best biography of george harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison was the lead guitarist of The Beatles as well as a singer-songwriter on many of their most memorable tracks.

Who Was George Harrison?

George Harrison formed a band with schoolmates to play clubs around Liverpool and in Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles became the biggest rock band in the world, and Harrison’s diverse musical interests took them in many directions. Post-Beatles, Harrison made acclaimed solo records and started a film production company. He died of cancer in November 2001.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: George Harrison BORN: February 25, 1943 DIED: November 29, 2001 BIRTHPLACE: Liverpool, England SPOUSES: Pattie Boyd (1966–1977), Olivia Harrison (1978–2001) CHILDREN: Dhani ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces

George Harrison was born on February 25, 1943, in Liverpool, England. The youngest of Harold and Louise French Harrison’s four children, Harrison played lead guitar and sometimes sang lead vocals for the Beatles.

As Harrison would later describe it, he had an “epiphany” of sorts at the age of 12 or 13 while riding a bike around his neighborhood and getting his first whiff of Elvis Presley ’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” which was playing from a nearby house. By the age of 14, Harrison, whose early rock heroes included Carl Perkins, Little Richard and Buddy Holly , had purchased his first guitar and taught himself a few chords.

Forming The Beatles

Impressed with his younger friend’s talents, McCartney, who had recently joined up with another Liverpool teenager, John Lennon , in a skiffle group known as the Quarrymen, invited Harrison to see the band perform. Harrison and Lennon actually shared some common history. Both had attended Dovedale Primary School but had never met. Their paths finally crossed in early 1958. McCartney had been pushing the 17-year-old Lennon to let the 14-year-old Harrison join the band, but Lennon was reluctant to let the youngster team up with them. As legend has it, after seeing McCartney and Lennon perform, Harrison was finally granted an audition on the upper deck of a bus, where he wowed Lennon with his rendition of popular American rock riffs.

By 1960, Harrison’s music career was in full swing. Lennon had renamed the band the Beatles, and the young group began cutting their rock teeth in the small clubs and bars around Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany. Within two years, the group had a new drummer, Ringo Starr , and a manager, Brian Epstein , a young record-store owner who eventually landed the Beatles a contract with EMI’s Parlophone label.

Before the end of 1962, Harrison and the Beatles recorded a top 20 U.K. hit, “Love Me Do.” Early that following year, another hit, “Please Please Me,” was churned out, followed by an album of the same name. Beatlemania was in full swing across England, and by early 1964, with the release of their album in the United States and an American tour, it had swept across the Atlantic as well.

“The Quiet Beatle”

Largely referred to as “the quiet Beatle” Harrison took a backseat to McCartney, Lennon and, to a certain extent, Starr. Still, he could be quick-witted, even edgy. During the middle of one American tour, the group members were asked how they slept at night with long hair. “How do you sleep with your arms and legs still attached?” Harrison fired back.

From the start, the Beatles were a Lennon-McCartney driven band and brand. But while the two took up much of the group's songwriting responsibilities, Harrison had shown an early interest in contributing his own work. In the summer of 1963, he spearheaded his first song, “Don’t Bother Me,” which made its way on to the group’s second album, With the Beatles . From there on out, Harrison’s songs were a staple of all Beatles records. In fact, some of the group’s more memorable songs, such as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Something”—the latter of which was recorded by more than 150 other artists, including Frank Sinatra —were penned by Harrison.

But his influence on the group and pop music in general extended beyond just singles. In 1965, while on the set of the Beatles’ second film, Help! Harrison took an interest in some of the Eastern instruments and their musical arrangements that were being used in the movie, and he soon developed a deep interest in Indian music. Harrison taught himself the sitar, introducing the instrument to many Western ears on Lennon’s song “Norwegian Wood.” He also cultivated a close relationship with renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar . Soon other rock groups, including the Rolling Stones, began incorporating the sitar into their work as well. It could also be argued that Harrison's experimentation with different kinds of instrumentation helped pave the way for such groundbreaking Beatles albums as Revolver and Sgt. Pepper ’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Over time, Harrison’s interest in Indian music extended into a yearning to learn more about Eastern spiritual practices. In 1968, he led the Beatles on a journey to northern India to study transcendental meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (The trip was cut short after allegations arose that the Maharishi, an avowed celibate, had engaged in sexual improprieties.)

The End of The Beatles

Having grown spiritually and musically since the group first started, Harrison, who was feeling the pangs to include more of his material on Beatles records, was clearly uneasy by the group’s Lennon-McCartney dominance. During the Let It Be recording sessions in 1969, Harrison walked out, leaving the band for several weeks before he was coaxed to come back with the promise that the band would use more of his songs on its records.

But tensions in the group were clearly high. Lennon and McCartney had ceased writing together years earlier, and they too were feeling the yearning to go in a different direction. In January 1970, the group recorded Harrison’s “I Me Mine .” It was the last song the legendary group would ever record together. Three months later, McCartney publicly announced that he was leaving the band, and the Beatles were officially done.

Solo Career

All of which proved to be a great boon to Harrison. He immediately assembled a studio band consisting of Starr, guitarist Eric Clapton , keyboardist Billy Preston and others to record all of the songs that had never made it on to the Beatles catalog. The result was 1970’s three-disc album, All Things Must Pass . While one of its signature songs, “My Sweet Lord, ” was later deemed too similar in style to the the Chiffons earlier hit “He’s So Fine, ” forcing the guitarist to cough up nearly $600,000, the album as a whole remains Harrison’s most acclaimed record.

Not long after the album’s release, Harrison brandished his charitable leanings and continued passion for the East when he put together a series of groundbreaking benefit concerts held at New York City’s Madison Square Garden to raise money for refugees in Bangladesh. Known as the Concert for Bangladesh, the shows, which featured Bob Dylan , Starr, Clapton, Leon Russell, Badfinger and Shankar, would go on to raise some $15 million for UNICEF. They also produced a Grammy Award–winning album, and lay the groundwork for future benefit shows such as Live Aid and Farm Aid.

But not everything about post-Beatles life went smoothly for Harrison. In 1974, his marriage to Pattie Boyd, whom he’d married eight years before, ended when she left him for Clapton. His studio work struggled, too. Living in the Material World (1973), Extra Texture (1975) and Thirty-Three & 1/3 (1976) all failed to meet sales expectations.

Following the release of that last album, Harrison took a short break from music, winding down his self-started label, Dark Horse, which had produced works for a number of other bands, and started his own movie production company, HandMade Films. The outfit underwrote Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the cult classic Withnail and I and would go on to release 25 other movies before Harrison sold his interest in the company in 1994.

Life After the Beatles

In 1978, Harrison, newly married to Olivia Arias and the father of a young son, Dhani, returned to the studio to record his eighth solo album, George Harrison , which was released the following year . It was followed two years later with Somewhere in England , which was still being worked on at the time of Lennon’s assassination on December 8, 1980. The record eventually included the Lennon tribute track “All Those Years Ago,” a song that incorporated contributions from McCartney and Starr.

While the song was a hit, the album, its predecessor, and its successor, Gone Troppo (1982), weren’t. For Harrison, the lack of commercial appeal and the constant battles with music executives proved draining, and they prompted another studio hiatus.

But a comeback of sorts arrived in 1987, with the release of his album Cloud Nine. The record featured a pair of hits and led to Harrison linking up with Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Dylan to form what was dubbed a “super group” in the form of the Traveling Wilburys. Encouraged by the commercial success of the Wilburys two studio albums, Harrison took to the road in 1992, embarking on his first solo tour in 18 years.

Not long after, Harrison reunited with Starr and McCartney for the creation of an exhaustive three-part release of The Beatles Anthology , which featured alternate takes, rare tracks and a previously unreleased Lennon demo. Originally recorded by Lennon in 1977, the demo titled “Free as a Bird” was completed in the studio by the three surviving Beatles. The song went on to become the group’s 34th Top 10 single.

From there, however, Harrison largely became a homebody, keeping himself busy with gardening and his cars at his expansive and restored estate in Henley-on-Thames in south Oxfordshire, England.

Death and Legacy

Still, the ensuing years were not completely stress-free. In 1998, Harrison, a longtime smoker, reportedly was successfully treated for throat cancer. A year later, his life was again put on the line when a deranged 33-year-old Beatles fan somehow managed to circumvent Harrison’s intricate security system and detail and broke into his home, attacking the musician and his wife, Olivia, with a knife. Harrison was treated for a collapsed lung and minor stab wounds. Olivia suffered several cuts and bruises.

In May 2001, Harrison’s cancer returned. There was lung surgery, but doctors soon discovered the cancer had spread to his brain. That autumn he traveled to the United States for treatment and eventually landed at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He died on November 29, 2001, at a friend’s house in L.A. with his wife and son at his side.

Of course, Harrison’s work still lives on. Beatles records and Harrison’s solo albums continue to sell (in June 2009, EMI released Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison a 19-track anthology of the guitarist’s best solo work) and not long after his death, keyboardist Jools Holland put out a CD featuring a track co-written by Harrison and his son, Dhani.

In addition, in late 2002, Harrison’s final studio album, Brainwashed , a collection of songs he’d been working on at the time of his death, was finished by his son and released. And in September 2007, filmmaker Martin Scorsese announced he’d be directing a movie about Harrison’s life. Titled George Harrison: Living in the Material World , the documentary was released in October 2011.

• The thing about the Beatles is that they saved the world from boredom.

Citation Information

• Article Title: George Harrison Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/george-harrison
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 20, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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George Harrison, the quiet Beatle? Rubbish.

Philip norman’s new biography, ‘george harrison: the reluctant beatle,’ tries to set the record straight on the misunderstood artist.

Some of us were always Team George.

In early 1964, the Beatles rolled out of JFK Airport, onto the stage of “The Ed Sullivan Show” and into the frenzied hearts of millions of teenagers. What were four identical musicians to parents were quickly individuated by their children. My two older sisters fought over the “Meet the Beatles” LP and locked horns in the eternal teleological debate: John vs. Paul. I was 6, and most of my grammar school peers favored Ringo: He was funny and funny-looking, a natural clown. But whether it was because of his cartoon monobrow, his terse self-possession or the simple fact that the other three seemed taken, I was drawn to George Harrison as my personal Beatle. That was part of the revolution: For the first time in popular culture, every member of a pop group was indispensable to the whole, and yet you had to choose just one favorite.

The irony is that Harrison, “the quiet Beatle,” was in many ways the most outspoken in private life. He was more critical to the group and to cultural history than is generally acknowledged. Without him, the Beatles might never have happened. The band’s earliest iteration, the Quarrymen, had broken up until George reformed them for a key club date. Their initial 1962 meeting with EMI producer George Martin was going south until Harrison broke the ice by insulting Martin’s necktie.

Who was the first rocker to explore Eastern spirituality and broker what would come to be called world music? George Harrison. Who spurred the Beatles to quit live performance and expand their sonic palette in the studio? George Harrison. Who awoke rock’s social conscience and invented the all-star charity event with the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971? You’re catching on.

Paul McCartney’s photos of the Beatles at their peak

This is part of the impetus behind Philip Norman’s new biography, “ George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle ” — to give due and overdue attention to the self-styled “dark horse” of the 20th century’s most important pop act. The other part seems to be completism: Norman authored the first serious book about the Fab Four, “ Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation ,” which was published in 1981, and has since written biographies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, not to mention Elton John, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.One imagines a list of names on Norman’s refrigerator, two-thirds of them checked off, and poor, sad-eyed Ringo Starr down at the bottom.

Not surprisingly, much of the author’s research had already been done when it came time to write the new volume, especially as it pertains to the “Beatles decade” of 1958 through 1970. These passages do feel warmed-over, as if Norman were reciting a familiar story while reminding himself to keep the focus on the lead guitarist just behind John and Paul. It is in the chapters on Harrison’s childhood — George was arguably the poorest of the four Beatles but came from the warmest and most supportive family — and on the post-breakup years that we get closer to the particulars and paradoxes of this enigmatic man.

And there are paradoxes aplenty, chief among them what Ringo described as his bandmate’s battle between “the bag of [prayer] beads and the bag of cocaine.” To the public, George was the most saintly of rock stars, but in private he sinned as much as his A-list peers, and to read of his extramarital affairs — including sleeping with Ringo’s wife, Maureen Starkey, and chasing after his own wife’s teenage sister — is to understand why Pattie Boyd, a.k.a. “Layla,” left him for Clapton. (There’s a very weird anecdote here about Harrison the betrayed husband inviting his friend and rival over for a guitar faceoff — Stratocasters at dawn.) The overarching irony, as Norman notes early on, is that the more George meditated, the more uptight he seemed to get.

