Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 4: Youssou N'Dour

Next up on Day Two of the Woodstock '94 Festival is Senegalese singer-songwriter Youssou N'Dour.

N'Dour is one of very few Third World musicians to become a star in the U.S. and Europe. That's all the more remarkable because he usually does not sing in English. That's the case for this concert.

In June 1994, just before this concert, he had the biggest hit of his career, "7 Seconds," a trilingual duet with Neneh Cherry. It was the Number One single in France for a record breaking 16 weeks. Surprisingly though, he didn't play that song at this concert. However, it's very possible that he didn't and I don't have his full set. (If this is the full set, it's a rather short one.) But if he didn't, it could be because he didn't have Cherry to sing it with.

N'Dour has collaborated with Peter Gabriel on multiple occasions, including on the songs "In Your Eyes" and "Shaking the Tree." During Gabriel's set on Day Three of this festival, N'Dour participated on those two songs.

Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Youssou N'Dour - Wikipedia

This album is 26 minutes long.

01 New Africa (Youssou N'Dour)
02 Undecided [Japoulo] (Youssou N'Dour)
03 Maybe Tonight (Youssou N'Dour)
04 Generations [Diamono] (Youssou N'Dour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16750994/VA-WODSTCK94_8-13-1994_04YossurNDur_atse.zip.html

For the cover photos for this festival, I was able to find ones from this exact concert in nearly every case. But the sole exception to that is N'Dour, I think. I tried using a screenshot from a YouTube video of this concert, but I found the resolution too poor. So instead I went with this concert photo from this general time period.

Concert for Human Rights Now, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-15-1988, Part 1 - Leon Gieco, Charly Garcia & Youssou N'Dour

You may well ask: "Who the heck are Leon Gieco, Charly Garcia & Youssou N'Dour?" Prior to putting this album together a few days ago, I had only of Youssou N'Dour, and just a bit, mainly due to his musical collaborations with Peter Gabriel. The reason I'm posting this album is because it's the first part of five albums that make up a big, long benefit concert held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1988, in front of 75,000 people. The other artists are Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen.

The concert was the last one in a worldwide tour of 10 benefit concerts on behalf of Amnesty International that took place over six weeks in 1988. Although it did raise funds for charity, it was even more focused on raising awareness of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its 40th anniversary and the work of Amnesty International to combat human rights abuses around the world.

You can read more about the concerts at Wikipedia, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Now

Youssou N'Dour is from the country of Senegal. Rolling Stone Magazine has said he is arguably the most famous musician from Africa. He was one of the five headliners for this concert tour, along with Chapman, Gabriel, Sting, and Springsteen. However, at each concert venue, there would be one or two additional musicians on the bill, generally those who were only regionally or nationally famous, in order to help them reach larger audiences. That's why Leon Gieco and Charly Garcia are included here. Both of them are from Argentina. Gieco is a singer-songwriter known as the "Argentine Bob Dylan." Charly Garcia is better known throughout Latin America. He's played many genres of music, from folk to prog rock. Both of them are known for being politically outspoken, making them a good fit with the themes of this concert.

Here's the Wikipedia page of Gieco:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3n_Gieco

And here's the page of Garcia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charly_Garc%C3%ADa

I'm pretty sure the sets of Gieco and Garcia are incomplete, with only two and four songs respectively. But something is better than nothing. Both sang entirely in Spanish.

N'Dour generally sings in Wolof, a language popular in Senegal and a few nearby countries. So if you prefer your music in English, this album may be tough sledding for you. However, the music of both Garcia and N'Dour is lively and often danceable, which helps transcend language barriers.

Note that portions of this concert have been officially released, but not much. The official album, "Released! The Human Rights Concerts," came out in 2013, long after the concert, and didn't seem to sell many copies. It was only a double album, and the concert was over five and a half hours long, so it only captured some highlights. For instance, that album has no songs by Gieco or Garcia, and only two by N'Dour. But this is an excellent soundboard bootleg, so there's no worries about sound quality.

This album is an hour and two minutes long. Only eight minutes are of Gieco's songs. Another 16 minutes are of Garcia's songs. The vast majority, 38 minutes, are of N'Dour's songs.

01 Hombres de Hierro (Leon Gieco)
02 Solo le Pido a Dios (Leon Gieco)
03 Demoliendo Hoteles (Charly Garcia)
04 Los Dinosaurios (Charly Garcia)
05 Nos Siguen Pegando Abajo [Pecado Mortal] (Charly Garcia)
06 La Ruta de Tentempie [Extasis] (Charly Garcia)
07 N'Dobine (Youssou N'Dour)
08 Immigres-Bitim Rew (Youssou N'Dour)
09 Kocc Barma (Youssou N'Dour)
10 talk (Youssou N'Dour)
11 Nelson Mandela (Youssou N'Dour)
12 Deugeu [The Truth] (Youssou N'Dour)
13 The Lion [Gaiende] (Youssou N'Dour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451327/ConcrtfrHumnRightsNw__10-15-1988__Part1-_YssouNDour.zip.html

Also, here's a link if you want to download all five parts of this concert at once (including the Bruce part that is otherwise unavailable). Be warned though that this is a big download - 750 megabytes - since the concert is five and a half hours long.

https://www.imagenetz.de/ihHwY

The cover photo is of N'Dour. I took a screenshot of a YouTube video of this exact concert. The graphic in the upper left corner was the logo for this tour. I also used the same font that was featured on the promotional material for the tour.