Jimmy Carter 100: Artists pay tribute ahead of star-studded birthday concert

Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song is a musical event marking the centennial birthday of Georgia's former U.S. president, Nobel prize winner, peace wager, disease fighter, family man — and music fan.

The concert takes place Tuesday, Sept. 17 at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre and features a cavalcade of notable figures in politics, film and music, with performances by Angelique Kidjo, BeBe Winans, The B-52s. Chuck Leavell, D-Nice, Drive-By Truckers, Eric Church, GROUPLOVE, Maren Morris, The War And Treaty and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus.

Ahead of the show, singers Angelique Kidjo and Carlene Carter reflected on their favorite Jimmy Carter moments and why music is the best way to honor the former president's life and legacy.

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African superstar Angelique Kidjo is scheduled to perform as part of 'Jimmy Carter 100' at Atlanta's Fox Theatre on Sept. 17, 2024.

Credit: Erwan Blaszka / Courtesy of Red Light Management

Spreading peace and democracy around the world
 

African superstar and Grammy winner Angelique Kidjo said she first learned about Jimmy Carter when she was a teenager living in communist-controlled Benin in the 1970s. 

"It was the 70s, the era of the communist dictatorship in my country. And when Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976, you couldn't watch any TV, you couldn't have any news from anywhere. Everything was just about the propaganda of the ideology. But knowing that somebody had been elected democratically to lead a country ... It was a yearning for me at that age to look up and to look forward to living in a country where democracy and freedom of speech [allowed you] to decide who you want to be, whatever you want to do. He was the person that comes to mind, because it coincided with that trauma of the dictatorship in my country."

Kidjo met Jimmy Carter while performing at the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize Concert the year he became a laureate. By that time, she was the voice of her continent and he was lauded for being one of the world's greatest humanitarians through his work for peace, elections and global health at the Carter Center.

She said she remembered the thrill of him standing up and singing along when she performed. "I'm making a former president sing," Kidjo said.

"And his speech was also really touching," she added. "He was talking about the state of the world and how peace is so hard to reach, but yet we cannot give up on peace, no matter how hard it is. This is just the only thing that can allow humanity to prevail."

Jimmy and the late Rosalynn Carter's impact through the Carter Center has reached more than 100 countries and touched many parts of the African continent, Kidjo said. "You know, most of the time people talk. Talk is cheap. Action is expensive, as I say ... But that commitment [from Carter] never, never waned. I mean, the Guinea worm eradication is 90% the work of the Carter [Center] Foundation. And ... in Africa ...people know the foundation and they know that it is the foundation that they can trust."

Kidjo said she has shows in France and Brazil this week but joyfully added Atlanta to her calendar for this unmissable concert, because "Jimmy Carter is a very special human being" and she is a performer who is committed to music as a "weapon of peace." 

"Because, when you listen to music," she said, "The message of the music is reminding you of your own power."
 

Digging in the dirt and getting through tough times with music

Carlene Carter is a member of the "first family of country music" and a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who learned to play guitar from her grandmother, matriarch Maybelle Carter, and released more than 20 country singles including three Top-5 hits.

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Carlene Carter will perform at the 'Jimmy Carter 100' concert in Atlanta on Sept. 17, 2024.

Credit: Facebook

Carter grew up with famous parents, mom June Carter Cash, who claimed to be a distant of Jimmy Carter, and stepdad Johnny Cash, who was a favorite of the former president's singers.

Carter said she remembers when Jimmy was elected and her mother told her, "He's our cousin. He's a good Carter man. He's had his hands in the dirt," referring to the Plains, Ga., farm where Jimmy grew up. 

"I've actually thought of him every time I've done a Farm Aid [concert], because I think that all of our ancestors at some point have had their hands in the dirt," Carlene Carter said. "I don't know a lot of presidents in the past century that actually stuck their hands in dirt."

"He is a man of the people. And there's a magic about him that is contagious," she said. "His whole thing was always about the greater good for everyone. Not just America. Everybody. And that's because he's got a good heart. And I think that's what made him an extraordinary president. I love the fact that he just lights up when he hears music. And that's why I do think that we are — well, I hope we are— related."

"I never dreamed that I would actually get to do this, to be a part, that they would want me here," Carter said of being asked to participate in the Jimmy Carter 100 concert. "And I'm not letting loose what song I'm doing," she laughed, referring to her planned performance.

"I think music carries us through hard times, through good times... The world is hard.... I like the fact that [Jimmy Carter] embraced that, and the inspiration that songs can have to people and to lift up a nation. If it lifts up one soul just a little more, then we are doing our job as musicians. And he was doing his job as president by introducing music into the White House in a way it had not been before, which connected him to a whole generation of people that adore him. And I am in that generation."

Get your tickets for the Sept. 17 Jimmy Carter 100 concert here. And mark your calendars for a 90-minute broadcast of the concert airing on GPB TV at 7 p.m. on Oct. 1, 2024, capping off weeks of special programming leading up to Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday.