Posted by Repost from Lynch at we-24-130-220-99.we.mediaone.net on November 30, 2001 at 05:11:52:
Terrible news. And only 58, man...
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Friday November 30 3:24 AM ET
Ex-Beatle George Harrison Dies at 58
LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Harrison, the Beatles' quiet lead
guitarist and spiritual explorer who added both rock 'n' roll flash and a
touch of the mystic to the band's timeless magic, has died, a
longtime family friend told The Associated Press. He was 58.
Harrison died at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a friend's Los Angeles home
following a battle with cancer, longtime friend Gavin De Becker told
The Associated Press late Thursday.
``He died with one thought in mind - love one another,'' De Becker
said. De Becker said Harrison's wife, Olivia Harrison, and son Dhani,
24, were with him when he died.
With Harrison's death, there remain two surviving Beatles, Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr. John Lennon was shot to death by a
deranged fan in 1980.
In 1998, when Harrison disclosed that he had been treated for throat
cancer, Harrison said: ``It reminds you that anything can happen.''
The following year, he survived an attack by an intruder who stabbed
him several times. In July 2001, he released a statement asking fans
not to worry about reports that he was still battling cancer.
The Beatles were four distinct personalities joined as a singular
force in the rebellious 1960s, influencing everything from hair styles
to music. Whether dropping acid, proclaiming ``All You Need is Love''
or sending up the squares in the film ``A Hard Day's Night'' the
Beatles inspired millions.
Harrison's guitar work, modeled on Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins
among others, was essential.
He often blended with the band's joyous sound, but also rocked out
wildly on ``Long Tall Sally'' and turned slow and dreamy on
``Something.'' His jangly 12-string Rickenbacker, featured in ``A Hard
Day's Night,'' was a major influence on the American band the Byrds.
Although his songwriting was overshadowed by the great
Lennon-McCartney team, Harrison did contribute such classics as
``Here Comes the Sun'' and ``Something,'' which Frank Sinatra
covered. Harrison also taught the young Lennon how to play the
guitar.
He was known as the ``quiet'' Beatle and his public image was
summed up in the first song he wrote for them, ``Don't Bother Me,''
which appeared on the group's second album.
But Harrison also had a wry sense of humor that helped shape the
Beatles' irreverent charm, memorably fitting in alongside Lennon's
cutting wit and Starr's cartoonish appeal.
At their first recording session under George Martin, the producer
reportedly asked the young musicians to tell him if they didn't like
anything. Harrison's response: ``Well, first of all, I don't like your tie.''
Asked by a reporter what he called the Beatles' famous moptop
hairstyle, he quipped, ``Arthur.''
He was even funny about his own mortality. As reports of his failing
health proliferated, Harrison recorded a new song - ``Horse to the
Water'' - and credited it to ``RIP Ltd. 2001.''
He always preferred being a musician to being a star, and he soon
soured on Beatlemania - the screaming girls, the hair-tearing mobs,
the wild chases from limos to gigs and back to limos. Like Lennon,
his memories of the Beatles were often tempered by what he felt was
lost in all the madness.
``There was never anything, in any of the Beatle experiences really,
that good: even the best thrill soon got tiring,'' Harrison wrote in his
1979 book, ``I, Me, Mine.'' ``There was never any doubt. The Beatles
were doomed. Your own space, man, it's so important. That's why we
were doomed, because we didn't have any. We were like monkeys in
a zoo.''
Still, in a 1992 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Harrison confided:
``We had the time of our lives: We laughed for years.''
After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Harrison had sporadic success.
He organized the concert for Bangladesh in New York City, produced
films that included Monty Python's ``Life of Brian,'' and teamed with
old friends, including Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison, as ``The Traveling
Wilburys.''
George Harrison was born Feb. 25, 1943, in Liverpool, one of four
children of Harold and Louise Harrison. His father, a former ship's
steward, became a bus conductor soon after his marriage.
Harrison was 13 when he bought his first guitar and befriended Paul
McCartney at their school. McCartney introduced him to Lennon, who
had founded a band called the Quarry Men - Harrison was allowed to
play if one of the regulars didn't show up.
``When I joined, he didn't really know how to play the guitar; he had a
little guitar with three strings on it that looked like a banjo,'' Harrison
recalled of Lennon during testimony in a 1998 court case against the
owner of a bootleg Beatles' recording.
