Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Former Beatle George Harrison Died Yesterday in Los Angeles

Aired November 30, 2001 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We bring you the news of the death of George Harrison. The former Beatle died after a long battle with cancer. He died yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles, but word of his death was just released about two hours ago.

His wife and his son were with him when he died in L.A. and the family has released a statement saying that, "He left the world as he lived it, conscious of god, fearless of death and at peace."

Our Michael Okwu now looks back on the life and the work of George Harrison.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED SULLIVAN: The Beatles!

THE BEATLES: Close your eyes and I'll kiss you.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was and forever will be known as the quiet Beatle. But George Harrison's impact on pop music resounded through generations of rock fans. His journey to super stardom began in 1943 in Liverpool, England. At age 15, he joined the Quarrymen, a local group founded by John Lennon. His friend, Paul McCartney, was also a member. The band honed their playing skills in bars from England to Hamburg, Germany.

In 1962, with Harrison on lead guitar and Ringo Starr on drums, the band become the Beatles. Lennon and McCartney's influences were Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. But Harrison loved the country rockabilly sounds of Carl Perkins. Combined, they started making their own music and Beatle mania was born.

In the first week of April, 1964, the Beatles had the top five best selling singles in the U.S. and took the country by storm with their appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show." They cemented their image as the fab four in 1964 with the motion picture comedy musical "A Hard Day's Night" and then "Help," which featured one of Harrison's first songs.

THE BEATLES: Just what you mean to me. I need you.

OKWU: While often dwarfed by the writing team of Lennon and McCartney, Harrison developed into a prolific composer with protest songs like "Tax Man" and "Piggies" from The Revolver album. He picked up the Indian instrument the sitar, studying with master Ravi Shankar, and incorporated its sounds into the Beatles' music on songs like "Within You And Without You," on "Sergeant Pepper's" and "Blue Jay Wave" from Magical Mystery Tour.

HARRISON: Something in the way she moves.

OKWU: His song "Something" from Abbey Road became a standard, one of the most recorded songs in history.

PAUL MCCARTNEY: Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. Let it be, let it be...

OKWU: The movie "Let It Be," which chronicled their break-up, highlighted some of his best work. After the break-up of the Beatles, Harrison launched a solo career with the hit album "All Things Must Pass," which spawned the hit "My Sweet Lord," a song he was later sued for because of its similarity to the Phil Specter hit "He's So Fine."

HARRISON: I really want to see you lord, but it takes so long, my lord.

OKWU: He set the tone for future benefit concerts like Live Aid when, in 1971, he threw rock's first major charity event, The Concert for Bangladesh.

HARRISON: Here comes the sun.

OKWU: Harrison independently found success as a movie producer with his HandMade Films production company, which he originally founded to help the Monty Python movie "Life Of Brian" secure a release. In 1987, Harrison returned to the top of the charts with his album "Cloud Nine," which featured the number one hit, "Got My Mind Set On You."

HARRISON: I got my mind set on you. I got my mind set on you.

OKWU: One year later, Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison formed the Traveling Wilburys.

HARRISON: I've been roughed up and I've been (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I've been robbed and ridiculed.

OKWU: In the early 1990s, Harrison's health made headlines. A lifelong smoker, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and was successfully treated. By 1996, Beatles music was making news again. Harrison collaborated with McCartney and Ringo Starr to create a retrospective, which included a television documentary and three volumes of previously unavailable recordings, "The Beatles Anthology."

Like his murdered colleague, John Lennon, Harrison had to deal with violent stalkers. An intruder broke into Harrison's Oxfordshire mansion in 1999. He fought and detained the intruder for the police. He received life threatening stab wounds in the scuffle.

Cancer returned in 2001. The former Beatle received treatment for a brain tumor at a hospital in Switzerland.

Harrison's work touched the hearts of millions of fans, but for him there was no master plan. He just wanted to make good music.

HARRISON: Most people plan out careers and records and tours like a military campaign. You know, mine's always been haphazard. I just make a record if I feel like it. I mean I don't really, you know, look at it from that point of view, as a career.

Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Let's learn more about the career and the music of George Harrison.

Martin Lewis is a Beatles historian and he's joining us on the phone from New York.

Martin, thanks for being with us this morning.

MARTIN LEWIS, BEATLES HISTORIAN: That's OK. It's a very, very sad day.

