Monday, December 6, 2010

Speech Live "Bootleg" (Sessions at West 54th)

Here is a fantastic live Speech performance from 1999 (September 9th to be exact) from the PBS show Sessions at West 54th.  The episode was hosted by John Hiatt (a well-known musician) and features the following track listing, with some of my thoughts on each track:
"Intro"  Exactly what it says it is- John Hiatt introduces Speech.
"Clocks In Sync With Mine"  Cool live version of this tune.  I've never really been to Georgia, unless you count a one-hour stop in the Atlanta Airport, but this song really makes me feel like I'm there.
"Tennessee"  This is one of the live versions posted last week.  Always a great song live.
"Interview 1"  This gives a lot of insight on Speech's recording process as well as some really good insight on why Speech has moved to more singing in his career. 
"Like Marvin Gaye Said (What's Going On)"  I have been wanting this song live since I heard it briefly during the live portion of Speech's Best- and then they pulled the rug out from under my feet, cut it off, and moved to a new song!  D'oh!  This one opens up with a new spin on the Marvin Gaye classic.  Just an outstanding live performance and for me, it's been worth the wait! 
"Interview 2"  This interview really breaks down the influence of his parents on his music career and the ideas he's pushed in his music.  The interviews were very informative on this.  Speech also says that a lot of his early songs actually came out of articles that he wrote for his mother's newspaper.
"Real Love"  A live version of the great song from Hoopla.  This song can be found live on Speech's Best but it's always nice to have multiple versions.

Anyway, this is a great live performance and it's pretty hard to come by live solo Speech performances, at least compared to Arrested Development.  I want to thank Kel for sending this to me to share with everyone, as well as for providing some background information on the recording.  He also sent me another live "bootleg" which is an acoustic live performance and it will be up some time this week!  I really appreciate him sending these our way!   And in case you missed it above, here is the link.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, you really did it this time! What a great post. Thanks for your continuing work and positivity!

Da Bishop

JeremyM said...

It was all Kel, he came through with a bunch of awesome stuff to share! Don't miss the other live Speech "bootleg" as that one is great as well.

Anyway, thanks Bishop, good to hear from you!

NoirFreak94 said...

Hi, Although this is quite an old post if your still out there..Thank You!! Thank you for this post and the DL link which is still alive!! I have been searching for this on YouTube, eBay, Amazon etc..To no avail so I just really appreciate that someone other than me knew of this Soulful performance by SPEECH. Well I still have a pristine copy of this episode on vhs tape that needs to be transferred to dvd someday! Thank you again Jeremy.