Philip Norman: George Harrison - The Reluctant Beatle
A review of the brand new George Harrison biography
George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle
Philip Norman
Simon & Schuster
There’s a problem with Beatles scholarship, well several of course, but one in particular: The self-appointed, bloviating know-hard “jean jacket” journalists. Philip Norman is one of a small handful of men, always men, that will tell you - at length - what he knows about The Beatles. Unphased by repetition. His brand new biography of George Harrison feels like an obligation to publishers as much as anything; he started - long ago - doing individual bios, and now he owes them “A George”.
If Norman lives long enough, presumably we’ll get a Ringo tome.
I am already hoping this is not the case. The solo years feel reductive, when that is ultimately the promise such a book sits on: to really unpack the solo years. I don’t need to know about George in The Beatles again. I want more about his solo records, and his demons, and the duality of the man.
We wait for two thirds of the book - going through Hamburg, and most of the albums the Fab Four delivered, and it does very much feel like this book is all about delivery, the ticking of boxes - before we get to the breakup, and then the high points of All Things Must Pass and the Concert for Bangladesh. After that, each solo album is dealt with, most are dismissed. We get the Clapton/Patty/George love triangle. We get some sprinklings of the extra truths around what a jerk George could be (‘offering’ Patty to Clapton so that Harrison could try and get with another Boyd sister), and reminders that he let Lennon go to his early grave with the two on permanent non-speaking terms. Even after he had gone all-in on John’s How Do You Sleep? such was his pettiness around Paul having bossed him around a bit in the studio.
But again, most people reading a Harrison bio in 2023 might know much of this.
The Traveling Wilburys don’t get much. Which seems a shame. And the the last two decades of George’s life don’t feel like much ultimately. There’s lip-service to his hand in creating some idiosyncratic British drama and comedy films. More boxes to tick. But there’s no analysis of why George’s mood darkened while he maintained the public persona of musical mantras and peace and personal calm. He might well have been a reluctant Beatle, especially by the end, but where’s the examination of how that manifested as a deep trauma in and of its own; a cloak that he couldn’t shake, one that added to the darkening of his mood.
No, you’ll have to supply all of that yourself. Norman is busy rewatching Thomas The Tank Engine episodes as he preps his Ringo nail-biter.
This book is unnecessary in the extreme. And yet, I’m such a Beatles nerd, I devoured it still.