(A lady in St. Louis, Missouri, is writing a book about the Beatles in that city. She tells me she is having some difficulty tracking down people who attended George Harrison's concert in St. Louis in 1974. I was there and wrote these recollections for her.)
George
Harrison was always my favorite Beatle. Most young people had a
favorite and it always impressed me that George seemed to occupy the
space between the gigantic personalities of John Lennon & Paul
McCartney. George was usually relegated one song per LP side, if that
much, on the Beatles records and it was his songs that were always a
welcome change of pace from one masterpiece after another by John &
Paul.
As
the Beatles breakup was becoming a real thing, many were surprised to
see George be the first to establish a solo career. "All Things Must
Pass", "The Concert For Bangla Desh", and "Living In the Material World"
all proved George's ability as a rock/pop singer, songwriter, and
guitar player, both in the studio and onstage. So it
was that George Harrison would be the first member of the now-disbanded
Beatles to schedule an American concert tour, in November 1974.
It
must be stressed how much slower information traveled in the era before
the internet. Bill Graham, the rock concert promoter at the highly
successful Fillmore West ballroom in San Francisco and Fillmore East
theater in New York was the promoter for George's concert tour. A press
conference would be held. Likely the same day press releases were
delivered to news organizations. Rolling Stone magazine, at the time,
had become a crucial outlet for news of this sort. By the mid-1970s,
mainstream media organizations like the television and radio networks,
the newspaper wire services, nationally distributed news magazines and
major newspapers had accepted the Beatles (and rock music in
general) as a force to be reckoned with, so the announcement of a
nationwide concert by George Harrison was met with urgency and respect.
No time would be wasted disseminating this news.
Honestly,
I no longer remember how I learned of the itinerary of George's tour.
But I did know that St. Louis, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, would be
the two closest cities to my hometown of Topeka, Kansas, where George
would play. Tulsa was pretty quickly dismissed for two reasons: 1.)
There was, and still is, no four-lane highway between Topeka and Tulsa.
US 75 highway runs directly South to Tulsa and was two lanes running
through every small town along the way, which would take forever. 2.) To
this day I have never been to the city of Tulsa. I don't know a soul
there and have never had a reason to visit. St. Louis, on the other
hand, was much more inviting. Interstate 70 runs straight East to St.
Louis. I had been in St. Louis many times and had a decent idea where
things are located.
Again,
it needs to be stressed how differently thing were done in the decades
before the internet. eCommerce hadn't been created yet. Even
Ticketmaster didn't exist yet, but would start two years later in 1976.
Even though rock concerts had become a gigantic business by now and
municipalities were starting to build new stadiums with the express
intention of luring concert revenues into city coffers, the manner of
selling tickets had not changed for decades. Concert promoters would get
tickets printed, then drive around town to record stores, and by the
late 1960s to head shops, and give the manager a stack of tickets with a
rubber band around them. They would be tossed carelessly into the cash
register. Then when someone would ask for tickets they would be pulled
off the stack and sold for cash, which would be collected later by the
promoter. This antiquated system resulted in certain stores getting
preferential treatment from the promoter by being given reserve seat
tickets for the best seats, while other stores got back-of-the-venue
tickets that might not sell until closer to the show date. Whole stacks
of tickets would get swiped from cash registers while employees were
distracted by various methods.
So, how did I manage to get tickets to see George Harrison and Friends and the Ravi Shankar Music Festival From India orchestra?
I
did not have any like-minded friends in St. Louis who would get
tickets, take me to the show, and put me up for the night. That would
have been nice. But, on trips through St. Louis I loved listening to
KSHE, which in those days a great progressive rock radio station that
played numerous selections from LPs, not just the hit singles like on
Top 40 radio stations. KSHE was every bit as good as the progressive
rock stations in Kansas City at the time. So, I phoned KSHE from work
weeks in advance of George's concert to get information about ticket
sales. As luck would have it, I got a DJ who said he had just finished
his shift on the air. He said tickets would be on sale in a few days.
He offered to buy tickets for me and mail them to me if I would send him
cash and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. I figured KSHE was
probably staffed with honest people, seeing as how these were the waning
days of peace, love, and giving a hand to your fellow man, so I agreed and
had the cash in the mail that day for three tickets.
