A remarkable undocumented and unreleased live tape recorded off the mixing console at the Fillmore East, capturing December 1970 solo sets by Jackson Browne, more than a year before the release of his debut album, Laura Nyro and Tim Hardin.

We purchased this directly from a former Fillmore East sound engineer, who recorded artists that interested him on a Revox 4 Track reel-to-reel machine hidden in the rafters above the mixing desk.  Because he was making recordings for his own use on tapes he paid for himself, he would record each artist in mono, and was thus able to record two tracks in each direction on a 10″ reel of tape.

When we acquired this tape, it was labeled as containing sets by Laura Nyro, second-billed Tim Hardin, and “Steve Miller solo acoustic.”  When we listened to the transfer the engineer made, we were astounded to discover that it was not Steve Miller, but instead  the then barely-known opening act, Jackson Browne.  We know of no earlier live Jackson Browne tapes, and this one is professionally recorded, direct off the mixing board.

The Browne and Hardin sets are definitely unreleased; while some recordings of Nyro at the Fillmore East have been issued, there are at least two sets here, and it’s likely some (if not all) of her performance here are unreleased as well.  All of the recordings (and performances) are excellent quality, with the occasional break in audio to turn over the tape, etc.

Nyro, Hardin and Browne played the Fillmore East on December 22-24, 1970, each probably playing two sets a night; we don’t know on which nights these sets were recorded.  Included is a high quality digital transfer of this one-of-a-kind tape.

Jackson Browne set: Under the Falling Sky/Shadow Dream Song/Song For Adam/My Opening Farewell/From Silver Lake/For Everyman/Rock Me on the Water/Jamaica Say You Will (approximately 35 minutes)

Laura Nyro set 1: He’s a Runner/Brown Earth/When I Was a Freeport and You Were the Main Drag/Poem: Christmas in My Soul/Poverty Train/Emmie/Gibsom Street/Captain For Dark Mornings/Map to the Treasure/Up on the Roof/And When I Die/Time and Love/Save the Country/Encores: Walk on Bye/Gonna Take A Miracle/Medly: Tom Dooley/California Shoeshine Boys (approximately 75 minutes)

Laura Nyro set 2: Stoney End/Buy and Sell/Timer/Been on a Train/And When I Die/Poem/Emmie/The Confession/Spanish Harlem/Map to the Treasure/Up on the Roof/Poverty Train/ Christmas in My Soul (probably from a different set) fragment into Spanish Harlem/Gonna Take a Miracle (approximately 58 minutes)

Tim Hardin set: Unidentified song with the repeated lyrics “Deep down inside” and “If I ever had another woman”/Moonshiner/Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out (approximately 34 minutes)

[Sold as a collectible only; the copyright for these performances is owned by the individual artists.]