George Harrison in 1974: Why Did He Decide To Tour?

We did.

 

Wow. Yeah loads of Ringo albums instead of Lennon ones. Not a blessing.

 

I don't think that Dylan would ever have agreed to it, I'm sorry. Friendship with George or not, I can't see him doing even a small tour, maybe just a quick walk on at one or two shows.

 

He missed Philadelphia also.

 

I might be the only one who saw a 74 show and enjoyed it. I was only 20 years old and very excited to see a Beatle!
I saw the show in Tucson, AZ and thought it was very good. It sort of had a circus vibe to it. Kind of like George's version of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishman.
Seemed like he had a great bunch of musicians. Yes, maybe the Ravi Shankar section was a bit much for a 20 year old ha ha. But I was familiar with him and knew what to expect. I do remember the sound, overall, was not great.............a bit boomy out in the audience. Maybe that helped mask some of George's singing problem.

I have read over the years that some think that one half of the tour was better than the other half regarding George's voice.

 

The Montreal show I went to was on December 8 (matinee), and I don't recall having been shocked by his voiced like I've just been this morning upon clicking on the "What Is Life" clip upthread...

 

Another curious aspect of the tour is this:

"Before his 1974 tour, he had decided that several concerts would be benefits, and he had heard about the plight of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. The Free Clinic opened in 1967, the year of Harrison's first visit, and had survived the district's post-Summer-of-Love speed/rip-off/deterioration phase. The clinic had grown but had lost federal revenue-sharing money marked for 1975. It was set to shut down part of its medical sector, which, the previous year, spent $67,500 to treat 10,000 patients. Harrison donated net profits from his first Bay Area concert to the clinic -- a total of $66,000." - [x]

Why would he do that if the goal was to make as much money as possible?

George and Pattie weren't properly divorced until 1977, and she hadn't taken much money from him aside from £5,000 one time.

His decision to do the tour doesn't strike me as particularly odd when you take into consideration that George was a very ambitious man, and he absolutely loved collaborating with his friends. When he first became friendly with the Pythons he excitedly told Michael Palin his idea of doing Harrison-Python shows, and wanted to record the Lumberjack Song as a single. Despite Apple turning into a disaster he wanted to continue taking on artists with his own label. Friar Park was in a dire state when he bought it, but he wanted to put the time and money into restoring it. When Ravi Shankar asked for some help with Bangladesh, George went above and beyond by setting up a whole benefit concert and turning it into a film. When Eric Idle told him about Life of Brian he went on to create Handmade Films. Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty have talked about how he was constantly coming up with wacky ideas of how the Traveling Wilburys could tour, and if he had enough beers he might seriously consider it. Sometimes his plans would result in something brilliant, and other times they didn't turn out so well.

I see the Dark Horse Tour as falling into the latter, and maybe at another point in his life it would've fallen through the cracks as he would've decided it wasn't worth the hassle. In 1974 though, his wife had left him, his old band was gone, and it was apparent he couldn't hide in Friar Park forever. He'd set up a record label, the Material World Foundation, was working for several months with Ravi Shankar, and had the success of the Concert for Bangladesh and cocaine/alcohol to give him the extra boost of confidence he needed.

I still think it was a really cool thing to do and could've been great if it was executed a little differently. It was just unfortunate his voice was in bad shape.

 

That was pretty great!!!

 

I can see how material like this may have turned off those in the audience who just wanted to rock, but it was pretty audacious to present this East-West fusion as part of the concert. In hindsight, it’s fascinating to me. I’d love to see a DVD of an entire show, or of the entire set from this tour, if the footage exists to assemble a complete show.

 

George's vision was always bigger than his own ego Imo. Listening to some of the boots, there seem to be very good versions of all the tunes scattered throughout, where the croaky voice is either less intrusive or suits the song. Whether they're all captured on film or professionally recorded across the tour who would know. I've really grown to appreciate George's arrangement and performance of In My Life as well.

 

This is a great interview Don Ellis did with George in 1975 promoting Ravi Shankar's Music Festival From India where he talks about wanting to bring Indian musicians to the West.

 

I admire George for not just borrowing a few sitar licks in the mid-60s, but for also insisting on presenting Indian music as part of the Bangladesh and 1974 concerts, and for using his clout to put out the records by the Radha Krishna Temple and Shankar Family And Friends. He was sincere about spreading the word about this music that he loved.

 

This is my memory too.
I caught him in Providence, RI.
Did you see him in Boston, just before?

 

Yes...I'm well aware of the "Dark Hoarse" period. It's a good thing he didn't he didn't permanently damage his voice, like Neilson did during the "Pussycats" session.
How much time had elapsed from the early take to the final version?

 

Of course, I agree. That's why I said one show.

 

Because we have boots of almost every show that document that the tour wasn't craptastic. The bottom line is that the tour wasn't what people wanted from an ex-Beatle and therefore many were/are disappointed. The same thing can be said about pretty much every album after All Things Must Pass. A lot of people discount entire decades of Harrison's output because they wanted him to re-create ATMP over and over again.

I think the boots show that his voice did improve some in the latter part of the tour although it seemed to get better or worse from show to show. By the Nov 22nd Fort Worth show his voice was a bit rough but he wasn't quite screaming the lyrics as he had been doing. At the Dec 17th show in Philadelphia, his voice is much better. He sings rather than screams "Something".

And listen to the crowd response on Nov 6 in San Francisco, Nov 28 in Atlanta and Dec 17 in Philadelphia. Unlike what some here would have you think, those crowds were obviously enjoying the show.

Listen to the Dec 6 night show in Toronto to hear George completely comfortable with his frontman role. An unusually talkative George.

Listen to the Dec 13 night show in Largo, Maryland for some inspired guitar work from Hari and Robben Ford.

 

You sadly caught an off night. My notes for the recording of that night are "Good but unremarkable performance".

 

I was also at the Providence show and had the same experience. Although I was happy to attend a concert by a Beatle, the experience was underwhelming.

 

For the people who were disappointed, were you actually big fans of George himself and interested in Indian music at all, or were you simply there because he was a Beatle? I don't mean that to sound critical or anything, but I think it's fair to say that was the case for many, and it's hard to gauge how much is based on the shows actually being bad, and how much of it is a case of people not getting the Beatle-y experience they were hoping for.

 

I saw him at the Nassau Coliseum in LI NY. I was maybe 17 and my first concert. I’m a big Beatles fan as well as a fan of George. I have say that I was disappointed. His voice was very bad, very hoarse. The volume level was also weak. He also injected spiritual references into a few of his songs. No objection to this but I found it needless. I guess I really expected to be blown away. As others have mentioned, great musician and songwriter but not much of a frontman. I recall the show being plodding and slow moving.

 

Yes. At the Boston Garden.

 

Yup. Big fan. Bad show.

 

Never saw him (too young) but I have a boot of the Ft Worth show. A bit underwhelming, but not totally horrid. I probably would have enjoyed it in person with a good seat and a buzz.

 

I am a fanboy of George's. He is my all-time favorite artist. The favorite member of my all time favorite band.

However, the bootlegs I have heard of the 74 tour sound horrible. His voice was shot, he was preachy.. and the song arrangements were not good. Jmo.

 

Here George interprets In My Life, making it his own mediocre overblown mid-70s mess.