BENTON RECALLS BEATLES’ HARRISON

BENTON — Beatle George Harrison’s earliest impressions of America were formed by the people he met and the places he visited in Southern Illinois.

The Beatles were already topping the charts in England but hadn’t yet invaded the United States when Harrison and his brother Peter boarded a plane in September 1963.

The pair made their way to Benton, where their sister Louise lived with her mining engineer husband.

“It really was the calm before the storm,” Louise Harrison said. “No one here had heard of him and it was a nice, calm and quiet time.”

The siblings spent much of their time camping in the Shawnee National Forest and enjoying the peaceful beauty of Garden of the Gods, Pounds Hollow, Lake Glendale and Cave in Rock, she said.

“We traveled all through the area, stopping in the little towns and getting to know people,” she said.

George, then 20, also spent a lot of time walking the streets of Benton: buying records at Barton and Collins, making friends at the Boneyard Boccie Ball Club and filming the sights with a movie camera purchased before the trip, she said.

“One day, after walking on the town square, he wanted to try a T-bone steak — this was before he became a vegetarian — because he’d never had one before. He wanted to pay but when he reached for his billfold, it was gone,” Louise said. “He was frantic and while chasing out to find it, we saw a youngster following us. He had seen George’s billfold fall out of his pocket and had been searching

for him so he could return it.”

George was thrilled when young Benton resident C.J. Parris gave him the billfold, she said.

“He had about $400 in it and he thought he’d never see it again. He said he couldn’t think of any other place on the planet where you could lose a billfold full of money and get it back. That’s quite a compliment to Benton,” she said.

He brother jammed with local musicians and performed with local band the Four Vests during an appearance at the Eldorado VFW, she said.

Harrison also traveled to West Frankfort’s WFRX radio station, where Louise had been pushing The Beatles music for airplay.

Marcia Schafer Raubach, then teenage host of a show for her peers called “Saturday Session,” is credited with being the first U.S. DJ to regularly play Beatles music

She remembers her first listen to a song by the Fab Four.

“In 1963, music was all across the board. I was playing Elvis, Frank Sinatra, some Motown. The Beatles music was so totally different than anything else but it was catchy. Once you heard it, you were singing it all the time,” she said.

George visited Raubach at the station and wrote about the “cute, clean-cut” Brit for her high school’s newspaper.

Months later, Harrison returned to the states with The Beatles as the groups’ hit “I want to Hold Your Hand” hit the top of the charts.

“Back then, I had no idea how significant The Beatles would be for my own generation and so many generations to follow. By 1975, they could have been done, by the year 2000, they could have been forgotten, but they are just as popular today in a different way,” she said.

No one could have predicted the group’s long-lasting effect on music lovers, Louise Harrison said.

“He was just my kid brother and his band back then. I didn’t know they would become planetary icons,” she said. “I read that at any time, day or night, a Beatles song is being played somewhere on the planet. No one could have anticipated that.”

Harrison and Raubach will be among the speakers at the dedication of the Harrison historical marker and celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first Beatle in America in Benton Saturday.

“I think his visit was of significance historically, definitely in The Beatles world,” Harrison said. “He was the first Beatle to set foot in this country and perform live in this country. In Beatle history, that is very significant.”

The marker, presented by the Illinois State Historical Society and Franklin County Historic Preservation Society, will be unveiled during a ceremony beginning at 2 p.m., Harrison Committee Chairman Jim Kirkpatrick said.

Kirkpatrick, author of “Before He Was Fab,” a book documenting Harrison’s Southern Illinois experiences, is also scheduled to speak at the ceremony, along with ISHS executive director William Furry, FCHPS president Robert Rea and Bob Bartel, who did a film on Harrison’s visit and subsequent efforts to preserve Louise Harrison’s former residence.

Classical guitarist Joe Bresnikar will perform during the ceremony. Entertainment will continue after the ceremony until about 6:30 p.m., with performances by tribute artists Rex Van Zant and Peter Conrad, as well as Gabe McCarty and George Warren, two of four members of The Four Vests, assisted by Warren Batts.