On Friday, September 29, 2000 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Maxwell Edison wrote:
> Cool article. Kind of a shame George would not want to perform his own songs
> just because they would be perceived as Beatle tunes. Glad to see he has
> come around, tho, and played many of the songs he wrote for the Beatles
> during his tour of Japan.
> Lisa <ba...@azstarnet.com> wrote in message
> news:39D307AC...@azstarnet.com...
> >
> > Just a little something for y'all's delectation.
> >
> > Lisa
> > ----------
> >
> > Rolling Stone, December 19, 1974
> >
> > George Harrison: Lumbering in the Material World
> > by Ben Fong-Torres
> >
> >
> > Holy Krishna! What kind of an opening night for George Harrison is
> > this? Ravi Shankar asks for silence and no smoking during his music.
> > Silence is very important, he says, because music is eternal, and out of
> > the silence comes the music. Something like that. But, instead, out of
> > the audience comes this piercing death cry, followed by a rain of war
> > whoops. After a few numbers, people start shouting, "Get funky!" and
> > "Rock and roll!"
> >
> > In the press box at PNE Coliseum in Vancouver, one reporter is guessing
> > that the Sanskrit letter for Om, illuminated in shadowboxes at either
> > end of the stage, is actually the Indian dollar sign. Another insists
> > it means "No Smoking."
> >
> > Harrison, meantime, is hoarse from the beginning and strains through
> > each song. Billy Preston eventually perks up the show with two numbers
> > in the second half, but the night sputters to a conclusion with more
> > Indian music, more cries for rock and roll and, in the end, Harrison
> > receiving a perfunctory encore call. He performs "My Sweet Lord," and
> > out of the silence comes the silence-a still and seated audience with
> > only the front section clapping along.
> >
> > "I hated it," said Pat Luce the next morning. Pat Luce wasn't a paying
> > customer. She's a publicist with A&M Records, on the tour for
> > Harrison's Dark Horse label, which A&M distributes. "We've had a lot of
> > conferences after the show," she said. "They're having a rehearsal
> > today. George has to rest. He's been rehearsing every day and
> > recording every night to get the single out. Last night everyone
> > was-they weren't down; in the framework of the show, there is a fabulous
> > show; they know it's a good band.
> >
> > "But, one, it's too long; two, Ravi's got to be one set. And three,
> > George has to shut up."
> >
> > In San Francisco, producer Bill Graham gazed through an office window at
> > the unceasing rain and shook his head very slowly. On the wall behind
> > him hung memorabilia from his two other big tours of 1974-Bob Dylan and
> > Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. He fingered the felt-tip pen dangling
> > from his necklace and worried about anything he might say.
> >
> > He'd been up till four that morning, in fact, agonizing about what to
> > tell the press. He was clearly upset with the tour; he had a sheaf of
> > notes on his desk covering the shows in Vancouver, Seattle, and now,
> > last night, in San Francisco. But he should be talking to George, not
> > the press, he said, and so far he'd only spoken with Tom Scott,
> > Harrison's saxophonist and musical sounding board, and Denis O'Brien,
> > Harrison's business manager. Ordinarily, explained Graham, he talked
> > freely with Harrison, "except on things artistic." He wasn't sure he
> > should step out of line, as technical producer of the tour, and
> > criticize the artistic and musical structure of the show.
> >
> > So specific thoughts were off the record. But if he was going to talk
> > at all, it had to be straight. "I could say to you, 'We're working on
> > things,' you know. 'George is in great spirits!' It's like the
> > football team that's lost forty-three games in a row, and you say, 'How
> > do you feel, coach?' 'Well, my spirits are up and we're still in
> > there!" Graham smiled vaguely at the metaphor. "But we all know that
> > the plays ain't working, and we're looking for a new quarterback."
> >
> > He recalled the return of Dylan and the reunion of CSNY. Their
> > audiences. Graham has a sense for audiences. "At the beginning of each
> > show, I think the public has the same feeling-yes, that wonderful aura.
> > I think with Bob Dylan the public loved what they got. With CSNY they
> > got three-and-a-half hours of music and were pretty well satisfied.
> > With George Harrison, they would definitely have wanted more of George
> > Harrison.
