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All Things Must Pass by  Released27 November 1970RecordedMay–October 1970Studio,  and , London, Length105:59,  chronology
(1969)All Things Must Pass
(1970)
(1971) from All Things Must Pass "" / ""
Released: 23 November 1970 (US) "My Sweet Lord"
Released: 15 January 1971 (UK) ""
Released: 15 February 1971 (US) Alternative cover Cover of the 2001 reissue

All Things Must Pass is the third studio album by English rock musician . Released as a  in November 1970, it was Harrison's first solo work after  in April that year. It includes the hit singles "" and "", as well as songs such as "" and  that had been overlooked for inclusion on releases by . The album reflects the influence of Harrison's musical activities with artists such as , ,  and  during 1968–70, and his growth as an artist beyond his supporting role to former bandmates  and . All Things Must Pass introduced Harrison's signature  sound and the spiritual themes present throughout his subsequent solo work. The original vinyl release consisted of two  of songs and a third disc of informal jams titled Apple Jam. Several commentators interpret 's album cover photo, showing Harrison surrounded by four garden gnomes, as a statement on his independence from the Beatles.

Production began at London's  in May 1970, with extensive overdubbing and mixing continuing through October. Among the large cast of backing musicians were  and members of Delaney & Bonnie's Friends band – three of whom formed  with Clapton during the recording – as well as , , Preston, , ,  and . The sessions produced a double album's worth of extra material, most of which remains unissued.

All Things Must Pass was critically and commercially successful on release, with long stays at number one on charts worldwide. Co-producer  employed his  production technique to notable effect; Ben Gerson of  described the sound as ", , the music of mountain tops and vast horizons". Reflecting the widespread surprise at the assuredness of Harrison's post-Beatles debut, 's  likened the album to 's first role in a  and declared: "Garbo talks! – Harrison is free!" According to , writing in the 2011 edition of his , All Things Must Pass is "generally rated" as the best of all the former Beatles' solo albums.

During the final year of his life, Harrison oversaw a successful reissue campaign to mark the 30th anniversary of the album's release. After this reissue, the  certified the album six-times platinum. Among its appearances on critics' best-album lists, All Things Must Pass was ranked 79th on ' "The 100 Best Albums of All Time" in 1993, while Rolling Stone placed it 368th on the magazine's 2020 update of "". In 2014, All Things Must Pass was inducted into the .

Background

Music journalist  said 's "journey" to making All Things Must Pass started when he visited America in late 1968, after the acrimonious sessions for '  (also known as the "White Album"). At  in November, Harrison started a long-lasting friendship with  and experienced a creative equality with  that contrasted with  and 's domination in the Beatles. He also wrote more songs, renewing his interest in the guitar after three years studying the Indian . As well as being one of the few musicians to co-write songs with Dylan, Harrison had recently collaborated with  on "", which became a hit single for  in the spring of 1969.

 ad for Harrison's  soundtrack (1968)

Once back in London, and with his compositions continually overlooked for inclusion on releases by the Beatles, Harrison found creative fulfilment in extracurricular projects that, in the words of his musical biographer, Simon Leng, served as an "emancipating force" from the restrictions imposed on him in the band. His activities during 1969 included producing  signings  and , two American singer-songwriters whose  and  roots proved as influential on All Things Must Pass as the music of the Band. He also recorded with artists such as  and , and accompanied Clapton on a short tour with 's soul revue, . In addition, Harrison identified his involvement with the  as providing "another piece of a jigsaw puzzle" that represented the spiritual journey he had begun in 1966. As well as embracing the  branch of , Harrison produced two hit singles during 1969–70 by the UK-based devotees, credited as . In January 1970, Harrison invited American producer  to participate in the recording of Lennon's  single "" This association led to Spector being given the task of salvaging the Beatles'  rehearsal tapes, released officially as the  album (1970), and later co-producing All Things Must Pass.

Harrison first discussed the possibility of making a solo album of his unused songs during the ill-tempered Get Back sessions, held at  in January 1969. At  on 25 February, his 26th birthday, Harrison recorded  of "" and two other compositions that had received little interest from Lennon and McCartney at Twickenham. With the inclusion of one of these songs – "" – and "" on the Beatles'  album in September 1969, music critics acknowledged that Harrison had bloomed into a songwriter to match Lennon and McCartney. He began talking publicly about recording his own album from the autumn of 1969, but only committed to the idea after McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles in April 1970. Included as part of the promotional material for McCartney's , this announcement signalled . Despite having already made  (1968), a mostly instrumental soundtrack album, and the experimental  (1969), Harrison considered All Things Must Pass to be his first solo album.

Songs Main body I went to George's Friar Park ... and he said, "I have a few ditties for you to hear." It was endless! He had literally hundreds of songs and each one was better than the rest. He had all this emotion built up when it was released to me.

