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The 1973 Album Living in the Material World

June 17, 2019 · by solobeatles

The long-awaited follow up to the one-two punch of All Things Must Pass and The Concert for Bangladesh, Harrison’s second solo album Living in the Material World held the number #1 in the U.S. for five weeks (knocking off McCartney’s Red Rose Speedway) and #2 in the U.K. Ironically, the soundtrack to Starr’s film That’ll Be the Day kept him out of the top spot in the U.K.

The only light numbers were “Give Me Love” and “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long.” There were three other up-tempo (if not light-hearted) tracks, the best being his acerbic take on the Beatles break up court case, the funky “Sue Me Sue You Blues,” a worthy companion piece to “Taxman,” this time aimed at Paul McCartney, although the Concert for Bangladesh was tied up in its own legal woes as well.

The record’s overall somber tone was, in fact, because the record labels and U.S./U.K. governments wanted such big cuts of the Concert of Bangladesh profits that there was barely anything left over for the people the shows were intended to help. The dark mood was announced by a creepy cover featuring a hand holding an Indian medallion. With its red and black hue, it looked like an image out of a horror movie.

The minor key same-ness of the songs was exacerbated because Harrison had decided he was ready to go it alone and produce the album without Phil Spector. Interestingly, Lennon had made the same choice with his 1973 offering, Mind Games. Either both former Beatles learned from the teacher at the same rate, or Spector’s madness had been accelerating and alienated them both.

The quiet mood was also due to the fact that Harrison was just trying to chill himself out. Ultimately he was forced to cover the taxes for the Concert of Bangladesh with a million pounds out of his own pocket, a rough price to pay when all he had been trying to do was a good deed. Between that and his ongoing litigation with McCartney, he needed his religion to keep perspective. So he wrote low key spiritual songs in the hopes of creating the mindset he wanted to attain.

He had never been shy about imparting the wisdom he felt he had gathered, and from the start he had been railing against the material world. In the 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night, he surprised everyone with the naturalism displayed in his solo vignette. With an offhand, laidback confidence, he destroys the arrogance of a pompous advertising executive and his phony cover girl. Many of Harrison’s subsequent album tracks promoted a similar perspective, from “Think for Yourself” to “I Me Mine.”

As he had recently masterminded the biggest album and biggest concert of the decade thus far, no one dared critique or reign him in. Thus, glowering like Rasputin, he put out an album of downbeat songs with titles like “The Lord Loves the One (Who Loves the Lord).” To many, it began to look like Harrison thought he was almost a saint himself, “the light that lighted the world.” The backlash would soon gather steam.

Material World’s songs were good, they just needed to be mixed with a wider variety of moods and tempos in order to create a classic album. (The “Give Me Love” b-side “Miss O’Dell” would have been a great addition, but it was perhaps a little too similar to “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long.”)

The same year, Harrison played on Cheech and Chong’s #15 hit “Basketball Jones,” and he would soon befriend the Monty Python troupe. Comedy had always been another technique of his to transcend life’s annoyances, and by the late 1970s, after getting pummeled by the critics for self-importance, Harrison would learn to synthesize his comedic and spiritual sides, and leaven his lectures with humor and happy tunes.

But meanwhile, Material World is a fine mellow album to relax to. I’d even go so far as to say to fall asleep to, which sounds disparaging but really is not, as we all sometimes need something good to help us fall asleep once in a while.

Along with “Give Me Love” and “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long,” other stand out tracks include “The Day the World Gets ‘Round” which he wrote the day after the Bangla Desh concert, the aforementioned “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” and “The Light That Has Lighted the World,” and “Try Some By Some.” The latter tune was a single he wrote for Ronnie Spector. When it didn’t do well on the charts, Harrison slowed it down and put his own vocals on it.

Harrison’s Wistful Love Letter to the Apple Scruffs

December 4, 2017 · by solobeatles

In the early ’60s, girls used to stand in line for three hours before the Beatles’ daily Cavern Club shows, sometimes clawing Starr’s future wife, Maureen, out of jealousy. In the late ’60s, when the group no longer played live, therewas a clique of hardcore female fans who would permanently hang around outside Apple Records or Abbey Road Studios, regardless of the weather, in the hopes of getting to chat with the Fabs. They’d come by in the morning for a while, then go to their day jobs, then return in the evening. Collectively, they were known as the Apple Scruffs.

