The immense popularity of the deeply inspirational Play For Change videos on YouTube is perhaps 2009's most implausible and gratifying cultural phenomenon. The remarkable clip for "Stand By Me", featuring 37 musicians from around the world, has been viewed by more than 9 million people to date and clips for other songs such as "One Love" and "Don't Worry" have been viewed by millions more.
To celebrate today's Hear Music release of the Playing For Change - Peace Through Music CD/DVD, four videos will be presented on the home page of YouTube (Including exclusive content). Bob Marley's classic War/No More Trouble", highlighting musicians from Congo, Israel, India, Ireland, South Africa, the U.S., Zimbabwe and Ghana, along with an extraordinary performance by U2's Bono and Bob Marley himself debuts today. Also included in this unveiling is a version of Sam Cooke's iconic "A Change is Gonna Come" recorded live in New Orleans featuring some of the musicians from the ubiquitous Stand By me" clip including Grandpa Elliot and Clarence Bekker; the Playing For Change "Sizzle Reel" containing footage of the international collective Playing For Change Band, who just completed a wildly successful jaunt in the U.S.; and finally a clip of the upcoming feature film "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music" which will be released later this year.
Playing For Change is the brainchild of Grammy winning producer/engineer Mark Johnson, who traveled for a decade with his team with a single minded passion to connect the world through music. Their ambitious journey took them from post-apartheid South Africa, through the ancient sites of the Middle East, to the remote beauty of the Himalayas and beyond. Using innovative mobile technology, the PFC crew filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos. Each captured performance created a new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart. In a recent interview with PFC founder Johnson, PBS' Bill Moyers called Playing For Change a remarkable example of "the simple yet transformative power of music...to touch something in each of us."
The special CD/DVD package Playing For Change - Songs Around the World, (available at participating Starbucks locations in the U.S. and Canada and wherever music is sold beginning today (April 28), contains a ten-song audio CD as well as a seven-track DVD, which features five full 'songs around the world' videos. The DVD also includes a trailer for the forthcoming PFC feature film and information on the PFC Foundation.
Playing for Change is headquartered in Los Angeles. For more information, please visit the website: playingforchange.com
PFC on YouTube
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