Blues (Band of Blacky Ranchette)
09 Already One (Aaron Springfield)
10 Human Highway (Jim Witter & Cassandra Vasik)
11 Borrowed Tune (Marc Jordan)
12 Pushed It Over the End (Rich Hand)
13 Big Time (Black Crowes)
14 The Old Laughing Lady (Stereophonics)
15 Motion Pictures (Mercury Rev)
16 Mellow My Mind (Hederos & Hellberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kra1ih4k

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yfTyPoRmZ7KvcBd/file

The cover image is from 1969 or 1970. It was taken from a black and white photo of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Little Feat - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 7-19-1973, Early Show

Next up from the Ebbets Fields radio broadcasts is Little Feat. They did an early show and a late show, so naturally I'm starting with the early show.

I've already posted a couple of Little Feat albums, so I won't say much more about them here. But note that this was from relatively early in the band's history, before they became very famous. Near the start of 1973, they released their third album, "Dixie Chicken." It was their first album to go Gold in the U.S., which means sales of half a million. But I'm guessing most of those sales didn't happen until later, when the band's growing popularity caused some people to discover their earlier albums, because the album didn't make the charts at all.

Interestingly, you can hear by the emcee speaking at the end of this recording that the band was actually the opening act for Zephyr. (They probably were much less well know nationwide, but they were based in Denver and played there a lot, so they were local favorites.) Also, it seems only the late show sets of both Little Feat and Zephyr were actually broadcast on the radio. But somehow this recording survived too, probably due to Little Feat's later fame. 

In fact, I'd say these early and late shows by Little Feat are some of the most popular of all the Ebbets Fields recordings. There are very few concert recordings of this sound quality from this early in the band's career. But the recordings, going under names like "American Cutie" and "Late Night Truck Stop," are grey market releases. That means they exploit a loophole in European copyright law allowing for their legal sale in Europe, but the musical act doesn't get any of the profits. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Hamburger Midnight (Little Feat)
02 Got No Shadow (Little Feat)
03 talk (Little Feat)
04 On Your Way Down (Little Feat)
05 talk (Little Feat)
06 Walkin' All Night (Little Feat)
07 talk (Little Feat)
08 Two Trains (Little Feat)
09 talk (Little Feat)
10 Willin' (Little Feat)
11 talk (Little Feat)
12 Cold, Cold, Cold (Little Feat)
13 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)
14 Tripe Face Boogie (Little Feat)
15 talk (Little Feat)
16 Fat Man in the Bathtub (Little Feat)
17 talk (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rRobHZAk 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hPVtW7HbErXX0zn/file

The cover image focusing on band member Lowell George is from an episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show, broadcast on August 9, 1974. I wanted to have a picture of the band in 1973, but there were surprisingly few of those, and none that were very good.

ZZ Top - Hec Edmundson Pavilion, Seattle, WA, 12-5-1973

Yeay! I've mentioned previously on this blog that I've looked high and look for good sounding ZZ Top bootlegs prior to 1980, and come up empty. But I've finally found one worthy of posting. Mind you, the sound quality is not great. It's below my usual standards. The source is an audience bootleg, and there are issues. But I made a lot of improvements, and in my opinion, it's a worthy listen. But you may feel differently, depending on how tolerant you are about sound quality.

This recording has been circulating since 2021, but somehow I missed it. Or, more likely, I overlooked it back in 2021, because what one could do with audio editing was much more limited back then. But I recently came across it and decided it had potential. I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program multiple times, to get rid of muck and reduce or eliminate the crowd noise (except where appropriate). Then I ran the songs through MVSEP again, and split the vocals from everything else. I took just the vocals and used the Adobe vocal enhancer program on them. Also, for some songs where there was a lot of yelling and talking from the audience, I listened carefully and deleted just the "woo hoos" and such that I didn't like.

I feel the end result is a very noticeable improvement. However, one can only do so much the source material, so you still need to lower your standards somewhat. Some songs sound better than others. I was particularly pleased with how "I Just Got Back from Baby's" came out. That's a slow blues with a quieter dynamic than most of the band's songs. As a result, many people near the taper found it a good time to hold conversations. But I went through that one with a fine toothed comb, and got rid of nearly all of that. Now, in my opinion, that song could be taken for a soundboard recording. But, admittedly, I can't say that about most of the others.

I've left in a text file that explains how this recording came to be available on the Internet in 2021. It turns out the original taper mislabeled it as the band Black Oak Arkansas and forgot about it. Clearly, that person wasn't a ZZ Top fan. But, decades later, someone else went through that person's tapes and discovered this hidden gem.  

One last thing. Just one day after I posted this, a commenter named Bob listened to it and said the whole thing was running a bit fast. I'm not very good at detecting that sort of thing, but I'm taking his word for it. So he sent me a corrected version. The overall concert is now about 30 seconds longer than before, so the change isn't that big on any song. Still, thanks, Bob.

This album is 53 minutes long. 

01 Thunderbird (ZZ Top)
02 [Somebody Else Been] Shaking Your Tree (ZZ Top)
03 talk (ZZ Top)
04 Chevrolet (ZZ Top)
05 Waitin' for the Bus (ZZ Top)
06 Jesus Just Left Chicago (ZZ Top)
07 Feel So Bad (ZZ Top)
08 Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers (ZZ Top)
09 I Just Got Back from Baby's (ZZ Top)
10 Rattlesnake Shake (ZZ Top)
11 La Grange (ZZ Top)
12 Let's Go Get Stoned - Backdoor Love Affair (ZZ Top)
13 Mellow Down Easy - Boogie Chillen (ZZ Top)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/U13tb5RC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/gDqvwQTprAzqkQl/file

Who the heck are those guys on the album cover? Believe it or not, that's Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top! The two of them became known for their extremely long beards. But in 1973, Hill, on bass, had a relatively short beard, while Gibbons, on guitar, was clean shaven. The pictures of them in 1974 show Gibbons grew a beard about as long as the one Hill had at the time. They didn't grow their beards long until the late 1970s.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the photo was taken at Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on October 23, 1973. Also, if you look carefully at the drum set, you can see drummer Frank Beard in there.

