Dark Horse is the fifth studio album by English rock musician George Harrison, 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 program, resulted in scathing concert reviews from some influential music critics.
The Dark Horse album was written and recorded during an extended period of upheaval in Harrison's personal life, when he dedicated much of his energies to business issues such as setting up Dark Horse Records. Author Simon Leng refers to the album as "a musical soap opera, cataloguing rock-life antics, marital strife, lost friendships, and self-doubt", due to its focus on Harrison's split with first wife Pattie Boyd and his temporary withdrawal from the spiritual certainties of his previous work.
The album features an array of guest musicians – including Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr, Gary Wright and Ron Wood – and produced two hit singles, "Dark Horse" and "Ding Dong, Ding Dong". It showed Harrison moving towards the funk and soul musical genres. The album was not well received by the majority of critics at the time. Dark Horse was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America within days of release, but it became Harrison's first 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 on 22 September 2014, as part of the Apple Years 1968–75 Harrison box set. AADark Horse is the fifth studio album by English rock musician George Harrison, 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 program, resulted in scathing concert reviews from some influential music critics.
The Dark Horse album was written and recorded during an extended period of upheaval in Harrison's personal life, when he dedicated much of his energies to business issues such as setting up Dark Horse Records. Author Simon Leng refers to the album as "a musical soap opera, cataloguing rock-life antics, marital strife, lost friendships, and self-doubt", due to its focus on Harrison's split with first wife Pattie Boyd and his temporary withdrawal from the spiritual certainties of his previous work.
The album features an array of guest musicians – including Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr, Gary Wright and Ron Wood – and produced two hit singles, "Dark Horse" and "Ding Dong, Ding Dong". It showed Harrison moving towards the funk and soul musical genres. The album was not well received by the majority of critics at the time. Dark Horse was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America within days of release, but it became Harrison's first 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 on 22 September 2014, as part of the Apple Years 1968–75 Harrison box set. AAfalse2024-01-27 22:22:10Dark Horse1020142014-09-192014-09-1948Pop RockRock1126802120044fa822f70-da39-4818-8e68-8a8cbebc47d042a8f507-8412-4611-854f-926571049fa0ab634295-9bab-3526-aec8-e73ac824b5c3/media/data/media5/Music/George Harrison/Dark Horse (1974)/folder.jpgGeorge HarrisonAlbumArtist/config/metadata/People/G/GEORGE HARRISON/folder.jpgGeorge HarrisonArtist/config/metadata/People/G/GEORGE HARRISON/folder.jpgGeorge HarrisonGeorge HarrisonGeorge Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work.
Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group include "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something". Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt; subsequent influences were Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry. By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and towards Indian classical music through his use of Indian instruments, such as the sitar, which he had become acquainted with on the set of the film Help! He played sitar on numerous Beatles songs, starting with "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". Having initiated the band's embrace of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement.
After the Beatles disbanded, Harrison released the triple album All Things Must Pass, a critically acclaimed work that produced his most successful hit single, "My Sweet Lord", and introduced his signature sound as a solo artist, the slide guitar. He also organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to later benefit concerts such as Live Aid. In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles' Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974. He co-founded HandMade Films in 1978, initially to produce the Monty Python troupe's comedy film The Life of Brian (1979).
Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer. In 1988, he co-founded the platinum-selling supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. A prolific recording artist, he was featured as a guest guitarist on tracks by Badfinger, Ronnie Wood, and Billy Preston, and collaborated on songs and music with Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Tom Petty. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 31 in their 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time. He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004.
Harrison's first marriage to model Pattie Boyd in 1966 ended in divorce in 1977. In the following year he married Olivia Arias, with whom he had a son, Dhani. A lifelong cigarette smoker, Harrison died of numerous cancers in 2001 at the age of 58, two years after surviving a knife attack by an intruder at his home, Friar Park. His remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in a private ceremony in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. He left an estate of almost £100 million.