Since McCartney lived in town, they also loitered outside his gates. “She Came in through the Bathroom Window” from ABBEY ROAD talks about when they snuck into his house and swiped some pants, which they all traded off wearing. They also took a photo, but gave that back when McCartney asked.

The Beatles also invited two of them (Lizzie Bravo and Gayleen Pease) to sing backing vocals on the first version of “Across the Universe.” The song was given to the World WildlifeFund charity and is now on PAST MASTERS, VOL 2. One night, McCartney sang his new song “Blackbird” to them from his window.

During the early “Longest Cocktail Party” days of Apple, before all the Beatles grew to hate the legal turmoil brought on by their own label, Harrison and publicist Derek Taylor considered doing a musical about the place, at which point Harrison started composing Apple-related tunes. One of them, “Not Guilty,” would be rejected for THE WHITE ALBUM and resurface eleven years later on GEORGE HARRISON. Another was “Apple Scruffs,” which he finished for his first solo album.

While he was once sang “Don’t Bother Me” to his fans, in the early days of going solo he seemed to be trying to shore up his base with this wistful love letter. Perhaps he sensed that he’d never again experience such unwavering devotion.

Harrison’s evocative lyrics describe the Apple Scruffs waiting on the steps in the fog and the rain with flowers in their hands. His wavering voice momentarily veers toward good-natured exasperation, but the Dylanesque harmonica makes the overriding mood one of nostalgia for days already fading.

“End of the Line” — Homages to Orbison & Eras Gone By

July 10, 2016 · by solobeatles

Beatlemania ignited in March 1963 during the group’s second British package tour. The headliners were Chris Montez and Tommy Roe from the U.S., enjoying hits with “Let’s Dance” and “Sheila,” respectively. The Beatles were clearly surpassing them, but the American poor sports refused to give up the final spot of the show, saying they’d quit instead.

But in May and June, when the Beatles toured with one of their idols, Roy Orbison, he was cool with switching the order. Orbison was a founding father of rock from the Sun Records label, home to Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. The boys loved him for his operatic voice and because he wrote his own stuff, like fellow pioneers Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. The previous September, Lennon had penned their first British No. 1, “Please Please Me,” as homage to Orbison.

Twenty-five years later, the friendship led to Orbison’s membership in The Traveling Wilburys. That same year, Orbison released his Jeff Lynne-produced comeback album Mystery Girl and returned to the record charts with “You Got It,” his final hit before he died of a heart attack on December 6, 1988.

When it came time to make the video for the Wilburys’ second single from their album Volume 1, “End of the Line,” Orbison had already passed away, so the group plays the song on a train with a rocking chair reserved for him, empty save for his guitar. When his quavering, ghostly vocals come up, the lights flicker and the video cuts to his picture in a frame. The rest of the group listens meditatively, two icons from the ‘60s (Harrison and Dylan) and two worthy successors from the ‘70s (Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne) honoring a ‘50s master who blazed the trail for them all.

Harrison’s intro for the song recalls the extended intro of “I’m Looking Through You” on the American edition of Rubber Soul, and the video itself recalls the scene on the train in A Hard Day’s Night when the boys played “I Should Have Known Better” to Pattie Boyd and her friends.

The laid-back but persistent drums mirror the rhythm of a train that never stops even as one era’s innovations turn to the next era’s golden brown retro revival. The sepia tinge of the video underscores the passage of time and evokes the Western mythos that inspired the band’s name.

Perhaps even more than “Handle With Care,” “End of the Line” captures the friendship that infused the Wilburys project. Petty sings the verses and the others take turns on the chorus, except for Dylan. It’s a treat to see Dylan relaxed, happy to take the back seat and let his batteries recharge before his mid-‘90s career-reviving third act, just smiling at George like John and Paul did in their TV performances back in 1964-65.

“Beautiful Girl” and the Two Loves of Harrison’s Life

July 16, 2015 · by solobeatles

With its jangling twelve-string guitar and vocal harmonies, 1976’s “Beautiful Girl” sounds, as Harrison scholar Simon Leng says, like it could have come from HELP! or RUBBER SOUL. Here Harrison’s yearning “woos” are put to happier use than they had been on melodramatic older tunes like “Try Some Buy Some,” and the chiming electric arpeggios perfectly capture the feeling of seeing a gorgeous face for the first time.