But “The Reluctant Beatle” is also a biography of an excluded man — a good songwriter in a band with two all-time greats, and a talented musician whose talents were rarely acknowledged. Even Martin admits he was always “rather beastly” to Harrison. Viewers of Peter Jackson’s massive 2021 Netflix documentary, “ Get Back ,” saw how years of Lennon and McCartney slighting Harrison’s creative contributions had chafed his ego raw. George’s revenge — 1970’s triple-disc megapalooza “ All Things Must Pass ” was by far the best-selling solo album by an ex-Beatle — must have been sweet. Why the albums that followed were so oddly inconsequential is a question Norman doesn’t explore. Did the 1976 legal decision that found Harrison guilty of plagiarizing the 1963 Chiffons hit “He’s So Fine” for “My Sweet Lord” stifle his creative urges? Had the well simply run dry? A critical biography might delve into such issues. “The Reluctant Beatle” isn’t one.

What is it then? Mostly a dutiful recounting of the life of a poor but happy kid who loved rock-and-roll with a purity that precluded the need to get famous and whose response to becoming one of the four most celebrated people on the planet turned him into a seeker and a churl, a mystic and a misogynist. Tellingly, Norman interviewed everybody he could with the exceptions of Harrison’s widow, Olivia, and their son, Dhani; the biographer speculates they may have been put off by a less-than-glowing obituary he wrote at the time of George’s death in 2001.

How did the Beatles do it? Paul McCartney is finally telling us.

Norman does get a lot of front-row information from Boyd, and Sir Michael Palin of the Monty Python troupe is on hand to relate how Harrison mortgaged his mansion to underwrite “ Monty Python’s Life of Brian ” and went on to become one of the most important independent film producers of the 1980s — a legacy that may someday be considered as important as his Beatledom. Leave it to Palin, then, to counter the myth of George Harrison “the quiet Beatle.” “That must have meant just with John and Paul,” he tells Norman. “When he was around us, you could hardly get him to shut up.”

Ty Burr writes the movie-recommendation newsletter Ty Burr’s Watch List .

George Harrison

The Reluctant Beatle

By Philip Norman

Scribner, 487 pp. $35

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Rock biographer Philip Norman: ‘It took me years to understand the paradox of George Harrison’

After books on Lennon and McCartney, the author turns to the contradictory ‘quiet Beatle’ – whose acid tongue and sexual buccaneering coexisted with his mantras and prayer wheels

G eorge Harrison died on 29 November, 2001 after a four-year battle with cancer, aged 58. The 9/11 atrocities were only two months earlier but despite the continuous grim developments from the still-smouldering wreckage of New York’s World Trade Center and President George W Bush’s retaliatory “war on terror”, his passing leapt to the top of television news and into banner headlines.

Even at such a time, there were no complaints of trivialisation; the Beatles had long ago ceased to be just a pop group and become something like a worldwide religion. And, sombre though the TV or radio coverage was, it included generous helpings of music that, 30 years after their breakup, still had undiminished power to charm and comfort. Inevitably, it awoke memories of John Lennon’s murder in 1980 – but the two tragedies differed in more than their circumstances. That horrifically sudden obliteration of John seemed to have half the human race in tears at what felt like the loss of a wayward but still cherished old friend.

With George, struck down by a quieter killer, millions could mourn the musician, but there was much less to go on in mourning the man. For no more private person could ever have trodden a stage more mercilessly public. In later years, he’d taken to calling himself “the economy-class Beatle ”, not quite joking about his subordinate status from the day he joined John and Paul McCartney in the Quarrymen skiffle group. Yet by dogged persistence, he made it into the first-class cabin with songs equalling the best if never the vast quantity of Lennon and McCartney’s: While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here Comes the Sun, My Sweet Lord and his masterpiece, Something.

As a guitarist, he indisputably belonged in the 60s pantheon of six-string superheroes alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, while never rating himself more than “an OK player”. Alone in that company, he had a serious turn of mind; the Beatles, then commercial pop as a whole, radically changed direction after his discovery of the sitar and espousal of Indian religion and philosophy. For a few twanging months, any band with hope of chart success had better throw in a mini-raga.

Amid the mayhem of Beatlemania, no one would have taken him for an underdog. In live shows, he was adored almost as frantically as Paul with his fine-boned face, beetling brows and hair so thick and pliant that – as a Liverpool schoolfriend enviously said – it was “like a fuckin’ te-erban”. But the fine-boned face could be noticeably economical with the carefree grin his fans expected at all times; indeed, it first planted the amazing thought that being a Beatle might not be undiluted heaven.

This was the endlessly self-contradictory “quiet one”, actually as verbally quick on the draw as John at press conferences; who accepted the workhorse-role of lead guitarist, poring dutifully over his fretboard while John and Paul competed for the spotlight, yet offstage was the most touchy and temperamental of the four; who railed against “the material world”, yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax; who spent years lovingly restoring Friar Park, his 30-room Gothic mansion, yet mortgaged it to finance his friends the Monty Python team’s Life of Brian film; who, contrarily, became more uptight and moody after learning to meditate; who could touch both the height of nobility with his historic charity Concert for Bangladesh and the nadir of sleaze in his casual seduction of Ringo’s first wife, Maureen.

His obituaries agreed his finest post-Beatles achievement to have been All Things Must Pass , the 1970 triple album largely consisting of songs that John and Paul had rejected for the band or that George hadn’t submitted, anticipating their indifference. Its defining track, My Sweet Lord, was an anthem for any creed a year before John’s Imagine, with a slide guitar motif like a tremulous human voice that would become a signature as personal and inimitable as Jerry Lee Lewis’s slashing piano arpeggios or Stevie Wonder’s harmonica. It far outsold Lennon’s and McCartney’s respective solo album debuts and has continued to do so ever since: an unextinguishable last laugh.

His second wife, Olivia – an inconspicuous presence until the night in 1999 when she saved him from becoming the second Beatle to be murdered – issued a statement on behalf of herself and their son, Dhani, urging his fans to try not to grieve too much. He’d have wanted them to be as positive as he was throughout his dreadful illness, Olivia said, for the Hindu precepts he lived by had banished all fear of death. “He gave his life to God a long time ago. George used to say you can’t just discover God when you’re dying… you have to practise. He went with what was happening to him.”

Still, across every culture and in every language, the same chilling thought will have occurred, often to somebody born after – in many cases, decades after – the Beatles broke up: “Only two of them left.”

It has taken me a good few years to get around to writing a biography of George, and some people, I know, will be wishing I hadn’t. For, alas, his obituarists in 2001 included myself. At that point, almost everything I knew about George had gone into my 1981 Beatles biography, Shout! , which ended with the band’s breakup and barely mentioned their respective solo careers. Having to write 3,000-plus words on a deadline left no time for further research or reflection; I therefore judged him solely on his years spent with Ringo in an obvious second division from which he so often signalled impatience and discontent.

My intention was to counteract the gush that other writers and fellow celebrities were pouring into print, often mixed with a measure of amnesia. “He was really just my baby brother,” said Sir Paul McCartney, though even royal brothers could hardly have matched the sniping they did at each other in the post-Beatle years. “His life was magical and we all felt we had shared a little bit of it by knowing him,” said Yoko Ono Lennon, to whom George had once been so horrible that John physically attacked him.

However, I went much too far in the opposite direction, at one point describing him as “a miserable git” and giving great offence to colleagues whose opinions I respected, never mind untold numbers of his distraught fans.

I would need to write the separate biographies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney , then of his best friend, Eric Clapton, to understand the paradox of being George: the constant sidelining and downgrading he had to endure, restricted to only a couple of his own songs per Beatles album, his self-confidence eroded by McCartney especially, all the while outwardly one of the 20th century’s four most blessed beings.

Researching The Reluctant Beatle , I found “the quiet one” had more sides to him than most of his public ever realised; the other Beatles seemed one-dimensional by comparison. There was the philanthropist who donated tens of millions to charity, both in cash and song-copyrights, yet received no public honour beyond the MBE doled out to each Beatle in 1965 for shaking their hair and going “Oo!”

There was the perfectionist record producer, the talent-spotter and label boss, the movie magnate who helped bring about the renaissance of British cinema in the 1980s with HandMade Films, the Formula One fan and passionate horticulturist who hoped to be remembered as a gardener rather than as a musician.

On the debit side were the acid tongue and monumental tactlessness that often undermined his bandmates’ perfect pitch, and the sexual buccaneering that coexisted with his mantras and prayer-wheels. During one long-haul flight while he was chanting under his breath, a cabin attendant innocently asked if he was ready for lunch. “Fuck off,” he snapped. “Can’t you see I’m meditating?”

The sheer variety of his activities and interests, in fact, had helped keep him in the shadows. For while there were numerous books about specific ones – his guitar-playing, his spiritual quest, his garden – none satisfyingly evaluated nor tried to explain the elusive whole man. It was this that decided me to biographise my third Beatle, albeit resigned in advance to a major handicap.

I’d hoped that my sympathetic treatment of George in the Lennon, McCartney and Clapton books might persuade Olivia Harrison and their son, Dhani, to co-operate in it. However, the sample of my work drawn to her attention – by a previously friendly executive at the Beatles’ Apple company – was that ill-judged 2001 obituary, given seeming eternal life on the internet along with numerous posts from fans virtually endowing me with horns and a tail. Now there clearly was no possibility of access to Olivia or Dhani. “And it’ll probably put the kibosh on your talking to anyone else,” the Apple man said, meaning the word would go out to all those who’d ever been close to George to shun me.

Yet it didn’t happen, even when I subsequently wrote a newspaper piece saying that Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s elephantine documentary about the Get Back album , which claimed they had been “warm and jovial” with one another while recording it, was “the Pollyanna view” of the project.

One of George’s closest friends, Sir Michael Palin, took time off from globetrotting to express bemusement over that “quiet one” moniker, “because as far as I remember, he never stopped talking”. His longsuffering PA, Chris O’Dell, recalled how instantly George could switch from Hindu piety to “wanting to drink, take coke and party” and just as instantly back again. His childhood friend and first roadie, Tony Bramwell, recalled going to early Beatles gigs in Liverpool together on the bus driven by George’s dad, Harold.

I was able to draw on past conversations with his two great allies in the Beatles’ highly politicised inner circle, both now deceased: their irreplaceable press officer, Derek Taylor, and their roadie, Neil Aspinall, breaking an otherwise implacable “no comment” rule. Their nonpareil record producer, Sir George Martin, to whom I spoke shortly before his own death, was still remorseful for having been “rather beastly to George” in the studio before realising his true worth. Most important, I had the generous help of his first wife, Pattie Boyd , a woman as free from bitterness as she is full of humour about their years together. Pattie’s account of finding George in flagrante with Ringo’s wife, Maureen (“She’s feeling a bit tired so she’s having a lie-down,” he explained) is a miniature comic masterpiece.

This, my 10th and probably last rock biography, leaves me wondering as never before whether they’ve been any job for a grownup. For popular music has more utter bilge written about it, by men mostly, than any other subject except food. It’s generally viewed as a soft option and a licence for self-indulgence, launching even normally decent writers into flights of prattish nostalgia seldom omitting that barnacled cliche, “the soundtrack of my life”.

But producing a real biography of one of its great names – that is, aimed at a readership beyond the uncritical fan market – is hellishly hard work bordering on masochism. One must walk a fine line between passion and objectivity, rightful praise and laughable hyperbole. One must try to convey what music actually sounds like, which both my favourite writers, EM Forster and F Scott Fitzgerald, failed to do with Beethoven and jazz respectively. One must get in all the dross about sales and chart placings, ever seeking new and interesting ways of saying things like “the album went to No 2 on the Billboard Hot 100”.

Rock biography is a legitimate form of history and its luminaries must be related to contemporaneous events without sounding like a Rock ’n’ Roll Years audio tape I once heard on a BA flight: “It was 1961. In East Berlin they were building a wall – but it didn’t stop Bobby Vee having a hit with Take Good Care of My Baby.”

The usual tone of British rock biography is flippant, in America it is heavy and humourless. Its two most celebrated exponents, Greil Marcus and Peter Guralnick, are so alike in this respect that their surnames should be run together in a verb, “to Greilnick”, meaning to turn out immensely long, leaden paragraphs, bulging with show-off facts but lacking any of the vitality of the musicians or music under scrutiny.

Writing about the Beatles brings pressures of its own in a world increasingly crowded with self-appointed experts on the subject. It’s as if they’re all breathing down your neck, poised to gloat over the smallest error.

My previous books have taught me there’s such a thing as biographer’s luck and, latterly, even to trust to it. With George it arrived rather late, but more than atoned for the misfortune of that undead obit.

