Why George Harrison took a half-decade hiatus from music
George Harrison staged a major mainstream comeback in 1987. After five years of not writing or recording any material, Harrison stormed back with his album Cloud Nine and the hit single ‘I Got My Mind Set On You’, a late-career number one hit for the former Beatle. At the same time, Harrison was being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and putting together the lineup that would eventually become The Traveling Wilburys. Harrison was back at the forefront of pop culture again.
It wasn’t like Harrison was simply taking it easy between 1982’s Gone Troppo and 1987’s Cloud Nine. He kept busy running his production studio, HandMade Films, where Harrison served as an executive producer on movies like A Private Function and Shanghai Surprise. Occasional guest appearances kept Harrison in the music world, but it was mostly his dissatisfaction with the state of the music business that kept him from recording his own material.
“Y’know, the record business goes through all kinds of different stages, and last time I made an album, they were so busy getting opinions from people on the side of the street on what’s supposed to be a hit song,” Harrison revealed during the promotion of Cloud Nine. “Y’know, that’s what they tell me: ‘A hit single is love lost or gained between 13 and 21-year-olds.’Now, what kind of chance does that give me? So I, y’know, I’ll just go gardening for a bit.”
When he felt the desire to return, Harrison kept things casual. He asked his friend Jeff Lynne, former of the Electric Light Orchestra, to co-produce the album. Sessions were held at Harrison’s house, Friar Park, and included close friends like Eric Clapton, Elton John, and Ringo Starr. Harrison didn’t have any major commercial expectations for Cloud Nine, but the album’s success eventually caused Harrison’s record company to ask for more material.
When ‘This Is Love’ was slated for a European single release, Harrison was asked to write another song for the release’s B-side. While having dinner with Lynne, Harrison explained his dilemma and sought to write and record a song as quickly as possible. Lynne had begun sessions with both Tom Petty and Roy Orbison, but he agreed to help Harrison produce the track.
“I was in Los Angeles and he was producing Roy Orbison and we were having dinner one night and I said, ‘I’m gonna have to write a song and just do it’,’ y’know?” Harrison explained. “And we were saying ‘Where can we get a studio?’ And he said, ‘Well, maybe Bob’ — ’cause he’s got this little studio in his garage. And it was that instant, y’know, we just went back to his house, phoned up Bob, he said ‘Sure, come on over.’”
Adding: “Tom Petty had my guitar and when I went to pick it up, he said, ‘Ah, I was wondering what I was gonna do tomorrow,’ and Roy said, ‘Well give us a call tomorrow if you’re gonna do anything, ‘I’d love to come along.’” From there, it was simply a matter of recording ‘Handle With Care’, the future first single for The Traveling Wilburys.
Check out ‘Handle With Care’ down below.
