Dana Gillespie - Hold on to Your Fire - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1976)

Recently, a commenter asked me if I still plan on posting more non-album tracks collections. Actually, I have lots of them that are already made. I just don't get around to posting them much because they're part of my music collection and I usually prioritize posting things I've recently discovered. But I'll try to get back to posting more of those. Back in 2020, I posted a non-album tracks collection by British singer-songwriter Dana Gillespie. It consisted of rare songs she did in the late 1960s. Finally, I'm back with a second such collection, from the early 1970s.

First, here's the link to the earlier collection:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/11/dana-gillespie-light-up-various-songs.html

At the time of the start of the music here, she had released two albums in the late 1960s, mostly consisting of her own songs. Both were well received, but neither of them were hits. Around 1970, she started musically collaborating with David Bowie, whom she had known since about 1965. She was signed to his record company and management team. Bowie even wrote a song for her, "Andy Warhol," and they performed it together on the BBC in 1971. 

The first five songs here are demos she recorded in 1971. This was half of an album with her songs on one side and Bowie's songs on the other. About 500 copies were made and circulated in the music industry to help both of them get record deals. Bowie's songs were redone for his album "Hunky Dory." These versions come from a later archival compilation called "What Memories We Make."

However, Gillespie didn't release another album out until 1973, because she got involved playing a major role (Mary Magdelene) in the first London production of the play "Jesus Christ Superstar." That kept her busy through 1972, and a soundtrack was released in 1973. Tracks 6 and 7 here are from that. 

When she finally released her next album, "Weren't Born a Man," it was a very good one. I recommend it if you haven't heard it yet. Bowie and his guitarist Mick Ronson technically produced it. But in fact, they were too busy with their careers, having turned into big stars since Bowie started collaborating with Gillespie in 1971. But Bowie did have some involvement, for instance, playing on and producing that album's version of "Andy Warhol." 

In 1974, she released another album, "Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle." This was also was good, but didn't get much traction. It showed her moving more in a blues direction. Unfortunately, she began having trouble with her record company. She got stuck in a dispute, and was unable to release any more records. Her next album wouldn't come out until 1982. From that point on, she went all in on the blues, and put out many more albums in the blues style. Tracks 8 through 14 are from 1973 and 1974, and mostly consist of songs she wanted to put out on her next album. Those didn't come out until the "What Memories We Make" compilation mentioned above.

While having a music career, Gillespie also was pursuing a movie career. She certainly had the looks to be a big star. When she was blocked from making more records, she spent most of the rest of the 1970s as an actress. She landed some prominent roles, but never became a big star in that field either. The last song here is from a 1976 movie. 

One final thing. Here's an article from the Guardian about Gillespie's very interesting life. It's worth a read:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/12/bowie-bed-hopping-and-the-blues-the-wild-times-of-dana-gillespie

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Mother, Don't Be Frightened (Dana Gillespie)
02 Andy Warhol (Dana Gillespie)
03 Never Knew (Dana Gillespie)
04 All Cut Up on You (Dana Gillespie)
05 Lavender Hill (Dana Gillespie)
06 Everything's Alright (Dana Gillespie with Stephen Tate & Paul Nicholas)
07 I Don't Know How to Love Him (Dana Gillespie)
08 Hold on to Your Fire (Dana Gillespie)
09 Man Size Job (Dana Gillespie)
10 Stoke the Engine (Dana Gillespie)
11 Goin' Crazy with the Blues (Dana Gillespie)
12 Say Goodnight to the Night (Dana Gillespie)
13 Do the Spin (Dana Gillespie)
14 Gone at the Game (Dana Gillespie)
15 Celandine's Blues (Dana Gillespie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LAAK3hDd 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I0tgLutyB6aSxSK/file

The cover image is from a 1968 movie called "The Lost Continent." The original picture I found was in black and white, but I colorized it. She also had some dirty smudges on her skin, which I removed in Photoshop. 

Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters - WLIR Ultrasonic Concert Series, Ultrasonic Recording Studios, Hempstead, NY, 10-1-1973

I recently posted a couple of concert albums by Chick Corea and his band Return to Forever, and John McLaughlin and his band the Mahavishnu Orchestra (as I write this in August 2026). I'm not into that kind of jazz. But I do want to post all the worthy concerts from certain concert series, and I know other people do like this kind of music. So here's a Herbie Hancock concert from that same time period, the early 1970s, as part of the WLIR Ultrasonic Concert Series.

Hancock has to be one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time. A lot of that has to do with his 1973 album "Head Hunters." On this album, he switched styles, combining instrumental jazz with funk more than he had on any previous album. Here's what the Wikipedia entry about the album has to say about how it was received by the public: "The album was a commercial and artistic breakthrough for Hancock, crossing over to funk and rock audiences and bringing jazz-funk and jazz fusion to mainstream attention, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard 200. Today the album is regarded as a landmark of fusion and has influenced artists in numerous other genres." In fact, it went Platinum, and became the best selling jazz album of all time, up until that point.

That album was released on October 26, 1973. This concert took place on October 1st. So Hancock had his new band, the Head Hunters, and his new funk-jazz style, but I guess the audience wasn't familiar with his style until they heard it in this concert.  

The sound quality is excellent. However, there was a problem with the recording in that there was a lot of hiss. But that kind of thing is easily fixed these days. I ran all the songs through the MVSEP audio editing program, and got rid of most of the hiss. I'm assuming this sounds better than any previous versions of this bootleg. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
02 The Spook Who Sat by the Door [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
03 talk (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
04 Butterfly [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
05 Sly [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
06 Chameleon [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vaEwA778

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/80bsDdTfQjnBjjZ/file

The cover image of Hancock is from an unknown concert in 1973.

Various Artists - The Best of the Rest, Volume 1, Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1973-1974

I previously said I was almost done with posting music from Ebbets Field radio broadcasts, but I'm not quite done. I've made two compilations of all the songs that are available with excellent sound quality, from a variety of musical acts. Here's the first of those compilations.

The reason we have these songs is because in the 2000s, KCUV-FM, a Colorado radio station, released four albums containing songs from Ebbets Field concerts. The first one was called "Live From Ebbets Field Vol. 2: 1973-1976," and the others just changed volume numbers. These were obscure, local releases to begin with, and then soon went out of print, so now they're almost impossible to find as albums. But luckily, someone put all the songs on the Internet, so I was able to get them. I went through all the albums, and removed the songs that I included on full concert albums. Then I sorted the remainder chronologically.

It's remarkable to think that all of these concerts were broadcast in full on Colorado radio stations in the 1970s, yet those concert recordings now seem to be lost. Then there's an equal number on "The Best of the Rest, Volume 2," plus still more radio broadcasts that weren't even selected for these compilations. In fact, it's known that about 300 such concerts from that venue were broadcast in the 1970s! I've posted 70 concerts from there. This volume and the following one contain songs from another couple dozen. So that leaves recordings for another 200 concerts that must exist somewhere, in excellent sound quality. The fact that two previously unknown Ian Matthews concerts came out on an archival box set this year (2026) is an encouraging sign that somebody out there still has at least some of them and could release them if someone pays the licensing fees. Let's hope more get to the public somehow.

By the way, if any of you have any recordings from this venue that I've missed, please step forward with them, so I can post them! A commenter recently said they have a full Wendy Waldman concert and offered to share it with me, but since then I never heard back from that person. (If you're out there, please do share, it's never too late.) 

If you want the dates of the concerts for these songs, please check the mp3 tags. All that information is there. The only thing I want to say about the below songs is that although I've posted a Peter Frampton concert from Ebbets Field, the Frampton song here is not from that. The one I posted is a 1975 concert, but the song here is from a 1974 concert. 

