"Everybody wants to help out and give something back," says Bob Feldman, founder of Red House Records, which is releasing numerous benefit CDs this season. "Having an independent label with artists that we truly believe in, these benefit CDs have given us an opportunity to reach out to a wider community artistically too." When we help others, Feldman reminds us, we also help ourselves.

It was the quality of Rounder's A Celebration of New Orleans Music to Benefit the MusiCares Hurricane Relief 2005 that prompted me to re-examine the benefit CD. In theory all incoming CDs get the dignity of a cursory listen. But the fact is that anthologies are at the bottom of the pile, since they are frequently the same ol' soup, warmed over. Because Katrina was especially devastating to the music community, Rounder's effort demanded attention. Celebration is love made audible, from the joyous opening with Dirty Dozen's foot-stomping drums and ass-shaking horns to Johnny Adams and Aaron Neville's impossibly serene closing, "Never Alone." Branford Marsalis contributes a roots-of-jazz cut and liner notes. Jelly Roll Morton and Professor Longhair live again on this CD to aid people born long after their demise.

The beauty of this model is that once the work joins a label's catalogue, it goes on generating revenue until the last one is sold. For example Omnium ("World Music That Rocks") has had a longtime commitment to the Balkans. In 1999 they released a Balkans Without Borders CD for the benefit of Doctors Without Borders.

"As of the end of 2004 the project had contributed nearly $22,000 to Medecins Sans Frontieres [DWB]—you can say it's over that figure now," says label head Drew Miller. "One of my end-of-year rituals since the project came out six years ago is to tally up the sales for the year and write a check to the Doctors." Among the diverse groups contributing energetic music are Miller's own Boiled in Lead, Brave Combo, the Klezmatics and Garmarna.

If it weren't for fundraisers, there might not be a Red House Records. While Feldman was still a high school teacher his first involvement in music was a Greg Brown/Claudia Schmidt benefit concert for 38 social change organizations. "We raised $10,000 and all 38 organizations had booths at the event. That was the first time that I actually met Greg." Their subsequent collaboration has continued for over 20 years, with Brown recording Red House's first release. "The benefit CDs that we have produced were a labor of love for everyone involved on so many levels. It is an essential part of who we are as people, the music tradition that we are a part of." Going Driftless: An Artist's Tribute to Greg Brown earmarks all proceeds to the Breast Cancer Fund. 13 Ways to Live: From Texas With Compassion benefits the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and their work with victims of the Iraq war.

I Believe to My Soul (Work Song) is quite a testament to people's generosity. Joe Henry treats singers Ann Peebles, Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint as living masterpieces, choosing tasteful frames to enhance, not compete. Thomas and Toussaint are New Orleanians, so I Believe has been repurposed with great vigor, showing up not only in record stores but in Starbucks stores everywhere, raising funds for the Red Cross until the last one is sold.

Hands Across the Water (Compass), a musical response to the tsunami, has been a year in the making. Fiddler Andrea Zonn, one of the projects' creators, felt that surely musicians could create a CD that would raise more funds than a few individual artists' pockets could provide. The shout went out to all the Celtic and alt-country bands that make up Compass' catalogue and the results are intriguing. Our own Solas spent two days in the studio perfecting the instrumental to which Mindy Smith added vocals. A Welsh song is set klezmer style. Paul Brady and Rodney Crowell duet on an ersatz Irish sentimental tune with honky-tonk piano and pedal steel. Brady's yodeling outro is the coup de grace, giving us permission to laugh while we share the love.