> >
> > "That's my criticism of George, out of a deep respect for his great
> > talent and great ability. I think what the public leaves with is a
> > continuing respect and reverence for what he has done, and a..." Here
> > Graham chose his words carefully. "...perhaps a feeling of
> > bittersweetness about not having gotten just a bit closer to what their
> > expectations were. I don't know. They didn't get to go back in the
> > time machine enough."
> >
> > On the Dylan tour, Graham, the backstage showman, had lit up a fancy
> > Cuban cigar for every show well done. I asked him whether he'd smoked
> > any so far on this tour.
> >
> > His eyebrows perked up. "Ah, but that's the point. There's no cigars!"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I realize the Beatles did fill a space in the sixties, and all the
> > people who the Beatles meant something to have grown up. It's like with
> > anything. You grow up with it and you get attached to it. That's one
> > of the problems in our lives, becoming too attached to things. But I
> > understand the Beatles in many ways did nice things, and it's
> > appreciated, the people still like them. The problem comes when they
> > want to live in the past, and they want to hold onto something and are
> > afraid of change.
> > -George Harrison at his Los Angeles press conference, October 23rd,
> > 1974
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The last time I saw George Harrison in the flesh as a Beatle, he was a
> > standout. The group was on a stage covering second base at Candlestick
> > Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, the night of August 29th, 1966.
> > San Francisco was the last stop of a nineteen-city American tour.
> > JPG&R, all in lacy white shirts and mod green jackets that matched the
> > outfield grass, had strolled out of the first-base dugout, waving
> > casually at a mad crowd of twenty-six thousand, and laughed through
> > eleven songs in thirty minutes flat.
> >
> > And I remember how George stood out from the other three that evening.
> > He wore white socks.
> >
> > As things turned out, the Candlestick Park show was the last concert the
> > Beatles ever did. "We got in a rut," Harrison told Hunter Davies, their
> > biographer, years later. "It was just a bloody big row. Nobody could
> > hear. We got worse as musicians, playing the same old junk every day.
> > There was no satisfaction at all."
> >
> > The next month, George and his wife, Patti, were off to India. Having
> > idly picked up a strange, twin-bowled instrument called a sitar on the
> > set of Help!, he was interested in studying under the great Indian
> > composer and sitarist, Ravi Shankar.
> >
> > It was five more years before Harrison returned to the stage, at the
> > behest of Shankar and for the benefit of the people of Bangladesh, East
> > Pakistan. He was the host, dressed all in white, gathering friends like
> > Billy Preston, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, and Bob Dylan
> > around him.
> >
> > And it was there, at Madison Square Garden, that Harrison tasted the
> > desire to tour again. "He was definitely inspired after Bangladesh,"
> > said Billy Preston. "He wanted to do it again, right away. But it took
> > some time. Bangladesh was an exceptional show because everybody was
> > there. He had to do a lot of thinking on this one, because he had to
> > get out there and be the one."
> >
> > There were other delays for Harrison: the fusses over the profits from
> > the Bangladesh benefit and album; the McCartney-sue-me, we-sue-Allen
> > Klein blues; various sessions with friends like Harry Nilsson, Preston,
> > and Starr; the Living in the Material World album and the creation of
> > Dark Horse Records. One of Dark Horse's first releases was Shankar
> > Family and Friends, which featured Shankar conducting a fifteen-piece
> > Indian orchestra, sometimes joined by rock and jazz instruments. Ravi
> > Shankar, it turned out, was a major reason for Harrison's return to the
> > stage.
> >
> > "I have always been very eager to bring out such a number of good
> > musicians from India," said Shankar, who has composed music for small
> > orchestras for some thirty years. "George heard a few tapes I had of
> > things with groups and he was impressed and was telling me for almost
> > seven years that I should bring something like this over. And I said,
> > 'Well, you must also take part in it.' And it's only last year we
> > became more confident."
> >
> > Last February Harrison visited Shankar in India to plan the tour. In
> > the spring he began to gather his backup. First he chose Tom Scott,
> > saxophone player behind Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Billy Preston, and
> > John Lennon, and in front of his own band, the L.A. Express. Having
> > studied Indian music at UCLA with a Shankar disciple, Harihar Rao, Scott
> > was invited to play on the Shankar Family album last year.
