The Edge hepls Icons of Music Sale II

U2's the Edge announced the Icons of Music Sale II to benefit Music Rising to be held on Saturday, May 31, 2008 at Hard Rock Café New York in Times Square.

This second annual auction event, hosted by Julien's Auctions www.juliensauctions.com, will offer one of the most significant collections of music memorabilia from many of music's greatest legends with proceeds benefiting Music Rising www.musicrising.org, a campaign co-founded by U2's The Edge, Gibson Guitar Chairman and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz and legendary producer Bob Ezrin in 2005 to aid musicians of the Gulf Coast Region in regaining their livelihood after the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The ongoing efforts of Music Rising have thus far aided over 2,700 professional musicians and nearly 50,000 students and parishioners.

"No one could ever come close to repaying the debt to those who have established this form of music that we all take totally for granted, this hybrid of European melody and African-American rhythm that's given us jazz and R&B and rock 'n' roll," said the Edge. "There's something powerful about musicians giving instruments they own to an auction to aid musicians who are going through a particularly difficult time."

Amongst the donations from the Edge is his early stage played 1976 Gibson Explorer Guitar. Edge used this guitar in many stage performances since Joshua Tree as well as U2's Music Video for "Beautiful Day" (est. $80,000 and up), his silver adjustable U2 block rings featured on the cover of Atchung Baby (est. $2,000/4,000), a blue Gibson Les Paul electric guitar used by Edge in many studio recordings(est. $20,000/40,000) and his personaly worn custom designed Converse shoes (est. $800/1,200) along with an assortment of property donated by his fellow band members to Music Rising.