No Nukes Concerts, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 9-23-1979: Stephen Bishop, Poco, Paul Simon, and Others

This is the fifteenth album I'm posting for the 1979 No Nukes concert. (I only have one more to go after this, and that's a set from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I'm waiting for someone to help so I can post that one, as I explained elsewhere.) This one is rather different, because it's a compilation of all the musical artists who played short sets of three songs or less.

The biggest star here undoubtedly has to be Paul Simon. He was a surprise, last-minute addition. I'm guessing he didn't have a band to play with at the time, since he didn't play any other concerts in 1979, so he just sang three songs while accompanying himself on acoustic guitar.

At the time of this concert, he hadn't released a studio album in a surprisingly long time. "Still Crazy After All These Years" came out in 1975.  However, he did release a single in 1977, "Slip Slidin' Away," and it was a big hit. It's included here.

Another better known artist here is Stephen Bishop, who had a few hits in the 1970s and early 1980s. His biggest hit was "On and On" in 1977, and he played that here.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Stephen Bishop (singer) - Wikipedia

Poco is another relatively well known band. They had many hits in the 1970s and 80s, though most of them only reached the lower portions of the charts. Their latest album at the time of this concert was "Legend," released in 1978. It contained probably the two biggest hits of their career, "Crazy Love" and "Heart of the Night." Both of those songs are included here.

Here's their Wikipedia page:

Poco (band) - Wikipedia

Raydio also had a couple of big hits in the 1970s: "Jack and Jill" and "You Can't Change That." Their song included here, "You Can't Change That," was in the U.S. Top Ten just a few months before this concert. Although Raydio isn't that well known today, their lead singer Ray Parker Jr. would go on to greater fame as the author and singer of the 1984 Number One hit "Ghostbusters," from the movie of the same name. (By the way, note "Ray" in the name "Raydio.")

Here's their Wikipedia page:

Raydio - Wikipedia

Holly Near is a singer-songwriter who is still going as I write this in 2024. She never came close to having a hit, but she found her niche as a folk singer who focused on political issues. Most notably, she publicly identified herself as lesbian in the mid-1970s, at a time when that was risky for music careers, and often tackled issues of feminism and gender identity in her songs. 

Here's her Wikipedia page:

Holly Near - Wikipedia

The duo of Joy Ryder and Avis Davis is so obscure that they don't have a Wikipedia page. That's not surprising, because they only ever released one single together, in 1979. As you can tell from the song title, the A-side, "No More Nukes," couldn't have been more appropriate to the No Nukes concerts. No doubt that's why they were included, despite their obscurity. 

All of the songs here were performed on September 23, 1979. Most of them were from the evening show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. However, the songs by Holly Near and the duo of Joy Ryder and Avis Davis were performed at the much larger daytime concert at Battery Park, also in New York City.

There were two songs here that made the official No Nukes album: "Heart of the Night" by Poco and "You Can't Change That" by Raydio. I'm very grateful, because this is the only occasion in this series of albums where I took something from the official albums, since those two songs weren't available in worthy sound quality otherwise.

It's quite possible that some of these artists played more songs. For instance, I wouldn't have even known Raydio performed at all if their song hadn't been included on the official album, since they didn't show up on any bootleg recordings. 

However, Poco is a unique case, because that's the only one where I had additional songs from an audience bootleg, in addition to the soundboard sourced songs I've put here. The other songs they played were: "A Right Along," "Twenty Years," "Legend," and "A Good Feelin' to Know." Probably those, plus the three here, made up their entire set. However, I didn't include those ones I just mentioned due to the poor sound quality of the audience boot. As mentioned above, "Heart of the Night" is from the official album, so it sounds the best. 

But I did include two songs from the audience boot: "Crazy Love" and "Rose of Cimarron." That's because those two were acoustic or semi-acoustic in nature, so they sounded markedly better than the other full-band songs. So those two songs sound worse than all the other songs here. Even so, I felt they sounded good enough to merit inclusion. 

This album is a pretty mixed bag, consisting of a few songs here and there from musical acts that had little to do with each other. But even if you don't like all of them, you can choose just to keep the ones you do like. I'd be surprised if most people wouldn't at least like the Paul Simon songs.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 talk (Stephen Bishop)
02 On and On (Stephen Bishop)
03 talk (Stephen Bishop)
04 Somewhere in Between (Stephen Bishop)
05 Singing for Our Lives (Holly Near)
06 Crazy Love (Poco)
07 Rose of Cimarron (Poco)
08 Heart of the Night (Poco)
09 You Can't Change That (Raydio)
10 Valentine's Day (Joy Ryder & Avis Davis)
11 No More Nukes (Joy Ryder & Avis Davis)
12 talk (Paul Simon)
13 Slip Slidin' Away (Paul Simon)
14 The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon)
15 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16257940/VA-NONUKS1979MdisnSqurGrdnNwYrkC__9-23-1979_PlSmonPcoStphnBshpEtcatse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos from the concerts of any of the musical acts here. I could have gone with a generic late 1970s Paul Simon photo, or something like that. But instead I decided to have a picture that mainly showed the crowd. There are three people on stage in silhouette. I believe they are, from left to right: Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, and Bonnie Raitt.