harrisonstories

[harrisonstories]

Ray Cooper talking about George Harrison in the documentary, An Accidental Studio.

Happy Birthday, George. Thank you for making this world a little brighter. In so many ways.

“I didn’t know what to expect, because a lot of other rock stars had turned us down, including  Mick Jagger who we had also represented. I eventually secured a meeting with George and went along to see him at Apple. He met me at the door and told me how much he admired the work we were doing. As soon as we sat down in his office, he opened his desk drawer and, without asking questions or making any conditions, he took out his check book and wrote a check. I was so grateful and so amazed that I said my thanks, took the check and walked out of the office not even daring to look at it. I expected maybe £10 or £20 but, when I eventually looked at it, he’d given us £5,000 […] which saved us from closing. When I saw how much he’d given us, I burst into tears.“ - Caroline Coon [x]

“George said to me after the second session, ‘What are you doing, Doris? Are you free?’ I said, ‘Yeah, man, I’m free.’ He said ‘Do you want to sign to Apple?’ I said ‘Sure! Are you serious?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Well, I want to be writer, producer and artist, OK?’ He said ‘OK.’” - Doris Troy [x]

"Yesterday, as [Janet Guthrie] announced that she would receive ‘somewhat more than  $100,000’ in oil money to attempt to take part in the million‐dollar race May 28, a representative of George Harrison, the former Beatle, called to say he, too, would like to sponsor the only woman in history to appear in the auto racing classic. The representative was told Harrison was too late.” - New York Times [x]

“Later that winter I got a message telling me to head down to the offices of Dark Horse Records and Harrisongs in Sloane Square, where a very smart, prim and proper lady handed me a cheque, written out by the record label, for £50,000. ‘You are the third person this week and it’s only Tuesday!’ she smiled, shaking her head.” - Steve Parrish [x]

Keep reading

#happy birthday george <3

[harrisonstories]

“He was looking the other way and so I said, ‘Hey George!’ He turned and saw [the pillow], and put his hand out like he didn’t know what I wanted, for him to autograph it, take it, look at it or what, but he finally took it and I got out of the way. Just as I turned around back toward the car, I heard his gorgeous voice say, ‘Thank you.’ So I said, ‘You’re welcome.’ Barb said he was looking to see who had given it to him as he said it. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see the pillow in his hands and he looked at the front and then back and then front again, and he was still looking at it when the limo pulled away […] I saw him get out of the car and got there in time to take one pic of him on the stairway, and he looked straight at me and had a funny little look on his face and he was carrying the pillow on the plane himself! He didn’t ditch it or give it to anyone else, so I guess he really liked it.” - Char Bass (1976) “I remembered I’d brought a small present for him – one was a drawing I had done of Krishna. George brought out the picture slowly. He studied it and kept saying, ‘That’s really good.’ I was embarrassed as I thought it wasn’t good enough but my mum said I should give him it, but he really seemed to like it. I just hope he really did. The other was a toy spider which was my favorite spider his name was George (of course). ‘Here’s my favorite spider for you.’ George began to laugh. Olivia shrieked, ‘Oh God!’ and George laughed […] ‘This is a nice one, isn’t it. Look at his eyes!’ laughed George […] George put the spider on top of the clock on the mantel piece. I was so pleased that he liked the things I brought him. I know they don’t sound like much but the drawing took me hours to do and the spider I’ve had for ages and meant a lot to me. George is the only person I’d give them away to.” - Angela Rennie (1977) “He picked the first gift off the seat and started to rip the wrapping paper off as I said, ‘This one was made by a friend of mine for you.’ George unfolded it and layed it on the steering wheel so he could see it better. It was a rug with the OM design in red on bright yellow. ‘Oh! That is very nice. And she made it herself?’ ‘No, HE did. He wanted to make you something nice for Christmas, and I promised him that if I saw you I’d give it to you, so there it is.’ ‘Oh, that’s nice! Tell him thank you for me.’ - Leslie Bart (1977) “I remembered the t-shirt I’d brought along, just in case, so I hurried over and called out to George. He finally turned around, and looked at me. Me: ‘May I give you something?’ George: ‘Oh, Yeah.’ He walked over to me, as I opened the shirt. George held the ends as he checked it out, then said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s nice.’ He let go of it and began to walk away, which totally confused me, so I called out to him again. George turned back around and I said, ‘Will you take it?’ George came back to get it and said, ‘Oh yeah…sure!’ Then he and Olivia walked up the ramp to the garage, on his way, George again opened the shirt, held it up to check it out again!” - Karen Dyson (1978) “He would always say, no matter what it was, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ Sometimes people would make up an award and send it because they like him and he’d go, 'Oh, that’s nice.’ And he’d kind of put it on the table and it would just be there. Probably people don’t realize that he did appreciate it whether it was the biggest award in the world or the smallest little award or a flower left in the gate…He might have some hokey little thing beside an Oscar on the shelf and it was all the same to him.” - Olivia Harrison (2009)  

