George Harrison's Star-Studded 'Concert for Bangladesh' Live Album Available for Streaming at Last

On Aug. 1, 1971, George Harrison leveraged his status as one of the biggest rock ‘n’ roll stars on the planet to help fight a humanitarian crisis that few in the Western hemisphere knew anything about. An estimated 10 million Bengali refugees had fled to India in an effort to avoid the bloody civil war that had erupted in their homeland of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The exodus had led to famine, disease and an untold number of dead. 

Joined by famous friends like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton. Ravi Shankar, Leon Russell and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr, Harrison staged a pair of sold-out dates at New York City’s Madison Square Garden that effectively birthed the modern all-star charity concert as we know it. “The musicians were great,” Harrison later observed. “I mean they completely put down their own egos to play together and to do something because the whole vibe of that concert was that it was something bigger than the lot of us.”

The shows — plus the resulting triple-album and feature film, both released released as The Concert for Bangladesh — raised millions in aid for UNICEF and brought badly-needed attention to the plight of the Bengali refugees, paving the way for productions like Live Aid a decade later. To quote former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “George and his friends were pioneers.”

Now, for the first time, the Grammy-winning Concert for Bangladesh is available to stream across all major platforms worldwide. 

The tracklist features a once-in-a-generation collective of artists in their prime, all diving into some of the most beloved songs in their respective canons. Harrison plays tracks like “My Sweet Lord,” “Wah-Wah,” and “Awaiting on You All” off his world conquering solo set All Things Must Pass before looking back to his Beatles days with performances of “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” — featuring a “guitar duel” with Clapton. Dylan, catering to the crowd for a good cause, offers spellbinding versions of his early ‘60s acoustic classics like “Mr Tambourine Man,” “Blowing in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.” RStarr serves up his recent hit “It Don’t Come Easy” from behind the kit, while Russell delivers an electrifying nine-minute medley of the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin' Jack Flash” and the early R&B standard “Young Blood.”

All net proceeds (after taxes), will be donated to the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. For more information visit www.georgeharrisonfundforunicef.org. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF does not endorse any brand or product.