Frank Zappa - 1971-1988 Strictly Commercial Live (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Guest poster Mike Solof has been busily slaving away in the salt mines, coming up with more albums to post at this blog. In particular, he's got a big Beatles project coming that hopefully will knock your socks off. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind getting some things ready to post, but hopefully I'll catch up soon. For this album, he came up with the idea of collecting live versions of all the songs on the Frank Zappa best of collection "Strictly Commercial."

I'll leave most of the explaining to Mike, in his PDF notes included in the download zip. But Zappa was well known for his lead guitar playing, and he's able to stretch some songs out here. For instance, the official album is about an hour and 17 minutes long, whereas this is almost two hours long. A lot of the difference there is with "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow." The official album has the three minute long single version, but this is a 20-minute-long live version of the entire suite. 

As is Mike's style, he's included a gapless single file of the album in the download zip, for those who prefer to hear it that way.

By the way, all the songs here feature Frank Zappa, except for one. His only Top Forty hit in the U.S. was "Valley Girl," in 1982. But that featured his daughter Moon Unit Zappa on lead vocals instead of him, and she was only 14 years old at the time. So it turns out he never performed the song before dying in 1993. But, much later, in 2010, his children Dweezil and Moon Unit performed the song in concert just once. So that's the version included here. But note the sound quality is a bit rough on that compared to everything else. It's one of only two unreleased versions (along with "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace)." All the others were chosen from the many dozens of official live albums.

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long. 

01 Peaches en Regalia (Frank Zappa)
02 Don't Eat the Yellow Snow (Frank Zappa)
03 Dancin' Fool (Frank Zappa)
04 San Ber'dino (Frank Zappa)
05 Let's Make the Water Turn Black (Frank Zappa)
06 Dirty Love (Frank Zappa)
07 My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (Frank Zappa)
08 Cosmik Debris (Frank Zappa)
09 Trouble Every Day (Frank Zappa)
10 Disco Boy (Frank Zappa)
11 Bobby Brown Goes Down (Frank Zappa)
12 I'm the Slime (Frank Zappa)
13 Joe's Garage (Frank Zappa)
14 Fine Girl (Frank Zappa)
15 Planet of the Baritone Women (Frank Zappa)
16 Sexual Harassment in the Workplace [Instrumental] (Frank Zappa)
17 Tell Me You Love Me (Frank Zappa)
18 Montana (Frank Zappa)
19 Be in My Video (Frank Zappa)
20 Valley Girl (Dweezil Zappa & Moon Unit Zappa)
21 Who Are the Brain Police (Frank Zappa)
22 Muffin Man [Extra Guitar Mix] (Frank Zappa) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/424ohU9v 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/WWM2Cx8sAJ0funq/file

The cover art is by Greg Joens. The original version was in black and white. I colorized it (because I hate black and white covers) with the use of the Kolorize program.

Terry Reid - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 4-1973

The Ebbets Field radio broadcasts keep coming, nearly one a day. Here's one starring singer-songwriter Terry Reid.

Reid, unfortunately, is best known for one bit of trivia: he passed on offers to be the lead singer for both Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple! In 1968, when he was given the Led Zeppelin offer by Jimmy Page, he had extensive touring commitments he couldn't get out of. So he suggested Robert Plant for the role instead, and the rest is history. And when Richie Blackmore asked him to join Deep Purple in 1969, he said their music was too heavy and not really his style.

The fact that both bands wanted him was a sign that a lot of people thought he was going to be a big star, one way or another. Unfortunately, that never happened. Here's the intro to his Wikipedia entry:

"[Reid] was an English musician, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his emotive style of singing in appearances with high-profile musicians as vocalist, supporting act, and session musician. As a solo recording and touring artist he released six studio albums and four live albums. Described as an 'artists' artist' by Rolling Stone, Reid was recognized by his contemporaries as an eminent talent in English rock music, both as a guitarist and a vocalist. Robert Plant praised his vocal 'flexibility, power, and control' and Graham Nash was quoted as saying he should have been 'a gigantic star.'"

Terry Reid - Wikipedia 

There are very few live recordings of Reid, and this one was hard to find. So hopefully this will get around and add to his unofficial discography. By the way, he died in 2025 at the age of 75, which is why that paragraph was written in the past tense for him.

This concert took place when Reid was promoting his third solo album, "River," released in 1973. It got a lot of critical praise, but not a lot of sales. It put him more into singer-songwriter mode compared to his earlier, more rocking records. Some people compared the style of "River" to "Astral Weeks" by Van Morrison. That style of the album can be heard here, even for the songs not from the album.

I'm not sure if this concert was actually broadcast on local radio at the time, because there were some big issues with the recording. Overall, it doesn't sound as good as most of the Ebbets Field recordings, even after some changes I made. I had to make a lot of adjustments. The biggest was that I boosted the lead vocals dramatically relative to the instruments. But I made some other changes as well. For instance, a chunk of "Things to Try" was missing. Luckily, he played that song at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, so I used that to patch in the missing section.

I couldn't find any song list for this concert, so I had to figure out the song titles myself. This was difficult since I didn't have any of his albums prior to this. I had a hard time of it, since the sound quality meant the vocals sounded somewhat muffled at any volume. I think I got most of them right. However, I was totally stumped for one of them, which I just call "Unknown Title." If anyone knows the real name of that song, please let me know so I can fix it.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 Rich Kid Blues (Terry Reid)
02 Without Expression (Terry Reid)
03 Live Life (Terry Reid)
04 To Be Alone with You (Terry Reid)
05 talk (Terry Reid)
06 Avenue (Terry Reid)
07 [Unknown Title] (Terry Reid)
08 Funny (Terry Reid)
09 talk (Terry Reid)
10 Things to Try [Edit] (Terry Reid)
11 Dean (Terry Reid)
12 River (Terry Reid)
13 talk (Terry Reid)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kqist42S

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/rMFpswvfr9EWDSK/file

The cover image is from a concert at an unknown location on Jun3 24, 1973. The original was in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - Covered: Dennis Lambert & Brian Potter: 1965-1985

A week or two ago (as I write this in mid-May 2026), a commenter named Rich had the excellent suggestion that I should make a "Covered" album for the songwriting team of Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. So thank you, Rich. They fit the format of the "Covered" series perfectly, because they had no careers as performers, but they wrote a lot of hits for others.

