The Concert for Bangladesh (originally spelt The Concert for Bangla Desh)Harry, p. 135. is a live triple album credited to "George Harrison & Friends"Castleman & Podrazik, p. 108; Madinger & Easter, p. 634.Don Ovens (charts & reviews dir.), "Billboard Top LP's, for Week Ending Jan. 22, 1972" , Billboard, 22 January 1972, p. 70 (retrieved 24 January 2019); "List Grammy Nominees in 47 Categories; Show Mar. 3", Cash Box, 27 January 1973, p. 9. 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, Eric Clapton and all members from Badfinger. 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.
Co-produced by Phil Spector, The Concert for Bangladesh features his Wall of Sound approach in a live setting. Besides the main performers, the musicians and singers include Badfinger, Jim Horn, Klaus Voormann, Alla Rakha, Jim Keltner, Jesse Ed Davis and Claudia Lennear. Minimal post-production was carried out on the recordings, ensuring that the album was a faithful document of the event. The box set's packaging included a 64-page book containing photos from the concerts; the album cover, designed by Tom Wilkes, consisted of an image of a malnourished child sitting beside an empty food bowl. The album was delayed for three months due to protracted negotiations between Harrison and two record companies keen to protect their business interests, Capitol and Columbia/CBS.
On release, The Concert for Bangladesh was a major critical and commercial success. It topped albums charts in several countries and went on to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in March 1973. Together with the 1972 Apple concert film directed by Saul Swimmer, the album gained Indian classical music its largest Western audience up until that time. It was reissued in 2005, four years after Harrison's death, with revised artwork. As of 2011, sales of the album continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF, which raised $1.2 million for children in the Horn of Africa, in a campaign marking the album's 40th anniversary.
Concerts
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,Lavezzoli, p. 187. George Harrison set about organising two fundraising concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York, to aid the war-ravaged and disaster-stricken country.Clayson, p. 308. In the middle of these hurried preparations,Lavezzoli, p. 189. 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.Leng, pp. 112, 114.Madinger & Easter, pp. 434–35. The recent success of his All Things Must Pass triple albumNeal Alpert, "George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh", Gadfly Online, 3 December 2001 (archived from the original on 3 March 2012; retrieved 3 March 2016).Lavezzoli, pp. 187, 189. allowed Harrison to headline the all-star UNICEF benefit concerts, backed by a 24-piece band of musicians and singers, on Sunday, 1 August 1971.Leng, p. 115. 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.Schaffner, pp. 146–47.Interview with Jann Wenner, in The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited. In Dylan's case, it was his first appearance at a major US concert in five years,The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 154. although his participation had been uncertain until he walked on for his segment midway through the afternoon show.
The concerts were highly successful in raising international awareness of the plight of the refugeesTillery, p. 99.Interviews with Kofi Annan and Charles J. Lyons, in The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited. – thought to number up to 10 million – and a cheque for over US$243,000 was soon sent to UNICEF for relief. The media lavished praise on Harrison as an ambassador for rock altruism;Inglis, p. 36.Tillery, pp. 100–01. Rolling Stone magazine hailed the event as proof that "the Utopian spirit of the Sixties was still flickering".Schaffner, p. 148. With concert recording having been carried out at Madison Square Garden by Gary Kellgren,Badman, p. 45. using the Record Plant's 16-track mobile unit,Madinger & Easter, p. 436. Harrison intended to raise significantly more money via a live album of the event, to be issued on the Beatles' Apple Records label, followed by Apple Films' concert documentary, also to be titled The Concert for Bangladesh.Rodriguez, p. 51.
