He was the youngest of four children of Harold Hargreaves (or Hargrove) Harrison (1909–1978) and Louise ( French; 1911–1970).
He had one sister, Louise (born 16 August 1931), and two brothers, Harold (born 1934) and Peter (20 July 1940 – 1 June 2007). According to Boyd, Harrison's mother was particularly supportive: "All she wanted for her children is that they should be happy, and she recognised that nothing made George quite as happy as making music." Louise was an enthusiastic music fan, and she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons' windows.
He had one sister, Louise (born 16 August 1931), and two brothers, Harold (born 1934) and Peter (20 July 1940 – 1 June 2007). According to Boyd, Harrison's mother was particularly supportive: "All she wanted for her children is that they should be happy, and she recognised that nothing made George quite as happy as making music." Louise was an enthusiastic music fan, and she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons' windows.
He had one sister, Louise (born 16 August 1931), and two brothers, Harold (born 1934) and Peter (20 July 1940 – 1 June 2007). According to Boyd, Harrison's mother was particularly supportive: "All she wanted for her children is that they should be happy, and she recognised that nothing made George quite as happy as making music." Louise was an enthusiastic music fan, and she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons' windows.
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer-songwriter, and music and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles.
He left an estate of almost £100 million. ==Early years: 1943–1958== Harrison was born at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, Liverpool on 25 February 1943.
In 1948, at the age of five, Harrison enrolled at Dovedale Primary School.
In 1949, the family was offered a council house and moved to 25 Upton Green, Speke.
Though the institute did offer a music course, Harrison was disappointed with the absence of guitars, and felt the school "moulded [students] into being frightened". Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt and Hoagy Carmichael; by the 1950s, Carl Perkins and Lonnie Donegan were significant influences.
He passed the eleven-plus exam and attended Liverpool Institute High School for Boys from 1954 to 1959.
He had collected photos of racing drivers and their cars since he was young; at 12 he had attended his first race, the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree.
In early 1956, he had an epiphany: while riding his bicycle, he heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" playing from a nearby house, and the song piqued his interest in rock and roll.
However, in 1956, he bought George a Dutch Egmond flat-top acoustic guitar, which according to Harold, cost £3.10s.– (equivalent to £ in ).
On the bus to school, Harrison met Paul McCartney, who also attended the Liverpool Institute, and the pair bonded over their shared love of music. ==The Beatles: 1958–1970== Harrison became part of the Beatles with McCartney and John Lennon when the band were still a skiffle group called the Quarrymen.
In March 1958, he auditioned for the Quarrymen at Rory Storm's Morgue Skiffle Club, playing Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith's "Guitar Boogie Shuffle", but Lennon felt that Harrison, having just turned 15, was too young to join the band.
It appeared on Jools Holland's album Small World, Big Band. ===Guitars=== When Harrison joined the Quarrymen in 1958 his main guitar was a Höfner President Acoustic, which he soon traded for a Höfner Club 40 model.
He passed the eleven-plus exam and attended Liverpool Institute High School for Boys from 1954 to 1959.
During the group's first tour of Scotland, in 1960, Harrison used the pseudonym "Carl Harrison", in reference to Carl Perkins. In 1960, promoter Allan Williams arranged for the band, now calling themselves the Beatles, to play at the Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs in Hamburg, both owned by Bruno Koschmider.
Although not fast or flashy, his lead guitar playing was solid and typified the more subdued lead guitar style of the early 1960s.
In the 1960s, the Beatles supported the civil rights movement and protested against the Vietnam War.
From the moment I had that, I wanted to have it all the time – these thoughts about the yogis and the Himalayas, and Ravi's music." In line with the Hindu yoga tradition, Harrison became a vegetarian in the late 1960s.
When Brian Epstein became their manager in December 1961, he polished up their image and later secured them a recording contract with EMI.
He identified Chuck Berry as another early influence. In 1961 the Beatles recorded "Cry for a Shadow", a blues-inspired instrumental co-written by Lennon and Harrison, who is credited with composing the song's lead guitar part, building on unusual chord voicings and imitating the style of other English groups such as the Shadows.