Lambert and Potter are a rare case of a successful trans-Atlantic songwriting partnership. Lambert was born in 1947 and raised in New York City. Potter was born in 1939 and raised in the Essex countryside of England. Lambert joined a record company in 1965, working in A&R, production, and songwriting. I'm not sure what Potter did at first (with him being almost ten years older than Lambert), but in 1965 he already had a big songwriting success, helping to write "What'cha Gonna Do about It," the first British hit for the Small Faces. Meanwhile, Lambert had a decent success in 1965 as well, co-writing "Do the Freddie," a hit for Freddie and the Dreamers.

Lambert and Potter met when Lambert was in London in 1969. The two of them decided to write songs together. They both moved to Los Angeles and began working with a record company there. One of their first songs they wrote together was "One Tin Solder." It made the Top Forty in the U.S. for the band the Original Caste. Then it would get higher on the charts in 1971 for the band Coven. Their first really big success together though was "Don't Pull Your Love," which was a Top Five U.S. hit in 1971 for Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds.

From that point on, they had many more hits all through the 1970s. I've only included the ones I like best here. There were others that were Top Forty hits. Their songwriting continued until about 1980. I don't know much about Potter's career, but it seemed he stopped writing songs around that time, because I don't find any more songwriting credits for him after 1980. 

However, Lambert kept going well into the 1980s, writing with others. He didn't have that many hits, but he had a couple of really big ones. He co-wrote "Nightshift" with a member of the Commodores, and the Commodores had a Top Five hit with it in both the U.S. and Britain in 1985. 

He also helped write "We Built This City." That song was originally written by Martin Page and Bernie Taupin (the latter being the main co-writer for Elton John). But their version was lacking something. So Lambert and a producer named Peter Wolf drastically changed it. (That's a different Peter Wolf than the one in the J. Geils Band, by the way.) The result was a smash, going all the way to Number One in the U.S. for Starship in 1985. Personally, I don't think it's a bad song, but it's hated by a lot of people, making several worst songs of all time lists by critics.

Since then, Lambert and Potter presumably both eventually retired. But both of them are still alive as I write this in 2026. 

Here's the Wikipedia page for Lambert:

Dennis Lambert - Wikipedia

And here's the one for Potter:

Brian Potter (musician) - Wikipedia  

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 What'cha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
02 Do the Freddie (Freddie & the Dreamers)
03 Delighted to See You (Honeybus)
04 One Tin Soldier (Original Caste)
05 Don't Pull Your Love (Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds)
06 Keeper of the Castle (Four Tops)
07 The Runway (Grass Roots)
08 Ain’t No Woman [Like the One I’ve Got] (Four Tops)
09 Love Music (Sergio Mendes)
10 Are You Man Enough (Four Tops)
11 Country Boy [You Got Your Feet in L.A.] (Glen Campbell)
12 One Chain [Don’t Make No Prison] (Four Tops)
13 It Only Takes a Minute (Tavares)
14 Open Invitation (Santana)
15 Don't Look Any Further (Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garrett)
16 We Built This City (Starship)
17 Nightshift (Commodores)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rrnJPb9s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oLZomJN7xtUUHiG/file

The cover image was the cover photo for an issue of Songwriter Magazine in 1977. That's Dennis Lambert on the left and Brian Potter (with the blue shirt) on the right.

Various Artists - Covered: Roquel 'Billy' Davis: 1957-2008

I was going through my "Covered" album collection to fix some broken links, and I saw that I haven't posted this one yet, even though I thought I did. So here it is now, better late than never. This highlights the songwriting of Roquel "Billy" Davis.

Chances are, you haven't heard of Davis. But he was involved in writing a lot of good soul hits. He was born in 1932 in Detroit. He got to know Berry Gordy in the 1950s, a few years before Gordy founded Motown Records. He got involved in writing some big hits with Gordy, and sometimes others, especially Gordy's sister Gwen, who was Davis's girlfriend at the time. Since I already posted a "Covered" album for Berry Gordy, I used the big hit versions for many of those. For instance, "Reet Petite" was a big hit for Jackie Wilson in 1957, "Lonely Teardrops" was an even bigger hit for Wilson in 1958, and "I'll Be Satisfied," was another Wilson hit in 1959, but I've used alternate versions for all of those.

Note that I'm not including "You Got What It Takes," although it was a big hit that has been credited to Davis, Gordy, and others. That's because I think there's an airtight case that it was actually written entirely by Bobby Parker, since the first version of it came out by Parker with him listed as the sole songwriter. Gordy simply stole it later, and falsely changed the songwriting credits.

Anyway, around 1960, Gordy got heavily involved with his new record company, Motown Records. Davis didn't become a part of that, so his songwriting partnership with Gordy faded away. Their last song together that I've included is "All I Could Do Was Cry," which was a hit for Etta James in 1960. Since I used that version elsewhere, I've chosen a 2008 version by Beyonce.

Davis continued to write hits without Gordy for most of the 1960s. He usually worked with Chess Records, even taking charge of many A&R and production duties for that record company. "Seven Day Fool" was a rare case of Davis getting the sole credit for a song. More typically, he wrote with others, but he didn't have any consistent co-writers. In fact, most of the songs after "Seven Day Fool" were written with a different co-writer.

Davis had a sudden career change in 1968. He used his success as a songwriter and producer to get a job at one of the top advertising agencies in New York City. His primary client was Coca-Cola, and he was responsible for many successful ad campaigns for that company. But unfortunately, this meant that his songwriting pretty much stopped, except for writing ad jingles.

But his work with Coca-Cola would lead to his biggest songwriting success of all. I've told this story in the write-up for the "Covered" album for Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, but I'll retell it here from Davis's point of view. Cook and Greenaway had already written a song called "True Love and Apple Pie." But it was released by an obscure artist and went nowhere. Then Cook happened to get stuck waiting in an airport in Ireland for many hours. Also stuck in the same airport was Davis, now working for Coca-Cola, and another Coca-Cola executive, Bill Backer. Backer came up with the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" while they waited for their plane. Later, back in New York City, Cook, Greenaway and Davis reworked "True Love and Apple Pie" into "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," which became one of the biggest hits of the decade, as well as a massively successful ad campaign for Coca-Cola.

