The Concert For Bangla Desh

 In October, scores of musicians performed on the stage of Madison Square Garden as part of a massive charity concert to aid the families of those who perished in the recent terrorist attacks. Former Beatle Paul McCartney was the prime organizer of the quickly thrown-together benefit concert--an interesting parallel, because it was another former Beatle, George Harrison, who organized the grandfather of all rock benefits at the same venue, thirty years earlier. The Concert For Bangla Desh, held in August 1971, was also thrown together in a hurry, and many of rock’s towering figures came to perform for a charitable cause, at Harrison’s request. The result was not only a truly historic concert, but also a damn good show. Thirty years later, the benefit concert is a common occurrence, and it was George Harrison who got the ball rolling. Harrison
succumbed to cancer on Novermber 29, and it is only fitting that we take a look back at one of his finest hours. Let us begin with a brief chronicle of the events that led to him to organize the concert.
 As with the Concert for New York, the backdrop to the Concert for Bangla Desh involved massive human suffering and death, and massive amounts of money needed to be raised for relief efforts. Unlike with New York, however, the Bangla Desh events did not directly affect most Americans, and part of the concert’s purpose was to raise awareness of the problem. A combination of civil war, a reign of terror, intense flooding and poverty, and disease had ravaged the people of East Pakistan, with hundreds of thousands dying, and millions more seeking refuge in neighboring India. Master sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was a native of East India, heard of the reports and wanted to raise money in order to aid his
suffering countrymen. Initially, Shankar had asked George Harrison and actor Peter Sellers to MC an Indian music concert, which was expected to raise around $20,000 for the Bangla Deshi people. Harrison, coming off a hugely successful release with his album “All Things Must Pass” (and still looked upon by the world as “Beatle George, Rock Royalty”), and Shankar quickly recognized that far more money could be raised by a rock concert, and Harrison immediately set about organizing in a few weeks what logistically should have taken months.
 Upon reflection, it is amazing that the line-up came together as it did. Harrison put out calls to marque-name friends like Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell, Billy Preston--and the bandmates he had acrimoniously split from only a year and a half earlier, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Starr agreed to perform, while McCartney declined, feeling that appearing in concert with Harrison, Lennon, and Starr would only heighten the public cries for a Beatles reunion. John Lennon initially offered his support, but within days, he pulled out and left the country, upset that Yoko Ono was not invited to participate. Bob Dylan, who had been keeping a low public profile for the previous two years, waffled on his commitment until the very moment he walked out on stage. Eric Clapton was another problem. The famed guitarist, whose
last project was the Derek and the Dominoes tour, was at the beginning of a three year period of inactivity, brought about by depression and heroin addiction. In addition, Harrison himself had never headlined a concert under his own name, and the guitarist had his own jitters to overcome. Despite all these uncertainties, on August 1, 1971, the former Fab walked onto the stage of the Garden, sporting long hair and a long beard, and announced to the cheering crowd, “I’d just like to say, before we start off with the concert, to thank you all for coming here. As you all know, it’s a special benefit concert. We’ve
got a good show lined up for you--I hope so, anyway...”

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