A Traveling Wilburys tour was imminent until 6 December 1988, when Roy Orbison died suddenly from a massive heart attack. There was talk of going on tour with the surviving members, more as a living tribute to Orbison than a money-making venture. But, ultimately, plans for a tour were put aside, and George went back to living what, by his standards, was a fairly normal life.
‘It’s different all the time,’ he once said of his lifestyle. ‘Like last week I’ve been just getting up, going for a run around my garden, then eating a bowl of oats and then right into the recording studio. Later go out to dinner, finish off what I was doing and go to bed. That kind of thing. Varied things, you know. There’s no typical day, really.’
But with nothing pressing in his professional life, George found ample time to indulge simple musical pleasures. He played on Tom Petty’s album Full Moon Fever and hooked up with Eric Clapton to add some tasty guitar stylings on the album Journeyman. He also contributed the song ‘Cheer Down’ to the soundtrack of the action film Lethal Weapon 2. And when Olivia became involved in a Romanian aid charity project for children called Angel, George contributed a Traveling Wilburys’ track and a live duet with Paul Simon on the song ‘Homeward Bound’ from a Saturday Night Live appearance to the charity album Nobody’s Child. In 1989, Warner Bros., attempting to squeeze blood out of a stone, released a collection of Harrison album tracks and unreleased songs entitled Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989, which impressed no one and finished at a lowly 132 in the album charts.
In 1990, George reunited with Lynne, Petty and Dylan for a second round of Traveling Wilburys’ play, a light-hearted collection of retro-sounding rockers called Traveling Wilburys: Volume 3.
By 1990, George was once again writing and the consensus was that he would soon be returning to the recording studio, until reality stopped the magic.
Despite having an inquisitive business mind, George was admittedly naïve about the day-to-day running of a multimillion-dollar empire and had, since the end of the Beatles, employed legal and financial advisers to handle investments and other money matters. Denis O’Brien, first as his business manager and later as his co-partner in Handmade Films, had projected a down-to-earth manner as well as a practical business attitude that George trusted implicitly.
But, by 1990, the relationship between George and O’Brien was beginning to dissolve amid a growing concern that his business partner, through huge financial investments in a long slate of Handmade Films that all lost money, was not doing things in George’s best interest. O’Brien and George eventually parted company in 1993, but the seeds of distrust had already been sown and so, well before O’Brien left, George was taking over the day-to-day handling of all money matters.
George was suddenly faced with having to handle his own business affairs for the first time in more than twenty years. And it scared him to death. Through fits and starts, George assembled a new team of legal and financial advisers, who set about attempting to make sense of George’s messy financial empire. Depending on which scenario one ultimately believes, what they found was startling.
While the figures were murky, George Harrison, in 1991, reportedly had an annual income from royalties (from the Beatles and his solo works), shares in what was passing for Apple Records (primarily back catalogue) and personal holdings in the neighbourhood of £30–35 million ($70–90 million at the time). This made it all the more astounding when stories began to surface during this period that alleged that George Harrison, through bad business ventures and the gnawing fear that the now departed O’Brien had mismanaged investments, was close to being destitute.
George would dismiss those reports as rubbish and would jokingly acknowledge that he was not about to be tossed into the street. But, in private, George would admit that there appeared to be a lot less money on the books than there should have been, and that now he was faced with the problem of figuring out just what O’Brien had done and how to go about getting it back.
‘Those years from 1991 have been like hell,’ he angrily confessed in later years. ‘After all these years of lawyers that I got sucked into after having to handle my own business and finding out what happened to it [the money] after Denis O’Brien abandoned ship. I’ve hardly picked up a guitar. I’m trying to find the time not to deal with all these accountants and lawyers.’
After what George had come to describe as ‘a real ugly scene’, he lapsed into a funk. He was spending more time with accountants than in his home studio. His concentration lapsed. He was returning to his moody ways. Olivia saw what was happening to her husband, but was sadly at a loss about what to do to help him. She reasoned that George needed a positive distraction.
It would come in the form of an invitation from Eric Clapton that he could not refuse. Eric was coming out of a tumultuous period in his own life. His marriage to Pattie did not survive Eric’s affair with another woman that produced a son. Tragedy struck early in 1991, when his four-year-old son Conor slipped out of an open window of an apartment and fell to his death. Eric was looking for something to take his mind off his troubles and, from conversations he had with George, he felt he did, too. Eric’s answer was a tour of Japan.
