George Harrison: Wonderwall Music [BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT]

Why you'll love it

This edition is remastered for vinyl from the original analogue stereo master tapes and comes with a printed inner sleeve of credits. Harrison's score for the film Wonderwall brought shehnai, sarod, santoor and tar shehnai to a rock audience.

This edition

• Remastered from the original analogue stereo master tapes
• Printed inner sleeve with credits
• Pressed in the Netherlands
• Lyrics included

About the album

Here's a fun one for the pub quiz: the first solo album by a Beatle was a film soundtrack, mostly instrumental and partly recorded in Bombay. George Harrison scored Joe Massot's 1968 film Wonderwall between November 1967 and February 1968, and the result was also the first album ever issued on Apple.

The Indian pieces feature Aashish Khan, Shivkumar Sharma, Shankar Ghosh and Mahapurush Misra, with classical pianist John Barham helping arrange. On the Western side, Tony Ashton and the Remo Four handle the psychedelic, country and ragtime cuts, and Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr drop in. Sessions took place in London and Bombay, with the Indian players recording their parts in the latter. "Microbes," "Ski-ing" and "Party Seacombe" give a flavour of the range, and Bob Gill's painted cover mirrors the film's two worlds split by a wall.

The sessions also gave the Beatles the B-side "The Inner Light" and pointed straight toward Harrison's later work with Ravi Shankar. He left his own name off the list of musicians on the original sleeve, which is about as modest as a Beatle ever got.

Also at Kops: more George Harrison on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Dark Horse / Apple (cat# DH0033), a reissue of the 1968 soundtrack.