Remembering George Harrison
By Daily Bruin Staff
Dec. 2, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 The Associated Press George Harrison,
who died Nov. 29 at the age of 58, performs in this photo at a 1974
concert in Landover, Md.
By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Reporter
George Harrison was in his lifetime a spiritual man, a Traveling
Wilbury, a family man, an exquisite guitarist, and a Beatle.
Harrison led a life filled with love and enlightenment, one that
came to its temporal end last Thursday at a friend’s Los
Angeles home.
Harrison was with his wife Olivia and son Dhani during his final
hours.
“He left this world as he lived in it, conscious of God,
fearless of death, and at peace, surrounded by friends,” the
family said in a statement.
The last few years of Harrison’s life were marked by
trials of his strength, and exemplified his will to continue in the
light and love that surrounded his life.
In 1998, Harrison, a smoker for much of his life, told the
public that he had been treated for throat cancer. The following
year, Harrison sustained stab wounds from an attack in his own home
by an obsessed fan.
Always the philosopher, Harrison accepted these events with a
grain of salt.
 The Associated Press A photo of George
Harrison sits with other mementoes on the Beatles’ star at
the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “It reminds you that anything can
happen,” Harrison he said in 1998 according to the Associated
Press.
Early in his life, spirituality became important to Harrison. As
the fame and pressure of being a rock ‘n’ roll star
heightened for the Beatles and drove many of their peers to drug
addiction and mental instability, Harrison led his bandmates toward
peaceful ways of coping through eastern mysticism and
transcendental meditation.
“He was the first musician I knew who developed a truly
spiritual side, and he was generous with his time to both charity
and to friends,” said Mick Jagger to the AP.
“For every human there is the quest to find the answer to
why I am here, who am I, where did I come from, where I am
going,” Harrison once said. “For me that became the
most important thing in my life, everything else is
secondary.”
Many of Harrison’s fellow musicians were privileged to
call him a friend as well. Even as Harrison shunned the public
spotlight, he inspired his fellow musicians and thrived in
collaboration with many of the 20th century’s top
artists.
Selected songs written by George Harrison
Don’t Bother Me (1963)
I Want You(1965)
Think For Yourself (1965)
If I Needed Someone (1965)
Taxman (1966)
I Want To Tell You (1966)
Within You Without You(1967)
Blue Jay Way (1967)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968)
Something (1969)
Here Comes The Sun (1969)
I Me Mine (1970)
My Sweet Lord (1970)
For You Blue (1970)
What Is Life (1970)
Bangla Desh (1971)
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (1973)
Dark Horse (1974)
You (1975)
Your Love Is Forever(1979)
Writing’s On The Wall (1981)
Someplace Else (1987)
Source: www.cdnow.com
He helped found the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys with the
likes of Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan. He put on the
benefit concert for Bangladesh, for which many of the biggest acts
of the day came to aid in Harrison’s mission. When the
Beatles’ “White Album” sessions got too strained
he brought in guitarist Eric Clapton to inject some energy into the
studio and keep everyone on their best behavior.
His fascination with Indian culture yielded a fruitful
relationship with world famous sitarist Ravi Shankar. Under
Shankar’s influence Harrison helped to introduce eastern
music to a western generation of musicians and flower children
whose ideals of peace and love had a natural kinship to much
eastern philosophy. Beatles’ songs from “Norwegian
Wood” to “Within You Without You” allowed artists
from Donovan to Led Zeppelin a freedom to explore eastern music
that wasn’t thought of in the early days of rock
‘n’ roll.
Harrison and Shankar remained friends long after their musical
collaboration ceased to be a major impetus in their lives. Shankar
spent time with Harrison recently before his passing.
“We spent the day before with him, and even then he looked
so peaceful, surrounded by love,” Shankar said in a statement
Friday. “George has left us so many precious memories and
moments in all our lives which will remain with us
forever.”
The two surviving Beatles, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney,
expressed their sense of sorrow at the loss of their former
bandmate.
“I am devastated and very, very sad,” McCartney told
reporters outside his London home. “He was a lovely guy and a
very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He is really
just my baby brother.”
 The Associated Press The Beatles are shown on an album
cover in 1965. Harrison, bottom left, was the youngest in the
group. “He wrote some of the greatest Beatles’ songs,
but more than that, he had a gentleness and spirituality that made
spending time with him a great pleasure,” said Paul Simon in
a statement.
Harrison left behind him a legacy of music that will never cease
to be listened to or to inspire. In 1970 Harrison gave the world
the epic spiritual triple album, “All Things Must
Pass.” With the Traveling Wilburys he contributed to the
pantheon of rock with the band’s self-titled hit album. His
charity concert for Bangladesh helped to inspire more recent events
like the Tibetan Freedom concerts and FarmAids, and his virtuoso
guitar-plucking and songwriting with three other Liverpudlians
known as the Beatles.
Last year Harrison lived to see the Beatles be discovered by one
more generation of music lovers, with the monster success of the
“1” greatest hits collection.
“The thing that pleases me most about it is that young
people like it,” Harrison said in an interview with the AP.
“I think the popular music has gone truly weird. It’s
either cutesy-wutesy or it’s hard, nasty stuff. It’s
good that this has life again with the youth.”
The Beatles’ music, from album to album, pours out from
the heart and amazes the mind. Harrison’s contribution to the
journey can’t be stressed enough; as a guitarist and
personality his presence was unmatchable.
In post-Beatles life Harrison settled down. He married Olivia
Arias in 1978 a month after their son Dhani was born. He was a
businessman, a valued father, husband and friend, a musician and a
Beatle.
“While we were not personal friends, I think that just
like everybody in the world, I have always considered all the
Beatles to be my friends,” said Beach Boy Brian Wilson,
according to the AP.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards felt a kinship to
Harrison, and held out ho Harrison’s future career, according
to the AP.
“Let’s hope he’s jamming with John,”
Richards said.
