George Harrison, often stood in the shadows during The Beatles era whilst the arguable egotistical Lennon/McCartney partnership stood tall. Sometimes even credited as the 'worst' Beatle, George was simply quite and in the early days especially, lacked confidence to compose his own music, leaving the work to his bandmates. However as The Beatles moved into the second half of the 1960's they began to experiment in other areas of Rock, with such albums as 'The Beatles' (White album), Sgt. Peppers and especially 'Abbey Road', George Harrison got into his stride as a prolific songwriter, with such hits as 'something', 'here comes the sun' and 'while my guitar gently weeps', still very much remembered today.
In the late 1960's The Beatles began to have problems, many people have blamed this on a number of things, i tend to believe the Beatles had simply grown apart in maturity and their differing tastes in music. John, with Yoko by his side had become interested in Avante-garde, Paul McCartney perhaps determined to keep his roots in pop-rock, whilst George Harrison had masses of songs of his own, rejected particularly by Paul McCartney, leading to frustration and his temperary departure in early-1969. This frustration of George Harrison, estrangement of John Lennon and the supposed authority of Paul McCartney ultimately led to the break-up of The Beatles.
After The Beatles, George Harrison was able to release his own material over the years that had been ignored, this collection was released on a double album, 'All Things Must Pass', considered a masterpiece and the first Beatle solo album to reach number 1 in the UK. George Harrison had been the first to successfully move on. The concert for Bangla-desh, his follow up concert was warmly greeted, then on George Harrison had a string of fairly strong albums. during the 1980's however such albums as 'George Harrison' and 'Gone Troppo' recieved negative reviews, and stopped writing music for 5 years. Upon his return he had made colloborations with Eric Clapton, Elton John, Ringo Starr and Jeff Lynne to produce the successful comeback album Cloud 9.
Following this comeback he colloborated with more artists, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty that joined Jeff Lynne to form the supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys, a commercially successful group lasting two albums.
Following his battle with cancer, George Harrison died on the 29th November 2001, following his death, Jeff Lynne released his final album 'Brainwashed' to critical acclaim, ending on a high. But was George Harrison instantly forgotten after The Beatles?
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