"Country Sunshine" is also a song Davis first wrote for a Coca-Cola ad. But it was so catchy that it was fleshed out and became a country hit for Dottie West in 1973. That seems to be the last new song Davis was involved in that made the charts, although some of his earlier songs were hits in new versions, sometimes several times over.

Davis died in 2004 at the age of 72. By the way, he's also responsible for "it's the real thing," "things go better with Coke," "have a Coke and a smile," all for Coca-Cola, "If you've got the time, we've got the beer," for Miller Beer, and many, many other advertisements.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Billy Davis (songwriter) - Wikipedia 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Jim Dandy Got Married (LaVern Baker)
02 To Be Loved (Malcolm Vaughan)
03 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
04 Seven Day Fool (Etta James)
05 Pushover (Etta James)
06 Reet Petite (Dinah Lee)
07 Two Sides to Every Story (Etta James)
08 Use What You Got (Sugar Pie DeSanto)
09 I Had a Talk with My Man (Mitty Collier)
10 We're Gonna Make It (Little Milton)
11 Recovery (Fontella Bass)
12 Who's Cheating Who (Little Milton)
13 I Can't Rest (Fontella Bass)
14 I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (Hillside Singers)
15 Country Sunshine (Dottie West)
16 Lonely Teardrops (John Fogerty)
17 I'll Be Satisfied (Shakin' Stevens)
18 All I Could Do Was Cry (Beyonce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rGtRVEWA 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/h0hrXz1oG7qsojq/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of an interview he gave many years after his songwriting career had ended. I don't know the exact year, however.

Various Artists - Covered: Geoff Stephens: 1964-2002

I recently posted a couple of "Covered" albums dealing with British professional songwriters from the 1960s and 1970s (as I write this in May 2026). As I said elsewhere, there was a circle of a dozen or more who often collaborated with each other, and wrote lots of pop hits. Here's another one from that group, Geoff Stephens.

Many of the other songwriters in this group that I've been discussing came up with the British Invasion, the musical trend that started around 1963. But Stephens was slightly older - he was 29 years old in 1963- and his music career began before that. He served in the military for a couple of years and held a series of odd jobs before getting serious about songwriting. His first song was covered by a musical act in 1961. 

His first hit was "Tell Me When" in 1964, co-written by Les Reed, another songwriter in that group. I've already posted the hit version by the Applejacks in the "Covered" album for Barry Mason and Les Reed. So I went with a different version here. Later that same year, he had an even bigger hit with a song he wrote all by himself, "The Crying Game." The version by Dave Berry went all the way to the Top Five in Britain, although it wasn't a hit. (Boy George eventually had a hit in the U.S. with it in 1992.) It had an unusual melody, showing surprising musical sophistication for a pop hit 1964.

He had an even bigger hit in 1966 with "Winchester Cathedral," performed by the New Vaudeville Band. It actually was recorded by session musicians. The lead vocalist was John Carter, another songwriter I've profiled with a "Covered" album." Stephens had a fondness for vaudeville/ music hall music from the 1920s and earlier, and wrote the song in that vein. It was such a massive success - hitting Number One in the U.S. and some other countries, and selling three million copies worldwide - that it started a mini-vaudeville trend for the next couple of years. Few British artists could resist performing at least one or two songs in that style, for some reason.

Sometimes, Stephens was the sole songwriter, as was the case with "Winchester Cathedral." But more often, he wrote with other members of that unnamed British professional songwriter group. For instance, "There's a Kind of Hush" was written with Les Reed, "Sorry Suzanne" was written with Tony Macaulay, "My Sentimental Friend" was written with John Carter, "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" was written with Peter Callander, and so on. As you can see, Stephens didn't favor just one songwriting partner. In fact, he had many more, including Roger Greenaway, Barry Mason, Don Black, and Mitch Murray. All of those other people have their own "Covered" albums, or their albums are coming.

Stephens had many more hits through most of the 1970s, until about 1978. In fact, one of his biggest hits was one of his last, since "Silver Lady" by David Soul went to Number One in Britain in 1977. (That one was co-written with Tony Macaulay, by the way.) But musical styles changed drastically in the late 1970s, with the rise of disco, punk, and new wave. So his hits stopped at that time, as was the case with most of the other songwriters in that group he'd been working with since the mid-1960s. 

Starting in the early 1980s, he mostly switched to writing songs for musicals. In doing so, he still collaborated with people from that same group, writing different musicals with Don Black, Les Reed, and Peter Callander. He died in 2020 at the age of 86.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Geoff Stephens - Wikipedia 

Because Stephens often wrote with other songwriters who have their own "Covered" albums, sometimes I've resorted to using non-hit versions, so the same versions don't appear on two different albums. So, for instance, I have "Sorry Suzanne" here by the Glass Bottle, instead of the hit version by the Hollies. "Smile a Little Smile for Me" is an outliner, because I chose a late cover for the same reason. The hit version was in 1970. Without that one, this album would end in 1980. 

This album is one hour long. 

01 Tell Me When (Jaybirds)
02 The Crying Game (Dave Berry)
03 Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James (Manfred Mann)
04 Winchester Cathedral (New Vaudeville Band)
05 My World Fell Down (Ivy League)
06 There's a Kind of Hush (Herman's Hermits)
07 Boy (Lulu)
08 Sunshine Girl (Herman's Hermits)
09 Lights of Cincinnati (Scott Walker)
10 My Sentimental Friend (Herman's Hermits)
11 Sorry Suzanne (Glass Bottle)
12 Knock, Knock, Who's There (Mary Hopkin)
13 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
14 Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast (Wayne Newton)
15 You Won't Find Another Fool like Me (New Seekers)
16 Doctor's Orders (Carol Douglas)
17 Silver Lady (David Soul)
18 It's Like We Never Said Goodbye (Crystal Gayle)
19 Like Sister and Brother (Frank Hooker & Positive People)
20 Smile a Little Smile for Me (Chris von Sneidern)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GVD6cdXe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6MIhB6jKMNGt8K9/file

I don't know anything about the cover image except that it's "circa 1970." The original was in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1973, Late Show

Yesterday, I posted the early show of Big Mama Thornton playing at Ebbets Field in Denver in 1973, with Tommy Bolin on lead guitar. Here's the late show.

