Amazing video and song `Stand By Me` got 3.3 mil hits on YouTube
The amazing video and great song "Stand By Me" performed collectively by street musicians around the world got over 3,257,000 in two months since the video was posted on YouTube.
The video clip is from the award-winning documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music" directed by Mark Johnson and Jonathan Walls, who explore both the motivation and the music of the contemporary street musicians. It is among many "songs around the world" that was released independently.
By showcasing both the lives and music of musicians in New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, Johnson and Walls offer a series of soulful moments that may have otherwise gotten lost in the infinite noise of the outside world.
The film brings together musicians from around the world: from blues singers in a waterlogged New Orleans to chamber groups in Moscow and to a South African choir. Johnson traveled around the globe and recorded tracks for such classics as "Stand By Me" and Bob Marley's "One World", thus, creating a new mix in which the performers are all performing together although they live thousands of miles apart. Often recording with just battery-powered equipment, Johnson recorded over 100 musicians who were performing on street corners or in small clubs.
Jason Buchanan from All Movie Guide says about this documentary in the New Your Times:
"Few musicians play with more passion and conviction than the soulful folks who take to the sidewalks to share their music... In affording viewers a taste of the outsider music that may likely never reach beyond a two-block radius, the filmmakers in essence capture the true spirit of the music that is so crucial to the lives of the performers."
In a PBS interview Johnson said about what world music means to him:
"Just thinking in my mind... what would be unique instruments to juxtapose against each other that had never been heard before: a talking drum and a tabla, they're very similar but they never really come together, or a sitar and a dobro, very similar but how often do you hear them play together? The idea was to go to places that would have some sort of instruments that they could add to the spectrum of the global music that we were trying to find."
"Playing For Change: Peace Through Music" is the second film directed by Mark Johnson and Jonathan Walls. Their previous film, titled “Playing For Change: A Cinematic Discovery Of Street Music” was released in 2005, and is currently available through Netflix.
Music and video content from "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music", featured on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, will be available through Playing For Change's online store in early 2009, and released on CD and DVD in the Spring of 2009 through Hear Music.
It is worth to name street singers who contributed to the "Stand by Me" in this video: Roger Ridley (Santa Monica, California, USA), Grandpa Elliott (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA), Clarence Bekker (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Vusi Mahlasela (Mamelodi, South Africa). They were accompanied by the vocalists of the Sinamuva Group in Umlazi (South Africa) and street instrumentalists `Wasboard` Chaz and Robert Luti (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA), Cesar Pope (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Dmitri Dolganov (Moscow, Russia), Geraldo & Dionisio (Caracas, Venezuela), Junior Kissangwa Mbouta (The Congo), Pokei Klaas (Guguletu, South Africa), Django Degen (Barcelona, Spain) and Stefano Tomaselli (Pisa, Italy).
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