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Friday, November 15, 2013

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee - Obere Rathaushalle, Rathaus, Bremen, Germany 1974-05-20 (Bootleg)


Size: 215 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in my BluesMobile
Some Artwork Included

The joyous whoop that Sonny Terry naturally emitted between raucous harp blasts was as distinctive a signature sound as can possibly be imagined. Only a handful of blues harmonica players wielded as much of a lasting influence on the genre as did the sightless Terry (Buster Brown, for one, copied the whoop and all), who recorded some fine urban blues as a bandleader in addition to serving as guitarist Brownie McGhee's longtime duet partner.

Saunders Terrell's father was a folk-styled harmonica player who performed locally at dances, but blues wasn't part of his repertoire (he blew reels and jigs). Terry wasn't born blind, he lost sight in one eye when he was five, the other at age 18. That left him with extremely limited options for making any sort of feasible living, so he took to the streets armed with his trusty harmonicas. Terry soon joined forces with Piedmont pioneer Blind Boy Fuller, first recording with the guitarist in 1937 for Vocalion.

Terry's unique talents were given an extremely classy airing in 1938 when he was invited to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall at the fabled From Spirituals to Swing concert. He recorded for the Library of Congress that same year and cut his first commercial sides in 1940. Terry had met McGhee in 1939, and upon the death of Fuller, they joined forces, playing together on a 1941 McGhee date for OKeh and settling in New York as a duo in 1942. There they broke into the folk scene, working alongside Leadbelly, Josh White, and Woody Guthrie.

While Brownie McGhee was incredibly prolific in the studio during the mid-'40s, Terry was somewhat less so as a leader (perhaps most of his time was occupied by his prominent role in Finian's Rainbow on Broadway for approximately two years beginning in 1946). There were sides for Asch and Savoy in 1944 before three fine sessions for Capitol in 1947 (the first two featuring Stick McGhee rather than Brownie on guitar) and another in 1950.

Terry made some nice sides in an R&B mode for Jax, Jackson, Red Robin, RCA Victor, Groove, Harlem, Old Town, and Ember during the '50s, usually with Brownie close by on guitar. But it was the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s that made Brownie and Sonny household names (at least among folk aficionados). They toured long and hard as a duo, cutting a horde of endearing acoustic duet LPs along the way, before scuttling their decades-long partnership amidst a fair amount of reported acrimony during the mid-'70s.

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1974-05-20
Obere Rathaushalle, Rathaus, Bremen, Germany

Sonny Terry (voc,harm)
Brownie Walter McGhee (voc,g)

01. Ridin' And Rollin'
02. Goin' Down Slow
03. I Got A Woman
04. Hootin' The Blues
05. Achin' Heart
06. Have No Worries In My Brain
07. There Was A Time I Didn't Have No Bread
08. Oh Wee Baby, You Sure Look Fine To Me
09. The Foxhunt
10. Burnt Child Afraid Of Fire
11. See See Rider (C.C.Rider)
12. Born With The Blues
13. Backwater Blues
14. The Life I'm Living
15. Christine
16. In The Evening
17. Gonna Find Me A Woman
18. My Baby Changed The Lock On My Door
19. You Gotta Be A Good Lover
20. C&O Train Blues
21. Talkin' Harmonica Blues
22. Stranger Blues
23. Walk On
24. Down By The Riverside

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Picture of the day



Johnny Cash - Tulsa Oral Roberts University 1972 (Bootleg) (Great Sound Quality)


Size: 162 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in OuterSpace
Some Artwork

Some of his biography:
As his career was taking off in the late 1950s, Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. For a brief time, he shared an apartment in Nashville with Waylon Jennings, who was heavily addicted to amphetamines. Cash used the uppers to stay awake during tours. Friends joked about his "nervousness" and erratic behavior, many ignoring the warning signs of his worsening drug addiction. In a behind-the-scenes look at The Johnny Cash Show, Cash claims to have "tried every drug there was to try."

Although in many ways spiraling out of control, Cash's frenetic creativity was still delivering hits. His rendition of "Ring of Fire" was a crossover hit, reaching No. 1 on the country charts and entering the Top 20 on the pop charts. The song was written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore. The song was originally performed by June's sister, but the signature mariachi-style horn arrangement was provided by Cash, who said that it had come to him in a dream. Vivian Liberto claims a different version of the origins of "Ring of Fire". In her book, I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny, Liberto states that Cash gave Carter the credit for monetary reasons.

