Souther-Hillman-Furay Band - 1974-07-15 - Central Park, NY

The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band
1974-07-15
Central Park, New York City, NY
Very good quality audience recording
available as both Lossless files (FLAC)
& mp3 @ 320 kbps

I am thrilled to be able to present this fine, vintage rare recording, as far as I know for the first time anywhere, here on this blog, and be able to make it available for others to hear and enjoy. As promised, here is the first in a series of rare, uncirculated recordings that I recently received from my new friend, David of Mass. As stated previously, there appear to be very few recordings available from this short-lived, but nonetheless terrific country-rock supergroup, the SHF Band (background info given in last post here). They only made two albums (Souther Hillman Furay Band-1974, Trouble in Paradise-1975), and these 1974 shows were apparently their only tour together. By late 1975, they had already disbanded and gone their separate ways. The Ft. Wayne show (1974-07-07) previously posted was the only live recording of them I had ever heard, until the past couple weeks, when I was contacted by David, an avid fan and collector, who told me about several other SHF shows he has tapes of, most taped by himself. He was gracious enough to send me a few CDR's of these shows, and they are pretty great. This show, although not actually taped by David, was one he received about 30 years ago in a trade (so I don't have any details about the taping circumstances), but has not otherwise appeared or been previously available to others, until now. This show is especially exciting because it features a full set (rather than the shortened 10 song 'opening' set of the Ft. Wayne Show), thus this show features a full 6 more songs than the previous show, enabling the band to feature additional songs from their debut album (such as Souther's lovely 'Pretty Goodbye's), as well as give each each star a chance to highlight some songs from their previous bands (Such as Furay's 'Kind Woman', Hillman's 'Christine's Tune', and Souther's 'Faithless Love' and 'The Fast One'). Although this is obviously an audience recording from less than ideal equipment, the sound is actually quite good, with clean clear sound (of both vocals and instruments) and minimal audience interference (suffering only from limited frequency range common in recordings from this era). I did some minor tweaking and editing to improve sound quality (corrected volume fluctuations, smoothed over rough patches, and boosted the low end a bit. Though far from perfect, it serves as  a fine document of this excellent, but nearly forgotten band. I hope you'll agree that it is great to hear these songs and this band, in all it's glory, once again. Back in the '70's, I used to listen to their debut album over and over. I think it's a classic, with a great sound and great songs by this unique group of musicians. But, until these recordings, I hadn't heard some of these songs in about 20 years (since I put away my vinyl LP's and switched to CD's), and it is just great to hear them again. So, here it is, for all fans of these guys, whether of their individual work or other bands, or the SHF Band themselves, and if you've never heard of these guys, but have any interest in country-influenced rock (Byrds, FBB, Eagles, Poco, Buffalo Springfield, etc.) of any kind, you need to check them out.

Tracklist
01 Border Town (Souther)
02 Things Will Be Better (Hillman)
03 Let’s Dance (Furay)
04 The Heartbreaker (Souther)
05 Flight of the Dove (Furay)
06 Pretty Goodbyes (Souther)
07 Faihless Love (Souther)
08 Christine's Tune (Hillman)
09 Kind Woman (Furay)
10 Believe Me (Furay)
11 Rise And Fall (Hillman)
12 Trouble In Paradise (Souther)
13 Safe At Home (Hillman)
14 Fallin’ In Love (Furay)
15 How Long (Souther)
16 The Fast One (Souther)

Lineup:
J.D. Souther
Chris Hillman
Richie Furay
Al Perkins
Paul Harris
Jim Gordon

---------------------------- a BB Chronicles Exclusive Presentation -----------------------------

mp3 version: Souther-Hillman-Furay_Band_1974-07-15_NY_mp3.rar
New Link! (Updated 08/13/21)

FLAC: version: Souther-Hillman-Furay_Band_1974-07-15_NY_FLAC.rar