– Phil Spector, on first hearing Harrison's backlog of songs in early 1970

Spector first heard Harrison's stockpile of unreleased compositions early in 1970, when visiting his recently purchased home, . "It was endless!" Spector later recalled of the recital, noting the quantity and quality of Harrison's material. Harrison had accumulated songs from as far back as 1966; both "" and "" date from that year. He co-wrote at least two songs with Dylan while in Woodstock, one of which, "", appeared on All Things Must Pass. Harrison wrote "" in late 1968 also.

He introduced the Band-inspired "All Things Must Pass", along with "" and "Let It Down", at the Beatles' Get Back rehearsals, only to have them rejected by Lennon and McCartney. The tense atmosphere at Twickenham fuelled another All Things Must Pass song, "", which Harrison wrote in the wake of his temporary departure from the band on 10 January 1969. "" followed soon afterwards, its lyrics focusing on the failure of friendships within the Beatles amid the business problems surrounding their . Harrison's musical activities outside the band during 1969 inspired other compositions on the album: "" came to him while driving to a London session that spring for Preston's  album; "" was Harrison's message of encouragement to Dylan, written the night before the latter's comeback performance at the ; and Harrison began "" as an exercise in writing a gospel song during Delaney & Bonnie's stopover in Copenhagen in December 1969.

"" resulted from Harrison's early experiments with , a technique that Bramlett had introduced him to, in order to cover for guitarist 's departure from the Friends line-up. Other songs on All Things Must Pass, all written during the first half of 1970, include "", which reflected Harrison's adoption of chanting through his involvement with the Hare Krishna movement; "", a tribute to the original owner of Friar Park; and "". The latter was another composition influenced by Harrison's association with the Radha Krishna Temple, and was written while some of the devotees were staying with him at Friar Park.

On 1 May 1970, shortly before beginning work on All Things Must Pass, Harrison attended a Dylan session in New York, during which he acquired a new song of Dylan's, "". Harrison wrote "", which was one of a number of Dylan-influenced compositions on the album, towards the end of production on All Things Must Pass, as a tribute to the  who had kept a vigil outside the studios where he was working.

According to Leng, All Things Must Pass represents the completion of Harrison's "musical-philosophical circle", in which his 1966–68 immersion in Indian music found a Western equivalent in gospel music. While identifying ,  and  among the other genres on the album, Leng writes of the "plethora of new sounds and influences" that Harrison had absorbed through 1969 and now incorporated, including "Krishna chants, gospel ecstasy, Southern blues-rock [and] slide guitar". The melodies of "Isn't It a Pity" and "Beware of Darkness" have aspects of , and on "My Sweet Lord", Harrison combined the Hindu  tradition with gospel. The recurrent lyrical themes on the album are Harrison's spiritual quest, as it would be throughout his solo career, and friendship, particularly the failure of relationships among the Beatles. Rob Mitchum of  describes the album as "dark-tinged Krishna folk-rock".

Apple Jam

On the original 's third disc, entitled Apple Jam, four of the five tracks – "Out of the Blue", "Plug Me In", "I Remember Jeep" and "Thanks for the Pepperoni" – are improvised  built around minimal  changes, or in the case of "Out of the Blue", a single-chord . The title for "I Remember Jeep" originated from the name of Clapton's dog, Jeep, and "Thanks for the Pepperoni" came from a line on a  comedy album. In a December 2000 interview with  magazine, Harrison explained: "For the jams, I didn't want to just throw [them] in the cupboard, and yet at the same time it wasn't part of the record; that's why I put it on a separate label to go in the package as a kind of bonus."

The only vocal selection on Apple Jam is "It's Johnny's Birthday", sung to the tune of 's 1968 hit "", and recorded as a gift from Harrison to Lennon to mark the latter's 30th birthday. Like all the "free" tracks on the bonus disc, "It's Johnny's Birthday" carried a Harrison songwriting credit on the original UK release of All Things Must Pass, while on the first US copies, the only songwriting information on the record's face labels was the standard inclusion of a performing rights organisation, . In December 1970, "Congratulations" songwriters  and  claimed royalties, with the result that the composer's credit for Harrison's track was swiftly changed to acknowledge Martin and Coulter.

Contributing musicians Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock and Eric Clapton formed  while participating in the sessions for All Things Must Pass.

The precise line-up of contributing musicians is open to conjecture. Due to the album's big sound and the many participants on the sessions, commentators have traditionally referred to the grand, orchestral nature of this line-up. In 2002, music critic  described it as "a who's who of the decade's rock royalty", while Harris writes of the cast taking on "a  aspect".

The musicians included , , , ,  and Dave Mason, all of whom had recently toured with Delaney & Bonnie. Along with Eric Clapton, there were also musicians whose link with Harrison went back some years, such as Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and German bassist , the latter formerly of  and a friend since the Beatles' . Handling much of the keyboard work with Whitlock was , who went on to collaborate regularly with Harrison throughout the 1970s.

