Features
SingSOS! For Autism Benefit Concert
A group of singer-songwriters and bands including Jackson Browne, Dar Williams, Marshall Crenshaw, Ollabelle and The Cucumbers have come together to celebrate Autism Awareness Month this April with a charity album of original songs about the disorder as well as a NYC benefit concert.
The Songs of the Spectrum benefit CD release concert takes place April 7 at New York’s The Bitter End. The show features Williams, Crenshaw, Christina Courtin, Ollabelle’s Fiona McBain, The Cucumbers and Kelly Flint. Tickets are on sale now through the website for SingSOS, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to getting the word out about autism through the power of music.
Photo: Randall Michelson
Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, Calif.
Songs of the Spectrum includes 14 tracks with songs performed by Williams, Crenshaw, Courtin, Ollabelle, The Cucumbers and Flint, in addition to Jackson Browne & Valerie Carter, Richard Julian, Teddy Geiger, Ari Hest, Jonatha Brooke and Don Dixon & Mike Viola.
The album is set for release April 6 through SingSOS’s Web site. It can be ordered for $19.99 or downloaded as an MP3 for $15. When purchasing the album, buyers can choose where the proceeds will go towards from a list of dozens of autism support organizations.
The tunes from Songs Of The Spectrum were written by The Cucumbers husband-wife team of Jon Fried and Deena Shoshkes along with New York Times editor John O’Neil, whose 2004 essay for the Times about his autistic son James was part of a Pulitzer Prize-nominated series.
“Early intervention and dedicated, relentless treatment can have a genuinely transforming effect,’’ says O’Neil. “We want to bring listeners inside an experience that is so hard to see and so hard to understand. Autism has understandably been called an ‘invisible epidemic.’ We hope to make it tangible.”
The album concludes with a poem written by O’Neil’s son James. It also includes a song co-written by O’Neil’s eldest son Chris based on his experience as a brother to a sibling with autism.
Click here for SingSOS’s Web site.