http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9146525/


NBC to hold concert for Katrina victims
Tim McGraw, Wynton Marsalis among artists to perform Friday night


Updated: 11:04 a.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005

LOS ANGELES - Four Louisiana-born stars — Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis, Aaron Neville and Tim McGraw — will headline a televised charity concert to air live on Friday for victims of Hurricane Katrina, NBC said Wednesday. McGraw's wife, country star and Mississippi native Faith Hill, will also perform. The broadcast will air live at 8 p.m. ET and will be rebroadcast on the West Coast at 8 p.m. It will be simulcast live on MSNBC.com at 8 p.m. ET.

Plans for the one-hour, commercial-free show, called “A Concert for Hurricane Relief,” were announced as the Bush administration and Congress began working on legislation to assist in hurricane recovery efforts.

“I am heartbroken by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in my home state,” said country star McGraw, born in Delhi, Louisiana, in a statement. “It’s at times like these that each of us must work together to provide life-saving aid to those in terrible need.”

Joining McGraw are two New Orleans natives, trumpet player Marsalis and jazz singer Connick, whose hometown was left largely submerged in floodwaters.

In addition to music, the special will feature appearances by actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Mike Myers, John Goodman, Lindsay Lohan and Eriq La Salle, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who is a Louisiana native, along other celebrities.

Katrina has claimed more than 200 lives, left tens of thousands of people homeless and caused billions of dollars in damage since slamming into the U.S. Gulf Coast Monday.

NBC aired a similar star-studded charity concert in January that raised more than $18 million for survivors of the tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people and left millions more homeless in South Asia and East Africa. An estimated 19.5 million viewers tuned in to some part of that broadcast on NBC and its sibling cable TV outlets.

(MSNBC is a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft.)

Benefit show begins at 8 p.m. ET on Friday (re-broadcast for West Coast at 8 PT)

Both efforts were reminiscent of a two-hour telethon carried by all four major U.S. TV networks 10 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. That special raised more than $150 million in pledges.