George Harrison: The quiet Beatle

He was the diffident Beatle, a quiet and unassuming figure beside the towering egos of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

But, after his innate creativity was allowed to flourish, George Harrison made his own mark as a great songwriter, with works such as Here Comes The Sun, While My Guitar Gently Weeps holding their own beside those of his colleagues.

And Something was hailed by Frank Sinatra as "the greatest love song ever written".

The son of a bus driver, George Harrison was born in the Hunts Cross area of Liverpool on 25 February 1943.

Although his childhood home was a back-to-back-terrace house with an outside toilet, a scholarship to the Liverpool Institute, where he met Paul McCartney, a year his senior, held out the promise of a better life.

Like millions of his contemporaries, the young George Harrison fell under the spell of rock 'n' roll, especially the records brought to Liverpool by visiting seamen and played, by night, on Radio Luxembourg.

Aged 14, he bought a £3 guitar, music replaced his academic studies and, a year later, his mastery of more than the mere basic chords brought about his induction into The Quarrymen, a group which featured John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Source: BBC News

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