To the casual Beatles fan,
George Harrison was the unassuming sideman, the sitar-playing spiritualist
and competent composer whose occasional song contributions ("Something,"
"Here Comes the Sun") made a ripple or two in the stream of Lennon-McCartney
classics. Peel back another layer—as Beatles archaeologists are
wont to do—and there exists a far more intriguing portrait of the
man and his music, one that is significantly more complex and not nearly
as well documented.
In the years since the Beatles'
1970 breakup, an array of bootlegged recordings—as well as one
officially sanctioned collection, Anthology—have provided
fans with a glimpse inside the world of EMI's No. 2 Studio during the
years 1962 through 1969. Early demo takes of John Lennon fumbling his
way through "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and "Polythene Pam" may not be
everyone's idea of a good time, but to Beatles devotees, they're artifacts,
pieces of a puzzle, connectable dots, all helping to add substance to
the theory that George Harrison had more to do with the making of the
Beatles' legacy than we've been led to believe.
Harrison's 1970 solo outing
All Things Must Pass provided the first real indication of the
extent of his musical talent. Meticulously orchestrated and containing
over a dozen songs remaindered from the last few Beatles albums, All
Things Must Pass demonstrated that not only could Harrison play
choice lead guitar, he could also write, arrange, overdub, produce,
mix, and edit—and reach No. 1 with a hook about a religious cult
("My Sweet Lord"). Any lingering doubts were laid to rest with Ringo
Starr's Harrison-produced Top Five hit "It Don't Come Easy," a brilliantly
produced pop effort brimming with familiar touches like Leslie lead,
soulful horns, and spirited backing harmonies.
Like all great mythological
moments, a good portion of the Beatles' studio activity remains shrouded
in secrecy, making it nearly impossible to say with absolute certainty
in what instances Harrison went beyond the standard fills-and-riffs
sideman stuff and instead helped transform some promising Lennon-McCartney
ideas into outstanding finished works. But like great paintings, the
music of the Beatles continues to reveal new insights and subtle nuances,
giving Beatles archaeologists reason to pursue plausible new theories
and shedding new light on the man in the middle.
Identifying Riffs
The Beatles packed an enormous
amount of musical dexterity into their seven-year recording career,
and a good deal of those finer moments belong to Harrison, a guitarist
who was neither fast nor flashy yet ultimately defined the role of lead
guitarist during the mid-'60s. As a rhythm guitarist, Harrison was no
less innovative; his use of a capoed acoustic guitar, in particular,
became a prominent songwriting vehicle, resulting in standouts "Here
Comes the Sun," "I Me Mine," and "For You Blue" and adding a new dimension
to the Beatles' sound.
Right from the start, Harrison
dug deep into the Lennon-McCartney song structures, adding a simple
guitar counterpoint ("I Saw Her Standing There"), echoing melody lines
("Every Little Thing"), and crafting guitar hooks from scratch ("Help").
His Gretsch electric guitar work incorporated elements of country, rockabilly,
and even jazz chord voicings. Such versatility meant that the Beatles
could slay the teenies with "All My Loving" and then placate their parents
moments later with "Till There Was You."
"George always felt comfortable
working in a multitude of styles," observes Rolling Stone contributing
editor Anthony DeCurtis. "In a lot of ways, he was the most R&B-oriented
guy in the band. At the same time, he had this beautiful sort of folk-rock
style of playing—'If I Needed Someone,' for instanceÐand then he
had that amazing slide guitar style that was not only bluesy but also
had a real lyrical quality about it."
Time and time again, Harrison
crafted intros, fills, and lead lines that were nearly as hooky as the
songs themselves. Putting his newly minted Rickenbacker 360/12 electric
12-string to the test, Harrison opened John Lennon's rocker "A Hard
Day's Night" with a single ringing G7sus4 chord, in the process creating
one of the most celebrated intros in rock. Throughout 1964 and '65,
Harrison uncorked one Rickenbacker riff after another, from the descending
fills of "Help" to the ear-grabbing opening in "Ticket to Ride." "That
was his gift," says Andy Babiuk, author of Beatles Gear: All the
Fab Four's Instruments, from Stage to Studio (Backbeat Books). "It's
hard to imagine those songs without the bits George came up with. Divorce
any one of them from the track, and the song just doesn't sound right."
But Harrison was not content
to remain the creative sidekick. By 1965, entries like "Think for Yourself,"
"I Need You," and "If I Needed Someone" showed signs of the emerging
songsmith in Harrison. "Though I think George's playing was more devoted
to finding particular kinds of sounds than hooks," remarks New York
Times music critic Allan Kozinn, "one little device that he used
several times is the D-major chord with the third replaced by a major
second and a suspended fourth, which was the driving force behind 'If
I Needed Someone' and an important part of 'Here Comes the Sun' four
years later."
