On this day · 57 years ago · 1969
57 Years Ago Today: George Harrison Records Here Comes the Sun on His Gibson J-200
Three Beatles, one absent, and a jumbo acoustic guitar. Here's what actually happened during the marathon Abbey Road session that produced the backing track for one of George Harrison's best-loved songs.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr recorded the backing track for Here Comes the Sun on July 7, 1969, at Abbey Road Studios, cutting 13 takes across a nine-hour session. John Lennon didn't play, still recovering from a car crash days earlier. Harrison played his Gibson J-200 acoustic for the keeper take and returned in the final hour to add a second acoustic guitar part on the same instrument.
A session missing one Beatle
Monday, July 7, 1969. Three quarters of the Beatles filed into Studio Two at EMI Studios on Abbey Road to start work on George Harrison's new song, Here Comes The Sun. The fourth member wasn't there to play. It was John Lennon's first session back since a car crash in Scotland less than a week earlier, and per the Beatles Bible, he was present in the control room that day but didn't perform on the recording. The backing track got made without him. Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr worked the song up together, with Harrison teaching the arrangement to McCartney and Starr from scratch before recording began.
Thirteen takes, and 'take twelve and a half'
The session ran a full nine hours, 2:30 in the afternoon to 11:45 at night, with producer George Martin and engineer Phil McDonald at the desk. The trio recorded 13 takes of the backing track, and per session logs, nobody wanted to say the number out loud: take 13 got announced in the room as "take twelve and a half." It turned out to be the keeper. Take 9 from the same session later surfaced officially on the Abbey Road 50th anniversary box set. It also happened to be Ringo Starr's 29th birthday, not a bad way to spend it, cutting one of his bandmate's best songs.
Harrison's Gibson J-200, twice over
For the keeper take, Harrison played acoustic guitar and a guide vocal, McCartney played bass, and Starr played drums. The guitar was a Gibson J-200, the big-bodied jumbo flat-top Harrison favored for a lot of his acoustic work in this era. In the last hour of the session, he picked the same J-200 back up and recorded a second acoustic part on top of what they'd already cut, thickening the track before anyone touched a vocal mic. Work continued the next day, with lead and backing vocals still to come.
Chasing that acoustic tone today
Nobody has documented which specific string brand was on Harrison's J-200 that afternoon, so we won't guess. But a light-gauge phosphor bronze set is the standard modern answer for a big jumbo acoustic looking for that same warm, full low end.
EJ16 Phosphor Bronze Light (.012–.053)
Why this one: A standard light-gauge phosphor bronze set for a jumbo acoustic's warm low end, a reasonable modern starting point, not a documented claim about Harrison's own 1969 strings.
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