"Bangla Desh" | ||||
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Single by George Harrison | ||||
B-side | "Deep Blue" | |||
Released | 28 July 1971 | |||
Recorded | July 1971 | |||
Studio | Record Plant West, Los Angeles | |||
Genre | Rock, gospel | |||
Length | 3:57 | |||
Label | Apple | |||
Songwriter(s) | George Harrison | |||
Producer(s) | George Harrison, Phil Spector | |||
George Harrison singles chronology | ||||
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"Bangla Desh" is a song by English musician George Harrison. It was released as a non-album single in July 1971, to raise awareness for the millions of refugees from the country Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan, following the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Harrison's inspiration for the song came from his friend Ravi Shankar, an Indian-Bengali musician, who approached Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. "Bangla Desh" has been described as "one of the most cogent social statements in music history" [1] and helped gain international support for Bangladeshi independence by establishing the name of the fledgling nation around the world. In 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified the song's success in personalising the Bangladesh crisis, through its emotive description of Shankar's request for help.
"Bangla Desh" appeared at the height of Harrison's popularity as a solo artist, following the break-up of the Beatles and the acclaim afforded his 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass . It was pop music's first charity single, and its release took place three days before the Harrison-sponsored Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. The single became a top ten hit in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, and peaked at number 23 on America's Billboard Hot 100. The recording was co-produced by Phil Spector and features contributions from Leon Russell, Jim Horn, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner. The Los Angeles session for the song marked the start of two enduring musical associations in Harrison's solo career, with Keltner and Horn.
Backed by these musicians and others including Eric Clapton and Billy Preston, Harrison performed "Bangla Desh" at the UNICEF concerts, on 1 August 1971, as a rousing encore. In a review of the Concert for Bangladesh live album for Rolling Stone magazine, Jon Landau identified this reading as "the concert's single greatest performance by all concerned". [2] The studio recording appeared on the 1976 compilation The Best of George Harrison , which remained its only official CD release until September 2014, when it was included as a bonus track on the Apple Years 1968–75 reissue of Harrison's Living in the Material World album. Artists who have covered the song include Stu Phillips & the Hollyridge Strings and Italian saxophonist Fausto Papetti.
By the spring of 1971, George Harrison had established himself as the most successful ex-Beatle during the former band members' first year as solo artists; [3] [4] [5] [6] in the words of biographer Elliot Huntley, he "couldn't have got any more popular in the eyes of the public". [7] Just as importantly, writes Peter Lavezzoli, author of The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, Harrison had "amassed such good will in the music community" during that time. [1] Rather than looking to immediately follow up his All Things Must Pass triple album, [8] he had spent the months since recording ended in October 1970 repaying favours to the friends and musicians who had helped make the album such a success. [9] [10] These included co-producer Phil Spector, whose wife, Ronnie Spector, Harrison supplied with songs for a proposed solo album on Apple Records; [11] Ringo Starr, whose "It Don't Come Easy" single he produced and prepared for release, following the original session for the song in March 1970; [12] Bobby Whitlock, singer and keyboard player with the short-lived Derek and the Dominos, whose eponymous debut solo album featured Harrison and Eric Clapton on guitar; [9] and former Spooky Tooth pianist Gary Wright, whose Footprint album (1971) Harrison also guested on, along with All Things Must Pass orchestrator John Barham. [13] [14]
