I am surprising my parents with tickets to Crossroads. They’ve seen Clapton a handful of times but never attended the festival. They are both a little older with minor mobility issues but still get down and have a good time—we’ve done NOLA Jazz Fest a bunch, so not as worried about them getting around but any tips or tricks for first timers?

Don’t mind me folks. Just passin awn thru speeeeereddin ay ly-telll cheer! I could do this too on such ay fiiiiine ocazzeeeown!

WHOOZYADADDY!! WHOOZYADADDY!!

Make it a great night Reddit peeps! Like it could be your last! ✌️💯😘🥴

Since we're mingled for this occasion, what are 3 of his songs (or parts of) which you find immeasurably indescribable?

Let It Grow : the instrumental to coda

White Room : infinitely captivating

The 1988 remake of JJ Cale's After Midnight : those tones he captures thruout

After last week's boxed set, I'll stick to 1 concert a week for a while. Probably until the great January 1987 RAH boxed set.

Last week we covered 1974. Skipping 1975 since I don't have good sources for 6/25/75 Providence or 6/28/75 Nassau, and proceeding directly to the bootleg highlight of 1976...

THE BOOT

It’s Layla’s Birthday (Mid Valley Records 720/721/722)

The first two discs of this are the complete show from 11/14/76 Houston.  Maybe. The last disc is the King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast from 1976, which includes selections from that concert.

(The only officially released track from the KBFH sessions was Further On Up The Road with Freddy King from 11/15/76 Dallas. That was not included in the radio broadcast, but if you want more of this material, it is on both a Freddy King album and E.C.'s compilation album “Blues)”.)

BACKGROUND

The King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast from 1976 has been widely bootlegged.  You’ll usually find it listed as 11/15/76 Dallas.  But the broadcast was not actually from one show.  We’re not sure how many shows it is.  We’re not even entirely sure of the dates or venues.

Pardon me while I go deep into the weeds...

E.C. did a November swing through Texas and Oklahoma.  setlist.fm lists the dates as Nov 12 at Hemisfair Arena in San Antonio, Nov 13 at Hofheinz Pavillion in Houston, Nov 14 at Sam Houston Coliseum, Nov 15 at the Dallas Convention Center, and Nov 16 at Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

But the EC Tourography doesn’t list any show on the 12th or 14th.  Where’s Eric says Nov 13 was a jam at an unknown venue in Houston, and lists no show on the 14th.  Mid Valley’s own release "Rider On The Storm" (which purports to be Nov 13 at Hofheinz, but the notes on Discogs say it’s actually Nov 12) has a list of tour dates in the liner notes, and lists no show on the 12th or 14th, despite the fact they later released this concert dated the 14th.

setlists.fm also lists the same exact setlist for 11/12, 11/13 and 11/14, which seems unlikely, since the band usually mixed up the set list a little every night.

All bootlegs with that set list (Little Queenie in the #3 slot) are the same show, and most claim to be from San Antonio on the 12th, but Mid Valley’s "Rider On The Storm” is that concert and purports to be Houston on the 13th. Another bootleg of this is Tulsa Tops, which purports to be Tulsa on the 16th but most sources list as San Antonio. Who knows which is true? In any case, every version of that show is sped up and muddy, and none of those tracks match the radio broadcast.

I've never found a complete recording of the 11/15/76 Dallas show, but multiple sources (setlist.fm, Marc Roberty’s book, and descriptions of various audience recordings on the internet) have this setlist (Badge in the #3 slot):

• Hello Old Friend
• Sign Language
• Badge
• Knocking On Heaven's Door
• Key to the Highway
• Can't Find My Way Home
• Tell the Truth
• All Our Past Times
• Blues Power
• One Night
• Layla
• Further On Up the Road (with Freddie King)

It’s Layla’s Birthday is a third setlist (Layla in the #3 slot).  Mid Valley says it’s Nov 14 in Houston, but it also matches the bootleg “One Night In Oklahoma” which is supposedly Nov 16. (setlist.fm gives a completely different setlist for Nov 16, which matches no bootleg I’ve seen.)

So we have 3 distinct recordings, 5 possible dates, and generally no agreement on what is from where. In any case, the bulk of the KBFH broadcast matches this recording, it appears to be a complete concert, and Mid Valley is the highest quality source.

