Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first ever major, large-scale charity benefit and album that all came about because one person who felt powerless asked another very famous friend for help. The result was The Concert for Bangladesh. #bangladesh #georgeharrison #charity

When you were once a member of the greatest thing since sliced bread, The Beatles, you would think that you had already done anything and everything there was to have ever been done in the music industry, including a string of firsts and achievements that more than 50 years after their dissolution, no one has even been able to truly top.

The cover of The Concert For Bangladesh, 1971. Design by Tom Wilkes, courtesy of Apple Records.

Then by chance, your friend and music instructor brings to your attention one of the worst humanitarian crisis that would hit the latter part of the 20th century: the people of tiny country you have never heard of who were facing the simultaneous threats of violent and brutal military turmoil, a massive number of refugees, a cholera outbreak and starvation due to cyclones and torrential flooding, all in the span of literally half a year that affected approximately one million people.

Billy Preston (l) and George Harrison at The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971, New York City. Directed by Harrison and Saul Swimmer, courtesy of Apple Films.

You then do something that, believe it or not, is taught to this day in school textbooks in the region to this day: you use your fame and connections, as well as your own money, to stage the first of its kind charity concert that would bring not only much needed funds and supplies, but an awareness of global problems far from your backdoor. That is, you do this if your friend is world renown Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, who is from the region, and of course your name is George Harrison, who within months after the break-up of the Beatles in 1970 suddenly became the most successful solo star of the band with the release of his triple-album All Thing Must Pass.

Ravi Shankar (l) at The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971, New York City. Directed by Harrison and Saul Swimmer, courtesy of Apple Films.

The Concert for Bangladesh was preceded by another first, a worldwide charity single which hit the top 30 in the U.S., named after the country and told this story, set to music. Then two live concerts in August of 1971 in New York City were held, and the gate alone was over a quarter of a million dollars. The resulting album hit stores just before Christmas, and a concert film of the event not only raised the profile beyond the big apple, it would bring in over $12 million dollars (over $78 million today) initially to the George Harrison Concert Fund, which is managed by UNICEF.

(l-r) George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Leon Russell at The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971, New York City. Directed by Harrison and Saul Swimmer, courtesy of Apple Films.

As the legend goes, Harrison spent a literal calendar month phoning associates and friends daily to assist him with this task, and he paid not only for the expenses to bring all of this together, he even spent his own money, somewhere upward of a million pounds sterling (approximately $12 million in today's money) to appease the tax authorities in the U.K. to see the project's successful launch. None of the acts, and even Capitol Records, Harrison's U.S. distributor, made a dime off of the event, the latter without more than a fair amount of public shaming when the label originally balked at the cost of a proposed live release.

Ringo Starr at The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971, New York City. Directed by Harrison and Saul Swimmer, courtesy of Apple Films.

Of course,