“Madly in love”: The singer George Harrison called his favourite
Over the course of the 1960s, most of the world fell madly in love with a group of four lads from Liverpool. Initially, The Beatles endeared themselves to audiences close to home by performing at the now-iconic Cavern Club. Then, they set their sights on the rest of the country as they began touring further afield and released their debut record. It wouldn’t be long before they broke America with an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and Beatlemania began to push its way across the world.
By the midpoint of the decade, almost the entire globe had been converted to the Fab Four fandom. The suited pop stars had won over teens all over the world with their rocking and rolling sound, but their fanaticism became too much to handle. Overwhelmed by the intensity of Beatlemania, the band opted to take a step back from touring to focus on working in the studio.
Although this quelled the intensity of 1960s Beatlemania, the love for the band worldwide never diminished. As the band began to focus on innovating studio production, pulling in elements of psychedelia and experimenting with sampling, they only furthered their unparalleled legacy in the history of music.
Beatlemania certainly doesn’t run quite as rife anymore, but admiration and appreciation for the band’s contributions to the world of music are still wide-spanning. Stop anyone on the street and ask them for the most well-loved band in history, and it’s more than likely that their response will be the Beatles. Over half a century since they broke up, they remain the biggest band in the world.
After the band broke up in 1970, the world was left to deal with a strange form of heartbreak to come to terms with the abrupt end of the Fab Four. Meanwhile, the band members themselves were on the rebound, working on themselves in their solo careers and falling in love with other artists making great music alongside them. During an interview with Beetle Magazine in the mid-1970s, guitarist George Harrison shared a few of the contemporary names he admired at the time.
The first name on Harrison’s list, and the musician he claimed to be “madly in love with”, was Smokey Robinson. The talented singer started his career in the Miracles, a Motown group who lent their harmonised voices to soothing tracks like ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ and ‘You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me’. Eventually, Robinson would also embark upon a solo career in the 1970s. Somewhere along the way, he endeared himself to the Beatles guitarist.
Harrison described Robinson as his “favourite”, and he wasn’t the only Beatle who admired the soul star. John Lennon once named a Robinson song as one of his favourites, and there are elements of his sound to be found within the catalogue of the Beatles. However, Robinson wasn’t the only contemporary artist Harrison shared his love for at the time.
He also picked out Dickey Betts, who played with the Allman Brothers Band, as well as Ry Cooder, who he described as “sensational”. Harrison’s picks span formative pop influences, guitar rockers, and even film composers, showing off his wide-ranging interests in the years following the Beatles. Their influences would bleed into his own solo work as he began to assert his place as the most underutilised songwriter in the Beatles.
