A few months ago I found a used copy of George Harrison’s 1970 masterpiece album “All Things Must Pass”. Where do we begin discussing that album? I have been deeply under it’s magic spell since. I’m working on a new album with the band and I’ve been doing some research: learning songs from the masters, doing lots of listening to all manner of different stuff and searching my soul too wondering if we can pull it off again, also wondering how in hell we’re gonna pay for it. I sat down with ATMP a few nights ago and learned all the chord progressions. What a lesson! It’s pure genius that I plan on covertly stealing asap. Didn’t Picasso say something about good artists copy, great ones steal. Pablo, I will do my very best to steal, you can judge the merits of my musical larceny when the dust settles on the new Felsen album.
There was one guitar part that really intrigued me and I wanted to try and learn. It’s the lead line that you hear right at the top of “What is Life”. I’m not much of a guitarist--I’m more of a guitar owner/songwriter and singer only by default. This guitar part didn’t sound particularly hard to play, I could figure out most of it. The problem was that once producer’s Phil Spector’s reverb-drenched Wall of Sound kicks in the part kinda gets hard to hear in the verse sections. I did what us modern musicians do: troll about the internet looking for tab (couldn’t find any), but I did come across a great youtube clip where the part is isolated and it really made me start thinking about how brilliant the guy was. You can hear swagger in there and maybe some kind of an R&B/funk influence too. You can also hear the confidence and intelligence in this part. Confidence? Just to put it in perspective, in the two years or so leading up to the recording of ATMP, George recorded the first Beatle solo effort (the soundtrack to the movie Wonderwall, much of which was recorded in Bombay with Indian musicians), recorded all 4 sides of the White Album and the Hey Jude single, recorded more music for Yellow Submarine, co-wrote tunes with and produced sessions for Bob Dylan and the Band, acted as Apple Records A&R man signing both James Taylor and Badfinger (produced some of their stuff too), recorded both the Let It Be and Abbey Road albums, produced a Billy Preston album, co-wrote the hit Cream tune “Badge”, toured as a sideman with Delaney and Bonnie and co-wrote with and produced Ringo’s solo music. Big couple of years for George--more than most of us musicians will ever achieve in several lifetimes. Dude had skills for days! Oh yeah, he studied sitar with the Maestro, Ravi Shankar. How could I forget that? And that’s just the 2 years leading up to the making of ATMP! Dont’ forget his 10,000 hours in the clubs of Hamburg as a teen, the 12 string electric guitar, the Revolver album...
The fact that he was under Lennon & McCartney’s thumb, playing second fiddle for many years is pretty much common knowledge for all of Beatlefreaks. He had a lot to prove with ATMP. Phil Spector said that he was beyond a perfectionist. I think you can hear it in this part. The part pretty much is the bass line to the song too. What came first? Probably George’s part. So perfect was it, that bassist Carl Radle jumped on it. The ex-Beatles knew a thing or two about bass lines being in the Mac’s band. Session bassist extraordinaire Tony Levin said that John Lennon was the artist who completely knew exactly what they wanted from the bass. I’m sure George was probably the same. George’s guitar line sits in that sweet spot of really dialed-in while at the same time being nice and loose. Pure rock and roll gold.
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