Remembering George Harrison, The Man

We all knew it was likely. We all knew it was coming soon. Nonetheless, the early morning announcement on November 30, 2001 of George Harrison losing his fight of several years with cancer the previous afternoon came as a blow to everyone who loved him. And that was an awful lot of people.

It was the passing of a very talented, very popular and very kind-hearted man. But it was also another piece of The Beatles’ legacy taken away from us forever, and for many, that was the true crime of it all. To many of us who never even met them, The Beatles were our friends. Special friends. And now we’ve lost one of those special friends again. The fact that George left this world gradually and peacefully, and not instantly from a mindless act of unexpected violence, does not make it much less sad.

Let’s remember our friend.

George was a bit different than the other Beatles. Although he was certainly ‘one of them,’ as he was in many ways full of the same vital ingredients each of them possessed that made it clear why only he, John, Paul and Ringo (and not Pete Best or Stu Sutcliffe) could have ever been the Beatles, George had enough marked differences that made him quite a contrast to John and Paul, but a wonderful contrast, and not one that made him look like an odd man out. He had a fabulous sense of humor, but whereas John came across as upbeat with a quick biting wit, Ringo played the clown for laughs, and Paul turned on his smile and charm, George always seemed reserved. Nonetheless, the Quiet Beatle at any given moment could deliver a hilarious comment, made all the more so by his dry, unsuspecting manner.

His solo scene in A Hard Day’s Night demonstrates this perfectly. In the scene, George accidentally wanders into the office of an advertising executive, who mistakenly assumes George is there to try out for a television spot which would place him alongside a popular teenage female model for the purpose of advertising the new fashions (at least what the high-strung exec and his associates perceive to be the latest fashions). George doesn’t try overly hard to explain to the exec (who, despite thinking he’s on top of the current fads and fashions of youth, doesn’t seem to realize that one fourth of the biggest fad of the moment is sitting right in front of him). After an attempt or two, he decides, for his own amusement, to ride it out, to see where it leads. Though his lines come off a script, George’s blasé demeanor is what make his dry attacks on the clothes and the model one of the funniest scenes of the movie.

Another way George differed from the others was in his role as a musician. George seemed to be the only one of the four who set his sights on improving at his instrument. John Lennon was not a guitarist. He was a songwriter who played guitar, and that was good enough for him. Paul McCartney appeared to be much more interested in his progression as a songwriter than of his bass playing. (The fact that Paul was indeed an innovative bassist who improved as time went on seemed to be something that just simply happened!). John wanted his music to have the thrill of early Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis. Paul wanted to sing like Little Richard or write like Irving Berlin. George wanted to play guitar like Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins, and Carl Perkins (his admiration of the latter even led to a short period of George taking the alias Carl Harrison).

In a way, George was a sort of the Forest Gump of rock and roll. He wasn’t idiotic like the famous Tom Hanks character, but he did things quietly and unceremoniously, only to see large-scale repercussions. Some examples:

In 1963, George happened to run into an executive from Decca Records, the label that had shot down The Beatles when they auditioned for the label on New Year’s Day, 1962. Naturally, by 1963, Decca began to get a sense of how much money they said no to. The executive and George got to talking about current groups, and somewhere in the conversation, George dropped a hint that there was a hot group on the London club scene clearly bound for big things, and that Decca would be wise to snag them before someone else did. Decca immediately acted upon this tip, and sure enough the label soonafter raked in enough Rolling Stones record profits to make the pain of rejecting The Beatles a little easier. All because George casually mentioned it.
In March 1964, The Beatles began shooting their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. Naturally, the movie called for some musical performance scenes, so George brought a guitar. George may have thought he was simply bringing his current favorite axe, that big red one those nice men from the Rickenbacker company gave him in New York City a month earlier. What he didn’t know was that when the film came out, one attendee in the Los Angeles area who we’ll call Jim (or Roger if you like) made a mental note of that particular guitar and soon bought one himself. This 12 string electric guitar gave the California boy’s music, a whole new kind of sound, adding new zing to the folk music he had been playing and writing for years, and helped make his transformation from folk to rock more interesting, and that sound served as the backbone of “Folk Rock” when the man’s group, The Byrds became, a year later, America’s hottest post-Beatles band, which helped lead to the Rickenbacker 12 String becoming, and remaining to this day, a symbol of pure pop. All because George just happened to hold one in A Hard Day’s Night.

In 1965, The Beatles made their second movie, Help! The film’s storyline had Eastern thugs chasing the group in order to snatch a sacred ring worn by Ringo. Because of the culture of the villians, Indian music was worked into the score, and the sounds of those sitars and tablas caught George’s fancy. This led to him pursuing this interest and eventually learning of Indian musician Ravi Shankar. Shankar was already very well-known in his native country, but in the Western Hemisphere, only selected folk had heard of him, mainly by beatnicks. George eventually bought one of Ravi’s albums and was immediately hooked for life. In June 1966 he finally met his new idol for the first time and formed a solid friendship that continued right up until the last week of George’s life (Ravi and his family had visited George only the day before of George’s passing). George’s fascination with Indian music and his association with Ravi quickly became big news, and by 1967, Ravi was seeing his Western fame increase at an alarming pace. A year after he was a relative nobody in America, Ravi earned a thunderous standing ovation at the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. He wowed them at Woodstock as well two years later. He sold out large halls and was booked for numerous television shows (including the 1968 Grammy Awards).

And for the rest of the decade, sitar and sitarlike sounds could be heard in countless rock recordings, and the doors that seperated foreign cultures from popular Western music were forever opened and continue to be explored. We can thank George for that, too. While George was not the first rock musician to incorporate Indian characteristics into his music (The Yardbirds and Kinks were a few who had preciously dabbled, and then-Byrd David Crosby is sometimes cited as the one who first uttered those magic words “Ravi Shanker” to George), George’s mega popularity certainly helped spread the word a lot faster.

In turn, one day in 1971, Ravi happened to mention to George his sadness over the horrible famine outbreak in a country near India, and that he was thinking of having a benefit concert so that proceeds could go to a relief fund. The words hit home, and George soon was feeling his own concern for this country he had never heard of Bangladesh. Determined to assist, and knowing he himself was a bigger draw than Ravi, took it upon himself to organize the kind of concert Ravi suggested, and to enroll the assistance of some of his more famous friends. Such was the birth of The Concert For Bangladesh. And such was the planting of the seed that later grew into Live-Aid (MTV brought this point home by airing the movie of the 1971 concert the night before Live-Aid began), Farm-Aid and just about everyone like it up to and including the recent McCartney-hosted concert for the World Trade Center Relief.

But also like Forest Gump, George didn’t seek fame or attention. It always just seemed to happen to him. Unlike Paul, who thrives on making himself a public figure, or John, who when he knew couldn’t shy from it enjoyed playing with the media (the Bed-In for example), George maintained a low-key image. Several times in his post-Beatle years he referred to living in the spotlight as “boring.” He jokingly but accurately referred to being a Beatle as a kind of lifelong sentence. He even commented that he would much rather play a concert of small theaters filled with people who truly appreciate his music than a large crowd full of people just to see a Beatle. Having millions of admirers was nice, but he had a devoted wife and son and some faithful friends, and that was much more important to him. He seemingly only really wanted to make his music and hope it would be well received, and to live peacefully.

In this way, George has succeeded once more. He has now found that peace, and his music will always be well received.

Click here for Remembering George Harrison, His Beatles Songs

Click here for Remembering George Harrison, His Solo Career

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