The program originally aired on October 24th but last night Bill Moyers reran this documentary. It was a remarkable undertaking by Mark Johnson Playing for Change - Peace thru Music and it took him three years to complete with 100 musicians all over the world taking part in the mix.
Watch this video of the street musicians playing Stand By Me. World's apart but they all speak the same language - music. On a smaller scale, New York underground subways are filled with this type of entertainment that has become a common bond among people from all walks of life. Steel drums, bongos, metal spoons, washboards, bamboo flutes, sitars, guitars, homemade and musical instruments indigenous to many parts of the world, Chinese two-stringed violin, makeshift drums made from empty plastic paint buckets, they are in concert in the busy tunnels of the NYC underground. This is what inspired Mark.
Somehow every decade or so when people are troubled and countries and their heads seem to collide, something out of the ordinary happens which makes things in life easier to deal with. In the early '70s, Les Crane's spoken words of the inspirational poem Desiderata, brought some comfort to us during the recession periods. The Coca-Cola commercial popularized the song I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing. Several recordings were done without the Coke references and became a big hit. Royalties were waived by the company and donated to UNICEF. In 1985 We Are The World, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie was recorded by a group of popular musicians and became a hit single. It was intended to raise funds for the famine-relief efforts in Ethiopia. Musicians called it USA for Africa.
In 1990, several artists including Willie Nelson performed at the Farm Aid IV in Indiana, Elton John dedicated his song Candle in the Wind to an AIDS patient Ryan White who died later on that evening. That same year a massive tribute concert for Nelson Mandela was held and broadcast over 61 countries around the world. Neil Young was one of the performers.
And now this technical genius of Mark Johnson Playing for Change. There is hope for peace through music, a medium that knows no boundaries. Names like Grandpa Elliott, Washboard Chaz, Roger Ridley and Clarence Bekker will go down in history not as Nobel Peace Prize winners but through their music as instruments of peace throughout the world.
I'm sure I missed a few more events during this 38-year period, but these were the ones prominent in my memory.
"Even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story".
