George Harrison with Mukunda Goswami in Vrindavan, India, 1996. Photo by Prithu Prabhu (?).
“[George] also wrote [songs] to remind himself. People sometimes accused him of preaching (laughs). But you know, he was really preaching to himself. He wasn’t trying to say, ‘You be like this because I’m already like this.’ No, he was always trying to remind himself. And that’s the reason he liked India so much, because he said that, ‘Everywhere you went, there was a reminder.’” - Olivia Harrison, KSHE 95, 26 December 2014 (x)
Photos by Carinthia West, Terry O’Neill, Tom Pilson/REX/Shutterstock, Susan Flood, Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Universal Music Group, David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images.
Happy birthday to Olivia Harrison!
Q: “What’s the secret to endurance in a relationship?” Olivia Harrison: “I think in life, first of all, you have to have — respect is really important, but also I think you have to know where you’re going in your own soul and in your own life, and in your own — who you are; who do you want to be in life? And you need a partner to help you be that best person you can be. And sometimes you’re not that best person, but I think that’s the goal. I think when you have a goal like that? You know, George always wanted to be… a light-hearted person, and he was a very intense person, and I think you need a higher goal to stay together. I think that’s the real reason. Because then your own problems don’t seem like such big deals.” […] Q: “So how are we supposed to find which is our path?” OH: “Oh, that’s a good question. Especially now in this day and age, when everything is a big diversion. I think nature — I think the answer is in nature, I think the answer is in silence, and not being afraid of nothingness, not being afraid of the abyss, the void, the silence. I think that’s where man can be saved from where we are now. I really do. I think you need to go sit somewhere in silence and be overwhelmed by nature. That seems to be a way to reset our lives.” - Cultura Pop, 19 October 2017 (x)
Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, 1966; photo courtesy of Indian Express.
“‘You revered Ravi,’ [Olivia Harrison] says of the great man. ‘He carried with him that great tradition, but he was also a very modern man and had a great sense of humor.’ Partly recorded in India and partly at Harrison’s Friar Park home in Henley-on-Thames, Olivia recalls the recording sessions [for Chants of India] well. ‘Ravi was very specific about the mantras and how they were recorded and orchestrated and George really wanted people to understand the vibrations of those chants was beneficial to their well-being.’ The track on her [Songlines] playlist is a particularly poignant choice. ‘At the end of his life George said to me that all he could listen to was “Sarve Shaam,”’ Olivia remembers. ‘After all the sounds and sights and tastes you experience over a lifetime, it came down to the purity of “Sarve Shaam.”’ The piece was also performed as the opening blessing at the Concert for George memorial, held at London’s Albert Hall in 2002.” - Songlines, June 2018 (x)
“I know this photo has been uploaded before, but the man and women on either side of George and Olivia are my grandparents, Dot and Norman. This photo wasn’t taken in the Row Barge pub in Henley, but it was taken in the Remenham Club is Henley to celebrate their 25th Wedding Anniversary. George was a regular to the Row Barge pub, which Dot and Norman ran all the way through the 70s. This information has come from my dad, who is the son of Dot and Norman, who had so many happy memories of these days! We’re both very happy we’ve found this blog Sadly Dot and Norman have both past away now, Norman died in 2004 and Dot died 2007❤️” - amymitchell11
harrisonstories: Hello, Amy! Apologies for the late response. Thank you so much for sharing this information! I’m thrilled you found my blog. I’ve seen Dot and Norman’s names come up a couple times, and their relationship with George sounded very sweet. I’m sorry for your loss.
“‘Time – we take no notice of it but for its loss’. I wanted to stop time on the day George died so that I wouldn’t ever have to look back. Yet here I am, twenty years and twenty poems later, one for each year I suppose. I didn’t plan it that way but here they are: thoughts, feelings and words about life and death but mostly love and our journey to the end.” – Olivia Harrison
'Here on the shore, twenty years later, my message in a bottle has reached dry land. Words about our life, his death but mostly love and our journey to the end.' – Olivia Harrison
“Olivia Harrison presents Came the Lightening, a book of twenty poems dedicated to George, marking the twentieth year since his passing.
As a contributor to the book Concert for George, the revised edition of I Me Mine, and George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Olivia is no stranger to writing beautiful words that have an ethereal connection to love.
These poems are accompanied by a selection of photographs and mementos curated by Olivia, including pictures of herself and George.
Came the Lightening sees Olivia reflect upon her life with George, examining the intimacy of the emotional bond in their relationship through a memorable series of poems. She delves into the phenomenon of losing a partner and the passage of time.
In essence, this is a story of love.”
'Olivia evokes the most fleeting gestures and instants, plucked from the flow of time and memory and felt through her choice of words and the overall rhythm… She might have done an oral history or a memoir. Instead, she composed a work of poetic autobiography.' – Martin Scorsese
It’s to be released 21 June 2022 and is available for pre-order. [x]
A web of admiration held [The Traveling Wilburys] together. Lynne and Petty were enamored of Harrison, just as they were raised in a world where Bob Dylan mattered to everyone. But no one was a bigger fan of Dylan than George Harrison. And every Wilbury looked to Roy Orbison with a kind of reverence. Orbison, for his part, understood that he’d just been invited to the hippest party in town. Every member was getting something. The spirit of the project was as light as the quality was rich, and it caught the public off guard, its humor in the foreground and little trace of pomp. It was a big hit, without a trace of the desperation that so often pushed records up the charts. Then, two months after the album’s release, Roy Orbison died. Harrison called Petty as soon as the news came to him. “Aren’t you glad it wasn’t you?” he asked Petty.
