George Harrison Made His Son, Dhani, Aware of All Types of Music, Not Just Rock ‘N’ Roll
George Harrison made his son, Dhani, aware of all types of music, not just rock ‘n’ roll. However, the former Beatle never pushed music as a career (not that George thought of music as a career). He didn’t even tell his son about his famous band.
Growing up around so much great music, it was hard for Dhani not to follow in his father’s footsteps.
George Harrison didn’t pamper his son, Dhani
Shortly after Dhani was born, George and his wife, Olivia, decided to raise him outside the spotlight. They didn’t want him to become a “pampered little horror.”
“Everybody wants to know about and find out about your kids, but I think that’s unfair on them,” George told After Nine. “It’s not normal anyway, having a dad who’s an ex-Beatle, living in a sort of wacky castle. That’s not normal.
“But to him it is normal, and within that framework, he’s still-he’s a good boy and knows that there’s people who aren’t as fortunate, and he’s sensitive to the other things that are happening in the world. He’s not just like, you know, some pampered little horror, like precocious and that. He’d good; I think he’s OK.”
George might’ve kept his son out of the spotlight, but he didn’t keep his work away from Dhani. With rock stars such as Bob Dylan and Tom Petty coming over and stealing his father away to go to George’s recording studio, Dhani couldn’t overlook what his father did.
However, George made sure it wasn’t just his music that Dhani knew.
George tried to expose all types of music to his son
Growing up, Dhani liked hanging out with his parents and their friends.
“I hung out with my parents. I was always trying to be with the big kids, and the big kids at my house were like (ELO frontman) Jeff Lynne,” Dhani told Daily Mail. “You’d come home and it was like, ‘Bob Dylan’s here.’ It’s hard to get a bit of perspective on, like, ‘How did your school test go today?'”
George always treated Dhani like an adult. “I got involved, he taught me how to make records from an early age. I grew up in a recording studio,” Dhani said.
George told Mark Rowland (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) that he showed his son all music. Since his son couldn’t stay out of the recording studio, he was going to make sure Dhani got the proper musical education.
He didn’t show Dhani The Beatles because that period in his life was over. However, Dhani did find out about his father’s band through watching The Beatles’ children’s film, Yellow Submarine. George told Rowland that he was confused when Dhani asked him about “Hey Bulldog” but didn’t seem that impressed.
“He’s more into the Wilburys,” George said. “He’s exposed to all this other stuff. Actually, you know who he really likes is Iron Maiden. Because he’s into skateboarding, so it’s all that kind of stuff. Mike McGill and Tony Hawk.
“But he learned piano, and he’s been exposed to, you know, everything: classical Indian music, dance. I always tried to play him … if he says listen to this, and then I’d say, ‘Yeah, but have you heard this?’ And then playing like an old version of whatever it is, or let him be aware, so he’s got a great broad …
“You know, even silly Hawaiian music and stuff like that, ‘Wicky-Wacky-Woo.’ I mean, when he was five he could play the solo from ‘Minnie the Moocher’ on his kazoo perfect, note for note.”
Dhani might have grown up with music all around him, but that doesn’t mean George pressured him into following in his footsteps.
Dhani eventually followed in his father’s footsteps
For a while, Dhani tried hard not to become a musician like his father. He rebelled by joining CCF in school and parading around the house in his military uniform. Then, he went to Brown University, where he studied industrial design and physics. He even joined an Olympic rowing team in school.
After Dhani graduated, he got a job as an aerodynamicist for the British sports car company McLaren. However, his life changed when his father’s health began to decline. He started helping his father complete Brainwashed. However, around September 2001, George began treatment for his cancer in Staten Island, New York.
“I was in Staten Island in September, about five days after September 11, and the world looked like a pretty awful place back then,” Dhani told the Daily Mail. “We could smell the burning bodies, for God’s sake, being dumped in Staten Island, and my dad was being treated there for cancer.
“I was alone, I’d just finished university and it was really, truly awful. On top of the cancer, it had been September 11. It was just like the world – and my world – was falling apart. It was then I thought, ‘Well now I’m going to do what I want to do – music, something positive and strong. And it won’t be like a band; it will be like an organisation, a family, and it will carry on and on.'”
Dhani tentatively started his own music career after that but mostly worked on remastering his father’s catalog.
“I did everything I could to not be a musician,” Dhani told Billboard. “It’s in the DNA, I guess.”
