On George Harrison, 15 years after his death

The first time he heard a demo of “Love Me Do,” George Martin ripped The Beatles and their song to shreds. When he was done laying into them, the man who would become the band’s producer asked the kids from Liverpool a question.

“Is there anything that you don’t like?”

After an awkward pause, George Harrison spoke up.

“Well, for a start, I don’t like your tie,” he responded.

Everyone erupted in laughter, the start of a bond that would become one of the great partnerships in music history. That anecdote is expertly recounted by Monmouth University dean Ken Womack in his upcoming biography titled “Maximum Volume: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin (1926-1966),” which is due out in August of 2017.

Tuesday marks the 15th anniversary of Harrison’s death from cancer. Though he is often viewed as the “third” Beatle next to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, George’s contributions are regarded as essential by those who pay close attention to the music and the band’s legacy.

MORE: Reflecting on Lennon's death, 35 years later

“The perception of George has changed over time, especially as people have had a chance to take a deeper look,” said Womack, a foremost scholarly authority on the Fab Four who just published an abridged paperback version of his comprehensive work “The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four.”

For starters, Harrison possessed the patience and flexibility to let his world-class talent fill in the cracks between the band’s more outsize personalities.

“Lennon and McCartney came forth in 1962 as two big, powerful egos,” Womack said. “They hadn’t written their greatest work yet, but they already had the chutzpah and swagger. Being the youngest one Harrison comes along slowly, but once he does, he just complements them so amazingly.”

His songs endure, too. Womack, who serves as dean of Monmouth's Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences, cited “Here Comes the Sun” as a prime example.

“It’s a song in which the positivism of the lyrics and hope for the future are matched by the sound,” he said. “Once he gains steam, Harrison is very good at creating musical unity.”

Harrison’s spiritual quest, which led him to Eastern mysticism, infused much of The Beatles’ later music. So did his is concern for social justice, which later sparked the seminal Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and launched the age of the benefit concert.

“He was, in many ways, the soul behind the band” in its final years together, Womack said. “He was very good at asking them to think philosophically, at challenging them to think more deeply.”

Ken Womack’s five great George Harrison moments

1. The sitar on “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”: introducing the exotic, microtonal flavor of the Indian instrument to an unsuspecting pop world may have been Harrison’s greatest musical coup of the 1960s.

2. "Here Comes the Sun”: the enduring sound of George's simple beauty and inherent optimism has kept this song atop the Beatles’ downloads since their iTunes debut.

3. The guitar solo on “Something”: George’s ethereal guitar work on his greatest love song underscores his vaunted and much-deserved place among rock’s true virtuosos.

4. "All Things Must Pass”: as the title cut from his breakout solo album, George’s “All Things Must Pass” brilliantly merges poetry and philosophy in this uplifting eulogy for a passing epoch.

5. "Got My Mind Set on You”: as the last solo Beatles song to top the charts, George’s “Got My Mind Set on You” showcases the punch, Beatlesque qualities that made the Fab Four household names all those years ago.

Womack will be signing copies of "The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four" at BookTowne in Manasquan Dec. 18 at 1 p.m. The book also is available at Amazon.com. 

Staff writer Jerry Carino: jcarino@gannettnj.com.