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- [00:03]
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- [01:00]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
It was a couple of years ago. It wasn't. That's just a chord. I know, but you know. Yeah, but cords. But it's like drainies. Yeah, but some drainage. It's still drainage, but they suit different occasions. The thing is, that's good enough for the rock and roll thing, but you need early Clark. No, you don't. You need like you need George. Alison, you need George.
- [01:20]
Robert Rodriguez
Harri. Hello and welcome to something about The Beatles, episode 320. Our guitarist George, and this one is arriving in the month of what would have been his 83rd birthday. If you can believe that. If you can believe it's been 25 years since we lost him. And I look now at the two young adults that are taking the place of what used to be my two young kids. And it's kind of hard for me to believe that both of them have lived their entire lives with only two living ex Beatles, which is incredible to me. But most of us, if not present during the lifetimes of all four, at least we're around for three of them. And not to be morbid or anything, this is meant to be celebratory, especially for anybody who listened to the Abbey Road Olympiad and wondered, where's the love for George? Well, there's plenty of love for George. If you're a long term listener of this show, you should know that. And this is a dive into basically his contributions to the band as the invisible singer and the guitarist that really saw his role from day one as taking the raw material of Lennon McCartney compositions, elevating them, making them unforgettable records that touched everybody that heard them. And my guest for this show is a guy who is a musician himself, a guy who runs a YouTube channel that I do advise you to check out, Sam Popkin. He's a guy that has analyzed and studied the Beatles music as so many of us have. But from this perspective of gear and guitars and amps and that sort of angle. Now we've had on the show, as you know, musicologists, the RPM guys, Walter Everett, Cameron Grider, Jack Petrocelli, we've had guys that are deep musical scholars. I'm looking at you, Andrew Shakespeare and Marcus Phelan. We've had musicians on this show like Mike Picelli, who also have YouTube channels that break down the Beatles music. Well, what Sam Popkin does is along those lines, but he definitely has a unique take and angle in terms of getting specific on how these songs were played and recorded, what kind of tunings they used, what kind of effects and gear and guitars they use. So do check out his channel and if you are interested in this sort of thing, I would say check out his podcast as well. Check out called Gear There and Everywhere where they do further explorations on a song by song basis. So I am happy to have him as my guest today to give this sort of general overview of how George approached his art and what his influences were and how specific instruments and gear influenced his evolution as a guitar player. And you could definitely trace it back from his earliest rock and roll absorption of Carl Perkins and Scotty Moore as the early rock and roll guys, all through his discovery of R and B and mastering folk and country and then pivoting into Indian and psychedelia and then coming back with this new sort of approach circa 68, 69 that sets the table for his finding his voice as a slide player, going onward all the way through Thredel's recordings and his last recordings, including the posthumous Brainwashed. So a lot to unpack and explore there. I want to welcome to the show the return of a sponsor from last year, Magical Mystery Camp, alongside the current one of DistroKid. If you go to distrokid.com VIP SatB, you can get 30% off your first year membership of Distrokid Magical Mystery Camp. Check out magical mystery camp.com to see for yourself this year's guests itinerary, how you could be part of it all. And yes, yours truly will be there this year as well. Coming in June, the week of Paul McCartney's 84th birthday this year. All the stuff I tipped my hand a little bit about in the newsletter and if you don't currently get the newsletter, it's satb2010mail.com subject line newsletter. Come and check it out and be informed of breaking beetle news, history and stuff around the show. But in any event, I will get out of the way and start this discussion out with sort of sussing out what our approach is going to be to analyze the endlessly fascinating art of George Harrison.
- [06:18]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
Thank you and hello, good evening and everything. And we'd like to do a song now which is off one of our LPs. And this is a song which is sung by.
- [06:30]
Sam Popkin
Oh.
- [06:33]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
Song by our guitarist George is called if I Needed Someone.
- [06:41]
Robert Rodriguez
So the very first original composition recorded by folks that we one day associate as being Beatles. Of all the danger, we accept it as being a Paul McCartney composition, although it was a co credit with George because Paul felt that was what you did, that he was contributing musically in a way that down the road certainly that fell away. I was always kind of struck by the very first two original compositions recorded by the guys we know as Beatles. The second one was also called Right With George, Cry for a Shadow. So it's interesting, right out of the gate, the guy that's getting shut out of songwriting gets two co credits.
- [07:20]
Sam Popkin
Right.
- [07:20]
Robert Rodriguez
In terms of Paul's thinking of George as enhancing the song that like in a nutshell, is what he did going forward with the Beatles. And no matter what form Lennon McCartney came up with material and put it on the table. We see evidence of this in Let It Be and Get Back because that happens to have been filmed and we don't have a whole lot of other access to them at work in the studio, whether on film or on tape that's surfaced not a lot, but we do very much get the sense that George was basically the guy that took his skill set and enhanced the material he was given in some ways, like bringing in hooks like he did with and I Love her as one example. We know that there are others. So through your experience as a musician and a guy that studies Beatles, do you get a good read on what it was he brought to the table and how his skill set might have differentiated from John and Paul's?
- [08:18]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, so the first thing that comes to mind is just how painstaking George was with creating a guitar solo. And as he said in Get Back, Dig a Pony is actually one of my favorite. Maybe not lyrically, but like just playing it on guitar and just musically it's a really interesting song. And you get to hear as we've talked about with the Niagara Reels, from The first day, January 2nd of 69, John brings up a very rough formed dicapone and George is just constantly noodling throughout those 20 something days. And over time you start to hear a really good form solo. But that was unusual because usually he had to come up with a solo in one day, especially in the early days, and he could do it. But as he said in Get Back as well, he's no Eric Clapton. Eric could just improvise and create something musical off the bat. I don't know if Eric really ever planned a solo in that same way. So I've heard examples of George sitting down in the studio and just spending so much time just playing it over and over, overdubbing, take after take, reel after reel, while my guitar gently weeps is a good example too, where he apparently created some backwards solo and scrapped it and just said, bring in Eric. Yeah, but yeah, George was just so painstakingly musical and knew what didn't work. Maybe is. Is the important part there because he could just come up with some kind of crappy improvised blues solo. And there's some examples he could maybe make that case for, like, Slow down or something. But actually, I kind of like slow down, actually.
- [10:05]
Robert Rodriguez
What about all you need is love?
- [10:06]
Sam Popkin
I kind of like that. Although I guess they had to add that little tape wobble at the end to make sure it didn't sound too rough. They were very insecure musicians, though. John as well, especially with his vocals, always trying to cover things up, adding slap back. But despite George being so down on himself, he created some of the most musical moments, like the something solo or even just the little, like, Moog synthesizer bits and Here comes the Sun. Just these little subtle things that I'm blabbing on right now. But like, Robbie Robertson was an influence on him too. And Robbie's influence on the band was coming out of it from a really amazing time with Bob Dylan and Mike Bloomfield and being a blues virtuoso. And then Robbie with Big Pink is just sitting back and playing rhythm double stops, is knowing when not to play sometimes.
- [10:59]
Robert Rodriguez
That was a huge turning point, I think, for both of them. For both Eric and George was the arrival of the band on the scene. Suddenly Eric wants to leave the biggest supergroup in the world and be in the band type of situation. This egalitarian thing, George certainly. And it's just funny because I see both of them coming to two different schools of thought in their approach to guitar playing. Eric being a guy informed by blues music, that's what turned him. And that's where he made his fame, was an improviser. As a lot of people who aren't super knowledgeable say about that stuff. Well, you learn blues scales and you just vamp off of that and your path is set. Whereas George approaches everything like a songwriter, like a composer, and that these are like songs within songs that he composes for these guitar breaks going back to day one. And he would be the first to say, I'm not an improviser. That's an era Clapton. I have to work through it. And as you say, you've got the evidence of that through the documentation of the Get Back project of him trying out all kinds of things. I remember back in the 70s when I was first hearing the bootlegs of the Nagras and he's going, wah, wah crazy on absolutely everything.
