George Harrison - George Harrison (1969)

George Harrison left the Beatles on January 10, 1969. Many factors weighed heavily on his decision, such as the creative clashes he was having with both John and Paul over the arrangements of songs on the Get Back project, the increase in his songwriting quality from 1968 onwards not being followed by an increase of his quota of songs on the albums, and others. The fact that he spent Thanksgiving 1968 in Woodstock with Bob Dylan & the Band and came out impressed with their communal attitude towards making music and general camaraderie, only to be greeted by the tensions of Apple and the supremacy of Lennon/McCartney certainly didn't help, with his long-held feelings of being a second-class Beatle coming to a boil. He was convinced to return a week later under certain stipulations, such as moving the sessions from Twickenham film studios to their own Apple Studios and nixing any plans of performing live. The sessions then see renewed enthusiasm and newly cordial relations from there onward, with the Get Back project coming to a satisfying closure on the 31st. Shortly afterward, Harrison considers the idea of releasing a solo album, following the advice given to him by John Lennon. That way, he'd return reinvigorated to the newest Beatles project and have a creative outlet where he could use all of his surplus material. He took a tentative first step toward that on his birthday, February 25, 1969, where he recorded demos for three songs that weren't used in the previous month's sessions alone on his guitar.

Unfortunately, plans didn't get much further than that. His dedication was instead given to producing many Apple-related projects and artists such as Billy Preston and Doris Troy, and recording the Abbey Road album with the Beatles. During those sessions, he is given a considerably larger role creatively, since John is sidelined due to a car crash. He collaborates much closer with Paul and contributes the two songs which are arguably the highlights of the album, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun". The former even warranted George's first A-side of a Beatles single, showing how far he'd come since he wrote 1963's "Don't Bother Me". Because of this newly found prestige, it seems that after the tentative February session, George decided against releasing a solo album while the Beatles still existed, shifting his attention elsewhere. After the Abbey Road album is finished Harrison again dedicates himself to producing Apple signees and tours as a sideman with Delaney and Bonnie, still seemingly not worried about starting a solo career. He talked about it but didn't seem to commit to it completely, maybe due to a bit of lingering self-doubt because of the years of being taken for granted. He only started work on the All Things Must Pass album the month after the McCartney press release, when there was absolutely no doubt that the Beatles had split and he basically had no option but to become a solo artist. But what if he had recorded his first solo album while the Beatles still existed?

This reconstruction is an update to my George Harrison solo debut essay from April 2019. But this time around, George doesn't quit the Beatles, and follows John's advice of simply recording a solo album concurrently with the band to "let all of the songs out". Because of that, songs released by the Beatles will not be considered for this album, as we aim to create a simple, standalone solo album that could fit alongside the Beatles' recorded output in late 1969. Another change is that the deadline for the songs to be written is shortened to May 1969 from the original August 1969, meaning this album would have been recorded during a break in the recording of Abbey Road, from May to June 1969. Songs that were released later on when George actually started his solo career are obviously given the preference, as he thought of them highly enough to record less than a year later. We'll be aiming at about ten tracks for the record, as was the norm by then, and we've got some pretty long songs on our shortlist. As Harrison hadn't met or worked with Phil Spector yet, we will try to avoid using his Wall of Sound as much as we possibly can, which means we will be using the alternate takes of the songs as released on the deluxe edition of All Things Must Pass. It was a last resort, as the 2020 remixes are, well, horrible, and those alternate takes provide us with the only quality reverb-free alternatives to the original album versions, something that's a prerequisite for our goals. With that out of the way, here's what the album looks like:

What is Life? (Take 1)

Let it Down (Take 1)

The Art of Dying (Take 1)

All Things Must Pass (Day 1 Demo)

Isn't it a Pity? (Take 27)
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I'd Have You Anytime (Take 5)

Wah-Wah (Take 1)

Window, Window (Day 2 Demo)

Run of the Mill (Take 36)

Hear Me Lord (Take 5)

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George Harrison - George Harrison (1969)

George as photographed in his Esher home, April 1969.

