A DIFFERENT KIND OF HURRICANE RELIEF, in Memphis:

“Music is therapy for me now,” said Rasheed Akbar, 53, a saxophone player known as “Sheik Rasheed” to his French Quarter fans. “It’s as much therapy as livelihood.”

He’s finding some of both on Memphis’s version of Bourbon Street, thanks to hurricane-relief efforts by the Beale Street Merchants Association.

The merchants are offering paid gigs for musicians, jobs for restaurant workers, and free lunches that start at noon today in Handy Park. Vouchers for other meals also are available.

Displaced musicians and restaurant workers, who are asked to provide verification, can register at the merchants association office, 154 Beale, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“They’re our brothers and we need to take care of them,” said Preston Lamm, merchants association president.

There’s also this relief, from Musicares:

“We’re not the Red Cross, but I don’t know that the Red Cross understands how to get a musician who lost everything a guitar or trumpet or saxophone or drum kit,” said Jon Hornyak, executive director of the local chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the Grammy organization.

New Orleans and Mississippi are part of the Memphis chapter.

The MusiCares Hurricane Relief Fund will provide funds for shelter, food, utilities, transportation, medical expenses and medication, clothing, instrument and recording equipment replacement, relocation costs, school supplies for students, insurance payments and more.

I belong to the Nashville chapter, but this is good work.