The guitars he used on early recordings were mainly Gretsch models, played through a Vox amplifier, including a Gretsch Duo Jet that he bought secondhand in 1961 and posed with on the album cover for Cloud Nine.
In May, he represented the Beatles at London's High Court in their successful bid to gain control of unauthorised recordings made of a 1962 performance by the band at the Star-Club in Hamburg.
The group's first single, "Love Me Do", peaked at number 17 on the Record Retailer chart, and by the time their debut album, Please Please Me, was released in early 1963, Beatlemania had arrived.
In 1971, Bright Tunes sued Harrison for copyright infringement over "My Sweet Lord", owing to its similarity to the 1963 Chiffons hit "He's So Fine".
Lavezzoli groups him with Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel as the three rock musicians who have given the most "mainstream exposure to non-Western musics, or the concept of 'world music'". ===Songwriting=== Harrison wrote his first song, "Don't Bother Me", while sick in a hotel bed in Bournemouth during August 1963, as "an exercise to see if I could write a song", as he remembered.
In 1963, he bought a Rickenbacker 425 Fireglo, and in 1964 he acquired a Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar, which was the second of its kind to be manufactured.
That moniker arose when the Beatles arrived in the United States in early 1964, and Harrison was ill with a case of Strep throat and a fever and was medically advised to limit speaking as much as possible until he performed on The Ed Sullivan Show as scheduled.
Another of Harrison's musical techniques was the use of guitar lines written in octaves, as on "I'll Be on My Way". By 1964, he had begun to develop a distinctive personal style as a guitarist, writing parts that featured the use of nonresolving tones, as with the ending chord arpeggios on "A Hard Day's Night".
He also bought a Gretsch Tennessean and a Gretsch Country Gentleman, which he played on "She Loves You", and during the Beatles' 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
In 1963, he bought a Rickenbacker 425 Fireglo, and in 1964 he acquired a Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar, which was the second of its kind to be manufactured.
Harrison and Boyd had met in 1964 during the production of the film A Hard Day's Night, in which the 19-year-old Boyd had been cast as a schoolgirl.
Harrison's first extravagant car, a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, was sold at auction on 7 December 2011 in London.
Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions.
By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and towards Indian classical music through his use of the sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".
By 1965's Rubber Soul, he had begun to lead the other Beatles into folk rock through his interest in the Byrds and Bob Dylan, and towards Indian classical music through his use of the sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".
In 1965 Harrison used an expression pedal to control his guitar's volume on "I Need You", creating a syncopated flautando effect with the melody resolving its dissonance through tonal displacements.
He also played bass on several solo recordings, including "Faster", "Wake Up My Love" and "Bye Bye Love". ===Sitar and Indian music=== During the Beatles' American tour in August 1965, Harrison's friend David Crosby of the Byrds introduced him to Indian classical music and the work of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.
Most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contain at least two Harrison compositions; three of his songs appear on Revolver, "the album on which Harrison came of age as a songwriter", according to Inglis. Harrison wrote the chord progression of "Don't Bother Me" almost exclusively in the Dorian mode, demonstrating an interest in exotic tones that eventually culminated in his embrace of Indian music.
Harrison obtained his first Fender Stratocaster in 1965 and first used it during the recording of the Help! album that February; he also used it when recording Rubber Soul later that year, most notably on the song "Nowhere Man". In early 1966, Harrison and Lennon each purchased Epiphone Casinos, which they used on Revolver.
An anonymous Beatles collector paid £350,000 for the vehicle that Harrison had bought new in January 1965. ===Relationships with the other Beatles=== For most of the Beatles' career the relationships in the group were close.
He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004. Harrison's first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977.
Harrison continued to develop his interest in non-Western instrumentation, playing swarmandal on "Strawberry Fields Forever". By late 1966, Harrison's interests had moved away from the Beatles.
He used the same volume-swell technique on "Yes It Is", applying what Everett described as "ghostly articulation" to the song's natural harmonics. In 1966, Harrison contributed innovative musical ideas to Revolver.
