George Harrison and Pattie Boyd’s Visit With Bob Dylan Was ‘Absolute Agony’
George Harrison and Bob Dylan worked together many times over the years, and Harrison was a longtime fan of Dylan’s work. Early in their relationship, though, a meeting between them was brutally uncomfortable. On a visit to Woodstock, Harrison wanted to see Dylan, who lived there with his family. According to Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, Dylan was not good company. She explained that the day was agonizing.
George Harrison was a big fan of Bob Dylan
Harrison fell in love with Dylan’s music when he listened to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. He counted himself as a longtime fan of the American musician, and Tom Petty said his appreciation for him went beyond his albums.
“George quoted Bob like people quote Scripture,” Petty told Rolling Stone in 2002, per The Petty Archives. “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.”
An early visit between the two was deeply uncomfortable
In the 1960s, Harrison went to Woodstock to meet The Band, Dylan’s former backing group.
“It was kind of an escape from Beatledom for him, and he was really drawn to what Bob and The Band were doing,” Jonathan Taplin, The Band’s road manager, said, per the book George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door by Graeme Thomson. “It was quite different from what was happening in London or San Francisco. In Woodstock it was much more grounded, very family-orientated, kids all around.”
While there, Harrison also wanted to visit Dylan, who lived in Woodstock with his family.
“I also called Bob and said, ‘George is here, he’d really like to visit with you,'” The Band’s Robbie Robertson explained. “So George then did go and spend some time with Bob, but he didn’t know if he was even going to see Bob when he came.”
Harrison and Boyd went to see the famed musician, but she said that the trip was uncomfortable.
“Bob was an odd person,” she said. “When we went to see him in Woodstock, God, it was absolute agony. He just wouldn’t talk. He would not talk. He certainly had no social graces whatsoever. I don’t know whether it was because he was shy of George or what the story was, but it was agonizingly difficult. And [his wife] Sara wasn’t much help, she had the babies to look after.”
Tom Petty wondered if George Harrison scared Bob Dylan
One possible explanation for Dylan’s less-than-welcoming behavior was that he was intimidated by Harrison. When they were working together in The Traveling Wilburys, Petty said that he thought Harrison scared Dylan.
“I think George frightened Bob,” Petty said. “At the end of the first day, he said, ‘We know that you’re Bob Dylan and everything, but we’re just going to treat you and talk to you like we would anybody else!'”
Ultimately, though, the two men became friends and worked together well.
