Montserrat is a small island in the Caribbean Sea, and it's still a colony of Britain. In 1979, George Martin, best known as the producer for nearly all the Beatles records, financed the building of a recording studio there. From 1979 to 1989, about 70 albums were recorded there, because musicians enjoyed recording in a beautiful, exotic locale. Many of them were by very big stars, such as "Synchronicity" by the Police and "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.
Unfortunately, in 1989, the Category Four hurricane Hugo hit Montserrat. It destroyed 90 percent of all buildings on the island, including Martin's recording studio. The studio wasn't rebuilt. Then, in 1995, the main volcano on the island, Soufriere Hills volcano, erupted. The island was basically completely devastated again. Martin then led the effort to stage this benefit concert. All the musicians involved recorded albums on Montserrat. Ultimately, about a million and half British pounds were raised. Later, limited edition lithographs signed by McCartney and Martin raised another million and a half pounds. This money went to help people reconstruct their homes, as well as the building of a new cultural center for the island.
Here's the Wikipedia entry about this concert, if you want to know more:
Music for Montserrat - Wikipedia
For this concert, Martin decided that less was more. He even mentioned in his banter during the concert that he turned down many musical acts who wanted to take part. The focus was just on the biggest stars. One exception was Arrow. He only had one minor hit in 1982, in Britain, "Hot Hot Hot." But he is Montserratian, so it made sense he would be involved. Also, "Hot Hot Hot" went on to be a bigger hit by Buster Poindexter in 1987.
This concert has been released on DVD, but not in any audio format. So I started with the DVD, converting it to audio format then breaking it into mp3s. "Hot Hot Hot," plus "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett and "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" by Midge Ure, were not on the DVD. But luckily I found out they were performed by reading the Wikipedia entry about the concert. Then I found YouTube videos of them. Those had very good sound quality, because they were broadcast on TV.
In addition to adding some missing songs, I cut some things. Mostly, I cut some interviews that were interspersed between the songs in the DVD. Martin plus some of the big stars like McCartney and Sting were interviewed. It's interesting stuff, but it wasn't part of the concert, so it got the axe. If you want to see that, check out the DVD.
Probably the highlight of the concert was McCartney's set at the end. As he said in the interview which I cut out, he had met the other stars in this concert many times over the years. However, he rarely actually played music with any of them. For instance, he said the last time he played with Clapton was when Clapton guested on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the White Album by the Beatles in 1968. But McCartney practiced with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Elton John, and really collaborated with tracks 42 to 46 at the end here.
One final note. This was the last major public appearance for Carl Perkins. He was in fine health at the time of this concert. But he died after a series of strokes in January 1998, at the age of 65.
This album is two hours and 15 minutes long.
01 talk (George Martin)
02 talk (Carl Perkins)
03 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins)
04 talk (emcee)
05 talk (Midge Ure)
06 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Midge Ure)
07 Vienna (Midge Ure)
08 talk (George Martin)
09 talk (Phil Collins)
10 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
11 Take Me Home (Phil Collins with Ray Cooper)
12 talk (Arrow)
13 Hot Hot Hot (Arrow)
14 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
15 Volcano (Jimmy Buffett)
16 talk (Phil Collins)
17 talk (Mark Knopfler)
18 Going Home [Theme from Local Hero] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
19 talk (Mark Knopfler)
20 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler with Guy Fletcher)
21 talk (Mark Knopfler)
22 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler with Sting, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton & Ray Cooper)
23 talk (Phil Collins)
24 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
25 Fields of Gold (Sting)
26 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (Sting)
27 talk (George Martin)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Your Song (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Live like Horses (Elton John)
32 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
33 talk (Carl Perkins)
34 Broken Hearted (Eric Clapton)
35 Layla (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler)
36 talk (Eric Clapton)
37 Same Old Blues (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler & Phil Collins)
38 talk (George Martin)
39 talk (Paul McCartney)
40 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
41 talk (Paul McCartney)
42 Golden Slumbers (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
43 Carry That Weight - The End (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
44 talk (George Martin)
45 Hey Jude (Paul McCartney, Elton John & Everybody)
46 Kansas City - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Paul McCartney & Everybody)
47 talk (Paul McCartney & George Martin)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/WN5He6az
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/rtae3vnAgivMIJf/file
The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: Carl Perkins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney. Sting is right behind Perkins, but all you can really see of him is his hand on the neck of a bass guitar. In the original photo, the neck of Sting's bass guitar went right over Knopfler's face. In my opinion, it kind of ruined the photo. But there were several photos no doubt taken minutes apart from each other from the same spot. I found one where Knopfler's face was fully visible and the bass guitar neck was lower, and I patched in just that part of the image, using Photoshop. I also used the Krea AI program to flesh out some of the detail.
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