It was 30 years ago today that Dark Horse/Warner Bros. Records released the new album from George Harrison, Cloud Nine.
The first solo release in five years by the former Beatle, it featured the No. 1 single “Got My Mind Set On You.” A major critical and commercial success, Rolling Stone’s David Wild called it "an expertly crafted, endlessly infectious record.”
Harrison and then Warner Bros. Chairman Mo Ostin.
Of Harrison's three number-one singles in the US, it was both the only song not written or composed by Harrison himself (it was written by Rudy Clark and originally recorded by James Ray in 1962) and the only one without religious overtones. It also was not only the last US No. 1 hit by Harrison, but also from any of the ex-Beatles (as of 2017) in the US. When the song hit No. 1, it broke a three-way tie among Harrison, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr, all of whom had two No. 1 hit singles as solo artists (discounting Paul McCartney's work with Wings). It also happened to be the No. 1 single in the US the week immediately preceding the induction of The Beatles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, making Harrison one of the few inductees to have an active single on the US record charts at the time of induction.
