Dark Horse (2014 Remaster) George Harrison

• 1 Hari's on Tour (Express) [2014 Remaster] 04:42
• 2 Simply Shady (2014 Remaster) 04:37
• 3 So Sad (2014 Remaster) 04:59
• 4 Bye Bye Love (2014 Remaster) 04:06
• 5 Maya Love (2014 Remaster) 04:22
• 6 Ding Dong, Ding Dong (2014 Mix) 03:40
• 7 Dark Horse (2014 Remaster) 03:53
• 8 Far East Man (2014 Remaster) 05:51
• 9 It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna) [2014 Remaster] 04:52
• 10 I Don't Care Anymore (2014 Remaster) 02:44
• 11 Dark Horse (Early Take) [2014 Mix] 04:25
• Total Runtime 48:11

Info for Dark Horse (2014 Remaster)

Dark Horse is the fifth studio album by English rock musician George Harrison. It was released on Apple Records in December 1974 as the follow-up to Living in the Material World. Although keenly anticipated on release, Dark Horse is associated with the controversial North American tour that Harrison staged with Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar in November and December that year. This was the first US tour by a member of the Beatles since 1966, and the public's nostalgia for the band, together with Harrison contracting laryngitis during rehearsals and choosing to feature Shankar so heavily in the programme, resulted in scathing concert reviews from some influential music critics.

Harrison wrote and recorded Dark Horse during an extended period of upheaval in his personal life. The songs focus on Harrison's split with his first wife, Pattie Boyd, and his temporary withdrawal from the spiritual certainties of his previous work. Throughout this time, he dedicated much of his energy to setting up Dark Horse Records and working with the label's first signings, Shankar and the group Splinter, at the expense of his own music. Author Simon Leng refers to the album as "a musical soap opera, cataloguing rock-life antics, marital strife, lost friendships, and self-doubt".

Dark Horse features an array of guest musicians – including Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr, Gary Wright and Ron Wood. It showed Harrison moving towards the funk and soul music genres,[2] and produced the hit singles "Dark Horse" and "Ding Dong, Ding Dong". Further to the criticism of his demeanour during the tour, the album was not well received by the majority of critics at the time. It peaked at number 4 on Billboard's albums chart in the US and placed inside the top ten in some European countries, but became Harrison's first post-Beatles solo album not to chart in Britain. The cover was designed by Tom Wilkes and consists of a school photograph from Harrison's time at the Liverpool Institute superimposed onto a Himalayan landscape.

Dark Horse, like its predecessors, is stuffed with recognizable talent – including former cohort Ringo Starr, Beatles collaborator Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Gary Wright and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones – and together they help Harrison confidently blend measures of funk, soul and gospel ("Far East Man," "It Is 'He'") into his patented brand of reflective pop. But even "Ding Dong, Ding Dong," his attempt at writing a holiday classic, ends up taking on a strikingly dark undertone. Lyrics like "ring out the old, ring in the new" collide with an overall feeling of doom as Harrison weathered a season of loss.

Then there's "Bye Bye Love," his flinty reworking of the old Everly Brothers hit. Harrison added a series of biting new lyrics that specifically referenced Boyd leaving him for Eric Clapton. Nowhere does Harrison get closer to the incisive, bare-knuckled anger so long associated with his bandmate John Lennon or further away from his own carefully curated image as a more spiritual figure within the Beatles' larger dynamic.

Eventually, things would turn around – at least personally. He cleaned up, married again, moved on. Unfortunately, however, Harrison wouldn't extricate himself completely from Apple until after 1975's Extra Texture had arrived, and by then his commercial fortunes had completely turned. That album barely crept into the Billboard Top 10, and Harrison managed only one more such success over the course of his career before he died on Nov. 29, 2001.

George Harrison, vocals, guitars, Moog synthesizer, clavinet, organ, bass, percussion, drums
Tom Scott, saxophones, horn arrangements, organ
Billy Preston, electric piano, organ, piano
Willie Weeks, bass
Andy Newmark, drums, percussion
Jim Keltner, drums
Robben Ford, guitars
Jim Horn, flute
Chuck Findley, flute
Emil Richards, percussion
Ringo Starr, drums
Klaus Voormann, bass
Gary Wright, piano
Nicky Hopkins, piano
Roger Kellaway, piano, organ
Max Bennett, bass
John Guerin, drums
Ron Wood, guitar
Alvin Lee, guitar
Mick Jones, acoustic guitar
Derrek Van Eaton, backing vocals
Lon Van Eaton, backing vocals

Recorded on November 1973, April 1974, August–October 1974 at Studio FPSHOT, Oxfordshire and A&M Studios, Los Angeles
Produced by George Harrison

Digitally remastered

George Harrison
MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an influential English rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, author and sitarist best known as the lead guitarist of The Beatles. Following the band's demise, Harrison had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys super group where he was known as both Nelson Wilbury and Spike Wilbury. He was also a film producer, with his production company Handmade Films, involving people as diverse as Madonna and the members of Monty Python. From an initial exposure whilst a member of the Beatles, he maintained a high public profile regarding his religious and spiritual life.

Booklet for Dark Horse (2014 Remaster)