According to Lavezzoli, Harrison's introduction of the instrument on the Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood" "opened the floodgates for Indian instrumentation in rock music, triggering what Shankar would call 'The Great Sitar Explosion' of 1966–67".
Lavezzoli recognises Harrison as "the man most responsible for this phenomenon". In June 1966 Harrison met Shankar at the home of Mrs Angadi of the Asian Music Circle, asked to be his student, and was accepted.
Harrison obtained his first Fender Stratocaster in 1965 and first used it during the recording of the Help! album that February; he also used it when recording Rubber Soul later that year, most notably on the song "Nowhere Man". In early 1966, Harrison and Lennon each purchased Epiphone Casinos, which they used on Revolver.
Between the end of the last Beatles tour in 1966 and the beginning of the Sgt Pepper recording sessions, he made a pilgrimage to India with his wife Pattie; there, he studied sitar with Ravi Shankar, met several gurus, and visited various holy places.
After being given various religious texts by Shankar in 1966, he remained a lifelong advocate of the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda – yogis and authors, respectively, of Raja Yoga and Autobiography of a Yogi.
It doesn't matter what you call Him just as long as you call." He commented on his beliefs: Before his religious conversion, Cliff Richard had been the only British performer known for similar activities; Richard's conversion to Christianity in 1966 had gone largely unnoticed by the public.
what he, and the Beatles, had managed to overturn was the paternalistic assumption that popular musicians had no role other than to stand on stage and sing their hit songs." ===Family and interests=== Harrison married model Pattie Boyd on 21 January 1966, with McCartney serving as best man.
Having initiated the band's embracing of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.
'Taxman' and 'I Want to Tell You' was revolutionary in popular music – and perhaps more originally creative than the avant-garde mannerisms that Lennon and McCartney borrowed from the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky ..." Of the 1967 Harrison song "Within You Without You", author Gerry Farrell said that Harrison had created a "new form", calling the composition "a quintessential fusion of pop and Indian music".
There's about half the songs I like and the other half I can't stand." In January 1968, he recorded the basic track for his song "The Inner Light" at EMI's studio in Bombay, using a group of local musicians playing traditional Indian instruments.
While on a visit to Woodstock in late 1968, he established a friendship with Dylan and found himself drawn to the Band's sense of communal music-making and to the creative equality among the band members, which contrasted with Lennon and McCartney's domination of the Beatles' songwriting and creative direction.
Harrison's last recording session with the Beatles was on 4 January 1970, when he, McCartney and Starr recorded his song "I Me Mine" for the Let It Be soundtrack album. ==Solo career: 1968–1987== ===Early solo work: 1968–1969=== Before the Beatles' break-up, Harrison had already recorded and released two solo albums: Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sound, both of which contain mainly instrumental compositions.
Wonderwall Music, a soundtrack to the 1968 film Wonderwall, blends Indian and Western instrumentation, while Electronic Sound is an experimental album that prominently features a Moog synthesizer.
Released in November 1968, Wonderwall Music was the first solo album by a Beatle and the first LP released by Apple Records.
The following year, he was the most active of his former bandmates in promoting the reissue of their 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. On 30 December 1999, Harrison and his wife were attacked at their home, Friar Park.
During this visit, he also received tutelage from Shambhu Das, Shankar's protégé. Harrison studied the instrument until 1968, when, following a discussion with Shankar about the need to find his "roots", an encounter with Clapton and Jimi Hendrix at a hotel in New York convinced him to return to guitar playing.
In July 1968, Clapton gave him a Gibson Les Paul, which Harrison nicknamed "Lucy".
In late 1968, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation gave Harrison a custom-made Fender Telecaster Rosewood prototype, made especially for him by Philip Kubicki.
In 1968 he travelled to Rishikesh in northern India with the other Beatles to study meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Tensions among the group surfaced again in January 1969, at Twickenham Studios, during the filmed rehearsals that became the 1970 documentary Let It Be.
He returned twelve days later, after his bandmates had agreed to move the film project to their own Apple Studio and to abandon McCartney's plan for making a return to public performance. Relations among the Beatles were more cordial, though still strained, when the band recorded their 1969 album Abbey Road.
