Torchings of the Budokan

Let's kick off the March to Spring with a handy little barnburner of a show, taped 40 years ago tonight.

I wasn't going to post it at first, but it was so good and the band was so tight I decided to let it fly.

Today's heroine is among the favorite singers of many, even though she has medical issues now that prevent her from doing it for the time being.

This was not the case 40 years ago, when she could have sung the White Pages and gone straight to Number One.

This performance finds her at the ultra-peak of her considerable vocal powers, backed by her usual coterie of cracktastic session aces.

And the recording... oh dear. Sometime in the mid 1970s these Japanese radio boffins took their game to a whole new strata of capture, and this one continues that lush tradition.

I tweaked it in a couple of places where the applause got choppy and fragmented, and also because I needed practice crossfading in Audacity last night.

Admit it, you woke up today feeling empty inside -- poor, poor pitiful you -- because you don't have a vintage 1970s radio concert from the likes of Linda Ronstadt.

Linda Ronstadt

Budokan

Tokyo, Japan

3.3.1979

CD1

01 Lose Again

02 That'll Be the Day

03 Blue Bayou

04 When Will I Be Loved

05 It Doesn't Matter Anymore

06 Willin'

07 Alison

08 All That You Dream

09 Love Me Tender

10 Just One Look

11 Desperado

CD2

01 Mohammed's Radio

02 It's So Easy

03 Someone to Lay Down Beside Me

04 My Blue Tears/Poor Poor Pitiful Me

05 Tumbling Dice

06 You're No Good

07 Sorrow Lives Here

08 Back In the U.S.A.

Total time: 1:22:42

Linda Ronstadt - vocals & percussion

Waddy Wachtel - guitar, vocals

Dan Dugmore - guitar, pedal steel guitar

Don Grolnick - keyboards

Kenny Edwards - bass, harmonica, vocals

Russ Kunkel - drums & percussion

1st gen cassette of the original FM broadcast

fade in at start and first encore break applause smoothed by EN, March 2019

458 MB FLAC/March 2019 archive link

I will be back later in the week to really get March marching with all the things.

But right now your Linda Ronstadt burns down the Budokan tape has been waiting four decades to find your hard drive.--J.