Another project was a documentary on the life and music of Ravi Shankar, Howard Worth's Raga (1971), for which Harrison had stepped in at the last minute to provide funding [15] and distribution through Apple Films. [16] [17] With Harrison also serving as record producer for the accompanying soundtrack album, work began with Shankar in Los Angeles during April 1971 and resumed in late June, [18] [19] following Harrison-produced sessions in London for the band Badfinger. [20]
A Bengali by birth, Shankar had already brought the growing humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh to Harrison's attention, while staying at the ex-Beatle's house, Friar Park, earlier in the year. [21] The state formerly known as East Pakistan (and before that, East Bengal) had suffered an estimated 300,000 casualties when the Bhola cyclone hit its shores on 12 November 1970, and the indifference shown by the ruling government in West Pakistan, particularly by President Yahya Khan, was just one reason the Bengali national movement sought independence on 25 March 1971. [18] This declaration resulted in an immediate military crackdown by Khan's troops, and three days later the Bangladesh Liberation War began. [22] [23] By 13 June, details of the systematic massacre of citizens were beginning to emerge internationally via the publication in London's Sunday Times of an article by Anthony Mascarenhas. [24] Along with the torrential rains and intensive flooding that were threatening the passage of millions of refugees into north-eastern India, [25] this news galvanised Shankar into approaching Harrison for help in trying to alleviate the suffering. [26] "I was in a very sad mood, having read all this news," Shankar later told Rolling Stone magazine, "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.'" [22]
As a result, Harrison committed to staging the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, New York, on Sunday, 1 August. [15] [27] Six weeks of frantic activity ensued as Harrison flew between New York, Los Angeles and London, [15] making preparations and recruiting other musicians to join him and Shankar for the shows. [28] [29] While conceding that Harrison was no "natural sloganeer" in the manner of his former bandmate John Lennon, author Robert Rodriguez has written: "if any ex-Fab had the cachet with his fan base to solicit good works, it was the spiritual Beatle." [30]
I got tired of people saying "But what can I do?" Also, the reluctance of the press to report the full details created the need to bring attention to it. So the song "Bangla Desh" was written specifically to get attention to the war prior to the concert. [31]
– George Harrison, 1979
Foreign journalists had been deported from East Pakistan shortly before the Pakistani army's Operation Searchlight, and even after Mascarenhas' first-hand observations had been published, Shankar and Harrison were concerned that the mainstream media in the West were showing a reluctance to report all the facts. [1] [32] That summer, it also emerged that America was supporting General Khan's military offensive, both financially and with weaponry [1] – despite the Blood telegram in April, in which officials at the US Consulate in Dacca advised their State Department of the "genocide" taking place and accused the US Government of "moral bankruptcy". [33] Realising the need to create greater awareness of the situation in Bangladesh, and particularly the refugee camps of India that had become "infectious open-air graveyards" [34] with the outbreak of cholera, [25] Harrison quickly composed a song for the cause. [35] He later said that "Bangla Desh" was "written in ten minutes at the piano". [36] The title translates as "Bengal nation", [23] and the fact that Harrison spelt it as two words is indicative of how little the new country name had been acknowledged by the Western media at this time. [37]
As with the concerts, Harrison made a point of steering clear of the politics behind the problem, his lyrics focusing instead on the human perspective. [38] At the suggestion of Leon Russell, who had participated in the recent Ronnie Spector and Badfinger sessions, Harrison began the song with a verse outlining his own introduction to the Bangladesh crisis: [31]
My friend came to me with sadness in his eyes
Told me that he wanted help before his country dies
Although I couldn't feel the pain, I knew I had to try
Now I'm asking all of you to help us save some lives.
