The Double Date

 March 21, 1964 - George Harrison goes out on a date with Hayley Mills (and her mom)

Someone looks out of place on the beach

 

Performing on Ready Steady Go

March 20, 1964

I love this performance of the Beatles on the Ready Steady Go Show.   I especially enjoy all of the fan artwork that is on display on the show. 

Silly Hat

 March 19, 1964

Their day in Court

March 18, 1969 - George and Pattie in court 
 

George and Olivia Wogan Show interview (1990)

 

This is an interview with George and Olivia from June 1990 when they were on the Wogan program.  

W: This week, former Beatle George Harrison and his playmates in the Traveling Wilburys band released a new record, "Nobody's Child," a suitable title in view of the fact that it's in aid of the Romanian orphans. The Traveling Wilburys, "Nobody's child." It's an attempt to help thousands of abandoned, sick, and hopeless children who are the victims of Ceausescu's terrible regime in Romania. George's wife has been at the forefront of the Romanian Angel Appeal, which first marshaled public opinion to try and help the victims of this dreadful human tragedy. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Olivia and George Harrison. 

W: George, I know that wild horses couldn't normally drag you into a television studio, you are a private man; why did you decide to speak out on this particular issue?

G: Well, actually, I've been on television before, I do occasionally go on television, but...I know what you mean, yeah. 

W: It's jsut this program you probably don't want to appear on, I don't blame you. 

G: Partially because, you know, the wife asked me if I would do this song. 

W: Or told you to do it. 

G: Well, yes, she said, "or else..."  No, she asked if I could talk to the guys who are the Wilburys into doing the song. And partially because of what it is. I think when you see the photographs, and what's happening, babies in their cribs, it sort of, you know, we all have to do something occasionally. And I thought it was a good thing to do. 

W: Yes, it is, and obviously, it's a very moving thing and terribly disturbing, particularly to see children be treated so badly, and obviously, that's what motivated you to start. But what was the single factor that started you on this Romanian Angel Appeal?

O: I think it was a photograph in the newspaper, but it was sort of a gradual assault on my conscience. It was slowly wearing away at me, and I decided that perhaps we should try to contribute some money, and I began to write charities and try to see what we could do who was doing what, and in the end found myself responsible for lots of money and felt that I should go down and just see what we could do, what could be the most effective thing to do. Since Elton and Linda and Barbara and Ringo and Paul and Yoko had donated with us. I went down there and was just ... overwhelmed and devasted and shocked by the situation there. 

W: How many children do you think? The kind of figures we're getting is like 15,000. Do you think it's much more than that?

O: I think there's far more than that. I mean, I've heard of 40,000. I've heard of 50,000, I've heard 400,000. Virtually every few miles, there's an orphanage. We had a list of 400 and we didn't see any of them on the list. We just started to go to one, and they'd just point us to another and another and another. 

W: What are the conditions of these orphanages?

O: Shocking.

W: Somebody said it was like Auschwitz, I mean it's....

O: It's actually very bad, worse than you can imagine, especially now. I mean, this year, this point in time, everybody is enjoying such luxury in their lives, and nobody's ever had it better, and you go there and see children, and for 150 children, you have no sanitation. And on a practical level, that's what we're trying to do, make their lives more tolerable. It eases my frustration because I, basically, they need to be taken out of the orphanages, I think.  Every child needs a family and some love and nurturing. 

W: Let's establish how the children, why should there be so many children in the Romanian orphanages for a state?

O: Well, Ceausescu felt that if Romania had 30 million people it probably would give him more power and become a more formidable force in Europe. And women were forced to have five children at least. And abortion and birth control were illegal. So the lucky ones in the orphanages grew up to be in his army, the Securitate, but those were the lucky ones. 

W: They were known as his children, or he used to call them his children. 

O: That's right, that's right. And they were turned over to the state, they were like, um...I mean, I saw a trolley of babies, you know, like loves of bread. The sad thing is, you know, life goes on, politics change, but nothing changes in their lives. Day after day, year after year, their entire lives are spent in these institutions. 