The ordeal of his last years didn’t stop at his cancer nor his being almost murdered at Friar Park by the crazed midnight intruder fought off by Olivia. He also had to bear the financial burden of HandMade Films, the company he set up in 1978 with his American business manager, Denis O’Brien. Initially a vehicle to produce Life of Brian , HandMade went on to revive the British film industry with a run of quirky, critical successes including The Long Good Friday , Time Bandits , Mona Lisa , A Private Function and Withnail and I .

During the early 1980s, O’Brien’s young in-house accountant, Steve Abbott, discovered that O’Brien had parked George’s money in dodgy offshore bank accounts and companies all over the world in the name of thwarting the hated Taxman, keeping George short of ready cash while himself owning a private island and a yacht. But Abbott left O’Brien’s employ before being able to blow the whistle conclusively on him.

Not until several years later did a second accountant, John Reiss (ironically, also working for O’Brien), pick up the investigation and uncover malpractice on a widescreen scale. Each time HandMade took a bank loan to finance a new production, both the company’s partners were supposed to have guaranteed it in writing. But, unbeknown to George, O’Brien hadn’t co-signed a single guarantee, meaning that productions which had failed at the box office left him alone liable for debts of around $32m. George sued O’Brien in America for mishandling his money and was awarded $11m. When O’Brien declared bankruptcy, George sought to block the declaration, ultimately unsuccessfully. The proceedings lasted years and multiplied his torments at the end of his life.

I was easily able to contact Steve Abbott through a friend in the film business, but Abbott had never met the louder whistleblower, John Reiss, and had no idea where to find him. The morning after our interview, Abbott was having coffee outside a north London cafe when a friend stopped by his table to say hello, accompanied by a man he didn’t know. It was John Reiss.

I could thus tell the full story of perhaps the cruellest fraud ever perpetrated on an unworldly rock star and the litigation against the man George now called “Lying O’Brien”.

That part, at least, may have been a job for a grownup. But please don’t ask when I’m going to move on to Ringo.

The Reluctant Beatle by Philip Norman is published by Simon & Schuster (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply

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New Book Takes A Deeper Look At Quiet Beatle George Harrison

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with music journalist Ashley Kahn about his new book, George Harrison on George Harrison . It's a collection of interviews with and writings by former Beatle George Harrison.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The singer-songwriter George Harrison was known as the quiet member of The Beatles. It was an image that he sometimes promoted in interviews.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK CAVETT SHOW")

GEORGE HARRISON: I'm probably the biggest bore you've ever had on the show.

DICK CAVETT: Really?

HARRISON: They asked me, do you want to come on "The Dick Cavett Show?" And I said, I've got nothing to talk about, really.

CAVETT: Yeah. You don't like to talk, then.

HARRISON: Well, not really.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THINK FOR YOURSELF")

THE BEATLES: (Singing) I've got a word or two to say about the things that you do.

INSKEEP: This image was a little misleading. Behind the scenes, George Harrison pushed The Beatles and other artists towards social activism. Many of Harrison's words are now collected in a new book called "George Harrison On George Harrison." It was edited by music journalist and former MORNING EDITION commentator Ashley Kahn. Ashley, welcome back.

ASHLEY KAHN: Thanks, Steve. It's great to be back.

INSKEEP: You know, it's easy to think of John Lennon as the politically active Beatle. What makes George Harrison worth a deeper look?

KAHN: Well, I'd use the term socially active and using rock as a sort of mobilizing force. He helped put together one of the groundbreaking events as far as using rock music for the sake of social service, and that was the Concert for Bangladesh.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BANGLA DESH")

HARRISON: (Singing) Now I'm asking all of you to help us save some lives. Bangladesh, Bangladesh...

KAHN: It was an all-star, two-show concert at Madison Square Garden in 1971, and it was all for the sake of raising funds to help those who were disadvantaged and dispossessed by the extreme violence that was going on in Bangladesh at the time.

INSKEEP: I think of music as inherently political, Ashley, because it tends to represent a culture, and sometimes, it tells dramatic stories about particular kinds of people. But you're talking about celebrities using their fame in a particular way. Is that what George Harrison got people doing that they weren't doing as much before?

KAHN: Well, it was in the music already. I mean, you think about Sam Cooke. You think about Bob Dylan. You think about Nina Simone and the statements that were coming through their music of the 1960s. But the actual idea of doing an event and raising money for a very specific cause or reason - that's really the breakthrough moments. And there's a long line of various concerts and movements, et cetera - No Nukes, Band Aid, et cetera, et cetera, that have followed in its wake.

INSKEEP: Live Aid.

KAHN: Yeah, Live Aid.

INSKEEP: Farm Aid - lots of aids over the latter part of the 20th century and into this century, I guess.

KAHN: Absolutely. Think about the number of concerts after Katrina, after the hurricane disaster in New Orleans.

INSKEEP: Well, now you have this book of George Harrison's words, and I gather a lot of those words were recorded. Let's hear some.

KAHN: So yeah, I mean, the whole idea of the book was to really present the unfiltered George Harrison, and here's a great example of where he's looking back at the '60s, at this sort of idyllic moment of the Beatles and what he learned regarding the idea of the social role of the musician.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HARRISON: If you've got a platform to speak from, then, you know, you should speak. I found in the '60s, we'd all sit around thinking of these great ideas, and after a few years, I thought, wait a minute, nobody's doing anything. You know, everybody's talking about it, but nobody's doing anything.

INSKEEP: Did he think of his own initial group, The Beatles, as among those who were talking but not doing anything for a while there?

KAHN: I believe not because I think he got a lot of inspiration, definitely, from John Lennon. The whole idea of Concert for Bangladesh began as a request for a $30,000 check and John Lennon's whole notion of, well, if you're going to do something, do it as big and with as much impact as possible. And he credits John Lennon's influence on him for thinking big.

INSKEEP: One reason it's interesting to hear this discussion now, Ashley, is because everybody in society is being pushed to take a political position - musicians, every other kind of entertainer and ordinary people in the audience as well. What do you think George Harrison would make of this moment we're in?

KAHN: I really think that, one, he would be severely disappointed by what's going on right now. But at the same time, I think there would be this feeling that there's still hope and that he was an optimist. And if you come from that starting point, the path is going to be very obvious as to what you should and should not be doing.

INSKEEP: You've got a bit of tape here in which Harrison describes his optimism in his time.

HARRISON: If you look now just through, say, from the '60s or the '50s, there's a much higher awareness, generally. I mean, where did all the really good hippies go when they all dropped out?

JOHN FUGELSANG: They're driving Volvos, George.

HARRISON: They're all - well, I don't think all of them are. I think a lot of them are - you know, have brought up - there's probably two generations of kids now who are much more open, that help the society become much more balanced.

FUGELSANG: You're optimistic.

HARRISON: You have to be optimistic, yeah.

KAHN: He was an optimist to the end. And I think the fact that "Here Comes The Sun," which is the most streamed of Beatles songs on streaming platforms - and it's a George Harrison tune - many hospitals, when COVID survivors are being discharged, they will play "Here Comes The Sun." I think that he would be very pleased by that.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERE COMES THE SUN")

THE BEATLES: (Singing) Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. I say it's all right.

INSKEEP: Do you think George Harrison could find something to be optimistic about in this moment of pandemic and recession and political division?

KAHN: I'd think absolutely. I think we have to remember that George Harrison was someone who took his spiritual studies very seriously, and the Vedic view, the Hindu view, looks at the world in 25,000-year cycles. So what we're going through right now would be a half of a blip on a very large radar screen.

INSKEEP: OK. I like to take the long view of things, but taking the 25,000-year view had not occurred to me.

KAHN: Yeah. Alice Coltrane ascribed to that same sort of view. We're on the planet to evolve, and this is a test that we're going through.

INSKEEP: Ashley Kahn is the editor of "George Harrison On George Harrison." Thanks so much.

KAHN: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "HERE COMES THE SUN")

Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Books | Review: ‘George Harrison: Behind the Locked…

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Books | off-duty chicago police officer fatally shot in gage park, things to do, books | review: ‘george harrison: behind the locked door’ by graeme thomson.

Harrison sits aboard the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner from New York on Sept. 8, 1971, one month after hosting the Concert for Bangladesh benefit that featured Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar and more.

Harrison, seen here in February 1972, followed up the success of "All Things Must Pass" and "The Concert for Bangladesh" with 1973's "Living in the Material World," featuring the U.S. No. 1 single "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)."

Michael Putland, Getty

Harrison in Cannes, France, in 1976.

Harrison, seen here in 1968 with Paul McCartney, left, John Lennon and Ringo Starr, would grow tired of being a member of The Beatles.

Apple Corps, AP photo

George Harrison, seen here in 1963 playing his Gretsch Country Gentleman, is the subject of a new biography by Graeme Thomson, "George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door."

Bob Grieser, Associated Press

Harrison's 1974 tour of the United States was not well-received: Contractually obligated to play a set number of Beatles songs alongside his solo material, he opted to change the tempo and melody of most of them, drawing criticism.

Harrison and model Pattie Boyd pose in the back seat of a car after their marriage on Jan. 21, 1966. The two would finalize their divorce in 1974.

In February 1963, the New Musical Express ran a profile of George Harrison, who was then just 19 years old. He appears to be a man of simple tastes and pleasures: His favorite food is lamb chops and chips, and his hobbies include “driving, records, girls.”

At this early stage of The Beatles’ career, even the most observant of music critics would be hard pressed to take George Harrison seriously. At best, he could be seen as a lucky guitar player in a very successful group.

Harrison was always considered as the baby of The Beatles, the quiet one who was least drawn to the spotlight.

But surprisingly, he matured into a songwriter of exceptional talent, turning out to be the most philosophical member of the band.

Graeme Thomson’s “George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door” is a well-crafted narrative that attempts to understand a man who spent much of his adult life torn between a true spiritual vocation and the lures of the material world.

Those familiar with the 1995 Beatles “Anthology” TV series or Peter Brown and Steven Gaines’ landmark biography, “The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles,” will recognize the material Thomson covers here in the first 100 pages: post-war Liverpool; The Quarrymen; Hamburg; The Cavern Club; Beatlemania; London; Shea Stadium; groupies; and the evolution from innocent chirpy lovable pop stars to psychedelic artists with overblown egos and impending drug problems.

But Thomson’s book adds something new to this conversation when he focuses on the momentous sea-change that took place in Harrison’s career in September 1966: Harrison visited India for the very first time.

The trip would awaken in him a lifelong appetite for Eastern spirituality, where music, travel, literature, yoga, meditation and, most importantly, his spiritual guru, sitarist Ravi Shankar, became vital in guiding him toward a path of self-enlightenment.

During this period, Thomson notes, Harrison began to regard religion “as a living organism … and God as something … which could ultimately only be found within.”

From this moment onward, Harrison would view The Beatles more like a girlfriend he couldn’t break up with than an artistic project he took terribly seriously. On “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” considered by many to be The Beatles’ greatest moment, Harrison contributed just one song, “Within You Without You,” to the final released record. And he barely turned up at the studio for the recording of the other tracks on the album. Indeed, most songs he wrote during this period he kept for himself.

And so began Harrison’s most creative era: from 1968 onward, when The Beatles took a spiritual and musical journey to Rishikesh, India, to the release of his first post-Beatles and most successful solo album, “All Things Must Pass,” in 1970. Sadly, as Thompson correctly points out, anything Harrison produced after this period would never quite reach the same level of greatness.

But while Thompson keeps a steady eye on assessing Harrison the artist, his analysis of Harrison the man is equally fascinating.

After watching Martin Scorsese’s excellent 2011 film, “George Harrison: Living in The Material World,” I was under the impression that there wasn’t much left to find out about Harrison’s personal life. For example, Harrison’s second wife, Olivia, refers in the film to the numerous “hiccups” their marriage experienced due to her husband’s taste for voluptuous and glamorous women. But Thomson offers us more thorough details about Harrison’s checkered love life.

Most of the gossipy anecdotes come from Pattie Boyd, Harrison’s first wife, who tells Thomson over the course of numerous brilliant interviews how the rock star’s extreme and obsessive nature was a significant factor in the breakdown of their marriage. Boyd also reveals why she is certain Harrison did have an affair with Ringo Starr’s first wife, Maureen, despite his denial of the relationship at the time.

Of course, the psycho-sexual love triangle that Thomson explores in detail between Boyd, Harrison and Eric Clapton is one of the most intriguing romances in rock ‘n’ roll history.

The author allows himself just enough distance here from his subject matter to critically appraise Harrison’s work and personal life objectively. Thomson isn’t afraid to tackle Harrison’s deep contradictions: While he may have been content to meditate in his mansion in Henley-on-Thames for days on end, he could just as easily spend his nights snorting copious amounts of cocaine, drinking himself into oblivion, or getting up to any other debauchery that presented itself.

