Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) - Ultimate Archive Collection
By Paul McCartney • Unofficial live • Part of the collection “Paul McCartney • Ultimate Archive Collection”
Last updated on June 17, 2019
By Paul McCartney • Unofficial live • Part of the collection “Paul McCartney • Ultimate Archive Collection”
Last updated on June 17, 2019
This album was recorded during the following studio sessions:
January 1991
From "Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)"
Written by Gene Vincent, Donald Graves, Bill Davis
4:05 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Paul McCartney
1:46 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
3:16 • Live • L1
Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Producer, Vocals Linda McCartney : Harmonium Robbie McIntosh : Acoustic guitar Hamish Stuart : Acoustic bass, Vocal harmonies Paul Wickens : Accordion Blair Cunningham : Drums Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Bill Monroe
4:22 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
2:48 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Jesse Fuller
3:29 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
3:01 • Live • L2
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Paul McCartney
3:24 • Live • L2
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
3:39 • Live • L2
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Tommy Tucker
4:08 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
4:17 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Paul McCartney
4:02 • Live • L1
Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Producer, Vocals Linda McCartney : Percussion Robbie McIntosh : Acoustic guitar Hamish Stuart : Acoustic bass, Vocal harmonies Paul Wickens : Piano Blair Cunningham : Drums Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
2:10 • Live • L2
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Bill Withers
4:05 • Live • L1
Paul McCartney : Drums Robbie McIntosh : Piano Hamish Stuart : Guitar, Lead vocals Paul Wickens : Acoustic bass Blair Cunningham : Percussion Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Roy Brown
3:43 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Melvin Endsley
3:47 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Paul McCartney
2:27 • Live • L1
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
From "Biker Like An Icon" promotional CD
3:48 • Live • L3
Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Producer, Vocals Linda McCartney : Harmonium Robbie McIntosh : Acoustic guitar Hamish Stuart : Acoustic bass, Vocal harmonies Paul Wickens : Piano Blair Cunningham : Drums Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Claude Demetrius
2:58 • Live • L1
Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Producer, Vocals Linda McCartney : Percussion (?) Robbie McIntosh : Acoustic guitar Hamish Stuart : Acoustic bass, Vocal harmonies Paul Wickens : Piano (?) Blair Cunningham : Drums Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Traditional
4:41 • Live • L1 • From "Biker Like An Icon" promotional CD
Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Producer, Vocals Linda McCartney : Percussion Robbie McIntosh : Acoustic guitar Hamish Stuart : Acoustic bass, Vocal harmonies Paul Wickens : Piano Blair Cunningham : Drums Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Paul Talks About 'Unplugged'
3:22 • Interview • Interview footage of Paul was shot as part of an ‘Unplugged’ promotional press showing at Westcliff-on-Sea, on July 19. It was cut into the Japanese TV broadcast in segments.
Rehearsals
1:50 • Live • Blackbird/Blue Moon Of Leningrad/ [rehearsal]
Written by Marijohn Wilkin, Wayne P. Walker
1:58 • Studio rehearsal • L3
Session Rehearsal: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Written by Traditional
1:44 • Live • L2
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Written by Tommy Tucker
3:29 • Live
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Written by George R. Poulton, Ken Darby
0:49 • Studio rehearsal • L1
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
2:24 • Live
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Written by Traditional
1:33 • Live • L1
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Written by Traditional
2:46 • Live • L1
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Written by Daniel Flores
2:07 • Live
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Midnight Special (Prisoner's Song)
Written by Traditional
4:57 • Live
Session Recording: January 1991 • Studio The Barn, Hog Hill, Rye, UK
Introduction
2:20 • Live
Midnight Special
5:04 • Live
Be-Bop-A-Lula
4:13 • Live
Written by Lee Hazlewood, Naomi Ford
4:07 • Live • L1
Paul McCartney : Acoustic guitar, Producer, Vocals Linda McCartney : Percussion (?) Robbie McIntosh : Acoustic guitar Hamish Stuart : Acoustic bass, Vocal harmonies Paul Wickens : Piano (?) Blair Cunningham : Drums Geoff Emerick : Mixing engineer, Recording engineer Eddie Klein : Assistant engineer Gary Stewart : Assistant engineer Peter Craigie : Assistant engineer Gary Bradshaw : Monitor engineer
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Written by Paul McCartney
3:24 • Live
Concert From "MTV Unplugged" in Wembley, United Kingdom on Jan 25, 1991
Midnight Special [banded]
4:55 • Live
Written by Paul McCartney
4:50 • Live
Concert From the concert in Copenhagen, Denmark on Jul 24, 1991
From the liner notes:
Originally, I had planned on just making it a single disc, with just the album, the b-sides and the MTV VA album edit of We Can Work It Out (basically, what wound up as disc one of this set). I’d originally listed it that way on page one of this thread, and that was that. Some of you saw this and asked me to reconsider as there were a lot of other things worth including, like the complete show, for starters. I thought about it and figured I’d then make it a 2-CD set, with the second disc featuring the complete show, albeit edited slightly to fit on a CD (sort of like what I did for ‘Up Close’). However, once I started pulling this set together, I realized that I would then be leaving off all the cool rehearsals for the show that Paul shared with us on his ‘Oobu
