Rally musicians like Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Prine and Bruce Cockburn to the cause, however, and some ears will start to perk up.

That’s the theory behind the Concerts for a Landmine Free World tour that begins December 2 (Saturday) in Stamford, Conn. The brief, five-city tour is a Northeast version of a similar series of benefit concerts that took place in California last year.

Each of the six musicians is participating in an unrehearsed, acoustic show that participants hope will be like a song swapping session that would happen if they gathered on someone’s back porch.

Bobby Muller, co-founder of the Campaign to Ban Landmines, learned the power of celebrity when his group accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in 1997. The awards ceremony was overshadowed by a concert that featured Mariah Carey, Jewel and Boyz II Men, he said.

Even a relatively small gesture – Sheryl Crow wearing a Campaign to Ban Landmines T-shirt when she sang the national anthem before a World Series game – pays dividends for his group, he said.

“Getting the energy of these personalities lets you reach an awful lot of people that you’re not going to get with a speech or a routine kind of event,” Muller said.

Harris has been the most active celebrity supporting the campaign. Carpenter said she’s on the tour because of Harris’ invitation, although she had already been moved to support the group.

Four years ago, Carpenter was among a small group invited on a Christmas trip to Bosnia. Viewing the pockmarked countryside was a shock, and so was the order by authorities to stay on paved surfaces because of the danger of mines.

“It was unlike any experience I’ve ever had and it made a deep impression on me,” Carpenter said. “It resonated so much that when Emmylou asked me to get involved, it was a no-brainer.”

Proceeds will be used to support the group’s political campaign and its rehabilitation clinics for people injured by mines, Muller said. The organization runs four in Cambodia and two in Vietnam.

Muller’s group estimates there are between 60 million and 80 million active land mines in the world.

The mines aren’t going away, but the campaign is finding it harder to attract attention than it did at the time of the Nobel Prize, said Loung Ung, a Cambodian refugee who works for the campaign.

“Our success has become a bit of a hindrance to us,” she said. “People don’t realize that the war goes on as long as people step on mines.”

Griffith doesn’t consider the campaign a political issue – not after traveling to Vietnam and Cambodia on a campaign-sponsored trip and holding children in her lap who needed artificial limbs after stepping on land mines in their back yard.

She said she’s likely to perform a new song, “Traveling Through a Part of You,” written during her trip for her ex-husband, a Vietnam veteran.

Although the campaign to ban land mines is a serious topic, Griffith and Carpenter said music fans coming to the benefits shouldn’t expect polemics.

“I think they’re going to have a lot of fun,” Griffith said. “It’s a hootenanny. It’s like a vacation for us, really, because we all get to be on stage with each other and join in on songs that we rarely get to hear live.”