The overlap of David Byrne, ZZ Top, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash

And a couple more ways to get to Carnegie Hall

What do they all have in common? (and I will admit at the start of this note that this is a little self-serving as a marketing piece for two Carnegie Hall shows coming up in the first half of 2024 that I am producing (and I was so desperate for a photo that I used this which is a fun shot from backstage at Carnegie for David Byrne’s show, but boy oh boy, do I look bad, balding and fake smile, sorry)).  

Well, at the David Byrne & Talking Heads tribute in 2015, it featured a wonderful contribution from Billy Gibbons, one of the bearded founders of ZZ TOP.  And Billy, is playing 3-shows starting tomorrow night at City Winery NY for Dec. 30^th and New Year’s Eve.  He has put together a fantastic special band to entertain and make the eve of a new year something to remember (and all three shows are sold out).  Just after NYE, I will be announcing the Crosby, Stills, and Nash tribute which will be my 18^th annual show at Carnegie Hall for May 13^th, 2024.  So, what is the overlap?  Clearly, a little bit of a stretch, and certainly, a musically interesting overlap of styles for sure. 

Now the road to Carnegie is not just practice, practice, practice, but also a hard to find open date and then put a big non-refundable deposit down.   The calendar at Carnegie is very competitive with very few dates available for outside programming.  I feel very lucky to have a long and solid relationship with the entire team at this iconic temple of music.   The first date I had booked for this series back in 2004 was in the month of March, March 20 to be precise, which became the tradition month of the tribute series.  The past 17 tributes, we have now raised $1.8m for music education programs for underserved youth, has become a ritual which I cherish.  It’s been rewarding and a bit of fun selfish work, year after year, doing the annual tribute series of my favorite singer songwriters and asking my favorite other signer songwriters to perform one song of the honoree.   Of course, if you’re paying homage to CSN (and we always seek to get the artists permission and the hope they will come and play the encore like Bruce Springsteen, REM and David Byrne did), I reached out to Graham Nash and his manager. 

We have had Graham perform at City Winery a few times lately, his voice, stories, are just amazing.  Anyway, Mr. Nash is away the month of March, so, what to do.  He is into the concept (who wouldn’t want to raise funds for a good cause), but if your committed elsewhere, what can you do.  Mark, his manager suggested the month of May, and I found another day on May, May 13^th to be precise, so mark your schedule, for this tribute. (flyer below) Now the calendar at the “second best venue” in the world after City Winery is perhaps even harder to secure dates than our own.  So, March 20, given the timing looked like I would need to keep it given the short change.  

As I learned of Graham’s schedule and our finding a second date,  we hosted on October 29th a Sinead O’Connor tribute at City Winery, which sold out quickly and was such a powerful reminder of her importance. Amanda Palmer had the idea, worked with our programming director Shlomo Lipetz and we created a star-studded lineup.  I thought,  if we can sell 300 tickets so fast to this quickly put together tribute of 7 artists doing the music of Sinead at City Winery, we should be able to sell 10 times that with a line-up of 20 artists at Carnegie. 

So, I penciled in March 20, which is a few days after St. Paddy’s day for a Sinead O’Connor tribute at Carnegie.  Made some artwork and then boom, just before announcing it on November 30th, our dear friend Shane McGowen, singer songwriter of the Pogues passed away.  Right away, Tony Shanahan, Patti Smith’s long time guitar player, who lead the house band for the Sinead show, and who was already planning to be the HB for the Carnegie Show asked what we are doing for Shane.  It seemed fitting we celebrate these two iconic Irish songwriters, freedom of speech advocates, and true rock icons in a dual celebration.  New artwork, additional phone calls, but now this new date is taking on such importance.  So, now we got two amazing shows being planned for Carnegie Hall:  March 20, A special St. Paddy’s day tribute to Sinead and Shane benefiting PEN America, and May 13^th, The Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash.  Both shows will be on sale at www.musicof.org  or thru www.michaeldorf.com.  I told you this was going to be shameless self-promotion, but perhaps also one story of how to get to Carnegie Hall.  And what is the connection between ZZ Top, David Byrne and Crosby Stills and Nash? I love them all.