Extra Texture (Read All About It)

Background

In its 13 February 1975 issue, Rolling Stone magazine derided George Harrison's North American tour with Ravi Shankar over November–December 1974, and the accompanying Dark Horse album, as "disastrous". Previously viewed as "the surprise winner of the ex-Beatle sweepstakes", in the words of author Nicholas Schaffner – the dark horse – Harrison had disappointed many fans of his former group by failing to acknowledge the Beatles' legacy, both in the content of his 1974 shows and in his dealings with the media. In addition, his commitment to launching his Dark Horse record label had left Harrison rushing to finish the album while rehearsing for the concerts; as a result, he contracted laryngitis and sang hoarse on much of the recordings and throughout the tour. While Dark Horse sold well initially in America, it failed to place at all on Britain's top 50 albums chart.

Despite Harrison's claims during the tour that the negative press only made him more determined, the criticism hit him hard, following the end of his marriage to Pattie Boyd. In a radio interview with Dave Herman of WNEW-FM in April 1975, recorded in Los Angeles, Harrison said that he accepted the validity of professional criticism, but objected when it came continually from "one basic source"; then, he added, it became "a personal thing". Author Simon Leng writes that the "bitterness and dismay" Harrison felt manifested itself on his follow-up to Dark Horse, titled Extra Texture (Read All About It), which would be the final studio album issued on the Beatles' Apple record label.

The album came about while Harrison was in Los Angeles overseeing projects by some of his Dark Horse signings, one of which, Splinter, became unavailable to attend sessions pre-booked for them at A&M Studios. Although Harrison was unimpressed with the recording facility, he chose to use the vacated studio time himself. Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter suggest that this decision was influenced by his business relationship with A&M Records, who were Dark Horse's worldwide distributor and the company with which Harrison was widely expected to sign as a solo artist, following the expiration of his EMI/Capitol-affiliated Apple contract in January 1976. Having barely written a song in the six months since completing Dark Horse, in late October 1974, he swiftly completed some half-finished compositions and wrote "a couple of new ones". Leng cites these circumstances, together with Harrison's eagerness "to cut a new album as soon as possible, to extricate himself from the Capitol/EMI contract", as part of an expedient quality that defines Extra Texture.

Songs

Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Mikal Gilmore commented that "the crises [Harrison] faced in the mid-1970s changed him", and that depression was a key factor. Depression permeated many of the songs that Harrison wrote during this period, an issue that was not helped by his continued heavy drinking and cocaine use. While viewing this mindset as an extension of the artist's "unholy coping mechanisms" over 1973–74, author Robert Rodriguez writes: "What's interesting is how he chose to address what he'd been grappling with, musically. In the end, Extra Texture is unique within the Harrison catalog as essentially an LP-length excursion into soul [music]."

Lyrically, "The Answer's at the End", "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)", "World of Stone" and "Grey Cloudy Lies" all steer clear of his usual subject matter – Hindu spirituality – and instead appear to ask the listener for compassion. According to author and theologian Dale Allison, Extra Texture is "the sole Harrison album that fails to make any positive theological statements". Allison adds that its "confused melancholy" provides a sharp contrast with the "confident religious advocacy" of the artist's previous successes All Things Must Pass (1970) and Living in the Material World (1973). Harrison's wavering from his Krishna-conscious path was most evident in "World of Stone", writes author Gary Tillery: "'Such a long way from home,' he says, but in his autobiography he renders it, 'Such a long way from OM' – confessing inner turmoil at having strayed from his faith." The same despair was evident in "Grey Cloudy Lies", a track that Harrison described to Paul Gambaccini in September 1975 as "one of those depressing, 4 o'clock in the morning sort of songs".

Harrison had begun writing "World of Stone", "Grey Cloudy Lies" and the soul-pop love song "Can't Stop Thinking About You" in 1973. He started "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)" in Hawaii over Christmas 1974, while holidaying with his new girlfriend (later his wife), Olivia Arias, a secretary at Dark Horse's LA office. The song is a sequel to Harrison's popular Beatles track "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and the lyrics serve as a rebuttal to his critics, particularly Rolling Stone, whose savaging of the tour he would never forgive.

