Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to Carole King, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-24-2014

I recently started posting MusiCares tribute concerts. Here's another one. This one honors singer-songwriter Carole King, from 2014.

I've celebrated King's music on this blog quite a bit already. For instance, she and her songwriting partner Gerry Goffin are the subject of six albums in the "Covered" series. If there's an award for songwriting, she probably has gotten it, since she's written more hit songs than just about anybody on the planet. Oh, and her 1971 album "Tapestry" has sold over 15 million copies, making it one of the best selling albums of all time, as well as appearing in the Number 25 spot in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time. Not to shabby. 

This follows the usual format of such benefit concerts. Lost of guest stars performed their versions of King's songs. Then King gave an acceptance speech. Then she played a few songs at the end of the concert. She had a particularly close relationship with James Taylor, going back to the early 1970s, so it's not too surprising that Taylor dueted with her on most of those final songs.

The music here has not been released in audio format. However, it has come out on a DVD. That's how we have a recording, since these MusiCares concerts generally haven't been bootlegged at all. I converted the DVD to audio format, then broke the music into mp3s. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (emcee)
02 Hi De Ho [That Old Sweet Roll] (LeAnn Rimes & Steven Tyler)
03 So Far Away (Pink with Paul Mirkovich)
04 I Feel the Earth Move (Train)
05 talk (Lady Gaga)
06 You've Got a Friend (Lady Gaga)
07 talk (Gloria Estefan)
08 It's Too Late (Gloria Estefan)
09 talk (will.i.am)
10 Love Makes the World - Where Is the Love (will.i.am & Leah McFall)
11 Beautiful (Sara Bareilles, Zac Brown, Jason Mraz & Raining Jane)
12 Way Over Yonder (Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill & Darlene Love)
13 talk (Joy)
14 Where You Lead (Jesse & Joy)
15 Crying in the Rain (Miguel & Kacey Musgraves)
16 talk (Alicia Keys)
17 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Alicia Keys)
18 Been to Canaan (Jennifer Nettles)
19 I'm into Something Good (Amy Grant)
20 It Might as Well Rain until September (Miranda Lambert)
21 One Fine Day (Martina McBride)
22 Up on the Roof (James Taylor)
23 talk (Neil Portnow)
24 talk (Carole King)
25 Home Again (Carole King, Moez Dawad & Ahmad A. El Haggar)
26 Sweet Seasons (Carole King & James Taylor)
27 talk (Carole King & James Taylor)
28 Hey Girl (Carole King & James Taylor)
29 talk (Carole King & James Taylor)
30 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Carole King & James Taylor)
31 talk (Carole King)
32 Jazzman (Carole King & Tom Scott)
33 I Feel the Earth Move (Carole King & Everyone) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LE6zAFv4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Qi10lCVRGcuAGWH/file

The album cover image is from this exact concert. From left to right: James Taylor, Zac Brown, Carole King, Sara Bareilles, and Jennifer Nettles. (I'm not counting the bald headed man behind King. I don't know who he is.)

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Stevie Wonder, White House, Washington, DC, 2-25-2009

Here's another "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" concert, honoring Stevie Wonder in 2009. It was the first one with President Barack Obama's direct involvement, and the second one overall.

This concert followed a typical format of a number of guest stars performing songs made famous by the winner, Stevie Wonder, then a short induction ceremony, then a short set by the winner. The one bummer in my opinion is that the concert was rather short. This one is a half hour shorter than the concert honoring Paul McCartney a year later. One nice bonus though is not only President Obama's involvement, but also a short introduction by First Lady Michelle Obama. 

This album remains unreleased. I got lucky and found an mp3 of the entire show. Then I broke it into individual mp3s for each song. (I could still use help from anyone who has a PBS pass that allows them to watch PBS shows on the Internet in order to get some of the other Gershwin Prize concerts!)

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 talk (Michelle Obama)
02 Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
03 talk (emcee)
04 Overjoyed (Esperanza Spalding)
05 talk (emcee)
06 For Once in My Life (Tony Bennett)
07 talk (emcee)
08 Blame It on the Sun (Diana Krall)
09 talk (emcee)
10 Higher Ground (Mary Mary)
11 talk (emcee)
12 Summer Soft (India.Arie)
13 talk (emcee)
14 You and I (Martina McBride)
15 talk (emcee)
16 Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer (Anita Johnson)
17 talk (emcee)
18 If It's Magic (Paul Simon)
19 talk (Barack Obama)
20 talk (Stevie Wonder)
21 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
22 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
23 talk (Barack Obama)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZbWEnVNS

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/0Yh30jfYQR6JITn/file 

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Martina McBride - PBS Soundstage, Genesee Theatre, Waukegan, IL, 10-13-2005

Here's a "PBS Soundstage" episode from country star Martina McBride, from 2005.

When it comes to these Soundstage shows, I'm trying to post as many as I can, provided I like the music at least somewhat. But I have to admit I'm not a fan of a lot of country music from the past couple of decades, so I'm planning on skipping some episodes. For instance, episodes by Trace Adkins, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood, Lee Ann Womack, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Sugarland, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Jake Owen, and Old Dominion don't look interesting to me. If you think I'm missing out on any of those who are particularly good, please let me know. I must admit I'm not that familiar with most of those names.

However, I am posting this album by Martina McBride. I can't say I'm a big fan of hers either. However, I noticed that in October 2005, the same month this concert was either recorded or broadcast (I don't know which the date refers to), she released a studio album called "Timeless." It consists entirely of covers of "timeless" country classics. So more than half of his concert is made up of great country songs, which McBride performs very well. Thus, even I like this concert, despite not liking the mostly generic, formulaic, and forgettable sounds of modern country music. She did play a few of her best known hits at the end, which are decent enough.  

The last song "Independence Day," as "[Edit]" in its title. That's because near the end of the song, there was a voiceover announcement for less than half a minute. Unfortunately, that's pretty standard for episodes of this show. But I got rid of it using my usual method, with the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Heartaches by the Number (Martina McBride)
02 talk (Martina McBride)
03 I Can't Stop Loving You (Martina McBride)
04 talk (Martina McBride)
05 Till I Can Make It on My Own (Martina McBride)
06 Help Me Make It through the Night (Martina McBride)
07 talk (Martina McBride)
08 [I Never Promised You A] Rose Garden (Martina McBride)
09 True Love Ways (Martina McBride)
10 Today I Started Loving You Again (Martina McBride)
11 Satin Sheets (Martina McBride)
12 Let It Be Me (Martina McBride)
13 God Fearin' Women (Martina McBride)
14 Wild Angels (Martina McBride)
15 My Baby Loves Me (Martina McBride)
16 This One's for the Girls (Martina McBride)
17 talk (Martina McBride)
18 Independence Day [Edit] (Martina McBride) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8tV8BE9y

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jfORrYjc409URCs/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert.