Lyle Lovett pleased with ballet performance

BOSTON -- Lyle Lovett is whistling a happy tune over a Boston Ballet performance choreographed to his music.

"Gosh, I'm so excited, I just think it's incredible that they would want to do it," Lovett said Wednesday. "I've been to the ballet, but I'm not a regular goer to the ballet. That's why this is such a surprise and such an honor."

The ballet's performance of Nine Lives: The Songs of Lyle Lovett, opens at the Shubert Theater today and runs through Feb. 28. The Lovett songs featured include "Blues Walk," "Nobody Knows Me," "If You Were to Wake Up" and "I've Been to Memphis."

Lovett hopes to attend one of the shows.

Eric Clapton to auction off guitar to raise money

LOS ANGELES -- Eric Clapton is auctioning off Brownie, one of his favorite guitars, along with 99 others to raise money for his addiction recovery center in Antigua.

The guitars span about 20 years of Clapton's career. The auction is scheduled for June 24 at Christie's in New York.

Brownie is a 1956 Fender Stratocaster expected to sell for $75,000 to $120,000. Also being offered is a rare Gibson Explorer, one of only 19 released commercially in 1958.

The auction's proceeds will go to Crossroads Center, which Clapton founded last year.

Clapton overcame drug and alcohol addictions in the 1970s.

Actor, chairman donate money to hometown

WESTPORT, Conn. -- Paul Newman and Miramax chairman Harry Weinstein have donated $50,000 each toward preserving a piece of open space in their hometown.

Westport is trying to raise $1.2 million to buy just under an acre of land across from Sherwood Island on Sherwood Millpond.

The gifts from Newman and Weinstein bring donations to more than $120,000.

Last fall, the property owners received approval to subdivide the land into four lots -- three for houses and the fourth for open space, to allow access to the pond.

But the proposal was put on hold to give the town a chance to buy and preserve the entire property as open space.
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