Various Artists - Let's Go Crazy: A Grammy Salute to Prince, Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-28-2020

A couple of days ago, I posted a Grammy tribute to Paul Simon in 2022. That's not the only such Grammy tribute, although they haven't always happened yearly. Here's one from 2020, paying tribute to Prince, who died in 2016.

In the Paul Simon tribute, there was a lot of talking between songs. But in this one, this is almost no banter whatsoever. It's possible some of that was cut out of the version I found, since even the applause at the ends of songs was usually brutally cut short after just a second or two. To make this a better flowing listen, I usually patched in more applause between songs, to give more breathing room before the next song began. 

There are lots of interesting versions of Prince's most famous songs here, often done by big name stars. Since most of Prince's songs are upbeat and funky, and there's no banter between songs, this plays like a party album.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

01 Let's Go Crazy (H.E.R. & Gary Clark Jr.)
02 I Would Die 4 U (Miguel)
03 Nothing Compares 2 U (John Legend)
04 Controversy (St. Vincent)
05 1999 (Juanes)
06 The Beautiful Ones (H.E.R.)
07 Little Red Corvette - When Doves Cry - Kiss (Usher)
08 Manic Monday (Chris Martin & Susanna Hoffs)
09 Jungle Love - Cool - The Bird (Morris Day & the Time)
10 Darling Nikki (Foo Fighters)
11 Adore (Earth, Wind & Fire)
12 Sign O' the Times (Common & Sheila E.)
13 Raspberry Beret (Beck)
14 The Cross (Gary Clark Jr.)
15 America - Free - The Glamorous Life (Sheila E.)
16 Delirious (Maya Rudolph, Gretchen Lieberum & the Revolution)
17 Purple Rain (Mavis Staples & the Revolution)
18 Baby I'm a Star (Sheila E. & All-Stars)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sDXfRJEg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gbGt1ut1LUSTASX/file 

The cover photo shows Chris Martin and Susanna Hoffs singing "Manic Monday" under a giant picture of Prince.

Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to Brian Wilson, Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, CA, 2-11-2005

As I mentioned in my last post, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys died a few days ago as I write this, on June 11, 2025. He's such an important musical figure that I considered it a must to post something in his memory. I did a little Internet browsing, and came across mentions of this tribute concert. However, I could only find a few songs from it, far from the whole thing. But luckily I've recently been getting some assistance from Fabio from Rio, who is a big Brian Wilson / Beach Boys fan. It turned out he had the DVD of this. He then figured out how to convert it to audio format, and sent it to me. So here you are. Earlier today, I posted an album that pays tribute to Brian Wilson created by Fabio, but two tribute albums is better than one.

MusiCares is a non-profit charity that is connected to the organization that runs the yearly Grammy music awards. Since 1991, they've been giving out a yearly award, MusiCares Person of the Year. They have a benefit concert celebrate the music of that person. It takes place in the same town and week as the Grammy awards, so lots of music stars are there to perform on stage or at least attend. The money raised from the benefit concert (and other activities) goes to an organization that helps struggling musicians, for instance those who are having medical trouble or drug addiction and can't afford treatment.

It seems that bootlegs of these yearly MusiCares concerts are basically non-existent. The audiences are relatively small and are mostly made up of music industry insiders who aren't likely to secretly tape record the show and then share that with the public. However, a handful of the concerts have been officially released on DVD. These are generally rare and already out of print. But I've managed to find most of them, concerts for: Paul Simon, James Taylor, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen (plus this one). I plan on posting all of those here eventually. I know of two more that exist: Barbra Streisand and Carole King. I'm not that interested in the Streisand one, but I'd be very interested in the King one, if anyone has that. (Or, heck, if anyone has any of the other concerts not on DVD!)

