“They had great tunes”: The band George Harrison thought were utterly timeless
“George was much more than just the guitar player, he actually did contribute a tremendous amount to the thinking behind the songs and the influence of music,” George Martin once professed. Whether it was the mystic sounds of India, complex jazz chords, or his subtle nuance, to state the obvious, The Beatles would not have been the same band without George Harrison.
He might have been dubbed ‘The Quiet Beatle’, but his impact perhaps rings out loudest in what became of their sound. Struggling to find an inlet as a songwriter, his contributions followed a more complex path as he sought to exert his influence in different ways. He ventured around the globe and across every genre, hoping to find nuggets of inspiration that he could feed into the mix. However, as the outfit drew to a close, in his view, a new act was achieving this feat in a manner few others have ever matched.
In 1957, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road was first published. Open any given modern copy, and you may well find Bob Dylan printed into the sleeve proclaiming, “It changed my life, like it changed everyone else’s.” The tale of catching culture on the wing—of sampling every shade of society— is one that spawned a generation of beats, who followed in his footsteps and wavered a gingham-clad path across the breadth of a bulging continent.
The Band consisted of Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson. And they could aptly be described as a pariah group of musicians equivalent to boxing journeymen. Their bouts, however, were about coming together rather than settling differences. Covering all corners of North America, this band of brothers happened upon each other in a cultural march that could be fresh for the pages of On The Road itself. Levon Helm was from Arkansas, but he picked up Robbie Robertson in Ontario, Canada, where musicians could ask for a higher price.
Along the way, they played every genre in every gin joint, and it infused their sound with diversity and authenticity. It made them timeless, as George Harrison explains, “It was very kind of country, hillbilly. A little rhythm and blues, a little rock ‘n’ roll and a lot of that kind of country or hillbilly kind of feeling,“ he told VH1 Classic Albums. “I’ve got a jukebox in my house, and their albums are on it. I only put music in there that I don’t wanna keep changing.”
So, he spun the album a thousand times over in his solo years, studying the way that they wove all kinds of strands of culture together in order to create something unique and powerful. They were clearly a unit with vision and purpose. This gave them a timeless appeal. In this regard, they reminded him of The Beatles, as he continued, “I want stuff that there is a long life to it. That’s why I valued The Band’s music.“
“Artistically, I respect The Band enormously.“
George Harrison
Drawn into their sound by the allure of intermingling individuals, like every band at their best, he explained, “I think, in that context, when you have all these different voices coming and going, it carries an album. It makes it hold the interest and I like that a lot. But I don’t think when I first heard it, I was really aware of what was really going on. I was just absorbing the sound. I was just being carried along by what I was hearing.”
The Band were not unaware of this strength themselves. In fact, their legendary farewell show, The Last Waltz, saw them play on the premise and keep proceedings fresh by inviting a lauded string of celebrated friends to contribute to the concert. It was the band’s crowning triumph, but in Harrison’s book, it was no mightier than what they had already achieved on record.
“To this day, you can play Stage Fright and Big Pink,“ he told Music Magazine, “And although the technology’s changed, those records come off as beautifully conceived and uniquely sophisticated. They had great tunes, played in a great spirit, and with humour and versatility.“
In many ways, he identified with The Band, too, adding, “Artistically, I respect The Band enormously. All the different guys in the group sang, and Robbie Robertson used to say he was lucky, because he could write songs for a voice like Levon’s. What a wise and generous attitude.”
Perhaps recognising himself as a musician in a similar mould, he became good friends with Robbie Robertson over the years, crediting the creative colossus with getting him through 1968, the year Harrison called The Beatles’ “winter of discontent”.
