GEORGE'S OTHER MASTERPIECE

Living in the Material World, George Harrison's 1973 follow-up to All Things Must Pass, is a moveable feast that's ripe for rediscovery. Dhani Harrison dissects the making of the original album and producing the new 50th-anniversary box set

- BY BILL DEMAIN

IF YOU'D BEEN taking bets in 1970 on which former Beatle would be the most successful in the new decade, George Harrison was definitely - to borrow the name of one of his future hits - the dark horse. But as he'd sing in that tune, "Baby, it looks like I've been breaking out." In November, he turned the page on the Fabs with All Things Must Pass, a triple album brimming with artistic confidence and gorgeous, melancholy songs, not to mention the world's first-ever God-conscious Number 1 single. The album topped the charts around the globe, earned two Grammy nominations and had critics spouting superlatives about the formerly quiet one. As Melody Maker put it, "Garbo talks! Harrison is free!"

Free maybe, but as 1971 unfolded, he was caught up in all kinds of trouble and strife. There was the prolonged legal drama of the Beatles' split, the newly filed copyright infringement case over "My Sweet Lord" (in the context of its similarity to the Chiffons' "He's So Fine"), a marriage on the rocks and a drug-addled producer who was losing his mind. To this, George had single-handedly taken on the Concert for Bangladesh, a combination concert-album-film, all to raise money for a country beset by natural disaster and genocide. The first-ever such relief project on the world stage, it was a logistical nightmare of trying to form a supergroup while convincing record companies and governments to forfeit profits. "I spent the month of June and half of July just telephoning people,” Harrison later said in a press conference.

If anything was keeping him sane during that time, it was meditation, music and guitar playing. And they all came together on 1973’s Living in the Material World, a song cycle about the healing power of love and prayer in a harsh, unfeeling world. More than 50 years later, the album’s lifeaffirming messages remain potent and evergreen. Is there a better couplet for our moment than, “Give me hope / Help me cope with this heavy load”?