Live! Bootleg

Live! Bootleg
Live album by Aerosmith
Released	October 1978 (1978-10)
Recorded	1973, 1977, 1978
Genre	Hard rock, blues rock
Length	75:39
Label	Columbia
Producer	Jack Douglas Aerosmith David Krebs Steve Leber
Aerosmith live chronology
Live! Bootleg (1978) Classics Live I and II (1986)
Singles from Live! Bootleg
"Chip Away the Stone" Released: December 8, 1978

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Rolling Stone Album Guide

Live! Bootleg is a double live album by American hard rock band Aerosmith, released in October 1978. While most of the performances were drawn from concerts in 1977 and 1978, "I Ain't Got You" and "Mother Popcorn" were taken from a radio broadcast of a Boston performance on March 20, 1973.

Background

The design of the album is intended to ape the poor production values offered by contemporary bootleg records, even going so far as to give an incorrect track listing: the song "Draw the Line" is included on the record but does not appear listed; the track is a secret track after "Mother Popcorn". The album also features a secret live instrumental cover of "Strangers in the Night" inserted into their cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", which was probably a nod to a similar quote by Jimi Hendrix during "Wild Thing" at the Monterey Pop Festival. The back of the CD cover includes two coffee stains over the picture of Joe Perry playing before a live audience. The original LP cover had the coffee stains, but not the picture of Perry, which was part of the gatefold artwork. The record also features one of Aerosmith's first live versions of The Beatles "Come Together", which they performed in the 1978 movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the first record appearance of Richie Supa's "Chip Away the Stone" (the studio version of this song would later be released on 1988's Gems compilation).

In the band memoir Walk this Way, Perry recalls, "I didn't want to do a live album at the time because there were so many perfect live albums coming out, all doctored and fixed and overdubbed. Big deal. Double live album - 'standard of the industry'. I felt like we had to avoid that and do a real live album like Live at Leeds or Get Yer Ya Ya's Out or that old Kinks album." In his own 2014 memoir Rocks, Perry confessed that the idea behind the LP confounded their label Columbia:

We were working on Live! Bootleg!, an album of old shows that we intentionally wanted to sound bootlegged. A couple of those tracks were recorded off air onto a cassette. It had hiss all over it. We left on the hiss because the hiss was real. But I'm not sure Columbia ever understood our concept. They wanted a clean sound, but we wanted to keep it real. That's the thrill of a real bootleg.

Track listing

Side one

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Back in the Saddle" (Indianapolis, IN, July 4, 1977)	Steven Tyler, Joe Perry	4:25
2.	"Sweet Emotion" (Chicago, IL, March 23, 1978)	Tyler, Tom Hamilton	4:42
3.	"Lord of the Thighs" (Chicago, IL, March 23, 1978)	Tyler	7:18
4.	"Toys in the Attic" (Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA, March 28, 1978)	Tyler, Perry	3:45

Side two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
5.	"Last Child" (The Paradise Club, Boston, MA, August 9, 1978)	Tyler, Brad Whitford	3:14
6.	"Come Together" (The Wherehouse, Waltham, MA, August 21, 1978)	John Lennon, Paul McCartney	4:51
7.	"Walk This Way" (Detroit, MI, April 2, 1978)	Tyler, Perry	3:46
8.	"Sick as a Dog" (Indianapolis, IN, July 4, 1977)	Tyler, Hamilton	4:42

Side three

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Dream On" (Louisville, KY, July 3, 1977)	Tyler	4:31
2.	"Chip Away the Stone" (Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA, April 8, 1978)	Richard Supa	4:12
3.	"Sight for Sore Eyes" (Columbus, OH, March 24, 1978)	Tyler, Perry, Jack Douglas, David Johansen	3:18
4.	"Mama Kin" (Indianapolis, IN, July 4, 1977)	Tyler	3:43
5.	"S.O.S. (Too Bad)" (Indianapolis, IN, July 4, 1977)	Tyler	2:46

Side four

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
6.	"I Ain't Got You" (Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, April 23, 1973; WBCN-FM radio simulcast)	Calvin Carter	3:57
7.	"Mother Popcorn" / "Draw the Line [*]" (Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, April 23, 1973; WBCN-FM radio simulcast / Tower Theater, Upper Darby, Philadelphia, PA, March 26, 1978)	James Brown, Pee Wee Ellis / Tyler, Perry	11:35
8.	"Train Kept A-Rollin'" / "Strangers in the Night" (Detroit, MI, April 2, 1978)	Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, Lois Mann / Bert Kaempfert, Charlie Singleton, Eddie Snyder	4:51

[*] "Draw the Line" is featured as a hidden track at the end of "Mother Popcorn"

Personnel

Aerosmith

• Steven Tyler – lead vocals, harmonica
• Joe Perry – guitar
• Brad Whitford – guitar
• Tom Hamilton – bass guitar
• Joey Kramer – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

• Mark Radice – keyboards, backing vocals
• David Woodford – saxophone on "Mother Popcorn"

Production

• Jack Douglas – producer, engineer
• David Krebs, Steve Leber – executive producers, management
• Jay Messina, Lee DeCarlo – engineers
• Julie Last, Rod O'Brien, Sam Ginsburg – assistant engineers
• David Hewitt – Record Plant Mobile operator (New York)
• Chris Stone – Record Plant Mobile operator (Los Angeles)
• George Marino – mastering at Sterling Sound, New York
• John Kosh – art direction, design
• Jimmy Ienner, Jr., Barry Levine, Ron Pownall, Aaron Rapoport, Steve Smith – photography

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1978	RPM 100 (Canada)	27
1979	Billboard 200 (US)	13

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1979	"Chip Away the Stone"	Billboard Hot 100 (US)	77

Certifications

Country	Organization	Year	Sales
US	RIAA	1978	Platinum (+ 1,000,000)
Canada	CRIA	1978	Gold (+ 50,000)

References

Bibliography

• Davis, Stephen; Aerosmith (October 1, 1997). Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith. New York City: Avon Books. ISBN 978-0-380-97594-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Huxley, Martin (2015). Aerosmith: The Fall and the Rise of Rock's Greatest Band. St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1250096531. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Perry, Joe; Ritz, David (October 7, 2014). Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith. New York City: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-476-71454-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)