Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 5: Yes, Rufus Thomas & Led Zeppelin

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

Yes had big success in the 1980s, especially with their massive 1983 hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart," so they were given a 25-minute long time slot in this concert. According to some accounts, such as setlist.fm, they also did the song "Changes." But I've seen claims that isn't true. I suspect they didn't, because 25 minutes already made their set the second longest set of the night.

I find it very odd if it's true that Rufus Thomas performed the song "Walking the Dog" between big sets by Yes and Led Zeppelin. The acts tended to get more and more famous the longer the concert went on, but Thomas was nowhere near as popular as the acts around his performance. It could be that he actually sang that much earlier and it was only shown on TV during a break between sets. I know this rearranging did happen some with the HBO TV broadcast. But all the sources I've seen have his song here, and I haven't seen anything to contradict it, so I'm leaving it here (for now, at least).

The thing this concert is best remembered for, by far, is the 32-minute-long reunion of Led Zeppelin. The band broke up in 1980 after their drummer John Bonham died. They reunited to play three songs at the massive Live Aid benefit concert in 1985. But that was widely considered a fiasco. Lead guitarist Jimmy Page was in a bad way with drug addiction at the time. Also, Phil Collins tried to play drums, but he was just winging it and discovered the songs were more complicated than he'd realized.

The band's reunion for this concert has also been criticized. Later, lead guitarist Jimmy Page called it "one big disappointment," and lead vocalist Robert Plant later said "the gig was foul." But I disagree. The band certainly played better than at Live Aid. A key change was the drums. This time, deceased drummer John Bonham's son Jason Bonham was old enough to replace his father in the band, and he did a good job of it. I saw some article reviews of the concert just after it happened, and the Led Zeppelin performance was praised. I think in retrospect opinions soured a bit because the performance was badly mixed. For instance, the bass playing of John Paul Jones could barely be heard at all for the first song and half of the second song. There were some other problems too. I attempted to fix this with the editing program UVR5. I think I made some improvements. However, the bass was so low for "Kashmir" that I couldn't make a fix there.

Also, I think one reason Page and Plant have bad memories of the concert is due to bad vibes happening off stage. Apparently, Plant was really, really sick of the song "Stairway to Heaven" by 1988, and didn't want to play it at the concert. But Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and long-time president of Atlantic Records, heard about this in advance and talked him into playing it the night before. Then, hours before the concert began, Plant changed his mind again and had big arguments with Page about it. Ultimately, the song was played, and understandably so, since it's one of the best and most popular songs of all time, overplayed though it is. And if you look at the cover photo I've chosen for this album, Plant and Page seemed genuinely happy during the concert.

The original idea was to have a final song with everyone from earlier in the concert brought on stage to perform together, which is the usual tradition for concerts like this. But ultimately it was decided that nothing could top the Led Zeppelin reunion, so there was no big finale after that. 

After this concert, Led Zeppelin reunited twice more. Once was for the band's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame reunion in 1995. The other was a full concert in 2007. Interestingly, that was for a tribute concert for Ahmet Ertegun. Note Ertegun was one of the people to introduce Led Zeppelin in this concert. The 1995 and 2007 reunions were considered much more musically successful than the 1985 and 1988 ones.

Oh, by the way, I didn't mark it as such, but I severely edited down the introduction to the Led Zeppelin set. The bootleg version I found had Robert Townsend, Phil Collins and Ahmet Ertegun talking for five minutes, mercilessly teasing the audience about who was going to be the final act of the concert, when everyone already knew it was Led Zeppelin. They dragged things out so long that it was downright painful to hear, so I cut the intro in half. Even then, it's probably still too long. I'm guessing that the band wasn't ready - maybe last minute arguing between Plant and Page? - so they were stalling for time to a ridiculous degree. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

088 Hold On (Yes)
089 Make It Easy (Yes)
090 Owner of a Lonely Heart (Yes)
091 I've Seen All Good People (Yes)
092 Roundabout (Yes)
093 talk (Paul Shaffer)
094 Walking the Dog (Rufus Thomas)
095 talk (Robert Townsend, Phil Collins & Ahmet Ertegun)
096 Kashmir (Led Zeppelin)
097 Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin)
098 Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)
099 talk (Led Zeppelin)
100 Misty Mountain Hop (Led Zeppelin)
101 talk (Led Zeppelin)
102 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
103 talk (Led Zeppelin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oWK5DxhD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3Qsjm78mYpHJKct/file

The cover photo of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin is from this exact concert.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 4: The Manhattan Transfer, Genesis, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Bee Gees, & The Rascals

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

Atlantic Records put out a lot of records by jazz artists. But since jazz music isn't a big seller, most of those artists didn't get invited to this concert. Two who did, Herbie Mann and Bobby Short, got cut out of the TV broadcast versions, so I don't have their performances. That just leaves the Manhattan Transfer to represent jazz, since they had some hits and wider commercial success in the 1970s and 80s.