W: And they've all got -- there's a lot of diseases, and mental handicap and physical handicap. Well, are you saying you'd like them to be adopted, and if so, there is a certain amount of resentment, isn't there, or reaction against the adoption of Romanian children over here. 

O: Yes, I've been steering clear of that question a bit because it is a difficult one, but I think if somebody -- I know a woman that just brought a baby back, and she felt she had to do that, and she went down, and she went through the system and was given the runaround, but she succeeded. I think that if you feel that in your heart, if that's really what you have to do, then that's a personal decision. 

W: How much money have you raised so far?

O: Through the Daily Mail, we've raised £835,000, I mean to the credit of the British public. Because there have been letters, I mean, they keep piling up, I'm gonna answer them right, but -- and form people who maybe whether it's £5, a pound, or £10, and there have been large donations, but I always remember Bob Geldof saying during the Live Aid thing, "pity, the man who did nothing because he could do so little." And really, the British public, you know, haven't been shy in donating a pound or £5. That's what's done it. 

W: We have the address that you can send your donation to: Romanian Angel Appeal, 32 Galena road, London W6 OLT. And no matter how big or small, you'd be delighted with the donation. 

O: Yes, absolutely. 

W: Now, your donation, in a sense, George, has been the record. How did you first come abreast of what was happening? Obviously, you read it in the papers, but Olivia called you, didn't she?

G: Well, I was in Los Angeles at the time, so I didn't really know about it til she told me by telephone. Then, to my amazement, she suddenly said, "I'm going to Bucharest tomorrow." I had a call from Bucharest, and then when she returned and brought back a lot of photographs and stuff, but she called me and said, "It'd be a nice idea if you would do a song. Maybe you could put a single out, help raise a bit more money." So I thought, well, that's easy enough for me, particularly at that point, because I was in a room with other musicians and a recording engineer, we had the tape machines and stuff, so, for me, that's quite easy at that point to do something. you know, I mean, plumbers can go down there and plumb in toilets, but I can pick up a guitar and make a song. As it happened, the other guys that I was working with, they said, "well, okay, we don't mind doing it" when I explained it to them. What song should we do?  That was the most difficult thing. Luckily I remembered this old song that, it's an old American song that Lonnie Donegan did in the Fifties called "Nobody's Child" which we just heard a little. And that seemed apt. 

W: Did you know the words of that, you recall Lonnie Donegan...

G: I remembered the chorus so when I called Joe, you know, Joe Brown, who I thought, "he's bound to know it."

W: He's the fount of all wisdom in country music.

G: He happened to give me the verse, the lyrics to the first verse. So I asked him, "Call me back, give me the second verse."   Meanwhile, we went into the studio and put down the track. I was waiting for the phone call for the second verse, so, um, it never came through. I realized it was already 5AM in London, so I thought, "Well, I'll just make up the lyrics to the second half," because I thought at that point it was just a traditional song anyway, which it wasn't. Turned out to be written by two guys. So that was the problem, then we had to chase up the publishrs and ask them if they minded us writing words to the second half of the song. And we just did it. We did it and sang. We decided Tom Petty should sing the first two lines, I'll sing the next two, Jeff Lynne sing the next two, and Bob Dylan sing the last two. 

W: And all the proceeds will go to this Romanian Angel Appeal?

G: Yeah. And since then, somebody had a bright idea, well, we had a song, or an instrumental from Dave Stewart to put on the B-side and then somebody suggested we make a few phone calls and make it into an album. There's a fellow who manages a couple of people in the States and does Dylan's tours. [it] was his suggestion, so within a couple of hours, we had Edie Brickell and a guy named Roc Ocasek in a band called the Cars. They volunteered a track, and so I got on the phone, and we have Eric Clapton and Elton John, as Elton said the other night, plus Stevie Wonder, Mike, and the Mechanics...

W: Wonderful line up...

G: all kinds of...Guns and Roses. So it's quite a fun album and...

