Bono, McCartney join Band Aid 20 lineup

Friday, November 5, 2004 LONDON - Paul McCartney, U2 frontman Bono, Robbie Williams and Dido are among the performers lined up for the new recording of the all-star Band Aid charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas."

The tune, which will be credited to Band Aid 20 in acknowledgement of the anniversary of the 1984 release, will be issued November 29 in the UK on Mercury/Universal.

Others on board include Snow Patrol and Natasha Bedingfield. McCartney will play bass on the track and Bono will reprise one of the most famous lines in the original lyric: "Well tonight, thank God it's them instead of you."

McCartney, Williams and Dido are understood to be recording their parts separately from the November 14 session at London's Air Studios; Williams recorded the whole track in Los Angeles on Monday.

British artist Damien Hirst will design the sleeve artwork for the release, which will raise money for the Band Aid Trust's famine relief in Africa, specifically in the blighted Darfur region of Sudan.

Travis' Fran Healy will play guitar on the recording. "It's dead exciting," he told Billboard.com. "When it was first recorded, I was 11 and I went everywhere looking for it and I couldn't find it, and now we're going to do the follow-up to it. It's going to be great, McCartney's doing it, Bono's going to sing his own line, [and] we're going to help out with some music, with Nigel [Godrich, who'll produce the single]. I really wanted to get Franz Ferdinand involved in it -- I think they're going to do it, although I haven't spoken to [executive producer] Midge Ure for about a week now."

"Midge did a thumbnail sketch of the original with new music on it," Healy continued. "He's got the Darkness doing the guitars at the end, and he's changed the arrangement of it. He shipped that over to L.A. where Nigel was working with McCartney. If it turns out absolutely s---, it does not matter. What I will say is you've got to buy the record because it's the only record that's going to save lives this side of Christmas, and you can't ask for more than that."