``I put the six strings on and showed him all the chords - it was
actually me who got him playing the guitar. He didn't object to that,
being taught by someone who was the baby of the group. John and I
had a very good relationship from very early on.''
Harrison evolved as both musician and songwriter. He became
interested in the sitar while making the 1965 film ``Help!'' and
introduced it to a generation of Western listeners on ``Norwegian
Wood,'' a song by Lennon from the ``Rubber Soul'' album. He also
began contributing more of his own material.
Among his compositions were ``I Need You'' for the soundtrack of
``Help''; ``If I Needed Someone'' on ``Rubber Soul''; ``Taxman'' and
``Love You To'' on ``Revolver''; ``Within You, Without You'' on ``Sgt.
Pepper''; and ``While My Guitar Gently Weeps'' on the White Album.
In 1966, he married model Patti Boyd, who had a bit part in ``A Hard
Day's Night.'' (They divorced in 1977, and she married Harrison's
friend, the guitarist Eric Clapton, who wrote the anguished song
``Layla'' about her. Harrison attended the wedding.)
More than any of the Beatles, Harrison craved a little quiet. He found it
in India. Late in 1966, after the Beatles had ceased touring, George
and Patti went to India, where Harrison studied the sitar with Ravi
Shankar. He maintained a lifelong affiliation with that part of the
world.
In 1967, Harrison introduced the other Beatles to the teaching of the
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and all four took up transcendental
meditation. Harrison was the only one who remained a follower - the
others dropped out, with Lennon mocking the Maharishi in the song
``Sexy Sadie.''
By the late '60s, Harrison was clearly worn out from being a Beatle
and openly bickered with McCartney, arguing with him on camera
during the filming of ``Let It Be.''
As the Beatles grew apart, Harrison collaborated with Clapton on the
song ``Badge,'' performed with Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and
produced his most acclaimed solo work, the triple album ``All Things
Must Pass.'' The sheer volume of material on that 1970 release
confirmed the feelings of Harrison fans that he was being stifled in
the Beatles.
But one of those songs, the hit ``My Sweet Lord,'' later drew Harrison
into a lawsuit: The copyright owner of ``He's So Fine,'' written by
Lonnie Mack and recorded by The Chiffons, won a claim that
Harrison had stolen the music.
Another Harrison project also led to legal problems. Moved by the
starvation caused by the war between Bangladesh and Pakistan,
Harrison in 1971 staged two benefit concerts at Madison Square
Garden and recruited such performers as Starr, Shankar, Clapton
and Dylan.
Anticipating such later superstar benefits as Live Aid and Farm Aid,
the Bangladesh concerts were also a cautionary tale about
counterculture bookkeeping. Although millions were raised and the
three-record concert release won a Grammy for album of the year,
allegations emerged over mishandling of funds and the money long
stayed in escrow.
Despite the occasional hit single, including the Lennon tribute song
``All Those Years Ago,'' Harrison's solo career did not live up to initial
expectations. Reviewing a greatest hits compilation, Village Voice
critic Robert Christgau likened him to a ``borderline hitter they can
pitch around after the sluggers (Lennon and McCartney) are traded
away.''
Harrison's family life was steadier. He married Olivia Arias in 1978, a
month after Dhani was born.
The next year, Harrison founded Handmade Films to produce Monty
Python's ``Life of Brian.'' He sold the company for $8.5 million in
1994.
Fame continued to haunt him. In 1999, he was stabbed several times
by a man who broke into his home west of London. The man, who
thought the Beatles were witches and believed himself on a divine
mission to kill Harrison, was acquitted by reason of insanity.
But fame also continued to enrich Harrison. The following year, he
saw a compilation of Beatles No. 1 singles, ``1,'' sell millions of
copies and re-establish the band's status around the world.
``The thing that pleases me the most about it is that young people
like it,'' he said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``It's given
kids from 6 to 16 an alternate view of music to what's been available
for the past 20 years.
``I think the popular music has gone truly weird,'' he said. ``It's either
cutesy-wutesy or it's hard, nasty stuff. It's good that this has life again
with the youth.''
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Eds: Robert Barr in London and Hillel Italie in New York also
contributed to this report.