Studio Three, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producers: George Harrison, Phil Spector
Engineers: Phil McDonald, John Leckie
Thursday 11 June 1970 was the 11th recording session for George Harrison’s third solo album All Things Must Pass.
Three songs were worked on during this session: ‘The Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)’, ‘Behind That Locked Door’, and ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’.
This, and the following day’s session, was ostensibly an overdub session for pedal steel guitarist Pete Drake, who was due to fly back to the USA shortly afterwards. The full band was not present. Over the two days Drake worked on the best takes of ‘The Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)’ and ‘Behind That Locked Door’.
Also on this day, Harrison recorded three takes of ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’. Although Harrison recalled starting writing it in Sweden in 1968, it was likely to have been composed in Denmark the following year. He performed with Delaney for three consecutive nights on 10, 11, and 12 December 1969, after which he left the tour.
Harrison made another attempt to record the song on 7 October 1970 before abandoning it. He re-recorded it in 1976 for his seventh solo album Thirty Three & ⅓, on which it was the opening track.
‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ is in Open E and basically written for bottle-neck guitar. It was started around 1968 in Gothenburg, Sweden, when I was on the road with Delaney and Bonnie and Eric Clapton. We were on a tour of Europe and they had released their second record Coming Home. Delaney handed me a bottle-neck slide and asked me to play a line which Dave Mason had played on the record. I had not tried slide before so I started at that time to play with the bottle-neck and that was how ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ came about and I somehow think Delaney might have suggested the title.It almost went on All Things Must Pass but didn’t actually happen until the 33⅓ album.
I Me Mine