GEORGE ON HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH ERIC CLAPTON: MINIMATION

This video is taken from a 1987 interview with George (the archives of legendary New York radio station WNEW-FM) where he discusses how his unusual friendship with Eric Clapton. 

 

Say your best friend was in love with your spouse. So in love, in fact, that he or she wrote a passionate ode to your spouse that became one of the biggest hits in rock radio history. Awkward, right? It would pretty tough to stay friends under those conditions, would it not?

But, as well all know, rock stars are a different breed. And so, after a bit of weirdness between George Harrison, who was married to Patti Boyd, and Eric Clapton, who would soon marry her, it was all good. So good, that George was the best man at the Clapton/Boyd wedding, as George explains in this interview.

And not only that: they still played music together. At the time of this interview, George was plugging his comeback album, 1987’s Cloud Nine which Clapton played lead guitar on (the album also featured Harrison’s fellow Traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynne, Elton John and Ringo Starr, among others).  A few years later, George contributed “Run So Far” (and played guitar on the track) to Clapton’s 1989 Journeyman album.

Alas, the Boyd/Clapton marriage didn’t last either; they divorced in 1989. She tells her side of the story in her 2007 memoirs, Wonderful Tonight (named after the song that Clapton wrote about her).