Following the solo catalogs of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr, George Harrison has joined the digital market this week.

Despite being the last solo Beatle catalog to be made available, Harrison's catalog is the most recent to be upgraded and remastered for physical release, and those editions are the versions now available in digital stores. While that is no surprise, what it means is that there are two albums actually missing from the new digital catalog: 1974s Dark Horse and 1975s Extra Texture (Read All About It). It seems apparent from remarks by Harrison's widow, Olivia, that the remastering work will not cease because of this move.

All that remains now is for The Beatles catalog to be made available, but that is still rumored for some time in the new year. With that addition, quite a body of work will be available for fans and listeners digitally, even if the solo catalogs are not true successors to the group's catalog. It is unfortunate that the solo catalog's would be made available before the group catalog, especially for new fans that have no guide to understand how the music of the solo catalog's follows and makes distance from the output of The Beatles. Some might see that as a positive in light of views that The Beatles were a John or a Paul show, but that is what it is.

The reality of the situation is that The Beatles managing company Apple Corps Ltd. was in dispute with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for so long, pushing off other projects like remastering (which now seems to coincide with the pending digital release). The Apple vs. Apple case ended in April 2006 in favor of the iPod makers. Apple is reportedly one of the major companies in talks with The Beatles representatives to get the band into stores like iTunes.

It was twenty years ago today... well not exactly, but it was 1987 and five of the world's most influential musicians came together to record a b-side for George Harrison's "This Is Love" single. Harrison , along with Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and ELO's Jeff Lynne, recorded "Handle with Care" and created supergroup history. You may not remember the Traveling Wilburys, or even have known those artists were involved, but in 1988 their album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 reached #3 on the Billboard albums chart and sold more than 2 million copies.

For more than 10 years that album along with the follow-up two years later, have been unavailable. This summer Rhino Records, an imprint of Warner Music Group (NYSE:WMG), will re-release both Traveling Wilburys albums as well as bonus video material in a special reissue set. It's an interesting re-issue for this summer, not because it does not deserve to be re-issued, but because it is part of the re-issuing of George Harrison's post-Beatles career by his estate (here is the press release).

Warner caught a lucky break with these reissues because most of Harrison 's material reverted to EMI (he was originally with the London-based label as a Beatle and a solo artist). It was assumed that these two albums also reverted, but those assumptions were obviously wrong.

This reissue will do quite well because it was a collaboration between five talents and received such high praise upon its initial release. By comparison Harrison's solo material was often hit or miss.