> >
> > When his L.A. Express accompanied Joni Mitchell to London this spring,
> > Harrison called and asked him to join the tour.
> >
> > George then picked drummer Andy Newmark, formerly with Sly Stone, and
> > bassist Willie Weeks. Newmark and Weeks had played with Ronnie Wood (of
> > the Faces) on his solo album, as had Harrison.
> >
> > Finally, Harrison chose second guitarist Robben Ford, from the Express,
> > Billy Preston and percussionist Emil Richards, another Harihar Rao
> > student who worked on Ravi's LP. Meanwhile, Scott rounded out his horn
> > section with Chuck Findley and Jim Horn. Both men performed at the
> > Bangladesh benefit.
> >
> > In October Harrison arrived in Los Angeles to begin rehearsals and to
> > finish his own album, Dark Horse, begun a year ago in London. He chose
> > to squeeze both projects-plus a single, also called "Dark Horse"-into a
> > three-week period. He promptly lost his voice, and, at a press
> > conference on the eve of the tour, announced as much, adding, ho ho,
> > that he might very well go out the first few shows and do instrumentals.
> >
> > That might not have been a bad idea. Harrison did, in fact, start each
> > show with his mouth shut, presenting himself as just one of nine band
> > members, playing a well-arranged, tension-and-release number called
> > "Hari Good Boy Express." But when, on the opening night in Vancouver,
> > Harrison broke into "The Lord Loves the One," he sang off key, and the
> > voice, in its first flight, instantly sounded tired. The performance
> > earned minimal response, as people yielded easily to distraction,
> > studying the "Dark Horse" banner unfurled high above the stage, or the
> > hand-painted, rainbow-colored tour shirts worn by Willie Weeks and Jim
> > Horn, or Harrison's hair-shag cut, medium long, blown dry-or his denim
> > overalls and Hush Puppies.
> >
> > (Billy Preston wound up covering for him, singing high parts of songs.
> > Later, Preston said Harrison was resigned to the arrangement. "He feels
> > a little bad about it, but there's nothin' he can do about it, he's been
> > working so hard.")
> >
> > In any event the first U.S. tour by a former Beatle was underway, "and
> > for a long time," Jeani Read, pop critic for the Vancouver Province
> > wrote later, "all I could think about was Dylan a few months ago,
> > singing all his songs wrong for the people who wanted to hear them the
> > way they were used to hearing them. Because Harrison sang most of his
> > songs wrong, too. Except the painful difference was that Dylan was in
> > complete control of what he was doing."
> >
> > Wrote Don Stanley, of the Vancouver Sun, "He attempted to storm through
> > the material, a la Dylan's recent magnificent tour, and ended up
> > agonizingly hoarse."
> >
> > (Dylan attended the two concerts November 12th at the Forum in Los
> > Angeles, and he visited with Harrison between shows. During the encore,
> > he zipped out the back doors into the parking lot, accompanied by his
> > wife and several friends. He stopped to say that, yes, he enjoyed the
> > shows.)
> >
> > Through Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, Long Beach, and Los Angeles,
> > Harrison sounded the same, and so did the reviews. In San Francisco,
> > Phil Elwood of the Examiner: "Never a strong singer, but a moving one,
> > Harrison found that he had virtually no voice left and had to croak his
> > way through even the delicate 'Something.'"
> >
> > By Los Angeles, at the first of three shows at the Forum, more than
> > Harrison's voice seemed to be cracking. After an eight-second
> > response-more a yawn than a hand for a new song called "Maya Love,"
> > Harrison told the house: "I don't know how it feels down there, but from
> > up here, you seem pretty dead." Later, his voice breaking, he angrily
> > lectured someone in the audience who'd screamed out a request for
> > "Bangladesh":
> >
> > "I have to rewrite the song. But don't just shout Bangladesh, give them
> > something to help. You can chant Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, and maybe
> > you'll feel better. But if you just shout Bangladesh, Bangladesh,
> > Bangladesh, it's not going to help anybody."
> >
> > Finally, after he'd cooled down a bit, Harrison apologized for the way
> > things seemed to be going.
