Gala for Jimmy Carter as he nears his 100th birthday

A range of stars from the stage, screen and sport have paid tribute to former US president Jimmy Carter ahead of his 100th birthday.

"Everyone here is making history," Jason Carter, the former president's grandson, told more than 4000 people who filled Atlanta's Fox Theatre to toast the longest-lived US executive in history.

"This is the first time people have come together to celebrate the 100th birthday of an American president."

The benefit concert, with ticket sales funding international programs of The Carter Centre that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982 after leaving the White House, brought together artists that crossed generations and genres that traced back to his 1976 campaign. The concert will be aired in full on Georgia Public Broadcasting on October 1 - Carter's birthday.

The former preisdent remains in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia.

"He really was the rock-and-roll president," said Chuck Leavell, whose Georgia-based Allman Brothers Band campaigned with Carter in 1976. But more than that, Leavell said, Carter always understood music as something "that brings people together."

Indeed, Tuesday's run of show assembled artists as varied as India Arie singing R&B and soul draped in a resplendent purple gown; the B-52s, formed in Athens, Georgia, singing Love Shack and projecting psychedelic imagery across the concert hall; and the Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus bringing a classical and patriotic repertoire.

Former president Barack Obama, known for releasing his summer playlists on social media, marvelled at the range.

"Now I have another reason to respect you," Obama said in a video message. "He has got great taste in music. ... I've never thrown a concert that features pop, rock, gospel, country, jazz, classical and hip-hop."

"Music was such an important part of his political legacy," Jason Carter told The Associated Press. "The Allman Brothers helped get him elected. Willie Nelson helped get him elected. He truly believed that.

"When he was coming out of the South, running for president of the United States, the Allman Brothers and some of these other folks were really announcing this New South that was turning the page on the days of segregation - their lyrics, their whole vibe," the younger Carter continued. "He used that to connect across generations."

Part of the evening involved recounting Carter's legacy as president and with The Carter Centre, which advocates democracy, resolves conflict and fights disease across the world.

The night was mostly void of partisan politics. But there were signs of Democratic allegiances to Carter and shadows of the US election.

Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers praised Carter as being ahead of his time and added that the US would have been better off if he had been able to "finish the job" - an obvious reference to Carter's landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The list of former presidents paying tribute was bipartisan: Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush were packaged with Obama.

President Joe Biden added his greetings, recalling that he was the first US senator to endorse Carter's White House bid. "I admire you so darn much," Biden said, calling Carter, "Mr. President."