The Quiet Beatle

My friend and her parents were coming to visit; she asked if she might also bring along her two 20-something brothers.

"They're really nice," she said on the phone. "They have great table manners and they're very polite and sweet."
"Sure," I said. Weird, I thought. She and her mom and dad, whom I'd already met, were gems -- Why the big buildup about the boys? Before I could ask she rushed on: "They're very independent, too. They march to the beat of their own drummer. In fact, one of them is a drummer."
Turns out the brothers are Woodstock throwbacks -- lots of long hair, beards, a jumble of mismatched clothes, a couple of tattoos. Professional gardeners by day, Mike Kasprzak, 24, and Brian Kasprzak, 27, are dedicated musicians at night, the founders of Mississippi Cactus, a popular Milwaukee, Wis., rock 'n' roll and blues band that plays everything from bar mitzvahs to sports bars.

They arrived the day George Harrison died, and were in mourning. So was their mother, Chris, 55. George had been her favorite Beatle since that magical night in 1964 when she'd gotten to see, if not hear, Paul, John, George and Ringo perform for thousands of screaming fans at Milwaukee Auditorium. She'd babysat her niece Marybeth for three months to afford the $36 ticket.

"It was worth it," she said 37 years later. "That night was one of the greatest of my life."

Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. As well as having two sons who are musicians, Chris Kasprzak's daughter Kim, 32, is a music reviewer. The family arrived for a week's vacation with two dozen CDs to stave off "music withdrawal."

The brothers recently bought George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" solo album; Mike pronounced it "great stuff."

"We love the Beatles," Mike said, "because they were the first to do everything. 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' was revolutionary."

"They changed the world," Brian added.

Listening to Chris and her sons, I was full of regret. My parents refused to let me go hear the Beatles when they toured America in 1964. I can't remember why. I should have rebelled, but I was a "good girl," so I missed one of the epic events of my generation, a performance by the musical gods of the civil disobedience era. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

If the definition of a good life is leaving something lasting behind, great musicians have an extra shot at immortality. All creative forms are a continuum, built on the works of artists who've gone before, but music is particularly inclusive because anybody can hum, sing or whistle a tune, add or take away a few notes, and turn it into their own creation.

The Kasprzak boys aren't quite right about the Beatles being "the first to do everything." The lads from Liverpool stood on the shoulders of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, who borrowed from Fats Waller and Muddy Waters, who drew inspiration from the bluesmen of Memphis and New Orleans and Kansas City, who descended from gospel, which grew out of the music of slaves, that came from before, and before, and before.

The Beatles' explosion on the world stage made them so rich and so famous so fast that they had the nerve as well as the unlimited resources to try everything. So they did. The kinetic juxtaposition of their daring and a wellspring of God-given talent that can't be rationally explained brought forth music that did, indeed, change the world.

Unlike John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, George Harrison was able to give us a full body of work when cancer took him from this world at the age of 58. George never stopped searching, never seemed content to live in the past. That search brought him to India, where he fell in love with the sitar, later introducing its keening sigh to western rock. His experiments broadened pop's musical palette, influencing much of the cultural cross-pollination that followed. The fab one also found Hinduism on the Eastern sub-continent, establishing a place for transcendental meditation and spiritual consciousness in the glamorous life. 

Harrison lived well, but quietly. By most accounts he was a decent, low-key bloke who loved his family, his profession and God. 

The Beatles' music -- collectively and individually -- will last because it is beautiful, powerful and strums universal chords in our souls. Musicians such as Brian and Mike Kasprzak will take it even further, borrowing from such classics as "Here Comes the Sun," "Something," "I Want To Hold Your Hand," "Imagine," and "Yesterday," to build their own compositions, standing on the shoulders of all those who've come before.

It's easier to say goodbye to George Harrison if we listen to how much he's left us.


© 2001 The Women Syndicate

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