That was the great thing about [the Beatles] splitting up: to be able to go off and make my own record ... And also to be able to record with all these new people, which was like a breath of fresh air.

– George Harrison, December 2000

From within Apple's stable of musicians, Harrison recruited the band , future  drummer , and Beatles assistant  on percussion. Badfinger drummer ' powerful tambourine work led to Spector giving him the nickname "Mr Tambourine Man", after the . Gibbins' bandmates ,  and  provided rhythm acoustic-guitar parts that, in keeping with Spector's  principles, were to be "felt but not heard". Other contributors included 's  and Nashville  player . An uncredited  played acoustic guitar on the country tracks featuring Drake. He and Harrison later overdubbed further rhythm parts on several other songs; Frampton said this was because "Spector always wanted 'more acoustics, more acoustics!'" Orchestral arranger  also attended the sessions, occasionally contributing on  and . Simon Leng consulted Voormann, Barham and Molland for his chapter covering the making of All Things Must Pass and credits  as one of the keyboard players on both versions of "Isn't It a Pity". , Clapton's former bandmate in Cream and , played drums on the jam track "I Remember Jeep".

For contractual reasons, on UK pressings of All Things Must Pass, Clapton's participation on the first two discs remained unacknowledged for many years, although he was listed among the musicians appearing on the Apple Jam disc in Britain. A pre-  played  at a session for "Art of Dying". Harrison gave him a credit on the 30th anniversary reissue of the album, but Collins' playing does not appear on the track. Unsubstantiated claims exist regarding guest appearances by John Lennon,  and 's . In addition, for some years after the album's release, rumours claimed that the Band backed Harrison on the country-influenced "Behind That Locked Door".

Production Initial recording You could feel after the first few sessions that it was going to be a great album.

– Klaus Voormann, 2003

Music historian  comments that, typical of the Beatles' solo work, the precise dates for the recording of All Things Must Pass are uncertain, a situation that contrasts with the "meticulous documentation" available for the band's studio activities. According to a contemporaneous report in , pre-production began on 20 May 1970, the same day as the  film's world premiere. Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter cite this as the probable date for Harrison's run-through of songs for Spector. The first formal recording session for the album took place at Abbey Road Studios on 26 May, although Unterberger states that "much or all" of that day's recording was not used.

Abbey Road Studios, where Harrison recorded much of All Things Must Pass

The majority of the album's backing tracks were taped on  at Abbey Road between late May and the second week of June. The recording engineer was , while the tape operator was . Spector recorded most of the backing tracks live, in some cases featuring multiple drummers and keyboard players, and as many as five rhythm guitarists. In Whitlock's description, the studio space was a "massive room ... two sets of drums on risers, a piano, organ and other keyboards to the wall on the left, up against the far wall on the right were Badfinger, and in the centre were George and Eric and the guitars". According to Voormann, Harrison set up a small altar containing figurines and burning incense, creating an atmosphere in which "everyone felt good."

The first song recorded was "Wah-Wah". During the playback, Harrison was shocked at the amount of echo Spector had added, since the performance had sounded relatively dry through the musicians' headphones. Voormann immediately "loved" the sound, as did Clapton; Harrison later said: "I grew to like it."

"What Is Life", versions one and two of "Isn't It a Pity", and the songs on which Drake participated, such as "All Things Must Pass" and "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp", were among the other tracks taped then. Preston recalled that Spector's approach was to have several keyboards playing the same chords in different , to strengthen the sound. Preston said he had reservations about this approach but "with George's stuff it was perfect." According to White, a "really good bond" formed among the musicians; the main sessions lasted three weeks and "There was no mucking around." Wright recalls that as the project progressed, the large cast of musicians was pared down. He says that the later recording sessions featured a core group of himself, Harrison, Clapton, Starr or Gordon on drums, and Voormann or Radle playing bass.

The Apple Jam instrumentals "Thanks for the Pepperoni" and "Plug Me In", featuring Harrison, Clapton and Mason each taking extended guitar solos, were recorded later in June, at the Beatles' , and marked the formation of Clapton, Whitlock, Radle and Gordon's short-lived band . Harrison also contributed on guitar to both sides of the band's debut single, "" and "Roll It Over", which were produced by Spector and recorded at Apple on 18 June. The eleven-minute "Out of the Blue" featured contributions from Keys and Price, both of whom began working with  around this time.

Delays and distractions

In his 2010 autobiography, Whitlock describes the All Things Must Pass sessions as "spectacular in every way", although he says that the project was informed by Harrison's preoccupation with his former bandmates and ongoing difficulties with Klein and Apple. Wright recalls Harrison's discomfort when Lennon and  visited the studio, saying: "His vibe was icy as he bluntly remarked, 'What are you doing here?' It was a very tense moment ..." According to Whitlock, Harrison played the couple some of his new music and Lennon "got his socks blown off", much to Harrison's satisfaction. The presence of Harrison's friends from the Radha Krishna Temple caused disruption during the sessions, according to Gibbons and Whitlock. While echoing this view, Spector cited this as an example of how Harrison inspired tolerance, since the Temple devotees could be "the biggest pain in the necks in the world" yet Harrison "was spiritual and you knew it", which "made you like those Krishnas".

