I’m sure Lynne was happy to lose the 80s reverb at the point of Brainwashed. He would be evolving as a producer like anyone else during that period. It’s easy to forget that Cloud Nine may sound rather dated now but at the time (1987) arrived like an ‘organic’ breath of fresh air. Real guitars, real bass guitars and (‘Mind Set on You’ excepting) real drums. I think Lynne was partly responsible for bringing pop music away from those typical 80s, gated reverb and DX7’s sounds back to more guitar based productions (as you rightfully note in your post). We only have to listen to Paul’s Press to Play album the year previously - or Dylan’s Empire Burlesque - to see the state of play with most former 60s rock stars production at that time and how Lynne’s sound was at least a small step in the right direction? And to answer the OP: With George’s well documented financial problems at that time, I’m sure he’d have been more than fond of the revenue the Anthology project would generate.
George contractually went with a manager he knew Paul was vehemently against. Effectively placing them in dispute long before the band had ended. It had gotten ugly long before that song was written. "Abbey Road" was finished in what August 69 ? Paul didn't sue the others til the end of 1970.
I've read through a fair few of the comments here and, since Anthology, we've had the reframing of the Let It Be period and the emergence of the taped conversation from Sept (?) 1969, which all changes the shape a little of their final months. George seemed to be the first to be done with touring and, given his level of songwriting contribution that was included in the 67-70 period, I dare say he'd had enough and his memories of it would be tainted by his positioning within the group. The outpouring of songs on "All Things Must Pass" testified to that although it's fair to say not all would have been Beatles material. Personally, "Free As A Bird" went far enough for me and I struggle with "Real Love" because I don't find it to be a strong song, but that is only me. One new performance taking on the ghostly mantle of John is honouring the memory. Beyond that, not so sure. I'm glad Anthology is there and, harsh as it may seem, I'm glad George needed the money because, otherwise, he might not have felt the need to contribute and that would have made it a poorer production given he was around then. And, of course, we are on the cusp of Revolver being reissued. An album that has three of his songs on it amongst, in my view, a peak of their career.
To answer the thread question, I think George was "okay" --- likely not overly excited, but fine enough --- to participate in the Anthology project in as much as it was a quarter-century on from the group, and I think even he recognized the legal and financial need to finally wrap it all up with a nice bow and put an official legacy-spin on it. And yes, he needed money after his late 80s / early 90s' fallout with Denis O'Brien (although it should be noted that the lawsuit brought on by George didn't go to court until January 1995, and the Anthology interviews occurred in 1992/93, long before that). To the Paul / George thing: It's been discussed on here endless times before, but in sum I think it's obvious that (a) George cared about and loved Paul a great deal, and (b) George was perpetually annoyed by Paul, particularly in Beatle-related / media-related things. To break it down a bit, if you read extensively on George's comments in the late-80s, it's quite clear that he was trying hard to mend fences with Paul and making a real effort to be on good terms with him again. By most accounts, they were on good terms again (business issues notwithstanding) heading in the Anthology period in the early-90s. As has been discussed here already, there can be no doubt that certain aspects of the Anthology thing annoyed George, particularly when it came to dealing with Paul's camera-friendly, "run-to-the-media-to-announce-a-reunion" type of personality --- the kind of thing George loathed --- but he was very willing to do the interviews (as I mentioned, his comments in the Anthology book --- not the film --- are extensive, and far more interesting than anyone else's, with a much better memory for detail) and initially seemed on-board with making a new recording or two with John's vocals. As it went on, he probably realized the world's excitement for what they were doing was fairly minimal and he (correctly, in my view) put a stop to doing a third new recording, which likely would have been met with embarrassing disinterest. The one aspect of the Paul / George thing that has hasn't been mentioned here is, I think, key to their personality clashes: When it comes to music-making, George absolutely loves being in a band of equals, of friends sharing music and being casual and relaxed with each other. By contrast, Paul does not do that by nature. Paul's nature is to be the alpha-male musician in the room, to be the boss, to tell others how he wants things done. I think he enjoys fighting for pecking order. As a younger man, Paul had the nerve and talent to challenge John's seniority and leadership of The Beatles, something George (in the 60s anyway) would not have been able to do, nor had any interest in doing. (Different story by the 70s, but by then the band was cooked.) So, I suspect when George got back together with Paul to do any sort of media-informed project (like Anthology), he was naturally on his guard against Paul's tendencies to (a) over-hype things to the media and (b) fight for musical alpha-male status in the studio, etc. There are certain kinds of people (my aunt, for example) who always want to 'fight' in any working / social / family situation to be #1, and then there are people who could, possibly, do so, but just can't be bothered. Paul and George epitomize these two types.
