The Beatles Boxed Set (50 page)

All Things Must Pass
contained a lot of
George’s songs that it was released as a triple album: two discs contained
songs and the third contained recordings of him jamming with friends. This would
become George’s best work and was a commercial success as it topped the charts
in several countries.

George during one of the All Things Must
Pass sessions in 1970

To music critics, they have never heard something like
All
Things Must Pass
before. The
Times
of London wrote, “Of all the
Beatles’ solo albums to date,
All Things Must Pass
makes far and away
the best listening. Harrison’s light has been hidden under the egos of
McCartney and Lennon, but from time to time there have been hints on several of
their albums that he was more than he was allowed to be.”

The album produced his number one hit single,
My Sweet
Lord
and the top-10 single,
What is Life
.
My Sweet Lord
was
particularly a critical success as it received positive and strong reviews and impressed
a lot of people. This included Elton John, who was in a taxi when he first
heard it. John Lennon was impressed, too, and recalled, “Every time I put the
radio on, it’s ‘Oh, My Lord.’ I’m beginning to think there must be a God.”

In barely a month after their release,
All Things Must
Pass
and the single
My Sweet Lord
reached the top spot in America.
And by January 1971, the single was selling more than thirty thousand copies a
day, with total sales in America surpassing the 2 million mark. In UK, the album
had grossed more than £10 million.

The success of the album and the single
My Sweet Lord
solidified George Harrison’s career as a solo artist.

A few years later, George was working on some of his new
songs when
My Sweet Lord
came to the attention of Bright Tunes. The
company immediately filed copyright infringement against the ex-Beatle because
of the song’s similarity to the 1963 Chiffons song
He’s So Fine,
which
the Bright Tunes owned. George denied deliberately plagiarizing the song, but
he lost the case and the judge deemed that he had “subconsciously” plagiarized
He’s
So Fine
and had him pay $1,599,987 to Bright Tunes.

To make matters worse, Allen Klein, formerly George’s
manager while still with the Beatles, bought the copyright to
He’s So Fine
from Bright Tunes in 1978. In 1981, it was deemed that Klein had acted
improperly and it was agreed that George would pay Klein $587,000, the amount
the latter paid for the song, so that he would gain nothing from the deal.
George took over ownership of Bright Tunes, thus granting him the rights to
both
My Sweet Lord
and
He’s So Fine
and ending the copyright
infringement claim.

In 1971, George organized a major charity concert,
The
Concert for Bangladesh
, which drew over 40,000 people in New York’s Madison
Square Garden. The concert aimed to raise money for the starving refugees
during the Bangladesh Liberation War. George invited some of the world’s finest
rock artists to take part in the concert. Ringo Starr agreed to take a break
from filming the Western
Blindman
. George also invited Paul McCartney,
who said he’d agree if George and the other ex-Beatles drop a countersuit they
brought against him for wanting to dissolve the Beatles. George wasn’t about to
let one issue affect the other; Paul declined to come.

George then called John Lennon, who said that Yoko Ono would
have to perform as well. George didn’t like his friend’s suggestion and they
argued over the phone.

Next, he phoned Mick Jagger, but the latter couldn’t come
due to visa complications.

And then there was Bob Dylan, a close friend of George, who
said that they could talk about it though he wasn’t going to commit to play.

On the day of the concert, a lot of the world’s finest rock
musicians appeared such as Bob Dylan, who rarely appeared live in the early
1970s, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Badfinger, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr.

George and Bob Dylan performing together
at The Concert for Bangladesh

The two shows were both successful

            After
the charity concert, George was back to songwriting and preparing for what’s
next. He even flew to Portugal, alone, and just drove around and chanted all
the way. He returned in London and began production at Abbey Road Studio for
his second album,
Living in the Material World
.

            The
album held the number one spot on the US album chart and stayed there for nine
weeks and reached number two in the UK.
Living in the Material World
contained many of George’s strongest compositions of his career, including the
single,
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)
, which reached the number
one spot in the US and the top ten in the UK.

            However,
it was clear that neither this album nor its lead single could match the sales
of
All Things Must Pass
and the single
My Sweet Lord.

            With
all the success George had, his marriage was going down the drain. He and
Pattie were still together, attending concerts together and friends’ birthdays,
but she had lost interest in his spiritual activities.

