W♥M (Archive): Robbie Krieger

W♥M275: Starkey Hearing Foundation (12 mins)

W♥M274: Starkey Red Carpet (8 mins)

Music/Entertainment Setlist

The Tenors

The Prayer

Darci Lynne Farmer

Who’s Loving You (Jackson 5 cover)

The Way You Look Tonight (Frank Sinatra cover) / Hit the Road Jack (Ray Charles cover)

O Mio Babbino Caro
w/ Petunia

Paul Williams

The Rainbow Connection

The Tenors

Forever Young (Bob Dylan cover)

Gloria Gaynor

Never Can Say Goodbye

I Will Survive

Sinbad

Sinbad - stand-up set

Don Felder

Hotel California

Alice Cooper/Don Felder/Robbie Krieger

No More Mr. Nice Guy

I’m Eighteen

Five to One / Break on Through (The Doors covers)

Brown Sugar (The Rolling Stones cover)

School’s Out /Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2 (Pink Floyd cover)

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Starkey Hearing Foundation

Once again, on a Sunday July afternoon, St. Paul became Tinseltown if only for an evening as the Starkey Hearing Foundation’s So The World May Hear 18th Annual Gala, in support ...

Alice Cooper

Rock icon Alice Cooper is bringing his incredibly live show to Mankato’s Vetter Stone Amphitheater this Friday, June 9th. We caught Cooper & Co earlier in December 2015 and said, “Alice Cooper shows …

Gloria Gaynor

Grammy-awarding winning singer and disco queen Gloria Gaynor; winner of Season 12 of America’s Got Talent Darci Lynne Farmer …

The Tenors

International vocal group The Tenors, but wanted to first showcase the red carpet arrivals and the numerous celebrity attendees that showed their support. …

Paul Williams

The music is written by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams. Ascher was best known for his keyboard and arrangements on John Lennon's album Walls and Bridges and Yoko Ono's A Story. …

The gift of hearing--

It’s one of the five senses many of us take for granted, but to those that are without it, the chance to gain (or re-gain in some cases) that vital gift, brings a feeling of utter joy that becomes difficult to fully express. Starkey Foundation’s 18th Annual So the World May Hear Awards Gala held at the Rivercentre ballroom in St. Paul, celebrated that precious gift and honored several dignitaries for their own similar humanitarian works.

The annual benefit, which supports the Foundation’s community-based hearing healthcare programs and other global strategic initiatives, filled the upstairs main ballroom with 1,500 supporters and donors for a memorable evening that informed, entertained, enlightened, and thrilled.

The annual formal gala is the centerpiece of Starkey’s year-long campaign to grow the Foundation’s international life-changing missions and domestically, its Hear Now program continues to provide hearing devices to those in need as well.

We previously showed you the star-studded red carpet arrivals; now, we want to focus on the gala itself and its many memorable music performances.

A silent auction of all types of memorabilia and items greeted supporters in the upstairs lobby and the doors soon opened to a full orchestra playing with dinner being served at the numerous ten-person tables. The evening got off to a slightly rocky start, beginning late with the traditional opening of an American bald eagle, set to fly above the crowd to land on his trainer’s arm on a platform on the other side of the room, not quite happening as expected.

That proved to be comic gold for returning host and emcee Sinbad, who made light of things and reassured everyone that all was ok, promising a fun and entertaining evening. Canadian trio The Tenors made a return appearance to the gala, themselves just recently back from one of Starkey’s transformative missions in Zambia, to open the evening with their hit, ‘The Prayer’.

Bayat Foundation co-founders Dr. Ehsan Bayat and Mrs. Fatima Laya Bayat were honored for their work on behalf of in-need Afghans, before the next performer to the stage was ventriloquist and entertainer Darci Lynne Farmer. The thirteen year-old won season12 of America’s Got Talent and brought with her, puppet Oscar, a Motown-loving mouse to sing a Jackson 5 cover, pulled a couple from the audience to have them croon on cue as human puppets, and thoroughly impressed as she and her rabbit puppet Petunia, sang a classic Italian opera.

Elton John sent a long a short film before songwriter/actor Paul Williams was honored, the grateful philanthropist even sang his trademark Muppet hit, The Rainbow Connection’. Actor Forest Whitaker then spoke about his own foundation’s peacebuilding initiatives and after a short film set in Dubai, former President Bill Clinton electrified the room with a stirring and inspirational mostly-improvised speech.

The Tenors then returned to the stage for a soaring version of a classic from Minnesota native Bob Dylan before Starkey Foundation’s Bill Austin gave a humble and emotional address about being the best you are, and giving back.

The auction then got underway, with tablets on each table to enabling a click-to-donate feature, as well as the chance to accompany the Starkey team on mission experiences to far-flung lands as a life-changing opportunity to provide the gift of hearing to those in need. Comedian Billy Crystal assisted in the proceedings with honoree Paul Williams even donated the opportunity to have him compose a unique song of your own choosing.

The second half of the evening began with a dancing start as Grammy-winning singer Gloria Gaynor emerged for a too short two-song set, including of course, her disco-era anthem, ‘I Will Survive’, “We’re all speaking the language of love tonight” Gaynor said, introducing the classic song. Lin-Manuel Miranda sent along a video, apologizing that commitments left him unable to attend, also praising Starkey’s efforts with his own foundation, to aid in still weather-stricken Puerto Rico.

Alice Cooper came out early to help honor his longtime manager, chef, and humanitarian Shep Gordon and then Sinbad returned for a longer, often hilarious stand-up set, riffing on everything from a possible downside of restoring hearing, going through airports, compression socks, and even taking a few questions from the audience.

Billy Crystal spoke to honor his friend and Special Olympics chairman Timothy Shriver and then amps were turned up and all eyes turned to the left side of the main stage for the evening’s closing musical performance.

“Anybody recognize this guitar?” four-time Grammy Award winning ex-guitarist for The Eagles, Don Felder asked, holding up his signature double neck before strumming the recognizable first chords of ‘Hotel California’’. Felder then introduced Cooper, and he and the band dove straight into ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’, accompanied by the legendary guitarist from The Doors, Robbie Krieger.

‘I’m Eighteen’ was the result of Cooper’s manager, Gordon saying they needed a song that would make every parent hate him (which worked) then Cooper and Krieger briefly recalled their wilder drinking days together, before a sizzling Doors medley of ‘Five to One/Break on Through’, punctuated by a signature Krieger solo.

“You can dance a little bit on this song” Cooper said, jokingly remarking Paul Williams wrote it, as the band roared into the Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’- “there’s a little Mick Jagger in all of us”, Cooper exclaimed. Aware of their audience, the band invited a few of the evening’s highest donors (dubbed The Cooper-ettes by Alice) to come up on stage to help sing ‘School’s Out’, which melded the anthemic chorus of a Pink Floyd classic, to make for a thrilling finish.

But, contrary to what Cooper sang in those time-honored space rock lyrics, while we can do without the thought control, we still do need the education- the education on this night coming in the form of inspiring stories of giving; restoring a person’s hearing and in turn, their dignity; and the priceless feeling of giving back. Starkey Foundation’s 18th Annual Awards Gala reaffirmed those and more, in a celebration of their simple but very effective mission – So The World May Hear.