When Harrison sings that he’s shaking inside, it suggests the feeling he may have felt when he first saw Pattie Boyd during the filming of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT. Though Pattie said in her memoirs that practically the first thing Harrison asked her was to marry him (jokingly), he was nervous enough around her that he asked manager Brian Epstein to accompany them on their first date to help make conversation. Though women across the world wanted him, with this stunning-yet innocent model, Harrison still felt a bit of the dropout electrician’s apprentice he had been. The other Beatles’ wives of the ’60s, Cynthia and Maureen, would emulate Pattie’s long straight blond hair with bangs, as would countless followers of Swinging London.

Harrison began the song during 1970’s ALL THINGS MUST PASS album but was unable to finish it until he met Olivia Trinidad Arias. Born in 1948 in Mexico City, she went to Hawthorne High in the LA area, and after graduating in 1965 ended up working as a secretary at A&M Records, where Harrison met her in 1974, just before he was about to start the Dark Horse tour. The couple had their son, Dhani, in August 1978 and married the following month.

In 1999, Olivia would save Harrison when the psychotic Michael Abram broke into their home and attacked Harrison with a knife. First Olivia hit Abram with a fireplace poker, then smashed an antique lamp on the head. Olivia later told Katie Couric, “George was coaching me, I have to say. And George was very brave and people don’t know that. Because he had already been injured and he had to jump up and bring him down to stop him from attacking me. You know, he saved my life too.”

Katie Couric: “You saved each other’s lives.”

Olivia Harrison: “Yes, we did. And that was an interesting experience. Because, you know, not a lot of people get tested like that, thank God.”

Harrison Revives Dylan’s Unfinished “I Don’t Want to Do It”

June 2, 2015 · by solobeatles

This lost gem was written by Bob Dylan circa 1970 but never recorded by him. Harrison laid down an acoustic demo during the All Things Must Pass sessions. Structurally, the song was pretty much in place then, but Harrison dropped it for fourteen years.

Out of nowhere, “I Don’t Want to Do It” was revived through the prodding of Dave Edmunds. Edmunds was a Welsh rocker who had solo hits, formed Rockpile with Nick Lowe, and produced the likes of the Flaming Groovies, Stray Cats, and Fabulous Thunderbirds. Edmunds was commissioned to put together the soundtrack of the ignominious Porky’s Revenge (1985), sequel to Porky’s (1982), which, along with Animal House (1978) instigated the ’80s wave of raunchy teen sex comedies. Edmunds did his own songs for the movie and also got others to contribute. Somehow it was decided to revive Dylan’s understated, melancholy composition for the occasion.

“I Don’t Want to Do It” has a unique place in Harrison’s oeuvre, with a sound different from any other period. It’s a little more rich, deep, and organic than Gone Troppo and without the pop sheen of 1987’s Cloud Nine. The piano matches the poignancy of the lyrics, accompanied by an organ, perhaps in honor of Dylan’s mid-sixties classics. Michael Schrieve’s drums give the song a faster-paced momentum than the song would have possessed had it been on All Things Must Pass, as it was recorded after the changes brought about by a younger generation of coked-up New Wavers with drum machines. As usual, Harrison does his own back-up vocal harmonies. It’s too bad this very appealing sound with Edmunds was a one-off.

Dylan’s lyrics are unusually generic and seem to be not quite finished, which could be why he never released it. It opens with the singer wishing he could have another day of youth, back when he knew what was true and all he had to do was play in the yard. It was probably written in the late ’60s by Dylan when he was under pressure to resume touring, which would mean leaving his wife and young children, now playing in the yard themselves. The singer takes his woman into his arms and reassures her he doesn’t want to make her cry by saying goodbye. Ultimately Dylan decided not to leave his home and family for another half decade. Harrison could certainly relate, as this was the only song he released in the five years between 1982’s Gone Troppo and 1987’s Cloud Nine, except for a few songs for the movie Shanghai Surprise (1986). Harrison had married his wife Olivia in 1978 and had son Dhani the same year; he didn’t want to leave home either.

Around this period Harrison also recorded a version of Dylan’s Desire outtake “Abandoned Love,” which ended up on Dylan’s career retrospective Biograph. One of Dylan’s best, it’s exciting to hear Harrison perform such a deep-cut Dylan tune, though Harrison’s modern pop approach can’t match the rustic, fiddle-haunted soul of Dylan’s original.

