Ringo, Clapton Record Harrison Tribute Song

Gauracandra · November 28, 2002

Just as a lot of big stars are pouring into London for Friday night's George Harrison concert, I can tell you the news: Ringo Starr has recorded a tribute song to the late ex-Beatle for his next new album.

The song is co-written by Eric Clapton and features Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. There's no title yet, but the song will be part of the album due out in March of next year.

Meanwhile, all of the aforementioned, as well as Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar and Tom Petty, have been busily rehearsing their parts for the Friday-night show at the Royal Albert Hall organized by Harrison's widow Olivia.

This should be some bash, with all proceeds going to charity. Hopefully an album and DVD will also result from this historic show.

But if there is an album, one would have to wonder what label it would be on. No one in the Harrison camp can be happy about the paltry sales this week of his posthumous CD. Brainwashed sold only 73,000 copies and barely made the top 20.

Now, I know that George Harrison isn't Shania Twain (who sold a whopping 860,000 copies of her new CD to the American public this week) but couldn't Capitol Records have turned this into an event? Was there any marketing plan here at all? I think it's a tragic embarrassment that George's last album, released a year after his death, was virtually ignored.

I'm not the only one who feels this way either. A Beatle insider — not Paul or Ringo, but someone who's part of the inner circle — bitterly complained to me about Capitol's failure. They did nothing, he said to me. It's like it never even happened.

Well, we'll make sure from London on Friday that Harrison's life is remembered properly.