- [12:25]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
Nothing's gonna change my world Nothing's gonna.
- [12:33]
Sam Popkin
Change my world.
- [12:39]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
Nothing's gonna change my.
- [12:42]
Robert Rodriguez
World.
- [12:45]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
Nothing's gonna change my world.
- [12:55]
Robert Rodriguez
But none of that makes it to the finished record, which is great. It was something he played around with and tried to find a comfort level with. And so to your point that you try out things and discard the million things that don't work till you find one thing that does work. And the results speak for themselves in terms of these exquisite solos, well into the solo years he was composing, that were just beautiful. You look at somebody like a Henry McCullough being brought into Wings, who's much more into Clapton tradition. Blues guy. I'm an improviser. It's like jazz. Every performance is going to be different. And once it was on a hit record, Paul couldn't abide that. It's like, no, no, no. That's what the audience wants. You have to play what you played on the record. A difference in values, it's not going to work. Whereas I do think that the Beatles, as good as they got at live performing, didn't see themselves as performers or at least performing as the end goal. The end goal for them was making records. And so the optimum performance will always be on the record. And if you got these tour obligations, well, you'll do your best to replicate for the fans benefit what they heard on the records they bought by the millions. But that's not really where your heart is. It's not like the songs come alive to you on stage like they would for a Clapton or a Bob Dylan.
- [14:13]
Sam Popkin
One of the most interesting things live that George did the last tour in 1966 was I Want to be your man in Tokyo. He's doing some kind of tax man, Indian raga type soloing over it. And it's hilarious to hear a Ringo song having some psychedelia on it like that. That's Another interesting thing about when George turned to sitar is that you could say to yourself, well, he was learning to improvise more. Because Indian music is very much a feel thing. But I actually think it's less about the extended jams and improvising and more about that touch and that feel. And that's what really gave George in his solo career, that touch on the slide. You have just this very subtle vibrato and sliding into a note and making it ring. He was never really about playing a million notes within a certain amount of time. I don't know what you think. I was just thinking about Carl Perkins, his biggest influence early on. Those were two minute pop songs where you had to have a solo that kind of stood out. You didn't have, like some other blues musicians, a more extended time to improvise and solo.
- [15:41]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. I think that given the musical environment he was in, if he had ended up in a band like the Big Three, then maybe he would have developed into being an improviser on stage, because that was what was called for. But he fell in with a couple guys that were composers, that were songwriters, and it aligned with his own passion for music. That he was as eclectic as anybody. We think of the early rock and roll, and certainly that's the stuff that knocked them on their asses and made them recognize possibilities for themselves that might not have happened otherwise. But as we know, he was as steeped in all the music that came prior to his birth as anybody to his dying day. His solo albums are peppered with the occasional covers of the Hoagie Carmichael or Cole Porter, things like that, that was near and dear to his heart. And then he goes running with ukulele and going back to 1920s music. And earlier, just playing those little pop standards. They clearly resonated with him, just as Indian music did once he discovered it. And whether it was through BBC World Service as a. As an unborn child his mother listened to, or David Crosby in 1965, turning him onto Ravi Shankar. It resonated and it became something that informed his guitar playing and his approach to music in a way that was incredibly distinctive from his peers in the British Invasion bands.
- [17:08]
Sam Popkin
Absolutely. And with his solo career, he finally had time in the studio. As much time as he wanted really to create something he liked. You know, I think he only was really afforded that with the Beatles when he was working on a Paul song or a John song. He had spent so much time on it, when it was his own song. He might not have been able to come up with A solo he liked. Yeah.
- [17:30]
Robert Rodriguez
It's interesting the sensibility he had that song construction was a big part of how he approached his job as lead guitarist. I'm not just going to fill 24 bars here. I've got to do something that enhances the song, whether it's a hook or a memorable melody line. And even the construction of songs that we don't tend to think of first. When you think of George on a song that's credited to Lennon McCartney, I'm thinking of song like she Said, she Said, which by the accounts we have was really a London Harrison composition in terms of the work he contributed to. Taking these disparate song ideas that John had and as he called it, a real weld to put them together into some kind of something coherent in its final form that is very, very distinctive. And it's a real guitarist's recording.
- [18:21]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, Revolver is just full of amazing guitar moments. And it is a shame what happened with Revolver with the Capital albums because, you know, a lot of people growing up in the US didn't really get to know Revolver for what it really is, which is very eclectic, of course. But yeah, Dr. Roberts, another great example of George doing some really subtle, interesting stuff that is kind of buried, actually. You'd have to listen to some of the isolated tracks. But again, Tax man is Paul doing the guitar solo. George at that period was getting into Indian music and being outshined by Paul in some moments on Pepper. And there's so much to say about Paul's musical creativity, but it doesn't necessarily mean that George was less talented. He just. He was dealing with a two headed beast.
- [19:41]
Robert Rodriguez
Revolver is a real breakthrough as a guitar album for sure. Paul playing a little Indian for George on Taxman. Look at the groundbreaking work an angel bird can sing. The twin guitar riffing, that is just an amazing leap forward because the Beatles to that point were typically in the service of the song and virtuosity wasn't anything particularly called for. But there you've got something that seemingly is above their natural skill set where you lock step two guitars playing something so intricate and it's the motif that the entire song hangs on. And she said, she said. Just amazing guitar stuff on that. You got the backward guitar experimentation throughout I'm Only Sleeping and Tomorrow, like you said.
- [20:29]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, exactly. It's a lot there.
- [20:31]
Robert Rodriguez
Rain.
- [20:32]
Sam Popkin
Rain is a whole can of worms, just guitar wise. I've dealt with that recently on my YouTube channel, trying to break down the tuning. And a good friend of mine, Ryan, cracked the code on the Tuning. But it's still unclear if it was George or Paul that played that lead guitar. But there's a very low droned. Dropped a string, which is very strange because of the. I mean, to get to a whole technical thing, but dropping a guitar string from E down to A creates a very wobbly effect because the strings are so loose. But it worked. I did it. And it. It sounds like the record. But Been trying to figure out if George would have done that given his sitar playing at the time, or if it was more of a Paul creative mind expansion moment.
- [21:16]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, it's probably a casino in either case, right?
- [21:19]
Sam Popkin
Casino. It could have been the sg. But yeah, Paul on the Casino is definitely a strong contender. John was definitely on the Gretsch, just playing some rhythm chords. Nothing crazy, but there's a whole issue of the speed at which it was recorded because Giles Martin, the Revolver box set, said that it was recorded in B flat and has this really fast outtake. Some people have argued whether Ringo was capable of playing drums that fast. It sounds a bit chipmunky at that speed. Of course, it was slowed down eventually to the pitch of roughly G. That's.
- [21:53]
Robert Rodriguez
When the bass was dropped in.
- [21:54]
Sam Popkin
Then the bass and the vocals were overdubbed. So that's more normal, but very strange. I've tried to, like, figure out with the pitch of the cymbals. My friend Ryan is trying to figure out the cycle hum, the 60 or 50 cycle hum, to see if the B flat thing actually was real. Yeah, that's a strange song.
- [22:13]
Robert Rodriguez
I'm glad you brought up cycle hum because that's something nobody has been able to give me a coherent answer to. And maybe you know what's coming, but. Okay, standard concert pitch is 440 cycles. Right. And the word is, for people who've studied such things, that throughout 1963, which encompasses two albums and, what is it, three singles that year that the Beatles were recording at 4, 32 cycles, that they altered their tuning. Is that a fact? And if so, does it make sense? Or is there something else going on there? And it just stems from people attempting to replicate the sound in Beatles records and having to mess with their tuning to reach the same pitch. And that's the only way it works.