The
tickets arrived by return mail very quickly and I was set to go. One
buddy of mine I had known since grade school was anxious to go. He had
been out of town in college for a couple years and I saw a lot more of
him upon his return to town. A buddy from high school who had planned
to go dropped out leaving me with a spare ticket. No one else I knew was
willing to go, so I called a local Top 40 radio station and told the DJ
I was offering the ticket and a ride to anyone with cash. The DJ was
very willing to share my offer on the air. Within minutes I got a call
from a guy who sounded OK and I invited him to go with us.
Knowing
it would take six hours to drive to St. Louis we left Topeka around
11:00am to give us time to find The Arena, the 18,000 seat hockey stadium
across the street from Forest Park and get something to eat. The drive
was uneventful. The weather was typical Autumn with some clouds. So, on
the night of Wednesday, November 20, 1974, with an old friend and a new
one, and 18,000 other stylish-looking young people from the Midwest I
saw in the flesh for the first time ever, a member of the Beatles, Mr.
George (no middle name) Harrison!
First
on stage was the legendary sitar player from India, Ravi Shankar. I
have loved India classical music ever since I first started seeing Ravi
on TV in the 1960s. I had seen Ravi Shankar with his trio in 1972 at
Cowtown Ballroom in Kansas City so I knew what to expect. What was
different here was Ravi leading a full orchestra of about twenty
musicians showcasing many instruments including the sarod, the veena,
the santoor, male & female singers, and a huge assortment of
percussion instruments, every shape imaginable, led by Ravi's trusty
tabla drum player, Alla Rakha. Ravi's own showcase on the sitar was
short as the idea for this orchestra was to allow as many instruments as
possible to solo. I, for one, was delighted to see and hear this
orchestra. Others there maybe not so much. In spite of George being an
advocate for Indian music for most of a decade at that point, the more
casual observers there seemed to express some discomfort. In his
introduction, George asked everyone to settle down, get quiet and
contemplative, and allow this different kind of music to reach inside.
After
the break came George and his group. As on all shows on this tour, George
sang his own songs and a few Beatle songs, like "Something" and even
"In My Life".. But it wasn't all George. Billy Preston was the keyboard
player on this tour, much like on George's records. But Billy was
really hot in the 1970s. At the time of this concert "Nothin' From
Nothin'" was a huge hit, Billy's fifth hit in the 1970s, so he got to
play his own songs on the show. Robben Ford, a memorable blues
guitarist, was also in the band and played a few selections. (I have a
Charlie Musselwhite LP with Robben Ford on guitar.) So with George
playing the likes of "Living In the Material World", "Bangla Desh"',
"All Things Must Pass", "Isn't It a Pity", and "Here Comes the Sun", the
set ended with "My Sweet Lord", which was extended by repeated
calling-out of the names of the Prophet-Founders of the world's great
Faiths, to supplement the names of Hindu deities sprinkled through out
the lyrics "My Sweet Lord". ("Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Moses, Moses,
Moses, Moses, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha", etc.) Above the stage
were two giant illuminated "Om" symbols in Sanskrit surrounded in yellow
circles to graphically display the ultimate form of invocation in
Hinduism.
So,
this was the George Harrison of 1974. So much different than the
George Harrison from 1964. Gone were the hollow body Rickenbacker
guitars, replace by the solid body Fender. Gone were the ringing tones
of first generation rock 'n' roll guitar George copied from records
featuring Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry, and Chet Atkins. Gone were the
songs that spoke of George's alienation and need for solitude. Gone were
the bangs of hair combed forward over the forehead. Here was a slender
but toned body, new lines in the face, shoulder length hair, four years
separated from the Beatles, making ever effort to share with the world
his love and fascination with the music, art, and spirituality of India
and the varied forms of Hinduism. Never mind that his voice would be
alarmingly hoarse throughout the tour and would be there for all to hear
on the "Dark Horse" album which did not get released until AFTER the
tour, so as not to warn fans to stay away from the concerts. On stage
that night in St. Louis, George Harrison proclaimed that early shows in
the tour were met with tepid audience response and some empty seats, but the
show this night was indeed one of the best so far and that the audience
was the very best. The way Billy Preston almost violently shook his
head yes suggested to me that George hadn't said these words before.
Hare Krishna!
As
we filtered out of the hockey area there was a guy selling unauthorized
posters of a picture of George onstage at the Concert For Bangla Desh.
I bought one. It was cold enough to see my breath. The three of us
piled into my Volkswagen Beetle and headed West back to Kansas. It
would be 4:30am by the time I arrived home. Those last 50 miles I
really couldn't keep my eyes open.
