Debbie Gibson - Piano and Voice - 1991

As part of my efforts to keep this blog a little different here's something a bit out of left field. Debbie Gibson unplugged. Recorded in Japan a few months after the release of her third album Anything Is Possible this LP features Debbie alone at a piano. While recorded live in front of an audience the crowd is not heard except on the more upbeat numbers where they provide a rhythmic accompaniment by clapping along.

Debbie Gibson was different from the teen hit makers of the time. Not only could she play and sing well she wrote all of her songs and produced or co-produced her albums. Her stage shows at the time were large productions modeled after shows from Madonna and the like. It was only outside the U.S. and particularly in Japan where she was able to do shows like these.

Side One
01 One Hand, One Heart
02 Another Brick Falls
03 Sure
04 Will You Love Me Tomorrow
05 Without You

Side Two
01 Try
02 Foolish Beat
03 Lost In Your Eyes
04 So Close To Forever
05 Billy Joel Medley:
   a. Piano Man;
   b. New York State Of Mind;
   c. This Night;
   d. Only The Good Die Young;
   e. Leave A Tender Moment Alone;
   f. Prelude;
   g. Root Beer Rag
06 Crocodile Rock

Reality Notes

I found this bootleg on the Days of the Broken Arrows blog. If you really want to know what I did here check out the unedited version there. This came from a live solo performance that was broadcast on FM radio at the time. Being a live concert from the radio it included an announcer, an interview segment and stage banter. All of that was removed so all that is left is the music.

When Debbie broke through on the charts in 1987 I was impressed. While the music itself was not my thing she did write all of the songs and coproduced the album. She is also a classically trained pianist. I remember thinking at the time that this was someone to watch as they matured as an artist. Had she been allowed to grow on her own terms I really think she could have been the Cheryl Crow of her time.

At the time of this recording Debbie was spending more time in Japan while her popularity at home was on the decline. I encourage you to download this if only for the opportunity to see Miss Gibson from a different perspective. If anything this performance proves that she was more than a teen age idol and that she could play and sing as good if not better than all of the teen sensations of the time.

The man at The Broken Arrows blog did all the work on this. He split the original bootleg into separate tracks and did all of the work cleaning and mastering to make it listenable. All I did was edit out the crowd and stage banter before and after each song and reshuffled the tracks to make a better listen. I also included his original cover in the archive along with my own self made cover.

I was hoping that there would be enough songs on this so I could drop the cover songs but this is what we have. If someone could point me to another similar bootleg with more songs to fill the album up with, please do.