#228 Concerts of Change: The Soundtrack of Human Rights
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2022
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the past year, Bob has been working on an audio docu-series that traces musicians' activism for human rights through benefit concerts from the 1970s to the 1990s. That series, Concerts of Change: The Soundtrack of Human Rights, airs Tuesday, March 22 on Siriux/XM's Volume Channel (106), so in this episode, Bob and Ben mark the occasion by discussion Bob's work on the series, how studying and speaking with musicians who inspired him helped Bob reflect upon his own role as a musician, and what he learned from his conversations with those involved in Live Aid, Band Aid, and other musicians' efforts to use their talents to help improve the lives of others.
Concerts of Change: The Soundtrack of Human Rights begins on March 22 at 1 p.m. ET and will air bi-weekly on SiriusXM's Volume channel 106. Extended bonus content with longer interviews and outtakes will be available exclusively on the SiriusXM app beginning March 22. Click here to sign up for SiriusXM so you can keep up with Concerts of Change!
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:09.5 | Today's guests has a new series premiering on Sirius XM about music and the apartheid movement |
| 0:17.4 | and the relationship between music and humanitarian efforts. |
| 0:23.1 | Please welcome to the road to now. |
| 0:24.8 | Today's guest, Bob Crawford. |
| 0:26.7 | Ben, it's a thrill to finally be on the show, finally be asked to be on this show. |
| 0:32.3 | I've waited six years to finally be on this program. |
| 0:36.4 | So a big fan, longtime listener. I've listened to every |
| 0:39.6 | episode. Every episode. I feel like I've lived it. The ups and downs. The incredible guests, |
| 0:47.5 | but just honored to be here with you today. Thank you, Bob. I wanted to open up like that because |
| 0:51.7 | I got to say, I missed one of the funniest things you ever did to me on The Road to now in that last episode. I missed it until I was editing it. It's where at the end, after I talked about my research, you left off the episode saying, Ben saw your thank you for being on the road to now. I laughed when I edited. I was like, how did I miss that? So I was like we're starting back up with that. Well, I felt I felt like these past couple Russia episodes, Ukraine episodes, I've felt like I'm |
| 1:18.4 | learning along with the audience that's listening. Like I kind of feel like I represent them |
| 1:23.7 | because this, that is your area of expertise. And so, you know, if we have Dr. Ironside on or you |
| 1:33.1 | talking about the Russian rubble and the history of Russian nationalism, nationalizing |
| 1:41.3 | businesses in Russia, you know, that's like your, that's what you spent |
| 1:45.7 | all those years and all that money in school learning about. So, and all that time in Russia. |
| 1:53.2 | You are the only one of us that has been to Russia. And, and so, so again, I feel like I, I am, I don't feel like I'm learning. I'm learning from |
| 2:06.0 | you. So thank you so much for that. Yes, Bob. And right back at you for our topic for today, |
| 2:12.1 | because this to me was, it was fascinating. I think it's like, it's probably surprising to some people that |
| 2:18.9 | since we're good friends and we do the podcast together, it's like, I love music, but I, you know, |
| 2:23.6 | music history isn't my thing. And so again, it's like, it's this thing that I haven't studied. |
| 2:28.8 | But when done well, it makes all these connections and brings this kind of global story home. And this is certainly |
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