Patti Smith and Choir! Choir! Choir! - People Have The Power

"People have the power...to wrestle the world from fools...."

This is my second posting of a Choir! Choir! Choir! video. The first featured David Byrne and the song "Heroes" (written by David Bowie and Brian Eno). You can view that video here.

In Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of "The Weight" - Song Around the World / Playing for Change

"The Weight" was written by Robbie Robertson, recorded by his group The Band, and released on the album Music From Big Pink in 1968.

From Rollingstone.com (September 18, 2019):

"What key is it in, Robbie?" Ringo Starr, sitting behind a drum set, asks Robbie Robertson over the phone. Ringo nods. "F-demented!" What happens next is a joyous cover of "The Weight," with Robertson reprising the recording's soulful intro lick. A series of musicians from all over the world – Marcus King, Lukas Nelson, the Japanese guitar virtuoso Char, Congo soul singer Mermens Mosengo and more – all add their own flavor to the classic from different locations.

The project comes from Playing For Change, a group dedicated to "breaking down the boundaries and overcome distances between people." That includes 15 music schools across 11 countries, documentaries and viral videos bringing artists from different cultures together; the group has released videos for "Redemption Song" [Bob Marley], "What’s Going On" [Marvin Gaye], and more ["All Along The Watchtower by Bob Dylan]. "The Weight" was done on an epic scale, a year and a half of production over five continents. "We made it brick by brick, starting with Robbie," says co-founder Mark Johnson, a Grammy-winning producer-engineer who's worked with Paul Simon, Keith Richards, and more. "That's what makes this special. We could never have never assembled this group in the studio. You need to go there, and then when you go there, you're where they feel comfortable....

We had built a mobile recording studio... Now I have little battery packs so we traveled the world with a mobile studio, great equipment and some cameras and this one we started off with Robbie Robertson playing guitar... And then as we traveled the world, we would deconstruct [the track.] So Ringo would replace the drums. Hutch [James "Hutch" Hutchinson”] would replace the bass. Everywhere I go, I'm putting headphones on musicians, and they're listening to whatever preceded them and playing along. And that's how we built it as we went from country to country. I think in this video, we went to about ten different countries.

Learn more about Song Around the World on the Playing For Change website -- and check out all those other videos!