The good news is that the money went to an excellent cause. The bad news is that the choice of artists and songs were not, in my opinion, worth listening to.

This CD is mistakenly listed as a single CD. It is, in fact, a 2 CD set. The second CD track list includes such venerables as Bonnie Raitt, James Brown, Barbara Streisand, the Winans, etc. There's a lot of truly inspiring music on this CD. Start with Raitt's "I will not be broken" and end with B. Kelly's "Let your light shine." This is a truly generous offering for music lovers and one I think would make a valuable addition to any collection.

Musically there are things that I enjoy such as Louis Armstrong,R.kelly,Dr John,Harry Connick Jr,B.B.King&a few others. but more Importantly this compilation is about taken care of New Orleans&also remembering the rich Musical History&Landscape that is New Orleans. the coolness about this collection of Musicians&Artists is like the Gumbo of New Orleans.alot of various flavors in the Musical soup here acknowledging a very important city,People&a Rich culture.no Hurricane will keep Bourbon street down.New Orleans will keep on stomping. Peace

(3 & 1/2 stars) With 2 CDs and 35 songs, it was inevitable that there would be some good and bad aspects of a benefit collection such as Hurricane Relief: Come Together Now. Overall, it's a decent enough effort and one that certainly goes toward a worthy cause.

Among the many good songs on this collection, I especially like Coldplay's live version of "Fix You," with thousands of Dutch people singing along with every word. (The song is only slightly marred by the farewell words sung by Chris Martin at the end, as the song was apparently the last number in the show.) I also enjoyed the songs by BB King and Bonnie Raitt. Then there are agreeable songs by people I would not ordinarily expect to get into given my tastes, including the songs by "Diddy" and Barbara Streisand. A great orchestral arrangement on the latter tune. I also like the fact that there is a New Orleans music theme to the collection, including many real N.O. musicians spread throughout the whole thing.

Unfortunately there is one huge glaring problem that does detract from this album being quite as good as it could have been. It's the three sickly-sweet all-star songs, "Heart of America," "Tears In Heaven," and the title track. These slick, schmaltzy productions carry on the very unfortunate tradition of songs like "We Are The World" and primarily the awful "That's What Friends Are For." Basically they succeed at "Hollywood-izing" the songs, removing any genuine emotion and replacing it with extreme blandness & artificiality. [There is one other all-star track that I did not include in the above list of shame because it IS authentic, Dr. John's "Goin Back to New Orleans," made with a big group of N.O. names.]

Here are a couple of other aspects of Come Together Now that are worth noting. With such a wide and diverse roster of artists contributing songs, it should be no surprise that there are some very JARRING and abrupt transitions between songs, such as switching from Coldplay to Clint Black! Sometimes these artist combos produced some interesting mixtures of names, with an Elton John song right after DOCTOR John (both "Johns" are stage names of course) and the unrelated Angie Stone and Joss Stone singing on the same cut. (The family Stone, I guess...)