Rocking and Rolling for the Environment
· The benefit concert first went global with 1985's Live Aid benefit for poverty-stricken Africa. Staged in London and Philadelphia, the broadcast of performances by artists like the Who, Elton John, and Run-D.M.C. reached 1.5 billion viewers in 100 countries, raising $250 million for famine relief. The concert was a huge victory for organizer Bob Geldof, who had previously assembled a cohort of rock musicians under the name Band Aid whose single, "Do They Know It's Christmas," also generated profits for Africa.
· The pop single sensation of the same year, "We Are the World," is perhaps the biggest charity phenomenon of the era. The song, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, generated $60 million and sold 7 million copies. Ken Kragen, director of the umbrella charity group USA for Africa, hailed the response as "the greatest outpouring of public support for charity of this nature in history." It was the fastest-climbing single of its time, jumping all the way to No. 1 on the pop charts amid reports that fans were buying three, four, and five copies of the recording. Kragen reported that among the donations his group received was the savings of a 4-year-old from Colorado that amounted to $76, a family's final food stamp, and the only dollar of a death-row inmate in Alabama.
· An off-the-cuff remark by Dylan at Live Aid, where he mused aloud that musicians should do something to benefit U.S. farmers, spawned the enormously successful Farm Aid concert series. Twenty-two years old and counting, Farm Aid has generated $30 million for farmers with the help of such legends as John Mellencamp, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and Dylan. "Nobody would have thought about the family farm for a second," Gass says. "Then suddenly they're having these huge concerts to benefit them. That's something rock-and-roll did all by itself."
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