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 A Whiter Shade of Pale (New York Rock Ensemble)
02 The Lodger (Peter Frampton)
03 Hello, Hello (Sopwith Camel)
04 Steppin' Out (Joan Armatrading)
05 Ridgetop (Jesse Colin Young)
06 Wild Thing (Chip Taylor)
07 Carolina Day (Livingston Taylor)
08 Wabash Cannonball (Doc & Merle Watson)
09 Blackbird (Kenny Rankin)
10 The Ballad of Curtis Loew (Al Kooper)
11 Fare Forward Voyagers (John Fahey)
12 Down Drinking at the Bar (Loudon Wainwright III)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uF3yCdFz

alternate:

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

Since this is a "various artists" album, I wanted to do something different for the cover art. I was able to find very, very few photos from inside the Ebbets Field venue. Here is one. Instead of looking at the stage, it shows the audience in their bleacher seats covered with the venue's notorious orange shag carpet. I'm not sure which concert this is from exactly, but I think it's from one by the Ramones in early 1977.

Unfortunately, I don't have any audio recording from any Ramones concert held here, just this photo.  

The Mahavishnu Orchestra - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 4-3-1973

If you thought I was done posting concerts sourced from Ebbets Field radio broadcasts, I'm not. I've been distracted this last week working like a demon on the "Maximum Wall" Pink Floyd project, so I haven't been posting much. But I'm glad to say that's nearly finished. Now, I'm just waiting for feedback from a few people. I don't have many more of these Ebbets Field recordings, but I do have about ten more. 

Some of those are because I decided I wanted to be thorough and post all the ones I could find, even if they're of music I don't like much. This is one that doesn't really appeal to me. I'm not into serious instrumental jazz (although I do like vocal jazz). But hey, I'm sure there are some people out there will appreciate this, so this is for you. It's the Mahavishnu Orchestra, led by lead guitarist John McLaughlin.

Here's the Wikipedia intro about this band:

"The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a jazz fusion band formed in New York City in 1971, led by English guitarist John McLaughlin. The group underwent several line-up changes throughout its history across its two periods of activity, from 1971 to 1976 and from 1984 to 1987. With its first line-up consisting of McLaughlin, drummer Billy Cobham, keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, and bassist Rick Laird, the band received acclaim for its complex, intense music consisting of a blend of Indian classical music, jazz, and psychedelic rock as well as its dynamic live performances between 1971 and 1973. Many members of the band have gone on to acclaimed careers of their own in the jazz and jazz fusion genres."

Since this isn't really my cup of tea, I won't say much more. But here's the rest of the Wikipedia article:

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Wikipedia

I only had one problem when getting ready to post this album: the last song, "Dawn," got cut off before the end. About the last five minutes were missing. So I found another soundboard bootleg version, from Buffalo, New York in January 1973, and I used that to fill in the last few minutes. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

As far as I can tell, this recording is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.  

01 talk (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
02 Meeting of the Spirits [Instrumental] (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
03 Open Country Joy [Instrumental] (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
04 talk (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
05 The Dance of Maya [Instrumental] (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
06 talk (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
07 Dawn [Instrumental] [Edit] (Mahavishnu Orchestra)

This album is an hour and five minutes long. 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qh28KWnr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/o1WSPhKhdYCDfwt/file

The cover image shows John McLaughlin in a Mahavishnu Orchestra concert, in Shibuya Kokaido Hall, , Tokyo, Japan, on September 19, 1973.

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 2: 1970-1973

I haven't posted much at this blog in recent days, but for a very good reason: I've been fully focused on finishing the "Maximum Wall" version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." It's still some days away from completion, but the end is very much in sight. Fabio from Rio has helped greatly in adding a visual aspect to an accompanying booklet that has now grown to over 150 pages! I'm hoping the final product will blow your socks off.

Luckily, I had a bunch of albums mostly ready to be posted in preparation for my vacation, and I still have some of those to post. So here's another one. Let's continue with the "Covered" albums by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, usually just called "Gamble and Huff." Here's the second volume out of four.

