#willie weeks

Relistening to one of my fav rnb albums of all time.

“George absolutely took the press to heart [during the Dark Horse Tour]. […] But in spite of all that, he remained very kind to all of us, always. He’d pull little surprises. You’d check into your hotel room, and there was no telling what would be waiting for you there. It was the classiest tour I’ve ever been on, the best hotels, the best everything. He wanted to make everybody happy. It was beautiful.” - Willie Weeks, Here Comes The Sun: The Musical and Spiritual Journey of George Harrison (2006) “Billy Preston, man — Billy Preston, I just love him. I never wanna play in another band without Billy. I mean, I hope I don’t ever have to.” - Billy Preston, KLOL, November 1974 “We became like brothers, very close. […] [George] was a very, very loving person, a great guy. […] He had such a heart. […] He was very unaffected by the fame. He just loved God and his family and his friends.” - Billy Preston, WBUR, November 30, 2001

“We’d take a break [during recording sessions for "Dark Horse"] to go for fish and chips […]. The next time we went for fish and chips, he took a Porsche and he took the same route. The Porsche seemed to handle the road better, so he started speeding up. I just thought, ‘He’s such a big fan of racing, I guess there’s this little racecar driver inside him.’ But then he really started going, and when we got into Friar Park we were flying so fast that the car got away from him. There were these high hedges that lined the driveway to the garage, and we’re running through the hedges—and I just sat there acting as normal as I could, but I was praying, O Lord, please don’t let them read about us in the newspaper. Just get us back to the house. After he came out of the hedges, he shrugged and gave me a little laugh as though it never happened. I’m looking at George, and he just looks away like, Don’t say nothing. Well, we went into the house and neither of us ever said a word.” - Willie Weeks, Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison (x)

“Every show [during the 1974 Dark Horse tour] was probably hard for [George Harrison]. He was trying sincerely to do something to benefit people. You see, in Indian tradition you cannot separate music from spirituality, and my impression was that George wasn’t just looking to popularize Indian music but also a path to spirituality. He was trying to make people aware of the music because he knew gradually they would get to the root - the spirituality. But the press really wasn’t always sympathetic. The press could sometimes be very harsh. Anyone else under that kind of pressure would have said, ‘OK, I’m calling it off. We’ll tell the press I have a sore throat, and I’ll be on the next flight home.’ But he took the risk of going on, of people writing something negative about him, of putting in all that effort. Why did he do it? I always had the feeling someone very special was occupying that body.” - L. Subramaniam, Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of ‪George Harrison (x)

“Saw the late show at Olympia Stadium in Detroit, and while I struggled to get into the Indian music, George and the others were great. I was in the front row, and I remember George looked really thin (and sick). Nevertheless, he put on a great show I’ll never forget. Thanks George!” - “DetroitJerry,” topix dot com, 2 January 2011 (x)

Hace poco tiempo poníamos a Robin Tower y ahora recuperamos a otro del “blues espacial”, Roy Buchanan en su sorprendente LP de 1978 "You're Not Alone". En él se hizo acompañar nada menos que de Ray Gomez (Pop Tops, Los Pekenikes, La Mosca), Willie Weeks (sus sesiones: Wonder, Bowie, Harrison y miles más) y Andy Newmark (Sly & The Family Stone y sus sesiones, algo así como un millón). Con semejante supergrupo, Buchanan dio rienda suelta a su faceta más experimental, ambient y “to the moon” sin perder el “roots”. La portada habla por sí sola.