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So Sad: How The World Reacted To A Beatle’s Passing

So Sad: How The World Reacted To A Beatle’s Passing

BY PAUL SEXTON and MEUNDA NEWMAN

LONDON—From the American flag flying at half-staff on the Capitol Records tower in Los Angeles to the candlelit vigil in his hometown of Liverpool, England, examples of how the “quiet Beatle" touched countless millions have been greatly in evidence since his Nov. 29 death.

Within hours of the announcement that George Harrison had succumbed to cancer at age 58 in LA, simple but profound outpourings of respect for the former Beatle could be found everywhere. In a demonstration of the universal affection for the inspirational body of music he left behind and the values of global harmony that he espoused, news of Harrison’s demise dominated every medium, at least temporarily eclipsing those global tribulations that he so deplored.

Meanwhile, the musician's most resonant solo hit, 1971’s “My Sweet Lord,” was shaping up as a pre-holiday reissue candidate, at least in his homeland. A senior source at EMI Records U.K. told Billboard at press time that there was “a 90% chance” that the single would be rereleased, although it might be as late as Christmas Eve. One leading British tabloid newspaper has been campaigning for such a reissue; if it happens, a charity fund-raising component is anticipated.

Radio stations around the world responded to the news with special programming and tributes throughout Nov. 30, and the weekend, while retailers reported upswings in sales of Harrison and Beatles catalog. Colleagues spoke not only of his pre-eminence as a songwriter/guitarist but also the indomitable spirituality that Harrison carried with him, even when he knew the grave nature of his illness.

Jim Capaldi (formerly of Traffic), Harrison’s friend and contemporary who was one of the last musicians to work with him, noted, “I’ve said it a lot of times, but for me, the greatest opening line of any song, ever, [from Harrison’s 1968 Beatles composition “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”] is, ‘I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping.’ That’s it.”

All elevator and telephone-hold music at Capitol in Los Angeles Nov. 30 was by Harrison or the Beatles, while at the request of his family, fans gathered Dec. 3 in Liverpool and other group landmarks, such as Abbey Road studios in London and Strawberry Fields in New York City’s Central Park, to observe a minute of reflection on his life. Even before this, his wife, Olivia, and his son, Dhani, had issued a statement saying they had been “deeply touched by the outpouring of love and compassion from people around the world."

Paul McCartney appeared before cameras in the U.K. to express his sorrow at the loss of “a beautiful man,” while Ringo Starr said in a statement that he would miss Harrison’s “sense of laughter.” Queen Elizabeth II expressed her sadness on hearing the news, and there were tributes from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush.

In the days after his passing, discussions gathered speed about plans for Harrison’s existing catalog, as well as the new material on which he had been working as a belated follow-up to his last solo studio album, the 1987 Warner Bros, set Cloud Nine. Without a current Harrison recording contract in existence, both Warner and EMI declined to comment on the future of any unissued work or the catalog program that began with the Jan. 23, 2001, release of the remastered and augmented version of 1970’s All Things Must Pass.

EMI holds worldwide rights to the Beatles canon and Harrison’s Apple recordings of 1970-75. All the latter albums “should be available everywhere,” says Mike Heatley, VP of catalog and strategic marketing for EMI Records U.K., who has been closely involved with the record company’s Beatles and Beatles- related activities. These include 1969’s WonderwallMusic and Electronic Sound, as well as Living in the Material World (1973), Dark Horse (1974), Extra Texture (Read All About It) (1975), and The Best of George Harrison (1976).

EMI Recorded Music senior VP Rupert Perry, who remembers Harrison as “a lovely man,” took a phone call from him last year about All Things Must Pass, “saying that he wanted to rerelease [the album] and redo it, and that he had all these great ideas—which he did.” EMI Records U.K. & Eire president Tony Wadsworth adds, “I know George was very chuffed [pleased] with the way the reissue turned out.”

More complicated is 1972’s The Concert for Bangla Desh, because the original rights were split between Capitol Records for North America and CBS Records (Sony Music) for the rest of the world. EMI officials declined to discuss the reissue of this package, as they often do concerning the Beatles’ legacy.

In a June 1999 interview with Billboard editor in chief Timothy White, Harrison said the rights to his post- Apple recordings for his own Dark Horse label—which first went through A&M Records and then Warner Bros.—had reverted to the musician. The artist said the same was true of albums by Traveling Wilburys, of which he was a founding member.

The Sunday Times in England carried a lead story Dec. 2 about the body of new recordings whose existence Harrison had revealed in the ’99 Billboard story. The newspaper quoted his fellow Wilbury contributor and confidant, drummer Jim Keltner, who last saw Harrison Nov. 25. “Some of the new songs are very poignant, concerning his life in the last few years,” Keltner said. “The CD is very close to finishing.” One song cited by the Times, “Rising Son,” is believed to acknowledge both Harrison’s commitment to the Hindu faith and the creative emergence of his 23-year-old offspring.

A demonstration of the latter comes in “Horse to the Water,” which was written by George and Dhani for Small World Big Band, the U.K. album via Warner Strategic Marketing helmed by another of George’s musical allies, English keyboard play- er/broadcaster Jools Holland. In his final recording, George taped a lead vocal for the song Oct. 1 at his home in Switzerland; the all-star album, also featuring Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, and others, debuted inside the British top 20 in late November.

