Extra Texture (Read All About It) is the sixth studio album by the English musician George Harrison, released on 22 September 1975. It was Harrison's final album under his contract with Apple Records and EMI, and the last studio album issued by Apple. The release came nine months after his troubled 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar and the poorly received Dark Horse album.
Among Harrison's post-Beatles solo releases, Extra Texture is the only album on which his lyrics are devoid of any obvious spiritual message. It was recorded mostly in the United States rather than England, while Harrison was working in Los Angeles in his role as head of Dark Horse Records.
Gary Wright, David Foster, Jim Keltner, Jesse Ed Davis, Leon Russell, Tom Scott, Billy Preston and Jim Horn were among the many contributing musicians. The keyboard-heavy arrangements incorporate elements of soul music and the influence of Smokey Robinson, signalling a further departure from the rock and folk-rock sound of Harrison's popular early-1970s work. Contrasting with the musical content, the album's art design conveys an upbeat mood and includes an unusual die-cut cover with a textured surface.
Although critical reception to the album was largely unfavourable, Extra Texture was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America within two months of release. It produced a hit single in the Motown-inspired "You", originally recorded in London in 1971 with co-producer Phil Spector. The album also includes "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)", which was both a sequel to Harrison's 1968 composition "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and a rebuttal to his detractors. The album was remastered and reissued in September 2014, as part of the Harrison box set The Apple Years 1968–75.
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 many 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.
thumb|right|180px|Harrison, US president [[Gerald Ford and Ravi Shankar at the White House in December 1974, towards the end of the tour]]
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 booked for them at A&M Studios. Although Harrison was unimpressed with the recording facility, 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.
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". 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
Harrison had begun writing "World of Stone", "Grey Cloudy Lies" and the soul-pop love song "Can't Stop Thinking About You" in 1973. 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. Harrison had signed the US-based acts Jiva, Stairsteps, Henry McCullough and Attitudes to Dark Horse. 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 formerly a member of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. after the main recording had taken place at FPSHOT and in Switzerland. Otherwise, except for this 1975 release, the majority of the work on all Harrison albums since 1970 took place at either FPSHOT or other studios in England. 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, 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 Textures 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 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, and the ex-Beatle's "frame of mind when he was doing this album".