Playing For Change Seeks to Promote Peace Through Music

Thursday February 16, 2012

From The Eastern Iowa Gazette

Playing for Change: Global project seeks to promote peace through music
By: Diana Nollen

A band with a worldwide reach embodies its name on several levels.

Playing for Change began as documentary filmmaker Mark Johnson’s grand experiment in 2005 to record the world’s best street musicians playing “Stand By Me” on their corners. His crew built a mobile recording studio and took it from California to nearly every continent, then melded those voices into a video.

It’s now spun into a YouTube phenomenon; a non-profit foundation building music schools in Third World countries; and a fundraising concert tour featuring 10 top musicians from around the globe — all spreading the message of unity through harmony, connecting the world through music.

Luminaries including Bono, Stephen Marley, Ziggy Marley, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ have collaborated on Playing for Change CDs.

The band is touring 22 cities around North America in February and March, landing at CSPS in Cedar Rapids on Feb. 23.

The musicians didn’t know each other when the project began, but have found their common ground and camaraderie.

“Mark’s message has become all of our messages together,” one of the lead vocalists, Clarence Bekker, 42, says by phone from his home in Barcelona, Spain. “Our different cultures, different musical styles, different backgrounds can come together to make happiness and bring peace, most of all to ourselves, and from there to the world.”

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Higher Ground	4:46	Playing For Change
Redemption Song	4:10	Playing For Change
Stand By Me	6:04	Playing For Change

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