Guest post: George Harrison demos

Since I'm on vacation, it's a fine time to let someone else take the wheel for a bit, as one of you recently commented. So today we've got a special treat to the Fuel/Friends blog with a guest blog on a nice little set of demos from Beatle George Harrison. I'd been entirely unfamiliar with any of Harrison's solo work before I was recently tasked to try and unearth this set of demos from Harrison's All Things Must Pass album (1970). I was surprised at the gentle and warm acoustic loveliness, not being at all familiar with Harrison's work aside from The Beatles.

This particular pal (I call him MasterCairo) is responsible for introducing me to a massive amount of good music, and possesses an encyclopedic library of musical minutae in his head. Not kidding, it's like world-record material. This is his first attempt at blogging: for years now he's just had to try and unload his vast musical knowledge on disinterested friends and poor passersby. Finally, he has a willing audience. He writes:

"Not only are these sessions amazingly historic, but they're just beautiful -- like the George Harrison cafe sessions! Art of Dying was written in 1966 and fuck me does it sound like it totally could have been on Revolver -- which it would have been considered for?! But I think it probably sounded too much like Eleanor Rigby, and since it was Paul vs. George...ta da.

George sat down on solo guitar with Phil Spector in Abbey Road Studio 2, and ran through the cache of songs he had built up over the repressive last years of the Beatles. Sit back, get a coffee, put on a turtleneck if you feel pretentious enough, make like it's the end of the '60s, and let George play you some of the tunes he's been collecting over the past few years."

GEORGE HARRISON DEMOS
w/ Phil Spector ("Beware of ABKCO" sessions)
1970

Run of the Mill
Art of Dying
Everybody, Nobody
Wah-Wah
(sounds to me like a variation of the riff from I've Got A Feelin')
Window, Window
Beautiful Girl
Beware of Darkness
Let It Down
Tell Me What Happened To You
Hear Me Lord
Nowhere to Go (a Harrison/Dylan collaboration)
Cosmic Empire
Mother Divine
I Don't Want To Do It (Dylan)
If Not For You (Dylan)

ZIP: HARRISON DEMOS

Note: the title of this boot comes from a changed lyric on the song "Beware of Darkness" to "Beware of ABKCO" (Allan B Klein Company).