ON THIS DATE (40 YEARS AGO) November 18, 1974 - George Harrison: Dark Horse b/w I Dont Care Anymore (Apple 1877) 45 single is released in the US. Dark Horse is a song by George Harrison and the title track of his 1974 album on Apple Records. The song was released as the albums lead single in North America, becoming a top 20 hit in the United States, but it was Harrisons first single not to chart in Britain when issued there in early 1975. Harrison also used the name for his record label, Dark Horse, and his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar would come to be known as the Dark Horse Tour. Commentators and biographers recognize the song as Harrisons rebuttal to a number of possible detractors: reviewers who criticized the spiritual content of his Living in the Material World album, first wife Pattie Boyd, and even former Beatles bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. By October 1974, when he arrived in Los Angeles to prepare for the tour, a combination of Harrisons business commitments, his dedication to projects by his Dark Horse acts, and a lifestyle that Leng terms one drink too many, too frequently meant that production on Harrisons Dark Horse album was severely behind schedule. For three weeks, by day Harrison rehearsed with his tour band, which included Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Jim Horn, Robben Ford, Willie Weeks and Andy Newmark, at the A&M studio complex on La Brea Avenue, Hollywood. In the evenings, he added vocals and other overdubs to tracks rush-recorded at Friar Park. He had intended to finish Dark Horse in this way but decided instead to re-record the track, since the musicians were having to learn the song for inclusion in the concert setlist. Already exhausted through overwork before arriving in Los Angeles, Harrison lost his voice early on in the rehearsals and contracted laryngitis, the results of which were obvious on the finished songs, particularly Dark Horse. Harrison and his tour band recorded the albums title track live on a sound stage at A&M in late October, with Norm Kinney engineering the session. Lon and Derrek Van Eaton, who, like Preston, were a former Apple Records act now signed with A&M Records, overdubbed backing vocals soon afterwards. Compounding Harrisons misfortune, Lon Van Eaton recalls, the security guard at the studio gate failed to recognize the ex-Beatle and refused to let the party in at first. This official version of Dark Horse is notable for its arrangement, incorporating aspects of funk and jazz, as well as for Harrisons lead vocal, which he described as sounding like the singer Louis Armstrong. Harrison later told reporters that he quite liked the result, but according to Andy Newmark, Harrison was concerned about how concert-goers would react to his shot vocals. The recording features a trio of flute players, led by Scott; Billy Preston on electric piano; and Robben Ford doubling Harrisons capo-ed acoustic-guitar part, much like Pete Ham had done three years before on Here Comes the Sun at the Concert for Bangladesh. The busy rhythm section of funky stalwarts Weeks and Newmark[ contributed to the track sounding more contemporary than Harrisons recent solo work, which had used the previously preferred team of Voorman, Starr and/or Keltner, although the latter does provide hi-hats here, supporting Newmarks beat. In addition, Emil Richards played a percussion instrument know as a crochet. Harrison played Dark Horse throughout both the 1974 tour and his 1991 Japanese tour with Eric Clapton, which was Harrisons only other series of concerts as a solo artist. A live version of the song appears on his 1992 album Live in Japan. Recordings also exist of Harrison performing the song during radio and television appearances, although none of these versions are available on official releases. The studio recording has yet to be remastered since Dark Horse and the 1976 compilation The Best of George Harrison were issued on compact disc in the early 1990s. George Harrisons 1973 album Living in the Material World had divided music critics, with Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone lauding it as a pop religious ceremony for all seasons and an article of faith, miraculous in its radiance, while the NMEs reviewer derided the pious nature of the songs and concluded: So damn holy I could scream. Although the album was another massive commercial success for Harrison, and the general perception remained that he was still the most capable of the four ex-Beatles, Harrison was reportedly stung by this criticism of the overt Vaishnava Hindu spirituality in his music. His purchase of Bhaktivedanta Manor early that year as a UK headquarters for ISKCON – or, colloquially, the Hare Krishna movement – led to ridicule in the British press. Author Joshua Greene, a former ISKCON devotee, describes a visit Harrison made to the house in August 1973 when the singer shared his concerns with Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the movements international leader: Im provoking a bad reaction, Harrison confided. The stronger the commitment on my part, the stronger the animosity becomes. At the same time, Harrisons marriage to Pattie Boyd was coming to an end, and he would later describe his behaviour during their final years together as the naughty period, 1973−74. Biographer Ian Inglis has written of Harrisons dismay at the more negative reviews for Material World: It coincided with a period of intense disarray and frequent infidelities in his personal life, and the combination of these two sources of disappointment produced a mood of gloom and cynicism that would invariably work its way into his next musical projects. Dark Horse is the old story. Mr. Penguins poking Mrs. Johnson from the Co-op. Oh really! ... hes a bit of a dark horse isnt he? I didnt know til later the other idea of a dark horse ... Im a bit thick really. – George Harrison, 1979 While describing the lyrics as smarmy, if not somewhat defensive, Allmusics Lindsay Planer identifies the songs opening verse as seem[ing] to address the situation between Harrison and Boyd: You thought that you knew where I was and when Baby, looks like youve been fooling you again You thought that you had got me all staked out Baby, looks like Ive been breaking out. The searing verse-two lines You thought you had got me in your grip / Baby, looks like you was not so smart are a further example of this interpretation, Planer suggests. Like Planer, Inglis recognises a third possible target of Harrisons scorn – former bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Inglis observes that in the songs final verse, Harrison is making it clear to those who have underestimated him in the past that his abilities are not recent acquisitions: I thought that you knew it all along Until you started getting me not right Seems as if you heard a little late I warned you when we both was at the starting gate. Leng notes that this Harrison character would return in his 1976 composition This Song, written as a light-hearted reflection on his travails in court during the My Sweet Lord plagiarism case. Backed with I Dont Care Anymore, Dark Horse was issued as the albums lead single in America (as Apple 1877), on 18 November 1974. The single was available in a white sleeve on which the song lyrics and a large dot appeared in blue print. Capitol Records, Apples US distributor, sent an edited mix, cutting a minutes worth from the middle of the song, as a promotional disc for radio stations across America. George Harrison The Beatles
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 20:00:01 +0000
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