Various Artists - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Waldorf Astoria, New York City, 1-20-1988

Yesterday (January 28, 2026), Bruce Springsteen dropped a new song about the current problems with ICE in Minneapolis, called "Streets of Minneapolis." It's good to see a protest song that addresses current issues, since there haven't been many of those in recent years. (He wrote, recorded, and released it in four days!) Here's a link, if you haven't heard it already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w 

Anyway, I wanted to post something from Springsteen after hearing that inspiring song. However, some recent computer problems I've been having have flared up again, which means I currently can't use Photoshop, which in turn means I can't make new album covers until that's fixed. So I looked around to see if I had some Springsteen-related album ready to go, cover and all. Luckily, I did. (I have soooo many albums I could post tomorrow, if only I had the time to finish them off. Sigh!) This one doesn't have a ton of Springsteen content, but it's a really interesting (thought short) concert. So, in a way, my current computer issues have an upside in that they're getting me to finally post this.

Now, finally, to the music. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started in the early 1980s. In 1986, they had their first induction ceremony, complete with a short concert featuring some of the inductees and other famous musicians. This has become a yearly tradition. Some concerts have been a lot more memorable than others. In my opinion, the ones from 1988 and 1989 were the most interesting, with the biggest star power. I haven't collected the others (though I very may well do so with some of them in the future), but I've made albums of those two. This is the 1988 one.

1988 was a really big year for the Hall of Fame, because their rule is that artists are only eligible for induction 25 years after their first record (be it a single or album). And when they were making their decisions in 1987 for this ceremony, that meant they were looking at the artists who put out their first records in 1962. It just so happens that was the first year of recordings for the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys! Those are three of the biggest and most influential musical acts of all time. The Drifters and the Supremes were inducted that year as well, plus some non-performers, like Berry Gordy.

The induction ceremony had a lot of intrigue and drama in it. The Beatles are arguably the biggest (and best, IMHO!) musical act ever, so they were the main focus here, even overshadowing Dylan and the other very big names. Since John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, he was represented by his wife Yoko Ono, and his sons Julian Lennon and Sean Lennon, and each of them gave short speeches. Ex-Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr were there, and also gave speeches. 

However, the big no-show was Paul McCartney. He was in the middle of a lawsuit still connected to the break-up of the band back in 1970, so he felt he couldn't attend due to that. He put out a statement: "I was keen to go to and pick up my award, but after 20 years the Beatles still have some business differences which I had hoped would have been settled by now. Unfortunately, they haven't been [settled], so I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with [Harrison and Starr] at a fake reunion." 

It turns out the lawsuit, which involved the division of profits from record sales, was settled a year later. So that was unfortunate timing as far as this concert goes. But at least that opened the door to the "Anthology" collaboration between the ex-Beatles a few years later.

Normally, when I post albums like this, I skip long speeches and focus on the music. But I'm making an exception here. I didn't include all the induction speeches, but I thought the ones relating to the induction of the Beatles and Dylan were important enough to include. They're all together at the beginning of this album, and they are about 19 minutes long in total. If you don't want to hear them, or just hear them once or twice, there's still about 40 minutes of music after that.

A big element of the drama involved Mike Love, a member of the Beach Boys. Love is one of the most notorious assholes in rock and roll, something I've discussed in other posts. But he really outdid himself this time. He appeared to be drunk, and used his induction speech to insult various famous musicians in the audience. This led to a funny quip from Dylan during his acceptance speech: when he listed people he wanted to thank, he thanked Love for not mentioning him in his speech!

Anyway, there are lots of interesting stories about what happened during this event. But instead of trying to summarize them all here, I'll just point out to an article from Rolling Stone Magazine that does a good job:

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

I've also posted a text file in the download zip that has the text to that article.

Regarding the music here, everything was professionally recorded, so the sound quality is excellent. However, I found the lead vocals were rather low in most of the songs, so I boosted that up with the help of the MVSEP program. Also, there was a problem in the performance of "Stop in the Name of Love." Mary Wilson of the Supremes was asked to sing the song (since Diana Ross was another prominent no show). But it was clear for this songs, as well as all the other songs, that there hadn't been any practice beforehand, so everyone was just winging it. For the first chorus at the start of the song, Wilson sang the song in one key, while the band (or at least most of it) played in another key. That sounds pretty painful to my ears. So I erased that, and patched in a chorus from later in the song. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Oh, also, during all the talking between songs, where band leader Paul Shaffer was trying to direct things, one or more people on stage kept playing guitar so loudly that it nearly drowned out what anyone was saying. So for most of those tracks, I used MVSEP to lower the volume of the guitar enough to make the talking more audible.  

