On The Records

Fleetwood Mac was always a real life Soap Opera, and soon it’ll be a Documentary.  Today Apple TV+ announced Frank Marshall will direct the feature-length film.  Marshall is a five-time Oscar nominee, and recently directed documentaries on The Bee Gees and The Beach Boys.

Marshall said… “I am fascinated by how this incredible story of enormous musical achievement came about.  Fleetwood Mac somehow managed to merge their often chaotic and almost operatic personal lives into their own tale in real time, which then became legend.  This film will be about the music and the people who created it.

According to the  announcement, the documentary has not been titled, and a release date has not been determined.  New interviews, archival interviews, and some unseen video footage will be used to tell the story of the famous British/American band.

Although Fleetwood Mac started as a British blues band in the 60s, their greatest popularity came in the 70s with the addition of Americans Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.  Their biggest albums were Fleetwood Mac in 1975, and Rumours In 1977.  The band’s music remains extremely popular.

Also today, a new book Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie by author Lesley-Ann Jones was released.

Extra:  First thought for a possible fun title for the documentary.  Fleetwood Mac: The Rumours Were True

With the recent release of the Crosby Stills Nash & Young album Live At Fillmore East, 1969, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have been doing some interviews.

Stills (79) was interviewed by Variety & The Globe And Mail, and Nash (82) was interviewed for the Song Exploder podcast.  As you’ll see, the two sometimes had slightly different takes on some of the topics.

The Stills’ interviews included comments comparing the new release of the 1969 concert with the 1971 live album 4 Way Street.

Stephen Stills was blunt… “I Always hated 4 Way Street, and I love this record (Live At Fillmore East, 1969).  The singing on 4 Way Street is awful.  Everybody refused to dub any voices, which sometimes got spectacularly out of tune.  We were brand new (in 1969), and all that enthusiasm and warmth is apparent.  4 Way Street is more ‘Okay we’re a big deal now’, and it showed.”

About the 1969 concert, Stills said… “The vocals were really tight.  Later on, when we quit singing on one mic, the blend sort of suffered…singing 10-feet apart and in front of really loud amps in very big places.”

Among his recent interviews, Graham Nash was a guest on the excellent podcast Song Exploder.  It’s a clever program that details how popular songs were recorded, and interviews the artist about the creative process.  In this case, the song was “Our House”.  The half-hour interview goes beyond just the song, as Nash talks about the beginnings of CSN&Y, and the fairly recent death of David Crosby (January of 2023).

Nash tells the now familiar story of writing ‘Our House” when he and Joni Mitchell were living together at Joni’s place in Laurel Canyon in 1969.  They had returned to the house after a shopping trip during which Joni had purchased a vase at a local shop.  Graham said…”Why don’t I light a fire, while you put some flowers in that vase you bought today”…and that was the beginning of the song.  The host of the podcast is Hrishikesh Hirway, and in this one-minute excerpt, he plays the voices of CSN.

It sounds so good to hear the vocals highlighted in that way.  You can hear the careful harmony parts that make up the CSN sound.  This type of vocal and instrumental isolation on a selection of songs would have made great additions to the Deja Vu box set. After the segment played, Hirway asked Nash his reaction.  Graham said he was concentrating on David Crosby’s voice and how much he misses him.  Nash went on to explain that he and David were mending fences and were scheduled to video-chat together, but that David passed away before it happened.

Nash also told the story of how Crosby Stills & Nash first sang together during a gathering at Joni Mitchell’s house.  Stephen Stills says that’s not the way it happened.

Stills says he has a very clear memory of Mama Cass Elliot bringing the three men together at her house, and that’s where they first sang.  Stills thinks it’s Nash’s romantic nature that makes him want it to have been at Joni Mitchell’s place.

Another way there’s disagreement between S&N is that Nash believes the surviving group members, Stills Nash & Young, will never perform together again, because Crosby’s not with them.  Stills, who has recently performed for charity with Neil Young, says there could be a cause for which they might perform, so he wouldn’t rule it out.