“Here’s the thing,” says Olivia Harrison. “George would skip all the small talk. ‘Did you hear about Roy? Oh, isn’t this terrible?’ They knew all that. They had a shorthand. They didn’t have to have the initial five-minute conversation. Eventually, they’d get to, 'Aren’t we lucky to be here?’ That’s what George’s comment meant. Life is fragile. George used to say, 'In a moment, everything changes.’”
George Harrison around the time Somewhere in England was recorded. (1981)
“George scuttles around putting records on the juke-box, playing silly pieces on the piano and generally trying to make everyone feel at home – whereas all the guests are of good bourgeois stock and far more ill at ease with George’s unpredictable caperings than with standing sipping champagne and making polite conversation […] Table seating has been worked out by Olivia, who clutches a piece of paper as nervously as George earlier pottered with the juke-box. I end up sitting next to George, with Joan and Derek (Taylor) and Eric up our end […] George confesses to feeling uncomfortable with a ‘posh’ evening like this, which I find reassuring -– all the glitter and glamour that money can buy, all the success and adulation, has only affected our George very superficially.” - Michael Palin,“November 1979”,Diaries 1969-1979 [x]
“George, as usual in such places, is extremely ill at ease to start with. He resents the ‘posh’ service and feels that, considering he can afford to buy the restaurant several times over, the staff are unnecessarily snotty.” - Michael Palin,“June 1983”,Diaries 1980–1988 [x]
“George graciously invited us to his ‘pad’ to visit. He couldn’t have been sweeter & more hospitable, repeatedly making certain everyone was comfortable ‘Can I get you another orange juice? Do you want to sit over here? Have you heard this rare Roy Orbison record?’ etc. […] I asked Olivia why she thought George was so nice. She explained simply that George comes from a working class background & this was fitting behavior. All I could think was, 'Here’s a guy who’s been on top of the world, never really left & I am getting treated like I was at home – only better!’” - Will Lee [x]
“I will never forget the welcoming look on his face and was taken by how he embraced all of us as Joe [Brown] introduced each […] I was taken by the lack of servants on hand to usher us into the castle, but it was [a] nice surprise to have George, alone, invite us into the kitchen to sit around a small table while he made tea and coffee. Yes, George made the tea and coffee.” - Night Glare [x]
On December 13, 1974, keyboardist Billy Preston, sitarist Ravi Shankar, saxophonist Tommy Scott, manager Denis O’ Brien, publicity agent Michael Sterling, and George Harrison’s father, Harry, all accompanied the former Beatle to the Ford White House. Harrison and company were in the midst of their 1974 North American tour and were performing in nearby Landover, Maryland, on December 13.
Jack Ford said he invited George and friends to the White House because he had been invited backstage at the Salt Lake City show. "They were so hospitable to me I wanted to return the favor,“ he said.
A lunch of vegetables and beef was served in the solarium while George’s Dark Horse album was played in the background. It was reported George stuck to the vegetables.
Jack and his sister Susan acted as tour guides as the entourage viewed the White House rooms. In the East Room, Harrison and Preston sampled a few bars on the 1938 Steinway piano situated in the historic room. President Ford met briefly with them for about 15 minutes in the Oval Office. Politics was apparently avoided that day. After the meeting, Harrison stated, “I didn’t ask him [Ford] about Bangladesh or anything else political … I didn’t want to bug him.” Tom Scott recalled they were brought to a conference room outside the Oval Office to wait until the President became available. "We walked into the presidents’ conference room with the oval table and the chair and signs saying, ‘Secretary of Defense,’ 'Secretary of this and that’ and we sat down in the chairs, clowning around.” Scott went on to say that George and Billy did some jamming on a piano in the room, but then it was time to meet the President.
As Harrison’s entourage was leaving the office, Jack told his father, “I promised George a WIN (Whip Inflation Now) button.” When one could not be immediately found, the president sent appointments secretary Terry O’ Donnell to find one. In return for the WIN button, Harrison gave the president an “Om” mantra pin representative of Harrison’s interest in Eastern spirituality.
Harrison would remember Ford as quite amiable both in the immediate aftermath of the visit as well as in his 1980 autobiographical work, I Me, Mine. Harrison confessed that he felt “good vibes about the White House.” On whether the president was a follower of Harrison’s musical output, Harrison admitted shortly after the meeting, “I don’t think he’s too familiar with my music.” Later that evening at the Capital Centre, Harrison was seen onstage wearing the pin given to him by President Ford.
Newlyweds George and Olivia Harrison traveling to Tunisia for their honeymoon and to oversee the filming of Monty Python’s Life of Brian on September 7, 1978. George and Olivia were married five days earlier on September 2, 1978… 40 years ago!
![George Harrison with Mukunda Goswami in Vrindavan, India, 1996. Photo by Prithu Prabhu (?).“[George]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7c6d46bfea7729437f304209fc6a91bb/d358e80bff222fe8-f9/s1280x1920/2ea6d1d86be8d7472e38b4e5aac2112717cdaa14.png "George Harrison with Mukunda Goswami in Vrindavan, India, 1996. Photo by Prithu Prabhu (?).“[George]")
