One evening, a few years ago in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, the PFC crew and I were waiting for an 80-year-old cuica player to perform on a Song Around The World.
I remember it seemed to take forever for him to make it down the hill, as he would stop off in every bar along the way for a drink and some conversation. As we waited I looked and saw a Rastaman walking across the street with his acoustic guitar in hand.
I waved to him and he came over to see what we were doing with all our equipment. I told him about Playing For Change and he agreed to play a song for us while we were waiting. The result was an incredible, spontaneous performance of Dennis Brown’s “Rasta Children.”
His voice reminded me of Peter Tosh and he sang with so much soul that we realized this could be an amazing Song Around The World. Just one man and his guitar playing on the street set the tone for this song and we added a worldwide band of roots musicians around him.
“I and I deal with humanity …”
~~Rasta Children featuring Nattali Rize~~
Playing For Change
~~Published on Jul 6, 2018~~
Song Around The World
Playing For Change (PFC) is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music, born from the shared belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people.
The primary focus of PFC is to record and film musicians performing in their natural environments and combine their talents and cultural power in innovative videos called Songs Around The World.
Creating these videos motivated PFC to form the Playing For Change Band – a tangible, traveling representation of its mission, featuring musicians met along their journey; and establish the Playing For Change Foundation – a separate 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to building music and art schools for children around the world. Through these efforts, Playing For Change aims to create hope and inspiration for the future of our planet.
We’re excited to share our new Song Around The World with you featuring musicians from the island of Jamaica to the islands of Hawaii and beyond.
The original idea for this Bob Marley Song Around The World was born back in 2013 when the PFC crew first visited the Congo.
Mark asked himself,
“How can we live in a world that allows people to live like this, with virtually no food, no money, and no hope?” The lyric, “Things are not the way they used to be … one and all got to face reality” came to mind as he looked out into the river of garbage running through the city.
“Natural Mystic always felt so deep in its groove and lyrics and it seemed as important and urgent as what I was seeing all around me,” says Mark.
We need to rise up and make the planet a better place right now for ourselves, our children, and all living things. “Just a Little Bit” written and performed by Paula Fuga was added as a medley to “Natural Mystic” to take the music from minor key to the major key – from the darkness to the light.
~~Natural Mystic/Just a Little Bit featuring Jack Johnson~~
Playing For Change
~~Published on Jun 1, 2018~~
We need to rise up and make the planet a better place right now for ourselves, our children, and all living things.
“Just a Little Bit” written and performed by Paula Fuga was added as a medley to “Natural Mystic” to take the music from minor key to the major key – from the darkness to the light.
In this day and age, where technology is in every aspect of our lives, the possibility of feeling alone while in a group, is very likely.
We always need someone to stand by us.
“Stand By Me”
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we’ll see
No I won’t be afraid
Oh, I won’t be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me
Stand by me
If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
All the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won’t cry, I won’t cry
No, I won’t shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
And darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand now, stand by me
Stand by me
So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh stand by me
Oh stand now, stand by me, stand by me
Whenever you’re in trouble won’t you stand by me
Oh stand by me, oh won’t you stand now, stand
Stand by me
~~GALLERY~~
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~~Stand By Me~~
Playing For Change – Song Around the World
~~Uploaded on Nov 6, 2008~~
Playing For Change is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music.
From the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music“, comes “Stand By Me“, the first of many Songs Around The World produced by Playing For Change. This Ben E. King classic features musicians around the world recorded by the Playing For Change team during their travels.
This song continues to remind us that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people.
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.
“La Bamba” is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, best known from a 1958 adaptation by Ritchie Valens, a top 40 hit in the U.S. charts and one of early rock and roll’s best-known songs. Valens’ version of “La Bamba” is ranked number 354 on Rolling Stone magazine′s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and is the only song on the list sung in a language other than English.
~Playing For Change’s “La Bamba” Video With Los Lobos Members~
Los Angeles – July 16th, 2014 – Playing For Change premieres “La Bamba” video featuring David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, Andres Calamaro and musicians across the world on Relix.com.
