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George Harrison |
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LIVERPOOL LEGENDS TAKE FANS BACK…
ALL THOSE YEARS AGO
HELP FROM LOUISE HARRISON
by Tom Lounges
My declaration here in this column that George Harrison has forever been my favorite Beatle and one of my favorite rock artists of all time, will come as no surprise to long time reader’s of my various columns and this magazine.
Nor should that statement surprise anyone regularly listens to my Sunday night radio show, Night Rock, on X-ROCK 103.9.
I play more George Harrison solo music than any other solo Beatle’s muisc and when I play the Beatles, I spin more George-written songs (“Taxman”, “Something” “Savoy Shuffle”, etc.) than those written by Lennon/McCartney.
That’s not to say I do not love and appreciate John and Paul. I do so very much, and even Ringo, to a lesser extent.
The Beatles, where afterall....well...The Beatles! They were and always will be a vital part of pop culture.
Though I never had the opportunity to see John Lennon perform live, I have attended Ringo shows and have witnessed Paul perform on a few occasions. I even had the good fortune to meet Paul and shake his hand during a 1989 press conference held in Rosemont, Illinois.
Though I never met George Harrison, his music touched me and still touches me on a very emotional and spiritual level. It means more to me than the solo works of his former band mates ever has nor will.
Perhaps that is because the very first live concert of my life was the only time that a post-Beatles George Harrison came to Chicago to perform.
Harrison made his only solo tour of the U.S. in 1974, at which time he performed on November 30, at the now long crumbled Chicago Stadium.
I was a freshman in high school and I really had no idea what Harrison’s post-Beatles bag was at the time. I only went to this concert because a buddy of mine named Glenn Harkabus and his dad had an extra ticket to the show.
My first thought
was –– “Hey...it would be cool to see an ex-Beatle jamming.” ––
followed by thoughts of how envious my Beatles-loving older sister would
be upon seeing my ticket stub.
I was right about the experience being a cool one, but not for any of the reasons I had initially thought.
Harrison played down his colorful Beatles’ past on that night in Chicago. He instead revealed a very human and very sensative side. The Harrison that I drank in that night 31 years ago, was not the lovable mop-top I had seen on “Ed Sullivan” in 1964 as a child.
The man on stage in front of us that night looked more like a homeless chap with his scraggly beard, long hair, denim clothes and sneakers. I had gone to see a “rock god” and wound up seeing an “everyman” who connected to my heart.
Not only did Harrison introduce me to a new rock sound that night, one that was light years removed from the hand-me-down Beatles tunes I had grown up with as the youngest of three kids, but he introduced me to the music of sitarist Ravi Shankar and a wealth of Eastern-flavored music that has remained with me ever since.
Billed as “George Harrison & Friends,” that concert was a seemingly endless parade of artists who played mini-sets and then joined together with Harrison for a grand finale'.
Two artists on that bill in particular had an impact on this future music scribe. Tom Scott & The L.A. Express introduced this then eighth graders to jazz music for the first time. And Billy Preston, with his huge afro bouncing wildly behind his keyboard, gave me my first ever taste of funk music.
And of course, there was the moving set of post-Fab songs from the humble and eerily laid-back Mr. Harrison himself.
So , you may be wondering –– “Since Harrison shuffled off this mortal coil back in 2001 at the age of 58, what is all this leading to?”
Well, I’m glad you asked...
BIG SISTER KEEPS LITTLE BROTHER’S BAND ALIVE
X-ROCK 103.9 FM will present the Beatles night in the Radio One Communications tent on Wednesday, August 10 from 8-10pm and Yours Truly will serve as stage emcee for that show.
“I know people will be very impressed with Liverpool Legends,” said the 73-year-old Harrison, founder of the 1990s non-profit environmental organization called ‘Dropping In,’ who rallied to get people to ‘drop in’ instead of ‘drop out’ and take responsibility for what we’re doing to our planet.
Harrison explained that when Beatles tribute acts first began popping up and during the time when the Beatles’ company, Apple Corp., sued the bejesus out of touring productions like “Beatlemania” and “1964”, her little brother George was not too keen on the notion of others pretending to be “fab.”
“He was very concerned, because he didn’t like the idea of people running around pretending to be him,” she explained. “George was a very reserved and private person. He always behaved in a certain way which would never dishonor our family name and our parents. He was concerned that other people ‘playing George Harrison’ might not be concerned with the integrity of his name and might not conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.”
