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He was hoping Harrison or actor Peter Sellers might introduce the show. Shankar wanted to draw attention to the situation through a benefit concert. The crisis deepened when the 1970 Bhola cyclone, floods and famine created a humanitarian disaster. The move was violent, and it was reported 400,000 women were raped by Pakistani military personnel and Islamist militias, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
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This prompted a massive wave of migration, with between 300,000 and 3 million relocating to the mostly-Hindu nation. East Pakistan declared independence, and became the People’s Republic of Bangladesh on April 17, 1971. India and Pakistan were divided into two independent nations in 1947. Shankar, a Bengali, told Harrison about things in his country. In the spring of 1971, Harrison and Shankar were in Los Angeles working on its soundtrack. The Beatles’ Apple Films were producing Raga, a documentary about the renowned sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. “My friend came to me, sadness in his eyes, and told me that he wanted help before his country dies,” Harrison sings on the song “Bangladesh.” It is an almost verbatim version of the truth. Mistakes were made, and Harrison himself paid out to fix them, teaching a valuable lesson for rock benefits to follow. 1, 1971 show, and subsequent record and film, set the standard for musical contributions to charity. In 1971, his Concert for Bangladesh was the first rock benefit concert. His first solo release after The Beatles’ break up, All Things Must Pass – which will have a celebratory remix release this week, was the first triple album coming from a single act in rock.
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George Harrison didn’t stop expanding possibilities away from his bandmates. Because of their ever-experimental guitarist, they were also the first rock band to put sitar and tamboura drones in pop rock and perform the first Indian modality prog piece. They were the first band to play stadium concerts, put intentional feedback, backwards instrumentation, and faded introductions into songs. The Beatles are credited with a lot of “firsts” in rock history.