I've pointed this out before but the taped conversation from September 1969 wasn't a new thing. I don't know why Lewisohn sold it like it was. I read details about it when I was 18, in 1994, and doing an essay on The Beatles so it can't have been hard to find. It was detailed in at least one Beatle book from the 70s.
I guess you're right pointing that out. Because nowadays when I read a George interview about Cloud Nine and going back to 'REAL pianos, REAL guitars'. The first time I heard Cloud Nine, I was puzzled; 'this is a synthfest!!!'. But yeah I guess in 1987 it was a step away from these big 80s productions. The biggest miss in my opinion is the Traveling Wilburys. When you watch the documentary, there is this demo-like quality to the whole thing (and this is GREAT), and then you listen to the record and it's overproduced.... And yet, I have a love/hate thing for his producing style. In the right mood, I find it very appealing and sometimes I find it extreme.
George’s financial issues have been discussed here as the reason he was willing to be involved in Anthology. However there were other ways he could have made money if he wanted to. In the late 80's a number of 60's artists realised that touring was becoming increasingly lucrative and so in 1989 we saw the Rolling Stones, The Who and Paul McCartney himself return to the concert arena. When Pete Townshend was told by a promoter how much The Who could earn from a reunion tour he replied "are you joking?". On the back of the recent reissue of The Beatles albums on cd, a tour could have been very lucrative for George. While he did tour Japan in 1991, he could have gone to other territories and earned more money. The fact that he didn't suggests that he was more comfortable collaborating with Paul on the Anthology than some people might think. Add to that the fact that George apparently wanted to reform The Beatles in order to benefit the Natural Law Party that he supported. Paul declined.
Take Patti's account (about Paul), May Pang's account (about John), numerous comments in interviews, his overall grumpiness in Anthology--he held a deep, deep grudge, deep, deep grudge. Are there a handful of light moments? Did Harrison and McCartney hang out a few times? Sure. Exceptions to the rule.
'reframing of the Let It Be period'? Do you mean with the Get Back series? I don't think it changes anything in the big picture. We already knew these sessions were tense. Now we know they weren't tense everyday. The great thing about the Get Back thing is to be a fly on the wall during that month in their life, but it doesn't change the Beatles history. All that stuff was pretty much common knowledge but ,ow you get to see it. That's all. And the september 69 meeting is talked about in the Anthology book.
Love it or hate it, I’m hard pressed to believe that the final product didn’t have the final okay from all three, regardless of Jeff’s desires or closeness with George
Yes, and (as I noted above) George began interviews for Anthology in 1992 (meaning he'd probably agreed to it verbally by 1991), and his legal case against Denis O'Brien wasn't issued until 1994 (and initiated in January 1995). I don't know when exactly he became aware or was willing to admit that O'Brien was scamming him, but the timeline here doesn't suggest that his agreement to do the Anthology was only predicated by his financial need. The timeline actually suggests that he probably agreed to do Anthology before he was fully aware of the O'Brien thing. We've read it repeated it all these books and such that he only did Anthology because he had been ripped off financially... but just because it's been repeated doesn't mean it's true (see: decades of "quotations" attributed to John Lennon that he never actually said). And, as you say, he could have just kept touring from 1991 onwards (Clapton certainly encouraged him to and made it all very easy for him, logistically) and made a pile of money. But he chose not to.
I would have to go back to the nagra, but I believe the last day they rehearsed it at Apple-they discussed tracking it after lunch but never returned to it. There were dozens of takes, and the later ones with Billy Preston were most complete, with one complete take with George's vocal way back in the mix (an argument for de-mixing). There are several "frankensteined" versions floating around youtube. George wanted a "The Band" arrangement, but those attempts sounded weak IMO.
In typical John style he later said “It’s not about Paul, it’s about me. I’m really attacking myself" in the imagine film. I think what that means is when you make a public song statement like that it shows your character more than the person you're poking fun and hating.