Any discussion of the Beatles
archive typically revolves around two major themes: that the Beatles
wrote great songs and that they turned them into great-sounding records.
It's a point that becomes especially relevant during the band's post-1966
efforts, the period of Harrison's greatest achievements in the studio.
As any guitarist with a keen ear knows, it's not just the parts Harrison
played—it's the way he made them sound. "George's style of playing—his
tone, his phrasing, his ability to articulate the very small parts—is
very difficult to replicate," says DeCurtis. "And because that's so
much a part of the fabric of the song, if you don't get it right, you
don't get it at all."
When rock took a more aggressive
turn in 1966, Harrison once again switched instruments, acquiring a
Gibson SG and announcing his presence with authority on McCartney's
"Paperback Writer," the toughest-sounding A side in the Beatles' collection.
On Revolver, Harrison's experimental nature led to yet another
new wrinkle: backwards guitar. "He would play the solos normal, then
we'd flip the tapes and he'd listen to them backwards, just to see how
they sounded," recalls former Beatles engineer Richard Lush. But creating
a solo that would sound musical when played backwards was a long and
tedious process. "This would go on for maybe 70 takes," says Lush, "turning
the tape over, listening, turning it back again—it would take literally
hours to accomplish."
After spending the better
part of 1967 mastering the sitar and writing songs primarily on organ
("Only a Northern Song") and harmonium ("Within You, Without You"),
Harrison returned to the guitar in peak form, saving some of his best
work for last during the marathon medley that closes Abbey Road,
the band's swan song. Even as the distance between Lennon and McCartney
increased in later years, Harrison's guitar work continued to create
the impression of a unified group.
"From Sgt. Pepper's
forward, it was really Lennon songs or McCartney songs," says Babiuk,
"but George helped keep the cohesion because he'd put his signature
parts on all of them. If you want proof, all you have to do is listen
to any of McCartney's first few solo albums right after the break. Harrison
wasn't on them, and consequently they just didn't sound the same."
Acoustic Output
The Beatles were the first
act to make the acoustic guitar a prominent part of a pop rhythm section,
and a good portion of the credit belongs to Harrison, whose acoustic
guitar parts were central to the development of the band's sound and
approach to songwriting. Like Lennon, Harrison played a Gibson J-160E
(with electric pickup) early on, using it on such tracks as "Love Me
Do" and "I'll Be Back." He soon expanded his collection to include a
JosŽ Ram’rez Guitarra de Estudio nylon-string guitar, the featured instrument
on "Till There Was You" and the 1964 McCartney standard "And I Love
Her." A year later, Harrison provided the extra texture on Lennon's
Dylan-esque "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" using a 12-string in
dropped-D tuning.
Coincidentally or not, Harrison's
most remarkable stretch of songwriting—from 1968 through 1970—began
with the purchase of a Gibson J-200, the big-bodied acoustic heard on
White Album cuts "Long, Long, Long," "Piggies," and the tour de force
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
Harrison's acoustic direction
was, in part, fostered by his friendship with Bob Dylan. Though Lennon
briefly reflected Dylan's folk influence, Harrison remained a steadfast
admirer and by 1968 was making regular trips to the bard's home in upstate
New York. One visit resulted in the co-write "I'd Have You Anytime,"
which matched Dylan's simple poetry with a sophisticated Harrison chord
progression.
"I was saying to him, 'You
write incredible lyrics,' and he was saying, 'How do you write those
tunes?'" Harrison later told Crawdaddy. "So I began showing him
chords like crazy, because he tended to just play a lot of basic chords
and move a capo up and down."
With his premiere solo single
"My Sweet Lord," Harrison elevated the sound and scope of recorded acoustic
guitar to even greater heights. Over a basic F#m-B progression, he created
a lush bedrock of rhythm, enlisting the guitar services of Peter Frampton
as well as Badfinger's Pete Ham, Tom Evans, and Joey Molland. "They
put us inside this huge blue wooden box made out of plywood, with doors
in the front of it," says Molland of the All Things Must Pass
sessions. "We'd go in there and get on these tall stools, they'd mic
us up, and we'd begin recording. I remember hearing the rough-mix playback
of 'My Sweet Lord.' The balance was all there, it was so incredibly
fullÐan enormous acoustic guitar sound without any double tracking or
anything. Just all of us going at once, straight on."
Anonymous Arrangements
Those paying tribute to
Harrison following his untimely death from cancer in November 2001 made
note of his skill as a sideman, his unflagging devotion to humanitarian
causes, even his wry sense of humor. And yet Harrison's greatest attribute—his
ability to shape the sounds that would result in some of the Beatles'
most notable worksÐwas somehow given short shrift.
