Bootleg Country

When I moved back to the States from France I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with this blog. I knew my life back in Indiana would be pretty boring so I wouldn’t have so many interesting stories to tell, but I wanted to keep writing. I’d been writing movie, music, and book reviews for a while so I knew I’d keep doing that, but I wanted more. I wanted to make my mark.

You’ve already seen some of that in the things I’ve recently reposted, and you will continue to see how the blog changed and grew. By this point, sometime in 2006, I’d been collecting bootlegs for about a decade. At first, it was cassette tapes and then CDRs. If memory serves by this point things had already started moving towards digital files – SHN and FLAC – but there wasn’t really enough hard drive storage to keep everything on a computer. So I’d download and then burn to disk.

Torrents were readily available but this was just the beginning of folks beginning to use cloud storage sites to share the music. I certainly didn’t know anything about that stuff. But bootlegs were a big part of my life and so I naturally began writing about it.

I decided it would be fun to review the bootlegs and I created a little series entitled Bootleg Country. At the time it seemed like there were a lot of things being called something-Nation – Live Nation and the like, and I originally wanted to call my series Bootleg Nation but I was afraid that would sound too cliche so I switched it to Bootleg Country. That seemed to tie in well with my love of country, folk, bluegrass, and what at the time was called alternative country.

I immediately regretted the name, but since I was posting it to Blogcritics I was stuck with it.

If you receive my e-mails then you’ve already seen my first entry into this series – a review of a David Nelson show. It is funny to read now, all these years later. I made a big deal about how bootlegs were perfectly legal, which of course isn’t true at all.

Bootlegs, of course, really only apply to music that is illegally being sold in stores and other sordid places, but when I speak of bootlegs I’m really talking about what is sometimes called ROIOs (Recordings of Independent Origins) that is music that is taped by audience members or otherwise acquired through unofficial channels. While sometimes this is perfectly legal, when bands allow the taping of their shows, etc., it is more than often more of a gray area, if not outright illegal.

I really don’t remember now if I decided to make a big deal out of it being perfectly legal because I didn’t want Blogcritics to shut down my articles, or if I really wasn’t aware that illegal bootlegging existed. I entered this little fandom of ours through the Grateful Dead and other bands that were pro-trading. For years I wasn’t aware that so many shows from so many different artists existed. I had no idea that many of those artists frowned on recording and trading their concerts.

Anyway, I don’t need to tell you all any of this. But in those early days of writing, I thought it was important to preface each review with a little insider knowledge of this hobby.

It is also amusing to me that my first article was a review of a David Nelson show. No disrespect to Mr. Nelson, but he’s such an obscure artist it seems hilarious to me to start out a series with him.

I really should start reviewing bootlegs again, that was fun to do.

Bootleg Country: Pete Seeger and Big Bill Broonzy – Evanston, IL (10/25/56)

There are many thoughts that come to mind when I hear the name Pete Seeger: Socialist, outspoken folkie, encyclopedic knowledge of music worldwide, compatriot to Woody Guthrie, Pinko-Commie, and axe-wielding madman running after an electrified Bob Dylan. It is his love and gift for folk music from around the globe, though, that I hope he will always be remembered.

Listening to Pete Seeger, in concert, is like being with a historian and archaeologist of the world’s music. He seems to know every song ever sung, and to be friends with their writers and singers. He is the soul of America, a true treasure trove of song.

I have a handful of concerts by Seeger, some official, others not, and in everyone is a historical road map of folk. Though he often plays by himself, with banjo for accompaniment, he is never short of musicians, for he makes everyone in the audience part of the band. No, Pete Seeger concerts are not Holy Places where the music is sacred, and the audience mere worshipers. We are part of the song, singers and clappers, and performers one and all. In nearly every song, he points out a chorus or a repeating line that he encourages the audience to sing. Where they can’t sing, he says they can clap and hum.

To be honest, I was not at all familiar with Big Bill Broonzy before I listened to this concert. I’m not particularly well-versed in the blues, and Broonzy is a name that circumvented my musical heritage.

