All Things Must Pass is the third studio album by the 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".Ben Gerson, "George Harrison All Things Must Pass" , Rolling Stone, 21 January 1971, p. 46 (retrieved 5 June 2013). Reflecting the widespread surprise at the assuredness of Harrison's post-Beatles debut, Melody Makers 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, with at least 7 million albums sold. 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 2023 update of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2014, All Things Must Pass was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Background Music journalist John Harris said George Harrison's "journey" to making All Things Must Pass started when he visited America in late 1968, after the acrimonious sessions for the Beatles' self-titled double album (also known as the "White Album"). At Woodstock in November, Harrison started a long-lasting friendship with Bob Dylan and experienced a creative equality with the Band that contrasted with John Lennon and Paul McCartney's dominance in the Beatles. He also wrote more songs, renewing his interest in the guitar after three years studying the Indian sitar. As well as being one of the few musicians to co-write songs with Dylan, Harrison had recently collaborated with Eric Clapton on "Badge", which became a hit single for Cream in the spring of 1969."Artist: Cream" , Official Charts Company (retrieved 16 January 2013).
Once back in London, and with his compositions continually overlooked for inclusion on releases by the Beatles,Martin O'Gorman, "Film on Four", Mojo Special Limited Edition: 1000 Days of Revolution (The Beatles' Final Years – 1 January 1968 to 27 September 1970), Emap (London, 2003), p. 73. Harrison found creative fulfilment in extracurricular projects that, in the words of his musical biographer, Simon Leng, served as an "emancipating force" from the restrictions imposed on him in the band. His activities during 1969 included producing Apple signings Billy Preston and Doris Troy, two American singer-songwriters whose soul and gospel roots proved as influential on All Things Must Pass as the music of the Band. He also recorded with artists such as Leon Russell and Jack Bruce, and accompanied Clapton on a short tour with Delaney Bramlett's soul revue, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. In addition, Harrison identified his involvement with the Hare Krishna movement as providing "another piece of a jigsaw puzzle" that represented the spiritual journey he had begun in 1966. As well as embracing the Vaishnavist branch of Hinduism, Harrison produced two hit singles during 1969–70 by the UK-based devotees, credited as Radha Krishna Temple (London). In January 1970, Harrison invited American producer Phil Spector to participate in the recording of Lennon's Plastic Ono Band single "Instant Karma!"George Harrison, in George Harrison: Living in the Material World DVD, Village Roadshow, 2011 (directed by Martin Scorsese; produced by Olivia Harrison, Nigel Sinclair & Martin Scorsese). This association led to Spector being given the task of salvaging the Beatles' Get Back rehearsal tapes, released officially as the Let It Be album (1970), and later co-producing All Things Must Pass.
Harrison first discussed the possibility of making a solo album of his unused songs during the ill-tempered Get Back sessions, held at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969. On 25 February, his 26th birthday, Harrison recorded demos of "All Things Must Pass" and two other compositions that had received little interest from Lennon and McCartney at Twickenham. With the inclusion of one of these songs – "Something" – and "Here Comes the Sun" on the Beatles' Abbey Road album in September 1969, music critics acknowledged that Harrison had bloomed into a songwriter to match Lennon and McCartney. He began talking publicly about recording his own album from the autumn of 1969, but only committed to the idea after McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles in April 1970. Included as part of the promotional material for McCartney's self-titled solo album, this announcement signalled the band's break-up. Despite having already made Wonderwall Music (1968), a mostly instrumental soundtrack album, and the experimental Electronic Sound (1969), Harrison considered All Things Must Pass to be his first solo album.
Songs
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Spector first heard Harrison's stockpile of unreleased songs early in 1970, when visiting Harrison's recently purchased home, Friar Park. "It was endless!", Spector later recalled of the recital, noting the quantity and quality of Harrison's material. Harrison had accumulated songs from as far back as 1966; both "Isn't It a Pity" and "Art of Dying" date from that year. He co-wrote at least two songs with Dylan while in Woodstock, one of which, "I'd Have You Anytime", appeared as the lead track on All Things Must Pass. Harrison also wrote "Let It Down" in late 1968.
He introduced the Band-inspired "All Things Must Pass", along with "Hear Me Lord" and "Let It Down", at the Beatles' Get Back rehearsals, only to have them rejected by Lennon and McCartney. The tense atmosphere at Twickenham fuelled another All Things Must Pass song, "Wah-Wah", which Harrison wrote in the wake of his temporary departure from the band on 10 January 1969. Harrison later confirmed that the song was a "swipe" at McCartney.Timothy White, "George Harrison – Reconsidered", Musician, November 1987, p. 55. "Run of the Mill" followed soon afterwards, its lyrics focusing on the failure of friendships within the Beatles amid the business problems surrounding their Apple organisation. Harrison's musical activities outside the band during 1969 inspired other songs on the album: "What Is Life" came to him while driving to a London session that spring for Preston's That's the Way God Planned It album;Andy Davis, Billy Preston Encouraging Words CD, liner notes (Apple Records, 2010; produced by George Harrison & Billy Preston). "Behind That Locked Door" was Harrison's message of encouragement to Dylan, written the night before the latter's comeback performance at the Isle of Wight Festival; and Harrison began "My Sweet Lord" as an exercise in writing a gospel song during Delaney & Bonnie's stopover in Copenhagen in December 1969.
"I Dig Love" resulted from Harrison's early experiments with slide guitar, a technique to which Bramlett had introduced him, to cover for guitarist Dave Mason's departure from the Friends line-up. Other songs on All Things Must Pass, all written during the first half of 1970, include "Awaiting on You All", which reflected Harrison's adoption of chanting through his involvement with the Hare Krishna movement; "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)", a tribute to the original owner of Friar Park; and "Beware of Darkness". The latter was another song influenced by Harrison's association with the Radha Krishna Temple, and was written while some of the devotees were staying with him at Friar Park.
On 1 May 1970, shortly before beginning work on All Things Must Pass, Harrison attended a Dylan session in New York, during which he acquired a new song of Dylan's, "If Not for You". Harrison wrote "Apple Scruffs", which was one of several Dylan-influenced songs on the album, towards the end of production on All Things Must Pass, as a tribute to the diehard fans who had kept a vigil outside the studios where he was working.
According to Leng, All Things Must Pass represents the completion of Harrison's "musical-philosophical circle", in which his 1966–68 immersion in Indian music found a Western equivalent in gospel music. While identifying hard rock, country and Motown among the other genres on the album, Leng writes of the "plethora of new sounds and influences" that Harrison had absorbed through 1969 and now incorporated, including "Krishna chants, gospel ecstasy, Southern blues-rock [and] slide guitar". The melodies of "Isn't It a Pity" and "Beware of Darkness" have aspects of Indian classical music, and on "My Sweet Lord", Harrison combined the Hindu bhajan tradition with gospel. Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork describes the album as "dark-tinged Krishna folk-rock".
The recurrent lyrical themes are Harrison's spiritual quest, as they would be throughout his solo career , and friendship, particularly the failure of relationships among the Beatles. Music journalist Jim Irvin says that Harrison sings of "deep love – for his faith, for life and the people around him". He adds that the songs are performed with "tension and urgency" as if "the whole thing is happening on the edge of a canyon, an abyss into which the '60s is about to topple".Jim Irvin, "George Harrison: All Things Must Pass (Apple)" , Rock's Backpages, 2000 (subscription required; retrieved 28 November 2020).
Apple Jam