#happy birthday george :)

[harrisonstories]

“In 1997 I started working at the Getty Center Museum in Los Angeles, and it was the year it opened and ALL the celebrities wanted to come see it. I worked in visitor services and one of my jobs was to work at events, being an usher, escorting VIPs, things like that. In February 1998 we had our very first concert, Lakshmi Shankar, and George produced her album and when I inputted his name into the guest list that morning I was so completely excited. I wasn’t even obsessed with the Beatles then (I was 23), but I was obsessed with popular culture and history and I really wanted to meet George because I really wanted to meet a Beatle. So I was ushering for the show, then the show started and I had a break, so I was smoking in the employee smoking area, which is right near the VIP elevators. I’m standing there smoking when someone from events comes over by the elevators with George and an assistant (a female, British), and then the events person says, “Wait here I need to get something from the office” and left. So I’m standing there, George Harrison (GEORGE HARRISON, the BEST Beatle) was standing there, so I walked over and I said hi, and that I was a huge fan. He smiled, said thank you and opened his mouth when the assistant said, “You shouldn’t smoke, it will kill you.” And George sighed and looked sad, and turned to her and very softly said, “shut up about that.” then he turned to me and said, “I’m sorry, please don’t listen to her.” and then he smiled this beautiful smile and I could see within him all his kindness and I could see that he was special. I’m horribly awkward so I just smiled and dismissed it like “no biggie” and then the events person came back to get him and he smiled and said, “Have a wonderful night, it’s gorgeous here.” and then they all got on the VIP elevator and left. A few months later I read that he had cancer. Now the assistant’s comments made so much more sense to me, and also his response. He must have already had known he had cancer when we met. I went to LA in March to take my (then) boyfriend to the Yes show in LA, and we spent the afternoon at the Getty Center and I snuck back with him to employee area and we stood where George stood and he was really excited and loved to hear my story right where it happened! We got caught by security though, and had to go back to the regular area. I was 23 when I met George, and really young and stupid and sometimes I regret not being able to meet him after I became obsessed with The Beatles (there are so many questions I would have loved to have asked him) but I try to remember that I had a unique interaction with him that seemed to have been a little private and intimate, and I will always cherish that. And like I said in my first comment, he glowed, like he was holy.”

—  Morganbookworm

#during november i sometimes like to reblog stories which have stuck with me #this is one of them #sorry for the formatting #it's a very old post

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison, featured in Now and Then: The Last Beatles Song (2023)

#george harrison #now and then #2023 #:) #brainwashed

[harrisonstories]

Prevailing thought today is that I miss George Harrison a lot.

#the beatles #george harrison #he was kinda there and not there in now and then and it made me sad #personal

[harrisonstories]

So here's something interesting...

The Beatles Derek Taylor Never-Before-Heard Collection of Lost Beatles Recordings: Including the 1967 Kenwood Sessions and John Lennon Private Recordings

This is the track listing from the description:

Tape 1: Unheard Beatles Sgt Pepper Rehearsals from Kenwood late 66 early 67

Run time is 56 minutes, songs include:

Revolution #9, mainly John in many accents, George can be heard, Paul too, Ringo one time, Terry Doran is also heard being interviewed by John, Terry Doran was ‘The Man From The Motor Trade’ on Sgt Pepper, every identical animal sound effect from Good Morning Good Morning is featured throughout, probably pre-dates Pepper and John has the sound effects saved, cockerel, hens, sheep, horse, pigs, cat, dogs etc, the very ones used on Pepper. Sitar drones almost all the way through by George, Piano backdrop also

Track Listing:

That much Control

Monte Carlo rally sound effects Terry Doran is Jack Brabham Formula 1 racer

Cat Feeding Services (Monty Python esque sketch)

A million miles away, John Indian accent Beatles far east tours in 66

Crazy banjo song, JL bellows

I’m aware of the situation monologue

Swing your partners

Lennon.McCartney complaining about the heat

John and George shouting over a very loud backing track

John/Paul counting in 123 testing, JL turns it into a poem.

