Liza Minnelli, Jackson Browne, join Bonnie Raitt in Tanglewood's summer pop series
by Seth Rogovoy

(LENOX, Mass., April 27, 1998) -- Liza Minnelli and Jackson Browne will be featured in Tanglewood's Popular Artists Series in August.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is expected to announce today that Minnelli will perform in the Shed on Monday, Aug. 17, and that Browne, the quintessential, Southern California singer-songwriter, will share the bill with Bonnie Raitt in her previously-reported concert on Monday, Aug. 24. Browne's appearance is being billed as a "special acoustic performance."

Tickets to both of these shows will go on sale tomorrow at 10 am. Tickets will be available from the BSO's Symphony Charge phone line at (800) 274-8499, and from Ticketmaster outlets.

Minnelli, the Oscar- and Tony-award winning actress and singer, last appeared at Tanglewood in July 1994. Her career has spanned movies, TV and Broadway. She is perhaps best known for her role as Sally Bowles in the Bob Fosse film "Cabaret." Like Raitt, whose father is Broadway star John Raitt, Minnelli is the daughter of show business legends, in her case actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli.

The careers of Raitt and Browne have been intertwined ever since Raitt was one of the first musicians to record the aspiring singer- songwriter's material in the early-'70s. The two were instrumental in organizing the historic MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) concerts, a series of superstar benefits in 1979 organized to fight nuclear power. The shows spawned a best-selling, three-record live album and a feature film, "No Nukes."

Raitt and Browne have occasionally appeared on each other's albums, most recently when Browne sang on Raitt's 1996 live album, "Road Tested."

Raitt, a nine-time Grammy winner, has a long history of performing in the Berkshires, dating back to several appearances at the Music Inn in Lenox in the 1970s. She has been a frequent attraction at Tanglewood in the past decade.

Browne last performed here in July, 1990, before a standing-room-only crowd at the Berkshire Performing Arts Center.

Raitt's latest album, "Fundamental" (Capitol), has garnered positive notices, including a four-star review in a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

According to a BSO spokesperson, additional acts may be added to this summer's Popular Artists Series.

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 27, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]