Of the ten songs I selected for this reconstruction, nine were eventually released on All Things Must Pass and the other was offered/played to the Beatles during the Get Back sessions four times, which I considered indication enough that it was a contender and worthy of inclusion. "Isn't it a Pity?" and "The Art of Dying" possibly date all the way back to late 1966, while "Let it Down", "All Things Must Pass" and "I'd Have You Anytime" are the fruit of his visit to Dylan & the Band in upstate New York on Thanksgiving 1968. "Wah Wah", "Window Window", and "Hear Me Lord" are all from the January 1969 Get Back sessions, "Run of the Mill" dates to February 1969, and finally the late inclusion "What is Life" comes from the May 1969 sessions for Billy Preston's first Apple album. I didn't consider others known to date from this period such as "Dehra Dun" or "Nowhere to Go" as they were seemingly forgotten by Harrison himself, who never seemed to consider them good enough to record or suggest to the Beatles. These alternative versions range from radically different interpretations ("Let it Down", "Art of Dying", "Run of the Mill"), to virtually unchanged with just about everything in between, with varying degrees of success. The more subdued "Let it Down" is beautiful, while the faster "I'd Have You Anytime" sounds somewhat clunky. But something that every single song here does benefit from is the lack of the obnoxious amounts of reverb added by Spector to the finished product.

The two songs that are straight-up demos, "All Things Must Pass" and "Window Window" do stick out some from the rest due to their especially unfinished sound, but not in a particularly intrusive way. The fact that the latter is such a simple song certainly helps, as there's not else much you could do with it. And as we're dealing with outtakes, some amount of editing was needed, which mainly consisted of cutting out studio chatter and fading out the tracks before they ended abruptly. Once that was done, this sounded pretty much like a finished album! The rougher, less polished sound seems much more like a conscious choice, inspired by his obsession with Music from Big Pink, than anything else. When it comes to sequencing, I chose to have "What is Life" as the album opener, as it's as close to an energetic album opener as we have, with the rest taking their cues from ATMP. It's a no-brainer to finish side one with "Isn't it a Pity?" and side two with the nearly nine-minute epic "Hear Me Lord", and "I'd Have You Anytime" works pretty well on side two. As to the sessions themselves, this album would've been recorded with a smaller group of friends, such as keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston, bassist Klaus Voormann, and drummers Ringo Starr and Tony Newman, with Delaney and Bonnie and their friends nowhere to be seen. His buddy Eric Clapton was on tour with Blind Faith at this moment, meaning George would tackle all of the guitar parts himself.

A self-titled album to signify the beginning of a solo career, this alternate debut is 44 minutes long with two 22-minute sides, a little bit on the long side for the era but nothing too worrisome. The album cover, as edited by myself, is a photo of George's dating from April 1969, with the Apple Records logo added on top. "What is Life" b/w "Isn't it a Pity?" would make for the ideal lead single in my view, with both a rocker and a ballad that have the potential to become hits, propelled by his name. As for technical details, this album would have probably been self-produced by Harrison and recorded from February to August 1969, which means its sound would have been much closer to, say, Living in the Material World than to the overblown, epic sound of the All Things Must Pass album, something I find we've managed to mimic here. The material as presented in this reconstruction also seems much more like a logical next step from the White Album and Abbey Road than the starkly different sound of the All Things Must Pass, and the more laid-back, stripped-down sound benefits these songs significantly. In terms of quality, it is as consistent and can withstand repeated listening with the same ease as something like the Abbey Road album, which is quite an achievement in itself. It's both a shame and a pity that George couldn't find a way to reconcile his growing prowess as a songwriter with his duties as a Beatle, an alternate path that could've preserved the band and many friendships within it.

Sources:

- I Me Mine: George Harrison
- All Things Must Pass [50th Anniversary Edition]