‘I Remember Jeep’: The George Harrison song that features two members of Cream
When George Harrison came to release his debut solo album, All Things Must Pass, he did so with a renewed vigour. He may have spent his time in The Beatles operating as the quieter member of the group, but he had now found his voice and wasn’t willing to close his trap for anyone. The songwriter within him had been ignited, and his bid to showcase all of his work resulted in a triple LP that would completely change public opinion of him.
In fact, it was largely only the public who weren’t aware of Harrison’s talents by the time he released the 1970 record. Those within the industry, especially Bob Dylan, were well aware of his gifts, as Dylan famously said, there was one reason alone that he was a more prominent member of the Fab Four’s writing core: “George got stuck with being the Beatle that had to fight to get songs on records because of Lennon and McCartney. Well, who wouldn’t get stuck?”
It’s a prescient quote that most would now agree with. Harrison slowly gained a foothold in the band as they broke up, gathering more spots on the records as The Beatles wound down to a close. In another showing of his ability, Harrison would even pick up tracks the band had rejected and push them towards his new record. As Dylan aptly put it: “If George had had his own group and was writing his own songs back then, he’d have been probably just as big as anybody.”
All Things Must Pass would prove that, hitting the number one spot and becoming perhaps the greatest album a solo Beatle ever released. However, Harrison wasn’t the complete musician; Paul McCartney was, and he still needed a band. Some would have plumped for fantastic session musicians to help bolster the record and illuminate the star on the front of it. Harrison, though, would instead lean on his very famous friends, namely Eric Clapton.
Clapton had been instrumental in helping Harrison to reach his potential as a songwriter, both as his muse such as ‘Savoy Truffle’ and his enabler on ‘Here Comes The Sun’. The guitarist was keen to get involved when Harrison began assembling a unit to complete the album with an impromptu jam, ‘I Remember Jeep,’ and, what’s more, he even came complete with his Cream bandmate, Ginger Baker.
Cream had been one of the seminal groups of the 1960s, with Clapton, Baker, and Jack Bruce arguably being among the most devastatingly talented supergroups of all time. And that shows as the duo joined Harrison to deliver one of his more vibrant pieces on the record. Inspired by Claptn’s dog Jeep, the track would not only set a marker for the fluidity with which Harrison was now working — a feeling scuppered in Beatles recording sessions by McCartney and George Martin — but would also highlight just how well thought of the songwriter was.
It really was only the public who was unsure whether Harrison had what it took to become a star on his own, away from the overshadowing Lennon-McCartney partnership. Within one listen of songs like ‘I Remember Jeep’ and the entirety of All Things Must Pass, they were left in no uncertain terms that George Harrison was the real deal. He could even reunite Cream.
