Calabash Founder's Story: Brad Powell

The Music Man

When I was five years old my parents took me into New York City to see Robert Preston in "The Music Man". Live on stage. I was hooked. I wanted to be the Music Man. It was probably one of the most shaping influences of my life. We had the soundtrack at home and I used to march around the living room singing "Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York or Rome!" at the top of my lungs.

The character of the Music Man had the courage, energy and charisma to galvanize the jaded community of River City, Iowa around music -- the idea of a boys' band. His purpose was bringing communities to life with music. From him I learned the power of the single entrepreneur whose infectious ideas can empower others. He understood that if we don't have music in our daily lives then we aren't fully developed as human beings.

If I learned anything from my parents as a child, it was that I was here for a reason. I had a gift to share. I was here to make a difference.

When I grew up I moved to the Pacific Northwest. The Puget Sound region around Seattle is exceptionally beautiful. Everyone who lives there shares a common bond because they all share the common pieces of furniture in the landscape -- Mount Rainer, Mount Baker, the San Juan Islands, the Olympic Range and the Sound itself.

I expressed my own bonding with the region by founding an environmental education organization. We built replicas of the small wooden launches that Captain George Vancouver used to chart the Northwest coast in 1792. We took young people out onto Puget Sound in these traditional boats, taught them to row and sail and helped them to learn about the Sound by experiencing it in the same manner as the first European explorers.

Our boats had ten oars, and we spent many hours singing while we rowed -- sometimes with the tide and sometimes against it. The splashing of the oars created a rhythm -- a rhythm that allowed us to row and sing all day. "Rowing is fun, Rowing is fun, Rowing is fun, is fun, is fun" (sung to the tune of "Amen")

To promote this outdoor program we created a musical show using songs and stories about Puget Sound. We called our show "Pure Sound" and our organization the "Pure Sound Society."

One of the songs in the show was an adaptation I wrote of "Trouble in River City" -- the piece in the Music Man where the town gets stirred up over a new pool table in town. But now it was "Trouble in Emerald City"(Seattle) and the trouble was that the size of our brains was giving us humans foolish ideas that were the root of our environmental problems: "Trouble with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'B' and that stands for 'Brains' -- our children's children gonna have trouble".

The Pure Sound program became so successful that when the Pacifc Crest Outward Bound School became aware of what we were doing, they approached me to start running a new kind of Outward Bound course for their school. Thus, I became the director for the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School's Seamanship Program. We fused the Outward Bound methodology of youth development through challenge and risk-taking with the environmental ethics of connecting to place: rowing and singing to the rhythm of the oars.

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My workspace now is vastly different although no less musical. I work out of an office in Davis Square in Boston which is a hub for the international music scene in the city. I work with musicians from around the world. All day I listen to music from everywhere and have email conversations with artists from around the globe. I benefit from the daily assistance of young interns from the Berklee School of Music whose youthful perspective on the music world is invaluable.

This work has evolved from my curiosity as a music aficionado and musician and an eclectic fascination with sounds from all over the planet. One of my favorite ways to discover new music has been listening to National Public Radio on my car radio while driving down the highway. My ears perk up to news segments on international artists like Thomas Mapfumo whose Zimbabwean Afro-pop sound tends to set me swaying behind the wheel. The music is made all the more compelling by NPR's translation of the social and political message contained in the lyrics -- explaining that the music is about the people of Zimbabwe's struggle for justice and that its message has been so popular that Mapfumo has been jailed and then forced into exile. Typically, when the segment ends, I am frantically reaching into the glove compartment for a pen and something to write on, literally risking my life with one hand on the wheel, to jot down the name of the artist that I hope they will mention just one more time...

Now I work with Thomas Mapfumo. I also work with public radio via the national program Afropop Worldwide. Because of my work, when Afropop plays a song by Thomas you can simply go to the Afropop.org web site and find his music online. You can download his songs directly to your own computer -- you don't even have to leave your house to find music from Zimbabwe.

