Dave Mason Is Alive
1973 album by Dave Mason

Dave Mason Is Alive is the first album of live recordings by Dave Mason. Recorded in 1971 at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles, the album was released in 1973 by Blue Thumb Records. It has been re-released by MCA Coral (MCA 713).
Background
As reported by William Ruhlmann of AllMusic, the album was released without Mason's approval. Its release by Blue Thumb was prompted by the dispute between it and Mason, a dispute that started midway during the recording of Mason's previous album. That previous album, Headkeeper, had been intended to be a double album, with one disk composed of live recordings made at the Troubador and the other of studio recordings. But after Mason ceased work and took possession of some of the studio masters, Blue Thumb released Headkeeper as a single album, one side live and one side studio recordings. As the dispute with Mason continued, Blue Thumb issued Dave Mason Is Alive, composed entirely of recordings from the same live performance that had been used for Headkeeper. Of the seven tracks on Alive, two of them, "Feelin' Alright" and "Just a Song", are repeated from Headkeeper.
Track listing
All tracks composed by Dave Mason, except where indicated.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28448689. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dave Mason Is Alive” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.