Earthquake Relief Benefit, Cow Palace, Daly City, CA, 11-26-1989, Part 1 - America, Aaron Neville, Eddie Money, the Dynatones, and the Chambers Brothers

It's time for me to start posting another big collection of albums from a major rock festival. This time, it's from the Earthquake Relief Benefit, held in the San Francisco Bay Area in late 1989. I've found enough music to make 19 different albums! This actually was three concerts, all held on the same day, November 26, 1989. This is the first of six albums I'm posting that took place at the Cow Palace in Daly City, just south of San Francisco. 

This album gathers all the musical acts where I only had short sets. For the other five I have from this venue, each musical act gets their own set. The acts here are: the Dynatones, the Chambers Brothers, America, Aaron Neville, and Eddie Money.

These concerts were a reaction to the Loma Prieta earthquake, which happened on October 16, 1989, at 5:04 P.M. (I know the time well, because I was just getting out of a college class in the area when the earthquake hit. We were all okay, but the building suffered structural damage and was later closed for retrofitting.) Famously, a game of the baseball World Series was just minutes from starting at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. It had to be cancelled, but tens of millions of people around the world found out about the earthquake as it happened due to the T.V. broadcast. Although the epicenter was about ten miles northeast of Santa Cruz, there was a lot of damage in San Francisco and Oakland, due to poor construction there. 63 people died, most of them in Oakland. The earthquake registered 6.9 on the Richter Scale. 

There was lots of damage throughout the Bay Area, and thousands of injuries. It so happened the Bay Area had a vibrant music scene, and probably the most altruistic (and well known) concert promoter in the country, Bill Graham. Graham leaped into action, and got these three benefits concerts to take place only about forty days after the earthquake. They ended up raising about two million dollars to relief efforts. That was just a small amount compared to the billions needed, but it's nice to see that so many musical acts wanted to help out just the same. I would bet that even more would have liked to take part, but were tied up with concert tours or other obligations they couldn't get out of on such short notice.

Here's a Wikipedia entry about the earthquake:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake

I understand about five hours of highlights from the different concerts were shown on a local T.V. station that night. The main way funds were raised was by people watching on T.V. and donating over the phone. But, for some reason, we have a lot more than just five hours of highlights. I'm posting about 15 hours of music in total. All of it has the excellent sound quality of a soundboard or FM radio bootleg. I think that's because a lot of it became part of Bill Graham's music archive, which later was made public through the company Wolfgang's Vault, then spread to various bootleg sites. You can find video footage of most of the acts on YouTube, although sometimes one has to dig deep.

However, I couldn't find all of the music acts. Some that were billed to perform at Cow Palace included Maria Muldaur, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Joe Louis Walker, Narada Michael Walden, the Solid Senders, and the Brass Band. I'm pretty sure some or even all of these actually did perform, since I found some mentions of them. Maria Muldaur actually sings a duet with Aaron Neville on this album, but I believe she got her own set as well. And Paul Kantner later performed a song with Crosby, Stills and Nash, so it stands to reason he got his own set too, perhaps with former bandmate Grace Slick. If anyone knows for sure about these acts, and/or actually has the recordings, please let me know. However, according to the promotional material I found, at least I was able to find all of the best known acts.

In case you're curious, the act that performed the longest in this album was Eddie Money. His portion lasts 21 minutes. Also, I'm only guessing about the order of the acts. The exception is the Dynatones. One can tell they were the first act since the emcee introduced them that way.

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 talk by emcee (Dynatones)
02 When I Think about Love (Dynatones)
03 Shoot Your Shot (Dynatones)
04 Hard Way to Go (Dynatones)
05 talk (Chambers Brothers)
06 People Get Ready (Chambers Brothers)
07 Love, Peace and Happiness (Chambers Brothers)
08 Tin Man (America)
09 I Need You (America)
10 Ventura Highway (America)
11 talk (America)
12 Sister Golden Hair (America)
13 A Horse with No Name (America)
14 Gypsy Woman (Aaron Neville)
15 Arianne (Aaron Neville)
16 Danny Boy (Aaron Neville)
17 Don't Know Much - Mickey Mouse Club Theme (Aaron Neville)
18 Amazing Grace (Aaron Neville & Maria Muldaur)
19 Two Tickets to Paradise (Eddie Money)
20 talk (Eddie Money)
21 If I Could Walk on Water (Eddie Money)
22 I Think I'm in Love (Eddie Money)
23 Take Me Home Tonight (Eddie Money)
24 Shakin' (Eddie Money)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JKXrynpt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/dmLzXRfeF7CQTte/file

The cover image shows Aaron Neville at this exact concert, from a screenshot I took of a video. I picked an image of him simply because the image quality was better than the screenshots I could have taken of the other acts here.