> >
> > The next night, Harrison played two shows at the Forum with
> > less-than-packed houses. Forum manager Jim Appell estimated the first
> > crowd at 9,000, the second at 11,000. The Forum seats 18,000.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Most of the people who'd forked over $9.50 to see Beatle George expected
> > a Beatle show; a rubber soul revue, a long and winding memory lane.
> > Even if they'd kept up with Harrison these past few years and knew
> > better, they still wanted a Beatle.
> >
> > George, from the outset, refused. At rehearsals, during the first
> > run-through, it took two hours and eighteen songs before George would do
> > a Beatles song-"In My Life" from Rubber Soul. The way Tom Scott told
> > it, Ravi Shankar had to go to Harrison to urge him to consider audience
> > expectations, "and give the people a couple of old songs; it's okay."
> >
> > "George says people expect him to be exactly what he was ten years ago,"
> > said Shankar. "That's the problem with all the artists, I suppose.
> > Frank Sinatra or anyone popular for many years. People like to hear the
> > old nostalgia."
> >
> > "George," said Tom Scott, "is one of the few guys with the prestige and
> > the resources to do something good and is willing to do it and put his
> > neck on the line. By that I mean presenting a show with so much new
> > material when people expect him to do a Beatles."
> >
> > "Something good" meant Harrison's presentation of Shankar and his new
> > music, and it meant his insisting on being just one of the guys on
> > stage, playing humble host to the others, giving individual spots to
> > Preston and Scott.
> >
> > But it also meant a dismaying refusal to acknowledge his past, and the
> > fact that if he hadn't been a Beatle, he might not be doing a $4 million
> > tour inside of seven weeks. And Harrison went further. He tampered
> > with the past. So you had Harrison singing, "Something in the way she
> > moves it," turning the lover's tribute into a lecherous shout. And: "I
> > look at you all/See the love there that's sleeping/While my guitar
> > gently smiles." And, on a song written by John Lennon (who was the only
> > former partner to send flowers to the opening show): "In my life...I
> > love God more."
> >
> > "George didn't want to do 'Something' at all," said Billy Preston,
> > describing the rehearsals. "I knew he was gonna have to do it, and he
> > started rebelling against it by doing it a different way, rewriting the
> > lyrics. But at least he's doing the song."
> >
> > Harrison may have the right to change lyrics-his own, at least-but how
> > would you like it if Frank Sinatra came out for a
> > once-more-in-a-lifetime shot and sang, "I did it...His way"? Or if
> > Dylan on his tour had proclaimed, "The answer, my friend, is coming from
> > within/The answer is coming from within"? To a dedicated nostalgia
> > freak, the slaughter of such secular cows can be pretty frustrating. Or
> > pretty silly.
> >
> > There were other problems: The shows suffered from sound mixes that
> > buried many instruments, and from poor structuring. The Vancouver
> > concert, for instance, included two appearances by Ravi Shankar's
> > orchestra, which, for many in the audience, was at least one too many.
> > Introducing "our little pal" Shankar and orchestra for their second set,
> > Harrison seemed to note the lack of excitement in the air. He put in an
> > urgent plug for Indian music: "I'd die for it," he said, and tapped his
> > electric guitar-"but not for this." After the opening night disaster, a
> > lackluster hotel gathering turned into a series of meetings with Ravi,
> > Tom Scott, Billy Preston, and Harrison. Shankar suggested a
> > restructuring of the show. "It was just showbiz," said Scott. "No one
> > wanted Ravi to come out to a hostile audience."
> >
> > Even with Shankar condensed into one power-packed set, the rest of the
> > concert left a lot of songs to be desired. Of a total twenty-three
> > tunes in two-and-a-half hours, only eight were familiar Beatles or
> > Harrison songs: "Something," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Sue Me,
> > Sue You Blues," "For You Blue," "Give Me Love," "In My Life," "What Is
> > Life," and "My Sweet Lord." From Seattle through Los Angeles, the shows
> > generally went like this: "Hari Good Boy Express" (the instrumental),
> > "Something," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Preston's "Will It Go
> > 'Round in Circles," and "Sue Me, Sue You Blues." Then, with less than
> > half an hour gone, Harrison introduced Shankar and orchestra for seven
> > straight numbers, followed by intermission. And in the second half,
> > whatever hits there were had to be sorted from a puzzling pile.