"Everybody talks about Lennon
and McCartney and what a great songwriting team they were," says Babiuk,
"but when you listen to some of the original rough demos, they're just
OK. Had they left them like that, would they still have become these
great songs that we've come to know and love? That's where George played
such an important part."
In a conversation included
in 1999's Anthology book, Harrison gave an example of how much
impact he had on one Lennon song in particular. "I was at John's house
one day, and he was struggling with some tunes," recalled Harrison,
"loads of bits, maybe three songs that were unfinished. I made some
suggestions and helped him to work them together so that they became
one finished song: ÔShe Said, She Said.' The middle part was a different
song—ÔI said no, no, no, you're wrong'—then it goes into the
other one, ÔWhen I was a boy.' That was a real weld! So I did things
like that."
Other titles—including
"Happiness Is a Warm Gun," another three-piece "weld"—suggest that
Lennon regularly sought Harrison's input during the gestation of a song,
both before and after arriving for an EMI session. As the Anthology
demos reveal, McCartney's skill as an arranger clearly outdistanced
that of his mate's, who would frequently present the group with little
more than a good idea and a set of words, particularly as his interest
in the Beatles began to wane. Not that this made Lennon a lesser talent;
to his credit, Lennon understood the value of giving Harrison the leeway
to contribute spontaneous ideas.
"With 'Come Together,' I
just said, 'Look, I've got no arrangement for you, but you know how
I want it,'" Lennon remarked shortly after the completion of Abbey
Road in 1969. "I think that's partly because [George and I have]
played together for such a long time."
"I think it's consistent
with the way John's state of mind was during that time," says DeCurtis.
"He was depressed, he was having problems with drugs—he really
wasn't at the top of his game by any stretch of the imagination. And
the result was this very stripped-down approach to songwriting and demo-making.
I don't think Paul would ever come right out and say it—ÔMy songs
were all there, but we'd have to break our asses on John's'—but
I think it's very likely that that was the case."
"Unlike Paul, John couldn't
really hear all the different parts," Babiuk speculates. "He was artistic
in a different sense. As a result, in many instances it was up to George
to make those songs come to life the way they did on the record."
With little more than a
rough sketch to work with, Harrison frequently embellished and augmented
in the studio as he saw fit. The results were often revelatory.
"You listen to a song like
'Dear Prudence,'" says Ian Hammond, who runs www.beathoven.com, "and
you realize that they did it all without the aid of an orchestra—even
though the closing climactic section is a natural candidate for brass
and/or strings. How? They relied heavily on HarrisonÐwho came up with
these great moving inner lines in the last verse and chorus."
From Harrison's standpoint,
the blank page that Lennon sometimes presented was considerably more
enticing than merely following McCartney's strict guidelines. "In the
later years of the Beatles, McCartney actually became increasingly specific,
autocratic, and even precious about what he wanted from the rest of
the band," says Elliot J. Huntley, author of Behind That Locked Door:
George Harrison after the Breakup of the Beatles. "This became a
source of rancor for Harrison." The situation came to a head during
the filmed recording sessions for Let It Be, when a frustrated
Harrison suddenly tells McCartney, "I'll play whatever you want me to
play or I won't play at all if you don't want me to—whatever it
is that will please you."
Keeping
a Low Profile
Despite his obvious ability
as an arranger, guitarist, and songwriter, Harrison wasn't always completely
confident in his own skills. "There was often a desire on his part to
hide," notes DeCurtis. "When he went out on his own, he made a point
of surrounding himself with a huge crowd of players, looking to these
big figures like Eric Clapton or Bob Dylan to handle some of the guitar
work. He was a very self-effacing character—his aesthetic as a
player was to blend, not to inject anything that would seem too obvious."
Never one to trumpet his
own accomplishments, Harrison gave very few interviews during the last
portion of his life and spoke of the Beatles years only when he saw
fit. The other band members were also evasive and provided only sketchy
details about who did what and when. "And a lot of the people whom you'd
expect to remember the great details really don't," says Babiuk.
Without any "official" record
to go on—and with both Harrison and Lennon no longer with us—it's
likely that Harrison's best behind-the-scenes moments, like those of
any other session great, will continue to remain unknown and underappreciated.
"It would be difficult to reconstruct who contributed the ideas that
ended up on the finished product," says Kozinn.
Yet, as DeCurtis points
out, any substantive discussion of Harrison's musical legacy—official
or otherwise—is enough to entice listeners to revisit the music
with fresh ears and an open mind. "Put on anything the Beatles did,
and you'll hear in George a willingness to work within the possibilities
of the song—to really find a way to make a fresh statement," says
DeCurtis. "In a sense, much of what George did was so good that you
can easily miss it. But the second you start paying attention, you become
aware of what he was doing in each song. To me, that's been the most
powerful aspect of George's role in the band."
Excerpted from
Acoustic
Guitar magazine, February 2003,
No. 122.
