Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Paul McCartney, White House, Washington, DC, 6-2-2010

I've recently discovered the annual "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" tribute concerts. Here's probably the best known one, because it honors arguably the most successful songwriter of all time, Paul McCartney.

This concert happened to take place during the presidency of Barack Obama. That was lucky, because he took more of a hands-on approach to concerts like this. He hosted this at the White House and gave McCartney's induction speech. I've seen from other Gershwin Prize concerts that I've found that Obama was the only president to get directly involved in them.

The concert started with a song by McCartney. Then a bunch of musical stars played his songs, with a brief stand-up routine by Jerry Seinfeld included in there. Then McCartney took the stage again. He performed "Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder, just as they did on the original version in 1981. Apparently, that was the first time McCartney had played that song since 1991. After an induction speech by Obama, McCartney finished the concert with a short set of songs.

This album remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I only had one problem. This concert was broadcast on TV. Near the end of "Hey Jude," there was a voiceover near the end of song, briefly mentioning the next TV show. In order to get rid of it, I had to edit out one round of "na na's," which is why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

By the way, I stumbled across a Time Magazine article about this concern from way back then. It concluded with the line, "The White House has never hosted a cooler evening." Here's the link if you want to read the whole thing: 

Sir Paul McCartney Performs for Barack Obama | TIME.com 

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long. 

01 talk (Paul McCartney)
02 Got to Get You into My Life (Paul McCartney)
03 We Can Work It Out (Stevie Wonder)
04 Drive My Car (Jonas Brothers)
05 talk (Jerry Seinfeld)
06 Mother Nature's Son - That Would Be Something (Jack White)
07 The Long and Winding Road (Faith Hill)
08 Blackbird (Herbie Hancock & Corrine Bailey Rae)
09 talk (Elvis Costello)
10 Penny Lane (Elvis Costello)
11 For No One (Emmylou Harris)
12 Celebrations [Instrumental] (Lang Lang)
13 talk (Dave Grohl)
14 Band on the Run (Dave Grohl)
15 talk (Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder)
16 Ebony and Ivory (Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder)
17 talk (Barack Obama)
18 talk (Paul McCartney)
19 Michelle (Paul McCartney)
20 talk (Paul McCartney)
21 Eleanor Rigby (Paul McCartney)
22 talk (Paul McCartney)
23 Let It Be (Paul McCartney)
24 talk (Paul McCartney)
25 Hey Jude [Edit] (Paul McCartney & Everyone)
26 talk (Paul McCartney)
27 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/awLAgw3Z

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/hwjtq0xoqe98Z4K/file

The cover photo of McCartney and Obama is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Let's Go Crazy: A Grammy Salute to Prince, Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-28-2020

A couple of days ago, I posted a Grammy tribute to Paul Simon in 2022. That's not the only such Grammy tribute, although they haven't always happened yearly. Here's one from 2020, paying tribute to Prince, who died in 2016.

In the Paul Simon tribute, there was a lot of talking between songs. But in this one, this is almost no banter whatsoever. It's possible some of that was cut out of the version I found, since even the applause at the ends of songs was usually brutally cut short after just a second or two. To make this a better flowing listen, I usually patched in more applause between songs, to give more breathing room before the next song began. 

There are lots of interesting versions of Prince's most famous songs here, often done by big name stars. Since most of Prince's songs are upbeat and funky, and there's no banter between songs, this plays like a party album.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

01 Let's Go Crazy (H.E.R. & Gary Clark Jr.)
02 I Would Die 4 U (Miguel)
03 Nothing Compares 2 U (John Legend)
04 Controversy (St. Vincent)
05 1999 (Juanes)
06 The Beautiful Ones (H.E.R.)
07 Little Red Corvette - When Doves Cry - Kiss (Usher)
08 Manic Monday (Chris Martin & Susanna Hoffs)
09 Jungle Love - Cool - The Bird (Morris Day & the Time)
10 Darling Nikki (Foo Fighters)
11 Adore (Earth, Wind & Fire)
12 Sign O' the Times (Common & Sheila E.)
13 Raspberry Beret (Beck)
14 The Cross (Gary Clark Jr.)
15 America - Free - The Glamorous Life (Sheila E.)
16 Delirious (Maya Rudolph, Gretchen Lieberum & the Revolution)
17 Purple Rain (Mavis Staples & the Revolution)
18 Baby I'm a Star (Sheila E. & All-Stars)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sDXfRJEg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gbGt1ut1LUSTASX/file 

The cover photo shows Chris Martin and Susanna Hoffs singing "Manic Monday" under a giant picture of Prince.

The Foo Fighters - VH-1 Storytellers, Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, CA, 10-28-2009

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood continues. This time, it's the Foo Fighters.

The timing of this concert is rather curious. Normally, musical acts are promoting a new album. But this took place in the middle of a four-year gap between the release of "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" in 2007 and "Wasting Light" in 2011. Perhaps the answer is that the band released a "Greatest Hits" collection about one month after this concert.

The hits album included two new songs, "Wheels" and "Word Forward." Sure enough, both of those were performed here.

Thankfully, this episode did not begin halfway through the first song. As I've done for almost all the episodes in this series, I had to make a lot of small adjustments to improve the flow, especially adding applause when the applause got abruptly cut off. Also, the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I boosted them relative to the instruments.