Through a vast amount of disciplined research — most of which comes in the form of primary interviews with those who were close to Harrison — Thomson offers insight into an extremely sensitive, multitalented, often hypocritical, highly libidinous, complex and egotistical man.

Above all, what emerges from these pages is a portrait of a very human figure, who, despite his flaws, understood the limitations. Harrison could be prone to long bouts of selfishness and anger, just as easily as he could be to periods of calm, understanding and kindness. And his constant desire for self-fulfillment were often put ahead of the feelings of those he loved.

Boring is one characteristic George Harrison can certainly never be accused of. Neither can it be said of Thomson’s magisterial biography.

JP O’Malley is a freelance journalist based in London.

“George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door”

By Graeme Thomson, Overlook Omnibus, 447 pages, $29.95

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3 Books Every George Harrison Fan Should Read

by Lorie Liebig September 30, 2023, 5:30 pm

Known for his gifts as a guitar player and songwriter, along with his shy demeanor, George Harrison became a household name as one-fourth of The Beatles .

Videos by American Songwriter

As the band matured from the sugary-sweet love songs to a more experimental sound, Harrison leaned into the emerging folk scene of the 1960s. His increasing interest in spirituality coincided with the growing Hare Krishna movement, which spilled over into his music.

[RELATED: This George Harrison Song Holds the Record for Hitting No. 1]

After The Beatles parted ways in 1970, he recorded the celebrated triple album  All Things Must Pass , which served as the catalyst for a long-lasting solo career. In 2001, Harrison died from lung cancer at 58, but his creative works continue to inspire and connect with music lovers of all ages.

Here are three George Harrison books that help tell the story of his incredible life and career:

1. George Harrison: Living In the Material World

This 2011 book was released as a companion piece to a documentary film of the same name, co-produced by Martin Scorsese, Nigel Sinclair, and Harrison’s widow, Olivia.

Following the same themes of the celebrated film, George Harrison: Living In the Material World offers private photos, diary entries, and other intimate mementos from the late singer/songwriter’s incredible life.

Along with his life story, readers are offered thoughtful and revealing conversations with a range of famous collaborators and friends, including Paul McCartney , Ringo Starr , and Eric Clapton .

2. I Me Mine

Although Harrison never wrote a memoir of his own, this captivating collection of works and first-hand reflections is an essential read.

Initially released in 1980 and updated in 2017, I Me Mine offers stories from his life before The Beatles, along with handwritten lyrics and commentary from “the Fifth Beatle,” Derek Taylor, and Harrison’s widow, Olivia.

3. George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door

Released in 2015, this intriguing read from author and music journalist Graeme Thomson paints a well-rounded portrait of who Harrison really was outside of his fame.

George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door pulls from a trove of interviews with those who knew the singer/songwriter best. Readers get insight into the temptations and challenges that Harrison faced as he navigated fame and searched for meaning outside of music.

Photo by Steve Morley/Redferns/Getty Images

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10 Best Beatles Books

By Colin Fleming

Colin Fleming

Considering that it takes some formidable organizational chops to serve as a competent  Beatles bibliographer, it can be downright daunting if you’re coming to the stacks of Fab Four literature as a neophyte reader wondering where you might start. For those are some buckling shelves, filled with worthy tomes, arresting diversions, gossipy trivia and dense accounts of what kind of gear the band used, who their tailors were, how many times per annum they visited the dentist, etc.

Romantic other-halves have weighed in on the story/saga side of things; ditto competing rivals, A&R men, siblings, business associates, sacked partners. There is a lot of dross. But considering that we’re talking hundreds of books, there are some top-drawer offerings as well.

Philip Norman is an old hand with Beatles-based scholarship, and his massive bio, Paul McCartney: The Life , provides a nice opportunity to survey those shelves of Beatles lit. Here’s a look at 10 of the other best Fab Four volumes to check out.

‘The Beatles, Lennon and Me,’ by Pete Shotton

The standard Beatles history posits the star-crossed Stuart Sutcliffe as John Lennon’s best friend, until his tragic death in 1962, whereupon Paul McCartney became Lennon’s chief mate, but Pete Shotton better fit the bill. He was there first, romping with Lennon as schoolboy tearaways, and in on all the things that boys do with each other: lots of circle jerks, incidentally, in this candid, and very Northern memoir. Lennon later bought Shotton a supermarket, and the latter was awfully adept at telling Lennon when the rocker was full of shit, which was often enough. Bracing, ribald and infused with love.

[ Find It Here ]

‘The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away,’ by Allan Williams

Williams is the titular figure, and you never have to sweat how good he is, how bright, how canny, etc., because he’s always there to tell you. He was the band’s first manager when, in his words, no one would go near them with a barge pole, Not a lot of people can boast like Williams does and still come off as a likable person, but that’s Williams: avuncular, shady as all hell, but earnest, like some comic-relief character from a Fielding novel who steals an early chapter or two. He loses out on future riches, naturally, but the dude keeps coming back, and even plays his role in the bartering of the wildly under-appreciated Star Club tapes.

‘Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Beatles,’ by Geoff Emerick

Beatles producer George Martin has a nice little remembrance called All You Need Is Ears , but it was his mid-1960s engineer Geoff Emerick who shot past him in the post-career Beatle book game. Emerick was integral to the sounds of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper – he is, in his way, as responsible for McCartney’s bass tone at the time as the bassist himself – and the band’s sonic palette was never richer. Here he tells you how many of those sounds came to be at Abbey Road, and what might have been a dry accounting for gearheads pulses with “damn, I didn’t know that!” narrative glee.

‘Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation,’ by Philip Norman

The knock on this Philip Norman bio has always been that he looks down on his subjects, but the author’s honesty is admirable. In fact, the most compelling Beatles books tend to be the ones that you can have a mental punch-up over, disagreeing with a given taken, but enjoying it all the same because it makes you think, or sends you back to reevaluate something. Norman puts his readers through these enjoyable paces, and he also nails the Hamburg period better than anyone. If you want the spirit of the Beatles hustling and grinding on the Reeperbahn, trying like madmen – and pilled up, desperate, manic madmen – to get somewhere, get good, get better than everyone else so as to give the world that eventual fist pump of being the best, you come to this book.

[Find It Here]

‘The Beatles: The Authorized Biography,’ by Hunter Davies

The volume many people think of – erroneously – as the first Beatles book set a high standard with its frankness. Released in 1968, The Beatles was the only place, for a long time, you could get examples of the correspondence between John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe. Consider these lines from a poem Lennon sent his friend: “I can’t remember anything/Without a sadness/So deep that it hardly/Becomes known to me.” That is Fitzgerald “dark night of the soul” territory, and it comes from a time when few people would have thought the Beatles anything but louts. Don’t be put off by the authorized-access element – clearly these were guys who needed to unburden themselves of some truths they’d been toting around for the bulk of a decade, and they pile up here.

‘Lennon Remembers,’ by Jann S. Wenner

The Beatles have just ended, and Rolling Stone founder Wenner  sits down with Lennon for a confessional that doubles as harsh attack, soul purging, study in how songs came to be, and, in the end, a kind of lament for something that was the defining journey of a life, which would never come close to being replicated. Lennon is more hurt than angry, one senses, as he lobs stones at the stained-glass windows of Beatledom.

Ironically, for all of the bashing, the book presents McCartney as the Beatles’ most talented member, reflecting a respect that Lennon clearly feels. He tells you – not always correctly — who wrote what, song-wise. But beyond the hurt feelings and foggy memories is a clarity of thought that emerges almost despite the man himself. As he says: “And the thing about rock and roll, good rock and roll, whatever good means, etc., ha-ha, and all that shit, is that it’s real. And realism gets through to you, despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is true, like all true art.” Hear, hear.

‘The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions,’ by Mark Lewisohn

You wouldn’t think you’d be able to turn what’s basically a log book of every Beatles session at EMI studios – running down who the producer was, who the engineer was, what songs, backing tracks or overdubs were put on tape – into a page-turning wonder, but so it goes here. Lewisohn, whose gargantuan Tune In – the first of a three-volume Beatles series – came out a few years ago, has never been good at discussing why a song functions as well or not as well as it does, but he does have a knack for situating you in a spot. Reading Recording Sessions , you practically find yourself sitting in the studio as the band start up the next take. This was also the first time readers got a sense for the treasures locked away at Abbey Road, the gems that would surface on a lot of bootlegs that further changed how one understood the band.

‘The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles,’ by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines

The scandalous choice. This 1983 gossip orgy was a huge seller, and it brought the dirt, thanks to Brian Epstein assistant Peter Brown. Is it akin to Gibbon? No – it’s very clickbait-y, paperback-style, but it does capture the spirit of the Beatles as a unit, and as individuals, like little ever has. You might even say as well as the Beatles themselves did on their own. The band possessed a strange alchemy in that there was something about them, and their music, that fostered works not by them but which were very Beatlesque works nonetheless. The Yellow Submarine film is another example. Reading The Love You Make feels, at times, illicit, and if a book can give you a contact high, this would be it.

‘Revolution in the Head,’ by Ian MacDonald

Woe that MacDonald didn’t write more – he committed suicide in 2003 – but this is a major work quite apart from the Beatles book repository. He takes on every song, and some sacred cows are off to that processing plant never to return home again. One wonders how such eviscerations would be greeted in the Internet age. MacDonald has no problem telling you he thinks some beloved work sucks – like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – which is fine, but what is better is that he backs it up. Do you have to agree? Hell no. We’re not here to agree, we’re here for an experience: to think, to challenge old saws, to see, too, things we loved anew, and better. That teacher who changed your life when you were a kid was not the one who dispensed the easy A’s, but rather the one who made you work, and MacDonald is a tough grader. This is the Beatles book to read a dozen times. Every pass through brings something new. Also, while the critical reputation of Sgt. Pepper has been eclipsed in recent years by Revolver , Rubber Soul , and Abbey Road – with the White Album and A Hard Day’s Night making progress, too – MacDonald just flat out gets that album better than any other writer on record. Even when he’s panning individual parts of it, he knows, and he helps you know, how the totality is something else entirely, and that this is one of the key documents of Western Civilization.

‘Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress,’ by Michael Braun

The first, and what I’d maintain as the best, Beatles book is one even most Beatles fans are unaware of. Hasn’t helped that it tends to dip out of print, but this is as close to a Beatles ride-along as you’ll get, with American writer Michael Braun following the band at the end of 1963 and into the early phases of the U.S. invasion the following year. Lennon himself, in the Wenner book, singled out this one as better than the Davies, a true book that portrayed them as they were: as bastards, in his word. And, yeah, there’s some of that. They make cracks at the expense of Jews, the disabled, gays. A lot of it is in a blow-off-steam kind of way, and Braun does a compelling job of conveying the non-stop pressure the group was under. In some ways they can’t handle it, and sleep away huge amounts of time; in other ways, they do what they do, and write songs no one else could touch. The Beatle wit is depicted better here than in any other book, and if the four, and their patter, were in effect a hermetically sealed entity so designed as to better take on the world, this is your chance to crack the fold.

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George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle Hardcover – October 24, 2023

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• Print length 512 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Scribner
• Publication date October 24, 2023
• Dimensions 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 198219586X
• ISBN-13 978-1982195861
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (October 24, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 198219586X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982195861
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.54 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
• #35 in Rock Band Biographies
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George Harrison

The reluctant beatle.

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Table of Contents

• Rave and Reviews

About The Book

About the author.

Philip Norman grew up on Ryde Pier, Isle of Wight. His bizarre childhood as the son of an unsuccessful seaside showman inspired his memoir  Babycham Night . Norman went on to win the Young Writer of the Year Award contest organized by  The Sunday Times Magazine  (London), where he became a star interviewer, profiling celebrities ranging from Stevie Wonder to Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi. Norman’s early career as a rock critic led to his first biography,  Shout! , which received critical acclaim and sold more than a million copies. He is the author of numerous highly praised works, including  John Lennon: The Life ;  Paul McCartney: The Life ;  Slowhand: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton ;  Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly ;  Wild Thing: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix ; and a memoir of his  Sunday Times  years,  We Danced on Our Desks .

