Harrison recorded 25 tracks for Brainwashed

According to some old articles I was re-reading including the U.K. Sunday Times

Harrison was working on 25 tracks during the Brainwashed sessions before he died. I believe the released album had twelve ?

That leaves thirteen where are they ? WHat state are they in. How many of them were finished or nearly finished when Jeff Lynne and Dhani finished the Brainwashed album for George ?


We have heard of the one song Valentine (possibly co-written with Jim Capaldi) supposedly this was a very good one, George played it with overdubs for a journalist shortly before he died.


What happened to the rest and will we see these on the forthcoming Harrison boxset ?

Will they use at least three or four of them ?

Any idea what some of the other tracks were ?

your thoughts

I knew There were a few more tracks they didin't use but I didin't realize there was fully another albums worth!

Apparently these songs varied from the eighties to brand new songs (99-00)

 

Harrison has loads of quality unrealesed and rare songs in the archive (Tears Of The World, Mo, Flying, Hottest Gong, Zig Zag etc), at least 4 albums worth, a lot of his songs were done for pleasure and not to fulfil a contract etc IMO

 

If any of these unreleased tracks are even close to the quality of Brainwashed, then I'm VERY interested.

 

IIRC there was talk before he died of an officially sanctioned rarities box called "Portrait of a Leg End." I don't know what ever came of it though.

I have a nice two disc set someone made for me long ago containing pretty much every rare non-LP track George ever released. It's too bad something like this was never issued officially.

 

It may depend on how much post-production work is needed from Dhani and Lynne.

I got the impression that some Brainwashed cuts were a basic backing track, GH vocal/slide track and an instruction that he trusts them to finish the rest.

I think George was very insecure about releasing anything from the early 80's onward, and did so when the contract asked for it. Or when he needed to fund his $300,000/year Friar Park gardening habit.

 

Among the unreleased stuff George recorded during the last 15 years or so of his life (and remember that some of the 'Brainwashed' stuff - like 'Never Get Over You' sounds like "Somewhere In England" outtake material), at least two have been circulating for some time now : "Shelter Of Your Love", presumably written with Alvin Lee around 1985 (and this sounds a lot like what "Never Get Over You" might have sounded like without the Jeff Lynne post-production), and "Doing The Bonzo Dog", recorded in 1996 with the late Jim Capaldi and intended for a Bonzo Dog Band tribute album that never materialized.

In the summer of 1996, George and Jim got together with Carl Perkins to record "Distance Makes No Difference With Love", that was released later in the year on the "Go Cat Go" CD. And a couple of years later, Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason reportedly performed song written for George's next album called "You Got A Hold On Me".

At the time of "Cloud Nine", George was already claiming that he had been recording lots of demos since "Gone Troppo", and I have to believe him since within months of "Cloud Nine"'s release, a lovely unofficial record came out with the great Dylan track "Abandoned Love" and an alternate take of "I Don't Want To Do It" among other gems.

By the way, did someone ever try to date, even approxitively, all the "Brainwashed" tracks ? Here's my attempt...

1. Any Road
First public airing on VH-1 in 1997 when George was promoting Ravi Shankar's "Chants Of India". George seems to have trouble remembering the songs, indicating that at this time it was already an old song ! I think Dhani suggested elsewhere it was written in Hawaii during the shooting of the "This Is Love" video, so that would take us to early 1988.

2. P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)
Mentioned by George as one of "Cloud Nine" outtakes during one of the interviews he did to promote that album.

3. Pisces Fish
This tune is mentioned, along with the unreleased "Valentine" in the Timothy White interview for Billboard in 1999. George has his distinctive early to mid 90's voice here.

4. Looking For My Life
No specific info about this one. George's mid 90's voice again.

5. The Rising Sun
In the lyrics, George mentions the mad cow disease, which was a big thing in the UK and in Europe in 1996, so that must be from that 1996-1997 period.

6. Marwa Blues
No specific info other that Jeff Lynne had to work from multiple takes to come with the final product.

7. Stuck Inside A Cloud
There an interview somewhere from Jim Keltner who remembers going to Friar Park in the late 90's to record overdubs on lots of unfinished George stuff and he asked George to find the tape for the old 'Cloud' song because he loved it so much.

8. Run So Far
First published by Eric Clapton on his 1989 "Journeyman" album, so I assume this is the version recorded before that by George and offered to Eric along with "That Kind Of Woman" and "Cheer Down".

9. Never Get Over You
No specific info about this one, but the backing track sounds quite similar to the unreleased "Shelter In Your Love" from 1984-85. Could it be from then ?

10. Between The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea
First aired in 1992 in Channel 4's documentary "Mr. Roadrunner", in which George has his distinctive Wilbury/Japan tour 1990-91 looks (no moustache).

11. Rocking Chair In Hawaii
Tune first heard in 1994 on one of the first boots with "All Things Must Pass" sessions from 1970, where it is known as "Down To The River".

12. Brainwashed
No specific info about this one.

 

You must mean Flying Hour, recorded for "Somewhere in England" and eventually released with his Genesis book (Songs by George Harrison I believe it was called). Yes, that song is near the top of my favorite GH songs.

 

The lack of any significant bonus tracks on the "Somewhere In England" re-master is odd. That was a real opportunity missed....

 

Actually, "Flying Hour" was recorded not during the "Somewhere In England" sessions but during the "George Harrison" sessions (Februray 1978, with Neil Larsen on Moog). Why it didn't make that album is strange, as this could have been another hit for George after "Blow Away".