- [22:59]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, I don't have a. I don't have a real answer for you because Help is the same way and Start and Pepper. There are a lot of songs, even up until 68, that are not in perfect tuning. And it's not just that they tune the guitars a little off that day. It's the pianos and the organs, which in emi. I highly doubt that all of the keyboards would be out of pitch with each other. They were so strict about the White Lab coast technicians coming in. And every aspect had to be perfect. So, yeah, that's interesting that it was 63 that people are saying. Because for me it's. Almost every record has something slightly off.
- [23:36]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. And we know at certain points that they absolutely were experimenting with various speed. And the aforementioned Rain being one good example. And when George Martin would do his wind up piano stuff that involved controlling the speed on him recording the keyboard and then it being sped up on the finished product. But yeah, it's a guitar thing that people are wondering about. I've not seen anybody come up with an answer that makes any sense. But I don't know if it was a case by case basis. Or if it was just something they tried out for a while and then dropped. Or if you say you find examples of it throughout their career. I have no idea. And it'd be interesting for somebody to come up with something that makes sense someday about that. One thing we did talk about recently on the show with Rob Collier. Who is a specialist in Paul McCartney's bass career. And what a leap forward it was when his Hoffner bass, which he'd used from Day One through the Help album as his main bass. He switches to the Rickenbacker for Rubber Soul. And suddenly it informs this much broader palette of what he's doing on his instrument. And of course he was one of the guys that completely shattered the paradigm of a rock and roll bass player anyway. But that was like his great leap forward. Do you see moments of that with George? We know that he talked about the Gretsch duo Jet that he acquired in 61. That's the one you see in the Some Other Guy performance at the Cavern. Years later. He got it back from Klaus and it's on the COVID of Cloud 9. But he called that his first real guitar. So that's what he is first playing on record with the Beatles. There's a big change when he gets the 12 string Rickenbacker in early 64. And suddenly that becomes the sound of A Hard Day's Night. Do you see that? These turning points as he acquires a new instrument throughout the Beatles?
- [25:27]
Sam Popkin
Definitely. I mean, he famously said that he later said that he hated the sound of a Gretch guitar into a VOX amp. Which is pretty funny. There were other bands that did not like George's sound. Keith Richards said he had a Horrible thin guitar sound in the early days. Pete Townsend also said that the Beatles were flipping lousy at one point, I think around Rubber Soul, because he was listening to the stereo where the vocals were on one side. He was at a party, and he only heard the instrumental. There were other bands like the Yardbirds and Cream that were getting much heavier sounds, but a lot of people to this day love that Gretch sound. But clearly George was not happy with it at a certain point. He always wanted a Fender Strat because of Buddy Holly. And he even had his Futurama guitar in the Hamburg days, which looked like a Stratocaster, but it didn't really do the trick. It was a cheaper, I think, German brand, I want to say. Finally, in 65, they get the matching pale blue Sonic blue Stratocasters, John and George. And it's interesting because George ended up painting it, it became Rocky, and he used it for Slide for the rest of his career, basically. It's funny with John, though, because you don't really see John's blue Strat after Rubber sold. You see John with a black Strat around the time of Revolver. And then there's a picture of John playing a sonic blue Strat in Pepper for the Lucy in the sky with diamond sessions. But we uncovered on our Here, There and Everywhere podcast that we zoomed into the back of the headstock, and it had the Grimwood sticker and only George's Strat hat, the Grimwood logo on the back. Even though John's was also from Grimwoods, it didn't have that on the back of the headstock. So, anyway, John was playing Rocky during that session. And the only thing that we really see later on of John's guitar is during imagine you see George playing a sonic blue Strat for Slide, and it has a different maple neck on it. I personally think this had to have been John's Beetle Strat come back to life with a different neck. I think he might have maybe lent it to somebody at one point, or maybe Mao put a different neck on it. It's not clear. But later that year, in 71, George plays Bangladesh. He plays a Stratocaster. And there's been some speculation that he actually stripped down the blue finish on John's Strat. And that's the guitar that George used for Bangladesh, which I personally hope is not true, because that pale blue finish is so beautiful. And I don't like the thought of George stripping that beautiful blue finish off. So I see the Strat as a huge turning point, obviously, the Rick 12 on Hard Day's Night is just the sound of British Invasion and Beatlemania. But yeah, he. At a certain point he was done with playing a Gretch. And a song like Ticket to Ride is a great example of that twangy Fender tone that they had been chasing since they were teenagers.
- [28:41]
Robert Rodriguez
But then at a certain point, he does pick up, at least for a little while, the Gibson SG, which Townshend was champing by the end of the 60s, having been playing Strat before that and Rickenbacker before that.
- [28:53]
Sam Popkin
Right.
- [28:54]
Robert Rodriguez
So it's interesting that it doesn't seem like the Strat period was very long lasting with the Beatles. Certainly once George acquired Lucy and the.
- [29:05]
Sam Popkin
Epiphone Casinos as well.
- [29:07]
Robert Rodriguez
And the Ephone Casinos, yes. And that was. I think Paul got his first right in 65.
- [29:13]
Sam Popkin
Yeah. For rubber, actually for help. Right. Paul got his casino. And yeah, there's some speculation too about when John and George got theirs, because you see it during a Revolver. But the Shea Stadium overdubs, I don't know what you think about those, but they apparently had to rent some gear when they were overdubbing some of the Shea Stadium tracks. And it's unclear what guitars were used. So some people thought maybe they rented some casinos. And then that would have been late 65. But yeah, that whole mid period, 65, 66, you hear revolver is just a completely different type of tone than they had been getting. And part of that is due to the amplifiers they were using as well on Revolver were very different.
- [29:59]
Robert Rodriguez
They were very different from the amps they'd used for the previous albums. So they were all vox, right?
- [30:05]
Sam Popkin
They were vox. So basically Vox started to use solid state technology. And Revolver had these UL series amps that were very short lived, that were hybrid tube and solid state. And that's actually like the she said she said tone that you hear is this kind of very sterile, fuzzy, strange tone that, you know. A Vox AC30 is a crunchy amp at times too, but it's a much more round, warm musical kind of amplifier. Something like she Said she said is very nasally. And I have friends who have those amplifiers and it's like they sound terrible, but on record, like with a microphone on the amp you can get an interesting tone.
- [30:49]
Robert Rodriguez
Huh, that's interesting. So is it AC 30s you hear on the first couple Beatle albums?
- [30:54]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, they did actually move to AC50s and 100/ hundreds, which are larger 50 and 100 watt amps for Friday's Night, Beatles For Sale Help. And then for Rubber Soul, they actually went back to AC 30s. And that was pretty interesting. Nowhere man is an incredible sounding record, guitar wise. So the AC 30s have a lot of chime to them.
- [31:18]
Robert Rodriguez
So then it's the Fender Strats being played through them from Nowhere Man.
- [31:21]
Sam Popkin
Right, exactly. Which are chimy to begin with. But apparently they had to keep pumping the treble on the. The board to get it to sound that way.
- [31:30]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, right. It's very unique and it's not something they did a whole lot of. It's a very distinctive sound on that particular record. So then you're saying for the Revolver album, they were using something beyond the Vox they'd used to that point. That didn't last very long. Were those also the amps they took on tour at 66?
- [31:48]
Sam Popkin
Not exactly. Sort of. They did use some of those UL amps. But in America they used Super Beetles B, E, E, T L E, which were a different hemp altogether. Not very beloved either. But actually, Super Beetles are very loud, large amplifiers. I think they're 100 watt as well. But just for whatever reason, the tone is not super beloved. They did use those, I think, at Candlestick Park. And you do hear Day Tripper has a kind of a fuzzy tone, which is interesting.