Product Details

• Publisher: Scribner (October 24, 2023)
• Length: 512 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982195861

Browse Related Books

• Music > Individual Composer & Musician
• Biography & Autobiography > Music
• Music > Genres & Styles > Rock

Raves and Reviews

“ George Harrison offers a full serving of Beatlemania through the specific lens of the group’s youngest member. The entire dynamic of The Beatles is on full display in these career-spanning chapters. Thanks to illuminating anecdotes that reveal the band’s complex relationships, Beatles fans will be enthralled page after page.” — BookPage

“Being in the Fab Four might have given Harrison fame, wealth and boundless opportunity, but as Philip Norman shows in this absorbing biography [with] its eye for period detail, the burden it placed on his far-from-resilient shoulders stayed with him for the rest of his life.” — Wall Street Journal

“Norman’s book will likely go down as the best and most comprehensive single volume biography. And it’s a solid choice as a Christmas gift for the Beatles fan on your ‘nice’ list.” —Houston Press

“Norman has fashioned an authoritative portrait of Harrison that leaves you liking and feeling sympathy for his subject while being fully aware of the tetchiness…that was never far away. Norman is something of a one-man Beatles industry.” —The Times of London

“[A] wonderful new biography. . . Philip Norman captures [Harrison’s] class consciousness vividly [and] does a marvelous job evoking Harrison’s working-class Liverpool upbringing. Norman writes with a mix of affection, irreverence and whimsy that feels perfectly aligned with his subject.” —Robert Dean Lurie, The Spectator World

“Norman captures the creativity, the humanity, and the great humor of the man in this keen and lovely tribute.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Norman knows his subject and the soulful torments Harrison endured. A well-informed biography of an enigmatic musician.” —Kirkus Reviews

“George Harrison was not just the reluctant Beatle. With his wizardly vim on the guitar, feathery voice, and knack for songcraft, he was certainly the most underrated one. Here, the Fab Four's inimitable chronicler Philip Norman gives us the portrait of Harrison's remarkable life that only he can: myth-dispelling, richly detailed, and full of humor. The story of how this young, poor, quiet Liverpool kid rose to musical mastery and fame is the triumph of an oft-overlooked hero—and a delight on every page.” —Ian S. Port, author of The Birth of Loud

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Beatles Biographer Grapples With the ‘Paradox’ of George Harrison

Philip Norman, the author of books about Paul McCartney, John Lennon and the Beatles as a group, discovers that Harrison was, among other things, a puzzle.

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By Sopan Deb

In a new biography, Philip Norman writes about the “paradox” of George Harrison, a man who was “unprecedentedly, ludicrously, suffocatingly famous while at the same time undervalued, overlooked and struggling for recognition.”

This was the central contradiction that made Harrison, the composer of classics like “ Here Comes the Sun ,” and “ Taxman ,” a fascinating figure, both as a Beatle and after the band broke up, as Norman explores in his book “George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle.” Norman tackled his latest subject after writing celebrated biographies of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, as well as “Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation,” a book that Harrison was critical of .

Harrison lived several separate lives. He was a rock star. A follower of Hinduism . A prolific film producer who came close to financial ruin. A philanderer who had an affair with a former bandmate’s wife and once had a guitar duel with Eric Clapton (also the subject of a Norman biography) over Pattie Boyd, Harrison’s first wife, whom Clapton fancied and later married.

“The complexity of his character was something that hadn’t really been noticed before,” Norman said, adding, “Actually taking the whole elusive man, a bundle of different personalities, that was what was fascinating .”

Norman discussed his approach to Harrison in a recent interview.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You express regret in the book about the obituary you wrote for George in The Sunday Times.

It was very badly timed. And that’s the thing. I wasn’t totally wrong in saying that he could be, as we say in this country, a bit of a miserable git and that he was a serial philanderer. He was both of those things. But it was not the moment to say it.

How was George a contradiction?

George, in his sort of hippie mode, railed against the material world. And yet he was the first person — the first pop star, certainly — to write a song complaining about income tax. He could rise to the height of nobility, which he did with the Concert for Bangladesh , which was the first of those major demonstrations of conscience in the rock community. And yet he also broke the first law of the Beatles, which is you don’t sleep with another Beatle’s wife, which was with his big friend in the band, Ringo. And it was Ringo’s first wife.

He spent years and millions of pounds on restoring this gothic folly [Friar Park, Harrison’s Victorian mansion in Henley-on-Thames, England]. And yet, in a second, he mortgaged it so he could fund the Monty Python film “Life of Brian.” He was the only person I’d ever heard of — and indeed, his first wife, Pattie Boyd, told me this — who actually became very disagreeable after he learned to meditate.

How close did you get to talking to George’s widow, Olivia Harrison, and their son, Dhani?

I had thought I’d be making amends all these years for that very ill-advised obituary by very sympathetically considering him in the Lennon and McCartney books, and then in the Clapton book. But then I didn’t realize this thing that I’d written in 2001, when I didn’t know enough about George, really, to write an obituary of him, was still there. It was undead. It was like a vampiric obituary. And I realized there was no real point in asking them because they couldn’t possibly say yes.

Did Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” documentary change your view of George?

It didn’t, really, although I knew things that happened off camera. For instance, that there’d been a fistfight during those sessions that Peter Jackson said were so warm and jovial — between George and John, because of something George had said about Yoko Ono. George did have a very, very nasty tone when he liked.

You don’t see George walking out. But George does walk out , and John and Yoko have to coax him back into the sessions. I thought it was terribly long. He made the Beatles actually sometimes seem even quite boring.

I was struck by what a prolific film producer George was. Why did film have such a draw for him?

He was very keen on films, always. Even in Liverpool. One of his first steady girlfriends, Bernadette, her mother was the first female cinema manager ever in Liverpool, and that was undoubtedly part of the attraction for George. They were always going to movies together.

The so-called last Beatles song was released last month, with George, Paul and Ringo playing on a John Lennon demo. I get the sense from your book that George would not have approved its release.

You’re absolutely right, because it was George who blocked its release in the 1990s when the other stuff from that cassette tape that Yoko gave to McCartney was being put onto the “Anthology” albums. George said it wasn’t good enough. For once, they listened to him. It was ironic that the only faintly Beatle-like sound on that total mess, in my view, sounded like George’s guitar.

Sopan Deb is a general assignment reporter for The New York Times. Before joining The Times, he covered Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign for CBS News. More about Sopan Deb

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The 6 Best Documentaries About George Harrison

Dec 14, 2023 | Best Of , Celebrities , Music

From the start of his career in The Beatles to his later journey as a solo artist, George Harrison left an indelible mark on rock and roll. His music has inspired generations, including many filmmakers who have gone on to create some of the best documentaries ever made about Harrison’s life and artistry. From warts-and-all looks at his personal life to deep dives into his creative process, the following documentaries provide an intimate, often moving look at Harrison’s life and legacy. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or simply interested in learning more about this iconic musician, these George Harrison documentaries are essential viewing.

1. George Harrison: The Not-So-Quiet Beatle

George Harrison was a key contributor to the success of The Beatles. He was an incredible musician, songwriter, and producer; a creative force that helped shape some of the most iconic music in history. As his fellow bandmates Paul McCartney and John Lennon were grabbing headlines with their larger-than-life personalities, George remained relatively quiet yet undeniably influential. His presence on the band’s recordings and performances was a driving force that set them apart from other artists. This documentary is an exploration of George’s life, music, and career. We will dive into the magical contributions he made to The Beatles and his own solo work; as well as his impact on numerous other projects, charities, and causes.

2. Dead At 58: George Harrisons Last Hours | Our History

When a life ends, it often leaves behind endless stories. And when one of the most influential musicians of all time passes away, those tales become even more special. The life and legacy of George Harrison was cut short on November 29th 2001 when he lost his battle with cancer. His untimely death was a shock to the world, as his music had touched many lives and inspired millions of fans.

3. How the Beatles Changed the World (Documentary) | Amplified

How The Beatles Changed the World. Every generation has its defining moment, a time when life changes so drastically that it is forever changed. For many of us around the world, that time was the 1960’s and at its center was The Beatles. This musical group revolutionized how we understood music, fashion, art and ultimately culture as a whole.

4. George Harrison : Here, There and Everywhere

He was known as the “Quiet Beatle,” but George Harrison’s music spoke volumes. As a child, he grew up listening to a variety of musical styles on the radio in his hometown of Liverpool. By joining The Beatles, he would become one of the most influential musicians of all time.Harrison’s other passion was spiritual exploration, something that had a profound effect on his songwriting. As he journeyed through India and Nepal, Harrison began to combine Eastern spirituality with rock music in ways no one had ever heard before. His influence went far beyond the Beatles, influencing generations of musicians who followed in his wake.

5. George Harrison Living In The Material World Part 1

This is an outstanding documentary about the life of George Harrison, one of The Beatles. It delves deep into the life and music of this incredible musician, from his early days as a member of The Beatles to his solo projects. Viewers get a full look at Harrison’s spiritual journey exploring Hinduism and Eastern philosophies, as well as his unique guitar playing style. Through interviews with close family and friends, this documentary offers a comprehensive look at the life of an influential figure in music.

6. George Harrison Biography Documentary

This illuminating documentary shines a light on the life and legacy of English rock guitarist, singer-songwriter, producer, author and multi-instrumentalist, George Harrison. From his early days in Liverpool as part of The Beatles to his solo career after the band’s break-up, this film explores Harrison’s remarkable journey and celebrated career.

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George Harrison Bio Arrives From Noted Beatles Author Philip Norman

[In his 2001 obituary of Harrison published in the U.K.’s Sunday Times, Norman referred to his subject as “a serial philanderer,” a description that he has since apologized for.]

From the publisher’s announcement: Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote.

Now, Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions. Compared to songwriting luminaries John Lennon and Paul McCartney he was considered a minor talent, yet he composed such masterpieces as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Here Comes the Sun,” and his solo debut album, All Things Must Pass , achieved enormous success, appearing on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever. Modern music critics place him in the pantheon of sixties guitar gods alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page.

Harrison railed against the material world yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax. He spent years lovingly restoring his Friar Park estate as a spiritual journey, but quickly mortgaged the property to help rescue a film project that would be widely banned as sacrilegious, Monty Python’s Life of Brian . Harrison could be fiercely jealous, but not only did he stay friends with Clapton when Clapton fell in love with Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, the two men grew even closer after Clapton walked away with her.

Unprecedented in scope and filled with numerous color photos, this rich biography captures Harrison at his most multi-faceted: devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian, and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.

Author Philip Norman has an international reputation as a chronicler of pop music and culture. Shout! , his groundbreaking biography of the Beatles, first published in 1981, has been continuously in print ever since. He went on to write definitive biographies of the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. His latest book is We Danced On Our Desks: Brilliance and Backstabbing at the Sixties’ Most Influential Magazine .

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5 Comments so far

Not only wasn’t George permitted to contribute more songs to The Beatles, often he wasn’t even allowed to play guitar (especially on Paul’s songs). What happened with “Hey Jude” is well documented on video, but Paul also played the key guitar parts on much of Sgt. Pepper, which didn’t have much guitar to begin with. George didn’t even play guitar on Paperback Writer (he was relegated to tambourine). With all that background, his frustration as seen in the “Get Back” film was understandable. He didn’t even look happy during the London rooftop concert (where John took all the solos). George looked much happier and at ease with the Traveling WIlburys than he ever did with The Beatles.

It’s John who was relegated to tambourine, not George. George plays guitar on the track!

The “George on tambourine” was based on information in this YouTube video entitled “How Paperback Writer Changed The Beatles’ Sound Forever”, part of the “You Can’t Unhear This” series.

https://youtu.be/1agHG_6r5ss?t=113

Absolutley. He always seemed happier in the post Beatle days. None of the solo efforts of Lennon or McCartney can hold a candle to All Things Must Pass.

George did play guitar on “Paperback Writer” and “Sgt. Pepper”, so that is an exaggeration.

Neither John nor Paul made any effort to prevent George from writing or contributing his own songs and the disagreement over guitar parts in “Hey Jude” was the rehearsal sessions, not the actual recording session.

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• Beatle people

George Harrison

George Harrison was lead guitarist, songwriter and singer with The Beatles. Although often overshadowed by the partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the band’s lifetime, he emerged as a significant talent in his own right.

The early years

Harrison was born on 25 February 1943 in the family home at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool.

His parents were Harold and Louise Harrison, who had roots in Ireland. They had three other children: Louise, Harry and Peter, all of whom were older than George.

In 1950 the family moved to 25 Upton Green in Speke. George went to school at Dovedale Road, where he passed his 11 Plus and gained a place at the Liverpool Institute for Boys, a local grammar school.

He attended the Institute between 1954 and 1959. Not an especially gifted child academically, Harrison struggled as a student and left without any qualifications. He had trouble relating to his teachers, and insisted on wearing tight jeans and long hair, much to his parents consternation.

In 1959 Harrison formed a skiffle group, The Rebels, with his brother Peter and a friend, Arthur Kelly. Harrison’s mother bought him a guitar for £3, and the group’s debut gig at the British Legion club in Speke earned them 10 shillings.

