George Harrison’s Family Talks Revamping ‘All Things Must Pass’

George Harrison's wife and son talked candidly about the late-Beatle in advance of tomorrow's (August 6th) release of the multi-disc All Things Must Pass “50th Anniversary Edition.” Olivia Harrison spoke of the groundbreaking triple-album set, which was released four years before she and Harrison became a couple, recalling, “These are very introspective songs and joyous, too. And brave, I think. Brave for the honesty of how he was feeling. Because you can’t write these things unless you’re feeling them or you’re understanding them. So, they’re very raw.”

She commends son Dhani Harrison and co-producer, Paul Hicks for the work they did in revamping the album's tracks and outtakes, explaining, “There were things that were smothered in there. (George had) said, 'I’d like to liberate some of the songs from the big production. That seemed appropriate at the time.' So, I think Paul and Dhani have been very balanced in how they’ve liberated some of them. You still have the power behind it, but I think George is more present — and very intimate. Much more intimate than it was before. You feel a connection with him.”

Olivia added, that George knew this album, “meant things to people. . . He knew it helped people in their lives — people wrote to him, they told him. And he said, 'Even if it’s one person, even if it helps somebody, then that’s great.' But he wasn’t concerned about how he would be remembered. Not that he didn’t want to be remembered — but he didn’t expect to be remembered. Which I always thought was impossible.”

Dhani Harrison revealed that by going back to the album's original master tapes he was able to discover instrumentation lost in its original mixes: “Just due to the clarity and the reverb and the digital compression on the remaster from 2001. I thought there were tracks that we just had muted, but they were in there. The sonic soup in the middle was fogging it up. And then, suddenly, once you hear it you can’t unhear it. It was like rediscovering it again. It was kind of the same feeling I had when they did the remaster of Sgt. Pepper's (Lonely Hearts Club Band).”

He spoke about his favorite part of going through his father's legendary session tapes: “A lot of the laughing and the outtakes and the little bits of noise between the tapes, I’d never heard before. And that’s just priceless. It gives you shivers when you hear someone talking and it just sounds like they’re in the other room.”

Dhani Harrison says that ultimately he learned his way around the studio directly from his father: “Dad was very good at making records. And I spent a lot of time with him in the studio, and he was often just by himself. He didn't really think of himself as a very good guitarist or singer even. He thought of himself as a better producer or record maker. And I spent a lot of time with, like, the (Traveling) Wilburys and stuff, and their philosophy was 'get in a room with a microphone and hit something.' Y'know?”