When you buy his music this way Mapfumo earns a 'fair trade' commission of 50% from each sale (something unheard of in the traditional music industry). And Afropop earns 25% so you are supporting your favorite non-profit public radio program too. My new work is an enterprise called rockpaperscissorsshop. If you are an artist from Beruit or Bamako and you want to develop an audience in Boston or Brussels I can help you. If you are a music fan and you want to know what people are dancing to in Sao Paulo or Barcelona, I can help you. If you are a non-profit radio program that wants to engage your listeners and support the artists you broadcast, I can help you.

Use of the Internet for community building and 'fair trade' commerce demonstrates part of a new cultural shift occurring throughout the world. The traditional structure of music commerce has been based on a vertical axis in which producers and distributors sit at the top with all of the power and the musicians and music fans are at the bottom. With the growth of Internet use and music file sharing, this axis has shifted horizontally with musicians and music fans on more level ground with producers and distributors.

Like shade grown, organic coffee that renews the soil, supports village economies, and transforms the coffee plantation into a renewable resource;  rockpaperscissorsshop is developing sustainable local economies in music cultures throughout the world. The rockpaperscissorsshop model is providing a new kind of economic development, supporting vibrant music communities around the world as well as the non-profit public media that feature their music. This new 'fair trade' model is a catalyst for change in global trade that provides for a more equitable distribution of wealth.

It's true that when the Music Man sold his boys' bands he was in it for the money. rockpaperscissorsshop is in it for the money too. In the 'fair trade' model financial success means all the players do well. For example, our non-profit media partners have constantly been hosting on-air pledge drives to meet their annual budgets. As our business grows our partners will achieve a new revenue stream of support from their audience -- through the sale of 'fair trade' music. Our musicians will also be earning more, as well maintaining control of their publishing rights.

This work has brought me into contact with many musicians who have the ability to express the voice of their people in powerful and meaningful ways. One shining example is a young Colombian singer and composer named Marta Gomez. Her music is rooted in traditional rhythms from Colombia, Argentina and other parts of South America and although they contain Spanish lyrics, they convey their meaning to North American audiences. Marta displays a passion in her singing that is rare and her music has tremendous value in helping to develop more acceptance and connections between the cultures of North and South America. In a time when the popular media conveys a narrow message of violence and crime coming out of Colombia, Marta's message is refreshing -- choosing elements to celebrate in life.

Another young artist whose music celebrates his homeland's culture is the Iraqi singer, Kazem al Sahir. As the United States hovered on the brink of war with his country, Sahir organized a tour of American cities in order to present a positive view of life and culture in his troubled region of the world. He called the tour and his recording, 'The Impossible Love'.

A third example is South African singer and songwriter Vusi Mahlasela who, growing up in the time of apartheid, has written many songs of political and social significance. Mahlasela sings in six different South African languages, including English. "I want my music to be accessible to every listener because I know that I really have something to say in terms of really, you know, removing thorns from people, thorns that really make us unaware that we are bleeding with these thorns, like pain, grief, jealousy and so on."

With the participation of these and other artists, we are looking for creative ways to develop larger networks of community and understanding using the messages contained in global music. Imagine a discourse on the current conflicts in the Middle East (or anywhere else in the world) led by musicians. Imagine a global forum that allows for the expression of the full range of culture and art and life in the Middle East -- not just the violence.

Compared to singing and rowing against the tide this is difficult work -- far more challenging than selling a boys' band to a town in Iowa. There is music in the world that is changing peoples' lives. In Brazil there are community centers called samba schools where youth meet to play music and dance. Every neighborhood in Rio has its own samba school. It's like football in that they all compete with each other for the best song, the best dancing and the best costumes. And everyone participates. The youth perform and the adults teach or make costumes. Every neighborhood has an identity that is defined by the songs they sing and the dances they dance.

Like the Music Man I am imagining a world where everyone sings and dances and celebrates music each day. Here in the United States, in the time that the Music Man was traveling through Iowa, community music was everywhere. There were high school bands in every town in America and music programs in every church and school. If a local band didn't exist, people wanted to know why not which is why the Music Man had an easy time of getting River City Iowans excited about having a band in their town. But today we've lost most of these music programs and we've lost the vibrancy that community music brings when it is interwoven into daily life. It is one of the key areas of social development where our culture is suffering a loss. Music and musicians have a vital role to play in helping us see who we are and celebrate our identity. And music binds us together with a common purpose like nothing else.

-- rockpaperscissorsshop founder Brad Powell