Harrison considered becoming an apprentice engineer after leaving school, but music dominated his passions and he performed with a number of fledgling groups in Liverpool. In 1958 he met the Quarrymen, whose ranks included Paul McCartney , a friend of Harrison’s from the Institute.

Although Harrison was considered too young to join the group, he did fill in when their regular guitarist Eric Griffiths was unavailable. Eventually he was accepted as a full member, despite the reservations of the Quarrymen founder and leader, John Lennon .

Paul introduced me to George and I had to make the decision whether to let George in. I listened to George play and said, “Play ‘Raunchy'” [a 1958 hit for saxophonist Bill Justis]. Then I said, “OK, you can come in.” I couldn’t be bothered with him when he first came around. He used to follow me around like a bloody kid, hanging around all the time. He was a kid who played guitar and he was a friend of Paul’s which made it easier. It took me years to come around to him, to start considering him as an equal.

The band became Johnny and the Moondogs, and later the Silver Beetles. Their first trip to Hamburg in August 1960 took place while Harrison was just 17, and the Reeperbahn, the red light district where they played, proved an educative experience: “Everybody around the district were homosexuals, transvestites, pimps and hookers and I was in the middle of that, aged 17,” he said.

The first trip ended in Harrison’s deportation for working under-age. When they returned in March 1961 The Beatles had become more assured as performers, and in June cut their first single, ‘My Bonnie’ , as the backing band for Tony Sheridan . For this they were paid 300 marks with no royalties.

At the band’s first recording session for EMI, producer George Martin tried to ease the band’s nerves by saying, “Let me know if there’s anything you don’t like”. “Well, for a start,” replied Harrison, “I don’t like your tie.” This led to a succession of jokes being cracked in the studio, which endeared the band to the EMI staff.

Latest Comments

He WAS an academically gifted child, that’s how he got into the institute. He hated the school and the teachers.

but apparently some of his school friends said he was thick. I think he just couldn’t be bothered but that is what some people said

Of course I love the Beatles–they are my time–George was one of the greatest in Rock and Roll History in so many ways he just was an example to all rock and roll lovers and musicians–I truly idolized him as the great human being and artist he really was—Theres really not more to say -Truly one of the greatest–Oh to me there is NO best–But there are many greats! George was one of those

Remember George for his beautiful spirit, struggle to understand the meaning of life, and amazing music. I listen to his music and most days hear something new in it; and I look at my original photos from Shea, and think, “Never Without You.” Blessings to Dhani and Olivia.

An honorable man .. a guy who stand next after Abe Lincoln ..

Yes, a real American. LOL!!

“Most embarrassingly, George, Ringo and Yoko all sued Paul in 1985, when they discovered that he was making more from the group’s records than they were” – -Yup, acted like a real American 🙂

But he wasn’t American though… He was British, I thought everyone knew that.

Read this snippet in a BBC article today: “Meanwhile, George spent years sniping at Paul in public. The two men briefly reunited with Ringo in the mid-90s, but George soon pulled the plug. Most embarrassingly, George, Ringo and Yoko all sued Paul in 1985, when they discovered that he was making more from the group’s records than they were.” ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8243000/8243561.stm )

Was wondering if you could shed some light, particularly on George’s sniping at Macca.

I’m sure the examples are out there in interviews from the time, but I don’t have any to hand. This extract from the Anthology book (2000) should explain the situation though:

“Personally I’d found that for the last couple of albums – probably since we stopped touring – the freedom to be able to play as a musician was being curtailed, mainly by Paul. There used to be situation where we’d go in (as we did when we were kids), pick up our guitars, all learn the tune and chords and start talking about arrangements.

“But there came a time, possibly around the time of Sgt Pepper (which was maybe why I didn’t enjoy that so much), where Paul had fixed an idea in his brain as to how to record one of his songs. He wasn’t open to anybody else’s suggestions. John was always much more open when it came to how to record one of his songs.

“With Paul, it was taken to the most ridiculous situations, where I’d open my guitar case and go to get my guitar out and he’d say, ‘No, no we’re not doing that yet. We’re gonna do a piano track with Ringo, and then we’ll do that later.’ It got so there was very little to do, other than sit round and hear him going, ‘Fixing a hole…’ with Ringo keeping the time. Then he’d overdub the bass and whatever else.

“It became stifling, so that although this new album was supposed to break away from that type of recording (we were going back to playing live) it was still very much that kind of situation where he already had in his mind what he wanted. Paul wanted nobody to play on his songs until he decided how it should go. For me it was like: ‘What am I doing here? This is painful!’

“Then superimposed on top of that was Yoko, and there were negative vibes at that time. John and Yoko were out on a limb. I don’t think he wanted much to be hanging out with us, and I think Yoko was pushing him out of the band, inasmuch as she didn’t want him hanging out with us.

“It’s important to state that a lot of water has gone under the bridge and that, as we talk now, everybody’s good friends and we have a better understanding of the past. But talking about what was happening at that time, you can see it was strange.”

As for the court case, on Monday 25 February 1985 it was reported that George, Ringo and Yoko filed an $8.6m lawsuit against Paul for breach of contract, alleging that he was earning a “preferential royalty from Beatles records to the others, as an incentive for him to re-sign with Capitol as a solo artist.” McCartney’s lawyers admitted this was true, but pointed out that Capitol did not decrease the royalties of the others.

Thanks for the update Joe, and kudos on the site.

Some of George’s recollections may have been exaggerated and it was not very nice for him to say that Paul was curtailing his freedom to play as a musician. They did not stop recording basic tracks with all four of them in the same room altogether (listen to the outtakes for “Lovely Rita”, “Glass Onion” and “Happiness is a Warm Gun”) and don’t forget, drugs were not going to help their long-term memories.

It is tempting to pigeon hole any of the four into pre-determined ideas of their personalities etc., and when it comes to George it’s easy to see him as a gentle soul.

But one ought to remember that at the time of John’s death, he and George were not on speaking terms at all. Something that apparently cast a shadow over George’s final years.

Point being – they were just blokes – incredibly gifted and talented blokes but filled with all the human flaws the rest of us have.

There is a Rolling Stone interview in the 1980’s in which George stated that he visited John in the Dakota in the late 1970’s. Both guys felt constrained in their conversation due to Yoko’s presence and that John appeared to be trapped in the domestic situation.

What I know about George and Yoko’s relationship is that George never really liked her. Am I right?

i was only little when he died but i just really wish he was still alive. he was a great and inspiring man who changed many peoples lives along with all the other beatles. life is precious and he knew it was close to the end for him.

I just discovered your website last couple of days and it’s fantastic. I was wondering about same question Wes did. Because it’s strange that, after The Beatles break up, George, John and Ringo worked together in their albums. In fact, Ringo worked with everyone ’til this days. But Paul was another story. I assume George and John never invited him to play again in their albums. Only Ringo. And I don’t know if Paul did invite any of them to play in his albums. An interesting story to write would be The Beatles relationship after The Beatles. Who visited who? How often? How much time did George need in order to forgive Paul? And forgive him for what? And his distance with John after Imagine was caused by the Concert for Bangladesh, when he did invite John but without Yoko? For example: what do we know about the visits they did to each other in the 70’s? The famous story of Paul and John with Saturday Night Live… If they spent the whole day together, how it was like? (because the movie Two of us is a fiction about it) Or the scene in the movie of Linda McCartney Story, where the visited john and Yoko on Christmas and they almost didn’t talk at all. Because it seems like George was particularly over-sensitive and resented things for many years. And Paul was his friend since childhood. But, on the other hand, it seems like Paul realy peased everybody off for a really long time and no just once. Ringo was the one who achieved something the others couldn’t: be the link between them, be the union between divided parts. It’s a beautiful characteristic of a leader, far away from the cold results. It’s a shame he seemed to stop trying. Somebody has more about this topic? Thanks!!!!!!!!!

Well JM, the not talking phase between friends, siblings, or relations can go on for a long time. A unifying presence such as Ringo can be nullified over time by a number of reasons such as having his own problems and just being fed up with trying for some kind of reconciliation. The differences in personality traits of each former Beatle was a huge barrier to overcome. The deaths of John and George could also inhibit talking things out due to shock with tangible regrets to follow. The Beatles, after all, were only human.

The “not speaking” phase between people who actually love each other can end in a heartbeat when trouble hits. It was Paul McCartney who provided the house in Los Angeles for George Harrison when he was dying of cancer so George could be close to his new cancer treatments at UCLA. It was Paul’s house which George actually passed away in.

Chevron, Glad to see people still add info on here! I didn’t know Paul provided the house for George etc…. thanks for that bit of info!!!

I’d love to know the answers to all of these! Is there a book that one (or more) of them has written that is an authorized biography of how things went from their particular point of views? I’ve read a lot of stuff over the years but I never know whether it is just rumor or direct from one of the Beatles themselves.

First book that comes to mind is “The Beatles Anthology”. Then the next one could be Paul’s “Many Years From Now” that he co-wrote with Barry Miles in 1997.

I live in Southern Illinois and went to Benton yesterday. George and Peter visited their sister Louise there in 1963. They erected a plaque there honoring his visit 50 years ago. It was awesome! Louise was there speaking and signing autographs. George enjoyed his stay here. He stayed for two weeks and went camping, played with the Four Vests at the local V.F.W. and bought a guitar in Mt. Vernon. I loved the Beatles and especially George. I think he got the short end of the stick when it came to putting songs on their albums. John once said of Abbey Road, “The two best songs on the record are George’s.” (Here Comes The Sun, and Something) All those years ago…my, my.

What about “Do you want to know a secret ” and “I’m happy just to dance with you” as early signs that his songwriting was on par with the more celebrated duo?

He didn’t write either of those songs.

Right those were Lennon

Poor Lennon. After McCartney´s “Yesterday”, most people for many, many, many years believed that McCartney was the composer in The Beatles, and today many people believe that Harrison composed “Do You Want To Know a Secret” and “I´m Happy Just To Dance With You”.

“Poor Lennon”. Oh, yes, Johan. The whole world has just totally forgotten poor John over the years….. Tom’s was a simple MISTAKE – no conspiracy involved! George sang them, and he assumed George wrote them. Big deal! You really need to seek help. Don’t you get tired of this silliness?

George was my all time Fave Beatle. Always was and always will be.

I can’t believe that “I” one of the biggest Beatles fans in the world, did not know that the remaining 3 Beatles played on this song????? It should be right up there with “Free As A Bird” & “Real Love” as far as Beatles songs go!

What song? This is an excerpt about George Harrison. There never was a song called “George Harrison”. And which “remaining 3 Beatles” do you mean? Only 2 are left. Sometimes I wonder about people and their reading skills.

Dear Beyondperplexed, Why insult someone just because you don’t understand the question? I believe Bongo was inquiring about the song “All those years ago”. It’s unbecoming to insult each other on this awesome and very informative website.

This is really a great site, I’ve never seen it before, but so glad I’ve found it……. It’s a wealth of knowledge, thank you….

“Young Blood”(recorded at 1 june 1963 for “Live at the BBC”) is George Harrisson singing in a way unknown after this period. He performs in a great way as good as John and Paul. He seams very happy with his voice, has a large tessitura. So I ask if somebody may explain what happened to him after that time. (Sorry, I am French and like most of us I am very bad in other Languages but very close to England!) Thousand Thanks for reply! Violet

I just read that a memorial tree that had been planted in George Harrison’s honor was killed by beetles.

I don’t know whether to cry or laugh.

Bet George would laugh.

aren’t Paul and Ringo going to replant another tree?

I think it would be appropriate to plant a weeping Atlas cedar to commemorate George since this tree is mentioned in one of his finest songs ‘Beware of Darkness’, although the climatic conditions in LA may not be suitable where the dead memorial tree was located.

Is is true that George once cheated from Pattie with Ringo’s first wife?

Yes it is true, Apparently John was furious with him about it and that it put a real strain on their relationship.

Harrisons tracks are incredibly underrated and underplayed due to in part the massive amount of songs the mccartney, lennon songwriting pact put out. Only a northern song should have taken when im 64s place. I feel some of the most overlooked harrison tracks include long, long, long , blue jay way. and old browne shoe. I suppose the upside to him only getting two tracks per album, except on pepper, is that he had so many perfect tracks that made all things must pass the best solo album by any beatle.

I was aware of the best group the world has ever known ,and in my opinion will ever know in my youth. As The Beatles they were four of the most talented musicians in the world that happened to bump into each other at this time and place in history. George was was a silent master just at rest until his time came. And come it did. What can you say? Absolutely nothing. Just be glad you were here when they were Fab.

I love you George. You left us way too soon.

