Merl Saunders
3/24/2001
Starr Hill Music Hall
Charlottesville, VA

SRC: SBD > Inspiron 8000 (ESS Maestro internal sound card) > WAV > CD > EAC > SHN > WAV > FLAC

Recorded, transferred and seeded by Bill Tetzeli (btet@adelphia.net)
4/20/2006

CD 1

1. Merl's Tune
2. Built for Comfort
3. Lay Back Baby
4. Sugaree
5. Positively 4th Street
6. That's What Love Will Make You Do
7. Nostalgia for Jerome
8. Julius

CD 2

1. Don't That Make it Better?
2. Funky System
3. Wondering Why
4. Fire on the Mountain
5. Struggling Man
6. My Funny Valentine

CD 3

1. M.S.
2. Boogie on, Reggae Woman
3. Bertha
4. "One More Set!"

Encores:
5. Man Child
6. So What > 
7. Thank You > 
8. I Feel Like Dynamite

SHNs converted to FLAC for convenience of trading and to be more future-compatible.  Test SHNs recompressed from extracted WAVs verify 100% against checksums for original SHNs.

Known flaw: Right channel cuts out on MS from 6:14-6:42.  This section was monized by pasting in the left channel.



A little history: Back in March 2001 I had the opportunity to interview Merl for WTJU, University of Virginia's radio station, the day before he played at Starr Hill.  The interview went well, and afterwards I phoned his road manager, Ken Kaplan, and asked if it would be all right to tape from the board.  At first Ken refused, but when I told him I just wanted to be able to play a few cuts to let people who couldn't get to the show know what they'd missed, he said fine, as long as I signed a nondistribution agreement.  Struggling Man, Merl's live album, had just been released, and Ken didn't want it facing unnecessary competition.  I wrote up the agreement, brought it down to Starr Hill a few hours before the show, and Merl and I signed.  I was so overwhelmed to meet this legend in the flesh for the first time, and yet he seemed incredibly friendly and humble.  That night Merl rocked the house, showing no sign of the passage of years in his playing or singing.  The recording went without a hitch, save for a brief outage on one of the channels.  After the show he sat near the merch table talking to fans; he was chatting with a beautiful girl who was looking adoringly at him, as kindly and familiarly as if she were his daughter.  Suddenly he saw me, reached out an arm and with a huge grin cried, "Biiilllllll!"  Made my evening, no doubt. :-)

Anyway, fast forward to about two months ago.  After an unsuccessful attempt at reaching Merl through his Myspace page, I got in touch with his son, Tony (a successful musician in his own right), to see if he could speak with Merl about allowing the recording to be circulated.  After a few emails back and forth, Tony relayed to me that circulating would be fine, but there would have to be some link to his father's recordings on Tamago, since those were Merl's sole source of income for his medicine and treatment for his stroke.  I agreed at once, eager to do what little I could to repay him for all the incredible music of his I've enjoyed over the years.

Many thanks both to Merl for allowing me to tape this show and distribute the SBD, as well as to Tony for his assistance.  Again, please go to http://www.tamago.us (note the ".us" domain) and help Merl out by buying some of his music.  It's the least we can do to show him our gratitude for all he's given us over the past forty years.