George Harrison shares the first guitar influence he can remember listening to

George Harrison has shared his earliest guitar influences, saying the “singing brakeman” was the first music he ever heard.

Jimmie Rodgers, the hitmaker behind Honeycomb, Blue Yodel, and Waiting for a Train, had a profound impact on The Beatles‘ guitarist. Rodgers would be the first guitar musician Harrison remembers listening to. The American singer-songwriter would die in 1933 at the age of 35, but his influence on some of the greatest artists of all time remains clear. The Singing Brakeman, called so because of his work for the railroad, influenced the likes of Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. Harrison, too, cited Rodgers’ work as a tremendous influence on him and says the legendary country musician, along with Fats Domino, formed his earliest experiences with music.

He said: “The first music I can remember hearing as guitar-oriented music was Jimmy Rodgers, the singing brakeman.” Lynyrd Skynyrd and Merle Haggard would also cite Rodgers as an influence on their music. While Harrison may have first heard the singing brakeman, it was Fats Domino which marked the first rock and roll record he heard.

Speaking in the first episode of Anthology, Harrison would say the legendary Fats Domino was the first rock and roll artist he heard. He said: “As I became a teenager, I was about twelve or thirteen, I first heard Fats Domino, I’m in Love Again, the first what I would call rock and roll record I ever heard.”

The band would go on to meet Domino while on the road in the United States. The Fab Four met with the Blueberry Hill hitmaker in New Orleans on September 16, 1964. Harrison said the stage veteran was his first musical influence, and had a bigger impact on him than The King.

He shared: “The main thing that really buzzed me, even before I heard Elvis, was ‪Fats Domino‬’s I’m In Love Again. I can even see exactly where I was when I heard that. There was this little place near where I was born called Wavertree, a district.

“And right at that point there’s a thing called the Picton Clock Tower, this tower in the middle of the road with this clock on it, and then nearby there used to be this old art-deco cinema called the Abbey.

“I was just walking across the road there when I heard ‪Fats Domino‬: Yes it’s me and I’m in love again! It must have been on a radio or a record player somewhere. And it touched somewhere deep in me.”

In an interview given in 1997, Harrison would share other influences on his music, includign Buddy Holly and Little Richard. He said: “I still prefer the music I liked as a teenager — Little Richard, Larry Williams and Buddy Holly. That’s classical music to me.

“But I like all kinds of music, Hawaiian, Spanish, Cab Calloway, Jorge Negrete… I like music that is not ego music. Real music doesn’t make you think of cash registers. It should transport you somewhere nice.”