Beatles fest time
Speakers offer direct links to band's magic and mystery
by Tamara Ikenberg
The Courier-Journal

Not many people were party to a private sitar concert by George Harrison. Paul Saltzman enjoyed that privilege in 1968 while hanging with the Beatles in India. A lecture by Saltzman called "Why the Beatles Went to India" is part of this weekend's Abbey Road on the River festivities, and his photographs of that enchanted era are on display in the main lobby of the Kentucky Center through June 15.

Saltzman is one of several speakers here to share their passion for the band. The scholars and speakers are either one degree from the Fab Four, have made them part of their life's work or are related to one.

Saltzman, an award-winning director, met the Beatles by cosmic coincidence. In 1968, he was working on a film in India not knowing the Beatles were in Rishikesh studying with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

When Saltzman's girlfriend dumped him via mail, he thought some meditation might help relieve the pain.

When he arrived at the Maharishi's compound, Saltzman was denied entrance because of the special guests. But he was still determined to get his transcendental education.

"I slept in a tent outside the gate for eight days waiting and watched the world's press come and go. It was quite a scene." His tenacity paid off, and he was admitted. "They realized I wasn't there to meet the Beatles."

But once inside, he was adopted by a group including Mia Farrow, the Beach Boys' Mike Love, Donovan and the Beatles.

"The four of them were so unlike stars, to just hang with them was completely remarkable," he says. "They were like brothers; it was just beautiful."

At one point, Saltzman and Harrison were the only ones left lingering after everyone else had left the picnic table where they gathered for meals and tea.

"George and I were sitting there, we started talking about sitar music, I asked him how he got interested, and he filled me in on all of that. After a little while he said, 'I was just going to go practice, do you want to come?' "

Harrison left Saltzman with some words of wisdom about the group's spiritual journey.

"He said: 'We're the Beatles, after all, aren't we? We have all the money you could ever dream of, we have all the fame you could ever want, but it isn't love, it isn't health, it isn't peace inside, is it?' Then I realized why he was there, which was the same reason I was there," Saltzman says. "I never forgot that. I've won a couple of Emmys, I've made 300 films and television shows and been all over the world, but that sentence I've kept as my guidance system."

Saltzman's talk is at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Kentucky Center's Bomhard Theater.

Another valuable font of Beatles lore is Harrison's sister Louise, host of "Afternoon Tea With Louise Harrison" in the Bomhard (5:30 p.m. tomorrow and 4:30 p.m. on Sunday).

According to Louise Harrison, who manages the tribute band The Liverpool Legends, the festival's cover bands are likely to get more musical fulfillment from performing live than the Beatles ever did.

Her brother would tell her that "being on tour was awful because they only got to play the most popular songs of the moment," she says. "He said, 'All of us have written so many good songs that it's a pity that we don't get to sing them more often.' "

Festival-goers attending author Bruce Spizer's talks in the Bomhard at 2 p.m. today and 5:30 p.m. on Sunday will come away with enough ammunition to win Beatles trivia challenges.

"About 10 years ago I settled a big lawsuit, and rather than going out and buying a Mercedes or a Rolex, I decided I would collect Beatles records and memorabilia," says Spizer, a full-time lawyer. "What actually prompted me to do so was (that) my collection of Beatles records, and I'm not making this up, had been attacked by roaches, which had eaten the spines of the album covers. I had to replace my Beatles albums anyway, and I thought it would be fun to start collecting."

Collecting soon turned into a secondary career. Spizer is author of "The Beatles Are Coming" and a series of books on Beatles' recordings divided by what record label they were on at the time.

Spizer and his fellow speakers aren't at all surprised that the group has lived on through the generations.

"The reason the kids are listening to the music is because of the quality of the music," Spizer says. "That's why 40 years later we listen to it, and why hundreds of years later, people will listen to it, just as they listen to Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. It's that good."

And it's getting better all the time.

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