Dr. John, the New Orleans blues-style singer and piano player, had known Mr. Harrison since the 1960's, their paths crossing during work with Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and other studio sessions. Dr. John laughed when he was reminded that Mr. Harrison was known as the least talkative Beatle.

"The media and the fans called him "the quiet one." I find that funny," Dr. John said. "If he was quiet it wasn't when he was with me.Or when I saw him around other musicians. He was anything but quiet," he said. "He had a cynical, dry sense of humor. Especially about the record industry. He cut right to the jugular with his wit about the executives in the music business. He had the same philosophy as Doc Pomus (the songwriter): 'I'd rather be a poor poet than a rich agent.'"

Dr. John believed the public became hip to Mr. Harrison's sense of humor after he worked with Eric Idle of Monty Python. Mr. Harrison had a cameo in "All You Need is Cash", a 1978 comedy documentary about a Beatles-like group. Later, he started the company that released other Python films, including "Life of Brian." "How can you be involved with Monty Python and not have a huge sense of humor?" Dr. John said.

That humor came out around music business meetings, according to Dr. John. "I'll always have the memory of sitting with him at party celebrating the merger of Warner Bothers, Atlantic and Elektra Records in the 1970's," Dr. John said. "We were at Joe Smith's house in Los Angeles. Smith was one of the guy's in charge at Warner Brothers. George would watch the executives walk by and he would be ripping on people, not in a nasty way but a cool way. I'm from New Orleans and the old school. We call it capping on people. He did the U.K. version of that. And we would be laughing hilariously and the executives had no idea that we were laughing at them."

Besides aknowledging Mr. Harrison's sense of humor, Dr. John also respected his honest, and at times blunt, sense of music. "Musically, what I liked about him most was if you asked his opinion about a song, he wouldn't tell you 'I don't think it's any good,' like other musicians I know might say and just dismiss it. He would say 'this part of it does not work." And he would be right on. He would be really, really right. That's how we communicated about music. And I loved that about him." "I was no more fond of his singing than he was of mine," Dr. John said with a laugh. "And he knew that. Neither one of us thought the other one could sing. I told him so and he told me so. But we were real about that with each other. You don't normally get that honesty in this business. He was not a yes man."

Dr. John feels Harrison was the most talented instrumentalist in the group that was the most significant band in rock n' roll history. "You can pick his guitar sound out as soon as you hear it. I don't think you can say that about the others. He knew blues, country, Middle Eastern ... many kinds of music. He incorporated them all in his playing and had a distinctive style with it. That's a special maneuver."

Dr.John provided some insight into a great musical mystery: If Mr. Harrison was such a prolific guitar player, why would he have Eric Clapton play the lead on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the hit song Mr. Harrison wrote on the Beatles' White Album. After all, it was difficult enough for him to get any album space between Mr. McCartney and Mr. Lennon. "He was the kind of guy that really didn't care about being out in front as the lead man," Dr. John said. "It was more important for the music to be correct, to fit with the overall picture he had in mind. I always respected that about him. So he thought Eric's sound would be right for the song. A song was like a piece of art to him. He would say 'It's about the picture that you're painting. You're not going to use purple if the correct color is orange,' Dr. John said. "So for George, Eric's sound was a perfect orange." When Dr. John's band headed toward the stage, interrupting his flow of memories and his thoughts of Mr. Harrison, it was time for his second show. Time to paint his own pictures.