Bruce Springsteen is my Hero . . . plus info about this week’s broadcast/podcast With Moby and Suzanne Vega!

By Helen ~ February 13, 2013

Katy Perry (lower right hand corner) taking a picture of Bruce Springsteen standing (you can see my blonde hair in left lower corner)

Nick and I spent last Friday night in LA, as part of a 3,000-person crowd honoring Bruce Springsteen as this year’s “MusiCares Person of the Year.” It was an awesome event put on by an awesome organization honoring an awesome individual. MusiCares raises money to help musicians who are down on their luck; whether they’ve suffered from health issues – many artists cannot afford health insurance – or financial loss – think Katrina and Sandy for example – or fallen on hard times due to substance abuse and other causes, MusiCares offers a helping hand to those who enrich our society and our lives with music.

L-R: Ben Harper, Charlie Musselwhite and actor Sean Penn hang out at the MusiCares event

Each year they hold a gala event and celebrate an artist who has made a significant contribution to the world with their remarkable work (last year was Paul McCartney for example). This year, it was The Boss who was selected as their honoree. An amazing array of musicians came out to pay homage, each performing a Springsteen song – they included everyone from Sting to Ben Harper with Charlie Musselwhite and Natalie Maines to Elton John to The Alabama Shakes; it was truly a remarkable assembly of talented people that night. At the end, Bruce himself accepted the award with such humility and grace, and he spoke eloquently about a number of things, including our responsibility to help others less fortunate. Then he joined his band to treat the crowd to several of his own hits. What a night! We had a wonderful time and saw lots of friends there.

On to this week’s eTown Broadcast/Podcast:

In this encore airing Nick and I and the crew head east to join Moby and Suzanne Vega in Baltimore for a special show from the lovely Hippodrome Theater.

Moby and his band

Moby has sold well over 20,000,000 record copies of his music worldwide. Impressive. He’s also socially/environmentally aware, very intelligent, and a very sweet and likeable person. He’s also really funny, too (listen to Nick’s conversation with him this show and you’ll know what I’m talking about). This is one of those times that Moby pares things down musically; we’re so used to the electronic music mode, the lush effects, looping, enhancements etc. as the norm with him, but here he offers an unusual acoustic set with just two great singers and a fiddle player, doing familiar songs with a fresh approach. I think you’ll like it.

Nick chats with Suzanne Vega

This is Suzanne Vega’s third visit to eTown (I know she says 2nd in the video below, but its actually #3); this time she’s accompanied by her friend and colleague Gerry Leonard on guitar. FYI she almost steals the show! Nuff said.