The Concert for Bangladesh (album)

While in Los Angeles in June 1971, and after being made aware of the gravity of the situation in what was then known as East Pakistan by friend and musician Ravi Shankar,[6] George Harrison set about organising two fundraising concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York, to aid the war-ravaged and disaster-stricken country.[7] In the middle of these hurried preparations,[8] he composed the song "Bangla Desh" in order to call further attention to the Bengalis' cause, and rush-released it as a charity single four days before the shows.[9][10] Riding high with the recent success of his All Things Must Pass triple album,[11][12] Harrison then headlined the all-star UNICEF benefit concerts, backed by a 24-piece[13] band of musicians and singers, on Sunday, 1 August 1971.[14] The shows marked the first time that Harrison and Ringo Starr had performed on stage together since the Beatles quit touring in 1966; since then, they, like Bob Dylan, had been mostly unavailable to concert audiences.[15][16] In Dylan's case, it was his first appearance at a major US concert in five years,[17] although his participation had been uncertain until he walked on for his segment midway through the afternoon show.[18]

The concerts were highly successful in raising international awareness of the plight of the refugees[19][20] – thought to number up to 10 million[6] – and a cheque for over US$243,000 was soon sent to UNICEF for relief.[21] The media lavished praise on Harrison as an ambassador for rock altruism;[22][23] Rolling Stone magazine hailed the event as proof that "the Utopian spirit of the Sixties was still flickering".[24] With concert recording having been carried out at Madison Square Garden by Gary Kellgren,[25] using the Record Plant's 16-track mobile unit,[26] Harrison intended to raise significantly more money via a live album of the event, to be issued on the Beatles' Apple Records label,[27] followed by Apple Films' concert documentary, also to be titled The Concert for Bangladesh.[28]

During his and Shankar's press conference in New York on 27 July,[29] Harrison had stated that a live album might be ready for release within ten days of the shows.[30] Although this estimate would turn out to be highly optimistic,[26] the following year, in an effort to foil concert bootleggers, Elvis Presley succeeded in delivering a live album just eight days after his own, much-publicised Madison Square Garden shows.[31]

Harrison and co-producer Phil Spector began working on the Bangladesh recordings on 2 August, and work continued there at the Record Plant for around a week.[25][32] Spector later talked of them spending "six months" mixing what amounted to a total of four hours of music;[33] in fact, the process took just over a month,[32] as Harrison told talk-show host Dick Cavett that November.[34][35] In their book Eight Arms to Hold You, Chip Madinger and Mark Easter question the extent of Spector's involvement, citing Harrison's subsequent lauding of Kellgren's role in "capturing the performances" on 1 August, as well as the fact that Spector was "in and out of hospital" during this time,[26] similar to his erratic attendance at the All Things Must Pass sessions in 1970.[36][37]

Capitol Records' headquarters, in Hollywood, California

On 23 August, press reports appeared citing "legal problems" as the reason behind the delaying of the much-anticipated live album[61] – problems that would turn out to be a disagreement between EMI-owned Capitol Records (Apple's US distributor) and Columbia Records (Dylan's label) over who had a rightful claim to release the album.[62][63] Columbia/CBS were eventually mollified with the granting of tape distribution rights in North America, and record and tape distribution in the rest of the world.[53][64] Another stumbling block was Capitol's insistence that they receive monetary compensation, thought to be around $400,000,[65] for what the company perceived to be vast production and distribution costs for the boxed three-record set.[66] It was a position from which EMI chairman Bhaskar Menon refused to budge, while Harrison was equally adamant that, since all the artists were providing their services for free and Apple was supplying the album packaging at no charge, the record company "must give up something" also.[63][67]

With the sound mix being completed in LA, Harrison spent most of September 1971 in New York working on the problematic film footage of the concert,[21][51] before heading to London.[68] There he attended the re-opening of Apple Studio on 30 September[69] and produced new signing Lon & Derrek Van Eaton's debut single,[70] as well as enduring a fruitless meeting with the British Treasury's financial secretary – the latter activity in an attempt to have the government waive its standard purchase tax, and so keep the album affordable to record-buyers.[71][72] Harrison returned to New York on 5 October and announced that the Bangladesh live album would be issued during the following month.[71] At this time, with concert bootlegs now on the market,[53][62] posters were placed in record shops bearing the slogan: "Save a starving child. Don't buy a bootleg!"[71]

