The fading memory of George Harrison

by Shumit Rehman

Recently a DVD version of George Harrison’s Concert of Bangladesh was released to much fanfare around the world. It is already zooming up the music dvd charts in the US and the UK. Finally after more than thirty years you can sit back at home and enjoy the songs and performances of George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ravi Shankar and Bob Dylan from their 1971 heydays in what is billed as the first ever concert for a humanitarian cause.

What started it all The Concert for Bangladesh is rightly enshrined in rock history as the model for Band Aid, Live Aid, Live 8 and every other superstar benefit concert of the last three decades. George Harrison organised it when his friend and teacher, Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar, told him about the massive humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh’s ongoing struggle for independence. Millions of people in the country were facing a famine, as the war of 1971 was followed by heavy monsoon flooding; although the concert’s publications never made any mention of the war, in which the US government supported Pakistan.    Single-handedly, Harrison called on Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and a host of other luminaries to perform two shows at New York's Madison Square Garden on August 1, 1971. Harrison chose New York as the venue instead of his native UK to ensure the biggest audience possible, and to take his message straight to the headquarters of the UN. It was the first of many such ventures that were to use music as a weapon to support a cause. In the better part of two months, the ‘quiet Beatle’ as Harrison was known organised the largest charity event the world had seen. The concerts raised $250,000 — a significant amount at the time — and the subsequent album and film brought the total to about five million dollars.    It began with the immortal Ravi Shankar, movingly evoking a world of suffering swept up into transcendence in a spectacular seventeen-minute duet with sarod virtuoso Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and ended with the group performance of ‘Bangladesh’, which had been written by Harrison. And then there was Bob Dylan, who had performed only rarely since his 1966 motorcycle accident, and proved to be the concert’s apex attraction. Up until the moment of his introduction, Harrison wasn't sure his friend would even show up.    The concert was instrumental in not only providing badly needed aid to Bangladesh, but even more so in attuning largely apathetic western public opinion to Bangladesh’s plight. This was ‘priceless’, as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was later to declare. With the knowledge of Bangladesh’s crisis influencing public opinion, Washington could no longer turn a blind eye.

   In the UK the BBC heralded the DVD release with two back-to-back programmes. The first was a repeat broadcast of the ‘Concert for George’ a tribute concert for George Harrison, who passed away in 2001, featuring many of the participants of the original Bangladesh concert. The second programme was a documentary on how the Concert for Bangladesh was organised. Anyone watching the two programmes would have assumed that if the BBC commemorated the DVD release with such reverence then the Bangladeshi channels
   would do the same if not more. So far they have not found the time in-between the chat shows and the plays. One wonders if the average Bangladeshi even knows the name of George Harrison or of his huge contribution to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence. How is it that someone proclaimed internationally has received so little attention nationally? Answering that question is difficult but resolving it is easier.
   It is important to recall George Harrison’s towering achievements and to place them in context. We all know the context of Bangladesh in 1971 but what about the context of music.
   In 1971 music was in a state of disarray. Throughout the 1960s musicians had become the new celebrity superstars taking over from the fading stars of Hollywood. Pop stars had never before earned so much money nor had their views on subjects as varied as war and women been so sought after by the public. The songs of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were weapons that the youth used to wage war against high-minded administrators. The anti-Vietnam war riots in London, the student strikes in Paris, hippy lifestyles, the freedom march by Martin Luther King were movements fuelled by music and the belief that the world could be changed by the people for the people. The hippy movement peaked with the famous Woodstock festival and showed the world how lakhs of people could come together for music and live together peacefully despite differences in colour and class and terrible weather. The onset of the seventies changed all that. In 1970 Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died, closely followed by Jim Morrison in 71, from drug overdoses laying bare the fallacy that drugs were harmless and integral to a pop star’s lifestyle. Many performers retreated from their fame to a more guarded, private lifestyle. Bob Dylan who often played two concerts a night now played none. Eric Clapton, the best guitarist of the time, was holed up in a haze of heroin. The Rolling Stones infamous Altamont concert left one dead and many injured. And the Beatles broke up amidst acrimony and lawsuits.
   
   For George Harrison, unshackled from the pressures of belonging to the most famous band in the world the seventies allowed him to be his most creative. In 1971 he released the first ever triple rock album, 'All Things Must Pass'. The album reached No 1 all over the world and suddenly Harrison was catapulted from the 'quiet Beatle' into the most successful ex-Beatle. Always a deeply spiritual man in a time when religion was taking a bashing as yet another old fashioned institution, Harrison released a single ‘My Sweet Lord’ to public acclaim making the combination of pop music and religion 'cool' for the first time. With John Lennon hiding in New York, Paul McCartney in retreat on his Scottish island and Ringo dabbling in bad movies it was Harrison who initially carried the torch of the Beatles legend.
   So in 1971 George Harrison had it all: independence, fame, critical and public acclaim, spiritual awareness, musical talent, good looks and money. There couldn’t have been a person on the
   planet more removed from Bangladesh's troubles than him. Indeed the most likely Beatle to get involved should have been John Lennon who
   had the reputation as a peacenik, who had
   held much publicised protests of bed-peace(stayed in bed for a week) and hair-peace(grow your hair for peace).
   But George's efforts were more practical and more focused. Showing scant regard for politics and more for the misery of his fellow man, George was so moved by the tragedy of the refugees from Bangladesh that he wrote and recorded a single 'Bangladesh' to raise money for UNICEF. The opening lines are memorable and should be on our national school curriculum:
   My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes
   He 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.
   
