Like many musicians hailing from Mike Campbell's generation, The Beatles not only served as a source of inspiration throughout his career but, for Campbell, the Fab Four – George Harrison, in particular – were the reason he started playing guitar in the first place.
“I couldn’t take my eyes off them,” he writes in Heartbreaker: A Memoir. “Especially the one in the middle – the tall, skinny, dark-haired guitarist with the big hollow body Gretsch Country Gentleman. George. The quiet one.
“He smirked and played the perfect, 10-second solo to All My Loving – one minute in to a two-minute song – and that was it for me. That was it. I knew I needed a guitar. I needed one. I didn’t know why. I just knew.”
Come 1988, Campbell was operating in the upper echelons of rock ’n’ roll. And being part of this highly-coveted rank meant rubbing shoulders with the very Beatle who had compelled him to kickstart his own guitar journey.
The Traveling Wilburys – the supergroup composed of Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty – were preparing to release their first single, Handle with Care.
As the story goes, Campbell was personally asked by the Beatle to play a solo à la Eric Clapton. However, if you're currently scrambling to hear Campbell's contribution to the track, hold your horses – because he himself asked for his part to be removed from the final recording.
“I was right, and history proves me right,” Campbell told Rolling Stone’s Brian Hiatt. “I just had a hunch. I didn't think I played that well, but they were just being nice. I think I played pretty pedestrian.”
Campbell's solution was simple: ask his childhood guitar hero to play something better suited to the track.
“I thought, because I was intimidated, you know, I'm sitting there with George and Jeff, [He was like] ‘Okay, I'll try something.’ That wasn't my best, but I had a hunch that he [Harrison] could pull something out with the slide that would be more in the soul of the song, which he did.
“I just handed him the guitar, I had handed him a slide. The amp was already set up, and he just did it. Took the pressure off me!”
Mike Campbell's many stories from his decades-long career are encapsulated in his recently-released memoir – including insights into what he brought to the Heartbreakers as Tom Petty’s guitar foil.
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