#george's jukebox

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The Beatles at a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 18, 1965. Photos by Don Rhodes.

Q: "I have a question for all The Beatles here. If you were sitting at home listening to record albums of other recording artists, who are some of the American recording artists that you prefer?" John: "Otis Redding is one." George: “Yeah." Paul: "James Brown." John: “There's lots of them." George: “Nina Simone." Paul: “Chuck Jackson." George: “There's hundreds of them." - Atlanta press conference (August 18, 1965)

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Photo by Brian Aris.

“George listened to all kinds of music, music from his childhood. For instance, with ‘I Really Love You,’ he was about to record a song he’d written — can’t remember which one — and he suddenly said, ‘Hey, you know what this tempo reminds me of? It reminds me of the song from the Sixties, “I Really Love You.”’ And he started playing it, and just got diverted. And he recorded that instead. I wish I could remember which song reminded him. So he wasn’t really concerned with what was going on in the music world; in his music, that’s what was going on. And those particular times, whether he listened to Hoagy Carmichael or Cab Calloway, we would go on a musical journey for like months at a time. You would wake up to ‘Bugle Call Rag’ on the jukebox, that was his way of getting Dhani up for school. You know, loud. [laughs] He probably would have covered ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’ by now, you know, because he had a funny version of that. And it was all about the chords and notes and the sentiment.” - Olivia Harrison, Dark Horse Radio (November 2018)

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Photo credits (as known): screenshot from George’s “This Is Love” music video; GabbyPahinui.com; Star-Advertiser.

“Martin [Pahinui]’s favorite rock group was, and still is, The Beatles. ‘Their songs are so extraordinary,’ he says. He counts as two of his career highlights meeting Ringo Starr in Los Angeles and chatting with the late George Harrison on the phone when the shy, spiritual Beatle was living on Maui. ‘He had a high respect for Hawaiian music,’ Martin says. ‘He said he had all of my daddy’s records and a lot of other local artists. We invited him to our sessions, but he said he didn’t want to interfere. I wish we could have gotten to play with him, but I can appreciate his feelings.’” - Martin Pahinui: Ho’olohe, Dancing Cat Records liner notes “[George would pause] intently over one of the two jukeboxes filled with favorites, carefully and deliberately choosing what to play next: a version of ‘The Lumberjack Song,’ Ravi Shankar, endless Dylan, ‘Oh, you must hear this, Eric.’ Early Elvis. ‘Spam.’ EC’s ‘Layla.’ And yet more Dylan. His enthusiasm was contagious. He played the jukebox to inform and instruct. He reveled in sharing his delight in all kinds of music. He would go through periods of furious passions, often lasting for months or even years at a time, when he would insist you shared the joy of Smokey Robinson or the songs of Hoagy Carmichael or the Hawaiian music of Gabby Pahinui or even the ukulele nonsense of George Formby. During this latter stage everyone had to learn the uke; even Liv he taught to strum away. He embraced all forms of life. It was to be savored and enjoyed. But music was at the heart of it. It could speak more truly to the soul. And the soul was what George was about.” - Eric Idle, The Greedy Bastard Diary

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Rest in peace, Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the last remaining founding member of The Four Tops. Sincere condolences to his loved ones. 

The Four Tops were on George’s jukebox at Kinfauns, per the Record Mirror’s January 1, 1966, issue. The songs: “Something About You” and “Darling, I Hum Our Song.” “[Brian Epstein] told us that he had seen us perform, and if you give me your top performance, I’ll guarantee that when you come back, you’ll be front page news. We did do one of our best shows and he was so happy, he was almost crying. The audience was standing in the aisles calling for more and more and he said, ‘You guys did it!’ When we came back, we were front page news and it was like that for years.” - Duke Fakir, Asbury Park Press, 2019 Referenced in the Get Back sessions: "Reach Out (I'll Be There)." And of course, there’s a shoutout to “I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” in the Harrisong “This Song”… “[I]t’s got like that Tamla sort of line, bass line, and so it says, ‘This song could be you, could be’ — and then I’ve got, I always heard this in my mind — I got Eric Idle, who’s one of the ex-Monty Pythons, to throw in the line where he says, [parodies] ‘Could be Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch!’ [laughs] And the other voice says, ‘No, sounds more like Rescue Me!’” - George Harrison, A Personal Music Dialogue with George Harrison At 33 1/3, 1976 (x)

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George Harrison, backstage in Philadelphia, PA, on August 16, 1966; photo by Bob Bonis.

