From the new EP of George Harrison/Beatles covers by My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James (under the clever, throw-them-off-the-scent moniker of Yim Yames), this song feels like a much-needed salve on my rawness today:
Sometimes I am glad I don’t know the fancy tricks of studio recording, and how they make Jim’s voice sound like it is coming to me from somewhere outside time, like it was created to someday record this song about the temporal nature of the evening, a cloudburst, love, our lives.
I’m sure it has something to do with reverb and certain knobby magic on the console, but the golden-red aura of his voice is truly exceptional here, and it feels like some kind of hope breaking through.
All the tracks are thoroughly gorgeous, and the EP is available now for just a handful of dollars.
Since I’m on vacation, it’s a fine time to let someone else take the wheel for a bit, as one of you recently commented. So today we’ve got a special treat to the Fuel/Friends blog with a guest blog on a nice little set of demos from Beatle George Harrison.
I’d been entirely unfamiliar with any of Harrison’s solo work before I was recently challenged to unearth this set of demos from Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album (1970). I was surprised at the gentle and warm acoustic loveliness, not being at all familiar with Harrison’s work aside from The Beatles.
This particular pal is responsible for introducing me to a massive amount of good music, and possesses an encyclopedic library of musical minutae in his head. Not kidding, it’s like world-record material. This is his first attempt at blogging: for years now he’s just had to try and unload his vast musical knowledge on disinterested friends and poor passersby. Finally, he has a willing audience. He writes:
“Not only are these sessions amazingly historic, but they’re just beautiful — like the George Harrison cafe sessions! Art of Dying was written in 1966 and fuck me does it sound like it totally could have been on Revolver — which it would have been considered for?! But I think it probably sounded too much like Eleanor Rigby, and since it was Paul vs. George…ta da.
George sat down on solo guitar with Phil Spector in Abbey Road Studio 2, and ran through the cache of songs he had built up over the repressive last years of the Beatles. Sit back, get a coffee, put on a turtleneck if you feel pretentious enough, make like it’s the end of the ’60s, and let George play you some of the tunes he’s been collecting over the past few years.”
GEORGE HARRISON DEMOS (1970)
w/ Phil Spector (“Beware of ABKCO” sessions)
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
Name: Heather Browne
