HOW I MET GEORGE HARRISON IN THE SUMMER OF 1971

It wasn’t quite 15 minutes of fame for me, but I still remember every moment. We never exchanged a word, but he showed me what a great guy he was.

The band had an old pickup, not much better than this one. But I drove it to meet George Harrison. (Photo by Murray Grant, courtesy Vecteezy.)

Andy Warhol famously said that everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame. I’m still owed most of my allotment, but some of it was surely used up when I experienced a dream of every product of the Sixties: to meet a real live Beatle. (They all were alive and well back then.)

It was the summer of 1971, and I was an almost twenty two year old living in Marin County, part of the SF Bay Area. What brought me there was a different kind of dream, to be a successful rock and roll manager. I had one client, a very talented singer-songwriter, and he was able to gig all over the San Francisco Bay Area. He performed in some some well-know venues like Marin County’s Lion’s Den, fabled SF clubs like The Boarding House, and respected Berkeley spots like Freight and Salvage. I got to hear lots of great music, and meet several musicians, was invited to lots of clubs, and the fact that no money was coming in didn’t deter me in the least.

(Last year I published Queensborough Rock, a novel loosely based on my experiences. I set it in New York City where my managerial role began. Click here…