To be even more honest, I’m not one to particularly care for the blues. For the most part, I just don’t *get* it. For his part, Broonzy makes me wish I did. He is of the acoustic blues school, and his tunes are jaunty, even happy at times, and it is a simple pleasure to listen to him sing.

As for positioning, each performer takes turns singing his tunes, song for song for the most part, while the other one sits in the back ground listening. They perform together on a couple of songs, and they spend a lot of time conversing, talking about music, and telling jokes. But mostly it is a solo show, split between two people.

Seeger likes to talk, and I for one, could listen to him talk for days on end. He tells stories about the songs, about the writers of the songs, and of his life. And what a life! He’s been everywhere, done everything. Most people talk in hushed tones about the night Bob Dylan went electric at a folk festival. For Pete, that’s personal history. He was there. He’s the exciting part!

In no way would I consider this a brilliantly performed performance, musically speaking, for Pete doesn’t show off. He seems more interested in creating a community of music, than coming off as a musical savior. In doing so, he creates something special, something different than a simple concert. It is a communal experience akin to a religious service, or family reunion. I don’t suppose there’s anyone who has heard a Seeger concert that will ever forget the experience.

Broonzy is less talkative than Seeger, but shows his own gift of humor by asking if he can sit down whenever Seeger launches into one of his long stories. He plays his guitar with the fervor of a true prodigy and his songs bridge the divide between Seeger’s folk and children’s music.

The highlight of the show is when Seeger plays what he calls the “Goofing Off Suite.” Folk music, he says, needs its own version of chamber music, for the thinking man, so he’s writing his own high-minded piece. If you’ve ever seen the movie Raising Arizona, you will instantly recognize the number. It consists of what must be the main theme of that movie, which if you’ll remember is composed of this incredibly goofy bit of banjo and the wildest bit of yodeling known to man. He even throws in the humming and banjo version of “Ode to Joy” as the middle section.

The first time I heard this I was driving in a heavily trafficked piece of down town. I’m surprised I didn’t get pulled over for all the swerving I did from the tears rolling down my face from laughing.

I am quite saddened to know that I will probably never be able to attend a Pete Seeger concert. His age and health keep him from appearing much in public. But I am heartened by the knowledge that there are these recordings, and that a man like Pete Seeger ever lived and shared his love for great music.

You can download the show over here.

Bootleg Country: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Las Vegas, NV (10/28/06)

Originally written in December of 2006. Sadly we’ve since lost Petty which only makes this article sadder.

In his 30-year career, Tom Petty has sold more than 50 million albums, received three Grammy awards, a Golden Note award, the Gershwin Award For Lifetime Musical Achievement, and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So why doesn’t he seem to get more respect?

To me, it stems from his ability to continually knock out solid albums in a steady fashion for all those years. Every couple of years, Petty puts out an album full of solidly good, if not great material. There are usually a couple of standout hits in each, but no album really rises above the rest. Think about it. Is there one Petty album that you would consider to be an absolute classic? What is his Revolver? Or Dark Side of the Moon? Or Blonde on Blonde? No, in my ever so humble opinion, none of his albums quite make it to that genius level.

Petty’s career has remained relatively stable over the last three decades as well. He continues to put out solid albums, record hit songs, and take his band on the road. There haven’t been any giant breakdowns or burnouts. He hasn’t even faded away. No, there has always been a Tom Petty making good songs and churning out classic rock. Where almost all of your great rock bands have all died by one means or another, Petty has remained one of the few rockers to keep truckin’.

I think by continually putting out good, not great albums so steadily it is easy for the casual fan to overlook Petty’s achievement. Without one brilliant album to cling to, his dozen really good ones get overlooked. By never leaving our presence, it’s easy to sort of forget about how remarkable his career really is.

10/28/06
Double Down Stage
Vegoose Music Festival
Las Vegas, NV

You can grab the show here.

One of the great things about Tom Petty’s long career is that he can play a different set list almost every night and still sprinkle it heavily with hit songs. For this performance, he performs half a dozen of his hit singles while mixing in songs from his newest album, Highway Companion, slightly obscure older songs, and a few BB King covers.