Harrison wrote "Tired of Midnight Blue" in Los Angeles, where he continued to be based for much of 1975 on business relating to Dark Horse Records. In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, he says that the song's lyrics focused on his "depressed" state following a night in an LA club with "a lot of grey-haired naughty people". In Tillery's estimation, with its chorus line "Made me chill right to the bone", "Tired of Midnight Blue" was Harrison reaching "rock bottom". As the most obvious example of his embracing of soul music on the album, he wrote "Ooh Baby (You Know That I Love You)" as the first of two tributes to Smokey Robinson, a singer whose work with the Miracles he had admired since the early 1960s.

In addition to these compositions, Harrison revisited two unused recordings: the Motown-styled "You", and "His Name Is Legs (Ladies and Gentlemen)", which open and close the album, respectively. Co-produced with Phil Spector in London, "You" was among the basic tracks taped in February 1971 for a planned Apple solo album by Spector's wife, Ronnie, formerly Veronica Bennett of the Ronettes. A reprise of the completed song, in the form of a brief instrumental titled "A Bit More of You", also appears on Extra Texture, opening side two in the LP format. "His Name Is Legs" was recorded at Harrison's Friar Park studio, FPSHOT, shortly before the 1974 tour, with Billy Preston, Tom Scott, Willie Weeks and Andy Newmark. In a private joke that few listeners were able to appreciate, the song features a hard-to-decipher monologue performed by "Legs" Larry Smith, formerly a member of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. The inclusion of these two older tracks provided some upbeat material on an album predominantly filled with ballads.

Recording

Alone among the studio albums that Harrison released between the break-up of the Beatles and his death in 2001, most of the recording for Extra Texture was carried out in the United States. The sessions took place on part of A&M's block along La Brea Avenue in Hollywood, where both the studio and the record company were based. Throughout the spring and summer of 1975, Harrison regularly attended Dark Horse's office, located in a bungalow shared with A&M-distributed Ode Records, and otherwise became fully involved in the Los Angeles music scene. Shortly before starting work on the album, he was among the guests at Wings' party on the Queen Mary ocean liner, at Long Beach, where a "drawn"-looking Harrison was seen socialising with Paul McCartney for the first time since the Beatles' break-up five years before. Often accompanied by Arias, Harrison caught shows by Bob Marley & the Wailers, Smokey Robinson and Santana, socialised with Ringo Starr, and met up with Preston and Ronnie Wood backstage after one of the Rolling Stones' concerts at the LA Forum. New friends such as Eric Idle entered Harrison's social circle that summer, although the Python's influence only extended to Extra Texture's quirky artwork and packaging rather than its musical content.

With Norman Kinney as engineer, Harrison recorded the basic tracks for the new songs between 21 April and 7 May 1975, beginning with "Tired of Midnight Blue" and "The Answer's at the End". Among the musicians on the album were many of Harrison's previous collaborators and associates, including Jim Keltner (drums), Gary Wright (keyboards), Jesse Ed Davis (guitar), Klaus Voormann (bass), and Tom Scott, Jim Horn and Chuck Findley (all horns). Along with Keltner, the most regular participant was a young David Foster, then the piano player in Keltner's band, Attitudes, while the group's bassist and singer, Paul Stallworth, also contributed. On what would turn out to be a noticeably keyboard-dominated sound, Leon Russell and Nicky Hopkins made guest appearances as well.

Voormann, a close friend of Harrison's since 1960, found the atmosphere at the sessions unpleasant; he later cited the heavy drug use typical of the LA music scene, in particular, but also the ex-Beatle's "frame of mind when he was doing this album". Keltner, who described his own friendship with Harrison as "like brothers", has similarly spoken of Los Angeles as an unsuitable environment for Harrison during this period, while commenting that Arias "came into the picture at just the right time, a crazy, dark time". With Voormann choosing to absent himself, Harrison played some of the album's bass parts himself, using either ARP or Moog synthesizer.