It’s obvious that Graham Nash has great affection for all of his CSN&Y buddies, but his description of Neil Young gave me a chuckle.   He said…”Neil Young is an incredibly great guitar player, and I think he’s a decent singer.”  Maybe he should have mentioned that Neil is a tremendous songwriter, instead of characterizing his singing voice.

Stephen Stills closed one of his interviews with a little extra hope for CSN&Y fans.  He said there’s a locker with a lot more unreleased tapes that could someday be turned into albums.  He said, “There’s some magic in there.”

For the review of Live At The Fillmore East, 1969, click here: https://ontherecords.net/2024/09/crosby-stills-nash-young1969-concert-release/

Music memorabilia can sell for high prices, especially if it involves The Beatles.  Equipment used by the group has recently surfaced, including John Lennon’s first Vox amplifier, and the recording console used for the Abbey Road album.

Pictured above is the first recording session by The Beatles after they were signed to EMI by George Martin, and the amplifier John Lennon used in that session.   The amp recently resurfaced when a fan spotted it in an online auction.  Not that it was easy to see.  The old owner had decided to paint it black (we could blame The Rolling Stones), but the serial number matched the fawn colored amp used by Lennon.  As you can see, the black paint has been removed, and the 60+ year old amplifier looks a little rough around the edges.

There is still some certifying that needs to be done to make sure it’s the genuine article, but at this point it seems real.  The buyer in England took a chance and paid 16,000-pounds for it, but if it’s certified and is put up for auction again, it’s estimated it could bring $123,000 to $320,000.  It makes me wonder what happened to The Beatles’ most famous amplifiers, the Vox “Super Beatle” model.

Of course even these larger amps were not powerful enough for the size of concerts The Beatles played.  A couple of the guitarists in my 1960’s band had “Super Beatle” amplifiers, and really liked them.

The Beatles’ Abbey Road album is the band’s most modern sounding recording.  That’s because of this 8-track custom built console.

Previous Beatles albums were recorded on older 4-track consoles.  Here are photos from when the recording console was new back in 1969.

It was state of the art back then, and was also used to record some of the first solo albums by the ex-Beatles.  Without considering its historical value, the console was eventually disassembled and placed in storage.

Now, the console has been restored to its original working condition using 70% of its original parts.  The owners believe the console could bring up to 3-million-dollars.

Beatles memorabilia sells for big numbers.  In 2005, John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “All You Need Is Love” sold for 1.25-million-dollars, and in 2015, Ringo Starr’s personal copy of The White Album sold for $790,000

It’s not one of the big anniversary box sets, but A Hard Day’s Night  has received a 60th Anniversary release on white vinyl.

The release was October 19th, 2024…National Album Day.  This was the first album that had all Lennon-McCartney compositions.  Here’s the tracklist.

If you were in England in 1964, that is the album you got.  Unfortunately, those of us in America got the below movie soundtrack that only had the seven songs from side one of the British version, along with some instrumental music from the film..

The full lineup of songs was finally made available to everyone when the CD’s came out in 1987, and we heard what a great album it is.  The album has two #1 singles “Can’t Buy Me Love” & “A Hard Day’s Night”, two great ballads “And I Love Her” & “If I Fell”, and a couple more classics…Lennon’s “You Can’t Do That” & McCartney’s “Things We Said Today”.

The cover of the album says it’s stereo, but the press release did not mention whether it’s the new remixed stereo (like the songs from this record that are on the Red album from 2023), or the original 1964 stereo.  If it was completely remixed, they’d probably announce it and there would also be a CD version.

The new vinyl release is for anyone who doesn’t already have the album, or for those who want the novelty of white vinyl.  The rest of us are waiting (impatiently) for the Rubber Soul box set which was originally expected in 2023.  Rubber Soul may turn out to be the last Beatles album to get the full box set treatment.  Remix producer Giles Martin said Rubber Soul has enough alternate takes to justify a box set.  That may not be the case for the earlier albums.

