Iconic at 50: George Harrison's 'The Concert For Bangladesh'

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. That is George Harrison, in case you don't know, singing Bangladesh at a 1971 concert, later released as a live album called The Concert for Bangladesh. It was a star-studded concert at Madison Square Garden on August 1st, 1971, that many consider to be the very first big rock benefit concert in history. This summer, on the show we'd been looking at, or rather listening to, some iconic albums that turn 50 this year and digging into the political and social context in which they were made and their impact on both music and culture. The music historians say 1971 was a particularly important year.

Joining me now to conclude this summer series and talk about The Concert for Bangladesh is Aaron Cohen, professor at the City Colleges of Chicago and author of several books on music, including Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power. He wrote about the benefit concert earlier in the summer for NPR. The article is titled 'Ravi told George, they told the world. The birth of the celebrity benefit concert'. Aaron, thanks so much for doing this. Welcome to WNYC

Aaron Cohen: Thank you very much for having me and I hope everybody in New York and New Jersey recovers from this recent disaster.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for that. For people who've never heard of The Concert for Bangladesh, it might seem a little random that a former member of the Beatles was singing about a humanitarian crisis that many people at that time hadn't even heard about in this country or in the West in general. Let's take a listen to a little of the intro to the song Bangladesh, where Harrison explains how he got interested in the issue.

George Harrison: My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes. He told me that he wanted help, before his country dies.

Brian Lehrer: That friend who came to him that Harrison was singing about was Indian musician and sitar player, Ravi Shankar. Can you talk briefly about their friendship and how they came to know each other?

Aaron Cohen: Oh yes. In the 1960s, when George Harrison was the lead guitarist in the Beatles, he started playing the Indian sitar and Ravi Shankar was his sitar teacher, guru. It's a very difficult instrument to learn and it's a very difficult instrument to play. George Harrison had the best teacher in Ravi Shankar, but Ravi Shankar was also a mentor in a lot of spiritual ways that included playing the instrument, but went beyond it. They continued their friendship throughout their lives. Ravi Shankar in 1971-- Ravi Shankar was also from a Bengali family and Ravi Shankar was very sad about what was going on when the Pakistani government and the military dictatorship of Pakistan very brutally suppressed an independence movement that was in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and causing a huge, not just number of deaths, but a huge refugee crisis into India.

He mentioned it to George Harrison, and George Harrison very quickly assembled this benefit concert in Madison Square Garden. He used his contacts, his friendship, his star power, his charisma to enlist a bunch of other of the big rock stars of the day to perform this concert benefit

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, were any of you there? We can take a few phone calls from anybody who actually attended The Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden on August 1st, 1971. What do you remember from it? Did it change you politically and socially at all, in addition to enjoying the tunes? (646) 435-7280, only for anyone who actually attended The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 at the Garden. (646) 435-7280. Before we get off the Ravi Shankar aspect of this, he actually opened up The Concert for Bangladesh, and you write, "Even though Harrison, along with his British and American rock star friends, drove ticket sales for The Concert for Bangladesh, Shankar's opening performance meant music from the impacted region was represented. Let's take a listen to a bit of Ravi Shankar playing a traditional Bengali folk song on sitar from The Concert for Bangladesh.

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Brian Lehrer: Ravi Shankar in 1971. Sam on Cape Cod right now. Hi Sam, you're on WNYC.

Sam: Hi, Brian. I remember it like it was yesterday. When my friends and I, there were four of us altogether, heard about this, when tickets went on sale, we made a beeline to Madison Square Garden, which is where you have to go to get the tickets. We slept overnight on the sidewalk outside, leaning on the wall of the Garden and got our tickets. The show was unbelievable. We were all political activists at the time, to begin with. The fact that he was doing this as a benefit concert was an added bonus for us. But, to be honest, it was about the music and it was about a Beatle performing again. We were at the afternoon show and nobody knew that Bob Dylan was an unannounced guest.

Nobody knew that he was going to be there and I believe he hadn't played live for years because this was post-his motorcycle accident. When he came out on the stage, people were literally weeping. It was hard to describe. There was such excitement in the air and emotion. Then, he did this amazing set with Leon Russell and George Harrison. It was probably the best concert I've ever been to.