By 1970, Gamble and Huff had enough of a track record of writing and producing soul music hits that they were ready to start their own record company. So they created Philadelphia International. It was backed by CBS Records, and distributed by them. This new company was up and running by 1971. Soon, they were having even more hits, and bigger hits too.

At the same time Gamble and Huff and Philadelphia International were on the rise, Motown Records was self destructing. I've described this in other write-ups. But, in short, it seems label owner Berry Gordy grew tired of the music business and wanted to become a multimedia company, with much more focus on T.V. and movies. So he moved the company from Detroit to Los Angeles, and lost most of the musical talent along the way. (And yet, for all that, Motown only had a couple of movie successes.) Thus, Philadelphia was able to largely replace Detroit as the place to be for soul music in the early 1970s.

Furthermore, as time went on, Gamble and Huff began to develop an increasingly distinctive style.  Here's how it is described in their Wikipedia entry: "Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia soul sound evolved from the simpler arrangements of the late-1960s into a style featuring lush strings, thumping basslines, and sliding hi-hat rhythms - elements that soon became the distinguishing characteristics of a new style of music called disco."

Some hits here were massive. For instance, "Me and Mrs. Jones," "Love Train," and "TSOP [The Sound of Philadelphia]" weren't just Number Ones on the U.S. soul singles charts, they were Number Ones on the U.S pop charts as well! Furthermore, they had many more hits than this. I just selected the cream of the crop, so these albums would have wider appeal.

All through this time period, the Gamble and Huff songwriting partnership was going strong. The vast majority of the songs here were written by the two of them, and with nobody else. However, occasionally there were additional songwriters. For instance, "Drowning in the Sea of Love" was also written by Joe Simon, and a songwriter named Cary Gilbert helped write "Me and Mrs. Jones." 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9, Part 1 (Wilson Pickett)
02 Drowning in the Sea of Love (Joe Simon)
03 I'll Do Anything [He Wants Me To] (Doris Troy)
04 Back Stabbers (O'Jays)
05 Me and Mrs. Jones (Billy Paul)
06 One Night Affair (Jerry Butler)
07 When the World's at Peace (O'Jays)
08 If You Don't Know Me by Now (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
09 Power of Love (Joe Simon)
10 Love Train (O'Jays)
11 Am I Black Enough for You (Billy Paul)
12 I'll Always Love My Mama (Intruders)
13 Break Up to Make Up (Stylistics)
14 The Love I Lost, Part 1 (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes)
15 Put Your Hands Together (O'Jays)
16 TSOP [The Sound of Philadelphia] (MFSB with the Three Degrees)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EjhUcS2T

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qf93VFHAlUX1weE/file

The cover image is from 1973. I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. Also, the original picture was in black and white. But I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. That's Huff on the left and Gamble on the right.

The Carpenters - Singles Uncovered, Volume 2: 1972-1976 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

The day before yesterday, I posted "Volune 1" in this series of Carpenters albums made by guest poster Mike Solof. This is the second volume, and the third volume will be coming very soon. 

As mentioned in the write-up for "Volume 1," this blog has already posted some different attempts to strip the Carpenters' music of excessive production and get it back to basics, especially Karen Carpenter's voice. But Mike has taken a different approach. He used his editing skills to get rid of most of the strings and excessive backing vocals, but still keep guitar, bass, and drums, as well as the lead vocals.

Also, note that while this is called "Singles Uncovered," that's not strictly true. Most single A-sides from this time are included. But there are some that Mike didn't like so he left them off. And I think they're also are some non-singles that he did like that he included.

This album is one hour long.

01 It's Going to Take Some Time (Carpenters)
02 Goodbye to Love (Carpenters)
03 Road Ode (Carpenters)
04 I Won't Last a Day without You (Carpenters)
05 Top of the World (Carpenters)
06 Sing (Carpenters)
07 This Masquerade (Carpenters)
08 Yesterday Once More (Carpenters)
09 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (Carpenters)
10 Please, Mr. Postman (Carpenters)
11 Only Yesterday (Carpenters)
12 Happy (Carpenters)
13 Solitaire (Carpenters)
14 Love Me for What I Am (Carpenters)
15 Tryin' to Get That Feeling Again (Carpenters)
16 There's a Kind of Hush (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MY3dHuzL 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2TR4KryTZswXVd9/file

The cover image was chosen by Mike. I don't know the details.