And…

The Beatles first #1 hit in the U.S. is being re-released.  If you missed Capitol Records’ big single the first time (released December 26th, 1963), you can buy it on Record Store Day, November 22nd, 2024.  It’s just like the original…analog & monophonic…and with the iconic cover.

Here are two copies of the singles I have.  You can see that I wore out the original 1964 record on the left, and haven’t played the one on the right.  That cover, which I believe is from the 80s or 90s has Paul McCartney’s cigarette air-brushed out.  Thank goodness Paul (and Ringo) stopped smoking decades ago.

The family of Tom Petty has been doing a great job of keeping his music alive by releasing material that includes recordings that are new to his fans.  On October 18th, 2024, a Deluxe Edition of the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Long After Dark album was released.  Besides the original 10 tracks from the 1982 album, there are another 12 “rediscovered” tracks, including seven that have never been released.

The original album is best known for the hits “You Got Lucky” & “Change Of Heart”, along with “Straight Into Darkness”.  On the added second disc is the #1 Country song Tom Petty and Benmont Tench wrote for Rosanne Cash, “Never Be You”.  It also includes the great John Sebastian song “Stories We Could Tell”, as well as songs you may have heard on the Tom Petty box set Playback.  Those include “Turning Point” and “Keeping Me Alive”.  The seven unreleased tracks will be of particular interest to Petty’s fans.  (Review at end of article)

The deluxe version comes in a 2-record set, or a  2-CD set with an additional Blu-Ray audio disc (with the same songs).

Besides the new deluxe album release, there’s a long lost film.

This is the first film from director Cameron Crowe, who eventually gave us Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire.  Heart Breakers Beach Party is not in the same league as those other two films, in fact it was only shown once on MTV at 2 A.M.!  According to the film’s trailer, it was also rejected by HBO.  The filming was done about the same time as the Long After Dark album, and includes the making of the video for “You Got Lucky”.  The film looks a little raucous, and could be fun for Heartbreakers fans.  There’s a limited run in theaters that started October 17th, 2024.  No word yet on whether it’s being picked up by a streaming service.

The release of the deluxe album and hardly-seen film are just the latest posthumous releases developed by the Tom Petty estate.  Here are the albums that have been released since his passing.

An American Treasure (2018) is mostly made up of unreleased and live versions of Tom Petty Songs.  It accents recordings other than his hits.  The standard 2-disc set has 26 songs, and the deluxe 4-disc set has 60 songs.

The Best Of Everything (2019) does a truly excellent job of putting together a double album of all the major hits and some of the significant album tracks from Tom Petty’s group and solo recordings.  A minor quibble is that the songs are not in chronological order.

Above is my 4-CD box set of Wildflowers & All The Rest (2020).  It’s a wonderful compilation of music recorded around the time of Petty’s 1994 album Wildflowers.  On the first 2-CDs are the 25 songs Tom Petty originally wanted to release as a double album.  The third CD has great demos Tom Petty recorded on his own, and the fourth CD has live versions with The Heartbreakers.  Later I added the fifth disc of alternate studio versions.  It’s all a treasure.  This collection and The Best Of Everything are the recordings most essential to get to know the music of Tom Petty.

Angel Dream (2021) is a reimagining of the motion picture soundtrack She’s The One.  Although this was a modest release, it includes some welcome previously unreleased tracks.

Live At The Fillmore 1997 (2022) is a major release of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ live performances.  The 4-CD box set includes 72 live tracks.  The band had played together for decades, and their Fillmore concerts showed how impressive they had become on stage.  While there are a lot of Heartbreaker’s songs, there’s also an abundance of unreleased covers of classic songs that the group is obviously having fun playing.

(The Heartbreakers in 1982 at the time of Long After Dark)

We can hope Tom Petty’s family will be able to continue providing fans with historic unreleased songs and alternate versions, even though we know the supply will inevitably end.  Each new release reminds us of Tom Petty’s greatness.