Brian Lehrer: Sam, thank you so much for that memory, and talk about worlds colliding. The British rock context of George Harrison from the Beatles, and the American folk rock context of Bob Dylan. You write-- and my guest is music journalist Aaron Cohen, "Pop artists became looked upon as more than just entertainers during the late 1960s, early 1970s. This was the first large scale pop music event to benefit a major human rights issue. A lot of stars wanted to be part of it, Dylan. He mentioned Leon Russell and Eric Clapton was also there, to name a few. So was Billy Preston, who became known as the fifth Beatle. Let's listen to a bit of The Way God Planned It. Billy Preston from that night in 1971.

Billy Preston: All things are God given, and they all have been blessed. That's the way God planned it. That's the way God wants it to be.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We're going to end the show here and just listen to Billy Preston for the rest of our-- no, I'm kidding. It's tempting. What was the spirit of the concert like with all these big egos on one stage? Was there any drama?

Aaron Cohen: That's the interesting thing. Like I mentioned, it was very quickly put together. To have a very large-- there was also horn players and backup singers along with all of those musicians who you named. For such a quickly-put together large-scale event, it went really well, all things considered. The whole spirit-- I want to actually mention a thing about Billy Preston was he became known as the fifth Beatle because he performed toward the end of their time in 1969 on what became known as their rooftop concert. One of the interesting things about Billy Preston was he came from a background of African-American gospel music and African-American R&B working with Little Richard and Ray Charles. I think that gospel spirit pervaded, not just through Billy Preston set, but a lot of George Harrison's music. A lot of George Harrison's music was connected to Indian spirituality and Indian mysticism as well, but he was also drawing from American gospel music on such songs as My Sweet Lord, which he performed at the concert and Awaiting on You All, which we also performed. Billy Preston's presence and the music he represented was very important to this communal feeling of the event.

Brian Lehrer: Lesley in Passaic, you were there? Hi, Lesley.

Lesley: Yes. Hi, this is so much fun. I did not remember that it was my birthday, my 13th birthday when I was at that concert.

Brian Lehrer: August 1st?

Lesley: August 1st. Yes. Now, I just had my 63rd birthday. It's a little while to hear you talk about this.

Brian Leher: What do you remember from it?

Lesley: I remember-- well, first of all, me and all my girlfriends who went from Ditmas Junior High School in Brooklyn were so in love with George Harrison. He was our favorite Beatle. What I remember also is that we had never heard anything like Ravi Shankar. As girls growing up in Brooklyn, we'd never heard any international music at all.

To see this man come on with these strange instruments, the sitars and everything, it was an really interesting element that I think opened me up for the rest of my life to hearing different sounds and combinations of music. Then, with Billy Preston rocking it on the drums, he was amazing. I didn't even remember until you started talking about it, that Leon Russell was there and how great he was as well.

Brian Lehrer: Lesley, thank you so much for that memory. Joanie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. You were there, too?

Joanie: Brian, my girlfriend called me like an hour or two before the show and said she had an extra ticket. Can I be ready? Zoom. I was ready. It was so exciting. Thank you, Jane Mac. This was in high school, 1970. I was 15 years old. Now I'm 66, but I saw everybody there. Preston and Russell and Shankar, Dylan, Clapton, you name it. My husband teases me to this day. "Did you see this artist?" "Yes, at Bangladesh." "Did you see that artist?" "Yes, at Bangladesh," because there were so many stars there. It was great energy and one of the best concerts that I've been to.

Brian Lehrer: Joanie, thanks, and you've been to many, it sounds like, yes. Thank you for the memory. I'm with music journalist, Aaron Cohen, remembering the 1971 concert for Bangladesh as part of a 1971 in music history series. You write that while Harrison and Shankar said their motives were not political, they did cause consternation among Pakistan's military regime and its enablers in the United States. Really, George Harrison, AKA the quietest Beatle, was angering military regimes?

Aaron Cohen: Absolutely. This is from, Gary J. Bass's book, the Blood Telegram, Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. Essentially, Pakistan was doing all of these horrible atrocities and they were being aided and abetted by the Nixon and Kissinger-- Nixon and Kissinger, I was going to call them something else, but let's leave it at that. Anyway, Nixon, Kissinger and the Pakistani regime did not want the world's attention. The last thing they wanted was for the world to bring the situation in what's now Bangladesh to the public eye.

