FEATURE:
Twenty Years Later: Remembering a Musical Genius
The George Harrison Playlist
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I will end with a playlist…
IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1963
featuring songs sung or written by a true musical great. It is hard to know where to begin with George Harrison. One quarter of the greatest and most influential band ever, The Beatles, he also had an amazingly successful solo career. He was a member of the ultimate supergroup, Traveling Wilburys (alongside Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty). We lost the legend on 29th November, 2001. Almost twenty years ago, it was a bleak day for the world. The second Beatle to die (John Lennon was killed in 1980), for millions who had followed and grown up with the group, it felt like a member of the family being taken away. After his death from cancer at the age of fifty-eight, fans and musicians from around the world paid tribute to someone who helped change everything. It would be unfair to think of him merely as a part of The Beatles. As a member of the band, he was a stunning songwriter who blossomed towards the end of the band’s career. His solo work allowed him more freedom as a writer and performer. Look back at his career in all guises, one can hear this amazing musician and songwriter who had a voice and style like no-one else. I am keen to get to a playlist that showcases the musical brilliance of George Harrison. From his earliest days in The Beatles as a teenager to his final album, 2002’s Brainwashed, we were lucky to have had his music in the world!
As the documentary film, The Beatles: Get Back, runs on 25th, 26th and 27th November, we get to see Harrison with The Beatles when recording Let It Be. Whilst Abbey Road was when we would hear his masterpieces like Something and Here Comes the Sun, the film will show that there was more harmony and togetherness in the group than most people realise. Prior to coming to his musical best, it is worth bringing in some biography about his Beatles and solo work:
“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.)
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”.
Twenty years after George Harrison died, his music is still bring played. Even though everyone, naturally, will see him as a Beatle, his amazing work away from the band stands up as works of sheer brilliance on its own. 1970’s All Things Must Pass ranks as one of the best albums ever! The playlist below marks the memory of a musical genius, and it shows us what the great man…
GAVE the world of music.