[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It from WNYC, I'm Alison Stewart. For the rest of this hour, we're going to talk about ways to give back on this eve of GivingTuesday. We're starting with Steve Earle, and a Benefit Concert for a Lower East Side school for kids with autism spectrum disorder. Earle is hosting the show at Town Hall on Sunday, December 3rd with special guest performer, John Mellencamp and some other folks. It's called the John Henry Friends Benefit Concert.

John Henry is Earle's son who attends The Keswell School on Stanton Street. Earle has been hosting this benefit for nine years. As one person tweeted, "I have my tickets. Looking forward to it. This is my third year in a row. Always a great show." Earle is a playwright, actor, musician, former Gauntlet musical guest, and as The Guardian wrote, "One of the great singer-songwriters of the past four decades." He joins me now. Nice to see you, Steve.

Steve Earle: How are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm good. The Keswell School opened in 2002, it's now on Stanton Street. For someone who's never heard of it, how do you describe this school?

Steve Earle: It originally was the McCarton School. The name changed for several reasons. Several years back, we were originally in Chelsea. It is, as far as I know, the only school that offers an ABA-based applied behavioral analysis. It's the oldest, most proven, statistically, way of treating folks with autism. Now, there are other ways to approach it. Other schools that do that. I think for some kids it's probably appropriate at some point in their life for some other way of teaching them to be applied.

For my son, I was against it. I wanted something a little freer and a little less regimented, but it proved to be what worked the best for him. He's been at Keswell since he was three, as long as he's been old enough. He's now 13. He'll be there probably until he turns 22, which is when he ages out. Unless something occurs that we think there's a better place for him in a better way to approach it. The difference between Keswell and everybody else, there are other ABA-based schools.

I think it's the only one in the United States, and it might be the only one in the world which offers what is recommended by all of the experts or most of the experts about treating kids with profound autism, in other words. Especially kids that are nonverbal. There are kids on every bit of the spectrum at Keswell, and the school adjusts itself to them. It's able to do that because the ratio of teacher to student is one-to-one.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Steve Earle: Now, that is what's recommended. It is not a luxury. It's not a gold standard. I go through that with the city sometimes when we're trying to get this funded because it's a lot of money. I don't have as much money as a lot of people probably think I do. I've been married too many times to have accumulated very much. John Henry was born in New York City. Basically, there's a federal law that says if your public school system cannot provide what is recommended for your child for their special need, then the school system is obligated to provide the funds for that.

Now, the rub is most of the places in the country, the funds simply do not exist because everything's going away to everything from charter schools to private schools. People that have any money at all can figure out how to do it are taking their kids out of the public school system. It's been starving the public school system across the country to death for years. New York has one of the very best public school systems in the country. That's still true compared to everything else. For special needs, it takes a lot of money. I'm not talking about one-to-one like a teacher and three teacher assistants who are making minimum wage.

That's no offense to the people that do that because a lot of people in John Henry's life, people that I used for child care, come from that district, from other schools around you. They just redefine people that are qualified to take care of a child with autism. It's not that easy to do as anybody that's been down this road knows, but the ratio is one-to-one. That's what's recommended. That's because of the fundamental difference in the way that children and older people with autism learn. It's just a completely different deal for people with sensory processing disorders.

Alison Stewart: What's a moment you knew when this school had made a huge difference in your son's education in life? I'm sure there's many, but just one small example for people.

Steve Earle: They happen all the time and it's such small moves with kids with autism because of the way that they learn. I think just when he started picking up some signs to communicate with-- and he doesn't have one language, for him, that's been the hardest part is his outward-- him speaking to us. I think he understands a lot of what we say. I think when he started developing a few signs and using them independently to get-- Most of the points he learned early had to do with eating.

He figured that out. We've been really fortunate with him that he'll eat almost anything, which a lot of kids with autism have problems with that. I feel bad for those folks. There's been moments when he did-- it's little bitty things like he's dressing himself pretty much independently. He still can't tie shoes. He just started zippers up on his own. Now, this kid doesn't have any language at all, but he also knows over 100 melodies that he hums all these different melodies. He had Classical Baby like everybody else did.

When I figured out that he was happy where he is and that we were on the right track, I think, as I was cooking dinner one night. He was sitting there on his iPad, and all of a sudden I hear [sings]. That was the first time I heard him sing one of those melodies that I knew came from a classical music app that's on his iPad that he found himself navigating the iPad. He also finds things that I'd probably rather he didn't watch, like YouTube videos of cars running over things that other kids find, but he's found those things independently, just like other kids have. I think we're definitely getting somewhere.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Steve Earle. We're going to talk about the John Henry Friends Benefit concert for The Keswell School. It's happening December 3rd at Town Hall. The Keswell School helps autistic children. Someone described leaving this concert feeling warm and hopeful. That's what people feel. What happens at these concerts that people leave with those feelings?

Steve Earle: We introduce them to this whole idea. Ivy Feldman, who's the director at the school, she speaks. We don't spend a lot of time. We basically direct people to material about the school as much as we can and spend as much time on music. People bought a ticket. We appreciate it. We've been really lucky. The first year, Graham Nash suited up and showed up the Persian, and Teach Your Children has been our finale ever since. I did ask him directly if it was okay with them if I did that. Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, at the same time they're friends and friends of mine, so that was a good.

Derek Trucks, and Susan Tedeschi, and Warren Haynes, the year after the Allman Brothers ended, and so a lot of people showed up for that. I asked every year and then we finally got him. Year before last, Bruce Springsteen suited up and showed up. It was the first performance that he had done in front of a band in over four years. He got very excited about it. The next thing we knew he was out on the road and he had a blast. My band rose to the occasion. Last year, David Byrne and Terry Allen. We've been really lucky people have turned up for this. The year that Bruce was on Rose and John were. She's known John Henry all of his life.

We try to put up a good show for folks and we talk about autism. We also have Matt Savage, who's been on most of the shows. He's here this year. The other guest, the other folks that you mentioned are Amy Helm, who's also known John Henry all of his life. We had a house in Woodstock when John Henry was born, Alison and I did. There's a lot of people in Woodstock that know John Henry as long as he's been on the planet. Amy's on this year. Matt Savage, who is an incredible jazz pianist also happens to have autism. He's taught workshops at The Keswell School off and on over the years. He's pretty amazing. I think people feel pretty good knowing Matt's story and hearing him play the way that he does.

Alison Stewart: It's all happening on Sunday, December 3rd at the Town Hall, John Henry Friends Benefit Concert for The Keswell School. You can see all those folks and Steve Earle perform for a good cause. Steve, thank you for being with us.

Steve Earle: I got to thank City Winery because they help us put these shows together every year. From the beginning, they produced the shows. Those folks, they do a lot of good with a lot of music and a lot of events around New York City and have for a long time. I have to thank Michael Dorf and everybody at City Winery.

Alison Stewart: Good luck with the concert. Have a great show. Raise a lot of money.

Steve Earle: Thank you. Bye.

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