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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Monday, February 18, 2008

Musicians donate tunes to benefit bridge victims

By The Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A collection of rockers, country singers and other musicians donated rare and unreleased tunes for a three-disc compilation that will benefit victims of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

Los Lobos, the Stray Cats, Rockie Lynne, Dick Dale, Lee Scratch Perry, Steve Vai and many others contributed tracks to the 57-track “Musicians for Minneapolis,” which is already available at some Twin Cities independent record stores and will be up for sale later this week at Best Buy and Target.

“The day after the tragedy, we got phone calls and e-mails from our artists across the country asking if we were all safe,” said James Edlund, artist relations manager at Electro-Voice, a Burnsville-based company that makes microphones and speaker equipment, and produced the CD.

“Their next question was: ’How can we help?“’

Many of the artists involved perform regularly in Minnesota. Los Lobos “considers the Twin Cities one of our absolute favorite places,” keyboardist Steve Berlin wrote in the compilation’s liner notes.

In order to get the collection together quickly, artists were asked to donate a song already in the can. But one participant, Coon Rapids-based country singer Rockie Lynne, said he felt compelled to write an original song about the tragedy.

“Songwriting is like farming,” Lynne said. “You can put in a lot of hard work, but you can’t make it rain. With this song, it rained right away, probably because I was so saddened that a tragedy like that could take place right where I live.”

The result, “The Chance to Say Goodbye,” is the collection’s lead-off track.

“Imagine going off to work and never coming home/ Kissing your family, then leaving them alone through no fault of your own,” sings Lynne. He goes on to sing of specific victims, such as a delivery truck driver and a mother with her son.

Electro-Voice hopes to sell out the first pressing of 5,000 copies, and raise $100,000, in time for the Aug. 1 anniversary of the collapse.

While a state compensation fund aims to help victims, “Their needs probably aren’t going to go away,” said Lynne, who performed at a benefit concert at Elko Speedway last year. “Hopefully, these CDs are something that can be around for a while to help them out.”