Before John Fugel­sang was a well-known polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor reg­u­lar­ly opin­ing at Huff­in­g­ton Post, MSNBC, and CNN, he caught a big break as a host on VH1 in the 90s, where he was, in his own words, “their de fac­to clas­sic rock guy.” Inter­view­ing the illus­tri­ous likes of Paul McCart­ney, Pete Town­shend, Eric Clap­ton, Rob­bie Robert­son, and Willie Nel­son, Fugel­sang had the chance to host “the most incred­i­ble all-star con­certs that nobody would watch.” At least one of those con­certs became tremen­dous­ly sig­nif­i­cant in hindsight—on July 24, 1997, George Har­ri­son came by the stu­dio, talked at length about the Bea­t­les, his own music, and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, giv­ing what would turn out to be his very last pub­lic inter­view and per­for­mance. Watch it above in a re-broad­cast. That same year, Har­ri­son was diag­nosed with throat can­cer. He died in 2001.

Har­ri­son appeared with his old friend Ravi Shankar—he had just pro­duced Shankar’s Chants of India—and had only planned to stop by, Fugel­sang says, and “give us a lit­tle 10-minute sound byte.” Instead they talked for twice that long and Har­ri­son played, among oth­er things, his clas­sic “All Things Must Pass” from his 1970 solo record of the same name (above). The inter­view was, of course, a high point for the show’s host, who did every­thing he could to keep Har­ri­son talk­ing, con­nect­ing with him over their shared inter­est in reli­gious faith. For Har­ri­son, there was no sep­a­rat­ing music and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. Reflect­ing on Shankar’s album, he says

And that’s real­ly why for me this record’s impor­tant, because it’s anoth­er lit­tle key to open up the with­in. For each indi­vid­ual to be able to sit and turn off, um…“turn off your mind relax and float down­stream” and lis­ten to some­thing that has its root in a tran­scen­den­tal, because real­ly even all the words of these songs, they car­ry with it a very sub­tle spir­i­tu­al vibra­tion. And it goes beyond intel­lect real­ly. So if you let your­self be free to let that have an effect on you, it can have an effect, a pos­i­tive effect.

Har­ri­son and Fugel­sang also dis­cussed the 1970 Con­cert for Bangladesh, which was part­ly set in motion by Shankar. In a life that includ­ed play­ing in the most famous band in the world then sus­tain­ing one of the most pro­duc­tive and suc­cess­ful solo careers in rock, 1970 was a water­shed year for Har­ri­son. The Bangladesh ben­e­fit marked the live debut of many of Har­rison’s first solo com­po­si­tions; and for a great many George Har­ri­son fans, the Phil Spec­tor-pro­duced All Things Must Pass is the purest expres­sion of the soft-spo­ken musician’s genius.

I only speak for myself in point­ing to the haunt­ing, hyp­not­ic “The Bal­lad of Sir Frankie Crisp” (above) as the most beau­ti­ful and mys­te­ri­ous song on that album. Last night—it being George Har­ri­son week on Conan O’Brien—Harrison’s son Dhani came on the show to play that song and “Let It Down,” also from All Things Must Pass. His appear­ance fol­lows Paul Simon’s Tues­day night ren­di­tion of “Here Comes the Sun” and Beck’s cov­er of Harrison’s “Wah Wah” on Mon­day. These per­for­mances mark the release of a new Har­ri­son box set, which has also occa­sioned a Sep­tem­ber 28th all-star trib­ute con­cert at L.A.’s Fon­da The­ater. Learn more about that event and oth­er Har­ri­son trib­utes and hap­pen­ings at Con­se­quence of Sound.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele, With Words and Music

Phil Spector’s Gen­tle Pro­duc­tion Notes to George Har­ri­son Dur­ing the Record­ing of All Things Must Pass

Ravi Shankar Gives George Har­ri­son a Sitar Les­son … and Oth­er Vin­tage Footage

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

Some 33 years ago, Queen start­ed work on a track called “There Must Be More to Life Than This,” which fea­tured vocals by Fred­die Mer­cury and Michael Jack­son. Writ­ten dur­ing the Hot Space ses­sions (cir­ca 1981), the song was even­tu­al­ly aban­doned and put on a shelf until Fred­die Mer­cury released his own ver­sion on a 1985 solo album. Now, with the upcom­ing release of a Queen com­pi­la­tion called Queen For­ev­er, you can hear the orig­i­nal. No longer do you have to won­der what a Mer­cury-Jack­son duet might sound like. In fact, you only have to click play above and the sus­pense will be over.

