Playing for Change is a multimedia music project, created by the American producer and sound engineer Mark Johnson with his Timeless Media Group, that seeks to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. Playing For Change also created a separate non-profit organization called the Playing For Change Foundation, which builds music schools for children around the world.
~~Origin~~
Playing For Change was born in 2002 as a shared vision between co-founders, Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke, to hit the streets of America with a mobile recording studio and cameras in search of inspiration and the heartbeat of the people. Producers Mark Johnson and Enzo Buono, traveled around the world to places including New Orleans, Barcelona, South Africa, India, Nepal, the Middle East and Ireland.
Using mobile recording equipment, the duo recorded local musicians performing the same song, interpreted in their own style. Among the artists participating or openly involved in the project are Vusi Mahlasela, Louis Mhlanga, Clarence Bekker, Tal Ben Ari (Tula), Bono, Keb’ Mo’, David Broza, Manu Chao and Grandpa Elliott. This musical journey resulted in the award-winning documentary, “A Cinematic Discovery of Street Musicians.”
~~Smell The Rain by Genevieve Chadwick~~ ~Live Outside~ ~~Playing For Change~~
~~Published on Jul 26, 2014~~
Today’s video, “Smell the Rain”, was recorded and filmed live on the streets of Sydney, Australia and features our soul sister, Genevieve Chadwick.
We are proud to announce the release of Genevieve’s solo album, produced by Playing For Change and recorded in Sydney with PFC Band members Roberto Luti, Orbe Ortiz, and Peter Bunetta. The album is exclusively available on our website, both the CD and Digital Download!
Feel the love in this moment and share the joy with everyone you meet!!
Playing For Change was born in 2002 as a shared vision between co-founders, Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke, to hit the streets of America with a mobile recording studio and cameras in search of inspiration and the heartbeat of the people. Producers Mark Johnson and Enzo Buono, traveled around the world to places including New Orleans, Barcelona, South Africa, India, Nepal, the Middle East and Ireland.
We are honored to announce the release of PFC3: Songs Around The World – available everywhere now! This CD/DVD set highlights the passion and talent of 185 musicians from 31 different countries.
Hello everyone, today we are honored to share with you all the first video from our new CD/DVD titled, “PFC2: Songs Around the World”.
This video is a version of “Redemption Song” performed around the world in honor of Bob Marley’s birthday. We have reunited Bob with his son Stephen and the support of the entire planet. In this song there is a telling of rising above the past and moving forward with love in our hearts and hope in our eyes.
~~LYRICS~~
(the words say it all)
Old pirates, yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won’t you help to sing
Another songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I’ve ever had
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
Well we’ve got to fulfill the book
Won’t you help me sing
Another song of freedom?
It’s all I ever have
Redemption songs, yes lord
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Wap choo wap choo wah
Come on with me people
Wap choo wap choo wah
Come on with me children
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind
Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfill the book
So won’t you help me sing
Another song of freedom?
It’s all I ever had
Redemption songs, yes lord
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs, songs of freedom
Check these links, review the contents and start following them.
There are plenty of very interesting videos on YouTube.
Playing for Change hit it out of the park this time. This is a very well known song in the Latin community. Its origins are in the island of Cuba. There isn’t a citizen of Latin America who doesn’t know the verses, the music and the meaning of this song.
~~THERE’S THE CHILL FACTOR~~
~~Origin~~
Playing For Change was born in 2002 as a shared vision between co-founders, Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke, to hit the streets of America with a mobile recording studio and cameras in search of inspiration and the heartbeat of the people. Producers Mark Johnson and Enzo Buono, traveled around the world to places including New Orleans, Barcelona, South Africa, India, Nepal, the Middle East and Ireland.
The music for the song is sometimes attributed to José Fernández Diaz, known as Joseíto Fernández, who claimed to have written it at various dates (consensus puts 1929 as its year of origin), and who used it regularly in one of his radio programs. Someclaim that the song’s structure actually came from Herminio “El Diablo” García Wilson, who could be credited as a co-composer. García’s heirs took the matter to court decades later but lost the case: the Supreme Court of Cuba credited Fernández as the sole composer of the music in 1993. Regardless of either claim, Fernández can safely be claimed as being the first public promoter of the song, through his radio programs.
~~Original lyrics and José Fernández~~
The lyrics to the song, as written by José Fernández, are about a woman from Guantánamo, with whom he had a romantic relationship, and who eventually left him. The alleged real story behind these lyrics (or at least one of many versions of the song’s origin that Fernández suggested during his lifetime) is that she did not have a romantic interest in him, but merely a platonic one. If the details are to be believed, she had brought him a steak sandwich one day as a present to the radio station where he worked. He stared at some other woman (and attempted to flirt with her) while eating the sandwich, and his friend yanked it out of his hands in disgust, cursed him and left.
He never saw her again. These words are rarely sung today.
Another history behind the chorus and its lyrics (“Guantanamera/Guajira Guantanamera …”) is similar: García claimed he was at a street corner with a group of friends and made a courteous pass (a polite pick-up line, like “your mother made you good” or “you came from a star”, piropo in Spanish) to a woman (who also happened to be from Guantánamo) who walked by the group.
She answered back rather harshly, offended by the pass. Stunned, he could not take his mind off her reaction while his friends made fun of him; later that day, sitting at a piano with his friends near him, he wrote the song’s main refrain.
~~Playing For Change – Guantanamera~~
~~Published on Jul 1, 2014~~
We invite you to watch and enjoy another Song Around The World from our new album: “Guantanamera“.
We started the song with Carlos Varela in Havana and it features over 75 Cuban musicians around the world, from Havana and Santiago to Miami, Barcelona and Tokyo. We recorded and produced this track with Jackson Browne, who explains that “traveling with Playing For Change across Cuba was one of the most rewarding and inspiring musical experiences of my life.”
We ALL are connected through MUSIC!! 
It Is What It Is 