The demo from the All Things Must Pass sessions:

Paul and George Help James Taylor on the Original “Carolina in My Mind”

June 1, 2015 · by solobeatles

After the Beatles signed James Taylor to their label Apple in 1968, McCartney played bass on the original “Carolina in my Mind” and Harrison sang back up. As Wikipedia elaborates below, the lyrics refer to Taylor recording his first album at Abbey Road while the Fab Four (“the holy host of others”) did the White Album. Taylor also sings of being on the dark side of the moon, which perhaps influenced another band that recorded at Abbey Road, Pink Floyd.

Also on Taylor’s first album was “Something in the Way She Moves,” which of course became the first line to one of Harrison’s biggest hits.

From Wikipedia:
The song references Taylor’s years growing up in North Carolina.[4] Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles’ label Apple Records. He started writing the song at producer Peter Asher’s London flat on Marylebone High Street, resumed work on it while on holiday on the Mediterranean island of Formentera, and then completed it while stranded on the nearby island of Ibiza with a Swedish girl Karin he had just met.[2][5] The song reflects Taylor’s homesickness at the time,[6] as he was missing his family, his dog, and his state.[5]
Dark and silent late last night,
I think I might have heard the highway calling …
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
And signs that might be omens say I’m going, I’m going
I’m gone to Carolina in my mind.
The original recording of the song was done at London’s Trident Studios during the July to October 1968 period, and was produced by Asher.[7] The song’s lyric “holy host of others standing around me” makes reference to The Beatles, who were recording The White Album in the same studio where Taylor was recording his album.[4] Indeed, the recording of “Carolina in My Mind” featured a credited appearance by Paul McCartney on bass guitar and an uncredited one by George Harrison on backing vocals.[4] The other players were Freddie Redd on organ, Joel “Bishop” O’Brien on drums, and Mick Wayne providing a second guitar alongside Taylor’s.[7] Taylor and Asher also did backing vocals and Asher added a tambourine.[7] Richard Hewson arranged and conducted a string part;[7] an even more ambitious 30-piece orchestra part was recorded but not used.[4] The song itself earned critical praise, with Jon Landau’s April 1969 review for Rolling Stone calling it “beautiful” and one of the “two most deeply affecting cuts” on the album and praising McCartney’s bass playing as “extraordinary”.[8] Taylor biographer Timothy White calls the song “the album’s quiet masterpiece.”[4]
The song was first released on Taylor’s eponymous debut album in December 1968 (February 1969 in the United States), and was later released as a single in the UK in February 1969 and in the US in March 1969.[9] However, owing to the same problems which plagued the release of the album (namely, Taylor’s inability to promote it due to his hospitalization for drug addiction), the single’s original release only reached number 118 on US pop charts and failed to chart in the UK.[9] Indeed, Taylor had fallen back into addiction during the London recording sessions,[4][10] and his line about being surrounded by Beatles had been immediately followed by Still I’m on the dark side of the moon.[6]
COMPLETE ARTICLE CAN BE FOUND AT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_in_my_mind

On a sadder note, below is an article about how Lennon’s New York neighbor James Taylor had an unnerving encounter with Mark David Chapman the day before Lennon was killed.

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/08/james-taylor-recalls-encounter-with-lennons-assassin/

(The photo on our home page with Lennon, Taylor, Yoko Ono, and Carly Simon was taken in 1977.)

George’s Original Version of “It Don’t Come Easy”

May 11, 2015 · by solobeatles

Harrison had a habit of offering his best tunes to his friends. He originally gave “My Sweet Lord” to Billy Preston. He gave a song called “You Gotta Pay Your Dues” to Badfinger, although they turned it down.

So Starr took a crack at “You Gotta Pay Your Dues” during his Sentimental Journey sessions. George Martin produced and Stephen Stills was on the piano, but after thirty takes on February 18 and 19, 1970, it still wasn’t coming easy.

Thus Harrison sang a demo himself with Badfinger on backing vocals, instructing them to chant “Hare Krishna!” during the instrumental. In the final version of the song you can still hear it, low in the mix.

Starr tackled the song again on March 8, this time with Harrison producing. It sat in the can until October, at which point Harrison added sax and trumpet like he had once added horns to The White Album’s “Savoy Truffle.”

