As the Beatles essentially disbanded at the start of 1970 Harrison joined forces with record producer Phil Spector and gathered a who's who of musicians. Largely gathered from Delaney and Bonnie's group the musicians included Eric Clapton and the soon to be Derek and the Dominos (Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Jim Gordon), Dave Mason. As well as Billy Preston, the band Badfinger, bass master Klaus Voorman, and drummer Jim Keltner. There are also brief appearances by Ginger Baker and an unknown Phil Collins.
Harrison had been writing a massive amount of songs during the last few years of the 1960s. However, Lennon/McCartney were so prolific that they only allowed Harrison two songs on every Beatle album. He thus built up a large backlog of written songs that had to be recorded the majority of them became "All Things Must Pass."
Harrison never had a strong or distinctive singing voice but it serves its purpose here and thanks to Spector's wall of sound production Harrison's voice sounds very good and fits into the mix perfectly. Harrison's songs are also very strong and prove that he was a writer in the same league with Lennon and McCartney. Harrison was always interested in spirituality, particularly the religions of India, thus this album focuses on themes and ideas of Spirituality. The music is so melodic and pop/rock oriented that the songs never cease to be accessible, despite sometimes having philosophical, religious, or spiritual content. He also for the most part is not direct about the spiritual connotations of the songs. Only "My Sweet Lord" and "Hear Me Lord" blatantly call up higher powers. The rest of the songs could just as easily be about the love of a woman, the state of the world, and the state of life itself.
Sure the album is long but for the most part everything is a keeper, I personally may have removed "I Dig Love," "Let it Down" and "Apple Scruffs" but even those are pretty entertaining. The real flaw is the Original Apple Jam that ends the album (originally the third disc of the Vinyl Record). The Jam consists of five instrumentals (two are ten minutes) in which Harrison and Derek and The Dominos along with certain guests for each track basically just, well, jam. I think I know why Harrison included them; he was never really allowed to jam with The Beatles. Beatles music was a very expertly structured and arranged entity and they never allowed Harrison to really break out and jam on the guitar. So these sessions are a way for him to let out all his pent up guitar fury that had been built up during The Beatles.
The problem I find with the Apple Jam is that they are not all that interesting simply because there is too much going on at once. The 60s and 70s groups that jammed the best often were very small; like Cream Clapton was the main focus, Hendrix, CSNY focused largely on Stills and Young during their live jams. Harrison, however, often has seven or more people playing on the jams. Perhaps in a nod to Delaney and Bonnie's large band and Spector's wall of sound the music is very encompassing and thus makes it hard for any particular element to stand out, because there is so much going on at once. So often the jams are kind of boring and repetitive and are probably hardly listened to by many owners of this album.
None the less the 2001 remastered set makes everything at least listenable. The remastering makes all the difference. I remember I borrowed the original late 80s early 90s CD version of this album from my friend and I thought the album was awful. But when I heard all the glowing reviews of the 2001 remaster I decided to pick up the album and the thing sounds spectacular. Amazing what remastered sound can do; turning what I thought was awful into a great album. There is a wonderful booklet inside as well as one new song bonus track (that should have been on the original album), some alternate takes and a new version of "My Sweet Lord." The 2001 remaster is a great addition to any Beatle fan's music library.
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