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October 13, 2026
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Great live albums from Carnegie Hall
9 songs, 38 min 13 sec
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| Judy Garland’s triumphant 1961 performance at Carnegie Hall has sometimes been hailed as “the greatest night in showbiz history.” Getty Images |
Dear listeners,
On Friday, the eccentric, beloved young singer-songwriter Cameron Winter, who also fronts the band Geese, released “Live at Carnegie Hall,” an LP that documents a solo performance given last December. (You can read my take on it here.)
I was at the show, so it has been a surreal pleasure to listen to this live album and relive the semi-recent past. Equally surreal was watching “Cameron Winter at Carnegie Hall,” a striking concert film shot by Paul Thomas Anderson, which premiered this month at the New York Film Festival. Playing that storied, 135-year-old venue is a milestone in any artist’s career, and Winter, then 23 years old, rose to the occasion, reimagining many of the droll folk songs on his debut solo album, “Heavy Metal,” as grand-piano reveries.
In honor of “Live at Carnegie Hall,” today’s playlist is a selection of songs recorded live at — how did you guess?! — Carnegie Hall. Since so many magnificent concerts have taken place there, this playlist is hardly exhaustive, and it focuses specifically on the venue’s pop, rock and soul acts, which generally make up a small percentage of the concert hall’s programming.
Still, there are some true heavy-hitters on this playlist. You’ll hear from folk icons (Bob Dylan; Joni Mitchell), expert songbook interpreters (Nina Simone; Judy Garland) and, as a parting glass, a traditional Irish folk group. Grab a program, take your seat and enjoy.
And the seesaws will swing on a cold Saturday,
Lindsay
1. Cameron Winter: “If You Turn Back Now (Live at Carnegie Hall)”
I have decided, after much deliberation, that this is my favorite of the three new songs on Cameron Winter’s “Live at Carnegie Hall” — a vivid tale of a benevolent devil and the weird illogic of desire. As Winter sings at the end, in an affecting, wounded animal’s howl, “My heart is for those who leave me alone.” Oof!
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Bill Withers: “Use Me (Live)”
The full scope of Bill Withers’s mighty talent is on display throughout “Live at Carnegie Hall,” a 1973 double LP that documents a concert he and his excellent backing band played at the venue the previous October. Of course he does the hits, like “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Lean on Me.” But Withers also reveals himself to be a natural storyteller in the banter that precedes the affectionate “Grandma’s Hands” and “I Can’t Write Left-Handed,” a moving narrative about a wounded soldier returning from the Vietnam War. Withers’s “Live at Carnegie Hall” is exceptional from front to back, so let’s start with its first track, an extended version of his then-current single “Use Me.” The band — and the audience — get locked so deeply into the groove that, after he introduces himself, Withers has to run it back once more.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Bob Dylan: “The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Live)”
Imagine this: You’re one of the lucky 3,000 people in the crowd to see a 22-year-old Bob Dylan headline Carnegie Hall in October 1963, and he opens with the live debut of this song. Dylan cut a studio version — which would become the title track of his next album, released the following February — of this epochal tune just a few days before he played Carnegie, but this recording captures the magical moment when he played it before an audience for the first time.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Nina Simone: “Mississippi Goddam”
Speaking of legendary protest songs that were debuted live at Carnegie Hall, Nina Simone gave the definitive performance of this impassioned civil rights anthem on March 21, 1964, during her second headlining show at the venue. Simone wrote the song the previous fall, incensed by both the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham (“Alabama’s got me so upset,” she begins) and the assassination of the activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss. “The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam,” Simone says by way of introduction, and the (mostly white, according to the Carnegie archives) audience lets out a genial laugh. So she adds, pointedly and unequivocally, “I mean every word of it.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Joni Mitchell: “Blue (Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY 2/23/1972)”
Joni Mitchell headlined Carnegie Hall twice — first in February 1969, then in February 1972 — and fortunately both of those exquisite performances have been released over the past few years through the wonderfully comprehensive Joni Mitchell Archives project. The artistic growth captured across those sets, just three years apart, is staggering. Playing Carnegie the first time, Mitchell was a wide-eyed, up-and-coming singer-songwriter readying the release of her second album, “Clouds.” By 1972, she was a confident innovator of the folk tradition who could bend familiar forms into startlingly personal compositions. During her second Carnegie performance — which will soon be released on vinyl for the first time — Mitchell played beautifully realized versions of her 1971 masterpiece “Blue,” and treated the audience to some deeply felt works-in-progress that would appear on her next album, “For the Roses.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Buck Owens and His Buckaroos: “Love’s Gonna Live Here (Live)”
Buck Owens and His Buckaroos treated a Carnegie audience to a tightly executed and delightfully charismatic performance on March 25, 1966, later released as “Carnegie Hall Concert” — one of the greatest country albums ever recorded at the venue. This rendition of Owens’s 1963 hit “Love’s Gonna Live Here” is a highlight, showcasing the band’s musical and personal chemistry. After the lead guitarist Don Rich rips out a blazing solo, Owens pauses the song to quip, “You talk about a ham … that must be pure pork.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble: “Scuttle Buttin’ (Live 1984)”
Mere mortals, behold: Stevie Ray Vaughan, on the Carnegie Hall stage, shredding to the high heavens. Vaughan and his band Double Trouble recorded “Live at Carnegie Hall” (which wasn’t officially released until 1997) the day after Vaughan turned 30, a celebration that made it, as he said, “the best birthday ever, forever.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Judy Garland: “The Man That Got Away (Live at Carnegie Hall/1961)”
April 23, 1961, is sometimes immortalized as “the greatest night in showbiz history” because of what happened that evening at Carnegie Hall: Judy Garland headlined her first solo show at the storied venue, and it was an absolute triumph. “Judy at Carnegie Hall,” the double LP released that July, was a huge commercial success, eventually making Garland the first woman to win the Grammy for album of the year. Though still only 38, Garland had suffered a number of personal and professional setbacks in the years leading up to her Carnegie comeback, and she delivered some of her signature numbers — like this spectacular torch song from the 1954 film “A Star Is Born” — with a survivor’s grit. Years later, Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft recalled asking her mother’s musical director Mort Lindsey what had made that show more special than all the rest. “Mort said there was something about the space we were in — the acoustics of Carnegie Hall and the history — that made it seem different,” Luft wrote, “but more than that, it was the love from the audience that night that made it different.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem: “The Parting Glass (Live)”
Finally, I send you off with a parting glass — or at least a live version of this Scottish traditional performed by the Irish folk group the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, who played Carnegie Hall several times. The famed 1963 show documented on much of their most successful album, “In Person at Carnegie Hall,” took place — of course — on St. Patrick’s Day.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“Great Live Albums From Carnegie Hall” track list
Track 1: Cameron Winter, “If You Turn Back Now (Live at Carnegie Hall)”
Track 2: Bill Withers, “Use Me (Live)”
Track 3: Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Live)”
Track 4: Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddam”
Track 5: Joni Mitchell, “Blue (Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY 2/23/1972)”
Track 6: Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, “Love’s Gonna Live Here (Live)”
Track 7: Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Scuttle Buttin’ (Live 1984)”
Track 8: Judy Garland, “The Man That Got Away (Live at Carnegie Hall/1961)”
Track 9: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, “The Parting Glass (Live)”
Bonus Tracks
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Have feedback? Ideas for a playlist? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at theamplifier@nytimes.com.