Phil Spector in 1965

Although Harrison had estimated in a New York radio interview that the solo album would take no more than eight weeks to complete, recording,  and mixing on All Things Must Pass lasted for five months, until late October. Part of the reason for this was Harrison's need to make regular visits to Liverpool to tend to his mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer. Spector's erratic behaviour during the sessions was another factor affecting progress on the album. Harrison later referred to Spector needing "eighteen " before he could start work, a situation that forced much of the production duties onto Harrison alone. At one point, Spector fell over in the studio and broke his arm. He subsequently withdrew from the project due to what Madinger and Easter term "health reasons".

Early in July, work on All Things Must Pass was temporarily brought to a halt as Harrison headed north to see his dying mother for the last time. 's growing concerns regarding studio costs added to the pressure on Harrison. A further complication, according to Harris, was that Clapton had become infatuated with Harrison's wife, , and adopted a  habit as a means of coping with his guilt.

Overdubbing

In Spector's absence, Harrison completed the album's backing tracks and carried out preliminary overdubs, doing much of the latter work at  with former Beatles engineer . Harrison completed this stage of the project on 12 August. He then sent early mixes of many of the songs to his co-producer, who was convalescing in Los Angeles, and Spector replied by letter dated 19 August with suggestions for further overdubs and final mixing. Among Spector's comments were detailed suggestions regarding "Let It Down", the released recording of which Madinger and Easter describe as "the best example of Spector running rampant with the 'Wall of Sound'", and an urging that he and Harrison carry out further work on the songs at Trident because of its  recording desk. Spector also made suggestions about overdubbing more instruments and orchestration on some tracks, but encouraged Harrison to focus on his vocals and avoid hiding his voice behind the instrumentation.

John Barham's orchestrations were recorded during the next phase of the album's production, starting in early September, along with many further contributions from Harrison, such as his lead vocals, slide guitar parts and multi-tracked backing vocals (the latter credited to "the George O'Hara-Smith Singers"). Leng recognises Barham's arrangements on "pivotal" songs such as "Isn't It a Pity", "My Sweet Lord", "Beware of Darkness" and "All Things Must Pass" as important elements of the album's sound.

According to Scott, he and Harrison worked alone for "weeks and months" on the overdubs, as Harrison recorded the backing vocals and lead guitar parts. In some cases, they slowed the tape down to allow Harrison to sing the high-register vocal lines. Spector returned to London for the later mixing stage. Scott says that Spector would visit Trident for a few hours and make suggestions on their latest mixes, and that some of Spector's suggestions were followed, others not.

Spector has praised Harrison's guitar and vocal work on the overdubs, saying: "Perfectionist is not the right word. Anyone can be a perfectionist. He was beyond that ..." Harrison's style of slide guitar playing incorporated aspects of both Indian music and the  tradition; from its introduction on All Things Must Pass, Leng writes, Harrison's slide guitar became his musical signature – "as instantly recognisable as Dylan's harmonica or 's".

Final mixing and mastering If I were doing [All Things Must Pass] now, it would not be so produced. But it was the first record ... And anybody who's familiar with Phil [Spector]'s work – it was like  sound.

– George Harrison, January 2001

On 9 October, while carrying out final mixing at Abbey Road, Harrison presented Lennon with the recently recorded "It's Johnny's Birthday". The track featured Harrison on vocals, harmonium and all other instruments, and vocal contributions from Mal Evans and assistant engineer Eddie Klein. That same month, Harrison finished his production work on Starr's 1971 single "", the basic track for which they had recorded with Voormann in March at Trident. Aside from his contributions to projects by Starr, Clapton, Preston and Ashton during 1970, over the following year Harrison would reciprocate the help that his fellow musicians on All Things Must Pass had given him by contributing to albums by Whitlock, Wright, Badfinger and Keys.

On 28 October, Harrison and Boyd arrived in New York, where he and Spector carried out final preparation for the album's release, such as sequencing. Harrison harboured doubts about whether all the songs they had finished were worthy of inclusion. Allan Steckler, Apple Records' US manager, was "stunned" by the quality of the material and assured Harrison that he should issue all the songs.