Overdubbing and mixing

After a few weeks' break, the overdubbing phase began at A&M on 31 May. That day, instruments were added to the 1971 basic track for "You", including a saxophone solo (played by Horn), extra keyboards and a second drum part. Over 2–3 June, Scott and Findley overdubbed horns on "Ooh Baby" and "His Name Is Legs". The Foster-arranged strings for "This Guitar", "The Answer's at the End" and "Can't Stop Thinking About You" were recorded between 6 and 9 June. Final mixing of the album's ten songs lasted through July and possibly into August.

Between June and October 1975, Preston's It's My Pleasure album, Peter Skellern's Hard Times and Splinter's Harder to Live were released, and sessions took place in August for Scott's New York Connection. All of these albums include guitar cameos from Harrison (often credited to his pseudonym "Hari Georgeson"), yet his playing on Extra Texture was surprisingly minimal. Harrison's signature instrument since 1970, the slide guitar, appeared significantly on "Tired of Midnight Blue" only, and in his extended solo on "This Guitar", on which he shared the lead guitarist's role with Jesse Ed Davis.

Harrison's voice had fully recovered from the effects of laryngitis, allowing him to reach falsetto and indulge in gospel-style scat singing. In author Alan Clayson's estimation, with Harrison adopting a new, "close-miked" soft vocal style, much of Extra Texture reflected "the more feathery emanations from Philadelphia by the likes of The Stylistics and Jerry Butler". Leng considers that Harrison "was clearly targeting the mainstream U.S. audience" and adds: "There were few spiritual lyrics and absolutely no references to Krishna, while his much-criticized vocals were stronger, but recorded at a low level, as if the goal was to create a Harrison soul album for lovers."

Album artwork and title

The album's art design was credited to Capitol's in-house designer, Roy Kohara. Harrison supplied sketches for each item of the artwork, which adopted a humorous, "wacky" theme throughout the packaging. The vivid-orange front cover featured a die-cut design around the words "EXTRA TEXTURE", through which an inner-sleeve, blue-tinted picture of Harrison was visible. Some vinyl editions presented the words as simple blue text on an orange background, however, doing away with the expensive cut-out detail. In keeping with the album title, the thin cardboard used for the LP cover was similar in texture to the "animal skin used on a football", according to Beatles author Bruce Spizer. The front cover included an Om symbol, positioned below the angled title text and also coloured blue. On the back of the inner sleeve, there was a second Henry Grossman tour photo of Harrison, clearly enjoying himself on stage.

Seen as a joke referencing the demise of the Beatles' record label, the Apple logo was presented on Extra Texture as an eaten-away apple core. In addition, the blue inner-sleeve photo of Harrison – "grinning like a Monty Python choirboy", in the words of Robert Christgau – was captioned "OHNOTHIMAGEN" ("Oh not him again"), Harrison's self-deprecating take on his dwindling popularity in 1974–75. The album's full title was a pun on the slogan that street-corner paperboys would yell out to sell late-breaking news editions of their newspapers: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" Harrison had intended to call the album Ohnothimagen, until a studio discussion with Paul Stallworth suggested an alternative. According to Harrison, just as he himself was talking about an overdub needing something "extra", Stallworth happened to say the word "texture".

As on Dark Horse, Harrison listed contributing musicians for each song, on the LP's back cover, but this time with an additional list for those not appearing. The first of these is guitarist Danny Kortchmar, the fourth member of Attitudes; others include Derek Taylor, Eric Idle, Peter Sellers and Dark Horse executive Dino Airali.

Release

Appearing nine months after Dark Horse, Extra Texture (Read All About It) was completed more quickly than any of Harrison's previous post-Beatles solo albums. The haste with which it was made was out of character for Harrison, and apparently symbolic of a wish to redeem himself with his audience before he left EMI for A&M Records. Preceded by its advance single, "You" backed with "World of Stone", the album was released on 22 September 1975 in America (as Apple SW 3420) and on 3 October in Britain (Apple PAS 10009).