The Heartbreakers never veer far from the original versions of the songs, but perform with the vibrant energy only found at live concerts. Occasionally there is an extended guitar solo, but it never wanders far from the song’s melody and always ends way too quickly for these ears. Mike Campbell proves over and over that while he may never make it to any top lists of greatest guitarist lists, he is more than capable of producing sweet licks and charbroiled sounds.

This is a pretty decent audience recording, and as such there is a good blend of the band playing and the audience enjoying the show. The band mixes are a little muddled, so this is nothing to put on your A-list shelf, but the audience is so exuberant and excited in their response and sing-along that I find myself getting swept away in it all. When the light is just right, I close my eyes and almost feel like I’m right there.

Tom Petty may never find the diehard fanship of The Beatles, Dylan, or The Dead, but by continually writing good songs and putting on shows like this, he’s proven to be one of the most steady and long-lasting performers in rock and roll. Not a bad epitaph to have in the end.

Bootleg Country: John Prine – New York, NY (09/12/99)

It’s been a long time since the last installment of Bootleg Country, and I’m sorry about that. The truth of the matter is that I do most of my primary musical listening in the car. Sure tunes are often playing in the homestead, but it is usually regulated to the background as when I’m at home I’m either cleaning, or reading, or playing on this here computer and definitely not paying that much attention to the music that fills the aural cavities.

The thing that makes sense in that above paragraph is that I was laid off from my job back in August. Without a daily trip to and from the workplace, my automobile driving is rather limited. Well, I should say my automobile driving of my own car, for when I do go out these days it is usually with the misses and since she owns the better car, we take it.

Thus I’ve had little opportunity to do any listening to bootlegs, and without the listening, there isn’t much to write about.

Thanks to a long drive to visit my folks out in Oklahoma I’m happy to present the newest edition of Bootleg Country. I’d like to promise regular upcoming editions, but there still isn’t a decent job in sight.

Back in the days of college, I had a friend, well I had lots of friends, but there was one in particular that stood out. Musically that is. He had this big giant tape collection filled with all sorts of musicians I had never heard of.

You see when I was in the age of growing up I only knew music through the pop radio station, MTV, and my mom. MTV and the radio both played basically the same songs, that is to say whatever was a hit at the moment, while my mom had a nice collection of classic rock vinyl. It was there I first heard Dylan, the Beatles, Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys and many others. But even all this was not cutting very deep into the pantheon of rock music.

It was in the latter days of high school that I began to search out music out of the mainstream. With magazines like Spin and Alternative Press I began to learn of bands like Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., All, and Operation Ivy. Periodically I actually had the cash to buy the albums I was reading about and my musical knowledge grew.

Then there was this fella in college who had such a lovely collection of tunes. We became friendly enough, and I dropped by enough that he gave me a key to his dorm room and I would often slip in while he was at class or on a date or whatever. I would sit all alone in that room playing tape after tape, filled with new music.

It was within those walls that I first heard a Grateful Dead bootleg. It was there I first fell in love with a man named Willie Nelson. And it was there I discovered Lyle Lovett, John McCutcheon, and John Prine.

John Prine
09/12/99
West 54th Street
New York, NY

In the liner notes to the first John Prine album, Kris Kristopherson tells the story of hearing an unsigned and unheard of John Prine play a few songs in a little club, after hours. He relates that moment to what it must have been like to hear Bob Dylan at the Gaslight in the early sixties. Kristopherson, no stranger to great songwriting, knows of what he speaks.

Prine laughs off the Dylan comparison in an interview on this bootleg with a breezy, “Yeah there were four or five of us,” and while Dylan comparisons aren’t really necessary, Prine has written some of the best-danged folk songs this country has ever seen.

This bootleg is from a taping of the television program, Sessions at West 54th and as such you get a few things that differ from the normal bootleg. The sound quality is great, though having been compressed for television signals, the extreme audiophile may beg to differ. The set is relatively short, fitting nicely onto one blank CD. And there are a few interview sections with John Hiatt.

I should also note that my bootleg is missing a few songs from the official set list, which makes me assume that it was recorded straight off of the television show, and not the later DVD release, or soundboard feed.