‘Everywhere I had toured in recent years, people would always ask about George and when he might tour again. I kept at him, telling him that it would be fun and that there would be no pressure. George had a particularly strong following in Japan and so it seemed perfect.’
It was an offer that George seriously considered, especially when Eric offered to head up a band that would serve as his back-up band. He had not toured since the disastrous 1974 concerts, and a big part of his psyche was wary of putting himself to the test of a live audience again. But his ego had also been challenged in recent years by the successful tours of Paul and Ringo. What ultimately sold George on touring again was Eric’s insistence that he would be backed by a powerful band and that he would be able to rock in a way that he had not done since the heyday of the Beatles.
George and his warm-up act, the Eric Clapton Band, travelled to Japan in December 1991 for the first of a series of twelve concerts. George had drawn up a song list that represented every era of his career as a musician. From his Beatles days, he chose such songs as ‘I Want to Tell You’ and ‘Taxman’. His solo years were represented by the likes of ‘Cloud 9’, ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘Dark Horse’. And from that first show, George was feeling the electricity of being the rocker again.
It’s a good band. It’s fun to be in any band. It’s fun after not doing it for so long. It was good of Eric to suggest that we do it.’
George’s almost childlike enthusiasm during the Japan tour was a voyage of rediscovery that often had his good friend Eric perplexed. ‘He got a kick out of it at first, but then, when I moved the drummer into a different position, I think he was a bit worried. But I haven’t done it very much so I spent a lot of time trying to remember what you do, all the songs to remember and which effect pedal to step on. I did twelve shows and I had twelve chances to get the songs right, so I could improvise some.’
The Japan tour proved to be a cathartic experience for George. The reviews were universally good, praising George’s relaxed state on stage and the level of excellence of his performance. George suddenly found himself comfortable with his musical past.
‘In a way, this sums up my career, it’s like a compilation,’ he explained some months after the conclusion of the Japan tour. ‘I was very worried about that at first. I hadn’t heard these songs since I recorded them because once I record something I never go back to it. Especially the later Beatles songs – we never played them live. So it’s a process of reacquaintance. I’ve found that I like them. A few years ago, I might not have, but now I’m proud of them.’
So proud in fact that when it was suggested to George that the tapes of his performances would make a great live album, George readily agreed and, in his typical perfectionist attitude, found so much that pleased him that when Live in Japan was released in July 1992, it was a two-disc set.
Back in England, George continued to struggle with his shaky business empire. O’Brien had been a good friend for a number of years, which made the slow but steady disillusion of their business partnership all the more troubling. But as the details of O’Brien’s dealings began to come to light, George’s loyalty to O’Brien began to fade.
Throughout 1992 and 1993 George returned to a life of leisure. He would make the occasional appearance on a friend’s album and the odd guest spot on a live show, such as the appearance with Eric Clapton at an April 1992 charity benefit concert. He would also begin to write again, although, at that point, there was too much on his business plate to consider doing another album.
This was also a time of deep meditation and contemplation for George. He was re-examining and reassessing his personal and professional life and had come to be at peace with it all. Especially the Beatles. With age, George had become more philosophical on the subject of the legacy of the Fab Four.
‘The history of the Beatles was that we tried to be tasteful with our records and with ourselves. We could have made millions of extra dollars doing all that in the past but we thought it would belittle our image and our songs. I’d like to think we always had a sense of morals about what we did. On behalf of all the remaining ex-Beatles I can say that the fact that we do have some brain cells left and a sense of humour is quite remarkable. I’ve had my ups and downs over the years [with the Beatles] and now I’ve sort of levelled out.’
Midway through the 90s he found himself living a quiet, largely introspective life but one largely devoid of stress. ‘I spend plenty of time planting trees [around the house]. I have a lot of good friends, good relationships, plenty of laughs. A lot of funny little diversions that keep things interesting.’