> > Harrison kicked off with "For You Blue" and "Give Me Love," which in
> > several performances was the first song whose introduction was
> > recognized by the audience. Then an instrumental, a directionless jam
> > spawned during rehearsals at the A&M sound stage, called "Sound Stage of
> > My Mind," followed by "In My Life," with strong brass where there used
> > to be gentle guitar. Then a jazzy, jamlike number from Tom Scott called
> > "Tomcat," "Maya Love," with guitar lines reminiscent of "Sue Me, Sue You
> > Blues," and the most consistent high point of each concert: Billy
> > Preston with his hits, "Nothing from Nothing" and "Outta-Space."
> >
> > After "Dark Horse," Harrison announced his last number, "What Is Life,"
> > and returned for "My Sweet Lord," speeded up, unrecognizable except for
> > the lyrics, and weighed down by exhortations from George to go to the
> > god of your choice.
> >
> > "Krishna/Christ/Krishna/Christ/Krishna/Christ," he chanted over and
> > over, adding a mention now and then for Buddha and Allah.
> >
> > On paper, without mentioning the drive of Andy Newmark's drumming, the
> > color of Emil Richards' percussion work, the solidity of Willie Weeks'
> > bass, the vocal (and sweeping keyboard) help rendered by Billy Preston,
> > the exuberant rock and blues guitar of Robben Ford, and the brilliant
> > horn work of Tom Scott, the concert sounds pretty dreadful. But it
> > wasn't quite that bad.
> >
> > For one thing, before each show there was a mood of expectation.
> > Everywhere, one could still detect faint traces of Beatlemania. A
> > 20-year-old woman outside the Seattle Center Coliseum spotted Harrison
> > arriving and ran into a crowd screeching, "I saw him! I saw his
> > glasses! I saw his nose!" A younger woman, in a George Harrison
> > T-shirt, cried uncontrollably in the front row in Vancouver. And, at
> > the Oakland Coliseum, a crowd of four or five dozen fans stormed past a
> > puny link of three security guards and rushed up to the stage to help
> > George with his heavy load during "Give Me Love."
> >
> > Also there was the appealing sincerity of George Harrison himself,
> > blissed-out and beaming while committing all manner of ghastly,
> > anti-show-business mistakes-overintroducing Ravi Shankar or Billy
> > Preston, imploring the audience to "have a little patience" for the
> > Indian music before they've even heard any.
> >
> > Some critics called it "The Billy Preston Show," and they weren't far
> > off. When Preston, in a natty, sequined suit and mushroom-cloud Afro,
> > began to move behind the instruments arrayed around him-a clavinet, a
> > Hammond B-3 organ, ARP and string ensemble synthesizers and a Wurlitzer
> > piano-all the pent-up hell of a boogie-hungry horde broke loose.
> >
> > Preston gave the crowds what they couldn't get from Harrison: hit rock
> > and roll songs, done faithfully, in full voice. So it was Billy who got
> > the audience up on its feet, up on the chairs. In San Francisco, it was
> > Billy who at long last triggered a welcome surge toward the stage.
> >
> > George, through all of this, looked grateful, pointing at Billy,
> > shouting his name, while Preston pointed and shouted back: "George
> > Harrison! Back on stage!"
> >
> > In Vancouver most of the audience were polite for Ravi Shankar and his
> > fifteen-member troupe. A little itchy, maybe, and possibly thinking
> > they'd rather be scoring a hot dog or hearing more Harrison,
> > but-polite. It was in Seattle that Shankar and his orchestra finally
> > broke through. The song was "Dispute and Violence," introduced by
> > Harrison with the note, "otherwise known as jazz."
> >
> > Like many of Shankar's pieces, "Dispute and Violence" was a sometimes
> > loose, sometimes tight fusion of various forms of Eastern and Western
> > music-folk, classical, and spiritual Indian; rock, jazz, and even
> > big-band swing. There was Indian scat-shouting, trilling and jabbering,
> > representing dispute; squeaking reeds and flutes and a Don Ellis brass
> > for measures of violence; and Andy Newmark's drums, Emil Richards'
> > kitchenware percussion, and Alla Rakha's tabla setting a steady battle
> > tempo. Shankar at the podium, arms flailing, index fingers dipping and
> > pointing, took it all to a victorious, symphonic, last-stomp halt.
