(Credits: Far Out / Eddi Laumanns aka RX-Guru / Tidal)
Sat 8 November 2025 17:30, UK
The Quiet Beatle was an eternal student of music and expanded his devotion to any stringed instrument that came into his orbit. But as David Crosby puts it, when he handed him a record, George Harrison’s life and music would “have repercussions”.
Crosby was on a visit to the UK in 1965, and the Beatles were showing the Byrds around gigs and parties. “Of course, our heroes were the Beatles,” said Crosby in a 2022 interview with Harvey Kubernik. “And they came to hear us and were really nice to us. They were friendly and very real and not at all star people. None of that. They drove us home from gigs and came to gigs more than once,” he added.
“I was very taken with George,” he continued. “I liked him a lot. Always did, right from the start. Very sincere. Very friendly and trying hard to be a decent human being. And that appeals to me no end. I became friends with George. So, I had just been turned on to Ravi Shankar by a friend in the States. And I had an album by Ravi in my suitcase. I gave it to George.”
Shankar was India’s sitar virtuoso par excellence, and his mentorship of George Harrison resulted in Indian music becoming popularised in the West.
Since Crosby’s gift, George’s music would never be the same. “George told me later that I turned him on to Indian music. I have trouble believing that. I think there were other people who helped do that. But that’s what he told me. God bless me. George liked Indian music, got interested in it and wound up going to India.”
There are more than a couple of the Beatles’ songs that inspired Harrison to use his sitar upon the band’s return from India. But the descent into Asian instruments born on Crosby’s visit to England would go on to influence Harrison’s solo career, too.
Spiritualism followed Harrison until his death, with songs like ‘The Devil’s Been Busy’ and ‘Marwa Blues’ echoing what India had taught him, and including the sitar and the sliding guitar to emulate sounds of the far East, but also celebrating the guitarist’s spiritual awakening.
“He told me about this guy and said he found somebody who might know some of the answers,” Crosby recalled. “George was smitten… I don’t believe in that. I wanted to say to George, ‘Oh man, come on, take it with a grain of salt. The guy may know something but don’t bet your whole month’s rent.’ I couldn’t do it. It was George…And I just couldn’t give him that kind of advice”.
He went on to warn his friend in a song he wrote for him, which ended up being one of Crosby’s most beloved hits. It is unclear why Harrison never took the song ‘Laughing’ for himself, but even with Crosby’s performance, it remains a relic of his friendship and admiration for the Beatle.
He told Music Radar in 2014: “Seeing The Beatles made something else click. It changed my life. They changed my life.”
For George Harrison, it seems that the feeling is mutual.
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