Way Before Green Day, Live Aid and We Are The World...

The newest charity album hit record stores last tuesday. Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a kinda John Lennon tribute album. The proceeds will be given to the people of Darfur, which is a great thing to do. Green Day, Christina Aguilera, the Black Eyed Peas and others are covering Lennon tunes. It's an hit and miss affair like all tribute albums. But to my view, the best ''charity'' album will always be the original one: George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh. In 1971, Bangladesh was greatly struck with floodings so the former Beatle decided to call his friends and hold a concert at New York's Madison Square Garden and issue a live record and give the proceeds to help the Bengali people. Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Ravi Shakar and even a surprise apperance by Bob Dylan make that record something special. Unfortunately, some big corporate ego crap between records labels kinda tarnished its intentions a bit, but there's no doubt that George Harrison's humanitary initiative was pioneering in the music world. Bob Geldof must have been listening....