Bob Geldof

(http://www.bobgeldof.info/)

Bob Geldof was born on October 5,1951 in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin. After he graduated from college, he had worked as road navvy, slaughterman, and pea canner. Then he started as a music journalist in Canada. Now, he is a singer, actor, songwriter and political activist.

He became a lead singer of the Irish band named Boomtown Rats in 1975. Then, in 1979, this group became famous and went international with the song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” In 1982, he became an actor on the film Pink Floyd The Wall. But, by 1984, the career of Boomtown Rats had declined.

(http://www.bobgeldof.info/)

When he saw a news report about the famine in Ethiopia, he decided to do something to make it better. Then he and Midge Ure wrote the song called “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” It became a charity single. Then he invited some British and Irish musicians to become a group called Band Aid.

The single was released just before Christmas 1984, with the purpose of raising money for the contribution of the famine in Ethiopia. Surprisingly, the song raised many millions of pounds and it became the biggest selling single in UK chart. The song was re-recorded and released in 1989 with a group of musicians called Band Aid II. And it was re-recorded again and released under Band Aid 20, before Christmas 2004. They got some critics because they have big differences from the original song in 1984. But the single became the UK's biggest seller of 2004.

Live 8 - The Long Walk To Justice (http://www.bobgeldof.info/Charity/live8.html)

On March 31,2005, Geldof announced the Live 8 project to raise awareness of issues about Africa, such as famine and AIDS issues. There were ten concerts held on 2 July 2005, most of them simultaneously. It took place in the G8 nations and South Africa. More than 1,000 musicians performed at the concerts. The shows and were scheduled just days before the G8 economic summit in Scotland, the world leaders gathered on July 6.

Geldof has received many awards for this work, including an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. Geldof works with DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa). It’s an organization that founded by U2's Bono to advocate for Africa. In February 2006, Geldof was one of the 191 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Bob Geldof is an artist hero because he had a brilliant idea to make charity concerts to raise awareness of issues in Africa. He earnestly did his project so his kindness got support and contributions from a lot of people. That was proved by more than 1,000 musicians performing on the Live 8 concerts, and the audience was more than 50,000. He works so hard and gives a big effort to decrease the problems in Africa.