In a calculated move by EMI and its American subsidiary, Capitol Records, the compilation was issued during the same month as Harrison's debut on his Warner-distributed Dark Horse label, Thirty Three & ⅓.

[1] The compilation was instigated by EMI's US counterpart, Capitol Records, a company with which Harrison had grown disaffected since August 1971,[2] due to what author Alan Clayson describes as its "avaricious dithering" over the release of the Concert for Bangladesh album.

[3] In a final effort to force Capitol to distribute that live album at cost price, to generate much-needed funds for the refugees from East Pakistan,[4] Harrison had gone public with the issue and embarrassed the label.

[12][13] The two record companies were now free to license releases featuring songs from the band's back catalogue and the individual members' solo work (except for McCartney's), without the need for artist's approval.

[25][26] For Harrison, there had been long delays between releases following the international success of his All Things Must Pass triple album in 1970–71,[27] due first to his commitment to the Bangladesh humanitarian aid project[28][29] and later to his production work for Dark Horse Records acts Splinter and Ravi Shankar.

[16][35] Examples of this heightened interest included the increasingly generous offers from rival promoters Bill Sargent and Sid Bernstein for a one-off Beatles reunion concert;[36][37][38] 20th Century Fox's musical documentary All This and World War II, for which, as with the 1974 stage play John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, Harrison would refuse permission for any of his songs to appear;[39][40] and Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel having a top-ten hit in the UK with a cover of Harrison's composition "Here Comes the Sun".

[60] Aside from the financial benefits of repackaging Beatles-era songs,[43][61] part of the reason for Capitol reducing Harrison's mostly successful solo years thus far to six album tracks was due to the "lackluster" commercial fate of the Lennon and Starr compilations, author Nicholas Schaffner wrote in 1977.

[64] In addition, authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter write, a potentially offensive reference to the Catholic Church in "Awaiting on You All", from All Things Must Pass, prevented that song from "being the hit single it could have been otherwise".

[73][nb 2] On Blast from Your Past, the non-album B-side "Early 1970" was included, as were "I'm the Greatest" (an album track never released as a single) and "Beaucoups of Blues", which peaked at number 87 in the United States.

[75][76] On those terms, Harrison had the popular 1971 B-sides "Apple Scruffs"[65] and "Deep Blue";[77] "Ding Dong", which peaked at number 36 on Billboard;[78][79] and highly regarded album tracks such as "All Things Must Pass", "Beware of Darkness"[80] and "Living in the Material World".

[59] In the United States and Canada, the front and back cover had small black-and-white pictures of Harrison against an image of the cosmos;[34] Roy Kohara of Capitol was responsible for art design, as he had been for Extra Texture and the Lennon and Starr compilations,[33] while the illustrations were the work of Michael Bryan.

[86] The UK edition contained Bob Cato's colour photo of Harrison sitting in front of an antique car, with art direction for the package being credited to Cream designs.

[59] The inner sleeve of the original LP in Britain contained a picture by Michael Putland, showing Harrison on a wintry beach in Cannes, where he was attending the Midem music-industry trade fair in January 1976.

[95] According to author Peter Doggett, this calculated scheduling by Capitol/EMI meant that Harrison "would remain a staunch opponent" of the record companies in the concurrent litigation between Apple and its former manager, Allen Klein.

[102] EMI, in an attempt to capitalise on recent publicity from the ruling on Bright Tunes' plagiarism suit against Harrison,[103] reissued "My Sweet Lord" (backed with "What Is Life") as a single on 24 December 1976.

[109] Following Harrison's death in November 2001 – and with little of his back catalogue readily available apart from the recently issued All Things Must Pass: 30th Anniversary Edition[110] – the compilation became highly sought-after by fans of the artist.

[66] On release, Billboard's reviewer welcomed the compilation, writing: "Harrison's remarkable emergence to full artistic recognition after starting off as the most anonymous Beatle is documented right on this album of memorably beautiful hits.

"[123] In Melody Maker, on the same page as his mixed review of Wings over America (which featured live versions of five of McCartney's Beatles-era songs),[124] Ray Coleman provided another favourable assessment: "[Harrison is] a highly individual artist who always keeps creative musical company; it's a good album, essential for Harrison students who may not have all the records ..."[1] Writing in Swank magazine, Michael Gross recognised Capitol Records' "slick marketing ploy" but admired the music, the "final treat" being the availability of "Bangla Desh" for the first time on an album.

"[136] In his April 2004 article on Harrison's solo releases, for Blender magazine, Paul Du Noyer said of the compilation: "Hard to fault so far as it goes and a good place to get the fine 1971 single 'Bangla Desh'.

Ingham added that, with the "excellent Volume II" (Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989) no longer in print, The Best of George Harrison was therefore the artist's only available compilation album and "hardly a satisfying one-stop sampler".

"[102] The inclusion of Beatles material was a "completely unnecessary public humiliation" for Harrison, Huntley continues, giving the impression that Starr and Lennon's solo careers up to the end of 1975 had been more successful than his – "when, in reality, the opposite was the case".