The Piatigorsky Foundation was established in 1990 by cellist Evan Drachman to honor his grandfather, the renowned Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976). Piatigorsky believed that music is not a luxury for an elite few but a necessity of life for all. To that end, the Foundation has presented over 1,700 live classical music concerts to hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would not have the opportunity to attend such performances.

From its New York City offices located in the famed Hit Factory on West 54th Street, Baldwin and Gibson's Entertainment Relations staff service a wide array of artists and place Baldwin pianos and Gibson instruments at locations worldwide including recording studios, concert halls and television and film studios.

Latest film placement is Spiderman 2. Watch for a seven-foot Baldwin SF10 Artist Grand in the sequel. Sony Pictures has scheduled filming for mid-June in Culver City, CA.

To honor Wasdin's singular gem, Epiphone presented the hurler a top-of-the-line MB-250 banjo to play between starts and on the road. Epiphone produces a full line of bluegrass instruments including Dobros and mandolins as well as banjoes.

The Heart of Country Award is presented annually to an individual or corporation in recognition for contributions to their community.

The star-studded Sizzlin' Country concert raised more than $400,000 for Cystic Fibrosis research and care program and featured performances by country stars Tracy Byrd, Deana Carter, Diamond Rio, Lonestar, Rushlow, Darryl Worley, the Warren Brothers and The Doo-Wah Riders with surprise appearances by Kenny Chesney, Troy Gentry (Montgomery Gentry) and Winston Cup Champion, Tony Stewart. The concert was hosted by Sara Evans.

The original ES-345 debuted in 1959 in response to demand for an upgrade on the revolutionary new semi-hollowbody design of the ES-335 (1958), with Varitone electronics and double-parallelogram inlay. This is the first use of the Varitone which became a standard feature on B.B. King's Lucille in 1981.

The Varitone circuit is a notch filter that utilizes a variety of capacitors to achieve a reduction or "cut" in frequencies at set points within the overall bandwidth. As the Varitone is rotated from Position 1 to Position 6 the center frequency of the filter shifts from higher to lower frequencies producing a wide range of expressive tones from a blazing humbucker to a cutting single coil pickup. The Varitone has a push/pull tone pot which bypasses the circuit so the guitarist can change back quickly to a standard humbucking tone in the middle of a song or the opposite - preset the Varitione and push it in (on) during the song to produce the desired preset tone.

And in case anyone is wondering, that is Sheryl Crow with a vintage SJ-200 acoustic guitar pictured on the Apple iTunes Music Store homepage.

The cars and drivers visited restored trail ways created through the Cayenne Crossing Initiative, a multi-year program dedicated to reclaiming Americas paved and unpaved roads, while testing the performance of Porsches first SUV both on and off highway.

Gibson donated two one-of-a-kind Les Pauls for the Drive for Hope Auction - the Porsche Cayenne Les Paul and the Route 66 Les Paul created by Gibson Custom's master luthiers. They were both auctioned with the proceeds benefiting The Hope Foundation.

Rhonda Vincent, the 200l International Bluegrass Music Association entertainer and female vocalist of the year, performed with her vintage F-5G mandolin. Trick Pony's Heidi Newfield featured a custom white Chet Atkins SST while Keith Urban was slinging his Gibson USA SG Standard.