singemonkey wrote
I always wonder what stops musicians from doing this. Often songs are written and recorded for the album and then improve enormously with live playing. I would have no problems with some people rerecording their songs in the studio.
Or you could cut straight to the chase and do what Jackson Browne did - take a whole bunch of new songs on the road and turn the tape recorders on. He then released a whole live album of songs that he hadn't previously released. I refer, of course, to the album
Running On Empty (this album also features on of the greatest guitar sounds ever captured on tape - courtesy of David Lindley)
Richard Thompson is undertaking a similar project next year. He often "sings in" new songs before recording them, but this time he's doing "a Jackson Browne" and is going to take the new songs on the road with his band and record the results instead of going into the studio.
I think in both cases the idea is that the songs benefit from being played live.
Coming back to what we're actually discussing, I think it's an intriguing concept. I think part of the reason that it doesn't happen more often is that artists want to sell a live album to give us the songs with a newer or livelier feel. Some artists rework their songs quite drastically, and this can add new insights into the song. I think of Bruce Springsteen who took some of the numbers from the very band-oriented, dramatically produced
Born In the USA and started doing them solo - just him and acoustic guitar. A song like "No Surrender" revealed entirely different aspects of itself when played in that fashion. Little Feat released a great live(ish) album of tracks that had all been released but benefited from the spark of a live performance, some less constrained soloing, the addition of a horn section and, in some cases, being old tracks now being performed by the expanded late 70s line-up of the band.
Maybe the the difficult old consumer has something to answer for here as well. We'll shell out money for a studio album of new tracks, or a live album of old tracks, maybe even an album of alternate studio takes and out takes. But a new studio album of OLD tracks? Or a live album of NEW tracks? Perhaps that pops a couple of fuses. Browne's album was one of his best sellers, but the experiment hasn't been repeated. Maybe everybody's too scared of being seen to copy Jackson Browne.
