The Beatles Boxed Set (49 page)

In public, George let on that they were just really starting
out as musicians. But in private, he was becoming disenchanted with the band.

Rishikesh
would turn out to be the last time that George traveled with his band mates.
Tension was palpable whenever all four of them were in the same room, although
they tried to be cordial with each other.

            While
they recorded songs for their
White Album
, relations between them became
openly divisive, so much so that Ringo Starr quit after two weeks, leaving Paul
to play drums for some of the tracks.

            To
make matters worse, John had lost interest in collaborating with Paul, whose
song
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
, he called a “granny shit music.” His romantic
preoccupations with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono was also a cause of
aggravations between the lads. John would always bring Ono with him to the
sessions despite their agreement that no girlfriends or wives were allowed in
the studio.

            For
John, “We broke up then.” Paul also recalled that the session for their
White
Album
marked the start of the breakup.

Recording session for the White Album in
1968

            Their
album was released in November 1968, the first album under their company Apple
Corps’ subsidiary, Apple Records. It had about two million advance orders and
sold almost four million copies in the US alone. Even though the album’s tracks
dominated the playlists of American radio stations, the album did not receive
flattering reviews that time. And though George hated fame, he was becoming
more famous.

            With
Epstein gone, it was difficult for the group to manage their image and career.
But they had commitments to fulfill as a group, including a movie. They began
shooting
Let It Be
in January at Twickenham Studios, where they had
filmed most of their previous two films.

            Right
from the start, it was disastrous. George and Paul, particularly, were always
involved in some misunderstanding.

            Paul
said, “I’m just saying you could try playing it like this.”

            And
George, ever the submissive Beatle, replied, “I’ll play whatever you want me to
play or I won’t play at all if you don’t want. Whatever it is that will please
you, I’ll do it.”

            Then
the bickering began. What should they do with their Apple company? How do they
finish their next album? Who should make the decisions?

            George
got fed up with all their arguments and disputes that on January 10, 1969, he
left and didn’t look back. But five days after his departure, he came back and
made an offer. If there were no more talks about touring or television, he
would rejoin the group. And two days later, they were back recording.

            But
no sooner had they began that tensions returned.

            In
late January 1969, recording for their
Abbey Road
album was moved from
Twickenham Studios to Apple Studios. The Apple sessions came off with fewer
arguments, largely due to Billy Preston who was at the reception area that
week. He was a young keyboardist and a friend of George, who decided to take
him to join the sessions. Preston’s cheerful nature during the sessions lifted
everyone’s spirits.

            The
following month, George was treated for tonsillitis and was hospitalized for a
week. That week of confinement was a time when creative ideas were occurring to
him. After he was discharged on February 29, he gave a birthday present to himself
by booking EMI studios and spending the evening recording new songs.

            That
night produced three demos:
Old Brown Shoes
,
All Things Must Pass,
which had began taking shape three months earlier, and
Something.

           
Something
,
which George recorded for the album
Abbey Road
, became one of the most
successful singles ever written by a Beatle. It received the Ivor Novello award
for the best song musically and lyrically of the year and was George’s first
top ten A side. Frank Sinatra declared it “the most beautiful love song of the
past fifty years” and, apart from Paul’s
Yesterday,
became the Beatles
song most recorded by other artists.

George and Paul recording for their Abbey
Road Album, which contained George’s Something, considered to be one of the
most successful singles ever written by a Beatle

           
Abbey
Road
, the Beatles’ last studio album, was finally released in the UK in
September 1969 and became one of the band’s successful albums ever. In the UK,
it debuted to number one but was displaced to number two by the Rolling Stones.
The following week, the
Abbey Road
returned to the top spot and stayed
there for another 6 weeks. It became the best-selling album of 1969, the fourth
best-selling of the 1960s and the eight best-selling album of 1970.

            In
the US, the album debuted at number 178 and snaked its way through until it
reached number 4. In its third week, it was at the top spot. Allen Klein, then
the Beatles’ manager, said that in June 1970, the US sales of the album were
about 5 million. And when the band disbanded, the album has sold more than 7
million copies worldwide.

