A friend connected me to a wonderful thinking/community organizer over email. Alan Jennings and I met last week in which he wanted to tease out an idea for an episode of his talk show on local public radio, "Lehigh Valley Discourse." This is a weekly news/talk program that airs on WDIY 88.1 FM. Alan shared this show with three other hosts. Before I get into the show, here's a little bit about this host.
Alan has been with the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley since 1980, becoming its executive director in 1990. During that time, CACLV created a wide range of anti-poverty initiatives, including the Second Harvest Food Bank, the Sixth Street Shelter, weatherization and other energy assistance programs, entrepreneurial training and microlending, homeownership counseling and foreclosure mitigation and neighborhood revitalization. Alan has been outspoken in its effort to promote economic justice, affecting extensive public policy changes and building the region's capacity to address its problems. The agency has received numerous national, state and local awards for its work, as has Alan, including being named by The Morning Call as one of the six most influential activists of the 20th century. Alan is also on the adjunct faculty at Lehigh University, teaching social entrepreneurship.
We are both adjunct professors at Lehigh, teaching entrepreneurship courses through the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation. But when we met for the first time last week over a cup of coffee - we connected on a whole different level. We explored the impact of music on social change. My music history muscle was flexing and my brain was whizzing through so much repertoire and history... I could barely keep my thoughts straight.
This is music that matters to people. By learning what connects people to music (so hard) that people will spend hundreds of dollars to see the artists perform these songs live. To scream along to every song in the crowd, in the car or in the shower. To relate a personal history or a cultural event that inspired the artist - THAT is the part of art that wakes me up.
I applaud Alan for taking on a subject that's interesting and fun while getting the listening audience to listen more deeply to music they may have been singing; but don't quite get the impact. Here's the list of music we are thinking about playing parts of and discussing on the radio show scheduled for June 12th at 6pm. Tune in to hear online. To listen live, look for the button at the top of the page.
Lyrics to the final song list will be posted before the show. It's an effort to "do the homework ahead of class" so that the listener can get more out of it. Here's the possible artist list:
The Beatles
Pete Seeger
Gil Scot-Heron
Marvin Gaye
Style Council
Buffalo Springfield
John Lennon
Sex Pistols
U2
Public Enemy
Tracy Chapman
Bob Marley
Macklemore
Bruce Springsteen
The final segment focuses on Bruce Springsteen:
No comments:
Post a Comment