W: Should make a great deal of money for the Appeal. Let's hope so. You've been back to Bucharest and have  you seen any of the effects of the money that you've already brought in? Have you seen it?

O: Yeah..

W: Any good being done with it?

O: Just the beginning, this last trip I took, during the earthquake, I went down to visit two orphanages we've started, and it's...I'm very emotional about the whole thing, but to walk in there and see them, little sinks with mirrors, don't forget these children have never seen themselves in a mirror, sinks with mirrors and showers with hot water heaters and bathtubs, so little for us, things that we wouldn't even think about. 

W: Do you hope to go there, George, to have a look and see what's happening?

G: Not particularly. I'm not saying that I wont' go there, but it's not part of my idea to go down and join in with plumbers and electricians, but in that respect, you know, I can do more in this way, to help get the money to people who actually know what they're doing. 

W: Well, let's hope. You're hopeful.

O: I'm very hopeful, yeah. I'd like to say that it's good news now, now that it's started happening. 

G: It's going to be better than it was, and it's just a matter of time to get 'round to all these places and get them all wash basins and toilets. 

O: He was going to be an electrician...

W: Yeah..or a plumber.

G: Or a plumber, yeah, yeah.

W: What did you eventually become?

G: I don't know, really. I don't know... just some object for the newspapers to make fun of, probably.

(Wogan and Oliva are laughing)

W:  I think what you do is very laudable and terrific, and I'm sure it's going to do an enormous amount of good; it already is. Thank you both for joining us. 

O: Thank you

G: Thanks a lot.

George Harrison exploring Australia incognito

 

This story about George in Australia in 1982 is from the Australian Women's Weekly and was first published on April 28, 1982.  It was written by Liane Maxfield. 

George Harrison --Exploring Australia incognito

By Liane Maxfield

He could have passed for a local fisherman in his shorts, thongs, and khaki bush hat. The only thing that might have given former Beatle George Harrison away was the Liverpudlian accent. 

But even that did not evoke interest among the holiday-makers strolling along the Shute Harbour jetty on Queensland's Whitsunday Coast. they were far more fascinated by the luxury $3 million cruisers at the wharf. 

George himself barely rated a glance as he jumped aboard and began stowing his gear. A few minutes later, the vessel pulled away. 

And that's the way George Harrison likes it, "I've spent the last 10 years trying to become un-famous. And I think that, just maybe, I have succeeded. Only two people have recognized me during my stay in Australia," he said. 

With the exception of a satellite broadcast for the TV show "Good Morning America" last year, George has not permitted an interview for six years. 

I was lucky enough to be invited to join George and his family on a cruise across the Whitsunday Passage to Hamilton Island as the guest of Queensland tourist entrepreneur Keith Williams. George and Keith met through a mutual friend, British racing driver Jackie Stewart. 

For three weeks, George, his wife Olivia, and their three-year-old son, Dhani, had been trekking around Australia as "typical tourists," visiting wildlife reserves, feeding kangaroos and koalas, and picnicking in national parks. 

For George, it's his first return visit since the days of Beatlemania. This time round he said with a smile, he is here as a "real person."

He loves Australia -- from the north Queensland tropics to the rugged beauty of Tasmania. 

"Everywhere I go I find myself thinking how happily I could live here. There's no tension," George said. 

And he stretched back in his deck chair to soak up yet more of the sun. 

"A lot of Australians don't know how lucky they are. It's a happy country.  In Britain, one almost feels guilty for feeling happy. Winter is so depressing. Strikes and more strikes. Everyone's miserable. It's a constant struggle not to let the attitude of others rub off on you."

But there is another reason George is not too keen on the British winters. He is unable to pursue what has become one of his grand passions -- gardening.

The Harrisons' home, Friar Park (a magnificent mansion built in the late 1880s by a millionaire Victorian eccentric), has a 14-hectare garden. 

"The gardens were a wilderness, " he said. "They had been unattended for about 40 years. And you know what they say about gardens -- for one year they are let, it takes three to restore them."

It took George and nine gardeners to accomplish the task. 

