Bruce Springsteen
Photo: VH1

To date, many musicians and actors have donated time and talent to raise money for the thousands of people across the New York area who were affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center. Now, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi are reaching out to assist their own community as well.

On Thursday and Friday, the performers will be joined by Joan Jett, Joe Ely, Phoebe Snow, E Street Band members Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg, Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore and others for the Alliance of Neighbors benefit concert at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. The concert will benefit the families of the more than 160 Monmouth County victims of the attacks, and during the first show's soundcheck, the venue will be open to the families of those who lost their lives.

The 1926 theater holds only 1,600 people, but the second concert will be televised on the Comcast network, which broadcasts to approximately 4 million homes in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. During the broadcast, the bottom of the screen will display a toll-free number viewers can call to make donations. Tickets for the Alliance of Neighbors benefit went on sale a month ago for $500, $150 and $50.

Tallent originally organized the two four-hour concerts to benefit World Hunger Year, a New York organization that raises funds to fight hunger and poverty across the U.S. After the terrorist attacks, he and others on the planning committee decided to shift the event's focus.

Initially, the concerts were to commemorate the music of Sun Records, and while Elvis sidemen — Moore along with drummer D.J. Fontana and bassist Jerry Sheff — and Sun artists including Sonny Burgess will still play, Springsteen, Bon Jovi and others are expected to perform their own material, the event's publicist said.

For more information on and audience reaction to the attacks, including tips on how you can help, see "9.11.01: Moving Forward."

• Bon Jovi
• Bruce Springsteen
• Phoebe Snow
• Joan Jett
• Joe Ely

Joan Osborne
Photo: Interscope

Singer Joan Osborne and rapper/talk-show host Queen Latifah have been tapped to perform at Take Back the Garden, the 2001 V-Day benefit seeking to end violence against women.

Osborne will open the show, which is set for February 10 at New York's Madison Square Garden and will feature more than 70 celebrities reading selections from playwright Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" (see "Alanis Morissette's Vagina Monologues"). Queen Latifah is scheduled to close the evening with "U.N.I.T.Y.," a track off her 1993 album, Black Reign. Latifah and Osborne will also participate in the "Vagina Monologues" readings, joining Ensler and the likes of such actresses and activists as Oprah Winfrey, Melissa Joan Hart, Calista Flockhart, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, Brooke Shields, Julianna Margulies and Edie Falco, among others.

Folk singer/songwriter Phoebe Snow and New York City alt-rock group Betty will also take to the Garden stage to perform at the benefit, which will raise funds for a variety of local, national and international groups ranging from Planned Parenthood to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

According to a V-Day spokesperson, the organization raised more than $1 million last year through similar charity events and a portion of the ticket sales from the New York City production of "The Vagina Monologues," as well as a touring version of the show that is currently being staged at the Second City Theatre in Detroit. Last March, singer Alanis Morissette joined the New York cast for a two-week stint in "The Vagina Monologues," a play based on Ensler's 1998 novel of the same name that explores the characters and stories of a diverse group of women.

For more information about the V-Day Fund and the organizations and initiatives it helps support, check out the nonprofit group's official Web site at www.vday.org.

• Joan Osborne
• Queen Latifah
• Phoebe Snow