Mystical One: George Harrison: After the Break-Up of the Beatles

Desmond Maley is the music librarian at the J.W. Tate Library,
Huntington College, Laurentian University, and editor of the CAML
Review.

One has to admire the breadth of the research done by Elliot J. Huntley,
who has assembled an immense number of quotations from interviews that
George Harrison and others gave over the years. Collectively, they
constitute a substantial part of this chronicle. Often, however, there
is no mention of sources, and footnotes, a bibliography, and an index
are also absent. Similarly, it would have been interesting to know if
Huntley had the opportunity to meet Harrison, or anyone close to him,
before Harrison’s death from cancer in 2001. But there is no preface
that could have shed light on this. The book also lacks any
illustrations, and there are some minor slips in editing.

Still, this is the first detailed study of Harrison after 1969, and
Huntley is excellent at balancing the discussion of the life and the
art. The disbanding of The Beatles marked a turning point for Harrison,
who had previously languished as the third man on the creative team,
after John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Harrison’s subsequent recordings
began with All Things Must Pass, which remains his most celebrated
album, through to the posthumously released Brainwashed; many of them
were made on the Dark Horse label. Huntley also describes Harrison’s
tours, his sojourn with The Traveling Wilburys, and his tenure as a
producer for the British independent film company HandMade Films, for
which he also wrote music. Although he is a devoted admirer, Huntley
doesn’t hesitate to critically evaluate individual songs and albums.
He also judiciously summarizes the litigation that ensued from
Harrison’s hit “My Sweet Lord,” where Harrison ultimately had to
pay a hefty penalty.

Other themes include Harrison’s philanthropy (he organized the
landmark Concert for Bangladesh in 1971), his relations with leading
musicians like Eric Clapton, his growing preoccupation with personal
safety after Lennon’s murder in 1980 (Harrison and his wife were
attacked by a knife-wielding stalker in 1999), and his devout
Eastern-flavoured spirituality. Mystical One, which gets its title from
a Harrison tune, succeeds in capturing its subject, and this book is a
must for his fans.