George Harrison’s Family Confirm ‘All Things Must Pass’ 50th Anniversary Reissue
Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Barry Feinstein
Talking with Rolling Stone, George Harrison‘s wife Olivia and son, Dhani have revealed they are working on a 50th anniversary edition of All Things Must Pass.
The conversation arrives as part of a new feature by Rolling Stone on George Harrison‘s Dark Horse Record Label.
Both provide several interesting insights about he labels past and Harrison’s solo career in the 1970s.
But perhaps most exciting of all is the revelation of the wealth of material they have uncovered sifting through the record label’s archives.
“We have people digging through mountains of tapes, and they keep coming,” Dhani enthuses. “Boxes and boxes of them.”
With George Harrison‘s solo debut All Things Must Pass turning 50 this November, Olivia has also confirmed that the Harrison family is working on something special for the release.
“A lot of it has been bootlegged,” Olivia says referring specifically to material from All Things Must Pass era, “but we have better versions. We have all the 24-tracks of All Things Must Pass, and we found lots of different takes and talking in the studio.”
A number of Bob Dylan covers as well as ‘Window, Window’, a song written by Harrison and Dylan, were also recorded around this time but never formally released.
Rolling Stone also reported that expanded versions of George Harrison‘s Concert for Bangladesh, 1973 album Living in the Material World and the former Beatle’s controversial 1974 US tour were also being considered.
“His voice is pretty tired, but in my opinion, it sounds great,” Dhani shares of the 1974 tour.
“It’s raspy, and it has grit to it,” Olivia concurs. “You can hear the fragility in all the songs. It’s a different take on a lot of his music.”
Harrison’s wife then suggests that the amount of video footage capture backstage during the tour “could make a great tour movie.”
“The backstage footage is amazing and hysterical,” she states. “Things went on backstage that don’t happen now. Now everything is so cut and dried, the opposite of spontaneous.”
The full feature here.