October 22 & 23 (Days 295 & 296) – All Things Must Pass

I thought that I would hear a number of albums during this 48 hour period.  It involved travel to yet another country location for work and a night speaking engagement.  Unfortunately, the tool I use to hook up my iPod to my in car stereo system failed to work on either trip out of or back to Melbourne and so I entertained myself with listening to Melbourne’s sports news station.

By the time I returned to my office just before lunchtime on the Wednesday, I had time only to play a couple of albums.  As such I used it to get through the finest studio triple album ever recorded:

(# 685) George Harrison – All Things Must Pass (1970)

It was probably a measure of the deeply combative nature between John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the final couple of years of The Beatles that neither could recognise the sheer quality of songs that George Harrison was building.  (And that’s despite the fact he contributed both Here Comes The Sun and Something to Abbey Road, the last album the Fab 4 ever recorded.) Gathering together friends such as Eric Clapton and the musicians that would subsequently form Derek And The Dominoes, among others, Harrison released this magnum opus. 

On first listen, what surprises even the casual Beatles fan is the sheer number of classic tracks on this album.  Sides 1 and 2 alone contained mega hits My Sweet Lord and What Is Life as well as Wah-Wah, the first version of Isn’t It A Pity and his cover of Dylan’s If Not For You.   Later sides contribute tracks of the calibre of Beware Of Darkness , I Dig Love, the second version of Isn’t It A Pity and Hear Me Lord.  Even now these tracks dominate the selection in any given Harrison best of release you’d care to name.

Finally there is the third disc of material recorded during jam sessions, collection known as the Apple Jam.  Of these the most successful are unquestionably Plug Me In, I Remember Jeep and Thanks For The Pepperoni, all rollicking 50’s style instrumentals which borrows the central riffs from a number of well known tunes and features some stinging playing by Harrison and Clapton.