As for the media response to Harrison’s death, radio station KCMO Kansas City, Mo., typified the heartfelt sense of duty by switching to an all-Beatles format at 5 a.m. Nov. 30 that lasted until midnight. “There was a lot of emotion from the audience calling in,” PD Chris Hoffman says. “People called in to the morning show saying they [were] starting to feel a sense of their own mortality.” At top 40 outlet 95.8 Capital FM in London, program controller Jeff Smith says the station followed its news flash with “Something,” “When We Was Fab,” and “Got My Mind Set on You,” while at London alternative outlet Xfm, tributes were paid throughout the day alongside listener requests for such tracks as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

AC outlet Hundert 6 in Berlin, Germany—a country that will be forever associated with the Beatles’ formative years—played one relevant song per hour followed by a six-hour tribute from 6 p.m., according to music director Rainer Gruhn. WFBQ Indianapolis also played an entire day and evening of music by Harrison, the Beatles, and Traveling Wilburys, PD Marty Bender says, while Vince Richards, rock operations manager at KKRW Houston, reports that the classic rock station “immediately went to a Beatles A-Z [format].” U.S. program syndicators Jones Radio Networks and Westwood One both offered Harrison programs free to affiliates.

Retailers uniformly reported intense demand for such albums as The Best of George Harrison, All Things Must Pass, and the Beatles’ 1. By noon Nov. 30, Tower Records in London’s Piccadilly Circus had moved displays of Christmas priorities aside to give Harrison’s records prominence. Colin Cassidy, manager of an HMV flagship store in Manchester, England, says it had sold all its existing Harrison inventory by Dec. 1.

Jim Henderson, GM of Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, says Beatles alumnus Billy Preston appeared instore to film an NBC interview, while Borders VP Len Cosimano adds: “We put the Beatles book [Anthology] and the Beatles product that specifically had strong Harrison cuts, like The White Album [aka The Beatles] and Abbey Road, together in one area of the store. We’ve seen a significant increase in sales of the Harrison catalog, as well as [that of] the Beatles.” At Amazon.com, editor in chief Keith Moerer says sales of All Things Must Pass took the album from No. 616 before Harrison’s death to No. 1, while The Best of George Harrison climbed from No. 5,279 to reach the top 10.

Personal anecdotes came from the likes of Mo Ostin, former chairman of Warner Bros. Records, a close ally of Harrison’s, and now cochief of DreamWorks Records. “His social and spiritual beliefs, as well as his music, affected all of our lives,” Ostin says. “He helped change the world for the better.”

Producer Russ Titelman recalls working on Harrison’s eponymous 1979 release, which included the U.S. top 20 hit “Blow Away.” After initial labor at Warner Bros.’ Amigo studio facility, Titelman flew to England to Harrison’s home studio in Henley- on-Thames. “I was very jet lagged. I must have slept for 12 hours,” he says. “The next morning, I started to come awake a little bit and heard someone outside my door singing ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ It was George. That’s how I woke up on my first morning there. He was crouching outside my door, playing the guitar and singing. He was my alarm clock.”

Steve Winwood, who played synthesizer on “Blow Away,” recalled meeting Harrison for the first time during the recording of All Things Must Pass. “I found George to be a lovely, down-to-earth bloke who had a wonderful sense of humor that never strayed far from his Liverpool roots,” Winwood tells Billboard. “He was a very gifted songwriter and musician and created his own distinctive style.”

Lenny Waronker, president of Warner Bros, during Harrison’s Dark Horse era and now co-head of DreamWorks with Ostin, remembers the genesis of Traveling Wilburys, the group George formed with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. “He had talked off and on about a band, and he wanted to call it the Wilburys,” Waronker says. “We were getting ready to put out a single from Cloud Nine that was going to be released in Germany. He did a B-side, and he came in and played it for Mo and me. It was [what became the Wilburys’ first hit] ‘Handle With Care.’

“He had manipulated all these characters together to do this dream thing he wanted to do,” Waronker adds. “Fortunately, Mo and I had the exact same reaction and said, ‘That’s not a B-side!’ We had a brief conversation about whether he could get them all together again to do an album. It was George's sort of dream playground.” Tony Barrow, the Beatles' press officer from 1962 to 1968, says Harrison “was never a showman like Paul, an exhibitionist like John, or a clown like Ringo. He was simply a dedicated musician who loved to play and sing and write his songs. And he had a wonderfully dry sense of humor—he could be just as witty as Lennon but without the hurtful cruelty.”

English guitarist Tony Sheridan— who worked with the Beatles in Hamburg’s Top Ten club before they started performing on their own and recorded the early single “My Bonnie” with them—describes the young Harrison’s guitar-playing as the “cherry on top” of the group’s early appeal. “When he came to me, George was the youngest and obsessed with perfecting the guitar, ideally overnight. I taught him everything 1 knew.” Dicky Tarrach, drummer for the group Rattles—which alternated on stage with the Beatles at the Star Club in Hamburg—recalls that Harrison was always very reticent. “Back then, life was made up almost exclusively of rehearsing and playing music,” he says. “The rest of our time we devoted to getting to know the local Hamburg girls. I always thought he was the calmest and most collected of any of them onstage, and this made him likeable.”

Jim Capaldi, for whom Harrison played guitar on “Anna Julia” for Capaldi’s current album, Living on the Outside (SBK), says, “He was the one who brought us all to a different awareness, especially of the Eastern thing. He orchestrated that whole spiritual thing of turning East.

“He was the first one to do anything on a huge scale for charity, for people in need,” Capaldi adds. “[The concert for] Bangla Desh stands out as a milestone, and it was truly to help people. And he had a great sense of humor—that’s one of the things I’m going to miss the most.”

Additional reporting by Jill Pessel- nick in Los Angeles, Wolfgang Spahr in Hamburg, and Adam White, Emmanuel Legrand, and Adam Haworth in London.

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