George Harrison Biography, Songs, Discography, Albums, and Awards

Who was George Harrison, and why does he continue to matter? George Harrison was the lead guitarist of the Beatles and an idiosyncratic songwriter who brought Indian timbres, spiritual curiosity, and luminous slide guitar into popular and rock music, leaving a catalog that remains fragile, inventive, and gently courageous.

George Harrison was born on 25 February 1943 in Liverpool, England, and graduated from an unpretentious background at 12 Arnold Grove to international stardom as the most unobtrusively revolutionary Beatle.

His father, Harold, and mother, Louise, led mundane lives and supported music in the household, and George grew up the youngest of four siblings in a supportive family who appreciated cheer and elbow grease.

He attended Dovedale Primary School and then the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, where he worried more about guitars than exams, drawing fretboards on the inside of his exercise books and soaking up early influences between George Formby and Django Reinhardt and Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry.

A cheap beginner’s guitar and a skiffle group with friends ignited the fuse. On the school bus he clicked with Paul McCartney, which led to an intro to John Lennon and the Quarrymen.

After an early audition and a bus top demonstration of his effortless lead playing, he joined on a permanent basis. Those early Hamburg residencies, long nights on packed stages, and manager Brian Epstein joining the fray tempered the Beatles’ onslaught, and by 1963 Harrison remained the calm eye of the hurricane.

He earned the rep of the quiet Beatle not because he wasn’t humorous but because he chose his words–and his notes–and with precision. As the Beatles careened from Merseybeat to international creativity, Harrison widened their repertoire.

He espoused the cause of folk rock, fell head over heels in love with the sitar and the Indian classical tradition after meeting Ravi Shankar, and led the group along the path of meditation and more inner peace. From 1965 onwards, Beatles albums often featured at least two of his tracks.

Taxman spoofed with acid wit, Within You Without You introduced Indian modes to the mainstream without parodying them, While My Guitar Gently Weeps delivered wounded feeling, Something became one of the period’s closest ballads, and Here Comes the Sun beamed sunlight.

When the group fell apart he returned with a stockpile and delivered All Things Must Pass, a triple which proclaimed a signature voice built on radiant slide guitar, private piety, and great widely-open-ended melodic lines.

My Sweet Lord and What Is Life became benchmarks of the spirituality that enshrouded much of the late period work, and his Concert for Bangladesh with Ravi Shankar showed that popular can call on empathy on a grand scale. Harrison also helped out others.

He established Dark Horse Records, helped friends throughout sessions and stages, and cofounded HandMade Films, which helped keep British movies alive with the likes of Life of Brian and Time Bandits.

In 1988 he returned to popular heights with Cloud Nine and thereafter joined the Traveling Wilburys with Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty, exchanging harmonies like old uncles around the table amid cups of tea.

His life intertwined the successful with the difficult. His marriage to Pattie Boyd fell apart in the late nineteen seventies, and he thereafter married Olivia Arias, with whom he had a son, Dhani.

A theft on 29 September 1999 caused serious injury and shook those he knew, and cancer eventually killed him on 29 November 2001, at fifty eight.

All the time he held on to the simple routine of chant, meditation, gardening, and thanksgiving. He got made MBE with the Beatles, entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the group and again on his own, and received subsequent awards that nodded not just to that voice of the guitars but also the gentle example of the man.

Ask musicians who made him distinctive and many will talk of that lyrical slide of the guitars, the fact that lines of his sing instead of strut, and the way he made space for stillness amidst very loud rooms.

That is how George Harrison endures. He demonstrated that popular can be catchy and questioning at one and the same time, and that gentleness can have great strength.

George Harrison Top songs

1. Something
2. Here Comes the Sun
3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
4. Taxman
5. Within You Without You
6. My Sweet Lord
7. What Is Life
8. Give Me Love, Give Me Peace on Earth
9. All Things Must Pass
10. Beware of Darkness
11. Wah Wah
12. Got My Mind Set on You
13. Any Road
14. Handle with Care
15. The Inner Light

George Harrison Discography

Studio albums

• All Things Must Pass, 1970
• Living in the Material World, 1973
• Dark Horse, 1974
• Extra Texture, Read All About It, 1975
• Thirty Three and 1⁄3, 1976
• George Harrison, 1979
• Somewhere in England, 1981
• Gone Troppo, 1982
• Cloud Nine, 1987
• Brainwashed, 2002

Instrumental and experimental

• Wonderwall Music, 1968
• Electronic Sound, 1969

George Harrison Top albums

1. All Things Must Pass, 1970
   An extravagant, emotionally raw set that converts private devotions into wide-screen rococo. The production is grand, the songwriting is abundant, and the slide guitar voice is instantly his. My Sweet Lord and What Is Life frame an album that still sounds like it’s a new beginning.
2. Living in the Material World, 1973
   A more contemplative and serene follow up of gentle tunes and robust construction. Give Me Love topped the charts, and the album achieves a balance between religious lyrics and comfortable musicianship.
3. Cloud Nine, 1987
   Late career comeback written with Jeff Lynne. The songs were short, the musicianship effortless, and Got My Mind Set on You brought him back to the radio with a smile.
4. George Harrison, 1979
   Bright and tuneful, set against the background of family life and ease reaffirmed. Blow Away is distinctive and the album displays a songwriter at ease with his abilities.
5. Thirty Three and 1⁄3, 1976
   Bright and snappy with outstanding shelf session work. This Song ends a courtroom drama on a humorous note, and Crackerbox Palace adds a sparkle that suits his dry wit.
6. Brainwashed, 2002
   Written by Dhani Harrison and Jeff Lynne from the last tapes of George. It is clear eyed and compassionate, with the Marwa Blues shining like a silent prayer and Any Road providing hard earned cheer.

George Harrison Awards

• Member of the Order of the British Empire with the Beatles, 1965
• Academy Award for Original Song Score for Let It Be with the Beatles, 1971
• Grammy Award for Album of the Year for The Concert for Bangladesh as George Harrison and Friends, 1973 ceremony
• Billboard Century Award, 1992
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with the Beatles, 1988
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction as a solo artist, 2004
• Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for Marwa Blues, 2004
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2015
• Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 2009

George Harrison Singles List

Notes: “—” = did not chart on the Hot 100. *102 = peaked on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 extension (just outside the Hot 100).

Source: George Harrison singles and U.S. chart peaks from the Wikipedia discography.

George Harrison FAQs