In recent Earwitness columns I’ve discussed important trends and noteworthy moments in the music of popular culture, from Nikki Minaj’s booty to Meghan Trainor’s “junk” to Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.” Hey, I’m just glad to help.
But we are fully immersed in “the holiday season” now, and it’s time to go deeper. Thanksgiving—beautiful. Black Friday—huh? But hark, we just celebrated #GivingTuesday on December 2nd—a global day of giving back “started in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation as a response to commercialization in the post-Thanksgiving season” (thank you, Wiki).
So let’s make this about how music gives back. How music can soothe your soul, lift your spirits, stimulate your tear ducts. And how musicians might even drop their egos with a phone call for help and give everything they’ve got to lend a hand and a dollar.
The soundtrack of this column will be “Lean On Me," recorded by Bill Withers in 1972—a soulful ballad that’s become a universal vow of unconditional friendship and help in time of need.
"Lean on me when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on"
That December day of “giving back” was highlighted in part by the World Aids Day concert in Times Square, featuring performances by U2, Carrie Underwood and Kanye West. The AIDS battle has been one of Bono’s passions, but since he’s recovering from a serious bicycle accident in Central Park, Chris Martin and Bruce Springsteen agreed to take turns fronting the band on several of their biggest hits. My friend Jeff was there and said it was amazing.
I’m jealous, but not hatin’—hatin’s bad! In his passionate activism Bono has raised tens of millions of dollars for AIDS relief in Africa through live performances, Product Red partnerships and diplomacy.
Nearly 30 years earlier Bob Geldof and Midge Ure created Live Aid, a monumental 2-concert event to raise money for famine relief in Africa that took place simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.
While the tales of bruised rock star egos are legendary, the fact is that Live Aid ultimately raised nearly $300 million. With 175,000 attending the concerts and an estimated 1.5 billion people watching the broadcast worldwide, it’s hard to argue with the results.
But lest we think that music’s finest hours are on the grandest stages, I assure you, they are not. For every mega, star-studded benefit there are scores of smaller comforts and joy that musicians give freely to those in need. For example, something else happened on #GivingTuesday the world is just beginning to hear about: Bedstock launched its website with 22 videos from 22 artists “playing from our beds for kids stuck in theirs.”
Bedstock is the new initiative from MyMusicRx, a program of the Children’s Cancer Association in Portland, OR that offers “music medicine” in the form of live performances, instruction and therapy to children confined to their beds with cancer or other serious illness.
“We spend fully one third of our lives in bed. If you happen to be a child with cancer, you spend a lot more,” explains Regina Ellis, founder and CEO of CCA.
Bedstock was developed and produced for MyMusicRx as a pro-bono campaign by the New York creative team at Anomaly, who partnered with Converse, Atlantic Records, ACE Hotels and others to make it happen. Headliners have included Passion Pit, Chromeo, Elliot Moss and Madison Beer…and the videos have already been tweeted out by Macklemore and Justin Bieber. Better than a letter to Santa!
JWT music director Paul Greco recently produced an “album project” for NAMI called #IWILLLISTEN to raise awareness about mental illness and the stigma associated with it. “Just listening to a friend or relative and not judging them has amazing healing power in itself, so they don’t feel alone and isolated,” states Greco—and that’s what each song created for the project is all about.
My dear colleague Liz Myers of Trivers Myers Music in LA shared with me another heart (and drum) pounding example of the healing power of music as experienced by a group of Rwandan women who, in reaction to horrifying genocide in their homeland formed a troupe of all women drummers (in a country that historically forbid women to play drums) called Ingoma Nshya, meaning A New Drum. One of the members was quoted in the Huffington Post, “If there’s a place you can find peace, that place is Ingoma Nshya. That’s where I was reborn.” Earth shaking.
And back to the mega: Since 1987 music producer/mogul Jimmy Iovine has released 10 albums under the theme A Very Special Christmas that have collectively raised over $100 million for the Special Olympics, giving us at the same time dozens of memorable recordings, from Stevie Nicks’ soulful “Silent Night” to the Eurythmics shimmering “Winter Wonderland”
The list of life saving, money raising musical contributions to humankind is seemingly endless. Because every year, every season, there will be more reasons to open the guitar cases, step to the mic, bring good tidings to those in need.
"You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you’ll understand
We all need somebody to lean on"
Do you have a music-related charity that’s close to your heart? Share it with me in a ‘comment’ and SHOOT will post it in an upcoming Music Notes column on SHOOTonline.
Lyle Greenfield is the founder of Bang Music and past president of the Association of Music Producers (AMP)
