Sandy Denny - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 29th April 1973 | Albums That Should Exist

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

Paul says: 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 
02 talk
03 The Music Weaver 
04 talk
05 It Suits Me Well 
06 talk 
07 Bushes and Briars 
08 talk 
09 The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood 
10 talk 
11 The Sea Captain 
12 talk 
13 At the End of the Day 
14 talk
15 John the Gun 

(all tracks Sandy Denny) 

Now there aren’t many Sandy boots to rather ROIOs and fewer on her own without the Fairports or Fotheringay so this is a pleasure and worth it to sign off the day with [more over the weekend I dare say!]

Enjoy! I did

Elizabeth Cotten - Washington Blues, [Vol. 2: Shake Sugaree] (1967) | HERBERG DE KELDER

 

Washington Blues

Elizabeth Cotten - Washington Blues, Vol. 2: Shake Sugaree (1967)

HERBERG DE KELDER

We love Libba Cotton don’t we?

Kirsty MacColl - The End of A Perfect Day | jt1674

  . . . well quite

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/815953017789612032/kirsty-maccoll-the-end-of-a-perfect-day

Bright Lights, Quiet Doubt (A Butterboy Compilation)

 Now this is an interesting thesis from Butterboy read what he says:

BRIGHT LIGHTS , QUIET DOUBT

VA - Bright Lights, Quiet Doubt (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

I’ve always loved records that sound confident but feel nervous underneath. 

Songs that smile at you while quietly asking, who’s really in charge here? 

That tension runs through this entire set. 

The choruses are big, the hooks are immediate, but somewhere beneath the 

shine there is always a flicker of uncertainty.

This box isn’t about hits for the sake of hits. It’s about power, wanting it, 

fearing it, performing it, losing it, and how pop music from the late 1970s 

through the early 1990s kept circling that idea without ever needing to shout. 

The trick was simple. Make it irresistible first, then let the doubt creep in later. 

Few songs capture that balance better than "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", 

a record that sounds effortless and bright while quietly wondering who actually 

holds the power. As the first disc unfolds, that feeling appears again and again, 

big choruses, polished surfaces, and just enough uncertainty beneath them to 

keep everything slightly unsettled.

While the collection lives firmly in the 1980s, six key recordings from 1977 to 1979 

appear here for a reason. Songs like Watching the Detectives, 

The Light Pours Out of Me, Cars, Video Killed the Radio Star, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, 

and Map Ref. 41°N 93°W sit just outside the decade but help explain how it began. 

These late 1970s records introduced many of the ideas that would define the sound

 that followed, angular post-punk rhythms, early synthesizer pop, studio experimentation, a

nd a new kind of literate songwriting. Including them quietly sets the stage, 

capturing the moment when the foundations were laid before the music fully opened 

up in the decade that followed.

Across these four discs, you can hear the story unfold. In many ways, 

the 1980s perfected the sound of confidence with anxiety underneath.

At the start everything gleams, ambition, motion, confidence, big city energy. 

These are songs that feel like climbing somewhere. Yet even in their brightest 

moments there is a nervous current running beneath them. 

The rhythms are tight, the voices sometimes cool or distant, the lyrics hinting 

that success might not bring the control it promises.

Soon the systems start to show through, politics, technology, media, pressure.

 By the later discs the music turns inward. Control becomes emotional. 

Certainty fades. The sound loosens. Irony replaces triumph. 

Nothing crashes, it simply drifts, like a party slowly realizing 

the lights have come on.

What makes this set special is how connected it feels. 

These tracks speak to each other across years and styles. 

Synth-pop leans into art-rock. Chart successes quietly echo post-punk ideas. 

Melancholy sits right next to momentum. Nothing here is accidental, 

yet nothing feels forced either. It plays like a great late-night radio sequence 

that slowly reveals a deeper story beneath the surface.

Most compilations give you a moment in time. 

This one gives you a feeling moving through time. In that sense, 

the set traces one of the clearest psychological arcs of the era, 

ambition giving way to systems, systems giving way to reflection,

 and reflection settling into aftermath.

That’s why the set doesn’t resemble anything else commercially available. 

It isn’t a genre survey, a greatest-hits package, or nostalgia bait. 

Instead it becomes a story told through familiar voices arranged in unfamiliar ways, 

inviting songs you thought you knew to reveal something slightly different underneath.

If you smile, nod, and then suddenly find yourself wondering 

what connects all of it, that quiet unease beneath the confidence,

 then the set has done exactly what it was meant to do.

 

(Butterboy)

==========================================================

To still whet your whistle!