Harrison said she talked at great lengths to George about the whole notion of “tribute bands” and what they meant to the fans no longer able to see the real band any longer.
“I explained to him that the whole idea behind the tribute bands was to keep the music alive and to keep the Beatles’ messages of peace, love and compassion alive. Those messages were all a part of the Beatles whole story and people need to remember that as well as the music and the songs,” she said.
“I told George that these tribute bands really were keeping all of it alive,” she continued. “That these bands were allowing a whole new generation, and now a third generation of young people, to get involved and to realize that The Beatles were not just the music, but also a way of thinking and living and conducting yourself. I told him that I personally felt it was very important for these tribute bands to keep those messages and the songs alive and well. Especially the way things are on this planet these days. He thought about it and said – ‘Yeah sis, I guess you’re right.’
So eventually, the former Beatle warmed up to the notion of such groups as his sister’s new charges, Liverpool Legends.
THE LEGENDS LIVE!
“Our ‘John’ is Kevin Mantegna and our ‘George’ is Marty Scott. When I first met Kevin and Marty, they were so good at being John and George, that I was quite happy to connect my name with them,” she said.
“The boys were originally just going to do a tribute to the two Beatles who had passed away and they planned to call themselves, Passed Masters,” she continued. “They later came to realize that to really do justice to both John and George’s music, they needed to have a full band,” she continued. “So we started searching for the right musicians.”
It took some doing, but the three allies, finally found a “Paul” and a “Ringo” that met Harrison’s high standards and expectations.
“When we decided to put together a full band, I stressed that we had to find the best people out there if they want to keep my name connected to the band,” she said. “I would never do anything to bring disgrace to my brother or tarnish his music.”
Slapping bass in the McCartney role is Davey Justice (ex-American English) who has played “Paul” all over the world. Drummer Joe Bologna who keeps a Beatles beat as “Ringo” is likewise a veteran of other Beatles bands.
Eventually, the Liverpool Legends plan to include some of each Beatle’s solo music into their repertoire. “We’re working towards that now,” said Harrison. “Once we get our repertoire built up more fully in regards to the Beatles music, we want to have at least a half dozen or so of each of the individual Beatles’ solo music, so that at select shows we can do some of those as well. It’s always nice to have a few different twists to add.”
One thing George Harrison hated about doing concerts was the repetition. It bothered him that while The Beatles had a wealth of songs in their catalog, they were always playing the same dozen or so songs at every concert.
That said Louise encourages Liverpool Legends to vary their program from night to night, because –– “That is what George thought it should be,” she said. The notion of an ever evolving set list and structuring of the show is one of the reasons for the band learning the member’s respective solo material.
THE FIRST TIME AROUND: 1963
Promoting Beatles music is nothing new to Louise Harrison, who has lived in Benton, Illinois for the last 40 years, since leaving England in 1960 with her husband, who designed special purpose machinery for the mining industry.
“I was getting Beatles records sent to me from our mother in England before anyone here in America even knew of my brother’s band,” she recalled. “I was scooting all around this area trying to get someone to play them on their radio stations. I kept being told –– ‘Oh no, this is not commercial. Nobody’s going to want to hear this stuff. Go home and forget about your kid brother’s band’”
Her persistence eventually paid off.
“I tried and tried in Chicago and all around the Midwest that whole first year (1963) and I kept getting turned away. There are an awful lot of radio stations now claiming to have been the first to have played the Beatles in America, but I will tell you the truth,” she said, debunking the popular myth that WLS-AM in Chicago has that distinction.
“The very first station to ever play a Beatles record was a tiny little AM station in a little town called West Frankfort in Southern Illinois,” continued Harrison. “Their signal didn’t carry very far, but in June of 1963, they became the first station in America to play a Beatles record. The gal who was the DJ was the daughter of the station owner. She was 17 at the time and loved the music. She still has the two original singles that I gave her to play.”
HARRISON’S ROLE IN THE BEATLES EXPERIENCE TODAY
Harrison explained that her Liverpool Legends take their audiences on a “Fab” trip through the 1960s, starting with the band’s “Ed Sullivan Show” appearance, moving through the Sgt. Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour/Abbey Road psychedelic years, and wrapping up as did the Beatles' career, on the rooftop of the Apple building with Let It Be.
