Bobby Whitlock Tears Strips Off George Harrison’s 50th All Things Must Pass

George Harrison ‘All Thing Must Pass’ keyboard player Bobby Whitlock has slammed the Harrison Estate for the release of an over-priced, awfully remixed 50th anniversary edition of George’s iconic album.

Whitlock began his career with Sam & Dave, then Booker T & The MG’s. He then joined Delaney & Bonnie and Friends and was a member of Eric Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos where he co-wrote seven of the 14 tracks on the album including ‘Bell Bottom Blues’ and ‘Tell The Truth’.

The 50th Anniversary ‘All Things Must Pass’ box set is being rubbished by fans worldwide for its cheap packaging, excessive price and terrible remixes but the Whitlock statement is the most high-profile criticism of the reissue to date.

When Bobby Whitlock heard the finished product he said he was “mortified”. “That’s the worst sounding shit I have heard in my life”, he said. “It sounds like it was done by a couple of high school people. You can’t hear anything on it. Its all muddy bass and muddy drums. The voice is out the front but there is no clarity to it. I can hardly believe it. It is fucking awful”.

Bobby Whitlock slammed it further. “This is a cash cow,” he says. “That’s all this is. It ain’t got nothing to do with presenting the music or presenting the players. We’ve been listening to some of the jams and it’s so muddy you can’t tell there are 10 or 12 people in the room. You can’t tell that there’s two greats Jim Gordon and Ringo Starr playing together. The piano is invisible, the whole band is invisible. All you hear is this muddy booming bass and drums that have no sonics. The sonics are zero. Even George’s voice is nothing. There is no presence or truth about it.”

About the packaging of the Blu-Ray edition Beatle blogger Matthew Street said, “In my opinion folks, this is a rip-off. A piece of crap. I said it okay. Sue me”.

British Beatle blogger Andrew Dixon also had reservations about the edition prior to release and his fears were realized when the over-priced, shoddy package arrived. He points Beatles fans to much better and better value packaging of the recent ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’ box and the previous Beatles reissues ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, ‘The Beatles’ (White album) and ‘Abbey Road’.

English Andrew was more reserved than his American critics. He said, “I have to say from what I’ve been led to believe, from everything that I’ve been reading, because the reaction has not be great but it is better than I was expecting.”

He added, “I don’t think it is value for money, like it is up there with a John Lennon set or a Paul McCartney set, because it just isn’t.”