In another departure from past form, Harrison undertook promotion for his new album, in Britain. One of these activities, broadcast on 6 September, was his track-by-track discussion with Paul Gambaccini on the BBC Radio 1 show Rockweek. The same day, Melody Maker published an interview with Harrison, the magazine's cover declaring: "George Bounces Back!" Although he later admitted to being "in a real down place" while making the album, the Melody Maker interview found Harrison in good humour, pointing the way to a return in form the following year; "I'd rather be an ex-Beatle than an ex-Nazi!" he joked, referring to his recent uneasy experience with the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert. Harrison's other activities in late 1975 likewise centred on comedy, beginning with his production of Monty Python's single "The Lumberjack Song", released in November, and including a humorous star turn, again with Eric Idle, on Rutland Weekend Television's Christmas special.

Extra Texture peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart on 25 October, holding the position for three weeks, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 11 November. The album marked a welcome, though brief, return for Harrison to the official UK Albums Chart (now a top 60), reaching number 16 there in late October. "You" peaked at number 20 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles listings, while in the UK, despite the song receiving substantial airplay on Radio 1, its highest position was number 38, equalling that of his Dark Horse single "Ding Dong, Ding Dong". As the follow-up to "You", Apple issued "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)" backed by the 1974 album track "Māya Love", in December, with a UK release following in February 1976. Apple's final single in its original incarnation, "This Guitar" failed to chart in either America or Britain, a fate that Rodriguez partly attributes to a lack of promotion from a label that was "[r]unning on fumes".

Reissue

Extra Texture (Read All About It) was remastered for CD release in January 1992. The album was remastered again and reissued in September 2014, as both a separate release and as part of the Harrison box set The Apple Years 1968–75. The 2014 reissue includes a liner note essay by radio producer and author Kevin Howlett, and adds a new version of "This Guitar", based on a demo that Harrison recorded in 1992 for Dave Stewart. Previously issued only as a digital download for the latter's Platinum Weird project, in 2006, the track features overdubs from Stewart, Harrison's son Dhani, Ringo Starr and singer Kara DioGuardi. Previewing the release on georgeharrison.com, Olivia Harrison spoke of the "strong melodies and thought-provoking lyrics" of many of the songs on Extra Texture, adding: "They are moody and personal and some of my favourites."

Contemporary reviews

Discussing the album's reception in his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, Nicholas Schaffner wrote: "Harrison's worldly critics, who had long found his sermons insufferable, responded like bulls to a red flag to Extra Texture, which contains a number of treatises on how reviewers always 'miss the point.'" Even Harrison's loyal "disciples", Schaffner continued, tended to view the album as "plodding and aimless". Rolling Stone's reviewer, Dave Marsh, highlighted "You" as a return to All Things Must Pass-style grandeur, and "Can't Stop Thinking About You" and "Tired of Midnight Blue" as "the most effective nine minutes of music" the artist had made since 1970. Generally, on an album that was "sketchy at best", however, Marsh bemoaned the over-reliance on "merely competent" keyboards and Harrison's "affectingly feeble voice", before concluding: "Harrison is no longer a Beatle, as he has reminded us more than we have asked. But if he learned nothing else from his experience in that organization, it ought to have been that a good guitar player isn't worth much without a band."

In the NME, Neil Spencer wrote that "Though 'Extra Texture' isn't the Harrison revival that many might have hopes for, it's still several leagues superior to Hari's more recent efforts; and just as 'All Things Must Pass' would have made a great single album, so 'Extra Texture' would make a more than commendable single side." Spencer described the album's content as "the customary mournful and doom-laden Harrison we've come to know and fear, only this time the rigours of love take precedence over matters spiritual", and he advised his readers: "I've played it, I don't mind it … Hari fans can anticipate purchase with glee. Others approach with cautious optimism."

In the 1977 edition of their book The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler described Extra Texture as "another lugubrious offering" and concluded: "the needle of the listener's personal Ecstatograph points sullenly towards zero throughout." Harrison's pleas for tolerance and understanding, like his self-deprecation on the album sleeve, seemed to backfire. Writing in 1981, Bob Woffinden found that the album showed signs that Harrison was "no longer so scornful of his audience" compared with Dark Horse. Woffinden wrote of the songs that "plead plaintively with critics not to judge too severely": "In this different context, such pleas are more sympathetic. Very well, then, we will not. Extra Texture wasn't really very good musically … but it did have some appealing qualities, and barely any disagreeable ones."