- [32:22]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- [32:22]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
And this one's about the naughty lady called Day Tripper.
- [32:51]
Robert Rodriguez
So they didn't use those for recording at all?
- [32:53]
Sam Popkin
No. And also, I should say, in 65, they moved to Fender Amplifiers. At least Paul did. He used a Fender Basement for Rubber Soul. And that amp got used on every album subsequently. The blonde early 60s Fender Bassman, which is a bass amp that Paul used with his Rickenbacker, but is actually a fantastic guitar amp as well. I have similar 60s Bassmen. And then for Revolver, they also bought some more Fender amps. And from then on up until Abbey Road, you see a lot of Fenders.
- [33:28]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, I know that. The story is that the Fender gifted them a whole bunch of gear, at least in time for the White Album. Because that's where you start seeing Defender 6 bass. Yeah. So that became. And you see them on the rooftop.
- [33:40]
Sam Popkin
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Twin reverbs and the. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [33:45]
Robert Rodriguez
Fender sound of those albums.
- [33:47]
Sam Popkin
Right. And every time that the Beatles got a new toy, they use it on a record, usually. Unless it was crappy.
- [33:53]
Robert Rodriguez
The fuzz and the volume pedal.
- [33:56]
Sam Popkin
Right, yeah.
- [33:57]
Robert Rodriguez
So in terms of musicality, one of the signature sounds of George Harrison has been referred to as the naughty chords, which we think of as augmented or diminished. Is that something you can speak of in terms of where he might have picked that up and where he starts applying it.
- [34:11]
Sam Popkin
It's a good question where he picked it up. Because you know, the Beatles in their early days, they were not like every other British Invasion band playing the blues and, you know, Chuck Berry type stuff. Even though they did that till there was you, has a lot of interesting chords in it, diminished especially. And during the solo there's a strange sharp nine kind of hendrixy chord as well. I don't know where they would have picked that up because as you know, the B7 story, they had to get on a bus in Liverpool in the early days and find this guy who knew this chord. It's not like today where you can just type in how do I play this chord? But either way, I think what's interesting is that despite their limited musical knowledge, they had so much time in Hamburg to mess around with their instruments. As a guitarist who's been playing a long time, I can say you get very bored of D, G, A open chords after a long time and you start to mess around. A good example I talked about with you earlier was in Get Back, George is on the piano playing Old Brown Shoe and he is playing an F7 chord with a raised F, which is actually an F sharp diminished chord. And he's asking Billy Preston, Billy, what's this F7 with a raised F? And Billy's trying to figure out what the name of it is too, because he was just a virtuoso. So I think experimentation definitely lent to some of that. At the same time, you have to think George Martin maybe played a role in some of those more interesting songs like Taste of Honey or, I don't know, those songs that had more interesting.
- [35:50]
Robert Rodriguez
Chords in it, More pop center type stuff that was still in their repertoire.
- [35:54]
Sam Popkin
Right. That certainly helped later on. But I also wonder, as you said with the naughty chords, as George referred to them in his solo career, he's kind of known for those. I kind of wonder if he even knew what those were called at that time. I recently did a special video on my channel covering Paul McCartney's friends to go, which Paul actually wrote in the style of George. And I always felt that Paul's version sounded like Paul, not really like George. So I actually made it more in the style of like Cloud 9 or Gon Tropo, kind of cheesy 80s George song, where it uses more diminished chords. And I found myself just playing random diminished chords until the right one popped up. So sometimes you just use your ear and you just say, that sounds right. And you just go with it.
- [36:45]
Robert Rodriguez
So was this use of these kind of chords. I know there's that quote from Dylan where he's talking about his first impressions of the Beatles. And at first he was thinking it was just teeny bopper nonsense, but then he really listened and he said, and those chords were just outrageous. And so once they connected musically, Thanksgiving 68, when he's hanging out in upstate New York.
- [37:08]
Sam Popkin
That would suck.
- [37:08]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, uh huh. And that's where they're going back and forth. George is like, oh, you're so amazing with your words to Bob. And Bob's like, but you come up with these great chords and they end up writing I'd have you anytime together. You'd love to see more of that stuff because it's like the best of both worlds for sure. What is it you think that was drawing Dylan's ear that he hadn't discovered on his own, but he was hearing in the Beatles?
- [37:30]
Sam Popkin
Well, wasn't there a quote Dylan said about I want to hold your hand, how he heard that and just freaked out over the harmonies on the radio when he heard it? Yeah, I mean, the Beatles just have a way of capturing your ear. Whether that's the ending harmonies on she Loves you, which apparently George Martin wasn't a fan of that 6G6 chord. He felt it was really corny. And they just said, well, we like it, so we're gonna do it. At least that's what Paul says now. Who knows what they actually said to George. But where am I going with this though? Oh, Dylan, Yeah. I mean, the chords that George came up with for I'd have youe Anytime are major seven chords. I don't know of Dylan really using major seven chords. They can be a bit jazzy. And Dylan obviously is kind of a minimalist musician. I don't know. I don't know if it's that George even knew what to call the chords. But he was so familiar with his instrument and something that song has a lot of interesting chord changes and you see that get back as well. He had a capo on and he was always experimenting with chord shapes. Another one I this is a tangent but wanted to bring up was two of us. It's pretty simple seeming folk song. But if you look closely at McCartney's right hand, I guess it would be when he's descending the C major chord down to A minor, he does this really weird inverted A minor chord where he flips the ring and middle fingers around and plays an open B string with a low C note. I don't really know what to call it, but I never noticed it on the record until you just see and get back that he did that and I'm 100% sure he didn't know what to call that chord either. So it's just those 10,000 hours they put in in Hamburg and getting bored and trying to do something new.
- [39:28]
Robert Rodriguez
This episode of Something about the Beatles is sponsored by Distrokid. Distrokid is a service that distributes music into the streaming platforms and also collects your royalty payments. It enables you to share with collaborators. It also has a feature that will polish up your recordings called Mixia. Basically it is a way to get your best foot forward out there before a listening audience, making your music shine and get it into all the proper channels and make sure you get paid for your work. As a special offer to listeners of Something about the Beatles and I know there are many who are musicians, you could take advantage of this 30% off their first year subscription by going to distrokid.com that's D I S T R O K I D. Good for 30% off your first year of subscribing to Distrokid. So check it out if you are music makers and artists out there and make your music shine. The Distrokid app is available. Go to the app or Play Store to download it. The world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot It's interesting because here we have the Beatles that are the most analyzed and studied and deconstructed musical entity of the last half of the 20th century. And everything that we discover about them that's new and different we look at as like, wow, this is why they were the Beatles. Because they were coming up with the stuff that apparently nobody else was doing. I wonder how true that is. Or Paul. There's a quote about him stealing from other people to create what you do. And were they just so good at it that they kind of kept hidden what their influences were? Or they're just repurposing them with such flair and originality that anybody else could listen and steal from the same records, but they're not going to sound like.
- [41:54]
Sam Popkin
The Beatles Yeah, it's interesting. It's like, were they just a miracle, these guys from Liverpool who didn't know what they were doing? It just. They happened upon these amazing chords and harmonies. Is it just practice makes perfect? I don't really know. But whatever it was, it was very special. You know, the Rolling Stones later on had some really pretty sounding records, like Wild Horses or Angie. But the first few records, you know, there's some ballads maybe, but it's really just kind of Chuck Berry blues, British Invasion stuff, which is fantastic. You know, something like Not a Second Time. I know that one's been studied a lot in terms of its chords. Was it Aolian cadence? Someone said that, yeah. I still don't know what that means. Do you know what that means?