As an added bonus there are a few duets with the always lovely Iris Dement. The taping comes off of Prine’s release of the album, In Spite of Ourselves, which heavily featured Ms. Dement.

The show starts with a rollicking, rambling “Spanish Pipedream” with a full band, and they sound like they are having lots of fun, even if the music is a bit of a mess. It still remains one of my favorite songs and contains an oft-quoted (at least by me) chorus:

Blow up your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own

The band settles down to a gentle “so sad it’s pretty” version of “Six O’Clock News” followed by the relatively new, but still utterly sad “All the Best.”

Iris Dement sings on four songs (“(We’re Not) The Jet Set,” “Let’s Invite Them Over Again,” “When Two Worlds Collide,” and “In Spite of Ourselves”) and while she is always a welcome voice to my ears, on this set she only accentuates the raggedness of Prine’s natural voice.

There is an amusing anecdote given before “In Spite of Ourselves” where Prine discusses how he had to cajole DeMent a little to sing the song with him due to its “questionable lyrics” (which include sniffing undies and convict movie fetishes.) Ultimately she was won over and we have a song that’s pure Prine – raunchy, sweet, and hilarious – and the world is better for it.

During one of the interview sections, Prine mentions how he got started in the business by playing at an amateur hour for a local club. After hearing the first three songs he’d ever written Prine was hired permanent.

Those three songs? “Souvenirs,” “Paradise,” and “Sam Stone.”

As Hiatt says in the interview, “Good God, I would have hired you after that too.”

For those of you unfamiliar with Prine or those songs, that would be like Dylan saying his first three songs were, “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Blowing in the Wind,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin.”

This is the best-sounding Prine bootleg I have, and despite a somewhat ragged performance, it is still a great disk.

The entire session has been released on DVD and is available through Amazon.

Bootleg Country: Otis Redding – 1967

Originally written on October 9, 2006.

Let’s put a few facts on the table. I am a middle-aged, middle-class, white male from the Midwestern United States. I’ve got no soul, I can’t jump, I can’t dance and I can’t get the blues. I don’t know the difference between hip-hop and rap, the blues from complaining, or soul music from Shinola.

What I do know is I love Otis Redding, and if it is soul that he sings, then I’ll spend my life wishing I had some.

Otis had a voice like silk pie. He could make a blind man see, the dead rise again, and a middle-class, middle-aged white guy shake it like he’s got a pair.

This particular bootleg is actually a mix of at least three separate venues all from 1967. As such the quality of each performance varies from simply super to less than stellar. It also contains a few songs played more than once. The result feels less than complete, a little like listening to rehearsal tapes for an album, but Otis displays enough overt energy in every song to make it well worth listening to.

It helps that his band is crackerjack. They swing, jump, and pop all over the place. With Otis keeping up every step of the way it is nothing short of a celebration of life, soul, and music.

Four songs into the disk he covers the Beatle’s classic “A Hard Days Night.” At first, it feels out of place, the music feels too heavy and dense. But in less than a minute, as by sheer force of will, Otis converts me to his side of things. He’s like a fire and brimstone preacher shouting to his minions that there is a better way, and it involves plenty of horns.

Even on slower songs like the tender “Pain in My Heart” the band cooks and lights a fire under the sentiment. It is not as soul-wrenching as what you’ll hear on studio albums, but it is impossible to complain as the beat moves you out of your seat and onto the dance floor.

In pieces, you can hear that’s just where the audience is – moving and grooving and shouting like the apocalypse has just announced the end of times, but first, there’s a party to attend. During “FA-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)” Otis turns the audience into part of the chorus and they blow him out of the park in terms of sheer volume. They are there to have a good time, and there ain’t nothing gonna stop them now.

The differing levels from venue to venue coupled with the pair of songs played twice mars the overall effect of this bootleg, but Otis Redding turns it all loose and more than makes up for the problems with performances that are out of this world.

With only a handful of available bootlegs out there for Otis Redding, this is definitely worth seeking out for collectors and fans of Otis and soul music itself.

