George Harrison

• 1. Introduction

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  George Harrison was born at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, Liverpool, on the 25th of February 1943, in a terraced house on a cul-de-sac with an outdoor toilet and a single coal fire for heat. He would grow up to become the lead guitarist of the Beatles, ranked number 31 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2023 list of the greatest guitarists of all time. But the trajectory from that cold Liverpool street to the stages of Madison Square Garden is stranger and richer than the headline suggests.

  Harrison's mother Louise tuned into Radio India every Sunday while she was pregnant with him, hoping the sounds of sitars and tablas would bring peace to the baby. His biographer Joshua Greene wrote that she listened to those "mystical sounds" with intention. Whether or not those prenatal broadcasts planted anything, the sitar would later become the instrument through which Harrison reshaped popular music.

  How did a teenager who failed to impress John Lennon at his first audition end up writing songs that Frank Sinatra called "the greatest love song of the past fifty years"? How did the man dismissed as the "quiet Beatle" go on to organise one of the most significant charity concerts in history, co-found a film company that helped sustain British cinema, and die at peace, surrounded by Hare Krishna devotees chanting from the Bhagavad Gita? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. The Making of a Guitarist

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  When Harrison was about 14, a friend named Raymond Hughes offered to sell him a guitar. His mother paid £3 10s. for it, and one of his father's friends taught him "Whispering", "Sweet Sue" and "Dinah". It was a modest beginning, but Harrison had already been drawing guitars in the backs of his schoolbooks, having heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" drifting from a nearby house while he rode his bicycle in early 1956.

  The Liverpool Institute High School for Boys disappointed him. The school did offer a music course, but there were no guitars. Harrison later said the school "moulded students into being frightened". He sat at the back, drawing instruments he did not yet own, and told anyone who asked that he was "totally into guitars".

  His earliest influences were broad: George Formby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt and Hoagy Carmichael in the earlier years, then Carl Perkins and Lonnie Donegan as rock and roll took hold in the 1950s. Slim Whitman was another touchstone. Harrison recalled: "The first person I ever saw playing a guitar was Slim Whitman, either a photo of him in a magazine or live on television. Guitars were definitely coming in."

  On the bus to school, he met Paul McCartney, who attended the same institution. Their shared obsession with music built a friendship that would change both their lives. When McCartney's friend John Lennon held auditions for his skiffle group at Rory Storm's Morgue Skiffle Club in March 1958, Harrison played Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith's "Guitar Boogie Shuffle". Lennon thought Harrison, who had just turned 15, was too young. McCartney arranged a second meeting on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, and Harrison played the lead guitar part of the instrumental "Raunchy" from memory. He was in.

• 3. Inside the Beatles

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  The nickname "the quiet Beatle" stuck for a reason that was more medical than temperamental. When the Beatles arrived in the United States in early 1964, Harrison was ill with strep throat and a fever, and his doctor told him to limit speaking as much as possible before his performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The press noticed his silence on that tour and assumed it was his natural character. Harrison found the resulting reputation amusing.

  He served a function within the Beatles that is easy to underestimate. He was the band's scout for new American releases, particularly knowledgeable about soul music. By Rubber Soul in 1965, he had begun steering the group toward folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and toward Indian classical music through his use of the sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". He later called Rubber Soul his favourite Beatles album.

  Revolver in 1966 marked a turning point. Harrison contributed three compositions: "Taxman", selected as the album's opening track, "Love You To" and "I Want to Tell You". According to the ethnomusicologist David Reck, "Love You To" set a precedent in popular music as an example of Asian culture being represented by Westerners respectfully and without parody. Author Nicholas Schaffner wrote in 1978 that Harrison had become known as "the maharaja of raga-rock".

  By late 1966, Harrison's attention had drifted away from the Beatles. His sole composition on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was "Within You Without You", to which no other Beatle contributed. He later described the album as "a millstone and a milestone in the music industry... There's about half the songs I like and the other half I can't stand."

  The tensions that broke the band came to a head in January 1969 at Twickenham Studios, during the filmed rehearsals that became the documentary Let It Be. Frustrated by the cold film studio, by what he saw as Lennon's creative disengagement, and by what he called McCartney's domineering attitude, Harrison quit the group on the 10th of January. He returned 12 days later after his bandmates agreed to move to their own Apple Studio. By the time Abbey Road was recorded later that year, McCartney privately acknowledged to Lennon that Harrison's songs had reached the same level as theirs.

