After the auction, it was time for some speechifying. They mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa made some brief introductory comments that included a story about standing on the steps of city hall with Stevie Wonder earlier that day. It’s possible he was making a point about how much music played a part in the lives of the citizens of Los Angeles, but we honestly weren’t paying all that much attention. We weren’t the only ones.

Additional speeches were given by Dana Tomarken, an executive with MusiCares about the mission and goals of the organization. At several points, she had to shush the industry crowd and remind them that this was important stuff she was talking about. It’s kind of how we sometimes have to talk to our Middle-School students. She also recognized the big corporate sponsors like GM and Verisign. A lot was made about the fact that this was the best selling Person of the Year event yet and that Don had already helped them raise 4.2 million dollars.

There was a short video with some clients of MusiCares talking about how the organization had helped them deal with injuries and addictions. It was quite moving.

Then the focus of the evening turned to Don. A short video about Don’s career and activism was shown. There really wasn’t anything new in it (though despite the fact that they showed the “Taking You Home” video while talking about Caddo Lake, Inside Job was never mentioned or shown as one of Don’s works.) The video had 2 short segments of Don sitting in what we assume was the Henley Library at the Thoreau Institute talking about how he had gotten involved with the project (seeing a story on CNN) and what they had accomplished. Don’s hair was very short in these segments, so we’re assuming they were filmed earlier in the year.

Then Ed Begley began the concert part of the night. Some have wondered why he was chosen to emcee the proceedings. Ed is a longtime friend of Don’s. Ed has appeared at numerous Walden Woods functions and we’ve even seen him at a solo Henley show. Ed remarked that he had met Don back in the early seventies and that they had had some wild times together (wild and Ed just don’t go together, do they?) and that Ed had always admired Don’s commitment to the environment. Ed mentioned that Don had solar panels in his home long before even Ed did. This caused a gasp of surprise from the crowd.

Now, the musical part of the evening… One thing we were surprised about was that the performers didn’t stop and say things about Don before their songs. They just walked out on stage, did their number and left. It would have been interesting to hear about just what John Mayer, for example, thinks about Don. We had heard earlier that Don had helped choose some of these performers because he wanted to put together an unpredictable roster. Apparently, Don likes John Mayer a lot, counts Sam Moore as an influence and well, Trisha and the Dixie Chicks were pretty much a given.

John Mayer was up first, backed by Don’s usual solo show band (Frank Simes, Steuart Smith, Scott Crago, Will Hollis, Michael Thompson, and Lance Morrison), who backed everyone this evening. It’s a testament to their talent and professionalism that they were able to work out all of these arrangements despite the fact that they could probably play them the Henley way in their sleep.

John Mayer was incredible, as you can probably tell from the sound clip we put up. While the guitars are such an integral part of “Dirty Laundry”, over time, they’ve sort of become part of the background noise in the song…especially if you’ve heard it many, many times. Mayer brought the guitar to the foreground. His sound was bright and he improvised on the familiar licks. Absolutely phenomenal. It’s so hard to try to describe in writing how different these songs sounded. Thankfully, we have the 30 second sound-clips that XM put up (yes, we’ll post more of those when we are done with this written version of the evening).

Timothy B. Schmit was up next. When Ed introduced him, he mentioned that Tim is also a friend of the Earth and that he has several hybrid vehicles and solar panels at his house in Kauai (one has to wonder if Ed judges each person he meets by how many solar panels they have).

Tim’s performance was one of the disappointments of the evening…not because Tim performed badly, but because Tim just did his normal, everyday version of “I Can’t Tell You Why”. It would have been so interesting to hear Tim tackle something like “Last Worthless Evening” or “Not Enough Love in the World”.

Tim did stick around after his song was over. He put on reading glasses to read the teleprompter to introduce Sam Moore. Sam came out and sat down on a stool and proceeded to do an amazingly soulful rendition of “The Long Run”. Brilliant. Sam’s phrasing seemed to be a bit free-form and he sometimes got ahead or behind of the music, but the band immediately made adjustments…again…talented and professional! Sam got up about half-way through the song to jam with Timothy. They really looked like they were having a lot of fun.

