Dark Horse (song) - Recording

Recording

Harrison first recorded "Dark Horse" at his Friar Park studio, FPSHOT, in Oxfordshire, in November 1973. Along with tracks by future Dark Horse Records acts Ravi Shankar and Splinter, Harrison included the song on a tape he compiled for music-business executive David Geffen before departing for India in late January 1974. This early, unfinished version of "Dark Horse" featured bassist Klaus Voormann and either Ringo Starr or Jim Keltner on drums and it is noticeably slower in tempo than the official release. In May that year, Harrison used the song title as the name for his newly launched record label (to be distributed worldwide by A&M Records), for which Shankar and Splinter were the first signings. Harrison then announced that he would be touring the United States – the first US tour by a member of The Beatles since 1966 – with Shankar as co-headliner. By October, when he arrived in Los Angeles to prepare for the tour, a combination of Harrison's business commitments, his dedication to projects by his Dark Horse acts, and a lifestyle that Leng terms "one drink too many, too frequently", meant that production on his own album, Dark Horse, was severely behind schedule.

For three weeks, by day Harrison rehearsed with his tour band, which included Tom Scott, Billy Preston, Jim Horn, Robben Ford, Willie Weeks and Andy Newmark, at the A&M studio complex on La Brea Avenue, Hollywood. In the evenings, he added vocals and other overdubs to tracks rush-recorded at Friar Park. He had intended to finish "Dark Horse" in this way but decided instead to re-record the track, live with the tour band, since the musicians were having to learn the song for inclusion in the concert setlist. Already exhausted through over-work before arriving in Los Angeles, Harrison lost his voice early on in the rehearsals and contracted laryngitis, the results of which were obvious on the finished songs, particularly "Dark Horse". The album's title track was recorded on a sound stage at A&M in late October, with Norm Kinney engineering the session. Lon and Derrek Van Eaton, who, like Preston, were a former Apple Records act now signed with A&M Records, overdubbed backing vocals soon afterwards. Compounding Harrison's misfortune, Lon Van Eaton recalls, the security guard at the studio gate failed to recognise the ex-Beatle and refused to let the party in at first.

This official version of "Dark Horse" is notable for its arrangement, incorporating aspects of funk and jazz, as well as for Harrison's Louis Armstrong-like singing voice. Harrison later told reporters that he quite liked the result, but according to Andy Newmark, Harrison was concerned about how concert-goers would react to his shot vocals. The recording features a trio of flute players, led by Scott; Billy Preston on electric piano; and Robben Ford doubling Harrison's capo-ed acoustic-guitar part, much like Pete Ham had done three years before on "Here Comes the Sun" at The Concert for Bangladesh. The busy rhythm section of "funky stalwarts" Weeks and Newmark contributed to the track sounding more contemporary than Harrison's recent work, which had used the previously preferred team of Voorman, Starr and/or Keltner, although the latter does provide hi-hats here, supporting Newmark's beat. In addition, Emil Richards played a percussion instrument know as a crochet.