CANCER CAN ROCK: Record producer helping support musicians during cancer battle

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - A multi-platinum record producer is helping cancer patients leave their own legacy in the form of music.

Jim Ebert, a cancer survivor himself, started Cancer Can Rock, a non-profit that helps musicians facing aggressive cancer.

"With my foundation, I bring people in that are suffering from cancer and I help them create a song for their legacy, for their family," said Ebert.

He has worked with artists such as Toni Braxton, Madonna and Ice Cube. But 17 years ago, he was diagnosed with brain cancer as his career was starting to take off.

"I was coming up back literally from a doctor's appointment at Duke where I was treated and after about 12 years of realizing that I was going to survive, I was like I have got to do something else to help other people that have gone through cancer the way I have, and what I can do is produce music," he said.

Knowing what it felt like to go through this battle, Ebert is trying to help others get free studio time to continue their passion during their unsettling time.

"Some of them are past it and some of them are right in the middle of it and some of them have gone through the mania of it, so I understand them a little bit," he said. "So I'm helping them and I'm giving them something permanent because when I had cancer, I always felt temporary."

Ebert has helped not only the people suffering from cancer, but the family members who are going through the experience with them.

"We have had a few people pass away in the last two years that we have worked with," he said. "The other side of that is their spouse has come up to me or a significant other and told me … that was one of the most beautiful days of their life."

Cancer Can Rock has two concert fundraisers happening in the D.C. area on May 20 - one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Leesburg, Virginia. For more information, go to cancercanrock.org.