The songs "I Saw Her Standing There" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" were officially released on the compilation album "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Volume 1: 1986-1991." Everything else here remains unreleased.

By the way, when it comes to the song list below, I only listed the name of the main lead singers. For all the songs, there was one of the most amazing gatherings of musical talent ever seen on one stage together. But it's next to impossible to figure out who was on stage doing what, other than the lead vocals. So that's why I kept the credits in the titles relatively simple. 

However, just as one example, it was Jeff Beck who started playing the "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" riff that led to that song being played, right when it seemed everyone was leaving the stage. Some of the others who were on stage at least part of the time but don't get mentioned in the song titles include: Neil Young, Paul Simon, Johnny Moore, Joe Blunt, Clyde Brown, Tom Fogerty, Les Paul, Arlo Guthrie, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Little Richard, Peter Wolf,  Dave Edmunds, Jeff Lynne, Julian Lennon, Sean Lennon, Little Steven, and Clarence Clemons.  

This album is an hour and six minutes long. 

01 talk (Mick Jagger)
02 talk (Ringo Starr)
03 talk (George Harrison)
04 talk (Yoko Ono)
05 talk (Julian Lennon)
06 talk (Sean Lennon)
07 talk (Bruce Springsteen)
08 talk (Bob Dylan)
09 Twist and Shout (Johnny Moore)
10 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan with George Harrison)
11 talk (Paul Shaffer)
12 I Saw Her Standing There (Billy Joel & Bruce Springsteen)
13 talk (Paul Shaffer)
14 Stand by Me (Ben E. King & Julian Lennon)
15 talk (Paul Shaffer)
16 Stop in the Name of Love [Edit] (Mary Wilson)
17 talk (Paul Shaffer)
18 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Hound Dog - Honey Hush (Elton John)
19 talk (Paul Shaffer)
20 Barbara Ann (Beach Boys)
21 talk (Paul Shaffer & John Fogerty)
22 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty with Bruce Springsteen)
23 talk (Paul Shaffer & John Fogerty)
24 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan with Bruce Springsteen)
25 talk (Paul Shaffer)
26 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Mick Jagger with Bruce Springsteen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SpmdHRju

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/yv9ChPKPJqpFcYT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Mick Jagger.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 2: Ben E. King, Roberta Flack, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the Average White Band, Ruth Brown, Debbie Gibson & Robert Plant

Here's the second part of a six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert.

I explained the basics about the concert in my write-up for part one. So read that if you want to know about the concert in general.

Ben E. King was a big soul music star back in the 1950s and early 1960s, both with the Drifters and as a solo act. But in 1986, two years prior to this concert, a reissue of his song "Stand by Me" reached the Top Ten in the U.S. and Number One in Britain.

Technically, Emerson, Lake and Palmer didn't perform at this concert. Instead, for one album only in 1988, Greg Lake left the group and was replaced by Robert Berry. They released a studio album using the group name "3." Then Lake rejoined the band, replacing Berry in time for the next album. For this concert, they were introduced as "Emerson and Palmer," with Berry and the group name "3" being ignored. I'm calling the band "Emerson, Lake and Palmer" so their music can be easily found with site searches and labels and such.

In retrospect, I think Debbie Gibson got too much time in this concert. Her set was 15 minutes long, making it longer than a lot of other acts who made it into various halls of fame. For instance, she had a longer set than Ruth Brown, despite the fact that she was such a big star for Atlantic Records for the first ten years of the company's existence that its nickname was "The House that Ruth Built." (Even the Wikipedia entry about the record company mentions that nickname.) But the timing was just right for Gibson. She had a huge debut album in 1987, which sold three million copies in the U.S. Her second album in 1989 would also be a big seller. But after that her sales fell off a cliff and she largely disappeared as a big star. I give her kudos for writing all her own songs. But I wouldn't be surprised if some people skip or delete her set.

I know of some music from this part of the concert that I couldn't find. Ruth Brown sang a second song, "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean." Emerson, Lake and Palmer (or 3, or Emerson and Palmer) played one other song, "Fanfare for the Common Man." The Average White Band did two other songs, "I Got Work to Do" and "Person to Person." I don't know when it happened, but probably early in this concert, Herbie Mann played a set of the songs "Push Push," "Soul Serenade," and "Memphis Underground." Also at some point, Vanilla Fudge played two songs, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Take Me for a Little While."

Robert Plant had lots of success as a solo artist in the 1980s. So he got a three song set in this portion of the show, while also singing lead with Led Zeppelin later in the show.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

By the way, note that the track numbering continues from the numbering of the previous part, in case you want to listen to all the concert as one huge album.

