Best 'unreleased' songs

[JJ88]

The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations box from the early 90s had some real treasure...that was the first time a fair amount of Smile tracks had been released. And later on I have a lot of time for things like 'It's Over Now' and 'Still I Dream Of It' (terrible opening verse aside!)

[andreynovox]

The entire album "Layin'it on the Line" by Flint (post Grand Funk...) has never been released...
Anyway "Anytime" is great song!

[ronmac]

Truce. I don't understand why you came out with your fists up. I'm not accusing you of anything.

Fists up?

Slight over-reaction, maybe?

[walt]

Baba Scholae 69,recorded in 1969 and released in 2012.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

The Who: "Wasp Man". An early Keith Moony version of the power riff that would become "In a Hand or a Face".

[ronmac]

How about Pink Floyd's "The Man & The Journey" suite? I know some of those songs did get released, but did they all?

There's a Hendrix song titled "Black Gold" that was talked about for years. I don't think that has ever come out, either.

[JJ88]

AFAIK pretty much everything in The Man And The Journey that was an actual song, came out at the time in piecemeal fashion. The things that didn't were some of the 'sound effects' pieces.

'Wasp Man' was a B side at the time, on 'Relay' I think. Perhaps the most substantial unreleased Who tracks were recorded around the Sell Out sessions. There was almost another album's worth of songs which mostly came out in the 90s. Nothing much in the way of great outtake material from their 70s sessions that wasn't used up on Odds And Sods.

Incidentally Uriah Heep have a whole album from 1979 which was shelved. It's called Five Miles or Ten Miles High, depending who you ask. Only a handful of songs have ever been released...on long out-of-print anthologies at that. Some of the songs came out in different versions with John Sloman singing, though. Am surprised this just sits there in the vaults, I wouldn't say it's a classic but if you liked the other three with John Lawton you'd like this.

[ronmac]

I think if we look at some live performances, we'll have a better chance of uncovering more of these songs. I recall Boston had a tune titled "Television Politician." I know I have it on a cassette and cannot honestly recall if it was any good. I don't think that ever got released.

Hendrix had a lot of such songs that he played live, but never got to properly finish in the studio. Of course, many have come out in subsequent live and studio releases.

[The Dark Elf]

I think you have to hand it to Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull for the sheer amount of splendid songs that didn't make on actual studio albums from 1969-1979. The first major splurge of such songs ended up as the basis for the superior compilation Living In The Past, of course, but there is also the Chateau D'Isaster session, an entire second album from the War Child session (like Rainbow Blues, for instance), and a ton of other unreleased and incidental music appearing on various of the recent Steve Wilson remixes.

[GuitarGeek]

I think you have to hand it to Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull for the sheer amount of splendid songs that didn't make on actual studio albums from 1969-1979. The first major splurge of such songs ended up as the basis for the superior compilation Living In The Past, of course, but there is also the Chateau D'Isaster session, an entire second album from the War Child session (like Rainbow Blues, for instance), and a ton of other unreleased and incidental music appearing on various of the recent Steve Wilson remixes.

I would extend that up to 1982, as there's more than an album's worth of leftovers from the Broadsword And The Beast era, including Motoreyes, the song I posted earlier in this thread.

[GuitarGeek]

AFAIK pretty much everything in The Man And The Journey that was an actual song, came out at the time in piecemeal fashion. The things that didn't were some of the 'sound effects' pieces.

Some of it was pre-existing material, too, specifically, Pow R Toch and the Celestial Voices section of A Saucerful Of Secrets. I'm not sure what else would have been written specifically for The Man And The Journey, or what else was previously existing songs that were re-purposed. But I do know we're talking about things like Grantchester Meadows, Grand Vizier's Garden Party, Cymbaline, Green Is The Colour, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Biding My Time, and The Narrow Way, all of those were released one way or another to the public. Biding My Time took a couple years to come out, but the others were released pretty quickly around the same they were playing The Man & The Journey. I think the only thing was never actually released was Work, a drums and vibraphone duet (that's Rick Wright on vibes by the also, he's the one playing the trombone on Biding My Time).