Dear Prudence very early demo John wrote it way before 1968

British Police are pigs, in an Indian accent

Tape 2: George Harrison With the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Jimmy Page.

15 tracks, 59 minutes George with his Thames Valley muso friends, Jimmy Page, Jon Lord, Joe Brown, Sam Brown, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band (Neil Innes, Legs Larry Smith, Vivian Stanshall) Alvin Lee, all songs written by the Bonzos and George, all recorded at FP.

Track Listing:

George into talk while playing guitar, introducing a new song

Brazil take 1 written for the Handmade films project Brazil (never went to production)

Brazil take 2

Brazil Take 3

Sooty Goes to Hawaii

Mandalay monologue for handmade films production of the same name

Sooty Goes to Hawaii #2

Sooty Goes to Hawaii #3

Operatic Aria sung by Georges father-in-law and Olivia Harrisons dad Zeke Harrison, I doubt that Olivia has heard this

Bullshot theme song for Handmade films completed production.

Hare Krishna chant by everyone

Chant 2

While my Guitar Gently weeps with Jimmy Page on guitar

Same with Alvin Lee on guitar

if I Needed Someone

Tape 3: George with Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band band, all co-written 25.30 mins, 16 tracks

Track Listing:

Intro Legs Larry Smith

Do You Remember

Nothing Ever Changes

Urban Spaceman

Isle of Money (I Love Money)

Can you Groove (George)

There’s a Bright Golden Boil on my Penis

I Like Cesar

Misery Farm

Julie

Danda

When You Gotta Poop

Now You’re Asleep

Telling me The End

Viv Has Gone to Heaven

Mandalay Monologue #2

Tape 4: John Interviews Yoko 1969

Recorded by John in 1969, 45 minutes, John questions Yoko’s motives for being with him, discusses very personal matters, very revealing.

Tape 5: Yoko with Dr. Artur Janov

Yoko’s Primal Scream therapy 1 hr 40 mins, of very personal therapy, Yoko discusses John, music and very personal issues including John’s friendship with George.

Tape 6: “One From The Nursery” Unreleased John Ono Lennon Album

John and Kyoko Cox Tittenhurst Park

Run time is 47 minutes

4 tracks

Lots of John talking and playing acoustic guitar (sounds like his J60E) recorded at Christmas time, Various songs stand out, all written by John & Kyoko

John, I Love You

I Wish You Were my Father.

#john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #the beatles #derek taylor #yoko ono #a lot to unpack here

[harrisonstories]

“We all went to Denny’s on Sunset that night after the [Roy Orbison] show. There were some Goths hanging out, and it was all we could do to keep George from jumping in that car with them. They looked like they were having fun. That’s where ‘Zombie Zoo’ came from. It was an amazing time, everything happened at once. George always missed that element, I think, of a band, a group dynamic. Whether he would admit that or not.”

— Olivia Harrison on the night The Traveling Wilburys asked Roy Orbison to join them, Petty: The Biography

#every now and then I think about George desperately wanting to hang out with a group of goths outside a Dennys #while forming the Traveling Wilburys

[harrisonstories]

"While we talked, a few flies would buzz around from the garden and Mrs. Harrison went to hit them. She said she couldn’t do that when George was there because he believed that everything had a right to live – no matter how small."

-- Susan Maier on meeting George Harrison's mother, Louise Harrison, in 1969. "A Special Day," Harrison Alliance (1979) [x]

#george harrison #louise harrison #the beatles #harrison alliance #this has been stuck in my head since i read it #fan encounters #1969 #1979

[harrisonstories]

As the Lennon-McCartney copyright was more or less sacrosanct, Harrison’s contributions to their songs were never credited. “I had my one or two songs occasionally, but really I was more involved than that,” he says. “I know now, writing with friends, that when you’re all sitting around and a song comes out, you have to think carefully about assigning how many percent each person gets. ’Cause there’s nothing worse than being involved in a situation where you think, ‘Wasn’t I there?’ “A lot of Lennon-McCartney songs had other people involved, whether it’s lyrics or structures or circumstance. A good example is ‘I Feel Fine.’ I’ll tell you exactly how that came about: We were crossing Scotland in the back of an Austin Princess, singing ‘Matchbox’ in three-part harmony. And it turned into ‘I Feel Fine.’ The guitar part was from Bobby Parker’s ‘Watch Your Step,’ just a bastardized version. I was there for the whole of its creation — but it’s still a Lennon-McCartney.” “Tell me about it!” Paul McCartney smiles when told of George’s comment. “I wrote ‘Yesterday’ single-handed and not only do I share it — now with Yoko — but the Lennon name comes before mine.” Paul concedes the point about “I Feel Fine” but suggests that “if you were to get picky about all that stuff there’s a million woes and a million reasons to sing the blues. In actual fact we just decided to split it down the middle. Me and John were the writers, unless George came up with something. Anybody who threw half a line in, it just really didn’t count.”