> >
> > Two young men behind me jumped up to join in the resounding ovation.
> > They would not stand up again until the end of Preston's two numbers. I
> > asked them what they liked about "Dispute and Violence."
> >
> > "It's the beat," said the first one. "I saw him a year ago, with just a
> > small group, two or three, I wasn't expecting anything like this."
> >
> > "It's beautiful," said the second. "You hear every different type of
> > music there is in the world."
> >
> > "If you were gonna talk to God," remarked the first, "that would be the
> > way." The man said he was 19 and had come to hear Beatles songs.
> >
> > Three other songs stood out in the Shankar set. "Cheparte," meaning
> > spicy or "hot stuff," received standing ovations following a rousing
> > battle between the veteran Alla Rakha on tabla and T.V. Gopalkrishnan, a
> > younger man, on the mridangam-a barrel-shaped drum he struck with his
> > hands at both ends. The two sat side by side, and overhead lights
> > switched between them as they took their solos, slapping and hammering
> > away at different pitches until they joined together. The crowd whooped
> > like it had just heard a ten-minute, heavy-metal drum workout.
> >
> > "Zoom Zoom Zoom" introduced the audience to singers Lakshmi Shankar and
> > her daughter, Viji. Both recipients of India's highest musical honor,
> > the President's Award, they stood at each side of their in-law
> > conductor.
> >
> > Lakshmi stood still, arms crossed in front of her, and with her
> > three-octave voice glided easily through "Zoom Zoom Zoom." The lyrics
> > had a taste of Brazil '66 and her voice reminded one of Norma Tanega,
> > for those who remember "Walkin' My Cat Named Dog."
> >
> > Shankar's one turn at the sitar was reserved for a song called "Anurag"
> > ("Love"), and even this one was a surprise, a hot-beat number featuring
> > interplays between his instrument and two violins, with Ravi fingering
> > decidedly bluesy figures, then conducting, from his perch, several
> > solos, among them the tabla tarang, a group of twelve waterbowls, and
> > the santoor, an instrument that resembles an autoharp and is played with
> > delicate mallets. Again, the sound was symphonic and dynamic. I heard
> > the number performed five times and never once thought of hot dogs.
> >
> > "I have always been-what is the word?-"dilemma'?-to my listeners the
> > last thirty years," remarked Shankar one day in San Francisco.
> >
> > "By the time they form an opinion that I am doing this, I am doing
> > something else. So it's puzzling for them, and that's why I have been
> > criticized more than anyone-sacrileging Indian music or jazzifying
> > Indian music, breaking the tradition, all sorts of things you might have
> > heard yourself. But I keep my base very strong."
> >
> > On the tour, all of Shankar's songs were about five minutes, for many a
> > relief from the long ragas he plays at his own concerts. He wrote (and
> > edited) many of them specifically for the Harrison audience, he said.
> >
> > "And none of the songs are, in the Indian sense, classical. They are
> > different, because, imagine, with all those impatient kids, if I sat
> > down and started playing for a half hour. And it wouldn't blend
> > together; the wholeness of the show wouldn't be there.
> >
> > "It's only lately that I've been hearing a bit more of rock music," he
> > said. "I find that there's a lot of great things in that music, but I
> > personally believe that 50 to 75 percent is the loudness of it."
> >
> > Shankar, in recent years, has avoided huge rock concerts and festivals,
> > for reasons that transcend technical difficulties. "After I went to
> > Woodstock and one or two others, I thought maybe I should not go any
> > more. It has changed from the atmosphere at Monterey to, maybe not
> > violence, but too much drugs. And I thought maybe there's no use in my
> > going, because it's not my type of music."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > In the summer of 1967, less than a year after the Candlestick Park
> > concert, Harrison, then 24, came back to San Francisco with his wife, to
> > have a look at the hippies who'd blossomed out of the Haight-Ashbury
> > district.