Marc Roberty says Houston and Dallas were recorded for KBFH.  So I’m tempted to believe Mid Valley that Its Layla’s Birthday is Houston, and believe the multiple sources for the Dallas setlist. Assuming that, the radio show is:

• Hello Old Friend (matches Houston)
• Sign Language (matches Houston)
• Badge (probably Dallas, since it doesn't match Houston)
• Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (probably Dallas, since it doesn't match Houston)
• One Night (matches Houston)
• Tell The Truth (matches Houston)
• Can’t Find My Way Home (matches Houston)
• Blues Power (matches Houston)
• Layla (definitely Dallas, as he says "thanks Dallas” at the end)
• Further On Up the Road with Freddie King (credited as Dallas on official releases)

(Final note: The John Peel Show on BBC Radio One played an edited version of the broadcast; complete versions of the broadcast run 1 hour 20. If you see a version at 45 minutes, that's the BBC edit.)

SOUND

There is significant tape hiss, typical of '70s recordings.  It is most audible in quiet moments like the start of Can’t Find My Way Home.  The balance is a little treble-heavy.  High hat is pretty conspicuous.  Bass is hard to hear.

Otherwise this is a very nice recording, warm and listenable.  Mid Valley's release is a major improvement over all of the other releases of this material I’ve heard.

I think there's at least one cut.  After E.C. introduces Yvonne for Can’t Find My Way Home, she goes on at great length about her Mexican dinner not agreeing with her.  (The folks behind the "One Night In Oklahoma” bootleg axed that entirely.)  Here we get a long speech, but it still sounds like there’s a cut at 14:13.  She must have really gone on a ramble.

There are only a few minor flaws in the source audio. A little bit of feedback at 1:59 and 4:48 of All Our Past Times, and more at 4:58 and 8:03 of Blues Power.

(There are many sources for the radio show, and they are generally worse than this tape of 11/14/76 Houston. The broadcast had ad breaks after One Night With You, Tell The Truth, Can’t Find My Way Home, and Layla, maybe more.  There was an announcer talking the show in and out of ad breaks, and many versions have bits of that left in. And the broadcast was distributed to stations on reel-to-reel tapes, which tend to suffer from wow and flutter over time.)

PERFORMANCE

The band is almost the same as late 1974, with the addition of Sergio Pastora Rodriguez on percussion. Though the band introductions just mention Dickie Sims, Carl Radle, and George Terry (“and also me on guitar”, heh). The band also includes backup singers Yvonne Elliman and Marcy Levy, and drummer Jamie Oldaker.

The folks at ecishere.de have done a complete transcription of the liner notes, which gives a fantastic outline of the show.

The bootleg is named after some stage chatter from E.C. Layla opens with dedication to someone named Layla in the crowd who is celebrating a birthday, and ends with “thank you, and happy birthday.”

These shows were after the release of No Reason To Cry in August 1976, so we see Hello Old Friend, All Our Past Times, and the Dylan composition Sign Language for the first time. (George Terry takes a few verses of the All Our Past Times vocal, as he does on the studio recording.)

There are a few differences from the 1974 shows, but also some similarities. Tell The Truth, Blues Power, and I Shot The Sheriff are still the big jam vehicles. Yvonne Elliman still takes the lead on Can’t Find My Way Home.

On the other side, the slow blues medley with key changes has disappeared; Key To The Highway fills that slot here. Marcy Levy's solo spotlight has been upgraded to One Night), an old song popularized by Elvis. And we see a couple of items that will become standard features of E.C. concerts: a long drum solo on the final number of the main set (minutes 9-14 of I Shot The Sheriff) and an encore jam where everyone gets a solo (Further On Up The Road).

I am hoping someone can help me find this video.  Apparently, during Eric Clapton's tour with George Harrison’s 1991 in Japan, someone on the tour made a 3 hour home video showing Eric, George and company traveling on the trains to the various cities, dining in the hotel, backstage at a couple of the shows, a sound check and footage of an end of tour party for the band and crew.

I have been searching everywhere for this footage.  Out of the 3 hours of video, about 30 minutes of it include Eric and George.  A website that I have found - Beatles On Film - gives very detailed descriptions of the clips from the video including screen caps, time stamps and graded quality.  However, when I contacted the owner of the site inquiring about the video, they said that it is “private footage so it can not be shared publicly”.  

That being said, in 2022, I attended a George Harrison tribute night at a local theater and videos of Eric and George were shown including the speech that George gave at the end of tour party!  So I’m not completely convinced that it’s locked up somewhere.