Extra Info:  Just so you know, there are a couple of other purchasing options.  There’s a limited edition of fancy vinyl you can find for $80 on the Tom Petty website, or if you’d like the CD set, Amazon is throwing in three stickers.

Review of Long After Dark (Deluxe Edition):  The new material first.

Disc 2 is a good album that’s enjoyable all the way through, and here are the top tracks…“Stories We Could Tell”, “Never Be You”, “Turning Point”, “Don’t Make Me Walk The Line”, “Keeping Me Alive”, and “Ways To Be Wicked”.  Petty fans will likely want all six of these in their collections.  Three of the other songs (cuts 5, 8 & 10) are good, but not quite as good as the versions that are already on the original album.  The three remaining tracks (cuts 6, 11 & 12) are fine, but not must-haves (although fans might have fun with The Heartbreakers’ version of The Trogg’s hit “Wild Thing”).

The original album on Disc 1 has been around since 1982, so most fans probably know it and have their favorite tracks.  There album is anchored by three standouts… “You Got Lucky”, “Change Of Heart”, and “Straight Into Darkness”.

Tom Petty is really missed, so it’s great to get a release like this.

Update:  Another release, this time a book from Mike Campbell.

The book is Heartbreaker, and it tells Mike’s life story, including his time with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  It comes out March 18, 2025.

 

 

Fans of Neil Young realize that you never know for sure what you’re going to get with one of his albums.  By 1974 when On The Beach first came out, Neil Young had soared in popularity with the albums After The Gold Rush and Harvest.  After that #1 album in 1972, Young pivoted in 1973 to a live album of new songs, Time Fades Away.  It has its moments, but even Neil was not satisfied with it.  Then came On The Beach.

This one was a regular studio album, but it wasn’t similar to the Country Rock feel of Harvest.  It had more of a Blues Rock style with inherently depressing lyrics.  Here’s the track list, which is the same for both the original album and the 50th Anniversary version.  It was released on November 8th, 2024.

Instead of selling millions like Harvest, the original On The Beach album sold a fraction of that (about 500,000 eventually), and made it to #16 on the Billboard album chart.  Critics’ reviews were mixed at the time, but now it’s looked upon as an important step in Young’s development as an artist who explored a wide variety of musical styles.

As someone who owns most of Neil Young’s albums, On The Beach isn’t  among my favorites, but it does have one of my favorite NY recordings, “See The Sky About To Rain”.  The single from the album, “Walk On”, is also good, even though it only made it to #69 on the Hot 100 chart.  Fans of the album tend to focus on the trio of songs with “blues” in the title… “Revolution Blues”, “Vampire Blues”, and “Ambulance Blues”.

The 50th Anniversary edition comes on clear vinyl, but with no other extras.  So it’s mainly for fans who don’t own the album yet, need to replace their old ones, or simply like the clear vinyl.  The reality of this release is that Neil Young sold the rights to a lot of his music, and investors are likely looking for ways to get a return for their money.  That’s not a criticism, just financial reality.  There’s nothing wrong with consumers having choices of ways to enjoy their favorite artists.

Just for fun:  Here’s an alternate shot from the cover photo session.

Wanted to add this section from an earlier CSNY article, because there’s a song connection:  Old friends Stephen Stills and Neil Young are working together again.  Besides mixing the live recordings for the new release CSNY Live At Fillmore East, 1969 (released on Oct. 25th, 2024), the two performed at the Harvest Moon charity event October 5th, 2024.

Stills & Young started their set with “Long May You Run”, and then played a crowd-pleasing assortment of songs that went all the way back to Buffalo Springfield (including “Bluebird” & “For What It’s Worth”) from the 1960s. There were of course CSNY songs, and some Neil Young classics (including “Vampire Blues” from his On The Beach album).  The two were supported onstage by bassist Corey McCormick and drummer Anthony Logerfo.  Later they were joined by John Mayer, who had performed a solo acoustic set earlier.

