Gloria Estefan - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 8-16-1993

Here's an episode of Gloria Estefan performing for the great "PBS Soundstage" TV show.

Gloria Estefan's music isn't my cup of tea. But her record sales exceed over 100 million, making her one of the best selling musical acts of all time. And she's even won a Gershwin Prize. So I figure I should post her episode for the people who want it.

(By the way, note that this episode took place in the one year the show was called "Center Stage." But I'm just calling it "Soundstage" for consistency with all the other episodes I'm posting.) 

This was one of those episodes where, unfortunately, the producers tried to spice things up with more than just music from the concert, for instance interviews. I cut that extra stuff one. In a few cases, there was some overdubbed talking related to that extra stuff that went over the actual music. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of the talking. That's why three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

This concert took place a couple of months after the release of her studio album "Mi Tierra," which was one of her best selling albums. It also was her first all-Spanish-language album. However, all but a couple of songs here are sung in English.

This unreleased album is 54 minutes long.

01 Rhythm Is Gonna Get You (Gloria Estefan)
02 talk (Gloria Estefan)
03 Words Get in the Way (Gloria Estefan)
04 talk (Gloria Estefan)
05 Here We Are [Toda Pra Voce] [Edit] (Gloria Estefan)
06 Live for Loving You (Gloria Estefan)
07 Can't Stay Away from You (Gloria Estefan)
08 Don't Wanna Lose You (Gloria Estefan)
09 talk (Gloria Estefan)
10 Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me (Gloria Estefan)
11 Oye Mi Canto (Gloria Estefan)
12 talk (Gloria Estefan)
13 Anything for You [Edit] (Gloria Estefan)
14 Coming Out of the Dark [Edit] (Gloria Estefan)
15 Conga (Gloria Estefan)
16 talk (Gloria Estefan)
17 Always Tomorrow (Gloria Estefan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P1MvNm58

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/xAEwvI5LAKRWXBr/file

The cover image is from an appearance on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," on June 21, 1993.

Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to Paul Simon, Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, CA, 2-15-2001

The good news is, I have another MusiCares tribute concert to post. The bad news is, this is the last one I can find. Hopefully, some others will show up eventually. But in the meantime, here's a tribute to Paul Simon, from 2001.

Before I say anything about this album, I want to mention the MusiCares tributes I still can't find (or don't exist). With this one included, I've posted nine of them. But there are 23 more that I would still love to hear. Here's the list of the missing ones:

2025: Grateful Dead    
2023: Berry Gordy & Smokey Robinson
2022: Joni Mitchell
2020: Aerosmith
2018: Fleetwood Mac    
2017: Tom Petty    
2015: Bob Dylan
2009: Neil Diamond    
2008: Aretha Franklin
2007: Don Henley    
2004: Sting    
2003: Bono
2002: Billy Joel    
2000: Elton John
1999: Stevie Wonder
1998: Luciano Pavarotti
1997: Phil Collins
1996: Quincy Jones    
1995: Tony Bennett
1994: Gloria Estefan
1993: Natalie Cole
1992: Bonnie Raitt
1991: David Crosby 

Getting back to this concert, this actually has an audience bootleg source. All the other MusiCares concerts I've posted come from DVDs or TV. But don't worry much about the source issue. This is an unusually good sounding audience boot. Plus, I made some big improvements. I used the MVSEP program to get rid of all the audience noise during songs while keeping the audience cheering at the ends of songs. Then I ran all the songs through MVSEP again, boosting the lead vocals relative to the instruments. In my opinion, the end result is this sounds nearly as good as the other MusiCares concerts.

This followed the same formula as typical tribute concerts, with various guest stars singing cover versions, then an acceptance speech by Simon, and finally Simon played a couple of songs. But one thing that's a bit different is that Simon is friends with some professional comedians, so there was more comedy than normal for this kind of concert. In addition to Chevy Chase and Michael McKean acting as emcees, Steve Martin did about a five minute comedy routine while introducing Simon.

This unreleased album is an hour and 11 minutes long. 

