Fact #189372
When:
Short story:
George Harrison becomes the first of The Beatles to set foot on American soil. Visiting his married sister, Louise, in Benton, Illinois, USA, George buys a copy of James Ray's current album. It includes the song, Got My Mind Set On You, which Harrison will later cover.Full article:
George Harrison : My sister Louise is over in the States, you know. She and her husband emigrated back in 1954 and I hadn't seen them since. They've got two children now and it was great meeting my nephew and neice for the first time.
Louise Harrison (sister of George Harrison) : My mother had sent Please Please Me, the first album, to me, and I was playing it when the dry-cleaning man came to pick up the dry-cleaning. He asked, 'Oh, what's that music?' I said, 'That's my younger brother. He's in a band.' So he sat and listened to the whole album, then asked if he could come back to hear it again. He told me he was a member of a band called The Four Vests, and that his name was Gabe.
So he came back with all the guys in the band, and they started coming over almost every week to listen to the album. At the end of the summer, I told Gabe that George was coming over with my other brother, Peter, to visit me. So he asked, 'Oh, can we come over and meet them?' I said, 'Sure.' By this time, Please Please Me had been at No1 in England for almost a year, but no-one had heard of The Beatles over here.
Gabe was doing a show at a little place called the El Dorado, a tiny village in Southern Illinois, USA. He asked George and Pete if they would like to come along to this show. So we went down to this big dance hall. I guess there were 300 to 500 people there.The band was playing and nobody was listening to them. I thought it must be awful to play in a band where nobody even applauds. Later, the lead guitar player said to my brother Pete, 'Do you think George would play a song with us?' Pete said, 'Well, if you actually put the guitar in his hand, he might not be able to resist.'
So the guitar player told George, 'Hey, I've got to go out back for a minute. Can you take over?' George got up onstage with the band, but he didn't know many of their songs. The band knew some Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley songs, though. Sothey started playing, and people in the room started pounding on the tables, stamping their feet on the floor, applauding and screaming! They played through the songs a couple of times. Finally, George got off the stage, and a person came over and said to Gabe, 'You'd be a fool if you didn't take on that young fella trying out for you.'
Later, somebody else came over and said to George, 'You know, with the right kind of people looking out for you, you could really go places, son.'
George Harrison : I did plenty of travelling – Ohio, the Mississippi and so on. I even did some camping in one of the big national parks. Very relaxing it was.
We went to New York for three days, but I was a bit disappointed. It's a lonely sort of place.
One day we went to see Stop the World on Broadway and went backstage to meet Anthony Newley. What a great person! I'd never met him before, but he's heard all about The Beatles. He's even recorded one of our numbers, I Saw Her Standing There.
He seemed to know everybody in the music business – Dick James, for instance, and our manager Brian Epstein. The funny thing was, he didn't know Brian was our manager – he knew him from meeting him in Liverpool once.
I bought a guitar while I was there, a Rickenbacker like John's. It cost me about £80 or £90, and I had to pay £22 customs duty on top of that.
(Source : not known)
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Louise Harrison (sister of George Harrison) : My mother had sent Please Please Me, the first album, to me, and I was playing it when the dry-cleaning man came to pick up the dry-cleaning. He asked, 'Oh, what's that music?' I said, 'That's my younger brother. He's in a band.' So he sat and listened to the whole album, then asked if he could come back to hear it again. He told me he was a member of a band called The Four Vests, and that his name was Gabe.
So he came back with all the guys in the band, and they started coming over almost every week to listen to the album. At the end of the summer, I told Gabe that George was coming over with my other brother, Peter, to visit me. So he asked, 'Oh, can we come over and meet them?' I said, 'Sure.' By this time, Please Please Me had been at No1 in England for almost a year, but no-one had heard of The Beatles over here.
Gabe was doing a show at a little place called the El Dorado, a tiny village in Southern Illinois, USA. He asked George and Pete if they would like to come along to this show. So we went down to this big dance hall. I guess there were 300 to 500 people there.The band was playing and nobody was listening to them. I thought it must be awful to play in a band where nobody even applauds. Later, the lead guitar player said to my brother Pete, 'Do you think George would play a song with us?' Pete said, 'Well, if you actually put the guitar in his hand, he might not be able to resist.'
So the guitar player told George, 'Hey, I've got to go out back for a minute. Can you take over?' George got up onstage with the band, but he didn't know many of their songs. The band knew some Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley songs, though. Sothey started playing, and people in the room started pounding on the tables, stamping their feet on the floor, applauding and screaming! They played through the songs a couple of times. Finally, George got off the stage, and a person came over and said to Gabe, 'You'd be a fool if you didn't take on that young fella trying out for you.'
Later, somebody else came over and said to George, 'You know, with the right kind of people looking out for you, you could really go places, son.'
George Harrison : I did plenty of travelling – Ohio, the Mississippi and so on. I even did some camping in one of the big national parks. Very relaxing it was.
We went to New York for three days, but I was a bit disappointed. It's a lonely sort of place.
One day we went to see Stop the World on Broadway and went backstage to meet Anthony Newley. What a great person! I'd never met him before, but he's heard all about The Beatles. He's even recorded one of our numbers, I Saw Her Standing There.
He seemed to know everybody in the music business – Dick James, for instance, and our manager Brian Epstein. The funny thing was, he didn't know Brian was our manager – he knew him from meeting him in Liverpool once.
I bought a guitar while I was there, a Rickenbacker like John's. It cost me about £80 or £90, and I had to pay £22 customs duty on top of that.
(Source : not known)