Big Sky

***Big Sky*** is the only studio album released by the English rock band The Herons, released on 10 December 1973. It is best known for the tracks, "Let It Roll" and "It's So Hard". The band consisted of Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, and session musicians, Alan White, and Klaus Voormann. Initially regarded as a critical and commercial disappointment, it failed to chart in many countries including Britain and the United States due to poor promotion and inaccessibility of the name. In 2023, a remixed and expanded edition of *Big Sky* was released with session highlights coinciding with its 50th anniversary

## Background

Having left The Beatles in 1970, John Lennon had been navigating the music scene as a solo artist. After releasing his successful second solo album, Tranquillity Base in 1972, and then appearing at live shows and television performances across that year, he had decided he was ready for having another go at collaborating with another musician. It was also around this time that The Beatles were taking a much needed rest after what was possibly their two biggest releases up to that point, 1972's 'Raymond', and 1973's 'Concert For Bangladesh'. George Harrison, the main writer and arranger of Raymond's songs and structure, as well as coordinator of 'Concert For Bangladesh', spent time on vacation in the East. He would find, however, that ideas and melodies came to him quite often. As he would explain in a later interview:

*"I'd thought to myself 'surely I'm out'. I was sure I'd been drained from all of that music on [Raymond]. But, after a few weeks, they started coming back to me. I had this little tape recorder I took with me, and it wasn't until I had filled up a full cassette worth of ideas that I came back'.*

George looking to record again, and John, looking for someone to collaborate with, eventually crossed paths at a Led Zeppelin concert halfway through 1973. From there, after hours of discussion, the idea of making a record together came up, and was quickly agreed upon and arranged. *"We'd figured it be a fun experiment to try, as we'd hardly ever written material together",* recalled John in a 1983 interview during the 10th anniversary of the album. After sessions that lasted for little under a month and utilized very little studio trickery (the most experimental they got was using vari-speed on John's vocal for 'And I Wander'), the time came for the album to be released. However, a name hadn't been decided on for the record to be released under. George Harrison during Anthology:

*"We never really liked the idea of the whole 'Lennon & Harrison: The Album', 'cause we wanted the music to speak on it's own, and not be attached to these two middle-aged guitar freaks. So we tried combining our names in every way imaginable. I think at one point we had written down at least a dozen names on the back of some document in the control room. There was 'Larrison', 'Hennon', and all of that. It wasn't until one morning when I woke up, and I just had the word 'heron' bouncing around my head. I still have no clue why it was that specific word, but I realized it looked and sounded a bit like our names combined, though not in a terribly obvious or silly way. I rang John and told him about the idea, and he quite liked it. I think he told me later that herons were some of his favourite birds, apart from peacocks and such."* *- George Harrison, 1997*

## Release

The album was released on 10 December 1973, under the name The Herons, 'Big Sky' was a small success in a few countries, but failed to chart in others. Critics have usually pointed to the lack of promotion for the album, as well as the name not being accessible to all Beatle fans. In terms of the music, the album has since gained notoriety for producing the fan-favorites 'Apple Scruffs', and 'How?'. Apart from those and a few others, however, the album performed underwhelmingly critically, due to the perceived sparse production and simplistic nature of the songs. *'The first glimpse of excitement in the songwriting and production comes in on 'And I Wander', which just so happens to be the last track of the album. Very large potential that was missed here.'* - Robert Christgau, 'Newsday', 1973

## Track listing

**Side one**

1. "I'd Have You Anytime" (Harrison-Dylan) - 2:47
2. "Hold On" (Lennon) - 1:48
3. "Nowhere To Go" (Harrison) - 2:46
4. "It's So Hard" (Lennon) - 2:30
5. "Let It Roll" (Harrison) - 2:48
6. "It's Johnny's Birthday" (Harrison-Lennon-Martin-Coulter) - 0:58

**Side two**

1. "How?" (Lennon) - 3:46
2. "Apple Scruffs (How I Love You)" (Lennon-Harrison) - 3:06
3. "Glad All Over" (Dave Clark, Mike Smith) - 1:12
4. "Golder's Green" (Harrison) - 2:23
5. "Tight A$$" (Lennon) - 3:39
6. "Thanks For The Pepperoni" (Lennon-Harrison) - 5:52
7. "Ya Ya" (Lee Dorsey, Clarence Lewis, Morgan Robinson, Morris Levy) - 1:09

## Personnel

* **John Lennon** - vocals, guitar, piano
* **George Harrison** - vocals, guitar
* **Klaus Voorman** - bass
* **Nicky Hopkins** - piano
* **Alan White** - drums, percussion