- [42:39]
Robert Rodriguez
I don't. And neither did John sound like birds. But it's interesting that musicologists would pick up on that because again, unschooled guys playing completely by instinct. What's interesting, you mentioned the Stones. And I know that they had the breakthrough at some point where they started playing with different tunings. And once you. Whatever it is, you drop the G or something, you play Stones records that sound like the Stones. Once you do that little trick. Did the Beatles experiment much with alternate tunings?
- [43:09]
Sam Popkin
They did. Rain, obviously, is a whole different thing that I talked about. But Paul was really the first to mess around. Actually, that's not true. George did do like a drop D tuning on Act Naturally, some subtle stuff like that. But Paul really was the first to do like a totally different tuning where he dropped the entire standard ead, G, B, E tuning a whole step down, which creates a very dark and warm low sound. And that's what he used on Yesterday. He played a G chord, but really it's an F, so the classical musicians had to learn it in F. Even though Paul's shapes he was playing were G, which is cool because if you watch the Tokyo Live stuff, the Beatles are playing yesterday in actual G, maybe because Paul wasn't able to transpose in his head, oh, you have to go F to E minor to A. So Paul used that on Yesterday. And what was really interesting was the new anthology for outtakes. If you listen to I've Just Seen a Face, the new Take three, I want to say was.
- [44:14]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, I think so.
- [44:15]
Sam Popkin
Paul's using that same down tuning on his acoustic guitar, which is really strange because the song is in the key of A, which is pretty easy chord shape and way to play a song. But because Paul's down tuned, he had to play a B and G sharp minor, an F sharp major with this very fast folky song. So yeah, Paul was always kind of.
- [44:39]
Robert Rodriguez
Experimenting, if I'm not mistaken. Whatever day in June, it was 1965 all in one day. They tracked Yesterday. I've Just Seen a Face and I'm down.
- [44:49]
Sam Popkin
Unbelievable.
- [44:50]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. So if you have that guitar already in that down tuning and now that's. Next song on the agenda is I've Just Seen a Face. Yeah, that would make some sense.
- [45:00]
Sam Popkin
That's a marathon day.
- [45:02]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, it just. That's like a career making day for some bands, right?
- [45:06]
Sam Popkin
Yeah.
- [45:07]
Robert Rodriguez
So what do you see in terms of George as his evolution as a guitarist goes? He'd set aside guitar for that mid period and then comes back to it with a vengeance in 1968. Is there any observations you can make about something possibly he picked up from the Indian immersion that manifest in the recordings that year? Anything different, say on his White Album tracks?
- [45:31]
Sam Popkin
That's a good question. There's. There's a lot of debate, you know, in my like kind of Beatles guitar community about George's abilities during that time. Some people say that because he picked up sitar, there's not a lot of moments in 66 to 68 where he really shines. I don't really agree with that, but I also find myself having a hard time listing incredible guitar moments. I mean, fixing a hole is really great. She Said, she said, as you said. But I think he was just getting into a more spiritual way of thinking. And a song like Long, Long Long is just very beautiful and just subtly played. And I think it was kind of the antithesis of what he wanted to do would be the kind of hard rock jamming virtuoso playing. So I'm not sure what White album.
- [46:19]
Robert Rodriguez
I think of Savoy Truffle as like a rare example of him like rocking. He didn't do a whole lot of that past A certain point for your.
- [46:28]
Sam Popkin
Blues is a good one.
- [46:29]
Robert Rodriguez
Oh my God, yes. The first inklings to my ears of him really on the six strings channeling a voice like a human voice the way he would do so definitely as a slide player. You hear it there. I also think in terms of playing lead guitar, you've got that beautiful moment of back to back solos by Clapton and then George on Sour Milk Sea.
- [46:51]
Sam Popkin
Of the Jackie Lomax version.
- [46:53]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah. That you've got. Here's George returning to guitar. The songs he wrote for the entirety of 67 is like his gap year. He's doing everything on keyboard, the writing, and then suddenly he's coming back and he's a different player than he was 65, 66. It's very interesting. And then come 69 is when he starts making the pivot into slide playing and that becomes his signature sound going forward.
- [47:19]
Sam Popkin
Right. I know that he was a fan of Jimi Hendrix. You kind of hear more Paul's influence, maybe Hendrix influence with, you know, sergeant Pepper and Taxman and stuff like that, but. Well, maybe not Taxman. That might have been too early for Hendrix. Yeah. George was definitely starting to get back into roots Americana type music with the band and Robbie and just a fan of Hendrix. And then obviously Delaney And Bonnie in 69, he joined that tour and he doesn't really play a lot of lead. He just kind of enjoyed getting up on stage and just being a part of the band again.
- [47:55]
Robert Rodriguez
Being a slide band.
- [47:57]
Sam Popkin
Yeah. So I don't know. I do agree with you that he didn't really find a real voice on the guitar the same way until later in the 60s or with his slide use. And that could have been due to the having to learn something like the sitar, which I think he ultimately dropped in the 70s. I don't think he kept with the sitar playing because it was just too hard.
- [48:20]
Robert Rodriguez
And I think there was the recognition that he would never be like the people he admired. It would take dedicating your entire life to that.
- [48:27]
Sam Popkin
Right. Holravi is a hard person to look up to musically and to replicate.
- [48:33]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. In 69 on the rooftop, he's put aside the Wawa, left that down in the basement. And on the guitar. That he didn't have too many good words to say about that Rosewood telly. Just the amazing bends he's doing and fills throughout the limited repertoire they're doing. To my ears. He's on fire on the Rooftop.
- [48:54]
Sam Popkin
Absolutely.
- [48:55]
Robert Rodriguez
What great stuff he's doing too. Dickapone, you had mentioned don't let me down. Even something silly like one after 9:09.
- [49:03]
Sam Popkin
Incredible solo on that.
- [49:04]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- [49:05]
Sam Popkin
Or the bend on I've Got A Feeling.
- [49:19]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. Right. Right. It's like, geez, everybody should have such a good gap year that you come back this strong.
- [49:26]
Sam Popkin
It's amazing. Yeah. A little rest and meditation will do wonders. I have heard that theory that he didn't like the. The Rosewood Telecaster. And I. I've seen a quote thrown around online, but I don't know if it's verified. I know that he gave away to Delaney at the end of 69 as a gift, obviously. And I don't. I don't know if this was in Ken Womack's book or not. But apparently Mal Evans, you know, helped George get on this tour with Delaney. And apparently Delaney was kind of a difficult figure. And somebody said to George, if you want to get in on his good graces, give him one of your guitars. And then the day that he was showing up for the the tour in Europe, he gave Delaney the guitar. It is very possible he didn't like the rosewood because they are incredibly heavy guitars. From what I've heard, like 10 or 11 pounds. It was kind of an experiment on Fender's part and they made one for Hendrix's Strat Rosewood Stratocaster, which never arrived in time before he died. But I'm not trying to go against what you were saying. I just. I've heard conflicting reports about if he actually liked the tally or not.
- [50:36]
Robert Rodriguez
I'd seen that quote and I'm not gonna say here now that I believe it's true or it's been verified, but it does align with that. If Delaney Bramlett was the difficult guy, I'm just gonna give him the guitar I don't like.
- [50:49]
Sam Popkin
That's true. You wouldn't give them Lucy Les Paul. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Although he did use it on Abbey Road some more as well. So it was good enough to keep using for the next record, at least.
- [51:01]
Robert Rodriguez
Right. There are pictures, I've even seen a picture of Paul playing it. Even though it's right handed, he's got it on. That's interesting. So what do you see of this trajectory of. With each different amplifier or guitar he acquires, there's a transition, there's an evolving going on. And now he's getting back to guitar in 68, he's on the roof playing this wonderful stuff and then he starts going into slide. Do you see him then going into the solo years? A continued sort of arc in terms of going somewhere different or developing it deeper. What do you see as far as his evolution goes as guitar player?
