The Steel Guitar Forum

George is dead, long live George. We will miss him. As a slide player he changed us all.

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Steels and Guitars. Emmons PP, Nationals, Dan-O's, ES 340, Tube Amps only! "Blue Sparks From Hell" and "Kings in Disguise".

We knew he had been fighting cancer for years, but it's still a shock to wake up in a world without George Harrison. He created some beautiful music. May he rest in peace.

He was one of the most elegant and understated lead guitarists of his time. He was to British Rock what BB King is to blues. We can all learn a lesson from George.

I will never forget the solo in "All My Lovin" -- I was a big Chet Atkins fan and couldn't believe some English kid actually listened to Chet . . . until then. His slide guitar work was equally melodic. He always left room for the music to breathe.

Rest easy, George. You've made millions of us smile.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro

I just listened to a cut on the way to work of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". It wasn't the album cut, but it was one from the Beatles Anthology. It was only George on acoustic guitar with a little organ by Paul. He was a great acoustic guitarist and played some beautiful stuff on this one! I also loved the slide stuff he did with the Traveling Wilburys. Sorry to see him go out so young!

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Have a good 'un! JH U-12


<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jerry Hayes on 30 November 2001 at 12:27 PM.]</p></FONT>

My steel guitar gently weeps. RIP.

I had the pleasure of meeting George once and got to spent about 45 min's talking with him. If you had never even heard of the Fab Four and did not know who he was, you would have thought that you had just met a really really nice person. RIP.
JE:-(>

I used to think it was George playing slide on All Things Must Pass, but it was Pete Drake playing steel guitar.
George was asked in an interview: "When are the Beatles going to get back together"?
His reply was: "As long as John Lennon stays dead, there will be no Beatles reunion"
We will miss you George.....................

One of my formative rock moments was in his "Concert For Bengladesh" film. There was a trio set with Bob Dylan on guitar, Leon Russell (I think) on bass, and George playing slide guitar. His slide playing was just perfect to my ears.

I often wondered why he didn't take up pedal steel. I'm sure he'd have been a natural.

There's some nice slide guitar on his "Gone Troppo" album, too.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E7, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

In 1966 the Beatles performed their last live concert at Candlestick Park in S.F. I was 14 and seated in the top deck with 3 of my school pals and a some binoculars. I was so excited when they first came out that I couldn't hold the binoculars to my eyes. I was shaking too much.

As a kid from Oakland, CA it was the Beatles' rendition of "Act Naturaly" and a few other country songs that led me to the steel guitar.

There's a storie I've heard about a woman (20 years ago or so) on Maui who was swimming in the ocean and got swept out by the current. She managed to swim to shore and was rescued by 2 men who happened to be on the beach she landed on. It was George Harrison and Eric Clapton who rescued her.

Many tunes by The Beatles lend themselves quite nicely to our instrument-I love Lloyd Green's version of the Harrison classic "Here Comes The Sun"

As some of my friends know,I worked for rock piano man Leon Russell for about 5 years spanning the late 70s/early 80s.One day in 1978,I was fiddling around in the control room of Leon's studio and I looked thru the glass and saw him talking to some guy across the studio.A few minutes later I had to walk past them on my way into another room and realized it was George Harrison.I was aware that Leon knew George,but it was an amazing moment nonetheless.Leon turned to me and said George,this is Mike...Mike,this is George.We all ended up hanging out the rest of the day and listening to tapes Leon and I were working on.George was kind enough to compliment my guitar tracks - which is a feeling I'll never forget.Later,we watched an advance copy of a movie he was co-producing called "Meet The Rutles" which was a quasi-documentary spoof on the Beatles along the lines of Spinal Tap.
Another time a few months later,I was working alone in the studio and George popped in unannounced and asked where Leon was.Leon was out on tour w/Willie Nelson so George and I just hung out for the rest of the day.George asked if there was any beer around and there wasn't - so he drove me up to the 7-11 on the corner of Burbank and Cahuenga in his BMW and we stood in line with a bunch of Mexicans buying beer - and nobody recognized him.I was around him maybe 2 or 3 more times around Leon's studio over the next year or so and the more I was around him,the less I thought about him being a Beatle - and instead just a real nice guy named George.He always went out of his way to put people around him at ease.He was the most humble and regular guy you'd ever want to meet and like I said,he'd be the one to volunteer to run out for beer.
There is another connection with George and that is through my wife Deborah.She and Olivia used to work together at A&M Records in the publishing department and became close friends.Soon after that,Olivia starting working as a receptionist/secretary for George's Dark Horse label which was distributed by A&M and whose office was also in the A&M building complex down on La Brea Ave.- and that's how Olivia met George.Deborah hasn't spoken to Olivia in years and we're having trouble getting through at the moment for obvious reasons.But anyhow,this thing is hitting close to home for me.Everybody knew it was coming but that doesn't make it any easier when it finally happens. -MJ-