Joobu’ radio show. And I also wouldn’t be able to include the “banded” versions of the live b-sides that were commercially released (only the ‘Biker Like An Icon’ promo CD single had the three live tracks flowing together as they do at the end of disc on on this set). Plus, the complete show ran 96 minutes, which would mean I’d have to cut off 16 minutes, meaning a song or two would have to go as well. What to do, what to do?? Well, the results are what you now see here – I decided once and for all to make it THREE discs (though not full to capacity – they average about 73 minutes each), with the rehearsals, the FULL show, and all the other goodies. Putting together the full show was a tricky task. There was a bootleg box set that came out a while back that had listed the “full show”, and while it did have almost all of the songs in great quality, it a) didn’t have everything, and b) was not sequenced in the correct order, and c) had some bad editing. I did have the full video, which I used as a reference to know where everything (music, chatter, etc.) belonged. It didn’t have the best audio quality, but it was essential to patch in some parts that were otherwise missing. So, I am proud to include the complete show here, edited together from the best sources available. These sources are (in order of preference used) a) the
released album + b-sides, b) the great sounding, yet incomplete bootleg, and finally c) the video. Thankfully, I only had to use the video sparingly… I think you’ll like this one as putting it together made me really enjoy this album / project from Paul all the more. The released album was fine, but it wasn’t the whole show, and that prevented me from being able to fully enjoy it. Now, I can pull this set out (and so can YOU!) and listen to this show as it happened. And what a show it is. Here’s hoping that this album someday gets Paul’s Archive treatment and he gives us the full audio + video. If you need help, Paul, I work cheaply + quickly!NOTES:
On January 25, 1991, Paul McCartney and his band gave an intimate concert for circa 200 people in the Limehouse Television Studios in Wembley. The concert was filmed and recorded by director Bruce Gowers for the TV company MTV in their series of Unplugged concerts. The aim of the series was to show featured musicians performing unplugged versions of their electric repertoire.
The show was recorded in under two and a half hours (including breaks) and, with a couple of small exceptions, the versions on the official releases and broadcast were done in one take. Of this 48 minutes were distilled for the actual TV programme, that was debuted on April 3, 1991 in the U.S. and on August 26, 1991 in the U.K.
Paul was so happy with the results that he decided to compile a live album from it (mixed by Geoff Emerick). This would become the first Unplugged album. Other artists would follow, like Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and Nirvana.
Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) was originally released as a limited edition of 250.000 copies on vinyl and “less than a million” worldwide on cd.
Paul promoted the live album with some special concerts throughout Europe. These shows had an acoustic and an electric part and took place in small concert halls with less than 4.000 people.
To date the only officially released video footage from the show are new cropped widescreen edits of ‘I Lost My Little Girl’, ‘Every Night’, ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘That Would Be Something’ on 2007’s ‘The McCartney Years’ DVD set.
NOTES:CD 1
Tracks 1 – 17: Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) as released on May 20, 1991 in the U.K. and on June 4, 1991 in the U.S.
Note: The official version (cd and TV) of ‘We Can Work It Out’ is a composite edit of take 1 (count in only), take 4 (except the last chord) and take 3 (the last chord and audience reaction). ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ is mostly take 1 with two 26-second segments removed.
18-20 – Originally it was planned that ‘Biker Like An Icon’ would be released as the third British single from Off the Ground, on April 26, 1993. On the cd-single there would outtakes from MTV Unplugged, with the three live tracks flowing together. While promo’s were send to radio stations, the actual single didn’t materialise.
21 – We Can Work It Out (edit) – alternate edit from a various-artists U.S. compilation called The Unplugged Collection: Volume 1, released on December 1, 1994.
CD 2
1 – Paul Talks About ‘Unplugged’ – interview footage of Paul was shot as part of an ‘Unplugged’ promotional press showing at Westcliff-on-Sea, on July 19. It was cut into the Japanese TV broadcast in segments.
2 – 13 – Rehearsals for the show took place in the weeks before the recording, in Paul’s The Barn At The Mill, in Sussex. Some 70 titles were tried. The tracks presented here were used in the Oobu Joobu radio
series, transmitted in March and April 1995.14 – Oobu Joobu Theme (edit) – probably recorded in February 1989
CD 2, tracks 15-22.
The complete show, including a few repeat performances due to camera problems or a couple instances where Paul kept forgetting some lyrics on ’We Can Work it Out’ and starting over, carefully reassembled for this VooDoo release.
CD 3
1-14 – the second part of the complete show.
15 – Things We Said Today (banded) – released on the cd-single ‘Biker Like an Icon’, released in mainland Europe, on November 28, 1993
16 – Midnight Special (banded) –see 15
17 – Down To The River – recorded live on July 24, 1991 in the Falconer Salen, Copenhagen, Denmark, during the Unplugged tour.
Notice any inaccuracies on this page? Have additional insights or ideas for new content? Or just want to share your thoughts? We value your feedback! Please use the form below to get in touch with us.
