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In and around those times, he performed with musicians including Eurythmics, Ramones, Bob Dylan, Bob Geldof, Iggy Pop, Joan Jett, the Fleshtones, the Romantics, Dramarama and the Go-Go’s, to name a few.

That's an adage not lost on Bob Geldof and the Band Aid team, who are going again with their own 40th anniversary Ultimate Mix, which has made headlines this time after Ed Sheeran said he would have preferred for his vocals not to have been used again because of the song's portrayal of Africa.

In 1984, Bob Geldof, then the lead singer for the Boomtown Rats, brought together a supergroup of British and Irish rock stars to perform “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” a song he co-wrote after seeing BBC reports of widespread famine in Ethiopia.

The original Band Aid release set a record for Christmas sales in the U.K., and eight months later, Geldof organized Live Aid, a televised concert that attracted more than a billion viewers in more than 100 countries, or roughly a third of humanity.

Reports — denied by Geldof and, in one instance, retracted by the BBC — have suggested that some of the funds could have landed in rebel hands.