In 1997, George Harrison agreed to make a rare TV appearance, dropping by VH1 along with his longtime friend and collaborator, Ravi Shankar, and his wife to help promote Shankar's latest release, Chants of India, which the former Beatle had produced and played on.
Shankar was the only one set to perform music on the show that day. However, thanks to a mixture of kismet and a persistent host, it turned into a mini George Harrison concert, marking the final time the music legend would perform in front of an audience.
At the time, the former Beatle had largely moved away from the limelight. His last full-fledged U.S. tour concluded more than two decades before, in 1974. By this point in his career he was more comfortable behind the scenes, producing music and the occasional film, rather than performing.
However, as a favor to Shankar — whom Harrison and the Beatles had met through George's deep interest in Eastern music and philosophy — he was happy to make an exception. Harrison had been supportive of Shankar for years, helping him reach a new audience with his music and launching the groundbreaking Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 after the sitar master alerted him to that country's humanitarian disaster.
VH1 host John Fugelsang recalled that George committed to a short interview consisting of a soundbite about Shankar’s album, and that, if all went well, Harrison "might stick around a bit longer."
That turned into him staying for well over an hour, during which time someone from the station's crew unexpectedly handed him a Martin D-35 acoustic guitar.
The instrument was provided by a young woman who was carrying a guitar case as Harrison and Shankar walked into the studio. The VH1 staff assumed she was part of George's entourage and that he was up for playing. In fact, her appearance was entirely coincidental.
The "Guitar Lady," as she's referred to in the accompanying video, is Elisabeth Cutler, and she provided more context in the comments section of the video.
"What an honor it was to lend George Harrison my Martin guitar to perform spontaneously on this VH1 Music TV show... and my capo too!" Cutler wrote.
Although she'd been invited to watch the interview taping, she "just happened to be on the way to a gig, so I had a Martin D-35 guitar with me, and the TV producer came over to me and asked if I wouldn't mind lending my guitar to George. Fine by me!"
After some back-and-forth — and a request from Shankar's wife — Harrison agreed to play "a couple of verses" of "Any Road," a then-unreleased song that would later feature on his 2002 posthumous album, Brainwashed.
Fugelsang later revealed that following the opening number, his bosses in the production room were barking in his earpiece, "Get him to play a Beatles song!"
The host decided to try his luck.
"What do you think?" Fugelsang asked Harrison. "Wanna try a Beatles tunes? You want to try a Bob song? A Carl Perkins song? Hey, I'll take a Rick Astley song, George. I'll take a Spice Girls medley."
Harrison quips at one point that he "must be the only person who doesn't know his own songs," as he searches through the chord changes, bravely giving a live rehearsal in front of the cameras — all the while being given the assurance from the host that they would burn the tapes if he wasn't happy. Thankfully for us all, that wasn't the case.
The legendary Liverpool lad's brief set featured four (fab) performances in all that day — three solo and one from the Chants of India album called "Prabhuji," with Ravi Shankar and his wife, Sukanya.
Following "Any Road," Harrison played "If You Belonged to Me," a Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 cut originally sung by Bob Dylan, before he closed with a beautifully emotive version of his 1970 classic "All Things Must Pass."
Eternally known as the Quiet Beatle but every bit as much the modest one, Harrison replied to the room's applause following the final number by stating, "I could go home and practice a bit and do it properly."
The impromptu concert of sorts, in front of a dozen or so folks — including Fugelsang, his crew, Shankar and Cutler — would end up being Harrison's final public performance before he died in November 2001.
In February 2024, Harrison and the Beatles won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance for "Now and Then," the band's final single, which originated from a John Lennon demo from the late '70s. Reworked by the surviving members in the 1990s before being completed and released in 2023, the song marked the band's eighth Grammy win. Their previous competitive win was in 1997 for "Free As a Bird," a song that, likewise, emerged from a Lennon demo and was completed by the remaining Beatles.
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