George Harrison. Photo courtesy of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
George Harrison would have turned 69 this Saturday.
While it’s hard to believe that he’s already been gone from this world for more than a decade, the influential and spiritual ex-Beatle remains in the news – this week in a particularly unusual way.
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On Thursday, Harrison’s son, Dhani, will make his famous father’s famous guitars available, so to speak, in a virtual way. A new iPad app, The Guitar Collection: George Harrison, will go on sale for $9.99, offering buyers “detailed 360-degree studies of some of (Harrison’s) best-known gear; their histories and other background information; and multimedia of the guitars in action,” according to The New York Times.
A musician himself, Dhani told the newspaper he reveres the instruments himself and the app allows folks to scrutinize the famous gear and “not have to worry about scratching them.” (Without that iPad app, you can see some of those classic Harrison guitars up close in a video below, with the Beatle talking about the instruments.)
Is this just “scratching” the surface when it comes to marketing classic rock icons and their gear?
For $10 a pop, it seems like it would be nice to at least strum one of these beauties, but I’m betting Dhani will make a fortune from this anyway: Scores of Fab Four diehards will surely view this as a rare opportunity to get closer to a guitarist listed by Rolling Stone magazine as No. 11 on its list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
Surely, Eric Clapton, 66, could do the same for ravenous guitar geeks with his collection, not to mention Jeff Beck, 67, Buddy Guy, 75, and B.B. King, 86, as they find ways to supplement their income in their golden years.
Speaking of the golden years and The Beatles, I found it fascinating and frightening at the same time to realize that Paul McCartney turns 70 this year, a full six years beyond his once way-forward-thinking “When I’m Sixty-Four.”
And he’s just one of many classic rock icons entering their eighth decade in what amounts to a watershed year for baby boomer fans who grew up with these seniors when they were just teens and 20-somethings.
Carole King, The Monkees’ Peter Tork and CSN’s Graham Nash already have hit the 70 mark. Others turning 70 this year: Andy Summers of the Police, Michael Nesmith, Roger McGuinn, Mick Fleetwood, Bruce Johnston and Brian Wilson, Leon Russell, Aretha Franklin and Lou Reed.
Heck, Neil Diamond already is 71, and Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon, Mike Love, Eric Burdon, George Clinton and Charlie Watts soon will be.
Perhaps it gives new meaning to the phrase: Rock ‘n’ roll has come of age because that’s one heckuva a lot of candles to blow out and one heckuva of an inventory of world-altering music to embrace …
Email: jsinkevics@gmail.com
My fave Beatle! Was just reading about how Clapton wrote Layla and stole George’s wife.