© 2024 Milwaukee Public Media is a service of UW-Milwaukee's College of Letters & Science
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

LAMPEDUSA Brings Singer-Songwriter Emmylou Harris Back to Milwaukee

digboston
/
Flickr

A pretty special concert tour is rolling into Milwaukee. Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Robert Plant and others are all on the same bill to perform and raise awareness and money for refugees around the world. The tour is called LAMPEDUSA and it benefits Jesuit Refugee Service’s Global Education Initiative.

Credit Yogibones / Flickr
/
Flickr

Also on the bill is legendary singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris. In her long career, she has won 13 Grammys and has worked with a myriad of well-known artists including Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Neil Young and Dolly Parton. For Harris, this concert is an opportunity to inform audiences and really make a difference. 

"The images that we've been seeing of what's going on and what these people, these families, are going through, it just breaks your heart," says Harris. "And I think most of us feel powerless, we're so far away, we don't know what to do." 

She says she uses her performances as an opportunity to talk to audiences about the refugee crisis, and look at how our community can work together to help. Harris is part of a tradition of musicians using their platform to champion causes they believe in. 

"I have a private theory that... we can't believe that we're actually making our living doing something we love so much and so there's this sense of wanting to give back," she says. 

The LAMPEDUSA: Concert for Refugees will be at the Pabst Theater on Wednesday, October 12.

Bonnie North
Bonnie joined WUWM in March 2006 as the Arts Producer of the locally produced weekday magazine program Lake Effect.