On day in 1994, gypsy jazz guitarist Robin Nolan was busking in Leidseplein, a lively square in Amsterdam. A tourist bought one of his CDs. “And he turned out to be George Harrison’s gardener,” Nolan says. “He gave the CD to George, thinking he might like it. The next thing I know George and Olivia [his wife] call to ask if we’d play at their Christmas party.”
There began a friendship, with Nolan’s combo becoming what he calls “the house band” for parties at Friar Park, the Harrisons’ home (and home studio) in England’s Thames Valley.
“We played [their son] Dhani Harrison’s 21st birthday, and everyone there was famous except for us,” Nolan says with a laugh.
“Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty, Ravi Shankar, the Monty Python members. We’d be doing our Django Reinhardt stuff and George would say, ‘Check these guys out!’ Our CD was in his jukebox with all his favorite music. We even got to play together. It was surreal.”
Nolan is celebrating the friendship with For the Love of George, tasteful gypsy jazz re-imaginings of 10 Harrison and Beatles songs, plus the original title track – a virtual co-write with Harrison.
That began with a texted pic Olivia sent Nolan of an envelope with a chord progression scribbled out in George’s hand. “I had to unravel the mystery of what he intended,” Nolan says. “As I played the changes, I kind of heard George’s voice humming in my head.”
He sent a melodic idea to Olivia.
“That was nerve-wracking. I thought, ‘God, she might hate it.’ But she texted back, “Oh, it sounds so George!’ Now the copyright says, ‘Harrison-Nolan.’ Unreal.”
As if that’s not enough, Nolan recorded the album at Friar Park. Aside from his Polak Gypsy Swing 42N, he played what he calls the “crown jewels” of George’s collection. These include the Gibson J-160E, the Rickenbacker 360 12-string and the Ramirez gut-string heard on the Beatles’ And I Love Her.”
“When you put your fingers in the same place that George put his fingers on the same guitar from an epic recording from the Beatles, and it sounds the same, it blows you away,” he says.
Nolan will be touring this year while maintaining his educational outreach via his Gypsy Jazz Club instructional books and videos. Though the soulful fluidity of Django is integral to the new album, Nolan says, “Noodling or trying to shred was out the window. With these songs, I was only thinking of George. I just wanted to play for him.”
- A Tribute to George Harrison is out now.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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