A Conspiracy of Hope, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, 6-15-1986, Part 3 - Ruben Blades, Yoko Ono, Howard Jones, Miles Davis, Neville Brothers & Joan Baez

This is the third of out five albums of the final concert from the 1986 "A Conspiracy of Hope" tour. If you want to know more about the concert in general, check out the write-up for the first part.

This part has an even more eclectic group of artists than the other parts, in my opinion. There also was an emphasis on world music. That's especially true because of two famous musicians who took part, but didn't have sets of their own. Fela Kuti, from Nigeria, played two songs with the Neville Brothers. Carlos Santana, the main force behind the band Santana, played guitar on songs by Ruben Blades, Miles Davis, and the Neville Brothers.

Ruben Blades, from Panama, is one of the most famous musicians from Latin America. He hasn't had a lot of commercial success in the U.S., probably because he's generally stuck to singing in Spanish, as he did for his set here. But he's had dozens of hits in Spanish speaking countries. He's also won eleven Grammy Awards in the U.S., and has acted in many movies. Plus, he's been a politician in Panama.

Yoko Ono is best known for being the wife of John Lennon of the Beatles. She's been criticized for her avant garde singing style. However, she had a conventional hit in the U.S. and Britain in 1981 with the song "Walking on Thin Ice," which she played here.

British singer Howard Jones had a bunch of new wave hits in the 1980s, but he was only allowed to sing one for this concert, "No One Is to Blame."

Miles Davis is one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time. Unfortunately, his peak years were in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s. He retired from music in the late 1970s, letting sex and drugs take over his life. He resumed his music career in the early 1980s and found his greatest commerical success with a more poppy style, but many jazz fans aren't fond of this phase of his career.

Today, the Neville Brothers are one of the most famous bands out of New Orleans, if not the most famous. But in 1986, they weren't that well known, having only released one album under that name, back in 1978. But some of the brothers in the band had had more success, especially Aaron Neville, who had a big hit way back in 1966 with "Tell It like It Is." Folk singer Joan Baez also had lots of success back in the 1960s. For this concert, she sang the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in acappella style. But for the other songs, she was backed by the Neville Brothers. I think it was a successful, though unexpected, collaboration.

This album is an hour and 44 minutes long.

044 Cuentas del Alma (Ruben Blades)
045 talk (Ruben Blades)
046 Tierra Dura (Ruben Blades)
047 talk (Ruben Blades)
048 Todos Vuelven (Ruben Blades)
049 Muevete (Ruben Blades with Carlos Santana)
050 talk (Ruben Blades)
051 Walking on Thin Ice (Yoko Ono)
052 talk (Yoko Ono)
053 Imagine (Yoko Ono)
054 No One Is to Blame (Howard Jones)
055 One Phone Call - Street Scenes - Speak - That's What Happened [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
056 Tutu [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
057 Splatch [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
058 Burn [Instrumental] (Miles Davis with Carlos Santana)
059 Big Chief (Neville Brothers)
060 Goodbye Forever (Neville Brothers)
061 Everybody Better Wake Up (Neville Brothers with Fela Kuti)
062 Midnight Key (Neville Brothers with Carlos Santana & Fela Kuti)
063 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Joan Baez)
064 Shout (Joan Baez & the Neville Brothers)
065 No Woman, No Cry (Joan Baez & the Neville Brothers)
066 Let It Be (Joan Baez & the Neville Brothers)
067 Amazing Grace (Joan Baez & Aaron Neville) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/c753n41S

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/G4UcLFfuso6gUuv/file

The cover photo is of Joan Baez and the Neville Brothers, and it comes from this exact concert.

Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-27-1970 to 8-30-1970 - 8-29-1970: Part 3: Tiny Tim & Miles Davis

A great thing about big music festivals like the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival is the diversity of musical acts. That certainly is the case with this album. Who would ever put Tiny Tim and Miles Davis back to back? I don't know, but that's what happened in that festival.

As I mentioned in the write-up for the previous album, the huge crowd grew troublesome during Joni Mitchell's set, although it was not the fault of Mitchell or her excellent performance. Then, somewhat improbably, Tiny Tim put the crowd in a good mood again. The crowd of over half a million people then stayed in a good mood for the rest of the day, including having a positive reaction to Miles Davis, despite his jazz style being quite different from the music of nearly all the other acts.

Tiny Tim has to be the most unlikely star of the 1960s. Who could have imagined that playing ukelele and singing falsetto versions of songs from the 1920s and earlier would be a winning formula? But he had a hit with the song "Tiptoe through the Tulips" (which was first released in 1929). 

Unfortunately, when it comes to Tiny Tim's set, only three songs are available here. "There'll Always Be an England" is from "Message to Love" documentary about the festival. The other two songs are from bootleg and have rougher sound quality, but still sound acceptable to my ears.

Murray Lerner, who made the "Message to Love" documentary, had this to say about Miles Davis' performance: "Miles Davis was a surprise - and really unusual. It was a revelation. The crowd really liked it. He went on, played, waved his hand at that audience and walked off. He played for approximately 38 minutes straight, without stopping."

By the way, a story goes that when Davis walked off stage, he was asked the name of the song he'd just played, and he replied, "Call It Anything." As a result, a portion of his set was available under the that name on the 1971 album "The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies." But that's really just the last few songs of his set lumped together. We know the actual names of the songs because a DVD of his entire set was released in 2004.

This album is 41 minutes long.

Note that the track count continues where the last album left off. I keep going with that numbering through the rest of the August 29th sets. Also note that the track numbers have an extra digit. That's because there are over 100 songs in total for the whole day.

051 There'll Always Be an England (Tiny Tim)
052 Two Times a Day (Tiny Tim)
053 talk (Tiny Tim)
054 Love's Ship (Tiny Tim)
055 Directions [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
056 Bitches Brew [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
057 It's About That Time [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
058 Sanctuary [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
059 Spanish Key [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)
060 The Theme [Instrumental] (Miles Davis)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15910581/IsleofWghtFestivlAftnDwnIsleofWghtBrtain__8-29-1970_Pt3_TinyTmMlesDavs.zip.html

The cover photo of Davis comes from this exact concert.