There's a Hendrix song titled "Black Gold" that was talked about for years. I don't think that has ever come out, either.

I might be mixing up my Hendrix mythology here, but I seem to recall Alan Douglas saying that Black Gold was on a tape that got stolen from Jimi's apartment not long after he died. Apparently, he had a bunch of songs that he was going to fashion into some kind of "Black Superman" suite, and that was one of them. At least, I think that's the case. Like I said, my memory might be playing tricks on me

[GuitarGeek]

I think if we look at some live performances, we'll have a better chance of uncovering more of these songs. I recall Boston had a tune titled "Television Politician." I know I have it on a cassette and cannot honestly recall if it was any good. I don't think that ever got released.

It's a decent song, I've heard several versions of it. In fact, the first time I heard it was on a video bootleg from one of their 1988 shows, in Canada. Brad Delp says "This is a song we wrote for our election year back home", which led me to believe it was a new song, but I later found it dated back 1976 (maybe it was written for that election year).

There were two other songs that Boston played live circa Don't Look Back. One was an apparently untitled blues based song, the other was a song called Shattered Images, which on one bootleg, Brad Delp says "Will be on our next album" (it wasn't). Come to think of it, I think he says the same about Television Politician too. I actually of the three, Shattered Images might be the best.

Also, I seem to recall there were a gaggle of songs the rest of Boston recorded in LA, during the time that Tom was slaving away on the first album. The story goes that Brad Delp, Barry Goudreau, Fran Sheehan and Sib Hashian were sent to LA, supposedly to record the album "for real", but in fact, they were covering for Tom, who stayed behind in whichever corner of Massachusetts he actually lived in, working on the tracks that would comprise the majority of the albums. I believe Let Me Take Your Home Tonight was recorded during those sessions (which is why it's the only song Fran Sheehan actually played bass on), which was then brought back to Tom, who did a couple guitar overdubs. The other songs that were cut in LA turned up on a bootleg called I Found In A Trashcan, HONEST!.

One wonders, though, exactly how many songs did Tom Scholz discard along the way of making each Boston album. For instance, he theoretically worked on Third Stage of 6 years, and if I remember correctly from the album liner notes, not all the songs were there when he started on the record in 1980. I can't imagine he sat around for months or a year or two, waiting for To Be A Man or Cool The Engines or whatever to appear out of thin air. How many songs did he write (or were presented by the other musicians) and ended up being discarded? Did anything make it to the being recorded "for real" before he said "No, not that one's not good enough"? We'll probably never know.

[Halmyre]

There were always rumours that Prince had a ton of unreleased material in the vaults at Paisley Park. If they ever sort out the ownership/publishing rights I suppose they might get released some day.

[ronmac]

I might be mixing up my Hendrix mythology here, but I seem to recall Alan Douglas saying that Black Gold was on a tape that got stolen from Jimi's apartment not long after he died. Apparently, he had a bunch of songs that he was going to fashion into some kind of "Black Superman" suite, and that was one of them. At least, I think that's the case. Like I said, my memory might be playing tricks on me

It was on a tape that Mitch Mitchell lost and then found years later.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...d-1970-159762/

I wouldn't believe a fucking thing that Alan Douglas ever said.

[GuitarGeek]

There were always rumours that Prince had a ton of unreleased material in the vaults at Paisley Park. If they ever sort out the ownership/publishing rights I suppose they might get released some day.

I'm wondering exactly how much there is. I remember hearing talk after he died that they could release an album a month for 100 years, and still have stuff left over. I somehow find that unlikely, I think if that is possible, they might be including live stuff (he reportedly videotaped and recorded every concert, and insisted on sitting down with the band every night and reviewing the performance).

There must be, at the very least, demos of all the Prince songs that were recorded by other people, e.g. Manic Monday, A Love Bizarre, etc. And I know that there were a few albums that came out later on that were compiled from stuff that was in the vaults, like Chaos And Disorder. But how far he would ahve taken any given demo is anybody's guess. It'd be interesting to know if there's, let's say a version of Manic Monday that sounds like an outtake from Around The World In A Day.