Covered: Brian Wilson, Volume 1: 1963-1978 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

June 11th marks the first anniversary of the passing of musical genius Brian Wilson (1942–2025), who would have turned 84 on June 20th had he still been with us. This seems like the perfect moment to post "Covered" albums devoted to this extraordinary songwriter. Since Brian is, of course, closely associated with the Beach Boys, the "Covered: Brian Wilson" collection also serves as an indirect tribute to the legendary vocal group, highlighting the enormous influence they have had on generations of musicians since the 1960s.

This collection is another collaboration with Fabio from Rio. He is a devoted Beach Boys fan and, in fact, his first guest post here was a tribute to Brian Wilson, written and published just days after Brian’s death one year ago. You can find it here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/06/various-artists-songs-in-key-of-brian.html

It is therefore no surprise that he embraced this project wholeheartedly and came up with hundreds of potential covers, which were eventually trimmed down to exactly 100 tracks spread across five volumes. These 100 recordings represent 98 different compositions, since we made minor exceptions to my usual policy of avoiding duplicate songs by including two versions each of "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations", which will appear in later volumes.

Most of the songs here were not hits in their cover versions or at least were not big hits. But there is one important exception: “Surf City” was a Number One hit in the US in 1963 for Jan and Dean. The song was written by Wilson and Jan Berry of Jan and Dean fame. However, even though a lot of these were not the big hits, they were intended to be, it shows that Wilson’s songs were being widely covered practically from the very beginning of his career with The Beach Boys in 1962.

Note that during The time period of this album, 1963 to 1978, Wilson wrote or cowrote dozens of hit songs for the Beach Boys. Fabio and I were careful to never use the Beach Boys versions or solo Brian Wilson versions, but only covers by other musical acts. It just so happens that many of the best covers of those hits from this time come later. So if you don’t see some of your favorite songs, just wait to see what we come up with for the later volumes.

Out of these 23 tracks here, only 12 were recorded by the Beach Boys around the time of their first release. The remaining 11 tracks were originally recorded by other artists, demonstrating that Brian's talent was not limited to his own group.

These are the non-Beach Boys tracks: 

01 Drag City (Jan & Dean)

02 He's a Doll (Honeys)

03 Surf City (Jan & Dean)

04 The One You Can't Have (Honeys)

06 The New Girl in School (Jan & Dean)

08 Guess I'm Dumb (Glen Campbell)

13 Time to Get Alone (Redwood)

17 Good Time (American Spring)

19 Sweet Mountain (American Spring)

20 Had to Phone Ya (American Spring)

23 Almost Summer (Celebration)

A few of those songs - tracks 13, 17, and 20 - were later done by the Beach Boys. And Celebration was a side project for Beach Boys singer Mike Love.

Particularly noteworthy are the Honeys / American Spring (a.k.a. Spring), which together are represented here by five songs. The Honeys were a pop group formed by sisters Marilyn Rovell (later Marilyn Wilson), Diane Rovell, and Barbara Rovell (the latter eventually replaced by their cousin, Ginger Blake). In many ways, they were a female counterpart to the Beach Boys. They were discovered by Gary Usher at a talent show in 1961. Usher eventually introduced them to Brian, who renamed the group and began dating Marilyn. The couple married in December 1964.

The Honeys dissolved in 1970 when Ginger left the group to pursue a solo career. Marilyn and Diane then formed Spring, and later added "American" to the band's name after encountering trademark issues with a British group of the same name that threatened legal action. American Spring released a single album in 1972, produced by Brian Wilson, and recorded several additional tracks in 1977–1978 for a second album that was never released. Some of these recordings would later appear on compilations and anthologies. "Had to Phone Ya," recorded before the Beach Boys' own version, is one such example. 

