There were a lot more parties, shows, and showcases this weekend in LA around the Grammy theme that I didn’t even get to tell you about.

On Thursday, The Grammy Foundation– the sister group to MusiCares–showcased a dozen acts at the Saban Theater at something called Play it Forward: A Celebration of Music’s Evolution and Influencers. Seagate, the company that makes hard drives, was the sponsor–they just launched a new line of attractively packaged 1T drives. NARAS VP Kristen Madsen gave a great speech about the importance of music through the ages including recent events in Timbuktu.

But who played: Lee Ann Rimes, who’s more in the tabloids recently, performed a remarkable blues number that blew the doors off the house. Good for her. Yolanda Adams led a gospel choir and was simply sublime–she went to church big time. She should be a bigger deal. Ed Sheeran, the new “it” guy, was lovely. George Thorogood rocke the house with “Bad to the Bone.” And Dionne Warwick, who opened the show, remains the class act of all time. She’s a pleasure.

On Saturday afternoon I ran into producer Don Was at the Universal-Interscope-DefJam lunch showcase at Lure in Hollywood. This was a first time event, and I hope they do it again. This is what all the record companies should do–offer a two song look at their cool artists to press. OneRepublic, Emili Sande, Florence and the Machine–were all the well known artists. Chrisette Michele was a revelation–she plays the guitar! I really liked Churchill and Imagine Dragons and Mayer Hawthorne too. Trinidad James, however, is a trip. Ellie Goulding has a beautiful, fragile sound.

Motown and Stax were built on their traveling revues, and in late 70s we killed for tickets to see Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric, Lene Lovich and Rachel Sweet on the Stiff tours. We need more more more of this type of thing, especially with so many new artists hitting the scene.

PS One newer artist you must download, buy or stream: K’Naan. He’s in the UMG family. I wish they’d included him.

Exclusive: In a strange twist of fate, iTunes and the iPod were heroes to the music biz this weekend.

I told you that a woman who said she was a “mom” paid $250,00 on Friday night for a Bruce Springsteen guitar at the MusiCares dinner. Well, now I can tell you who Tracy Powell is: she’s the sister of Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple Computers genius Steve Jobs. It turns out that Laurene was at the MusiCares dinner on Friday with Tracy, and–according to people at their table–she egged her sister on to bid the big money.

Tracy Powell, in a wild auction that no one will forget, won a Fender guitar signed by Bruce, Elton John, Sting, Neil Young and a bunch of rock stars. They all signed it right there in the ballroom, as Bruce brought it around along with a Sharpie. Bidding went crazy as Springsteen and producer David Foster waded through the tables looking for bidders. Springsteen eventually added a one hour guitar lesson, seats and backstage passes to one of his shows with a personal tour, and his mom’s lasagna.

Powell, a hot number in a glittery mini skirt, was seated in the back half of the room. No one knew Mrs. Jobs was with her, or they were the winners of the bid. When Powell finally won the wild auction, beating a bid for $200,000 from across the room, she jumped up, shimmied toward Bruce in a glittery black mini skirt, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Springsteen, maybe a little chauvinistically, was surprised when he realized the bigger of such big money was a female. He said to Foster as they made their way to Powell: “It’s a woman!”

Well, this woman is the sister-in-law of the most legendary tech guy in history. A source tells me that Tracy has recently moved her family out to Palo Alto, California from Maryland to be close to the recently widowed Laurene. The sisters were born in the Garden State, which is why Tracy told Bruce she was a Jersey girl–exactly what she told me when I spoke to her minutes after the auction.

I don’t think anyone at MusiCares knows any of this, at least they sure didn’t when we left the Convention Center. My source says Laurene probably paid for the guitar etc, but it was for a great cause and she certainly got her money’s worth.  Someone from MusiCares raced over to Powell when she won the bid and said, “Thank you so much. You’ve just saved a lot of lives. You have no idea how far this money will go.”