            The
distance between them was further aggravated by Pattie’s return to modeling.
After George’s last performance as a Beatle, he had insisted that she leave
modeling, telling her that there was danger in public exposure. But now Pattie
found herself hating the restrictions.

            She
said, “All [Beatles] wives and girlfriends were made to feel that we shouldn’t
leave the ‘family’ at all. We mainly went out with each other … We were
cocooned.” In 1968, she made it clear that she wasn’t going to be just a wife
sitting at home. Five years into their marriage, she had had enough of Friar
Park’s isolation and George’s company of chanters. She missed her old life.

            Al
Aronowitz, a friend of the Harrisons, said that he never saw the breakup coming
between the couple, but he recalled that sometime around the Bangladesh
concert, George told him that he couldn’t have a family and that he couldn’t be
a father “which turned out to be untrue if you’ve ever seen his son Dhani. But
he blamed it all on himself. That was the kind of person he was.” Pattie didn’t
have children and instead returned to modeling against George’s wishes.

            All
throughout their marriage, Pattie didn’t talk publicly about her relationship
with George. It was decades later when Pattie talked, telling how she and the
famous Beatle met and what life was for them as a married couple. She said that
around the time George wrote
Something
, their relationship was already
in trouble. After their 1968 trip to India, George became obsessed about
meditation and was sometimes withdrawn and depressed.

            What
hurt her most were the other women. The god Krishna was always surrounded by
young maidens and George wanted to be like that, to be like Krishna with lots
of concubines. And George had no shortage of women.

            Pattie
recalled a French woman she was friends with, who was with Eric Clapton that
time and lived with the Harrisons at their Kinfauns house when she broke up
with Clapton.

And then, unexpectedly, Eric Clapton began paying attention
to Pattie. They began seeing each other without George’s knowledge; one day
Eric had just come from Miami and brought a pair of bell-bottom trousers for
Pattie, and that became the inspiration for Eric’s song
Bell Bottom Blues.
He also dedicated another song to Pattie, called
Layla
.

Eric invited Pattie to go away with him several times, but
Pattie held on to her marriage although George was always in his recording
studio or with his friends or meditating half the night. These made her feel
alienated and she felt as though she wasn’t in George’s thinking or plans. Eric
became a regular visitor at Friar Park, trying to convince her to leave her
husband for him, and always sent letters.

Meanwhile, George and Pattie’s marriage had turned from bad
to worse. At a party, George found his wife with Eric, alone. And then the
unthinkable happened. Eric told his friend that he loved his wife. George then
asked Pattie if she was coming with him.

Pattie left with George that night, and he never mentioned
that event again. In 1973, they were supposed to holiday together. A day before
they were to leave, George said he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go.

One night, Ronnie Wood, George’s friend and houseguest, took
him aside and told him that he intended to sleep with Pattie that evening.
George then pointed to the room that Ronnie and his wife Krissie were occupying
and said, “And I shall be sleeping there.”

Ronnie slept with Pattie, and George slept with the Rolling
Stone’s wife and he ended up going to Spain with Krissie.

This was another blow for Pattie, who realized that another
of her friends was sleeping with George, though George denied it.

Pattie’s putting up with George finally came to an end when
she learned that he was having an affair with Ringo’s wife, Maureen. Pattie
discovered it through some photos which indicated that Maureen was staying in
the house with George while Pattie was with her mother in Devon.

Pattie finally left George for Eric
Clapton after she learned that her husband was having an affair with Maureen
Starkey, shown here with her husband, Ringo

Ringo didn’t know about the affair until Pattie phoned him
and said, “Have you ever thought about why your wife doesn’t come home at
night? It’s because she’s here!” Ringo was livid.

In January 1973 during a party in Ringo’s home, George told
his wife, “Let’s have a divorce this year.”

The following year, George worked up the courage to tell
Ringo that he was in love with his wife. Ringo worked himself into a terrible
state and kept saying, “Nothing is real, nothing is real.”

George and Pattie finally split up in 1974 and she moved in
with Eric Clapton.

Shortly
after their split, George penned
So Sad
while he was in New York for his
Dark Horse
album. He threw in his old favorite by the Everly Brothers,
the song called
Bye-Bye Love
and tweaked the lyrics a bit to refer to
Pattie. Eric Clapton played guitar while Pattie sang in the chorus.