I'll Still Love You
Harrison originally intended the song for Welsh singer Shirley Bassey, who had a hit in the summer of 1970 with a cover version of his Beatles composition "Something".
"[3][4] In the summer of 1970, "Something" gave Welsh singer Shirley Bassey her biggest UK hit in nine years,[5] an achievement that led her to tell the press that she and Harrison could become a singer-and-songwriter pairing on the scale of Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach.
[6] As he had with "Something",[10] Harrison composed the melody on a piano, part-way through a recording session[11] – in this case, while working on his first post-Beatles solo album, All Things Must Pass (1970).
"[6][nb 2] Harrison's musical biographer, Simon Leng, considers it to be an "emotionally complex lyric that ponders how love will even survive, 'when every soul is free'".
[25] AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger describes this early version of the song as "haunting" and "a noteworthy find" among outtakes from Harrison's 1970 triple album.
[30] Basic tracks for this and the other songs were taped at Abbey Road Studios[31] with some of the musicians who had played on All Things Must Pass – including Jim Gordon, Klaus Voormann and Gary Wright[32] – along with Leon Russell on piano.
[38][39] In early August 1972, shortly after the UK release of the Concert for Bangladesh film,[40] he resumed his role as a record producer with a session for a new Cilla Black single,[37] the A-side of which was to be "When Every Song Is Sung".
[45] Black told radio presenter Spencer Leigh that her ability to record that day was hindered by her discomfort following a dental appointment just before the session began.
"[46] In his book The Beatles Diary Volume 2, Keith Badman writes that Harrison and Black met in a London restaurant over Christmas in 1982 and discussed completing their recordings from ten years before.
[50] After their various projects together between 1969 and 1971, including the Concert for Bangladesh,[51][52] Harrison renewed his musical association with Leon Russell in 1975, while recording Extra Texture in Los Angeles.
[6][20] According to Tom Petty, who was a Shelter artist at the time,[58] recording took place at Russell's home studio in Encino,[59] with Ringo Starr also at the session.
[63] In April 1976, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had each agreed to donate a song and participate in the sessions for Ringo's Rotogravure,[64][65] Starr's first album on Atlantic Records and Polydor.
[83] The musicians on "I'll Still Love You" included pianist Jane Getz and a rhythm section comprising Starr and Jim Keltner (both on drums) and Voormann (on bass).
[75][nb 6] Ringo's Rotogravure was issued on 17 September 1976 in Britain and ten days later in the United States,[75] with "I'll Still Love You" sequenced as the second track on side two of the LP.
[90] The US release coincided with heightened speculation regarding the possibility of a Beatles reunion,[91] following promoter Sid Bernstein's offer of $230 million for a single concert by the group.
[94][95][nb 7] Starr also dismissed the idea that Harrison's non-appearance on "I'll Still Love You" was to avoid Rotogravure being seen as a work by "The New Beatles'", as one interviewer had suggested.
In one of the more favourable reviews,[101] Ray Coleman of Melody Maker admired Rotogravure as "a pleasing album of uncomplicated pop music" and added that the song was "simplicity itself", likening it to "Something".
"[104] In his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, Nicholas Schaffner described the contributions from Starr's former bandmates as "sound[ing] more like throwaways", in contrast with their "inspired work" on Ringo.
[18][nb 8] In his book on Harrison, for the Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection, Ian Inglis writes dismissively of Starr's "boisterous shouts" of "Yes I will" and finds Mardin's production similarly unsuitable.
[11] Alan Clayson similarly describes it as a Harrison composition that "[satisfied] every musical and lyrical qualification required of an evergreen like 'Yesterday' or his own 'Something'", yet the song received "its burial" beside the "makeweight bagatelles" on side two of Rotogravure.