Spector's signature production style gave All Things Must Pass a heavy, -oriented sound, which Harrison came to regret. Whitlock says that, typical of Spector's Wall of Sound, there was some reverb on the original recordings but the effect was mostly added later. In music journalist 's description, once abandoned by his co-producer midway through the summer, Harrison had "proceeded to out-Spector Spector" through the addition of further echo and multiple overdubs. Voormann has said that Harrison "cluttered" the album's sound in this way, and "admitted later that he put too much stuff on top". According to Leckie, however, the reverb on tracks such as "My Sweet Lord" and "Wah-Wah" was recorded onto tape at the time, because Spector insisted on hearing the effects in place as they worked on the tracks. Outtakes from the recording sessions became available on bootlegs in the 1990s. One such unofficial release, the three-disc The Making of All Things Must Pass, contains multiple takes of some of the songs on the album, providing a work-in-progress on the sequence of overdubs onto the backing tracks.

Artwork

Harrison commissioned  to design a hinged box in which to house the three vinyl discs, rather than have them packaged in a triple gatefold cover. Apple insider Tony Bramwell later recalled: "It was a bloody big thing ... You needed arms like an  to carry half a dozen." The packaging caused some confusion among retailers, who, at that time, associated boxed albums with opera or classical works.

The stark black-and-white cover photo was taken on the main lawn at Friar Park by Wilkes' Camouflage Productions partner, . Commentators interpret the photograph – showing Harrison seated in the centre of, and towering over, four comical-looking  – as representing his removal from the Beatles' collective identity. The gnomes had recently been delivered to Friar Park and placed on the lawn; seeing the four figures there, and mindful of the message in the album's title, Feinstein immediately drew parallels with Harrison's former band. Author and music journalist  has written that Lennon's initial negativity regarding All Things Must Pass was possibly because he was "irritated" by this cover photo; Harrison biographer Elliot Huntley attributes Lennon's reaction to envy during a time when "everything [Harrison] touched turned to gold".

Apple included a poster with the album, showing Harrison in a darkened corridor of his home, standing in front of an iron-framed window. Wilkes had designed a more adventurous poster, but according to Beatles author , Harrison was uncomfortable with the imagery. Some of the Feinstein photographs that Wilkes had incorporated into this original poster design appeared instead on the picture sleeves for the "My Sweet Lord" single and its follow-up, "What Is Life".

Release Impact

EMI and its US counterpart, , had originally scheduled the album for release in October 1970, and advance promotion began in September. An "intangible buzz" had been "in the air for months" regarding Harrison's solo album, according to , and "for reasons other than still-potent loyalty to the Fab Four". Harrison's stature as an artist had grown over the past year through the acclaim afforded his songs on Abbey Road, as well as the speculation caused by his and Dylan's joint recording session in New York. Noting also Harrison's role in popularising new acts such as the Band and Delaney & Bonnie, and his association with Clapton and Cream,  critic  concluded in 1981: "All in all, Harrison's credibility was building to a peak."

Music should be used for the perception of God, not .

– George Harrison, January 1971

All Things Must Pass was released on 27 November 1970 in the United States, and on 30 November in Britain, with the rare distinction of having the same Apple catalogue number (STCH 639) in both countries. Often credited as 's first triple album, it was the first triple set of previously unissued music by a single act, the multi-artist  live album having preceded it by six months. Adding to the commercial appeal of Harrison's songs, Clayson writes, All Things Must Pass appeared at a time when religion and spirituality had become "a turn-of-the-decade craze" among Western youth, just as  had been in 1960. Apple issued "My Sweet Lord" as the album's first single, as a  with "Isn't It a Pity" in the majority of countries. Discussing the song's cultural impact, Gilmore credits "My Sweet Lord" with being "as pervasive on radio and in youth consciousness as anything the Beatles had produced".

Another factor behind the album's first weeks of release was Harrison's meeting with McCartney in New York, the failure of which led to McCartney filing suit in London's  to dissolve the Beatles' legal partnership. Songs such as "Wah-Wah", "Apple Scruffs", "Isn't It a Pity" and "Run of the Mill" resonated with listeners as documents of the group's dysfunction. In the fallout to the break-up, according to journalist , Harrison's triple album "functioned as a kind of repository for grief" for the band's fans.

Commercial performance Trade ad for the "What Is Life" single, February 1971

"My Sweet Lord" was highly successful, topping singles charts around the world during the first few months of 1971. It was the first solo single by a former Beatle to be number 1 in the UK or the US, and became the most performed song of that year. Issued in February 1971, the second single, "What Is Life" backed with "Apple Scruffs", also became an international hit.

All Things Must Pass was number 1 on the  for eight weeks, although until 2006, chart records incorrectly stated that it had peaked at number 4. On 's national chart, the album was also number 1 for eight weeks, from 6 February to 27 March, six of which coincided with "My Sweet Lord" topping the magazine's singles chart. In America, All Things Must Pass spent seven weeks at number 1 on the  chart, from 2 January until 20 February, and a similarly long period atop the listings compiled by  and ; for three of those weeks, "My Sweet Lord" held the top spot on the .

