He just can’t keep silent any longer

It’s pretty easy to keep your mouth shut when you stand next to Bono for 25 years. By the same token, it’s also pretty easy to become a good listener. The first reason is why the Edge, the guitarist for U2, has long projected the same poker-faced presence on stage as Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones. The second reason is why he is now assuming an atypical role as spokesman for a charity benefiting the beleaguered musicians of New Orleans.

“I didn’t ask Bono for advice, no, but I have been influenced by watching him and inspired as well,” said David Evans, who in his youth picked up his now-famous nickname for the angular cut of his profile. “As a band, U2 has done quite a bit of work for different causes, but when we do it as a whole, it’s Bono as the lead singer who naturally steps up to do a lot of the talking. And he is quite good at it.”

Yes, to say the least. Bono has become a global political figure (and, sometimes, a mocked celebrity) for using his microphone to champion the cause of African poverty relief. Now the Edge is stepping front and center for Music Rising, a campaign to replace musicians’ instruments destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the devastating floods in its wake. Last week, that campaign brought the 17-time Grammy-winning rock star to the cavernous Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

He apparently has picked up some of Bono’s sly humor as well: “I can’t believe it; I’ve been here an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and I haven’t heard anybody play the opening of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”

The Guitar Center may be infamous for bad amateur noodling, but on this day it was the site of a meeting between the U2 star and some of the New Orleans musicians getting new amps, keyboards, guitars and other gear to resume their music careers. “Sometimes it doesn’t take much to get them back and working and making music,” the Edge said after quietly huddling with the wide-eyed visitors from Louisiana.

Walter Barrilleaux, wearing a battered old New Orleans Saints cap, talked about eating MREs, the military rations that became lifeblood when the waters overtook his hometown. Keyboardist Barrilleaux began playing R&B; in New Orleans clubs 40 years go.

John Henry Kelly explained how his rock band’s entire collection of instruments and gear not only suffered water damage but literally fell apart at the seams from the noxious petro-goo carried by the flood.

The Edge listened intently and afterward said the stories can’t begin to tell the true tale.

“I spent some time there, just to see what was going on,” he said, “and the sheer breadth of it all, the area covered by the tragedy, it’s hard to conceive if you didn’t actually see it yourself.”

The Music Rising campaign sprang from the Edge’s conversation with music producer Bob Ezrin about donating some guitars to musicians from the Gulf Coast states. The Edge felt they could do more; that led to a partnership with Gibson Guitar and the Guitar Center Music Education Foundation to create a special instrument. The result, a limited-edition Music Rising Gibson Les Paul guitar that Guitar Center is selling for $3,334, is hand-painted with a design evoking Mardi Gras colors. Parts that typically would be fashioned from plastic (the backplate, pickguard, etc.) are made from wood grown in the Gulf states. Proceeds from the sales go entirely to the Music Rising cause.

The Edge and his band mates will appear on the Grammys next week, and the attendant media interest will give him a platform to promote the Music Rising guitar sales and requests for donations. He also is appearing in a series of public service announcements for Music Rising, which may be his most significant face time and the most his voice has been heard by fans since “Numb,” the quirky, muttering song off the 1993 U2 album, “Zooropa,” that had Bono give over the rare lead-singer job to his old pal.

The Edge was asked if the very targeted cause of Music Rising has been an issue -- to put it another way, shouldn’t the needs of hospitals, schools and public safety come first?

“People know that music is so central to the spirit of New Orleans and that helping these people regain their livelihood can only help the economy and the spirit of the entire community,” he said. “The music of New Orleans -- which is a wide, vast array of styles and sounds -- is a valuable natural resource for the region.”

The guitarist recalled that on one of U2’s first visits to the U.S. the band members spent a night prowling the French Quarter and ended up staring, slack-jawed, at an “amazing” local brass-heavy band playing in a dive bar. The visiting Irishmen ended up drinking too much and dancing on tables with the waitresses.

“It was everything I wanted America to be; it was everything I wanted New Orleans to be,” the Edge said with a fond smile. “It was a wonderful night. And that band, at that bar, you got the feeling that you could find exceptional music like that on every block.”

U2 albums have long conveyed a greater sense of place than most rock -- the early work was steeped in the feel of Ireland, “Joshua Tree” musically mapped the American West and “Achtung Baby” was a buzzing odyssey through Berlin backstreets. With all that the Edge has seen and heard about New Orleans, will the Crescent City be in the mix of the next U2 project?

“It’s very possible. We know Daniel Lanois [producer of “Joshua Tree” and “Achtung Baby”], who is from that area, and working with him on that would seem fitting,” he said. “The place has meant a lot to me and to musicians everywhere, and I hope dearly that it can recover. And for New Orleans to recover, it will need music.”