By Larry Nager
The Cincinnati Enquirer

U2 leader Bono, who brings his Midwestern tour for African AIDS awareness to Cincinnati today, is the latest rock superstar to use his celebrity to gain attention for a pet cause.

George Harrison began the trend in 1971 with his concert for Bangladesh. Bono's fellow Irishman Bob Geldof upped the ante in 1985 with the global Live Aid concert for poverty-stricken sub-Saharan Africa.

U2 frontman Bono walks with President Bush in March after rallying support for relieving Third World debt. He'll be in Cincinnati today to talk about the AIDS crisis in Africa. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

Bono's "Heart of America" tour isn't a series of benefit concerts. It's a speaking tour. He is attempting to marshal public support in the Midwest to help change U.S. government policy regarding the AIDS epidemic in Africa, where 75 percent of the world's 42 million people infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, live.

"You are more powerful than you think," he told the crowd in Lincoln, Neb. "There is a moral compass in this part of the country that reads clearly when it knows the facts."

Do rock stars make the best spokespeople? Charities say celebrities get the job done.

"It certainly helps,' said Breta Cooper, director, operations and new programs, for Cincinnati's Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation. A family-owned organization, it funds the Inclusion Network, a charity that serves the disabled. Most recently, the foundation produced the Hidden Treasures charity album, featuring locally-based stars Peter Frampton and Bootsy Collins.

"To get the word out regarding inclusion we need to use the media machine as much as we can," added Ms. Cooper. "And that's what people are interested in, they're interested in famous people."

There's no better example of the power of celebrity in raising awareness - and hard cash - than St. Jude's Research Children's Hospital in Memphis, a completely free facility that opened in 1962 and was founded by comedian Danny Thomas.

BONO IN CINCINNATI

Bono's Heart of Ameria tour began Dec. 1. World's AIDS Day, in Lincoln, Neb., and moved onto Iowa, Chicago, and Indianapolis. Today he is in Cincinnati. Saturday, he will be in Louisville. The tour ends Sunday in Nashville. Look for updates on Bono's visit to Cincinnati throughout the day at Cincinnati.Com, keyword Bono.

CELEBRITY CAUSES

Tonight at the Taft Theatre, locally-based national act Over The Rhine will be collecting toiletries and diapers for the Cincinnati YWCA Battered Women's Shelter (Web site). Sunday at the Taft, country star Jo Dee Messina will be collecting new toys for Toys For Tots (Web site). Tyra Banks founded Tzone, a summer camp for teenage girls Elvis Presley provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal support to various Memphis hospitals. It was a local tradition started by entertainer Danny Thomas, who raised funds to create St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the early 1950s (Web site). John Mellencamp is a founder of Farm Air, which benefits family farms. Elizabeth Taylor has been a long-time supporter of AIDS charities, often attending events in company with Michael Jackson. Today's best-known celebrity fund-raisers include Sir Paul McCartney, whose "Concert for New York" raised $14 million. His new wife, Heather Mills, is a long-time fundraiser for Adopt A Minefield, a charity that works for the removal of landmines in Third World nations (Web site). Folk-rocker Jewel is a co-founder of Higher Ground for Humanity, a foundation whose efforts include the Clearwater Project, which tests drinking water in Africa, Asia and South America (Web site). Peter Frampton and his wife Tina Elfers support pediatric AIDS charities. He sells signed photos and personalized guitar picks at his Web site. More information on Bono's African AIDS relief efforts can be found at www.u2.com and www.datadata.org.

"Celebrity built this hospital," said Janet Hutson, whose official title at St. Jude, director of celebrity relations, testifies to the importance of big-name fund-raisers.

"Any celebrity can really help us. It raises awareness, it validates the program," said Ms. Hutson. "The minute people see a photograph of a recognizable face like that, it captures their attention."

Celebrities and charitable causes have teamed up since the days of vaudeville. Jerry Lewis' Labor Day Telethon, Bill Cosby's work with the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation and Elizabeth Taylor's AIDS charities are a few longstanding, non-rock efforts.

But when it comes to raising money, rock 'n' roll gets the message out faster and louder. When Paul McCartney spearheaded the all-star "Concert for New York" after 9-11, the effort raised more than $14 million in a single night.

For that reason, charities often target rockers to lead campaigns.

Locally, 1970s superstar Peter Frampton has been active since moving here 21/2 years ago. Last December, he organized a benefit for 9-11 victims at the Taft Theatre. This year, he co-chaired the March of Dimes campaign with his wife, Tina, and recorded a track for Hidden Treasures.

Celebrity, Mr. Frampton says, can be a very effective tool.

"I'm in a position, not quite like Bono, but I'm in a position whereby the use of my name (in a charity event), people think, `Oh, if he's involved then I should go.' If I can do that, if I can get one or two extra people to come to something and donate money because of my name, then I've got to use that."

He uses it for a variety of efforts that he and his wife support, primarily children's charities such as their pet cause, the fight against pediatric AIDS.

That's an important part of Bono's effort as well, trying to raise money for AIDS drugs for Africa, where a single $4 injection can prevent a mother from transmitting the HIV virus to her unborn child.

With mounting concerns about terrorism and the increase of tensions in the Middle East, AIDS has been relegated to a back burner in people's consciousness.

That's why, in this media-driven age of short attention spans, an A-list celebrity like Bono can make a difference.

"We live in a McDonald's world - here today, gone tomorrow," Mr. Frampton said. "People are fickle, unfortunately, and you have to keep hammering it home. Otherwise, we're on to something else."

Not every famous face makes a good spokesman.

"The problem is that because rock stars are not the most formally educated people, they don't have experience in think tanks, people think they're dabbling; they think it's a thing of guilt, `I've suddenly made a zillion dollars. I should show that I'm a humanitarian,' " said Rolling Stone magazine senior editor David Fricke.

However, Mr. Fricke believes that thoughtful advocates like Bono are needed at a time when politicians are more concerned with their standings in the polls than with unpopular issues.

"One thing that people like Bono and Geldof and (Paul) McCartney (are doing), they're actually stepping up and doing something," Mr. Fricke said. "I don't see anyone in the White House stepping up and saying AIDS is really important. It takes a rock singer from Ireland to lobby for this cause in Washington, D.C.? We are not enough aware of this as a government, as a nation, to step up to the plate ourselves?"

Mr. Frampton says when you feel strongly about something, as Bono obviously does, then you have to use it. "You've achieved something, a level of success, which gave you this celebrity," he said. "If in return, you can go out and help, in this case the children in Africa, then you have to do it."

So Bono is on the road to gain attention for his cause.

"He's been able to get through to people like (North Carolina Senator)Jesse Helms," Mr. Fricke said. "And even if Jesse Helms didn't want to hear a word he had to say, just by the mere fact of publicly attempting to get to those people, he's actually raised awareness about the issue with people that are nowhere near that room. It's in the newspapers; it's in the magazines. The great barrier in dealing with these issues is silence. If nobody says the word AIDS, nobody thinks about it."

E-mail lnager@enquirer.com