Most of what I'd want to say about this was said in my write-up for the early show. So please read that. Just a quick recap: it would be plenty interesting to have a recording of blues legend Big Mama Thornton performing at a small club like this in 1973. But a nice bonus is having Bolin on guitar. He was living in the area at the time, shortly before joining the James Gang and then later joining Deep Purple, and he sometimes would back up blues artists when they were passing through town. This seems to be the only instance of that that luckily got recorded.

As with the early show, if you listen to this, it's pretty clear Thornton was winging it, singing whatever song came into her head at any moment. Bolin and the rest of the back-up band probably had no practice time with her, and did a good job trying to keep up with her. 

One nice thing is that the songs in the late show are almost entirely different than those of the early show, with only "Hound Dog" and "Swing It on Home" being the same. And apparently that was Thornton playing the short drum solo at the end of the last song.

If anyone knows the names of the instrumental second and third tracks, please let me know, so I can give them proper names. I did some Internet searching and found someone who had played with Bolin who knew the name of the first song, or I never would have been able to name that instrumental.

As with the early show, the music is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Swamp Carol [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin)
02 Instrumental Jam (Tommy Bolin)
03 Blues Shuffle [Instrumental] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
04 Pack Up My Troubles (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
05 Good Morning, Little Schoolboy [Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
06 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
07 Oh Happy Day (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
08 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
09 He's Got the Whole World in His Hands (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
10 Go Down Moses - He's Got the Whole World in His Hands [Reprise] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
11 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
12 Drink on the Table (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
13 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
14 What'd I Say (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
15 Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
16 Swing It on Home - Drum Solo [Edit] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WNLRoRCv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/VLaXtYf8pAPGlJP/file

The cover image shows Big Mama Thornton on the "Dick Cavett Show" on July 22, 1971. That's the case for the early show cover image as well. I thought it would be nice to have her in the same clothes for the covers of the early and late shows. 

The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 1: 1970-1975 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the first of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. Basically, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, but the production of Carpenters records usually left a lot to be desired. Too often, the songs were drenched with syrupy strings and other overproduction that detracted from the beauty of her voice, and the song, instead of adding to them. So we've tried to counter that in various ways. First, I posted a "Near Acappella" album that stripped the music just down to vocals, bass, and drums. Then, we posted two completely "Acappella" albums. Now, there's this. The idea is, an imaginary piano recital, with nothing but Karen Carpenter singing, and usually her brother Richard playing piano.

Fabio found all the songs for this. First, he found some other people on the Internet who already had used audio editing technology to strip official studio versions of songs down to just lead vocals and piano. But many songs he liked hadn't been given that treatment, or hadn't been stripped enough, so he did his own audio editing. So all the songs have been edited, heavily, but the ones with "[Edit]" in them specifically indicate the ones with Fabio's editing.

Fabio has a lot more to say on this. So check out his liner notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is 52 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 For All We Know (Carpenters)
04 One Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 Rainy Days and Mondays [BBC Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Superstar [Groupie] [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 A Song for You [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 I Won't Last a Day without You [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Can't Make Music [Edit] (Carpenters)
10 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
11 The End of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Top of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 Yesterday Once More [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)

Top of the World [Country Singalong Version] [Edit] (Carpenters) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m4XXvPoN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mvMqUYAmX1OEhxY/file

For the cover image, we wanted to show Karen singing and Richard playing piano. Luckily, we found two, just enough for our two volumes. I don't know the details of where or when this image was taken though, except that it's "circa 1971."

Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1973, Early Show

The next installment of Ebbets Field radio broadcast concerts is something unexpected: blue legend Big Mama Thornton performing with Deep Purple lead guitarist Tommy Bolin! There are early and late shows, with the two of them quite different. Here's the early show.

Thorton is best known for the song "Hound Dog." She had a hit with it in 1952, before Elvis Presley's version. Her version sold half a million copies, which was a remarkable amount back at that time. She's also well known for a song she wrote, "Ball and Chain," after Janis Joplin did a great version of it in the late 1960s. Her time in the spotlight in the 1950s didn't last long, since she only had that one hit. But in the 1960s and into the 1970s she had a career revival playing in blues and/or folk clubs and festivals. At the time of this concert, she was about 46 years old.

Here's her Wikipedia page:

Big Mama Thornton - Wikipedia 

Tommy Bolin was born and raised in Iowa, but his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, in his late teens. He began playing in local bands. One of them, Zephyr, released a couple of albums, and toured nationally, though they didn't have any hits. After that band broke up around 1971, he joined a couple other short-lived bands, and wrote a lot of songs. In 1973, he joined the James Gang (after Joe Walsh left) and dominated it, writing nearly all the songs for two albums. By 1975, he'd left the James Gang and joined Deep Purple for about a year. He also released solo albums in 1975 and 1976. But he died of a drug overdose at the very end of 1976.

Tommy Bolin - Wikipedia

Anyway, the reason I mention all this about Bolin is because it's relevant in explaining how his involvement with Thornton came to be. In 1972 and 1973 especially, Bolin was at loose ends and living in Boulder, often without a band. During this time, he developed a good relationship with Chuck Morris, who owned the Ebbets Field venue (and a couple more in the area). Often, when blues musicians were passing through town and were lacking a backing band, Morris would get Bolin and/or some of Bolin's friends to provide the backing. (Bolin would make the drive from Boulder to Denver in less than an hour.) Or sometimes Bolin would just ask to sit in. In this way, he played with many musical greats, including Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Chuck Berry. Usually, these big names would be greatly impressed by Bolin, who was far from being just an inexperienced local musician. 

It seems none of these shows pairing Bolin with these blues legends were recorded... except for this one with Thornton, somehow. I don't know if this was broadcast on the radio at the time, like other Ebbets Field shows, or if just got luckily recorded by the venue anyway. Bobby Berge and Stan Shelton rounded out the backing band. 

Chances are there was little to no practice between Thornton and the backing band beforehand. You can hear at times where Thornton starts a song and just expects the other musicians to figure out what's going on and join in. But it's also clear that she respected Bolin's lead guitar playing, as can be seen by the space he was given to solo, especially with the two instrumentals at the beginning. (If anyone knows the names of those songs, if they have names, please let me know. I also had to figure out the names of the other songs. Please let me know if I got any of them wrong.)

