During the concert, Summer performed a large number of her disco songs - both her hit singles, and a selection of songs from her previous album, Once Upon a Time. However, in this album, Donna also experiments with other musical styles such as jazz, in a medley she named "The My Man Medley". It consists of the George Gershwin song, "The Man I Love", together with "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" and the old standard "Some of These Days", neither of which she had recorded previously.
She also performed a version of the ballad "The Way We Were", originally recorded by Barbra Streisand for the film of the same name, again, not previously recorded by Summer, but a big live favorite of hers. This was followed by a self-written ballad called "Mimi's Song", dedicated to her young daughter, Mimi. Mimi was present at this concert for Summer to sing the song to, and she is heard on the recording saying goodnight to the audience.
The concert ends with one of Summer's best-known songs in the United States - "Last Dance". This hit song is included on the soundtrack of the film Thank God It's Friday, in which Summer had also acted. The composer, Paul Jabara, won an Academy Award for Best Song from a motion picture, and Summer herself won her first Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance with this song. Some versions of "Last Dance" have the slow part removed from the middle but kept at the beginning. The full version, however, was sung at this concert.
The fourth and final side of this double LP album contains a new studio recording entitled "MacArthur Park Suite", which is a medley of four songs including the main song "MacArthur Park", originally recorded as a ballad by the Irish actor Richard Harris. Summer's disco version was edited and issued as a single, and it became one of her biggest hits - her first number one song on the American Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and a Top five song in the United Kingdom. This song also earned Summer a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Another song in the medley, "Heaven Knows" was an American Top five hit, and it featured vocals by Joe Esposito of the Brooklyn Dreams musical group. That group included the musician Bruce Sudano, whom Summer would later marry.
The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics.
Stephen Cook from AllMusic website gave the album three out of five stars and wrote that none of the album's songs "eclipse the original versions" but concluded that it is a "very enjoyable concert recording".[1]
Robert Christgau gave the album a "C" and criticized the arrangements and the song "Mac Arthur Park Suite," to which he preferred Andy Kaufman's interpretation.[2]
Tom Carson from Rolling Stone gave the album a favorable review and wrote that even though "the hits are exiled to side three, they come across fairly well".[3]
Live and More would become Summer's first number one double album in the United States, and achieved double platinum status in the U.S.
When Live and More was released on compact disc (CD), the disk-format of that time could only hold a maximum of 74 minutes. Rather than release the album as a two-disc set, it was released as a single CD, and "MacArthur Park Suite" was replaced with an extended version of the song "Down Deep Inside", which Summer had recorded for the film soundtrack for The Deep during the previous year. The "MacArthur Park Suite", as featured on the various artists compilation, The Casablanca Records Story, and the Bad Girls Deluxe Edition. is the 12-inch single version, not the original album version. The album version can only be found on The Dance Collection: A Compilation of Twelve Inch Singles CD, the original Live and More vinyl LP album itself, and the Japanese CD issue of Live and More (Mercury PHCR 1032). The 12-inch version replaces the original album version of "Heaven Knows" with the 7-inch version; "One of a Kind" was trimmed of some of its percussion breaks.
The 7-inch version of "Heaven Knows" was created by combining the vocals from Summer's Live and More album with the instrumental tracks from Brooklyn Dreams' Sleepless Nights album (on that album Joe Esposito sings the lead vocal and Brooklyn Dreams sing the chorus) - a rare instance of a Summer 7-inch single which is actually longer than the album version. Bob Esty produced and arranged the Sleepless Nights album and should be given co-producer and arranger credit for the 7" version of "Heaven Knows" but the liner notes in every Summer compilation released to date only list Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte as producers and mistakenly credit Greg Mathieson as the arranger.
Universal Music Japan released a mini LP SHM-CD version of Live and More on August 8, 2012 in Japan (together with seven other Donna Summer albums) which restored the original cover art and included "MacArthur Park Suite".
