Various Artists - Children of the Americas Radiothon, United Nations Building, New York City, and Palace Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 11-12-1988

Here's another big benefit concert with a bunch of different famous musical acts. But this one was unusual in a couple of ways. For one, it was held in two locations simultaneously and broadcast live over the radio. And for the other, it's quite an odd selection of acts. I like all of them, but it seems pretty random to me to have, say, Pat Benatar followed by Al Stewart, then followed by Midnight Oil, and so on, which is what happened here. But hey, it's all good music, with excellent sound quality.

This benefit concert certainly had a good cause, which was to fund non-profits helping poor children in Latin America. This was the second annual concert for this cause. I don't know anything about the first concert or subsequent ones. But we know about this one because it was broadcast live on the radio, and a bootleg recording of it survives.

I made many, many edits to make this listenable. The concert took the form of a radiothon, which is just like a telethon, except for the radio instead of TV. And if you're familiar with telethons at all, you know they're notorious for constantly asking for donations. That's what happened here. Between acts, and even during acts, there were emcees giving pleas to donate, with the donation phone number in particular repeated endlessly. Even the musical artists would sometimes mention the phone number between songs. I got rid of all that because it's all moot now, with the number obviously no longer working. I stripped this down to just the music and the banter relevant to the music.

I also did some edits to make this flow better. Oftentimes, as soon as a song wound end, the emcee's voice would come on with more pleas for donations. So I would patch in some more applause to give the songs a decent sounding ending. I didn't bother marking those edits with "[Edit]" in the song titles, 'cos I did it so much.

Some of the acts performed at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles. Those were Jackson Browne, Midnight Oil, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY), plus earlier appearances by Graham Nash and David Crosby. All the other acts performed at the United Nations Building in New York City. Note that the crowd in Los Angeles sounds much larger than the one in New York City. I'm guessing only a few dozen were allowed into the United Nations Building for this, based on the clapping one can hear.  

The star attraction here was CSNY. They put out a new album in 1988, "American Dream," but Neil Young decided not to take part in a tour to support it. However, he did take part in a very limited number of concerts with CSN around this time. There was the Bridge Benefit in 1988 (which I have also posted here), the Bridge Benefit in 1989, and this. (There also were a couple more in 1987 and 1990 and 1991, if you want to go that far.)

It's quite possible that there was more to these two concerts that what was heard here. For instance, there was no introduction to the CSNY set, and I doubt they started with the new song "This Old House." It also seems odd that Midnight Oil would have been recruited but only played less than ten minutes of music. I'm guessing this is just the stuff that made it to the radio broadcast, and while music was broadcast from one location, we were probably missing the music taking place at the other location. If anyone has any more of it, please let me know.  

This album is two hours and 25 minutes long.

01 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash)
02 talk (Emcee)
03 I Love L.A. (Randy Newman)
04 Dixie Flyer (Randy Newman)
05 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
06 talk (Randy Newman)
07 Political Science (Randy Newman)
08 Short People (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 I Want You to Hurt like I Do (Randy Newman)
11 talk (David Crosby)
12 Crow on the Cradle (Jackson Browne & Graham Nash)
13 talk (David Crosby)
14 talk (Jackson Browne)
15 Lives in the Balance (Jackson Browne with David Crosby & Graham Nash)
16 talk (Jackson Browne)
17 My Personal Revenge (Jackson Browne with Sangre Machuwa)
18 talk (Jackson Browne)
19 Fruita Almarga [Bitter Fruit] (Jackson Browne)
20 talk (Jackson Browne)
21 Lene Verde [Instrumental] (Jackson Browne with Sangre Machuwa)
22 talk (Graham Nash)
23 Rock Me on the Water (Jackson Browne with David Crosby & Graham Nash)
24 Powerful Stuff (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
25 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
26 Look at That, Look at That (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
27 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
28 She's Tough (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
29 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
30 Wrap It Up (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
31 talk (Pat Benatar)
32 All Fired Up (Pat Benatar)
33 Run Between the Raindrops (Pat Benatar)
34 talk (Pat Benatar)
35 Let's Stay Together (Pat Benatar)
36 talk (Emcee)
37 Antarctica (Al Stewart)
38 talk (Al Stewart)
39 Princess Olivia (Al Stewart)
40 The Year of the Cat (Al Stewart)
41 talk (Graham Nash)
42 Wealth Is Virtue (Midnight Oil)
43 The Dead Heart (Midnight Oil)
44 This Old House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
45 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
46 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
47 Name of Love (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
48 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
49 Tracks in the Dust (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
50 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
51 Don't Say Goodbye (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
52 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
56 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 My Country 'Tis of Thee (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with J. D. Souther)

https://www.imagenetz.de/ekP5X

I found the cover image from some promotional art related to this concert. It's a drawing of all the major stars that took part. In the top row, from left to right: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In the bottom row, from left to right: Jackson Browne, Pat Benatar, Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, and Randy Newman. The banner at the top was in the original, but I changed the text there, and added more text at the bottom. 

I couldn't find any actual photos from this concert, so I'm lucky to have found this.