In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to an overheated wheel bearing, triggering a forest fire that burnt several hundred acres in Los Padres National Forest in California. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it." The fire destroyed 508 acres (206 ha), burning the foliage off three mountains and driving off 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant and claimed, "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards." The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,172 ($927224 in 2013 dollars). Cash eventually settled the case and paid $82,001. He said he was the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire.

Although Cash carefully cultivated a romantic outlaw image, he never served a prison sentence. Despite landing in jail seven times for misdemeanors, each stay lasted only a single night. His most infamous run-in with the law occurred while on tour in 1965, when he was arrested October 4 by a narcotics squad in El Paso, TX. The officers suspected that he was smuggling heroin from Mexico, but found instead 688 Dexedrine capsules and 475 Equanil tablets that the singer had hidden inside his guitar case. Because the pills were prescription drugs rather than illegal narcotics, he received a suspended sentence.

Great Country And Western Hits - UK EP 1959
Cash had also been arrested on May 11, 1965, in Starkville, Mississippi, for trespassing late at night onto private property to pick flowers. (This incident gave the spark for the song "Starkville City Jail", which he spoke about on his live At San Quentin prison album.)

In the mid-1960s, Cash released a number of concept albums, including Sings the Ballads of the True West (1965), an experimental double record mixing authentic frontier songs with Cash's spoken narration, and Bitter Tears (1964), with songs highlighting the plight of the Native Americans. His drug addiction was at its worst at this point, and his destructive behavior led to a divorce from his first wife and canceled performances.

In 1967, Cash's duet with June Carter, "Jackson", won a Grammy Award.
Johnny Cash's final arrest was in 1967 in Walker County, Georgia, where he was taken in after being involved in a car accident while carrying a bag of prescription pills. Cash attempted to bribe a local deputy, who turned the money down, and then spent the night in a LaFayette, Georgia, jail. The singer was released after a long talk with Sheriff Ralph Jones, who warned him of his dangerous behavior and wasted potential. Cash credited that experience for saving his life, and he later came back to LaFayette to play a benefit concert that attracted 12,000 people (the city population was less than 9,000 at the time) and raised $75,000 for the high school. Reflecting on his past in a 1997 interview, Cash noted: “I was taking the pills for awhile, and then the pills started taking me."

Cash curtailed his use of drugs for several years in 1968, after a spiritual epiphany in the Nickajack Cave, when he attempted to commit suicide while under the heavy influence of drugs. He descended deeper into the cave, trying to lose himself and "just die", when he passed out on the floor. He reported to be exhausted and feeling at the end of his rope when he felt God's presence in his heart and managed to struggle out of the cave (despite the exhaustion) by following a faint light and slight breeze. To him, it was his own rebirth. June, Maybelle, and Ezra Carter moved into Cash's mansion for a month to help him conquer his addiction. Cash proposed onstage to June at a concert at the London Gardens in London, ON, CA on February 22, 1968; the couple married a week later (on March 1) in Franklin, KY. June had agreed to marry Cash after he had "cleaned up". He rediscovered his Christian faith, taking an "altar call" in Evangel Temple, a small church in the Nashville area, pastored by Rev. Jimmie Rodgers Snow, son of country music legend Hank Snow.

According to longtime friend Marshall Grant, Cash's 1968 rebirth experience did not result in his completely stopping use of amphetamines. However, in 1970, Cash ended all drug use for a period of seven years. Grant claims that the birth of Cash's son, John Carter Cash, inspired Cash to end his dependence. Cash began using amphetamines again in 1977. By 1983, he was once again addicted, and entered the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, CA for rehabilitation. Cash managed to stay off drugs for several years, but by 1989, he was dependent again and entered Nashville's Cumberland Heights Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center. In 1992, he entered the Loma Linda Behavioural Medicine Centre in Loma Linda, California for his final rehabilitation (several months later, his son followed him into this facility for treatment).

Johnny Cash - Australian EP 1969
Folsom Prison Blues
Cash felt great compassion for prisoners. He began performing concerts at various prisons starting in the late 1950s. His first prison concert was held on January 1, 1958, at San Quentin State Prison. These performances led to a pair of highly successful live albums, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) and Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969).