-- Marc Rowland, "The Quiet Wilbury", Musician (1990)

#john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #the beatles #i feel fine #marc rowland #musician magazine #1990 #i wish george had been asked more about what exactly he contributed #it would be interesting to know #paul and george #george and john

[harrisonstories]

Lauren Laverne: What's your next choice, and why are you taking it with you today?

Kate Moss: Oooh, My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. I was shopping with Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull, and we were buying last-minute Christmas presents.

I went, "Oh my god, is that George Harrison?"

And he came out of the shop and said, "Is it you?"

And I said, "What?"

And he went, "When I'm not watching Formula 1, I watch Fashion TV. Are you Kate...Moss?"

And I went, "Yeah, I am. Are you George Harrison?"

And he went, "Yeah!"

And I was like, "Oh My God!"

He said, "Come in, come in. I want to buy you a Christmas present."

And he wanted -- he tried to buy me this -- well, I wish I'd let him buy it for me, but I just couldn't let him because it was so disgusting, this jumper.

[laughter]

But it would've been like my jumper from George Harrison --

Laverne: A Christmas jumper, Kate! Sometimes taste has to go out the window.

Moss: I know! But it was cable knit! Bat-wing, cable knit, pink sweater, and I was like, "Please I can't let you buy that for me." But I loved him so much, and My Sweet Lord was released the week he died. And I couldn't stop crying. I cried -- I was sobbing. I thought, "What's wrong with me?" I mean it's upsetting but I could not stop crying. And I found out I was pregnant, with Lila, so that's my song with her and for George.

-- Desert Island Discs (Aug. 2022)

#george harrison #kate moss #lauren laverne #the beatles #desert island discs #my sweet lord #anita pallenberg #marianne faithfull #2022

[harrisonstories]

This is a little note to say, if you ever come across something about The Beatles -- as a group or individuals -- which is meaningful to you, make sure you save it to your computer or somewhere safe. This goes for quotes, videos, articles, photos, etc. Don't presume it will always be there when you want to come back to it.

The idea that what's on the internet lasts forever isn't true and becomes even less so every day. Shortly after I started this blog in the early '10s, the official forum on the George Harrison website went down for "maintenance" and never came back. That was over a decade's worth of information gone in a snap. I think about it all the time, and while I tried to collect what I could before other sites met the same fate, it still makes me sad to think about what I might've missed.

Now that another decade has passed, several of my sources already lead to dead links, and while in the beginning it felt like I was spoilt for choice with the various online communities, it's much harder now. The internet has shrunk significantly. Not to mention the number of times a rare video has popped up on YouTube and suddenly disappeared within days.

Even tumblr isn't immune. There's been a couple points where it seemed like it was going to effectively shut down, and I had to think about alternatives which didn't really exist.

I don't want to make people feel paranoid, and there are a lot of great blogs out there serving as archives, but I believe it's important for fans overall to start thinking about archiving what they can. We've been so lucky to enjoy a wealth of information preserved by fans for over 50 years. It'd be a shame for future generations to lose access to it.

#john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #the beatles #so much for “a little note” huh #personal

[harrisonstories]

A home movie of George Harrison giving guests, including the Peterson family and Jackie Stewart, a tour of Friar Park. From the 2017 documentary, Superswede: The Film About Ronnie Peterson. (May 1977)

#saw the clip of george dancing going around #this is the context for anyone wondering :)

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison: Isn’t It a Pity.

Alan Freeman: How we break each other’s hearts.

George: That’s about me. I’m breaking everybody’s heart.

Freeman: In what way, George?

George: [laughs] I don’t know. Any way you care to mention.

