By Carlos Sadovi Tribune reporter
4:18 p.m. CDT, May 9, 2014
Back in 1963, Gabe McCarty was living in downstate Benton and playing bass for the Four Vests when he got a call from a woman whose younger brother was visiting after scoring a hit in England.
The woman was Louise Harrison and her younger brother, George, was visiting just as The Beatles were hitting it big in England.
McCarty had just been laid off from his sheet metal job, and he and his band were playing country music and early rock and roll at dances at VFW halls and other places.
McCarty took her up on her invitation and met the 20-year-old Harrison. He had his band’s hit, “From Me To You,”with him and listened to it in the living room of the sister’s home.
“He had long hair. He was real polite and well-mannered, that’s the thing I noticed about him,” McCarty said by phone Friday.
As they got to know each other, Harrison asked McCarty if he knew anyone who had a Rickenbacker electric guitar for sale because he wanted one like his bandmate, John Lennon. McCarty took him to Fenton’s Music Shop in nearby Mount Vernon.
“He wanted one like John had,” McCarty, 81, said. “He said he’d like to buy one while he was in the United States.”