Rock And Roll Heaven Admits Harrison

[Joubert[$]]

George Harrison died more than three decades after recording his final music with The Beatles. When the band finally broke up, their lead guitarist was only 27 years old and had finally attained respect as a songwriter and performer after years of being overshadowed by his bandmates.

Known as the Quiet Beatle, others called Harrison the Good Beatle or the Indian Beatle. Harrison’s interest in eastern mysticism and spiritual odyssey sent him to India, dragging along reluctant Beatles, but also brought him a gift of songs that sounded deceptively simple, but played to his characteristic understated style. Of Something, the love song Harrison penned on 1969’s Abbey Road, Frank Sinatra said, “It’s the most beautiful love song ever written.” Harrison’s contribution to that final Beatles album (recorded after Let It Be, but released earlier) also included Here Comes The Sun. The latter has appeared on more than 125 albums.

Public speculation regarding Harrison’s health reached hyperbolic heights earlier this year. Loyal friend and former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr appeared before the media and assured millions of gawking fans that Harrison’s health was stable. In the last twenty-four hours, various media outlets have shown Starr’s words to be more rooted in wishful thinking and have chronicled several “last-ditch” efforts the guitarist sought to beat cancer that had spread to his brain. Harrison was reportedly still being treated as late as Thanksgiving Day before succumbing to his illness a week later.

The most unassuming persona of The Beatles and the massive fan adoration they engendered, Harrison often contended with an aggressive and expressive Lennon, a showman nonpareil in McCartney and everyone’s favorite mate in Starr. Yet it was often Harrison who made the wry quip or slouched in the rear of a press conference so that no one could see him. But as unassuming as his public persona, Harrison was a champion fundraiser and led rock’s first global effort, the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh. Before the famous Beatle and his contemporaries made the starving nation their cause, few Americans had even heard of the struggling country. Many who had could simply describe the land as “like India” or “a third world country”. Later efforts including Band Aid, Farm Aid and We Are The World are all legacies of the man who first conceived of a rock spectacular that could harness enough star power to shine a spotlight of attention on an area in trouble. Starr showed for the shows, along with Dylan and a host of others, and it is to their shame that neither Lennon nor McCartney could put the past behind them fast enough to lend their own talents.


Underrated, Overlooked and George Songs

Music critics today acknowledge that Harrison’s distinctive guitar style has influenced more rock guitarists than anyone ever credited him with. Clapton Is God read the famous London graffiti of the late 1960s, but Harrison was every bit his contemporary, studying the greats, Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins and anyone else who offered something new. This very openness and his fascination with Indian culture led to Harrison introducing a sitar on Lennon’s 1965 Norwegian Wood. Listen to melody-driven guitarists such as Queen’s Brian May, Yes’ Steve Howe or the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan. That’s Harrison’s legacy in their notes, a six and twelve string sound that has become so ingrained in the rock lexicon that its mere presence seems a part of its foundation.

Harrison’s songwriting, which could be biting social commentary, mystic explorations or love songs that were never silly, was a craft he rarely made public after his 1987 Cloud Nine album and his work with the faux supergroup, The Traveling Wilburys. Indeed, it was Harrison’s songwriting that resulted in the issue causing him the most difficulty of his professional career: charges of plagiarism regarding the 1970 hit My Sweet Lord. Ironically, Harrison was the first Beatle to have a solo hit, but a judge ruled two decades later that the songwriter was guilty of “unconsciously plagiarizing” the 1962 Chiffons’ hit, He’s So Fine.

The controversy, which brewed for years before the judicial hearings, seemed to sap some of Harrison’s creativity. After John Lennon’s 1980 death, Harrison returned to the charts with a touching tribute song, All Those Years Ago. The former Beatle also revisited his Beatles roots with an album cut in 1987, When We Was Fab.

In addition to his music, Harrison became a successful movie producer, bringing Monty Python’s The Life of Brian and Time Bandits to theaters. He sold the production company in 1994 for a reported $8.5 million and settled into semi-retirement with wife Olivia at the age of 51.

Across The Universe

As overplayed as Lennon’s Imagine was following the first death of a Beatles member, so too will certain Harrison songs be constantly played over the coming weeks. Tributes will undoubtedly end with snatches of Here Comes The Sun or My Sweet Lord as a musical bed against a montage of surrealistic scenes from the unassuming man’s life.

Harrison never recorded simply because another album was due. His decision to release a 30th anniversary edition of All Things Must Pass is simply a matter of financial prudence. Knowing he was dying, Harrison looked to the one producer he thought could help him update the music. Then he turned from the mirror, slipped into the studio and remastered the sounds made by Clapton, Starr, Dave Mason, Gary Wright and a host of other formidable rockers.

One previously released bonus track is included with several outtakes of prior releases. The new sounds and liner notes are enough to make a Harrison fan happy, but the magic gift he gave to the world was that in his waning days, he sought out his favored music and polished it once more for public consumption, the act of a man who loves the music and the people who enjoy it.

A long-time believer in karma, George Harrison spent years generating good karma while simply being himself. Were he a woodwooker, a factory employee or a mid-level manager, his friends would no doubt say similar things about the Humble Beatle, the Good Beatle. But because he was a Beatle, tonight the world says those things and is a bit less of a place without his presence.

Well done.

VH1 did a replay last night of their interview with Harrison in 1997, accompanied by the sitar dude. I felt that the host, John Fugelsand, came off not much better than Doofy in "Scary Movie." Way too starstruck... but at least the end result was interesting.

Also, I wonder about terms like Rock and Roll Heaven. Is this a section of overall Heaven with Bouncer Heaven blocking off the Rock and Roll Heaven occupants from the Fan Heaven and Groupie Heaven clamoring masses, or is it an entirely separate section of the cosmos?

[Joubert[$]]

Thanks, File. You know, one song lyric I always liked was the Righteous Brothers' line:

If there's a rock and roll heaven,
well you know they've got a hell of a band.

Unfortunately, in the almost three decades since the song's release, anyone like me who writes about the death of a founding rocker - something that will begin happening more frequently now that most are in their 50s and 60s - resorts to the line.

And while I know that Eric Clapton and George Harrison were the best of friends, if I hear him play Tears in Heaven any time soon, I'll become violently ill.

I don't think that Clapton would reprise his Tears in Heaven just for anybody... it was written with his son falling off the balcony in mind that that's pretty personal.

Of course, we've seen Elton John's whore out "Candle In The Wind" in memory of that divorced schoolteacher buried on an island in the middle of a paddock, so anything's possible.

[Joubert[$]]

Clapton may have written the melody for Connor Clapton, but the lyrics were written by Will Jennings. I always found that a little odd, but the song - while beautiful - is simply overexposed. Still, there's that whole divorce him, marry the other him thing that Clapton and Harrison experienced. And Clapton did play the lead on While My Guitar Gently Weeps when neither Paul nor John wanted much to do with the song.