Word: harrison
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...were terrified by the crush of Beatlemaniacs and thinking not only of John F. Kennedy's assassination but also of death threats the Beatles had received in the wake of Lennon's recent "We're more popular than Jesus" comment.) With the end of live performance, the band, and Harrison in particular, moved on to what he considered more serious endeavors. His marriage to Patti Boyd in early '66 had altered his perspective, as had what he called "the dental experience," which, he said, "made us see life in a different light...
...Harrison's guitar idols had included not only rocker Carl Perkins but also Andres Segovia, and he had worked hard to master an intricate, precise technique (his later experiments with 12-string guitars, not to mention his sitar playing, would be vastly influential in rock music). Now concertgoers couldn't even hear him, and, worse, they didn't care. Harrison, who turned 21 just after that first brief American tour, wondered to the others on the flight home, "How f______ stupid it all is. All that big hassle to make it, only to end up as performing fleas...
...would be busted in March 1969). The music they continued to make in the studio changed. It got denser, trippier. The single Strawberry Fields was followed by the seminal album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the Beatles led their generation into a psychedelic world. As Harrison began to emerge as a songwriter, his exquisitely arranged compositions - Within You, Without You; Love You Too; Blue Jay Way - were informed not only by drug use but, in their melody and message, also by his increasing interest in Eastern religion, culture and music...
...provide some zippy chase music. George started noodling on a sitar - if indeed one can noodle on a sitar - and asking questions. This led to exotic instrumentation on the Lennon ballad Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) and later to an apprenticeship with master sitarist Ravi Shankar, who gave Harrison lessons on the instrument and in life itself. "He was a friend, a disciple and son to me," said Shankar, who visited Harrison for the last time on Wednesday. "George was a brave and beautiful soul, full of love, childlike humor and a deep spirituality. We spent the day before...
...Beatles' famous trip to India in 1968, where they meditated under the guidance of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, was largely Harrison's show. He and Patti had become devotees of the religious leader and arranged for the band to spend time at the maharishi's ashram in the Himalayan foothills. Other celebrities - Mia Farrow, the singer Donovan, Mike Love of the Beach Boys - went on retreat as well, and the episode is remembered as one of the pivotal, if oddest, events of the Flower Power '60s. Indisputably beautiful fruits of the getaway were the songs composed there. John said...