- [51:41]
Sam Popkin
It's a really interesting time guitar wise, because I'm not sure if everyone would know this, but when he started playing slide guitar, he did an open tuning, open E tuning, which allows you to slide up to like, let's say the 12th fret. And it's a full chord, it's an E, open chord. It just opens so much for him. On that album All Things Must Pass, I was trying to replicate the song Waiting on youn all, which is one of my favorites, and I was trying to do it on standard tuning with slide and it just would not work because you need certain inversions to work of, like a triad. You need to be able to play three strings at once. And you simply can't do it in standard tuning. So that new tuning opened up so much for him as well as new guitar strings. Because in the early days, guitar strings were very heavy and thick and not bendable. And people like James Burton and Reggie Young figured out that you could use a banjo string, or you could take a lighter string here and there and put it somewhere else and do bigger bends. So I think all of that, combined with his friendship with Eric Clapton and Robbie Robertson, allowed him to kind of blossom. Just thinking about all those takes. You hear of George struggling to do a solo in the early days. Not that he couldn't do it, or it wasn't good necessarily, but I saw her standing there. If you listen to all. What is it, 11 takes or something, they had to piece together certain edits to make it a full solo. There's just some moments where he really sounds like he's struggling. Not so much that he couldn't do it, as I said. But maybe John and Paul liked the take that he didn't like. And they went with it. They kept it.
- [53:28]
Robert Rodriguez
He had to kind of work his way toward it.
- [53:30]
Sam Popkin
Yeah. So having more time in the studio, or time to just figure out how to get a good set of string. It was so hard to get a good set of strings on a guitar back then. Nowadays you can buy all different materials and gauge thicknesses. Back then you were stuck with a certain type that sometimes it wouldn't stay in tune or break strings. I think all of those things combined having more time in the studio, befriending people who knew what they were doing more, allowed him to blossom.
- [53:58]
Robert Rodriguez
Have you listened to any of the recordings of the Dark horse tour in 74? Enough to get a sense of what he was doing by that time. Musically, yeah.
- [54:08]
Sam Popkin
It's an interesting one again, because he had Rocky on the Dark Horse tour. And he kept that in open E for the rest of his life, actually, that open E slide tuning. And then he would buy other Stratocasters. And I think he brought Lucy Les Paul to play just normal standard tuning. The Dark Horse tour gets a lot of bad rap, but there are some really good moments. The indie music is fantastic and Billy Preston's on it, and Robin Ford is playing great guitar solos. So I think it. Maybe Danny needs to get a box set or something to show the highlights of the tour.
- [54:44]
Robert Rodriguez
I found it interesting as a musical development that Joni Mitchell starts out As a folkie. And by the 70s, past a certain point, increasingly becoming more jazz influenced. And then she hooks up with Tom Scott. LA Express for the, I think first with Court and Spark, which becomes the biggest selling album of her career. And that's the same year that George then apparently likes what he hears because then he hires Tom Scott to be part of the Dark Horse ensemble and they back him up on the Dark Horse album. So that's where those two connect. And it's funny because months later, Paul then used Tom Scott for listening to.
- [55:23]
Sam Popkin
What the man said in New Orleans is where he recorded that one.
- [55:26]
Robert Rodriguez
That's where the album was mostly recorded, I think, though, because he was struggling to get that song nailed. Ultimately they flew the tape out to LA and that's where he finished it and connected with Tom Scott. So funny.
- [55:37]
Sam Popkin
I didn't know that connection. Yeah, it's funny when that happens for like the, you know, the guys who worked with Paul, worked with John and then they ask Paul, what was it like working with John?
- [55:47]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah, like a Hugh McCracken. Somebody like that works with Paul and John. And I think there's a story from one of them. I don't know if it's Hugh McCracken or it might be where he gets hired to work with John, having already worked with Paul. And he's nervous thinking what he hears in the press, that these two are at each other's throats and that's going to work against them. John's going to be mad he found out we're with Paul. And then when it does come up, John just kind of nods and goes, oh, Paul, he picks good people.
- [56:13]
Sam Popkin
Exactly.
- [56:14]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- [56:14]
Sam Popkin
The session guys had to be really well behaved. Not had to be, but they get hired if you're, you know, a good person. Like Albert Lee, similarly was the only person who worked with both Don and Phil Everly after their breakup. And he was the reason they got back together in the 80s. And people like Hugh McCracken and all those session guys had to be real professionals and not have a big ego because they needed to get work. And I think that George liked to surround himself with that type of person, like Gary Wright. He formed a real strong bond with 70s and, you know, Indy in common as well. They do. They both loved Yogananda and they bonded over that. And George at that point, I think, was sick of all the tension, the Beatles and wanted to spend time with Billy Preston and people that were fun.
- [57:03]
Robert Rodriguez
It's interesting, it was an observation I'd had a while back about John and Paul essentially post Beatles working with people that are sidemen. They're not a list peer rock stars. Whereas George surrounds himself with Dylan, Clapton, Harry Wright, Billy Preston, all these guys who are stars in their own right. And he's like quite comfortable. And what does he give us? He gives us all things must pass. So it's an amazing kind of difference. Maybe it's George a way of looking at it. While he was used to working with legends, he's worked with John and Paul, Ringo, So this was his comfort level. But on the other hand, you know, it's in the service of his songs and he's giving them leave to work their magic on his raw material the way he worked his on John and Paul's. So it's just an interesting path. But the Tom Scott thing I was just thinking about, if you're a jazzer, I don't know how much you consider Tom Scott to be jazz. He's sort of light, whatever way you want to tip it. He's not a hardcore. But it was an interesting influence on George at that time to go in that sort of direction. Having been on this journey where he starts out with rockabilly and rock and roll and then soul, R and B, India along the way, Americana. And now he's easing in a jazzy direction and certainly could see manifestations of that on some of his solo albums going forward. I think of a wonderful song like Learning how to Love youe.
- [58:34]
Sam Popkin
It's a very smooth jazz kind of ending to the album, isn't it?
- [58:38]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [58:39]
Sam Popkin
It's interesting.
- [58:40]
Robert Rodriguez
And you get bits of that throughout the self titled album after that as well.
- [58:45]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, he was a big fan of Smokey Robinson and R B music. So it's funny, he kind of had just every corner of the globe. I think at one point he was into the Bulgarian women's choir in the 90s. And you're absolutely invited them over to Friar park and. Yes. So funny.
- [59:04]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. Sam Brown was on the show to tell that story.
- [59:06]
Sam Popkin
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [59:08]
Robert Rodriguez
It's incredible diversity. But you could tell, you know, like when he got together with Carl Perkins for the rockabilly TV special, how good it felt to go home.
- [59:18]
Sam Popkin
His face just lit up. Yeah, yeah. I think he. He was nervous around certain people like that, like Carl or Bob Dylan. Even during the Wilburys, he was in a band with Bob and apparently he was filming him from behind a bush secretly. And Dylan would kind of mess with him. I've heard a story about if you belong to me on the second Wilbury's album and how Dylan did a great vocal take. And then Jeff Lynn said something like, all right, you want to try something different? And he kind of messed with him and did a terrible, terrible take. And George was too afraid to say, bob, that was terrible, please, like let's use the first take or something like that. Yeah, you can really tell. We had Bernie Hamburger on our program who made the guitars that George used on Real Love. And now and then he's a luthier out in Las Vegas. And he got to meet Carl and George at the same time in the 90s and told us some incredible stories about the two of them interacting. And it was actually that that green guitar that you see on the reunion sessions on Real Love was originally for Carl. Bernie flew out to London, met Carl, gave him this guitar, and then later on at a hotel they met George and George said, I want that guitar. And Carl gave it to him. Wow. Yes. Amazing stories.
