In this series are included the shows that Mick Taylor
and his band played in the United States and Canada on tour in late 1989. The
December New York shows are not included because Mick Taylor was then based in
New York and played locally there. The l
ine-up consisted of Mick Taylor
on guitar and vocals, Blondie Chaplin on guitar, vocals on Semolina, Joel
Diamond on keyboards, Wilbur Bascomb on bass and Eric Parker on drums. Volume 1
presents the soundcheck from the Nightstage in Cambridge, Massachussets. Of
course, a soundcheck is not a show but it usually contains at least some short
jams, improvisations, broken-off songs and some nice moments of full versions songs
played with interesting variations. Of this date two sources circulate:
Source #1 coming from a video.
Source #2 coming from an audio
It was decided to present 2 versions, one with the more complete
recording, mixing both recordings and the other using the common parts merged. Both
versions are in this volume as an appropriate introduction for this series.
Part I here presents the complete version (2 sources combined) lasting
18’11; since the video (source #1) had the best sound, that was used as the
base and completed it with the audience version (source #2). In particular on the
first track Noodling (source #2) the first minute was damaged by speed
variations and the right channel was saturated. So it was decided to present
for this segment just the left channel duplicated. On You Gotta Move (source
#2, then source #1) the beginning comes from the audio
until 2’41 where the video recording takes over. Laundromat Blues (source
#1) was missing in the audio recording. The second Noodling as well as Blind Willie
McTell and Going To Mexico come from source #1. On Blues In The Morning (source
#1, then source #2) the last 7 seconds come only from the audio source; note
that in the audio source this track was artificially extended by someone
looping it twice!
Part II has the soundtrack for the video (merged version) having the duration
of 12’17.
Here the common parts have been merged. The video was used as speed
reference and it is on the left channel while the audience recording is on the
right channel. In particular on You Gotta Move (partial,
merged) to provide the intro, the first 43 seconds come from the audio
source. Laundromat Blues comes just from the video, while the rest of songs are
all merged. In order to do the outro, the last 7 seconds come from the audio
source.
