Ex-Beatle lead guitarist George Harrison named his seventh album after himself, and album that closes out his 1970’s solo career, released in early 1979. It has been nearly three years since his last release 33 1/3, so you’d imagine that Harrison had a lot to show for such a long hiatus. After his last release, it doesn’t appear that George Harrison had done much work at all, that is until about a month before his son Dhanni was born in August of 1978. He took a break from recording to marry his new woman Olivia in September, and he finished up in November that year. Harrison invited a few guests to assist him realizing his new album, including Eric Clapton, ex-friend who moved in on George’s marriage to Patti Boyd. It’s evident that they two musicians have patched things up and have become friends again. The album has an overall optimistic feel mirroring a couple of his new found loves, Olivia and race car driving.

On the first track, Love Comes to Everyone, Eric Clapton helps out with some incidental guitar work. The end result was quite underwhelming, which proves it by me at least that the gesture was purely one for friendship. The song has a danceable beat yet not in a disco way, more like in a jazz-rock/adult contemporary style. Despite having two lead guitarists playing on the track, George and producer Russ Titelman opted for a keyboard solo, a synthesizer mimicking a saxophone. This opening track is a bit too wishy-washy for me. On his last album 33 1/3, Harrison short on songs scraped the bottom of the Beatle barrel, for a few rejects to clean up and make ready to fill up the new album. Here he goes back to this barrel for one of his most famous rejects Not Guilty. This song was made especially famous from the Beatles Anthology series which featured this fully demoed song from Harrison. Here eleven years later, we have an updated version complete with smooth jazz electric piano countering the main riff of the song. Aside from the tamer version, it’s pretty much the same here as it was in 1968. I like this, a highlight on the album.

On George’s Extra Texture album, he reminded the folks that he was once a Beatle by giving us a sequel to his 1968 classic, While My Guitar Gently Weeps with a new track, This Guitar Can’t Keep From Crying. Again to attempt to capitalize on the fact that he has such an amazing musical past, he gives us another sequel, this time for his 1969 amazing song Here Comes the Sun. He named this one, Here Comes the Moon, yet this time the song is actually pretty good. It has nice big Beatle-like harmonies and a very catchy chorus. That being said, the lyrics are a bit silly, ♫Looks like a little brother to the son / or mother to the stars at night / and here it is and here it comes…♫ Soft-Hearted Hana is an attempt by George to finally tackle the old 1930’s style of Broadway musical, a favorite genre of former bandmate Paul McCartney. The lyrics tell the story of a psychedelic mushroom trip thinly veiled by his lyrics, ♫I ate it and at once my eyes could see you / No sooner had I ooped (?) it down I felt so far off the ground I stood on.♫ The lyrics may not be so good, but I do appreciate the genre George had tackled and succeeded it with. There are a lot of crowd noises, a studio trick he’s done on past albums, although this sounds more authentic.

The single from this album that actually had some success is a very good track called Blow Away. To me it seems to be about how he was depressed, yet now feeling this new “warmth” it blew away the rainy dark days. A song about Olivia Harrison perhaps would be the easy guess to what this is about. George finally got his life in order that it blows away the past mess his life was in for a while. It’s an upbeat song with a very catchy chorus. Faster is a song about George’s love of Formula One race car driving, as we can hear from the revving engines opening the song. An upbeat song that you’d expect to be accompanied by a harder guitar riff, but Harrison went the opposite way giving us a big acoustic song backed by a lush orchestra. It’s an okay song, chose for another single release, however it failed to chart. Dark Sweet Lady starts off with a country style acoustic guitar, but once the lyrics came in, this was switched for a more Spanish flavor especially during the fantastic acoustic guitar solo. Surely, this is another tribute to his new wife Olivia. ♫You came and helped me through when I’d let go / You came from out the blue / Never have known what I’d done without you♫. It’s my favorite off of this album.    

Although Your Love Is Forever sounds like one of these songs that was quickly thrown together, it came out pretty good. It’s basically just George Harrison at the guitar and singing with at atmospheric bass and keyboards in the far background. For the solo, George gives us a taste of his signature slide guitar. The song feels very summery and sunny. Predating John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy by a year, here George gives us a beautiful tribute to his newly born son Dhanni with Soft Touch. Oddly, both his and Lennon’s song have a Caribbean feel to their tributes. ♫You’re a soft touch baby / Like a snowflake falling / My whole heart is melting♫. George teams up with Dream Weaver musician Gary Wright to pen the closing track If You Believe. The song sounds a bit like Margaritaville in the intro, but it quickly turns into a synthesizer-fest that makes the song sound instantly dated and boring.  The demo for Here Comes the Moon is beautiful, just George on an acoustic guitar, something I miss from his All Things Must Pass album. It gives him a Jim Croce feel. Even the silly lyrics sound more serious here in this format.

The album started off kind of slow, but makes up for it with the last few songs for me. There are some good songs, actual tunes that have a stench of effort, something lacking for most of his solo music from the 1970s. He finished the decade with a couple of good albums, however few and far between they were.  


George Harrison
George Harrison
Length:  43:39  minutes
Released: February 23rd, 1979   
Rating: 3½  stars
 the Songs:
1. Love Comes to Everyone
2. Not Guilty
3. Here Comes the Moon
4. Soft-Hearted Hana
5. Blow Away
6. Faster
7. Dark Sweet Lady
8. Your Love is Forever
9. Soft Touch
10. If You Believe
11. Here Comes the Moon (demo) (Bonus Track)


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Recommended: Yes