IT WAS NINE YEARS AGO TODAY...

...George Harrison was taken away...
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It's probably ironic, or most likely not, that my computer is blaring out a mixed-up version of The Beatles' repertoire right now. Today is the 9th anniversary of George Harrison's death, and what better way to remember him and his fellow 'Fabs" than by listening to their music. So, I've put all their 'remastered' CD's into my computer and it's playing a random-selection of Beatles' Tunes...this way, I can get sort of a cross-reference of all the different musical styles they played...and, if there was a person who'd never heard The Beatles at all in his life, he'd have a hard time believing that "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "All You Need Is Love" were done by the same band.

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I can take all of the Beatles' repertoire on CD's, and hold it all in one hand. A whole career being boiled down to the size of a small safety-deposit box. The Beatles are now on "i-tunes" and there, the group's music doesn't exist in tangible form; for a price you can buy a tune or an entire album, or all the albums, and how much tangible space does all that music take up? I think we're talking about maybe an amount equal to perhaps two or three pin-points; someone told me once that computer files "are there, but they're not there", which is probably the closest I'll ever get to answering that.
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George was my favorite Beatle. I play a little bit of guitar, and the most fun I have is when I help to back someone else up; swapping chords and phrases and although I can't play it very well, I'm almost complete when I have guitar in hand. George was like that, he Loved Guitars. Perhaps John and Paul wrote the great majority of Beatles' tunes, but George put his touch on a lot of them. Without him, things wouldn't have been the same. Beatles' producer George Martin looks back with regret that he didn't work with George to develop his songwriting. Harrison's "Something"(Abbey Road album) astonished Mr. Martin, and John (Lennon) called it "the best song on the (Abbey Road) album."
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My Fav0rite "George" Beatle-tunes are "If I Needed Someone", "Taxman", "I Need You", "Don't Bother Me", "Here Comes The Sun", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" "Savoy Truffle" and "Something". After the Beatles, George's "All Things Must Pass" blew me away and still does. Like his former bandmates, George's solo output was a bit erratic, but when he was good, he was Really Good...solo albums such as "Living In The Material World", "33 and 1/3", "Cloud Nine" and "Brainwashed", his last-ever LP, are finely-crafted bodies of work.
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There are those who review records for a living, who can write more eloquently than I, and they probably have all kinds of insights that I'd never be able to generate over three or four lifetimes, but even though John Lennon and Paul McCartney were/are so gifted, I like the minor-chord, odd experiments George threw into every one of his songs, and some of Lennon/McCartney's tunes as well. On "Revolver", for instance, on George's tune, "I Want To Tell You" (another of my favorite Harrison tunes), George inserts a dissonant chord which somehow supports the song. I read a Harrison interview where he says he invented that chord, and maybe so. It certainly takes the song into a different arena. He said he was trying to come up with something that would express the angst he wanted in that particular part of the song. It's out of tune, but not really, but certainly unexpected. It makes you pay attention!
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On "Meet The Beatles", most of the songs are bubbling with exuberant force, or given softly-lush treatments, but on "Don't Bother Me", George's first original, there's a somber element that immediately makes it stand out; it just 'feels' different, and while I of course, dig the entire album (although I wouldn't miss Paul's rendition of "Till There Was You"), the first time I ever heard George's first stab at songwriting, "Don't Bother Me", it really smacked my eardrums. We're talking 1964 here, and "Don't Bother Me" stands on its own; it gives the album a little extra degree of depth. He later said that "All Things Must Pass" consisted largely of songs that John and Paul didn't want on Beatles albums...so instead, those 'rejects' came out to play on "All Things Must Pass". And they didn't sound like rejects at all; it sounded like those were songs that were Aching To Be Heard. And, if you ever get the chance, listen to Harrison's "When We Was Fab" on the "Cloud Nine" album in which he delves into his Beatle past, both in word and music, even down to that Sitar-bit at the end. It makes me smile, and takes me back.
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So, as the Beatles' music plays on my computer, I think back over the years how much good music I've been exposed to. I kinda think that if the Beatles had never come along, we'd never have been able to hear The Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, Freddie and The Dreamers, and so on and so forth. And perhaps American Groups such as The Beau Brummels, The Rascals, Jefferson Airplane, Love (Arthur Lee's Group), Paul Revere And The Raiders and so many others might not have ever taken the stage. Music would have metamorphized somehow, but I venture to say that it probably would've evolved a lot differently without The Beatles' opening up all sorts of doors everywhere.
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Usually I use italics for this ending-part of each post. "Why", you ask....? Well, I was just trying to get a different slant on things. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!