Atlanta charity Songs for Kids Foundation, which provides music classes for kids and young adults with illnesses, injuries, and disabilities, last year held a marathon two-day fundraising concert event featuring kids playing every Taylor Swift song ever.
At Monday Night Garage over two days and 14 hours, 110 different children and young adults performed nearly 200 songs. Several musicians who work for the foundation backed them up.
Songs for Kids creator Josh Rifkind is coming back this year with a comparable event he dubs Every Kelly Clarkson Song Ever! He also procured a much larger venue: The Eastern. The concerts will be held from noon to 7 p.m. both Saturday, Jan. 13 and Sunday, Jan. 14. Tickets start at $8 each day at axs.com.
“What we do is awesome,” 50-year-old Rifkind said with the enthusiasm of a kid. “The mentors are amazing. Why not have them on a big stage?”
The event also caught the attention of Clarkson herself. On her syndicated talk show “The Kelly Clarkson Show” Thursday that aired in Atlanta at 10 a.m. on WSB-TV, Clarkson spoke to Rifkind and said she was “honored and flattered” by Rifkind’s choice of her songbook. She and her show also donated a collective $6,000 to the fundraiser.
Rifkind said he and his employees scoured the Internet and dug up every commercially released song that featured Clarkson, including duets and Christmas covers. (He excluded the hundreds of covers she has done for “The Kelly Clarkson Show.’)
“She’s a mom of two,” Rifkind said. “I thought she would be someone who would appreciate what we do and see the beauty of it.”
Credit: Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal
Credit: Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal
Songs for Kids started in 2007 as a service where professional musicians visit hospitals to play music to sick children. Rifkind was inspired by his father Kenneth, a New York trauma surgeon for 50 years who died last year. They both believed music was great medicine.
“I wanted to do something that involved my dad’s essence and spirit,” Rifkind said. “I wanted to combine the two worlds.”
In 2018, Rifkind added a new service by opening a 1,700-square-foot music studio in downtown Atlanta a block from the Skyview ferris wheel at 145 Nassau St. There, hundreds of kids and young adults each year learn how to write music, sing better or play an instrument for free.
“We have kids who are autistic, who may or may not speak,” he said.
On weekends, the room is a hive of musical activity in multiple rooms and a main stage. He said his students have been prepping and rehearsing for the Clarkson fundraiser for several months.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@a
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@a
On a recent Friday, 25-year-old Antonio Guzman of Powder Springs was rehearsing multiple songs for the Clarkson fest. He ran through “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” one of Clarkson’s biggest hits, hitting all the big notes. Rifkin played the drums while professional musician and full-time Songs for Kids mentor Tessa Joy worked the guitar riffs.
“You did a great job,” Joy told Guzman. “But you flipped verses. Still. You kept going. Nobody will ever know!”
“Your movement was good,” Rifkind added. “It’s going to be a big stage. Physicality will help.”
Guzman’s mom, Iliana said her son over the years has had a host of medical problems. Besides being on the spectrum, she said he’s had surgeries of the brain, the neck, the heart and the kidney. “He doesn’t know how to read the room,” she said. “He’s very trusting. He also loves music.”
She said when he turned 18, he aged out of the camps and classes geared to children with disabilities. So she was thrilled to find Songs for Kids six years ago. “It’s been a great outlet for my son,” she said. “Last year, we brought the whole family to the Taylor Swift festival.”
“The classes help me stay calm and make me happy,” Guzman said. And performing on a big stage? He is cool with that.
“If it was up to him,” his mom added, “he’d run the place.”
Rifkind’s kids also perform at the Shaky Knees Festival every year. And Rifkind has brought bands and acts into his studio to mentor kids including Grace Potter, PJ Morton, the Revivalists, War on Drugs and the Backstreet Boys.
Rifkind, who used to manage artists as well as play music professionally, said the celebrities are nice but not his focus. For him, the heroes are the kids.
“I don’t care how good they are,” he said. “Some kids will just make noises, but they can express their feelings through music. That’s what matters.”
Rifkind said his organization needs fundraisers like the Clarkson event to stay alive. In 2022, according to his nonprofit’s publicly released 1099 form, his group raised $413,000.
“I don’t get a lot of big donations,” he said. “We don’t really have any big benefactors.”
IF YOU GO
Every Kelly Clarkson Song Ever Fest
Noon-7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13 and Sunday, Jan.14. $8 and up. The Eastern, 800 Old Flat Shoals Road, Atlanta. easternatl.com/=,
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