This is a horrible end to an already horrible year. Loosing another Beatle really sucks. George Harrison was as cool as anybody can be. There are no words to describe the magnitude of this loss. R.I.P. George.

Regards,
HH

Anybody know about if there are many Beatle products (Hard Day's Night, Help, etc.) available on DVD yet?

Regards,
HH

I never met George but I always liked The Beatles and I always felt his guitar playing was excellent. He will be missed.

In 1979, I was playing at The Copa Cabana in Tokyo. John Lennon and Yoko Ono came in and hung out for 3 hours. John was a fun & crazy guy. I never will forget when he said "All musicians are my friends".

When he got up to leave he came to the stage and bowed to everybody in the band.

I just had a call from a friend in the UK - the BBC put a tribute programme together to mark George's passing.

Included in the selected footage was an excerpt from a TV show first broadcast in 1976 in which I played steel - Eric Idle (a close friend to George) wrote and hosted the show (called 'Rutland Weekend Television' - hence the above-mentioned 'Rutles' connection) the theme of which was general euphoria that an ex-Beatle had been persauded to perform on the show...

We next see George dressed head to foot in a pirate's outfit, complete with stuffed parrot on his shoulder, quoting "Treasure Island"-like epithets ('Shiver me timbers', 'Aha, Jim lad!', etc) and refusing to co-operate by singing one of his famous songs. He continues to appear in this garb from time to time until the very end of the show. Then he appears dressed in a conventional suit and acoustic guitar as we play the unmistakable strains of the 'My Sweet Lord' intro (these played on my 'ZB' D10)....

All is not as it seems, however - as the intro finishes, he chimes in with a totally alien melody, singing, "I want to be a pirate, it's a pirate's life for me, I'll hoist the Jolly Roger, and sail on the BBC..." and so on!

Well, OK, you had to be there, but it was enormously funny in the studio. Everyone was impressed at how unassuming and unaffected George was, and how willing he was to 'send himself up'.

We spent several days together, and he came to one of our gigs - we talked music, guitars and - yes, Chet Atkins almost non-stop. He was a thoroughly likable and humble human being and I feel fortunate to have the pleasure of working with such a gentleman.

Rest in peace, George.

Just think of some of his work. All of it a perfect combination of tone, touch, and creativity. Sound familar?? This is far from a complete list but represents many definitive moments in rock-guitar history. If any of us did even 1 or 2 items of this magnitude, we would have a lot to be proud of.

The intro to Ticket To Ride
The intro and solo in A Hard Day's Night
The solo in Taxman
The famous Help lick
Ine Intro to Eight Days A Week
The solo in Let It Be
The intro to Here Comes The Sun
The solo in Something
The solo and fill work in While My Guitar Gently Weeps
The incredible guitar work in Abbey Road
The sitar work in Norweigan Wood
The solo in Michelle

and on and on and on....

Good list, Jeff. To that I would add:
Solo on Till There Was You. Remember that one??

Yep. A classic.

The intro to And I Love Her. How famous is that!

Actually, Paul played the solo in "Taxman", and Eric Clapton played the solo stuff in "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"...despite what Murray the K might say, Clapton was the real "Fifth Beatle".<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jeremy Steele on 03 December 2001 at 11:52 AM.]</p></FONT><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jeremy Steele on 03 December 2001 at 12:00 PM.]</p></FONT>

How about the 7-10 minutes of "Within You,
Without You" sitar X-troadinaire on
the, uh, please TAKE ONE GIANT STEP FORWARD, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP.

RIP, George

ChipsAhoy

My all-time favorite George solo is from Nowhere Man. The tone makes my teeth shake.