And a reminder of how Stills & Young were 50 years earlier.

If you were a teenager in America in 1964, you know what it was like.  If you weren’t, the new documentary is a chance for you to learn a little more about how The Beatles quickly conquered the musical scene and culture in America..

The streaming service Disney+ will present a new documentary called Beatles ‘64.  It’s set to air the day after Thanksgiving, November 29th, 2024.  It includes new interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and some fans who were there.  It also has archival footage, including some that has never been seen.  The film is directed by David Tedeschi and produced by Martin Scorsese.

(The picture sleeve from The Beatles first #1 in America.)

What was to later become a “British Invasion” began when American radio stations started playing “I Want To Hold Your Hand” toward the end of 1963.  They had heard about Beatlemania in England, and obtained the records from overseas.  Officially, Capitol Records realeased the single (with “I Saw Her Standing There” on the flip side) on December 26th, 1963.

For teens, the combination of those two songs was like an explosion of a completely new and energetic musical sound.  That was especially true when compared with the mostly tame Pop music of the teen idols and the left over old-fashioned singers from the 40s and 50s.

But it was a lot more than one single.

(My Beatles singles from 1964)

Before “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was released by Capitol Records, three other labels had been given the rights to Beatles recordings that had been released earlier in England.  Soon, those small labels rushed-released “She Loves You”, “Please Please Me”, “Love Me Do”, “Twist And Shout”, “From Me To You” and more.

January of 1964 also gave us two albums filled with more songs.

Both of these albums were out before The Beatles came to America, so we heard even more great songs like “All My Loving” and “This Boy”.  Beatlemania was already dominating our radio stations and turntables by the time The Beatles’ Pan Am plane touched down in New York City on February 7th, 1964.

Thousands of screaming fans greeted them, and two days later, a record 73-million tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show to see The Beatles perform in the U.S. for the first time.

We finally got to see the four young men who had already captured the musical hearts of America’s teens, and the group’s popularity soared even higher.  Then on February 11th, 1964 they played their first U.S. concert in Washington DC.  All archival footage used in the documentary has been restored in 4K, and the sound has been remixed by Giles Martin.

Beatles ‘64 covers the three weeks of The Beatles’ first visit to America, but there were another four albums released that year in the U.S.

You can see that among the albums is A Hard Day’s Night. Somehow during all their songwriting, recording, and touring, The Beatles filmed what turned out to be a very popular movie.  It also gave us two more #1 singles “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “A Hard Day’s Night”.  In total, The Beatles had 19 Top 40 hits in 1964, and six of them made it to #1. Those are numbers very few artists have reached in their entire careers.

Let’s hope the new Beatle’s ‘64 documentary can capture the spirit of that year.

Update:  Here’s the trailer for the documentary:

https://youtu.be/sBiq39gfBh4?si=zBkrcngLNWQAVuH1

The movie uses film shot during that three-week period of The Beatles coming to America in February of 1964.

(Four photos Disney provided with the news release.)

As you’ve probably noticed, Classic Rock artists have recently been releasing old concerts, and now Crosby Stills Nash & Young are part of the trend.  Neil Young joined CSN shortly before they played four times in two days at the Fillmore East.  The four-man group had performed just two shows (including Woodstock) before appearing at the New York City venue.  There have been poor-quality bootlegs of this concert from September 20th of 1969, but now we have the high-quality eight-track mixing-board recordings.

Live At Fillmore East, 1969 was released October 25th, 2024. The review is below.

The 2024 mix of the album was supervised by Stephen Stills and Neil Young.  As an audio buff, Young was particularly happy with the result.  He said “It’s all analog.  The vinyl comes out just like it would have been in 1969.  It’s a beautiful thing.”

The tracks are in the same order on the records and the CD.  The acoustic set is on record one, and the electric set on record two.  For the electric set, the group was joined by drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Greg Reeves.  This was before CSNY released the album Deja Vu (which was March 11th of 1970).