But while he effectively made peace with his Beatles experience, George as well as Paul, Ringo and the Lennon estate presided over by Yoko Ono were well aware of the impact the group had had on the pop culture landscape. Years after the band’s demise, literally hundreds of books, magazine and newspaper articles chronicling various aspects of the Beatles’ life and times had appeared. George would grudgingly relate that most of the books had got the basic story right, although certain myths and legends had been repeated often enough that they were now passed off as fact, but were frustratingly incomplete because of a lack of co-operation from the surviving Beatles.
Which was why, in late 1993, the Beatles got together and put together an idea for what would be the ultimate and, by their standards, the most factual account of the life and times of the Beatles . . . a mammoth documentary entitled Anthology.
‘It’s really interesting because of the years that elapsed, everybody’s put out Beatles footage or videos,’ said George in explaining the idea behind Anthology. ‘They think they’ve just about told all the stories, but the real story is the one that only we can tell from our point of view, and we know all the little intimate details. So we’ve been compiling all this footage from our own cameras and there’s just tons and tons of material.’
Once the idea for the Anthology documentary took place, it was only a small step to agreeing to do an accompanying CD containing out-takes and alternate takes of a number of the Beatles’ greatest hits. Almost as an afterthought, the remaining members agreed in principle to write a massive, picture-heavy coffee-table book at some point in the not-too-distant future that would tell the true story of the Beatles.
This was far from an altruistic venture and it was not too surprising that three of the supposedly richest people on the planet were immediately inundated with offers that would ultimately make them even richer. And it was this element of telling the tale that would give George some uneasy moments.
Because, although it would be nearly a year before his financial difficulties with his former partner would wend their way to a court trial, the speculation about his financial status continued to swirl around him. There had been unsubstantiated reports in the press that George’s tour of Japan and the resultant album had been, in fact, a desperation play by George to generate some quick cash, and now, with rumours of the untold millions that would fill his coffers as the result of Anthology and its growing number of offshoots, the same stories were again surfacing with a vengeance. The most vicious was that George was anxious to do Anthology because he was reportedly close to filing for bankruptcy in an attempt to keep his home. George’s response to these outlandish stories was typically George, understated and to the point: ‘Rubbish.’
George had more pressing issues to contend with, such as whether he could deal with being around Paul and Ringo that much. Admittedly, going over old history would be nostalgic and fun, but there were the potential landmines as well, such as the not always cordial business dealings between the men and, in particular, the final disillusionment of the Beatles and the ongoing battles over Apple. For George, there would be the revisiting of creative frustrations and the often vicious battles with Paul. Anthology would be the sum total of different memories, memories that could reopen old wounds.
As if things could not get more complicated, it was at that point that John Lennon returned from the grave.
John had written and produced primitive demo tapes of the songs ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ during a creative spurt in the 70s. The simple, erratically produced tapes had, by John’s own estimation, been minor bits of work and, consequently, not worthy of inclusion on any of his albums. But Yoko had re-examined the tapes and felt that it would be ironic if the surviving members of the Beatles, along with a big helping of modern studio wizardry, could resurrect these songs as the first legitimate Beatles record since Let It Be. George, Paul and Ringo agreed that it would be a tasteful tribute to John’s memory as well as a great marketing ploy for the release of Anthology. They also all agreed that Jeff Lynne would be the ideal producer to make this daring experiment work.
Admittedly, all three former Beatles were tenative when they repaired to the studio to re-create Beatles magic with ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ in 1994. While there in spirit, John’s physical absence made for weird, disconnected feelings. There was also the quality of the source material to deal with. The source tapes were ragged first-generation takes, little more than John’s often off-key voice and simple guitar backing on a tape conspicuous by its pops and crackles.
Producer Lynne did his best under trying circumstances, tweaking weak tempos and melodies with a 90s technical gloss, patiently dealing with the other musicians’ suggestions and deftly incorporating and cutting in the trio’s vocals and, in the case of George, some subtle, cerebral guitar moments. It was therapeutic for George to be back in the studio and it allowed the three former mates to attempt to re-establish some personal rapport. As always, the friction was most evident between Paul and George, which, Paul would later recall, surfaced in the studio and had been typical of their love–hate relationship over the years. ‘When we were working on “Free as a Bird”, there were one or two bits of tension, but it was actually cool for the record. For instance, I had a couple of ideas that he didn’t like and he was right. I’m the first one to accept that, so that was OK. We did then say that we might work together but the truth is, after “Real Love”, I think George had some business problems and it didn’t do much for his moods over the last couple of years. He’s been having a bit of a hard time actually, he’s not been that easy to get on with. I’ve rung him up and he hasn’t rung back. I’ll write George a letter and he would not reply to it. It makes me wonder if he actually wants to do it [work together] or not.’
