George Harrison - All Things Must Pass [BOXED EDITION]

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• HARRISON GEORGE ALL THINGS MUST PAST

Music reviews of All Things Must Pass [BOXED EDITION]

Music Review: Everyone has choice
Rating: 5 Stars

By 1970, the always-growing egos of Lennon and McCartney finally broke up the band, thus leaving Harrison the opportunity to show himself and the world his real talents. Everyone has choice, and he took it. He recluted Phil Spector (who had built "Let It Be", that last Beatles album collected from the mountain of tapes that had been left after the "Get Back" sessions, and also co-produced the first three John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band singles and the album of the same title the same year) to work with him as a producer, and brought to the table only "a part" of the high mountain of songs he had collected during his years while with The Beatles. Some friends (Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman) and another guest stars (Gary Brooker, Badfinger, Ginger Baker, Billy Preston and Phil Collins) helped building the songs and bringing them onto shape. The resultant work is the triple vinyl "All Things Must Pass", which was a huge seller around the world, and converted George Harrison into the best-selling solo Beatle of the four after the break-up.

And there were more than enough reasons for this enormous success. Spector's accurate way of producing built an adequate basis to an enormously qualified group of Harrisongs... The album passes through all of the guitarist's influences. Religious oriental music can be found on songs like the million-seller "My Sweet Lord", the polemic "Awaiting On You All", the touching "Beware Of Darkness", the painfully sung "Hear Me Lord", which can be heard as a chant made by George praying for his life to get a little better. Country music with great parts of slide guitar is found on "Behind That Locked Door"; blues appears with its jamming guitars on "I Dig Love"; George shines playing acoustic, mouth organ and electric on the gorgeous fan-directed "Apple Scruffs" (yes... "we're all Apple Scruffs"), as he does with the lovely ballads, such as the haunting opener "I'd Have You Anytime", the tender love anthem "If Not For You" (both co-written with Bob Dylan), and the highly well arranged orchestral rocker "Let It Down". You can also hear samplers of great sardonic lyrical moments by Hari, such as "Wah-Wah" (a rocker which is seen by many as a song written for his ex-bandmate John and his wife Yoko), "Run Of The Mill" (a wonderful but ironic ballad with amazing lyrics, supossedly directed to Paul McCartney) and "Isn't It A Pity", song that appears in two completely different versions, and is seen by many as George's own manifesto about what happened earlier that year. "What Is Life" shines as maybe the greatest symphonic rock ballad ever, while "The Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)", shows the humoristic side of George Harrison (SFC formerly was the owner of Friar Park, Harrison's magnificent house, and had a strange personality), "All Things Must Pass" was yet another Beatles left-over, and is a thrilling ballad which can make you chill, and "Art Of Dying" features the hardest-rocking solo Beatles song ever, with interesting and intriguing lyrics.

That kind of group of songs was something that couldn't be seen since the Beatles' albums. But to make everyone happy, George decided to release yet another disc with this album, in which we could see the development of the sessions themselves, as they were an amazing joint of very well-prepared music... So the "Apple Jam" is what we can see on disc 3.

The audio quality of the CD set first released in 1987 played against Spector's producing and Harrison's singing. So this urgently needed remixing, and it was done late 2000, with amazing results... If the sound improvements (vocals sound much clearer now, and we can appreciate almost every instrument used in each song) are not enough for you to buy the album, probably "I Live For You" (a never-released track from the original sessions, which is a haunting ballad with a little overdubbing done lately) will make it. As a curiosity, the album also features different versions of "Let It Down" and "Beware Of Darkness" (both with George on acoustic), a different mix of "What Is Life" (instrumental) and the latest showcase of Harrison's singing, the new version of the classic "My Sweet Lord", which can only be appreciated if you don't compare it to the original. Plus, the packaging, with the always-changing coloured cover (which shows the "evolution" of the world... it begins clean in front of the box and ends filled with buildings and highways in the booklet), the original cover featured as a picture inside the booklet, and liner notes by George himself, is another highlight.

Furthermore, the best reason to re-buy this album if you already own it (or to buy it if you haven't heard it), is because this is by far the best solo album ever released by any of The Beatles. Neither the rock and roll poet John Lennon nor the pop master Paul McCartney could ever reunite a set of such powerful songs as this one. This shows that George was more than a "dark horse"... He was a genious in the shadows, taking his choice to illuminate all our lives with splendid music. He did it through this record, which is surrounded by an emotional and deep set of lyrics and well-arranged music. Take your choice with it.

Description of All Things Must Pass [BOXED EDITION]

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