The extent of Harrison's success surprised the music industry and largely overshadowed Lennon's concurrently released  album, which Spector also co-produced. Writing in the April 2001 issue of ,  described Harrison as "arguably the most successful rock star on the planet" at the start of 1971, with All Things Must Pass "easily outstripping other solo Beatles projects later in the year, such as [McCartney's]  and [Lennon's] ". Harrison's so-called "Billboard double" – whereby one artist simultaneously holds the top positions on the magazine's albums and singles listings – was a feat that none of his former bandmates equalled until  repeated the achievement in June 1973. At the , All Things Must Pass was nominated for  and "My Sweet Lord" for , but Harrison lost out in both categories to .

All Things Must Pass was awarded a  by the  on 17 December 1970 and it has since been certified six times platinum. According to  of , as of January 2011, All Things Must Pass had sold more than Imagine and McCartney and Wings'  (1973) combined. Also writing in 2011, Lennon and Harrison biographer  describes it as "the most successful album ever released by an ex-Beatle". According to Hamish Champ's 2018 book The 100 Best-Selling Albums of the 70s, in the US, All Things Must Pass is the 33rd-best-selling album from the 1970s.

Critical reception Contemporary reviews

All Things Must Pass received almost universal critical acclaim on release – as much for the music and lyrical content as for the fact that, of all the former Beatles, it was the work of supposed junior partner George Harrison. Harrison had usually contributed just two songs to a Beatles album; in author Robert Rodriguez's description, critics' attention was now centred on "a major talent unleashed, one who'd been hidden in plain sight all those years" behind Lennon and McCartney. "That the Quiet Beatle was capable of such range", Rodriguez continues, "from the joyful 'What Is Life' to the meditative 'Isn't It a Pity' to the steamrolling 'Art of Dying' to the playful 'I Dig Love' – was revelatory." Most reviewers tended to discount the third disc of studio jams, accepting that it was a "free" addition to justify the set's high retail price, although  recognises Apple Jam as further evidence of the album's "bracing air of creative liberation".

Ben Gerson of  deemed All Things Must Pass "both an intensely personal statement and a grandiose gesture, a triumph over artistic modesty" and referenced the three-record set as an "extravaganza of piety and sacrifice and joy, whose sheer magnitude and ambition may dub it the  of rock and roll". Gerson also lauded the album's production as being "of classic Spectorian proportions, , , the music of mountain tops and vast horizons". In the NME, Alan Smith referred to Harrison's songs as "music of the mind", adding: "they search and they wander, as if in the soft rhythms of a dream, and in the end he has set them to words which are often both profound and profoundly beautiful." Billboard's reviewer hailed All Things Must Pass as "a masterful blend of rock and piety, technical brilliance and mystic mood, and relief from the tedium of everyday rock".

Melody Maker's  summed up the surprise many felt at Harrison's apparent transformation: All Things Must Pass, he said, provided "the rock equivalent of the shock felt by pre-war moviegoers when  first opened her mouth in a : Garbo talks! – Harrison is free!" In another review, for , Williams opined that, of all the Beatles' solo releases thus far, Harrison's album "makes far and away the best listening, perhaps because it is the one which most nearly continues the tradition they began eight years ago".  of  magazine described it as an "expressive, classically executed personal statement ... one of the outstanding rock albums in years", while Tom Zito of  predicted that it would influence the discourse on "the [real] genius behind the Beatles".

In , Don Heckman deemed the album "a release that shouldn't be missed" and outlined his "complex" reaction to being presented with a sequence of Harrison songs for the first time: "amazement at the range of Harrison's talents; fascination at the effects of Phil Spector's participation as the album's producer; curiosity about the many messages that waft through the Harrison songs". John Gabree of  described it as "the big album of the year" and a "unified yet tremendously varied" work. In response to rumours that the Beatles were due to reunite, Gabree said that, on the strength of the Harrison and Lennon solo albums, "I, for one, don't care if they ever do."

Retrospective assessments Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingC5/59.0/10

An album that sounded contemporary in 1970 was viewed as dated and faddish later in the decade.  critic , having bemoaned in 1971 that it was characterised by "overblown fatuity" and uninteresting music, wrote in  (1981) of the album's "featurelessness", "right down to the anonymity of the multitracked vocals". In their book ,  and  were likewise lukewarm in their assessment, criticising the "homogeneity" of the production and "the lugubrious nature of Harrison's composing". Writing in The Beatles Forever in 1977, however,  praised the album as the "crowning glory" of Harrison's and Spector's careers, and highlighted "All Things Must Pass" and "Beware of Darkness" as the "two most eloquent songs ... musically as well as lyrically".