01 talk (Chevy Chase)
02 You Can Call Me Al (Macy Gray)
03 talk (Chevy Chase)
04 Born in Puerto Rico (Ruben Blades & Danny Rivera)
05 talk (Chevy Chase & Gloria Estefan)
06 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Gloria Estefan)
07 talk (Chevy Chase)
08 Mother and Child Reunion (Ziggy Marley)
09 talk (Chevy Chase)
10 American Tune (Shawn Colvin)
11 talk (Chevy Chase & Stevie Wonder)
12 Loves Me like a Rock (Stevie Wonder & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
13 talk (Michael McKean)
14 Tenderness (Shelby Lynne)
15 talk (Michael McKean & Brian Wilson)
16 The Sound of Silence (Brian Wilson)
17 talk (Michael McKean)
18 Homeward Bound (Joan Osborne & the Chieftans)
19 talk (Steve Martin)
20 Graceland (Paul Simon)
21 Late in the Evening (Paul Simon)
22 talk (Paul Simon)
23 The Boxer (Paul Simon)
24 talk (Paul Simon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LydU3Q4g

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/EE3jBlACedR3V1o/file

The cover photo is from this exact event, though I think it was from backstage before or after the concert. There was some distracting stuff in the background, so I replaced that with blackness in Photoshop. From right to left: Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Brian Wilson, and Shelby Lynne.

Various Artists - Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 9-7-2001

Given I've posted well over 3,000 albums by now, it surprises me I haven't posted anything starring Michael Jackson until now. But I only came across something worthy a few days ago, when I found this concert. I think it's a really interesting concert even if you're not a big Michael Jackson fan. It's got a lot of big stars singing classic songs.

Jackson's solo music career began in 1971, even as he continued to perform as part of the Jackson 5 (later renamed to the Jacksons) for many years. So someone came up with the idea of a concert to celebrate the first 30 years of his solo career. This concert was his first major concert appearance in the mainland U.S. since 1993, and in any country since 1997. (I say "major" because he occasionally sang a song or two for awards shows and the like.) It also would prove to be his last major concert appearance. (When he died in 2009 of cardiac arrest related to drug use, he was a few weeks away from starting his next major world tour.)

Before I go further, I need to explain that the title has this taking place on September 7, 2001, but that's not entirely true. There actually were two very similar concerts, one on September 7th, and the other on September 10th. A second concert was added because of the great ticket demand. Highlights from the concert were shown on CBS in the U.S. a couple of months later. They picked the best performances from the two nights. I don't know which songs is from which in most cases, so I'm just saying this took place on September 7th, for simplicity's sake, and because it was reported that most of the footage came from the 7th. 

However, in a few cases I do know which song is from which date, because some of the acts only performed in one of the two concerts. For instance, Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick, Gloria Gaynor, Missy Elliott, Nelly Furtado, and Aaron Carter all only performed on the 10th. Others, like Whitney Houston and Britney Spears, only performed on the 7th. But I'd say about 80 percent of the song list was the same both nights.

You can see the set list from both nights at the Wikipedia page about this concert event:

Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration - Wikipedia 

The vast majority of this album is from a DVD released from the concert, which is very similar to the TV broadcast. I guess there were some slight differences though, and maybe different songs in different broadcasts, because I was able to find a few more songs when I kept digging. For instance, the celebrated duet between Jackson and Britney Spears on the song "The Way You Make Me Feel" apparently wasn't shown on the original broadcast, but eventually did make it into a later rebroadcast.

After digging around, mostly on YouTube, I was able to find the vast majority of the songs, all in pretty good sound quality. However, a few remained elusive. For instance, Ray Charles and Cassandra Wilson performed a duet of the song "Crying Time" that I really would have liked to hear. But the only version I found was from some shaky audience video footage with pretty bad sound quality, so I skipped that one. A humanitarian speech by actor Marlon Brando also wasn't found, probably because it was reportedly booed by the crowd. A medley of "Never Never Land" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" Liza Minnelli wasn't found. I did find "My Baby" by Lil' Romeo and Master P, but I disliked the song so much that I couldn't bear to include it. It was just "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 with rapping on top. Ugh! The original, performed at the concert, is a million times better.

