And to prove your point....I was just over at MTV, where they have the Michael Stipe press release and heree are the band links next to the article:

Michael Stipe
Coldplay
R.E.M.
Justin Timberlake



Never mind they have a JA artist page!

From The Boston Globe ... Sorry if this was posted somewhere else already, I'm too lazy to check.

Hurricane help
February 7, 2006

If you saw ''Grey's Anatomy" after the Super Bowl, you heard ''In the Sun," a song Michael Stipe (right) is releasing this week to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The R.E.M. singer is such a fan of the Joseph Arthur ballad that he's actually releasing six versions of it with special guests including Coldplay's Chris Martin, Justin Timberlake, will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha. (The songs are available exclusively at iTunes with all proceeds going to Mercy Corps.) Yesterday, Stipe, whose band is on hiatus after wrapping up a world tour, conducted a conference call with the media to talk about his unique response to what Katrina wrought. This is a heavily edited transcript of the hourlong conversation.

Q. Why six versions of the same song?

A. I really like the song, and I really like the message. I started working with James Iha, and then people started jumping on board.

Q. What is it about this particular song?

A. That's a difficult question to answer. Music has an emotional resonance for me. Perhaps because I knew the song before Katrina, and it meant one thing to me, and then afterward it meant something completely different.

Q. What is it you're hoping to do with this?

A. There's been so little done to help these people. I like to put forth the idea that we, as a country, represent a great dream, and we need unity to achieve that dream. These are our people who have fallen. They're not looking for pity or a handout. They're looking for help. I was in New Orleans two weeks ago and I was literally floored by how little has been done.

Q. Why Chris Martin?

A. I really like his band's music, and he really likes my band's music.

Q. What did you see and feel when you were in New Orleans?

A. Frankly, I was a little concerned about my own emotional state. New Orleans is a very special place to me, being a Southerner. It's also where we recorded ''Automatic for the People" and ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi," two of what I consider our best albums. I was not prepared for what I saw. It looked like images I've seen of Pompeii -- not a bird or a dog for miles, and this was five months later. The destruction is biblical in its proportions.

Q. Is it difficult for an affluent country like ours to be compassionate? Is it our tendency to think of us versus them?

A. Uh, I don't think I need to remind anyone on this call that New Orleans is part of the United States of America. There is no us and them.

Q. Why not an R.E.M. song?

A. I don't know. For some reason, this song stuck in my head.

Q. Did you know anyone affected by Katrina?

A. Yeah.

Q. Who?

A. Uh, this is our story: We the people. I know those are big words, but that's kind of what we represent.

Q. Why aren't people more outraged?

A. Other things take our attention away as a country. I think lot of people think everything's on the up and up, and I'm here to tell you that's not the case. You can't imagine how bad it is. I'll give kudos to Anderson Cooper and CNN. He's been very responsible as a journalist, reporting something on the Gulf Coast every night he's broadcasting.

Q. You're being remarkably restrained.

A. At this point, it's more important to remind all Americans that we're great as a united people, and as a divided people we fall. It's our moral responsibility to help our fellow man. These are extremely divisive times and I think our strength is in unity.

MARK SHANAHAN

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

A review from Billboard:

ARTIST: MICHAEL STIPE FEATURING CHRIS MARTIN AND JOSEPH ARTHUR
SINGLE: IN THE SUN

Choose your version. R.E.M. frontman and Georgia native Michael Stipe leads an effort to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims six months after the catastrophe with this charity single's proceeds going to Mercy Corps. Six mixes are offered, including a truly definitive Stipe solo version. Another mix features Stipe and Coldplay lead Chris Martin (an inspired, albeit disparate alliance of octaves and generations). There are also remixes featuring folk/rock artist and songwriter Joseph Arthur, less a commercial venture than artistic expression. The song is lovely, but radio seems like a long shot. So how do Stipe and friends exactly hope to lead consumers to support the cause? That remains the million-dollar question.

(via Reuters)

Michael's interview from beliefnet +video clips
Full Interview Here

about the song:

(...)

That's a good segue to talking about the song you recorded, "In The Sun."

As I found out about Katrina, I couldn't stop singing the song in my head for days. I knew that I wanted to do something as a singer, as a public figure. I felt like as a singer, maybe the most effective thing to do would be to put out a song--and in this case, several versions of the song--with all the proceeds going toward an organization that is on the ground in the Gulf region, helping these people come back to some degree of normalcy.

