By Gwyn Jenkins.

Announced to coincide with what would have been George’s 80th Birthday the Harrison estate have released all of George’s solo catalogue in Dolby Atmos on the Apple Music platform. More importantly this also signals the fact that all of George’s solo recordings are now under the control of Dark Horse Records in partnership with BMG.

Dhanni Harrison declared “We look forward to releasing only the finest of packages and hope the fans join us on the deepest of dives into our archives as we continue to grow his legacy” through our partnership with BMG, starting with the release of his entire back catalog in Spatial Audio, for the first time, on Apple Music.” He also stated “We also will be using this opportunity to make all the custom limited vinyl that we can get away with.”

This appears to signal that the Harrison estate is poised to release a series of re-issues and would indicate the reason why there may have been a lag in recent years for Harrison re-works with the exception of All Things Must Pass. Hopefully this will trigger the full box set treatment of “Living In The Material World” in the near future.

From the original line up of the Rolling Stones the departure, be it many years ago, of Bill Wyman and the recent passing of Charlie Watts means that there could be positions available for an aspiring bass guitarist and a drummer. If recent press reports are true then Paul and Ringo may have contributed to the sessions for the Stones next album. The connections between the Beatles and Stones have run deep from their earliest meeting on April 14th 1963 at the Crawdaddy Club. I for one will be excited to hear how their talents have combined on the first original Stones material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

In tribute to George Yusuf / Cat Stevens has released his version of “Here Comes The Sun” a beautiful acoustic rendition. He says “”George Harrison has been an immense influence on me, spiritually, from the very beginning. He pioneered certain thoughts and ideas, which stretched way east, and that was very important.” Happy Birthday George!