Indian musicians Aashish Khan and Shivkumar Sharma performed on the album, which contains the experimental sound collage "Dream Scene", recorded several months before Lennon's "Revolution 9". In December 1969, Harrison participated in a brief tour of Europe with the American group Delaney & Bonnie and Friends.
On 6 April 1992, Harrison held a benefit concert for the Natural Law Party at the Royal Albert Hall, his first London performance since the Beatles' 1969 rooftop concert.
In 1969, McCartney told Lennon: "Until this year, our songs have been better than George's.
Harrison's music projects during the final years of the Beatles included producing Apple Records artists Doris Troy, Jackie Lomax and Billy Preston. Harrison co-wrote the song "Badge" with Clapton, which was included on Cream's 1969 album, Goodbye.
Around this time, he obtained a Gibson Jumbo J-200 acoustic guitar, which he subsequently gave to Dylan to use at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival.
After the band's break-up in 1970, Harrison released the triple album All Things Must Pass, a critically acclaimed work that produced his most successful hit single, "My Sweet Lord", and introduced his signature sound as a solo artist, the slide guitar.
Tensions among the group surfaced again in January 1969, at Twickenham Studios, during the filmed rehearsals that became the 1970 documentary Let It Be.
In the 1970s Frank Sinatra recorded "Something" twice (1970 and 1979) and later dubbed 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". In May 1970 Harrison's song "For You Blue" was coupled on a US single with McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road" and became Harrison's second chart-topper when the sides were listed together at number one on the Hot 100.
Harrison's last recording session with the Beatles was on 4 January 1970, when he, McCartney and Starr recorded his song "I Me Mine" for the Let It Be soundtrack album. ==Solo career: 1968–1987== ===Early solo work: 1968–1969=== Before the Beatles' break-up, Harrison had already recorded and released two solo albums: Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sound, both of which contain mainly instrumental compositions.
Released in December 1995, "Free as a Bird" was the first new Beatles single since 1970.
In May 1970 he played guitar on several songs during a recording session for Dylan's album New Morning.
In early 1971, Ravi Shankar consulted Harrison about how to provide aid to the people of Bangladesh after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the Bangladesh Liberation War.
He also organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to later benefit concerts such as Live Aid.
In 1971, Bright Tunes sued Harrison for copyright infringement over "My Sweet Lord", owing to its similarity to the 1963 Chiffons hit "He's So Fine".
You know, it's hard to go back to anything thirty years later and expect it to be how you would want it now." ===The Concert for Bangladesh: 1971=== Harrison responded to a request from Ravi Shankar by organising a charity event, the Concert for Bangladesh, which took place on 1 August 1971.
Between 1971 and 1973 he co-wrote and/or produced three top ten hits for Starr: "It Don't Come Easy", "Back Off Boogaloo" and "Photograph".
Aside from "How Do You Sleep?", his contributions to Lennon's 1971 album Imagine included a slide guitar solo on "Gimme Some Truth" and dobro on "Crippled Inside".
In August 2017, Fender released a "Limited Edition George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster" modelled after a Telecaster that Roger Rossmeisl originally created for Harrison. ==Film production and HandMade Films== Harrison helped finance Ravi Shankar's documentary Raga and released it through Apple Films in 1971.
In early 1971, Ravi Shankar consulted Harrison about how to provide aid to the people of Bangladesh after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Shankar opened the show, which featured popular musicians such as Dylan, Clapton, Leon Russell, Badfinger, Preston and Starr. A triple album, The Concert for Bangladesh, was released by Apple in December, followed by a concert film in 1972.
In June 1972, UNICEF honoured Harrison and Shankar, and Klein, with the "Child Is the Father of Man" award at an annual ceremony in recognition of their fundraising efforts for Bangladesh. From 1980, Harrison became a vocal supporter of Greenpeace and CND.
Credited to "George Harrison and Friends", the album topped the UK chart and peaked at number 2 in the US, ===Living in the Material World to George Harrison: 1973–1979=== Harrison's 1973 album Living in the Material World held the number one spot on the Billboard albums chart for five weeks, and the album's single, "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)", also reached number one in the US.
