Dark Horse is the fifth studio album by the English rock musician George Harrison. It was released on Apple Records in December 1974 as the follow-up to Living in the Material World. Although keenly anticipated on release, Dark Horse is associated with the controversial North American tour that Harrison staged with Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar in November and December that year. This was the first US tour by a member of the Beatles since 1966, and the public's nostalgia for the band, together with Harrison contracting laryngitis during rehearsals and choosing to feature Shankar so heavily in the show, resulted in scathing concert reviews from some influential music critics.

Harrison wrote and recorded Dark Horse during an extended period of upheaval in his personal life. The songs focus on Harrison's split with his first wife, Pattie Boyd, and his temporary withdrawal from the spiritual certainties of his previous work. Throughout this time, he dedicated much of his energy to setting up Dark Horse Records and working with the label's first signings, Shankar and the group Splinter, at the expense of his own music. Author Simon Leng refers to the album as "a musical soap opera, cataloguing rock-life antics, marital strife, lost friendships, and self-doubt".

Dark Horse features an array of guest musicians – including Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr, Gary Wright and Ron Wood. It showed Harrison moving towards the funk and soul music genres, and produced the hit singles "Dark Horse" and "Ding Dong, Ding Dong". Further to the criticism of his demeanour during the tour, the album was not well received by the majority of critics at the time. It peaked at number 4 on Billboards albums chart in the US and placed inside the top ten in some European countries, but became Harrison's first post-Beatles solo album not to chart in Britain. The cover was designed by Tom Wilkes and consists of a school photograph from Harrison's time at the Liverpool Institute superimposed onto a Himalayan landscape. The album was reissued in remastered form in 2014 as part of the Apple Years 1968–75 Harrison box set.

Background

George Harrison's third studio album since the Beatles' break-up came at the end of what he describes in his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, as "a bad domestic year".George Harrison, p. 69. From the middle of 1973, with his marriage to Pattie Boyd all but over, Harrison immersed himself in his work,Leng, p. 148. particularly on helping the two acts he would eventually sign to his new record label, Dark Horse Records − Ravi Shankar and a hitherto unknown group called Splinter.Olivia Harrison, p. 312. Business issues related to the Beatles' company Apple Corps were also coming to a head during 1973–74.Rodriguez, p. 60. Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr became embroiled in litigation with former manager Allen Klein,Badman, p. 111.Woffinden, p. 75. whose removal from Apple helped to conclude the suit launched by Paul McCartney in December 1970 to dissolve the band as a legal partnership.Soocher, p. 83. The simultaneous winding down of Apple Corps' subsidiaries left several music and film projects in jeopardy.Woffinden, p. 74. Having decided to form his own label, Harrison now sought a record company to distribute Shankar's Shankar Family & Friends album, most of which was recorded in California in April 1973,Badman, pp. 94, 98. and Splinter's debut, The Place I Love.Clayson, p. 346. Another venture that was affected was the feature film Little Malcolm.Badman, p. 150.Kahn, pp. 206–07. As executive producer of this Apple Films project, Harrison was working to seal a distribution deal in Europe.Michael Simmons, "Cry for a Shadow", Mojo, November 2011, p. 85.

Compounding the pressure, Harrison was drinking heavily and had returned to his drug-taking ways of the 1960s.Rodriguez, p. 58. In I, Me, Mine, he refers to this as "the naughty period, 1973–74".George Harrison, p. 274. Wounded by Harrison's frequent infidelities, Boyd had an affair with Ron Wood of the FacesDoggett, pp. 208–09. before eventually leaving Harrison for his friend Eric Clapton in July 1974.Tillery, p. 94.Boyd, pp. 178–79. Both of these dalliances receive attention on Dark Horse, which author Simon Leng likens to a "musical soap opera".Leng, pp. 152, 156, 159. For his part, Harrison had taken up with Starr's wife, Maureen Starkey,Badman, p. 135.Tillery, p. 93. and with Wood's wife Krissy.Harry, p. 394. In November 1973, Wood encouraged press speculation about Harrison's marriage by stating that "my romance with Patti is definitely on";Badman, p. 113. over the following year, rumours circulated about Harrison's dalliance with Starkey and the UK tabloids became aware of his affair with model Kathy Simmonds,Clayson, p. 329. a former girlfriend of Wood's bandmate Rod Stewart.Rodriguez, p. 423. Shortly before Dark Horses release, Harrison avoided reporters' questions regarding his private life with a suggestion that people wait for the new album, saying, "It's like Peyton Place."Badman, p. 136.Anne Moore, "George Harrison on Tour – Press Conference Q&A", Valley Advocate, 13 November 1974; available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required; retrieved 15 July 2012).

In January 1974,Olivia Harrison, pp. 258, 302. Harrison escaped his domestic problems by visiting IndiaLeng, pp. 157, 165. for two months. He attended a ceremony for the opening of Shankar's new home in Benares, where they forged a plan for Harrison to sponsor an Indian classical-music concert tour of Europe, known as Ravi Shankar's Music Festival from India, and for Harrison and Shankar to then tour North America together at the end of the year.Leng, pp. 148, 157, 165. Featuring up to eighteen musicians on a wide range of traditional Indian instruments,Olivia Harrison, p. 302. the Music Festival from India was the realisation of a long-held dream for Harrison. As with his dedication to Splinter's career, however, it distracted him from focusing on his own album.Clayson, p. 335.Huntley, pp. 107, 108.