These lines refer to Shankar's request for help. [39] Author Simon Leng writes that "[in] deference to the Shankar context", Harrison set the opening verse as a rock version of Indian music's traditional alap – "a slow introductory statement of the main ideas". [40] The remainder of the song's lyrics concentrate on the uncompromising message "We've got to relieve Bangla Desh" [22] [41] as thousands of refugees, particularly children, fell victim to the effects of famine and disease. [25]
The final verse-chorus, which includes the lines "Now, it may seem so far from where we all are / It's something we can't reject", reflects a point that former US Fund for UNICEF president Charles Lyons later identified as a perennial obstacle when addressing global issues of poverty: that the problems appear to be too big and too distant for individuals to be able to solve. [42] Author Ian Inglis comments that the line "Now won't you give some bread to get the starving fed" contains a "clever pun", whereby the word "bread" is used to refer to both money and food. [43]
With little time to begin rehearsing for the New York shows, the "Bangla Desh" single was rush-recorded in Los Angeles. [22] Sources differ over the venue and date: the Record Plant West seems the most likely studio, [36] with sessions taking place on 4–5 July [44] [45] and horn overdubs perhaps on 10 July. [46] Phil Spector again co-produced with Harrison. [46] As with the recording details for the sessions, the exact line-up of musicians is a matter of conjecture. [47] According to Simon Leng, the line-up comprised Harrison, Leon Russell (piano), Jim Horn (saxophones), Klaus Voormann (bass), Starr, Jim Keltner (both on drums) and Billy Preston (organ). [45] Horn's recollection is that only Harrison, Russell, Voormann and Keltner were present at the first session. [47] [nb 1] Leng and Beatles historian Bruce Spizer credit a "horn section" led by Jim Horn. [46] [49] The latter went on to lead the six-piece "Hollywood Horns", which included trumpeter and trombonist Chuck Findley, at the New York concerts on 1 August. [50]
The recording begins with Harrison's emotive introduction backed by what Lavezzoli describes as a "rolling piano figure" from Russell. [1] Following the words "help us save some lives", the piano sets up the song's "driving groove", Lavezzoli continues, as the rhythm section and Harrison's electric guitar join in, [1] creating the same musical blend of gospel and rock that Harrison had adopted on much of All Things Must Pass. [40] In a review for the NME in August 1971, Derek Johnson wrote of "Bangla Desh": "Opens almost like a sermon, then the beat come is ... as George wails fervently to a backing of a solid rhythm section and handclaps." [51] The track retains an "urgent 'live' mood", according to Leng, [49] and features solos shared between Russell, Horn (on tenor sax) and Harrison (slide guitar). [46] It fades out with the ensemble playing in double time, [52] similar to a fast gat section (or drut ) used in Hindustani classical music. [53] In journalist Richard Williams' description: "[Harrison] put a lot of feeling into the record. His voice takes on unusually sad inflections – at times he is almost unrecognisable – and Spector backed him well with leaping riffs supported by a grunting baritone sax." [54]
"Bangla Desh" marked the first occasion that Harrison worked with Horn, who would go on to become a regular collaborator. [45] [nb 2] Already a veteran of the LA music scene by 1971, Horn recalls his "jaded" mindset before meeting Harrison, but describes the session as a "real turning point" in his career, "because we were doing something for a cause". [45] It was also the first time that Keltner played on a Harrison session, the two musicians having recently worked together on Lennon's Imagine album. [56] [57] The "Bangla Desh" session was the beginning of a lifelong friendship, with the pair remaining "as brothers", Keltner has said, until Harrison's death in 2001. [58] [59] Together with Clapton, Preston, Bob Dylan and the group Badfinger, all these musicians joined Harrison and Shankar on stage at Madison Square Garden. [3] [60]
Ravi Shankar cut a benefit record of his own at this time, the Harrison-produced [61] Joi Bangla EP. [62] The A-side contained two vocal compositions sung in Bengali – the title track (which translated to mean "Victory to Bangladesh") [63] and "Oh Bhaugowan" – while on the reverse was a six-minute recital of "Raga Mishra Jhinjoti", featuring Shankar, sarodya Ali Akbar Khan, and Shankar's regular tabla player, Alla Rakha. [49] [64]
