Bob Dylan Liked ‘Messing With’ George Harrison in the Studio and Almost Got a Subpar Solo Because of It
Bob Dylan and George Harrison first met in 1964 and worked together many times over the years. Harrison idolized Dylan, and Dylan had great respect for the former Beatle. Dylan trusted him enough that he messed with Harrison while recording a guitar solo. The resulting guitar part was OK, but not up to Harrison’s usual standards. Dylan would have happily included it in the song but, luckily, Harrison and producer Don Was stepped in.
Producer Don Was joined Bob Dylan and George Harrison in the studio
Was joined Dylan in the studio in 1989 after years of wanting to work with the prolific artist.
“All my life, I wanted to produce Bob Dylan,” the producer said on Southern Accents Radio, per Yahoo. “There came a day in 1989 when I was in the studio producing [him], and George Harrison came in to play a guitar solo on a song.”
Harrison asked Was to ensure that Dylan didn’t rush him through the solo. He tended to record one take without giving Harrison a chance to fix things.
“Bob’s messing with him,” Was said. “He moves the engineer, Ed Cherney, out of the seat, and he sits in the engineer’s chair. He’s working the remote control. George Harrison says, ‘Don’t let him do what he did to me last time, which is he just recorded me one take, and that was it. I didn’t get to fix the thing.’ I said, ‘Okay. Yeah. Sure. No problem.'”
Bob Dylan almost kept a subpar George Harrison solo
Dylan heard Harrison’s request and, rather than abiding by it, threw the guitarist head-first into the song.
“Bob, of course, hears that, and he’s going to do the same thing,” Was said. “George hasn’t even had a chance to tune up or to hear the song. He doesn’t even know what key it’s in. Bob fast forwards to the solo and is like, ‘Go.’ He hits it into record. George figures out what key it’s in.”
The end result was fine, but not what a listener would expect from Harrison.
“All things considered, it was a respectable effort, but it wasn’t the solo that you wanted from George Harrison,” he explained. “Bob shuts the machine off after the solo. He says, ‘Okay. That’s great. Thank you, man.’ George Harrison turns to me he says, ‘Help, Don. What do you think?’ Bob looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah, what do you think?'”
Though nervous, Was listened to Harrison’s previous request.
“George and Bob. Here they are, three feet away from me, saying, ‘What do you think?’ I’m in this tough bind,” he said. “Thankfully, a voice came into my head and said, ‘He’s not paying you to be a fan.’ I thought, ‘All right. You got to tell the truth here.’ So I said, ‘It was good, man. But let’s tune up, try another take. Let’s see if we beat it.’ George was like, ‘Thank you.’ I guess I passed Bob’s test. But that was a pivotal moment, realizing that I’m not there to be a fan and that they’re actually paying me to do something.”
The former Beatle was a huge fan of the American artist
Though Dylan messed with him in the recording studio, Harrison idolized the American artist. According to Tom Petty, who worked with both musicians in The Traveling Wilburys, Harrison even filmed Dylan to get his own private bootlegs.
“George quoted Bob like people quote Scripture,” Petty said. “Bob really adored George, too. George used to hang over the balcony videoing Bob while Bob wasn’t aware of it. Bob would be sitting at the piano playing, and George would tape it and listen to it all night.”
It makes sense, then, that Harrison wanted to put forth his best efforts in front of Dylan.