The Folsom Prison record was introduced by a rendition of his classic "Folsom Prison Blues", while the San Quentin record included the crossover hit single "A Boy Named Sue", a Shel Silverstein-penned novelty song that reached No. 1 on the country charts and No. 2 on the U.S. Top Ten pop charts. The AM versions of the latter contained a couple of profanities which were edited out. The modern CD versions are unedited and uncensored and thus also longer than the original vinyl albums, though they still retain the audience reaction overdubs of the originals.

In addition to his performances at U.S. prisons, Cash also performed at the Österåker Prison in Sweden in 1972. The live album På Österåker ("At Österåker") was released in 1973. "San Quentin" was recorded with Cash replacing "San Quentin" with "Österåker", which was greatly appreciated by the inmates.

From 1969 to 1971, Cash starred in his own television show, The Johnny Cash Show, on the ABC network. The Statler Brothers opened up for him in every episode; the Carter Family and rockabilly legend Carl Perkins were also part of the regular show entourage. However, Cash also enjoyed booking more mainstream performers as guests; such notables included Neil Young, Louis Armstrong, Kenny Rogers and The First Edition (who appeared a record four times), James Taylor, Ray Charles, Roger Miller, Derek and the Dominos, and Bob Dylan. During the same period, he contributed the title song and other songs to the film Little Fauss and Big Halsey, which starred Robert Redford, Michael J. Pollard, and Lauren Hutton. The title song, The Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsey, written by Carl Perkins, was nominated for a Golden Globe award.
Cash had met with Dylan in the mid-1960s and became closer friends when they were neighbors in the late 1960s in Woodstock, New York. Cash was enthusiastic about reintroducing the reclusive Dylan to his audience. Cash sang a duet with Dylan on Dylan's country album Nashville Skyline and also wrote the album's Grammy-winning liner notes.

Another artist who received a major career boost from The Johnny Cash Show was Kris Kristofferson, who was beginning to make a name for himself as a singer/songwriter. During a live performance of Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", Cash refused to change the lyrics to suit network executives, singing the song with its references to marijuana intact:

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned.

By the early 1970s, he had crystallized his public image as "The Man in Black". He regularly performed dressed all in black, wearing a long black knee-length coat. This outfit stood in contrast to the costumes worn by most of the major country acts in his day: rhinestone suits and cowboy boots. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black", to help explain his dress code:

We're doing mighty fine I do suppose
In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black.

He wore black on behalf of the poor and hungry, on behalf of "the prisoner who has long paid for his crime", and on behalf of those who have been betrayed by age or drugs. "And," Cash added, "with the Vietnam War as painful in my mind as it was in most other Americans', I wore it 'in mournin' for the lives that could have been.'... Apart from the Vietnam War being over, I don't see much reason to change my position... The old are still neglected, the poor are still poor, the young are still dying before their time, and we're not making many moves to make things right. There's still plenty of darkness to carry off."

Johnny Cash - UK EP 1959
He and his band had initially worn black shirts because that was the only matching color they had among their various outfits. He wore other colors on stage early in his career, but he claimed to like wearing black both on and off stage. He stated that, political reasons aside, he simply liked black as his on-stage color. The outdated US Navy's winter blue uniform used to be referred to by sailors as "Johnny Cashes", as the uniform's shirt, tie, and trousers are solid black.

In the mid-1970s, Cash's popularity and number of hit songs began to decline. He made commercials for Amoco, an unpopular enterprise in an era in which oil companies made high profits while consumers suffered through high gasoline prices and shortages. However, his autobiography (the first of two), titled Man in Black, was published in 1975 and sold 1.3 million copies. A second, Cash: The Autobiography, appeared in 1997. His friendship with Billy Graham led to the production of a film about the life of Jesus, The Gospel Road, which Cash co-wrote and narrated.

He also continued to appear on television, hosting an annual Christmas special on CBS throughout the 1970s. Later television appearances included a starring role in an episode of Columbo: Swan Song He also appeared with his wife on an episode of Little House on the Prairie entitled "The Collection" and gave a performance as John Brown in the 1985 American Civil War television mini-series North and South. Johnny and June also appeared in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as a recurring couple.

