The time Bob Dylan and a Beatle were at odds over a guitar solo
In his role as producer, Don Was has often had to play the diplomat, especially when he found himself caught in the crossfire of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But they weren’t the only stars he had to mediate between.
In 1990, while behind the desk for Bob Dylan’s Under the Red Sky, he found himself at the center of disagreement over a guitar solo between the folk rock legend and one of his guest collaborators, George Harrison.
“I learned a lesson pretty early on,” Was says in conversation with Rock & Roll High School . What was the lesson? Well, as he puts it, it was “benign honesty.”
“George Harrison came in to overdub guitar in the song,” he explains. “I'd never met George Harrison before. The room was aglow with personality and charisma.
“And Bob, I guess, on a previous record, had only let George play an overdub one time, and then he cut him off. So, as we’re walking into the control room, George Harrison said to me, ‘Don't let him do that again. Give me a chance to play it a few times,’ which Bob overheard.”
Was plays the comment as being “jocular” and fun, rather than it coming from a place of malice. Then, without much warning, the engineer hit record. Without even hearing the song before, or having even tuned up, Harrison cut a take.
“All things considered, George played a respectable solo; he was digging his way out of not knowing what key it was in,” Was recalls.
“We get to the end, and Bob says, ‘Okay, that's great. Thank you,' [clearly eager to move on]. George Harrison turns to me, and he says, ‘Wait a minute, what do you think, Don?’ And Bob goes, ‘Yeah, what do you think, Don?’ Time slowed down.”
Source: yahoo.com/Phil Weller
