Harrison, George

▪ 2002

      British musician, singer, and songwriter (b. Feb. 25, 1943, Liverpool, Eng.—d. Nov. 29, 2001, Los Angeles, Calif.), was the lead guitarist of the Beatles, who infused rock and roll with new depth and sophistication and became one of the most important and influential bands in the history of rock music; he later also achieved singular success as a songwriter and performer. Harrison was the youngest of the “Fab Four” and was known as the “quiet Beatle,” and though he had wanted to be successful, he never became comfortable with fame. He met fellow Beatle Paul McCartney when the two were grammar-school students at the Liverpool Institute. McCartney and John Lennon had formed a rock band, the Quarrymen—which changed its name to Johnny and the Moondogs and then the Silver Beatles before it became the Beatles—and eventually invited Harrison and later Ringo Starr to join. Although Lennon and McCartney wrote most of the songs the Beatles performed, Harrison contributed some of their finest ones, including “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Something”—the latter eventually recorded by some 150 other artists, second only to “Yesterday” among Beatles tunes covered. In 1965 Harrison, having become intrigued with the sound of the sitar, studied with Ravi Shankar so that sitar music could be used in Beatles songs. After it was heard in “Norwegian Wood” (1965), musicians in other groups also began featuring it. Harrison was also becoming increasingly interested in Eastern religions and culture, and in 1968 he and the Beatles, as well as a number of other celebrities, explored transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India. This trip helped bring Eastern religion to the attention of the West and influenced dozens of subsequent Beatles songs, but Harrison was the only Beatle to actually make these religious principles part of his life. Following the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, Harrison released the first of his many post-Beatles recordings, the highly successful triple album All Things Must Pass (1970); in 1971 he staged two concerts to raise money to fight starvation in Bangladesh—the prototype for later star-studded fund-raising events; and in 1979 he ventured into a new field, film production, as a founder of Handmade Films. Among the company's efforts were the Monty Python film Life of Brian (1979), Time Bandits (1981), and Mona Lisa (1986). In 1987 Harrison scored one of his biggest solo successes with the album Cloud Nine. Some of his most memorable songs as a solo artist included “My Sweet Lord,” “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” and “I Got My Mind Set on You.” Although Harrison spent much of his time in near seclusion with his family following the murder of Lennon in 1980, in the late 1980s he recorded and performed with the Traveling Wilburys, which also included Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne, and in the mid-1990s he took part in the Beatles anthology project. The last years of Harrison's life were difficult. In 1997 he was treated for throat cancer, and in late 1999 he was attacked in his home by a deranged intruder and suffered multiple stab wounds. The cancer recurred in mid-2001, and treatments were unsuccessful.

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