"My album coming up is like Mrs. Dale’s Diary, and it’s like me kneeling in front of the priest and saying, 'OK, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I did this and I done that and I done that and I done that,' But I’ll do that. I don’t need Woman’s Own magazine or Rolling Stone or any of those other journalists who think they’ve caught me doing this or doing that or gettin’ a divorce or being a loony or whatever. No – they can’t catch me ‘cause I caught myself before they ever knew it. I know. I know what I’m doing. And I know when I’m mad. And I know when I’m havin’ a divorce. And I know when I’m breakin’ up my marriage. And I know when I’m not. And I know when I’m happy. And even if I am breakin’ up my marriage, I know all the good points to it, and all the bad points to it, and it’s none of their business anyway, and even if it is wait ‘til my record ‘cause I’ll tell ya from my point of view – I don’t need your twisted point of view to tell me." - George Harrison, Rock Around the World with Alan Freeman (18 Oct. 1974) [x]

"When I first met him he said, 'I don't want you to think you've discovered something about me I don't know. I'm not claiming to be this or that or anything. People think they've found you out when I'm not hiding anything.'" - Olivia Harrison, Living in the Material World (2011)

"[George] was a witness to his actions. He always said, ‘People think they’ve found me or found something out about me. It’s like that I don’t know. I know when I’m bad. I know.’ Nobody suffers more than yourself, right? Than one’s self when you know you’re not being true, and he TORMENTED himself, you know, I think, a lot. But he was a curious guy, and he just wanted to have all the experiences and hope he could get back in time for the big exit." - Olivia Harrison, BBC Radio 4 (21 Nov. 2020)

#george harrison #olivia harrison #alan freeman #the beatles #isn't it a pity #the answer's at the end #simply shady #living in the material world #world of stone #rising sun #george lyrics #quote compilation #1974 #2011 #2020

[harrisonstories]

Louise Harrison standing in her kitchen in Liverpool. (1964)

Photo from: Rolls Press/Popperfoto

NOTE: I recommend reading this whole story at MeetTheBeatlesForReal because it is lovely!

"[In June 1969] Mrs. Harrison, Sima and I sat on the porch and talked. I told her how upset I was because we had missed seeing George, by just a couple hours a few days earlier (He was off to Sardinia with Pattie). Mrs. Harrison told us that George had called them before he left and said he would be gone two weeks, but if the weather was good, they might stay longer. She told us about the time George walked out of the 'Let it Be' sessions. Pattie was away modeling or visiting her family at the time, so George drove home to them. Mrs. Harrison tried to convince George that the other three were conspiring against him by playing too loud while he sang. She played him various cuts to show him, but George didn’t see it that way.

She talked to us about John and wondered 'what was happening to him!' (Sima didn’t like this since she is a John fanatic!). Mrs. Harrison had even asked George if she should go down to London and talk some sense to John, but George told her it wouldn't do any good.

Another time, she went to visit Paul’s father because he had been ill. When she got there, Paul answered the door and introduced Linda to her. 'I want you to meet my girlfriend.' Mrs. Harrison said she did a double take and wondered where Jane was! The house was full of relatives and Heather (being only 5 at the time) was excited being in a new place and all and didn’t finish her dinner. Linda wouldn’t let her have dessert and sent her off to bed instead. Mrs. Harrison thought that was horrible!

While we talked, a few flies would buzz around from the garden and Mrs. Harrison went to hit them. She said she couldn’t do that when George was there because he believed that everything had a right to live – no matter how small."

-- Susan Maier, "A Special Day," 1979 issue of the Harrison Alliance

#john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #louise harrison #the beatles #pattie boyd #linda mccartney #heather mccartney #meetthebeatlesforreal #fan encounters #harrison alliance #1964 #1969 #1979 #poor louise! all those changes

[harrisonstories]

"The very first time I laid eyes on George was at John Lennon’s Ascot Sound studio on February 16, 1971. John was making Imagine. George was walking into the hall. I’d gone to the bathroom and I came out and saw him and we just said, 'Hi.' He said that he really loved the Delaney & Bonnie record that I’d played on, Accept No Substitute. It wasn’t a successful record, or a big record, but all the English guys loved it. To have George say that to me was a big deal.

Suddenly, after Ascot Sound, I saw George a lot. It was a really busy time. I was on sessions with him with Leon Russell, Phil Spector was producing, and Gary Wright. It did feel at that time, post-Beatles, that George was gathering this community of new artists and like-minded, soulful musicians around him.

He was the most unusual person. John was just very, very normal. He was a regular kind of guy: funny, incredibly smart, and incredibly fast with everything. Nothing took a long time. When we got to hanging out, it was fantastic but it was like living in a cloud. There’s so much John stuff that I just can’t remember because we were so loaded, and everything was so condensed, timewise. George was just the opposite. With George, it was always kind of mystifying how he would come up with stuff to do, and how easily he made it happen.