KAGAN: It is a sad day. But let's take a moment to celebrate the man's music and his work. John Lennon and Paul McCartney get so much of the credit for the Beatles' music, but when you look down the list of the songs that George Harrison is responsible for, an impressive list, indeed. Just off the top, "Here Comes The Sun," "Something" and "Tax Man."

LEWIS: Indeed, and of course George was a late bloomer as a song writer. He was in the shadows of two of the great songwriters of the 20th century. Even before his songwriting came to bloom, he was an integral part of the Beatles because he contributed to the sound, the texture of their music, and he was constantly pushing them forward to come up with new sounds. And so he had a very strong presence even then.

But then he also developed as a great songwriter and that contribution musically makes him as important a member of the Beatles as all the others.

KAGAN: And what about his contribution as a guitar player?

LEWIS: A guitar player, he was exemplary. So many musicians talk about how they wanted to have the George Harrison sound. The group "The Byrds" in America listened to George Harrison's playing and said we want to be like that. So many guitar players even today emulate George Harrison's guitar playing. You listen to his playing from the '60s, it doesn't sound out of date at all. It's as contemporary today as it was then.

KAGAN: And what an incredible ride he had, if you look at the life that this man had. As a young person he's friends with Paul McCartney and Paul McCartney says hey, come on and start hanging out with this group. And as I understand it, he was only allowed to play if the regular guitar player didn't show up.

LEWIS: In the early days because the age gap, George was the youngest. He was a full year and a half younger than the others and that, of course, when you're about 14 or 15, that's quite a gap.

KAGAN: Sure, that's a big deal.

LEWIS: But one of the things that happened with George after the Beatles broke up, of course, John Lennon and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr also had successful solo careers. George had an equally successful solo career, but he also did a lot of things other than music.

Two of those things are very important. We rightly acknowledged Sir Bob Geldoff for his work for Live Aid in 1985. But George Harrison was the first musician to gather together musicians for a good cause when he did The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, and that raised a lot of money and awareness.

And he also made a huge contribution to the revitalization of the British film industry. He was the producer and the backer of Monty Python's "Life Of Brian," a movie...

KAGAN: Which I think a lot of people don't realize.

LEWIS: Absolutely. And "Time Bandits" and "With Nell and I." (ph) He had a great love of humor and comedy, a very sardonic sense of humor, dry, but a very, very wonderful man and adored by his friends. And because he did not seek the limelight, he did not go out of his way to publicize his various charitable activities, a lot of people aren't aware of those. But his contributions after the Beatles broke up are as deep and significant as his work with the Beatles.

KAGAN: Do you think that it's fair to say, Martin, that of the four Beatles he was the least comfortable with fame?

LEWIS: Fame was not what he started out looking for and John and Paul in particular, and also Ringo, enjoyed various aspects of the entertainment side. George was passionate about music. He wanted to create music. And the fame initially helped him reach more people. But then it became a drag on him because he didn't like the side trappings of that. But he rose above that and the legacy of that is the greatness of the music he wrote and in the inspiration.

And one of the things that is most telling is -- I host Beatle fan conventions in America and I find that 75 percent of the people who come are 25 and under. And they understand the significance of the Beatles and what George Harrison brought to the Beatles in terms of their spirituality, their interest in the world outside of music. And that is the lasting legacy which has inspired so many people. It's not about nostalgia, it's not about the '60s, it's about the legacy of the music and caring for other people.

KAGAN: And that significance, even though now half the group is gone, John Lennon and George Harrison, you believe that their music will live on. LEWIS: Their music has already defied all the conventional physics of celebrity. You're supposed to go out of fashion and be forgotten after you stop making your art. However, the Beatles have never gone out of fashion. They are as transcendent as the words of Shakespeare, the music of Bach or the singing of Ella Fitzgerald. It's great art. And what the Beatles do is they engage with the noblest part of the human spirit, the part that wants to be better and make the world a better place. That is why the Beatles' music and that is why George Harrison will be remembered with much affection for the contributions they've made.

KAGAN: Martin Lewis, thanks for sharing some of that affection and helping us appreciate that music today. Thanks for joining us from New York.

LEWIS: Thank you.

KAGAN: Once again, George Harrison, former member of the Beatles, has died at the age of 58.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com