Instant Karma's going to get you
A breathtaking variety of acts have come together - as Lennon might have put it - to focus attention on the ongoing genocide in Darfur, under the auspices of Amnesty International.
Peter Murphy, 24 Jul 2007
Amnesty International’s alliance with artists like U2, Sting and Peter Gabriel was synonymous with the revival of rock ‘n’ roll’s social conscence in the 1980s. The Secret Policeman’s Ball benefit shows, which united the Monty Python crew with prominent pop stars, provided a precedent in 1979, but the 1986 Conspiracy Of Hope tour was a landmark event which doubled Amnesty’s membership in six weeks and also occasioned the symbolic handing over of the stadium torch from The Police to U2.
It was followed two years later by a mammoth world tour featuring Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Peter Gabriel. Amnesty’s involvement in the arts was less conspicuous in the 90s, apart from a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris, but the Darfur crisis heralded a new urgency and renewed commitment on the part of musicians.
“We didn’t so much lose the plot as lose contact with a lot of artists,” Shipsey explains. “Then, four years ago, Gabriel Byrne saw either his niece or nephew singing ‘Imagine’ in a school in New York and thought it’d be great for Amnesty to use in a human rights education campaign. He went to Yoko Ono, who liked the idea. We went to Northern Ireland, Croatia, Thailand, South Africa and LA and made this beautiful children’s video, singing ‘Imagine’. Yoko liked it so much she said, ‘Would you like the Lennon songbook?’ She’d never done it for anyone before. And for the last three years we’ve been putting this project together.”
Once permission to record the songs was cleared and the talent was secured, the next step was to arrange distribution.
“Warners came on board in February of this year and have been really terrific partners, because Amnesty is not in the business of distribution,” Bill explains. “We do human rights, we’re good at recruiting artists, but we needed a major label. And Warners have worked extra hours, they’re really getting behind the project. And then another thing fell in our favour: up until February we couldn’t enter into any talks or discussions because of the ongoing row between the Beatles and Apple, but since that was settled, iTunes have given us central billing over the last month on all their sites around the world. They wanted to do a particularly good deal for Amnesty, there’s very little being taken by iTunes in this project.”
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