Re: Louise Harrison

["Joey Vine" <sentaur@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The San Diego Union-Tribune

March 8, 1998, Sunday

HEADLINE: A Fab Four sister goes home again

BYLINE: Marc D. Allan; INDIANAPOLIS STAR AND NEWS

    Louise Harrison  offers two telling stories about this southern 
Illinois
community.  The first is about the time her brother George came to visit 
in 1963
and lost his wallet.  Inside was $400.

   A boy found the billfold and returned it immediately, the money still 
there. 

The second is about when she and her family moved here and residents 
brought 
them everything from food to furniture while their household goods were 
in
transit from northern Quebec.

   Thirty-five years later, with those memories still fresh, she's 
moving back. 

   Harrison says she needs a quiet place with a low cost of living to 
work on
her projects.

   The first is a book about the Beatles.  Harrison and her assistant, 
Jay
Sicard, have compiled "This Is Love," the first of a planned trilogy.

   It's "a book written for the Beatles and to the Beatles as an 
expression of
gratitude for the positive effects they and their music have had on a 
couple of 
generations of humans," Harrison says.

   The text begins with her introduction, which explains that she was 
the first 
Harrison child, followed by Harold James, Peter Henry and George (who 
has no
middle name).

   "You've probably never heard of mom and dad's first three children, 
which is 
OK by us," she writes.  "But just about every conscious being on this 
planet
has heard of the youngest Harrison, George, which sometimes is not so OK 
with
him.

   "Being able to observe, at fairly close quarters, the devastating 
personal
effect of fame on our youngest brother has caused his three siblings to 
be quite
content to be the infamous Harrisons."

   The book features reminiscences written by famous Beatle fans, 
including the 
Who's John Entwistle, the Byrds' Roger McGuinn, Denny Laine (of Wings) 
and Butch
Patrick (Eddie from TV's "The Munsters"), and nonfamous fans.

   It will be printed in a limited edition of 300, all numbered and 
autographed 
by the famous contributors. (It can be ordered by sending a minimum 
donation of 
$125 plus $7 shipping and handling to D.R.O.P.-In, 113 McCann St.,  
Benton, IL  
62812. The book will be out this month.)

   D.R.O.P.-In is Harrison's other project.  The environmental group 
started
from an idea developed backstage at a Paul McCartney concert in the late 
1980s. 
McCartney had been promoting various environmental groups, and someone 
suggested
that Harrison start an organization for Beatle fans concerned about the
environment.

"When you listen to the Beatles all these years, you think in terms of
caring," she says.  "You think in terms of compassion and love and 
peace. It's
very much part of your consciousness that we should care about each 
other and be
responsible."

   Beatle fans can join D.R.O.P.-In for $25, which can be sent to the 
McCann
Street address.

   At first, Harrison says, her famous brother didn't support the idea 
for this 
organization.

   "After John was killed," she says, "my brother said to me, Stay 
invisible.'
He said, I don't want to see something happen because you're sticking 
your nose 
out.' "

   Harrison says she figured being public was a calculated risk.  Plus, 
she's
now older than her mother was when her mother died.  So it's all gravy 
from
here.



The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

October 2, 1997, Tuesday, EARLY AND CITY EDITIONS

HEADLINE: Goodbye to voice of jazz

SOURCE: Matthew Dietrich 

   Springfield Beatles fanatic-turned-filmmaker Bob Bartel this weekend
travels to Berkeley, Calif., to receive an honorary recognition award at 
the
1997 Berkeley Video Festival for his documentary "A Beatle in  Benton, 
IL. "

   The video tells the story of the first landing of a Beatle on 
American soil, 
and it involves not the famous New York arrival of February 1964, but 
the visit 
by an unknown George Harrison to his sister's house in the southern 
Illinois
town of Benton in the fall of 1963.

   Bartel, a private investigator by profession, has spent much of the 
last
three years helping to save and restore the small house that  Louise 
Harrison 
once inhabited, and he was a major force in turning it into the Hard 
Day's Nite 
bed and breakfast.

   "A Beatle In  Benton, IL. " features interviews with many of the 
people who
met George and played music with him during his little-known visit, and 
the
documentary has been accepted into the collection of the Rock & Roll 
Hall of
Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

   Bartel is working on a movie version of Harrison's Illinois visit, 
which
represented the only time any of the Beatles experienced anonymity in 
the U.S.




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