JonnyLytnin
Dec 15, 2009, 10:13 PM
I read this a few months ago and while many of you may be familiar with this one, I just wanted to share it here as my favorite story of George. It's from a January 2002 Rolling Stone article by Anthony Decurtis. Anyway, here it is...
At the photo shoot for the Rolling Stone cover story pegged to Cloud Nine, the photographer encouraged Harrison to move around a bit. Harrison, who was feeling tired and grumpy, made a few halfhearted efforts to twirl his arms and smile. When the photographer pushed him to do more, Harrison looked at him coolly and simply said, "I'm forty-four years old." In an effort to get him pumped up, the photographer's wife said, "Don't you want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone?"
That was a mistake. Harrison stopped the shoot, stood completely still and glared. The room was stone silent. All of Harrison's casual downplaying of the Beatles evaporated, and he was now standing there, unmistakably, as one of the most famous men in the world. "Can I possibly tell you how little that means to me?" Harrison then said, speaking very deliberately. "I've been on every magazine cover there is. I've been all over the world, and met every political and religious leader there is to meet, and none of them impressed me - let alone the world of pop music. The first person who ever impressed me was Ravi Shankar, because he helped show me a way beyond all that. 'Don't I want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone?' I couldn't care less."
The shoot wrapped up rather soon after those remarks, and everyone bolted out of that room as fast as they could. As the nearest representative of this magazine, I was moving down the corridor at a pretty brisk pace myself. Then Harrison called my name and came up to walk beside me. He took my arm and said, "I hope you weren't offended by that." He broke into a smile. "That was for their benefit."
At the photo shoot for the Rolling Stone cover story pegged to Cloud Nine, the photographer encouraged Harrison to move around a bit. Harrison, who was feeling tired and grumpy, made a few halfhearted efforts to twirl his arms and smile. When the photographer pushed him to do more, Harrison looked at him coolly and simply said, "I'm forty-four years old." In an effort to get him pumped up, the photographer's wife said, "Don't you want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone?"
That was a mistake. Harrison stopped the shoot, stood completely still and glared. The room was stone silent. All of Harrison's casual downplaying of the Beatles evaporated, and he was now standing there, unmistakably, as one of the most famous men in the world. "Can I possibly tell you how little that means to me?" Harrison then said, speaking very deliberately. "I've been on every magazine cover there is. I've been all over the world, and met every political and religious leader there is to meet, and none of them impressed me - let alone the world of pop music. The first person who ever impressed me was Ravi Shankar, because he helped show me a way beyond all that. 'Don't I want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone?' I couldn't care less."
The shoot wrapped up rather soon after those remarks, and everyone bolted out of that room as fast as they could. As the nearest representative of this magazine, I was moving down the corridor at a pretty brisk pace myself. Then Harrison called my name and came up to walk beside me. He took my arm and said, "I hope you weren't offended by that." He broke into a smile. "That was for their benefit."