• 4. Something and Something Else

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  "Something" became Harrison's first A-side single when issued as a double A-side with "Come Together". The combined sides topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, and the song reached number one in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and West Germany. Frank Sinatra recorded it twice, in 1970 and again in 1979, and later called it "the greatest love song of the past fifty years". Lennon considered it the best song on Abbey Road, and it became the Beatles' second most covered song after "Yesterday".

  The guitar solo on "Something" represents a moment of synthesis in Harrison's playing. According to musicologist Kenneth Womack, the solo "meanders toward the most unforgettable of Harrison's guitar solos... a masterpiece in simplicity." It draws on the blues guitar style of Eric Clapton and the techniques of Indian gamakas, the melodic ornaments of classical Indian music. Those two traditions had been running in parallel through Harrison's career, and on that track they merged.

  Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner described Harrison as "a guitarist who was never showy but who had an innate, eloquent melodic sense. He played exquisitely in the service of the song." Clapton felt that Harrison was "clearly an innovator" who was "taking certain elements of R&B and rock and rockabilly and creating something unique." Harrison's rhythm guitar work was inventive in specific, technical ways: he used a capo on acoustic guitar to create a bright sound, explored backward guitar on "I'm Only Sleeping", used an expression pedal to control volume on "I Need You" creating a syncopated flautando effect, and wrote guitar lines in parallel octaves.

  His use of the Rickenbacker 360/12 - the second of its kind ever manufactured - on A Hard Day's Night was so prominent that Melody Maker called the jangly tone the Beatles' "secret weapon". A custom-made Fender Telecaster Rosewood prototype, built for him by Philip Kubicki at Fender's request in late 1968, became another signature instrument. In August 2017, Fender released a "Limited Edition George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster" modelled after it.

• 5. After the Beatles

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  All Things Must Pass was released in 1970 as a triple album, with two discs of songs and a third disc of Harrison jamming with friends. It topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The number-one hit "My Sweet Lord" and the top-ten single "What Is Life" were among its most celebrated tracks. Co-produced by Phil Spector using his "Wall of Sound" approach, the album featured Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Gary Wright, Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann and the full Delaney and Bonnie's Friends band. Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone described it as "of classic Spectorian proportions, Wagnerian, Brucknerian, the music of mountain tops and vast horizons".

  "My Sweet Lord" brought legal trouble. In 1971, Bright Tunes sued Harrison for copyright infringement over its similarity to the 1963 Chiffons hit "He's So Fine". When the case was heard in a United States district court in 1976, the judge ruled that Harrison had plagiarised the song subconsciously. Harrison denied any deliberate copying, but lost.

  In 1974, Harrison became the first ex-Beatle to tour North America, embarking on a 45-date Dark Horse Tour that included Indian music performed by Ravi Shankar, Family and Friends alongside his rock set. Laryngitis affected his vocals throughout, leading some critics to call the tour "dark hoarse". The author Robert Rodriguez later observed that, for fans attuned to what Harrison was attempting, "they went away ecstatic, conscious that they had just witnessed something so uplifting that it could never be repeated".

  In 1988, Harrison formed the Traveling Wilburys with Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. The group had gathered in Dylan's garage to record a song intended as a B-side for a Harrison European single. His record company decided the track, "Handle with Care", was too good for that purpose and requested a full album. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 was released in October 1988, certified triple platinum in the United States. The second album was mischievously titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3. According to Lynne, skipping the second volume was Harrison's idea: "He said, 'Let's confuse the buggers.'" Following Roy Orbison's death in December 1988, the group never performed live.

• 6. The Concert for Bangladesh

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  Ravi Shankar came to Harrison in early 1971 asking for advice about a small charity event to aid refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War. Harrison organised something considerably larger. The Concert for Bangladesh took place on the 1st of August 1971, drawing over 40,000 people to two shows at Madison Square Garden in New York. Shankar opened the show, which featured Dylan, Clapton, Leon Russell, Badfinger, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr.