For this album, I don't feel I need to explain what happened in the concert, because I found not one, but two, articles that give good summaries. Here they are (with the second one from Rolling Stone): 

MusiCares Celebrates Brian Wilson As Person Of The Year | RECORDINGACADEMY.com 

Musicians Serenade Brian Wilson at MusiCares Gala 

I do want to mention though that I'm very disappointed this isn't the complete concert. Almost complete, but a couple of songs are missing, at least. One song that got left off the DVD, and thus left off this album, is a performance by Neil Young of the Beach Boys classic "In My Room." It seems to be the one and only time Young ever publicly performed this song, so it's a real loss. Another one that wasn't included is a duet between India.Arie and Brian Wilson on the even greater classic "God Only Knows." If anyone has either or both of those, please let me know so I can add them in.

Thanks again to Fabio from Rio. I looked everywhere and couldn't find this, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find he had it. After he sent it to me, I broke the audio into mp3s. So I think it's a safe bet that this is the first time this full concert is being shared in an audio format. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
02 I Get Around (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
03 talk (Richie Sambora)
04 City Blues (Richie Sambora)
05 Sail On, Sailor (Jamie Cullum)
06 talk (Barenaked Ladies)
07 Brian Wilson - 'Til I Die (Barenaked Ladies)
08 talk (John Legend)
09 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (John Legend)
10 talk (Backstreet Boys)
11 When I Grow Up [To Be a Man] (Backstreet Boys)
12 talk (Shelby Lynne)
13 Surfer Girl (Shelby Lynne)
14 talk (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
15 Don't Worry Baby (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
16 Surf's Up [Instrumental Version] (Jeff Beck)
17 Surfin' U.S.A. (Jeff Beck)
18 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
19 Don't Talk [Put Your Head on My Shoulder] (Earth, Wind & Fire)
20 talk (Darlene Love)
21 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Darlene Love)
22 Pet Sounds [Instrumental] (Brian Wilson Band)
23 talk (Neil Portnow & Brian Wilson)
24 Our Prayer - Heroes and Villains (Brian Wilson)
25 Good Vibrations (Brian Wilson)
26 Fun, Fun, Fun (Brian Wilson)
27 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gzQuD2sf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/6nJGwuHSdbQCB1H/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's India.Arie with Brian Wilson. 

California Jam, Ontario Motor Speedway, Ontario, CA, 4-6-1974, Part 2: Earth, Wind & Fire

This is the second set from the 1974 California Jam festival. If you want to know more about the festival as a whole, read my write-up to the first set, by Rare Earth.

Earth, Wind & Fire were a somewhat unusual choice for inclusion in this festival. In later years, they would have lots of hits all over the world. In fact, just one year after this concert they would have a Number One hit in the US with the song "Shining Star." But in 1974, they were mainly known to black audiences, with a few minor hits on the soul charts. Whereas the California Jam audience was mostly white, largely consisting of hard rock fans wanting to hear the likes of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Still, the TV broadcast of the concert, helped expose Earth, Wind and Fire to a larger audience.

It appears the recording of their set is complete. However, their song selection was rather unusual, since they didn't play their two recent soul hits, "Mighty Mighty" and "Kalimba Story." Their one other soul hit so far was "Evil," which they did play.

This set remains officially unreleased. The bootleg I used as a source sounded very good, but the vocals were a bit low in the mix, so I fixed that using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 42 minutes long.

Also, note that I start the track listing with 05 instead of 01. That's so you can drop all the different sets from this festival into one folder to make it one continuous listening.

05 Energy [Instrumental] (Earth, Wind & Fire)
06 People (Earth, Wind & Fire)
07 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
08 Time Is on Your Side (Earth, Wind & Fire)
09 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
10 Bass Solo [Instrumental] (Earth, Wind & Fire)
11 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
12 Evil (Earth, Wind & Fire)
13 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
14 C'mon Children (Earth, Wind & Fire)
15 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15571521/CalifrniaJmOntrioMtorSpeedwyOntarioCA__4-6-1974_02EarthWndFre.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.