Bay Area musicians team for ‘Blanket the Homeless’ fundraiser

Solutions to the Bay Area’s crisis of homelessness seem few and far between. Ken Newman decided to take direct action in 2016, founding the homeless aid organization Blanket the Homeless, inspired by the spontaneous #BeRobin fundraisers celebrating the life of Robin Williams.

While Newman was working with Marin-based producer/songwriter Scott Mickelson on a new album, they hit on the idea of a compilation featuring new songs by an array of Bay Area artists to raise funds for Blanket the Homeless. Mickelson had already produced a similar project, “After the Fire: Vol.1,” an album that raised thousands of dollars for victims of the 2017 North Bay fires.

“The songs were recorded very stripped down, one day for each artist,” Mickelson says. “Working with Ken Newman, we thought this would be an awesome way to raise money for a situation that keeps getting worse and worse, while introducing the organization to a whole new group of people.”

Two-time Grammy Award-winning blues star Fantastic Negrito signed on first, which opened the floodgates. The album “Blanket the Homeless” ended up featuring new tracks by some of the region’s top acts, including Con Brio, Whiskerman and The Brothers Comatose. The album-release concert/fundraiser Thursday at the Independent includes  Mickelson, Newman, King Dream and The Stone Foxes’ Shannon Koehler, members of Goodnight, Texas, Ben Morrison of the Brothers Comatose, and special guests.

Details:  8 p.m. Nov. 7; The Independent, San Francisco; $15-$17; apeconcerts.com