Live Versions
Harrison performed "My Sweet Lord" at every one of his relatively few solo concerts, starting with the two Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York's Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1971. The recording released on the subsequent live album was taken from the evening show and begins with Harrison's spoken "Hare Krishna" over his opening acoustic-guitar chords. Among the 24 backing musicians was a "Soul Choir" featuring singers Claudia Linnear, Dolores Hall and Jo Green, but it was Harrison who sung the end-of-song Guru Stotram prayer in his role as lead vocalist, unlike on the studio recording (where it was sung by the backing chorus); the slide guitar parts were played by Eric Clapton and Jesse Ed Davis.
During his 1974 North American tour, Harrison's only one there as a solo artist, "My Sweet Lord" was performed as the encore at each show. In contrast with the subtle shift from "hallelujah"s to Sanskrit chants on his 1970 original, Harrison used the song to engage his audience in the practice of "chanting the holy names of the Lord", or kirtan − from "Om Christ!" and Krishna, to Buddha and Allah − with varying degrees of success. Backed by a band that again included Billy Preston, Harrison turned "My Sweet Lord" into an "R&B-styled" extended gospel-funk piece, closer in its arrangement to Preston's Encouraging Words version and lasting up to ten minutes. The performance of the song at Tulsa's Assembly Center on 21 November marked the only guest appearance of the tour when Leon Russell joined the band on stage.
Harrison's second and final solo tour took place in Japan in December 1991, with Eric Clapton's band. A live version of "My Sweet Lord" recorded at the Tokyo Dome, on 14 December, was released the following year on the Live in Japan album.
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