He was friendly with every US President starting with Richard Nixon. He was closest to Jimmy Carter, with whom he became close friends. He stated that he found all of them personally charming, noting that this was probably essential to getting oneself elected.

When invited to perform at the White House for the first time in 1970, Richard Nixon's office requested that he play "Okie from Muskogee" (a satirical Merle Haggard song about people who despised youthful drug users and war protesters) and "Welfare Cadillac" (a Guy Drake song which denies the integrity of welfare recipients). Cash declined to play either and instead selected other songs, including "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (about a brave Native American World War II veteran who was mistreated upon his return to Arizona), and his own compositions, "What Is Truth" and "Man in Black". Cash wrote that the reasons for denying Nixon's song choices were not knowing them and having fairly short notice to rehearse them, rather than any political reason. However, Cash added, even if Nixon's office had given Cash enough time to learn and rehearse the songs, their choice of pieces that conveyed "antihippie and antiblack" sentiments might have backfired.[Full story at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash ]

Johnny Cash (with June Carter, Carl Perkins, The Statler Brothers) Oral Roberts University Center, Tulsa, OK, 1972-10-27

01. Sunday Morning Coming Down (cut)
02. Tennessee Flat Top Box
03. Oney
04. These Hands
05. I Still Miss Someone - Me And Bobby McGee
06. Orleans Parish Prison
07. Help Me - Jesus Was A Carpenter
08. Five Feet High And Risin’
09. That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine (with Carl Perkins)
10. Orange Blossom Special
11. Folsom Prison Blues
12. I Walk The Line - Jackson (with June Carter)
13. If I Were A Carpenter - Help Me Make It Through The Night (with June Carter)
14. Will The Circle Be Unbroken - Daddy Sang Bass
15. I See Men As Trees Walking - Last Supper
16. Children, Go Where I Send Thee (cut)
17. Peace In The Valley
18. A Thing Called Love

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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Pictures of the day



Fat Boy and Jim 1947 

Faces - BBC In Concert, London 1973-02-08 (Bootleg)

Faces - German Single 1970

Size: 133 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in DC++ World
Some Artwork

"Too Drunk For The BBC" is a lost Faces session recorded on February 8th, 1973 at the Paris Theater. It is said they sounded too drunk during the performance and this wasn’t aired, but finally did hit the airwaves by mistake in January 2003 on BBC6 digital.

It was released in the summer 2004 on the two disc CDR title In Concert 1973 (Trial-007), paired with the April 1st, 1973 Paris Theater “BBC In Concert” recording. The Vintage Masters Premium is the first silver manufactured edition for this tape. It is a clear and generally excellent sounding mono recording of the complete show that night with a cut in the tape following “It’s All Over Now” losing no music or (as far as we can tell) any talking.

The story about the band being too drunk for broadcast is an interesting one. The actual music performance is fine. The numbers all sound tight and there aren’t many big mistakes. But Rod Stewart’s song introductions ramble into incoherent nonsense half the time and, compared to other bands appearances on “In Concert,” don’t sound very professional.

Faces - France Single 1971
The Faces did have the reputation for their loose bar-band aesthetic and this document is a perfect representative. What is also important, and something not generally discussed, is the undercurrent of sadness and melancholy that fuels their music. It is this feeling that one comes away with after listening to the broadcast in its entirety.

The tape begins with DJ John Peel saying, “The BBC has asked me to come along this evening and introduce to you five loveable young men whose music is currently taking the country by storm…The Faces.” Since this session occurs right after recording the last Faces LP Ooh La La and two months before it was released to the public, the band opens with the first two songs from the record. After “Silicone Grown” Rod Stewart says, “One. And now we’ll do two.”

“Cindy Incidentally” follows and it sounds much like a rewrite of Dylan’s “I Don’t Believe You.” Their cover of the Jimi Hendrix tune “Angel” had been a staple of their set and is played with a smattering of regret. At the song’s end Stewart says, “all the year round he end it with a do. He then comes here and he ends it with a clue.” (Maybe it’s an inside joke?)

