George Harrison and Joni Mitchell at the premiere of the HandMade Films production Powwow Highway, Los Angeles, CA, 23 February 1989; photo by and © Peter C. Borsari.
“In April 1974, Joni Mitchell played a series of dates at the New Victoria Theatre in London. Her backup band at the time was a group of jazz musicians, the L.A. Express, an accomplished troupe led by reeds man Tom Scott. […] Also present at the New Victoria was George Harrison, checking out this ultra sophisticated chanteuse and her top-rated backup band. He was impressed. Backstage, he impulsively invited them to record the next day at Friar Park. Max Bennett recalls: ‘We were all invited out to his castle and spent the afternoon recording with him. I think we were handy and he thought it would be a good idea - he had developed a rapport with Tom Scott at that time, and Joni also. […] He didn’t come off as an arrogant superstar at all; he was very cordial, very hospitable - he took us through all the tunnels, we had the complete tour, it was like a mini-Disneyland.’ […] Harrison’s admiration for Joni Mitchell drew him to her famous London concerts as he was recording the flawed Dark Horse album in April 1974. Mitchell is an underrated and innovative guitarist who routinely uses open guitar tunings to achieve different resonances within chord voices. For the happy ‘Dear One’ [on the 1976 album Thirty-Three & 1/3,] Harrison follows the Mitchell tradition, with an open A tuning that is partly the reason for the ringing sound of the piece.” - While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Music of George Harrison (x)
“The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise,” 1985.
George Harrison: “Well, I was… my apprenticeship I think was with that kind of music, and I’d met Carl years ago, he’s such a nice, sweet man, very, very genuine person. And I think I just like that music so much I thought, well if I was ever gonna get up and do something again then this thing at least I know how to do this sort of thing.”
Q: “It was a very emotional performance for him, it looked like it was emotional for everybody there.”
GH: “Yeah, it was nice. Because again, although it wasn’t a charity show — well, it was Carl Aid [chuckles] — but it was… I think, again, most people just did it because they loved Carl Perkins, and that’s it. And so it went a bit beyond the usual thing of posing and, ‘Aren’t I cute, look at my skin shine.’ [chuckles]” - Today Show, April 1986
“I walked in the door [at Friar Park] and there were old Carl Perkins records. And he said, ‘Now Olivia, tell him I didn’t put them on there today.’ His juke box is loaded with old Sun records. [...] We started playing some old songs — me, Dave Edmunds, Ringo, my son Greg — and I said [to George], ‘Man, you know them all.’ And I believe it was Dave Edmunds who said, ‘He ought to — he used to call himself you!’
And I said, ‘George, really, did that happen? I’d heard that [Carl Harrison was George’s stage name for the May 1960 tour of Scotland].’ And he said, ‘Shoooo, yes, I certainly did!’ And that’s a very humbling thing for me.” - Carl Perkins, Ticket To Ride: A Celebration Of The Beatles (1989)
“I was in heaven over there [Friar Park] with him. I won’t ever be able to thoroughly explain the feeling to see him so healthy, to see him happy, to see his little boy [Dhani] bring his girlfriend to the house. I told Olivia, ‘Oh, God, girl, you’ve meant so much to his life, you’ve just totaled him out, and it’s just wonderful.’ They’re beautiful people.” - Carl Perkins, 1996 interview, published in Goldmine, November 1998 (x)
Clip from The Southbank Show, 1997.
Remembering Ravi Shankar.
“They exchanged ideas and melodies until their minds and hearts, east and west, were entwined, like a double helix.” - Olivia Harrison, from her eulogy at memorial service for Ravi, December 2012
“To me, George is, I don’t know how to describe it, a son, a friend, someone very dear, and I love him very much. He has given me so much love and respect that my heart is full of it.” - Ravi Shankar, Los Angeles Times, 1997
“[George] was a loyal man and even a few months ago when he was seriously ill and we were making a programme for The South Bank Show on Ravi Shankar, George […] talked it through on the phone several times, gave us previously unseen home movie footage of himself and Ravi Shankar, could not do enough to honor his old guru.” - Melvyn Bragg, The Observer, December 2, 2001
“During that time, you know, we met just about everybody and I just thought, well, I’m looking for something really beyond just the ordinary, the mundane, and that’s where I wanted somebody to impress me and, you know, I didn’t expect it to be this little Indian man but, you know, good things come in small packages.” - George Harrison, CBS This Morning, 1997
“Ravi is one of the greatest figures of the 20th century — the godfather of world music.” - George Harrison, Billboard, 2001
“He had a magnanimous heart and always cared so much. He was a fearless and beautiful soul always conscious of God. I loved him dearly. Though he is gone physically, he will always be alive and vibrant in my heart.” - Ravi Shankar, The New York Times, December 9, 2001
“‘At the end of his life George said to me that all he could listen to was “Sarve Shaam,”’ Olivia remembers. ‘After all the sounds and sights and tastes you experience over a lifetime, it came down to the purity of “Sarve Shaam.”’ The piece was also performed as the opening blessing at the Concert for George memorial, held at London’s Albert Hall in 2002.” - Songlines, June 2018 (x)
George visiting Liverpool Institute, early 1980s. Photo by Derek Taylor, courtesy of angelcakepics on Twitter.