I wanted a song that people could listen to and maybe feel something. And it wasn't cheesy and it wasn't this overblown anthemic thing or this big ballad. Just something that had some heart.

So it made sense to me to go to iTunes and to ask them to donate as much as they could, to go to all the people that worked on this project, all of whom were happy to do it free of charge and to offer their services and their skills and their talents, which to me felt microcosmic of what I think is going on in this country. Everybody wants to do something. Nobody's quite sure what they can do.

What in particular about this touched you so deeply?

There's a line in, I think, the third verse, about seeing something that's happening to someone and recognizing that watching that has forever changed you. And that's for me at the core of it. There's a disproportionate number of people who were left behind or who were not able to get out who are lower income. There's a disproportionate number who are black. Martin Luther King is one of my heroes, and it strikes me, it's dumbfounding to me, that 40 years after civil rights, we have a situation like this going on in this great country. And I just think we're better than that. I think that we can step up and rise to the occasion and recognize that there are injustices that need to be addressed. And this glaringly spotlights that.

I was struck by the chorus invoking God's love and kept thinking of coverage we did on Beliefnet, asking the question of where God was in the disaster. What do you think about this question?

There's a southern term, "Bless your heart"--or "Bless his heart," or "Bless her heart"--as I grew up with it, it has more than two meanings--it has several meanings, and some of them can be kind of mean-spirited--but in essence you're kind of sending someone off on their path, hoping for the best for them. And that's what I think the chorus of the song, "May God's love be with you," is kind of doing. Whatever you find God to be in your life, whether you're seeking refuge or perhaps even angry at the situation that you found yourself in, may God's love be with you.

Do you think God's love was there in New Orleans?

To me, God, and particularly in a situation like this, comes in many different forms. And those forms, when one is desperate and down, it might be very simply a kind gesture on the part of a stranger or someone that you know who you might not have expected that from. Fundamentally--this is in the Bible, it's in the Koran, it's in everything I've ever read--we need each other. "No man is an island." That's not in the Bible, but there it is. We really need each other, particularly in trying times. We need to know that there are other people there, thinking of us, praying for us, standing beside us. For me, as an American, that's where this strikes me as a great opportunity in our time to be who we are. It's maybe dumb to say, but we the people are the government of this country, and we need to stand beside our brothers and sisters who have fallen and who have been directly impacted by this tragedy.

(...)

A review from the (Boston/Providence/Portland) Phoenix:

Stipend

Together, for a good cause: rock's most insufferable frontmen
By: MATT ASHARE
2/14/2006 12:05:38 PM

NOT SITTNG IDLY BY Stipe rocks solo for a good causeMichael Stipe’s not the kind to sit around and let a hurricane destroy the Gulf Coast without calling some friends and putting together a fundraiser. His “In the Sun Foundation” is named for the Joseph Arthur song he’s recorded in several variations as an iTunes exclusive (available for sampling at inthesunfoundation.org) credited to Michael Stipe & Special Guests . . . bring on the rumors of R.E.M.’s demise.

Michael Stipe, “In the Sun (Gulf Coast Relief) (Feat. Chris Martin)” | This is the nice strummy folk-rock version, as straight as they come, with Coldplay’s Chris Martin doing his best not to be rude and out-emote Mr. Stipe.

Michael Stipe, “In the Sun (JAW Breakers Remix) (Feat. Chris Martin, Mix by Justin Timberlake and will.i.am)” | The groovier mix, and probably the coolest thing Timberlake’s ever been associated with. And is that a Coldplay electric guitar lead I hear creeping into the backdrop?

Michael Stipe, “In the Sun (Feat. Joseph Arthur)” | Third track same as the first, only Arthur brings some welcome grit, or maybe I’m just sick of Martin’s voice after the first two takes.

Michael Stipe, “In the Sun” | For those who likes their Stipe straight up, no chaser, and only one second shorter than the take with Martin.

Michael Stipe with Coldplay, “In the Sun (Live at Austin City Limits)” | They pick up the pace, put a solid backbeat behind it, and, damn if Stipe and Martin don’t sound better harmonizing live than in the studio . . . or maybe the song’s just growing on me.

From an article in Harp Magazine, May 2006

“In the Sun” took on different meaning for Stipe, a major booster of Arthur, after Katrina. “For a musician and a music fan, the power of music is in the interpretation of the listener,” he says. “I loved the song before Katrina ever happened. When I thought abut the song, and trying to imagine something I could do, the lyrics suddenly took a turn, changed dramatically in my mind.”

For full text click here