Tracks are : 

Track lists

CD1

01 Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule The World 4:14 1985

02 Simple Minds - Alive and Kicking 5:26 1985

03 Talk Talk - Life's What You Make It 4:20 1985

04 Human League - The Lebanon 3:45 1984

05 Duran Duran - The Reflex 4:24 1984

06 Spandau Ballet - Gold 3:51 1983

07 INXS - Original Sin 5:19 1984

08 ABC - The Look of Love (Part One) 3:27 1982

09 Roxy Music - More Than This 4:29 1982

10 Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer 4:53 1986

11 Eurythmics - Here Comes the Rain Again 4:54 1983

12 Ultravox - Dancing With Tears in My Eyes 4:11 1994

13 Tears for Fears - Mad World 3:32 1984

14 Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark - Enola Gay 3:30 1980

15 A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away) (Single Edit) 3:41 1982

16 Fixx - One Thing Leads to Another 3:08 1983

17 Howard Jones - Things Can Only Get Better 3:54 1984

18 Naked Eyes - Always Something There to Remind Me 3:42 1983

19 Depeche Mode - People Are People 3:46 1984

20 Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls 4:46 1984

CD2

21 David Bowie - Modern Love 3:56 1983

22 Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids 7:09 1980

23 Gary Numan - Cars 3:58 1979

24 Police - Spirits in the Material World 3:00 1981

25 XTC - Senses Working Overtime 4:34 1982

26 Heaven 17 - Temptation 3:24 1983

27 Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill 5:00 1985

28 New Order - Age of Consent 5:15 1983

29 Talking Heads - Burning Down The House 4:03 1983

30 Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star 3:25 1979

31 Visage - Fade to Grey 3:50 1980

32 Jam - That's Entertainment 3:32 1980

33 Elvis Costello - Watching the Detectives 3:43 1977

34 Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost in You 4:15 1984

35 Echo and The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon 5:46 1984

36 Cure - In Between Days 2:58 1985

37 Wire - Map Reference 41 N 93 W 3:39 1979

38 Smiths - How Soon is Now 6:47 1984

39 Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart 3:23 1980

40 Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities in Dust 4:08 1985

CD3

41 Prefab Sprout - When Loves Breaks Down 3:46 1984

42 Blue Nile - St. Catherine’s Day 4:42 1984

43 Sade - Smooth Operator 4:21 1994

44 Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) 3:59 1983

45 Everything But The Girl - Each and Everyone 2:48 1984

46 Aztec Camera - Oblivious 3:10 1983

47 Style Council - My Ever Changing Moods 3:39 1984

48 Level 42 - Something About You 4:25 1985

49 Thompson Twins - Doctor! Doctor! 4:34 1984

50 Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over 3:56 1986

51 a-ha - Hunting High and Low 3:47 1985

52 China Crisis - Wishful thinking 4:10 1984

53 Simple Minds - Belfast Child 6:41 1989

54 Talk Talk - Such a Shame 5:35 1984

55 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Secret 3:57 1985

56 Howard Jones - No One is to Blame 4:13 1986

57 Prefab Sprout - The King of Rock 'n' Roll 4:23 1988

58 Associates - Party Fears Two 4:07 1982

59 Japan - Quiet Life 4:51 1979

CD4

60 ABC - Poison Arrow 3:23 1982

61 Peter Gabriel - Biko 6:54 1980

62 Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere 4:20 1985

63 Cure - A Forest 3:55 1980

64 Depeche Mode - Stripped 3:51 1986

65 New Order - True Faith 5:54 1987

66 Simple Minds - Street Fighting Years 6:25 1989

67 Ultravox - Reap The Wild Wind 3:42 1982

68 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Forever Live and Die 3:35 1986

69 Blue Nile - Headlights on The Parade 6:16 1989

70 Alphaville - Forever Young 3:47 1984

71 XTC - Dear God 3:38 1986

72 Smiths - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me 5:06 1987

73 Siouxsie and the Banshees - Peek-a-Boo 3:12 1988

74 Style Council - Life at The Top Peoples Health Farm 5:48 1988

75 Talk Talk - I Believe in You 6:16 1988

76 Fixx - Red Skies 4:36 1982

77 Roxy Music - Jealous Guy 4:57 1981

78 Magazine - The Light Pours Out of Me 3:27 1978

79 Police - King of Pain 4:59 1983

80 Devo - Beautiful World 3:30 1981

Sometimes I Have a Great Notion . . . . . Did Leadbelly Sing himself out of prison (twice!?) | WILL HOWARD | DANGEROUS MINDS

Credit: Dangerous Minds / Library of Congress

Did Lead Belly really sing himself out of prison in twice?

