The music industry isn’t short of surprise success stories, but few guitarists have enjoyed a glow-up quite like Robin Nolan has, after the gypsy jazz virtuoso went from busking on the streets of Amsterdam to collaborating with George Harrison – and hanging out with an A-list cast of rockstars.
As the tale goes, Nolan's fortunes changed on an inconspicuous day in 1994. While he was playing in the Dutch city’s lively square of Leidseplein, a tourist bought one of his CDs – and from there the unlikely connection to the Beatle began to form.
“He turned out to be George Harrison's gardener,” Nolan says in the new issue of Guitar World. “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.”
Harrison was always on the hunt for new music – David Crosby says he was the one who introduced him to Ravi Shankar, for instance – and an artist’s obscurity did little to deter the guitarist. A friendship blossomed, and whenever he decided to throw a party at his lavish home of Friar Park, Harrison recruited Nolan to play in “the house band”.
“We played [their son] Dhani Harrison's 21st birthday, and everyone there was famous except for us,” remembers Nolan, who rubbed shoulders with a who's who cast of music greats.
“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.”
After Harrison passed in 2001, their relationship took another intriguing turn. Following years of ruminating on the idea, Nolan committed to penning a tribute album after a visit to Friar Park, where Olivia afforded him the chance to play Harrison's Ramirez acoustic guitar.
He’s now celebrated their friendship further with For the Love of George. The album sees his Harrison-adored gypsy jazz stylings redress 10 Beatles and solo tracks from Harrison's catalog, with one track actually co-written with George.
It started when Harrison's widow, Olivia, texted Nolan a photo of an envelope. On it, the Beatle had scrawled out a chord progression. This would be his muse for the album’s title track.
“I had to unravel the mystery of what he intended,” Nolan says of the writing process. “As I played the changes, I kind of heard George's voice humming in my head.”
A rough melodic draft was sent to Olivia, and while he waited for a reply his nerves began to shred.
“That was nerve-wracking,” he says. “I thought, 'God, she might hate it.' But she texted back, ‘Oh, it sounds so George!' Now the copyright says, 'Harrison-Nolan.' Unreal.”
Touchingly, the album was recorded at Friar Park, and features the “crown jewels” of George’s guitar collection, including his Gibson J-160E and two And I Love Her guitars – a Rickenbacker 360 12-string and the aforementioned Ramirez classical guitar.
“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 reflects.
“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.”
Nolan’s George Harrison interview features in the new issue of Guitar World, alongside an in-depth look at AC/DC’s Back In Black 45 years on.
Head to Magazines Direct to pick up an issue.
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