Between 1971 and 1973 he co-wrote and/or produced three top ten hits for Starr: "It Don't Come Easy", "Back Off Boogaloo" and "Photograph".
In 1973, he produced the feature film Little Malcolm, but the project was lost amid the litigation surrounding the former Beatles ending their business ties with Klein. In 1973, Peter Sellers introduced Harrison to Denis O'Brien.
In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles' Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974 and co-founding HandMade Films in 1978. Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer.
Other reviewers were less enthusiastic, describing the release as awkward, sanctimonious and overly sentimental. In November 1974, Harrison became the first ex-Beatle to tour North America when he began his 45-date Dark Horse Tour.
It was Harrison's first since 1974 and no others followed.
He worked with Harry Nilsson on "You're Breakin' My Heart" (1972) and with Cheech & Chong on "Basketball Jones" (1973). In 1974 Harrison founded Dark Horse Records as an avenue for collaboration with other musicians.
They separated in 1974 and their divorce was finalised in 1977.
They had met at the A&M Records offices in Los Angeles in 1974, and together had one son, Dhani Harrison, born on 1 August 1978. He restored the English manor house and grounds of Friar Park, his home in Henley-on-Thames, where several of his music videos were filmed including "Crackerbox Palace"; the grounds also served as the background for the cover of All Things Must Pass.
Other artists signed by Dark Horse include Attitudes, Henry McCullough, Jiva and Stairsteps. Harrison collaborated with Tom Scott on Scott's 1975 album New York Connection, and in 1981 he played guitar on "Walk a Thin Line", from Mick Fleetwood's The Visitor.
When the case was heard in the United States district court in 1976, he denied deliberately plagiarising the song, but lost the case, as the judge ruled that he had done so subconsciously. In 2000, Apple Records released a thirtieth anniversary edition of the album, and Harrison actively participated in its promotion.
In October that year, Harrison assembled and released Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989, a compilation of his later solo work.
He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004. Harrison's first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977.
They separated in 1974 and their divorce was finalised in 1977.
In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles' Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974 and co-founding HandMade Films in 1978. Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer.
Author Nicholas Schaffner wrote in 1978 that following Harrison's increased association with the sitar after "Norwegian Wood", he became known as "the maharaja of raga-rock".
In 1978, in an effort to produce Monty Python's Life of Brian, they formed the film production and distribution company HandMade Films.
it froze his emotions and hardened his heart." She subsequently moved in with Eric Clapton, and they married in 1979. Harrison married Dark Horse Records' secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias on 2 September 1978.
They had met at the A&M Records offices in Los Angeles in 1974, and together had one son, Dhani Harrison, born on 1 August 1978. He restored the English manor house and grounds of Friar Park, his home in Henley-on-Thames, where several of his music videos were filmed including "Crackerbox Palace"; the grounds also served as the background for the cover of All Things Must Pass.
Proceeds from its release went to the Gunnar Nilsson cancer charity, set up after the Swedish driver's death from the disease in 1978.
In the 1970s Frank Sinatra recorded "Something" twice (1970 and 1979) and later dubbed it "the greatest love song of the past fifty years".
As part of his promotion for the release, Harrison performed on Saturday Night Live with Paul Simon. In 1979, Harrison released George Harrison, which followed his second marriage and the birth of his son Dhani.
it froze his emotions and hardened his heart." She subsequently moved in with Eric Clapton, and they married in 1979. Harrison married Dark Horse Records' secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias on 2 September 1978.
the work of a man who had lived the rock and roll dream twice over and was now embracing domestic as well as spiritual bliss". ===Somewhere in England to Cloud Nine: 1980–1987=== The murder of John Lennon on 8 December 1980 disturbed Harrison and reinforced his decades-long concern about stalkers.
According to Ian Inglis, Harrison's "executive role in HandMade Films helped to sustain British cinema at a time of crisis, producing some of the country's most memorable movies of the 1980s." Following a series of box office bombs in the late 1980s, and excessive debt incurred by O'Brien which was guaranteed by Harrison, HandMade's financial situation became precarious.
