Playing for change: Guantanamera
Every Saturday, Roger Ridley would leave early from his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, and go to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. He’d sing, accompanied by his guitar, in the middle of the street. If you asked for him, the other street musicians would tell you exactly where to find the Voice of God, which was but Ridley’s torn melody.
One of those Saturdays, sound engineer and producer Mark Johnson suggested he record the song Stand by Me. It would have been enough, but Johnson said he wanted to mix other voices and share with the world the talent of other street musicians who had the soul and passion of Ridley.
He traveled to Barcelona, where he recorded, among others, Clarence Bekker, and then to South Africa, to India, to Nepal, to the East, to Latin America… All did their version of Stand By Me. Johnson then he mixed and delivered a five-minute recording that quickly traveled around the world. In 2009, some of those musicians, who did not know each other, came together to play at the SXSW Festival in the U.S. More concerts and tours emerged from there until an album was released under the label: multi-ethnicity. Soon after, they released Playing For Change Live, a sound testimony of the successful 2009 tour.
Today we share with our Progreso Weekly readers the song that Playing for Change will record with Cuban musicians, a version of Guantanamera by Joseíto Fernández (a click takes you to You Tube):
This past week, on June 17, a version of Guantanamera was released, authored by Carlos Varela and Manuel Galban, and produced by singer-songwriter Jackson Browne in conjunction with Mark Johnson. In it, 75 Cuban musicians participated to remind us that Cuba is not only in Havana, Matanzas and Santiago. It also travels through the streets of Tokyo, Madrid, and Miami…
* In 2007 Mark Johnson created the Playing for Change Foundation, an NGO whose aim is to develop schools for street musicians. Most recently this movement created the Playing for Change Band, a band that brings together musicians from around the world.