Surprisingly, the finale song "We Are the World," the 1985 famine relief charity single co-written by Michael Jackson, was not included in the DVD or any of the TV broadcasts. I found a version from an audience bootleg that sounded pretty rough, but I decided to include it due to its key role in the concert, with everyone from earlier in the concert on stage and many of the big names singing individual lines. I tried to clean it up as best I could, running it through the MVSEP program two times for various reasons, but there was only so much I could do. That was the case with the talking track right after it as well. That's why those two have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Probably the biggest news of this concert, other than the rarity of Michael Jackson performing for the first time in several years, was the reunion of the Jacksons (a.k.a. the Jackson 5). This was the first time in 17 years they performed together, and it would be the last with Michael's inclusion. Actually, it was one of the rare times all six performed together. (In the mid-1970s, Jermaine Jackson left the group and was replaced by Randy Jackson.)    

This album is two hours and two minutes long. I checked, and Michael Jackson was on stage for slightly less than half of that.

01 talk (Samuel L. Jackson)
02 Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' (Whitney Houston, Mya & Usher)
03 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight)
04 I'll Never Love This Way Again (Dionne Warwick)
05 I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
06 Get Ur Freak On (Missy Elliott & Nelly Furtado)
07 I Want Candy (Aaron Carter)
08 Home (Monica)
09 You Can't Win (Jill Scott)
10 Ease On Down the Road (Deborah Cox, Al Jarreau, Monica & Jill Scott)
11 Ben (Billy Gilman)
12 Angel - It Wasn't Me (Shaggy, Rayvon & Rikrock)
13 Heal the World (Deborah Cox, Rah Digga, Monica, Mya & Tamia)
14 She's Out of My Life (Marc Anthony)
15 Bootylicious (Destiny's Child)
16 You Are Not Alone (Liza Minnelli)
17 I Just Can't Stop Loving You (Gloria Estefan & James Ingram)
18 Man in the Mirror (98 Degrees, Usher & Luther Vandross)
19 talk (Elizabeth Taylor)
20 Can You Feel It (Jacksons)
21 ABC - The Love You Save (Jacksons)
22 I'll Be There (Jacksons)
23 talk (Jacksons)
24 I Want You Back (Jacksons)
25 Dancing Machine (Jacksons & NSYNC)
26 Shake Your Body [Down to the Ground] (Jacksons)
27 The Way You Make Me Feel (Michael Jackson & Britney Spears)
28 talk (Chris Tucker)
29 Black or White (Michael Jackson, Jason Paige & Slash)
30 Beat It (Michael Jackson, Jason Paige & Slash)
31 Billie Jean (Michael Jackson)
32 You Rock My World (Michael Jackson)
33 We Are the World [Edit] (Michael Jackson, Ray Charles & Everybody)
34 talk [Edit] (Michael Jackson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iBBo6SCr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/zGamSEAhq7LPvJS/file

There are two parts to the cover art. The top part was taken from promotional material from the concert, with some extra text added by me at the bottom. The main photo shows Michael Jackson and Britney Spears singing a duet during this exact concert.

Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to Carole King, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-24-2014

I recently started posting MusiCares tribute concerts. Here's another one. This one honors singer-songwriter Carole King, from 2014.

I've celebrated King's music on this blog quite a bit already. For instance, she and her songwriting partner Gerry Goffin are the subject of six albums in the "Covered" series. If there's an award for songwriting, she probably has gotten it, since she's written more hit songs than just about anybody on the planet. Oh, and her 1971 album "Tapestry" has sold over 15 million copies, making it one of the best selling albums of all time, as well as appearing in the Number 25 spot in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time. Not to shabby. 

This follows the usual format of such benefit concerts. Lost of guest stars performed their versions of King's songs. Then King gave an acceptance speech. Then she played a few songs at the end of the concert. She had a particularly close relationship with James Taylor, going back to the early 1970s, so it's not too surprising that Taylor dueted with her on most of those final songs.