Surprisingly, not only was Thornton a great blues vocalist, she could also play drums pretty well. That's her playing a short drum solo near the end of this recording.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Instrumental Jam (Tommy Bolin)
02 Blues Shuffle [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin)
03 Blues with Intro (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
04 Little Red Rooster [Early One Morning] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
05 Rock Me Baby (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
06 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
07 Shake, Rattle and Roll - Hi Ho Silver (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
08 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
09 Ball and Chain (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
10 Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
11 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
12 Swing It on Home - Drum Solo (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
13 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fnNa7zWg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XF5Bz0rmGxi8TR1/file 

The cover image shows Big Mama Thornton on the "Dick Cavett Show" on July 22, 1971. By the way, looking at the cover, you may wonder that she doesn't look like a "Big Mama." When she was younger, she was most definitely big - at one point, she weighed about 450 pounds. But years of heavy drinking gave her health problems that caused her to lose a lot of weight by the early 1970s. By the time she died in 1984, she only weighed about 95 pounds.

Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-11-1973

Here's another Ebbets Field radio broadcast. This one features Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.

The Wikipedia entry intro is badly written, so I'll try to come up with my own summary. This band was led by pianist and vocalist George Frayne IV, a.k.a. Commander Cody. The band was formed in 1967, but they didn't release their debut album until 1971. Once they did, it contained a surprise hit with the song "Hot Rod Lincoln," which made it all the way to the Top Ten in the U.S. singles chart. It was a surprise hit because it was a cover of an obscure 1950s song, and the 1950s style was very much out of step with the musical trends of 1971. 

Unfortunately, it would prove to be their only hit. The band broke up in 1977. However, Frayne continued to make a lot more music using the "Commander Cody" name. He died in 2021.

Although Wikipedia didn't have a good intro for this band, it does have a good paragraph explaining the band's style. So I'll quote that here: "[the band's] style was built on the foundation of country music, which the band fused with boogie woogie, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, Western swing and jazz, which Classic Rock said resulted in 'a counter-cultural twist to the Nashville sound.' Relix said that the band 'tossed together rockabilly, blues, country, boogie-woogie, Western swing and whatever else came their way.' Tinnitist called the band 'one of the more interesting bands of the hippie era, fusing county, rockabilly, western swing, jump blues, and more into an infectious amalgam that set the table for outfits like NRBQ.'"

Here's the rest of the entry:

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen - Wikipedia

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Instrumental Intro (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
02 Good Rockin' Tonight (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
03 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
04 What's the Matter Now (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
05 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
06 Truck Driving Man (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
07 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
08 Four or Five Times (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
09 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
10 Down and Out (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
11 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
12 Mama Hated Diesels (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
13 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
14 Little Sally Walker (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
15 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
16 Ain't Nothin' Shakin' (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
17 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
18 Daddy's Drinkin' Up Our Christmas (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
19 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
20 Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
21 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
22 Hot Rod Lincoln (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
23 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
24 Rave On (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
25 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
26 Rock That Boogie (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
27 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
28 Jailhouse Rock (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
29 talk by emcee (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
30 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
31 Mean Woman Blues (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
32 Lost in the Ozone Again (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
33 talk by emcee (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5C8xtSek 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/49LEVP2T5KtIvTS/file

The cover image comes from an appearance on the "Midnight Special" T.V. show in Burbank, California, on July 6, 1973.

Sandy Denny - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 4-29-1973

The flood of Ebbets Field radio broadcasts continues. You may have noticed I'm trying to post one of these each day. Here's one from folk singer Sandy Denny.

Denny was a member of Fairport Convention from 1968 to 1969. She left to pursue a solo career. She rejoined Fairport Convention from 1974 to 1975. I have two albums of that band performing at Ebbets Field in 1974 when she was a member. That will be coming soon. 

She was pretty popular in Britain. She even won "Best British Female Singer" in a readers' poll for Melody Maker magazine in 1970 and 1971. But she was far less well known in the U.S., which helps explain why she was performing in this small club that seated 250 people at most. Her most recent album at the time of this concert was "Sandy," in 1972.  

So far, I believe all the concerts I've posted from this venue have been officially unreleased. But this one came out as part of the 2012 deluxe edition of the "Sandy" album. That said, the recording was still pretty raw, with some sonic imbalances. So I made some changes with the MVSEP program.

This album is 32 minutes long. 

01 Late November (Sandy Denny)
02 talk (Sandy Denny)
03 The Music Weaver (Sandy Denny)
04 talk (Sandy Denny)
05 It Suits Me Well (Sandy Denny)
06 talk (Sandy Denny)
07 Bushes and Briars (Sandy Denny)
08 talk (Sandy Denny)
09 The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood (Sandy Denny)
10 talk (Sandy Denny)
11 The Sea Captain (Sandy Denny)
12 talk (Sandy Denny)
13 At the End of the Day (Sandy Denny)
14 talk (Sandy Denny)
15 John the Gun (Sandy Denny)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NRSGaEk8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3SIvyMcViAiWgn0/file

The cover image is from the Ngaruawahia Music Festival in New Zealand in 1973. The sky was blue behind her, so I changed that to grey to better fit with this album, since the Ebbets Field club was indoors.

Robin Trower - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-6-1973

Here's another one of the many Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. This one stars lead guitarist Robin Trower.

Here's the Wikipedia entry intro about him:

"[Trower] is an English rock guitarist and producer who achieved success with Procol Harum from 1967 until 1971 and as the bandleader of his own power trio known as the Robin Trower Band. Although Procol Harum was primarily known as a progressive rock band, Trower himself is known for his blues-infused guitar playing, which critics have frequently compared to that of Jimi Hendrix, whom he has cited as an influence. As a solo artist, Trower released four consecutive gold-certified albums from 1974 to 1977 that charted well in the U.S. and Canada, but in the 1980s his career faltered. He briefly returned to Procol Harum for their 1991 reunion album, The Prodigal Stranger, but left again to resume his solo career. His most recent solo album, Come and Find Me, was released in 2025."