After another cover tune they play “True Blue,” the first song on Rod Stewart’s Never A Dull Moment (given the set lists and line ups on his solo albums at this point, it is hard to see where The Faces end and his solo career begins). Afterwards he says, “‘True Blue’…is the number we just did. So we won’t be doing that one again tonight. In actual fact we’ll do another number that isn’t ‘True Blue’ just to make this into a programme, which is what John asked us to do.”

Rod Stewart with Faces - Netherland Single 1971
There is a strange exchange before a loose version of “Twisting The Night Away.” Someone from the audience shouts, “What is next?” Stewart replies, “do you want a job? Grab a guitar then. Come up here. Tell you what, that’s how I started out, standing in the back, shouting at the band, giving them abuse…so, what do we do now?” Ron Wood says, “I lost me list.” By the end of the show there is a very strange exchange before “Maybe I’m Amazed” which is buried down in the mix. “Three Button Hand Me Down” is “horrible” by Stewart’s own admission.

Before the final song “I’m Losing You” he says, “sorry, but the pubs are closing and we want to get there.” They deliver a dramatic, six minute version of one of their most effective cover songs. Kenny Jones’ brief drum solo is also included before the session ends and they hit the pubs. John Peel can be heard at the end of the tape saying, “The Faces. Still the best rock and roll band in the world for those of us who really care” as he thanks the band and the audience for coming.

"Too Drunk For The BBC" is packaged in a standard single jewel case with various live shots of the band on the artwork. Since none of this material appears on the Rhino box set "Five Guys Walk Into A Bar" it is a welcome site to see it released on silver discs. The playing is great and does have a fascinating atmosphere worth having. [Source: From Collectorsmusicreviews.com]

Faces
"BBC In Concert"
Paris Theatre, London, UK
February 8, 1973

Personnel:
♣ Rod Stewart - vocals
♣ Ronnie Wood - guitar
♣ Ronnie Lane - bass, vocals
♣ Ian McLagan - keyboards
♣ Kenney Jones - drums 

01. Silicone Grown 2:54
02. Cindy Incidentally 2:45
03. Angel 4:39
04. Memphis, Tennessee 4:11
05. True Blue 4:25
06. I'd Rather Go Blind 5:15
07. You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It) 5:27
08. Twistin' The Night Away 4:30
09. It's All Over Now 3:48
10. Miss Judy's Farm 4:03
11. Maybe I'm Amazed 5:24
12. Three Button Hand Me Down 5:17
13. I'm Losing You 6:25

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Sunday, November 10, 2013

Tom Rush - Selftitled (Great Folk Album US 1970)


Size: 74.5 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Another self-titled album, this time for CBS, finds Tom Rush continuing to mine the fertile vein of folk-rock songwriters the likes of James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Canadian Murray McLaughlin. Standouts include David Wiffen's "Driving Wheel," McLaughlin's "Old Man's Song" and "Child's Song," and Browne's "Colors of the Sun." Also, there appears to be a hint of country sneaking into the arrangements. A very solid effort.

Tom Rush is the 1970 album from pioneer Folk rock musician Tom Rush. He covers songs from fellow folkies Jackson Browne, Murray McLauchlan, James Taylor and David Wiffen. Guest musicians were David Bromberg on Dobro and Red Rhodes on Steel Guitar.

Tom Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer, songwriter, musician and recording artist.

Rush was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the adopted son of a teacher at St. Paul's School, in Concord, New Hampshire. Tom began performing in 1961 while studying at Harvard University after having graduated from the Groton School. He majored in English literature. Many of his early recordings are versions of Lowland Scots and Appalachian folk songs. He regularly performed at the Club 47 coffeehouse (now called Club Passim) in Cambridge, the Unicorn in Boston, and The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Rush is credited by Rolling Stone magazine with ushering in the era of the singer/songwriter. In addition to performing his own compositions, he covered songs by Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Murray McLauchlan, David Wiffen and William Hawkins, helping them to gain recognition early in their careers.
Bob Dylan is reputed to be the "Roosevelt Gook" credited as playing piano on the 1966 Elektra album Take A Little Walk With Me, though many believe it was Al Kooper under another name to collect a second musician's fee.

