It's 40 years since Band Aid was recorded - but how many people remember Geordie Aid?
by David Morton · ChronicleLiveForty years ago, a star-spangled collection of big-name pop musicians wandered into a London recording studio to lay down the vocals and music tracks for what would become one of the biggest-selling and most memorable UK hit singles.
Do They Know It’s Christmas? by Band Aid would effortlessly top the chart during the festive period of 1984, and stay there into the following January. Written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, the song was recorded in response to a devastating famine in Ethiopia, distressing images of which were appearing on television news programmes at the time.
Incensed by what he saw, Geldof decided to record a charity record, the proceeds of which would help in the fight against the famine. Leading pop stars of the day were recruited for the quickfire project, including members of Duran Duran, U2, Wham! Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, The Style Council, Heaven 17, Status Quo, Bananarama, Kool & The Gang, and Shalamar, as well as Paul Young, Marilyn, and Sting. Members of Geldof’s band, The Boomtown Rats, and Ure’s band, Ultravox, also took part.
From our part of the world, Wallsend-born Sting and Cullercoats-born Andy Taylor sang on the record, while the track was later remixed for a 12-inch version by the renowned producer Trevor Horn who hailed from County Durham.
On November 24, 1984, the song was recorded overnight at SARM Studios, Notting Hill, while the proceedings were filmed for an accompanying promotional video. Behind the soon-to-be-famous anthemic mass vocals, Phil Collins played drums, John Taylor of Duran Duran was on bass, while Midge Ure himself took keyboard duties. A phenomenon was about to explode.
Accompanied by a massive media fanfare, Do They Know It’s Christmas? was released on December 7, immediately hitting the number one spot and becoming the fastest selling single of all time. It would eventually rack up sales of 3.8 million units, and remains the second biggest-selling UK single of all time, after Elton John’s 1997 double offering,
Something About The Way You Look Tonight/Candle In The Wind. As 1984 drew to a close, it was almost impossible to escape the sounds of Do They Know It’s Christmas? and it was played almost nonstop on the radio and in every retail store you walked into. It also inspired a new genre which saw well-meaning celebrities getting together to record songs for good causes. The following year saw American music stars follow suit with We Are The World, which featured the likes of Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteen.
There were plenty of other offerings. Perhaps not so well-remembered nearly four decades later is a project which surfaced in the summer of 1985 called Geordie Aid, comprising a well-intentioned group of North East musicians, actors, and media personalities who teamed up to record a song, in the spirit of Band Aid, called Try Giving Everything.
Written by Mike Waller from the Newcastle band East Side Torpedoes, and recorded at Impulse Studios in Wallsend, takings from the single would go to help the crisis in Ethiopia. The record hit the shops in early August priced at £1.45, with £1 from each sale going to the Band Aid Trust. The other 45p would offset the overheads.
The single was the brainchild of Lindisfarne drummer, Ray Laidlaw, who said at the time: “The best thing about these projects is that we are going to embarrass governments into realising that things can be done if people want them to.”
The official video for Try Giving Everything by Geordie Aid was recorded at Newcastle City Hall and can be watched today on YouTube. It features a host of well-known North East faces - among them AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, John Miles, various members of Lindisfarne and The Animals, Tim Healy, Alan Robson, Newcastle United stars Peter Beardsley and Kenny Wharton, as well the convivial Look North presenter Mike Neville who joked: “I’ve got a dreadful voice. I just sang along on the chorus.”
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