's Richie Unterberger views All Things Must Pass as "[Harrison's] best ... a very moving work", and Roger Catlin of  describes the set as "epic and audacious", its "dense production and rich songs topped off by the extra album of jamming". Unterberger has also written that while the Beatles' break-up remains a source of sorrow for many listeners, "it's impossible not to rejoice in George's greatest triumph" and that, as further evidenced in the bootlegs of outtakes from the sessions, Lennon, McCartney and Beatles producer  undervalued not just Harrison's songwriting abilities but also his talent as a producer.  magazine considers the album to be an exemplary fusion of "rock and religion", as well as "the single most satisfying collection of any solo Beatle". Filmmaker  has written of the "powerful sense of the ritualistic on the album", adding: "I remember feeling that it had the grandeur of , of the bells used in  ceremonies." Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Greg Kot described this grandeur as an "echo-laden cathedral of rock in excelsis" where the "real stars" are Harrison's songs; in the same publication, Mikal Gilmore labelled the album "the finest solo work any ex-Beatle ever produced".

In his 2001 review for , John Harris said that All Things Must Pass "remains the best Beatles solo album ... oozing both the goggle-eyed joy of creative emancipation and the sense of someone pushing himself to the limit". In another 2001 review, for the , Kot wrote: "Neither Lennon nor McCartney, let alone Ringo Starr, ever put out a solo album more accomplished than All Things Must Pass ... In subsequent years, Lennon and McCartney would strive mightily to scale the same heights as All Things Must Pass with solo works such as Imagine and Band on the Run, but they would never top it." Nigel Williamson of  said that the album includes some of Harrison's best songs in "My Sweet Lord", "All Things Must Pass" and "Beware of Darkness", and stands as "George's finest ... and arguably the best post-Beatles solo album of them all".

In  (2004), Mac Randall writes that the album is exceptional, but "a tad overrated" by those critics who tend to overlook how its last 30 minutes comprise "a bunch of instrumental blues jams that nobody listens to more than once". Unterberger similarly cites the inclusion of Apple Jam as "a very significant flaw", while recognising that its content "proved to be of immense musical importance", with the formation of Derek and the Dominos. Writing for  in 2016, Jayson Greene said that Harrison was the only former Beatle who "changed the terms of what an album could be" since, although All Things Must Pass was not the first rock triple LP, "in the cultural imagination, it is the first triple album, the first one released as a pointed statement."

Legacy George Harrison confronted the breakup head-on, with the graceful, philosophical All Things Must Pass. A series of elegies, dream sequences, and thoughts on the limits of idealism, it is arguably the most fully realized solo statement from any of the Beatles.

– Music critic , in  (2008)

Author Mark Ribowsky says that All Things Must Pass "forged the seventies first new rock idiom", while music historian David Howard writes that the album's combination of expansive hard rock and "intimate acoustic-confessionals" made it the  for the early 1970s rock sound. Another Rolling Stone critic, James Hunter, commented in 2001 on how All Things Must Pass "helped define the decade it ushered in", in that "the cast, the length, the long hair falling on suede-covered shoulders ... foretold the sprawl and sleepy ambition of the Seventies."

In his PopMatters review, John Bergstrom likens All Things Must Pass to "the sound of Harrison exhaling", adding: "He was quite possibly the only Beatle who was completely satisfied with the Beatles being gone." Bergstrom credits the album with heavily influencing bands such as , ,  and , as well as helping bring about the  phenomenon. In Harris' view, the "widescreen sound" used by Harrison and Spector on some of the tracks was a forerunner to recordings by ELO and .

Among Harrison's biographers, Simon Leng views All Things Must Pass as a "paradox of an album": as eager as Harrison was to break free from his identity as a Beatle, Leng suggests, many of the songs document the " chain of events" of life within the band and so added to the "mythologized history" he was looking to escape. Ian Inglis notes 1970's place in an era marking "the new supremacy of the singer-songwriter", through such memorable albums as 's , 's , 's  and 's , but that none of these "possessed the startling impact" of All Things Must Pass. Harrison's triple album, Inglis writes, "[would] elevate 'the third Beatle' into a position that, for a time at least, comfortably eclipsed that of his former bandmates". Writing for , Kevin Korber describes the album as a celebration of "the power that music and art can have if we are free to create it and experience it on our own terms", and therefore "perhaps the greatest thing to come out of the breakup of the Beatles".

All Things Must Pass features in music reference books such as , Robert Dimery's  and Tom Moon's . In 1999, All Things Must Pass appeared at number 9 on 's "Alternative Top 100 Albums" list, where the editor described it as the "best, mellowest and most sophisticated" of all the Beatles' solo efforts. In 2006, Pitchfork placed it at number 82 on the site's "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s". It was ranked 433rd on Rolling Stone's list of the "" in 2012 and 368th on the 2020 updated list. All Things Must Pass has also appeared in the following critics' best-album books and lists, among others: the -compiled  (1978; ranked number 79), The Times' "100 Best Albums of All Time" (1993; number 79), 's The 100 Greatest Pop Albums of the Century (published in 2000), Q's "The 50 (+50) Best British Albums Ever" (2004), Mojo's "70 of the Greatest Albums of the 70s" (2006), the NME's "100 Greatest British Albums Ever" (2006; number 86),  magazine's "The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s" (2012; number 27), and  and 's The 100 Best Albums of All Time (2013).

