Derek and the Dominos' Fillmore East Performance

I’m glad this thread is cooking again. I love reading info on the Derek and the Dominos period.

 

Does Bobby Whitlock still visit here? We need to ask him about whether the band knew in advance about recording those nights. Maybe he would remember.

He might be able to expand on the details about a planned live release vs. The second album and why it took awhile to release the live album.

 

He has always claimed they didn’t know about the recording.

 

thanks for that. I did not know that.

 

It's such an oddity though, isn't it? As I said earlier, you'd expect a certain amount of technical prep pre-show, including some input from Eddie Kramer (I mean, how do you explain the presence of one of the world's most famous recording engineers there??)

Also, there's the money question - live location recording didn't come cheap back then, so somebody had to be footing the bill and someone had to have signed off on that. If it wasn't Atlantic's idea, then somebody in Polydor (RSO Records didn't exist as a label until 1973) must have either thought of it or been persuaded to underwrite the costs, presumably on the basis of having been sold the idea of a D&D live album somewhere down the line.

On the balance of probabilities, my guess would be that it was a Robert Stigwood idea then - as Eric's manager at the time though, wouldn't he have been bound to discuss it, at least with Eric if not the other bandmembers?

I like Bobby & I don't think he'd consciously be false about it, but I don't think his memory has proven to be 100% accurate around this period - I could well envision a situation where Stigwood has said to one or all of the band backstage, "Oh, by the way boys, Polydor have asked to record tonight's show for something down the line" & the band responding, "Yeah, yeah - sure" and that being the last they thought of it...

It's all conjecture, though!

 

FWIW, RSO as a label didn’t exist yet, but the Robert Stigwood Organisation definitely did.

As far as the rest of it goes, I agree it is very odd. There almost certainly would have been plans for a live album before the shows even took place, yet I’ve never heard of any evidence of such plans, and I’m not aware of any work on the recordings prior to October 1972, for In Concert. That’s in contrast to, say, the Traffic recordings done a month later, which were noted in the press both before and after the shows, and of course were turned into an (unreleased) album quickly.

It doesn’t seem out of the question that Clapton would have known about the recordings, but at this point there’s nothing specifically indicating he did.

And there’s also the mystery of the recordings of the early shows...

 

2 and a half years late to this thread, reading through while at coffee. I have been buying boots of these 2 bands (DD and Allman Brothers) from this era for years but I am not an expert on these recordings. Unfortunately I was too young to see either (Duane was long gone by the time I saw The Allmans).
The boots are great but is there much Derek live stuff left in the vaults that could be officially released?

 

That hasn’t been booted? No.

 

Unfortunately not, only the two late shows from the Fillmore East. And a few tracks they've done at the Jonny Cash Show.

 

Under the circumstances it sounds like we should be grateful that these tapes even exist (even though we all wish there was more).

 

I think we may get both shows when EC passes away

So hopefuly that'll be something like 2035

 

The whole lot were on fire, weren't they? What great music.

 

EC has nothing to do with it.

 

I know that but once he passes away, all people will be celebrating his music, therefore I'm hoping they'll release all the live stuff from the dominos

 

Is there an idea on how many concerts that Derek and the Dominos did before they split up? Would the link below be accurate with 15 concert dates listed? Apologies if this has already been discussed earlier in the thread.

Derek And The Dominos

 

Just saw this today:
Radio Woodstock to Air Sets by The Beatles, Phish, Aretha Franklin and More For 'The Greatest Festival of All Time' Broadcast

The closing set is D+tD from the Fillmore East. Not sure what source/show they will be using. I guess the Wolfgang's Vault version.

 

Yeah, he certainly has not stopped any archival releases as far as I can tell. It seems like he pretty much signs off on what Universal wants to do.

 

I'm not even sure if there's a sign-off involved.

 

I count up to 60 on that site - that said, I'm confused by those early Oct '70 UK show dates showing up, since these clash with the alleged recording dates with the studio version of Mean Old World (which was apparently tracked on 10/02/70) and overdubs on Layla (10/01/70).

 

I thought someone indicated those UK dates didn't actually happen, although I don't have the details handy.

 

That makes sense - the first photo we have of any of the Oct '70 UK gigs is from Scarborough on 9th, which suggests that the first few dates of that tour didn't take place, due to the band's need to go back into the studio to finish Layla.

 

The timing of recording these shows for a live album always seemed odd to me; their double album had just been completed a few weeks earlier and wouldn't even be in the shops for at least another month; Also its the opening shows on the US tour. Maybe it was just a matter that the venue was recording friendly and available so they took advantage of the opportunity but weren't really planning a live album on the heels of their new album.

 

FWIW, I seem to recall that Layla had been released in some areas at the time of the Fillmore East shows.

 

They were still recording it on October 2 so that would be hard to believe by October 23 it would be mixed, mastered, printed and in the shops that quickly.

 

At the 10/23 early show (the first one), someone yells out "Bell Bottom Blues!" right before Blues Power. I suppose it's possible some tracks had been played on the radio. Some people were definitely familiar with at least some of the album.

Regarding the UK club dates and the October recordings, from Jim Dickinson:

"Eric Clapton showed up with Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, and Jim Gordon. They were in America for Jimi Hendrix's funeral. During my absence at Criteria they had recorded Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs as Derek and the Dominoes, with Duane Allman on guitar and Tom Down producing. Clapton was unhappy with Dowd's mix of the record, and Dowd asked me to give up my studio time for the remix. I agreed and hung around. The rest of the band went to the funeral but Eric stayed. Soon Duane Allman showed up. It was hardcore. We did some heavy hanging out. After the second night, I careened from wall to wall, right to left, down the corridor from the elevator, trying to get back to my hotel room. I hid my gold tooth slide-over and my golden frog pinky ring from imaginary interlopers before passing out, unsure if I'd wake up. I woke, but never found my gold tooth or my ring.

The next morning at the studio, while Clapton was waiting for a limo to take him to the airport, we recorded a version of "Mean Old World," with Clapton and Duane playing double slide and me on piano. It appeared years later in a box set with my piano credited to someone else."

MFSL Layla Hybrid SACD *

FWIW, the Mean Old World tape box specifically mentions "Duane" and "Eric", but everything else is "Piano", "Drums", and "Bass". The client is listed as "Derek + The Dominos", however.