How the ‘Quiet Beatle’ United the Music World for History-Making Benefit Concert 54 Years Ago Today originally appeared on Parade.
According to a Billboard report, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s recent — and final — show raised more money than any charity concert in history…since the first-ever major benefit concert of its kind: The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison, which took place 54 years ago today on August 1, 1971.
Years before Live Aid or Farm Aid or any other major musical benefits, Harrison joined forces with his friend and collaborator, Indian musician Ravi Shankar, to plan a pair of all-star concerts (both held on the same day at NYC’s Madison Square Garden) in an attempt to generate both awareness and money for victims of war and famine in Bangladesh.
“It must have been in 1971 when I was in Los Angeles doing the Raga soundtrack album,” Harrison said later, per Far Out Magazine. “Ravi was talking to me and telling me how he wanted to do a concert, but bigger than he normally did, so that he could raise maybe 25,000 dollars for the starving in Bangladesh.”
“He asked if I could think of some way of helping, say, for instance, for me to come on and introduce it or maybe bring in Peter Sellers…something to help, anyway,” he continued, adding, “Then he started to give me cuttings from magazines and newspapers, articles on the war and the poverty and I began to learn what it was about, and I though ‘well, maybe I should help him do it.'”
Harrison rounded up an incredibly impressive roster of fellow musicians to play the concerts, including fellow Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Billy Preston.
“The Beatles had been trained to the view that if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it big and why not make a million dollars,” Harrison said.
The Concert for Bangladesh raised over $243,000 for UNICEF, though, as NPR reported, millions of dollars from subsequent record sales were held up by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service because the event’s organizers failed to apply for nonprofit status, an issue that was later resolved.
In addition to the money raised, Shankar credited the concerts with bringing much-needed attention to a dire situation in the 1972 documentary The Concert for Bangladesh, saying, “Overnight, everybody knew the name of Bangladesh all over the world. Because it came out in all the newspapers everywhere. So it had a tremendous value to it.”
Related: Legendary ’70s Rockers Nearly Came to Blows Onstage 45 Years Ago Today
How the ‘Quiet Beatle’ United the Music World for History-Making Benefit Concert 54 Years Ago Today first appeared on Parade on Aug 1, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.