   Although the melody was average - its always been an idle dream that if the tune had been as good as ‘Something’ then the world would still be hearing this song and the word ‘Bangladesh’ would be associated with a great song rather than calls for flood relief - and the words vague to most Westerners the song warned much of the world to the problems facing East Pakistan. Most people had never heard of Bangladesh. Many people, even after ‘learning’ of Bangladesh were unaware that East Pakistan and Bangladesh were one and the same. For George however it wasn’t enough and he undertook a massive effort to organise the Concert for Bangladesh. Throughout June 1971 he spent the month telephoning fellow musicians or their agents all over the world. This was in the days before mobile phones and even England US calls had to be booked with the operator. It took a great deal of humility – a virtue almost alien in our culture today - for one of the biggest stars in the world to track down reclusive pop stars and plead them to perform for a cause that was peripheral to their gilt-edged lives. Indeed, the Vietnam War was far more prominent amongst politically aware musicians yet Harrison never gave up, eventually persuading Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and even the elusive Dylan amongst others to the concert. Deciding on the venue in New York rather than his home in the UK was instrumental in trying to raise as much money as possible and attracting the American stars particularly Dylan, who were averse to travel.
   
   Tickets for the two shows in Madison Square Garden sold out in hours. George was humbled by the realisation that he was a top drawer attraction. The first show was held on August 1st 1971. Outside Madison Square Garden the atmosphere was electric. People knew that they were close to history being made. As film director David Puttnam later said, ‘If you were going to be anywhere that was the place to be.’ For Harrison the concert featured many firsts. It was the first time he had fronted a show, his first live performance for more than five years, his first performance of his new songs. The ‘quiet Beatle’ was now the ‘commanding Beatle’ able to organise, host and conduct the biggest charity event in rock history.
   The concert was an unqualified success. The stars showed that they were first and foremost musicians and could perform sublimely with little or, in Clapton’s case, no rehearsal at all. It is universally agreed that George Harrison popularised Indian classical music in the West and merged it with pop culture in songs like ‘Within you, without you’. Many more were introduced to Indian music when Ravi Shankar got the concert underway. Indeed the first minute spent tuning up his sitar was so warmly applauded Shankar responded that ‘if you enjoyed the tuning so much then you will really appreciate the performance’. Soon Ringo Starr and George played together allowing the lucky audience to see at least half – albeit the lesser half – of a Beatles reunion. Bob Dylan appeared despite many changes of heart before the show. The concert yielded a best-selling triple album and a film raising millions for UNICEF. It was a affirmation that music could be a force rather than just a response.
   As Kofi Annan has stated since, although the money helped alleviate some of the suffering it was the raising awareness of the problem that was priceless. Holding the concert in the city that is home to the UN must have had a positive influence on many of its members. The US government, openly supportive of Pakistan could not ignore such a phenomenon in their own country. As mentioned earlier many were unaware of the independence struggle of Bangladesh and merely assumed that the problems there were due to natural disasters. Indeed just last month’s Guardian review of the Bangladesh Concert DVD stated that the concert was held to relieve flood victims with no mention of the prevailing war. The Guardian has since printed a readers letter pointing out its mistake. After the concert people all over the world were aware of the independence struggle and the ensuing genocide. Of course the real battle was about to start but public opinion in the West, unlike in our own country, matters hugely. India’s intervention, Pakistan‘s capitulation, the US’s detachment may all have been influenced in some small way by the Concert.
   So George Harrison helped greatly in the struggle for independence both in the unquantifiable area of raising awareness and in hard cash, more than 5 million dollars, a huge amount at the time. And what has the country that received such largesse without even asking for it done in return. Well sad to say it has ignored him. Not a plaque, not a statue, not a picture, and now not even a memory. George Harrison passed away in 2001 and now our country will never get an opportunity to reward its benefactor in person. But it is never too late. There have been many recipients of the Independence Medal and the Ekushey Medal, some were worthy, some not so worthy. Few can argue that George Harrison would be more than worthy of either if not both for his selfless acts for a country he never visited. When Eric Clapton was asked why he organised the ‘Concert for George’ after his death, Clapton replied that the concert was both for George who may or may not be looking on, but also for himself to give something back to George. I believe it is time for Bangladesh to give something back to George and his family if only so that we can feel better about ourselves. If he does receive something eventually it would raise our own profile and be something we could be proud of. And if we continue to ignore him, then in the words of one of his finest songs, ‘Isn’t it a pity?’