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George Harrison music biography continued...

attended the Liverpool Institute, where he met Paul McCartney in 1953, and discovered that they both had a love of music. McCartney introduced Harrison to John Lennon, whom he was playing with in a band called The Quarryman, which eventually became The Beatles, with Harrison playing lead guitar. The Beatlemania years, from 1963 through 1966, were a mixed blessing for Harrison, who found his guitar-playing and songwriting taking a back seat to other members of the band. In 1966, Harrison finally seemed to find his voice, with two of his songs on the Revolver album, "Taxman" and "Love You Too." In the wake of the group's decision to stop touring, Harrison's playing and songwriting grew dramatically. The period from 1968 onward was Harrison's richest with the Beatles. He displayed a smooth, elegant slide guitar technique that showed up on their last three albums, and contributed two classic songs, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Here Comes the Sun," along with "Something," which became the first Harrison song on the A-side of a Beatles single, and established him as integral part of the world's most successful band.



Harrison's first solo record following The Beatles' 1970 break-up, All Things Must Pass, yielded the single "My Sweet Lord," which had the distinction of being the first solo recording by any of the Beatles to top the charts following their breakup. Subsequent Harrison albums from the 1970s into the '80s always had an audience, but did not fare as well. In 1987, Harrison made a return to the top of the charts with his album Cloud Nine, which featured a cover of an old Rudy Clark gospel number called "Got My Mind Set on You," which reached number one on the charts. In 1988, Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison formed the Traveling Wilburys, who have since released a few successful albums. In 1997 Harrison was diagnosed with cancer and had throat surgery. He continued to record over the next few years, but finally succumbed to the illness in 2001 at age 58. He left behind one of music's richest legacies.