Meanwhile, my lessons continued at a snails pace and I stopped going after I started 9th grade. Then I discovered school dances and all the student Rock bands. I stood in front of the stage and watched my classmates play all the cover tunes of the hits of the day. I went home that night with envy and the next morning, I pulled out my Hollow body electric and started to practice. I started to hang out with my friends bands sometimes working as a sort of roadie for one of them. Playing with one of my friends from time to time, I learned a lot and I began to get better. Then I was given a bright red Giannini Acoustic with a neck like an electric that everyone liked playing. I got good enough to join the Guitar Mass Group. Funny thing was, we didn't just play the usual approved Catholic folk songs like Kumbya but slowly added secular songs like Get Together by the Youngbloods, Jackie DeShannon's Put a Little Love in Your Heart, and Jefferson Airplane's Good Shepherd. My contribution was to introduce George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. I got to sing lead and I was proud to be doing it. I later suggested we add Let It Be and George's Awaiting on You All. The latter chorus which said " The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see" which was very appropriate. But we omitted the verse that said
"And the Pope owns 51% of general motors
And the stock exchange is the only thing he's qualified to quote us"
I began to really get into All Things Must Pass and my friends and I discussed George's love of Eastern religion and philosophy. Being in a parochial school, meditation was a common topic. My friends and I took out the Maharishi's book and experimented with eastern meditation. It was cool but not that easy to do with all the distractions of a busy adolescence, but we were finally able to appreciate the beauty of Within You, Without you and the Inner Light. I bought and enjoyed George's WonderWall soundtrack album and in studying Eastern thought I began to reevaluate my understanding of religion and began to question what I really believed.
Through high school, I continued to play and be influenced by other bands like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, Creedence Clearwater, The Who, Dylan etc. I was never really good enough to be in a band but I did alright in small folk group situations and I did write a few songs.
Years passed, my playing time diminished but I still followed all the solo Beatle careers. Paul with Wings and beyond, Ringo solo and with his All Stars, John with the Plastic Ono Band and Elephants Memory until his tragic death, and George thru the Concert for Bangladesh, the Capitol and Warner Brother years, The Traveling Wilbury's and his last days. I never got to see John perform live but I've made up for it with multiple attendance at McCartney and Ringo concerts. And, I was lucky to see George perform, once. He was part of the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden in 1992. I was in the 3rd row behind the stage with a perfect view. George sang Absolutely, Sweet Marie, solo and joined the all star ensemble for My Back Pages and Knockin' on Heaven's Door. He was so cool.
A few years later, I had begun to play again on a regular basis, influenced this time by my guitar playing students. At the time of George's death, we were putting on a Holiday variety performance. So, I got together with some students and we played My Sweet Lord in Honor of George's passing. It went well until the sheet music fell off the stand which resulted in a slightly abbreviated performance. As a result of that experience, I decided to buy a new guitar and discovered that playing with a quality instrument improved my playing. My first purchase was an Epiphone Casino. It was an instrument played by all the Beatle guitarist, I picked a natural finish as John & George had stripped theirs in the late 60's. John made it his main guitar until the end. I followed this with the Epiphone version of the J160E, the John Lennon signature model. I discovered that while being a reasonably priced guitar, it was actually a better instrument then the Gibson version as it had a solid spruce top and the Gibson was a laminate. I caught the collecting bug and have since added many Beatle inspired purchases to my guitar collection, including a Hofner Bass, and a Paul McCartney signature edition Epiphone Texan and a Fender Rosewood Telecaster like one that George played all over Let It Be and Abbey Road and, heck, I even bought a ukulele because George was the ultimate Uke fan. For my 50th birthday, however, I decided to treat myself to my childhood dream and buy a Rickenbacker 360-12. The only problem was that Rickenbacker changed the design in the 1966. I bought it anyway as the sound was right and George also owned and played one. I enjoyed it greatly until last year when I was finally able to get an actual Rickenbacker 360-12 v64 reissue from 1994. I've begun to write songs again and actually wrote all the music for my recent production of As You Like and I've continued to add to my guitar collection. And, yes, I've also been practicing and playing with my friends and slowly improving my skills. Playing guitar relaxes and de-stresses me, I love my instrument collection and collecting items that for the most part don't lose value.
So, on this the 70th anniversary of George Harrison's birth I'm remembering George and all those year's ago, when they were Fab and realizing that if not for you, I would probably have taken any road but instead I'm still living in the material world where I try some guitars and buy some. Tonight, I've got my mind set on you and thinking you were definitely a real cool cat.