Bootleg Country: Paul Simon – Harare, Zimbabwe (02/14/87)

When I was an early teen, say 14, I got a little compact stereo for Christmas. It has a radio, a tape deck and a record player. As my parent’s record player had died many years prior I was very interested in this little device.

My mother, ever the child of the sixties, had an astounding record collection of great early rock and roll (I am sad to say it has since been lost in a flood.) The Beatles, Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Sonny and Cher, the Rascals, Beach Boys, Loving’ Spoonful, you name it if it was a hit in the 1960s she probably had it on vinyl.

This was also the point in my life when I began to take music seriously. Certainly, I had enjoyed music prior to this. I used to tape Casey Kasem’s Top 40 show every week as well as the local stations’ nightly top 10 requests. But I would often record over those tapes with whatever songs were new and popular. Music was something fluffy and fun, like candy that was to be enjoyed and discarded afterward.

Now with all of this great music at my fingertips, I began to really understand the depth and reach of what music could really be. For the first time, I began to really digest the poetry of Dylan, the guttural sex of the Stones, and the sheer brilliance of the Beatles. This was more than just throw-away pop music, it was important.

I spent many hours sitting inside my room, lying flat on my back in my bed devouring this new music. Most of these songs I had heard previously. Mother listened to Oldies radio and so much of what I was now listening to wasn’t new at all. I had heard all of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits separately many times over the years. Yet, as odd as it may sound, I had never put together that they were all his.

As much as I might now scoff at Greatest Hits albums, the 10 songs put together on Dylan’s version were life-changing to this little boy. I couldn’t believe one person had sung so much greatness.

It was Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel that made the biggest impression on me. Something about the sheer force of their songwriting knocked the breath out of me.

To this day I can remember listening to the “Boxer” late one night. As I had done many times before I turned off the lights and set the volume down low so as to allow the music to lull me asleep. Except I couldn’t sleep because my mind kept listening. I couldn’t stop, the song was too forceful to allow such a thing as sleep. The music, as it has done many a time since, kept me awake and begging for more.

02/14/87
Rutfaro Stadium
Harare, Zimbabwe

When I first started dating the girl who was to become my wife I gave her three CDs as a means to share my musical obsession. They weren’t necessarily my all-time favorite CDs, though they would certainly be high on the list, but albums I thought she would never have heard and that would shed some light into music that moved me.

Those albums were Willie Nelson’s Stardust, Nanci Griffith’s One Fair Summer Evening, and Paul Simon’s Graceland.

Graceland is an album of sheer joy to me. It is filled with great pop songcraft as well as a myriad of astounding vocals and rhythms from South Africa. It also helped bring about Americans listening to “World Music”.

This show is a song-by-song recreation of the album complete with a cacophony of South African musicians who provide their own myriad of sounds.

In fact, it is the African performances that make the bootleg worth listening to. Simon certainly performs with adequacy, but there is nothing here that really outshines the album. Part of the problem is that he only plays songs from Graceland. To be a really great performance, to me, you need to play songs spanning your entire career, not just one album.

Maybe Simon wanted to highlight only his newest album. Perhaps he wanted to showcase the African musicians and singers for the entire show. It seems to me this could have been done better by arranging a few older songs to include the singers. I can imagine an absolutely astounding African vocal arrangement of “April Come She Will” and a mesmerizing “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” But for whatever reason, we don’t get any of that, just Graceland and several what I can only guess are African originals.

It is there that the disks shine. The South African performers create sounds with their voices and instruments that are out of this world (or at least out of this part of the world). It is mystifying.

Unfortunately, the mix of Simon and the South Africans is a little underwhelming. I have heard marvelous things about this tour, and I suspect had I been in the audience I would be saying similar marvelous things, but to these ears, the tape doesn’t hold up to the hype.

It is hard to point at anything particularly wrong with this set, but when I think of Paul Simon performing Graceland live in South Africa with performers from the area I get all goose pimply and when I listen to the disks, I keep waiting for something more.

It is a good set, with good music. It’s just that when compared to say the Grateful Dead circa 1977 or Dylan in the 60’s or Bela Fleck in any year, this set just doesn’t have that same magic.