This album is one hour long.

01 Drag City (Jan & Dean)
02 He's a Doll (Honeys)
03 Surf City (Jan & Dean)
04 The One You Can't Have (Honeys)
05 You're So Good to Me (Fireballs)
06 The New Girl in School (Jan & Dean)
07 Don't Worry Baby (Ivy League)
08 Guess I'm Dumb (Glen Campbell)
09 Here Today (Bobby Vee)
10 I'm Waiting for the Day (Peanut)
11 Don't Talk [Put Your Head on My Shoulder] (Carmen McRae)
12 The Little Girl I Once Knew (Bystanders)
13 Time to Get Alone (Redwood)
14 Aren't You Glad (Peggy March)
15 Darlin' (Paper Dolls)
16 Friends (Chicks)
17 Good Time (American Spring)
18 Vegetables (Jan & Dean)
19 Sweet Mountain (American Spring)
20 Had to Phone Ya (American Spring)
21 Sail On Sailor (KGB)
22 Breakaway (Wildfire)
23 Almost Summer (Celebration)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ypFoz44W

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DdA0Xae8n72zlKI/file

The cover image is from 1964.

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 2: 1972-1989

Here's the second volume out of six "Covered" albums celebrating the songwriting of George Harrison.

When this album starts, in 1972, Harrison was seemingly on top of the world. His 1970 solo album "All Things Must Pass" was a huge critical and commercial success, hitting Number One in the U.S., Britain, and many countries. It surprised many by outselling the solo albums of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. 

For the first half of the 1970s, Harrison maintained a very active musical career. In addition to putting out his own solo albums, he produced and/or played on albums by other musical acts. We can see that here, especially with his help for fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr. There are no less than five songs here performed by Starr. 

"Back Off Boogaloo" follows the pattern of "Octopus's Garden" and "It Don't Come Easy" on the previous volume, in that it was solely credited to Starr when in fact it was co-written by Harrison. It was a big hit in 1972, especially in Britain, where it made it all the way to Number Two in the singles chart. But while those two songs I just mentioned are still credited only to Starr, in 2017, the official credits for "Back Off Boogaloo" changed to be a co-write with Harrison.

The same pattern continued for Starr's next big hit, "Photograph," which went all the way to Number One in 1973 in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. But this one was the first one to be officially credited to Starr and Harrison from the very beginning. Like all the other Starr songs mentioned above, it seems Starr started it, but needed a lot of help from Harrison to finish it off. Starr later said he was good at writing a verse or two, and a chorus, but then he often would get stuck. He also said of Harrison helping his songwriting in this era, "I only know three chords and he'd stick four more in, and they'd all think I was a genius."

But Harrison also wrote or co-wrote songs for others during this time period: "The Holdup" by David Bromberg, "So Sad (No Love of His Own)" by Alvin Lee and Mylon Lefevre, "Far East Man" by Ron Wood, and "I'll Still Love You (When Every Song Is Sung)" by Cilla Black. In all those cases, the cover versions included here came first. For "So Sad" and "Far East Man," Harrison released his own versions a year or two later.

Here's a fun fact about the version of "Something" by James Brown. That great song has been covered around 1,000 times, making it one of the most covered songs of all time. But Harrison said that Brown's version was his favorite out of all the covers he'd heard. In an interview many years later, he said, "There are a lot of really good versions of 'Something.' But the one that is just a killer, and nobody even knows about it except for a few friends of mine, is the James Brown version of it. He put it out as the flip side to a revamped version of 'Think.' And you gotta play it, it's just unbelievable." He even sent Brown a postcard complimenting him on it and suggesting that it should be released as an A-side instead.

