Michael McDonald & Friends - A Tribute to Motown, PBS Soundstage, Nashville, TN, 6-2005

Here is another episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" T.V. show. This one stars, Michael McDonald, but it has a bunch of special guests as well: Billy Preston, Toni Braxton, Take 6, and Indie.Arie. All the songs they performed are covers of Motown classics from the 1960s and 70s.

McDonald has been on the Soundstage show quite a lot. He was a key member of the Doobie Brothers when they hosted the show in 1979. He also hosted it in 2003 with some other guests. And he was a guest on an episode hosted by Kenny Loggins. And I believe he will be on at least one more episode that I have yet to post.

In this case, I would bet the show had him back because of the Motown theme to the episode, meaning that the songs were different from the ones he played on other episodes. At the time he was going through quite a Motown phase. In 2003, he released an all covers album just called "Motown," And in 2004, he released a sequel called "Motown 2." The special guests were not on those albums, with the exception of Toni Braxton. The duet she sang here with McDonald, "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," also appeared as a duet on his "Motown 2" album. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

An hour and six minutes long. 

01 I Second That Emotion (Michael McDonald)
02 talk (Michael McDonald)
03 I Was Made to Love Her (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
04 talk (Michael McDonald)
05 What's Going On (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
06 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Michael McDonald)
07 talk (Michael McDonald)
08 All in Love Is Fair (Michael McDonald)
09 talk (Michael McDonald)
10 Stop, Look, Listen [To Your Heart] (Michael McDonald & Toni Braxton)
11 talk (Michael McDonald)
12 Baby I'm for Real (Michael McDonald)
13 talk (Michael McDonald)
14 Tracks of My Tears (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
15 talk (Michael McDonald)
16 Since I Lost My Baby (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
17 talk (Michael McDonald)
18 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Michael McDonald)
19 talk (Michael McDonald)
20 You're All I Need to Get By (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
21 Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
22 talk (Michael McDonald)
23 Nowhere to Run (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
24 talk (Michael McDonald) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vR3Pfbkj 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4RldNOOrxv6NA5X/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. It shows Toni Braxton standing in the foreground and Michael McDonald sitting at the keyboards further back. 

Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to James Taylor, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 2-6-2006

Here's another MusiCares tribute concert. I only have a couple more of these after this one, and I want to post them in the next days. This one honors James Taylor.

This concert followed the usual format for these kinds of things: a bonus of famous musical acts sang covers of his songs, then he accepted an award and gave a speech, and finally he played a couple of his songs. If you look at the song lists, a lot of big names showed up to perform his songs, including Bruce Springsteen. 

Another big name also played one of his songs at the concert: Paul Simon sung "Sweet Baby James." But unfortunately, this is sourced from a DVD, but that song wasn't included, and I couldn't find any version of it anywhere. If anyone has it, please let me know so I can add it in.

I know Simon played that song in this concert, because it's mentioned in this article, which is a good summary of the concert in general:

MusiCares Honors Singer James Taylor - CBS News 

Also, while trying to find a good photo for the cover art, I went through a stash of hundreds of photos from the concert, and noticed that other big names like Neil Young and Brian Wilson attended. But I doubt they performed, or they probably would have been mentioned in that news article I just linked to. 

As mentioned above, this is sourced from an official DVD, so the sound quality is excellent. No version is any audio format has been released. As I sometimes do, I converted the video to audio, then broke it into mp3s.

This album is an hour and 18 minutes long. 

01 talk (Bill Clinton)
02 talk (emcee)
03 talk (Dixie Chicks)
04 Shower the People (Dixie Chicks)
05 talk (emcee)
06 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
07 Rainy Day Man (Bonnie Raitt)
08 talk (emcee)
09 talk (India.Arie)
10 Secret o' Life (India.Arie)
11 talk (emcee)
12 talk (Jackson Browne, David Crosby & Sheryl Crow)
13 Mexico (Jackson Browne, David Crosby & Sheryl Crow)
14 talk (emcee)
15 talk (Sting)
16 You Can Close Your Eyes (Sting)
17 talk (Dr. John & Taj Mahal)
18 Everybody Has the Blues (Dr. John & Taj Mahal)
19 talk (Alison Krauss & Jerry Douglas)
20 Carolina in My Mind (Alison Krauss & Jerry Douglas)
21 talk (emcee)
22 talk (Keith Urban)
23 Country Road (Keith Urban)
24 talk (emcee)
25 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
26 Millworker (Bruce Springsteen)
27 talk (Carole King)
28 You've Got a Friend (Carole King with James Taylor)
29 talk (Neil Portnow)
30 talk (James Taylor)
31 Shed a Little Light (James Taylor)
32 talk (James Taylor)
33 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (James Taylor)
34 Fire and Rain (James Taylor)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/T6dgDM1s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5ezYaz8DOi7Zc9L/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Taylor receiving the award from Neil Portnow, the head of MusiCares at the time. 