By May, Harrison had agreed distribution terms with A&M Records and was able to formally launch Dark Horse Records.Badman, p. 125. He remained contracted to Apple as a solo artist, like the other former Beatles, until January 1976.Schaffner, pp. 176, 188.Woffinden, p. 85. After announcing the staging of the Music Festival from India in September,Badman, p. 131. Harrison confirmed that he planned to tour North America during November and December, to promote the new record label.Frontani, p. 159. Despite his stated aversion to performing live,Leng, p. 165. he thereby became the first member of the Beatles to tour the United States and Canada since the group's 1966 visit.The Editors of Rolling Stone, pp. 44, 126. Since the band and its individual members were still widely revered in the US,Schaffner, p. 176.Woffinden, pp. 73, 83. this resulted in considerable expectations and additional pressure on Harrison.Leng, pp. 165–66.The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 44.Rodriguez, p. 199.

Songs According to author Ian Inglis, Harrison's approach to Dark Horse was informed by a combination of despondency over the disarray and infidelities that characterised his personal life, and confusion at the criticism his 1973 album Living in the Material World received from some reviewers.Inglis, p. 43. In Britain especially, these critics objected to the spiritual discipline espoused by Harrison and the album's pious message.Clayson, p. 324. Although the lyrics to "Dark Horse" invite interpretation as a response to his detractors or to Boyd,Allison, p. 139. Harrison said he wrote the song in reference to gossip about someone who carries out clandestine sexual relationships.Alan Freeman (host), "Interview with George Harrison", Rock Around the World, show 61, 5 October 1975. In addition to supplying the name for his record company,Hunt, p. 103. the title references Harrison's emergence as the dark horse among the Beatles, particularly in his unexpected ascendancy as a solo artist to surpass Lennon and McCartney.Inglis, pp. 23, 46–47.

Harrison conveyed his feelings on his and Boyd's inevitable split in "So Sad", which he began writing in 1972Inglis, p. 45.George Harrison, pp. 240, 282. and first recorded for Living in the Material World.Huntley, p. 109. Leng considers the song to be the antithesis of Harrison's 1969 composition "Here Comes the Sun" in its use of stark winter imagery, reflecting "the temporary death of George's Krishna dream".Leng, p. 152. Harrison's inspiration for "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" came from inscriptions at his Friar Park home,Madinger & Easter, p. 444. a legacy of the property's original owner, the eccentric Victorian lawyer and horticulturalist Frank Crisp.Boyd, pp. 144, 145.Olivia Harrison, p. 268. Harrison said that the song's exhortation to ring out the "old" and the "false", and instead ring in the "new" and the "true", was a message everybody "in a rut" should apply to their lives when celebrating New Year.Badman, p. 144.

He wrote "Simply Shady" during his stay in India.Howlett, p. 4. In a marked departure from the spiritual certainties of Harrison's previous work as a solo artist,Rodriguez, pp. 382–83. the lyrics address the karmic consequences of his wayward behaviourAllison, pp. 86–87, 154. and detail his reliance on drugs and alcohol.Leng, pp. 150–51, 165. By contrast, his and Shankar's visit to the Hindu holy city of Vrindavan inspired the devotional "It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna)".Rodriguez, p. 384.Clayson, p. 330. Reflecting Harrison's re-engagement with chanting,Allison, p. 147. the song originated from the bhajan he and his companions sang for five hours during their tour of the city's temples.George Harrison, p. 297.

His musical association with Wood led them to co-write "Far East Man",Clayson, pp. 343, 344. a rumination on friendship,Rodriguez, p. 235. which the pair first recorded for Wood's debut solo album, I've Got My Own Album to Do.Badman, p. 109. Re-recorded by Harrison for Dark Horse, the song was his first foray into 1970s soul music.Leng, p. 156.Rodriguez, pp. 234–35. "Māya Love" also reflected Harrison's move towards contemporary R&B, particularly funk.Leng, p. 153. Informed by his relationship with Boyd, the lyrics ponder the illusory nature of love within the Hindu concept of maya.Inglis, p. 46.Allison, p. 150. Like "Māya Love", "Hari's on Tour (Express)" was a showcase for Harrison's slide guitar playing.Clayson, p. 336. A rare instrumental in the artist's post-Beatles catalogue, its title referenced the upcoming tourLeng, p. 150. and Hari Georgeson, one of several pseudonyms Harrison used on other artists' recordings.

Given Harrison's comment that the album resembled a TV soap opera, musicologist Thomas MacFarlane likens Dark Horse to a "drama in two acts". The first act opens with the "Hari's on Tour" instrumental, he writes, before giving way to a run of intriguing "mood pieces" in "Simply Shady", "So Sad" and a reinterpretation of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye, Love".MacFarlane, p. 90. Harrison rewrote the latter song to address Boyd's eloping with Clapton.Hunt, p. 22. The new lyrics include the lines "There goes our lady, with a-you-know-who / I hope she's happy, old Clapper too", and Harrison's claim that he "threw them both out".Clayson, p. 343. "I Don't Care Anymore", a non-album B-side from this period, is a lighthearted song in which Harrison expresses lust for a married woman.Allison, p. 145. The composition blends jug band, skiffle and country influences.

Recording history

November 1973 – early 1974