Wonderwall Music at 55

This week in 1968 George Harrison released a game-changing record

Within and without The Beatles, George is well-appreciated as a golden singer-songwriter and collaborator, guitar tone-smith and innovator (he re-invented slide guitar), champion of the ukulele, fascinating film-maker, and a witty and Godly man. Add to this: Pioneer of world music—George was on it well before the idea of “world music fusion” became popular in the 1980s.

55 years ago this week George released the WONDERWALL MUSIC soundtrack, his ground-breaking merger of Indian classical, “spaghetti western” music, orchestral Euro-pop, sound collages, and Mellotron-soaked psychedelic rock freakouts. Recorded in England and India between November 1967 and February 1968, the project engaged 12 top-notch classical musicians from Bombay. The India sessions led George to compose “The Inner Light” (later B-side of The Beatles’s “Lady Madonna), and the players included Indian classical music luminaries Shankar Ghosh, Aashish Khan, Mahapurush Misra, and Shivkumar Sharma.

Their tracks were paired with a band from Liverpool, The Remo Four, storied session musicians George had known for years.

He topped if off with input from Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Peter Tork of The Monkees on banjo

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The music was scored for a little-seen art movie by Joe Massot, who’d crossed paths with George during the filming of HELP! In 1965. Massot originally wanted The Bee Gees to score the film (and Graham Nash expressed interest as well). The Bee Gees were unavailable, so George got the gig.

Released November 1968, it was the first record release on Apple, first solo album by a Beatle (and first full soundtrack), and “Dream Scene” was the first serious sound collage from a Beatle (made months before “Revolution 9”). Despite little promotion, it charted in Canada and the USA.

However, buzz for WONDERWALL was muted when “Hey Jude” went to #1, followed by the momentous release of “The White Album” just weeks later. It didn’t help that, at the time, critics dismissed the WONDERWALL LP as a mere curio (or even hippie drivel), and not all Beatle fans embraced it.

The WONDERWALL film was purposely, and accurately, promoted as “psychedelic,” an extension of Apple’s connection with the art collective know as The Fool (who created media promotionals for the film).

The film plot follows a young couple in Mod-era London, with actress Jane Birkin playing a model named “Penny Lane” and a photographer played by Iain Quarrier. Veteran actor Jack McGowran plays their neighbor, a professor who accidentally finds a hole in a wall and begins “peeping Tomming” the couple’s photography sessions. The story contrasts Swinging 60s London with the traditional norms of the professor, informing George’s choices of contrasting music, the dualities of East and West, psychedelic and spiritual, old and new.

Ravi Shankar had accomplished a similar goal in 1966, fusing Ornette Coleman’s jazz, sound collages, and Indian classical for the film soundtrack CHAPPAQUA, but George was taking the fusion to another level.

Unfortunately, the WONDERWALL film hastened into obscurity due to poor distribution, and an inference grew that the film must be “no good” simply because hardly anyone saw it. Massot went on to work on films including Led Zeppelin’s THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME, the acid western ZACHARIAH, and George Lazenby’s UNIVERSAL SOLDIER.

Time has been kinder to George’s WONDERWALL soundtrack, which has drawn comparisons to adventurous soundtracks by Pink Floyd and other fusionaries.

A galaxy of Indian instruments was given exposure to a Western audience via WONDERWALL, and the album has been added to a group of similar ground-breaking works by Bill Evans, Peter Gabriel, Mickey Hart, Yehudi Menuhin, Ravi Shankar, and Paul Simon. It also became a touchstone for mid-90s Brit-pop bands, most famously Oasis.

In 2011, Quincy Jones allegedly told Joe Massot that WONDERWALL was “the greatest soundtrack he’d (Jones) had ever heard.” In 1992 the soundtrack was remastered to CD, with the bonus of music released only in the film—including the entrancing psychedelic chef-d'oeuvre “In The First Place,” a Remo Four track produced by George:

Here’s the entire album in the rare UK-only mono mix—with several noticeable differences (particularly in the tack pianos and effects processing).

Even though I’ve worn through several copies of this album, I continue to hear new layers of dreamscapes and sonic textures—a wonderwall of music that expresses life’s contrasts in sound and soul.

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