The Music Of Prince
Carnegie Hall
New York, NY
March 7, 2013

The Roots with Wendy Melvoin (guitar) - house band
Rita Houston - emcee

from http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/concert-at-carnegie-hall-will-honor-the-songs-of-prince/
This is the ninth year that Michael Dorf, the founder of City Winery, has mounted a show to raise funds for education programs
serving the poor. The series has raised more than $700,000 for programs like the Church Street School of Music, Young Audiences
New York, Music Unites and the Pinwheel Project. The beneficiaries this year will also include the American Symphony Orchestra�s
Music Notes, Little Kids Rock and the Center for Arts Education.

Source: master audience recording
Taper: larryrulz
Location: Left front orchestra
Sound: mp3 samples attached in the comments

Lineage: CA-14 (cardioid) > CA-9100 preamp > Sony M10 (24/44) > Audacity (tracking only) > TLH > FLAC 6 > foobar2000 (FLAC tags)

Length: 2 hr 12 min

Taper's notes: This is a FLAWED recording. There is a loose wire somewhere in my recording gear that I wasn't able to diagnose
before, during or after this show. I still don't know what's wrong. All the connections are tight and the wire insulation looks intact. The first
5-6 tracks have a muffled sound and often show a very strange waveform (see Comments section). The next 5-6 tracks have volume and
sound quality fluctuations which sound like a loose wire intermittently making contact (see Comments section). The problems exist throughout
most of the first 12 tracks. The final 10 tracks (#13-22) are flawless and the problem is no longer noticeable.

At one point I thought about not sharing this recording, but ultimately decided to upload the entire show anyway since it was such a unique event.
While technically a huge disappointment for me, there were so many wonderful musical moments I was absolutely thrilled to have been in Carnegie Hall
on this night. If you have the skills, please re-master this and make it better! Any suggestions as to what the problem might be would also be
greatly appreciated.


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Good review (although I don't agree about the "misfires" - both were nice):

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/arts/music/the-music-of-prince-tribute-at-carnegie-hall.html?ref=arts&_r=0
For a Night, at Least, Nothing Compares to Prince
�The Music of Prince� Tribute at Carnegie Hall
By JON PARELES

One concert could hardly contain the multiplicity of Prince�s enormous songwriting catalog over the 35 years since he released his debut
album, �For You,� in 1978. �The Music of Prince,� a tribute concert on Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, tried hard. The program strove
to capture a broad swath of Prince�s work, through funk and rock and pop, from lust to spirituality to apocalypse to partying. It included
hits, rarities and even some of Prince�s dance moves (but alas, no leaping splits). It was the ninth annual �Music of� concert produced
by Michael Dorf, the owner of City Winery, to benefit music programs for underprivileged children.

With the Roots as a house band, the lineup included singers clearly influenced by Prince - D�Angelo, Bilal - and diverse admirers,
among them Elvis Costello and Bettye LaVette. There were also musicians who had been in Prince�s touring bands, including the saxophonist
Eric Leeds, whose group fDeluxe reunites members of a band Prince produced in the 1980s as the Family, and the guitarist Wendy Melvoin,
who sat in with the Roots for most of the concert.

At a tribute show, song assignments are nearly as important as the performances themselves, and �Music of Prince� was full of smart choices.
Mr. Costello, ever the collector, delivered a Prince song that has only appeared as a bootleg: �Moonbeam Levels,� a yearning, Beatles-tinged rocker.
�The Cross,� a song about despair and salvation, was stoked with flamboyant devotion by the Blind Boys of Alabama, a venerable gospel quartet.

Bilal and the Roots turned �Sister� - a punky one-and-a-half-minute ditty about incest from Prince�s �Dirty Mind� album - into an elaborately dramatic
mini-suite that kept shifting tempos and genres, sometimes from one line to the next, up to a screeching peak.

The Waterboys, a British band whose anthems show Celtic roots, performed �Purple Rain,� the Prince rocker that rivals any anthem, replacing
Prince�s lead guitar with keening electric violin. Kat Edmonson, a singer from Texas, turned a ballad, �The Beautiful Ones,� into an even slower
torch song, accompanied only by piano and full of heartache.

Ms. LaVette backdated �Kiss� from funk to a bluesy soul vamp, and gave its sexual swagger her own raspy, staccato signature. Talib Kweli updated
the ominous �Annie Christian" - Prince�s song about a murderous sociopath, which calls for a chant of �Gun control!" - to mention the violence
involving the former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Nina Persson, the Swedish lead singer of the Cardigans, made �Nothing Compares 2 U� - a Prince song that was introduced on the Family�s
1985 album - more forlorn and less tragic than the well-known Sinead O�Connor version. And DeVotchKa pushed �Mountains� from funk toward
foot-stomping folk-rock.

There were misfires, too. Applying stolid, folky strumming to �Pop Life� (Citizen Cope and Alice Smith) and to �When Doves Cry� (Bhi Bhiman)
deflated both of them, though Mr. Bhiman�s sustained croon revealed the lovers� quarrel within the song. �Raspberry Beret� (sung by Diane Birch
with Booker T. Jones on largely unheard organ) and a funk medley from fDeluxe were lost to Carnegie Hall�s acoustics.

And there was comedy: from Chris Rock and Fred Armisen parodying Prince�s spoken-word moments; from Sandra Bernhard, reaching for
high notes as she hammed her way through �Little Red Corvette�; from Princess, the Prince tribute duo of Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum,
who had costumes and moves for �Darling Nikki.�

The finale belonged to D�Angelo, who stepped forward as a soul showman, complete with microphone tricks, for �It�s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night�
and �1999.� The Roots kicked up Prince�s post-James Brown funk grooves, and D�Angelo placed his yowls, hoots and exhortations just right, to be
joined by the whole lineup during �1999.� It was party time - hitting the energy level where a Prince concert would start. dramatic mini-suite that kept
shifting tempos and genres, sometimes from one line to the next, up to a screeching peak.
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Setlist:
01 intro by Michael Dorf
02 Purple Rain - The Waterboys
03 intro to Let's Go Crazy (spoken) - Fred Armisen
04 Ten - Eric Leeds
05 I Wonder U - PRINCEss and Eric Leeds
06 Raspberry Beret - Booker T. Jones with children's choir and Diane Birch
07 Nothing Compares 2 U - Nina Perrson
08 High Fashion/Mutiny - Fdeluxe (The Family) (Eric Leeds, Susannah Melvoin and St. Paul Peterson)
09 Little Red Corvette - Sandra Bernhard
10 Mountains - DeVotchka
11 When Doves Cry - Bhi Bhiman
12 The Beautiful Ones - Kat Edmonson
13 The Cross - Blind Boys Of Alabama
14 Pop Life - Citizen Cope and Alice Smith
15 Annie Christian - Talib Kweli
16 Sister - Bilal
17 If I Was Your Girlfriend (spoken) - Chris Rock
18 Kiss - Bettye Lavette
19 Darling Nikki - PRINCEss (Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum)
20 Moonbeam Levels - Elvis Costello
21 It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night - D'Angelo
22 1999 - All