Various Artists - An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson, Radio City Music Hall, New York City, 3-29-2001

Here's something that any fan of the Beach Boys will certainly enjoy. I don't know much about the backstory for this one (maybe someone else can explain?) - I'm guessing it was an anniversary of some sort. But in 2001, a bunch of great musicians got together to celebrate the music of Brian Wilson. That's basically the same thing as celebrating the music of the Beach Boys, since I think all but one of the songs performed here was originally recorded and released by the Beach Boys. (The lone exception, "Love and Mercy," is from Wilson's more hit and miss solo career.) 

In my opinion, most of these kinds of tribute concerts have more dud performances than good ones. But this one is solid pretty much all the way through. It's hard to go wrong with Beach Boys songs, for starters. But also, a lot of big names took part, such as Paul Simon, Elton John, Billy Joel, Heart, David Crosby, Aimee Mann, and many more, and it's hard to go wrong with them as well. Plus, Brian Wilson himself joined in at the end.

Most or all of the performances are unique, meaning these particular artists never did these songs before, and probably not since. They were special versions just for this show.

This concert has never been released in any kind of audio format, as far as I know. But the songs here all come from a DVD that has been released. I edited it down somewhat to remove some speeches praising Wilson. I wanted to keep it more focused on the music. (One section I removed was a talk by Beatles producer George Martin about the song "Good Vibrations.")  However, I did keep all the talking that directly preceded or followed each song that was relevant.

Unfortunately, there was a lot more to this concert that was not included on the DVD, and I can't find it anywhere else. For instance, Wilson sang lead or co-lead on five songs at the end of this album. But in the concert, he sang a few more: "Lay Down Burden," "Do It Again," "Caroline, No," and "Surfin' U.S.A." If anyone has more than I do, please let me know so I can add it in.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
02 Our Prayer (Boys Choir of Harlem)
03 California Girls - Help Me, Rhonda (Ricky Martin)
04 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
05 Surfer Girl (Paul Simon)
06 Surf City (Go-Go's)
07 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
08 In My Room (David Crosby, Carly Simon & Jimmy Webb)
09 talk (David Crosby)
10 The Warmth of the Sun (Vince Gill)
11 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
12 I Get Around (Evan & Jaron)
13 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
14 God Only Knows (Elton John)
15 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
16 I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (Aimee Mann & Michael Penn)
17 talk (Chazz Palminteri & Billy Joel)
18 Don't Worry Baby (Billy Joel)
19 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
20 Sail On Sailor (Darius Rucker & Matthew Sweet)
21 talk (Chazz Palminteri & Chynna Phillips)
22 You're So Good to Me (Wilson Phillips)
23 talk (George Martin)
24 Good Vibrations (Heart)
25 talk (Chazz Palminteri)
26 Surf's Up (David Crosby, Vince Gill & Jimmy Webb)
27 talk (Chazz Palminteri & Brian Wilson)
28 Heroes and Villains (Brian Wilson)
29 talk (Elton John)
30 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Elton John & Brian Wilson)
31 talk (Brian Wilson)
32 Barbara Ann (Brian Wilson & Everyone)
33 Fun, Fun, Fun (Brian Wilson & Everyone)
34 talk (Brian Wilson)
35 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson with the Boys Choir of Harlem)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16584567/VA-_2001AllStrTrbtetBrnWlsnRdoCtyMsicHllNwYrkC__3-29-2001_atse.zip.html

I have to admit, the cover is a bit fakey. I found a photo of Elton John, Billy Joel, and Paul Simon sharing the same microphone during a finale at this concert. But since it's a Brian Wilson tribute and he was there, I wanted him on the cover too. So I Photoshopped him in, using a photo that also comes from the finale at this concert. They were on stage together, just not this close. The lighting is pretty accurate. For instance, there's a shadow falling on his body that actually fell on someone else standing there.

No Nukes Concerts, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 9-20-1979 to 9-23-1979: James Taylor with Carly Simon

Next up is the fourth album I'm posting from the 1979 No Nukes concerts. This time it's James Taylor. He sang duets with his wife at the time, Carly Simon, on the last two songs. So I gave her partial billing too, even though her role was a relatively minor one.

James Taylor was a big star at the time of this concert. He had hits all the way through the 1970s, including one earlier in 1979, "Up on the Roof." This concert was with a full band, and he rocked more than I expected on a couple of the songs.

This album is put together from multiple concerts, like some of the others from No Nukes. The first ten tracks are from the September 20th concert in Madison Square Garden. The remainder are from the September 23rd concert, also in Madison Square Garden. Note that I found an audience bootleg with some other songs ("Up on the Roof" and "Carolina in My Mind") but the sound quality was too poor to merit their inclusion.

Two of the songs here had serious problems. I fixed one of them quite well, I think. The bootleg I used was missing a big chunk at the start of "Your Smiling Face." However, I found the rest of it from the 1980 "No Nukes" movie, and I patched that in. A big portion of "Sweet Baby James" was missing too. Unfortunately, the only fix I could find came from a rough audience bootleg. I used all the audio editing tricks I could, but the first two minutes still sounds noticeably worse than the rest. Luckily, that song was done in a solo acoustic format, so the audience boot part doesn't sound as bad as it did on full band songs. 

Carly Simon was married to Taylor from 1972 until 1983. However, Taylor enjoyed going on tour frequently, and Simon hated to perform concerts at all, and did so very rarely. This was one major reason why they got divorced. In keeping with that difference, Taylor seems to have played sets each of the four nights of the No Nukes concerts, while Simon didn't do any set of her own, despite also being a big star. However, she did sing two songs at the ends of Taylor's sets, both cover versions, and also took part in helping to sing the concert finales each night. One of the songs Taylor and Simon sang together, "Mockingbird," was a bit hit for them as a duet in 1974. 

Taylor released the album "Flag" in May 1979. Two of the songs here, "Brother Trucker" and "Millworker," first appeared on that album.

There were a surprisingly big number of Taylor songs on the official "No Nukes" album compared to other performers: "Captain Jim's Drunken Dream," "Honey Don't Leave L.A.," "The Times They Are A-Changin'," and "Mockingbird." But as I mentioned with previous albums from these concerts, he performed these on multiple nights, so I don't know if these versions are exactly the same as the officially released ones or not. Everything else is unreleased.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Your Smiling Face [Edit] (James Taylor)
02 talk (James Taylor)
03 Stand and Fight (James Taylor)
04 Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight (James Taylor)
05 talk (James Taylor)
06 Brother Trucker (James Taylor)
07 talk (James Taylor)
08 Mexico (James Taylor)
09 talk (James Taylor)
10 Honey Don't Leave L.A. (James Taylor)
11 talk (James Taylor) (James Taylor)
02 Sweet Baby James [Edit] (James Taylor)
13 talk (James Taylor)
14 Long Ago and Far Away (James Taylor)
15 Millworker (James Taylor)
16 Captain Jim's Drunken Dream (James Taylor)
17 Lo and Behold (James Taylor)
18 The Times They Are A-Changin' (James Taylor & Carly Simon with John Hall & Graham Nash)
19 Mockingbird (James Taylor & Carly Simon)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362828/VA-NONUKS1979MdisnSqurGrdnNwYrkC__9-20___9-23-1979JmsTylratse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YRjYanae

 I could have used just a photo of Taylor for the album cover, but I didn't have any really good ones from the No Nukes concerts. I found a decent one of him and Simon from the concerts though, and decided to use that.