The Concert for Bangladesh

Various Artists

album cover

The Concert That Started Rock Activism

Pull this out whenever your faith in the power of music begins to wane. Go directly to Billy Preston's spine-chilling "That's the Way God Planned It," which is performed with a star-studded house band. Turn it up. Listen as the organist and singer takes a packed Madison Square Garden through several minutes of uplift—first a purposeful sing-along hymn, then a rollicking double-time jubilee. It's pure bolts of energy, live on stage.

This set is worth the retail price just for that track. And for the opening raga, which features Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan in a beautiful twenty-minute discourse. And for five well-chosen songs by Bob Dylan, who'd only performed on stage once in the previous five years. His set includes "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Just like a Woman," which features background vocals by Leon Russell and the concert's organizer, George Harrison, along with Ringo Starr on tambourine.

It's worth having just to hear Russell link the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" to the Coasters' doo-wop classic "Youngblood." And it's also essential for Harrison's turn, which features songs from All Things Must Pass as well as several Beatles compositions. Among these is "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Eric Clapton is on stage, and he and Harrison engage in one of the more thrilling two-man guitar explorations in rock. As they finish each other's thoughts, the two extend and amplify the song's intent: You haven't heard the full gamut of gentle (and not so) guitar weeping until you've heard this.

Organized by George Harrison to help Bengalis made homeless by the 1970 Bhola cyclone, the August 1971 concert stands as the first large-scale example of rock activism. Its successes were more than monetary: Harrison and his cohorts focused the attention of the West on problems in a remote, far less affluent part of the world, and showed generations of celebrities how to use their media profile to raise cash and consciousness. Many significant fund-raising events have happened since; few have been as musically consequential as The Concert for Bangladesh.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1971, Apple
Key Tracks: Billy Preston: "That's the Way God Planned It." George Harrison: "My Sweet Lord," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Awaiting on You All." Bob Dylan: "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Just like a Woman."
Collector's Note: The concert is now available on DVD, and it includes performances that did not make the original album.
Next Stop: Various Artists: Farm Aid
After That: Billy Preston: Ultimate Collection
Book Pages: 807–808