Bootleg Country: Gillian Welch – Grand Rapids, MI (09/17/03)

I have a long history of not going to a concert and then regretting it for years to come. The reasons for not going usually involve not having anyone to go with/not wanting to go alone, and not being familiar enough with the artist to convince me that the show is a must-see.

That and I’m a cheap bastard.

A few months down the road I usually become more familiar with the artist and begin cursing myself for not seeing them. This happens often in the city where I currently live. It is a college town and large enough to nab artists just before they hit the big time, but too small, and too close to Indianapolis to carry them after that. So usually it is once missed, never see again.

Gillian Welch came to town a few years back and I thought about seeing her. I liked the few songs I had heard of hers, but the voice in the back of my head got to nagging me – you don’t know her songs, you won’t be able to sing along, you should be saving your hard-earned dough – and I didn’t go.

Oh, how I have cursed my ever-loving name for that. How I’ve yearned for her to come back to no avail.

09/17/03
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, MI

Quite simply, Gillian Welch’s voice is nothing short of heavenly.

If there really are angels, and they really do sing, then they must sound like Gillian Welch.

She has some of the most haunting, achingly beautiful songs ever sung. I am reminded of Alison Krauss in that the two have similarly beautiful voices, yet where Alison’s choice of songs often makes no impression on me, Gillian’s own songs and her choice of covers are perfect for her style and often get stuck in my head for days on end. I have been singing “Look at Miss Ohio” for a week now.

This show starts with a triple play of my favorite Gillian Welch songs. “Look at Miss Ohio” starts off the show and it often gets a repeat play around these parts. It is followed by “Elvis Presley Blues” which is the first Gillian Welch song I ever knew, and remains one of my favorites. It speaks of nostalgia, the deep mysterious ache of loss, and the magic of music. It is a perfect song and Gillian Welch sings it like it’s the only song in the world.

My holy trinity is concluded with “Rock of Ages” which is one of Gillian Welch’s rocking-out songs, and by that I mean it has a tempo other than a slow dirge.

Before I go any further, I really must mention David Rawlings, Gillian’s musical partner for many years. David often gets overlooked in writings about Gillian but is very much an important player in her musicality. On stage, he sings harmony and plays guitar, and gives the music a layered and more dense quality.

She follows her trio of excellence with an entire show of great music. It is a show that reaches spiritual proportions. The music is so soft and warm and kind it wraps around me like a blanket near a fire while the cold wind and rain whip about outside.

This is an audience recording and as such we hear the crowd scream and shout between songs at a louder volume than preferable. However, they do keep quiet during the song performances allowing the music to filter in untouched and unmarred.

My only complaint is that the show runs just a tad long. While the music is always beautiful, Gillian’s penchant for playing slow, sad songs starts to be too much by the middle of the second disk. I find myself fully ready for it to be over a few songs before it actually is. I suspect as an audience member I would have begged for more, but as it is, on CD I’m ready for the closure.

It is a great disk by a overlooked performer, whose music really matters. In a world full of dizzying pop songs, flashy lights, and fast-edited videos, Gillian Welch seems more of the past, like some ancient hieroglyph pulled from the very dust of America. It is old, real music that should last another millennium.

Bootleg Country: Jimmy Cliff – Towson, MD (12/17/01)

Before I begin talking about Jimmy Cliff I must first admit I know none to very little about reggae music. Sure, I’ve got Bob Marley’s greatest hits package, Legend, and do dig it from time to time. That live version of “No Woman No Cry” is a marvel to hear. I’ve got a couple of other Marley bootlegs that are also quite awesome. But other than those, I’m pretty useless when it comes to Jamaican music.

This is most probably because of the sheer crappiness of the non-Marley reggae music I’ve heard. Anytime I’ve heard reggae music being played on the radio or some city festival somewhere it’s all heard like generic, worthless garbage. It all has the same monotonous, rhythmic beat that makes everyone in the near vicinity move up and down like ducks on a pond. It’s just inane and annoying.

I realize that’s not particularly fair to reggae music. It would be like writing off pop music after listening to nothing but Top 40 radio, or 70’s rock from the Classic Rock stations that play the same four Led Zeppelin songs over and over again.

