MoeFOH's Album Of The Week... Week #48

[MoeFOH]

MoeFOH's Album of the Week 🎶

Same as the movie thread, each week we're going to spotlight an album... be it a classic, new release, hidden gem, or outright turd... and open it for discussion: i.e. post up your favourite tracks, clips, lyrics, experiences if you saw live, etc... or dive deeper and give us a critique on why you think it's great, overrated, or a complete train wreck... And finally score it for us...  

All contributors go into a monthly prize draw for a 3-cigar sampler! 

PM me with suggestions if there's an album you want to nominate for next week's discussion. 

 

Week #48: All Things Must Pass

All Things Must Pass is the third studio album by English rock musician George Harrison. Released as a triple album in November 1970, it was Harrison's first solo work after the break-up of the Beatles in April that year. It includes the hit singles "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life", as well as songs such as "Isn't It a Pity" and the title track that had been overlooked for inclusion on releases by the Beatles. The album reflects the influence of Harrison's musical activities with artists such as Bob Dylan, the Band, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends and Billy Preston during 1968–70, and his growth as an artist beyond his supporting role to former bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. All Things Must Pass introduced Harrison's signature slide guitar sound and the spiritual themes present throughout his subsequent solo work. The original vinyl release consisted of two LPs of songs and a third disc of informal jams titled Apple Jam. Several commentators interpret Barry Feinstein's album cover photo, showing Harrison surrounded by four garden gnomes, as a statement on his independence from the Beatles.

Production began at London's EMI Studios in May 1970, with extensive overdubbing and mixing continuing through October. Among the large cast of backing musicians were Eric Clapton and members of Delaney & Bonnie's Friends band – three of whom formed Derek and the Dominos with Clapton during the recording – as well as Ringo Starr, Gary Wright, Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, John Barham, Badfinger and Pete Drake. The sessions produced a double album's worth of extra material, most of which remains unissued.

All Things Must Pass was critically and commercially successful on release, with long stays at number one on charts worldwide. Co-producer Phil Spector employed his Wall of Sound production technique to notable effect; Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone described the sound as "Wagnerian, Brucknerian, the music of mountain tops and vast horizons". Reflecting the widespread surprise at the assuredness of Harrison's post-Beatles debut, Melody Maker's Richard Williams likened the album to Greta Garbo's first role in a talking picture and declared: "Garbo talks! – Harrison is free!" According to Colin Larkin, writing in the 2011 edition of his Encyclopedia of Popular Music, All Things Must Pass is "generally rated" as the best of all the former Beatles' solo albums.

During the final year of his life, Harrison oversaw a successful reissue campaign to mark the 30th anniversary of the album's release. After this reissue, the Recording Industry Association of America certified the album six-times platinum. It has since been certified seven-times platinum. Among its appearances on critics' best-album lists, All Things Must Pass was ranked 79th on The Times' "The 100 Best Albums of All Time" in 1993, while Rolling Stone placed it 368th on the magazine's 2020 update of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2014, All Things Must Pass was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Over to you...

How do you rate it? 🤔

Thoughts, experiences, memories... post em' up! 

Score it out of 10!  

[MoeFOH]

 

[Ford2112]

Fantastic. 10 stars. 

[KRunch61]

LOVE Billy Preston! Especially “Nothing From Nothing” and “Will It Go Round in Circles”.

[JohnS]

It's a great album mainly because George couldn't have some of these songs, for various reasons, on Beatles albums. For example, Isn't It a Pity, The Art of Dying, I'd Have You Anytime, Let It Down, All Things Must Pass, Hear Me Lord, Run of the Mill, What is Life, Wah-Wah and Behind That Locked Door all date from the time that the Beatles were recording music up to August 1969. That's 10 songs out of 17 that appeared on the first two sides of the All things Must Pass album (Isn't It a Pity had two versions with different arrangements on the album).

In my opinion, the songs that George was allowed on Beatles album post-1966 include some fairly ordinary contributions in comparison to the songs aforementioned above. I would have much preferred Isn't It a Pity on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Let It Down on the White Album, for example. Even All Things Must Pass on the Let It Be album.

Anyway, that's how it goes, and we can be thankful that George made this album with a wonderful array of fantastic musicians.

Note well, when George re-released this album in 2001 on its 30th anniversary (or thereabouts) he couldn't quite tone down and inject the separation he wanted into the mixes that Phil Spector had produced. That 'Wall of Sound' is everywhere on this album. We had to wait until modern technology caught up with us and the recent 50th anniversary release (which arrived a little late in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic) to hear this album as George would have liked to have had it remastered. Some purists dislike the 50th anniversary version for this reason. Personally, I own a number of copies of this great album and the 50th anniversary is the most 'crystal clear' version available.

