Chris Hillman - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-8-1975 | Albums That Should Exist

 Chris Hillman - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-8-1975

Here's another concert from the radio broadcasts out of the tiny Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado. This one stars Chris Hillman.

This concert found Hillman at an interesting point in his career, just starting a true solo career. Up until then, he had been in a surprising number of bands. He was a founding member of the Byrds in the 1960s. Then he was one of the leaders of the Flying Burrito Bros. from 1969 to 1972. After that, he joined Manassas, led by Stephen Stills, from 1972 to 1973. In 1973, he took part in a Byrds reunion that resulted in one album. Then in 1974, he became part of the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, a trio consisting of J.D. Souther, himself, and Richie Furay. They put out two albums, but broke up in 1975. 

I checked, and it looks like the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band didn't break up until 1976. However, it also looks like they barely toured at all in 1975 and 1976. I only saw evidence of two concerts. Their second album, released in 1975, was badly received. So it looks like the members were already going their own way. Hillman would release his first true solo album, "Slippin' Away," in 1976. I checked setlist.com, a concert database. It says he performed 16 concerts in 1975, and this one was the very first. If that's true, this concert may have been the very start of his solo career. 

However, that meant he hadn't much time to write songs for his own album. Only two songs here, "Down in the Churchyard" and "Blue Morning," would appear on the "Slippin' Away" album. The rest are from his time with the Byrds (tracks 7 and 24), the Flying Burrito Bros. (tracks 4, 5, 7, and 21), Manassas (track 13), and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band (tracks 1, 8, and 11). It seems there actually were one or more songs at the end that didn't make the recording. There was a little bit of banter and tuning up right before the recording cut off. I got rid of that little bit. Having audience cheering fade out is a more satisfying way to end an album, in my opinion.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I love these Ebbets Field bootleg radio broadcasts due to the sound quality. A local company called Tuning Up recorded all of them, and did a better job than typical radio broadcasts from that era. But unfortunately, this concert doesn't sound good as most of them. Probably it's a copy of a copy, and so on, or something like that. However, I ran all the songs through a UVR5 program denoise filter, so at least the sound is better than it was before. I'm not saying this sounds bad; it's just it doesn't sound as good as most of the others I'm posting from this venue.  

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee 
02 talk 
03 Safe at Home 
04 talk 
05 Down in the Churchyard 
06 talk
07 Time Between 
08 talk 
09 High Fashion Queen 
10 talk 
11 Colorado 
12 talk 
13 Fallen Eagle 
14 talk 
15 Christine's Tune 
16 talk 
17 Follow Me Through
18 talk
19 Blue Morning 
20 talk 
21 Six Days on the Road 
22 Move Me Real Slow 
23 talk 
24 So You Want to Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star 

(all tracks Chris Hillman) 

Visitors BC and Joan and The Sealyman hisself were talking a while ago now about how Chris Hillman was often overshadowed by others (Stephen Still and Manassas?) and how much they enjoyed his work and here is a solo set that warns it isn’t as good quality as others from the same series from Ebbet’s Field FM recordings but heck I didn’t notice - Hillman fans will love this!

 

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