The Pavarotti & Friends video is taken from the concert “Pavarotti & Friends for Cambodia and Tibet” in Modena, Italy in 2000. Can you see what friends are singing together with Pavarotti on this song?
This Pavarotti & Friends concert is available on Decca CD, download and streaming, as well as on Decca DVD. The concert was also shown on TV.
Here is the official ad for The Beatles streaming launch.
This post was first published 28-12-2015. Last revision 28-12-2015.
Frank Sinatra became an American popular icon with a career that lasted over six decades. His singing career stands out as one of the most successful and legendary in popular music ever, but he also had a very successful career as an actor in many movies.
Above all we remember Frank Sinatra the singer today. In concerts and on recordings. The Sinatradiscography stands out in popular music. The Sinatradiscography is an essential part of 20th century popular music.
Throughout his career Frank Sinatra collaborated with many great singers, musicians and actors. In 1993, in the last stage of his career, Sinatra recorded a string of studio duets with such great artists as Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli, just to mention a few.
These recording sessions resulted in the release of two Sinatra duets album: “Duets” was issued in 1993 and “Duets II” was issued in 1994, both on single CDs. Both albums stands out as classy classics even today. Or maybe even more so today than when they were first released.
As part of the Duets project Sinatra also recorded “My Way” with the great Luciano Pavarotti. This recording wasn’t included in neither of the two Duets albums, but in 1995 this recording was issued as a bonus track on the Sinatra live album “Sinatra 80th: Live in Concert” (1 CD).
This Sinatra-Pavarotti duet was also included as a bonus track on a release of both Duets albums in 2005 as “Duets and Duets II: 90th Birthday Limited Collector’s Edition“ (2 CDs). The Sinatra-Pavarotti version of “My Way” was only included on international pressings, and not on North American pressings, of this album.
In 2013 the SinatraDuets project celebrated its 20th anniversary and the release of several Duets anniversary albums appeared. All of the following three versions includes the Sinatra-Pavarotti duet:
“Duets Twentieth Anniversary: Deluxe Edition” (2 CDs) included all duets from the two Duets albums, duets that weren’t included on the original Duets albums and previously unreleased duet recordings from the project.
“Best Of Duets“ (1 CD) was a compilation of highlights from the Duets project.
“Duets Twentieth Anniversary: Super Deluxe Box Set” (2 LPs, 3 CDs, 1 DVD) is for the die-hard fan and also includes a 20-page LP sized booklet and an embossed lithograph with envelope, all packed together in an elegant box.
The Sinatra-Pavarotti duet of “My Way” is also included on many Pavarotti compilations, such as “Pavarotti: The 50 Greatest Tracks” (2 CDs) which was also issued in 2013.
The Sinatra-Pavarotti duet of “My Way” is very popular among Pavarotti fans. This duet is easily available on the albums mentioned above and on other albums, on CD, download and streaming.
It seems that this duet is not available on YouTube. I therefore have included versions of “My Way” sung by Sinatra and Pavarotti (as part of The Three Tenors) separately. Look how Sinatra salutes The Three Tenors after their performance of the song! This video is taken from the The Three Tenors concert in Los Angeles in 1994.
Sinatra and Pavarotti did only perform together on stage a couple of times but they just recorded this duet together. One thing is certain: Sinatra and Pavarotti managed to take “My Way” to new heights!
Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998. In a statement Pavarotti said that Sinatra was “the Mozart of popular music”. He was indeed.
This post was first published 12-12-2015. Last revision 12-12-2015.
Woke up this morning to the sad news that the great blues legend B.B. Kinghas died. B.B. King was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The great B.B. King was born on September 16, 1925 and died on May 14, 2015.
B.B. King joined Pavarotti at the 1999 Pavarotti & Friends concert in Modena, Italy. The concert, entitled “Pavarotti & friends for the children of Guatemala and Kosovo”, is available on Decca CD and DVD.
B.B. King performed three songs in this concert (in addition to joining all artist at the end of the concert singing “We are the world”):
“The Thrill Is Gone” (with Pavarotti)
“Hey Man” (with Zucchero)
“Let The Good Times Roll” (solo)
Enjoy these songs with the great B.B. King!
RIP, grande, grande B.B. King!
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This post was first published 15-05-2015. Last revised 15-05-2015.
When you think you’ve seen all the Pavarotti albums there are in the world, new ones pops up, in a record store somewhere or somewhere online.
My latest find is “La Voz De Luciano Pavarotti”, a compilation CD from Mexico. This CD, which translates “The voice of …”, is a compilation of Pavarotti singing Italian popular songs. The CD was issued on Decca by Universal Music Mexico in 2014.
This CD can be bought online at Almaraz records, or the next time you or somebody you know goes to Mexico.
We celebrate this with a funny Mexican tribute to Pavarotti. Pavarotti sings Cielito Lindo together with Enrique Iglesias from a Pavarotti & Friends concert (not included on this Mexican CD).
More about Pavarotti in Mexico in later posts!
This post was first published 18-11-2014. Last revision 18-11-2014.
The Giro d’Italia moved even further on today, but we’ll have to stay on in the italian town of Modena just one more day. As the cyclists of the Giro pedals away into yet another beautiful italian landscape, we mark that Pavarotti’s hometown Modena were the town were Big Luciano held his many Pavarotti & Friends concerts during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. These were all charity concerts were he sang together with great pop stars of the world.
The 1995 concert “Pavarotti & friends together for the children of Bosnia” focused on helping the children of the war-torn Balkan country of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Money from this concert contributed to build the Pavarotti Music Center in Mostar. This concerts took place on September 12, 1995 in Modena’s outdoor arena Parco Novi Sad. For this blogger this is the best of all the Pavarotti & friends concerts. The concert was issued on Decca CD and DVD.
Both of today’s Modena related Pavarotti videos are from this concert. The first video is Pavarotti together with a very special group with the name of Passengers (with Bono among others) singing the beautiful song “Miss Sarajevo”. Singing about the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and in the capital Sarajevo in particular, this is one of the best anti-war songs ever!
The second video is Pavarotti singing the song “Così Celeste” together with the great italian pop singer Zucchero, the best song of the Pavarotti/Zucchero collaborations in my opinion.
After staying in Modena for days it’s time for us to move on. The Giro must go on and we’ll try to catch up with the cyclist somewhere along the way. See you all on the roads of Italy tomorrow! Big Luciano and Odd Pavarotti will be there!
Odd Pavarotti Blog 