At Harrison's urging, Capitol Records, Apple's distributor in the United States, set all four of its manufacturing plants to producing copies of the "Bangla Desh" single; one-sided, white label promo discs were also rushed through to ensure immediate radio play for the song. [46] For the US picture sleeve, designer Tom Wilkes chose a suitably topical image, incorporating headlines and text from New York Times articles about the Bangladesh crisis. [46] The articles made mention of vultures being the "happiest creatures" amid the chaos in Dacca, and India's "wait and see" policy regarding events in East Pakistan. [65] [nb 3] The front of the picture sleeve was topped with the line "(We've Got to Relieve)" before the words "Bangla Desh", leading a number of publications to include the parenthetical text as part of the official song title. [22] Boxed off at the foot of the front sleeve were details of the George Harrison–Ravi Shankar Special Emergency Relief Fund (care of UNICEF's New York headquarters), to which proceeds of the single would go and further donations were encouraged. [22] [67] The back cover of the US sleeve was taken from a UPI news agency photograph – an "emotional" image showing a mother comforting her starving child. [46] This photo was also used in the aid project's magazine advertising campaign. [68]
Backed by "Deep Blue", [69] the "Bangla Desh" single was issued on 28 July 1971 in the United States (as Apple 1836), with a UK release following two days later (R 5912). [61] It peaked at number 10 on Britain's national singles chart [70] and number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in America; [71] [72] the other US chart compilers, Cash Box and Record World , placed the single at number 20 and number 13, respectively. [65] "Bangla Desh" attracted sustained airplay in the days leading up to the concerts, [52] [65] and lent the relief project an authentic social and political significance. [62] A Bangladeshi academic, Professor Farida Majid, would later write: "To the utter consternation of [US President] Nixon and [Secretary of State] Kissinger, George Harrison's 'Bangla Desh' hit the chart. It was a thrilling moment in the midst of all the sad news emanating from the battlefront. Even the Western journalists covering the civil war in East Pakistan were not yet using the word 'Bangladesh'." [37] The studio recording was also played at the Concert for Bangladesh shows, following Shankar's opening set, over footage of the refugees and scenes from the war. [73] [74]
Despite the song having been a hit – and its status as the first-ever pop charity single, [75] fourteen years before Band Aid and USA for Africa [76] – "Bangla Desh" was mostly ignored by record-company repackagers following 1971. [46] Over a period of 43 years, the studio version received an album release only on the 1976 compilation The Best of George Harrison , [46] which was issued on CD in 1987. [77] [nb 4] The song has since been included as a bonus track, remixed by Paul Hicks, [80] on the 2014 reissue of Harrison's Living in the Material World album, part of the eight-disc Apple Years 1968–75 box set. [81]
On release, Billboard magazine described "Bangla Desh" as "a musical appeal to help our fellow-man" that "should find immediate and heavy chart action". [82] In his contemporary review for the NME, Derek Johnson considered the song to be "[n]ot so strong melodically as 'My Sweet Lord', but still nagging and insistent", and added: "one can immediately detect the despair and pity in [Harrison's] voice as he sings of the appalling plight of the East Pakistanis ... his lyric is bound to cause some heart-searching." [51] Record World called it a "beautiful record." [83] A wave of public goodwill accompanied the single's release in 1971, [65] as was the case with the two benefit concerts, [84] the subsequent live album, and the 1972 concert film. [52] [85] Simon Leng has identified genuine friendship as being key to the success of Harrison and Shankar's relief project: the friendship between the two of them that saw the ex-Beatle become involved, and the friendships Harrison had cultivated with Dylan, Clapton and Starr that ensured their participation. [86] Leng notes that the opening lyrics to "Bangla Desh" ("My friend came to me ...") could equally have applied to Harrison's efforts to enlist the reluctant Dylan and heroin-sidelined Clapton. [86]
In his concert review for The Village Voice , Don Heckman described "Bangla Desh" as "a song which expresses far better than words what kind of man Harrison is". Heckman went on to compare Harrison's philanthropy with the activities of two of his former bandmates, saying: "I have no quarrel with John Lennon's endless clattering around inside his psyche, or Paul McCartney's search for sweetness and light, but at the moment I have to have stronger feelings about George Harrison's active efforts to do something about the misery in the world around him. How surprising that the most introspective of the Beatles should be the one who, in the long run, takes the most effective actions." [87]
Even now I still meet waiters in Bengali restaurants who say, "When we were in the jungle fighting, it was great to know somebody out there was thinking of us." [88]
– George Harrison, 1991
