![]() ![]() Remarkably, George’s material adapts well to soul music - not surprisingly, given that the first version of My Sweet Lord was recorded by Billy Preston. Something that struck me as I compiled this Songbook was that Harrison’s solo stuff is more accessible to interpretation in cover versions than that by Paul McCartney, whose post-Beatles Songbook I ran last year. Only seven of the tracks here were originally Beatles releases. But that would be to ignore some excellent music, as the Beatles Reunited series might have shown. ![]() George produced a couple of stinkers ( Going Troppo!), and after All Things Must Pass no real classics, so it is indeed easy to overlook his solo career. McCartney produced more hits (and Ringo as many UK Top 10 hits as George) Lennon created more material for discussion. Harrison’s solo career after All Things Must Pass isn’t always appreciated. Fucking cigarettes! He died on 29 November 2001, at the age of only 58. By then George was already battling throat cancer, which had been diagnosed in 1997. I wonder whether Geldof thought to invite him to appear at Live Aid…Īnd George was the first Beatle to die of natural sources (if we discount Stu Sutcliffe, of course), though he almost became the second Beatle to be murdered, when in 1999 he was stabbed 40 times by an intruder. ![]() And George sort of invented charity concert festivals. He was the first Beatle to release a solo album, and the first have a solo UK #1 hit, in January 1971 with My Sweet Lord (I’ve discussed before what I think of the plagiarism charges brought by the publishing company who owned the rights to He’s So Fine), and the first to release a bona fide classic album, the three-LP set All Things Must Pass. George was perhaps the most innovative of the three innovators, even though some of these innovations I could do without. That’s the man who wrote the best songs on The Beatles’ perhaps best album, Something and Here Comes The Sun (a time when the other two struggled to finish their songs). I won’t be the first person ever to marvel at the circumstance that George Harrison was only the third-best songwriter in The Beatles. On 25 February we mark the 80 th anniversary of the birth of George Harrison. ![]()
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