I should note that the Hot Space ses­sions also pro­duced per­haps our favorite rock duet ever — Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie singing “Under Pres­sure.” Don’t miss hear­ing their vocals on this amaz­ing iso­lat­ed track.

How about sign­ing up for our dai­ly email? Once a day, we bun­dle all of our dai­ly posts and drop them in your inbox, in an easy-to-read for­mat. You don’t have to come to us; we’ll come to you!

via Rolling Stone

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

Bri­an May’s Home­made Gui­tar, Made From Old Tables, Bike and Motor­cy­cle Parts & More

Gui­tarist Bri­an May Explains the Mak­ing of Queen’s Clas­sic Song, ‘Bohemi­an Rhap­sody’

Last year, we brought you an incred­i­ble cov­er of Dave Brubeck’s clas­sic “Take Five” per­formed by the Pak­istan-based group, the Sachal Stu­dios Orches­tra (also known as the Sachal Jazz Ensem­ble). You can find that song, along with two takes on “The Girl From Ipane­ma,” on their 2011 album Sachal Jazz. You won’t find the Sachal Orchestra’s ver­sion of “Eleanor Rig­by” (above) on that album. This comes to us from Sachal’s 2013 Jazz and All That, a record Guardian crit­ic John Ford­ham calls “smooth-jazz­i­er” than its pre­de­ces­sor and “more impro­vi­sa­tion­al­ly inhib­it­ed.” I must say, if that’s the case, I’ll take my jazz smooth just this once.

“Eleanor Rig­by,” of course, has always been played by an orches­tra, and its mix­ture of modes makes it a par­tic­u­lar­ly good choice for the sitar soloist, who could have sat in com­fort­ably in stu­dio ses­sions for near­ly every song on the East­ern-inflect­ed Revolver. He shares the spot­light with a dyna­mite tablas play­er (watch for his solo at 1:27). It’s no won­der the Sachal play­ers have made such an impres­sion with their unique inter­pre­ta­tions of stan­dards and clas­sics. Drawn from “vir­tu­osos who cut their teeth in Pakistan’s once-flour­ish­ing Lol­ly­wood film indus­try,” their web­site informs us, “the Sachal Jazz Ensem­ble brings togeth­er some of the most accom­plished clas­si­cal musi­cians of the sub­con­ti­nent.” Lol­ly­wood, Lahore’s once-thriv­ing film indus­try, has still bare­ly recov­ered from the repres­sive regime of Gen­er­al Zia-ul-Haq.

The musi­cians of Sachal are refugees of a sort; res­cued from pover­ty, these “vet­er­an ses­sion play­ers [had been] retired since the 1980s due to var­i­ous anti-music zealotries.” Dur­ing those times, writes Yaqoob Khan Ban­gash, tele­vi­sion dra­ma pro­vid­ed “great suc­cor to a fatigued and demor­al­ized soci­ety.” Musi­cals, how­ev­er, were very much frowned on by the regime, which banned most West­ern-influ­enced pro­duc­tions and shut­tered most of the Lahore stu­dios. We should be glad the Sachal Stu­dios Orches­tra can now per­form and tour. They recent­ly appeared with Wyn­ton Marsalis at Lin­coln Cen­ter in an event, Ford­ham writes, sug­gest­ing that “the most cre­ative phase of Sachal Stu­dios’ heart­en­ing sto­ry of renew­al might just be begin­ning.”

For more on Sachal Stu­dios, watch the intro­duc­to­ry video, “Who We Are…,” above—shot at, where else, the stu­dios at Abbey Road.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

A Mid­dle-East­ern Ver­sion of Radiohead’s 1997 Hit “Kar­ma Police”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

Just thought you’d like to know: NPR’s First Lis­ten site is now stream­ing Leonard Cohen’s new album Pop­u­lar Prob­lems. But it will only be avail­able for a lim­it­ed time. So don’t waste time get­ting your lis­ten­ing par­ty start­ed.

In its review of the album, The Guardian notes that “finan­cial wor­ries may be dri­ving his come­back, but Leonard Cohen’s songs of despair have nev­er sound­ed so full of life.” Lis­ten to the free stream at NPR and see what they mean. (Also find a free stream at The Guardian.) Or pre-order your own copy on Ama­zon or iTunes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen: The Poet-Musi­cian Fea­tured in a 1965 Doc­u­men­tary

Leonard Cohen Plays a Spell­bind­ing Set at the 1970 Isle of Wight Fes­ti­val

Street Artist Plays Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah” With Crys­tal Glass­es

Leonard Cohen Recounts “How I Got My Song,” or When His Love Affair with Music Began