APPLE JAM
All Things Must Pass is a triple album by English musician George Harrison. Recorded and released in 1970, the album was Harrison’s first solo work since the break-up of the Beatles in April that year, and his third solo album overall. On the original LP’s third disc, entitled Apple Jam, four of the five tracks – “Out of the Blue”, “Plug Me In”, “I Remember Jeep” and “Thanks for the Pepperoni” – are improvised instrumentals built around minimal chord changes, or in the case of “Out of the Blue”, a single-chord riff. The only vocal selection on Apple Jam is “It’s Johnny’s Birthday”, sung to the tune of Cliff Richard’s 1968 hit “Congratulations”, and recorded as a gift from Harrison to Lennon to mark the latter’s 30th birthday. In a December 2000 interview with Billboard magazine, Harrison explained: “For the jams, I didn’t want to just throw [them] in the cupboard, and yet at the same time it wasn’t part of the record; that’s why I put it on a separate label to go in the package as a kind of bonus.” (More from Wikipedia)
Following the break-up of the Beatles, George Harrison released a mammoth two-record album in 1970 called All Things Must Pass that also included a third disk called Apple Jam.
(September 2014)
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The other George Harrison songs on The Beatles are all standout cuts on the album and illustrate the variety that George has brought in his songwriting all along: “Piggies”, “Long, Long, Long”, and “Savoy Truffle”.
Many rock critics have noted that the sheer length of All Things Must Pass – the triple LP (including the bonus disk Apple Jam) that George Harrison released after the Beatles broke up – showed the volume of excellent Harrison compositions that never made it onto any Beatles albums. Eric Clapton was one of the key musicians in those recording sessions; the two also co-wrote one of my favorite songs by Cream, “Badge”.
(June 2015)
