For this week’s midweek piece I thought I’d do something a little different. I have played videos made by Playing For Change (PFC) a couple of times, and as theirs is an interesting story I thought it worth sharing, whilst playing some more of what they have done.

PFC was founded in 2002 by Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke. Johnson was walking in Santa Monica, California, when he heard the voice of Roger Ridley (who, sadly, died in 2005) singing Stand By Me and it prompted him to create PFC, with a mission to connect the world through music. They have taken a small film and recording team to more than fifty countries across the world, developing their own mobile studio in the process, initially powered by golf cart batteries. For each song, various performances are blended into one piece, by sharing with musicians what has already been recorded so that they know how their contribution will fit in. The results are almost always stunning.

In 2007 PFC expanded into the Playing For Change Foundation, a non-profit organisation which creates and supports music school programmes across developing countries. To date, they have supported fifteen such programmes in eleven countries, in Africa, Asia, and in South and Central America. In 2011, the Foundation established an annual Playing For Change Day, the stated aim of which is to “unite a global community through the power of music to affect positive social change.” Various events are arranged around the world, and these help to raise funds to support the Foundation in its work: this year’s event was held last Saturday. In addition to this the organisation runs the Playing For Change Band, which puts on concerts around the world. If you want to know more about them, you can find their website here.

Now onto some music. As their most recent video release was of a song by one of my favourite artists, and he was included in it, this was an absolute no brainer for me to play:

Get the idea? Music is a kind of universal language, and combining all of those talents from so many locations through the use of modern technology is fabulous.

This is where it all began, their very first video:

You can see the idea coming to fruition in that, can’t you? I love that it starts with the singer who prompted Mark Johnson to come up with the idea, and it is sad to think that he passed away just a few years after this. Whilst artists like Jackson Browne have featured in the videos – I’ll play you another in a moment – the majority of the performers are largely unknown outside their own countries, many of them being street musicians. They add a real vibrancy to the songs which I find very attractive. Here’s another, also a song you might well know:

One of my all time favourite songs, which lends itself so well to the PFC treatment: a universal message in a universal medium. A special guest appearance from the man who gave us the song, some welcome returns of performers from the previous video, and contributions from some of the schools PFC is supporting: fabulous!

This next one was released in August last year:

As they say on their YouTube page, this was intended to give a message to the relatives of missing people in the world, that they are not alone in the search for their loved ones. It was a joint project by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and PFC in honour of the International Day of the Disappeared. The video features over 40 musicians from 13 countries who played several instruments and combined their voices. I find this one very powerful.

This one is a good follow up to that, another fantastic song being given an amazing treatment. It was released in February 2021 and is the other one I’m playing which includes the original artist as its lead:

Quoting PFC on this: “In honour of Black History Month, we are proud to bring the message of Peter Gabriel’s Biko back to the forefront, 40 years after its initial release. Inspired by the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko while in police custody, this song’s relevance still holds true with the unfortunate police brutality that continues to take place in the USA, Nigeria and many places around the world. More than 25 musicians from seven countries join Gabriel for this global rendition to share a message of unity, peace, and hope.” That says it all, really, and if you don’t know the story of Steve Biko, then you really should!

I have given you several examples of how the power and beauty of music can bring people together to convey a message, so I thought I’d close this piece with one which just gives you the fun and feels of joy from music. I played this one almost exactly a year ago, in a post that in part celebrated the birthday of one of my best blogging friends. And what do you know – after a year’s absence he popped up in my feed this morning, so again I’m celebrating, and this is very much worth seeing again anyway. It was released in December 2015, in “celebration” of Universal Children’s Day:

That is utterly delightful, and it is great to see our future generation taking such pleasure in creating music together. You can see from that why PFC think that setting up their music schools is a good idea, can’t you? Those Ugandan kids, in particular, get to me every time – they are just so joyous!

Aside from my playing them previously, I wonder how many of you will have heard of PFC before? They are well supported: they have more than 3m YouTube subscribers, many of their videos – including two of these – have more than 30m views, and the newest one, which was released just twelve days ago, already has more than 1.3m. If you’ve enjoyed these I encourage you to seek them out further: I promise you won’t be disappointed. And it is great to see the good work they are doing, whilst bringing pleasure to millions.

That’s all for today, and I hope you’ve had some fun with these, whilst maybe a few thoughts have been prompted about music and its message. I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday. Until then, take care 😊