I'm so glad to see someone else remembers this quote. It came as a retort to Bono questioning if a project like "Anthology" had any modern day relevance, or something to that effect, even using the term "muzak" in reference to their catalog. George's comment was pure George.
Each to their own. Yes, I'm referring to "Get Back". Whilst I'm a fan, I've absorbed what I could about their later period over the years but, like many people, I suspect, I'd viewed early 69 as quite a rocky period, hence the film of "Let It Be" not being in general circulation, and "Abbey Road" as a managed coming back together. "Get Back" depicts something different for me as, from what I saw, rather than McCartney being just the pushy one, he seemed to be trying to find ways to bring them together and put ideas up for consideration through some considerable lethargy. I've no preference towards him as far as The Beatles is concerned but that's what I saw in "Get Back". I've no doubt that my original note will be put aside by those more knowing, and credit to those who do know more, but I come at it with my knowledge, having read the Anthology book 20 years ago and, rightly or wrongly, hearing some of the detail in the 1969 tape for the first time that I can remember when it was highlighted it again recently. Fair dues to you, but that's how I see it.
George once said in an interview that he was glad to be on "that side" of things with John regarding "How Do You Sleep", but had more too say about his slide solo in the song than siding with John on the content. He was happy to be involved with the sessions but did comment that it was "nerve-racking".
I still find it hard to grasp that any member of The Beatles 'needed' to do something for financial gain. There again, I know nothing about the Dennis O'Brien thing. Anyone care to enlighten me? I mean, what sorta money are we talking?
No, it's not a "fact": George never wanted to reform The Beatles for any reason, so Paul did not decline, as he was never asked.
This was one comment by George (it was in 1997) that was regrettable. I can't imagine what he had against U2 at that moment in time. (U2 has never said anything bad about any band, certainly not The Beatles or George.) He had had his feathers ruffled by Oasis the year prior, so maybe in his old-fogeyism he was equating the two bands somehow, even though one was considerably newer than the other. Bono of U2 was clearly a bit pissed by George's comments. At a U2 show in 1997, somewhere in Britain, he spoke to the audience, saying something like (I paraphrase, but you can look it up): "Attention, everyone! You're being fooled here. This is poor entertainment because George Harrison said so!" Agree. "End Of The Line" is the best Wilburys song by some distance. (But there were several good ones!) Yeah, I can't imagine George was too happy about the lyrical content of the song. My assumption would be that John asked George to come by and play some slide on some tracks, and George said, "Okay", having no idea what the songs were. I'm pretty sure it wasn't like some on here are imagining, wherein John calls up George like this: "Hey George! I'm gonna record a nasty song called 'How Do You Sleep?' where I totally trash Paul! You wanna do it??" "Yeah, man!"
The Paul-George relationship is just as fascinating to me as the John-Paul relationship. And it seems to me that George had an issue with Lennon and McCartney, though his issues with John didn't really surface until '74, and they never seemed to repair the damage. Word of caution: I could be wrong about this, as there is so little info available about Harrison and Lennon in the late 70's. As for George's relationship with Paul, I tend to think George had to eat some crow to get involved with Anthology. For the second time in his career, George was burned by a manager in a major way. Meanwhile, there is Paul who went with the Eastmans, unscarred by the music making machine. It's human. If I was George it would irritate me no end. And I think we see some of that in Anthology, and why George continuously gets his sly digs in at Paul. However, they did work together on the Anthology songs, and the wonderful results speak for themselves. The good news is that story doesn't end there. There is evidence that the two repaired their personal relationship in a major way. And in the end, as George was dying, Paul gave George the use of his house in California so that George could leave this material world in peace. If you think about, that's about as deep as you can get. So, yeah, Paul and George were annoyed with each other from time to time. Unfortunately for them, some of this is recorded for us to endlessly dissect. But I do believe there was a deep love and mutual respect for each other all the way through. I hate that they never got together for a longer project. Their talents meshed so perfectly. Maybe Paul really is too difficult to deal with in the studio. I don't know, I'm not a musician. I know there's been a lot of noise around him since 1970, and as time goes on, I think it has more to do with the BS around the breakup than anything else. But again, I could be wrong on this too. George had his reasons, and I respect that.
I wonder if current or any upcoming technology can remove John’s voice from his original tape, clean it up and give it better clarity and presence within context of the “band” recording.