10 out of 10.

[joeypots]

The Beatles were done in the spring of 1970, none of them were even 30 years old, and ATMP was released about six months later. It’s a great album and shows just how stifled George was in the confines of the group. The Concert For George shows the brilliance of Harrison’s song writing and I, for one, think his post Beatle releases are the best of the 4. The Traveling Wilburys didn’t suck either.

[Doctorossi]

I've got to concur. 10/10.

[bassistheplace]

10/10 the more i listen to this record, and i agree the 50th sounds best to me, not a big fan of Spector (see Let it Be vs Naked), the more I'm convinced George was every bit as talented as L&M and in some cases his songwriting is even better

[MoeFOH]

13 hours ago, JohnS said:

It's a great album mainly because George couldn't have some of these songs, for various reasons, on Beatles albums. For example, Isn't It a Pity, The Art of Dying, I'd Have You Anytime, Let It Down, All Things Must Pass, Hear Me Lord, Run of the Mill, What is Life, Wah-Wah and Behind That Locked Door all date from the time that the Beatles were recording music up to August 1969. That's 10 songs out of 17 that appeared on the first two sides of the All things Must Pass album (Isn't It a Pity had two versions with different arrangements on the album).

In my opinion, the songs that George was allowed on Beatles album post-1966 include some fairly ordinary contributions in comparison to the songs aforementioned above. I would have much preferred Isn't It a Pity on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Let It Down on the White Album, for example. Even All Things Must Pass on the Let It Be album.

Anyway, that's how it goes, and we can be thankful that George made this album with a wonderful array of fantastic musicians.

Note well, when George re-released this album in 2001 on its 30th anniversary (or thereabouts) he couldn't quite tone down and inject the separation he wanted into the mixes that Phil Spector had produced. That 'Wall of Sound' is everywhere on this album. We had to wait until modern technology caught up with us and the recent 50th anniversary release (which arrived a little late in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic) to hear this album as George would have liked to have had it remastered. Some purists dislike the 50th anniversary version for this reason. Personally, I own a number of copies of this great album and the 50th anniversary is the most 'crystal clear' version available.

10 out of 10.

Great post, John. It would be interesting to know what the exact track selection process was with The Beatles. I have to admit I don't know (or can't remember) much if anything about that. I know Paul was entering his Roger Waters-like phase in the latter years, asserting artistic dominance. It's fascinating watching the Get Back doco in relation to John's role. I felt in the 2nd half of that, or the Apple studio part, John came out of his shell and stamped his authority on the process as a whole. Possibly how he always rolled, especially in the early years. And I wonder if there wasn't some diplomacy going on there in terms of favouring Paul's songs to keep him happy... or was it all totally democratic, at least superficially so... or did L&M just veto where they saw fit? What do you know about it?... Whatever the case, it's clear that some of their songs should have made way for tracks on All Things Must Pass. 

[JohnS]

On 2/22/2023 at 10:39 AM, MoeFOH said:

Great post, John. It would be interesting to know what the exact track selection process was with The Beatles. I have to admit I don't know (or can't remember) much if anything about that. I know Paul was entering his Roger Waters-like phase in the latter years, asserting artistic dominance. It's fascinating watching the Get Back doco in relation to John's role. I felt in the 2nd half of that, or the Apple studio part, John came out of his shell and stamped his authority on the process as a whole. Possibly how he always rolled, especially in the early years. And I wonder if there wasn't some diplomacy going on there in terms of favouring Paul's songs to keep him happy... or was it all totally democratic, at least superficially so... or did L&M just veto where they saw fit? What do you know about it?... Whatever the case, it's clear that some of their songs should have made way for tracks on All Things Must Pass. 

The full picture behind what occurred throughout 1969 is vastly different to what has been subsequently mythologised afterwards. This isn't a bad thing, and is quite normal, because in hindsight human beings look back on events in their lives through different emotional lenses at different stages and so the memories change (or even fade).

I'll subsequently provide a detailed glimpse into the decisions made as events occurred, and this may change your view on things, because the break-up of the Beatles has been evaluated in standardised presentation by the Beatles themselves, specifically from the 1990s when the Anthology series came out. In contrast, John was completely honest in the year or two afterwards, and George continued to be candid well into the 1990s too. Paul and Ringo tended to present more wholesome versions of what happened, but that is more in line with their personalities, especially Ringo.

