When he left the Beatles in 1969, nobody thought he had much of a future ahead of him.
He had always been the quiet, unassuming one in the group, the shy guitarist who rarely sang, standing always in the staggering shadow of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the powerhouse songwriting pair of the Beatles.
It’s no wonder that when the group broke up, everybody was too busy with their eye on either John or Paul to pay him much attention. That’s the way it had always been.
What’s a little surprising, though, is that when the four Beatles sadly went their separate ways, guitarist George Harrison decided to set up his own record company to handle any new material he released.
He called it Dark Horse Records. That’s how he always liked to think of himself, as a “dark horse.” The horse in the race nobody puts any money on.
The one nobody expects to win.
“That’s me, I guess,” he once said. “The very last one anyone would have ever expected to come out a winner.”
Harrison died late last Thursday night of cancer at the age of 58, and whatever else there is to say about his life, it is certainly the story of a winner.
He was born in February of 1943 in Liverpool, a tough port city in post-war England.
He was the son of a bus driver, and had an idyllic, middle-class upbringing. “I had a happy childhood, with lots of relatives always around,” he reminisced to an interviewer for the Beatles Anthology television series.
By the time George made it to middle school at the Liverpool Institute, he had already met and befriended the kid on his schoolbus who shared his fervent adoration of American music — Paul McCartney.
George and Paul soon found themselves playing the rock music they loved so much on their guitars together, winding up in a band with local badboy John Lennon. The trio, along with a rotating slew of sidemen, called themselves The Quarry Men and played a few forgettable gigs around Liverpool.
After they brought in a permanent drummer, the three musicians decided they didn’t like the name of their band and wanted to call themselves something a bit more memorable.
Something like the Beatles.
So they promptly hired a manager and worked on their appearance, and then their success came with almost hurricane-like fury. George’s musical ability was the pivot upon which the success of the Beatles must be seen. He became the groups' lead guitarist, and learned his craft playing the masterful songs of John and Paul, quietly nurturing his talent until he was ready to come into his own.
George’s songwriting ability developed a bit late, but it did eventually come full-force. He wrote some of the group’s best tunes, like “Here comes the Sun” and “Something.”
When the group broke up, George released a triple-record set of the songs he had been writing and keeping to himself while still with the Beatles. The resulting album, All Things Must Pass, shot straight to the top of the charts.
George continued making music through the 70s and 80s. He became increasingly spiritual and less concerned with fame, more interested in tending the garden outside his home and being with his wife and son.
His death last week comes after an arduous, emotional battle with lung cancer that began in the early 90s, and ended at the home of a friend in Los Angeles. “Love one another,” were reportedly his last words.
The legacy he leaves behind him is one that is underscored by the thrilling music he made, first with the Beatles and then on his own.
He was a gentle, unassuming man who had everything money could buy, but wanted nothing more out of life than to be with his family and live a modest existence.
With his death, one of pop’s most powerful era’s is truly nearing its end, and to borrow a phrase from one of George’s songs, our guitars will gently weep for him forever.