Unfortunately, in the mid-1970s, Harrison lost a lot of the passion he'd had for his music career up until then. Here's a quote taken from a Wikipedia article: "Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Mikal Gilmore commented that 'the crises [Harrison] faced in the mid-1970s changed him,' and that depression was a key factor. Depression permeated many of the songs that Harrison wrote during this period, an issue that was not helped by his continued heavy drinking and cocaine use." As a result, he mostly stopped writing songs for others, and put out fewer albums himself. This trend deepened in the 1980s, when he only put out three studio albums, compared to six in the 1970s (with one of them being a double album).

As a result, Harrison's music didn't get the same attention in the 1980s, so there weren't as many covers. That's especially the case since he did very little to promote his career. The only concert tour he took in the 1970s and 1980s was in 1974. Only the last three songs here are from the 1980s. One of those, by the way, "Run So Far," was written for a 1989 album by Eric Clapton. However, Harrison's own version would be released in 2002.

This album is one hour long. 

01 Back Off Boogaloo (Ringo Starr)
02 What Is Life (Olivia Newton-John)
03 The Holdup (David Bromberg)
04 Photograph (Ringo Starr)
05 Something (James Brown)
06 Don't Let Me Wait Too Long (Rotten to the Core)
07 You and Me [Babe] (Ringo Starr)
08 I'd Have You Anytime (Ralfi Pagan)
09 So Sad [No Love of His Own] (Alvin Lee & Mylon Lefevre)
10 Sunshine Life for Me [Sail Away Raymond] (Ringo Starr)
11 Far East Man (Ron Wood)
12 I'll Still Love You [When Every Song Is Sung] (Cilla Black)
13 Dark Horse (Thomas Harris)
14 Wrack My Brain (Ringo Starr)
15 Cloud Nine (Gary B.B. Coleman)
16 Run So Far (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PETt92E9 

alternate: 

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

The cover image is from the 1970s, but I don't know the exact year. 

Zephyr with Tommy Bolin - Art's Bar and Grill, Boulder, CO, 5-2-1973

Mere minutes ago, I posted a concert of Zephyr with Tommy Bolin performed at the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado, in May, 1973. I'm posting this similar one immediately thereafter because I actually strongly recommend you listen to this one instead, unless you're a die-hard fan and want both. The issue is sound quality. The two concerts are similar, but this one sounds much better.

I gave a lot of explanation to the Ebbets Field concert I just posted that also applies here. But I guess I'll give a quick summary for those who didn't read the write-up for that album. The band Zephyr was formed in 1968 in the Boulder, Colorado area. Candy Givens was a charismatic lead singer and Tommy Bolin was an exceptionally talented lead guitarist. Bolin left the band in 1971 after two albums. The band continued without him, releasing another album in 1972.

Then, in the summer of 1973, Bolin had some free time between commitments for his band at the time, the James Gang. So he agreed to play a handful of reunion concerts with Zephyr, just in the Boulder and Denver area. This concert was professionally recorded, and officially released in 1997 under the name "Zephyr Live at Art's Bar and Grill May 2, 1973." As I write this in 2026, it's the only officially released Zephyr live album.

So, since this has been officially released, why am I posting it? That goes against my usual policy. It's because there was a serious flaw to the official release: the lead vocals were so low in the mix, they were almost inaudible. Here's a fan review I found of this album at the Discogs website, that sums up the problem: "Great example of Tommy Bolin's guitar playing. Amazing. Only issue is the mix has poor vocals. Great singer but can't hear her."

I guess in 1997 when this album was released, that problem would have been very difficult to fix. But now, anybody can fix it with ease, due to massive improvements in audio editing technology. So I fixed it. I used the MVSEP program to split the vocals from the instruments. Then I drastically boosted the volume of the vocals, and then merged the two parts back together. The result is like night and day, in my opinion. Before, the album was pretty much unlistenable, unless you treated it as an all instrumental album. But now it sounds just fine, like a well recorded live album from that time period.

So that's why I'm posting this, despite it being officially released. Also, I checked, and that release is out of print. 

