It was better than card calling, noted William Rudin after he and his daughter attended the United Jewish Appeal’s tribute concert to Bruce Springsteen. The event featured 20 legends and newcomers performing covers, and culminated with Mr. Springsteen performing solo and with the other artists. The concert raised $150,000.

“It was one of the highlights of my life,” the producer of the concert, Michael Dorf, who plans to continue doing two tributes a year to benefit the Music for Youth initiative, said.

The concert format is attracting new and younger supporters to UJA and pleasing stalwarts.

“I don’t usually say Springsteen and UJA in the same breath. It was fascinating to me,” a UJA supporter and a “huge fan” of Mr. Springsteen, Leslie Weiss, said.

Raising money through music seems a natural step to the director of Music for Youth, Jon Marcus.

“UJA’s mission is to heal the world, and that’s something that music does,” Mr. Marcus said. “It’s a universal language.”

The performers liked the idea of supporting Music for Youth, which gives $25,000 grants to programs that bring music to underprivileged children in New York City.

“We were so lucky to grow up in the Philadelphia public schools, which had a great music program,” Michael Bacon of the Bacon Brothers, who performed “Philadelphia Story,” said. “Every student got an instrument.”

Some, like Josh Ritter, who grew up in Moscow, Idaho, found inspiration outside of school. Mr. Ritter recalled a Bruce Springsteen tape he played while driving an overnight newspaper delivery route.

Tribute albums may be growing tiresome, but the concept of a tribute concert, especially in the hands of Mr. Dorf, seems fresh. The chairman of Music for Youth, a vice president at BMI, Charles Feldman, agrees. He was in a cover band through high school called the Basemen.

Some of the covers performed at Carnegie Hall on Thursday were faithful to the originals, some not. “The mix was great. I liked hearing the artists bring their own interpretation to the songs,” WFUV disc jockey Dennis Elsas said.

The high point was listening to Mr. Springsteen muse on his career. “The good news is I’m still alive,” he said. He spoke of writing happy songs no one liked, and then sad songs people did like, of breaking up his band and getting it back together. His words weren’t song lyrics, but they were poetry.

agordon@nysun.com