Another article on Harrison... yes, it too neglects Hare Krishna...

[Guest guest]

from www.nytimes.com

 

> George Harrison, Former Beatle, Dies at 58

> By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

>

> (AFP)

> George Harrison, shown in 1998, died on Thursday following a battle with

> cancer. The former Beatle was 58.

> Filed at 7:22 a.m. ET

>

>

> 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. 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. Harrison's wife, Olivia Harrison, and son

> Dhani, 24, were with him.

>

> ``He left this world as he lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of

> death, and at peace, surrounded by family and friends,'' the Harrison

> family said in a statement. ``He often said, `Everything else can wait but

> the search for God cannot wait, and love one another.'''

>

> 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.

>

> ``I am devastated and very, very sad,'' McCartney told reporters outside

> his London home Friday. ``He was a lovely guy and a very brave man and had

> a wonderful sense of humor. He is really just my baby brother.''

>

> It wasn't immediately known if there would be a public funeral for

> Harrison. A private ceremony had already taken place, De Becker said. He

> wouldn't release details about the ceremony or say at whose home Harrison

> died.

>

> In 1998, Harrison disclosed that he had been treated for throat cancer.

> ``It reminds you that anything can happen,'' he said at the time. The

> following year, Harrison 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, exploring Eastern mysticism, 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 was featured in ``A Hard Day's Night.''

>

> Although his songwriting was overshadowed by the great Lennon-McCartney

> team, Harrison did contribute such classics as ``Here Comes the Sun'' and

> ``Something.'' Harrison also taught the young Lennon how to play the

> guitar.

>

> ``As he said himself, how do you compare with the genius of John and Paul?

> But he did, very well,'' rock star and activist Bob Geldof told BBC radio.

>

> ``All the way back, he measured up,'' Geldof said. ``Maybe because of the

> necessary competition between the other two, his standard of songwriting

> was incomparably better than most other contemporaries anyway.''

>

> 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.''

>

> 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 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.''

>

> ``George has given so much to us in his lifetime and continues to do so

> even after his passing, with his music, his wit and his wisdom,'' Lennon's

> widow, Yoko Ono, said Friday.

>

> Alan Williams, the Beatles' first manager, described Harrison as the major

> cog in The Beatles. ``He kept them together, probably because of the

> calming effect he had,'' Williams said.

>

> After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Harrison had sporadic success. He

> organized the concert for Bangladesh in New York, 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.''

>

> 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. Late in

> 1966, after the Beatles had ceased touring, he went to India, where he

> studied the sitar with Ravi Shankar.

>

> 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, which he lost, by the copyright owner of ``He's So Fine.''

>

> 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 New York 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.

>

> ``George wasn't head in the clouds all the time. When it came to business

> and all that he was feet very much on the ground,'' Michael Palin of Monty

> Python's Flying Circus told BBC radio.

>

> Fame continued to follow Harrison. 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.

>

> The following year, Harrison saw a compilation of Beatles No. 1 singles,

> ``1,'' sell millions of copies.

>

> ``The thing that pleases me the 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.''

>

> John Chambers, of the Liverpool Beatles Appreciation Society, said

> Harrison's death was the end of an era for Beatles fans.

>

> ``Until now there has always been the hope of a reunion, perhaps with

> Julian Lennon standing in for his Dad,'' Chambers said. ``It really is the

> end of a dream.''

>

> At Harrison's mansion near London, fans left bunches of roses and lilies.

> One note read: ``The world will never be the same''; another said: ``The

> music, the rock 'n' roll life you led won't be forgotten.''

>

> Fans in New York began gathering before dawn Friday at Strawberry Fields,

> a section of Central Park created in memory of Lennon, who was shot

> outside his apartment nearby.

>

> ``I just decided to buy a bottle of wine and some roses at the corner and

> head over here,'' said restaurateur John Soler, 38.

>

> Added Pete Degan, 42: ``It's a sad day for rock and roll.''