In mid-April 1971, Harrison’s haunting guitar intro finally drifted across the airwaves. Its arresting sound came courtesy of the Leslie speaker cabinet.

The cabinet was originally built for the Hammond organ but had been adapted for guitar and vocals. It housed a rotating bass speaker and a pair of horn speakers that spun around in different directions, making the guitar sound as if it was swirling under the ocean. Lennon ran his vocals through the Leslie for 1966’s “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and Harrison had used it in 1969 when he wrote “Badge” with Clapton for Cream; in fact, the “Badge” instrumental break sounds pretty close to “It Don’t Come Easy.” Harrison was always a master at recycling—or should we say, developing further. Thus the outro of “A Hard Day’s Night” became the intro to “Ticket to Ride.”

The Leslie effect became one of the most distinctive sounds of the late ’60s and early ’70s, gracing songs including Harrison’s “Something,” Badfinger’s “No Matter What,” the Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones,” Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” The Hollies’ “Air That I Breathe,” the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” and even McCartney’s “Listen To What the Man Said.”

Badfinger’s soaring backing vocals, Stills’s pounding piano, Starr’s perfect drum fills, and the horns build an epic momentum behind Starr’s exhortation to stay resilient in the face of hardship. The lines about paying dues to pay the blues probably wouldn’t have worked with Harrison singing; the guy came from a stable family and was a superstar before he was twenty. But Starr was born into an inner city house without a toilet, fell into a coma from appendicitis at age six, then was confined to a sanatorium for two years at age thirteen due to tuberculosis, before dropping out of school altogether.

In Beatles tradition, the lyrics challenged the listener to be peaceful. It was a sentiment that could apply on any scale, though it might have been aimed at McCartney, who was taking the others to court at the time. Yet with a reunion increasingly unlikely, the song actualized Harrison’s and Starr’s determination to carve out a career for themselves independent of the Lennon and McCartney gravy train.

Starr preaches with such confidence that you wouldn’t know he was filled with doubt about the direction of his life. Perhaps his determination to transcend his fears is what fills the performance with its enduring power.

Forty years later, Starr still opens every show with it. The song shot up the charts, passing Lennon’s “Power to the People,” Harrison’s “What Is Life” (both reached number eleven), and McCartney’s “Another Day” (number five), all the way up to number four, settling just beneath the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” at number one. It was the first of three top ten hits Harrison cowrote or produced for Starr. The success stunned those who had assumed Starr couldn’t cut it on his own.

(Compare “Badge” at 1:09 to “It Don’t Come Easy” intro)

(There it is again in “You Never Give Me Your Money” at 3:37)

The Road to All Things Must Pass

April 26, 2015 · by solobeatles

The triple album All Things Must Pass was the culmination of a remarkable recipe of influences George Harrison had been synthesizing for years — Indian music, gospel and soul, slide guitar — matched with a new found commitment to more accessible vocals and hit songwriting, all set against producer Phil Spector’s epic backdrop.

In the mid-‘60s Harrison took time out from the guitar and focused on the sitar while Clapton, Hendrix, Beck, Page and others competed to be the most technically impressive. As Simon Leng points out in his excellent book While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Music of George Harrison, Harrison had been the bridge between ‘50s rock guitarists like Carl Perkins and Elvis’ Scotty Moore and the ‘60s guitar virtuosos, but he didn’t relate to his contemporaries’ showboating.

Then, in late 1968, he visited with Dylan and the Band during the latter’s recording of Music For Big Pink (with tunes such as “The Weight”), and found kindred spirits ushering in a new, more restrained era where the musicians once again served the song itself as opposed to using it as a backdrop for instrumental pyrotechnics.

Dylan and the Band respected Harrison as an equal, so when Harrison returned to London for the January 1969 Get Back sessions, he could no longer endure the condescending treatment he received from Lennon and McCartney, who viewed him as their little brother. He briefly quit, then recalled how much better the guys had behaved when Eric Clapton came into the studio to play on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” the year before. He hit upon the idea of bringing his friend keyboardist Billy Preston to flesh out the group’s sound, since the climax of the Get Back sessions was going to be a concert on the roof of Apple Records. With Preston in tow, Harrison returned to the group.

