Patti Smith Group Full Concert Capitol Theatre NJ 1979
“Redondo Beach… is the beach where women… love other women.”
– Patti Smith intro to the song, Redondo Beach
This is a gem from Music Vault, an almost two and a half hour with The Patti Smith Group right after the release of Easter. What a band and what a great time for the band and Patti Smith. They tear through the songs, the band is as tight as they get and the power is immense. I can understand Bob Dylan’s admiration of this force of nature.
Patti Smith could not have been met with a more enthusiastic home-crowd, and it’s a really great performance. This is from the year I discovered this wonderful artist (from Rockpalast 1979) But it is here in New Jersey that Patti Smith is at home and the performance really feels like she is with a familiar bunch of people.
Primal performance with a band at the top of their game!
On June 5, 1965, Joan Baez played a special concert at the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush, London. This is Joan Baez in her prime. The show was recorded less than a month after Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, depicted in Pennebaker’s film Don’t Look Back, in which Dylan failed to invite Baez onstage despite the fact that she had introduced him to national audiences in America.
“That Madison Square Gardens gig was the best music I enjoyed playing since the Cavern or even Hamburg… It was just the same kinda feeling when The Beatles used to really get into it”
– John Lennon
John Lennon Live in New York City 1972
Two concerts took place, in the afternoon and evening of 30 August 1972 . John Lennon Live In New York City was released simultaneously as an album and video in 1986, with different performances from the two shows on each.
The Concerts were held to raise money for children with mental challenges at friend Geraldo Rivera’s request. Rivera introduces Lennon and Ono at the beginning of the album, and he is referenced in Lennon’s impromptu revised lyrics in the opening song, “New York City.”
The benefit concerts, billed as One to One, also featured other performers in addition to Lennon, including Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Melanie Safka and Sha-Na-Na, although their performances are not included on this album, nor on the simultaneous video release.
Live in New York City captures John Lennon’s last full-length concert performance, coming right after the release of Some Time in New York City, which was a commercial failure in the United States. Perhaps as a result, Lennon’s stage talk, while humorous, is self-deprecating and slightly nervous in tone. Backing Lennon and Ono were Elephant’s Memory, who had served as Lennon and Ono’s backing band on Some Time in New York City. Although the material Lennon performed was largely drawn from his three most recent albums of the period (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Imagine and Some Time in New York City), he also included in the set list his Beatles hit “Come Together” and paid tribute to Elvis Presley with “Hound Dog” before leading the audience in a sing along of “Give Peace a Chance”. “Come Together”, originally in the key of D minor, was performed in E minor.
“Tonight you’re gonna hear the concert of your life”, the guy of KSAN states to his listeners at the beginning of this radio broadcast, and it is the truth!Interview with Bob Harris from 1978:
Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden is an album by Johnny Cash that was recorded in December 1969 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, but which was not released until 2002 (making it his 86th album overall).
The album was recorded just 4 months after Cash’s seminal At San Quentin was released, which is probably why it was not released soon after its recording. As with all Cash live shows of this period, he was backed up by the Tennessee Three, which consisted of W.S. Holland, Marshall Grant and Bob Wooton. After the first 11 songs, Johnny Cash took a short break and the guests stepped up to the plate with their current hits. As if Johnny wasn’t enough, we get Carl Perkins and The Statler Brothers in tremendous form. The Carter Family was a standard part of the Johnny Cash Show, and it is a real treat hearing Mother Maybelle with her daughters. They also performs back up vocals on many of the songs.
As with most Cash shows, the genres covered ran the gamut from country music to rockabilly to even some folk rock. Similarly to “Johnny Cash At San Quentin”, Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden includes numbers performed by Perkins, the Statlers and the Carters while Johnny was offstage.
It is an absolute must have for any Johnny Cash fan! I still wonder why Sony took 33 years to release this gem.
