Salem Press

The Eighties in America offers comprehensive coverage of the impact of the 1980's on the United States and Canada. With free, unlimited online access to all the "Decades" titles in your collection.

Live Aid
Live Aid was a fundraising event staged by many of the defining musical icons of the 1980's. It raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Ethiopian famine relief, and it demonstrated the extent to which musical artists were willing to exercise their financial power for humanitarian causes.

On October 23, 1984, rock star Bob Geldof watched British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) correspondent Michael Buerk's special report about a famine gripping Ethiopia. Geldof was so saddened by the plight of these starving millions that he decided to do something about it. With his friend Midge Ure from the band Ultravox, he wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and quickly assembled an ad hoc supergroup, Band Aid, to record the song and donate its proceeds to Ethiopian relief. Band Aid consisted of forty-four musicians, including Phil Collins, Bono, Sting, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Jody Watley, Boy George, and various members of Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Kool and the Gang, Bananarama, Duran Duran, Status Quo, Big Country, and the Boomtown Rats. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was released on December 3, 1984, and instantly hit number one on the British pop charts.

Madonna at Live Aid.

About the same time, inspired by Geldof, a similar project came to fruition in America. Harry Belafonte, Ken Kragen, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones assembled USA for Africa to record Jackson and Richie's "We Are the World." Among the American supergroup's forty-five musicians were Geldof, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Bette Midler, Waylon Jennings, Smokey Robinson, and George Michael. Released on March 7, 1985, "We Are the World" was number one for four weeks in April and May.