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Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nread more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn September 1963, before Beatlemania gripped America, George Harrison casually visited Benton, Illinois, with his sister’s family. <\/p>\n
This quiet trip, which took place just months before the Beatles’ shocking U.S. debut, offered a glimpse into the daily lives of musicians on the brink of global fame.<\/p>\n
During their stay, the British embraced small-town American life. I went camping, interacted with the locals, enjoyed root beer delivered to me on roller skates, bought records, and bought a new guitar. <\/p>\n
Four months later, Benton residents and 73 million others watched him in action. ed sullivan show<\/em>marked the beginning of the British invasion.<\/p>\nNow, the house where Harrison and his brother Peter boarded in Benton, 160 miles southeast of St. Louis, is for sale. <\/p>\n
This news caused concern among Beatles fans, mindful of the property’s volatile past. In 1995, the house at 113 McCann Street was threatened with demolition, but was eventually saved by activists including Mr Harrison’s sister, Louise Harrison Caldwell.<\/p>\n
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Paul McCartney (left) and George Harrison sit next to each other on the tour bus during the Beatles’ American tour, c. 1966 (getty)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Miners brought their families to Benton.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Benton, population 6,700, is known for hosting the state’s last public hanging in 1928 and was built on the rich coal deposits of southern Illinois. Louise Caldwell moved to town when her husband, a mining engineer, took a job in the then-thriving industry. <\/p>\n
The house they chose is a five-bedroom bungalow built in 1935 with a brick fa\u00e7ade across the wide front porch. <\/p>\n
In the mid-1990s, a state agency purchased the house from its later owners with plans to level it and turn it into a parking lot. Robert Bartel, a Beatles author, documentarian, and superfan who lives in Springfield, warned the media and Fab Four supporters. <\/p>\n
A local investor bought it back from the state and opened Hard Day’s Night Bed and Breakfast, complete with the sofa on which Harrison licked his guitar and a trove of other loaned Beatles memorabilia, including a collection from Bartel. <\/p>\n
This B&B closed in 2010. Benton resident Grady Adams has been operating it as a regular B&B apartment ever since, but now she wants to sell it, putting it on the market for $105,000. Benton Economic Development Director Brian Calcaterra has proposed an ordinance to the city to protect homes from being demolished by new owners, but Benton Mayor Lee Messersmith said the City Council has not discussed the issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, if there are no demonstrations, that would be better,\u201d Adams said. <\/p>\n
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Benton’s home is listed for $105,000 (Grady Adams)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThat momentum doesn\u2019t exist here.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Whether there is interest or energy in restoring the McCann Street house to its Beatles glory is up for debate. <\/p>\n
Jim Kirkpatrick of Clair Springs, author before he became great<\/em>Harrison’s recollection of the visit, which was optioned for the film, included at least one encouraging conversation with a potential buyer. <\/p>\nRobert Rea, a Benton owner and historian who helped save the Beatles’ home 30 years ago, said that obsession has waned. <\/p>\n
“When we did this[in1995]the world went crazy because we thought, ‘George is going to come, he’s going to save the house,'” Rea said. \u201cHonestly, maybe I\u2019m missing it, but the momentum isn\u2019t here.\u201d<\/p>\n
his last quiet vacation<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Harrison’s trip was perhaps the musician’s last chance to enjoy obscurity. He camped in the Shawnee National Forest. He was present when a popular local group performed at the nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall. The band leader took him to a drive-in restaurant on skates and carhops, where he guzzled root beer for the first time. <\/p>\n
At a record store on Benton’s downtown square, Harrison purchased a stack of records. These included James Ray’s R&B single “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You,” which reached No. 1 when Harrison covered it in 1987.<\/p>\n
He also bought a Rickenbacker 425 guitar, like the one owned by bandmate John Lennon. A month later, Harrison played guitar when the Beatles recorded “I Want to Hold Your Hands.” It was sold at auction in 2014 for $675,000.<\/p>\n
One day during Harrison’s visit, Harrison and Caldwell stopped by WFRX Radio, where then-17-year-old Marcia Shafer Laubach had a Saturday afternoon teen show. Harrison gave her a copy of “She Loves You” and told her that it had just topped the British charts. <\/p>\n
Laubach became the first Beatle in the United States to interview Harrison on air, playing No. 45, which she still owns. She said it sounded different than what American teenagers were hearing on jukeboxes at the time. However, it did not leave an impression on her audience. <\/p>\n
Despite his long hair, often in a crew cut, Harrison, who wore a crisp white shirt, jeans and sandals, Laubach found him to be “very clean cut, personable and polite, and people called him the ‘Quiet Beatle’, which is true.”<\/p>\n
“If they had known what was going to happen, they would have reacted differently,” said Laubach, now 79. “It’s still amazing to me that he came here and that I met him. I think he really liked Southern Illinois.”<\/p>\n
However, Harrison never returned to Benton and died in 2001 at the age of 58. Caldwell was 91 years old when she passed away in 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#George #Harrisons #preBeatlemania #Illinois #retreat #sale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your support helps us tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to big tech, The Independent is where the stories unfold. Whether we’re investigating the finances of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing The A Word, a new documentary highlighting American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[603,1587,1464,1588,1589,364],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-george","tag-harrisons","tag-illinois","tag-prebeatlemania","tag-retreat","tag-sale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}