“I THOUGHT HE WAS A SPACEMAN”
George Harrison’s son Dhani on his lifelong bond with Jeff Lynne
THE first time Dhani Harrison met Jeff Lynne was when his father drove him up to the NEC in Birmingham when he was eight years old for one of ELO’S last shows before the hiatus. “I just thought he was a spaceman,” Harrison recalls. “He had this big spaceship and his big glasses on and just looked cool… Then he came to live at my house.”
Lynne moved into the Harrison family home at Friar Park in Henley when he was recording Cloud Nine. “Every day we’d play cricket. We’d have family dinners. He’s a man who loves his chicken pie! I’m not going to bust Jeff for being messy – sorry, Jeff, for saying this – but he did have to sit in the same spot every night at the table because he’d make an awful mess on his plate, spill his gravy by accident. Even after my dad passed away we’d still go on vacations together and go to dinner. He’s a very mellow hang.”
Which was exactly George’s reason for bringing Lynne on board. “They vibed instantly. They both had an extremely silly sense of humour, very Monty Python, Goon Show, so they already had a [shared] language. My dad looked at Jeff as an incredible musician who could play a studio. He had secrets and techniques that facilitated a lot of the things my dad wanted to do.”
Fourteen years later, Dhani and Lynne ended up working together on the completion of George’s final, posthumously released album Brainwashed. “It was sad, but it was like therapy for both of us. We were supporting each other.”
Harrison, who has been opening for ELO on their recent American tour, says he still values the lessons he learned from watching Lynne in the studio. “He never told me that I should do things, he just let me do them and showed me a practical way of doing it. I don’t necessarily always use his techniques, because if you do you’ll end up sounding like Jeff Lynne. But I’ve got respect, years of respect for him – he knows how to get sounds.”