Cat Stevens - Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, 4-26-1974 | Albums That Should Exist

 

Cat Stevens - Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, 4-26-1974

Paul says: Here is a full-length bootleg Cat Stevens concert from 1974. He was backed by a full band.

There are tons of great Cat Stevens concert recordings from 1970 and 1971, both officially released and unofficial. Then there's a pretty obscure official live album from 1974, called "Saturnight." I don't like that one though, because it's far short of a full-length concert, and the song order is mixed up. It was only released in Japan (where the concert took place) until 2024, and still has only a limited release since then. Also in 2024, an official concert album from 1976 was released, called "Majikat." That one is very nice, but there's a lot of years between 1971 and 1976, considering that was the prime of his music career.

When it comes to concert bootlegs for him, it's very slim pickings between 1971 and 1976. The best full-length one I could find is this one, from Boston in 1974. It's an audience boot, which is disappointing, but it's a particularly good one. It occurred to me that, thanks to the advances in audio editing technology in recent years, I could bring this up to nearly soundboard level. So that's what I tried to do. I used the MVSEP program to clean up crowd noise during songs, boost the lead vocals that were low in the mix, and so forth. I think it sounds a lot better. It's not as good as the "Majikat" or "Saturnight" official live albums, but it sounds plenty worthy to my ears.

This concert took place a month after the release of his 1974 studio album "Buddha and the Chocolate Box." That's one of my favorite albums from him. (I've posted an alternate version of it at this blog that makes it even better.) So naturally he played some songs from that. This also contains an except from his long "Foreigner Suite" called "Sunnyside Road" that makes a nice song when all on its own.

One song here, "Sitting" has "[Edit]" in its title. That's because there was a particularly difficult section of the song near the beginning. You can probably hear it. I tried all I could to make that sound better, but I could only do so much. 

This album is an hour and twenty minutes long.

01 talk 
02 Wild World 
03 talk 
04 Longer Boats 
05 Oh Very Young 
06 Sitting [Edit] 
07 talk 
08 Foreigner Suite- Sunnyside Road 
09 talk 
10 Where Do the Children Play 
11 talk 
12 Moonshadow 
13 How Can I Tell You 
14 Bad Penny 
15 Later 
16 Lady D'Arbanville 
17 talk 
18 Peace Train 
19 Father and Son 
20 Music 
21 18th Avenue 
22 Bitterblue
23 Hard Headed Woman 
24 talk 
25 King of Trees
26 Sun-C79
27 Sad Lisa

 (all tracks Cat Stevens)

Not entirely sure why I have posted links to this one as I feel a tad ‘Meh!’ about Cat Stevens now despite enjoying his work up until Catchbull At Four at the time and introduced to him via my wife and now can take or leave his rather over worked, tired and sentimental schtick but hey . . . he was important once

Blondie - Paradise Ballroom, Boston, MA, 11-4-1978 | Albums That Should Exist

Blondie - Paradise Ballroom, Boston, MA, 11-4-1978

Paul says: Here's an excellent concert by Blondie. I've posted a couple of Blondie concerts, but I've been wanting to post another from earlier in their career. (The earliest one I've posted is from late 1979.) 

This is arguably when they were at their peak. Their most acclaimed album is "Parallel Lines," released in September 1978. So this was part of the tour to promote that album. "Parallel Lines" has been widely acclaimed as one of the best albums of all time. For instance, Rolling Stone has put it in their list of the top 500 albums of all time, at No. 146 in their most recent list (as of 2020). NME magazine has gone even higher, putting it at 45 on their list of the top 500 albums of all time.

I believe this comes from an FM radio broadcast, so the sound quality is excellent. One problem though was that the lead vocals were too low in the mix. So I fixed that with the use of the MVSEP audio editing program.

This concert is unreleased.  

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

Any excuse to feature this track mostly because of the drummer! R.I.P Clem Burke!