Away from its context as a song designed purely to bring attention to the Bengalis' cause, as Harrison himself described it, [65] "Bangla Desh" has often been viewed by commentators as a rushed and underwhelming composition. [47] [89] Robert Rodriguez qualifies this opinion, however: "As a single, the song was possibly not the most commercial of records, but as a call to service, it could scarcely have been improved upon." [90] "Bangla Desh"'s standing as rock music's first charity single is not overlooked, [49] [91] with Ian Inglis stating: "'Bangla Desh' serves as a model for the charity singles that would become commonplace in the decades ahead, although, in this instance, the power of Harrison's song lies not in its assembly of famous performers but in its literal and absolute commitment." [43] On this point, Leng deems the song as having "as much raw energy as anything [Lennon's] Plastic Ono Band ever offered". [40] In The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, Peter Lavezzoli writes: "Harrison's lyric and vocal were concise and powerful, a direct call for action in a specific crisis. As such, 'Bangla Desh' remains one of the most cogent social statements in music history." [1]
In his interview for the 2005 reissue of Saul Swimmer's Concert for Bangladesh film, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged Harrison and Shankar as "pioneers" in their efforts for the people of Bangladesh, and credited the song's opening verse for personalising the crisis by showing "the man behind the music". [92] Thirty-three years before this, on 5 June 1972, UNICEF officially recognised Harrison and Shankar with its annual Child Is the Father of the Man award. [93] [94]
In 2004, "Bangla Desh" was played during the final episode of the BBC television series Himalaya with Michael Palin , in which Palin travels south from Bhutan to Bay of Bengal and reflects on Bangladesh's struggle for independence. [95] Writing for Blender magazine in April that year, Paul Du Noyer described the song as a "fine 1971 single". [96] In the 2005 "Beatles Solo" edition of NME Originals , Adrian Thrills rated "Bangla Desh" second among Harrison's "ten solo gems" (behind "What Is Life"), referring to it as a "jazz-blues-rock shuffle" that "set the template for Band Aid". [97] Writing in The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles in 2009, Michael Frontani said that with his Bangladesh relief effort, Harrison "pioneered the whole idea of the charity album and single, as well as of the rock concert fundraiser". [91] While bemoaning the song's omission from the 2009 Harrison compilation Let It Roll , Jon Cummings of Popdose described "Bangla Desh" as "no great artistic achievement" within itself, but "a key moment ... in the evolution of pop-music activism". [98]
The song is featured in Bruce Pollock's 2005 book The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944–2000. [99] In 2010, AOL Radio listeners placed "Bangla Desh" at number 10 in a poll to decide the ten best post-Beatles Harrison songs. [100]
Harrison played "Bangla Desh" as an encore at both of the Madison Square Garden shows on 1 August 1971, with the evening performance being selected for inclusion on the Concert for Bangladesh triple live album. [101] [102] After the familiar introduction to the song, the band "threw their full weight behind Harrison", Lavezzoli writes, "playing the darkest and heaviest music of the show". [103] On release that December, Jon Landau of Rolling Stone identified the song as "the concert's single greatest performance by all concerned", and added that by the close of the show, the lyrics to Harrison's single were "no longer an expression of intent but of an accomplished mission – help has been given, people have been reached, an effort has been made and results will be felt". [2]
In his album review for Melody Maker , Richard Williams wrote that the live version of "Bangla Desh" "roars and rages to a stunning close". [104] Played at a faster tempo than the studio recording, it features what Spizer terms a "blistering" saxophone solo from Horn, [102] and a vocal by Harrison that Leng describes as "astonishingly powerful" and "a pure act of zeal". [86] As shown in the concert film, following his brief guitar solo towards the end of the song, Harrison repeats the line "Relieve the people of Bangla Desh" before exiting the stage to loud applause, [105] as the band play on without him. [103] [106] [nb 5] In his book on the Beatles' first decade as solo artists, Rodriguez views this live performance as perhaps Harrison's "high water mark of public esteem". [90] Pitchfork 's Quinn Moreland writes that the song title was the phrase that Harrison "hopes his audience takes away from the [concert]", and he adds:
Concise, direct, and with a killer saxophone solo, "Bangla Desh" makes a convincing argument: Yes, the '60s were done. The Manson murders terrified a nation, Altamont crashed and burned, Joplin and Hendrix were dead, and the Vietnam War raged on. Fear and doubt had poisoned the well of idealism. But right here, right now, Harrison suggests, you can honor some of the decade's lost promises by lending a hand to help a fellow man. [108]
