We pause on a Wednesday afternoon on The AIR to salute a landmark act of charity on a fresh new episode of Beatles Blast.  You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM (EDT) Beatles Blast presents highlights from The Concert For Bangla Desh, the first all-star rock concert, organized by George Harrison, which happened in August, 1971.

The Grammy-winning album has just been remastered and made available on streaming services, and a deluxe package that would include a Blu ray of the accompanying concert film is said to be in the planning stages.

This show boasted a band that consisted of Harrison, plus Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Badfinger, plus several others. Ravi Shankar also performed, and the highlight of the night was the first live appearance of Bob Dylan after his catastrophic motorcycle accident a few years earlier.

Check out the playlist…

Beatles Blast 114

George Harrison  “Bangla Desh
“Wah Wah”
“My Sweet Lord”
“Awaiting On You All”
Billy Preston “That’s The Way God Planned It”
Ringo Starr “It Don’t Come Easy”
George Harrison “Beware of Darkness”
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
“Here Comes The Sun”
Bob Dylan “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”
“Blowing In The Wind”
“Love Minus Zero/No Limit”
George Harrison “Something”
The Ensemble “Bangla Desh”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, Mel Larch serves up  a couple of encore episodes, include a 2016 episode devoted to political songs, which seems appropriate for some reason.

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. A marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday morning starting at 9 AM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Also on The AIR, Wednesday at 11 PM, a NEW episode of The Comedy Vault brings the brilliant stand up comedy of Lenny Bruce, with a couple of bonus tracks, one featuring George Carlin doing a parody of Lenny Bruce in 1964, and another of him talking about the influence of Bruce on his own act.