I only happen to have this Jimmy Cliff bootleg due to Nick Hornby’s book, High Fidelity (or maybe it was the movie) where the main character notes he would like Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross” played at his funeral. I quickly found a copy of the song and came to realize he was right – that is one danged fine song to go out on.

From the single, I put myself on a bootleg vine for this very recording.

12/17/01
Recher Theatre
Towson, MD

Coming into this bootleg I thought “Many Rivers to Cross” was the only song I knew of Jimmy Cliff, he quickly finds fault in that belief, running through a stream of familiar songs. I have multiple recordings from a series of shows in the early 90s with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman playing “Sitting in Limbo.” I dug the song enough to include it on a Christmastime mix tape for my wife, and never even knew who wrote it. Cliff shows me who is the master of that song and performs it beautifully.

Later he rises up for “Many Rivers to Cross” and brings it to the people on a hymn. It lifts and praises this beast called man as we journey to our final destinations. He then tears through a version of “The Harder They Come” that leaps and roars across the land. Coming but three months after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers there is both a somber and angry political tone attached to many of the songs. His song “Terror,” written specifically about those attacks, speaks out against both the acts of terror by Osama Bin Laden and the retribution from the USA. Terror, he says, comes from every side, and must end for there to be peace.

With other songs he finds hope. With “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” he sees the beauty in all people. Covering Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” he seems to point to a brighter future for us all.

And with that, I think I’ll go back to the record bin and find some more reggae music. For if this is the sound of Jamaica I need to do some exploring.

Set List:
Samba Reggae
Sitting in Limbo
You Can Get It If You Really Want
The World Is Yours
Many Rivers To Cross
Terror
No Problems, Only Solutions
Wonderful World, Beautiful People
I Want, I Do, I Get
The Harder They Come
I Can See Clearly Now
War in Jerusalem
Black Magic
Vietnam

Bootleg Country: Lyle Lovett – Minneapolis, MN (01/27/92)

I really had planned on a Lyle Lovett Bootleg Review before I knew that I’d be seeing and reviewing him for an actually attended live concert.

Lyle Lovett is, perhaps, best known for his short-lived marriage to superstar Julia Roberts. When they wed many folks were asking, “How could she marry him?” but to partially quote marketing material from Say Anything, to know Lyle Lovett is to love him.

Recently while trying to compose a list of my all-time favorite bands, I kept coming back to Lyle. He isn’t a poet like Dylan or a pop craftsman like Lennon/McCartney but he definitely has something that elevates him above just about everyone else. To me anyway.

His lyrics have a way of being both hilarious and poignant at the same time. In-person, he has a dry, rye delivery that makes even the most mundane of stories beautifully humorous.

His style has changed a lot over the years from straight-ahead Nashville country to Texas swing to the more folkie-alt.country stylings of today. He’s a bit like Willie Nelson in his ability to write songs that hold true to whoever is singing them.

01/27/92
Guthrie Theater
Minneapolis, MN

This is one of my favorite all-time bootlegs. The sound is absolutely perfect. It makes me feel like Lyle is in my living room, playing for my friends. The music is lovely, and Lyle chats it up as if he is at a family reunion instead of in front of a paying audience.

He is playing with a scaled-down version of his Large Band. The horns have been nixed, the backup singers are gone, and all that’s left is Lyle on acoustic guitar, then we have drums, acoustic bass, and cello. Similar to Nirvana on Unplugged, this spare style highlights Lyle’s beautiful songwriting ability.

It was recorded a few months before the release of Joshua, Judges, Ruth so all the material here is more than a decade old. Yet it still sounds vital and refreshing. It helps that much of what is played is new material, so classic songs like “Church” and “The Last Time” are revitalized with an audience laughing for the first time at the jokes.

In fact, “The Last Time” is a great example of lyrics that provoke both a sense of humor and depth. It starts out with,

“I went to a funeral
Lord it made me happy
Seeing all those people
I ain’t seen
Since the last time
Somebody died.”

Immediately, there is the ironic humor of being happy going to a funeral and yet the understanding of truth lying behind how we often don’t see those we love unless something serious happens.