Although he was reportedly eager to repeat the experience of these New York shows, [109] [110] Harrison never played "Bangla Desh" in concert after 1971 and he did not perform live again until his 1974 North American tour with Shankar. [111] [112] By that point, the Bangladesh Liberation War had long ended, with the defeat of the Pakistani army in December 1971 by the allied forces of Bangladesh and India, [66] but Bangladesh was now experiencing a devastating famine that would account for up to 1.5 million lives. [113] [114] During a concert in Los Angeles on 11 November, Harrison responded to requests for the song "Bangla Desh" with a suggestion that the audience instead chant "Krishna, Krishna, Krishna" [109] and use the positive power of mantra to help the Bangladeshi population. [115]
Harrison biographer Alan Clayson has written of the "triumph" of the Bangladesh concerts leading to a host of imitators and tribute acts replicating the shows' programme, among which was a French band's cover version of "Bangla Desh". [116] Another example was the Tribe's Bangla Desh (1972), a full album of highlights from the concerts, including Harrison's "Something", "My Sweet Lord" and "Here Comes the Sun". [117] The previous year, Stu Phillips & the Hollyridge Strings released an easy listening version of "Bangla Desh" on their Beatles tribute album The George, John, Paul & Ringo Songbook (1971). [118] [119] Another 1971 cover version, re-released in 2002 on the compilation When They Was Fab – A Tribute to the Solo Beatles , was recorded by the Top of the Poppers. [120]
Following Jim Horn's prominent contribution to the original Harrison recording, Italian saxophonist Fausto Papetti recorded the song for his 1972 album 14a Raccolta. [121] Alternative band B.A.L.L. covered "Bangla Desh" on their 1988 album Bird , as part of their parody of early 1970s rock stars such as the former Beatles. [122]
The following musicians are believed to have played on the studio recording of "Bangla Desh". [45]
Chart (1971) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Go-Set National Top 40 [123] | 15 |
Belgian Ultratop Singles Chart [124] | 21 |
Canadian RPM 100 Singles [125] | 13 |
Dutch MegaChart Singles [126] | 7 |
Irish Singles Chart [127] | 18 |
Japanese Oricon Singles Chart [128] | 47 |
Norwegian VG-lista Singles [129] | 3 |
Polish Music Clubs' Co-Ordination Council Chart [130] | 2 |
Swedish Kvällstoppen Chart [131] | 8 |
Swiss Singles Chart [132] | 2 |
UK Melody Maker Pop 30 Singles [133] | 13 |
UK Singles Chart [70] | 10 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [134] | 23 |
US Cash Box Top 100 [65] | 20 |
US Record World Singles Chart [135] | 13 |
West German Media Control Singles Chart [136] | 23 |
The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and 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.
Living in the Material World is the fourth studio album by the English musician George Harrison, released in 1973 on Apple Records. As the follow-up to 1970's critically acclaimed All Things Must Pass and his pioneering charity project, the Concert for Bangladesh, it was among the most highly anticipated releases of that year. The album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America two days after release, on its way to becoming Harrison's second number 1 album in the United States, and produced the international hit "Give Me Love ". It also topped albums charts in Canada and Australia, and reached number 2 in Britain.
The discography of English singer-songwriter and former Beatle George Harrison consists of 12 studio albums, two live albums, four compilation albums, 35 singles, two video albums and four box sets. Harrison's first solo releases – the Wonderwall Music film soundtrack (1968) and Electronic Sound (1969) – were almost entirely instrumental works, issued during the last two years of the Beatles' career. Following the band's break-up in April 1970, Harrison continued to produce recordings by his fellow Apple Records acts, notably former bandmate Ringo Starr. He recorded and collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Shankar, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Gary Wright.
The Concert for Bangladesh is a live triple album credited to "George Harrison & Friends" and released on Apple Records in December 1971 in the United States and January 1972 in the United Kingdom. The album followed the two concerts of the same name, held on 1 August 1971 at New York's Madison Square Garden, featuring Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and Eric Clapton. The shows were a pioneering charity event, in aid of the displaced Bengali refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War, and set the model for future multi-artist rock benefits such as Live Aid (1985) and the Concert for New York City (2001). The event brought Harrison and Starr together on a concert stage for the first time since 1966, when the Beatles retired from live performance, and represented Dylan's first major concert appearance in the U.S. in five years.
