Benefit Concerts

The mixing of popular music and political causes since approximately 1970 has inspired a number of labels conveying a primarily positive sensibility. Organized events such as Band Aid, Live Aid, Concerts for Bangladesh, Farm Aid, Hearing Aid, We Are the World (USA for Africa), Hands Across America, Rock Against Racism, Freedomfest, Sun City, Tibetan Freedom Concert, the Concert for Monserrat, the Paris Concert for Amnesty International, America: A Tribute to Heroes, and Live 8 have variously been identified as charity rock, philanthropic pop, political pop, conscience rock, and benefit concerts. Large-scale benefits draw from differing cultural and political moments: the early 1970s, the early and later 1980s, and the early 21st century. The roots of the modern benefit, however, began much earlier.

Music and social protest have a long historical connection. Music has been important in the formation and remembrance of a wide range of social movements from civil rights (e.g., the March on Washington) to anti-war protests. Songs of protest and the revival of folk music in the 1960s can be credited to such earlier acts as the Wobblies in Washington, Woodie Guthrie during his travels through the American Southwest, Pete Seeger, and the Kingston Trio (widely considered the starters of the folk revival of the 1960s). The commercial folk of the Limeliters and the New Christy Minstrels helped generate renewed interest in traditional folk music, and by the early 1960s, folk music was back in the limelight. With its songs of protest, cries for equality, and, at times, acts of violence, the civil rights movement influenced the folk revival and brought forward new protest folk stars, including Bob Dylan.

Fans wave flags, the U.S. Stars and Stripes, and Britain's Union Jack, at Wembley Stadium, London, July 13, 1985, at the end of the Live Aid famine relief concert for Africa.

Source: AP Photo/Joe Schaber.

As political culture over the past half century continues to shift, culture and politics are becoming [Page 228]increasingly interconnected. Artists have lent their celebrity to many different causes, ranging from charity concerts for Amnesty International, environmental issues, race relations, aid-relief for famines and wartorn countries, and support for various political parties. The Concert for Bangladesh is widely considered the first modern benefit concert. George Harrison organized it in 1971 after his friend, Ravi Shankar, told him about the plight of the refugees in Bangladesh. Proceeds provided assistance to refugees threatened by starvation, lack of sanitation, and illness. The No Nukes concert series of 1979 supported the anti-nuclear power movement and also deserves mention as an early example of the modern benefit. However, Bob Geldof is credited with making charity rock a widely known phenomenon. In 1986, after watching a documentary about the Ethiopian famine, Geldof and Midge Ure wrote the song “Do They Know It's Christmas?” and organized fellow artists for Band Aid; proceeds were donated to famine relief.

If the 1960s and 1970s were marked by change and social and political upheaval, the 1980s brought forward a resurgence and increase in the number of benefit concerts, leading some to acknowledge a revival of conscience in popular music and of the dormant notion that rock and roll could indeed change the world. In the summer of 1985, Live Aid became the most-watched program in television history with between 1.5 and 2 billion viewers. The 1980s also witnessed We Are the World, Farm Aid, Freedomfest, and Sun City; most of these events turned attention to Africa.

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