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The Concert for Bangladesh
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The Concert for Bangladesh
The Concert for Bangladesh (or Bangla Desh, as the country's name was originally spelled) was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide and the 1970 Bhola cyclone. The concerts were followed by a bestselling live album, a boxed three-record set, and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972.
The event was the first-ever benefit of such magnitude, and featured a supergroup of performers that included Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band Badfinger. In addition, Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan – both of whom had ancestral roots in Bangladesh – performed an opening set of Indian classical music. The concerts were attended by a total of 40,000 people, and the initial gate receipts raised close to $250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF.
After collecting the musicians easily, Harrison found it extremely difficult to get the recording industry to release the rights for performers to share the stage, and millions of dollars raised from the album and film were tied up in IRS tax escrow accounts for years, but the concert has been recognised as a highly successful and influential humanitarian aid project, generating both awareness and considerable funds as well as providing valuable lessons and inspiration for projects that followed, such as Live Aid.
By 1985, through revenue raised from the Concert for Bangladesh live album and film, an estimated $12 million had been sent to Bangladesh, and sales of the live album and DVD release of the film continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. Decades later, Shankar would say of the overwhelming success of the event: "In one day, the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh. It was a fantastic occasion."
As East Pakistan struggled to become the separate state of Bangladesh during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the political and military turmoil and associated atrocities led to a massive refugee problem, with almost 10 million displaced people pouring into neighbouring India. East Pakistan had recently in 1970, endured devastation as a result of the Bhola cyclone, and the Bengalis' desperate plight increased in March that year when torrential rains and floods arrived in the region, threatening a humanitarian disaster. Quoting figures available at the time, a Rolling Stone feature claimed that up to half a million Bengalis had been killed by the cyclone in November 1970 and that the Pakistani army's subsequent campaign of slaughter under Operation Searchlight accounted for at least 250,000 civilians, "by the most conservative estimates". Following the mass exodus to Calcutta, a new threat arrived as the refugees faced starvation and the outbreak of diseases such as cholera.
I was in a very sad mood, having read all this news, and I said, "George, this is the situation, I know it doesn't concern you, I know you can't possibly identify." But while I talked to George he was very deeply moved ... and he said, "Yes, I think I'll be able to do something."
Appalled at the situation affecting his homeland and relatives, Bengali musician Ravi Shankar first brought the issue to the attention of his friend George Harrison in the early months of 1971, over dinner at Friar Park, according to Klaus Voormann's recollection. By April, Shankar and Harrison were in Los Angeles working on the soundtrack to the film Raga, during which Harrison wrote the song "Miss O'Dell", commenting on corruption among the Indian authorities as aid shipments of rice from the West kept "going astray on [their] way to Bombay". After returning to England to produce Badfinger's Straight Up album and take part in sessions for John Lennon's Imagine – all the while, being kept abreast of developments by Shankar, via newspaper and magazine cuttings – Harrison was back in Los Angeles to finish the Raga album in late June. By then, the Sunday Times in London had just published an influential article by Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas, which exposed the full horror of the Bangladesh atrocities, and a distraught Shankar approached Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. Harrison later talked of spending "three months" on the phone organising the Concert for Bangladesh, implying that efforts were under way from late April onwards; it is now widely acknowledged that the project began in earnest during the last week of June 1971, however, five or six weeks before the event took place on 1 August.
Shankar's original hope was to raise $25,000 through a benefit concert of his own, compered perhaps by actor Peter Sellers. With Harrison's commitment, and the record and film outlets available to him through the Beatles' Apple Corps organisation, the idea soon grew to become a star-studded musical event, mixing Western rock with Indian classical music, and it was to be held at the most prestigious venue in America: Madison Square Garden, in New York City. According to Chris O'Dell, a music-business administrator and former Apple employee, Harrison got off the phone with Shankar once the concept had been finalised, and started enthusing with his wife, Pattie Boyd, about possible performers. Ringo Starr, Lennon, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Voormann, Billy Preston and Badfinger were all mentioned during this initial brainstorming.
