Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Lionel Richie, D.A.R. Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, 3-9-2022

In the past couple of weeks, I've posted some award ceremonies from the (mostly) annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. I've found some, and I'm still looking for others. I put out a request from him, and a kind commenter here named Berni found this one for me. So thanks very much to Berni for that. In 2022, it was Lionel Richie's turn to win the prize.

I'm not going to go into Richie's career here. Suffice to say that he's sold over 100 million records, making him one of the best selling musical acts of all time. And if you're wondering why Richie has won this prize and the likes of Bob Dylan haven't yet, keep in mind the word "popular" in the title of the prize. They're basically awarding the most successful, not necessarily the most critically acclaimed.

The recording of this concert is different from all the other Gershwin Prize ones I've heard so far. Richie was awarded the prize after just two songs sung by others. Richie gave his acceptance speech at that point. Then, after some more songs sung by others, Richie returned to perform a couple of songs at the end of the concert. For all the others, the winner of the prize was given the prize at the end of the concert. I don't know if this is the correct order or if the song order was redone by someone for some reason. But in any case, this is what we have, and I don't have any proof it happened otherwise, so I'm keeping it like this.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality was pretty good. However, I noticed all the vocals were mixed pretty low. So I fixed that with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program.

As an aside, there are two more Gershwin Prize concerts that I'd especially like to find, those for Smokey Robinson and Carole King. But it turns out one can only listen to them if one has a PBS Passport, AND one lives in Wisconsin! Here are the links.

https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/in-performance/-performance-carole-king-library-congress-gershwin-prize-full-episode/

https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/gershwin-prize/gershwin-prize-smokey-robinson-library-congress-gershwin-prize/

If anyone here has donated to PBS and lives in Wisconsin, please help! That music should be available to people everywhere, not just in one U.S. state. Thanks. 

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Dancing on the Ceiling (Gloria Estefan)
02 talk (emcee)
03 talk (Anthony Anderson)
04 Hello (Andra Day)
05 talk (emcee)
06 talk (Carla Hayden)
07 talk (Lionel Richie)
08 talk (emcee)
09 Say You, Say Me (Chris Stapleton)
10 talk (Anthony Anderson)
11 You Are (Miguel)
12 talk (emcee)
13 Easy (Boyz II Men)
14 talk (Anthony Anderson)
15 talk (Luke Bryan)
16 Lady (Luke Bryan)
17 talk (emcee)
18 Jesus Is Love (Yolanda Adams)
19 talk (Anthony Anderson)
20 talk (Lionel Richie)
21 We Are the World (Lionel Richie)
22 All Night Long (Lionel Richie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6ZazeATH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/BW8kawfLWE2PB2R/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It shows Richie with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.