- [60:38]
Robert Rodriguez
I was so hopeful when the word was announced for the new anthology that they had more footage of the three do sessions. It's like, please tell me they've got video of him playing that solo on Free as a Bird, which would have been the most amazing thing.
- [60:53]
Sam Popkin
I know people think it was probably rocky for that one, but really we don't know. Yeah, some people say, cause you know, open E slide thing. But we might never know unless Peter Jackson talks to Disney.
- [61:06]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. I wonder if Paul even remembers because there's that story attached to it when it comes to that part. And he sees George cracking out his slide. He's like, oh God, here we go. My sweet Lord.
- [61:20]
Sam Popkin
Exactly. Yeah. He said, like, does do we really want this to be a George solo album kind of sound? And then Jacqueline's producing, who is George's friend. Paul kind of wanted to relive the Beatle days, not the he's solo Beatle.
- [61:34]
Robert Rodriguez
Days, not the highly successful George Harrison lazy era. Yeah. So is there anything you see as like lost opportunities with George or things you would have liked to have seen him explore more? I've had the sense, just as an observer of his career, that it's too bad that there was so many non musical factors that weighed on him that kept him from maybe pursuing his musicality as he might. I had thought that, but when he did the follow up to 33 and a third, he did the self titled album, co produced with Russ Teitelman, who did a lot of artists at Warner Brothers. I remember thinking to myself, especially years later when that little bit of thing that got bootlegged surfaced of George playing Go youo Own Way. You've probably heard it. It's like, my God, what if Lindsey Buckingham had produced him? Two big guitar guys getting together, or even you had a little taste of it with I Don't Want To do it, which I believe Dave Edmonds produced another guy going back to their common roots. It would have been a cool thing to bring out that side of George as guitarist, as somebody that understood where he was coming from musically and could take it to where it fit in the contemporary world. And unfortunately, Jeff Lynn was the guy he ended up hooking up with, which well and good, if you like Beatle pastiches. But I just wonder how far he could have taken the guitar stuff with somebody who understood guitar play.
- [63:06]
Sam Popkin
It's hard for me to say because I have come to even like certain songs on, like, Gon Tropo. I just love George so much and his spirituality has become a big influence on my life. And so even the kind of lost 80s period has a charm to it. But you're right, like, if he had hooked up with some other kind of rock musician. The Wilbury's albums do have really good guitar moments. Tom Petty and Jeff and George, they brought Gary Moore on as well for some stuff. But I don't know, George was kind of always on to the next thing. He wanted to garden, he wanted to make films, he wanted to invite the Bulgarian Women's Choir over to his house. So, I don't know, it's hard to say if he would have even gone for something like that, because he. He could be so bitter in the 80s and 90s about rock music. He. He disdained goo and Oasis and rap music and just anything modern. He was going backwards to Hoagie Carmichael and, you know, just keep going back in the uk, go back to the uke. So I don't know, but that's what I like about George, is that he could pull Hawaiian influence into music. And in the 90s there was a lot of different types of music happening. But for me, it's like, it's cool to hear just George on a ukulele playing just some pretty song. Yeah, I don't know, it's hard with the what ifs, because then you can have a whole episode. I'm sure you've talked about, like, John Lennon on his 1981 world tour and what could have happened.
- [64:37]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, for sure. I think it's kind of funny, given his embrace and identification with ukulele's, that it's Paul that beat him to putting a UK on an album with Ramon.
- [64:48]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, I know. I think about that too.
- [64:50]
Robert Rodriguez
Huh.
- [64:50]
Sam Popkin
But he'd stay with it. Yeah. Like Paul put slide on Drive My Car and yeah. George might have been the first to do it, I'm not sure. But yeah, the stuff that Paul beat him to.
- [65:01]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- [65:01]
Sam Popkin
It's interesting thing that I maybe didn't talk about was like, I want you. She's so heavy. How there's like a weird chord on that and how it's E7 with a sharp nine little fox on the high string. It sounds like a really heady chord. But if you play it on guitar, you just play an E7 and then you just kind of like your index finger just kind of rests naturally. It immediately goes to that chord that's in the song. And I want to tell you, has that same chord on the piano.
- [65:33]
Robert Rodriguez
Oh, the dissonant.
- [65:34]
Sam Popkin
The dissonant kind of. Yeah. Horror movie chord.
- [65:37]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. What do you think he's playing on that? Can your ears divine? Is that the Lucy he's playing on? She's so heavy?
- [65:44]
Sam Popkin
I think so, yeah. I did kind of a deep dive on it and I discovered that there were moments where George's guitar is fuzzy and then not fuzzy. What he was doing is something that Jimi Hendrix and David Gilmore and a lot of guitarists later on did, which is using a fuzz face pedal. But when you turn down the volume knob of your guitar, you're giving less signal to the fuzz pedal. So you're actually cleaning up the signal and getting kind of an in between slight crunch tone. And I'm surprised that George even knew how to do that kind of trick. But George and John are often seen fiddling with their knobs and pickup selectors even early on. So I guess with experimentation they've figured that out. It's a really great trick to use as a guitarist.
- [66:34]
Robert Rodriguez
That's interesting. But you're right, you do see them get back has been this wealth of the Beatles in the studio and getting to see just the little things that you can study it and then freeze it and it's like, wow, what are they doing there? Just cool little details that if you've ever been in a band, you can relate to. And it's like, wow, Beatles do this stuff too. And. Except they're magical and so they get magical results, unlike us. But that's really cool.
- [66:57]
Sam Popkin
A lot of cool stuff.
- [66:58]
Robert Rodriguez
So do you have, given your intense familiarity and study and appreciation for George as a guitar player, what are some of your favorite moments or Songs or recordings or albums.
- [67:11]
Sam Popkin
That's so hard to answer. They all have something special. Like Dark Horse has some really interesting moments. Like Maya Love is a cool song. I'm a huge fan of 331 3. I really like True Love and Crackerbox palace and that Open E slide stuff that he was doing and harmonizing over it. And then like on Brainwashed, he has some really cool guitar moments, like Vatican Blues and Marwa Blues. I don't know. I've come to, as I said, even enjoy Somewhere in England. That album has some really cool moments. And that which I have Lost is a cool song that maybe people don't know about. Where he kind of goes back into his Indian influence, Hindu influence, where for a while he was kind of panned after the Dark Horse tour, he kind of shied away from religion. But it's stuff that I like to read about. So I enjoy when George kind of slips in a subtle Hindu reference like that which I have Lost or Brainwashed or something like that.
- [68:11]
Robert Rodriguez
Found on the subject of Somewhere in England, just astonishing to this very day, I don't get it. I don't understand it. That to me, three of his best compositions got dropped from the album. Flying Hour, Sat Singing and Leia's Head, I think are all fantastic recordings and compositions. And those are songs I wish the world knew more about because they're so damn good. That should be folded into a future George Harrison compilation of some kind. And give them their due even.
- [68:41]
Sam Popkin
There's a song he just did for a friend, Mo. Do you know that song Mo? Oh, yeah, yeah. Tribute to Mo Osteen, right?
- [68:49]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah. From Warner Bros.
- [68:51]
Sam Popkin
It's just a 50th birthday recording each gave to Mo. And it's a beautiful song. Yeah, yeah. Somewhere in England. Those three songs aren't on it and it could have been better. And I think he wrote Blood from the Clone as kind of an FU to Warner Brothers after that.
- [69:07]
Robert Rodriguez
Right. And Cockamamie Business and Rack My Brain for Ringo. Right, that patch of bile toward corporate interference.
- [69:17]
Sam Popkin
Exactly.
