By Cornbread


Playing For Change – Songs Around the World (CD/DVD)
Hear Music – April 28, 2009

Driven by more than twenty million video hits, countless blogs and pure viral communication between fans and followers, the global music project bubbles-up from the underground to debut at #10 on Billboard’s Pop chart. Headed by Grammy winning producer Mark Johnson, the group of musicians from all over the world has sparked a movement for peace and unity. This remarkable project that took ten years in the making features collaborations with artists around the globe, including Keb’ Mo’, U2’s Bono and Bob Marley. You get a ten-song audio CD as well as a seven-track DVD, which features five of the songs performed live.

Their ambitious journey took them from post-apartheid South Africa, through the ancient sites of the Middle East, to the remote beauty of the Himalayas and beyond. Using innovative mobile technology, the PFC crew filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos. Each captured performance created a new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together, albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

CD Tracks:

1. Stand By Me
2. One Love
3. War/No More Trouble
4. Biko
5. Don’t Worry
6. Talkin’ Bout A Revolution – Afro Fiesta (Capetown, South Africa)
7. Better Man – Keb’ Mo’ (Los Angeles, CA)
8. Chanda Mama
9. Love Rescue Me – The Omagh Community Youth Choir (Omagh, Northern Ireland)
10. A Change Is Gonna Come – Playing For Change Band (New Orleans, LA)

DVD:

1. Stand By Me
2. One Love
3. War/No More Trouble
4. Don’t Worry
5. Chanda Mama
6. The Playing For Change Foundation
7. Peace Through Music (Feature Film Trailer)

Some of the magical moments include Ireland’s Omagh Community Youth Choir singing “Love Rescue Me,” written by U2 and Bob Dylan, and American street musicians Roger Ridley and Grandpa Elliott harmonizing with Clarence Bekker from the Netherlands amid an assembly of artists from Russia, Spain, Venezuela, France and Brazil on the Ben E. King classic “Stand By Me”. Also included is an lifting version of the Marley’s “War/No More Trouble”. The track and video includes musicians from The Congo, Israel, India, Ireland, South Africa, the U.S., Zimbabwe and Ghana, along with U2’s Bono and Bob Marley. Another Marley song, “One Love” enlisted Keb’ Mo’ to sing with performers from India, Israel, Nepal, South Africa and Zimbabwe. There is also an international collaboration of vocalists and musicians are also heard on versions of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution” and Peter Gabriel’s “Biko”.

WOW! Folks this is amazing! I can’t imagine a better message in this time…. I take that back, at any time! I strongly support this project – oh and the music is very, very good. This is not just music, it is a moving experience. Please support this project online at playingforchange.

This easily gets a 5.0 on the STLBluesometer.