We've now posted a second video clip of Edge on his recent visit to New Orleans to launch the Music Rising initiative. The campaign aims to replace instruments lost by musicians following the hurricanes.
Edge visited a guitar centre in New Orleans and chatted with local musicians, even trading licks with Walter 'Wolfman' Washington as our clip shows.
Watch the clip
here.Our earlier
story explains what the Music Rising initiative is all about.
The new edition of
Rolling Stone magazine also reports on Edge's visit, capturing the difficulties being experienced by local musicians. Here's an extract.
"The music community is in disarray," says Brian "Breeze" Cayolle, a sax player in Allen Toussaint's band. "A lot of cats are gone, a lot of cats aren't gonna be able to come back." Cayolle's house and several of his horns were destroyed in the floods. "I'm glad that someone who has the world's attention will come here and focus that attention on New Orleans."
Cayolle, guitarists Walter "Wolfman" Washington and Deacon John Moore, and pianist Joe Krown reconnected at the event and shared war stories. A few local clubs such as the Maple Leaf and Banks Street are back in action, but scores of others remain shuttered, and gigs are scarce.
"More of my amps are gone," says Washington, who fled for Ohio during the flood with two bags of personal belongings. "I had to borrow one for my gigs."
In this earlier U2.Com
story you can find video of Edge describing his experiences on first travelling New Orleans and seeing the trail of disaster left by hurricane and floods.
If you'd like to help provide instruments to the region, you can make tax-deductible contributions to Music Rising at
www.musicrising.org or by sending a check made payable to 'Music Rising', c/o
MusiCares Foundation,
3402 Pico Blvd.,
Santa Monica,
CA 90405
More on Music Rising
here.