George Harrison, the youngest Beatle, would have been 69-years old this weekend.
George was born on February 25, 1943. He was 8 months younger than Paul McCartney and 2 years younger than John Lennon and Ringo Starr.
In any other band George would have been the star but in The Beatles his songs were low priority after the songs of Lennon and McCartney.
When I interviewed George in 1994 he told me talked about the frustration of the songwriting ranking within The Beatles. “It was frustrating at times when we had to wade through millions of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’s’ before we could get to one of mine, you know. Because I think now that when you look retrospectively, that there were a couple of my tunes that were good enough, or better, than ones that Paul or John had written occasionally. But you know, that’s just how it was. It doesn’t bother me, really. I was just on hold for a while”.
George’s Beatle songs today are often cited as some of the band’s best moments. “Here Comes The Sun’, ‘Something’, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Taxman’ are now rock classics.
George’s solo album ‘All Things Must Pass’ is also one of rock’s greatest recorded moments with songs like ‘My Sweet Lord’, ‘What If Life’, ‘Beware of Darkness’ and ‘Isn’t It A Pity’.
Happy Birthday George.