Does George Harrison play on John Lennon's Mind Games and Walls and Bridges?

The new Lennon bio by Tim Riley makes this claim, as well as the claim I've heard before from drummer Alan White that John Lennon played "anonymous acoustic guitar" on George's All Things Must Pass, which is funny as John slagged the album in his Rolling Stone interview later in 1970.

Is any of this true, or the usual Beatles urban legend?

 

No, it is not true. It's not even urban legend. Arnie

 

Not true.

 

George does play on the Imagine album and on Instant Karma---But definitely NOT on the Mind Games album nor Walls & Bridges. Tim Riley may have gotten confused with this, but that is a big mistake! Arnie

 

Does the book try to pass it off as everyday information which just happens to be poorly researched -- or does it attempt to drop this information as a bit of a bombshell?

I wasn't actually aware that Alan White had said that about All Things Must Pass. Does anyone have the full quote -- or even know when he said it? Alan is on the album -- and shortly afterward, he recorded with both of them on Imagine. Alan is certainly not a liar, though his memory may be cloudy. What are the chances he's right?

 

John and Goerge weren't getting along well at all after Lennon turned down offer to play at Bangla Desh Concert.

 

Just seems written in a matter of fact way, in a part of the book dealing with some Beatle interaction after the break-up.

 

Yeah, it's more of a cul de sac legend...

 

The wikipedia page for All Things Must Pass says this:

"Alan White stated that John Lennon may have played on "If Not For You".[14]"

If you look up Note 14, it's a link to this interview:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071015072854/http://nfte.org/interviews/AW_Lennon.html

Scroll down to "If Not For You". As you can see, Alan White seems far from certain on the matter.

Here's a 2008 quote from Gary Wright: “John walked into one of the sessions for All Things Must Pass and George, I think, felt very uncomfortable about his presence. John only stayed for five minutes and left.”

Which sounds about right to me.

 

If that's the case, then I would take just about everything written in this book with a huge grain of salt.

 

Thanks!

 

There's actually audio tape from this brief session. John DEFINITELY does NOT play on anything. He happened to walk in Apple Studios. George was cordial, but that's about it. Of course he recorded It's Johnny's Birthday for him at one of the sessions, so it wasn't too contenious then. Ron

 

Here's a nice quote from Andy Stephens (then an Abbey Road engineer; now Susan Boyle's manager!) about George meeting John on John's birthday:

“George Harrison had a Ferrari, a 330 GTC, which was dark blue with a cream interior, and it was parked out the front of the studio. And stuck to his windscreen he had a little vase holder with a little plastic flower in it. He took it out, walked into Studio 3 and said, ‘Happy birthday, John.’ He gave him the plastic flower and they had a hug. Yoko had brought in this present for John, which was a sensory box. It was about twice the size of a shoebox, with lots of holes in it. You had to put your finger in – one hole would be warm and mushy, one would be wet, one would have a pin in it. John had such a ball with it.”

Later that day, John had the fateful meeting with Freddie at Tittenhurst.

 

A lot is made of George's prickly relationship with Paul, but I've sometimes gotten the impression that John's lack of enthusiasm and support for George's burgeoning songwriting--right on up through his cool reaction to ATMP--was even more hurtful to him. Does anyone know more about this?

 

John wanted to play at the Bangla Desh concert but when George said no to Yoko being on stage......that was a big problem.... so John was a no show

 

This is just an observation, but I've often wondered if the meeting with Freddie was as bad as Pauline made it out to be in her book (and just to set the timeline straight, the meeting at Tittenhurst actually took place before the session at E.M.I., which ran from 2'30 p.m. until 3:30 a.m.).

Many of us have heard parts of the session tape, and I think those of you who have will agree that John sounds to be in a very good mood. Now the session began with two hours of mixing, so John had several hours to 'cool down' before tracking began - but doesn't he sound too upbeat for someone that had experienced such a traumatic event earlier in the day?

And just to stay on topic, the last time John and George recorded together was during the session for Ringo's 'I'm The Greatest'.

Chip Madinger
www.lennonology.com

 

I always felt that George looked up to John in a way that even if they were completely at odds, he still tried to get John's support 'cause he wanted it badly and looked up to him so much, whereas he saw Paul as more of an equal he didn't want to be bossed around by, because of the petty baby-brother-attitude. Maybe he felt competitive about being John's best friend or something?

 

If I remember the Beatles Forever book right, John also saw a show from George's 1974 U.S. tour.

 

Yes and John had even promised to make a cameo appearance onstage at the show when George's tour hit Madison Square Garden.

John: "I was a bit nervous about going on stage, but I agreed to because it would have been mean not to go on with George after I'd gone on with Elton."
(Melody Maker, March 8th, 1975)

Unfortunately, before that concert John elected to not go to the signing session dissolving the Beatles partnership. Instead, John sent a balloon message: "Listen to this balloon". George blew up at John.

John again : "Somehow or another I was informed that I needn't bother to go to George's show. I was quite relieved in the end, because there wasn't any time for rehearsal and I didn't want it to be a case of just John jumping up and playing a few chords."
(Same interview as above)

Still.. Beatles being as weird as Beatles are, John attended George's last show on the tour. So.. John saw the show twice.

What is interesting to me is.. John DIDN'T want to just get up, play a few chords and get out of there. He apparently thought enough of George (and maybe himself) that if he was going to get up on stage with George, he wanted it to be a professional appearance. So, I wonder what song or songs they would have done ? That's an appealing question. There aren't that many songs where I automatically think of George and John, as opposed to John and Paul singing together.

 

George used to sing 'In My Life' on that tour, it's probable they would have done that.
As to John&George songs, the only two that come to mind are 'You Really Got a Hold On Me' and 'She Said, She Said'. So those three songs would have been nice!

 

I think you have made a good case for "In My Life" and "You Really Got a Hold On Me".
As you mention, George and his tour band were already doing "In My Life" on this tour and George and John both loved "You Really Got a Hold On Me" and most importantly they both could probably play it and sing it pretty much off the cuff.

I think "She Said,She Said" is doubtful. It's too hard to whip together quickly IMO.
The other interesting questions are..would John have been good playing second fiddle and singing harmony on one of George's songs ? Would George have abdicated and done one two of Johns songs besides a cover song or would he have wanted to do at least one of his songs with John ?

Apologies. I dont want to hijack the thread but I think the OP has the answer to his question already and I don't really want to start a whole new thread about this.

 

On that tour George did While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something, In My Life and For You Blue. John did the solo on FYB originally although perhaps that would have been a bit anticlimactic for his sit in.

 

Would that have meant John would be performing a slide guitar solo on George's song? What would George have done in the meantime, crawled inside a bag with Yoko?

 

They could played In Your Life, Revolution and Blue Suede Shoes or Honey Don't

 

I recently listened to that bit of the interview and he doesn't slag it off so much as state that it's simply not his type of music.