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The Life of George Harrison
In Photos by Patti Boyd
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Patti Boyd, former Beatle and Clapton wife, looks back with love
Rock stars of the '60s and '70s have, inevitably, gotten older.
Many are now in their 70s; some have died. Pattie Boyd still sees them as vigorous youths.


This is a self portrait before a party, Boyd says.


Boyd and Harrison pose for a self portrait in their rose garden at Kinfauns.
"This is when George and I lived in a house in Esher, Surrey, England.
I had been waiting all spring for these gorgeous roses to bloom,
so I was absolutely thrilled they all seemed to bloom at the same time," she said.


Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon sit together
during a trip to Rishikesh, India, at Maharishi's ashram,
where the Beatles visited to study meditation.


McCartney is captured here
recording his experiences in Rishikesh on a Super 8 Camera.


"The Marharishi had invited us all to go to India to his ashram in the Indian Himalaya.
We were there studying meditation for two and a half months.
While the other three Beatles went back to London to strt the beginning of their Apple empire,
George and I went to Madras for a week's relaxation.
I took this photograph of George one morning, as I thought the light on his face was lovely.
I think this was the last time that I saw him looking so calm," Boyd said.


Harrison shows the guru Maharishi his Polaroids during a lecture.


Harrison admires a rainbow from a porch at Friar Park.


Boyd said George was playing to her at Friar Park.


Harrison is captured sunbathing in Palm Springs during a quick holiday break
he and Boyd took together in the California desert resort town between recording sessions in Los Angeles.
This was near the time of the "Living in The Material World" album cover shoot in Los Angeles.


Photo of Eric Clapton taken by Pattie Boyd
- first wife of George Harrison and later the first wife of Clapton.


"I took this shot while on my first tour of America with Eric and his band.
This was just one of the hotels we stayed in.
I particularly liked the hideous red frame of the picture on the wall
matching the sofa and the small figure in the painting," Boyd said.


Clapton and Blues legend Freddie King perform together.
King signed on to Clapton's RSO record label in 1974
and released three albums before his death in 1976.


Clapton relaxes on a trip to Greece.


An avid car collector, Clapton is captured here
deciding to buy a 1930s era green Lancia Astura.


Clapton and Mick Jagger chat backstage on a couch
at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium before the legendary Live Aid concert.


Starr flashes peace signs during a publicity photo-shoot
for his upcoming summer tour with The All Starr Band in 2000.


In 2003, Ronnie Wood was commissioned by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber
to paint a mural celebrating his legendary London restaurant, The Ivy.
It featured more than 60 famous regulars dining at the high-profile establishmen
and was hung at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.


Clapton performs at the now Legendary "Last Waltz," the band's final concert performance, held in San Francisco, in 1976.


 
"I feel very lucky that I was part of that whole scene in the '60s and '70s," she says in a phone interview from her home in Britain. "I love looking at the photographs because everyone was young, and they were so gorgeous to look at."

"The photographs" are the pictures that Boyd, 69, took of many of the era's notables -- including her former husbands, George Harrison and Eric Clapton.

As Harrison's wife, she was there when the Beatles went through the frenzy of Beatlemania, the journeys of psychedelia and mysticism and the crumbling of their partnership. With Clapton -- who ardently pursued her for years -- she witnessed a guitarist at the peak of his solo fame as well as his struggle with addiction. She was married to Harrison from 1966 to 1977 and Clapton from 1979 to 1989.

Boyd's photographs, including many of the Beatles and Clapton, went on display at the San Francisco Art Exchange..

The photos capture a rare intimacy and casualness. The Beatles are photographed on their 1968 visit to India, with the group looking relaxed and happy. In another picture, Clapton grins at fellow guitarist Freddie King in 1974.

Then there's one of Harrison in the early '90s, clutching a ukulele -- a favorite instrument of the Beatles guitarist, who died in 2001.

Some of the photographs only recently turned up, says Boyd.

"I'm quite a sloppy person as far as working out where all my negatives and slides are," she says. One of them pictures a group setting up the stage for "The Last Waltz," the 1976 San Francisco concert filmed by Martin Scorsese.

Boyd, who wrote a memoir in 2007, says there's some emotion underneath the pictures, even decades later. (After all, she inspired a number of songs on Clapton's "Layla" album, his way of channeling the anguish he felt for loving his best friend's wife.) But it's not necessarily sorrow or longing. The pictures also bring back a lot of happiness, she says.

Many Harrison photos, particularly one from late 1967, show him at ease, before the agonies of the Beatles' business troubles took root. And Clapton never looks happier than when he's on stage: "He never, never, never had stage nerves. In the middle of a conversation (he'd say), 'Oh, I've got to go on now,' and just walk on as if he were walking into his home."

She understands that -- despite time in front of the camera herself, as a model for the likes of David Bailey -- she'll probably always be looked at in the context of her famous mates. But that's OK.

"I can't rewrite history," she says. "I'll always be linked to the Beatles, George and Eric."

It doesn't hurt, however, that she'll always see them as young and beautiful.

"We all get a bit older," she says, "but, you know, I'm so glad that I have these photos."

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