With the continued decline in interest in rock music, the live album has become a thing of the past. Here are two archival recordings from rock's heyday and a new live release that's so good it could spark a resurgence in live albums.
The posthumous releases from the Jimi Hendrix estate keep coming. The latest is yet another first release of a historic concert. It is of the Jimi Hendrix Experience from a concert at the Hollywood Bowl on August 18, 1967. The concert took place less than a week before the group's debut album, Are you experienced? The team, relatively unknown in the US at the time, became a sensation in England. They were the opening act at a concert that included headliners the Mamas and the Papas. The other acts billed were Electric Flag and Scott McKenzie, with Electric Flag eventually pulling out of the show.
Despite the intense acoustics of the Hollywood Bowl and the decidedly primitive recording of this concert, the sound quality is quite good. The chatter between songs and the occasionally tentative and raw playing reflects the band's uneasiness about performing at such a famous American venue and opening for such a popular group so early in the States and before an album was released.
The song choice gives a good insight into the foundations of the group 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, like 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 a historic moment for the group and came about three months after the band's groundbreaking appearance at Monterey Pop.
The Allman Brothers Band live at the Fillmore East is arguably one of the best live albums of all time. It was recorded on 12 and 13 March 1971 and released on 6 July of the same 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 band first played the Fillmore East on February 11, 13 and 14, 1970, as the opening act for the Grateful Dead headliners, with Love second on the bill. Recordings of these broadcasts, from Bear's Sonic Journals series, have been previously published in various formats. The bear in question is Owsley Stanley. Stanley was the sharp San Francisco guru (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, when 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 in Fillmore East album.
There is a rawness to these recordings that shows the excitement and rare blend the group had achieved at this early point in their career. On these recordings, the twin drum attack is more prominent, with an emphasis on rhythms. Check out the two full-lengths of “Mountain Jam,” a freeform staple of their early years.
This is another excellent one Bear's Sonic Journals presents release, by 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. Issued in gatefold packaging, with archival sleeves, this particular double album vinyl release was cut from the original analog tapes and pressed on limited edition sunshine orange colored vinyl and is a guaranteed bon voyage.
Bob Dylan's seemingly overnight transformation from folk singer to rock star had two very distinct public moments that are central to his mythological story. The first was when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 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 to play. instrument on 'Like a Rolling Stone'.
The second was on his world tour which began in late 1965 and continued until 1966, when he played the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, on 17 May 1966. The Hall, which opened in 1856, became a hotel in 2004. A recording of the concert was originally released as a bootleg and was billed as having been recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. In fact, both Royal Albert Hall shows on the tour were recorded, as well as a show in Sheffield.
The legendary concert was officially released as part of it Bob Dylan Bootleg Series via Legacy (The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, “Royal Albert Hall” Concert.), a Sony Music reissue imprint, on October 13, 1998. While the concerts were controversial due to Dylan incorporating an electric set backed by The Band (minus Levon Helm and with Mickey Jones on drums instead) , then known as the Hawks, also marked perhaps the high-water mark of Dylan's 60s recordings. The concerts were largely based on songs from Bringing it all back home, Highway 61 revisitedand Blonde to Blonde and reflected the brief peak of Dylan's “wild mercury” period.
In what is a truly inspiring and successful work, 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 era to life, but leaves her own unmistakable mark on this historic concert. She neither allows these iconic recordings to bend her towards being too reverent about the originals, nor does she go too far in putting her musical thumb on the scale. The double vinyl album splits the two sets into four sides that perfectly reflect the concert's transition from an acoustic to a full electric band set. Vinyl albums come in colorful 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 songs of the 60s. The full group set is well executed and doesn't try to imitate The Band or try to recapture some of the steely, angry energy of the original shows. Marshall does a wonderful job of avoiding singing in the same type of quirky rhythms that influenced the trademark sneers and screams and shouts of Dylan's vocal style. Whether covering other artists' material or singing her own compelling compositions, she consistently amasses a body of work often unmatched by her contemporaries.
