Michael McDonald & Friends - A Tribute to Motown, PBS Soundstage, Nashville, TN, 6-2005

Here is another episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" T.V. show. This one stars, Michael McDonald, but it has a bunch of special guests as well: Billy Preston, Toni Braxton, Take 6, and Indie.Arie. All the songs they performed are covers of Motown classics from the 1960s and 70s.

McDonald has been on the Soundstage show quite a lot. He was a key member of the Doobie Brothers when they hosted the show in 1979. He also hosted it in 2003 with some other guests. And he was a guest on an episode hosted by Kenny Loggins. And I believe he will be on at least one more episode that I have yet to post.

In this case, I would bet the show had him back because of the Motown theme to the episode, meaning that the songs were different from the ones he played on other episodes. At the time he was going through quite a Motown phase. In 2003, he released an all covers album just called "Motown," And in 2004, he released a sequel called "Motown 2." The special guests were not on those albums, with the exception of Toni Braxton. The duet she sang here with McDonald, "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," also appeared as a duet on his "Motown 2" album. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

An hour and six minutes long. 

01 I Second That Emotion (Michael McDonald)
02 talk (Michael McDonald)
03 I Was Made to Love Her (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
04 talk (Michael McDonald)
05 What's Going On (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
06 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Michael McDonald)
07 talk (Michael McDonald)
08 All in Love Is Fair (Michael McDonald)
09 talk (Michael McDonald)
10 Stop, Look, Listen [To Your Heart] (Michael McDonald & Toni Braxton)
11 talk (Michael McDonald)
12 Baby I'm for Real (Michael McDonald)
13 talk (Michael McDonald)
14 Tracks of My Tears (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
15 talk (Michael McDonald)
16 Since I Lost My Baby (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
17 talk (Michael McDonald)
18 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Michael McDonald)
19 talk (Michael McDonald)
20 You're All I Need to Get By (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
21 Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
22 talk (Michael McDonald)
23 Nowhere to Run (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
24 talk (Michael McDonald) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vR3Pfbkj 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4RldNOOrxv6NA5X/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. It shows Toni Braxton standing in the foreground and Michael McDonald sitting at the keyboards further back. 

Manhattan Transfer & Take 6 - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 5-31-2017

Here's another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. The one I posted earlier today had two acts (Tom Waits and Mose Allison) but no overlap on stage. This is just the opposite, with the two acts performing together most of the time.

The Manhattan Transfer and Take 6 are a couple of the biggest names when it comes to vocal jazz groups. By the time of this concert in 2017, the Manhattan Transfer had a long history. They were formed in 1969 and had some hits in the 1970s and 80s. They kept going with a largely unchanged line-up until the 2010s, when deaths started to take a toll. They held their final concert in 2023. By contrast, Take 6 is younger, with their debut album being released in 1988. They're also an all-black group, and have more of a focus on gospel and acappella. But there was a lot of overlap with musical styles, leading the two groups to start touring and performing together since about 2011.

This concert is longer than usual because it was released as a DVD called "The Summit." That also means the sound quality is excellent. However, I suspect the banter between songs was removed, because there's almost none of that on this recording. I didn't attempt to figure out who exactly was singing on which song (since I often couldn't tell), so instead I credited both groups for all the songs.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 Mean Joe [Killer Joe] (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
02 Straighten Up and Fly Right (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
03 Tuxedo Junction (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
04 Candy (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
05 It's Good Enough to Keep [Airmail Special] (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
06 Just in Time (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
07 I've Got Life (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
08 Spread Love (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
09 Happy (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
10 Like Someone in Love (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
11 Twilight Zone - Twilight Tone (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
12 Gold Mine (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
13 [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66 (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
14 Mary (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
15 Operator (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
16 A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
17 Overjoyed (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
18 Stand by Me (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
19 Trickle Trickle (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
20 Boy from New York City (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
21 Birdland (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)
22 What'd I Say (Manhattan Transfer & Take 6)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YRCFKqAV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/q9wfOjQ8EjFFgvD/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. I cropped the image some, so not all the performers on stage are showing. But most of them are.