021 talk (Stephen Stills)
022 Spanish Harlem (Ben E. King)
023 talk (Ben E. King)
024 There Goes My Baby (Ben E. King)
025 Save the Last Dance for Me (Ben E. King)
026 Killing Me Softly with His Song (Roberta Flack)
027 The Closer I Get to You (Roberta Flack & Peabo Bryson)
028 America - Blue Rondo a la Turk [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
029 Pick Up the Pieces [Instrumental] (Average White Band)
030 Teardrops from My Eyes (Ruth Brown)
031 talk (Lisa Bonet)
032 Staying Together (Debbie Gibson)
033 Foolish Beat (Debbie Gibson)
034 Out of the Blue - Shake Your Love - Only in My Dreams (Debbie Gibson)
035 talk (Debbie Gibson)
036 Happy Birthday (Debbie Gibson)
037 talk (Phil Collins)
038 Heaven Knows (Robert Plant)
039 talk (Robert Plant)
040 Ship of Fools (Robert Plant)
041 talk (Robert Plant)
042 Tall Cool One (Robert Plant)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FWMHka7W

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/njDAQ0s6ftPW7fx/file

The cover photo of Ben E. King is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Prince's Trust Rock Gala, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 6-5-1987

I just posted the Prince's Trust concert from 1986. This is the 1987 concert. It's the same basic idea, but many of the songs and performers are different. Both are very worthwhile listens.

Like the 1986 concert, this one started with some newer musical acts. With the benefit of hindsight, some were good choices, and others... not so much (cough cough, Curiosity Killed the Cat and Go West, cough cough). But if you don't like all the artists, that's okay, because none of the first few acts lasted more than a single song.

There were fewer big name artists in this concert than the 1986 one. Plus, the entire concert was about half an hour shorter. (If, in fact, this is the whole thing - I'm not entirely sure.) But on the other hand, the finale was probably even more impressive. I'll get to that in a minute.

First though, I want to point out that, like the 1986 concert, for many of the songs, there was a backing band made up of many stars. I don't know which songs exactly, because I can't find the full video of this concert on YouTube. But, for instance, when Ben E. King sang his song, his backing band included Phil Collins on drums, Midge Ure on rhythm guitar, and Eric Clapton on lead guitar.

But the big deal was the finale. In the 1986, the biggest star was ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. But the 1987 concert outdid that by having two ex-Beatles performing together: George Harrison and Ringo Starr! Harrison's appearance was a particularly big deal because he hadn't performed in concert since his 1974 tour (other than a couple of brief appearances in the finales of other artist's concerts). 

I randomly stumbled across a description of the concert's finale in a 2015 article in Guitar World Magazine. Here it is:

"On June 5, 1987, three of the five original musicians who appeared on the classic Beatles 'White Album' track 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' reunited to perform the song live at the Prince's Trust Rock Gala in London's Wembley Arena. George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Eric Clapton were joined in an all-star U.K. band, including Elton John, Phil Collins, Jeff Lynne, Ray Cooper, and... well, if you're wondering who that understandably happy bassist is, it's Mark King from Level 42. Harrison, Starr, and Clapton last performed the song live 16 years earlier at the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City. What most interesting about this performance is the fact that A., the normally Strat-happy Clapton is playing a beautiful Gibson Les Paul, just as he did on the original 1968 recording, and B., the also-Strat-happy Harrison joins Clapton in the extended guitar solo at the end of the song. The two guitarists trade solos and feed off each other's energy, and their intertwining lines are often pretty damn cool."

In addition to that, someone, I'm guessing Clapton, played a guitar solo for "With a Little Help from My Friends," a song that normally lacked any solo. It's a shame that Jeff Lynne apparently didn't sing any of his Electric Light Orchestra hits. But he sang backing vocals on all three of the Beatles songs at the end. Given that Lynne is a huge Beatles fan, this must have been the closest he ever got to a fantasy of being a part of the Beatles, getting to sing with Harrison and Starr, with Clapton on guitar for good measure!

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long.

01 Running in the Family (Level 42 with Eric Clapton)
02 If I Was (Midge Ure)
03 Misfit (Curiosity Killed the Cat)
04 Don't Look Down (Go West)
05 Invisible (Alison Moyet)
06 Through the Barricades (Spandau Ballet)
07 [Something Inside] So Strong (Labi Siffre)
08 Run to You (Bryan Adams)
09 Hearts on Fire (Bryan Adams)
10 Somebody (Bryan Adams)
11 talk (Dave Edmunds & Bryan Adams)
12 The Wanderer (Dave Edmunds & Bryan Adams)
13 talk (Eric Clapton)
14 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton)
15 Behind the Mask (Eric Clapton)
16 Stand by Me (Ben E. King)
17 talk (Phil Collins)
18 Reach Out, I'll Be There - I Can't Help Myself - Same Old Song (Phil Collins & Paul Young)
19 You've Lost That Loving Feeling (Phil Collins & Paul Young)
20 talk (Elton John)
21 Your Song (Elton John)
22 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)
23 talk (George Harrison & Ringo Starr)
24 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George Harrison & Eric Clapton with Ringo Starr & Jeff Lynne)
25 Here Comes the Sun (George Harrison with Ringo Starr & Jeff Lynne)
26 With a Little Help from My Friends (Ringo Starr with George Harrison, Eric Clapton & Jeff Lynne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/W4HtwzDd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6mOchiVwGJ0ZR4P/file