I always liked Don`t Bother Me, thought it was one of the better songs on With The Beatles.

Don’t Bother Me was the first song George ever wrote, amazing no? He was in bed with a cold in Bournemouth, they were all supposedly on holiday, and Paul had told him he’d make more money if he got into songwriting. So, in his bed, feeling yucky, on one of his few holidays of the early days, he wrote how he felt. Pretty cool. not a bad beginning at all.

Another one of the problems George had with Paul and John was that he was the “little kid”; in teenage years, to be a year or three younger than everyone else makes a big difference. I saw some video from “Anthology” and the three were at Friar Park playing and reminiscing and Paul kept showing off and bossing everyone around. Imagine bossing George around in his own studio, in his own garden. One can see George getting more and more fed up but he was polite, so that by the end of the video, one can see on George’s face that he had a gullet full and was ready to toss McCartney, film crew and anybody else out into the street!

Meeka, you make me see I need to watch this again, thanks for your picture there…. I remember too George seeming more and more annoyed and indifferent as the session continued… it was funny because we can all relate having an over energetic guest over who we just want to see leave! I get the feeling that by then, George was a retired musical veteran who’d pretty much stepped off the merry-go-round and was just happy watching the wheels… while Paul was and still is a gung-ho musical marine on fire with career development. The contrast in energy must have been like the odd couple, but I feel they both loved each other as brothers. Sometimes the ones we love the most are the ones we can’t stand being in the same room with. Sad! But funny too, so human.

I got the impression that it was the other way round. Paul seemed to be walking on egg shells around prickly George.

George was as talented a musician songwriter composer as Lennon/McCartney. It was not so much an issue of.talent as one of temperment. George while extremely talented was laid back while Lennon/McCartney were driven and the gentleman that he was he stood down when the others pressed. One needs to only look to his All Things must Pass triple album to see its so.

george was the best beatle by far

I don’t know if he was the best. I don’t think there is a best one .They were magical as a whole. What i can say is, that ,for me, he was the most interesting as idiosyncrasy,the most wise and mature psychologically and spiritually. Each of them had the ability .to shine as individual . But,in my eyes, George was a great man.

Sure there was, the Best beatle was Pete.

I’ll see myself out.

Jimmy — the Beatles Police have been notified, and will be at your door pretty soon!

George is talented, handsome and magical. Being smitten by the look in his eyes is an understatement.

This site is wealth of knowledge..!! Thankful I am short of words when it comes to Beatles and specially george Harrison..!! they are the best feeling we can ever get..!! Although many things happened in past but their music still moves our souls and we all are fine with that..!! I wish john and George were alive, isn’t it a pity..!! Some and dead and some are living..!! Regards to one who wrote these wealth of information and love to all the Beatle lovers..!!

I was a very poor boy in 1964 , but I remember the Beatles all so very well. And although most everyone was so excited about Ring , it was George Harrison who , to me , was the most talented. I mean after all , that’s why he stood in the middle of the group , where they could all revolve around him. Im a professional writer, and i can’t even begin to use the right words to describe how really good he was.

I think George stood in the middle because that way he could share a mic with whomever was harmonizing with whichever one was lead vocals…

i love the Beatles and their music .They were a fabulous combination of so many things that has yet to be duplicated.It was their humor, their looks, their obvious love for each other, their style, their honesty, their music, their creativity, joy, brotherhood, and the ability for each of them to shine as individuals as well as to dazzle as a group.They were different…They were magical… Having said that,i have a really special bond with George Harrison. I am impressed and inspired by the man and his spiritual investigation.And also i love wholeheartedly his music. George was a spiritual soul so whatever he sung has spiritual vibs.. George was aware and wise.He had a very interesting life,he was well loved and gave a lot of love.He had weaknesses humans have,but he was obsessed to find out “who am i,where i have come from and where i am going.. ” pursued that led him to India. George Harrison..a so inspiring man!

George couldn’t have formed his Rebels in 1959. He was in the Quarrymen by then. The year was 1956 and George was 13 years old.

Some of The Beatles best compositions in their late years were by Harrison: Only a Northern song, It´s All Too Much, The Inner Light, Piggies, Here Comes The Sun, Something, I Me Mine

Some of the Beatles best compositions in their late years were by McCartney, too. Lady Madonna Blackbird Back In the USSR Hey Jude Let It Be Get Back

Not too many from John, though…. mostly meaningless, non-sensical chanting with no melody or, in some cases, music (Rev9). Not John’s best period for songwriting…..

I think a valid case can be made for George, John, and Paul’s songwriting contributions during the late era. It’s also the period in which Lennon produced:

-Strawberry Fields Forever -I am the Walrus -A Day in the Life (a team effort, but the foundation is John’s song) -Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds -Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! -Happiness is a Warm Gun -Julia -Across the Universe -Dig a Pony -Revolution -All You Need is Love -Hey Bulldog -Dear Prudence

A lot of this is personal taste: what seems like juvenile, meaningless nonsense to one person might capture someone else’s imagination. To me, Lady Madonna and Back in the USSR are mid-tier material. Get Back succeeds more because of the arrangement than the song itself. The meaty guitars and Billy Preston’s organ elevate the track, but if we’re going to talk about nonsense lyrics, this is a prime example. Imho, of course.

Ian K. The fact that John sang the opening verses to A Day in the Life did not make it his song nor provide the foundation for it. John approached Paul because both had two separate unfinished songs that simultaneously pondered on their daily lives at the time. Hence the title, which does not appear in any of the verses. That’s the whole point. McCartney was not a mere contributor.

John didn’t just sing the opening verse to A Day in the Life..he wrote the words, the melody and the chords which are very much the foundation of that song. The chord progression is basically Help and in the same key. Paul does not deny this anywhere. John has credited him in interviews for coming up with “I’d love to turn you on” but Paul spends two pages on this song in The Lyrics and doesn’t mention John once which is quite sad. He is at pains to point out that he helped out with lyrics for verse 2. He contributed the idea for the experimental orchestration and his “Woke up, got out of bed” section to fit in with the alarm clock going off. This is the most mundane bit of the song. What stuns after all these years is that wonderful verse, the Lennon vocal and the way he intones the lyrics. “I read the news today oh boy..”. Take away the orchestration and there is the song.

Agreed that John wrote the heart of the song, which is one of my favourite pieces of music ever. But without Paul, it would not be this mindblowing masterwork….because the other part of the magic of Day in the Life is that its two songs spliced together, one John’s one Paul’s. Paul’s part works so well for brilliant contrast – the extrovert, everyday busy off- to-work ditty vs Johns brooding internal mindscape — and I don’t know how, later, Paul ends up playing his own melody on top a revised piano sequence that suddenly mirrors John’s opening part — that feels like magic. Paul also had a big part in how the overall song was produced with the crazy orchestra glue. Anyway… George Martin, Ringo, George, its just one huge synergistic cloud of genius to me and maybe should be split 5 ways… or just credited to the angels. What they created was not very human really.

RiffQueen. I respectfully disagree with you. It was primarily Yoko Ono who usurped the song for her dead husband. Paul had every right in his Lyrics book to claim A Day in the Life as much his. The lyrics ‘he blew his mind out in car’ and ‘I’d like to turn you on’ were Paul’s; he did not write the anxiety-ridden middle eight especially for John’s verses, it was his own separate song fragment, and he did not just contribute the idea of the orchestra but actually composed it. The glissando was its foundation and because of it no song like it was written before or after either by the Beatles or anyone else. Even the biased Rolling Stone called it a true joint Lennon/McCartney song. George Martin said it was John’s spine-tingling ethereal vocals that blew everyone away rather than the lyrics or melody. John called it a fine 50/50 effort – they worked hard on it together. But it seems as some revisionists here like to think they know more than John himself and others in the studio at the time.

Just an aside – the lyrics to The Inner Light are taken directly from the Tao Te Ching, chapter 47 (which does not lower my estimation of Harrison’s songwriting, just pointing it out).

The amazing thing about the beatles was that George was the number 3 guy (not in my opinion, but in the worlds), and yet george, the number 3 guy, produced more great songs alone than almost any other rock group in toto or single singer in history. and that was their #3 guy! Let alone the first two. You could find top 2 guys in like the byrds, buffalo springfield, the eagles, simon & garunkel, everlys, (yes, duos obviously) but to have the #3 guy be so incredibly talented is quite a testament to all that the beatles were. quite amazing!!!! all 4 deserve their place in rock n roll hall of fame both together and alone, and thank goodness they all have it.

I am so glad to be able to say in my best Scouse. “Me dad came from Liverpool”. But years/time moves on. And nowadays the statue/monument of the “Fab Four” at the Pier Head looks as if the lads were heading for a Cuppa & a Sarnie from the City Caterer’s Kiosk, where me dad used to work. Pre WWII.

My dog showed no interest in the TV, but one day a documentary about the Beatles was on and when George appeared he sat up, looked at the TV and had an interested look on his face. When it moved on to one of the other Beatles, he curled up on the couch and went back to sleep. The point being: even dogs love George.

Maybe your dog was George lol!

George was so multitalented as a guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and filmmaker. The article is wrong in saying that he usually sang one song per album – it was usually two songs per album that he would sing, either covers or his own songs. He started to write songs in earnest with “Help!” and from that album onwards, he normally contributed two of his own self-written songs per album (he got three on “Revolver”, four on the White Album and one apiece on “Sgt. Pepper” and “Magical Mystery Tour”). For all of this nonsense about John and Paul ignoring or not even acknowledging his songwriting efforts back in the day, John did publicly praise “Within You Without You” in 1967 and Paul openly praised “The Inner Light” in 1968 by saying it was beautiful while both men spoke highly of “Something”. A lot of these authors and journalists are perhaps ignorant of that reality and George himself stated that he was fine with contributing two songs per album until at least The White Album.

I love George and his indifference to it all — it was so cool and sad at the same time. He was the one who could’ve just walked away from it all. I don’t blame Paul for being controlling for a period… they were in the middle of a real insane storm of superfame, drugs and creative Godlike powers. I can’t imagine what was surging through Paul during the last half of their run when he was literally dreaming up world-shaking songs. He was a nuclear bundle of creativity, and it would probably be hard to chill out and ignore his vision of how the music should get done for the sake of being nice. Add to that some cocaine, which he was doing during Sgt. Peppers sessions, and its a surprise he didn’t bring a manchette and gun into the studio to control things even more. I notice by the end of their days, in Get Back, he’s pretty chilled out. Whatever tensions he and George were having then seemed like a a spill-over from those previous sessions — bad blood still lingering. Years later, when they were solo artists handling their own finances, who could blame Paul for agreeing to more royalties when offered? Maybe he could have asked to share the extra with the others, maybe not, but they were independent of each other then: George, Yoko and Ringo were free to have held out for more too. I would really like to hear more about George’s deathbed phenomena his wife reported and more about his spiritual growth, including his aiming to die with serenity, which he talked about even when he was younger.

When you hear the Beatles records, especially earlier records, you hear songs that simply evoke a basic emotional response; they are essentially perfect tunes. That is what George played. He didn’t play those gutsy guitar solos that other famous guitarists play in blues style, but those people aren’t necessarily noted for song writing. His style evolved around song writing skills and filing those tuns with melodic counterpoint. Yet when you look at his fills, they briefly present a complex arrangement that shows great mastery.

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Biography Online

George Harrison Biography

George Harrison was born in Liverpool on 25th February 1943. His family were Roman Catholic and he went to school, close to Penny Lane – later to be immortalised as a Beatles song. At school, he became friendly with Paul McCartney . It was Paul McCartney who introduced George Harrison to John Lennon and George was gradually invited to play with the pre-Beatles band – The Quarryman.

“I think people who can truly live a life in music are telling the world, “You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don’t need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it’s the very best, and it’s the part I give most willingly.”

– George Harrison

Most of the music recorded by the Beatles was written by McCartney or Lennon. However, towards the end of the 1960s, George became increasingly interested in songwriting, and Lennon and McCartney started to accept a couple of George’s songs on Beatle albums, such as Help and Abbey Road .  His most famous songs include Here Comes the Sun and Something . However, many of his compositions were not used by the other Beatles, so this encouraged him to pursue an independent career, and was one factor in the breakup of the Beatles in 1970.

George Harrison had a great interest in Indian music and Indian spirituality. He introduced the other band members to the Hari Krishna movement and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi . George’s interest in Indian music and folk-rock filtered through into the later Beatles albums, helping to broaden the range of the Beatles’ music. After the split of the Beatles, he retained a keen interest in Indian spirituality and was connected with the Hare Krishna movement until his death in 2001.

