Pete Townshend’s opinion on George Harrison

Besides being an incredible songwriter, Pete Townshend is also considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time. However, the interesting thing is that he was never really a lead guitar player in the traditional sense, the kind who creates long and elaborate solos. This is one of the reasons why he does not place himself in the same league as many of his peers. Over the decades, he has spoken about many guitarists from his generation, including the late George Harrison.

What is Pete Townshend’s opinion on George Harrison

Although Pete Townshend initially said George’s guitar playing was lame, stating, “I couldn’t find a model guitarist I could focus on. I used to like John Lee Hooker and Steve Cropper. I thought George Harrison was very lame. Keith Richards couldn’t tune his guitar. He still can’t! Somehow we became aware of the Yardbirds and we incorporated the things they were doing into our act without ever seeing them. It was done by word of mouth,” in an interview with New Musical Expres in 1970. But his opinion later changed and he eventually became a good friend of the late musician.

As Pete said in his book “Who I Am”, George’s death at the age of 58 affected him very much. “George Harrison died on 1 December. It’s hard to explain how much this affected me, and everyone who knew him. He was a quiet, loving man, settled at last into a spiritual family life that all of us had wished for him.”

He continued:

“His Traveling Wilburys album had let each one of us – his fans – into his home via his recording studio in Friar Park out in Henley. I decided that one day I would do what George had done, and share with my fans the house and studio they had permitted me to enjoy privately thus far,” the musician said.

Curiously, Pete said he grew closer to George while visiting Harrison’s house with his friend Eric Clapton. His main role was to distract George while Clapton tried to talk to his wife Pattie Boyd and convince her to leave him, which she eventually did later on. (…) Eric came back into the studio to complete the recording. After we had finished he told me he was building up the courage to speak with Pattie, George Harrison’s wife and the subject of ‘Layla’, and beg her to leave her husband. Would I go with him and maybe spend some time with George so Eric could be alone with Pattie?”

Pete Townshend continued:

“This turned out not to be difficult. George was happy to talk to me about Indian mysticism and music, even his use of cocaine. I found it hard to follow his reasoning that in a world of illusion nothing mattered. Not wealth or fame, drug abuse or heavy drinking, nothing but love for God. We sat in his wonderful recording studio and talked for two hours. I fell in love with George that night. His sardonic, slow-speed, Liverpudlian humour was charming. His spiritual commitment was absolute: yellow-robed young Hare Krishna followers living in the house wandered in and out as we chatted.”

“George lived a quiet life; his house was vast, rambling, and the reception hall was like a theatre it was so huge, with its ornate galleries. I think Pattie may have been more relieved to escape the house than she was to leave George. A superb gardener, his great love was Friar Park. That night Eric tried to talk to Pattie about his feelings. He said later that it was a crucial moment in their relationship. Pattie did eventually leave George for Eric, who celebrated that success by having as much fun as he could without drugs. Pattie seemed happy, and free. I hadn’t seen her smile in quite the way she did with Eric since I had first met her,” Pete Townshend revealed in his book.

Harrison didn’t think Pete Townshend was serious about his spiritual influences

The Beatles were deeply influenced by a trip to India in 1968, where they stayed with George Harrison’s guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his ashram. Their lives and music changed after that experience and other British artists had similar spiritual journeys. Pete Townshend, for example, followed the teachings of Meher Baba, who inspired one of The Who‘s most famous songs: “Baba O’Riley.”

Although George and Pete spent a lot of time talking about spirituality the night he visited Friar Park with Eric Clapton, the Beatle didn’t think Pete was very serious about his spiritual influences. “Townsend! Yeah! Every time I’ve seen that guy he’s been so stoned and talking such a lot of nonsense that I don’t think he means any of the religious stuff he spouts,” he said in an interview with India Today in 1976.

Although this quote appeared in that interview, a couple of decades later, in 2013, Townshend told The Globe and Mail that he and George were always respectful of each other’s beliefs. “Yes, I was (friends with him). We had a couple of very, very serious conversations, and he respected my views and I respected his. And we took different paths. So yes, I was friends with him. Perhaps my path is interesting. In the past couple of years I have returned to being a disciple of Meher Baba,” Pete Townshend said.

Pete wasn’t impressed when he first heard The Beatles

Although Pete’s favorite band has always been The Rolling Stones, he was also a fan of The Beatles’ music. He believes the first song he ever heard from them was “Please Please Me”. But that no didn’t “pleased”, the musician, who said it was more pop-oriented than he liked. He would only be truly impressed by them two years later when he heard “Day Tripper.”

“I wasn’t crazy impressed with The Beatles when I first heard them, but I did love them. They were joyful, they were more a pop group than what I would’ve liked. They had this incredible image, delightful.”

“I remember them, I suppose the first song would’ve been [1963’s] ‘Please Please Me’. The one that really blew me away, we were doing a gig at a pub, and they played it. It was the [1965] ‘Day Tripper’. I think on the other side was ‘Paperback Writer.’”

“I just thought, ‘Wow, these two songs are really, really great.’ They weren’t about falling in love, they weren’t about, ‘Ho, go, go, go.’ They were about jobs, creativity, they were interesting songs, those two. I suddenly realized that they were gonna do great things,” Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone in 2020.