Later that year he would produce an album for Preston and also one for Doris Troy (whose hits included “Just One Look”), both soul albums with heavy gospel influence. Working with the Edwin Hawkin Singers gospel choir (whose songs included the classic hit “Oh Happy Day”), he found the black American equivalent of the spirituality he felt in Indian music. During this time Preston recorded Harrison’s song “My Sweet Lord,” but it went unnoticed.

Harrison then saw first hand how black music could be translated by Southern whites when he met husband-and-wife team Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, who mixed soul, gospel, rock, blues, and country in a traveling revue called Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. The friends included no less than Clapton, Duane Allman, Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, Dave Mason, King Curtis, and the guy who would go on to drum with the solo Beatles more than anybody, Jim Keltner. The revue was also how other future regulars Bobby Keys, Jim Price, and Jim Gordon came into the solo Beatles’ orbit. When Harrison saw Delaney and Bonnie in concert on December 1, 1969, he yearned for the entourages’ carefree camaraderie and asked if he could join their tour.

On the road, Harrison asked Delaney how to write gospel songs, and their improvised jam session became the genesis for “My Sweet Lord.” Delaney also mentored Harrison in the slide guitar. Harrison unveiled his new bottleneck technique in an early take of “If Not For You” on Dylan’s album New Morning (1971). Dylan ultimately did not use that take, but Harrison would do his own version of the song on All Things Must Pass (and could be heard on New Morning’s “Day of the Locust.”)

Harrison’s new guitar style, coming as it did at the dawn of his new era as solo artist, was like a superhero giving himself a new costume. He incorporated techniques learned from his apprenticeship in Indian instruments and fused them with slide techniques developed under Delaney’s tutelage, emerging with one of the most distinctive sounds of the early ‘70s, heard on his own songs, Lennon’s, Starr’s, and Beatle protégée Badfinger’s. It was similar to the way Keith Richards crystallized his own unique sound in the late ‘60s with the secret recipe of open tunings and no sixth string.

Along the way Harrison had also transformed his songwriting. When he had stalked out of the Get Back sessions, his songs were not the kind to burn up the hit parade (“For You Blue,” ”Old Brown Shoe,” and “I, Me, Mine”). But if he was going to tell McCartney and Ono to shove it and still keep his forty-acre estate, he’d have to start writing hits. Amazingly, he knocked two out of the park: “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something.” The latter became Harrison’s first number one hit and Sinatra proclaimed it the greatest love song of the twentieth century. Harrison had penned the highlights of the last Beatle album just before the group disintegrated, the ultimate graduation from the Lennon-McCartney songwriting school of osmosis.

Harrison worked on his voice, too. Whereas he once sung with the surliest, thickest Liverpool accent of the bunch, now he lightened it up a notch, as he did with his melodies, fashioning them more warm and upbeat. As with his songwriting, he drew on what he learned vocally from the others, having been the “invisible voice” in the harmonies for ten years.

The Beatles’ producer George Martin never saw Harrison as an equal to Lennon and McCartney, so when Harrison branched out on his own he sought a new partner. Phil Spector was the maestro behind a string of classic girl group and Righteous Brothers singles in the early 1960s that– in Lennon’s words – kept rock alive between the time Elvis went into the army and the year the Beatles arrived. A tiny man with a Napoleon complex, Spector created “little symphonies for the kids” via huge orchestras and innovative recording techniques.

Lennon and McCartney both released debut solo albums that were as minimalist as possible – Lennon’s featured just him, Ringo, and Klaus Voormann on bass, while McCartney played everything on his himself. Harrison, in contrast, brought in Delaney and Bonnie’s sizable backing group and a dozen other musicians. Harrison was determined not to be like McCartney had been to him and dictate how his friends should play — instead, Harrison allowed the musicians to contribute what they wanted. They would all remember the happy atmosphere of All Things Must Pass.

The explosive bombast of Spector’s production made the album stand out from his ex-bandmates, just as his Indian epics stood apart from the others on the mid-60s Beatles albums. The Spector Wall of Sound was the perfect backdrop for a musician who had been ignored and was now determined to make as big a splash as possible. (Though Harrison would later regret using so much echo.) Harrison’s euphoria at his freedom was palpable in each cut, and the timing for his religious theme was impeccable.

