In less contagious times, regional musicians have been able to visit hospitals to warm the hearts and lift the spirits of patients and staff through the Sonny Pugar Memorial Music Smiles program.
Over the last 11 years, there have been more than 765 performances at Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital, Children’s Institute, Family Hospice, Family House and Western Psych, among other facilities.
In March, COVID-19 ended those visits abruptly.
“We had to stop everything and reconfigure and rethink what we were going to do,” said Annie Pugar, director of Music Smiles. “And like everybody else, it took us a while to wrap our heads around the virtual stuff.”
They’ve organized some performances via YouTube and Facebook Live, but even at that, it’s complicated by the fact that patients are restricted from gathering in common areas.
“It's just another 2020 experience,” said London native and Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Joel Lindsey, who did one of those virtual shows. “Musicians like myself have had to learn to do these Facebook Live performances. Typically, when we're performing in the hospitals, we get to engage with patients and look them in the eye and have a laugh with them, have a smile, tell a story. It's much easier to be engaging when you can see your audience. It took some imagination to get through these one-hour performances.”
On Sunday, the 17th annual Rhythms of Life Concert, which raises money for Music Smiles, moves online as well with host Sean McDowell and performances by Lindsey, Bob Banerjee, Charlie Barath, Matt Barranti, Evan Dean, Shelley Duff with Craig “Izzy” Arlet, David Granati and Joey Granati, Byron Nash, Danny Rectenwald, Ron Soltis, and Stevee Wellons and Cheryl Rinovato (Soulful Femme).
The performances were pre-recorded to enhance the quality.
“The livestreams, which most people are doing for benefits, at least locally, are great,” Pugar said. “But we wanted to just do something a little different. We're kind of known for innovation, so we pre-recorded — all original music, so that it wouldn't be an issue with BMI and ASCAP. We got everybody together on a date, socially distanced and asked the artists to do two songs each, and that is the basis for a 45-minute video. It will more closely resemble a television show.”
Lindsey’s two-song set will include “The World Will Heal in Time,” a tender, heartfelt ballad he released with a video in April.
“I recorded it back in March as a song I wrote while watching my 2-year-old son playing in the backyard,” he said. “It was a very futile moment during the pandemic, but just watching my backyard coming to life, it was springtime. The opening line of the song is, ‘This is the saddest spring the world has ever known.’ ”
It goes on to express how hard it is to tell children that we have to be alone and distanced. But the song comes to a hopeful chorus of “The best thing that we can do is dream of the life to come/because the world will heal in time.”
The benefit will be at 7 p.m. Sunday at facebook.com/TheSonnyPugarMemorial and on YouTube: The Sonny Pugar Memorial, Inc. Official Channel. After that, the performances will be available on the YouTube channel.
First Published: November 10, 2020, 11:18 a.m.