Will Howard

Fri 8 May 2026 0:00, UK

As the ever-present myth of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil shows, there’s no form of mystique quite like the one bequeathed to classic blues singers. 

Perhaps it has something to do with those recordings, as well. There are few more haunting sounds than the bluesmen recorded onto acetate, telling stories of hard, hellbound lives over a shrieking, distorted yet somehow lonely-sounding acoustic guitar.

Ryan Coogler was onto something in Sinners, where he depicted blues music played at its best with something not only profound, but literally magical. Something that pierced the veil between worlds, letting light and darkness in, almost in equal measure.

The story most associated with Lead Belly is, on the one hand, far less fantastical than Johnson’s. After all, people ever since have been going down to crossroads all over the south asking for his still-mesmerising skill at the guitar, and the devil just can’t be fucked to turn up.

On the other hand, it’s also a story about a Black man in the 1920s South who, through sheer musical wizardry, was able to sing himself out of jail time and possibly worse.

This was long before he came to prominence as Lead Belly. The story goes, this was still when he was Huddie William Leadbetter, a travelling musician flitting from red light district to red light district. He occasionally did time, but nothing too serious. In 1915, he served time in a chain gang but escaped, reinventing himself as Walter Boyd. This new life lasted only three years, until 1918, when he shot a man dead in self-defence.

He was promptly arrested and, due to the murder and the prior escape, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

How did Lead Belly supposedly get out of prison? 

After seven years inside, so the story goes, Lead Belly decided that he was fed up with this prison lark and decided to do something about his situation, so he did what he did best and turned to music. He wrote a song pleading for his release and had it sent to then-Texas governor Pat Neff on acetate, and on Neff’s last day in office, he heard the song and pardoned the folk singer in 1925 – an inspiring story, but one that takes another turn five years later. 

By 1930, the infamous temper of Lead Belly got the better of him again. Not for nothing was one of his most distinguishing features the enormous amount of scars on his head and face. The singer and guitarist was found guilty of assault with the intention to murder and sent to another prison, the notorious Louisiana state penitentiary known colloquially as ‘Angola’. However, by this time, Lead Belly was considerably more famous than he had been 12 years prior. 

In 1933, John Lomax and his father Alan had been travelling the South, making recordings of rural folk and blues singers who might not have had the chance to have their songs committed to wax otherwise. On their travels, they stopped off at Angola to visit Lead Belly and see if he could contribute to their project. The story goes that once more, the song that he recorded was so powerful that it convinced the governor of Louisiana to pardon Lead Belly again. 

However, this is a myth. One that probably spread due to people confusing it with the previous story. The truth is that Lead Belly was due for early release due to good behaviour, and said release coincided with the visit of the Lomaxes. However, they did help Lead Belly turn his life around, the singer asking for help with their project and getting a record deal as a direct result. That much is verifiably true in a way that neither story of Lead Belly singing to be released from prison is. 

However, what is the blues without a good myth?

Leadbelly - Midnight Special

Leadbelly - Gallows Pole

Leadbelly - Goodnight Irene

(The first song I ever learned properly and off a blues EP I bought)

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Acoustic Reckoning, Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 11th April 2026 | ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST

 . . . . still more gems from Paul at ATSE!! 

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Acoustic Reckoning, Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 4-11-2026

Paul says - Here's something for Grateful Dead fans as well as fans of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings: it's acoustic versions of most of the songs on the 1981 Grateful Dead album "Reckoning," plus many other Grateful Dead covers. There's a lot of music to love here as well, since the concert was almost three hours long. And it took place less than a month ago, as I write this in May 2026.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of searching for concerts that have taken place in the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, due to the leak of dozens of concerts from there a couple of weeks ago. The sound quality of these concerts is excellent, but most of them need work being split into individual song files and such, so I've been checking to see if other people are doing that. These searches have turned up a few things that don't actually come from that big leak, and this is one of them. This is from a webcast instead. So, while the sourcing is different, the sound quality is equally excellent.

Welch and Rawlings have become stars of roots music, blending country, bluegrass, and folk. But while they've released many albums mostly consisting of songs they've written, it turns out they've also been Deadheads all along. In fact, while gathering information for this album, I came across an article talking about how Welch followed the Dead for some concerts in the late 1980s, as Deadheads did. So, apparently just for fun, they decided to perform an entire tour of the U.S. consisting of nothing but covers of Dead songs, as well as cover songs closely associated with the Dead. The tour started in April 2026 with this concert, and will continue through August. So if you're reading this, you might want to go see them live. I checked their setlists at setlist.fm. It turns out they've been varying up their set lists a lot on the tour. They played 24 songs here. But they've done over 40 different ones on the tour so far, and all the songs are those that were performed by the Dead.