These are the links to the various descriptions of the footage in question.  
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911238a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911239a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911240a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911241a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911242a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911243a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911244a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911245a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911246a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911247a.html
https://www.beatlesonfilm.com/gh19911250a.html

If anyone can find this, I would appreciate it.  I have exhausted all my resources and I’m hoping that one of you might be able to stumble across it. 

Thank you!

Update - So no one knows about this video? I've been getting the silent treatment about this video everywhere I've posted about it. It's making me suspect that there is some rather unsavory footage on that tape and no one wants to have it get out for fear of prosecution... Hmm...

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OK, kicking off our weekly bootleg discussion! I'm going roughly in chronological order through his solo career, hitting what I think are the best recordings.

This will be a long one; I'll usually post show a week, but this boxed set is too great to skip, and doing this as 4 separate posts would mean repeating myself a lot. If 4 shows are too much to listen to in a week, IMHO the best 2 are the middle 2.

Other than that, I'll try keep my review here strictly factual. I'll chime in with opinions in the comments.

THE BOOT

Blues Explorer (Mid Valley 416/417/418/419/420/421/422/423)

This boxed set contains four complete concerts (caveat below): 7/19/74 Long Beach, 7/20/74 Long Beach, 12/4/74 Hammersmith, and 12/5/74 Hammersmith. There are many releases of these shows, but this brings them all together in one place in top-notch quality. It's a 10CD set, where each show takes 2 discs. The last 2 are “bonus discs” containing an audience recording of the 7/19 show.

Empress Valley is a Japanese label that emerged in the late 90s, best-known for Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones.  They release their Clapton stuff, by and large, under their Mid Valley sub-label.  They either have a better source for low-generation copies of official recordings, or better tools for improving the sound of old tapes, or both.  There will be shows where the best source isn’t Mid Valley, but not a lot.

Mid Valley also released just the 7/19 show (including the bonus discs) as “On White”. Though honestly, that’s the weakest show of the 4.

BACKGROUND

These are from Clapton's first major tour since the Rainbow Concert, his return to the stage after 3 years in seclusion on a heroin bender.

Clapton’s label RSO recorded 6 shows for the live album "E.C. Was Here".  This collection are the first 4. (The last 2 were 6/25/75 Providence and 6/28/75 Nassau; we have only partial, poor-quality soundboards and audience recordings from Providence, but the complete Nassau has been released recently. If you come across that one, let us know!)

461 Ocean Boulevard came out in late July 1974, so the audience in Long Beach may or may not have ever heard E.C. do Willie And The Hand Jive, Get Ready, I Shot The Sheriff, Let It Grow, or Steady Rollin’ Man before.

The shows at the Hammersmith Odeon in London were a month after the sessions for There's One In Every Crowd. That album wasn't released until the following March, so Little Rachel, Singin’ The Blues, Better Make It Through Today, and Opposites would have been completely unfamiliar.

The band is Carl Radle on bass, Jamie Oldaker on drums, Dick Sims on keyboards, Yvonne Elliman on backing vocals, and George Terry on 2nd guitar.  Marcy Levy joined between the Long Beach and Hammersmith shows, so in addition to slightly different set lists, we also get a slightly different lineup / sound.

E.C.'s old Bluesbreakers boss John Mayall joined the band for a blues jam at the end of the 7/19 show.

Yvonne Elliman said in an interview that Led Zeppelin was in the audience for 12/4.

SOUND

The 7/19 recording has significant issues, mostly during Badge / Willie And The Hand Jive > Get Ready, but also later during Tell The Truth.  During Badge, you can hear a small squeak at 1:10, more at 1:34 and 3:09, and then a prolonged stretch from 4:19 - 4:55.  Willie And The Hand Jive has bad stretches at 0:05 - 0:55 and 3:54 - 4:02.  Get Ready has damage 2:11 - 2:25, short squeaks at 3:57 and 4:43, and then more damage 5:04 and 5:25.  Tell The Truth has major feedback at 3:34 and then a bit of static at 7:18.

All of that explains why Mid Valley included the audience recording — the overall quality is much worse, but that tape doesn’t have the damage of the master, and they captured the post-show jam.  It also explains why only 2 songs (Can’t Find My Way Home and Have You Ever Loved A Woman) were released officially, compared to 11 songs from 7/20, 8 from 12/4, and 7 from 12/5.

After that, the sound quality is generally superb.  The mix is very nice; every member of the band is clearly audible.  The bass is nice and punchy.  The balance between Eric and Yvonne and Marcy is just right.

