The Beatles Boxed Set (51 page)

            Encouraged
by his long time friend and sitar master Ravi Shankar, George announced the
release of his
Dark Horse
album followed by a US concert tour. He would
become the first ex-Beatle to tour America.

           
Dark
Horse
was released in December 1974 midway through a tour and served as the
follow-up to
Living in the Material World.
The recording of songs was
rushed due to time constraints, and George had to work nonstop, straining his
voice. It was initially a soreness that grew worse.

George during his Dark Horse tour

            The
album garnered George the worst reviews of his career. His critics complained
that the tracks seemed unrehearsed, the vocals out of tune and the lyrics weak.
One reviewer commented, “Dismal, an album which should never have happened.”
Another reviewer was less forgiving, declaring George as a failure as a singer,
songwriter and guitarist.

            Following
its release,
Dark Horse
reached number 4 on the
Billboard
200 and
earned a gold disc for advance orders. But in the UK, the album failed to make
the Top 50 Albums. Two singles from the album also failed to reach the top
thirty. As such, many deemed this album a complete disaster.

            The
accompanying tour was also unsuccessful. Not having much time for his throat to
heal, he performed the entire 40date tour with a hoarse voice, with some
reviewers calling the tour
Dark Hoarse
. He was also lambasted for
featuring Indian music so heavily in the concert program.

            George’s
voice continued to crack as he performed from one city to another. He was in
Los Angeles when his voice was almost gone and, in
San Francisco Examiner
’s
Phil Elwood’s words, “had to croak his way through even the delicate
Something.”

            Bad
press followed him throughout the tour. Though he was a good sport about the
whole thing in public, he suffered in private.

            The
violinist L. Subramaniam recalled, “Every show was probably hard for him. He
was trying sincerely to do something to benefit people. You see, in Indian tradition
you cannot separate music from spirituality, and my impression was that George
wasn’t just looking to popularize Indian music but also a path of spirituality.
He was trying to make people aware of the music because he knew gradually they
would get to the root – the spirituality. But the press really wasn’t always
sympathetic. The press could sometimes be very harsh. Anyone else under that
kind of pressure would have said, ‘Okay, I’m calling it off. We’ll tell the
press I have a sore throat, and I’ll be on the next flight home.’ But he took
the risk of going on, of people again writing something negative about him, of
putting in all that effort. Why did he do it? I always had the feeling someone
very special was occupying that body.”

            After
Dark Horse
, George did not tour again for almost 20 years.

            Amid
the turmoil, George found a sense of normalcy when he met Olivia Trinidad Arias,
an assistant in the office of his new company, Dark Horse Records. They
immediately became friends, and once again, his world was a happy and bright
place. Olivia helped him to recover his health by suggesting he undergo
acupuncture.

He
heeded Olivia’s advice and his condition improved significantly. He began
recording for his final studio album for EMI and Apple Records.
Extra
Texture
produced two singles:
You,
which reached the Billboard top
20, and
This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Crying)
.

            He
also began working on his fifth solo album,
33 & 1/3
, his first Dark
Horse release, which became his most successful album in the late 1970s. It
reached number 11 on the US charts in 1976 and spawned the single
This Song
and
Crackerbox Palace
, both reaching the top 25 in the US.

            In
August 1978, George had more reason to be happy, for a son was born to him and
Olivia. They named him Dhani after notes in the Indian musical scale 
Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma-Pa-Dha-Ni-Sa. George said, “With a child around, I can realize what
it was like to be my father.”

            The
following month, he and Olivia married.

            Everything
would have been perfect, until news came that John Lennon was murdered in his
apartment building by a man who had asked for his autograph earlier that day.
It shook him, and he became fearful of being out in the public.

            For
George, it was a deep personal loss, particularly because he had little contact
with John in the years before his death. They became further estranged due to
George’s longstanding dislike of Yoko Ono, his refusal to allow her to
participate in the
Concert for Bangladesh
, and his omission of
mentioning John’s name in his autobiography,
I, Me, Mine
, released in
1980. John was upset that George only mentioned his name in passing. George
regretted it and left a phone message for his friend. John never returned the
call and they didn’t speak again.

George and Olivia and their son Dhani

            George’s
self-titled album, released in 1979, and
Somewhere in England
, released
in 1981 were moderate successes. The latter album was released shortly after
John Lennon’s murder. One of its singles,
All Those Years Ago,
had some
changes in its lyrics to make it a tribute to John. George, Paul and Ringo
performed on it. Another single was
Teardrops,
but it wasn’t as
successful.

            The
following year, he released
Gone Troppo
, which many considered a flop.
It reached number 108 in the US and failed to make it in the UK charts.
Gone
Troppe
was the worst selling studio album that George released, and became
the last studio album for five years. After this album George decided to take
an extended leave of absence from his recording career, taking most of what
privacy he had.

            George
had told the
Australia Sun Times
, “They’re not interested in me as a
human being. They’re only interested in the Beatles – what guitar I played on
Sgt.
Pepper
and all that crap.”

            At
this point, he was shunned by music companies and abandoned by the
record-buying public. It didn’t matter for him, because he just wanted to be
left alone. In 1985 he said, “I don’t want to be a film star. I don’t want to
be a pop star. I just want to live in peace.”

            George
made a comeback in 1987 with the release of his
Cloud Nine
album. Some
reviewers decided it was his best album since
Living in the Material World,
climbing
to number nine in the US top ten. It spawned a successful single,
Got My
Mind Set on You
, which reached the top spot. The
Billboard
magazine
even announced that the album was “one of the greatest comebacks in rock
history.”

In
1988, a jamming between friends turned out to be a defining moment for the
creation of the Traveling Wilburys. George and some of his best friends ended
up in Bob Dylan’s garage recording studio. They came up with lyrics that became
the song
Handle with Care
, inspired by a cardbox box written with the
words that George saw in the garage.

            George
found himself enjoying playing and singing with friends. There were no
deadlines and were under no pressures to perform. That was the day the
Traveling Wilburys were born.

The Traveling Wilburys produced two
albums before disbanding

            The
Wilburys, consisting of George, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom
Petty, released their first album,
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1,
in October
1988, which became an instant success. It went double platinum and sold more
than 2 million copies. A few months later, Roy Orbison died of a heart attack
at age 52.

            They
did not replace Orbison when they began work on their second album,
Traveling
Wilburys Vol. 3
. On why the album was titled
Vol. 3
, Lynne
explained, “That was George’s idea. He said, ‘Let’s confuse the buggers.’”

            The
second album was as successful as its predecessor though it reached number 4 in
the UK and number 11 in the US where it went platinum. Shortly after, they
disbanded, realizing that it wouldn’t be the same again without Roy.

George
became scared about performing in public after John Lennon was murdered. And
memories of the
Dark Horse
tour were still fresh. In 1991, however, Eric
Clapton convinced him to come on tour with him in Japan.

            Though
Eric pursued Pattie even when she was still married to George, the men didn’t
allow this to mar their friendship. But touring was something that George came
to hate, what with witnessing the effects of Beatlemania and his despair over
John’s death. He couldn’t imagine involving himself in those risks again. Eric
told him that performing in Japan wouldn’t be as difficult or dangerous as
Europe and America.

George and Eric Clapton went on tour in
Japan in 1991

            George
recalled, “I knew that eventually I’d have to try it again and I thought I’d
better do it soon before I got too old to take the trouble. Besides, I wanted
to stop smoking, and having to sing every night was the best motivation I could
think of.”