Playing For Change is a multimedia music project, featuring musicians and singers from across the globe, co-founded in 2002 by Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke. Playing For Change also created in 2007 a separate non-profit organization called the Playing For Change Foundation, which builds music and art schools for children around the world.

Origin

Playing For Change (PFC) was founded in 2002 by Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke. Mark Johnson was walking in Santa Monica, California, when he heard the voice of Roger Ridley (deceased in 2005) singing "Stand By Me"; it was this experience that sent Playing For Change on its mission to connect the world through music.

Travelling the world with a small film and recording team, producers Johnson and Enzo Buono developed a mobile recording studio (originally powered by golf cart batteries) for recording and filming musicians live outdoors, and progressively editing all the separate artists, blending all into one performance as PFC travelled from artist to artist, country to country. Starting with a studio-made demo in the right key and tempo, "we would deconstruct [the track]" as each recorded musician could listen with headphones to what had been recorded before them, and playing the same song, adding into the mix their own style. For the project Johnson has recorded and filmed music in more than 50 countries across the world.

More than 150 -- mostly street -- musicians from 25 countries have combined their talents to create a global phenomenon with millions of followers across the world. Artists participating or openly involved in the project are Mermans Mosengo, Marcus King, Lukas Nelson, Char, Orbe Ortiz, Paulo Heman, Peter Bunetta, Roberto Luti, Titi Tsira, Jason Tamba, Keiko Komaki, Vusi Mahlasela, Louis Mhlanga, Clarence Bekker, David Guido Pietroni, Tal Ben Ari (Tula), Bono, Keb' Mo', David Broza, Manu Chao, Grandpa Elliott, Keith Richards, The Pocket Queen, Toots Hibbert from Toots & the Maytals, Taj Mahal and Stephen Marley. This resulted in the documentary A Cinematic Discovery of Street Musicians that won the Audience Award at the Woodstock Film Festival in September 2008.

Elliot Small (July 10, 1944 – March 8, 2022), known as Grandpa Elliott was a veteran street-musician in New Orleans, Louisiana. He played the harmonica, sang, and was a street icon in New Orleans.

Early life

Grandpa Elliott was born as Elliot Small on July 10, 1944 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Growing up in the Lafitte Housing Projects, Small developed a love of music as a young boy, in part to deal with the pains of an unhappy home life. Small's uncle was a professional musician who worked with Lloyd Washington of the Ink Spots, and often let his nephew come to the Dew Drop Inn to hear them play. One day when his uncle left for work without his harmonica, Small picked it up and put it to his mouth. "Oooh, it was awful," he said, laughing. "He chewed tobacco. I had to sterilize that thing." The uncle gave young Elliott a harmonica, and he fell in love with the sound of the mouth harp, teaching himself by playing along with the music on his mama's radio. At home, Small's mother favored classical music, giving the youngster diverse tastes at an early age.