In June 1972, UNICEF honoured Harrison and Shankar, and Klein, with the "Child Is the Father of Man" award at an annual ceremony in recognition of their fundraising efforts for Bangladesh. From 1980, Harrison became a vocal supporter of Greenpeace and CND.
The single was included on the album Somewhere in England in 1981. Harrison did not release any new albums for five years after 1982's Gone Troppo received little notice from critics or the public.
Other artists signed by Dark Horse include Attitudes, Henry McCullough, Jiva and Stairsteps. Harrison collaborated with Tom Scott on Scott's 1975 album New York Connection, and in 1981 he played guitar on "Walk a Thin Line", from Mick Fleetwood's The Visitor.
His contributions to Starr's solo career continued with "Wrack My Brain", a 1981 US top 40 hit written and produced by Harrison, and guitar overdubs to two tracks on Vertical Man (1998).
The single was included on the album Somewhere in England in 1981. Harrison did not release any new albums for five years after 1982's Gone Troppo received little notice from critics or the public.
During this period he made several guest appearances, including a 1985 performance at a tribute to Carl Perkins titled A Rockabilly Session.
In March 1986 he made a surprise appearance during the finale of the Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert, an event organised to raise money for the Birmingham Children's Hospital.
In February 1987 he joined Dylan, John Fogerty and Jesse Ed Davis on stage for a two-hour performance with the blues musician Taj Mahal.
Bob says, 'Hey, why don't we all get up and play, and you can sing?' But every time I got near the microphone, Dylan comes up and just starts singing this rubbish in my ear, trying to throw me." In November 1987, Harrison released the platinum album Cloud Nine.
In 1988, he co-founded the platinum-selling supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.
He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004. Harrison's first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977.
The accompanying music video received substantial airplay, and another single, "When We Was Fab", a retrospective of the Beatles' career, earned two MTV Music Video Awards nominations in 1988.
Cloud Nine reached number eight and number ten on the US and UK charts respectively, and several tracks from the album achieved placement on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart – "Devil's Radio", "This Is Love" and "Cloud 9". ==Later career: 1988–1996== ===The Traveling Wilburys and return to touring: 1988–1992=== In 1988, Harrison formed the Traveling Wilburys with Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty.
1, was released in October 1988 and recorded under pseudonyms as half-brothers, supposed sons of Charles Truscott Wilbury, Sr.
The album included three new songs, including "Cheer Down", which Harrison had recently contributed to the Lethal Weapon 2 film soundtrack. Following Orbison's death in December 1988, the Wilburys recorded as a four-piece.
Harrison's pseudonym on the album was "Nelson Wilbury"; he used the name "Spike Wilbury" for their second album. In 1989, Harrison and Starr appeared in the music video for Petty's song "I Won't Back Down".
Their second album, issued in October 1990, was mischievously titled Traveling Wilburys Vol.
In 1996 Harrison recorded "Distance Makes No Difference With Love" with Carl Perkins for the latter's album Go Cat Go!, and in 1990 he played slide guitar on the title track of Dylan's Under the Red Sky album.
In 1990, he helped promote his wife Olivia's Romanian Angel Appeal on behalf of the thousands of Romanian orphans left abandoned by the state following the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.
The Wilburys never performed live, and the group did not record together again following the release of their second album. In December 1991, Harrison joined Clapton for a tour of Japan.
He performed at a Formby convention in 1991, and served as the honorary president of the George Formby Appreciation Society.
The company ceased operations in 1991 and was sold three years later to Paragon Entertainment, a Canadian corporation.
On 6 April 1992, Harrison held a benefit concert for the Natural Law Party at the Royal Albert Hall, his first London performance since the Beatles' 1969 rooftop concert.
In October 1992, he performed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, playing alongside Dylan, Clapton, McGuinn, Petty and Neil Young. ===The Beatles Anthology: 1994–1996=== In 1994, Harrison began a collaboration with McCartney, Starr and producer Jeff Lynne for the Beatles Anthology project.