Though Louise does not travel with the band to every show, she does attend and participate in selected performances, such at the Lake County Fair gig that X-ROCK is hosting on August 12. In most cases, she signs autographs and poses for photos when time allows.
“Sometimes when the band is off stage doing their costume changes, I will come on and just chat to the audience,” she explained. “I’ll tell them some early Beatles stories or some stories about George or answer questions. The fans enjoy hearing the stories.”
“When our parents were alive when this all began for George, they would get hundreds of thousands of letters from fans all over the world and they would answer as many as they could,” she recalled. “Often our mother would sign the letters ‘Love from Mum Harrison’. Our parents were very involved in all this Beatles stuff and cared very much for the fans. They started way back in the ‘60s, what I call my global family of Beatle People. I very much look at that as being my role today.”
Though well into her senior years, the eloquent and energetic Ms. Harrison keeps very much in touch with the public and stays very active in the day-to-day business of her band. When she is not out promoting and appearing with Liverpool Legends, Louise does what she calls “chats” at universities and for various service clubs.
“I find I get along very well with young people. I love to sit and converse with them,” she said, noting she prefers doing her talks in an informal atmosphere. “I don’t like to stand up there and lecture. I like to sit on a chair and have the young people around me as if it’s a grandmother talking to her grandkids. If it’s a smaller group, maybe we’ll even sit on the floor.”
As to if it all gets to be too much sometimes, Harrison suggests that is the hectic pace and the music and the fans who keep her feeling much younger than her years. “I’m a Beatles fan myself, so I very much enjoy hearing all that wonderful, happy music again. And I love talking about the old days.”
REMEMBERING LITTLE BROTHER...
As someone who saw a date on George Harrison’s only solo tour of America and eagerly awaited a second come around that never came, I pondered the reason.
“It was just a hassle to gather together musicians and book a tour,” she said. “He never really liked being on the road. He liked to live quietly and he love to do his gardening and being home with his family. Let’s face it, he didn’t need the money by then and no one in our family had ever been into doing things for the sake of greed. If he had to tour to make a living, I’m sure he would have done that, but shuffling around the world on tour just to make a few more millions was never his way of thinking.”
Fans on these shores got false hope when Harrison toured Japan in 1991 and released the aptly titled, Live In Japan double-live CD. There was rumor of that tour continuing here, but according to Louise hitting the road in the Land of the Rising Sun just reaffirmed to Harrison his dislike of touring and living out of a suitcase. If there were such plans to perform dates here in the early ‘90s, they were scrapped in favor of spending that decade in his home recording studio laying down his music there and releasing it for all who cared to hear it.
Of her brother’s catalog of solo albums, Louise is hard pressed to name a favorite. “ I have certain songs on each of the albums that I like more than others, but I very much like all of his records,” she said.
“I think his kindness and compassion is what I loved most about my brother George,” she reflected. “I had three brothers and if my mum needed a job done around the house, like maybe getting more coal for the fire or something, George would always be the first one to jump up and say, ‘I’ll do it for you Mum.’ It was always that immediate willingness to help that made George such a special guy.”
To learn more about Liverpool Legends and find out where and when they are performing, direct your browser to: www.liverpoollegends.com
LOUISE HARRISON will be Tom Lounges’ special “on air guest” on August 7th’s “NIGHT ROCK” show 6-9pm on X-ROCK 103.9
See a free X-ROCK 103.9 concert by LIVERPOOL LEGENDS on AUGUST 10th at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Crown Point, Indiana |
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In the previous paragraphs, I have stressed my deep and personal
appreciation for this late, great guitar man and his music, to
underscore how honored I am to help present George’s older sister,
Louise Harrison and the fabulous Beatles tribute she manages called,
Liverpool Legends. 
Though
officially formed just eight months ago, Harrison’s endorsement of this
Chicago-based national tribute has done wonders in getting Liverpool
Legends tons of press –– from local and regional publications, right up
to heavy hitters like “Rolling Stone” magazine.
“He would often say –– ‘We have so much great music, and we never get
to play much of it.’,” explained Louise. “I would like this band to
function in such a way, that if George were still alive, he would enjoy
being one of the members, because the that is important to me.”