New Vinyl From Fleetwood Mac and The Who!

Available now from http://www.1960s.london

Live On Radio and TV 1969-70 by Fleetwood Mac

Tracklisting

Side One

1. You’ll Be Mine (Willie Dixon)
2. Good Morning Blues (Ledbetter)
3. Shady Little Baby (Bennett)
4. Hot Rodding (Instrumental)
5. New Worried Blues (Trad. Arr.Korner)
6. Early Morning Come
7. Linda (Jeremy Spencer)

Side Two

1. Oh Well (Green)
2. Albatross (Green)
3. Rattlesnake Shake (Green)
4. Albatross (Green)
5. Coming Your Way (Kirwan)
6. The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown) (Green)

Recording Details

Side One

Tracks  1 – 7 recorded for BBC radio in 1969 as follows:

Tracks 1– 5 recorded on March 17th and transmitted on Symonds On Sunday March 23rd (1 & 2) and March 30th (3 – 5)

Track 6 recorded June 10th and transmitted on Chris Grant’s Tasty Pop Sundae June 15^th

Track 7 recorded October 6^th and transmitted on DLT October 12^th

Side Two

Track 2  recorded at the Pop & Blues Festival at the Grugahalle, Essen, Germany October 9th, 1969 and shown on German TV

Tracks 3 – 5 Playboy After Dark, January 8^th 1970

Track 6 recorded live at the Cue Club, Gotheburg, Sweden on November 2^nd 1969 and broadcast on FM Sveriges radio

Sound Quality

All tracks are Very Good to Excellent, with only Side One Track 5 rated as Good

Personnel

Peter Green – guitar, vocals, bass

Jeremy Spencer – guitars, maracas, vocals

John McVie – bass

Mick Fleetwood – drums

Danny Kirwan – guitar, vocals (Side One Tracks 6 & 7, Side Two Tracks 1-6)

Alexis Korner – guitar, vocals (Side One Tracks 3 – 5),

Tony ‘Duster’ Bennett – vocals, harmonica (Side One Tracks 3 – 5)

Christine Perfect – piano (Side One Tracks 3 – 5)

Sleevenotes

Fleetwood Mac’s sessions for the BBC were legendary. The sessions were always productive – their Top Gear session on August 27^th 1968 produced eleven numbers when most bands only managed to record three tracks in their allotted time. The band were also very experimental. Rather than trot out their latest single or recently-recorded album tracks, Fleetwood Mac would frequently perform songs that they never recorded elsewhere. They would also work with special guests, such as Eddie Boyd on their January 1968 session. On March the 17^th Fleetwood Mac participated in a one-off all star session with blues godfather Alexis Korner, one-man band Duster Bennett and future band member Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie). The three tracks they recorded together have never been officially released and we are delighted to feature them here.

You’ll Be Mine and Good Morning Blues were two acoustic blues covers that never made it onto a Fleetwood Mac studio LP, originating from Howling Wolf and Leadbelly respectively. Shady Little Baby, Hot Rodding and a stomp through New Worried Blues benefit from the guitar and vocals of Alexis Korner, the vocals and harmonica of Duster Bennett and the distinctive piano of Christine Perfect. The versions of Early Morning Come and Linda are different to those on the official release Fleetwood Mac Live At The BBC. Early Morning Come is mis-introduced by host Brian Mathews as Coming Your Way and is performed on acoustic guitar by Danny Kirwan. Linda illustrates Spencer’s fixation with Buddy Holly: as an homage it is spot on with galloping drums and careful backing vocals.

Moving from radio to TV, the first track on Side Two is an unidentified live-in–the studio version of Oh Well with clearly differentiated guitar lines from Green and Kirwan: the Flying V that Spencer totes seems to be mainly for show. Then warm applause greets a measured, delicate performance of Albatross from German TV. At the other extreme comes bizarre US TV programme Playboy After Dark, hosted by publisher Hugh Hefner and assorted Bunnies. Rattlesnake Shake makes for a wonderfully appropriate choice of song (didn’t anyone notice the lyric?). A hint of Albatross follows, with a truncated Coming Your Way forming a suitably elegant coda. Finally we feature a lengthy instrumental excerpt from The Green Manalishi, joining the song after the vocal section just as Green and Kirwan begin their guitar interplay. This is followed by a drum and bass interlude featuring Green on 8-stringed bass, playing melodically against McVie’s shuffle beat. 

Such music seems a long way from the traditional blues with which Fleetwood Mac had started their career. But some things about the band had not changed and would not change: their impeccable rhythm section, a desire to keep moving artistically and a commitment to writing songs rather than jams. Listening to this LP you can hear the full range of their musical capabilities, disrupted when an acid-addled Peter Green announced he was leaving in May 1970. But even after Green’s departure the band was still capable of producing good music, as we shall see…

Sleevenotes: Terri Toome (Miss)

Ready Steady Who – Live In Paris 1972 

Tracklisting

Side One

1. I Can’t Explain (Townshend)
2. Summertime Blues (Cochran, Capehart)
3. Baba O’Riley (Townshend)

Side Two

1. Relay (Townshend)

Personnel

Roger Daltrey – Vocals, harmonica

Pete Townshend – Guitar, vocals

John Entwhistle – Bass, vocals

Keith Moon – Drums, vocals

Recording Details

All tracks recorded live at the Fête de l’Humanité at Parc Georges-Valbon, Paris

on September 9^th 1972 and broadcast on the RTL commercial network

Sound Quality

Source is an AM radio broadcast so sound quality is reasonable but not exceptional.

Sleevenotes

A crowd of over 400,000 attended this open air event, a fund-raiser for the French Communist Party. The Who came onstage at 6pm, preceded by Country Joe McDonald. Townshend had invited a reclusive Eric Clapton and his girlfriend Alice Ormsby-Gore to watch the show from the wings but during the band’s set Eric was mistaken for a fan and ejected by a roadie. Usual set opener I Can’t Explain was short and to the point, ditto the band’s version of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues. Baba O’Reilly required the band to play along to a taped synthesiser track, as did Relay. These last two tracks were written for Townshend’s Lifehouse project and whilst the former had already appeared on Who’s Next the latter would not be released until December 1972 as a non-album single. Relay is longer than the recorded version with call and response vocals and a brief drums-only interlude before Townshend and Entwistle solo simultaneously. The last word goes to Roger Daltrey who thanked the enormous crowd by saying “we’d like to speak in French. Unfortunately we didn’t go to school, so we can’t”.

Sleevenotes: Towser & Jason