We Are (Still) the World

 

Lending their voices to USA for Africa: Dan Akkroyd, Bette Midler, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Billy Joel, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Lindsey Buckingham, Kim Carnes, Ray Charles, Sheila E., Daryl Hall, James Ingram, La Toya Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Al Jarreau, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Kenny Loggins, John Oates, Steve Perry,Anita Pointer, June Pointer, Ruth Pointer, Kenny Rogers, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner. Photo via IMDB.

OK, here's a challenge. 

Try watching “The Greatest Night in Pop” without getting chicken skin and putting the hairs on your neck into a frenzy.

For about an hour.

That's the effect of watching Bao Nguyen's music documentary about the creation of the aid anthem “We Are the World” one night in 1985. It's now streaming on Netflix.

My guess is that people of a certain age won't be able to get to the end without tears in their eyes, either. 

It's a flashback to a place far, far away now. In the '80s, famine in Africa was killing children by the thousand. Musician Bob Geldof had organized the Live Aid concert that took place simultaneously in England and America a year earlier. Destined to be knighted for the achievement, Sir Bob launched an era of mega rock benefits to raise aid for victims on the other side of the globe.

Calypso king, actor and human rights activist Harry Belafonte realized that those efforts were essentially being made by white artists for black victims. He's the one who called for black artists to start helping too.

All of this unfolds early in the film as the task of creating a single song, a single record, falls to two of the era's biggest superstars, Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson. Legendary Quincy Jones comes on board to produce. Storied LA entertainment manager and humanitarian Ken Kragen gets the job of assembling the talent. Although he's up against crazy touring schedules and monumental egos, before he's done, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Cindi Lauper, Kenny Loggins, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Kenny Rogers, Huey Lewis, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick and Billy Joel are on board. Oh, and let us not forget Bob Dylan. Or Bette Midler singing in the chorus.

And that's the short list.

Lionel Richie was hosting The American Music Awards on Jan. 28. Since so many artists would be in Los Angeles for the show, that night was set for the recording following the ceremony at the nearby A&M Studio.

The first 30 minutes of the film feel like most other rock documentaries – well-produced but conventional, talking head narrators recalling the lead-up to the making the record, illustrated with archival video footage and stills. Just as he was a linchpin in the project – and destined to win six awards himself that night – Richie emerges as the film's soulful, through-line narrator. 

Aside from the challenge of putting all the jigsaw pieces together, little throwaway details of the recounting take on new meaning a half-century later. It was the time before cell phones. (Anyone remember what that felt like…?) It was the 12^thannual American Music Awards for an industry barely out of its infancy. When the producers released Jackson's demo recording of the song for the other singers to learn, it was on cassette tapes, sent through the mail.

And when the artists start showing up at the studio that night, they all …look…so…young…

Producer Quincy Jones had taped a sign, Ted Lasso-like, on the studio wall. It said, “Check Your Ego at the Door.” Considering the superstar magnitude of the talent in the room, the sentiments could only go so far, but still, it's amazing how much of the artists' humanness shines through. Arranged in a semicircle on risers, there's more than a little resemblance to a high school chorus. Each was a musical giant, but they behave more like starstruck fans of each other's fame and talent.

It's when the recording session begins that the film separates itself from other rock docs, and the talent of director Bao Nguyen – himself a young Vietnamese immigrant that night who would credit the song for helping him learn English – emerges.

Using a digital clock face to mark the passing minutes, he brings the deadline urgency, the tension, the moments of frustration and exhilaration into real time, making the audience feel and share in the joy of creation.

There was drama. Prince, probably Michael Jackson's greatest rival at the time, was in LA that night, and negotiations were ongoing to get him to join the project. There was levity. Anyone who missed a cue was threatened with having Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles drive them home. When Harry Belafonte, in the back row of the chorus was recognized for spearheading the project, the others spontaneously break into a spirited rendition of the Banana Boat Song. Day-o, day-o, daylight come and me wan' go home …

Future Noble Prize recipient Bob Dylan was probably the heaviest dude in the room, but he was also the most uncomfortable. It fell to master mimic Stevie Wonder to demonstrate how to sing his part and sound like Bob Dylan.

The film overflows with such moments, both in the footage taken that night, and in the recollections of the artists remembering them now. Bruce Springsteen wears the years since that night in the lines on his face. Huey Lewis is disarmingly candid talking about his terror when he was singled out to do harmony with Cindi Lauper and Kim Cairnes.

Despite the excesses of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, it was an age of innocence. These iconic figures were still artists, not brands. Marketing was still rough around the edges, hardly the precise science it is today. Nobody was worried about being authentic. They had their hands full just being themselves.

As it turns out, it wasn't a matter of checking their egos at the door, but of losing them to something greater. Diana Ross was the last superstar to leave the studio, futilely wishing the night wouldn't end.

Diana Ross' name is now in the lengthy dedicated-to list that closes the film. All the fame, all the almighty talent crammed into the studio that night, couldn't outrun the demons outside the door for some of them, and life's inevitabilities awaiting us all.