Genesis is a band was only intermittently together in the 1980s. Phil Collins split his time between being in Genesis and having a hugely popular solo career. Mike Rutherford also carved out a successful solo career as the leader of Mike + the Mechanics. Genesis had last put out an album in 1986, "Invisible Touch," then toured to support it into 1987. However, this was the only concert they reunited for in 1988. Their twenty-minute long set was essentially one gigantic medley, although I've broken it into four tracks so I could get all the song names in.

As I mentioned previously, Crosby Stills and Nash sang the song "Southern Cross" to start this concert, but I don't have that recording. Then they returned for their own twenty-minute-long set. Most bootlegs of this concert have "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" earlier in the show, because the song order was scrambled up a bit on some TV broadcasts. But you can tell they did it here with the songs "Wooden Ships" and "Teach Your Children" because actor Michael Douglas referred to all three songs when he introduced them.

The Bee Gees played a relatively short set. In addition to "Lonely Days" and "Jive Talkin'" presented here, they also performed "To Love Somebody." However, I couldn't find a recording on that one. I found mention of it being posted on YouTube and then taken down, so it must be out there. If anyone has it, please let me know. Personally, I think the Bee Gees deserved another song or two, since they've one of the best selling acts of all time, but probably in the late 1980s they were still suffering from the backlash of their disco era overexposure.

The final musical act in this part is the Rascals. They broke up in 1972. This concert was their first reunion since then, going back to the original line-up that ended in 1970. After this concert, they would go on a short tour for a few months. After that, there were further one-off reunions in 1997 and 2010, and another tour in 2012 and 2013.

This album is an hour and 18 minutes long.

069 talk (Manhattan Transfer)
070 Mack the Knife (Manhattan Transfer)
071 Birdland (Manhattan Transfer)
072 Turn It On Again - Land of Confusion - Misunderstanding (Genesis)
073 Throwing It All Away (Genesis)
074 That's All - Tonight Tonight Tonight - Invisible Touch - Turn It On Again [Reprise] (Genesis)
075 You Can't Hurry Love - Shortcut to Somewhere - All I Need Is a Miracle (Genesis)
076 talk (Michael Douglas)
077 Wooden Ships (Crosby Stills & Nash)
078 talk (Crosby Stills & Nash)
079 Our House (Crosby Stills & Nash)
080 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
081 talk (Bee Gees)
082 Lonely Days (Bee Gees)
083 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
084 talk (Dan Aykroyd & Bill Murray)
085 Good Lovin' (Rascals)
086 Groovin' (Rascals)
087 People Got to Be Free (Rascals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t2DmMTS8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3pBToJ89aaas4tj/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Mike Rutherford on guitar and Phil Collins singing.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 3: The MG’s, Carla Thomas, Paul Rodgers, Miki Howard, Paul Shaffer, Sam Moore, The Elwood Blues Review, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof, The Spinners, & Wilson Pickett

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

In the 1950s and 60s, Atlantic Records was mainly known as an R&B/ soul record label, though it broke out into other musical genres by the end of the decade. Most of this section served as a kind of concert within a concert that celebrated the 1960s soul music of the company. Atlantic Records distributed most of the music done by the Stax record label, so all of that was fair game here as well.

In the 1960s at Stax Records, the instrumental group the MG's backed up most of the other lead singers on the label, in addition to having some instrumental hits of their own. Later, key members of that band, like Steve Cropper and Donald 'Duck' Dunn, joined the Blue Brothers band in the late 1970s. Led by comedians/singers John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, they had a hit movie and some hit albums before Belushi died in the early 1980s. For most of this section of the concert, Cropper, Dunn, and other members of the MG's were the backing band. But for a portion of it, their name changed to the Elwood Blues Review, a sort of variant of the Blues Brothers because Aykroyd got involved in those songs too.

