Monday, May 21, 2018

George Harrison - Cheer Down - Non-Album Tracks (1989)

George Harrison's 1987 album "Cloud Nine" was both a smash hit and a critical success. Harrison seemed to have rediscovered his love of making music after waiting five years since his last album. So it was puzzling that he didn't follow it up with another album in the next few years. In fact, he wouldn't release another album until 2002, a year after his death.

This attempts to fix that. Three new songs were released on a greatest hits album in 1989, so I started with those. I filled in the rest with other songs he recorded between 1985 and 1988 that didn't appear on "Cloud Nine." Although the songs come from disparate sources, I think they fit together well, united by the "Cloud Nine" sound, which was highly influenced by Jeff Lynne's production style.

Note that "Ride Rajbun" was released in 1992, but I included it here because it was actually recorded in 1988. Also, I used a version that was edited by someone named Seltaeb Days to take out some spoken word segments that he felt lessened the song. I felt the same way. Also, at first glance the Duane Eddy song "The Trembler" doesn't seem to fit, but it has Harrison prominently playing slide guitar on it, was produced by Harrison (though uncredited), and it was a tune that he whistled to Eddy.

In 1988 to 1990, around the time Harrison should have released this album, he also did some great songs with the Traveling Wilburys. I didn't include any of those here, since I figure anyone who would like this should have those albums already. But I am throwing on "Maxine" at the end, a Traveling Wilburys outtake that has Harrison singing lead and sounds exactly like the other songs here.

Had Harrison actually released an album, it certainly would have featured some different songs. He recorded 17 songs for "Cloud Nine" and only put 11 of them on the album, so he could have used more of those. That said, I think this album is just as good as "Cloud Nine" is.

01 Cheer Down (George Harrison)
02 Abandoned Love (George Harrison)
03 Poor Little Girl (George Harrison)
04 Shelter in Your Love (George Harrison)
05 Save the World (George Harrison)
06 Hottest Gong in Town (George Harrison)
07 Shanghai Surprise (George Harrison with Vicki Brown)
08 Zig Zag (George Harrison)
09 Cockamamie Business (George Harrison)
10 I Don't Want to Do It (George Harrison)
11 Lay His Head (George Harrison)
12 Ride Rajbun (George Harrison)
13 The Trembler (Duane Eddy & George Harrison)
 
Maxine (George Harrison & the Traveling Wilburys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15119281/GeorgeH_1989_CheerDwn_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from a 1987 photo of Harrison.

7 comments:

  1. Great work! I did something similar a while ago, actually, but using a different strategy. Instead of putting the limit date on 1989 and using older songs, I put the limit on 1988-1992 and used all the songs that were written by then, excluding just the Wilburys tunes, and ignoring recording dates. I call it Portrait of a Leg End, and it would have been released in '92, five years after Cloud Nine:

    Side One:
    01 Any Road - written in early 1988
    02 Last Saturday Night - Cloud 9 outtake, 1987
    03 Poor Little Girl - Best of Dark Horse, 1989
    04 Cheer Down - Best of Dark Horse, 1989
    05 Maxine - Wilburys tune, not released on the 1988 LP
    06 That Kind of Woman - recorded by Gary Moore in 1990
    Side Two:
    07 Stuck Inside a Cloud - written in the mid-80's
    08 Run So Far - covered by Eric Clapton, 1989
    09 Never Get Over You - written in the mid-80's
    10 Cockamamie Business - Best of Dark Horse, 1989
    11 Rocking Chair in Hawaii - begun in early 1970
    12 In the Rising Sun - written in late 1991

    It would also feature "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" as a non-album B-side, and a pretty nice cover. Thoughts?

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    Replies
    1. Nice idea. I didn't realize so many of those Brainwashed songs were written that far back. Maybe those are some of the 6 songs recorded for Cloud Nine but not released?

      The problem though is that I like Brainwashed and don't want to "double dip" with songs from that album. I have a mostly different bunch of songs to make an album between the one I just posted and Brainwashed, covering the 1990s. There isn't much to work with there, unfortunately, so I use some stuff like acoustic versions he did that are quite different.

      Here's what my song list would be if I posted it right now:

      Absolutely Sweet Marie (George Harrison)
      If Not for You (George Harrison)
      This Guitar Can't Keep from Crying [Platinum Weird Version] (George Harrison)
      Love's Got a Hold on Me (Jim Capaldi & George Harrison)
      All Things Must Pass [Acoustic] (George Harrison)
      Any Road [Acoustic] (George Harrison)
      Prabhujee [Acoustic] (George Harrison & Ravi Shankar)
      Your True Love []Acoustic] (George Harrison)
      My Sweet Lord [2000 Version] (George Harrison)
      Horse to the Water (George Harrison)

      Your thoughts? Am I missing anything? By the way, the two Dylan covers are NOT the live versions, but from rehearsals.

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    2. Don't think you missed anything - you actually have some stuff I don't!
      But yes, I love me some Brainwashed as well, but overlapping the material isn't that problematic to me, and all the tunes work well inside the context I put them on. Would be great to have this in '92 + the rest of Brainwashed/more songs in 1997.

      That's a pretty good list you have there, but its more of an outtakes comp than a real cohesive album, get what I mean? Would make for a great "Early Takes, Vol. 56", but not for an actual LP. That's why I had to sacrifice half of Brainwashed in the making of mine, ahahahah.

      But have you got a link for all that? I'm pretty interested in those acoustic takes

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    3. I just posted the album, since you expressed interest in it. Let me know what you think.

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  2. Hi, Loving your site...could you please reup this link! thanks!!

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  3. apparently two rough mixes of shelter in your love (probably one of the two is on here) are circulating and bootlegged, curious if the other might be better quality than the one on here and that largely circulates

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