In the fourth week of November – well into the lucrative Christmas sales period and close to four months after the concerts[26][75] – Harrison voiced his frustration at the stalemate with Capitol on ABC's late-night chat show, The Dick Cavett Show.[65] Harrison was on the program to promote the Raga documentary with Shankar,[76] but after making a surprise guest performance with Gary Wright's new band Wonderwheel, he launched into a complaint about his US record company's interference and threatened to take the whole album package to Columbia.[73][77] With the outburst attracting unfavourable attention in the press, where Capitol were viewed as "profiteering on the backs of famine victims",[27] the company eventually backed down and agreed to release the album on Harrison's terms.[63][67] Of all the labels involved, only Columbia would make any money from The Concert for Bangladesh – 25 cents on every copy sold.[67] Although none of these royalties went to the artist,[67] Dylan and his record company were already benefiting from the exposure provided by the Bangladesh concerts, through the timely release of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II.[78][nb 4] Of the other featured artists at the Concert for Bangladesh, the careers of both Preston (A&M Records) and Russell (Shelter) likewise prospered as a result of their participation,[81] but their record companies imposed no such conditions on Apple and Capitol.[32][73][nb 5] In January 1972, Melody Maker's Richard Williams remarked in his Concert for Bangladesh album review: "Between them, Capitol and CBS have proved that, when it comes to awareness and enlightenment, the business is still several years behind the musicians."[87]

Once the album had been granted a release date, Apple's financial terms ensured that as much money as possible would be raised from each copy sold, but that it would be difficult for retailers to profit financially.[53] Some retailers responded with "shameless price gouging" on the three-record set,[88] apparently at Capitol's recommendation.[53] Following the protracted negotiations surrounding the live album's distribution, Harrison's disaffection with EMI/Capitol was a key factor behind his signing with A&M Records in January 1976.[89][90][nb 6]

The album booklet's back cover, showing a cheque for the concerts' box-office takings above a guitar case packed with emergency supplies; copyright Apple Records

The album's packaging was designed by Camouflage Productions partners Tom Wilkes and Barry Feinstein,[93] the same team responsible for All Things Must Pass, rock music's first boxed triple album.[94][95] Along with Alan Pariser, both Wilkes and Feinstein had taken stills photographs at Madison Square Garden, at the soundcheck on 31 July and during the concerts the next day, the results filling the 64-page full-colour booklet accompanying the original album.[93] Also used as the Concert for Bangladesh film poster, the album-cover photograph – the "haunting" image of a malnourished young child sitting naked behind a wide, empty food bowl, author Bruce Spizer writes[93] – was a still taken from news agency film footage and airbrushed extensively by Wilkes.[96] Having created the provocative, headline-filled picture sleeve for Harrison's "Bangla Desh" single earlier in the year,[97] Wilkes was keen to capture "real human compassion" in this cover and poster image.[98]

The booklet's back-cover picture showed an open guitar case filled with food and medical supplies, below a copy of the cheque for the Madison Square Garden box-office takings.[93] Wilkes intended this image to convey a sense of hope, signifying the completion of the task that the participants had set out to achieve for the refugees from East Pakistan.[98] The record's liner note essay accused the Pakistani Army of undertaking "a deliberate reign of terror" that represented "undoubtedly the greatest atrocity since Hitler's extermination of the Jews".[99]

The three LPs and booklet were housed inside a deep orange-coloured box.[93] According to Jon Taplin, who served as production manager at the Madison Square concerts,[100] Capitol executives were concerned that the cover image was too "depressing" and uncommercial.[101] Harrison was resolute, however, and so Wilkes's design was used.[101]

The Concert for Bangladesh was released in the United States on 20 December 1971, and in Britain on 10 January 1972,[102] with the same Apple Records catalogue number (STCX 3385) in both territories.[103] The retail price for the lavishly packaged triple album was set at $12.98 in America[53] and an extraordinarily high £5.50 in the UK,[62] due to the purchase tax surcharge there.[72] The prices drew some criticism,[53] from Harrison for one,[67] even if it was accepted that the proceeds were going to those in desperate need[104] – or, as Beatles Forever author Nicholas Schaffner wrote in 1977, to "a nation still viewed as the worst pocket of misery on earth".[105] Similarly, the relief project's funds controversy and tax problems, which came to light shortly after the release of the live album, were a source of frustration to Harrison,[106] but commentators have noted that these problems took nothing away from the "resounding success"[107] of Harrison and Shankar's Bangladesh relief project.[78]

