George Harrison’s 1974 North American tour was the former Beatle’s first tour following his former band’s 1970 breakup. The 45-show trek – which included November and December dates throughout the U.S. and Canada – was in support of Harrison’s fifth solo album, Dark Horse, which was released that December.
The tour put Harrison under extreme pressure to prove himself as a live solo performer under his own name. Sadly, things didn’t necessarily go according to plan.
From the outset, the typical on-the-road rock ’n’ roll lifestyle and Harrison’s spiritual pursuits didn’t make for a good mix. Meanwhile, the lack of Beatles material in Harrison’s set – which many fans were understandably hoping to hear – and the lengthy Indian-music set by tour partner Ravi Shankar led to many fans and critics seriously lambasting the tour.
Harrison’s vocal issues throughout the tour – due to a bad case of laryngitis (also heard on the Dark Horse album) – only made matters fray further. Some people were even calling it the “Dark Hoarse” tour.
Looking back on that tour in his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison said it “was the nearest I got to a nervous breakdown.”
In the aftermath of the Dark Horse tour, Harrison wouldn’t hit the road again until 1991 – and that was only for a brief Japanese jaunt with Eric Clapton and his band, the results of which can be heard on 1992’s Live in Japan. Interestingly, there has never been an official live album from Harrison’s ’74 tour.
Harrison’s backing band for the tour featured some superb musicians, including keyboardist (and longtime Beatles buddy) Billy Preston, saxophonist Tom Scott, bassist Willie Weeks and a young, recently discovered guitarist named Robben Ford, who had just finished a stint touring with Joni Mitchell.
He also didn’t come to a lot of rehearsals. We’d be there for rehearsal, but he wouldn’t show up for hours and hours
Ford had been hand-picked by Harrison, who said, “once in a blue moon there is an artist so natural to the blues and to jazz as Robben Ford.”
“I had just done nine months with Joni Mitchell,” Ford says today. “That’s where I met George. He was in England with Joni, so he invited me to do the tour, so those two gigs were done back to back. But that whole Dark Horse tour was a really weird thing. George was uncomfortable being a band leader, and he didn’t really have any band-leader chops. Because of that, we were all just kind of on our own.
“He also didn’t come to a lot of rehearsals. We’d be there for rehearsal, but he wouldn’t show up for hours and hours. So it was kind of a drag, and because of that the whole tour had a very loose kind of quality to it and didn’t feel glued together. Basically, George played guitar and I played guitar, and that was that.”
Due to the lack of cohesiveness to the shows, the allocated guitar duties between Harrison and Ford were mainly uncommitted. “He was singing, and I was the lead guitar player, as we never discussed what we were going to play together,” Ford says. “So, as I said, there was an absence of input from George.”
Ford recalls that Harrison’s religious beliefs and moral stance tended to conflict – every now and then – with what was going on behind the scenes out on the road. “George could take the opportunity,” Ford says, without elaborating, although it’s widely known that Harrison would occasionally engage in a bit of drug and alcohol use on the road. “But he was always nice and I never had any bad vibes from him – ever.”
Having come from a background in blues and jazz, Ford – who turned a mere 23 years old during that tour – found the guitar-playing duties rudimentary at best and fairly unchallenging in terms of musicianship.
“The music was very simple,” he says. “I don’t mean it in a derogatory way when I say it was mainly cowboy chords, like C, D and G. It was just triads, minor chords and major chords. There was nothing challenging about it in any way whatsoever, so I didn’t learn anything from it.”
My style and his were so different, as he was a very simple player, with long notes, and I was into playing a lot of notes
That said, there were some highlights, including the band’s take on Harrison’s White Album classic, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. “I really enjoyed playing that song; that was where George and I actually traded back and forth,” Ford says. “But my style and his were so different, as he was a very simple player, with long notes, and I was into playing a lot of notes.”
Gear-wise, while Harrison stuck with a pre-CBS sunburst Fender Strat and “Lucy,” his storied (and refinished) 1957 Gibson Les Paul, Ford played a Guild Starfire IV.
“It actually wasn’t a very good guitar,” he says. “I was still learning about electric guitars in those days. I also used an Ovation acoustic/electric, and I played through a [Mesa] Boogie as the guy from Boogie brought amps to George and me. As for effects, I had an MXR fuzz tone and an MXR phase shifter.”
More than 50 years later, Ford credits his ’74 tours with Harrison and Mitchell as having been integral to solidifying his reputation as a wunderkind guitar player.
“I got a lot of exposure that really kind of made my career, especially to have that kind of exposure at such an early age,” he says. “Had I not been working with those guys, I don’t know what I would’ve been doing. I would’ve had a band of some sort, but those tours really put me in a position to be playing with great musicians.”
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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