From Bangladesh to Super Storm Sandy

While listening to Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, and Adam Sandler's irreverent "Hallelujah", at the 12-12-12 Concert for Super Storm Sandy Relief tonight, my mind wanders back to August 1971 and the original relief concert, the Concert for Bangladesh. At the time, that small country endured millions dead from unimaginable famine and political terror. The 1971 concert brought together the best performers of the time including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Phil Spector, and Ringo Starr among many, many others.

The driving force behind the concert was another ex-Beatle, George Harrison, and Indian music legend, Ravi Shankar. It seems like a full turn of wheel of fate that at the same time I am listening to Bon Jovi at the Sandy Concert, I am also mourning the death this week of Mr. Shankar, an ambassador who was able to unite a fractious late 60s and early 70s with quivering sounds from an odd looking, long-necked traditional instrument.

Shankar explained why he reached out to Harrison with the idea for the Bangladesh concert. Admittedly, the proceeds from the concert and subsequent film would be only "a drop in the ocean (of relief need)," he said. In fact, the back of the Bangladesh album booklet (yes, we still have the vinyl three-record album, my wife's college barter for meal tickets) shows an imprint of the check from the concert to the UN Children's Fund for Bangladesh: $243,418.50.

"Maybe it (the proceeds) will take care of (eight million refugees) for only two or three days," Shankar wrote in the album booklet, "but that is not the point. The main issue -- beyond the sum of money we can raise -- is that we feel that all the young people who came to the concerts... were made aware of something very few of them felt or knew clearly."

The point of the concert for Bangladesh, and for Super Storm Sandy 41-years later, is not just the money. According to Shankar, the point of the music and performances, "is trying to ignite -- to pass on the responsibility as much as possible to everyone else." It is a celebration of responsibility and of hope joined together only as music can.

I'd write more, but Clapton, the 2012 version, has just joined the Sandy Concert, and the Stones are next. Rock on!