- [69:17]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. It's interesting. I really appreciate, more, as my taste matured, listening to a lot of his solo stuff. There's stuff I liked all along. 33 and a third, I'm totally with youh. That's one of my favorite albums of his. If that had been the touring album rather than Dark Horse, back when he had a sense of humor back and he was in a much better place personally. But there's so much to appreciate and listen to and I think Brainwash is one of these albums that in the wake of his passing, I never felt, even at the time it got its due, that it should have, because it's solid. And stuck Inside a cloud is just, for my money, one of the best things he ever did, ever. Especially the opening moment. Musically, that is just. You're trying to like, what is this? Is this a voice? Is this a guitar? What is this? It's stunning.
- [70:10]
Sam Popkin
It's gorgeous. One of Danny's favorite songs, too, I think, right?
- [70:14]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah, right. And certainly full of meaning. You hear anecdotally from time to time about mountains of tape at Friar park. And certainly he alluded at the time of the Threedales, I hope somebody takes my crappy demos and turns them into hit songs someday. I know Danny's only one guy, but a first Takes, Volume two would certainly be welcome. A Best of the Dark Horse tour. And what other treasures are you guys sitting on? Since seemingly some of the stuff that we've at least got to hear that we value so much is unknown to the public generally. There's so much, a wealth of stuff there that I hope to live long enough to see a George Harrison renaissance.
- [70:54]
Sam Popkin
Me, too. Yeah. When the Living in the Material World box that came out, it was really fantastic, but kind of short. Danny had said somewhere in an interview that there were 93 takes of give Me Love. And are we really going to release all of the takes? It's better to just release one of each. And I understand that thinking, like, you know, not everyone is nerdy as us, but there's some really interesting stuff that hasn't been released, like the Bangladesh second concert. I know that he's planning on remastering it at some point. It would be really nice to have the full evening and afternoon shows. There's just so much. George is a huge influence on my life in general, obviously through the Beatles originally and now through, like, spirituality. So whenever I talk about him, I just get excited. So it's fun to just get to share my feelings with you about this special guy.
- [71:49]
Robert Rodriguez
Absolutely. Yeah. And you're not alone. He's definitely one that. Being the Dark horse, being the guy who didn't seek the spotlight, he's like a treasure waiting to be discovered by a lot of people out there that think they know the Beatles or think they've got him pegged. There's so much more, and it rewards those who seek it.
- [72:08]
Sam Popkin
Yeah. And the one thing I keep thinking about is, you know, George would fly over Friar park pirate skull flag when he was feeling a little less spiritual. And then an om when he was feeling, okay, I'm grounded today. And I think that's a good metaphor for George where he. The My Sweet Lord lawsuit. He was so burned by society and taxman taking his money and he had to mortgage his house a few times. And he could be kind of grumpy at times, but he also was. He had such a big heart as well.
- [72:40]
Robert Rodriguez
It seemed definitely the whole dichotomy that people will point to as the Pisces fish swimming in opposite directions at the same time. Absolutely. He's a man of stunning contradictions. And I've had Philip Norman on the show Reluctant Beatle and Patty, and I think George is a guy that, as John said. But what's inside of him, that's the mystery. It's something that a guy that seemingly came from the most stable and loving and supportive upbringing could be so incredibly bitter and unhappy. Plenty of people watched Get Back that aren't maybe as hardcore as we are, that we're like, God, why is this guy whining all the time and not really understanding the situation as he saw it? And certainly there was the stuff happening off camera in his life as well.
- [73:30]
Sam Popkin
Exactly.
- [73:30]
Robert Rodriguez
But, yeah, yeah, there's so much about him that I think is. If you're at all interested in the Beatles, there's a compelling mystery there for sure, that when you see how he manifests his inner life in his music, maybe you need to grow into it. But as I said, it rewards it. It's just very unlike anything else out there, I think.
- [73:50]
Sam Popkin
Yeah, he. He was able to be just so loving, according to a lot of people that we've even gotten to interview on our podcast as well. Like Bernie. He would just be so generous and then could also be a bit of, like a womanizer. There's a lot of contradictions. And I go back and forth with watching Get Back where I. I feel like George is being a little too hard on Paul. But then a lot of the time, I think, well, he had just come back from an awesome trip to Woodstock and recording Jackie Lomax, and he thought, maybe he'll be better this time with the Beatles. And it clearly was not in Twickenham. And his relationship with Patty off screen was really bad during those sessions, so he was really on edge. Yeah.
- [74:37]
Robert Rodriguez
The quiet Beatle who you couldn't get to shut up according to People knew him.
- [74:42]
Sam Popkin
Exactly.
- [74:42]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an amazing guy. Anybody wanting the further Sam Popkin experience can hear you and see you. Where.
- [74:51]
Sam Popkin
So I have my YouTube channel, the Sam Popkin is the name. And I. I do guitar covers where I break down exactly what the Beatles are playing, guitar wise. And usually I try to do it on the right instrument like the Les Paul or the Gretsch. And I'm on Instagram and I have a Instagram page three Savile Row where I nerd out over just the January 69 get back sessions. And I just post only from that get back stuff. And then you can follow gear there and everywhere. Our podcast I run with my other fellow YouTube beetle guitar nerds, where we just talk about a specific song or a specific piece of gear and all the little details we can figure out about it.
- [75:35]
Robert Rodriguez
That's great. We are in this golden age of Beatles scholarship and I think that as more and more younger people especially are coming to it, you guys are doing the groundwork and making it easy for them to get excited about exploring this music and getting their hands on it and having a roadmap set out for them.
- [75:52]
Sam Popkin
So thanks. There's a lot of passion. There's a lot of also Internet trolls. And you'd be amazed at the things that people fight over. Like, he did not tune that string to that.
- [76:02]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. My God, you might have heard the shows I've done with Marcus Phelan and Andrew Shakespeare.
- [76:07]
Sam Popkin
We all have our ideas. Yeah.
- [76:09]
Robert Rodriguez
It's all too much is an evergreen who's playing bass. He's playing lead guitar.
- [76:13]
Sam Popkin
Don't go there. That's a whole nother can of worms.
- [76:15]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
That's all the difference between me and we would say, Eric, I'm just another guitar sometimes when playing bits and sometimes singing. But he's the only guitar to play leaving. And so he's like playing. That's how you can keep it going all the time.
- [76:34]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- [76:34]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
So I feel now I can play things. I can learn things that will sound okay. Especially fast fingering all that. This jazz man, not really just airing because he's very good at that, you know, like improvising and keeping it going, which I'm not good at, you know, like a lot of guitarists can sustain Eden, but they play out like a lot of ship. But this thing takes on a pattern, you know, and gets somewhere and resolves itself, which is very horrible.
- [77:07]
Robert Rodriguez
Something about the Beatles created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez executive producer Rick Way, title song performed by the Corgis. Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.
- [77:31]
Sam Popkin
You are one of the guitar greats in rock and roll. And yeah, we didn't really talk about. Why are you laughing?
- [77:40]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
Well, I think it's a matter of opinion. Well, in my opinion, maybe to some people, I am I. Not to me, I'm not. To me, I'm not.
- [77:50]
Sam Popkin
You know that you are considered this. How's that?
- [77:54]
George Harrison (as portrayed in conversation or singing)
You know, I suppose some people may think that everybody's entitled to their opinion. No, I think it's a question of relativity. You know, to some people, I'm good. To other people, I'm a load of rubbish. And I think there's so many great guitar players out there, you know, that actually work at it and play and rehearse and practice and. Who play all the time. You know, I think that's the secret. You have to be out there playing all the time. But for me, I pick up a guitar to write a tune or to make a record, and that's about it. So you can't really be that good.
- [78:31]
Sam Popkin
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