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The Concert for Bangladesh
The Concert for Bangladesh (or Bangla Desh, as the country's name was originally spelled) was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide and the 1970 Bhola cyclone. The concerts were followed by a bestselling live album, a boxed three-record set, and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972.
The event was the first-ever benefit of such magnitude, and featured a supergroup of performers that included Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band Badfinger. In addition, Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan – both of whom had ancestral roots in Bangladesh – performed an opening set of Indian classical music. The concerts were attended by a total of 40,000 people, and the initial gate receipts raised close to $250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF.
After collecting the musicians easily, Harrison found it extremely difficult to get the recording industry to release the rights for performers to share the stage, and millions of dollars raised from the album and film were tied up in IRS tax escrow accounts for years, but the concert has been recognised as a highly successful and influential humanitarian aid project, generating both awareness and considerable funds as well as providing valuable lessons and inspiration for projects that followed, such as Live Aid.
By 1985, through revenue raised from the Concert for Bangladesh live album and film, an estimated $12 million had been sent to Bangladesh, and sales of the live album and DVD release of the film continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. Decades later, Shankar would say of the overwhelming success of the event: "In one day, the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh. It was a fantastic occasion."
As East Pakistan struggled to become the separate state of Bangladesh during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the political and military turmoil and associated atrocities led to a massive refugee problem, with almost 10 million displaced people pouring into neighbouring India. East Pakistan had recently in 1970, endured devastation as a result of the Bhola cyclone, and the Bengalis' desperate plight increased in March that year when torrential rains and floods arrived in the region, threatening a humanitarian disaster. Quoting figures available at the time, a Rolling Stone feature claimed that up to half a million Bengalis had been killed by the cyclone in November 1970 and that the Pakistani army's subsequent campaign of slaughter under Operation Searchlight accounted for at least 250,000 civilians, "by the most conservative estimates". Following the mass exodus to Calcutta, a new threat arrived as the refugees faced starvation and the outbreak of diseases such as cholera.
I was in a very sad mood, having read all this news, and I said, "George, this is the situation, I know it doesn't concern you, I know you can't possibly identify." But while I talked to George he was very deeply moved ... and he said, "Yes, I think I'll be able to do something."
Appalled at the situation affecting his homeland and relatives, Bengali musician Ravi Shankar first brought the issue to the attention of his friend George Harrison in the early months of 1971, over dinner at Friar Park, according to Klaus Voormann's recollection. By April, Shankar and Harrison were in Los Angeles working on the soundtrack to the film Raga, during which Harrison wrote the song "Miss O'Dell", commenting on corruption among the Indian authorities as aid shipments of rice from the West kept "going astray on [their] way to Bombay". After returning to England to produce Badfinger's Straight Up album and take part in sessions for John Lennon's Imagine – all the while, being kept abreast of developments by Shankar, via newspaper and magazine cuttings – Harrison was back in Los Angeles to finish the Raga album in late June. By then, the Sunday Times in London had just published an influential article by Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas, which exposed the full horror of the Bangladesh atrocities, and a distraught Shankar approached Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. Harrison later talked of spending "three months" on the phone organising the Concert for Bangladesh, implying that efforts were under way from late April onwards; it is now widely acknowledged that the project began in earnest during the last week of June 1971, however, five or six weeks before the event took place on 1 August.
Shankar's original hope was to raise $25,000 through a benefit concert of his own, compered perhaps by actor Peter Sellers. With Harrison's commitment, and the record and film outlets available to him through the Beatles' Apple Corps organisation, the idea soon grew to become a star-studded musical event, mixing Western rock with Indian classical music, and it was to be held at the most prestigious venue in America: Madison Square Garden, in New York City. According to Chris O'Dell, a music-business administrator and former Apple employee, Harrison got off the phone with Shankar once the concept had been finalised, and started enthusing with his wife, Pattie Boyd, about possible performers. Ringo Starr, Lennon, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Voormann, Billy Preston and Badfinger were all mentioned during this initial brainstorming.