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Ravi
Shankar wrote a lovely piece in The
New York Times. Sadly, my own involvement with Mr Harrison
was very very very remote (!) and it started in my early teens
trying to figure out the lead guitar riff on I Saw Her Standing
There. It was hard, as it required the use of many fingers
(I had figured out Hank Marvin by then. With one finger and plectrum
you can fake a good Apache!)
Then
with Norwegian Wood it started to get interesting. Up to
then my musical adventures came mainly from my mother's influence
- Beatles, poppy and jazzy stuff and rather too much Chopin. Musically
my father Richard de Silva Thenabadu was a million
miles away as he studied and composed Indian music as a hobby.
Within You Without You gave us a shared interest in music,
in fact he was a great fan of Anil Bhagwat who played tabla
on Love You To on the Revolver album. It was a source
of great amusement to my father that I (the 'snob') would end
up listening to his kind of music after all!
Shorty
and the Tall Boys happened for me just when I was getting
my teeth into Abbey Road which was released the previous
September. Something was on our list at every gig, masterfully
sung by Lal Dias (rhythm guitar). I did the stringy arrangement
on the keyboard.
When
George Harrison became George Harrison in the 70s
I prefered his work to any of the other post-Beatles Beatles.
All those beautifully placed diminished and augmented chords and
the trademark slide guitar that we first heard on Something.
Lennon and McCatney avoided these nice colours. Paul McCartney's
November 1986 single, the name of which I have forgotten but he
played it on the Royal Variety Show, had a F# dim which
sounded very 'borrowed' to me. But Michelle works beautifully
I have to say.
My
favourite Harri tracks were Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On
Earth) and The Light That Had Lighted The World both
from the Living In The Material World album. Later Cloud
9 grabbed my attention (1987). The Jeff Lynn treatment
blended nicely with the Harrison material I thought.
Did
you ever see The Ruttles? This was a hilarious send up
of the Beatles story made by Eric Idle of Monty Python
fame, including brilliantly clever parodies on Beatles songs by
Neil Innes. Idle played Dirk McQuickly and Innes
played Ron Nasty (McCartney and Lennon). While George Harrison
himself appeared in a small cameo role as a TV reporter it was
a nice touch that the Harrison character in the band was actually
played by an actual Indian guy Rikki Fatar (I think he
was) looking ... er ... very Indian. So when the TV show Stars
In Their Eyes (a look-alike sound-alike show in the UK) was
looking for contestants I sent in my entry as ... (what a surprise)
George Harrison. Nobody had done him so far to my knowledge. I
sent them a tape of me doing Give Me Love and While
My Guitar Gently Weeps. Well, they never called!!! You can
hear it on this site soon. Perhaps you'll see for yourself why
they never called!
I
guess Abbey Road 2001 became the alternative Stars In Their
Eyes for me. No makeup, no transformation - just the songs. And
the perfect occasion. Not a sad occasion but a celebration. The
audience were the performers, and the performers were the audience.
Thank you for the music George!
By
the way, here's the first of a series of Harrison guitar tips
from me. For Here Comes The Sun you need a capo on the
7th fret. It's in A and you play it in a D shape to begin with.
I first learned it from Saturday Night Live where Harrison
did a spot with Paul Simon.
Hiran
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