Did Bob Dylan try to ruin George Harrison’s guitar playing?
Amidst all the competition, George Harrison and Bob Dylan actually ended up being very close friends. The two music icons had come through into the cultural whirlwind of the 1960s around the same time, although on different sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually, Dylan and Harrison would play together in one of the most significant supergroups of all time, the Traveling Wilburys.
Dylan gave big praise to Harrison in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2007. He said: “George had an uncanny ability to just play chords that didn’t seem to be connected in any kind of way and come up with a melody and a song. I don’t know anybody else who could do that, either. What can I tell you? He was from that old line of playing where every note was a note to be counted.”
However, in 1989, Dylan played a bit of a prank on Harrison when the ex-Beatle came into the studio to record a part of one of Dylan’s tunes. Producer Bob Was explained the occurrence on a radio show on Apple Music Country. “There came a day in 1989 when I was in the studio producing, and George Harrison came in to play a guitar solo on a song,” Was began (via Yahoo).
“Bob’s messing with him,” Was continued. “He moves the engineer, Ed Cherney, out of the seat, and he sits in the engineer’s chair. He’s working the remote control.” It appears that Dylan had pulled a trick on Harrison before, as Was added, “George Harrison says, ‘Don’t let him do what he did to me last time, which is he just recorded me one take, and that was it. I didn’t get to fix the thing.’ I said, ‘Okay. Yeah. Sure. No problem.'”
But Dylan was not prepared to cut off his antics just then and, for whatever reason, decided to turn the screw on Harrison another time. Was went on: “Bob, of course, hears that, and he’s going to do the same thing. George hasn’t even had a chance to tune up or to hear the song. He doesn’t even know what key it’s in. Bob fast forwards to the solo and is like, ‘Go.’ He hits record.”
Thankfully, Harrison being the experienced guitarist that he was, quickly learned what key he needed to be playing in and gave it a go. “All things considered, it was a respectable effort, but it wasn’t the solo that you wanted from George Harrison,” Was admitted. “Bob shuts the machine off after the solo. He says, ‘Okay. That’s great. Thank you, man.’ George Harrison turns to me he says, ‘Help, Don. What do you think?’ Bob looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah, what do you think?'”
No guitarist wants to be put under the pressure of having to record a guitar solo in just one take without a chance to give it a second shot, but evidently, Dylan liked to play the wind-up merchant from time to time. So after Dylan tried to play the same card twice, Was didn’t know whether to go along with Dylan saying, “That’s the take”, or give Harrison a second chance, as he deserved.
“I’m in this tough bind,” Was continued, “I thought, ‘All right. You got to tell the truth here.’ So I said, ‘It was good, man. But let’s tune up and try another take. Let’s see if we beat it.’ George was like, ‘Thank you.’ I guess I passed Bob’s test. But that was a pivotal moment, realising that I’m not there to be a fan and that they’re actually paying me to do something.”
Thankfully, Was allowed Harrison to get another chance to record the solo again, which is the least he could have done for the legendary guitarist. It should be pointed out that Dylan most likely knew he could pull Harrison’s leg a bit, given the fact that the two music icons were such good friends. But the fact still remains that Dylan must have been driving the ex-Beatles crazy.
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