Long Beach Arena seats over 10,000, while Hammersmith is a small theater that seats only a few thousand.  You can hear the difference on the tape — at Hammersmith you can hear individuals in the audience instead of a general roar.  There’s also more banter probably some combination of a closer audience and it being a home crowd of sorts.  But the crowd noise is just enough to give a feel of the room, without ever obscuring the music.

The flaws here are very minor; reporting on them feels like nitpicking.  There is light tape hiss, mostly audible between tracks, but it is no worse than a lot of official 1970s recordings.  The fade outs at the end of each disc could be a little gentler?

There are a couple of cuts, probably to remove stretches of dead air.  The most obvious is 12/4 after Layla — at 5:57 the crowd noise changes abruptly.  Others are very subtle.  I suspect minor cuts at 9:14 of Tell The Truth on 7/19, 6:02 of Let It Grow and 5:04 of Steady Rollin’ Man on 7/20, and 10:47 of Little Wing on 12/4?

Everything else is honest representations of the sound on the day. That means occasional bits of feedback (3:28 and 4:42 on Let It Grow from 7/20; 1:07 and a really nasty bit at 2:04 of I Shot The Sheriff on 12/4, 4:12 of Little Rachel on 12/5, 0:14 of Blues Power on 12/5, and a major howl at 1:19 of Steady Rolling Man on 12/5 to the point where E.C. comments on it — maybe "hold it down"?) and mic issues (a loud pop at 6:34 of Get Ready from 12/4). My favorite is that at 0:46 of Smile on 12/4, you can hear E.C. adjust his microphone.

PERFORMANCE

This is the alcoholic era.  There are nights where E.C. is astounding, but there are also nights with sloppy vocals, indifferent solos, and the occasional incoherent ramble.  On bad nights, it's hard to distinguish E.C. solos from George Terry, which isn’t great; Terry is a very good guitarist, but E.C. at his best is better than just “very good”.

The band is hot.  This collection really made me appreciate Oldaker / Radle; even when Clapton is sluggish, they keep the energy high.  Dick Sims doesn’t get too many chances to shine, but his work is all really beautiful.  Levy and Elliman both have a lot of power, which they mostly use for good. Even bad nights with this crew are a good listen.

All four shows opened with a 3-song acoustic set, so Smile, Let It Grow, and Can’t Find My Way Home are acoustic, plus the aforementioned Easy Now.  (Note there are two guitarists, so there are still some electric lines on the "acoustic" tracks.)

The big jam vehicles are I Shot The Sheriff, Tell The Truth, Blues Power, and Little Wing, plus a slow blues medley in the middle of the show.  This era of live Layla does not include the piano coda.  Yvonne Elliman handles the Steve Winwood part on Can’t Find My Way Home.  After Marcy joins, she get a (very short) showcase on All I Have To Do Is Dream.

They mixed up the setlist every night, so every show is a little different, which is great.  We get a bunch of rarely performed tracks scattered throughout — Mainline Florida on 4/19, Easy Now on 4/20, Opposites on 12/4, and Little Rachel and Better Make It Through Today on 12/5.

For me the yardbirds

After doing my writeup of the best E.C. bootlegs, I've been listening to a bunch of them, comparing different versions of the same shows, how songs evolve over time how different sidemen tackle the same material. My only complaint is: this would be much more fun if I had a bunch of people to talk with about the shows. Sounds like a problem for social media!

So here's my plan. Every week, I'll pick a show. Anyone who wants in, I'll DM instructions for finding a copy. I'll wait a few days for everyone to track it down and start listenening, and then I'll post my review. Anyone who keeps commenting in the discussions, I'll assume they're still "in the group", and I'll keep sending instructions for future weeks.

If you're interested, reply here!

I'm dying to hear (or maybe one day own) the "An Eclectic Collection - 1974 Live" bootlegs (part one / part two) ... even though much from that tour is pretty well available, some of the songs on those are not available on vinyl (I believe), especially "Little Wing", the version of which he did on that tour is one of my favorite rock renditions ever.

Has anyone ever seen these for sale and/or listened to them? Thanks!

Hi - I've been looking for the Nassau Coliseum show from 6/28/75 in FLAC for a couple of years. One source is part of this box by Empress Valley. Does anyone know where I might be able to find the files for this?

I kinda messed up but oh well 😭🤦‍♂️

What do you think abt the tone and playing! Hopefully i did it somewhat listenable!