To start off with, it's often said in print that George's song All Things Must Pass was rejected by the other Beatles during the Get Back sessions in January 1969. This is most definitely not the case. You see, what happened is that the Get Back project evolved as it went along from rehearsing a set of songs for a live concert, then to a TV special, then a film. Along the way, the Beatles couldn't agree with a venue so they decided to get the finale of the film over and done with and go up on the roof of their Apple Headquarters in London. In hindsight, people think that these events were planned and well-thought out, when in actual case, they often happened more spontaneously. The famous Abbey Road cover of the four Beatles crossing that now infamous pedestrian crossing happened because someone suggested naming that album after their engineer Geoff Emerick's packet of cigarettes (Everest), going to Mt.Everest in Nepal to shoot a photo, and then Ringo suggested that they should just go outside the studio and cross the road instead. So they did and there's history for you.

The reason why George didn't have All Things Must Pass on the final Let It Be album is because during the process of working out the arrangement of the song to perform it live, he didn't feel that the four of them could do it justice in comparison to recording a version that was better arranged, with possible overdubs. So, he substituted more simpler songs as possible inclusions due to the theme of the Get Back album, which was to record a set of new songs performed live for the first time in front of an audience. It certainly was an interesting concept. The Beatles very much tried to make this song work for the Get Back album, devoting 71 takes and countless hours to it.

George figured that he may save All Things Must Pass for another album down-the-track, but what happened in the meantime, of course, is that he felt marginalised in the whole process of rehearsing at Twickenham, more so with John than Paul (because frankly George was pissed off that John was allowing Yoko to talk for him all the time and he was frustrated in his communication with John), and famously left the band for just under a week. When he came back, he did so asserting himself. This meant that the idea of playing a live concert in front of an audience was no longer on the table and rehearsals were now conducted at Apple Studios, which was much more amenable in terms of a controlled environment. (Twickenham Film Studios, being a large open set was cold and not conducive to allowing the musicians to feel relaxed - notice the difference of the mood of the Beatles and Billy Preston when they went to Apple Studios in the Get Back documentary series.) This attitude that George exuded meant that he no longer held back on his songs thereafter. Note how strong, for example, Something and Here Comes The Sun were as inclusions on Abbey Road. In comparison, John and Paul's songs were not as dynamic, from a commercial point-of-view, on Abbey Road, but I will come back and expand on this point later.

In early 1969, the biggest factor in the final break-up of the Beatles occurred when Paul was outvoted 3-to-1 to appoint Allen Klein as their business manager. Paul wanted his Father-in-law, Lee Eastman. This schism cause an untenable rift that could not salvage the relationships within the band. As musicians, the Beatles were always motivated by their contractual obligations and so they regularly put differences aside and simply made great music together. Abbey Road, for example, is proof of that. For a little while Klein managed three Beatles and Eastman managed Paul but in April 1969 a significant event occured. Basically, John and Paul wanted Klein to get their song publishing bought in full. This meant buying out ATV's shares, controlled by Sir Lew Grade, who bought them from Dick James in March, the month before. Dick James, contrary to how the actor Stephen Graham portrayed him in the Elton John biopic, Rocket man, was a decent, well-spoken man, but he didn't even offer a chance for John and Paul to buy him out. This proved to be a momentous occurrence in the history of the band. People nowadays speak highly of Dick James' character, but at that time he felt that John and Paul didn't respect him, especially John. (Does this sound like how George felt for years too, somewhat?) During April, John found out that Paul was buying shares of their Songwriting Publishing behind John's back and of course John was livid. Eastman was subsequently let go from all Beatles business and on May 9th, during a session that went badly at the studio that engineer Glyn Johns worked at (remember he played a big part in engineering the Get Back Sessions and is featured prominently in Peter Jackson's documentary), Olympic Studios, John, George and Ringo tried to get Paul to sign a contract to agree to Klein managing the Beatles. Paul refused.

That night, after the other three went home after working on mixing a possible Get Back album release, Paul asked Steve Miller (and Glyn Johns) if he could let off some steam by contributing to the song that the Steve Miller band were working on at that time. To get an idea of how much stress and emotion these guys were carrying at this time, listen to the song My Dark Hour that Paul played drums on, that very night. It's simply incredible! Paul also contributed the bass, a guitar part and backing vocals.