One of the garden's intriguing features is a series of three lakes, all built on different levels so that if a man crosses the middle lake on stepping stones from the house, he appears to be walking straight across the water. 

Because tropical plants cannot be cultivated with any great success in Britain's harsh climate, George is thinking of buying a home "somewhere in the South Pacific" to allow him to use his green thumb to its fullest advantage. 

Back home in the UK he loves pottering around the annual Chelsea flower show. Here in Australia, he has been visiting our botanic gardens, collecting ideas for the South Pacific hideaway he may buy one day. 

These days, record making is little more than a hobby.  George's priorities have changed dramatically. 

After the split up of the Beatles, he spent years "finding himself."  Devotional yoga helped him in the rough spots. 

His philosophy is simple. "It's a matter of finding out who I am, where I am coming from, and where I am going.

"I see life as a huge university. You come here to get knowledge to free the soul. The trick is to find out who you are before you kick the bucket."

Not that he sees "kicking the bucket" as the end. George believes in reincarnation. "I wouldn't mind coming back as a grain of sand," he grinned. "At least I'd never have to worry about the press hounding me again." 

Gone, along with the confusion, is the long, shaggy hair that caused such a sensation in the '60s. Today, George's locks look as if they have had a brief encounter with a blunt lawn mower. 

Olivia, his second wife, whom he married in 1978, is Mexican born.

She was working in his Los Angeles recording studio when they met. 

Both are semi-vegetarians. "We eat chicken and seafood," George explained as he tucked into freshly cooked prawns and mud crabs. Their son, by choice, is a total vegetarian.

Dhani (pronounced something like Danny) is a delight. His name is made up from two notes of the Indian musical scale, dha and ni, and doesn't mean "wealth" as was reported soon after his birth.

He is a bright, creative child, currently hooked on space toys. He speaks with a quaint upper-class English accent. Mum and Dad aren't quite sure how he picked it up. 

Perhaps it is the influence of his nanny, Rachael. Not that she is the plum-in-mouth, sensible-shoes type of nanny so often depicted in British films. She looks more like a flower child with her cheesecloth dress, flowing hair, and scrubbed, glowing skin. 

There is none of the relegate the child to the nursery where mama and papa will visit routine in the Harrison household. 

Olivia spends hours each day playing with Dhani, and George talks to him like an adult and patiently answers his never-ending stream of questions. 

Consequently, at three and a half, the boy prattles away in a manner that would put to shame children twice his age.

George feels they spoil Dhani, but admits he is drawing comparisons with his own childhood: "We were lucky to get one present at Christmas time."

Most of Dhani's toys are educational. When he outgrows them, they are passed on to charities.

According to friends, George's generosity is legendary. English comedian Eric Idle described him as "one of the few morally good people that rock and roll has produced. He's one of the people who have turned their attention to goodness. He's extremely generous and gives support you'll never hear of.

George stepped into the breach to put up a reported $4 million when Idle was having difficulty finding a backer for his Monty Python film, "The Life of Brian."

The stories go on. When George heard that another friend, Barry Sheene, was tryng to raise $280,000 to race Formula One cars, he promptly offered to pay the money for Barry NOT to do it because he was worried about the risk. 

Another recipient of Geoge's benevolence is the Hare Krishna religious sect, to whom he donated a magnificent manor in Hertfordshire, UK, estimated to be worth $500,000. 

George admits that if he doesn't work more than another hour again he will still have enough on which to live in comfort for the rest of his days. So, he is more than happy to help those less fortunate. 

Back in the early '70s, he raised $6 million for the child victims of the Bangladesh war by staging an all-star concert in New York. 

"I learned a lot from that exercise," he said. "Because of managerial bungling, we are still trying to get money from the concert into the right hands."

Now, he endeavors to keep news of his humanitarian endeavors on a very low key. 

But that's George Harrison today. He's unassuming, keeping a low profile, happy to be a family man, and, when weather permits, "mess around in the garden."

Kids

 

The Billboard Interview with George Harrison

 

This is an interview that I have had in my files since I printed it off the internet on June 18, 1999. Billboard magazine interviewed George Harrison that year and asked him questions about the updated Yellow Submarine and Songtrack that was soon to be released. 

