Background
The Bangladesh experience of 1971–72 had left George Harrison an international hero, but also exhausted and frustrated in his efforts to ensure that the money raised would find its way to those in need. Capitol Records' delaying tactics with the Concert for Bangladesh live album, transatlantic meetings with lawyers and various US and British government departments, and technical issues with the film footage from the Madison Square Garden shows conspired to keep his musical career on hold for over a year. While he did find time during the last few months of 1971 to produce singles for Ringo Starr ("Back Off Boogaloo") and Apple protégés Lon & Derrek Van Eaton ("Sweet Music"), and to help promote the Ravi Shankar documentary Raga, it was a long way from the attention he'd been able to lavish on pre-Bangladesh projects such as Billy Preston's Apple albums and Badfinger's Straight Up. In an interview for Disc and Music Echo magazine that December, pianist Nicky Hopkins spoke of having just attended the New York sessions for John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" single, where Harrison had played them "about two or three hours" worth of new songs, adding: "They were really incredible." Work on Harrison's next solo album was to begin in January or February, at his new, state-of-the-art studio at Friar Park, Hopkins suggested, but this plan was likewise undone by the problems associated with the Bangladesh relief project.
In the meantime, and throughout 1972, Harrison's devotion to Hindu spirituality − particularly to Krishna consciousness via his friendship with A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada − had grown to "unparalleled" heights. In August that year, with the Concert for Bangladesh documentary film having finally been released worldwide, he set off alone for a driving holiday in Europe, without wife Pattie Boyd, during which he chanted the Hare Krishna mantra nonstop for a whole day, he later claimed. Religious academic Joshua Greene, a Hare Krishna devotee, has described this trip as Harrison's "preparation" for recording the Living in the Material World album.
Read more about this topic: Living In The Material World
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