Here's the full entry:

Robin Trower - Wikipedia

This concert took place about six months after the release of Tower's debut album, "Twice Removed from Yesterday." At the time, it didn't do that well. It just missed making the Top 100 album chart. But his next album, "Bridge of Sighs," would do much better, making the Top Ten.

A key member of Trower's band at this time was James Dewar. He not only was the bass player, he was the lead vocalist. He essentially was the "voice" for Trower until they parted ways in 1983. Trower and Dewar co-wrote most of the songs on the debut album. On later albums, Trower would dominate the songwriting a lot more.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 The Fool and Me (Robin Trower)
02 talk (Robin Trower)
03 Twice Removed from Yesterday (Robin Trower)
04 talk (Robin Trower)
05 Lady Love (Robin Trower)
06 talk (Robin Trower)
07 Daydream (Robin Trower)
08 talk (Robin Trower)
09 Day of the Eagle (Robin Trower)
10 talk (Robin Trower)
11 I Can't Wait Much Longer (Robin Trower)
12 talk (Robin Trower)
13 Man of the World (Robin Trower)
14 talk (Robin Trower)
15 Sinner's Song (Robin Trower)
16 talk (Robin Trower)
17 Little Bit of Sympathy (Robin Trower)
18 talk (Robin Trower)
19 I Can't Stand It (Robin Trower)
20 talk by emcee (Robin Trower)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5aTe9eMj

alternate:

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

All I know about the cover is it was taken in March 1973. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Various Artists - Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 2: 1973-1999

Here's the second out of three "Covered" albums for singer-songwriter Randy Newman.

As I mentioned in "Volume 1," in the early 1970s, Newman was considered a cult albums, very critically acclaimed, but with not much commercial success for his own career. Even the many covers of his songs were rarely hits, though there were exceptions, especially "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Three Dog Night in 1970.

But things changed drastically for him in 1977, with the song "Short People." To pretty much everyone's surprise, his version was an massive novelty hit. It made it all the way to Number Two in the U.S., kept out of the top spot only by the all-time classic "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was wildly misunderstood, to say the least. A great many of his songs are sarcastic. For instance, his great song "Political Science" sarcastically advocates for blowing up the world with nuclear weapons. Many people who heard "Short People" didn't realize it was a sarcastic attack on prejudice by pointing out how silly it would be to hate short people for no reason, including ignoring the lyrics of the bridge, which explicitly run counter to the rest of the song. 

But in any case, the song made him a household name, even though his overall sales still didn't increase much. His only two really big hits on the singles charts remain "Short People" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." Since Newman's version of "Short People" is so well known, it's the only song in this series I've included that's performed by him.

I also want to give a special mention to "Sail Away." I think it's an incredible song. But it also shows how unique his songwriting is, and how easy it can be for people to misunderstand his songs if they don't pay attention. It's basically an advertisement for a slave trader prior to the Civil War, attempting to coax Black Africans to come to the U.S. for a better life, when in fact the trader is tricking them into slavery. Yet somehow this sarcastic premise becomes a powerful song about the evils of slavery. It's been widely covered, including by the likes of Bobby Darin, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, and Kirsty MacColl. It was hard for me to pick just one cover, but I thought the version by Etta James is extra powerful.

From the start of Newman's songwriting career, he'd had a sideline writing instrumental music for T.V. shows, which then led to movie soundtrack work. That began way back in 1962, as I mentioned in the previous volume. His first movie soundtrack was in 1971. He did a few more movies here and there over the next couple decades. But his career took a turn in 1995, when he did the soundtrack for the hit movie "Toy Story." One song he did for that, "You've Got a Friend in Me," wasn't a hit per se, barely reaching the singles chart. But it became widely known, and widely beloved by children, and it's gone on to sell over three million copies! Surely that makes it one of the best selling non-hits ever. 

For that song, I've included a duet version between Newman and Lyle Lovett, since it's an interesting one that's also much less well known than the version just featuring Newman.

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Have You Seen My Baby [Hold On] (Ringo Starr)
02 Sail Away (Etta James)
03 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)
04 Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (Etta James)
05 Naked Man (Grass Roots)
06 Lucinda (Joe Cocker)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Baltimore (Nina Simone)
09 Mr. President (Marshall Tucker Band)
10 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
11 Louisiana 1927 (Aaron Neville)
12 Political Science (Everything but the Girl)
13 You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett)
14 Feels like Home (Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ca2NdTcU

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/FVOVaSGXA9nLNpi/file

The cover image is from 1978.

Various Artists - Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 1: 1963-1973

Whenever I think about the "Covered" series of albums I've made, I get frustrated, because I've got dozens that I've never gotten around to posting. I guess I enjoy the making of the albums more than the steps needed to post them. It feels like unfinished homework. But I'm going to make more of an effort to fix that, starting with a triple-header of Randy Newman.

Here's some highlights from his Wikipedia entry:  

"[Newman] is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, composer, and arranger. Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, he is known for his Americana-inspired songs, non-rhotic Southern-accented singing style, and typically mordant or satirical lyrics. Since the 1990s, he has worked mainly in film scoring, most popularly for Disney and Pixar. ... Newman has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (out of 22 nominations), three Emmys, seven Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and seven Golden Globe Awards. His award-winning film work includes 'Ragtime' (1981), 'The Natural' (1984), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'A Bug's Life' (1998), 'Pleasantville' (1998), 'Monsters, Inc.' (2001), 'Cars' (2006), 'The Princess and the Frog' (2009), 'Toy Story 3' (2010), and 'Marriage Story' (2019). He was honored with the Recording Academy's Governors Award in 2003, a Disney Legend award in 2007, and inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013."

As mentioned above, he was born in Los Angeles. But he also spent many of his childhood summers in New Orleans. That would prove to be important, because his songwriting would be heavily influenced by New Orleans styles. And also as mentioned above, he was part of an extended family of Hollywood film composers. His mother and father had regular jobs (as secretary and internist, respectively), but three of his uncles were film composers, and so were three cousins. 

He began writing songs professionally by the age of 17. He put out a single under his own name in 1962, but it flopped. So he decided to try writing songs for others for a while. He began having successes almost immediately. The first song here, "Hold Your Head High" by Jackie DeShannon, is from 1963. 

