Album of the Day — February 2
George Harrison — All Things Must Pass — 1970
George Harrison — All Things Must Pass — 1970
02.February.2021
George Harrison
All Things Must Pass
1970
This was George Harrison’s first solo album after the break-up of The Beatles.
As a member of The Beatles, Harrison was marginalized as a songwriter. He was often relegated to only a couple of songs per album. So it’s no surprise that his first solo outing, All Things Must Pass, is a triple album.
Harrison wrote all songs on this triple album, but the musicians who played on the album are a who’s who of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. The precise line-up of players is open to conjecture, but some of the players included:
Ringo Starr — drums
Billy Preston — piano
Bobby Keys — saxophone
Peter Frampton — Guitar
Dave Mason — Guitar
Ginger Baker — Bass
While the players on All Things Must Pass reads like the cast list from a 70s rock and roll disaster film, the session did spawn one supergroup with real mettle— Derek and the Dominos. Made up of Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, and Carl Raddle. They would record only one album (Layla and Assorted other Love Songs) that continues to grow in stature.
While it's true that All Things Must Pass has players of incredible pedigree and stature. Many who would go on to shape what we now call “classic rock.”
Along with Harrison, Phil Spector produced the album employing Spector's legendary “Wall of Sound” technique. Unfortunately, by 1970, Spector was beginning his slow descent into the mental abyss. It would reach its nadir with the murder of Lana Clarkson in 2003 and Spector’s conviction in 2009. Spector died on January 16, 2021.
But their collaboration did yield results — the hit single “My Sweet Lord” — the song would reach #1 in 13 separate countries and be the first #1 single by an ex-Beatle.
Much like “My Sweet Lord,” All Things Must Pass was a #1 album worldwide and universally praised. In the 2011 edition of his Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Colin Larkin considers All Things Must Pass to be “the best of all the former Beatles’ solo albums.”
Well, almost universally praised. The Dean of American Dicks, err, Rock Critic’s Robert Christgau gave it a C:
“Presumably, the featurelessness of these three discs — right down to the anonymity of the multitracked vocals — reflects Harrison’s notion of Truth, and he’s welcome to it. But he’s never been good for more than two songs per album, and after “My Sweet Lord” I start to get stuck.”
To ignore the hullaballoo around “My Sweet Lord” would be historically inaccurate. To wit:
The plagiarism lawsuit — alleging that Harrison pinched “My Sweet Lord” from The Chiffons “He’s So Fine.” Harrison lost the suit to the tune of 1.6 million pounds. In 2013, author and neurologist Oliver Sacks (Awakenings) cited this case when stating his preference for the word cryptomnesia over plagiarism. Saying plagiarism was “suggestive of crime and deceit.” Sacks added that Judge Richard Owen had displayed “psychological insight and sympathy” in deeming Harrison’s infringement to have been “subconsciously accomplished.”
Music critic David Fricke describes Harrison’s composition as “the honest child of a black American sacred song.”
According to music historians David Luhrssen and Michael Larson, “My Sweet Lord” “became an early battleground over music as intellectual property,” and the ruling against Harrison “opened a floodgate of suits over allegedly similar melodies and chord progressions.”
Some Christian fundamentalist anti-rock activists have objected that chanting “Hare Krishna” in “My Sweet Lord” was anti-Christian or satanic.
Ironically, some born-again Christians adopted the song as an anthem.
Ian Inglis (author, cultural critic) highlights the combination of Harrison’s “evident lack of artifice” and Spector’s “excellent production,” is such that “My Sweet Lord” can be heard “as a prayer, a love song, an anthem, a contemporary gospel track, or a piece of perfect pop.”
Whether you love them, like them, or tolerate them, there is no denying The Beatles excellence. There is a reason why they’re one of the four B’s — Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and The Beatles.
Releasing a triple set like All Things Must Pass for your first solo album is bold, but that’s something the group never lacked.
People will continue to re-visit and re-evaluate The Beatles albums (group and solo albums) forever …because whether we want to admit it or not, they’re that good. And they changed the course of modern music.
This includes All Things Must Pass.