NME: Bono creates signature guitar with Gretsch for his Red charity

Bono has created a signature guitar with guitar makers Gretsch for his Red charity.

Five per cent of the wholesale price of each of the double-cutaway Electromatic® Center-Block Bono ‘Signature’ Model guitars sold will go to Red, the charity set up by the U2 frontman in 2006, which raises money for the Global Fund to Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

Speaking about the guitar, Bono says: “The (GRETSCH)RED guitar is a guitarist’s dream, and the reality is that every time someone buys one, it’s raising money to fight Aids. That money can buy life-saving medicine for pregnant mothers living with HIV, and prevent their babies being born with the virus. They’re the same pills that will help deliver an Aids Free Generation.”

The instrument features a bound arched maple top with bound sound holes, as well as maple sides and an arched back, a maple neck and a 22-fret bound rosewood fingerboard as well as a host of other special features.

Earlier this month Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay’s Chris Martin filled in for an injured Bono at U2’s surprise World Aids Day gig in New York. Bono was still recovering from a cycling accident sustained in New York’s Central Park last month, so the two frontman were drafted in to sing with U2 at the high-profile event. The band have called themselves U2 Minus 1.

Bono released a statement about the show, saying: “This year is a World Aids Day like no other. The world reached a tipping point in the fight against Aids – more people were newly added to life-saving treatment than were newly infected with the virus. A lot of people are calling it the beginning of the end of Aids. We wouldn’t be at this point without American leadership, people from the left and the right. Today, 13 million people have access to life-saving treatment, up from 300,000 just over 10 years ago. Americans don’t know the role they’ve played in this fight. Tonight’s event is to inform them and thank them.”

Source: NME