Lennon commented: "That's the best he's ever fucking played in his life." A Hawaiian influence is notable in much of Harrison's music, ranging from his slide guitar work on Gone Troppo (1982) to his televised performance of the Cab Calloway standard "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" on ukulele in 1992.
In October 1992, he performed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, playing alongside Dylan, Clapton, McGuinn, Petty and Neil Young. ===The Beatles Anthology: 1994–1996=== In 1994, Harrison began a collaboration with McCartney, Starr and producer Jeff Lynne for the Beatles Anthology project.
Released in December 1995, "Free as a Bird" was the first new Beatles single since 1970.
In March 1996, they released a second single, "Real Love".
In 1996 Harrison recorded "Distance Makes No Difference With Love" with Carl Perkins for the latter's album Go Cat Go!, and in 1990 he played slide guitar on the title track of Dylan's Under the Red Sky album.
Afterwards, Harrison sued O'Brien for $25 million for fraud and negligence, resulting in an $11.6 million judgement in 1996. ==Humanitarian work== Harrison was involved in humanitarian and political activism throughout his life.
He later commented on the project: "I hope somebody does this to all my crap demos when I'm dead, make them into hit songs." ==Later life and death: 1997–2001== Following the Anthology project, Harrison collaborated with Ravi Shankar on the latter's Chants of India.
Harrison's final television appearance was a VH-1 special to promote the album, taped in May 1997.
He publicly blamed years of smoking for the illness. In January 1998, Harrison attended Carl Perkins' funeral in Jackson, Tennessee, where he performed a brief rendition of Perkins' song "Your True Love".
The following year, he was the most active of his former bandmates in promoting the reissue of their 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. On 30 December 1999, Harrison and his wife were attacked at their home, Friar Park.
When the case was heard in the United States district court in 1976, he denied deliberately plagiarising the song, but lost the case, as the judge ruled that he had done so subconsciously. In 2000, Apple Records released a thirtieth anniversary edition of the album, and Harrison actively participated in its promotion.
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer-songwriter, and music and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles.
Harrison died from lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 58, two years after surviving a knife attack by an intruder at his Friar Park home.
In May 2001, it was revealed that Harrison had undergone an operation to remove a cancerous growth from one of his lungs, and in July, it was reported that he was being treated for a brain tumour at a clinic in Switzerland.
Harrison, who was very weak, quipped: "Do you want me to come with you?" 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.
When the news was made public, Harrison bemoaned his physician's breach of privacy, and his estate later claimed damages. On 29 November 2001, Harrison died on a property belonging to McCartney, on Heather Road in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.
In 2001 he performed as a guest musician on Jeff Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra's comeback album Zoom, and on the song "Love Letters" for Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings.
The single "Any Road", released in May 2003, peaked at number 37 on the UK Singles Chart.
He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004. Harrison's first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977.
"Marwa Blues" went on to receive the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, while "Any Road" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. ==Musicianship== ===Guitar work=== Harrison's guitar work with the Beatles was varied and flexible.
He had one sister, Louise (born 16 August 1931), and two brothers, Harold (born 1934) and Peter (20 July 1940 – 1 June 2007). According to Boyd, Harrison's mother was particularly supportive: "All she wanted for her children is that they should be happy, and she recognised that nothing made George quite as happy as making music." Louise was an enthusiastic music fan, and she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons' windows.
In December 2007, they donated $450,000 to help the victims of Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh.
On 13 October 2009, the first George Harrison Humanitarian Award went to Ravi Shankar for his efforts in saving the lives of children, and his involvement with the Concert for Bangladesh. ==Personal life== ===Hinduism=== By the mid-1960s Harrison had become an admirer of Indian culture and mysticism, introducing it to the other Beatles.
Harrison's first extravagant car, a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, was sold at auction on 7 December 2011 in London.
In August 2017, Fender released a "Limited Edition George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster" modelled after a Telecaster that Roger Rossmeisl originally created for Harrison. ==Film production and HandMade Films== Harrison helped finance Ravi Shankar's documentary Raga and released it through Apple Films in 1971.
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