The end of the ‘60s saw a huge spiritual revival, as people looked for answers in the midst of a massive social upheaval (civil rights movement, anti-war movement, feminist movement, gay rights movement, Sexual Revolution, drug revolution). While many explored Eastern religions, Christianity also saw a huge resurgence, Lennon’s comment that it would “shrink and vanish” notwithstanding. “Jesus Freaks” bridged the gap between hippies and Christians, and the airwaves swelled with Biblical imagery. Songs with Gospel themes included The Byrds’ “Jesus Is Just All Right,” the Youngblood’s “Get Together,” Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and Ocean’s “Put Your Hand in the Hand.” Harrison rode the wave higher than any of them with “My Sweet Lord,” the best selling record of 1971. After its release, two smash hit musicals in a similar vein would open in New York, Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.

All Things Must Pass was three discs of much-needed light that countered the depressed darkness of the other Beatles’ debuts, and was the most sprawling high-profile release until Guns N Roses’ Use Your Illusion quadruple album 20 years later. Harrison referred to the set as recovering from an “an eight-year dose of constipation,” an appropriate description for the first triple album by a mainstream artist. Many of the songs had been composed over the previous four years but rejected by Lennon and McCartney for inclusion on Beatles albums. In 1966 Harrison got three songs on Revolver (his peak in per-album composition count), but “Art of Dying” and “Isn’t It a Pity” were rejected. It was at this time that Harrison started stockpiling tunes, though many of the most accessible tunes on All Things Must Pass seem to have been composed after Harrison had his “Something”/”Here Comes the Sun” commercial breakthrough: “My Sweet Lord,” “What Is Life,” “Awaiting on You All,” and “The Ballad of Frankie Crisp.”

As George Martin said about The White Album, it would have been advisable for Harrison to carve All Things Must Pass down to one stupendous release and dole out the best of the rest over the next year or two. As it was, his next studio release wouldn’t come until 1973. With the third album comprised of long studio jams with Eric Clapton and friends, Harrison did seem to be pushing the limits of what a Beatle could get away with. Yet despite a hefty price tag, the album sat at No. 1 for seven weeks in the US and eight in the UK.

It would take Harrison 18 years to come close to revisiting that level of success. In 1970 and 1971, however, it seemed that the younger brother had left his older siblings in the dust.

Had Harrison pared it down to one stellar record, it could have been an undisputed masterpiece. And the two primary moods of the album could each rest nicely on either side of the album: the epic Spector orchestrations on side one, with the country/folk sound influenced by Dylan, the Band, and Nashville guitar player Pete Drake on side two.

Side One

My Sweet Lord
What Is Life
Awaiting on You All
Wah-Wah
Hear Me Lord
Run of the Mill
Isn’t It A Pity

Side Two

I’d Have You Anytime (co-written by Dylan)
If Not For You (Dylan)
Behind That Locked Door
I Live For You (belatedly released on the 2000 remastered version)
Apple Scruffs
Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp
All Things Must Pass

George Lightens Up in “Crackerbox Palace” with the Help of Monty Python

October 8, 2014 · by solobeatles

The titular palace was the home of legendary comedian Lord Buckley. His manager Mr. Grief (name checked in the lyrics) showed Harrison around the grounds and inspired the track, which is on 1976’s Thirty-Three and 1/3^rd. After the darkness of Harrison’s previous two albums, the song captures him trying to grow up by embracing love and laughter, helped by his burgeoning friendship with British comedy troupe Monty Python.

Python’s Eric Idle directed the song’s video on Harrison’s own eccentric estate Friar Park, with Hari doing his version of Lennon’s goonish smiles and hand gestures from the “Another Girl” segment of Help!

http://www.eyeneer.com/video/rock/george-harrison/crackerbox-palace

George hand gesture 00:25

http://www.jukebo.com/the-beatles/music-clip,another-girl,uvrms.html

John hand gestures 1:57

George Discovers “Got My Mind Set On You” in 1963 – My Latest Article in Slate.Com

September 24, 2013 · by solobeatles

When the Beatles were given the rare luxury of time off in September 1963, John Lennon and his wife Cynthia went to Paris, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr went to Greece, and George Harrison traveled to Benton, Ill., a coal-mining town of 9,500, to visit his older sister, Louise “Lou” Caldwell. The Beatles were still almost completely unknown in the United States, and Lou, who had moved to southern Illinois with her husband, a mining engineer, was keen to promote them to the Top 40 radio stations in the region.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/09/19/george_harrison_s_trip_to_benton_illinois_before_the_british_invasion_a.html

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