The Best of George Harrison is a 1976 compilation album by the English musician George Harrison, released following the expiration of his EMI-affiliated Apple Records contract. Uniquely among all of the four Beatles' solo releases, apart from posthumous compilations, it mixes a selection of the artist's songs recorded with the Beatles on one side, and later hits recorded under his own name on the other.
"Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released as the opening track of his 1973 album Living in the Material World. It was also issued as the album's lead single, in May that year, and became Harrison's second US number 1, after "My Sweet Lord". In doing so, the song pushed Paul McCartney and Wings' "My Love" from the top of the Billboard Hot 100, marking the only occasion that two former Beatles have held the top two chart positions in America. The single also reached the top ten in Britain, Canada, Australia, and Holland.
"You" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released as the opening track of his 1975 album Extra Texture . It was also the album's lead single, becoming a top 20 hit in America and reaching number 9 in Canada. A 45-second instrumental portion of the song, titled "A Bit More of You", appears on Extra Texture also, opening side two of the original LP format. Harrison wrote "You" in 1970 as a song for Ronnie Spector, formerly of the Ronettes, and wife of Harrison's All Things Must Pass co-producer Phil Spector. The composition reflects Harrison's admiration for 1960s American soul/R&B, particularly Motown.
"Sue Me, Sue You Blues" is a song written by English musician George Harrison, released on his 1973 album Living in the Material World. Harrison initially let American guitarist Jesse Ed Davis record it for the latter's Ululu album (1972), in gratitude to Davis for his participation in the Concert for Bangladesh. When writing the song, Harrison drew inspiration from the legal issues surrounding the Beatles during the early months of 1971, particularly the lawsuit that Paul McCartney initiated in an effort to dissolve the band's business partnership, Apple Corps.
"That Is All" is a song by English musician George Harrison released as the final track of his 1973 album Living in the Material World. A slow, heavily orchestrated ballad, it is one of many Harrison love songs that appear to be directed at either a woman or a deity. Harrison wrote and recorded the song during the height of his public devotion to Hinduism; on release, Rolling Stone described its lyrics as "a sort of Hindu In Paradisium".
"The Day the World Gets 'Round" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released on his 1973 album Living in the Material World. Harrison was inspired to write the song following the successful Concert for Bangladesh shows, which were held in New York on 1 August 1971 as a benefit for refugees from the country formerly known as East Pakistan. The lyrics reflect his disappointment that such a humanitarian aid project was necessary, given the abundance of resources available across the planet, and his belief that if all individuals were more spiritually aware, there would be no suffering in the world. Adding to Harrison's frustration while writing the song, the aid project became embroiled in financial problems, as commercial concerns delayed the release of the Concert for Bangladesh album, and government tax departments failed to embrace the goodwill inherent in the venture.
"Deep Blue" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison that was released as the B-side to his 1971 charity single "Bangla Desh". Harrison wrote the song in 1970, midway through the recording sessions for All Things Must Pass, and recorded it in Los Angeles the following year while organising the Concert for Bangladesh. The composition was inspired by the deteriorating condition of his mother, Louise, before she succumbed to cancer in July 1970, and by Harrison's feelings of helplessness as he visited her in hospital in the north of England. Given the subject matter, "Deep Blue" also served to convey the suffering endured by the millions of refugees from war-torn Bangladesh in 1971, as sickness and disease became widespread among their makeshift camps in northern India.
"Miss O'Dell" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released as the B-side of his 1973 hit single "Give Me Love ". Like Leon Russell's "Pisces Apple Lady", it was inspired by Chris O'Dell, a former Apple employee, and variously assistant and facilitator to musical acts such as the Beatles, Derek & the Dominos, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Santana. Harrison wrote the song in Los Angeles in April 1971 while waiting for O'Dell to pay him a visit at his rented home. As well as reflecting her failure to keep the appointment, the lyrics provide a light-hearted insight into the Los Angeles music scene and comment on the growing crisis in East Pakistan that led Harrison to stage the Concert for Bangladesh in August that year.