It would have been nice to have seen Don’s face during some of these performances. It was probably a big thrill to see a legend like Sam performing one of Don’s signature songs.

After Sam left the stage, Bernie Taupin came out to introduce Keb’ Mo’. Now, we have to be honest here…we knew the name Keb’ Mo’ and knew that a couple of this bluesy songs have been played over dramatic scenes in House and other television shows, but we really had no clue what to expect. Keb’ has played the T-Bone Walker Blues Festival in Don’s hometown of Linden.

All we can say is that Mr. Mo’s rendition of “One of These Nights” is one of the coolest things we’ve ever heard. That was probably the case for most of the people in attendance. This should be a single. We’ll let his performance speak for itself.

Trisha Yearwood took the stage and did a very faithful cover of “Take it To the Limit” She put back in the Randy high notes that Glenn leaves off of his version. Here’s something else we wish had happened. It’s great that many people chose Eagles songs to sing, but Don’s solo career was highly unrepresented. Especially with songs like this one that Don did help to write, but that aren’t especially associated with him. Trisha’s voice would have done justice to “Month of Sundays” or “Long Way Home” just as well as it did this Eagles’ classic.

Michael McDonald came out next and sat behind the piano. He actually said a few words about how much he admired Don and how honored he was to participate in this event. Michael did Heart of the Matter much as you’d probably expect how this song would sound sung by him. The piano was tucked off to the side of the stage, so we could only see him on the screens. He put a lot of heart and soul into the song and it was nice to hear a fresh take on a Henley song we don’t particularly care for.

Then, it was Bernie Taupin time. We’ve never really thought about Bernie except as the guy who writes songs with Elton John. If pressed, we probably would put him in the same category of cranky rock-stars with Pete Townshend and John Mellencamp. We’ve never heard him connected with Don in any way, so when he opened his mouth to praise Don, we were blown away by what he said.

A lot of the papers have picked up the majority of his comments, so we’ll use them to try to recreate what he said:

"You need to understand something: songwriters are basically a seething mass of respect and jealousy," Taupin said. "Don is someone I admire tremendously. But more importantly, he's written so many things that I wished I had.. My envy knows no bounds."

Bernie then quoted these lines from Month of Sundays (which he also pointed out was kind of a throwaway, CD bonus track):

Now I see my handiwork on the block
Everywhere I turn
And I see the clouds cross the weathered
Faces and I watch the harvest burn

And said, “"Come on, that's like William Faulkner. In fact, I've always liked the way Don seems to put a literary slant on much of his work. He can get romantic like F. Scott Fitzgerald, and then back when he was doing 'Desperado,' he was Zane Grey. In a word it is wonderful, intelligent and melodic.  "Unfortunately when much of the music business has become a bit like 'Logan's Run,'—you know, that thing where you obtain a certain age and zap, you're gone? Fortunately great songs never die and well outlast disposable culture. So instead of being relegated to the trashcan of irrelevance, words like yours will inspire our kids for generations to come.
"The Eagles always were for me the other side of the California myth. The Beach Boys had the beach and the ocean, but the Eagles owned the canyon and desert. What a canvas and how well Don painted on it."
At some other point, he also said, “''Hotel California'' sums up the counterculture better than any other tune; ''Boys of Summer'' encapsulates the post-boomer experience more than anything could hope to…bastard!”
Pretty nice stuff, huh?

Shawn Colvin was up next then to sing “End of the Innocence”. She sang it a bit slower than the usual and let her acoustic guitar take the place of the piano. It was very haunting and kind of lovely. There were problems, though, with feedback on her microphone. It was a bit distracting, but she made it through the song like a trooper.

Seal was next on Best of My Love. It was nice…but kind of forgettable. There were a lot of people heading to the restroom during this performance. Poor Seal.

The last tribute number of the night was the Dixie Chicks. They were all dressed in white and did “Desperado” much as you’d expect them to. It was surprising that one of the tribute acts did this number since we though Don would end the evening on it. It really would have been nice to see the Chicks rock out to something like “Life in the Fastlane” or “I Will Not Go Quietly”.

Now it was time for Don to give his award…say a few things and perform some songs. That’s all coming in our next and final installment.
 

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