The Billboard Interview with George Harrison

By Timothy White

B: Let's start by clearing up current misconceptions of what the upcoming new "Yellow Submarine" release is about and what it will actually encompass. 

GH: The main thing you need to get over to all the people is that it's not a soundtrack, but that it's actually the "songtrack." This will be a total of all the Beatles songs that were used in the film. 

The whole "Submarine" thing was written or done around the time of "Sgt. Pepper," around that period (but) "Yellow Submarine" only ended up wtih just those six new songs that were in the flim. and then they put all that George Martin orchestrated material on there. But now it will be every song that was in the movie - because the film also had "All You Need Is Love" and "Sgt. Pepper" too -- all together for the first time. And they've all been remixed!

B: The film also had even older songs, like "Eleanor Rigby," that are now on the new "Yellow Submarine:  A Songtrack." 

GH: Exactly, and they're in all their new mixes in that "wraparound sound." So the video and the DVD versions are the new CDs will also have the same new stereo mixes that will match the wraparound sound and will come out around the 14th of September. 

But I haven't even seen the finished film yet! We're going to a private screening of the new version in a week or two.

We may have a couple of cinema "events" showing it in theaters, and I think that gonna turn into a big night out, but the film is not going to be out in a general theatrical release. 

We've got all sorts of other things coming in time for November, including an announcement about a Beatles Web site. Neil Aspinall at Apple he's organizing all these details, and he's got all kinds of things that are going to reach fruition, like some special merchandising. Having lasted 40 years with the Beatles, Neil is the only person who's ever really been able to keep in contact with the four of us at the same time through all the various conflicts and whatever. And I met him when I was like 13 years old, smoking behind the air-raid shelters at the Liverpool Institute high school (big laugh). 

B:  There's supposedly a "Yellow Submarine" EP in the vaults that EMI had thought of putting out about a year after the "Yellow Submarine" album was finally released in January 1969.  The EP had the six songs put on the soundtrack album, plus an early version of "Across the Universe." Of course, it never came out. 

GH: I remember that the early version of "Across The Universe" was the best one. But we finally put that one out on a World Wildlife Fund charity album. And it also later went ont he Anthology [2] album. But, you know, there are certain things where somebody might have said like, "Oh, at this point in time, we had some songs in the can," but there's nothing that I can remember that was ever a solid discussion about an EP of any sort like that, other than the [two discs] "Magical Mystery tour" EP; in America, they didn't have extended plays so that had to be made into an album. 

B: What about "Hey Bulldog," which was cut at the same February 1968 sessions that included the early "Across the Universe," you "The Inner Light," "Lady Madonna" and other material? Do you remember how the group came up with John's piano riff and your guitar riff for "Bulldog?"

GH: Well, it was John's song, and it was a great tune. Funny thing is, in the version for America of the "Yellow Submarine" film they edited "Bulldog" out, so we had to make sure this time that it would be in, because of that whole bit in the movie of the dog with all the heads!

And we do now have an unreleased video of "Hey Bulldog," as you know. What it was is that when we were in the studio recording [10 takes of] "Bulldog," apparently it was at a time when they needed some footage for something else, some other record, and a film crew came along and filmed us. Then, they cut up the footage and used some of the shots for something else. But it was Neil Aspinall who found out that when you watched and listened to what the original thing was, we were recording "Bulldog!" This was apparently the only time we were actually filmed recording something, so what Neil did was, he put [the unused footage] all back together again and put the "Bulldog" soundtrack onto it, and there it was!

B: An unreleased live Beatles video!

GH: [Chuckling] Yeah! And everything has a different mix on it now! Because when they set up to this new, wraparound five-speaker mix for the film, they were working away doing that for months and months at Abbey Road. You see, another thing is that a lot of time the Beatles were only working on 4-track tape, so we'd get to the fourth track, and then what we'd do is mix the four tracks onto one track of another 4-track machine, and then we'd do another three tracks. 