> >
> > This year, he was back. Before the tour he had decided that several
> > concerts would be benefits, and he had heard about the plight of the
> > Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. Opened the year of Harrison's first
> > visit, the Free Clinic survived the district's
> > speed/rip-off/deterioration phase, and, like the Haight itself, had
> > recently grown. The medical clinic is now only one of eight concerns,
> > the others including a Women's Needs Center, a therapy program for
> > heroin addicts, and a vocational rehab center. This year, federal
> > revenue-sharing money marked for 1975 was diverted by Mayor Joseph
> > Alioto, and after two months of applying for grants and of trying to set
> > up a rock benefit, the clinic was almost resigned to shut down the
> > medical sector, which last year spent $67,500 to treat ten thousand
> > patients. Harrison donated net profits from his first San Francisco
> > concert to the clinic. A week after the show, the clinic's medical
> > director, Dr. Elizabeth Anthony, said the donation would be $66,000.
> >
> > The day after the benefit, Harrison, along with manager O'Brien,
> > publicist Pat Luce, adn Olivia Arias (a representative of Dark Horse)
> > visited the clinic for about a half hour, just before a concert. His
> > party toured the facilities and, in a back room, chatted with several
> > staff members. He gave them gifts, among them a Dark Horse necklace and
> > pieces of embroidery, and asked for a Free Clinic T-shirt.
> >
> > "He said he hoped to start a ripple with other musicians doing the same
> > kind of things," writer Amie Hill, a clinic volunteer, said later. "The
> > doctors gave him a plaque, and-I didn't hear this, but someone told me
> > he said, 'Don't thank me; it's not me, it's something else over us that
> > acts through people like me. I'm just an instrument.'"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > After the visit, back in the limousine, something kept nagging at George
> > Harrison. It was the plaque, and all the gratitude of the Clinic
> > workers. He really meant it when he said not to thank him, that he just
> > wanted to help cause a ripple.
> >
> > He turned to Pat Luce as the car headed toward the freeway for the Cow
> > Palace. "I'd like to get that out somehow," he told her. "Do you think
> > Rolling Stone might want to do an interview?"
> >
> > George Harrison, it seemed, had gone to as much trouble as he could to
> > avoid interviews during the tour. He had done a press conference in Los
> > Angeles and helped prepare an official press-kit interview ("Tell us
> > about Dark Horse Records"; "Tell us bout the group Splinter that you
> > recently produced for Dark Horse Records"; "Tell us about your new
> > album").
> >
> > But now he wanted to talk. Luce set up a dressing-room visit between
> > shows at the Forum. We waited through the visit by Dylan and watched
> > Harrison's father and brother mingling with the musicians in a room
> > decorated with Indian bedspreads on all walls.
> >
> > Finally, just a half-hour before Harrison had to return to the stage, we
> > met. He was friendly, direct, strong willed, tugging at his fingers now
> > and then, digging into me with his blue eyes. Behind him, Olivia Arias
> > smiled knowingly at all his remarks.
> >
> > More than anything else, Harrison was thinking about his concerts, and
> > about the response so far. He spoke with more earnestness than the
> > anger and impatience his words, on paper, might imply.
> >
> > "This show is not just by chance we all bumped into each other in
> > Vancouver. I mean, that's how some people come and review the show, as
> > if it was simple just to get it there. I mean, we went to great length
> > and great pain and through a lot of years of life and experience to be
> > able to be grateful to even meet each other, let alone form it into a
> > band and then put it on the road.
> >
> > "There's a lot more to it than just walking in and shouting if you're
> > drunk or-you know, the people have to think a little bit more. The
> > audience has to sacrifice a little bit of something. They have to give
> > a little bit of energy. They have to listen and look, and then they'll
> > get it, they'll get something good. They think it's going to be this or
> > that, then that itself is the barrier which stops them enjoying, and if
> > you can just open your mind and heart, there's such joy in the world to
> > be had."
> >
> > I was tempted to speak for those who, once their ears were open, heard a
> > destroyed voice doing rearranged songs. But that could wait. I asked
> > him to evaluate the shows so far.
> >
> > At every concert, he said, something good has gotten across to the
> > audience. "There's been bad moments in each show, but I mean it doesn't
> > matter, because the spirit of everybody dancing and digging it. And if
> > you get fifty drunkards who are shouting, bad-mouthing Ravi or whatever,
> > and you get seventeen thousand people who go out of there relatively
> > pleased, some of them ecstatic and some of them who happen to get much
> > more from it than they ever thought....