And it's a shame it was one of the tracks removed from the "SIE" tracklisting when the LP finally got a release.

Definitely also among my favorite GH songs !

 

In reality, the lack of many bonus tracks on all of George's reissues is a big missed opportunity. Most of the Dark Horse label reissued CDs have only 1 or 2 bonus tracks --- and they seem to be put on various CDs at random. Like the Tears of The World demo on the 33 & 1/3 reissue, when it should have gone on one of his later albums (I believe Somewhere In England would have been more appropriate).

Arnie

 

I'd have thought the REALLY good unreleased stuff is being held back for the box set.

 

First though, we probably will get the Dark Horse and Extra Texture reissues. Any hope for a late February release of these to commemorate George's birthday?? I believe some of his past CDs have been reissued around the date of his birthday, so it is possible.

And what types of bonus tracks could we hope for on these two?

Arnie

 

I'm not so sure about that. The 1999 interview George did with Timothy White, in which George played Timothy some songs from his "upcoming" album, mentioned several Brainwashed songs, and the descriptions of those were quite close to the finished versions...

But, back to the topic at hand, here's George's exact words about that "upcoming album" from his yahoo chat in early 2001 to promote the ATMP reissue:

morvyon asks: George, are you planning a new studio album?

george_harrison_live: Yeah.

george_harrison_live: I hope to put out a new
studio album

george_harrison_live: Possibly in November

george_harrison_live: and I have at the moment
many songs in various states of completion

george_harrison_live: Possibly 35 songs that I have
been working on over the years.
​

 

Yeah, had a mind blank and couldn't think of the whole title, I think it is also on my 12"" of Got My Mind Set On You

Edit: No actually its 'Lay His head' now I think more about it!

 

Some overdubbing was done in the several months between george's passing and the release of Brainwashed a year later.

 

I know that. I'm just saying that I don't think the songs were as skeletal as you suggested in your earlier post (basic backing track, GH vocal/slide track and an instruction that he trusts them to finish the rest). If you have access to the White interview, read that and see if it fits with what you described - I don't think it does...

 

George told Dhani exactly what tracks to add to each reissue.
That's why there are so few: they followed his advice.

George always was an "always leave the audience wanting more" kinda guy.

As for "Abandoned Love": I always thought that was a radio station
performance/appearance track, and not intended for general release per se.

 

Do you have a source for this? A Dhani interview, perhaps? I've never heard that...

Regardless, sometimes it doesn't make much sense for these guys to dictate what goes on their discs. Kinda like how McCartney added the Wings' A-side "Goodnight Tonight" (which preceded Back to the Egg) to the reissue of his solo McCartney II album (which came out the following year). Meanwhile, he added the b-side onto "Egg".

 

I did too. I'm positive I read somewhere that many of the drum tracks, for instance, were overdubbed later. Someone involved made a comment that Harrison's rhythm guitar playing was so steady that the drummer (Jim Keltner, I believe) didn't have any problems overdubbing his part after the fact.

There's a DVD that came with my edition, and I believe Jeff and Dhani discuss it on that.

 

Actually, that's exactly what I heard/read as well regarding the bonus tracks.

 

If the box is ever released, here's hoping they change the horrible title.

 

Okay folks...here's a very old story from Abbeyrd's Beatles Page that you'll find helpful:

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/523dhanibbc.html

It references a radio interview with Dhani where he talks about both the "Brainwashed" sessions and the reissue bonus track situation.

The odd thing is that Dhani says the original "Brainwashed" demos featured Jim Keltner on drums, but as I mentioned earlier, I'm positive I've heard various people mention that Keltner did at least some of his drum tracks later on.

 

It was George's title, a pun on "Portrait of a Legend" and a reference to "bootlegs."

 

The "title" comes from a somewhat joking remark in the '99 Timothy White interview. While discussing his "new album", George talked about releasing it with accompanying artwork as "portrait of a boot leg" and the box set, with similar artwork, as "portrait of a leg end". I doubt he was terribly serious about either concept, but coupled together, there was some humor there that folks may not be aware of, if they've only heard the latter title..

 

Thanks mucho, Keymaster!
It is interesting to read Dhani's comments, first about the "demos" for Brainwashed:

a lot of people think the demos that aren't posh. Usually demos are recorded on an eight track or y'know, they're demos, they're very very rough. Now when my dad says that they're not posh, they're not posh but they're still recorded on a twenty four track system and they're all there, and Jim Keltner was playing drums on them and you know, you've got all these Indian musicians and amazing players and all that.​

And second, about the reissues:

certain albums record companies didn't like tracks so I think there were three tracks that didn't get onto George Harrison, there was a couple of tracks that didn't get onto Dark Horse. And so here and there he'd been unhappy with the way that they'd turned out. Not very unhappy but just slightly miffed, and we plan to put all the original tracks back on and make the artwork how it was...​

Of course, Dark Horse hasn't yet been reissued, but it makes you curious what "couple of tracks" Apple (!?!) didn't want on the album. As for the self-titled disc, I've never heard that three tracks were cut from it (?). Four were cut from the original Somewhere in England, of course, but they didn't get restored there, and three didn't get added to George Harrison.

Despite this interview, or perhaps because of it, I'm stubbornly unconvinced that George himself laid out the bonus tracks for the reissues! I just think they're saving goodies (like "Valentine") for that long-delayed boxset...