That timing makes for an interesting concert that covers ground from Buffalo Springfield “On The Way Home” and Neil Young’s first album “I’ve Loved Her So long” to not-yet-released songs such as Still’s  “4 + 20”, “Go Back Home” & “Find The Cost Of Freedom”, plus Graham Nash’s “Our House”.  Seven of the songs are from the original Crosby Stiils & Nash album released earlier that year.  The new live album features a 16-minute jam of “Down By The River”, a song from Neil Young’s 1969 Crazy Horse album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

Review:  Serious CSN&Y fans will consider this a must-have album.  It’s historic in that it’s near the beginning of Crosby Stills Nash & Young as a touring group.  They’re just figuring out how to blend Neil Young into the band.  The album begins with just CSN.  Stephen Stills is on guitar and lead vocal, and Crosby & Nash provide the harmonies to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”.  They do an excellent job on the very challenging song.  They then play a song that was an album cut released a year earlier, “Blackbird” off The Beatles’ White Album.  Here we get the song in beautiful three-part harmony.  “Helplessly Hoping” is next, and well done, although you may find the giggling in the middle either charming or annoying.

The peak of the album comes in the next two songs, “Guinevere” and “Lady Of The Island”.  David Crosby and Graham Nash trade off singing harmony on each other’s songs and the results are gorgeous.  Stills is excellent on two solo songs, “Go Back Home” and “4 & 20”.  Neil Young joins in the acoustic set with the nicely done Buffalo Springfield song, “On The Way Home” and his own “I’ve Loved Her So Long”.  Nash performs the not-yet-released “Our House”, with then girlfriend Joni Mitchell in the audience.  The acoustic set is all good, and ends with a solid version of “You Don’t Have To Cry”.

The electric set is the lesser part of the concert, as Stephen Stills pretty well admits.  He said… “The acoustic part of the show took care of itself, but now we had the equipment and Dallas and Greg and sizable shows to do, we just went for it.  What we lacked in finesse, we made up in enthusiasm.”

The electric set’s highlights are a good version of “Wooden Ships”, and the long 16-minute jamming on Neil Young’s “Down By The River”.  All in all, CSNY Live At Fillmore East is a welcome part of the band’s legacy.

Graham Nash is pleased the concert was finally released, he said… “I remember the first Fillmore East shows with great fondness.  Hearing the music again after all these years, I can tell how much we loved each other and loved the music we were creating.”

One of the best aspects of this album is that old friends Stephen Stills and Neil Young are working together again.  Besides mixing the live recordings, the two performed at the Harvest Moon charity event October 5th, 2024.

Stills & Young started their set with “Long May You Run”, and then played crowd-pleasing songs that went all the way back to Buffalo Springfield (including “Bluebird” & “For What It’s Worth”) from the 1960’s. There were of course CSNY songs, and some Neil Young classics.  The two were supported onstage by bassist Corey McCormick and drummer Anthony Logerfo.

Bonus photo:  Fillmore East

More historic photos from the early years of The Quarrymen & Beatles have been made available.  In some instances the quality of the original photos is higher, and there’s been colorization of some black & white photos.  Let’s see if that’s a good thing.

The very start of the group that became The Beatles was the day Paul McCartney auditioned for John Lennon’s group, The Quarrymen.  That was on July 6th, 1957.  The above black & white photo captures that day as The Quarrymen were performing at a Liverpool event.  Also above is a recently colorized version of that photo.  In this case (even though the colorization is flawed in places), the colors seem to make the photo clearer as the teenagers appear more as individuals, rather than blending into the monochrome of the first photo.  (All photos enlarge with a click.)

This is the first public performance of Lennon and McCartney with The Quarrymen, October 18th, 1957.  I haven’t seen a colorized version of this one, probably because it’s not especially clear.

At the urging of Paul McCartney, 15-year-old George Harrison was added to The Quarrymen as the lead guitarist in 1958.  Paul was 16 and John 17.  This is an actual color photo taken by Paul’s 14-year-old brother Mike at a wedding reception March 8th, 1958.  It’s thought to be the first color photo of the future Beatles, as well as George’s first gig with the others.