His 1968 composition "No Regrets" has become an acknowledged standard, with numerous cover versions having been recorded (Rush did two radically different versions himself). These include The Walker Brothers, who gave Tom Rush a belated Top Ten exposure as a songwriter on the UK singles chart, Emmylou Harris, who included the song on her 1988 album Bluebird, and Midge Ure whose cover also made the UK Top Ten.
A video of his performance of Steven Walters' "The Remember Song" was placed on YouTube and to date (June 2012) it has received over 6 million plays. 

Writing on his website, Rush said, "I've been waiting 45 years to be an overnight sensation, and it's finally happened! A video clip of my performance of "The Remember Song" has 'gone viral.' I felt terrible at first, thinking I was being accused of being a musical equivalent of Ebola, but my children explained to me that this was a good thing." One of the earliest music videos produced (1968) for an artist by a record company, Elektra, can be found at his website, www.tomrush.com. It was used to promote his signature song, "No Regrets" for "The Circle Game" album. A number of recent videos from a 2010 concert performed in Old Saybrook, CT can be found on the video website Vimeo under a search for Tom Rush.

Tom Rush is married to author Renée Askins and was formerly married to singer Beverly Rush.
Over the years Tom Rush has used a number of guitars on stage, his current primary one a handcrafted acoustic made by Don Musser. In February 2012, Rush appeared on stage in Colorado with a new instrument, a cedar-top Dreadnought with an inlay of a snake wrapped around a reclining nude woman. The guitar, crafted by McKenzie & Marr Guitars is a "re-incarnation" of one of Rush's earliest acoustics - the famous "Naked Lady."
On 28 Dec 2012 Rush appeared at Boston Symphony Hall to celebrate fifty years in the music biz.

Tom Rush - Lost My Drivin' Wheel
(US Promo Only 1970)
Tom Rush is a gifted musician and performer, whose shows offer a musical celebration...a journey into the tradition and spectrum of what music has been, can be, and will become. His distinctive guitar style, wry humor and warm, expressive voice have made him both a legend and a lure to audiences around the world. His shows are filled with the rib-aching laughter of terrific story-telling, the sweet melancholy of ballads and the passion of gritty blues.

Rush's impact on the American music scene has been profound. He helped shape the folk revival in the '60s and the renaissance of the '80s and '90s, his music having left its stamp on generations of artists. James Taylor told Rolling Stone, "Tom was not only one of my early heroes, but also one of my main influences." Country music star Garth Brooks has credited Rush with being one of his top five musical influences. Rush has long championed emerging artists. His early recordings introduced the world to the work of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and James Taylor, and in more recent years his Club 47 concerts have brought artists such as Nanci Griffith and Shawn Colvin to wider audiences when they were just beginning to build their own reputations.

Tom Rush began his musical career in the early '60s playing the Boston-area clubs while a Harvard student. The Club 47 was the flagship of the coffee house fleet, and he was soon holding down a weekly spot there, learning from the legendary artists who came to play, honing his skills and growing into his talent. He had released two albums by the time he graduated.

Rush displayed then, as he does today, an uncanny knack for finding wonderful songs, and writing his own - many of which have become classics re-interpreted by new generations. (It is testimony to the universality of his appeal that his songs have been folk hits, country hits, heavy metal and rap hits.) Signed by Elektra in 1965, Rush made three albums for them, culminating in The Circle Game, which, according to Rolling Stone, ushered in the singer/songwriter era.

In the early '70s, folk turned to folk-rock, and Rush, ever adaptable, saw more room to stretch out. Recording now for Columbia, he toured tirelessly with a five man band, playing concerts across the country. Endless promotional tours, interviews, television appearances, and recording sessions added up to five very successful but exhausting years, after which Tom decided to take a break and "recharge" his creative side at his New Hampshire farm.

01. "Driving Wheel" (David Wiffen) – 5:22
02. "Rainy Day Man" (James Taylor, Zachary Wiesner) – 3:07
03. "Drop Down Mama" (Sleepy John Estes) – 2:33
04. "Old Man's Song" (Murray McLauchlan) – 3:22
05. "Lullaby" (Jesse Colin Young) – 3:45
06. "These Days" (Jackson Browne) – 2:40
07. "Wild Child" (Fred Neil) – 3:13
08. "Colors of the Sun" (Jackson Browne) – 3:51
09. "Livin' in the Country" (Day, Winsted) – 2:31
10. "Child's Song" (Murray McLauchlan) - 4:09

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