That backing band then supported some different lead singers. Carla Thomas was an original Stax star. Paul Rodgers, however, was a big star with Free and Bad Company (on Atlantic Records). Both both of those bands had ceased to exist by the time of this concert. So instead of singing any of his own hits, he sang "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" as a tribute to deceased Stax star Otis Redding. 1980s R&B star Miki Howard also sang a song associated with Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness."

Another big musical act for Stax was the soul duo Sam and Dave (Sam Moore and Dave Prater). Unfortunately, Dave Prater died several months prior to this concert (and the two of them had had a big falling out prior to that anyway). But Sam Moore was at this concert to represent Sam and Dave. Dave Prater was effectively replaced on some songs by Aykroyd, kind of bringing back the Blue Brothers, and was replaced by Phil Collins on two other songs. 

The only odd one out in this R&B section of the concert was Bob Geldof. I'm not sure why he was put where he was in the running order, if indeed this order is correct, but oh well. It was also a bit strange that instead of doing any of his own hits from his Boomtown Rats years, he did a cover of a relatively obscure song by Graham Parker.

The Spinners continued the R&B vibe of this portion of the show, even though they had much bigger success in the 1970s compared to the 1960s. I could only find one song they did. But they also played "Working My Way Back to You" and "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love."

Finally, Wilson Pickett was the star of the last couple of songs here. He was backed by the Elwood Blues Review. I looked at the video, and Dan Akroyd danced around on stage a lot and played some harmonica, but the lead vocals were basically all done by Pickett. Still, this must have kind of been a reunion for Pickett, because the Elwood Blues Review was basically the same as the MG's, and they were the backing band for most of Pickett's hits in the 1960s. Pickett even co-wrote one of the songs he performed here, "In the Midnight Hour," with the lead guitarist on stage, Steve Cropper.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

043 talk (Dan Aykroyd)
044 Last Night [Instrumental] (MG's)
045 talk (Steve Cropper)
046 Gee Whiz (Carla Thomas & the MG's)
047 talk (Steve Cropper)
048 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Paul Rodgers & the MG's)
049 talk (Steve Cropper)
050 Try a Little Tenderness (Miki Howard & the MG's)
051 talk (Steve Cropper)
052 Tramp (Carla Thomas, Paul Shaffer & the MG's)
053 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
054 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
055 Soul Man (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
056 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
057 I've Been Loving You Too Long (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
058 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
059 You Don't Know like I Know (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
060 talk (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
061 Knock On Wood (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
062 talk (Roberta Flack)
063 talk (Bob Geldof)
064 You Can't Be Too Strong (Bob Geldof)
065 Mighty Love (Spinners)
066 In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)
067 talk (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)
068 Land of 1000 Dances (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zi3oxCsd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/UMkqqccXBZLa7Di/file

The cover photo of Wilson Pickett is from this exact concert.

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.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 1: Nu Shooz, Stacey Q, The Coasters, Phil Collins, LaVern Baker, Foreigner, Iron Butterfly, & Laura Branigan

Here's another big benefit concert. As I've mentioned before, I think these tend to get overlooked, except for the portions performed by really famous musical acts. In this case, the concert is best known for the second Led Zeppelin 1980s reunion, after they reunited for Live Aid in 1985. But there's so much more to this, including other interesting reunions. 

The entire concert was about 12 hours long. I didn't find all of it, but I found the vast majority of it. Presumably, a big chunk of those 12 hours was dead time between acts. I was able to find six hours of music. I've broken that up into five albums.

This was a rather unusual concert, in that it celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Atlantic Records record company. I'd be hard pressed to think of any other records companies celebrated like this, other than Motown Records. And it's odd that it was a 40th anniversary concert with no similar one for the 25th anniversary, or 30th, or 50th, etc... But it was probably lucky that it happened when it did, before some of the older acts retired or passed on. Atlantic Records had an interesting history in that it started out in the 1950s as the most important record company for R&B music before branching out into all musical genres. So a lot of the 1950s and 1960s stars that made the record company successful were able to perform at this concert.