Also very early on, he began writing instrumental music for TV shows, starting with an episode of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in 1962. That talent would continue to grow, leading to him to eventually doing full movie soundtracks starting in 1971. More on that in a later volume though.

Alan Price helped boost Newman's songwriting career in 1967. For one thing, he had a hit with Newman's "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." But also, he was so taken by Newman's songwriting that his 1967 album "A Price on His Head" had no less than seven songs by Newman. Harry Nilsson paid him an even bigger compliment by covering an entire album of his songs in 1970, "Nilsson Sings Newman."

Newman finally released his first album under his own name in 1968, "Randy Newman (Creates Something New Under the Sun)." It was a critical success, and it led to even more musical acts covering his songs, but it didn't sell well. It didn't even reach the top 200 U.S. albums chart. For the next ten years or so, he would continue to be a cult artist, meaning he was critically praised and beloved by a small group of fans, but didn't have much wider commercial success. 

Meanwhile, his songwriting continued to get better and better. It arguably peaked with his 1972 album "Sail Away," though he has maintained remarkably high consistency for his entire career. Rolling Stone Magazine has put that album on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. His 1974 album "Good Old Boys" would also make that list, though lower down it.

Newman's songwriting is extraordinary, but it's also idiosyncratic, with frequent heavy sarcasm. Some songs have general romantic themes that lend themselves to being covered a lot, for instance "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." There are over a 100 different cover versions of that one. But then consider a song like "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." It's a sarcastic song about how God seemingly could care less about the human race, and even laughs at the calamities it throws at humanity. I think it's a great song, with deep meaning, but it's not exactly typical Top Forty subject material! So there are a lot of songs I would have wanted to include but didn't, because either there's no cover versions at all, or at least no worthy covers. And I've followed my usual rule for the "Covered" series of generally not including versions by Newman himself (although he'll show up with one song in a later volume, and in a duet in the other volume).

Note that some of the best songs written by Newman during this time period only show up in one of the later two volumes. So if you don't see a favorite, wait to see what's on those first. 

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Hold Your Head High (Jackie DeShannon)
02 Baby, Don't Look Down (Billy Storm)
03 I've Been Wrong Before (Cilla Black)
04 Nobody Needs Your Love (Gene Pitney)
05 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Alan Price Set)
06 Snow (Claudine Longet)
07 Illinois (Everly Brothers)
08 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Dusty Springfield)
09 Just One Smile (Blood Sweat & Tears)
10 Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad (Linda Ronstadt)
11 Love Story (Peggy Lee)
12 Dayton, Ohio, 1903 (Wayne Fontana)
13 Mama Told Me [Not to Come] (Three Dog Night)
14 Cowboy (Nilsson)
15 The Beehive State (Doobie Brothers)
16 Living without You (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
17 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Etta James)
18 Guilty (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V6aqPKqW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qo8CJZ7pNQ5aBBM/file

The cover photo is from 1968.

Dan Hicks - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 9-1973, Late Show

I just posted Dan Hicks performing the early show on this date as part of the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. Here's the late show. 

Unfortunately, it seems we only have part of the late show. This one is 23 minutes shorter than the early show, and it doesn't end with anything sounding like an encore. But it's better to have some of the show than none at all.

Luckily, there is only a moderate amount of overlap between the early and late shows. Just three songs were played in both (at least in the parts we have recordings for): "Who Are You," "I'll Tell You Why that Is," and "Out on the Western Plain."

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I had to do a lot of volume adjustment on the version I found, especially boosting the volume of the banter between songs. But that was the only tinkering necessary.

This album is 34 minutes long.

01 Peach Pickin' Time (Dan Hicks)
02 talk (Dan Hicks)
03 He Don't Care - Sweet Lorraine (Dan Hicks)
04 Who Are You (Dan Hicks)
05 talk (Dan Hicks)
06 I'll Tell You Why that Is (Dan Hicks)
07 How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away (Dan Hicks)
08 Out on the Western Plain (Dan Hicks)
09 talk (Dan Hicks)
10 The Same Thing (Dan Hicks)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AtY6UufQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/P8JAlFyPSAhAiJR/file

The cover image was taken on May 8, 1973, for the "In Concert" ABC TV show. That's the same source for the cover image used for the early show. I wanted to have similar photos because Hicks probably would have been wearing the same clothes for the early and late shows. 

Dan Hicks - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 9-1973, Early Show

Here's another album sourced from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. This time, it's Dan Hicks. He performed an early show and last show. That seemed to be standard procedure at that venue, but most of the time we only have the recording of one show. But this time, we have both. So here's the early show first.

I've already posted a little bit about Hicks, when he was a guest for an episode of the Midnight Special TV show, hosted by the Pointed Sisters. But here's some more on him. This is how his Wikipedia entry begins:

"[Hicks] was an American singer-songwriter and musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. He is perhaps best known for the songs 'I Scare Myself' and 'Canned Music.' His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune 'How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?'"

Here's the rest of his Wikipedia entry:

Dan Hicks (singer) - Wikipedia

Hicks led the band "Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks" from 1967 to 1973. Their best selling album was released in 1973, "Last Train to Hicksville... the Home of Happy Feet." It seems likely he'd already broken that band up by the time of this concert, because he was billed as the "Dan Hicks Trio" here. 

As an aside, I haven't been familiar with his music until posting these albums. But I'm very familiar with the Thomas Dolby version of "I Scare Myself." I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was originally written and released by Hicks. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.  

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Who Are You (Dan Hicks)
02 Humming to Myself (Dan Hicks)
03 talk (Dan Hicks)
04 Three Wishes (Dan Hicks)
05 I Got Mine (Dan Hicks)
06 talk (Dan Hicks)
07 We're Not on the Same Trip - Out on the Western Plain (Dan Hicks)
08 talk (Dan Hicks)
09 I Scare Myself (Dan Hicks)
10 Cowboys Dream No. 19 (Dan Hicks)
11 talk (Dan Hicks)
12 I'll Tell You Why that Is (Dan Hicks)
13 Evening Breeze (Dan Hicks)
14 talk (Dan Hicks)
15 Long Come a Viper (Dan Hicks) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/K5BB8i9d

alternate:

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

The cover image was taken on May 8, 1973, for the "In Concert" ABC TV show.