Splinter

Few listeners today recall Splinter, an oversight that overlooks several compelling aspects of their brief history. Their music blended mainstream electric rock with pop and folk touches in a manner that echoed Badfinger, yielding one of the more appealing and promising acts of the mid-1970s. They also ranked among the rare worthwhile finds to surface from the Beatles’ circle once Apple had folded. The group produced a single standout album that showcased exceptional production and musicianship from George Harrison.

Co-founder Bill Elliott had already brushed the Beatles’ world in 1970 as a member of the Elastic Oz Band, sometimes listed as Bill Elliott & the Elastic Oz Band, when he collaborated with John Lennon on the single “Do the Oz,” a fundraising effort for the embattled underground magazine Oz. Elliott and his vocal partner, whose harmonies meshed attractively, connected with Harrison precisely as the former Beatle launched Dark Horse Records. That troubled enterprise overlapped with Harrison’s ill-fated 1974 North American tour and the release of his own Dark Horse album. Ironically, Splinter’s debut album and single found warmer responses among those who encountered them than Harrison’s record did, even though the guitarist devoted greater care to the band’s The Place I Love than to his own project.

Elliott’s singing evoked John Lennon, while the duo’s harmonies recalled Badfinger at its strongest and the richer vocal passages of All Things Must Pass. Harrison’s guitars, often overdubbed extensively, along with his percussion and keyboards, dominated the sessions, supported by Klaus Voormann’s bass and Billy Preston’s piano and organ work, forging an even tighter link to the fading Apple sound. Harrison appeared on the record under the pseudonyms Hari Georgeson, P. Roducer, and Jai Raj Harisein. The debut album and its single “Costafine Town” grazed the lower reaches of the American Top 100, marking the duo’s sole commercial touchstone. They issued two further albums on Dark Horse, Harder to Live and Two Man Band, toured for several additional years, and disbanded in 1984. In more recent times Bob Purvis has resurfaced as a performer and songwriter, contributing to a British cancer-research charity.