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Stevie Wonder, White House, Washington, DC, 2-25-2009

Here's another "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" concert, honoring Stevie Wonder in 2009. It was the first one with President Barack Obama's direct involvement, and the second one overall.

This concert followed a typical format of a number of guest stars performing songs made famous by the winner, Stevie Wonder, then a short induction ceremony, then a short set by the winner. The one bummer in my opinion is that the concert was rather short. This one is a half hour shorter than the concert honoring Paul McCartney a year later. One nice bonus though is not only President Obama's involvement, but also a short introduction by First Lady Michelle Obama. 

This album remains unreleased. I got lucky and found an mp3 of the entire show. Then I broke it into individual mp3s for each song. (I could still use help from anyone who has a PBS pass that allows them to watch PBS shows on the Internet in order to get some of the other Gershwin Prize concerts!)

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 talk (Michelle Obama)
02 Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
03 talk (emcee)
04 Overjoyed (Esperanza Spalding)
05 talk (emcee)
06 For Once in My Life (Tony Bennett)
07 talk (emcee)
08 Blame It on the Sun (Diana Krall)
09 talk (emcee)
10 Higher Ground (Mary Mary)
11 talk (emcee)
12 Summer Soft (India.Arie)
13 talk (emcee)
14 You and I (Martina McBride)
15 talk (emcee)
16 Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer (Anita Johnson)
17 talk (emcee)
18 If It's Magic (Paul Simon)
19 talk (Barack Obama)
20 talk (Stevie Wonder)
21 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
22 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
23 talk (Barack Obama)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZbWEnVNS

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/0Yh30jfYQR6JITn/file 

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Songs in the Key of Life - A Grammy Awards Tribute to Stevie Wonder, Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 2-10-2015

Here's something a little different than my usual stuff. It's a tribute concert for Stevie Wonder. But because it's from relatively recently, 2015, it has a whole different bunch of musical acts performing songs for him than those that typically show up in these kinds of tribute concerts that I post. There are very big stars that I usually don't have on my blog, such as Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, and Ariana Grande. Whether you like those kinds of stars or not, they all performed classic Stevie Wonder songs, so it was very hard to go wrong. Plus, the concert ended with a short set by Stevie Wonder himself.

This concert was professionally recorded and broadcast on TV in 2015. I hasn't been officially released in any format as far as I know, not even on video. But I found the video of it on YouTube. The sound quality is excellent, so I did my usual thing of converting it to audio and cutting it into individual mp3s. 

I edited out some sections where there was talking while video montages of Wonder's life were shown on a big screen. That didn't translate well to just a listening experience. I also edited out some speeches that didn't have much do to with the songs performed. There also is some banter by famous people who weren't always introduced, or at least not introduced each time, like LL Cool J, Jamie Foxx, and Tyler Perry. So keep an eye on the song list for those details.

This album is an hour and 20 minutes long.

01 Fingertips, Part 2 (Beyonce)
02 Master Blaster [Jammin'] (Beyonce & Ed Sheeran)
03 Higher Ground (Beyonce, Ed Sheeran & Gary Clark Jr.)
04 talk (LL Cool J)
05 I Believe [When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever] (John Legend)
06 talk (Maya Rudolph)
07 talk (Lady Gaga)
08 I Wish (Lady Gaga)
09 talk (Jason Derulo)
10 Signed, Sealed, Delivered [I'm Yours] (Ariana Grande & Babyface)
11 talk (LL Cool J)
12 My Cheri Amour (Annie Lennox)
13 talk (Pharrell Williams)
14 Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing (Pharrell Williams & Ryan Tedder)
15 talk (Tony Bennett)
16 For Once in My Life (Tony Bennett)
17 I Was Made to Love Her (Ed Sheeran)
18 talk (Tyler Perry)
19 You Haven't Done Nuthin' (Band Perry)
20 talk (Mary Wilson)
21 talk (Janelle Monae, India.Arie & Jill Scott)
22 As (Janelle Monae, India.Arie & Jill Scott)
23 talk (Andrea Bocelli)
24 I Just Called to Say I Love You (Andrea Bocelli)
25 talk (Jennifer Hudson)
26 All in Love Is Fair (Jennifer Hudson)
27 talk (LL Cool J)
28 Isn't She Lovely (Ne-Yo with Aisha Wonder)
29 talk (Jamie Foxx)
30 Contusion [Instrumental] (Stevie Wonder)
31 Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
32 You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Stevie Wonder)
33 Overjoyed - Ribbon in the Sky (Stevie Wonder)
34 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
35 talk (LL Cool J with the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr)
36 talk (Stevie Wonder)
37 Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder & Everyone)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16667103/VA-2015SngsinthKyofLfeAGrmmyAwrdTrbteNkaThetrLsAnglsCA__2-10-2015_atse.zip.html

 The cover is from this exact concert. From left to right, that's Stevie Wonder on piano, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, and Jennifer Hudson.