March 2024
M T W T F S S
« Aug    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Archives

Categories

Playing For Change: Songs Around the World

Bob

When I saw this music video, I instantly thought of the Saigon Kids. After all, the Saigon Kids are from everywhere and live every where…and yet they are one!

Frank

STAND BY ME

This is from the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”. It is the first of many “songs around the world” being released independently. It features the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe. This video and “Don’t Worry” will be available at iTunes 1.27.09 while other songs such as “One Love” will be released as digital downloads soon; followed by the film soundtrack and DVD in stores on 4.28.09.

You can pre-order the CD/DVD “Playing For Change” Songs Around The World” now at Amazon by Clicking Here.

Playing For Change Review

From the Artist
“The act of playing music with people of different cultures, religions, economics and politics is a powerful statement. It shows that we can find ways of working together and sharing our experiences with one another in a positive way. Music has the power to break down the walls between cultures, to raise the level of human understanding.” ~ Mark Johnson, founder, Playing for Change

About the Artist
Playing for Change began a decade ago, the brainchild of Grammy-winning music producer and engineer Mark Johnson. “I was in a subway in New York on my way to work, and I heard these two monks playing music,” he recalls. “They were painted head to toe, all white, wearing robes. One was playing a nylon guitar, and the other was singing in a language I didn’t understand. There were about 200 people who stopped to watch, didn’t even get on the train. Some had tears in their eyes. And it occurred to me that here is a group of people that would normally run by each other, but instead they’re coming together. And it’s the music that brought them together.” For ten years Johnson and his team traveled the globe, with a single-minded passion to record little-known musicians for what would become Playing for Change – its name evoking the coins thrown to street musicians as well as the transformation their music inspires. They went to New Orleans shortly after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. “The city felt sad and desolate, yet the music never stopped,” says Johnson. “The street musicians and music in the clubs kept the city alive and gave it a sense of hope.” When they visited South Africa and witnessed its growing pains in the aftermath of apartheid, “we saw that people marching down streets singing in groups of thousands did more to effect positive change than any weapons ever could.”

About Playing For Change: Songs Around The World CD/DVD
Bill Moyers called it a remarkable example of “the simple yet transformative power of music… to touch something in each of us.” Variety acknowledged it as “a great showcase for just what incredible, thoroughly accessible popular music is being made worldwide. Utilizing innovative mobile audio/video techniques, Playing for Change (PFC) records musicians outdoors in cities and townships worldwide. They’ve travelled from post-Katrina New Orleans to post-apartheid South Africa, from the remote beauty of the Himalayas to the religious diversity of Jerusalem. Their talents are captured in myriad environments: under the sun and beneath the streetlights… in public parks, plazas and promenades… in doorways, on cobblestone streets, amid hilly pueblos. Their performances are subsequently combined allowing them to collaborate – albeit separated by hundreds, or even thousands, of miles.

Frank, thank you for bring this to us … I’ll leave you with this … 🙂

ONE LOVE

One love … One heart … Saigon Kids!

Peace

Bob

8 comments to Playing For Change: Songs Around the World

  • RandySeely

    Frank…thanks! Very inspiring…very nice. I sent this clip to my brother…and to my sons. Very nice clip. I only wish other folks could experience the type of bond we all feel with being SKs. Best wishes. Randy

  • frank

    Bob, You do terrific work! You’re a whiz! None of us could figure out how to get our thoughts and ideas out there without you. Frank

  • Mimi

    Heard these songs, saw the clips, when they came out- loved the mix, the international flavour- but I realize to day how well they fit us …old “flower children”. lol.

    There is a real danger here that we end up as a peace and love beatnik sect, with Guru Bob on top -lol- but I do hope this little society of ours goes on and on for a long time, it is so heart warming.

    A note on the clips: the french singer/musician Manu Chao is not “little known”. He is very famous in France and Europe.

    Frank, Bob is so busy looking again and again at all the pix you guys sent from VN that he is forgetting to put them on the blog for public view. lol- You know me, when I want something, I want it for yesterday, you have my e-mail addy, if the pics don’t show let’s say within a week, can you mail some direct to me. No offence my sweet sweet Bob:))))))

    Pour la p’tite Lucie: si tu lis ça, inscris toi au blogue, tu pourras aller voir les photos anciennes et nouvelles et ça fera plaisir à Bob, sans pour autant faire de la peine à notre Philippe qui garde le fort sur l’autre forum…Idem pour Claude et tous les autres “frenchies”.

    Hey..you did not know it was a bilingual blog did you- lol

    xxxx mimi

    • Admin

      Mimi – have you ever seen Frank with a “handle bar mustache”??? … you are about too!!! 🙂

      Just don’t confuse him with the Italian veggie vendor … lol

      Hey, maybe we found the “Chao” that Roy was talking about while at the reunion in Saigon … lol

      Nice French touch there, Mimi … *wink* 🙂

      Reminds me of a song from my “flower child” days … LOL

      hugs
      Bob

  • frank

    Hey I could handle the peace and LOVE sect thing!!!

    • Admin

      Frank – I’ve almost finished building our Pagoda at the Ba Muoi Ba Temple of Peace and Love – the French ‘flower children’ girls lounging around the Reflecting Pools make a beautiful peaceful atmosphere for meditation and chanting our Mantra …

      Ba Ba Ba
      Ba Muoi Ba
      Ba Ba Ba

      Peace
      Bob

  • Mimi

    Bob: LOL
    and Frank: ROFL
    xxx mimi

  • frank

    Hmmmm! ROFL…yea I could do that also with that peace and LOVE sect thing!!!!! HA! To be honest, it took me awhile to figure out what that meant!…thought at first it was some French thing…Hmmm maybe it is!!!lol

Leave a Reply to Mimi Cancel reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

  

  

  

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.