Retrospective reviews and legacy

In his book subtitled The Beatles' Solo Years, 1970–1980, Robert Rodriguez features Extra Texture in a chapter dedicated to the worst solo albums released by the four ex-Beatles between 1970 and 1980 – the only one of Harrison's albums to be included there. Rodriguez writes: "To be sure, Extra Texture boasted several fine cuts … but the remainder of the collection was almost entirely weary in tone, amounting to a prolonged buzz kill." Nick DeRiso, co-founder of the music website Something Else!, includes it on his list of the five worst solo albums by either John Lennon, McCartney or Harrison, and describes it as a "grinding, relentlessly downbeat album, where even the name Extra Texture has come to feel like a cruel joke".

Several Harrison biographers likewise hold Extra Texture in low esteem, with Alan Clayson describing it as his "artistic nadir" and "a bedsit record rather than a dancing one". Simon Leng writes that Harrison's post-Dark Horse "rehabilitation disc" came way too soon, resulting in an uncharacteristically passionless work, with its singer sounding "punch drunk". Aside from the uplifting "You", both authors identify "Tired of Midnight Blue" as the only saving grace. Gary Tillery notes the "darkly sarcastic" album title for a collection full of such "downbeat" tracks, the darkest of which is "Grey Cloudy Lies". Harrison himself rated Extra Texture as his worst solo release of the 1970s. Speaking to Musician magazine in 1987, he dismissed it as "a grubby album" and added: "The production left a lot to be desired, as did my performance … Some songs I like, but in retrospect I wasn't very happy about it."

The album has its admirers, however. Writing in a Rolling Stone Press tribute book, Greg Kot labels Extra Texture as "something of a return to form for Harrison". AllMusic's Richard Ginell views "You", "The Answer's at the End" and "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)" as some of Harrison's best post-Beatles compositions and identifies other "musical blossoms" on a collection that stands up relatively well to the passing of time. Writing in the 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide, Mac Randall considered it to be an album that "starts off well, then runs out of steam midway through", while John Harris, in his 2011 review for Mojo, described it as "a classic case of contractual obligation" but still a "decided improvement" on Dark Horse. More impressed, Harrison biographer Elliot Huntley admires the album as "a welcome return to form" that offers "some gorgeous love songs, a truly commercial lead single, and flashes of the humour that define George Harrison as a songwriter".

Reviewing the Apple Years box set for Blogcritics, Seattle-based critic Chaz Lipp opines of Extra Texture: "Though not without a few notable tracks, it's the least satisfying album of Harrison's entire career … The essential cut is the grooving 'Tired of Midnight Blue.'" In his review for Classic Rock, Paul Trynka writes that the album "boasts neither the highs nor lows of its predecessors" and is "the work of a man wounded by criticism". In Trynka's assessment, whereas "You" "sounds dull today", "confessional songs" such as "World of Stone", "Tired of Midnight Blue" and "Grey Cloudy Lies" "have worn well". Writing for the website Vintage Rock, Shawn Perry similarly considers "You" to be "out of sync", and he highlights "This Guitar" and "Grey Cloudy Lies" on "a creative and introspective album that's aged well".

In another 2014 review, for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Walter Tunis writes: "[Extra Texture (Read All About It)] is a delight from the start of the brightly orchestrated pop of 'You' to a series of light soul-savvy reveries that culminate in the playful 'His Name is Legs'. The record places the secular and spiritual concerns of Harrison's music in animated balance to close out The Apple Years in a state of hapless harmony." Writing in Mojo, Tom Doyle concedes that, being the final album in the box set, "It's possibly a downbeat note to end on", but welcomes the reissue for "allow[ing] us time to dig for the diamonds in the dirt".

Track listing

All songs written by George Harrison.

Side one

Side two

2014 remaster bonus track

Personnel