Music revolution
Bill Moyers Journal
BILL MOYERS: In just the last month unfortunately, we've lost two women whose gutsy, soulful voices embodied the conscience of their homelands.
First to leave us was Miriam Makeba, known as "Mama Africa." She spent more than 30 years banned from South Africa for the outspoken, joyous songs that rang out from the ramparts of the anti-apartheid movement. But exile could not silence the township radios and tape decks that continued to fill the air with Makeba, in defiance of the law. "Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us," Nelson Mandela said. "She was a mother to our struggle and to the young nation of ours."
We also said goodbye to Odetta Holmes — known simply as Odetta. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, during the depths of the Great Depression. And she made the blues and the work songs and spirituals of the Deep South a mainstay of American folk music, the soundtrack to the struggle for civil rights.
Despite failing health, she performed to the very end, and hoped to serenade Barack Obama at his inauguration.
Though we mourn their loss, the voices of Odetta and Makeba will live on. Music continues to cross all boundaries and to touch what's common to the human heart.
My next guest continues to believe that through song we can change the world. We first introduced him to you a few weeks ago, and we were overwhelmed by your response. One woman whose family has been pitched overboard by the sinking economy wrote us to say: "I haven't felt much joy lately," but after watching the program, "for the first time in a very long time, my heart felt something other than pain and fear."
We lost count of the number of people who requested an encore so we're delighted now to oblige.
Mark Johnson is the co-director of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music: "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music."....
No comments:
Post a Comment