Harrison Zooms, Sputters (1975)

 

Harrison Zoom, Sputters

By Keith Newham

London Express Service

November 15, 1975

        "My biggest break was becoming a Beatle", says George Harrison. "That was in 1963. My biggest break since then was getting out of the Beatles."

         Harrison, always known as the quiet Beatle who loathed the limelight, delivered that line at the start of a solo tour of the United States a while back. "It's all fantasy. This idea of putting the Beatles back together again," he went on. "The only way it'll happen is if we're all broke. Having played with other musicians, I don't even think we were that good."

         But like it or not, Harrison's work for the Beatles and immediately afterwards ranks as his finest. More recently, Harrison's songwriting and recording have not been exactly inspired. Some critics have been tough. One said of his most recent efforts, Dark Horse: "Dullard of the year must sadly be George Harrison, who has turned out to be most decisively lame. One can only hope that the revival seen in some of his contemporaries is catching."

         For Harrison, the last two years must rate as low years, emphasized by the rocketing fortunes of the other ex-Beatles. Not only was his recording work cooly received, but there were problems in his private life. He admitted he and his wife, Patti Boyd, a model, had parted after eight years of childless marriage, and he confessed he was feeling out of touch with what was happening in the music world.

         "I've still never heard them", he said, of the current rave group in Britain, the Bay City Rollers.

         He took on a big solo tour of the United States, and that too was heavily criticized. And still, he's referred to as an ex-Beatle. "I don't like it. I'd rather just be here. Not so much of the ex."

         Of the current success of the other three, ex-Beatles, he is magnanimous. "I'm always pleased when they do something good."

         It's all a far cry from the immediate aftermath of the famous split of the four, for then George Harrison appeared to be the most successful ex-Beatle of them all.. His triple album, All Things Must Pass, was a sensational and unexpected worldwide hit, unexpected because Harrison, the songwriter, had been dwarfed by the creative brilliance of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

     One track, "My Sweet Lord", became one of the most successful singles of the early '70s. In America, he was voted top male vocalist, and in Britain, he won a Novello Award for writing the year's best song, "Something." 

         A year later, in 1971, he organized the now legendary concert to provide cash relief for Bangladesh and secured the free services of Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Leon Russell for a concert in Madison Square Garden that took a million dollars at the gate alone. 

        The live album is estimated to have made another $20 million for the refugee children of Bangladesh. It is remembered as the Woodstock generation's finest gesture. But somehow, since then, everything Harrison has done has seemed a bit of an anticlimax. 

         Outside his music, the Krishna movement has been his major interest, and he alone provided most of the financial aid for Radha Krishna temples in London and New York.  "The Indian influences are still with me," he says. "I can't shake them off. I still meditate and practice yoga."

         Of all his records, the most satisfying he has produced, he says, is the "Hari Krishna Chant", which proved a big singles hit. Harrison tells of a recluse who had stayed in his room for 20 years, but in hearing the record on the radio, he immediately joined the movement. "It did not matter to me whether the record was a commercial success or not," he said.  "It turned one person to Krishna, and that meant more."