Why George Harrison Dug Deeper on 'Living in the Material World'
George Harrison had moved quickly from his multiplatinum rock debut to a massive relief project for genocide-torn Bangladesh. Two years passed before he entered the studio again to record Living in the Material World.
He'd spent the period just before struggling mightily with his faith in humanity, as obstacle after obstacle got in the way while Harrison tried to get badly needed benefit funds to those in crisis. He'd had issues with walking the straight and narrow, swinging wildly between the kind of devotion that earned Harrison the nickname "His Lectureship" and the typical rock-star debauchery associated with the '70s.
All of it went into the new sessions, which relied on songs written in 1971-72 – save for "Try Some, Buy Some" the sadly appropriate song Harrison wrote for Ronnie Spector during the All Things Must Pass era. He also cleaved away some of producer Phil Spector's legendary excesses, relying on a smaller, consistent group of sidemen that included Gary Wright, Nicky Hopkins, Klaus Voormann and Jim Keltner.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
