George Harrison
"Dark Horse"
December 1974
Japanese pressing, Toshiba-EMI EAS-80100
We're dipping back into George Harrison's solo catalogue and checking out his "Dark Horse" LP.
The LP, as presented here, is from a Japanese pressing.
Notes from wikipedia:
1974 saw a separation from first wife Pattie Boyd, who left Harrison for friend
Eric Clapton, with the situation later being uncomfortably parodied on Dark Horse with a cover
of "Bye Bye Love". That year also saw Harrison planning for his future. With a new love interest,
Olivia Arias, and with the end of his Apple Records contract in sight, he founded Dark Horse Records
- initially to be distributed through A&M Records - and spent much of the year signing acts and
guiding their development. When his Apple contract finally expired in January 1976, Harrison would
move onto the Dark Horse label himself and switch distribution of the label to Warner Bros. Records.
With the impending tour pencilled in for the last two months of the year, Harrison was only able to
start recording his own album - which he was also dubbing Dark Horse - in September, leaving him
little time to complete it. Aiding Harrison were Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner, Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston
and the aforementioned Eric Clapton. The sessions, which were held at his home studio in Henley-on-Thames,
compounded Harrison's unfortunate development of laryngitis. When it was time to leave for the US in
mid-October to begin rehearsing for the tour - with the album still unfinished - Harrison's voice was
completely raw. Ringo Starr confirmed this with Beatlefan Magazine when he stated that Harrison was
hoarse before he left England to complete the album and start tour rehearsals.
After quickly recording the title track (a future US Top 20 hit), Dark Horse was quickly pressed and
rushed into shops that December. Although the music was much more uplifting than Living in the Material
World's and featured some excellent guitar work, critics soon began calling the album "Dark Hoarse", in
reference to Harrison's suffering vocals. With no time to let his throat heal, he performed the entire
tour in a sandpaper voice, much to the disapproval of reviewers and fans. The negative press Harrison
received also stemmed from his unpopular decision to include an Indian music portion to the concert,
as well as performing The Beatles' "In My Life" with philosophically-modified lyrics. After the tour's
conclusion, Harrison was so averse to touring that he would hardly ever appear live again, save for a brief
Japanese tour in 1991 at Clapton's insistence.
Surprisingly, Dark Horse failed to chart at all in the UK, while it reached #4 in the US during a brief
chart stay, going gold.
In 1992, Dark Horse was remastered for CD release.
One of the singles released in association with this LP was the title track "Dark Horse".
Included in this torrent are the shortened US 45rpm promo radio edits of
"Dark Horse" in stereo and mono. I've also included the b-side to the "Dark Horse" single,
"I Don't care Anymore". This is a track that has not been officially released on CD, though
it has made it's appearance previously on the Vigotone bootleg CD "Through Many Years".
The tracks included here are:
1) Hari's On Tour (Express)
2) Simply Shady
3) So Sad
4) Bye Bye, Love
5) Maya Love
6) Ding Dong, Ding Dong
7) Dark Horse
8) Far East Man
9) It Is "He" (Jai Sri Krishna)
BONUS TRACKS:
10) I Don't Care Anymore - US 45rpm single
11) Dark Horse - US 45rpm single, promo radio edit - stereo
12) Dark Horse - US 45rpm single, promo radio edit - mono
The setup used:
-Technics SL-1900 direct drive turntable running an Ortofon 2M Black cartridge
-JVC AX-R97 integrated amp
-E-MU 1212M sound card
The audio was captured at 192/32-bit (float)
All pops & clicks were removed manually in Audition. No EQ or NR
has been added.
Sample rate conversion to 96kHz & 44.1kHz and down-converting to 16-bit audio was accomplished via iZotope RX Advanced
Artwork is included for those who care for it.
Enjoy.
-DLedin