“Bob let him play one overdub, then cut him off. George said to me, ‘Don’t let him do that again’”: 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.

Rock & Roll High School with Pete Ganbarg - Don Was (S5, EP13) - YouTube

Watch On

“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.”

This is a man who grew up idolizing these two elite musicians, who considered selling his car to get a ticket to the Concert for Bangladesh. But he realized, in that moment, that he wasn't there to be a fan.

“I said, ‘Well, you know, it was good. Why don't you tune up, and we'll do another one. Let's see if we beat it.’

“It was diplomatic,” he says. “I didn't insult anybody, but I got us to the next take, and there's a lesson in benign honesty. And Bob didn't really mean it, you know. He was just fucking around. We got the solo. It didn't take long.”

Harrison, ultimately, was a dab hand at quickfire guitar solos. When Mike Campbell couldn’t face the heat of soloing in front of Harrison while cutting a Traveling Wilburys track, he insisted Harrison did it himself, and he made light work of it.

Meanwhile, Was has made the bold claim as to why John Mayer is better than the Beatle because of one key aspect of his musicianship.