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George Harrison (The Beatles) – While my guitar gently weeps (Guitar solo with sheet music)
George Harrison
He was born on February 25, 1943 at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool.
The youngest of the four children of Harold, who was a merchant seaman, and Louise, who worked in a greengrocer until, after marrying in May 1930 and having their first child, he quit his job and Harold became a bus driver. .
He studied at Dovedale Primary School. Secondary studies were carried out at the Liverpool Institute.
His first guitar was a second-hand one that he bought from another boy at school. At the age of twelve he bought his first guitar, while he was recovering from nephritis, and shortly after he would start the band The Rebels, with his brother.
He met the future Beatles in 1958, when they were still the Quarrymen, and auditioned for a guitarist, but Lennon, who was going through a period of complete rebellion, thought he was too young and well-behaved to belong to his band, and was accepted under the influence of MacCartney.
When he met John Lennon, his performance quality was much lower than the rest of the group, called at the time John and the Moondogs. He is a member of the legendary band The Beatles. At the recording of A Hard Day’s Night he met Pattie Boyd, a former model for Mary Quant, whom he would marry a few years later.
During the early days of the Beatles, that is, from 1962 to 1966, Harrison, despite the fact that he also composed music and wrote lyrics, remained silenced by Lennon and MacCartney.
His first song to be published was Don´t Bother me, included in the album With the Beatles, later he contributed with the songs I Need You and You Like Me too Much, from the album Help !.
In 1964 he began playing a 360/12 Rickenbacker 12-string guitar, which would end up establishing the peculiar style of the quiet Beatle.
While Lennon and MacCarteney got all the media attention, Harrison and Starr remained the quieter members, although Harrison always made his sense of humor evident.
Pattie Boyd, a model and photographer, captured the heart of the Beatle and they married in 1966, until she asked for a divorce in 1977 to marry Eric Clapton.
She composed 23 songs within the band, including Something and Here Comes the Sun, which were recognized as some of the best Beatles songs.
For 1967 things changed and Lennon asked Harrison to introduce something more incredible in the songs, something unique, and that is how Harrison included the sitar.
When the situation between the Liverpool quartet became unbearable, and they decided to separate permanently in 1970, the quiet Beatle and also the youngest, had a promising future.
He released his first solo album, the triple All Things Must Pass, the same year the Beatles broke up. The simple, My Sweet Lord, reflecting the increasingly religious attitude of him and the United Kingdom. He gave a benefit concert for the people of Bangladesh in which Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and others also participated, although the funds raised reached their destination after more than 10 years.
He was the first musician to do a fundraising concert on August 1, 1971 at Madison Square Garden, benefiting Bangladesh, and invited several musicians, including Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr.
He participated collaborating with other musicians such as John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Harry Nilson, before releasing his second album in 1973 Living in the Material World.
He founded his own record label, Dark Horse, with which he published 33 1/3 (1976); George Harrison (1979); Somewhere in England (1981), and Gone Troppo (1982), all of them with average acceptance.
His album George Harrison was released in 1979 and reached the Top 20 of the Billboard charts. And in 1980 he released his autobiography ‘I Me Mine’, which caused Lennon’s annoyance that he was not included in it.
Somewhere in England was his seventh album where he paid homage to Lennon, after he was murdered and died angry with him.
Between 1988 and 1990 he was part of the band The Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lyne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. Time when he also founded Handmade Films.
The three Beatles reunited between 1994 and 1996 to create the Anthology album, during which time he also battled throat and lung cancer.
The former Beatle and his wife Olivia were stabbed in the early hours of December 30, 1999, suffering chest injuries caused by the intruder, at their mansion in Henley on Thames, west London. Harrison and his wife struggled with the assailant, apparently a 33-year-old man from Liverpool, and were able to hold him until police arrived.
George Harrison died on November 29, 2001, at a friend’s house in Los Angeles (United States) after undergoing a series of cancer treatments that he had suffered since 1998.
His posthumous album Brainwashed, completed by his son Dhani Harrison and Jeff Lyne, received positive reviews.
Discography (Albums)
1968 Wonderwall Music
1969 Electronic Sound
1970 All Things Must Pass
1973 Living in the Material World
1974 Dark Horse
1975 Extra Texture
1976 33 & 1/3
1979 George Harrison
1981 Somewhere in England
1982 Gone Troppo
1987 Cloud Nine
1992 Live in Japan
2001 All Things Must Pass
George Harrison was known as the quiet Beatle, the lonely or the most reserved, however, sources close to him affirm that in confidence he was quite the opposite.
His musical career took off with The Quarrymen and The Beatles, but after his breakup, Harrison still had a lot to offer the world.
He is remembered for being the first rocker to introduce the sitar, an instrument from India, beginning in 1967, putting a new spin on the Beatles’ music.
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