Michael Hedges - Dreaming Out Loud

"I play the guitar because it lets me dream out loud."

~ Michael Hedges ~

Here's the follow up to my previous Michael Hedges post. This one has a similar history but I took a different approach to the tracklist. This is a covers only album. Michael always put a personal stamp on his covers and always performed at least a few during each show.

I had the pleasure of seeing Michael perform four times over the years before he passed and each show was better than the last. I'm still saddened when I think of what we lost but take great joy whenever I listen to what he left us.

01 Let's Get It Up
02 Buffalo Stance [90.winter]
03 Where Do the Children Play (with Don Record) [95.07.23]
04 Comfortably Numb [harp guitar 97.11.12]
05 Gimme Shelter [Strings of Steel]
06 Watermelon Man [85.02.16]
07 I Misunderstood [91.10.08]
08 She Drives Me Crazy [91.10.08]
09 Lucky Star [94.10.29]
10 Almost Cut My Hair [95.09.30]
11 Come Talk To Me [96.10.25]
12 Rock'n'Roll Part 2 [97.09.21]
13 Blackbird [81.03.20]
14 I'm Into Something Good
15 Head and Heart
16 While my Guitar Gently Weeps [97.07.06]
17 A Love Bizarre/Aquarius (with Michael Manring) [94.10.29]

Reality Notes

The overall quality of these tracks were on average a little better than the last Hedges comp so I did very little to this one. There are still some dodgy sounding tracks but the music comes through and makes it all better. Mostly I trimmed the beginnings and endings and a bit of volume matching. If I could, I removed audience noise as much as possible if only to tighten up song transitions.

All of the tracks are unofficial live recordings with the exception of Gimmie Shelter. That track comes from the out of print 1993 South American only release Strings Of Steel. A version of She Drives Me Crazy also appeared on that album which is of better sound quality than the one here but at the time I compiled this Gimme Shelter was all I had. And like the last project, my intention here is to present the comp as it is with only some editing to improve the flow.

A version of Love Bizarre appeared on Live on the Double Planet but by the time of this recording Michael was adding bits of Age of Aquarius in the middle which is why I have included it here.

If I knew the date of the recording I made a note of it but beyond that I have no other information about the sources. I also made no mention of the original artists. Most of them you will know but there are a few I had never heard until I came across these.

The cover was one of the first covers I made where I was very happy with how it turned out. Plain and simple but nice to look at. It does show its age to me and looks a bit primitive when compared to some of my more recent works but I still like it.