I know there were also a number of albums that were recorded, apparently mixed, tracklists chosen and approved by whomever has to approve, and then at the 11th hour, he cancelled the record. The most famous, of course, was The Black Album (which was eventually released a few years later), but he had several others where something similar happened. The one that always come to mind for me is Dream Factory, which was the album he recorded with Prince And The Revolution, just before Wendy & Lisa got fed up with his ego, and quit (which caused the group to collapse). Prince then took a bunch of the songs from Dream Factory, added a few songs from a couple other projects he was working on, and that became a three LP called Crystal Ball. Warners refused to release a three LP, so Prince slimmed it down to a the double LP that we know as Sign O' The Times.

So, you might be thinking, just off that Dream Factory/Crystal Ball period, there's a bunch of songs we've never heard. But most of the songs that didn't make it onto Sign Of The Times apparently have been released in one place or another. Several appeared on a late 90's record called Crystal Ball, while another appeared as an "unreleased" extra on the Hits/B-Sides compilation. One song ended up on being recorded by Mavis Staples on the album Prince produced for her, and antoher was used as a "special edition" bonus track on one of Wendy & Lisa's post-Revolution albums.

Of course, how true Prince might have stayed to the Dream Factory versions is anybody's guess. He could have done any amount of remixing, overdubbing, rearranging etc before he finally unleashed any give track to the public.

Another one that I remember was a record called The Undertaker, which was recorded in 92 or 93, I think, live in the studio, Prince on guitar and vocals, and a drummer and a bassist. Most of it is the three playing several songs, segued together, in what appears to be a single take. It's very much his version of Band Of Gypsys, with lots of extended guitar solos. Prince apparently wanted to give the album away with issues of Guitar World, but Warners 86ed the plan. I believe all the songs have been released, in one form or another, but, once again they're different versions from what were on The Undertaker.

So it's possible that a lot of what's in the Prince vault is just alternate versions of songs we've already, albeit potentially radically different versions.

[Garden Dreamer]

Somewhere there has to be tapes of the Steve Marriott/Leslie West collaboration that never materialized. They went to the trouble of posing for a guitar magazine cover together so surely they laid down some studio stuff.

[ronmac]

Somewhere there has to be tapes of the Steve Marriott/Leslie West collaboration that never materialized. They went to the trouble of posing for a guitar magazine cover together so surely they laid down some studio stuff.

I never knew they collaborated. But, you had to mention Leslie West, huh?

3... 2... 1...

[Halmyre]

Somewhere there has to be tapes of the Steve Marriott/Leslie West collaboration that never materialized. They went to the trouble of posing for a guitar magazine cover together so surely they laid down some studio stuff.

Talking of collaborations, somewhere in the Deep Purple vaults is a tape of a jam session with Blackmore, Paice and Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy.

[GeneTull]

Split Enz' 14-minute epic, performed live in 1976 but never recorded:

[John Doe]

Hansson & Karlsson plus Hendrix

Remember reading a few years ago about their jam sessions and several hours of recordings.

[Garden Dreamer]

I never knew they collaborated.

Firm.jpg

[Garden Dreamer]

From the magazine article above, the collaboration had an actual band lineup and were to be called The Firm:

The Firm, used in the English sense meaning a gang as opposed ot a company, is made up of West, Marriott, Ian Wallace (ex King Crimson and currently on the recent Dylan album) on drums and James Leverton (formerly with Savoy Brown and Hemlock) on bass - Marriott fills in on various keyboards when need be.

(Leverton was the bassist in Marriott's 1980's pub band, Packet of Three) and:

Out in Modesto, California, The Firm is putting down tracks for an album which is nearly half done.

Soooo.... where are those tracks hiding?!?!

[ronmac]

Man, that would be something to hear.

[GuitarGeek]

A few more that come to mind, from the Grateful Dead:

Mason's Children



Two Souls In Communion


Equinox

[GuitarGeek]

Another Dead song, Clementine: