Collecting log: Top 3 collectible acquisitions in 2019 (Part 1 of 3)

Well this is a little bit belated, but here I select last year's best acquisitions. In the first half of the last year, collecting-wise, it was depressing for me mostly due to the frequent frustrating issue caused by eBay Global Shipping Program (see here). In the second half of the last year, contrastingly, I was brightened by the unexpected acquisition of a holy grail 7" vinyl pressing (although I admit I usually don't put much effort into hunting 7" collectibles; see Part 3). During this term, I also obtained a few items that had long been on my want list but I just had not dug out (this post) or I had had no luck finding at a reasonable price (see Part 2).

The KBFH's 15th anniversary 5-CD collection includinig Springsteen's club performances in the early 1973: Left, the single disc release containing Bishop Danced (a recent acquisition); Right, the four-disc set with Spirit In The Night on Disc A (obtained long before).
 

#3: KING BISCUIT FLOWER HOUR CD for radio airplay
(DIR Radio Network, KB #1)

As widely known, King Biscuit Flower Hour (KBFH) was an American syndicated radio program put out by the DIR Broadcasting Corporation that, in its premiere broadcast (February 18th, 1973), featured Bishop Danced, Springsteen's very early live performance January 31st, 1973, from the Max's Kansas City club, New York City. In 1974, it was cut on a 6-track acetate as a demo for his U.K. music publisher that later became the source of the famous vinyl bootleg FIRE ON THE FINGERTIPS, through which I first experienced this live track. The single CD picked up here was produced to repeat KBFH's first broadcast when the program

In 1988, the Backstreets Records put this radio show CD onto
Route 66 Auction featuring 66 rare and unusual Springsteen items.
As can be read here, the live date had long been believed to be
August 30th, 1972. From Summer 1998 Warehouse Catalog #48.

celebrated its 15th Anniversary on May 29th, 1988. The celebration program continued over Memorial Day weekend, which is covered by a quadruple-radioshow CD set (DIR Radio Network, no number) with another Springsteen live recording Spirit In The Night from the same concert. Although finally in 1998, Bishop Danced is commercially released on the TRACKS CD box set, this radio show is still something special. This had made me seek for it as a good collectable companion to the vinyl counterpart (which is more valuable in my opinion though; see below). The following are trivial notes related to this release.

Bishop Danced and two more live songs (aforementioned Spirit In The Night plus Mary Queen Of Arkansas) recorded at this seminal club constituted a part of KBFH's two (three-sided) double-LP sets that were pressed in 1984 and distributed to radio stations for the commemoration of the program's 500th show (the two sets were aired on April 15th and 22nd). As I wrote before, the vinyl set captures the intimate live atmosphere at the small club, with the spoken introduction to Bishop Danced (which is completely edited out from either radio-show CD or TRACKS version mentioned above) and Mary Queen Of Arkansas (the performance itself still remains undocumented on any kind of official format and radio-show CD). So, I regard the two double-LP sets as the better presented excerpts of this early club appearance.
 

For this radio program, I still prefer the vinyl disc set to the CD version. Note that all the three Sprinsgteen live track are listed incorrectly on the accompnying sheets: Bishop Dancing, Marie Queen of Ankarsas, and Spirits In The Night.

Before the two 2-LPs for KBFH's 500th broadcast, this live tune was included in a radio-show 5-LP titled ROCK ON THE ROAD: Part II, DIR's another syndicated program aired in 1980 that features live performances by various American bands. Like on the KBFH's CD, however, the introductory talk is removed from this vinyl version. As already reported here, radio stations receiving the radio-show discs were requested not to play Springsteen's live tracks on the side three (this and Prove It All Night from Berkeley, 1978).

A poor student purchased the most expensive
cassette to tape the special airplay. D.J. Shibuya's
Friday night program is encircled with green on an
old issue of a major Japanese FM magazine.

In Japan, as far as I know, Bishop Danced was aired only one time back in the 1980s, which was way before the release of TRACKS. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact year and date of the broadcast although I recorded it on a cassette tape that I still keep. After listening back to the tape a few times, I assumed that the sound source was the CD (if so, the airplay date was in the late 1980s). It was a weekday NHK-FM radio program called Sound Street (PM 10:20-11:00) that aired the then-unreleased live track, and the host D.J. was Yoichi Shibuya (mentioned previously here and here on this blog). Once in his Friday night program, he made a feature of rare studio and live recordings from several rock artists that included Springsteen. So I was one of those who were really thrilled by what would come up on the radio. That evening, I set up my cassette deck to record the airplay onto a brand new TDK MA-R Type IV Metal Position cassette tape which was of the highest quality available at that time. Then, what was heard from radio was totally unexpected (in a negative sense) ... Sherry Darling, exactly the same track on THE RIVER!!!  The following week on the radio, D.J. Shibuya confessed that he got enormous amounts of blame from program listeners right after the broadcast. So, he desperately tried to find out what would deserve the airplay to cover his mistake, which ended up with the KBFH's live recording.  
— To be followed by the posts on the remaining two collectible acquisition.