Fans are always eager to find out what dri­ves their favorite artist to cre­ate. Hid­den tor­ment? Secret pas­sion? The pub­lic­i­ty-shy singer-song­writer Joni Mitchell has dropped more than a few lyri­cal cues over the last half cen­tu­ry. Things became infi­nite­ly more overt dur­ing the infor­mal por­tion of a 2008 inter­view with Char­lie Rose.

Want to know what spurs Joni? Cig­a­rettes!

She’s been hus­tling to finance her habit since she took them up at nine. What, you think she active­ly want­ed to be a singer-song­writer? No man, play­ing folk songs in the Cana­di­an cof­fee­house scene for fif­teen bucks a night meant finan­cial health, and finan­cial health meant she could smoke for­ev­er! Mod­ern audi­ences might expect such a sen­ti­ment from the rau­cous and now-dead Janis Joplin, but isn’t Joni more of a demure Ladies of the Canyon type?

Bob Dylan would like­ly say no.

These days Joni is tak­ing the straight­for­ward approach, no more peek­ing out from behind care­ful­ly-ren­dered poet­ic veils. Frankly, Grand­ma Mitchell seems unlike­ly to give a damn if her unqual­i­fied romance with tobac­co shocks. (It seems like­ly to, though per­haps not so much as some of her oth­er can­did­ly expressed views.)

Below, you can catch Joni dur­ing those free­wheel­in’ ear­ly days, play­ing a 3o minute set on British TV in 1970.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day wish­es she could find the tape of the tape of the Joni Mitchell-James Tay­lor Uncon­cert that a friend’s friend taped off of WXRT back in the day.

Even­tu­al­ly some­one had to do it.

Michael David Mur­phy cre­at­ed Tun­ing ’77, a “seam­less audio super­cut of an entire year of the Grate­ful Dead tun­ing their instru­ments, live on stage.” The mix uses every pub­licly avail­able record­ing from 1977, and it’s real­ly all a pre­lude to this: 8,976 Free Grate­ful Dead Con­cert Record­ings in the Inter­net Archive. You can lis­ten to Tun­ing ’77 here or below. It runs 92 min­utes.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Here’s an amaz­ing film that cap­tures the excite­ment and raw ener­gy of James Brown in his prime.

The footage was tak­en on March 8, 1971, dur­ing a series of con­certs Brown and his band gave at the Olympia the­ater in Paris. It offers a rare glimpse of the orig­i­nal line­up of the J.B.‘s, the group Brown formed in 1970, about two years after the breakup of the Famous Flames.

The line­up includes William “Boot­sy” Collins on bass and his old­er broth­er Phelps “Cat­fish” Collins on lead gui­tar, both of whom would leave the band a few months lat­er. Famous Flames founder Bob­by Byrd, who essen­tial­ly dis­cov­ered Brown in 1952, serves as organ­ist, back­up singer and mas­ter of cer­e­monies. The rest of the band are: Hear­lon “Cheese” Mar­tin on gui­tar, St. Clair Pinck­ney on tenor sax­o­phone, Dar­ryl “Hasaan” Jami­son and Clay­ton “Chick­en” Gun­nells on trum­pet, Fred Wes­ley on trom­bone, and John “Jabo” Starks and Don Juan “Tiger” Mar­tin on drums.

The film was appar­ent­ly shot dur­ing one per­for­mance, even though Brown is intro­duced twice and wears dif­fer­ent cloth­ing. Accord­ing to reports, Brown took a break between “Sun­ny” and “It’s a New Day” while Byrd’s wife, Vic­ki Ander­son, sang two songs that were cut from the film. Audio from the con­cert was released in 1992 as Love Pow­er Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris 1971. Here’s the set list from the film ver­sion, which dif­fers slight­ly from the LP:

1. Intro­duc­tion
2. Broth­er Rapp
3. Ain’t It Funky Now
4. Geor­gia On My Mind
5. Sun­ny
6. It’s a New Day
7. Bewil­dered
8. Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine
9. Try Me
10. Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag/I Got You (I Feel Good)/I Got the Feel­in’ (med­ley)
11. Give It Up or Turn It a Loose
12. It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World
13. Please, Please, Please
14. Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine (reprise)
15. Super Bad
16. Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved
17. Soul Pow­er
18. Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved (finale)

h/t Ryan Jet­ten

Relat­ed con­tent:

Clas­sic Ray Charles Per­for­mance: ‘What’d I Say’ Live in Paris, 1968

The Queen of Soul Con­quers Europe: Aretha Franklin in Ams­ter­dam, 1968

D.A. Pen­nebak­er’s ciné­ma vérité doc­u­men­tary Dont Look Back [sic] fol­lowed Bob Dylan on his cel­e­brat­ed 1965 tour through Eng­land, let­ting view­ers see what hap­pened along the way — the good, the bad and every­thing between. Today, it’s con­sid­ered both a clas­sic doc­u­men­tary and a pop-cul­tur­al arti­fact, some­thing Dylan fans can’t afford to miss.

The same can’t be said for Eat the Doc­u­ment, Pen­nebak­er’s fol­low-up doc­u­men­tary that cap­tured Dylan’s return to the UK in 1966. The premise had promise. Bob Dylan had just gone elec­tric and boos fol­lowed him wher­ev­er he went. In Man­ches­ter, they famous­ly called him “Judas.” That could have made for an intrigu­ing film. But, accord­ing to Dylan’s most recent biog­ra­ph­er Daniel Mark Epstein, the singer-song­writer was per­son­al­ly unrav­el­ing. He had toured to the point of exhaus­tion, and tak­en far too many amphet­a­mines. Dur­ing one moment filmed by Pen­nebak­er, Dylan shared an inco­her­ent taxi ride with John Lennon. Their ram­bling con­ver­sa­tion touched on John­ny Cash, The Mamas & the Papas, Dylan’s home­sick­ness, and how the Thames Riv­er sup­pos­ed­ly saved Britain from Hitler. And, once we get 20 min­utes into the footage, we find Dylan slumped for­ward in the back­seat, seem­ing­ly staving off nau­sea.

Dylan per­son­al­ly edit­ed the film and gave ABC tele­vi­sion the option to air it. The net­work declined, say­ing it would­n’t be com­pre­hen­si­ble to a main­stream audi­ence. Because the film was nev­er released, it has been passed around in var­i­ous boot­legged ver­sions. You can watch a 52-minute ver­sion on Dylan­Tube.

As a quick foot­note, it’s worth men­tion­ing that, accord­ing to Epstein’s biog­ra­phy, Lennon lat­er told Rolling Stone mag­a­zine that he and Dylan were doing “junk” (aka hero­in) that day, and that Lennon thought Dylan was close to OD’ing. It’s all dis­cussed in The Bal­lad of Bob Dylan: A Por­trait.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

John Lennon’s Vic­to­ri­an Cir­cus Poster Lov­ing­ly Remade by Artists and Engravers