Production
Harrison recorded the album from May to August 1970 at Abbey Road Studios, and then further recorded and mixed it at Trident Studios from August to September 1970. Harrison enlisted the aid of Phil Spector to co-produce the album, giving All Things Must Pass a heavy and reverb-oriented sound, typical for a 1960s/1970s Spector production — a sound Harrison would subsequently regret with the passage of time. In the electronic press kit that accompanies the 30th Anniversary reissue, Harrison is asked what he thinks of the album 30 years later; he replied: "Too much echo."
In late May, just before recording got under way, Harrison sat in a studio with Spector and ran through 15 songs on guitar, with occasional support from an unknown bass player. These demos (eventually bootlegged as Beware of ABKCO! due to an altered line in his performance of "Beware of Darkness") showed him in the process of weighing up his material, as eight of the songs would either be substantially reworked or not appear on the finished album. Among these early outtakes, three have been officially released in one form or another: "Everybody, Nobody" was an early version of "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp", "Beautiful Girl" would be finished for 1976's Thirty Three & 1/3, and "I Don't Want to Do It" would wait fifteen years until being revisited for the soundtrack of Porky's Revenge. Five other songs − "Cosmic Empire", "Mother Divine", "Nowhere to Go", "Tell Me What Has Happened with You" and "Window, Window" − have not seen official release, along with other tracks such as "Gopala Krishna" and "Dehradun" that likewise did not make the final cut. Two demos of songs that did make the album, "Beware of Darkness" and "Let It Down", would eventually be released on the remastered All Things Must Pass in 2001, the second of these tracks with recent overdubs recorded by Harrison at Friar Park.
Full discs of electric outtakes from the recording sessions would also leak onto bootlegs in later years, and two of those tracks were also included in the remaster. Multiple takes of songs from the album appear on a bootleg three-disc box set titled The Making of All Things Must Pass and on other unofficial releases.
Musicians involved in the recording were numerous and the precise line-up is still the subject of much conjecture. They included Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon and Carl Radle, all of whom had recently toured with Delaney & Bonnie and would morph into the short-lived Derek and the Dominos during these sessions; German bassist Klaus Voormann, a friend since The Beatles' Hamburg days; future Yes drummer Alan White; Ringo Starr; all four members of Badfinger; keyboard players Billy Preston, Gary Brooker and Gary Wright; Nashville pedal steel player Pete Drake; and the former Delaney & Bonnie (now Rolling Stones) horn section of Bobby Keys and Jim Price. Orchestral arranger John Barham also sat in on the sessions, occasionally contributing on harmonium and vibraphone. A young, pre-Genesis Phil Collins played congas on "Art of Dying", but was not credited on the original release (an oversight that was fixed on the 2001 remaster).
Bob Dylan, a close friend of Harrison, co-wrote "I'd Have You Anytime" with him, while Harrison covered Dylan's "If Not For You", which would be released on Dylan's concurrent album, New Morning. Alan White stated that John Lennon may have played on "If Not For You". Maurice Gibb was also present during the All Things Must Pass sessions, having been a friend of Starr's, and is said to have played keyboards on "Isn't It a Pity", although there is no definitive evidence as to which version. In an 18 October 2009 BBC Radio 2 interview, tape op John Leckie claimed that Richard Wright of Pink Floyd contributed organ, but he receives no acknowledgment on the album either. In addition to these unconfirmed participants, author Simon Leng, having consulted the likes of Voormann and Barham for his study of the making of All Things Must Pass, credits Tony Ashton as one of the keyboard players on both versions of "Isn't It a Pity".
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