As of November, George Harrison is the first ex-Beatle to conduct a formal American tour. Harrison started in the northwest and will finally wind up On the other side of the continent at Christmas time for three shows at Madison Square Garden and two shows at the Nassau Colisseum — an optimistic prediction of audience turn-out for an artist whose last album sold disappointingly and who has been largely out of the public eye. Robert Stigwood, Eric Clapton’s manager, felt that Eric’s protracted layaway had only enhanced his appeal, and the enormous success of his comeback tour proves Stigwood correct. Perhaps the same syndrome will benefit Harrison; undoubtedly, Harrison and his business associates are counting on it.

But Clapton and Harrison, great friends and great guitarists, are very different animals. While both were last seen in this country, until this year, at the Concert for Bangla Desh in August, 1971, their absences meant different things. Harrison established himself as a name in his own ^right (with All Things Must Pass) a year after Clapton had unofficially buried his. Harrison has always been an elusive figure, overshadowed by John and Paul and shut away since 1966 in the studio. Clapton, through extensive touring, a rapid succession of album releases, and numerous shifts of band affiliation, which could only signify a career in constant flux, was as prominent as a musician could be who was chiefly known as a guitarist. The hiatus of the past three and a half years for Clapton amounted to a striking reversal. For Harrison, they were a period which he spent carefully constructing a formidable reputation. Harrison’s November tour, therefore, is only the next logical step in his quest for artistic manhood, not the perilous, unanticipated, defiant adventure it has been for Clapton.