I searched the Internet pretty thoroughly for a color version of the group photo from this concert. All I could find was a black and white version. I tinted it blue. If anyone can find the color version, please let me know so I can upgrade this. There are way too many people in the photo for me to try to make a colorized version.

Various Artists - Apollo Hall of Fame, Apollo Theatre, New York City, 7-15-1993

The Apollo Theatre is a concert venue in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem with a legendary history. With Harlem being a predominantly black neighborhood and a center of black cultural trends, it's best known for featuring black musicians, especially in the soul genre. In 1993, the people running the venue decided to start a yearly hall of fame ceremony. For their first one, they had a two hour show broadcast on national TV honoring the first few inductees. Apparently, this hall of fame tradition has continued, but I've only found good recordings from the 1993 one.

I haven't been able to find the full show, so I only know bits and pieces. But it seems that year's inductees included Ray Charles, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald.

Here's an article about it, from Variety Magazine at the time:

Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame - Variety

Ray Charles showed up and played, but James Brown did not. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald had passed away by that time. But many other famous musicians performed. Some were in tribute to the inductees. For instance, Diana Ross sang two of Billie Holiday's songs. But other performers just seemed to be celebrating the legacy of the Apollo Theatre in general. 

When it comes to bootleg recordings, this concert is best known for the last few songs, led by blues guitarist B. B. King. First, he did a duet with guitarist Eric Clapton on the song "Rock Me Baby." Then he brought on guitarists Jeff Beck, Albert Collins, and Buddy Guy as well. The five of them all played solos on the same song, "Sweet Little Angel." After that, they were joined by everyone else from earlier in the show for the finale "Let the Good Times Roll." That probably was the only time those five guitar legends all played on stage together.

But the rest of the show has a lot going for it. Many soul legends from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s played. Some of them were getting up there in age and this would be their last time on a national TV, a kind of last hurrah.

This album is 54 minutes long. The TV special was two hours long. Even if you figure in time for commercials, there are songs I've missed. I found about half of this from a high quality bootleg, and the other half from YouTube videos. But, in my opinion, the sound quality is about the same from the two sources.

By the way, note that the shows two hosts were the actors Danny Glover and Bill Cosby. Since then, Cosby has been hit by sex scandal and has been imprisoned. It's strange for me to hear him host this show in light of what's happened to him. I've tried to minimize his comments between songs, but I kept the bare minimum in for things to be understood.

01 talk (Smokey Robinson)
02 This Little Light of Mine (Smokey Robinson & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
03 talk (Smokey Robinson)
04 Little Girl of Mine (Smokey Robinson & the Cleftones)
05 talk (Smokey Robinson)
06 Good Times (Bryan Adams & Smokey Robinson)
07 talk (Chuck Jackson)
08 Any Day Now (Chuck Jackson)
09 talk (Ben E. King)
10 Save the Last Dance (Ben E. King)
11 talk (Al Green)
12 Let's Stay Together (Al Green)
13 talk (Teddy Pendergrass)
14 Close the Door (Teddy Pendergrass)
15 Stand by Me (Ben E. King, Chuck Jackson, Al Green & Teddy Pendergrass)
16 Still Crazy After All These Years (Ray Charles)
17 talk (Diana Ross)
18 God Bless the Child (Diana Ross)
19 Fine and Mellow (Diana Ross)
20 talk (B. B. King)
21 Rock Me Baby (B. B. King & Eric Clapton)
22 talk (B. B. King)
23 Sweet Little Angel (B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Albert Collins & Buddy Guy)
24 talk (B. B. King)
25 Let the Good Times Roll (B. B. King & Everyone)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701193/VA-ApolloHallFmeAplloThetreNYC__7-15-1993_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I found a photo of all five guitarists that played together near the end of the show. From left to right, it's Jeff Beck, Albert Collins, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, and Buddy Guy. It looks like the photo was taken backstage before or after the show. It's rather blurry, so if you know of a better version, or a better one, please let me know.