Recorded at:
The Troubadour
West Hollywood, CA ("Los Angeles")
November 12, 1993
Paul Rodgers released Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute To Muddy Waters in the spring of 1993. During the supporting tour he began dropping in a few Jimi Hendrix covers to his set, which received a great response from the audience, leading to more Hendrix songs added to the set list. In response to the demand, a five song EP "The Hendrix Set" was released that July.
Paul Rodgers played two sets at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California on Friday, November 12, 1993. Ads ran in the LA Weekly advertising "1st Show 8pm Featuring MUDDY WATERS BLUES" and "2nd show 10pm featuring THE JIMI HENDRIX SET."
Westwood One recorded both sets. Portions of the show were syndicated as four different Westwood One shows.
In order of the original air dates, the shows are:
Westwood One Superstar Concert 94-05
Westwood One In Concert 94-34
Westwood One Superstar Concert 97-02 (split with Bad Company)
Westwood One Superstar Concert 98-24 (split with the Firm)
The easy way for Westwood One to make a show like this would be to pick the best tracks from each set, mix and master them, and then swap in new announcements and commercials for each new syndication. Do the work once, then collect the fees from the national advertisers without doing additional work.
If you listen and compare the tracks, they didn't do that with all of the songs. Four songs are two different takes, presumably one from the first set and the other from the second set. I say "presumably" because Westwood One has a history of occasionally dropping in songs from other venues. That may have happened on these shows, as we have "Foxy Lady" in three different versions . (see below, we now think it's two versions)
The following is my assessment of the differences I hear between the shows. I'm using the first broadcast of the Troubadour tracks on Superstar Concert 94-05 as the baseline. If a song is repeated later, it's marked as "Version 2."
Westwood One In Concert #94-34 has a similar set list to 94-05, dropping "Muddy Water Blues" adding "Good Morning Little School Girl" and "She's Alright." However, when you compare the tracks, it has different versions of Can't Get Enough, Foxy Lady, The Hunter, and Wishing Well. They're not the same performances.
Superstar Concert 97-02 is almost all Bad Company...but the 1995 version of Bad Company WITHOUT Paul Rodgers. At the end, two Paul Rodgers songs from the Troubadour are tacked on. The entire presentation is a bit weird... "Here's Bad Company without Paul Rodgers, and to show you what's missing, here's Paul Rodgers doing two songs never recorded by Bad Company."
Superstar Concert 98-24 adds a third version of Foxy Lady. My understanding is there were two sets at the Troubadour. Artists often repeat songs when they play two shows in a single evening at a venue, but they don't usually play a song twice in either set. The existence of three versions all claimed to be from the same Troubadour show strikes me as implausible, so it's possible one of the versions is not from the Troubadour.
Here's notes on the differences I hear when I compared the songs on Superstar Concert 94-04, In Concert 94-34, Superstar Concerts 97-02 and 98-24.
All Right Now - same
Bad Company - This one is tough to figure out. The whistling at the start seems different enough that I originally marked this as having two versions, but at .13 you hear someone go "woo woo woo," and at .26 there's a loud whistle.. on both versions. So, maybe a slight difference in the mix, but the same basic track? For now I'm leaving this as a single version. What do you think?
Can't Get Enough - While both versions have Rodgers counting off "one two three four, Version 1 has some noodling around on the drums at the start, and Version 2 has the drummer clicking the drum sticks together during the count off.
Fire - same
Fire and Water - same
Foxy Lady - Version 1 no spoken intro. Version 2 has a spoken intro of "we'll leave you with this one..." Version 3 spoken intro is "this is called..."
We have a mystery here. With two sets played at the Troubadour, how do we get three different versions of "Foxy Lady?" (UPDATED, see below!)
Little Wing - same
Louisiana Blues - same
Mr. Big - same
Muddy Water Blues - Version 1 does not have a spoken intro and has a faster count-in. Version 2 has a spoken intro and a slower count-in.
Purple Haze - same
Shooting Star - same
Stone Free, I Feel Free - Version 2 has a "whoop" and a shout of "Rock me baby" not on Version 1.
The Hunter - Version 1 introduces Slash as guest guitarist, Version 2 has a count-in.
Wishing Well - Version 1 has a count-in of "3-4" Version 2 counts in the start as "1-2-3-4."
WE HAVE A WINNER! Every so often one of Our Beloved Audience goes above and beyond the call of downloading duty and SOLVES A MYSTERY for us, and we want to change their lives forever by awarding them the fabulous Voodoo Wagon NO PRIZE! Yes, it's priceless! Women worship and men admire you when you mention that you've got one of these at home!
I will be updating all of the text files to reflect this incredible breakthrough, but for now, Mr. Sifter's discovery has been promoted out of the comments and into the post. And here, sir, is your reward:
"So after a little research, I determined there's only two "Foxy Lady" performances, you can tell 1 and 2 are the same because a guy who's seen Wayne's World too many times shouts "Comin' to get ya" during the pause/breakdown two minutes in. They're just mixed a bit differently. The other 5 songs definitely are different performances (notable is that The Hunter V2 is Slash-free). Interesting that they mixed this show twice, the first show is a different and more dynamic (and less bright) mix than later incarnations." -- Mr Sifter