They responded. The Pakistani government felt that the Bangladesh record was-- and this is their words from the Bass book, that it was anti-Pakistan propaganda. They also made a reference to the Beatles trio doing it, which again was wrong. Anyway, they said it was hostile propaganda against Pakistan. Bass also reports about Nixon being angry and yelling at Kissinger about how angry he was that, in his words, the Beatles were raising money for India and how terrible it was.

What they were really afraid of was that this concert was shedding light on atrocities that they wanted to keep in the dark. That was an incredible thing for a bunch of musicians to accomplish. They accomplished what activists and protesters have always wanted, which is to bring these situations to greater attention. They got some very evil people angry at them.

Brian Lehrer: Now, leading up to the concert in the spring of 1971, each of the former members of the Beatles, because they had broken up the year before, had a solo single on the charts. According to ultimateclassicrock.com, George Harrison had What is Life. John Lennon had Power to The People, and Paul McCartney had the song Another Day, but of all the Beatles only Ringo Starr joined Harrison's concert for Bangladesh and he sang his 1971 hit It Don't Come Easy. Let's take a listen.

Ringo Starr: [music] Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, and you know it don't come easy. You don't have to shout or leap about, you can even play them easy.

Brian Lehrer: A little off key there, maybe, but [laughs] that is Ringo, "If you want to sing the blues, you got to pay your dues." You're right. While the concert raised more than $243,000 for UNICEF, the IRS held up millions from subsequent record sales because the events organizers had not applied for non-profit status for this benefit concert. To what extent was the benefit concert a monetary success or failure?

Aaron Cohen: Well, they did not, properly at the time, cross all of the T's, dot all the I's, but that's been resolved. The money which was directed to UNICEF, they received a certain amount of money at first and then the money from records. Plus also, the record companies involved were a bit skittish about doing a charity record. So, there was that aspect, and George Harrison was very adamant about that getting out. Today, UNICEF is getting the money.

That tax situation got resolved a few years later, but it certainly was an obstacle to getting people who needed the money the money. That was something that George Harrison would tell subsequent organizers of charity events, that all of these bureaucratic things that needed to be done. The year since then, Harrison was a guiding force in terms of saying, "Okay, make sure that the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted so that there isn't this holdup."

Brian Lehrer: We're almost out of time. I don't know if you've ever been a lead-in for Mayor Bill de Blasio before.

Aaron Cohen: No, I have not [chuckles].

Brian Lehrer: What did The Concert for Bangladesh spawn, if this was the first big rock benefit concert in terms of a benefit concert practice or tradition? People maybe of one generation down may think of Live Aid in the '80s, a big one for famine relief in multiple African countries, I think. Do these still happen today, and did The Concert for Bangladesh start something that persists?

Aaron Cohen: It did. One of the things-- and this came out with some of the callers, one of the advantages of The Concert for Bangladesh was it introduced Indian musicians to a wide audience. It helped humanize the people who were afflicted with these tragedies. It's a shame that some of the subsequent concerts like Live Aid did not include Ethiopian musicians, for instance. I think in terms of setting up a major concert charity benefit, it did a lot of good, it set a lot of good precedents, but it also showed the ways that it should be done on a musical and cultural level that have not quite always been followed.

Also, in addition to concerts, there have been foundations established by musicians. One interesting one is the White Feather Foundation, which is being run by Julian Lennon, John Lennon's eldest son, and that is working on global indigenous rights and environmental issues. It's not just concerts, but also actual foundations that have been set up by musicians and artists to raise awareness. Along with money, I think raising awareness is a crucial precedent that The Concert for Bangladesh set.

Brian Lehrer: We will have to leave it there for today. Aaron Cohen, professor at the City Colleges of Chicago and author of several books on music, including Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power, and the author of an article for NPR this summer called 'Ravi told George, they told the world. The birth of the celebrity benefit concert'. Thanks so much for coming on.

Aaron Cohen: Thank you so much for having me, and everybody in New York, New Jersey, please, stay safe.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, that concludes our summer series on the music of 1971 and its social context, as music historians are using the 50th anniversary of that year to highlight what an especially important year in music it was. Special thanks to Brian Lehrer Show producer, Amina Srna, who did so much research and music track editing and making connections between the musical and the social for this series on Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, Alice Coltrane, Isaac Hayes, Carol King, and today, George Harrison. Thank you, Amina.

 

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