If you compare this with the Ebbets Field concert recording, there are some songs performed on that one not performed here, and vice versa. As I said, if you're a big fan, you might want to hear both. But if you only want one, I would definitely make it this one, due to the sound quality. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Just Warming Up [Instrumental] (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
02 Cross the River (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
03 Boom-Ba-Boom [Instrumental] (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
04 Somebody Listen (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
05 Huna Buna (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
06 The Creator Has a Master Plan (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
07 Sail On (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
08 Crazy 'bout You (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
09 Goin' Home (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
10 Hard Chargin' Woman (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZP8XjRwQ

alternate:

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

In 1970, Zephyr appeared on a local PBS TV show, simply called "The Show." Video footage of that performance survives. So I took a screenshot from that video for the cover image. Candy Givens is seen as the lead singer, with Tommy Bolin on guitar behind her.

Zephyr with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-24-1973

Before I say anything else, I want to warn you about the sound quality here. A big reason I've been prioritizing the posting of concerts from the Ebbets Field venue is due to the consistently high sound quality. But this is an exception. This sounds markedly worse than any other recording from this venue that I've posted so far. I'm guessing it's an audience boot instead of a radio broadcast. So listener beware.

The main draw for this concert is lead guitarist Tommy Bolin, whose reputation has continued to grow since his untimely death in 1976. He was a member of the band Zephyr when that band started out in 1968. The main appeal of the band was that it paired Bolin's obvious guitar talents with the singing of Candy Givens, a woman whose singing had similarities to the singing of Janis Joplin. Zephyr put out albums in 1969 and 1971. They toured the U.S., but they didn't manage to get a commercial breakthrough. In 1971, just after the band's second album was released, Bolin left the band, due to growing personality conflicts in the band. The rest of the band continued without him, releasing another album in 1972.

In the summer of 1973, Bolin was at loose ends. He had joined the band the James Gang early in 1973. But that band had some time off between recording an album and when it would be released in September. Bolin was living in Boulder. Someone came up with the idea of Bolin reuniting with Zephyr for a few concerts just in the Boulder and Denver area. It would just be for fun, and to make a little money, since he was already committed to being a part of the James Gang. So this was one of a very small number of shows. I'm calling it "Zephyr with Tommy Bolin," because while he had been a member, he was no longer a member. 

As it turned out, Zephyr fizzled out shortly after these reunion shows. The band got back together in 1976 and continued onward. However, it only released one more album, in 1982. Then the band ended for good in 1984, when lead singer Candy Givens died of a drug and alcohol overdose.

I was disappointed that this concert doesn't sound very good. I tried to do some audio editing to improve things, but I could only do so much with the raw material. Then I noticed that another one of these reunion shows was actually released as an official live album, the only live album from the band. That release has the informative title "Zephyr Live at Art's Bar and Grill May 2, 1973." As you can see, that took place just three weeks prior to this concert, at a small club in Boulder.

So I gave that album a listen. The sound quality is much better than this one. But there was a fatal flaw: the lead vocals were extremely low in the mix, almost inaudible. So I decided to fix that, and then post that album too. I strongly recommend you actually listen to that album instead of this one, due to the drastically different sound quality. But, since I'm posting all the Ebbets Field concerts I can get my hands on, I'm posting this one too. If you're a real die-hard fan of Zephyr and/or Tommy Bolin, you might want both.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Zephyr, though it's not very thorough. As I write this in May 2026, it doesn't even mention the 1973 reunion with Bolin.

Zephyr (band) - Wikipedia  

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Cross the River (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
02 The Locomotion (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
03 Lay Down and Die (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
04 Rock Me, Baby (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
05 Going Home (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
06 The Creator Has a Master Plan (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
07 Sail On (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/59iXMozo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1zqAVNC1EVqMtR9/file

The cover image has major quality issues, just like the music for this album. But I chose it over other options because this is an actual photo taken inside the Ebbets Field venue! It's the first one I've found that fits with one of the albums I want to post. That's Candy Givens playing harmonica with a bandana on her head, and Tommy Bolin on guitar. 

I could have tried to improve this image in various ways, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it since the album has issues anyway.

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.