"Hari's on Tour (Express)" is an instrumental by English musician George Harrison, released as the opening track of his 1974 album Dark Horse. It was also the B-side of the album's second single – which was "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" in North America and most other territories, and "Dark Horse" in Britain and some European countries. Among Harrison's post-Beatles solo releases, the track is the first of only two genuine instrumentals he released from 1970 onwards – the other being the Grammy Award-winning "Marwa Blues", from his 2002 album Brainwashed.
Shankar Family & Friends is an album by Indian musician Ravi Shankar, recorded primarily in Los Angeles during the spring of 1973, but not released until late 1974. It was produced by Shankar's friend George Harrison and one of the first releases on the ex-Beatle's Dark Horse label. Out of print for many years, and much sought after as a result, the album was remastered in 2010 and reissued as part of the Ravi Shankar–George Harrison box set Collaborations.
In Concert 1972 is a double live album by sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and sarodiya Ali Akbar Khan, released in 1973 on Apple Records. It was recorded at the Philharmonic Hall, New York City, in October 1972, and is a noted example of the two Hindustani classical musicians' celebrated jugalbandi (duet) style of playing. With accompaniment from tabla player Alla Rakha, the performance reflects the two artists' sorrow at the recent death of their revered guru, and Khan's father, Allauddin Khan. The latter was responsible for many innovations in Indian music during the twentieth century, including the call-and-response dialogue that musicians such as Shankar, Khan and Rakha popularised among Western audiences in the 1960s.
The Concert for Bangladesh is a film directed by Saul Swimmer and released in 1972. The film documents the two benefit concerts that were organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar to raise funds for refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War, and were held on Sunday, 1 August 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. As well as notable performances from Harrison and Shankar, the film includes "main performer" contributions from Harrison's fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Leon Russell, and a surprise walk-on from Bob Dylan. Other contributing musicians include Ali Akbar Khan, Eric Clapton, the band Badfinger, Klaus Voormann, Jesse Ed Davis, Jim Horn and Jim Keltner.
The Material World Charitable Foundation, also known as the Material World Foundation (MWF), is a charitable organisation founded by English musician George Harrison in April 1973. Its launch coincided with the release of Harrison's album Living in the Material World and came about in reaction to the taxation issues that had hindered his 1971–72 aid project for refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Harrison assigned his publishing royalties from nine of the eleven songs on Living in the Material World, including the hit single "Give Me Love ", to the foundation, in perpetuity.
"I Am Missing You" is a song by Indian musician Ravi Shankar, sung by his sister-in-law Lakshmi Shankar and released as the lead single from his 1974 album Shankar Family & Friends. The song is a rare Shankar composition in the Western pop genre, with English lyrics, and was written as a love song to the Hindu god Krishna. The recording was produced and arranged by George Harrison, in a style similar to Phil Spector's signature sound, and it was the first single issued on Harrison's Dark Horse record label. Other contributing musicians include Tom Scott, Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner. A second version appears on Shankar Family & Friends, titled "I Am Missing You (Reprise)", featuring an arrangement closer to a folk ballad.
Joi Bangla is an EP by Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, issued in August 1971 on Apple Records. The recording was produced by George Harrison and its release marked the first in a series of occasional collaborations between the two musicians that lasted until the Chants of India album in 1997. Shankar recorded the EP in Los Angeles, to help raise international awareness of the plight faced by refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War, in advance of his and Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh shows at Madison Square Garden, New York. Side one of the disc consists of two vocal compositions sung in Bengali, of which the title track was a message of unity to the newly independent nation, formerly known as East Pakistan. The third selection is a duet by Shankar and sarodya Ali Akbar Khan, supported by Alla Rakha on tabla, a performance that presaged their opening set at the Concert for Bangladesh.
George Harrison and Ravi Shankar's 1974 North American tour was a 45-show concert tour of the United States and Canada, undertaken by English musician George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in November and December 1974. It is often referred to as the Dark Horse Tour, since the concerts served as a launch for Harrison's record label Dark Horse Records, to which Shankar was one of the inaugural signings, and Harrison's concurrent single was the song "Dark Horse". The release of his delayed album, also titled Dark Horse, followed towards the end of the tour. The shows featured guest spots by Harrison's band members Billy Preston and Tom Scott.