Music and philanthropy have a long, benevolent relationship with one another. Record bins are rife with charity singles, and concert history is filled with benefit shows for every imaginable cause. Musicians like to give back.

From their '61 Cavern Club debut to their last rooftop concert eight years later, The Beatles gave every serious artist in their wake the songbook and sound for their career. It's the musical trough from which nearly every musician drinks.

The best opportunity for our uplifting is the opportunity to give.

Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis. The songs and sounds that come from here are uniquely American.

And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar.

From chain gangs to folk songs to intelligent soul, America has created musicians dedicated to truth, justice, and a better American Way.