After leaving the Beatles, George Harrison embarked on an impressive solo career and released one of his biggest covers of a 1962 rock track recorded by James Ray.
Harrison was experiencing a career dry spell in the late ’80s and began working on his 11th studio album, Cloud Nine. Among the songs was “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You,” originally sung and released by Ray decades earlier.
For his cover version, Harrison changed the track’s title to “Got My Mind Set On You,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Contemporary, and Cash Box charts at No.1. It also hit the international charts and became a Top 5 hit in countries like Ireland, Australia, Canada, and Denmark. His cover became one of only three that wasn’t originally written by the former Beatle.
Harrison wasn’t new to Ray’s work, with the singer’s music having been a live staple for the Beatles during the ’60s. He had actually heard “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You” decades earlier, and a few months before the rock band made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The rocker first heard Ray’s song in 1963 when he went to visit his sister, Louise, in Benton, Illinois. His sister encouraged him to go sit at a local club called The Four Vests and to visit local record stores.
“I went to New York and St Louis in 1963, to look around, and to the countryside in Illinois, where my sister was living at the time,” Harrison recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “I went to record stores. I bought Booker T and the MGs’ first album, Green Onions, and I bought some Bobby Bland, all kinds of things.”
Among the records was Ray’s self-titled album that would become the inspiration behind his hit cover over 20 years later. Ray was already a known singer back in the ’50s before he disappeared from music and was later rediscovered while busking on the pavement by mailman and aspiring songwriter Rudy Clark.
Ray would end up recording “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody” after signing with Caprice Records, which landed at No.22 on the charts. His 1962 song, “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You,” was a follow-up to that song’s success. Ray wouldn’t see the growth of his fame as he died of a drug overdose.
Musician Jim Keltner remembers the recording session for Harrison’s cover of “Got My Mind Set On You” as being a “really nice day,” and how they began to riff.
“Gary Wright, who’s in the back of the room, starts to play these chord patterns on the keys and singing ‘I’ve got my mind set on you,’” he said. “Everybody kind of perked up and George started singing the song, because George was big on knowing the lyrics to all kinds of songs. They all started joining in.”
Harrison’s cover also happened to have broken a three-way tie between him, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr on who had the most No. 1 hits.
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