           
Let
It Be
was the Beatles’ final album though it was recorded before
Abbey
Road.
It was released in May 1970 shortly before the group announced their
breakup. The album received mixed reviews at the time of its release but
enjoyed success as it reached the top spot on both the American and British
charts. The singles
Let It Be
and
The Long and Winding Road
reached the number one on the US charts.

            George’s
last recording session with the Beatles was on January 4, 1970. By then, they
were confident that it would be their last as a group, as John had left the
previous September and Paul was contemplating on “divorcing” the Beatles
although he did not announce it publicly due to contract negotiations with EMI.

            The
Let It Be
documentary film won the 1970 Academy Award for Best Original
Song Score. When the movie premiered in London on May 20, 1970, none of them
showed up.

The
Beatles became the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of more
than one billion units. They had more number one albums on the UK charts and
have held the top spot longer than any musical act. The RIAA reported that as
of 2012, the Beatles have sold 177 million units in the US alone, more than any
other artist. In 2008, the group topped the
Billboard
magazine’s list of
the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists.

George said goodbye to the Beatles after having been a part
of it for ten years. Despite the differences between him and his band mates, he
couldn’t deny that this was where he had found himself as a musician. But now,
it was time to have a life as George Harrison and not as a Beatle anymore.

The inspiration for new songs came naturally, and George
decided that he needed a studio of his own where he could go whenever he
pleased. His home in Esher was too small to accommodate a studio, so he thought
of buying Friar Park, a thirty-five-acre estate north of London, from the nuns
and a priest who were looking over the property and couldn’t afford the upkeep.

George’s new home, Friar Park

The mansion was the ultimate revenge for someone from
working-class Liverpool. It was huge, with a fireplace as big as George’s
boyhood Wavertree bedroom, high ceilings and carved moldings. It had an elegant
curved staircase that led to more bedrooms upstairs and more stairs leading to
turrets and towers. George decorated every corner with Indian deities such as
the four-armed Vishnu.

George invited his friend Shyamsundar Das Adhikari and some
followers of Hare Krishna Movement to live in the mansion in exchange of doing
some repairs and cleaning around the huge property. Shyamsundar consulted with
their guru, Swami Prabhupada, who agreed on the condition that George will
provide one room to be used as a temple for their daily practices.

Soon after, some couples and a few recruits moved into one
of the building’s wings. Pattie was cordial with George’s friends, but she
found it difficult to fit in among them. While she really didn’t mind his
infatuation with Indian religion and its deities and practices, Pattie was
beginning to resent the time George spent with them when he wasn’t working on a
new song.

And George had to say goodbye to his mother, too. Louise had
been to the hospital before when she was diagnosed with cancer. In 1970, Louise
was readmitted to the hospital because her cancer had returned. George’s
father, Harold, was also admitted to the hospital, with ulcers. George had to
run back and forth between sickrooms, telling one parent that the other was
doing good and then returning to London to continue recording for his first
album.

It was during this time when he wrote the song
Deep Blue
,
singing about watching “tired bodies” full of sickness and pain. His father
finally recovered and was able to go home, but his mother’s condition remained
critical. He and his siblings took turns looking after their mother.

When it was his turn, George would read her the Bhagavad
Gita and would chant into her ear. He was by the bedside when Louise passed
away.

Shortly after his mother’s death, he invited his brother,
Harry, to live with him  and be Friar Park’s estate manager. He also invited
his brother Peter to live in the mansion and take charge of the property’s team
of gardeners and botanists.

As
George was unable to display his emerging talent in songwriting, it was he who
benefited the most from the band’s breakup. He had a backlog of materials he
had written while still with the Beatles, and these were included in the albums
that he would soon release as a solo artist.

He was easily the most successful ex-Beatle for a while as
he had already recorded and released two solo albums:
Wonderwall Music
and
Electronic Sound
, which were mainly instrumental. But it was the release
of the gargantuan album
All Things Must Pass
that would establish George
as a competent songwriter, away from the shadows of both Paul McCartney and
John Lennon.