Joe Craven Project - Music Empowerment for the masses

[Elantric]

This is a little film I made ten years ago. In 2002, Joe Craven came to Northern California on a tour of small venues and elementary schools. I went out on the road with him for a week or so camera in hand.
Back then I was a fan of Joe. A buddy had given me a copy of Joe's debut CD, Camptown and I was blown away. I knew of his session and live work with David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Bonnie Raitt and scores more. Joe's music was an epiphany to me...it opened doors for me to music I'd never heard or listened to before and I was diggin' it. So it was an incredible thrill for me to immerse myself in the Craven Experience for a week and get this video. It is an absolute rush for me to see genius at work onstage and be able to record it for all time.
What I didn't know at the time about Joe Craven was his amazing work with children. Joe goes into schools all over the country, introducing music and rhythm to the kids. It's an incredible thing to see...Joe going through a dumpster to get boxes for the kids. The boxes becomes the child's rhythm machine and it's a sight to behold, a classroom of kids jammin' with Joe on their boxes...you'll see.
There's more to it than beating on boxes though. Joe shows these kids through the music that all of them, all of US have the rhythm and the music in US. It's an incredible lesson...
During a break in shooting at one of the schools, one of the teachers came up to me and asked me to tell Joe thank you. He said he had never seen many of his students smile as they had problems at home, broken homes, etc. He said he had almost given up on getting through to some of his students...until today. He witnessed the smiles Joe brought to all his kids. The gift of music he had given the children had broken down the barriers. There were tears in that teacher's eyes. Amazing thing for me to witness and I have the video. Pay attention to the children's faces...you'll see the transformation.
I love this film and I'm proud of it...Some of the coolest stuff I've ever done.
This is Joe solo. I saw Joe the other night in the Santa Cruz Mountains with his new trio. Blew me away...Joe with band adds a whole new dimension to the Craven Experience. That show the other night reminded me of this video so I polished it up a bit and here it is. Enjoy then go check out
www.joecraven.com