So what they've gone doing in these new mixes - which we did a little bit of on the "Anthologies" - was to connect all the four tracks together and have the first four tracks all separated, and then the three overdubbed tracks separated, in order to create a new mix. Normally, the mixes heard since the '60s up till now from Beatles records have all been on these finished 4-tracks with the pre-mix of the other three tracks stuck onto it. 

B: In other words, the individual tracks on the basic tapes were rediscovered, allowing you to separate each of the original, incremental tracks 

GH: So for the first time you've actually got a much bigger, cleaner mix, because you've got the original bass and drum and guitar tracks unmixed together, you know?  And also, with all the old equipment and all the compressors and the stuff that we used in those days, you'd spend ages trying to improve the final 4-track mix you figured you were stuck with. This engineer, a fellow named Peter Mew, did a lot of the work with a guy called Allan Rouse, who's kind of in charge of all the Beatles catalog. So we went in and listened to all these new, fully remixed tracks, and they really are good, with the sound coming all around you, you know!

B: A few more questions about the classic songs originally on the "Yellow Submarine" album, like "It's All Too Much." Is that you playing the organ on that track?

GH: That's right! I probably wrote it on the organ, I think.

B: At the end of "Too Much," there are snippets of Jeremiah Clarke's "Prince of Denmark's March" and the Merseys' '66 hit "Sorrow."

GH: You mean on the fade-out? Yeah, with "Your long blond hair/And your eyes of blue." That was all just this big ending we had, going out. And as it was in those days, we had the horn players just play a bit of trumpet voluntarily, and so that's how that "Prince of Denmark" bit was played. 

And Paul and John just came up with and sang that lyric of "your eyes of blue." But just a couple of years ago somebody suddenly tried to sue us for that!

B: For them singing a little snatch of lyric to give exposure to an obscure song?

GH: Oh yeah. I just ignored it. I think that's one of my songs that's actually published now by ATV and Michael Jackson's Northern Songs, so I just thought, "Well, they can deal with it." I just thought it's so ridiculous, you know. 

Incidentally, that riff that's played on "It's All Too Much," I seem to have heard at least 50 songs that used that lick since then. [He hums the melody on the chorus]. You know the one I mean: Dah ding ding ding, dah ding ding ding. I mean, that's become like a stock thing. The difference is some people admit where their influences come from, like the Byrds [did] with the Rickenbacker 12-string thing after they all went to see "A Hard Day's Night."

But then I've had people writing to me and telling me about a group called Texas with a song called "Black Eyed Boy", and everybody's  saying, "Hey they've ripped off your song!" But I don't know, because somebody sent me a cassette and I put it on, and I couldn't hear a thing!

We've never really been into suing people for things like that. I've heard a bunch of records in the past that took things from things like "What is Life" or "Living in the Material World," or "Here Comes the Sun."  What's the point? But I suppose the point would be like Bright Tunes (the publishing company that started the protracted plagiarism suit aginst Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" in wich George ultimately prevailed]- you could just try and make some money out of people.

B: The guitar feedback on the intro to "It's All Too Much" was done in May of '67, so it was pre-Hendrix, before he started to go wild with that stuff, since his "Are You Experienced?" album hadn't come out yet. 

GH: But, now, I don't think I was playing the guitar feedback; as I say, I was playing the organ, so I think that was probably Paul that did that. But it was, like, manufactured, meaning that it wasn't like an accident or anything; it was part of the arrangement. 

I just wanted to write a rock'n'roll song about the whole psychedelic thing of the time: "Sail me on a silver sun/Where I know that I am free/Show me that I'm everywhere/And get me home for tea." [Laughs.] Because you'd trip out, you see, on all this stuff, and when whoops! you'd just be back having your evening cup of tea!

But we also had that feedback on "I Feel Fine" [in 1964], and John always claimed it came about from playing an acoustic  Gibson with a pickup in it, and it had a big round sound hole, and it just used to feedback very easily if you faced it toward the amplifier.

