The Beatles - 1962 Live at Star Club in Hamburg

The Animals - Live at Club A-Go-Go

The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl

The Kinks - Live at Kelvin Hall

Live Cream Volume II

Pink Floyd - Ummagumma

The Rolling Stones - Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out

The Who - Live at Leeds

Traffic - Welcome to the Canteen

1962, Hamburg, Germany. The literary ideas of the 60's began in the 40's and 50's, but musically, this is where the 60's began. The recording was made by a friend of Lennon's at a popular club for touring musicians from Europe and America on a 2 inch reel to reel tape recorder. At this time they had leather pants and vaseline in their hair and were playing gigs as the backup band for Tony Sheridan. This was one of the first times Ringo, who had been playing locally with Rory Storm, played with the band. Pretty raw stuff, you really feel like you're in a barroom, and a rather dangerous one at that. The sound's not great, but the wild , frenetic, 'mach shau' sound of the band, before they became the clean cut 'fab four', comes through.

Recorded live by the line up of Eric Burdon, Bryan "Chas" Chandler, Alan Price , John Steel and Hilton Valentine at the club in Newcastle, England where the band got started in 1962. No recording date is provided, but it must be very early, as these are all blues standards, none of their hits. They had their first hit in 1964 with Baby Let Me Take You Home followed by the huge hit House of the Rising Sun in June of 64. The song Club A Go Go, a tribute to the club, is on the Bside of their 1965 recording of Nina Simone's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood. So these tapes were probably made sometime in early 64. They must have been young, because these guys played so hard it hurts.

This record includes songs from 3 Hollywood Bowl shows; August 23rd, 1964 & August 29th & 30th, 1965. In 1977 Capitol released this album with the best of these sets all cleaned up by longtime Beatle's producer, George Martin. The original sets were 12 songs each and these guys wasted no time. In 1964 Hard Day's Night had just come out and Help was released in 1965, so this is Beatlmania at it's height and you can hear what that was about in the crowd sounds. George Martin: "Pervading the whole lot was the enormous welter of screams from the audience. It was like putting a microphone at the tail of a 747 jet. It was one continuous screaming sound, and it was very difficult to get a good recording."

Recorded April 1, 1967 at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Scotland, this album was released in January of 1968. This is what a rock concert was like. Ray Davies says, "the audience is cheering, teenage girls are screaming...so much noise and adrenalin...what a fantastic place to be". The band plays their big early hits, loud.

The Kinks were started up by Ray and Dave Davies, who were born and raised in Muswell Hill, London. In their teens, the brothers began playing skiffle and rock & roll. In 1964 the group, calling itself the Ravens landed a contract with Pye Records and recorded Long Tall Sally as their first single, however, before the release they changed their name to the Kinks. That record didn't catch on but their third try, You Really Got Me was a huge hit with it's loud, distorted, driving sound and scorching guitar break. In the summer of 1966 they released Sunny Afternoon which established the satirical writing style that characterized the band's music through the late 60's and the 70's.

This double album was released October 25, 1969. It includes one studio disc, which is avant-garde unlistenable, and one live disc which is excellent. The live sessions were recorded at the Mother's Club in Birmingham on April 27th and at the in Manchester College of Commerce on May 2nd.

Pink Floyd was one of the first psychedelic bands of the 60's, they didn't really become mainstream until the release of their huge hit album "Dark Side of the Moon" in 1973. The band was formed in Cambridge, England in 1965 playing R&B standards but soon evolved into playing original stuff written by Syd Barrett. Barrett left the band due to psychological problems in 1968 and Roger Waters became the main writer. The name, which originally was the Pink Floyd Sound, was taken from one of Barrett's recordings of blues players Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Using sound and lights this band created an experience that was very different from the mod angst of the early invasion bands.

Live on stage at Madison Square Garden, New York City, November 27th & 28th, 1969. Mick Jones is on lead guitar here as Brian Jones had left the band in June and then died by drowning in his swimming pool in July. One week later the band would play Altamont Speedway in California where Hells's Angels hired to provide security would murder a member of the audience right in front of the stage. This is the band at their peak.

The band started up in 1962 playing clubs like the Crawdaddy around London. Brian Jones came up with the name, from a Muddy Waters song called Rollin' Stone Blues. They billed themselves as the nasty alternative to the now well groomed Beatles. Ironically, one of their first hits was a song written by the Beatles, I Wanna be your Man, which John and Paul knocked off for them in about 5 minutes one day when they asked if they had a song for them. They began recording in 1963 and went on to become one of the most important rock & roll bands of the era.

Recorded February 14, 1970 at Leeds University. This intense performance is power rock and roll with the band playing a number of their old hits like My Generation, Happy Jack and Magic Bus as well as some great covers of Summertime Blues and Mose Allison's Young Man's Blues.

This band started out in London in the early 60's as The Detours, changing their name to The Who in 1964. They gained popularity smashing up their equipment and playing "maximun R&B" at the Marquee Club in London. They hit the charts in 1965 with recordings of I Can't Explain and My Generation. In 1969 the rock opera Tommy had been a huge hit, and it was played in its entirety at the Leeds concert and is on the Deluxe Edition of this record.

Recorded in July 1971 at Fairfield Hall, Croydon, England and at a benefit concert for Oz Magazine in London. The band's original guitarist, Dave Mason, had just rejoined them and they play a number of their big hits with plenty of time given to the jazz/rock improvisation that defined their style. The band includes percussionist Kwaku Baah, a former sideman for Dizzy Gillespie, who had just walked up on stage and started playing with them at a gig in Sweden and ended up part of the band.

This band was formed in 1967 by Stevie Winwood, who had gained popularity as the lead singer for the Spencer Davis Group, whose big hit, Gimme Some Lovin', is played here. Winwood's musical evolution from straight R&B with Davis to the more innovative style of songs like Dear Mr. Fantasy illustrate the major shift that the whole British music scene was undergoing at this time. Their first album, "Dear Mr. Fantasy", came out in December 1967, the same year in which the Beatles released Sgt Pepper.