Paul’s memories aside, the three surviving Beatles went through a period of relative peace during the making of the Anthology documentary. There were moments of joy at the memory of the good times and tight-lipped acknowledgement at what fate had dealt four unknown lads from Liverpool. They were caught up in the enormity of what had been their lives and so, after a particularly gruelling day of interviews for the Anthology documentary at George’s home, they went into George’s recording studio and, with only an audience of director Bob Smeaton and a pair of cameramen, performed together for the first time since 1969. Director Smeaton, referring to what has come to be known in Beatles lore as the Friar Park Recordings, said, ‘There’s a whole load of that stuff. They played some old Beatles songs, like “Thinking of Linking” and that sort of stuff. They did a whole load of rock’n’roll songs and we shot a load of stuff.’
However, Beatles spokesman Neil Aspinall tended to downplay the session. ‘It’s really pretty much throwaway stuff. The three of them were just at an interview they were doing at George’s place and they just played a couple of things together. It was no big deal. It wasn’t like an hour-long jam or anything. They just played a couple of minutes.’
No matter the significance of the footage, George has referred to that moment as a fun moment that jogged his memories of the good old days. ‘It’s just some little magic that when you get certain people together it makes fire, or it makes more dynamite. Plus we had good songs, excellent songs, and we were consistent. We were honest, we had a sense of humour and kind of looked quite good at the time. We actually had a sense of being different.’
George’s renewed feeling for the importance of his Beatle past was rewarded in November 1995 when Anthology made its debut on American television. As advertised, the five-hour documentary was a revealing look at the rise and fall of the Beatles and, in the case of George, showed a musician fighting a constant battle against fame and creative frustrations. Not unexpectedly, George had been forthcoming on the ups and downs of Beatlemania and the pressures that ultimately drove the band apart. The première of ‘Free as a Bird’ was met with mixed reviews but George was rewarded with much praise for his guitar playing behind John’s ghostly vocals.
The praise was the perfect gift as George turned fifty.
George’s good cheer was short-lived since, soon after the airing of Anthology, he was once again drawn into a legal battle when his case against Denis O’Brien was finally brought to trial. It was a painful and often embarrassing process as the details of O’Brien’s mismanagement of millions of dollars, literally under the nose of George, were revealed in excruciating detail. Finally, in February 1996, a decision was handed down in George’s favour and he was awarded an $11.6 million judgment. But it wasn’t pretty. In the aftermath of the judge’s decision, O’Brien’s lawyer accused George of ‘making all kinds of wild allegations against my client, accusing him of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty that were then dismissed’. For his part, the court victory was bittersweet for George who, while receiving the $11.6 million judgment, ultimately had to lay out that much and perhaps more in court costs.
However, George emerged from this latest legal struggle seemingly cleansed of any financial concerns or cares, and the press seemed to take their cue from his attitude because, coincidentally, the stories predicting the former Beatle’s imminent financial decline stopped.
Seemingly reborn in the 90s as a still vital musician, George took to his newfound prominence with relish and throughout 1996 was conspicuous by his appearances on other people’s records. He was also writing at a furious pace and would predict that another album would be forthcoming in the not too distant future. But George’s plans were once again sidetracked when he agreed to produce, play and, yes, sing on his friend Ravi Shankar’s latest album, Chants of India. Chants of India was yet another challenge that George embraced. Rather than simply an album of Shankar playing sitar, this highly experimental outing drew on modern jazz and the more esoteric elements of Indian music for a sound that was both ancient and futuristic.
It had been a while since Ravi and George had worked together, and George was nothing if not excited to be piloting the creative fortunes of his friend. Shankar recalled that ‘George worked with such love and reverence that I will never forget’. Indeed, George was at his most diverse on Chants of India, playing the vibraphone, guitar, bass, glockenspiel, autoharp and marimba. He also contributed background vocals to three of the album’s songs. To observers, George had never seemed so expansive in his musical outlook.
What they may have sensed was the fact that George was totally at peace.