How Financial Turmoil, a Shady Manager, and the Risk of Losing Friar Park Ultimately Pushed George Harrison Into The Beatles’ Anthology Project — And Gifted Fans a Rare Glimpse of His Wit, Insight, and Reluctant Return to the Fab Four’s History
This Is Going To Sound Terrible But Thank Goodness George Harrison Got Ripped Off By His Manager In The Early 1990s. Otherwise We May Have Never Received The Beatles’ Anthology Documentary :
In the early 1990’s Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Yoko Ono wanted to move forward on a long proposed Beatles’ documentary that told the story from the band’s perspective. But George Harrison made it crystal clear that he wasn’t interested. Both in reliving that history and definitely with the proposed title which was “The Long And Winding Road”.
Months later it would become evident that George was being ripped off by his longtime manager and financial advisor Denis O’Brien, who not only embezzled his money but also had mismanaged his Handmade Films company causing millions of dollars in losses.
George first stopped the bleeding with a short tour of Japan, which was a huge success financially, but didn’t generate the money he would eventually need in the long run .
The last straw for George would be when he found out that he was in jeopardy of losing his beloved Friar Park mansion. That’s when he finally caved and agreed to take part in the Beatles’ documentary.
That being said he still came with a number of demands. The first was changing the name from “The Long And Winding Road” to “The Beatles Anthology”. He also demanded that the only way he would take part in the recording of the John Lennon demos (which became “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”) was to have Jeff Lynne produce those tracks.
Even though George was less than enthusiastic to take part in the Anthology he still was great when it came to his interview footage. In many ways showing the public a side of him fans had never seen before. Especially when it came to his insight and humor. Some of the most entertaining footage was actually on the bonus content of the DVD release you see his excitement in hearing outtakes of the old songs. The most hilarious moment of all was asking Paul and George Martin what album the song “Golden Slumbers” was on. Proving he couldn’t have cared less about Beatles’ history.
On the other hand you also see George was much less enthusiastic about performing old songs with Paul and Ringo. Especially when Paul leads them into a rendition of “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” and just tells him to do “the short version” of the song. George also made it clear that he wasn’t enthusiastic at all about the three John Lennon demos, calling all three songs “below average” at best. And even refusing to work on the their proposed song “Now And Then” after one day by calling it rubbish. (Had George lived it’s very likely the song never would have been released last year as a Beatles’ track).
In the end though it’s a wonderful thing that George did decide to take part in the Anthology despite what his motives were. If George didn’t have financial issues it’s an almost certainty that the documentary would not have taken place,definitely not in the 1990s. It would be the Anthology that would restore George’s financial stability, so it’s not surprising that in the following years up until his death that he seemed to abandon his musical career even more than he had before it.
Eric Clapton once said that George didn’t like performing live and only did it because he needed the money when he did his shows in Japan in 1991. Same goes for the Anthology project. George only took part in that also because of his financial situation.
All I can say is thank goodness for us fans that he did end up taking part in the Anthology project even if the reasoning is a shame.