With the continued decline in interest in rock music, the live album has become something of a thing of the past. Here are two archival recordings from the heyday of rock and one new live release that is so good, it could single-handedly spark a revival in live albums.
Posthumous releases from the estate of Jimi Hendrix continue to come out. The latest is yet another first-time release of an historic concert. It is of the Jimi Hendrix Experience from a concert at the Hollywood Bowl on August 18, 1967. The concert occurred less than a week before the release of the debut album from the group, Are You Experienced? The group, relatively unknown in the US at the time, was a sensation in England. It was the opening group at a concert that featured headliners the Mamas and the Papas. The other acts billed were the Electric Flag and Scott McKenzie, with the Electric Flag ultimately being dropped from the show.
Despite the boomy acoustics of the Hollywood Bowl and the no-doubt primitive soundboard recording of this concert, the sound quality is quite good. The between song chatter and occasionally tentative and raw playing reflect the apprehension the band felt performing at such a prestigious American venue and opening for such a popular group so early on in the States, and prior to releasing an album.
The song selection gives good insight into the group’s foundation at this point. There’s a Beatles cover (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), a Dylan cover (“Like A Rolling Stone”), two blues covers (“Killing Floor,” “Catfish Blues”), and a cover of “Wild Thing.” The originals were “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Foxey Lady,” “Fire” and “Purple Haze.”
The package is, as are most of these Hendrix reissues, well done and includes the vinyl album in an archival sleeve and a beautiful 12-page, album-sized color booklet. This was an historic moment for the group and came roughly three months after the band’s breakthrough Monterey Pop appearance.
The Allman Brothers Band Live at the Fillmore East is arguably one of the greatest live albums of all time. Recorded on March 12 and 13, 1971, it was released on July 6 of that year. These shows captured the group as part of a three-act bill that featured Johnny Winter as the headliner and the Elvin Bishop Group as the opening act.
The group first played at the Fillmore East on Feb 11, 13, and 14 1970, as the opening act for headliner the Grateful Dead, with Love being second on the bill. Recordings of these shows, from the Bear’s Sonic Journals series, have been issued previously in various formats. The Bear in question is Owsley Stanley. Stanley was the acid guru of San Francisco (immortalized in Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne”), who was also an innovative live and studio sound master, most associated with the Grateful Dead.
These shows capture the group in its early days, with Duane Allman and Berry Oakley were still alive and when Dickie Betts was still in the group, after the members had been playing together for about a year. This was before their second album Idlewild South was released and more than a year before they would record the iconic Live at the Fillmore East album.
There is a rawness to these recordings that shows the excitement and rare blend the group had achieved at this early juncture in its career. On these recordings, the twin drum attack is more evident, with an emphasis on the rhythms. Check out the two full sides of “Mountain Jam,” a free-form staple of their early years.
This is yet another outstanding Bear’s Sonic Journals Presents release, from the Owsley Stanley Foundation and the Allman Brothers Band. There are nearly a dozen of these releases and Stanley’s production-related credit appears on nearly 75 albums. This particular double-album vinyl release is issued as a gatefold package, with archival sleeves, and was cut from the original analog tapes and pressed on limited-edition orange sunshine-colored vinyl and is a guaranteed good trip.
Bob Dylan’s seemingly overnight conversion from folk singer to rock star had two very distinct public moments that are key to his mythological story. The first was when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25th, 1965, backed by members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, including guitarist Mike Bloomfield, bassist Jerome Arnold, and drummer Sam Lay, along with Barry Goldberg and Al Kooper playing organ on “Like a Rolling Stone.”
The second was on his world tour that started in late 1965 and went on through 1966, when he played the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, on May 17, 1966. The Hall, which opened in 1856, became a hotel in 2004. A recording of the concert was initially released as a bootleg and was billed as being recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. In fact, the two Royal Albert Hall shows on the tour were also recorded, as was a show in Sheffield.
The legendary concert was officially released as part of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series through Legacy (The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert), a reissue imprint of Sony Music, on October 13, 1998. While the concerts were controversial due to Dylan’s incorporating an electric set with the backing of The Band (minus Levon Helm, and with Mickey Jones on drums instead), then known as the Hawks, they also marked perhaps the high-water mark of Dylan’s ’60s recordings. The concerts heavily leaned on songs from Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde and reflected the brief peak of Dylan’s “wild mercury sound” period.
In what is truly an inspired and successful project, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert is a live concert recording by Cat Power (Chan Marshall) solo and with her band. Marshall not only brings the spirit of the songs and the times to life, but puts her own unmistakable imprint on this historic concert. She neither allows these iconic recordings to bend her toward being overly reverent of the originals, nor goes too far in putting her musical thumb on the scales. The double vinyl album divides the two sets over four sides that perfectly mirror the concert’s moving from an acoustic set to a full electric band set. The vinyl albums come in poly-lined sleeves.
The solo acoustic set is a mesmerizing and intoxicating reading of some of Dylan’s most heartfelt love songs and poetic and surreal ’60s songs. The full group set is well executed and doesn’t try to emulate The Band or attempt to recapture some of the steely, angry energy of the original shows. Marshall does a wonderful job of avoiding singing with the same kind of singular cadences and affected trademark sneers and careening whoops and hollers of Dylan’s vocal style. Whether covering other artists’ material, or singing her own ravishing compositions, she is steadily amassing a body of work often unrivaled by her contemporaries.