“La Bamba” is off the latest album Playing For Change 3 “Songs Around The World” which was released on June 17th, 2014. The CD/DVD is available both digitally and physically at all major retailers and via Starbucks in North America, and includes performances from Keith Richards, Sara Bareilles, Andres Calamaro, Toots Hibbert from Toots & The Maytals, Los Lobos, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Keb Mo, and Taj Mahal in addition to a song produced by Jackson Browne. Album is now available on iTunes.
La Bamba, off of our new release PFC3: Songs Around The World – available everywhere now! This CD/DVD set highlights the passion and talent of 185 musicians from 31 different countries.
We started this recording on a back porch in East Los Angeles with members of Los Lobos, and then returned to the roots of the song in Veracruz, Mexico. As we traveled, musicians everywhere mixed the traditional and rock ‘n’ roll styles of “La Bamba” into a new Song Around The World.
Check these links, review the contents and start following them.
There are plenty of very interesting videos on YouTube.
War is an organized and often prolonged conflict that is carried out by states or non-state actors. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, social disruption and economic destruction. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence or intervention. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace.
While some scholars see warfare as an inescapable and integral aspect of human nature, others argue that it is only inevitable under certain socio-cultural or ecological circumstances. For some the practice of war is not linked to any single type of political organization or society.
Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his A History of Warfare, war is a universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it. Another argument suggests that since there are human societies in which warfare does not exist, humans may not be naturally disposed for warfare, which emerges under particular circumstances.
~~WAR WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?~~
~~Uploaded on Jul 22, 2006~~
War, huh yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, oh hoh, oh War huh yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, say it again y’all War, huh good God What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, listen to me
Peace is an occurrence of harmony characterized by lack of violence, conflict behaviors and the freedom from fear of violence. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility and retribution, peace also suggests sincere attempts at reconciliation, the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the establishment of equality, and a working political order that serves the true interests of all.
~~John Lennon~~
Give Peace a Chance with Lyrics
~~Uploaded on May 30, 2010~~
Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon
Imagine …. Almost everywhere we look in the world, there’s a state of turmoil. Abuse, oppression, inequality, disregard for basic human rights, persecution, segregation. There is the permeating thought that we have to defend what is ours against enemies, foreign and domestic. We have forgotten the golden rule: do onto others.
We fight for land, for resources, for oil, for profit, for religion. We are stubborn. We are right. There is no other way but ours. There’s no giving an inch, no compromise.
Just imagine if it were different …
Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today …
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world …
~~John Lennon~~
Imagine – Playing For Change
~~Uploaded on Jan 6, 2011~~
In the beginning of 2010 the Playing For Change crew began work on a new Song Around the World, John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It has been an amazing year of production, taking the crew from the favelas of Brazil to the shrines of southern India, from villages in Nepal to the glittering urban landscape of Tokyo and New York, and beyond.
This song is the Playing For Change Foundation’s gift to the world. The Playing For Change Foundation feels honored to have the blessing and generous support of Yoko Ono as music lovers around the world join together to launch the Power to the People campaign.
The campaign seeks to advance John Lennon’s vision of peace by engaging artists and audiences to contribute to music education programs worldwide. Proceeds raised will help build music schools, support teachers and music programs, purchase instruments, and connect schools for cross-cultural learning and conflict resolution across borders.
Grandpa Elliott Small, born Elliot Small on July 10, 1945, also known as Uncle Remus, is a veteran street-musician in New Orleans, Louisiana. He plays the harmonica, sings, and is a street icon in New Orleans.
Today we celebrate the birthday of our hero, Grandpa Elliott, who has been an inspiration for millions of people around the globe and truly personifies how music can help make this world a better place.
Grandpa has been performing in the streets of New Orleans for over 60 years and he now tours all over the planet with the Playing For Change Band, spreading the message of a movement dedicated to connect the world through music.