Album preparation Concert recordings Speaking in 2011, Spector identified two problems that prolonged the live album's preparation, both of them reflective of the haste with which the concerts came together: "It was chaos [setting up at Madison Square Garden] – we had three hours to mic the band, then the audience came in, and we didn't know how to mic the audience."Olivia Harrison, p. 286. Rather than a standard band, this was a full Wall of Sound orchestra,The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 122. as Spector re-created his Wall of Sound approach in concert.Inglis, p. 35. The large ensemble consisted of two drummers (Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner), two keyboard players (Billy Preston and Leon Russell), six horn players (led by Jim Horn), three electric guitarists (Harrison, Eric Clapton and Jesse Ed Davis), a trio of acoustic guitars to be "felt but not heard"Schaffner, p. 147. (Badfinger's Pete Ham, Tom Evans and Joey Molland), the seven members of Don Nix's "Soul Choir", together with bassist Klaus Voormann and a dedicated percussion player, Mike Gibbins of Badfinger.Castleman & Podrazik, pp. 195–96.Clayson, pp. 309–11.Leng, p. 117. In his review of the Concert for Bangladesh film, John Pidgeon described the scene as "a roadie's nightmare of instruments, mikes, amps and speakers".John Pidgeon, "George Harrison et al.: The Concert for Bangla Desh", NME, 15 July 1972, p. 24; available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).
Before the Western portion of the concerts, there were the traditionally hard-to-record Indian string instrumentsMacDonald, p. 147. of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan to amplify, together with Alla Rakha's tabla and the drone-enhancing tambura, played by Kamala ChakravartyLavezzoli, p. 191. – each offering natural musical tones so easily lost in the "cavernous Garden".Schaffner, p. 146. An additional challenge for Kellgren had been the need to capture the dynamics of a well-paced show designed around professionally presented hit songs, rather than a loose superstar jam.Clayson, p. 310.The Editors of Rolling Stone, pp. 42, 123.
Post-production
During his and Shankar's press conference in New York on 27 July,Badman, p. 43. Harrison had stated that a live album might be ready for release within ten days of the shows."The Making of the Album" feature, The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited. Although this estimate would turn out to be highly optimistic, 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.Guralnick, pp. 469–70.
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.Spizer, p. 241. Spector later talked of them spending "six months" mixing what amounted to a total of four hours of music; Harrison later claimed to talk-show host Dick Cavett that the process took just over a month.Pieper, p. 41.The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited. 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, similar to his erratic attendance at the All Things Must Pass sessions in 1970.Clayson, p. 289.Harris, p. 72.
With ongoing friendships a priority,Badman, p. 79. Harrison had promised the main participants that, should things turn out badly on 1 August, they could be excluded from any album or film release.George Harrison, pp. 60–61. According to Madinger and Easter, he took early mixes of the concert tapes to Dylan for the latter's approval. Of all the featured performers, only Leon Russell chose to intervene, necessitating a reworking of his "Jumpin' Jack Flash/Youngblood" medley, which he apparently remixed himself.Clayson, p. 314. Post-production on the Madison Square Garden recordings was minimal, the known examples being Harrison's double-tracked lead vocal on the bridges of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and a composite edit of his opening song, "Wah-Wah", which was assembled from both the shows. In addition, it is possible that Shankar and Khan's "Bangla Dhun" was severely edited down: Harrison later described their set as having lasted 45 minutes, yet the running time on the album is under 17 minutes and in the film just 15 minutes.
The final mix down of the recordings, for album and film use, was carried out in Los Angeles in September, by A&M Studios engineers Norman Kinney and Steve Mitchell.Interview with Norman Kinney and Steve Mitchell, in The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited. In their joint interview for the 2005 Concert for Bangladesh Revisited documentary, Kinney and Mitchell confirm that music from both the afternoon (matinee) and evening performances was used for the concert film and live album; they also state that Spector repeatedly instructed them to increase the volume of the audience in the mixes, in a search for more "feel of the room" in the result. The second show was preferred when it came to selecting the best concert audio.Badman, p. 44. The exceptions are as follows: "Wah-Wah", which starts off with the evening version but cuts to the matinee at 2:53; Harrison's band introduction and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", both sourced from the first show; and Russell's medley, which is also from the matinee on the album, but in the concert film, the audio cuts to the evening show during "Youngblood".Spizer, p. 243.
Harrison's geniality as a host was well represented on the recordings.Leng, pp. 120–21. As with Shankar's pre-"Bangla Dhun" address, Harrison's band introductions, with Russell and Voormann breaking into "Yellow Submarine" when Starr's name is mentioned,Spizer, pp. 242, 243. and his other on-stage dialogue would become as integral to the legacy of the event as the music itself.Clayson, p. 312.The Editors of Rolling Stone, pp. 43, 122.
Record company obstruction