A Goodman is Hard to Find
As readers of these pages know, I often post rare videos and write about the wonderful Steve Goodman. (Thankfully, as time passes, more of the rare videos keep surfacing, including amazingly the video here of a concert he gave in 1976.) Just the other day, in fact, I had a recording here of his giddy, extemporaneous performance of "Winter Wonderland." And generally explain how difficult it is to get across how remarkable he was in concert.
I've told the story here in details about seeing him at the Universal Amphitheatre opening for Steve Martin and winning over 5,200 screaming Martin maniacs. Only last week, my friend Adam Belanoff posted this in reply on Facebook, confirming the tale and even exceeding it when he wrote --
"I saw Steve Goodman open for Steve Martin at the Nassau Coliseum in 1978 and much as I loved his music - and I did and do love it - I was perhaps most impressed by how he handled a crowd of 17, 686 screaming for the headliner. If he wrote nothing other than 'City Of New Orleans' he would be an immortal.."
This below doesn't alter how difficult it is to describe the experience of Steve Goodman in concert. It's just a recording, after all, and only audio. But it takes a leap in the right direction. It's the full audio of yet another, entire Steve Goodman hour-long concert done in Cincinnati in 1979. The radio station which I believe was sponsoring the event, WXRT, recorded it.
So sadly, Steve Goodman passed away only four years later of leukemia at the bizarrely too young age of just 36. But happily there are recordings like this one to pass along the joyousness he brought to performing.
Here is that complete show --
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