From a commercial point of view, the late 1980s were an amazing time to be George Harrison. After spending a few years out of the limelight due to the terrible tragedy befalling the former Beatles at the start of the decade, he mounted a comeback in 1987 that absolutely no one saw coming. Harrison teamed up with longtime friend Jeff Lynne and released Cloud Nine, a record that saw him reach the top of the world of rock overnight. He and Lynne weren’t finished there, though.
They bundled up with friends Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, along with a key influence on both of them, Roy Orbison, to form The Traveling Wilburys, a band that was exactly as successful as their lineup would have you believe. Even after Orbison’s tragic passing in 1988, the band continued on, remaining one of the biggest acts in rock at the time. The one thing that Harrison wasn’t doing at the time was touring.
This makes perfect sense: the man hated touring with a passion and had done so ever since his days in The Beatles. Even after the Fabs were no more, his track record of touring in the 1970s was patchy from both a critical and commercial standpoint. Because of that, he swore it off as soon as he could. After all, it’s not like the man who wrote ‘Something‘ would ever need for money. If he was happier forsaking the road, then that’s what he’d do.
Thus, George Harrison only played live a precious few times during his commercial peak, content to turn up at the occasional Dylan or Petty show and blow some unsuspecting folks’ minds with a spool through ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. At least, that was what he thought he’d do. In 1991, however, George Harrison was in a rut. The Wilburys were on hold, he had no intention of making any more solo records, and in his own words, he started to get a little embarrassed about how little he had going on. Enter Eric Clapton.
How did Eric Clapton help out George Harrison?
Clapton was the complete opposite of George Harrison. A road lifer who felt a lot more comfortable on stage than in the studio. However, his long association with the former Beatle meant that he was getting a lot of questions about whether the two of them would play together. Finally, it got to the point where Clapton thought perhaps the latter would like to head out on the road with him, and asked his old friend if he’d like to play on his upcoming tour of Japan. Harrison kindly turned the offer down initially, and then, in an interview with Goldmine magazine conducted in 1992, elaborated on why he changed his mind.
“I sent his manager a fax saying, ‘Thanks for the great offer, but I don’t think so.’ Then I just swam around my swimming pool and I was thinking, ‘Ahh, really, I shoulda really done it’, ’cause it doesn’t feel any good not doing it. I’m free of the burden of not doing it, but I’ll never know what it was like. So I phoned him up again, and I said, ‘If you haven’t already cancelled it, I will do it!’ ‘Cause I really needed something to jerk myself out of a rut.”
That said, Harrison also knew that he wasn’t the only one in need of help at that time. Those of you who know their Eric Clapton are aware that while the early 1990s were also a great time for the guitar legend commercially, he’d also suffered the single most horrific tragedy a father can suffer barely a year previously. In the same interview, Harrison talked about how this was part of the reason he changed his mind.
“I think after that happened, he’d wanted to busy himself a bit. I kept thinking that it was a good opportunity for me, plus I think he was really looking towards doing something, although he’d taken time off.” Thus, Harrison and Clapton ended up doing each other a kindness, and that tour is arguably the most celebrated of Harrison’s entire solo career. A lesson to take forward that sometimes the best way of helping someone is to let them help you.