The music here has not been released in audio format. However, it has come out on a DVD. That's how we have a recording, since these MusiCares concerts generally haven't been bootlegged at all. I converted the DVD to audio format, then broke the music into mp3s. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (emcee)
02 Hi De Ho [That Old Sweet Roll] (LeAnn Rimes & Steven Tyler)
03 So Far Away (Pink with Paul Mirkovich)
04 I Feel the Earth Move (Train)
05 talk (Lady Gaga)
06 You've Got a Friend (Lady Gaga)
07 talk (Gloria Estefan)
08 It's Too Late (Gloria Estefan)
09 talk (will.i.am)
10 Love Makes the World - Where Is the Love (will.i.am & Leah McFall)
11 Beautiful (Sara Bareilles, Zac Brown, Jason Mraz & Raining Jane)
12 Way Over Yonder (Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill & Darlene Love)
13 talk (Joy)
14 Where You Lead (Jesse & Joy)
15 Crying in the Rain (Miguel & Kacey Musgraves)
16 talk (Alicia Keys)
17 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Alicia Keys)
18 Been to Canaan (Jennifer Nettles)
19 I'm into Something Good (Amy Grant)
20 It Might as Well Rain until September (Miranda Lambert)
21 One Fine Day (Martina McBride)
22 Up on the Roof (James Taylor)
23 talk (Neil Portnow)
24 talk (Carole King)
25 Home Again (Carole King, Moez Dawad & Ahmad A. El Haggar)
26 Sweet Seasons (Carole King & James Taylor)
27 talk (Carole King & James Taylor)
28 Hey Girl (Carole King & James Taylor)
29 talk (Carole King & James Taylor)
30 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Carole King & James Taylor)
31 talk (Carole King)
32 Jazzman (Carole King & Tom Scott)
33 I Feel the Earth Move (Carole King & Everyone) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LE6zAFv4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Qi10lCVRGcuAGWH/file

The album cover image is from this exact concert. From left to right: James Taylor, Zac Brown, Carole King, Sara Bareilles, and Jennifer Nettles. (I'm not counting the bald headed man behind King. I don't know who he is.)

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Lionel Richie, D.A.R. Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, 3-9-2022

In the past couple of weeks, I've posted some award ceremonies from the (mostly) annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. I've found some, and I'm still looking for others. I put out a request from him, and a kind commenter here named Berni found this one for me. So thanks very much to Berni for that. In 2022, it was Lionel Richie's turn to win the prize.

I'm not going to go into Richie's career here. Suffice to say that he's sold over 100 million records, making him one of the best selling musical acts of all time. And if you're wondering why Richie has won this prize and the likes of Bob Dylan haven't yet, keep in mind the word "popular" in the title of the prize. They're basically awarding the most successful, not necessarily the most critically acclaimed.

The recording of this concert is different from all the other Gershwin Prize ones I've heard so far. Richie was awarded the prize after just two songs sung by others. Richie gave his acceptance speech at that point. Then, after some more songs sung by others, Richie returned to perform a couple of songs at the end of the concert. For all the others, the winner of the prize was given the prize at the end of the concert. I don't know if this is the correct order or if the song order was redone by someone for some reason. But in any case, this is what we have, and I don't have any proof it happened otherwise, so I'm keeping it like this.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality was pretty good. However, I noticed all the vocals were mixed pretty low. So I fixed that with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program.

As an aside, there are two more Gershwin Prize concerts that I'd especially like to find, those for Smokey Robinson and Carole King. But it turns out one can only listen to them if one has a PBS Passport, AND one lives in Wisconsin! Here are the links.

https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/in-performance/-performance-carole-king-library-congress-gershwin-prize-full-episode/

https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/gershwin-prize/gershwin-prize-smokey-robinson-library-congress-gershwin-prize/

If anyone here has donated to PBS and lives in Wisconsin, please help! That music should be available to people everywhere, not just in one U.S. state. Thanks. 