Despite the cost, the album was an immediate commercial success.[108][109] In America, it spent six weeks at number 2 on the Billboard Top LPs chart,[110] kept from the top by Don McLean's American Pie,[108] which was one of the top-selling albums there for 1972.[111] On the other US charts, compiled by Cash Box and Record World, the live album peaked at number 2 and number 1, respectively.[108] It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 4 January 1972 for sales of over 500,000 units.[112] In the UK, The Concert for Bangladesh became Harrison's second number 1 album, after All Things Must Pass in early 1971.[113] In Melody Maker's readers poll for 1972, it was ranked second in the "World" album category.[114]

The album was similarly successful on charts around the world.[99] In Pakistan, the government banned the record. The government also advised its embassies and other foreign diplomatic offices that the album contained "hostile propaganda against Pakistan" and that they should pressure their local contacts to stop the music being played on the radio.[99]

In March 1973, The Concert for Bangladesh won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.[115][116] In Harrison's absence, Ringo Starr attended the awards ceremony in Nashville and carried off a tray of Grammys, one for each of the featured performers.[117][118][nb 7] Author Peter Lavezzoli writes that, with the success of the live album and Saul Swimmer's concert documentary, which opened in US cinemas in March 1972,[120] Indian classical music reached its largest Western audience to date through the Concert for Bangladesh.[121]

The Concert for Bangladesh was first issued on CD on 30 July 1991 in America and 19 August in Britain.[159] It was presented as a two-disc set, with significant editing of the breaks between songs.[160] The downsizing to CD dimensions meant that much of the effectiveness of the booklet photography was lost;[161] in addition, the contents were trimmed down to 36 pages.[162] Having stated his disappointment in a 1988 interview that the album had been allowed to go out of print,[163] Harrison recorded a promotional interview on the 20th anniversary of the concerts, to accompany the CD release.[164]

Harrison was working on a reissue of the album and film before his death in November 2001.[165] Although the project was due for release the following year,[166] the new editions were not issued until 25 October 2005.[167] The remastered releases appeared with a photo of Harrison on the cover,[81] although the special-edition DVD retained the original image.[168] The reissue was the 1972 concert film's first international release on DVD.[169] It was accompanied by the Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends making-of documentary,[167][170] which was directed by Claire Ferguson[171] and co-produced by Olivia Harrison.[172][nb 13]

The revised packaging was credited to Wherefore Art?[174] As a bonus track, the album included "Love Minus Zero/No Limit",[175] which Dylan had performed during the afternoon show at Madison Square Garden.[176][nb 14]

Sales of the Concert for Bangladesh album and DVD continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.[179][180] In 2011, as one of the fund's projects to mark the 40th anniversary of the concerts and the live album's release,[179] and in conjunction with UNICEF's "Month of Giving" campaign,[181] the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF raised over $1.2 million in emergency relief for children in famine- and drought-stricken areas of the Horn of Africa.[182]

"The Artists"

• George Harrison – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals
• Ravi Shankar – sitar
• Bob Dylan – vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica
• Leon Russell – piano, vocals, bass, backing vocals
• Ringo Starr – drums, vocals, tambourine
• Billy Preston – Hammond organ, vocals
• Eric Clapton – electric guitar
• Ali Akbar Khan – sarod
• Alla Rakha – tabla
• Kamala Chakravarty – tambura

"The Band"

• Jesse Ed Davis – electric guitar
• Klaus Voormann – bass
• Jim Keltner – drums
• Pete Ham – acoustic guitar
• Tom Evans – twelve-string acoustic guitar
• Joey Molland – acoustic guitar
• Mike Gibbins – tambourine, maracas
• Don Preston – electric guitar, vocals (on "Jumpin' Jack Flash"/"Young Blood" and "Bangla Desh" only)
• Carl Radle – bass (on "Jumpin' Jack Flash"/"Young Blood" only)

The Hollywood Horns

• Jim Horn – saxophones, horn arrangements
• Chuck Findley – trumpet
• Jackie Kelso – saxophones
• Allan Beutler – saxophones
• Lou McCreary – trombone
• Ollie Mitchell – trumpet

The Soul Choir

• Claudia Lennear, Joe Greene, Jeanie Greene, Marlin Greene, Dolores Hall, Don Nix, Don Preston – backing vocals, percussion

• Official website
• The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends at IMDb