School’s Out songwriter Alice Cooper has claimed George Harrison is what makes The Beatles’ music “so good”.
The so-called “quiet one” of the Fab Four was responsible for all-time great songs like Something, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Here Comes the Sun. While his work with the band is overshadowed by the Paul McCartney and John Lennon writing partnership, Cooper and other musicians have been full of praise for the songwriter, who died in 2001. Speaking of the songwriter’s great work, Cooper says Harrison was the reason The Beatles’ music worked so well, and it was often because of his guitar playing style.
He said: “George Harrison never played a note that didn’t belong. And as soon as he got done, he got out. Most guitar players noodle. They’re really nervous. They just noodle, you know, while they’re playing, and it fills in all those spaces that need to be there. So when you get a guy like George Harrison, he’ll play just that one phrase and then get out. And that’s what made The Beatles’ music so good.”
Cooper went further in his praise of The Beatles’ work and Harrison’s guitar playing, suggesting his style was to make sure the guitar “wasn’t in the way of anything.” Cooper added: “Nothing was ever in the way of anything else. The vocal was here, when the vocal was gone, the guitar came in.
“Now if you listen to other bands, the vocals are going, the guitar is going, the bass is going, the drums are going, and you’re going, ‘Why doesn’t that sound like The Beatles?’. Well, because everything’s working against each other.
“So when you listen to a Beatles song, it’s so perfectly easy to remember because nothing’s in the way. The melodies there, the guitar is there, and it’s done.”
It comes as Cooper recalled a wild week spent with The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, who he called the world’s greatest drummer. Cooper said: “He used to come over to the house, and my wife and I had just married, she had no idea who he was. And he stayed for a week. And we would leave and come back, and we left one time, came back, and he was dressed in a full French maid’s outfit.
“And he was like, ‘Hello, how you doing? I have done all the dusting in the house,’ and my wife’s going ‘who is he?’. And I said ‘he’s the best drummer in the world, just go with it.” To her credit, Cooper’s wife did go along with it.
He added: “And she says ‘okay, I’ve got to go.’ She starts driving down, she’s halfway down Benedict Canyon in the car, and all of a sudden, she sees these hands. He’s on top of the car, and he goes ‘hi Cheryl’.”
