The terrible George Harrison solo Bob Dylan called “perfect”
It’s not all that easy to explain what made George Harrison one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
He wasn’t the kind of technician that Eric Clapton was and never a showman genius like Jimi Hendrix, but he always approached every one of his lead breaks as an opportunity to create another melody in whatever tune he worked on. He did a lot of his singing behind the fretboard, but it’s not like he was ever going to say that he had a perfect track record on guitar, either.
Even the most celebrated musicians in the world have their off days, and while Harrison did morph into one of the most accomplished musicians in The Beatles, it was easy to hear him get a little bit nervous in the early days. His style was focused squarely on the blues and country players like Carl Perkins, but there’s almost a hiccup that you can hear on those early records, as if he’s trying his best to hit every note right but falls a light ahead of the beat.
Once he got his confidence, though, Harrison’s touch on the slide guitar was another matter entirely. He had found the kind of voice that he had always been searching for since he started working with Eastern musicians, and even if he wasn’t the most adept sitarist of all time, he knew that he could express himself a lot better on a guitar by playing those soaring harmonies that could make anyone tear up.
There was no one who could duplicate the way that guitar sounded, but Harrison was the first to admit when the songs weren’t there, either. Extra Texture is the sound of him getting more and more tired of living the Los Angeles lifestyle, and while Gone Troppo is admittedly pretty funny to listen to, given how pissed Harrison was at his record company, it’s not like the songs were there. But after working with the Traveling Wilburys, Harrison finally rediscovered that love of playing music all over again.
And while most of the Wilburys were in awe over Roy Orbison whenever he walked into the studio, Harrison’s inner music nerd always freaked out over Bob Dylan. He had already been an avid fan since The Beatle days and even co-wrote a handful of tunes with him, so it was only natural for him to show up at the studio if Dylan felt one of his tracks needed a solo. Then again, Harrison and Dylan’s standards for a guitar were two very different things.
It’s not like anyone’s pointing to Under the Red Sky as Dylan’s best record, but producer Don Was remembered Dylan pushing for Harrison to play a solo out of tune, saying, “It was a respectable solo, but way out of tune – George didn’t even know what key the song was in. Bob indicated that the solo was perfect and that we were done. George rolled his eyes and asked, ‘What do you think, Don?’. How am I gonna tell George Harrison his solo wasn’t up to snuff? I said, ‘It was really good, but let’s see if you can do an even better one.’”
While Harrison’s solos on those early Beatles records were a little bit out of tune as well, having that same kind of mojo this far into his career would have been a mistake. This phase of Dylan’s career was admittedly more ramshackle and deliberate, but Harrison wasn’t going to sit there and force himself to forget everything that he knew after years of playing the best guitar he possibly could.
Even if the solo was crap, Harrison never held it against Dylan, even quoting Dylan’s work when he started making the beginnings of the album Brainwashed. He clearly still had an affinity for everything that Dylan had done, but sometimes their artistic drives were heading in two separate directions.
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