It opens in Santa Monica with blues legend Roger Ridley performing on the 3rd Street Promenade, and ends up becoming something, much, much more.

I strongly recommend cranking up the audio on your computer and putting the video up full screen.

Prepare for chills. Prepare to be energized to change the world.

…

The video is part Playing for Change: Peace Through Music, which premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival. This is the second “Playing for Change” film from directors Mark Johnson and Jonathan Walls; the first, “A Cinematic A Discovery of Street Music” was shot entirely in America, while the current project took the filmmakers around the world.

However, throughout the ten year filmmaking process of the two documentaries, the project evolved “beyond just music and film,” into “a movement uniting people all over the world through music and inspiration.” Johnson explains:

We have established the Playing For Change Foundation to build music and art schools for kids around the world. We have recently returned from Gugulethu, South Africa where we constructed the first Playing For Change Music School. We plan to build many more schools, each equipped with cameras and a recording studio so supporters all over the world can watch recitals and performances in the schools we are building together. We can use these schools as sources of inspiration and a means of breaking down negative stereotypes among people everywhere. (via Bill Moyers Journal at PBS)

Sadly, Roger Ridley, the street performer featured in the above video, passed away in 2005. More on his life story, and where you can buy his recordings, at his website.

Here’s another video from the documentary, again shot and recorded around the world, for the song “Don’t Worry” written by Pierre Minetti. (more clips can be found on Playing for Change’s YouTube channel)

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