If I have a complaint on this disk at all, it is that during “You Can’t Resist It” he allows his musicians time to solo, spoiling an otherwise wonderful song. I’m all for good soloing, but there is only so much cello-bongo soloing I can take. But this is but a few minutes of two disks full of nearly perfect music.

The sound here is pristine. I don’t have any conclusive source material, but it’s as close to sitting on stage as you’re going to get with a bootleg.

You can download the show here.

Bootleg Country: Lou Reed – Hempstead, NY (12/16/72)

Originally written on July 23, 2006.

Picture this: The year is 1998. It is Thanksgiving weekend. My mother and her friend have picked me and my friend up from college to bring us to the Thanksgiving feast. We’re in the mom-mobile (similar to the Pope-mobile, but less stylish) riding on I-65 between Montgomery and Birmingham Alabama. I pop in Lou Reed’s Transformer album and “Walk on the Wild Side” begins to play.

Just as Lou sings “never lost her head, even when she was giving head” Mom freaks.

“Did he just say what I think he said?”

Me mumbling something, quickly ejecting the tape wondering how I forgot the depravity on this tape.

“Mathew, I can’t believe you’d listen to something like this. That’s disgusting.”

I apologized over and over as I tried to find something clean and pleasant, like Hootie and the Blowfish.

To this day my mom won’t let me forget that moment, or the time she read the lyrics on the cover of Jane’s Addictions self-titled album.

I still listen to both albums. I still find meaning in artistic expression that doesn’t necessarily fit into my own neat little morality.

Lou Reed always had a way of singing about the darker personalities; pimps, transvestites, drug pushers, and anyone else who lives on the outskirts of normal society. And he did it with great art, influencing countless musicians behind him.

12/16/72
Ultrasonic Recording Studio
Hempstead, NY

This is what rock is supposed to be. Two guitars, bass and drums. No frills, all rock.

The show kicks off with a thumping “White Light/White Heat” that makes me want to grab my leather jacket, shave my head, and kick somebody’s ass.

After that, they play “something off the new album” which turns out to be “Vicious.” It’s played to perfection and is something even mom could enjoy.

On “Heroin” Lou remarks on the irony of the song being banned in the early days (so much so that they couldn’t even advertise the album) and now they’re going to play it on the radio. We get the “rock version” of the song which means a lot more guitar and less distorted violin which makes for something a little more listenable, but it loses the sharp edge the song takes in the studio version.

“Heroin” is probably the first Velvet Underground song I ever heard. They had it on the soundtrack to the movie about the Doors – an album me and my friend Candy listened to so many times we had every note memorized. We used to play a game during “Heroin” and “The End” to see who could get each line, each note exactly perfect. I loved that song. Still do.

Later we come to a first in my “Bootleg Country” series. Lou sings “Satellite of Love” just as he did with Bono on the U2 bootleg. I’ve now got bootleg carryover. This is something I suspect will happen a lot before the series is finished. Unfortunately, I don’t particularly like the song and find myself skipping it on both versions.

“Satellite’s” bass line morphs into “Walk on the Wild Side” with an uproar of cheers from the crowd and a little smirk on my face. Sorry mom, I still dig the crap out of that song.

Some versions of this tape are listed as having an interview with Lou in the middle of the show. As it was taped for a radio program that seems logical, but my copy doesn’t have the interview so we’ll continue with the music.

Actually, the source material lists the radio station as the venue, and considering the under an hour-performing time I suspect this show was actually performed in an auditorium in the radio station itself.

It is a short set, but a good one. There are only a couple of songs I don’t really care for, the aforementioned “Satellite of Love” and “Berlin.” Maybe that’s because I’m not really familiar with either song or they are both slow songs during an otherwise rocking set. The rest of the songs are straight ahead rock n roll and pretty much take me to the places I’d like to go with Lou Reed.

Set List:

White Light White Heat
Vicious
I’m Waiting For My Man
Walk It Talk It
Sweet Jane
Heroin
Satellite of Love
Walk On the Wild Side
I’m So Free
Berlin
Rock ‘n’ Roll