The above black & white photo has been readily seen for decades, and now it has been colorized.  This photo is from Hamburg, Germany in 1960, two years before Ringo Starr joined the band that had become The Beatles.  Here the drummer is Pete Best, and the bass player (far right) is Stuart Sutcliffe.  I found a couple colorized versions of this photo, and except for the too-white drum sticks, this one is quite good.  It may not give the gritty old-fashioned period look of the black & white photo, but it better represents how the guys looked in real life.

Here are some more photos from Germany in 1960 of John, Paul and George.

You can decide which versions you prefer.

Above is one more photo comparison of The Beatles in 1960, at a Hamburg club.

In 1962, Ringo joined The Beatles.  Here they are together in the studio for the first time, recording “Love Me Do” on September 4th, 1962.

And here’s their first photo shoot shortly after that.

The debate about colorization could even be extended to the first Beatles movie.

Here’s a famous shot from The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.  The black & white film was very popular with critics and the public.  No one wants to colorize the classic Film-Noir movies of the 1940s & 50s, but would a lighthearted musical comedy really be ruined if it could be made into a quality color version?

That might be a step too far, but if old black & white photos can be carefully and tastefully turned into color (the process is still improving), wouldn’t it make them more historically accurate?  After all, despite what old photos show, the world was never black & white.

Bonus:  Here are a couple of extra comparisons from the Hamburg photos.

And finally, here’s an extra photo of 17-year-old George from Hamburg in 1960.  Didn’t find one that was colorized, but wanted to include it anyway.

The Robert Plant and Alison Krauss tour made its way to Eugene, Oregon’s Cuthbert Amphitheater last night…August 19th, 2024.

When the two singers hit the stage at 8 PM the sun was still shining and they could see the 5,000 fans in the sold out amphitheater.  The show kicked off with three of the duo’s best tracks…”Rich Woman”, their fun remake of 60s hit “Fortune Teller”, and the first hit from their latest album “Can’t Let Go”.  Their harmony was perfect, and both voices sounded great.  It’s a wonder that 76-year-old Robert Plant (his birthday is today) still retains such a powerful, and at times subtle voice.

The much younger (53) Alison Krauss of course has one of the most beautiful voices in music, and she could also match Plant’s power.  The sound at the concert was very well-mixed, and the supporting band was everything you could want for these multi-Grammy-winning artists.

If you’re familiar with the two very successful albums by Plant & Krauss, you know their sound is unique.  Besides the standard guitars, bass & drums, they featured two violins (one by Krauss), a banjo, and mandolin.  Somehow the combination of a Bluegrass/Country artist and a Hard Rock artist works.  It’s probably based on how well they can blend their voices, along with the guidance of Oscar winning producer T Bone Burnett.

It was a little surprising how much Robert Plant dominated the music that was selected.  He had many more lead vocals than Krauss, and about one-third of the setlist featured Led Zeppelin songs cleverly arranged for these musicians…who could really rock when needed.  Plant also served as host for the evening, often with a fun touch.  Here’s the setlist (from setlist.fm, blue ink links are not active).

In Eugene they shifted their first hit single “Gone Gone Gone” to be the second and final song of the encore. 

Alison Krauss of course had some great lead vocals (such as on “The Price Of Love” & “Trouble With My Lover”), and she also provided many excellent harmony vocals and significant violin parts throughout the evening.  The innovative arranging included two violins substituting for Jimmy Page guitar leads on some hard-rocking Led Zeppelin favorites.

The concert by the two stars lasted about an hour-and-a-half, and they “batted a thousand” with the songs they performed.

Fans of their music can be sure that they present a concert worthy of all those Grammys they’ve won.  Here are a couple more photos from the end of the show.

There are other articles on the site about Alison Krauss (including close-up photos from her 2011 concert in Bend, Oregon), and about the recordings of Plant and Krauss.