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Dancing on the Ceiling (Gloria Estefan)
02 talk (emcee)
03 talk (Anthony Anderson)
04 Hello (Andra Day)
05 talk (emcee)
06 talk (Carla Hayden)
07 talk (Lionel Richie)
08 talk (emcee)
09 Say You, Say Me (Chris Stapleton)
10 talk (Anthony Anderson)
11 You Are (Miguel)
12 talk (emcee)
13 Easy (Boyz II Men)
14 talk (Anthony Anderson)
15 talk (Luke Bryan)
16 Lady (Luke Bryan)
17 talk (emcee)
18 Jesus Is Love (Yolanda Adams)
19 talk (Anthony Anderson)
20 talk (Lionel Richie)
21 We Are the World (Lionel Richie)
22 All Night Long (Lionel Richie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6ZazeATH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/BW8kawfLWE2PB2R/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Richie with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

Aretha Franklin - Duets, Nederlander Theatre, New York City, 4-28-1993

By the 1990s, Aretha Franklin had fallen from her golden era (1960s and 1970s) when it came to new material, but her mighty voice was still strong. A problem was that she suffered production issues, due to trying to sound current. That wasn't nearly as much of a problem when it came to live performances. Here's a very interesting one, because it's chock-a-block with duets with other big name musicians.

This was a benefit concert done for AIDS research. It was broadcast on national TV in the US as "Duets." As such, it was professionally recorded, and the sound quality is excellent. It also means that things moved very quickly, to make the best use of every second of screen time. Typically, even before the clapping from one song had finished, someone started had started to introduce the next one. Apparently, in real time, the show lasted four hours, with big delays between songs and multiple retakes. But then things were edited down for an hour-long show.

However, I found a review of the concert at the time in the New York Times, which you can read here:

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/29/arts/review-pop-aretha-franklin-in-stellar-company-and-on-her-own.html

From that, it sounds like this contains all of the songs performed, or at least all of the good stuff. (There's mention of a song Franklin lip-synced to at the end, strangely enough.) According to that review, Franklin sang circles around nearly all of her star guests, and I agree.

Musically, she wisely stuck to doing her classic songs, avoiding any songs from her latest album at the time, "What You See Is What You Sweat" (which wasn't very good). She also did two Motown songs she'd never done before, "Just to See Her" and "This Old Heart of Mine."

This seems like the sort of thing that was designed for an official release, but I see no sign of that having ever happened. By the way, it's rather odd in my opinion (since I don't see a logical Aretha connection), but actor Robert De Niro introduced one of the songs. And actor Dustin Hoffman also was on stage, but whatever role he had must have been cut from this recording.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Chain of Fools (Aretha Franklin with Elton John, Smokey Robinson & Rod Stewart)
02 talk (Aretha Franklin & Elton John)
03 Border Song [Holy Moses] (Aretha Franklin & Elton John)
04 talk (Gloria Estefan)
05 Coming Out of the Dark (Aretha Franklin & Gloria Estefan)
06 talk (Smokey Robinson)
07 Just to See Her (Aretha Franklin & Smokey Robinson)
08 talk (Robert De Niro)
09 I Never Loved a Man [The Way I Love You] (Aretha Franklin)
10 Think (Aretha Franklin & P.M. Dawn)
11 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Since You've Been Gone [Sweet Sweet Baby] (Aretha Franklin & Bonnie Raitt)
13 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin with Bonnie Raitt & Gloria Estefan)
14 talk (Rod Stewart)
15 This Old Heart of Mine (Aretha Franklin & Rod Stewart)
16 People Get Ready (Aretha Franklin & Rod Stewart)
17 Spirit in the Dark (Aretha Franklin & Elton John)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289916/ArethaF_1993_DuetNederlandrTheatreNewYrkC__4-28-1993_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. Franklin is in front with her hand held up. Behind her, from left to right, is: Smokey Robinson, Gloria Estefan, Rod Stewart, and Bonnie Raitt. The font, including the colors, comes from one of her albums. I replicated that for the additional writing.