The tour was inspired by the Dead's "Reckoning" album, which was semi-acoustic. It's hard to call it fully acoustic, since the band had two drummers. But Welch and Rawlings went even more stripped down, being accompanied by just a bassist (as you can see on the cover image). A majority of the songs performed did appear on "Reckoning," but it's a loose tribute. They skipped some songs from that album, and played quite a few others. I was especially impressed by "St. Stephen," as I didn't know it could sound good with such minimal instrumentation.  

This album is two hours and 52 minutes long. 

01 talk 
02 Bertha 
03 Jack Straw 
04 Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie 
05 Dire Wolf 
06 Dark Hollow 
07 talk 
08 It Must Have Been the Roses 
09 Loser 
10 Friend of the Devil 
11 Cassidy 
12 talk 
13 Cumberland Blues 
14 Brown-Eyed Women 
15 I've Been All Around This World 
16 Deep Elm Blues 
17 Brokedown Palace 
18 talk 
19 He's Gone 
20 Cold Rain and Snow 
21 Bird Song 
22 Ripple 
23 talk 
24 Althea 
25 To Lay Me Down 
26 St. Stephen 
27 Not Fade Away - St. Stephen [Reprise]
28 Morning Dew 
29 talk 

Billy Strings on his Preston Thompson Guitar “Frankenstein”

 

Billy Strings fiddlin' around a medley pickin on his Preston Thompson Guitar “Frankenstein”,  

solo style.

Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 26th Sept 2014 | Albums That Should Exist

 Wow Paul at ATSE hits overdrive today . . . . . 

Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 9-26-2014

Paul says: I'm dealing with two "floods" right now - posting a flood of concerts from the Ebbets Field venue in the 1970s and posting a flood of recently leaked concerts from the Capitol Theatre venue in Port Chester in the 2010s. Here's another from that second flood. This one stars singer-songwriters Shawn Colvin and Steve Earle, with both of them in acoustic mode.

By the time of this concert, both Colvin and Earle had long music careers, with their first albums being released in the 1980s. They began performing together in 2014. At first, it seems they only did a handful of concerts in 2014 and 2015. But in 2016 they released an album together, "Colvin and Earle," and toured a lot more. Their collaboration petered out after that. 

I've posted a concert they did in 2016. Many of the songs are different, since this one is from two years earlier, well before their 2016 album was made. Here's the link to that one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/02/shawn-colvin-steve-earle-hardly.html

As far as I know, that 2016 concert I posted was the only one featuring the two of them together with excellent sound quality, until this one recently was made public (as I write this in May 2026). This is a soundboard boot, like the others coming from the same Port Chester leak. 

A person named Frenfri made some improvements to this before I got my hands on it. That person broke the single file into songs, and make some sonic improvements as well. Also, the singers were identified for the songs as well as the banter. So I kept that information. But I believe both of them were on the stage the whole time. So even when only one of their names is mentioned, the other one could have been stumming along with guitar and/or doing some backing vocals.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 54 minutes long. 

01 talk (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
02 Wake Up, Little Susie (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
03 talk (Steve Earle)
04 Devil's Right Hand (Steve Earle)
05 talk (Shawn Colvin)
06 Another Long One (Shawn Colvin)
07 talk (Steve Earle)
08 Goodbye (Steve Earle)
09 talk (Shawn Colvin)
10 A Matter of Minutes (Shawn Colvin)
11 Crazy (Shawn Colvin)
12 talk (Steve Earle)
13 Pancho and Lefty (Steve Earle)
14 talk (Shawn Colvin)
15 That Don't Worry Me Now (Shawn Colvin)
16 talk (Steve Earle)
17 Someday (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
18 talk (Shawn Colvin)
19 Fearless Heart (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
20 Diamond in the Rough (Shawn Colvin)
21 talk (Steve Earle)
22 City of Immigrants (Steve Earle)
23 talk (Steve Earle)
24 Burnin' It Down (Steve Earle)
25 talk (Shawn Colvin)
26 Sunny Came Home (Shawn Colvin)
27 talk (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
28 The Galway Girl (Steve Earle)
29 talk (Steve Earle)
30 You're Still Standin' There (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
31 talk (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
32 Baby's in Black (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
33 talk (Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle)
34 Copperhead Road (Steve Earle)