But then I've heard other people say that wasn't the first feedback either, "1897, we had feedback on such and such!" [more laughter]

B: We've talked about "Only A Northern Song" before, which was intended as a little commentary of yours. 

GH: It was at the pint that I realized Dick James had conned me out of the copyrights for my own songs by offering to become my publisher. As an 18 or 19 year old kid, I thought, "Great, somebody's gonna publish my songs!" But he never said, "And incidentally, when you sign this document here, you're assigning me the ownership of the songs [Harrison had written as a Beatle]," which is what it is. It was just a blatant theft. By the time I realized what had happened when they were going public and making all this money out of this catalog, I wrote "Only a Northern Song" as what we call a "piss-take," just to have a joke about it. 

B: "All Together Now." by Paul and John, do you have any thoughts about that?

GH: It was a nursery rhyme kind of thing.  Again, if you look at it from one point of view, it's embarrassing. But we seem to have been the all-around entertainers, weren't we? Somehow we got away with stuff liket hat, either with Ringo singing "Yellow Submarine" or us doing a song like "All Together Now." 

B: Thinking of things suited for children from the Beatles, Al Brodax, who produced the "Yellow Submarine" movie, also had done the series of Beatles cartoons that were shown on Saturday and Sunday mornings in America. Whatever happened to those cartoons?

GH: Oh, we bought them all a few years ago, just so we had control over them for the future. I always kind of liked them -- they were so bad or silly they were good if you know what I mean [grinning]. And I think the passage of time might make them more fun now, in terms of being more watchable than they really were back then. But we don't have any plans for them at the moment. 

B: By the way, the song "Yellow Submarine" never really did have anything to do with a narcotic pill by that nickname, did it?

GH: I never heard of that pill. Paul came up with the concept of "Yellow Submarine."  All I know is just that every time we'd all get around the piano with guitars and start listening to it and arranging it into a record, we'd all fool about. As I said, John's doing the voice that sounds like someone talking down a tube or ship's funnel as they do in the merchant marine. [Laughs] And on the final track, there's actually that very small party happening! As I seem to remember, there's a few screams and what sounds like small crowd noises in the background. 

B: Fans still wonder if that voice shouting into the submarine's funnel is John, same as they still ask who coughed at the start of "Taxman" on the "Revolver" album. 

GH: My son Dhani reckons it was me. He says, "I'd recognize that cough anywhere!" [Laughs] But I don't remember. 

B: Unlike the cartoon series, which had your voices, your own "Sgt. Pepper" -ish film characters in the "Yellow Submarine" movie were dubbed by actors, so the Beatles only actual appearance in the film is at the end of the picture.

GH: Well the deal was we hadn't really been that involved in the making of what was supposed to be out third movie. I must say, at the point I had no idea of how it was going to fit into the film or where it was going.  We had our lines and just kind of did it, but it all turned out quite well with the animation, didn't it?

B: It was excellent, and the film was very influential, particularly the work of principal animation designer Heinz Edelmann.

GH: Right, and then Peter Max built his whole career on the fact that everybody thought he'd done it! I loved a lot of those characters [Edelmann] came up with. And the Blue Meanie named Max., I always wondered if the later idea of the "Mad Max" movie character came from him. 

B: It's a spectacular, Dante's "Inferno"-type tale of good vs. evil. And that "flying glove" character is scary!

GH: [Laughs] It is, it is! And all those Apple Bonkers! The fact is, with the way the culture and the government are now, it's all still happening now as it was in "Yellow Submarine." Except the Blue Meanies have got a bigger stranglehold on the planet right now than they even had back in '67! And it looks like there's no musical group coming along to break the bubble of grayness because even the music industry has turned gray and is dominated by Blue Meanies.

B: Do you think popular music has had an impact on shaping minds and that, across history, it's helped influence people's thinking?

