Arlo Guthrie - Hesterly Armory, Tampa, FL USA 1971 | Albums That Should Exist

 Arlo Guthrie - Hesterly Armory, Tampa, FL, 11-11-1971

Arlo Guthrie was a prominent folk singer in the early 1970s, yet there are very few live recordings from that time with worthy sound quality. I've posted live recordings from him from 1969 and 1974, but there's basically nothing in between. So I decided to try to make something worthy. I found the best sounding audience bootleg from that era and used audio editing to bring it up close to soundboard-level sound quality.

I checked out a handful of audience boots from the era, and this one easily had the best sound quality. I wouldn't have given this a try if I didn't find this one with potential. The biggest problem was a lot of echo on the vocals. So I used the MVSEP program to split the vocals from the instruments. While I was at it, I boosted the vocals to a good level in the mix. Then I took the vocals track and ran it through the Reverb Removal option in MVSEP. But even that wasn't enough. I further ran those results through Adobe's vocal enhancer. I also ran all the banter between songs through that.

Between all these things, the very echo-y vocals sound almost normal now. Not quite, but close. So, while the sound quality still isn't ideal, I'm confident this is very listenable, and the best sounding live recording of him between 1969 and 1974.

In 1972, Guthrie would have the biggest hit of his career, with "City of New Orleans." But this is some months away from that, so that song wasn't performed here. According to the original notes I found, there was at least one more song played at the end of the concert, "Hobo's Lullaby." It's quite possible there were other missing songs, since this is relatively short compared to most concerts from that time period. Also, it seems the beginning of the first song, "Anytime," is cut off. So there could have been one or more missing songs there too. The way "Anytime" started sounded okay to me, even with the cut off, so I left it that way. Plus, I didn't have any other good live recordings of that song from that time period to use to fix it.

By the way, I find it interesting that although this concert is only two years after the 1969 concert I posted by him, only two songs are the same between those concerts: "Coming into Los Angeles" (his other hit) and "Stealin'." 

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 Anytime 
02 talk 
03 I Could Be Singing 
04 talk 
05 1913 Massacre 
06 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right 
07 talk 
08 Mapleview (20%) Rag [Instrumental]
09 talk
10 Coming into Los Angeles 
11 talk 
12 Waiting for a Train 
13 talk
14 Days Are Short 
15 Stealin' 
16 talk 
17 Gabriel's Mother's Hiway Ballad No. 16 Blues 
18 talk 
19 Lay Down Little Doggies 
20 talk
21 Ring-Around-A-Rosy Rag 

Arlo At Cambridge Folk Festival interviewed by OGWT’s Bob Harris (1974) 

I think we have mentioned ’Stealin’ t’other day and Arlo was my source for a favourite song. Arlo would be my generation’s Woody figure I guess whilst acknowledging his dad and Bob Dylan's great hero it was Arlo and his sojourn at Alice’s Restaurant that hit me and struck more chords somehow . . not to mentioned coming into Los Angeles! I bought my first Arlo Album ‘Running Down The Road' in 1969

 "Put your arms around me like a circle round the sun . . . . . .

you know I love ya baby when my easy ridin’s done

You don’t believe I love ya look at the fool I’ve Been

You don’t don’t believe I love ya look at the hole I’m in!”

Arlo Guthrie - Steakin’  - Running Down The Road (Remastered)