This is the third out of six "Covered" volumes for George Harrison.
I had a lot to say about the development of Harrison's songwriting in Volumes 1 and 2. But after a flurry of activity in the late 1980s with his very successful "Cloud Nine" album and two albums with the Traveling Wilburys, his music career slowed waaaay down for the rest of his life. In fact, after a short tour of Japan with Eric Clapton in 1992, he pretty much retired from the music business for the rest of his life. He made slow progress on another studio album, "Brainwashed," but it wasn't released until 2002, a year after his death.
Yet even though he spent many years away from music (with 15 years between his last two solo albums!), he did enough to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 for his solo career, in addition to already being inducted in 1987 for being a member of the Beatles.
That brings us to his unfortunate death. He died on November 29, 2001, at the age of 58. On December 30, 1999, Harrison was attacked in his home by an insane man. He was stabbed over 40 times, and barely survived. He died in 2001 of lung cancer, probably a result of a life of smoking. But friends and family say he was physically strong until the knife attack on him in 1999, and quite weak after that. So they blamed the attack for putting him in a condition where he was unable to fight off the cancer.
At any rate, Harrison's songs weren't covered much in most of the time frame here. Only the first four songs in this volume were recorded prior to his death in 2001. But after he died, there was a flood of tribute concerts and cover versions to celebrate his great musical career.
One thing I want to address here is his role in the Traveling Wilburys, the short-lived supergroup consisting of Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison. I've tried to include covers of all the good songs Harrison wrote or co-wrote from his Beatles career and his solo career, at least when there are worthy cover versions of them. But with the Traveling Wilburys, I wanted to be more selective. Technically, all the songs on both of that band's albums were co-written by all the members. But in reality, most of them were primarily, or sometimes entirely, written by one member. So it doesn't make sense for me to include a cover of a song like "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" here, when that one clearly sounds like a Bob Dylan song.
Thus, I did a little digging to figure out which Traveling Wilburys songs could be considered written or co-written by Harrison. Luckily, the band members gave some interviews where they talked about the songwriting process and who did what. I may well have missed some information though, so if anyone thinks I missed some songs by this band that are worthy of inclusion, please let me know.
Another problem I ran into with the Traveling Wilburys is that a few of their songs have been covered a lot, but many of them have very few covers. I had particular trouble with the song "Wilbury Twist." I found a Tom Petty interview where he explained that he co-wrote that one with Harrison, so that meant it merited inclusion. But I didn't find any cover versions I liked. So in the end, I just included the Traveling Wilburys version. I have a rule not to include songs by the songwriter highlighted by the "Covered" series unless there's some special reason. But in this case, a majority of the lead vocals are sung by other members in the band, so it's not exactly a cover of Harrison being the main singer anyway.
This album is one hour long.
01 Wilbury Twist (Traveling Wilburys)
02 That Kind of Woman (Gary Moore)
03 Cheer Down (Rainer, Joey Burns & John Convertino)
04 I Me Mine (Elliott Smith)
05 Horse to the Water (Jools Holland, Sam Brown & Jim Capaldi)
06 For You Blue (Paul McCartney)
07 Isn't It a Pity (Eric Clapton & Billy Preston)
08 You (Lisa Mychols)
09 When We Was Fab (Wendy Ip)
10 Love You To (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 Wah-Wah (Jeff Lynne & Eric Clapton)
12 Savoy Truffle (They Might Be Giants)
13 Old Brown Shoe (Leslie West)
14 Devil's Radio (Masters of Reality)
15 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] (Dave Davies)
16 Long, Long, Long (Elliott Smith)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/TKHomhYi
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/2USkcxm1qimgtCf/file
The cover image is from 1986.
Thank you again!
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