Thank you Grandpa for bringing so much soul and great music to our lives.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
~~Early life~~
Growing up in the Lafitte Housing Projects, Small developed a love of music as a young boy, in part to deal with the pains of an unhappy home life. Small’s uncle was a professional musician who worked with Lloyd Washington of the Ink Spots, and often let his nephew come to the Dew Drop Inn to hear them play. One day when his uncle left for work without his harmonica, Small picked it up and put it to his mouth. “Oooh, it was awful,” he said, laughing. “He chewed tobacco. I had to sterilize that thing.”
The uncle gave young Elliott a harmonica, and he fell in love with the sound of the mouth harp, teaching himself by playing along with the music on his mama’s radio. At home Small’s mother favored classical music, giving the youngster diverse tastes at an early age. Teaching himself to dance from watching Fred Astaire movies on television, Small began performing on street corners for change, dancing while singing and playing his harmonica.
“They brought me to New York to tap on Broadway when I was 6 or 7, and my mama got killed up there,” he said. The man they lived with beat them both and ended up killing his mother. After it happened, his grandmother brought Small back to New Orleans and gave him and his older sister Frances a good life. “She was a sweet old lady,” he said. “My stepfather was a man who did not love his child,” he said. “But my uncle would come to the house, and play the harmonica to me.”
~~Grandpa Elliott~~
Small developed the persona of Grandpa Elliott, an old man dressed in blue denim overalls, a bright red shirt, Santa beard, and a floppy hat who played blues harp and sang for the street traffic on his corner at Royal and Toulouse streets in the French Quarter, right where he started out. He often teams with guitarist Michael “Stoney B” Stone and they have become an institution in New Orleans for the people who stop to listen to them and throw change in their bucket.
His act was even written up in The New York Times in 1995. He arrives here most mornings by taxi and spends his days singing his soulful songs and playing his harmonica. It’s the place where everybody knows his name.”When I feel sick, I come out here to feel better,” he said. “The French Quarter is my medicine.” Small said he doesn’t even know what beer tastes like and he’s never touched drugs and the only thing he smokes is the exhaust from the cars that pass Royal and Toulouse.
And his listeners reward him with dollar bills and treasures, like the gold wedding band he wears on his finger. “A lot of people walk around with plastic now instead of cash, so they throw what they can,” he said. “Some of the rings I get out of my bucket even have diamonds on them.”
~~Playing for Change~~
Small did not completely lose his sight to glaucoma until 2005. It was in that year that recording engineer and producer Mark Johnson launched a project called Playing for Change, dedicated to promoting international unity through music. He began recording performances by street performers from around the world. Johnson heard Small sing the Ben E. King hit “Stand by Me” and immediately recorded him singing the tune on Royal Street, making his performance the centerpiece of a video featuring performances of the number by a handful of artists.
In 2009, after the “Stand by Me” video was posted online, it racked up over 60 million plays on YouTube (2014), and suddenly Small had an international audience. Small signed on for a tour with a band of musicians affiliated with the Playing for Change project, He has also been on The Tonight Show and The Colbert Report. He performed to a crowd of more than 40,000 at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California, on June 30, 2009, playing the “Star Spangled Banner” on harmonica and singing “God Bless America.”
Later that same year, the Playing for Change Band came to New Orleans to accompany Small on his debut CD Sugar Sweet, released November 3, 2009, an eclectic collection that includes gospel, blues, soul and what Small calls “some strong love songs.” Keb Mo’ also accompanied on the album. Small is the first artist to be signed to Playing for Change Records/Concord Music Group. The whole experience taught him to trust people again. “Mark Johnson changed my life,” he said. “He made me lift my head up.” Small has been featured on Playing for Change in several episodes.
From the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”, comes “Stand By Me”, the first of many Songs Around The World produced by Playing For Change. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe.
Order the “War/No More Trouble,” “Stand By Me,” “Don’t Worry,” and “One Love” videos, the new Songs Around The World album, and more at http://playingforchange.com/marketplace.
We ALL are connected through MUSIC!! 
It Is What It Is 