In September 1974, George Harrison’s report label, Dark Horse Records launched its first two singles. The first was Ravi Shankar’s “I Am Missing You.” Produced and organized by Harrison, it’s a uncommon Shankar composition in a Western pop type. The different single to come back out that very same day was Splinter’s “Costafine Town,” which went Top 10 in Australia and South Africa and made the UK prime twenty.
Two years later, along with his contractual obligations to different labels at an finish, and with the winding down of Apple Records, George signed to his personal label. In the intervening years, there had been different Dark Horse data releases by Stairsteps, Jiva, Henry McCullough (following his departure from Wings), and a band known as Attitudes. First introduced collectively on Harrison’s 1975 album Extra Texture (Read All About It), Attitudes included keyboard participant David Foster, who additionally performed on George’s debut for Dark Horse, Thirty Three & 1/3.
Listen to Thirty Three & 1/3 now.
George’s seventh solo studio album was recorded at his residence, Friar Park between the tip of May and mid-September 1976, and was launched two months afterward November 19.
Shortly after starting to make this report, George contracted hepatitis, which left him unable to work for a lot of high-summer. Once he regained his well being, due to acupuncture and different non-traditional treatments, George rapidly completed the album, developing with its title to each mirror his age and the velocity at which long-playing data revolved.
The different musicians on the album are all Americans, together with bassist Willie Weeks, drummer Alvin Taylor, keyboard gamers Richard Tee and David Foster, and jazz percussionist Emil Richards. George additionally concerned two of his long-standing musical pals, Gary Wright and Billy Preston, on keyboards. The different musician on the album was horn participant Tom Scott who had been working with George for some time and he’s additionally credited as serving to with the album’s manufacturing – with George as the primary producer.
One of the songs on the report, “See Yourself,” George had began writing in 1967. And that was not the one tune with a protracted gestation; each “Woman Don’t You Cry for Me” and “Beautiful Girl” additionally had their origins within the late Sixties. The first of those, and the album’s opening monitor, he had provide you with whereas touring with, Delaney & Bonnie. It options George’s slide guitar enjoying and it had been Delaney Bramlett who had launched his extra well-known band member to the thought of enjoying slide. Both “See Yourself” and “Dear One” had been impressed by Paramhansa Yogananda, the writer of Autobiography of a Yogi a ebook George had learn on his go to to India in September 1966.
Among the brand new compositions is, “This Song” which was George’s musical touch upon his trials and tribulations over the plagiarism accusations of “My Sweet Lord” and its similarities to The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine.”
“Crackerbox Palace” is George’s account of his assembly with the supervisor of the comic, Lord Buckley, earlier in 1976. For many, the standout monitor on what some have known as, “George’s soul album” is the beautiful, “Pure Smokey” a tribute to Smokey Robinson. This delicate and delightful ballad in recognition of the Motown legend options two of George’s most beautiful guitar solos.
The lead single from Thirty Three & 1/3 was “This Song” and one other monitor off the album, the beautiful, “Learning How To Love You,” was chosen because the B-side. George’s UK single, “It’s What You Value” options the opening monitor “Woman Don’t You Cry For Me” as its B-side. “It’s What You Value” was written after drummer Jim Keltner requested for a brand new Mercedes sports activities automotive, moderately than a money cost for touring with George in 1974.
The report options one cowl, “True Love” a model of Cole Porter’s tune, made well-known by Bing Crosby within the movie, High Society.
Thirty Three & 1/3 outsold each, Dark Horse and Extra Texture in America, peaking at No. 11 on the charts. Inexplicably, given the standard of the songs, it solely made No. 35 within the UK, coming into the chart on January 8, 1977; however then once more, two days after George completed recording his album, the Festival Of Punk occurred in London’s 100 Club… the musical occasions had been a-changin.’
“This Song” and “Crackerbox Palace” peaked at No. 26 and No. 19, respectively, on the Hot 100; not one of the three singles launched within the UK charted.
Upon its launch, Billboard stated, “[It’s] a sunny, upbeat album of love songs and cheerful jokes that is [George’s] happiest and most commercial package, with least high-flown postures, for perhaps his entire solo career.” It’s not possible to disagree. While different contemporaneous opinions had been rather less charitable, Thirty Three & 1/3 is a report that has acquired higher with age. It has a gentleness about it, a reflectiveness that’s beguiling. As one current retrospective reviewer stated, “The magnificent ‘Dear One’” among the album’s “countless classic tracks.” It’s that type of report, like a superb wine… it improves with age.
Thirty-Three & 1/3 could be purchased right here.