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  2. Lovely stuff but you don’t really like Apple Jam, do you?

    Think the 2nd LP is a bit weaker than the first and contains filler (Apple Scruffs, Isn’t it a Pity repeated and I Dig Love) For me nevertheless probably the best solo Beatles album.

    1. ATMP (Records 1 and 2)
    2. Ram
    3. Plastic Ono Band

    All within just a year or two of the split, I do like much later albums by George and Paul too though. Seem to remember you guys were not massively impressed by POB surprisingly (the John version).

    • I certainly don’t listen to Apple Jam often, but it does get an airing once or twice a year. I tend to think of it as akin to the sort of bonus tracks you get on modern box sets.
      It’s fascinating to me how that extended group of musicians were working on so many albums around that time. From the Jackie Lomax sessions for Apple to Layla and beyond. Apple Jam is part of that history.
      For me great, largely unsung, hero of that group is Bobby Whitlock. If you like the Layla album check out his ‘Other Assorted Love Songs’ LP which is wonderfully recorded live acoustic versions of those songs, plus his cover of All Things Must Pass.
      I do agree that the second disc is weaker. It’s hard to fathom why I Dig Love is there, or Isn’t It A Pity repeated, when there were at least a dozen other songs in various stages of completion.
      The sessions sort of reconvened in early 1971 to work on a Ronnie Spector LP and I’d love to see those get an official release someday.
      I love individual tracks on JL/ POB but I never sit down to listen to it as a piece.

      • I shall give it my first listen in about 40 years. Strangely the first song I heard on ATMP was I Dig Love, on a Radio 1 special around the time of 33 1/3 release, may have been an interview with Anne Nightingale. It did not inspire me to seek out the album, but I later bought a second hand copy in Kelly’s Records in Cardiff for about a fiver, for some reason I didn’t really play it very much and it may have been the CD reissue in 2001(?) that finally got me loving it (containing one of those tracks that should have been on the album, I Live For You).

  3. You’ve now habituated me to >1 episode per week of your podcast, so any drop in frequency will be accompanied by negative reviews on all platforms. You should have followed Chart Music’s example: if they put out more than three per quarter I get giddy.

  4. Harrison’s back catalogue really shone at the Concert for George, and made me think – heresy round these parts, I’m sure – that his music sounds best when arranged, played and sung by other people.

    • He’s not the greatest singer of all time, but then again neither is Clapton. His vocals on ATMP are generally (see above) fine, think they deteriorated rapidly in the 70s though, possibly due to plenty of substance abuse. Sounds good again on another over produced album Cloud 9, my personal 2nd favourite album though is “George Harrison” from 1979, never need an excuse to post this video (possibly my favourite George song):

      • That video is priceless. Hugely popular song in the US
        His vocals really took a dive in 1974 – laryngitis and cocaine will do that. But it seemed to effect a permanent change in the way he sang. His voice became thinner – I have always assumed that he changed the way he sang to protect his voice, having been so traumatised by that 1974 tour experience.
        That 1979 album was big in the US. Very overlooked here. There seems to be a suggestion that Lindsey Buckingham was in the running as a possible producer in 1979. I would love to have heard what that would have sounded like. On paper it has all the makings of a classic return to form. Fun fact: Stevie Nicks was effectively the co-writer of ‘Here Comes The Moon’. She and George were very close, at the time.

  5. Cocaine, eh?
    Forget your Parental Guidance stickers, there really should be stickers saying “the guy who made this was on coke.”
    Not for any moral reasons, of course, simply because it’s a sure sign that the record will be shite.

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