“At the end of the year, George and I drove to Liverpool and covered old haunts, Speke, Hale, the Institute, the Cathedral and the Philharmonic Pub. There was a nasty moment in Grafton Park, West Kirby, when a Securicor man drove up to my old house, number 27, where I had spent 25 years planning escape. Putting his camera away, George and I made our escape by fast car, not wishing to go into a long explanation of why one of the former Beatles was taking Instamatic pictures of someone else’s house.” - Derek Taylor
“The Big School, Liverpool Institute, was a real pain in the neck. […] It was such a dump [in the 1950s]. It could have looked good. It could have had the paint scraped off the woodwork and been decorated like the Victoriana it was. I took Olivia to see it. Coming from California she couldn’t believe it. There was a night-school on so we were able to wander around and look at all the rooms where I had been.” - George Harrison, I Me Mine (x)
Meet The Beatles For Real recently shared this fantastic fan photo from 1968.
Photo by Bob Cato (as far as I know).
“The main thing that I felt from the result of the LSD thing which was earlier on and then later getting involved with meditation, was the realization that all the goodness and all the strength and things that can support life is all coming out of love, and not just as simple as, you know, one guy saying to a chick, ‘I love you.’ You know, as a personal, like an emotional sort of thing that is, but the love of just real love which is like unconditional love because so often we say, ‘I love you if.’ You know, ‘I love you when.’ ‘I love you but.’ And that’s not real love. Love is ‘I love you even if you kick me in the head and stab me in the back, I love you.’ Or I love you just unconditionally… that goes beyond everything, and that is a pretty far-out love to try and conceive, and when I realized a little bit of love then I realized how shallow it was. […] It’s like, okay, I love you, but — how do you measure it? How do you live it? How do you be it? And then you realize how limited you are, and then it’s a process of learning how to develop that. And to be it. That’s the thing. It’s alright saying, ‘I love you’ but… like people do that. They say, ‘Okay, right, I love you,’ but let’s see it manifest. You know, I don’t want to just hear the word — I want to feel it, and see it, and be it.” - George Harrison, A Personal Music Dialogue with George Harrison, 1976 (x)
The Beatles took some time out from filming A Hard Day’s Night in March 1964 to paint Easter eggs with orphans from the Church of England Children’s Society. Photo 2: BRAVO Archiv. (x)
George Harrison interviewed by Jonathan Ross for The Last Resort, 16 October 1987. (P.S. The harrisonarchive is now also on YouTube.)
Ringo Starr and George Harrison on Aspel & Company on March 5, 1988. Photo: AP Wirephoto.
Some excerpts from the interview:
George: “Just at Christmas I saw some kids, about 18 years old, in Los Angeles, and they saw me walk in a shop, and they looked at each other and said, ‘Ooh, there’s that singer!’ Which I thought was pretty good.”
Michael Aspel: “If it’d all never happened, what would you be doing now?”
George: “I think I probably would’ve been a guitar — probably a better guitar player than I am now, because, you know —“
Ringo: “Impossible.”
George: “— because, uh, you know, the famous bit sort of made… we ended up playing just the same old stuff for years. But, um, I started playing the guitar when I was about thirteen, and that’s the only thing I really wanted to do. I didn’t wanna be a, a Thomas The Tank Engine or —“
Ringo: “Thanks a lot!”
[laughter]
George: “— or a train… you know, a fireman or anything like that.”
Michael Aspel: “Would you have been happier men?”
Ringo: “I always feel I was born happy. […]”
George: “I’m quite happy, yeah, I’m happy. But you can’t say, you know, it’s all… this is our lives, you know. This is the only life I can remember, and I’m happy enough doing it. It’s been up and down, good and bad, and in the end I think I come — all of us — have come out of it reasonably sane and quite happy.”
George: “I don’t go discothequeing and things like that were people hang out with their cameras. so they presumed I was Howard Hughes. But I wasn’t like that at all. I go out a lot of the time, see friends, have dinner, go to parties. I’m even more normal than, you know, normal people.” (x)
Hello. I have a weird question I need to ask: did any of the Traveling Wilburys play drums at all? And if they didn't, who did? (I know it's silly, but I need to know 😅)
Hi!
Drummer for both Wilburys albums was Jim Keltner (a.k.a. Buster Sidebury). Just in case you — or anyone reading this — haven’t watched it already (or feel like rewatching), here’s the official documentary included with the reissues in 2007: The True History of The Traveling Wilburys. :)
Thanks for the ask!