interview to Crawdaddy magazine. Jay Spangler, www.beatlesinterviews.org
Q: "Were you nervous before the Beatles 1964 debut on the Ed Sullivan Show?"
GEORGE: "The Sullivan Show was funny because I didn't attend the rehearsal. I was sick somehow on the flight over on the first trip to the States. The band did play alot of rehersal for the sound people, they kept going into the control room and checking out the sound. And finally when they got a balance between the instruments and the vocals, they marked on the boards by the control, and then everybody broke for lunch. Then we came back to tape the show and the cleaners had been 'round and polished all the marks off the board. It was sort of a bit tacky in those days with the sound. People would put amplifiers off to the side of the stage so it didn't spoil the shot, you know."
That was one of the big helps for the Beatles at the time-- If anybody dried up in the press conferences there was always somebody else there with a smart answer. There was always a good balance, so nobody could ever really quite nail us."
the first time for me which was the most depressing was during 'The White Album.' It was a problem making a double album because it takes such a long time."
Q: "Why did you make a double?"
GEORGE: "I think it was because there were so many songs, but it was a period that had started a bit negative. It was a bit difficult and we got through it and it was fine. We finally got through the album and everybody was pleased because the track were good. There were just too many limitations based upon our being together for so long. Everybody was sort of pigeon-holed. It was frustrating."
The problem was that John and Paul had written songs for so long it was difficult-- First of all because they had such alot of tunes and they automatically thought that theirs should be priority. So for me, I'd always have to wait through ten of their songs before they'd even listen to one of mine.
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps,' we recorded it one night and there was such a lack of enthusiasm. So I went home really disappointed because I knew the song was good."
"The next day I brought Eric Clapton with me. He was really nervous. I was saying, 'Just come and play on the session, then I can sing and play acoustic guitar.'
Paul would always help along when you'd done his ten songs-- then when he got 'round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually. Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs. I mean, my god, 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was so fruity. After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head... But Paul's really writing for a 14-year-old audience now anyhow.
I remember I came from California and I shot this piece of film for the film on Ravi Shankar's life called 'Raga' and I was carrying a sitar. And we stopped in New York and checked in a hotel, and Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were both at the same hotel. And that was the last time I really played the sitar like that. We used to hang out such alot at that period, and Eric gave me a fantastic Les Paul guitar, which is the one he plays on that date.
"I helped out such alot in all the arrangements. There were alot of tracks though where I played bass. Paul played lead guitar on 'Taxman,' and he played guitar-- a good part-- on 'Drive My Car."
Q: "You played bass?"
GEORGE: "No, I didn't play-- We laid the track because what Paul would do, if he's written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. But on 'Drive My Car' I just played the line, which is really like a lick off 'Respect,' you know, the Otis Redding version-- and I played that line on guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass.
END OF PART 1
