A previously ‘lost’ companion recording to Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia’s iconic 1980 live album Friday Night In San Francisco is due to be released in July.
Saturday Night In San Francisco, as the name suggests, captures the following evening’s (December 6, 1980) performance at the city’s Warfield Theatre, a set that was previously thought to have been left unrecorded.
Reportedly, Di Meola and his team took on the task of reviewing the 16-track tapes from the San Francisco sets and have now been able to put together a previously unreleased eight-track collection from the December 6 show.
“For 40 years, I’ve had the other night that no-one knew about except for the people that went to the show,” Di Meola revealed in a recent Guitar World interview. “In fact, even John didn’t remember we played a second night!
“But I have the tapes, and I had them professionally baked to have them restored. And it turns out they’re phenomenal. And we played all different tunes. On the first record I had a song called Mediterranean Sundance. This night there’s a song called Splendido Sundance. And there’s three unaccompanied solo pieces. So you’re not getting the same record twice... I'm looking forward to people hearing it.”
The original Friday Night... record set a high-water mark for the three musicians’ repeated collaborations and has been described as “the most influential of all live acoustic guitar albums”.
That record and show have gone down in legend as a masterclass in virtuosic interplay. The album also sold over seven-million copies and helped further cement the reputations and commercial appeal of the three formidable guitar talents – not to mention the instrument itself.
Saturday Night In San Francisco track list
- Bill Graham Introduction
- Splendido Sundance
- One Word
- Trilogy Suite
- Monasterio de Sal
- El Pañuelo
- Meeting of the Spirits
- Orpheo Negro
The new live album will be released on July 1, via earMusic in formats including CD, gatefold vinyl and a collector’s edition LP on clear vinyl.
Saturday Night In San Francisco is available to preorder or pre-save now.
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