I found a newspaper article that explains a little bit about how this concert came to be. When the show was first planned, the idea was to have a smaller auditorium and invite just a couple thousand people, mainly Atlantic Records employees and special guests. Ken Ehrlich, who produced the show, explained, "When it first started, it was to be a two-hour black-tie event at Radio City Music Hall. But I said to [Atlantic Records founder and president] Ahmet [Ertegun]: 'You've made music for kids, now you want to invite your friends to a party. You have to do it at [Madison Square] Garden. You want kids to scream and yell.' Eventually, the size dictated that we do it at the Garden. We wanted to reflect 40 years and reach a new audience. I want 15-year-old kids to see Ruth Brown and the Coasters."

The concert was a curious mix of self-promotion and charity. The self-promotion was first that the record company was patting itself on its back while also using the concert to promote some of their young and up and coming acts. But at the same time, the concert was expected to make at least 10 million dollars in profits due to selling TV broadcast and radio broadcast rights, and all of that money was to go to charity. Furthermore, most of the charity money was sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a charity created by the record company to basically give their legacy acts the profits they deserved but had been screwed out of back in the 1950s and 60s.

Before I say more, I want to point out that while many big names did perform at this concert, many other long-time Atlantic Records artists did not. The ones who didn't perform included Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Cream, the Allman Brothers Band, the Rolling Stones, INXS, King Crimson, Dusty Springfield, Hall and Oates, Peter Gabriel, and Chic. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Probably the biggest miss was the Rolling Stones. But they'd had a big falling out in the early 1980s and wouldn't reunite until a year later.

As far as I know, a couple of hours of highlights from this concert has been officially released on DVD, but nothing has appeared on album. So I've had to rely on bootlegs. The most easily accessible version of the concert is a portion that was broadcast on the HBO cable network. But that was less than half. Parts of it were also broadcast on ABC TV. Furthermore, other parts were broadcast on other networks. I found some bits from a German broadcast, for instance. Apparently, the entire show was broadcast on BBC, in one-hour weekly segments. But I haven't been able to find that anywhere. If anyone has any parts that I've missed, please let me know so I can add those bits in.

I've done my best to put this together as it really happened, but it's hard because I haven't been able to get a definitive list of the order of the performers. Still, the different versions did have a lot in common, and I've found clues from newspaper articles, so I've made best guesses. 

Let me mention some of the bits that I think are still missing from this portion of the show. Apparently, Crosby, Stills and Nash performed the song "Southern Cross" to open the show, and then returned for a longer set near the end of the show. LeVert did the song "Casanova." Bobby Short played two songs: "Hop Scotch Blues" and "Black and Blue." Rachelle Cappelli sang "The Truth'll Set You Free" plus an Aretha Franklin cover. LaVern Baker also did the song "Tweedle Dee." 

Note also that I have some introduction of acts, but I'm probably missing about half of those. In some cases, famous people who didn't perform themselves did the introductions, while in other cases performers from other parts of the show did the introductions. So, for instance in this part, Marv Albert, a sports broadcaster, introduced the Coasters. But Foreigner was introduced by Roberta Flack, who sang later in the show.

One notable event from this part of the show was the reunion of the Coasters. They were one of the biggest acts on the Atlantic label in the 1950s and early 1960s. But this was the first time the original members performed together in about twenty years.

Here's a Wikipedia article about the concert. But note that it doesn't say much, and its list of performers is incomplete and mostly follows the HBO broadcast:

Atlantic Records 40th anniversary - Wikipedia

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

001 talk (Robert Townshend)
002 Should I Say Yes - I Can't Wait (Nu Shooz)
003 Two of Hearts (Stacey Q)
004 talk (Marv Albert)
005 That Is Rock and Roll (Coasters)
006 Youngblood (Coasters)
007 Charlie Brown (Coasters)
008 I'm a Hog for You (Coasters)
009 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
010 talk (Phil Collins)
011 Jim Dandy (LaVern Baker)
012 Saved (LaVern Baker)
013 talk (Roberta Flack)
014 Hot Blooded (Foreigner)
015 Urgent (Foreigner)
016 talk (Foreigner)
017 I Want to Know What Love Is (Foreigner)
018 Juke Box Hero (Foreigner)
019 In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly)
020 Gloria (Laura Branigan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kCLD3BmR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ksQX0KcmnRSwASW/file

The cover photo of the Coasters is from this exact concert.