Music Spotlight - Recorded Live at Newport in NY

How I Discovered This Record

I discovered this record in one of my favorite ways; digging through crates of mostly unsorted records at a special sale event (in this case an annual sale put on by a local radio station when I was in college, W.O.R.T..) I went to the event thinking that they would be selling their promo records, but I was very wrong. The station would accept donations of records and CDs all year and then once a year would have a sale for those records. That meant that other than the staff, these had not been picked over much ahead of time, so there would be gems!

I came across this one in one of the bins, looked at the cover and knew it was at least going to be worth the couple of bucks they were asking, little was I to know how much professional use I was going to get out of this one purchase.

Most people have at least heard of the Newport Jazz Festival, which has had an astounding lineup and produced a large number of "Live at Newport" albums over the years. The festival was run by a man named, George Wein, who was one of the most important people in Jazz who didn't play an instrument.

Wein moved this festival from Newport, Rhode Island to New York City in 1972, where it stayed until 1981 (the Wikipedia link above has a ton of info on this, of which I was mostly unaware until I did the research for this post.)

The recordings on this album were made at Shea Stadium and Nassau Coliseum between June 29th and July 8th, 1973. There's a ton more info here at the Discogs page for that release which is also one of your best bets for getting a copy of this.

Ray Charles - Every Saturday Night

This is a scorching version of "Every Saturday Night." The horns start out slippery but then get tight on the beat during the intro, and then the understated drums lay down a rock solid platform for the rest of the band. Everyone is doing their part without overdoing anything. The background vocals, the bass, the guitar, and of course Ray's piano are all in perfect balance. On top of that platform, Ray is in top form, managing to make a stadium concert feel intimate, soulful and funky.

I played this a lot at funk/soul/rare groove nights and always got a great response. Having a live or different version of a song than the one people were most familiar with became a theme for me as a DJ as well.

Stevie Wonder - Signed Sealed Delivered

I couldn't find this anywhere on YouTube, so this is the first thing that I have ever uploaded there. This was a regular part of any funk/soul DJ sets of mine, it always got people dancing and usually sent the record hounds running over to the booth to figure out where I had found it.

It's almost double time as compared to the album version, and it must have been something to see live. Stevie always has a solid band behind him, and runs a tight ship, so it's no surprise that the band is tight, and able to break it down the way that they do. While it's hard to point out any favorite parts of this, for me the "who who" background vocals and accompanying bass line at approx 2:27 really stand out. It's a shame that they had to fade it out as I'm sure that Jam went on for a while. Maybe the recordings exist somewhere!

Staple Singers - And The Lord Will Hear

The Staple Singers got a generous amount of time on this shared LP, and this 8 minute song is a great example of their mix of funk, soul and gospel. It breaks down at 2:50 into an impressive vocal solo, with some call and response with the crowd. It takes a determined non-believer to avoid getting swept up in the enthusiasm.

Ray Charles - Just A Man

This is another one that wasn't online yet and which I had to upload. It was worth the effort because this is a very important song to me. Not only was it my first real introduction to how good Ray Charles was (before this I knew he was good but I mostly associated him with Coca Cola) but it became one of my most important records as a DJ.

I probably played this song more as a DJ than any other, because I absolutely loved to close out the night with it, no matter what style of music I had been playing. If it was my job to play the closing set, chances were that I would close with this. It's just amazingly soulful, and the piano playing between 2:15 and 2:34 still gives me goosebumps whenever I hear it.

Stevie Wonder. Live in New York City. 1972

As usual with this sort of post, while doing research I found a bunch of other videos that were fantastic but not exactly what I was looking for. This is one of them. At first I was going to dedicate a whole blog post to this, but I don't think that I will focus on Stevie Wonder again for a while, and this doesn't need a full blog post as much as to give people a nudge to watch it.

So, if you have an hour or so with a good sound system and a video monitor, you should watch this. It's amazing and is classic Stevie. If you want any idea of what it looked like on stage for the "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" recording above, look no further than a recording from NYC a mere one year earlier. There are some amazing transitions, including a great one near the end where he goes from Superstition to Maybe Your Baby and then back to Superstition. Magic, and a tight band.

You'll need to click the "Watch on Youtube" link below to see this, no embedding!

If you're still paying attention and want more from the "Live From Newport in NY" album, here is Donny Hathaway's "Valdez", this blog post was getting way too long.