When I talk about George, sometimes I feel like I’m making him sound too much like he was a saint. By no means was the man a saint! Over the years with him and John, they could both be really brutal with Paul. I learned very early on that I couldn’t join them. They both on different occasions said, 'We can say that, but you shouldn’t.' They were truly brothers who loved taking the piss out of each other, but they didn’t want anybody else doing it.

George in the studio was one of my favourites, always. I still remember the feel, the way we were set up. Everything about it. We would have been [recording] at Apple, and at Friar Park. He had all the best analogue gear that you could have, laid out really nicely. It was state of the art for the time. I told him to call it H.O.T.: Henley-on-Thames. He liked that: H.O.T. studios! There’s a sound on Living In The Material World that George could have pursued and developed – and it didn’t quite happen."

-- Jim Keltner, Jim Keltner on George Harrison: “He gathered a community around him”, Uncut (17 April 2023)

#john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #jim keltner #the beatles #paul and george #uncut #1971 #2023 #very funny to me how he emphasises how normal john was

[harrisonstories]

The magazine this article came from is unknown, but it was written in Feb. 1964 by Nora Ephron.

Transcript:

The Youngest Beatle

"The other day at a Beatles press conference for fan magazines, a young lady raised her hand and said, 'Mr. Starr is known for his rings, Mr. McCartney obviously for his looks, and Mr. Lennon for his wife, and then there's Mr. Harrison. What about you, Mr. Harrison?'

George Harrison looked up from his chicken sandwich, batted what have come to be known as his 'adorable eyelashes,' and said, 'As long as I get an equal share of the money, I'm willing to stay anonymous.'

Beatle George has little to worry about. If he didn't have those adorable eyelashes, and a long unbroken unibrow curving across his upper face, it would be almost impossible to distinguish him from the other three mopheads. Beatle fans have no difficulty however; a random sampling of them at the Ed Sullivan Show the other night indicated that more Beatle fans were madly in love with George than with any other Beatle. 'He's just, well, he's, well, I can't explain it,' said one young admirer of George.

Those who know the group find it easy to describe the young man. 'George likes people to be very blunt,' says disc jockey Murray the K. 'He likes them to tell it like it is. No shilly-shallying. He's very definite.'

Harrison's sister, Mrs. Louise Caldwell, agreed. 'He's very direct,' she said. 'He's very much like our mother. Be it bad for her or good for her, she's always direct.

George's bluntness is refreshingly implicit in the few things he says in public. At one press conference, the group was asked why their records had succeeded in the past few months in the U.S., when they had flopped so miserably a year earlier. 'The thing is,' George said, 'Capitol promoted the record.'

At 20, George is the youngest Beatle, and the youngest of four children. His father works for the transport company in Liverpool; his brothers are now tradesmen.

He attended a private school -- 'the best in Liverpool' -- the Liverpool Institute, where his record was spotty. 'George had a "devil-may-care" attitude towards school,' said one friend. 'He was bright, so he didn't apply himself.'

When he was 14, his mother gave him a $5 guitar for Christmas and that more or less finished any thought he might have had to become a scholar. He and Paul McCartney, who also attended the Institute, spent their free time improvising on the guitar and singing together. Occasionally, they would set off on long camping trips, hitchhiking over the countryside with knapsacks on their backs and guitars on their arms.

Midway through school, George dropped out to become an apprentice electrician. 'I had to stop trying to be an electrician because I kept blowing everything up.' he said once. In fact, he had to stop being an electrician when he became deeply involved with being a Beatle. He and Paul had met John Lennon, who attended school nearby, at a local coffee shop. The three began to play guitars together, and The Beatles began.

Why have The Beatles succeeded? 'We're different,' says George, 'and we came along when everyone was ready for a change.'

'In this business, I think you've got to broaden yourself, adapt yourself,' Harrison told the London Evening Standard's Maureen Cleave. 'If you're surrounded by a band of screaming girls, you adapt yourself to that. You don't think they're all lusting after you.'

'If we fizzle out -- well, we fizzle out. But it will all have been a lot of fun.'"

#george harrison #john lennon #paul mccartney #the beatles #nora ephron #louise harrison #lou harrison #maureen cleave #i'm delighted this was written by nora ephron #scans #paul and george #1964

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison in Miami Beach, FL | February 1964 © Paul McCartney

#george harrison #paul mccartney #paul and george #wow!!! #miami #1964