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk (Foo Fighters)
02 This Is a Call (Foo Fighters)
03 talk (Foo Fighters)
04 Big Me (Foo Fighters)
05 talk (Foo Fighters)
06 Wheels (Foo Fighters)
07 talk (Foo Fighters)
08 My Hero (Foo Fighters)
09 talk (Foo Fighters)
10 Word Forward (Foo Fighters)
11 talk (Foo Fighters)
12 Everlong (Foo Fighters)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180167/TFOFGHTRS2009StrytllrsSnyPctursStdosClvrCtyCA__10-28-2009_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4SqPmo9u

The cover image is a screenshot taken from this exact concert.

David Bowie - BBC Sessions, Volume 10: 50th Birthday Concert, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 1-9-1997

I'm going to tempt fate by posting another David Bowie BBC album. (Weirdly, as I write this, Volume 8 is banned here but not on YouTube, and Volume 9 is banned on YouTube but not here.) Again, get it while you can, because who knows if this post will last.

David Bowie turned 50 years old in January 1997, and he decided to celebrate it with a bang, via a concert at Madison Square Garden that was broadcast on the BBC. What makes this especially interesting are all the guest stars who dueted with Bowie, usually for more than one song: Frank Black of the Pixies, the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of the Cure, Sonic Youth, Lou Reed, and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. 

I'm sure Bowie was especially excited to perform with Reed, since Bowie had been a big fan ever since the late 1960s, at a time when very few people had ever heard of Reed or his band the Velvet Underground, especially because Bowie was British and the Velvet Underground were even more obscure in Britain at the time. All the songs were originally done by Bowie, with the exception of three songs by Reed: "I'm Waiting for the Man," "Dirty Blvd.," and "White Light-White Heat." Bowie had performed "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "White Light-White Heat" pretty much since they were released. (For instance, it's known he performed "I'm Waiting for the Man" back in the summer of 1967!) However, this was the one and only time Bowie was involved with "Dirty Blvd." a more recent Reed song. The one Bowie original done with Reed, "Queen Bitch," comes from the "Hunky Dory" album in 1971. It is obviously an homage to Reed and the Velvet Underground, both musically and lyrically (and he mentioned the inspiration in the album's liner notes), so it's interesting to hear Reed help sing it.

The sound quality is excellent... now. Originally, all the lead vocals were surprisingly low in the mix. So I used the audio editing program UVR5 to remix every single song here. I think it sounds much better as a result.

This album is an hour and 58 minutes long.

01 Introduction [Instrumental] (David Bowie)
02 Little Wonder (David Bowie)
03 The Hearts Filthy Lesson (David Bowie)
04 Scary Monsters [And Super Creeps] (David Bowie & Frank Black)
05 Fashion (David Bowie & Frank Black)
06 Telling Lies (David Bowie)
07 Hallo Spaceboy (David Bowie & the Foo Fighters)
08 Seven Years in Tibet (David Bowie & the Foo Fighters)
09 The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie)
10 The Last Thing You Should Do (David Bowie & Robert Smith)
11 Quicksand (David Bowie & Robert Smith)
12 Battle for Britain [The Letter] (David Bowie)
13 Voyeur of Utter Destruction [As Beauty] (David Bowie)
14 I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie & Sonic Youth)
15 Looking for Satellites (David Bowie)
16 Under Pressure (David Bowie)
17 'Heroes' (David Bowie)
18 Queen Bitch (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
19 I'm Waiting for the Man (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
20 Dirty Blvd. (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
21 White Light-White Heat (David Bowie & Lou Reed)
22 Moonage Daydream (David Bowie)
23 talk - Happy Birthday (David Bowie)
24 All the Young Dudes (David Bowie & Billy Corgan)
25 The Jean Genie (David Bowie & Billy Corgan)
26 Space Oddity (David Bowie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BihDJUwS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FENHxg97tAFqkXl/file

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Norah Jones - Sleepless Nights - Non-Album Tracks (2004-2005)

Once again, I'm impressed at how much better Norah Jones's stray tracks are compared to the songs on her official albums. The music is more spirited and varied. If you haven't this side to her career, what are you waiting for?

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: I'm much more impressed with her sultry singing voice and general musical style than I am by her songwriting. On stray tracks albums like these, she excels by covering great songs. I haven't closely checked every song here, but all or nearly all of them are covers, and many are all-time classic songs.

There's not much else to say, except that the Foo Fighters collaboration sounds nothing like the Foo Fighters one hears on the radio. It's a cool song, but it has a bossa nova feel, of all things.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Sleepless Nights (Norah Jones)
02 Virginia Moon (Foo Fighters with Norah Jones)
03 She (Norah Jones)
04 Transport, Part 1 (Suphala with Norah Jones)
05 Any Other Day (Wyclef Jean & Norah Jones)
06 Dear John (Ryan Adams & Norah Jones)
07 We're All in This Thing Together (Norah Jones)
08 Home of the Blues (Norah Jones)
09 Guess Things Happen That Way (Kris Kristofferson & Norah Jones)
10 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & Norah Jones)
11 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Norah Jones)
12 Tennessee Waltz (Bonnie Raitt & Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15848826/NorahJ_2004-2005_SleeplssNights_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I found the cover I liked of an obscure live EP, apparently called "Norah Jones and the Handsome Band." It was something that was only released to radio stations in 2004, apparently. All I did was crop it, remove some text, and add the album title.