HOTWACKS states: Made from the same plates as ‘Live E.Jay’ (Dittolino Discs).
WABC-FM New York radio broadcast – 17 November ’70, officially released on 9 April 1971, possibly after several bootleg titles had already been spotted. This created a unique situation, where for the first time in the history a commercial release had to compete with bootlegs containing identical material, available in sufficient quantities to cause concern.
However, as I have written here before, I am somewhat doubtful of the claim found on wikipedia, taken from Heylin’s book, stating ” It has been said that the release by an eastern bootlegger of the whole 60-minute aircast rather than the 40 minutes selected by Dick James Music significantly cut into the US sales of the live album.”
None of the single LP releases, like radiocord or Keylo’s VERY ALIVE [really a TMOQ release] contained the complete broadcast. The double album shown here would be the only one that fits that description but it is quite hard to find, which is not what you’d expect from a significant seller, even 40+ years after the fact. I don’t doubt that all of these bootlegs combined put a modest dent into sales of the official album (I would be surprised if it was more than 25,000 although whether this was before or after the official release date would have to be looked at in detail), especially VERY ALIVE in its imitation brown leather cover is still easy to locate these days but that is the risk you take as a record company when you release a performance that was already broadcast to potentially hundreds of thousands of listeners several months earlier.
The original broadcast had consisted of:
I Need You To Turn To
Your Song
Country Comfort
Border Song
Indian Sunset
Amoreena
Bad Side Of The Moon
Take Me To The Pilot
Sixty Years On
Honky Tonk Women
Can I Put You On
Burn Down The Mission (including My Baby Left Me & Get Back)
My Father’s Gun (encore)
**
KNOCKIN‘ EM DEAD – ALIVE / LIVE (E JAY) is the only bootleg that contains the whole show (but not in the original running order):
Side 1: I Need You To Turn To / Your Song / Bad Side Of The Moon / Country Comfort
Side 2: Can I Put You On / Border Song / Sixty Years On
Side 3: Indian Sunset / Honky Tonk Women / Amoreena / Take Me To The Pilot
Side 4: Burn Down The Mission (including My Baby Left Me & Get Back) / My Father’s Gun
****
A similar situation to Deep Purple’s H Bomb, which was available with the same type of stamped cover, either with Dittolino or ‘title’ Kustom labels:
This points to a rather close working relationship between Kustom and Dittolino Records. Both were mainly copy labels, with Kustom focusing on European releases, and both operated at the same time, from 1971 onwards, when this Elton John title taken from his radio broadcast was released. I do not think however, that Kustom was a side label run by the same people who did Dittolino Records.
Kustom Records Discography [Deep Purple, Beatles & Elton John titles also produced by Dittolino]:
– DEEP PURPLE H-Bomb ASC-001, Matrix numbers on vinyl: side1: 2001-A; side 2: 2001-B
Live in Aachen, Germany – 11 July 1970. Probably a copy of this 1970 Italian bootleg – possibly the first to be produced in Italy:
– THE BEATLES – Live At Shea / The Only Live Recording ASC-002, Matrix: SHEA – 1/2
– THE BEATLES – Judy ASC-003, Matrix : A/1 2002 – A / B/2 2002 – B [all pirated officially released tracks, with every song title changed by the bootleggers.]
– ASC-004 ?
– JIMI HENDRIX – Goodbye Jimi Kustom 005
A quality degenerated copy of the UK White Cover Folks bootleg # 723:
“[WCF’s] most successful title was a superb Hendrix collection, Goodbye Jimi, drawn from BBC Top Gear radio sessions, which apparently sold some 9,000 copies.” [Heylin, p. 148]
Dittolino also issued this title as LIVE EXPERIENCE(S)
as did TMOQ did under this title in June of 1971 as JH-107 / 1841 / 71019:
– ELTON JOHN – Goodbye Knockin’ Em Dead – Alive 006
