George Harrison explains why Buddy Holly was “one of the greatest people”
The late George Harrison was better placed than most to discuss the greatest musicians of all time, given that he himself was one of the industry’s brightest lights.
One of the most outstanding guitarists of his time, from both a technical and songwriting standpoint, Harrison gradually segued away from being solely the six-stringed master of The Beatles. The Liverpudlian took his work to the next level in the second half of the band’s career by finding his voice in a vastly opposing reality to his moniker as the ‘Quiet One’. As Harrison developed as a solo artist, he cultivated a distinctive style which ultimately resulted in his timeless 1970 masterpiece, All Things Must Pass.
A true student of all music, from the rock ‘n’ roll of his early years to the Eastern music that would have him rapt by the late 1960s, Harrison was an interesting case in the way that he could lucidly articulate why an artist and their music was so consequential — all delivered with a dose of authentic personality underpinning his accounts. Harrison demonstrated this skill when sitting down with Alan Freeman of Rock Around the World in 1974, a discussion which was used heavily in Martin Scorsese’s 2011 documentary on the late Beatles man, Living in the Material World.
Asked if he was in a music category of his own, Harrison explained that this was a potential before saying that all he could do was draw upon the music he’d been exposed to – his personal history of music. He said: “In a way, maybe I am. I mean, all I can do is draw upon what I’ve been exposed to, and I can give you my history of music. Um, the first thing I can remember hearing was ‘One Meatball’. Uh, and I don’t know who did it, but it was [singing] ‘One meatball…'”
Harrison continued reflecting on his musical history, stating: “And I was so knocked out when I heard Ry Cooder doing it. Next, I remember people like Kay Starr, Ruby Murray, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, and all that thing that was going on – must’ve been in the late ’40s – early 50s? And the first thing that gassed me was Heartbreak Hotel, Elvis Presley. Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and those things. Then that led to the time when I started being in the band.”
As the conversation continued, the host asked Harrison if he ever looked back on an artist who impressed him “enormously” at the outset of his career that later did not have the same magnitude. The former Beatles man said there we “definitely” examples before switching focus to “one of the greatest people” for his musical journey, rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Buddy Holly. A fan of his singing, guitar-playing and original songwriting, Holly’s work on the six-string had a particularly momentous impact on Harrison.
The former Beatle said: “Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, um, I think one of the greatest people for me was Buddy Holly because, first of all, he sang, wrote his own tunes, was a guitar player, and he was very good – exceptionally good – but as a guitar player I started trying to learn the guitar. I got a manual, and it showed me all the wrong chords”.
He concluded: “It showed like one or two fingers. It showed me C to G. I learned this [plays guitar], and then a few months or a year later, I found, ‘Those stupid buggers have given me a manual that doesn’t show me all the notes!’ So then I had to start learning again, but Buddy Holly was the first time I ever heard [plays guitar] A to F-sharp minor. A to F-sharp minor, fantastic! He’s opening up new worlds there. And then [plays guitar], [singing] ‘Pretty pretty, Peggy Sue’. A to F. Buddy Holly was sensational, so I mean a little bit of that rubbed off in as much as I no longer have a fear of changing from A to F.“
Watch George Harrison and Bob Dylan cover Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’ below.