> >
> > "Because I'm taping the audience every night and asking them about it,
> > and I know we get ten people who say the show sucks, and we get a
> > hundred who, when you say, 'Did you get what you wanted?' say, 'We got
> > much more than we ever hoped for.'"
> >
> > He had no control over his rehearsal and recording schedules, he said.
> > "I don't have control over anything. I believe in God, and he is the
> > supreme controller even down to the rehearsal." So his voice on "Dark
> > Horse" is husky, "and it's more like I am right at this minute. I'm
> > talking about the emphasis that gets put on a thing. People expect so
> > much. If you don't expect anything, life is just one big bonus, but
> > when you expect anything, then you can be let down. I don't let anybody
> > down."
> >
> > What about those who scrounged up $9.50 wanting at least a taste of
> > "Beatle George"? Harrison leaned forward:
> >
> > "Well, why do they want to see if there is a Beatle George, I don't say
> > I'm Beatle George."
> >
> > "Well, one of the things you don't control..."
> >
> > "I do control..."
> >
> > "...is how the audience feels about you. The conceptions..."
> >
> > "Okay, but I certainly am going to control my own concept of me. Gandhi
> > says create and preserve the image of your choice. The image of my
> > choice is not Beatle George. If they want to do that they can go and
> > see Wings, then...Why live in the past? Be here now and now, whether
> > you like me or not, this is what I am."
> >
> > At his press conference, Harrison had made an opening statement: "I
> > really didn't want to do this for a living. I've always wanted to be a
> > lumberjack." What did he mean by that?
> >
> > "Well," said Harrison, "What I mean is like Billy Preston says, 'I ain't
> > tryin' to be your hero.' But I'm just a lumberjack." Softly Harrison
> > began to sing the lumberjacks' lusty and ludicrous anthem by Monty
> > Python and His Flying Circus. He was finally drowned out by laughter
> > from Pat, Olivia, Tom Scott, and me.
> >
> > "You know what I mean?" he asked. "I mean, I'd rather try and uphold
> > something that I believe in than destroy something I don't believe in.
> > Because it's a waste of time."
> >
> > I tried again. I was thinking of Bill Graham's heartfelt criticisms,
> > but Harrison was thinking of that pack of shut-minded reviewers.
> >
> > "There will always be, but...fuck it, my life belongs to me." Quickly,
> > he corrected himself. "It actually doesn't. It belongs to him. My
> > life belongs to the Lord Krishna and there's me dog collar to prove it.
> > I'm just a dog and I'm led around by me collar by Krishna...I'm the
> > servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of
> > Krishna. I'm just a groveling lumberjack lucky to be a grain of dirt in
> > creation. That's how I feel. Never been so humble in all my life, and
> > I feel great."
> >
> > So George Harrison is a grain of dirt. A happy grain of dirt. I accept
> > that, and I'm happy for his happiness. And yet he is in show business,
> > which, from where I sit, requires at least some responsiveness to the
> > audience. Harrison's voice rose.
> >
> > "So I am in show business. And this is my show, right?" He broke out
> > in song again: "Take me as I am or let me go..."
> >
> > "You know, I didn't force you or anybody at gunpoint to come to see me.
> > And I don't care if nobody comes to see me, nobody ever buys another
> > record of me. I don't give a shit, it doesn't matter to me, but I'm
> > going to do what I feel within myself."
> >
> > Harrison was singing again, a snatch of "What the World Needs Now Is
> > Love."
> >
> > And he was smiling again.
> >
> > "I mean, if it's going this well, as I feel, with no voice, I can't wait
> > to have a voice!"
> >
> > Out in the hallway, performers headed for the stage. Behind the
> > curtains, behind the building mood of expectation, Bill Graham
> > supervised last-second details. How did the interview go? he asked.
> >
> > Fine, I said. Harrison was strong-minded and quite happy with his
> > shows.
> >
> > "If he's happy, then I'm happy," said Graham, all in the spirit of show
> > business.
> >
> >
> > Also at: http://members.fortunecity.com/lisabauer/georgestory.html