Home	George Harrison Profile, Detailed Biography, Facts	ROCK FASHION SHOP T-Shirt, Clothing, Sweatshirt, Outdoor The Beatles T-Shirts Rock&Roll T-Shirts Music T-Shirt Shop T-Shirts Sweatshirts Long Sleeve T-Shirts Women's T-Shirts POSTER SHOP 2Pac The Beatles The Doors The Grateful Dead Jimi Hendrix Michael Jackson Janis Joplin Led Zeppelin Madonna Nirvana Music Poster Shop Music Styles: Blues Dance / Club Music Jazz Music New Wave Pop Music Rap & Hip Hop R&B & Soul Rock Music Vintage Posters
The Beatles Main Page Biography Discography Group Members Beatles Members as instrumentalists and composers Detailed Infos about Beatles Group Members: John Lennon Biography, Group Career, Solo Career, his death Paul McCartney Biography, Group Career, Solo Career, as Painter George Harrison Biography, Group Career, Solo Career, his death Ringo Starr Biography, Group Career, Solo Career IMAGES: The Beatles Picture Gallery Next: Johnny Cash Previous: Tupac	GEORGE HARRISON George Harrison: Rock Musician / Movie Producer / Beatles Group Member Born: 25 February 1943 Birthplace: Liverpool, England Died: 29 November 2001 - cancer Best Known As: One of The Beatles Group Members George Harrison was born February 24, 1943, was a very popular British songwriter, musician and film producer. According to Harrison, his birthday was really February 25. His sister has said that their mother wrote in her diary that he was born ten minutes after midnight on 25 February. Harrison married twice. His first wife was the model, Pattie Boyd, for whom Harrison is sometimes supposed to have written the song "Something"; that marriage ended in divorce. Harrison married for a second time to Olivia Trinidad Arias, in September 1978. The ceremony took place at their home, with Joe Brown acting as best man. They had one son, Dhani Harrison, born the previous month. Born in Liverpool, England, and raised as a child at 12 Arnold Grove, he first attended school at Dovedale Infants, just off Penny Lane. Later on, he attended the Liverpool Institute, a "smart school", but was regarded as a poor student, and contemporaries described him as someone who would "sit alone in the corner". In the mid-1950s he knew Paul McCartney (also a Liverpool Institute student) and beginning in February 1958 played lead guitar in the band (initially called the Quarry Men) that eventually became the Beatles. At the height of the Beatles' popularity, he was often characterized as the "Quiet Beatle", noted for his introspective manner and his growing interest in Hinduism. In the mid 1960s he began playing the sitar, which influenced the sound of the Beatles' music in such songs as "Norwegian Wood", "Love You To", and "Within You Without You". His experimentation with the instrument brought him into contact with the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, who became a close friend and mentor. It was his meeting with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that led him first into meditation. In the summer of 1969, the Beatles produced the single "Hare Krishna Mantra", performed by Harrison and the devotees of the London Radha-Krishna Temple that topped the 10 best-selling record charts throughout UK, Europe, and Asia. The same year, he and fellow Beatle John Lennon met Swami Prabhupada A.C. Bhaktivedanta, the founder of the Hindu sect International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Soon after, Harrison embraced the Hare Krishna tradition and remained associated with them until his death. While, during his lifetime, Harrison had bequeathed to the society his Lethmore Heath ranch, located north of London, he redoubted speculations that he would leave ISKCON a large sum in his will: in fact, he left nothing to the organization. George Harrison's Career in The Beatles Harrison was a fluent, inventive and highly accomplished rhythm and lead guitarist, whose influences included Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins and Chet Atkins. Although he was a creative soloist, several of his famous Beatles guitar solos were recorded under specific directions from Paul McCartney, who on occasion demanded that Harrison play what he envisioned virtually note-for-note. A turning point in Harrison's career came during an American tour in 1965, when his friend David Crosby of The Byrds introduced him to Indian classical music and the work of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Harrison quickly became fascinated with the sitar, immersed himself in Indian music and was instrumental in popularising the sitar in particular and Indian music in general in the West. He travelled to India to take lessons from Shankar, bought a sitar himself, and became the first western popular musician to use one on a recording (Norwegian Wood). He championed Shankar with western audiences and was largely responsible for having him included on the bill at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967. Harrison and Lennon were the first two of the Beatles to try LSD in 1965, when they were unwittingly 'dosed' by their dentist at a party in London. For a short time Harrison used the drug regularly and became an enthusiastic advocate, although he later renounced the use of drugs. Harrison formed a close friendship with Eric Clapton in the late 1960s and they co-wrote the song "Badge", which was released on Cream's farewell album in 1969. This song was the basis for Harrison's composition for The Beatles' Abbey Road album, "Here Comes The Sun", which was written in Clapton's back garden. Harrison married model Pattie Boyd in 1966, but in the late 1960s Clapton fell in love with her. Clapton famously poured out his unrequited passion on the landmark Derek & the Dominoes album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1971), but soon after its release Boyd left her husband and she and Clapton subsequently married. Despite this, the two men remained close friends. Friction between Harrison and McCartney increased markedly during the recording of The White Album, with Harrison threatening to leave the group on several occasions. The tension between Harrison and McCartney can be clearly seen in several scenes in the Let It Be documentary film and relations became so strained during the making of the film that Harrison briefly quit the band. While not the primary composer in the group (Lennon and McCartney wrote the vast bulk of the Beatles' material), as time went on Harrison's songwriting improved greatly and his material gradually earned respect from both his fellow Beatles and the public. By the mid-Sixties Lennon and McCartney had become somewhat more accepting of his contributions, although he later said that he always had difficulty getting his songs recorded and only managed to get one or two included on each LP. Notable Harrison compositions from the Beatles' oeuvre include: the intricate "If I Needed Someone"; "I Want To Tell You"; the Indian-influenced "Love You To"; the acerbic "Taxman" (later referenced in Cheap Trick's "Taxman, Mr. Thief" and The Jam's "Start"); the much-maligned "Within You, Without You", which is arguably a foundation stone of the world music genre; "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", which was strongly influenced by the music of his friend Roy Orbison and featured a guitar solo by his close friend Eric Clapton; "Piggies", which later featured inadvertently in the notorious Charles Manson murder case. "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something" are probably his two best-known Beatles songs. "Something" is considered one of his very best works, and was even covered by Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. His increasing productivity, coupled with his difficulties in getting The Beatles to record his music, meant that by the end of the group's career he had amassed a considerable stockpile of unreleased material. George Harrison's Solo Career