America with Christopher Cross - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 3-24-2005

Here's another episode of the great TV series "PBS Soundstage." This one features the band America.

Note that there's a guest star on this, like there are on many episodes of this show. This time, it's Christopher Cross. However, his role is relatively minor compared to other guest appearances on the show. He didn't sing any songs on his own. Instead, he helped sing two big America hits, "Lonely People" and "A Horse with No Name."

When the band was formed in 1970, it consisted of three singer-songwriters: Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek. But Peek left in 1977 never to return, concentrating on a career with Christian music instead. So by the time of this concert, the band was a duo of Beckley and Bunnell. By 2005, their hits were long behind them and they'd turned into a well-honed oldies act. They would have a comeback with a well-received new album in 2007, but that hadn't happened at the time of this concert.

So one gets all the expected hits from the band's heyday in the 1970s and 80s. Although this show is unreleased as an audio album, it has been released on DVD, which is why this episode is longer than the show's usual one hour time. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long. 

01 Riverside (America)
02 Ventura Highway (America)
03 You Can Do Magic (America)
04 talk (America)
05 Don't Cross the River (America)
06 Daisy Jane (America)
07 talk (America)
08 The Last Unicorn (America)
09 I Need You (America)
10 Head and Heart (America)
11 Till the Sun Comes Up Again (America)
12 Tin Man (America)
13 talk (America)
14 Muskrat Love (America)
15 talk (America)
16 The Border (America)
17 talk (America)
18 Woman Tonight (America)
19 Only in Your Heart (America)
20 talk (America)
21 California Dreamin' (America)
22 talk (America)
23 Lonely People (America with Christopher Cross)
24 Sandman (America)
25 Sister Golden Hair (America)
26 All My Life (America)
27 A Horse with No Name (America with Christopher Cross) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2xwcW7Gx

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/EeqBz8ePGjYm0CA/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

America - Musikladen, Bremen, Germany, 11-13-1974

America had a series of soft rock hits, mainly from 1971 to 1975. There has never been an official live album from their prime early 1970s one, so I'm posting the best bootleg I could find. (There is a live album, simply called "Live," recorded and released in 1977. But it has some problems, including the fact that it was recorded just after the band turned from a trio to a duo.) Because this took place near the end of their most successful era, it contains pretty much all of their big hits with the exception of 1975's "Sister Golden Hair."

This is kind of a strange recording because it's not exactly a concert. The band had a chance to appear on the German TV show "Musikladen." They played a bunch of songs without any audience. There was very little talking between the songs because I think they had the impression that just the songs would be broadcast. 

In the end, from what I could figure out, I think just one song was actually broadcast on the show, "Mad Dog." This is ironic because it's not included here. One can see from video footage that it was recorded at the same time and place, but I haven't included it because fake audience noise was added, and even worse, some announcer talked over much of the song in German. I found it too annoying to even include as a bonus track.

What we do have here is about 40 minutes of music with excellent sound quality. The lack of any audience really helps allow one to hear every note of their songs. The band consists of just the main trio of the band, plus a bassist and drummer.

01 Ventura Highway (America)
02 talk (America)
03 I Need You (America)
04 talk (America)
05 Don't Cross the River (America)
06 A Horse with No Name (America)
07 Moon Song (America)
08 talk (America)
09 Lonely People (America)
10 Wind Wave (America)
11 Rainbow Song (America)
12 talk (America)
13 Tin Man (America)
14 California Revisited (America)
15 Green Monkey (America)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288722/Amerca_1974_MuskldenBremnGermany__11-13-1974_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I took a screenshot from the video of this show, which can be found on YouTube. To that, I added the band name, using the exact font used on many of their albums. I also threw in the Musikladen logo, since I found that too.