In January 2014, All Things Must Pass was inducted into the , an award bestowed by the  "to honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance that are at least 25 years old".  titled his 2015 film  after the album and, with 's blessing, used the title track over the end credits.

Subsequent releases 2001[] Front cover of the 2001 album booklet, reflecting Harrison's environmental concerns at the start of the 21st century; copyright Gnome Records

To mark the 30th anniversary of the album's release, Harrison supervised a remastered edition of All Things Must Pass, which was issued in January 2001, less than a year before his death from cancer at the age of 58. Ken Scott engineered the reissue, which was remastered by . Harrison and Scott were shocked at the amount of reverb they had used in 1970 and were keen to remix the album, but EMI vetoed the idea.

The reissue appeared on Gnome Records, a label set up by Harrison for the project. Harrison also oversaw revisions to Wilkes and Feinstein's album artwork, which included a colourised "George & the Gnomes" front cover and, on the two CD sleeves and the album booklet, further examples of this cover image showing an imaginary, gradual encroachment of urbanisation on the Friar Park landscape. The latter series served to illustrate Harrison's dismay at "the direction the world seemed headed at the start of the millennium", Gary Tillery observes, a direction that was "so far afield from the  that had been the dream of the sixties". Harrison launched a website dedicated to the reissue, which offered, in the description of Chuck Miller of  magazine, "graphics and sounds and little Macromedia-created gnomes dancing and giggling and playing guitars in a -esque world". As a further example of his willingness to embrace modern media, Harrison prepared an , which he described as "not exactly an EPK but it is a threat to world order as we know it".

Titled All Things Must Pass: 30th Anniversary Edition, the new album contained five bonus tracks, including "I Live for You", two of the songs performed for Spector at Abbey Road in May 1970 ("" and "") and "", a partial re-recording of Harrison's biggest solo hit. In addition, Harrison resequenced the content of Apple Jam so that the album closed with "Out of the Blue", as he had originally intended. Assisting Harrison with overdubs on the bonus tracks were his son, , singer  and percussionist , all of whom contributed to the recording of Brainwashed around this time. According to Scott, Harrison had suggested they include a bonus disc containing recollections from some of the album's contributors, starting with Ringo Starr. The idea was abandoned since Starr could not remember playing on the sessions at all.

With Harrison undertaking extensive promotional work, the 2001 reissue was a critical and commercial success. Having underestimated the album's popularity, Capitol faced a back order of 20,000 copies in America. There, the reissue debuted at number 4 on Billboard's  chart and topped the magazine's Internet Album Sales listings. In the UK, it peaked at number 68 on the national albums chart. Writing in Record Collector, Doggett described this success as "a previously unheard-of achievement for a reissue".

Following Harrison's death on 29 November 2001, All Things Must Pass returned to the US charts, climbing to number 6 and number 7, respectively, on the Top Pop Catalog and Internet Album Sales charts. With the release on  of much of the Harrison catalogue, in October 2007, the album re-entered the US Top Pop Catalog chart, peaking at number 3.

2010[]

For the 40th anniversary of All Things Must Pass, EMI reissued the album in its original configuration, in a limited-edition box set of three vinyl LPs, on 26 November 2010. Each copy was individually numbered. In what Bergstrom notes as a contrast to the more aggressive marketing campaign run simultaneously by John Lennon's estate, to commemorate Lennon's 70th birthday, a digitally remastered 24-bit version of the album was made available for download from Harrison's official website. The reissue coincided with the Harrison estate's similarly low-key release of the –George Harrison box set  and 's reissue of , the long-unavailable documentary on Shankar that Harrison had helped release through  in 1971.

2014[]

All Things Must Pass was remastered again for the eight-disc Harrison box set , issued in September 2014. Also available as a separate, double CD release, the reissue reproduces Harrison's 2001 liner notes and includes the same five bonus tracks that appeared on the 30th anniversary edition. In addition, the box set's DVD contains the promotional film created for the 2001 reissue.

Track listing

All songs written by , except where noted.

Original release

Side one

"" (Harrison, ) – 2:56 "" – 4:38 "" – 5:35 "" – 7:10

Side two

"" – 4:22 "" (Dylan) – 3:29 "" – 3:05 "" – 4:57 "" – 2:49

Side three

"" – 3:48 "" – 3:04 "" – 3:48 "" – 2:45 "" – 3:44

Side four

"" – 4:55 "" – 3:37 "" – 4:45 "" – 5:46

Side five (Apple Jam)

"Out of the Blue" – 11:14 "It's Johnny's Birthday" (, , Harrison) – 0:49 "Plug Me In" – 3:18

Side six (Apple Jam)

"I Remember Jeep" – 8:07 "Thanks for the Pepperoni" – 5:31