“[George showed us] his music room, which has one wall covered with the famous Harrison guitars, his collection of Indian instruments and a small jukebox standing just by the door. I looked at the titles on the jukebox and there were very few Beatle songs amongst them. The Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, Lovin’ Spoonful, the Stones were all well represented.” - The Beatles Monthly, January 1967

“George Harrison’s Fab Forty… George — like all the Beatles, incidentally — has his own juke box at his Esher home. It’s in his ‘den.’ Along with tape recorder, radio and record player. […] But back to the juke box. It’s a KB. Maybe you saw it in the film ‘Help’? Says George: ‘It’s so much easier to have all my favorite records on the juke box at once. It saves me going through piles of records to find the ones I want. Then when I get sick of them, I just throw them out and put some new ones in.” - Tony Hall, Record Mirror, January 1, 1966

George’s Top Ten… 1 “Harlem Shuffle” — Bob and Earl 2 “Good Things Come To Those Who Wait” — Chuck Jackson 3 “Be My Lady”/“Red Beans and Rice” — Booker T and the MGs 4 “Please Crawl Out Your Window” — Bob Dylan 5 “Baby, You’re My Everything” — Little Jerry Williams 6 “Back Street” — Edwin Starr 7 “Work, Work, Work” — Lee Dorsey 8 “The Little Girl I Once Knew” — The Beach Boys 9 “My Girl Has Gone” — The Miracles 10 “I Don’t Know What You’ve Got /But It’s Got Me)” — Little Richard (“[P]arts one and two — the second is George’s favorite.”)

The rest… 11 “I Can’t Turn You Loose” — Otis Redding 12 “My Girl” — Otis Redding 13 “I Believe I’ll Love On” — Jackie Wilson 14 “Plum Nellie” — Booker T and the MGs 15 “Everything Is Gonna Be Alright” — Willie Mitchell 16 “A Sweet Woman Like You” — Joe Tex 17 “Something About You” — The Four Tops 18 “I Got You” — James Brown 19 “Ain’t That Peculiar” — Marvin Gaye 20 “Turn, Turn, Turn” — The Byrds 21 “See Saw” — Don Covay 22 “I’m Comin’ Through” — Sounds Incorporated 23 “Don’t Fight It” — Wilson Pickett 24 “Bootleg” — Booker T and the MGs 25 “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” — The Young Rascals 26 “Respect” — Otis Redding 27 “Try Me”/“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” — James Brown (“instrumentals”) 28 “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” — Otis Redding 29 “All Or Nothing” — Patty Labelle and her Belles 30 “Pretty Little Baby” — Marvin Gaye 31 “Oowee Baby, I Love You” — Fred Hughes 32 “The Tracks of My Tears” — The Miracles 33 “Yum Yum” — Joe Tex 34 “Agent 00 Soul” — Edwin Starr 35 “Money” — Barrett Strong 36 “Some Other Guy” — Ritchie Barrett (“George’s ‘Revived 45’ list — he’s dug these since they first came out.”) 37 “It Wasn’t Me” — Chuck Berry 38 “Mohair Sam” — Charlie Rich 39 “Let Him Run Wild” — The Beach Boys 40 “Do You Believe In Magic” — The Lovin’ Spoonful

“George really knows his records. It’s always a pleasure to talk to him about them.” - Tony Hall, Record Mirror, January 1, 1966 (x)

George's "Fab Forty" playlist: on YouTube, and on Spotify.

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The Beatles meeting Fats Domino, New Orleans, 16 September 1964; photos by Curt Gunther.

"[Fats Domino] was sweet, just like a little boy. On the tours we liked to listen to Tamla Motown: Marvin Gaye and the others. Stevie Wonder was just coming around in those days, and Ray Charles we’d liked from the Fifties. We were also meeting people like Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins." - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology (x)

“‘The main thing that really buzzed me, even before I heard Elvis, was ‪Fats Domino‬’s “I’m In Love Again,”’ says Harrison. ‘I can even see exactly where I was when I heard that. There was this little place near where I was born called Wavertree, a district. And right at that point there’s a thing called the Picton Clock Tower, this tower in the middle of the road with this clock on it, and then nearby there used to be this old art-deco cinema called the Abbey. I was just walking across the road there when I heard ‪Fats Domino‬: Yes it’s me and I’m in love again! It must have been on a radio or a record player somewhere. And it touched somewhere deep in me.’” - Billboard, 1992 (x)

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George and Olivia with Bob Marley backstage at the Roxy, 13 July 1975. Photo 1 published in Cash Box magazine; photos by Kim Gottlieb-Walker, and Peter Borsari.

“When Bob heard that George was coming, he got really excited. He said, ‘Ras Beatle!’ I had a flash on my camera and the batteries were dying — they were only together for two minutes and you had to wait 30 seconds to get a charge. It was agonizing. But I got the picture in the end and that’s all that matters.” - Kim Gottlieb-Walker, Hempstead Highgate Express, 16 April 2011

“[George had] not long returned from LA where he’d seen Bob Marley & The Wailers three times at the Roxy — ‘best thing I’ve seen in ten years. Marley reminds me so much of Dylan in the early days, playing guitar as if he’s new to it. And his rhythm, you know, it’s so simple, yet so beautiful. I could watch The Wailers all night.’” - Melody Maker, 6 September 1975

“Cover one of the Beatle songs [‘And I Love Her’]. The thing was we meet and shake hand and say great — them dude they nice. I really like meet them all and sit down and chat with them. They’re bredrens… just love roots. Them guys are roots. Them guys are all right, ya know. There is like a king and queen, ya know — those guys are roots.” - Bob Marley, Rock Lives (1998) (x)

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Private Passions - Olivia Harrison - BBC Sounds

Michael Berkeley's guest is the prizewinning film producer and writer Olivia Harrison.

A wonderful new interview with Olivia, featuring recollections and musical selections (including an acetate of her father performing a Mexican song), available to listen to online.