of the situation in what was then known as East Pakistan by friend and musician Ravi Shankar, George Harrison set about organising two fundraising concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York, to aid the war-ravaged and disaster-stricken country. In the middle of these hurried preparations, he composed the song "Bangla Desh" in order to call further attention to the Bengalis' cause, and rush-released it as a charity single four days before the shows. Riding high with the recent success of his All Things Must Pass triple album, Harrison then headlined the all-star UNICEF benefit concerts, backed by a 24-piece band of musicians and singers, on Sunday, 1 August 1971. The shows marked the first time that Harrison and Ringo Starr had performed on stage together since the Beatles quit touring in 1966; since then, they, like Bob Dylan, had been mostly unavailable to concert audiences. In Dylan's case, it was his first appearance at a major US concert in five years, although his participation had been uncertain until he walked on for his segment midway through the afternoon show. The concerts were highly successful in raising international awareness of the plight of the refugees – thought to number up to 10 million – and a cheque for over US$243,000 was soon sent to UNICEF for relief. The media lavished praise on Harrison as an ambassador for rock altruism; Rolling Stone magazine hailed the event as proof that "the Utopian spirit of the Sixties was still flickering". With concert recording having been carried out at Madison Square Garden by Gary Kellgren, using the Record Plant's 16-track mobile unit, Harrison intended to raise significantly more money via a live album of the event, to be issued on the Beatles' Apple Records label, followed by Apple Films' concert documentary, also to be titled The Concert for Bangladesh. Album preparation During his and Shankar's press conference in New York on 27 July, Harrison had stated that a live album might be ready for release within ten days of the shows. Although this estimate would turn out to be highly optimistic, the following year, in an effort to foil concert bootleggers, Elvis Presley succeeded in delivering a live album just eight days after his own, much-publicised Madison Square Garden shows. Harrison and co-producer Phil Spector began working on the Bangladesh recordings on 2 August, and work continued there at the Record Plant for around a