by Ernest Barteldes
Isn't
it ironic", wrote one reader last weekend ,"that George passed away just
as you wrote an article on a tribute for John Lennon?" I replied that he
was right. But that is how unexpected things come by.
My admiration of Harrison grew to a point that, in 1996, I wooed the woman who is now my wife by playing "Something" to her before a crowded restaurant in Brazil.
While I was fascinated by tunes such as "Ticket To Ride"and "Let It Be", I also paid close attention to what George had done in the group - I was specially fond of "Something", "Here Comes The Sun", and "I Need You", which were mostly written after the band had quit touring and concentrated their work in the studio.
Later in life, I began to notice how George's guitar playing had been essential to The Beatles.
Before Harrison, most rock guitarists played solos between vocals, and chords dominated most of the tunes when the vocalist sang. Harrison, who was deeply influenced by Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins and Scotty Moore(Elvis' under-rated guitarist), took his rock guitar to another level by creating riffs between verses that were not so common in rock and roll. Pay close attention to George's guitar work on early Beatle tunes such as "I Want To Hold Your Hand", "Till There Was You" and "All My Loving", and you will notice a genious in the making, who created a signature style by emulating his masters in his own way - which is the best form of flattery - emulating someone else's style by creating something new.
As The Beatles began experimenting instrumentally, George followed suit by introducing new elements into pop music. During the "years of dash and daring", Harrison intoduced the volume tone pedal(later known as "Wah-Wah") in "Yes It Is" and his own "I Need You". George was also a pioneer by incorporating instruments then considered unusual for pop, such as the sitar(used for the first time in John's "Norwegian Wood" and copied by the Rolling Stones in "Paint It Black")and the slide guitar(For You Blue).
Of course, other guitarists wound up developing what George introduced to a larger scale. Duane Allman(who died in 1972) is still considered the best slide guitarist ever, and no-one ever used the wah-wah like Jimi Hendrix did. Anyhow, it must be recognized that it was George who experimented (or at least had the nerve to do it in records) with those gadgets before others ever did.
George was the composer of two of the group's most psychodelic songs. "It's All Too Much" begins with a distorted guitar which was unheard of in Beatles albums. The other one, "It's Only a Northern Song", is bizarrely strange and unlike anything else.
Although many credit Lennon for his political statements(specially "Revolution"), it was George who first confronted the system.
When he realized that most of the money they were making went away in taxes, he wrote the caustic "Taxman", in which he fingered both the Conservative and the Labor party leaders("ah, ah, Mr. Wilson, ah, ah Mr. Heath) as he gave his views of the (extremely) unfair British tax system(and my advice for those who die/declare the pennies on your eyes).
It was obvious that George's talent was suffocated by Lennon and McCartney. As The Beatles broke up, Harrison released a triple album, titled "All Things Must Pass", which mostly contained songs he'd written when he was still in the group.
So was he clouded by his bandmates that when Frank Sinatra sang "Something", he introduced Harrison's beautiful love song as "my favorite Lennon/McCartney song".
Such situation obviously generated a lot of bitterness in the quiet Beatle. In his autobiography, "I Me Mine", he barely mentions Lennon, although he would later admit, on his 1981 tribute to his former colleague, "All Those Years Ago"(which included McCartney, Ringo and producer George Martin), that he had "always looked up" to John.
Some of the bitterness, however, did not wane with the years. As The Beatles reunited in 1994 to record "Free As A Bird"and "Real Love", George brought in producer Jeff Lynne(formerly with ELO) as a signal that he would not be comfortable with working with their former producer, George Martin, who often sided with Lennon and McCartney when one of his compositions was rejected.
Harrison, although prolific, eventually got tired of the life of a rock star. After a number of albums and hits during the seventies, his spiritual search (sided with his love of fast cars) gradually took him away from show business, as he busied himself with family life.During the late eighties, he staged a comeback with "Cloud Nine", and he also teamed with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne for two albums (the second minus Orbison, who passed away in 1988) with the all-star "Traveling Wilburys".
During that time, he guested in Orbison's final album(Mystery Girl) and on Eric Clapton's "Journeyman"(he wrote and played in "Run So Far"), played slide guitar in a Bob Dylan album, participated on the soundtrack of "Lethal Weapon III", was featured on "Prince's Trust" and toured Japan with Clapton and his band.
In the nineties, however, he disappeared again, and we rarely heard of him, except for his collaboration with The Beatles on the Anthology project and his guitar solos on Ringo's "Vertical Man"album.
The last I heard of George was that he had collaborated in a Jim Capaldi's new single, "Anna Julia"(which is a remake of a Brazilian hit), and a track on a charity album which has been, as of this writing, only released in England.
George Harrison's passing saddens all Beatle fans, and forever buries the hope of ever seeing The Beatles reunited - a dream that was kept alive even after John Lennon passed away.
May God bless his soul, and here's hoping that he has found the spiritual fulfillment he spent most of his years searching for.
Ernest Barteldes is an ESL and Portuguese teacher. In addition to that, he is a freelance writer whose work has been published by The Greenwich Village Gazette, The Staten Island Advance, The Staten Island Register, The SI Muse, Brazzil magazine, The Villager , GLSSite, Entertainment Today and other publications. He lives in Staten Island, NY. He can be reached at ebarteldes@nycny.net
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