The intention was to release a Get Back album but the version that Glyn Johns finalised on May 28th, 1969 was rejected for not being polished or commercial enough. Allen Klein tried to buy out Sir Lew Grade, and when this failed, acting on John and Paul's behalf, he tried to buy out ATV. Eventually, Michael Jackson bought the song publishing rights because the Thriller album sold millions of albums in 1982 and made him immensely rich. By 1995, badly needing money to cover his debts, Jackson went into partnership with Sony and now Sony owns the Beatles songs that Lennon and McCartney wrote (excepting about 4 of them - including Penny Lane which West Australian mining magnate, Robert Holmes a Court's daughter, Catherine owns the rights to, but that's another story). So, these events in 1969 has resulted in Sony owning Music Publishing in Beatles' songs worth over $US1.5 billion today.

After that May 9th session went badly, the Beatles all took early Summer holidays. John and Yoko went to the Bahamas and then Toronto for a Honeymoon 'Bed-In', Ringo took the QE2 to the Bahamas and New York with his wife, Maureen, George went with his wife, Pattie to Sardinia, Italy and Paul went with Linda to Corfu in Greece. The Beatles re-convened on July 1st to continue recording music for their next album, but by now a lot had changed. John and Paul were on very delicate terms with each other (for example, notice that on the song Come Together Paul contributions other than his bass part is the 'bare-minimum') and George took this opportunity to put forward songs that couldn't be vetoed by John and Paul, like what had happened in the past. Something became the first George A-side single and has proved to be one of the Beatle's biggest hits. Here Comes The Sun is the most streamed Beatles song of the modern era, easily in front of Let it Be, Hey Jude and Come Together.

The Beatles still continued to make music together because of contractual obligations. It's often reported that the Abbey Road album, released in late September 1969 was meant to be a 'swansong' farewell with the intention of the Beatles bowing out on-top. This is merely an homage to that era, seen through rose-coloured glasses. The fact remains that the Beatles had convened in early September (except Ringo who was in hospital for a minor surgical procedure) after the Abbey Road sessions concluded on August 22nd, to discuss how to proceed with the next album (YES, the NEXT album!). The meeting was recorded for Ringo to listen to later and the tapes have been verified by Beatles' historian, Mark Lewisohn. I believe one can even access snippets of this conversation on YouTube!

The reason this didn't proceed, and what proved the final death-knell, was that John recorded an acoustic demo of Cold Turkey in early September and presented it to the other band members as a song to be recorded as the next Beatles' single. This was of course rejected because of the subject matter (no way were the Beatles going to release a commercial song about drug withdrawal!), and at this point John decided that he would never record with the Beatles again. He demonstrated this new-found resolve by flying to Toronto for an impromptu concert with Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, Alan White and Yoko as the Plastic Ono Band in mid-September. Allen Klein asked John to keep the news of his leaving secret as he was negotiating a new royalty rate from EMI at the time. The new rate was so good that even Paul signed the contract, as can be seen in the image below on September 20th at a meeting at 3 Savile Row, Apple Headquarters...

Immediately after this meeting,and after the contract was signed, John informed the others of his leaving to the great shock of Paul and Ringo. George was visiting his mother, sick with cancer, at this time and he signed a few days later, hence why he is not pictured.

In essence, the writing was on the wall as during the Abbey Road album as Paul contributed songs that were not as strong as previous efforts. I believe he did this to keep the peace with the others as relations were tense. George continued to write songs and a great number of these ended up being stand-outs on his worldwide smash triple-sided album All Things Must Pass, released at the end of 1970.

If the Beatles managed to release just one more album, I have no doubt whatsoever that George would have contributed more songs than his standard two per album. What would have happened is that if a hypothetical album in 1970 was released it would have had equal contributions from John, George and Paul and Ringo would have had one song to fill it out. As it goes, My Sweet Lord, Isn't It A Pity, Maybe I'm Amazed and Instant Karma (We All Shine On) all became famous songs of the post-Beatles solo era. However, at the very least, I'm confident that songs like Isn't It a Pity and Maybe I'm Amazed would have had the same reputation as other noteworthy Beatles songs of that time such as Let It Be and Something.

In the end, John, George and Ringo all settled a multi-million dollar buyout of Allen Klein's managerial contract in 1973. Yeah sure, initially he made the Beatles a lot of money, but this came at a cost later, which John, George and Paul indeed found out. Paul took his Father-in-law's sage advice to buy up other artist's music publishing. He started off by buying Buddy Holly's publishing and today he is the wealthiest Beatle by far, making half his current annual income from his song publishing investments alone.