  Harrison had already written and recorded the song "Bangla Desh" earlier that year, which Apple Records issued in late July, making it pop music's first charity single. He also pushed Apple to release Shankar's Joi Bangla EP to raise further awareness.

  The concert raised more than $240,000 on the night. A triple album credited to "George Harrison and Friends" was released by Apple in December, followed by a concert film in 1972. The album topped the UK chart and peaked at number 2 in the US, winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Around $13.5 million was eventually generated through the album and film releases, though most of the funds were frozen in an Internal Revenue Service audit for nearly a decade because Klein had failed to register the event as a UNICEF benefit beforehand.

  Harrison was philosophical about the complications: "Mainly the concert was to attract attention to the situation... The money we raised was secondary, and although we had some money problems... they still got plenty... even though it was a drop in the ocean. The main thing was, we spread the word and helped get the war ended." In June 1972, UNICEF honoured Harrison, Shankar and Klein with the "Child Is the Father of Man" award. The Concert for Bangladesh has since been described as an innovative precursor for large-scale charity rock shows including Live Aid.

• 7. HandMade Films

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  In 1973, Peter Sellers introduced Harrison to Denis O'Brien, and the two soon went into business together. The catalyst for their film company came in 1978, when EMI Films withdrew its funding from Monty Python's Life of Brian at the demand of EMI's chief executive, Bernard Delfont. Harrison stepped in. He financed the production partly by mortgaging his home. Eric Idle later called this gesture "the most anybody's ever paid for a cinema ticket in history". The film grossed $21 million at the United States box office.

  HandMade Films went on to produce and distribute a substantial body of British cinema. The first film it distributed was The Long Good Friday in 1980. The first it produced was Time Bandits in 1981, co-scripted by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin, with a budget of $5 million that earned $35 million in the US within ten weeks. Harrison wrote a new song, "Dream Away", for the closing credits.

  Harrison served as executive producer for 23 films with HandMade, including A Private Function, Mona Lisa, Shanghai Surprise, Withnail and I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising. He made cameo appearances in several, including a role as a nightclub singer in Shanghai Surprise for which he recorded five new songs. According to Ian Inglis, Harrison's executive role "helped to sustain British cinema at a time of crisis, producing some of the country's most memorable movies of the 1980s."

  The company's later years were troubled. A series of box office failures and debt incurred by O'Brien that Harrison had personally guaranteed pushed the company toward insolvency. HandMade ceased operations in 1991 and was sold three years later to Paragon Entertainment, a Canadian corporation. Harrison subsequently sued O'Brien for $25 million for fraud and negligence. In 1996, a court awarded him $11.6 million.

• 8. Final Years

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  On the 30th of December 1999, a 34-year-old man named Michael Abram broke into Harrison's home at Friar Park and attacked him with a kitchen knife, puncturing a lung and causing head injuries. Abram was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Olivia Harrison stopped the attack by striking Abram repeatedly with a fireplace poker and a lamp. Harrison was hospitalised with more than 40 stab wounds and part of his punctured lung was removed.

  Harrison later recalled: "I vividly remember a deliberate thrust to my chest. I could hear my lung exhaling and had blood in my mouth. I believed I had been fatally stabbed." His response to the press about his assailant was characteristically dry: "He wasn't a burglar, and he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys." Those in his social circle believed the attack brought about a change in him and was connected to the return of the cancer he had been treated for in 1997.

  In November 2001, he began radiotherapy at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City for non-small cell lung cancer that had spread to his brain. Harrison died on the 29th of November 2001 at a property belonging to McCartney on Heather Road in Los Angeles, California. He was 58 years old. He died in the company of Olivia, his son Dhani, Ravi Shankar, Shankar's wife Sukanya, his daughter Anoushka, and Hare Krishna devotees Shyamasundar Das and Mukunda Goswami, who chanted verses from the Bhagavad Gita. His final message, relayed by Olivia and Dhani, was: "Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another."

  His body was cremated at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and his ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers near Varanasi, India. He left almost £100 million in his will. His final studio album, Brainwashed, was completed posthumously by Dhani and Jeff Lynne and released in 2002. The last song Harrison co-wrote was "Horse to the Water", recorded with Dhani on the 2nd of October 2001, eight weeks before his death, and released on Jools Holland's album Small World, Big Band.