After the break up of the Beatles, George Harrison pursued a successful solo career.  In 1970, he released the chart-topping album All Things Must Pass , which included his own compositions and recordings with friends. This album included the iconic number one hit – My Sweet Lord .

“My idea in “My Sweet Lord,” because it sounded like a “pop song,” was to sneak up on them a bit. The point was to have the people not offended by “Hallelujah,” and by the time it gets to “Hare Krishna,” they’re already hooked, and their foot’s tapping, and they’re already singing along “Hallelujah,” to kind of lull them into a sense of false security. And then suddenly it turns into “Hare Krishna,” and they will all be singing that before they know what’s happened, and they will think, “Hey, I thought I wasn’t supposed to like Hare Krishna!” (Interview with Mukunda Goswami (4 September 1982)

George Harrison also retained a variety of other interests such as gardening and working with other artists, such as Monty Python. In 1988, he co-founded the Travelling Wilburys – a super group including Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan.

In 1971 he helped organise the charity fundraiser – Concert for Bangladesh with Ravi Shankar.

George Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001 and his ashes were scattered on the Ganges in traditional Hindu fashion.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of George Harrison”, Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , 1st Jan. 2010. Last updated 1 March 2018

Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison

Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison at Amazon

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

George Harrison: Living in the Material World at Amazon

Related pages

External links

•  George Harrison.com
• George Harrison – Life in pictures at BBC

George Harrison

• Born February 25 , 1943 · Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
• Died November 29 , 2001 · Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (lung cancer)
• The Quiet Beatle
• The Quiet One
• Height 5′ 10½″ (1.79 m)
• A master musician, a film producer and actor, best known as the lead guitarist and occasionally lead vocalist of The Beatles , George Harrison was born February 25, 1943, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He was also the youngest of four children, born to Harold Harrison and Louise Harrison . Like his future band mates, Harrison was not born into wealth. Louise was largely a stay-at-home mom while her husband Harold drove a school bus for the Liverpool Institute, an acclaimed grammar school that George attended and where he first met a young classmate, Paul McCartney . By his own admission, Harrison was not much of a student and what little interest he did have for his studies washed away with his discovery of the electric guitar and American rock-'n'-roll. There were a lot of harmonies in the Harrison household. He had a knack of sorts for it by age 12 or 13, while riding a bike around his neighborhood and hearing Elvis Presley 's "Heartbreak Hotel", playing from a nearby house. By the age of 14 George--who was a fan of such legends as , Harrison, who grew up in the likes of listening to such rock legends Carl Perkins , Little Richard and Buddy Holly --had purchased his first guitar and taught himself a few chords. McCartney', who had recently joined up with another Liverpool teenager, John Lennon , in a skiffle group known as The Quarrymen, invited Harrison to see the band perform. Harrison and Lennon had a few things in common, such as the fact that they both attended Dovedale Primary School but didn't know each other. Their paths finally crossed in early 1958. McCartney had been egging the 17-year-old Lennon to allow the 14-year-old Harrison to join the band, but Lennon was reluctant; as legend has it, after seeing McCartney and Lennon perform, George was granted an audition on the upper deck of a bus, where he wowed Lennon with his rendition of popular American rock riffs. The 17-year-old Harrison's music career was in full swing by 1960. Lennon had renamed the band The Beatles and the young group began cutting its rock teeth in the small clubs and bars around Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany. Within two years, the group had a new drummer, Ringo Starr , and a manager, Brian Epstein , a young record store owner who eventually landed the group a record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Before the end of 1962, Harrison and The Beatles recorded a song, "Love Me Do", that landed in the UK Top 20 charts. Early that following year, another hit, "Please Please Me," was released, followed by an album by the same name. "Beatlemania" was in full swing across England, and by early 1964, with the release of their album in the US and an American tour, it had swept across the States as well. Largely referred to as the "Quiet Beatle" Harrison took a back seat to McCartney, Lennon and, to a certain extent, Starr. Still, he could be quick-witted, even edgy. During the middle of one American tour, the group members were asked how they slept at night with long hair. From the get-go, Lennon-McCartney were primary lead vocalists. While the two spent most of the time writing their own songs, Harrison had shown an early interest in creating his own work. In the summer of 1963 he spearheaded his first song, "Don't Bother Me," which made its way on to the group's second album. From there on out, Harrison's songs were a staple of all Beatle records. In fact, some of the group's more memorable songs--e.g., "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Something," which was the only Beatle song ever recorded by Frank Sinatra --were penned by Harrison. However, his influence on the group and pop music in general extended beyond just singles. In 1965, while on the set of The Beatles' second film, Help! (1965) , Harrison took an interest in some of the Eastern instruments and their musical arrangements that were being used in the film. He soon developed a deep interest in Indian music. He taught himself the sitar, introducing the instrument to many western ears on Lennon's song, "Norwegian Wood"" He soon cultivated a close relationship with renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar . Other groups, including The Rolling Stones , began incorporating the sitar into some of their work. It could be argued that Harrison's experimentation with different kinds of instrumentation helped pave the way for such ground-breaking Beatle albums as "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". Harrison's interest in Indian music soon extended into a yearning to learn more about eastern spiritual practices. In 1968 he led The Beatles on a journey to northern India to study transcendental meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi . Having grown spiritually and musically since the group first started, Harrison, who wanted to include more of his material on Beatle records, was clearly uneasy with the McCartney-Lennon dominance of the group. During the "Let It Be" recording sessions in 1969, Harrison walked out, staying away for several weeks before he was coaxed to come back with the promise that the band would use more of his songs on its records. However, tensions in the group were clearly high. Lennon and McCartney had ceased writing together years before, and they, too, were feeling the need to go in a different direction. In January of 1970 the group recorded Harrison's "I Me Mine." It was the last song the four would ever record together. Three months later, McCartney announced he was leaving the band and The Beatles were officially over. After the breakup of The Beatles, Harrison pursued a solo career. He immediately assembled a studio band consisting of ex-Beatle Starr, guitar legend Eric Clapton , keyboardist Billy Preston and others to record all the songs that had never made it on to The Beatles catalog. The result was a three-disc album, "All Things Must Pass". While one of its signature songs, "My Sweet Lord," was later deemed too similar in style to The Chiffons ' 1963 hit "He's So Fine," forcing the guitarist to cough up nearly $600,000, the album as a whole remains Harrison's most acclaimed record. Not long after the album's release, Harrison combined his charitable work and his continued passion for the east when he put together a series of ground-breaking benefit concerts at New York City's Madison Square Garden to raise money for refugees in Bangladesh. Known as the "Concert for Bangladesh", the shows, which featured Bob Dylan , Leon Russell , and Ravi Shankar, would go on to raise some $15 million for UNICEF, produced a Grammy-winning album, a successful documentary film ( The Concert for Bangladesh (1972) ) and laid the groundwork for future benefit shows like "Live Aid" and "Farm Aid". Not everything about post-Beatle life went smoothly for Harrison, though. In 1974, his marriage to Pattie Boyd, whom he'd married eight years before, ended when she left him for Eric Clapton. His studio work struggled, too, from 1973-77, starting with, "Living in the Material World", "Extra Texture," and "33 1/3," all of which failed to meet sales expectations. Following the release of that last album, Harrison took a short break from music, winding down his own label, Dark Horse Records--which he had started in 1974, and which had released albums by a number of other bands--and started his own film production company, Handmade Films. The company produced the successful Monty Python film Life of Brian (1979) and would go on to make 26 other films before Harrison sold his interest in the company in 1994. In 1979, he returned to the studio to release his self-titled album. It was followed two years later by, "Somewhere in England," which was still being worked on at the time of John Lennon 's assassination in December of 1980. The record eventually included the Lennon tribute track, "All Those Years Ago," a song that reunited ex-Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr , along with ex- Wings members Denny Laine and Linda McCartney . While the song was a hit, the album, its predecessor and its successor, "Gone Troppo," weren't. For Harrison the lack of commercial appeal and the constant battles with music executives proved draining and prompted another studio hiatus. A comeback of sorts came in November 1987, however, with the release of the album "Cloud Nine," produced by Jeff Lynne (of Electric Light Orchestra ). The album turned out several top-charting hits, including "Got My Mind Set On You"-- remake of the 1962 song by Rudy Clark --and "When We Was Fab," a song that reflected on the life of Beatlemania, with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, who was dressed up as a walrus, but was a camera shy, in February 1988. Later that year Harrison formed The Traveling Wilburys . The group consisted of Harrison, Lynne, Roy Orbison , Tom Petty and Bob Dylan , and spawned two successful albums. Buoyed by the group's commercial success, Harrison took to the road with his new bandmates in 1992, embarking on his first international tour in 18 years. Not long afterwards he was reunited with McCartney and Starr for the creation of an exhaustive three-part release of a Beatles anthology--which featured alternative takes, rare tracks and a John Lennon demo called "Free as a Bird," that the three surviving Beatles completed in the studio. The song went on to become the group's 34th Top 10 single. After that, however, Harrison largely became a homebody, keeping himself busy with gardening and his cars at his expansive and restored home in Henley-on-Thames in south Oxfordshire, England. Still, the ensuing years were not completely stress-free. In 1997, Harrison, a longtime smoker, was successfully treated for throat cancer. Eighteen months later, his life was again put on the line when a deranged 33-year-old Beatles fan somehow managed to circumvent Harrison's intricate security system and broke into his home, attacking the musician and his wife Olivia with a knife. Harrison was treated for a collapsed lung and minor stab wounds. Olivia suffered several cuts and bruises. In May 2001, Harrison's cancer returned. There was lung surgery, but doctors soon discovered the cancer had spread to his brain. That autumn, he traveled to the US for treatment and was eventually hospitalized at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. He died November 29, 2001, at ex-bandmate McCartney's house in Los Angeles, at aged 58, with his wife and son at his side. Just one year after his death, Harrison's final studio album, "Brainwashed," was released. It was produced by Lynne, Harrison's son Dhani Harrison and Harrison himself, and featured a collection of songs he'd been working at the time of his death. Dhani finished putting the album together and it was released in November of 2002. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Richard Collins II ([email protected]) (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)
• Spouses Olivia Harrison (September 1, 1978 - November 29, 2001) (his death, 1 child) Pattie Boyd (January 21, 1966 - June 9, 1977) (divorced)
• Children Dhani Harrison
• Parents Harold Harrison Louise Harrison
• Relatives Peter Harrison (Sibling) Harry Harrison (Sibling) Louise Harrison (Sibling)
• His Gretsch Country Gentleman electric guitar
• Songs about love
• His usual beard.
• Rainbow colored Stratocaster dubbed "Rocky", which he painted himself, and red Les Paul "Lucy', the latter previously owned by Eric Clapton
• He played 26 instruments: guitar, sitar, four-string guitar, bass guitar, arp bass, violin, tamboura, dobro, swordmandel, tabla, organ, piano, moog synthesizer, harmonica, autoharp, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, claves, African drum, conga drum, tympani, ukulele, mandolin, marimba and Jal-Tarang.
• When it was his final show at Madison Square Garden in New York, he told 11-year-old Julian Lennon to tell his father, John Lennon , "All is forgiven and I still love you." That was the last time Harrison saw Lennon before his death.
• In the early 1970s Eric Clapton fell madly in love with Pattie Boyd (at the time married to Harrison) and wrote "Layla" about her; when she refused to leave George for him, Clapton became so distraught and depressed he turned to heroin and developed a severe addiction. By 1974, feeling abandoned by George's obsession with Indian culture, Pattie left George for Eric and the Harrisons' divorce was finalized in 1977. Two years later, Pattie and Eric were married (they divorced in 1988). Through it all, George, Eric and Pattie remained the best of friends - George attended the Claptons' wedding reception and commented, "I'd rather she was with him than some dope". (Clapton and Harrison called each other "husbands-in-law.").
• In 1968 Eric Clapton played guitar on George's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on The Beatles ' "White Album". Also, George was at Eric's home in England and wrote "Here Comes the Sun" while skipping a board meeting for the band's company, Apple Corps.
• After his lung cancer was found to have returned in March 2001, Harrison was operated on in June and had half of one lung removed. By November of that year however the cancer had spread to his brain, making recovery impossible.
• I'd rather be a musician than a rock star.
• [his last public statement, issued after his death] Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another.
• [at his induction into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame] It's a shame Paul [ Paul McCartney ] can't be here, because he was the one who had the speech in his pocket.
• [on his teenage years in Liverpool] You couldn't get a cup of sugar, let alone a rock-and-roll record.
• [on the reasons why he became a vegetarian] People are simply screwing up when they go out and buy beefsteak, which is killing them with cancer and heart troubles. The stuff costs a fortune, too. You could feed a thousand people with lentil soup for the cost of half a dozen filets.

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