GH: Music definitely influences you, whether it just makes you feel happy or sad. And likewise I'm sure all that horrible music these days is making people change -- there's just worse crime, more cynicism. I wouldn't necessarily directly blame the music for all of that, but there is this kind of chemistry that's created through endless television or music programming or advertising that drones away on these things- with crap music, with murder movies, and that whole thing with Robert De Niro pointing a big gun at everyone on the big posters [for the film Ronin] that you see everywhere now in London. And so it's like my son Dhani was saying, that "Who gives a shit about bombing Bosnia!" becomes the attitude on a campus, because they're all so desensitized. 

B: It's like the music and entertainment business has gotten into the arm business

GH: Yeah! And it was both pathetic and very funny at the time, but a couple of years ago, I was in Los Angeles, and I had the television on, and for the local weather we went to some guy at the beach. And in the shot of him live with the beach in the background, you could just see the pollution was just dreadful, and he just goes, "Yes, well, it's another beautiful day down here at Santa Monica!" And I thought, "What are you talking about? It stinks!"

But that's how it is; that's the desensitizing. Maybe in another few hundred years people will be living in sewers with rats crawling all over them, and they'll be thinking, "This is great, life is good." Mahatma Gandhi said, "Create and preserve the image of your choice," and the image we seem to have chosen is one of greed and butchery.

A Day at the Races

March 7, 1999 
 

Rest in Peace Johnny

 

Johnny Gentle autograph from Sara's collection 

John Askew, better known to Beatle fans as Johnny Gentle passed away on February 29, 2024.  He was 87 years old.  

I admit to not knowing a lot about Johnny Gentle or the week-long tour the Beatles spent in Scotland in 1960.  I do recall reading about it in Tune In.  I just learned that the book about the tour (which I have the cover page autographed for but don't have the full book) is available as an ebook.  I just purchsed it, so expect a review at some point this year.  

The Johnny Gentle tour is such an important part of early Beatles history.  I express my sympathies to Johnny's family and friends.  

Happy George interview

 March 7, 1979

Young Love

 March 6, 1964 

Wheelchair George

 March 5, 1979

George ventures out in London!!

 

This is a story from the Summer 1989 (first issue) of the London Beatle Fan Cub fan magazine.  

George Ventures Out in London!!

On July 25th, 1989, for a mere  £50, one would have been able to attend the premiere of "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" and dine in the presence of the Great George Harrison. Alas, being paupers, we had to forego this pleasure and instead join that lower form of life known as the press photographers in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the Master himself. 

We arrived at the cinema about an hour before the premiere was due to start and immediately got in a ruck with the press corp. One of them in particular, "the Devil's Best Friend," kept pushing us aside attempting to obtain a better viewpoint for himself, obviously unaware of how resilient Harrison fans are. 

A number of cars began to arrive outside the cinema, raising our expectations that George might soon step out. However, we were to be disappointed time and time again as they only revealed lesser mortal not worth of mention. 

Finally, a blue Mercedes arrived. They Beatles juices started running, the knees went wobbling and we ran towards it. Indeed, there HE was!! George was handsome, suntanned, wearing shades but grimmed face, with Olivia at his side looking very lovely. We clicked away as they entered the foyer; George posed for the press but refused to sign our book. "Not now!" he said. 

The scene outside cinema had quieted down and the movie finally beginning, we decided to go to the pub to recover our senses aided by a glass of amber necter. 

At about 9:15pm, we decided it was time to head back to the cinema. All was quiet once agian but this soon changed as the first guests began to appear. George's car was right behind us, with his evidently inexperienced chauffeur smoking away. With his car there, we knew he could not get away ignoring us. Suddenly, while we were planning our strategic positions, Nelson Wilbury appeared. He had no shades this time around and was actually smiling, posing again for the photographers. 

As the scene outside the cinema got tougher, with the press pushing and shouting to George to talk to them and not us, he looked frantically for his driver and shouted to him to get to the car.  Once again we were face to face with him and begged him to sign "I Me Mine," a request which extracted this answer, "I can't love, not now, if I stop I will never get away."

ANd like surise doesn't last all morning, George floated away someplace else on his Cloud 9. 

Making the White Album

Photos by Linda (Eastman) McCartney 

 

John looks so different without his glasses in this photo...