01 talk by emcee
02 In the Sun 
03 talk 
04 X Offender 
05 Hanging on the Telephone 
06 Detroit 442 
07 talk 
08 Fan Mail 
09 Picture this 
10 11-59 
11 talk 
12 Pretty Baby
13 [I'm Always Touched by Your] Presence Dear 
14 Sunday Girl 
15 Denis 
16 I'm on E 
17 talk
18 Will Anything Happen
19 Fade Away and Radiate 
20 One Way or Another 
21 Youth Nabbed as Sniper
22 Heart of Glass 
23 Bang a Gong [Get It On] 

(all tracks Blondie) 

Blondie Live on TOTP 1978 - Denis

Blondie - I’m Always Touched By Your Presence Dear

Doug Sahm: Live: Paul's Mall, Boston, MA on March 29th 1973 | FLOPPY BOOT STOMP

Doug Sahm: Live: Paul's Mall, Boston, MA on March 29th 1973

Check this from XRay : he says - 

Doug Sahm: Live: Paul's Mall, Boston, MA on March 29th 1973

With guest appearances from Bob Dylan, Dr. John and others. 

This superb set from March 29th, 1973 was broadcast on WBCN FM at 

Boston's renowned Paul's Mall Club. It captures Sahm tearing through a 

selection of early classics (including his timeless hits "She's About A Mover” 

and "Mendocino", as well as more recent material.From 1973, 

this live set features both hard core horn led blues 

and hippie rock.  

This was the year that the landmark 

Atlantic LP "Doug Sahm & Band" was released and this set reflects the eclectic 

and powerful sound of the group at it's peak. 

Excellent sound and performances 

make it a real winner...........

1. Introduction

2. Further On Down The Road

3. Glad For Your Sake

4. Ooh Poo Pah Doo

5. She's About A Mover

6. (Is Anybody Goin' To) San Antone

7. It's Not Love But It's Not Bad

8. Papa Ain't Salty

9. Tuning

10. Right Or Wrong

11. Band Introductions - Don't Fight It

12. Stormy Monday

13. Someday

14. Mendocino

She’s About A Mover (Live) · Doug Sahm and his Band

Live At The Paul's Mall, Boston Ma March 29Th 1973

Sir Douglas Quintet 1973 - Mendocino

Toots & the Maytals - Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, 10-22-1975 | Albums That Should Exist

Toots & the Maytals - Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, 10-22-1975

Paul he say: In my opinion, reggae music peaked in the 1970s, especially the first half of that decade. It's very uncommon to find bootlegs from reggae musical acts that far back, but I've found one here from one of my favorites, Toots and the Maytals.

If I had to pick an ideal time for a live album from this band, it would be right around 1975. If you look at the crowd-sourced ratings of their albums at the rateyourmusic.com website, their two highest rated albums are "Funky Kingston" in 1973 and "In the Dark" in 1974. So they were firing on all cylinders at this time.

One interesting thing about this band is that while they were a Jamaican reggae band, they were more influenced by soul music than most. Lead singer Toots Hibbert in particular idolized Otis Redding, creating a kind of reggae-soul hybrid. One can see that here with a cover of Redding's "I've Got Dreams to Remember."

This concert is pretty short, at 47 minutes. But virtually every song is a classic. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. This must have been a soundboard or radio broadcast. The only snag is that there's virtually no audience noise. 

01 Monkey Man 
02 Time Tough
03 In the Dark 
04 Funky Kingston 
05 Pressure Drop 
06 I've Got Dreams to Remember 
07 Do You Reggae 
08 Take Me Home, Country Roads 
09 54-46 Was My Number 

Leon Redbone - Big Time Woman Commonwealth Pier, Boston, USA 1981

 Now we haven’t had any Leon Redbone for a while and I hadn’t seen this version of a favourite song  may be though because it is poor quality vid I avoided posting before but the sound seems fine and plays enjoyably well so I will bid y’all a jolly Good Evening with this classic

I miss him and pretty much have every offial recording going . . . . . a unique star in that he was enjoyed by both me and my parents( especially my Mum who loved that early 30-40s dance band stuff!) 

I dedicate this to my Mum!

Leon Redbone - Big Time Woman

Full Big Time Woman complete

Leon Redbone Live From Paris, France

 Recorded On October 26th 1992 At The Olympia Theatre.