Robin Nolan

Recorded in George Harrison's home studio using his most famous instruments, Robin Nolan’s Gypsy jazz covers album reimagines the quiet Beatle’s best moments — and finally completes Harrison’s ‘lost’ song...

- David Mead & Henry Yates

Under normal circumstances, a Beatles covers album might not be headline news. But For The Love Of George - the latest release fom Robin Nolan, a player ranked among Britain’s greatest exponents of Gypsy jazz for three decades - is the final link in a chain of events so fantastical, improbable and downright surreal that, even now, there’s a hint of disbelief in his voice. The seed of this project was planted in the mid-90s, when George Harrison personally invited the then-busker to perform at his Oxfordshire estate, Friar Park.

Nolan’s friendship with the family continued beyond Harrison's death in 2001. And after plucking up courage during one particularly convivial soirée, the guitarist shared his vision: a new studio album that reinterpreted the quiet Beatle’s best moments in Gypsy jazz fashion, recorded on the fabled instruments in his music room.

Harrison’s widow, Olivia, not only agreed but went one better, inviting the younger guitarist to deploy the chords scribbled on an envelope by her late husband as the jump-off for a brand-new song. “George’s songwriting is so incredible,” says Nolan. “He’s obviously overshadowed by the other two [John Lennon and Paul McCartney], but it’s just a joy to get his songs out there in this context.”

How did you first come into the orbit of George Harrison?

“So I came to Amsterdam to busk after I fell in love with Django Reinhardt’s music. I was living in London at the time, but it was challenging for playing this music. We didn’t have any gigs and we couldn't really busk anywhere, but we heard about Amsterdam and there was this square called the Leidseplein. So we just turned up there and started playing and never went back. We worked on the street every day for, like, 10 years, and that’s how we learned and practised this music.