Thursday 28th February

As a child I worshipped the Beatles, along with a whole generation.  George was the quiet one, the dark horse, who played the tricky bits on guitar and sung harmony and just occasionally sung lead vocals.  But in a band of giants he too was a giant, but in a different way.  As the sixties progressed it was George who pushed the others towards Indian Music and philosophy, a lifetime obsession for George.  He was according to some the first of the Beatles to leave, and had two instrumental albums while the band was still together.  The quality of his songwriting was beginning to outweigh his meagre allowance of two songs per album too and I imagine he was bursting with enthusiasm to record on his own.

He surprised everyone with a triple album, ‘All things must pass’ and a hit single ‘My Sweet Lord.’   Albums and tours followed, but somehow the quality began to slip; a case of diminishing returns.  He had a hiatus of five years when he turned to film-making and gardening then returned with Jeff Lynne at the helm and stunned us with ‘Cloud Nine.’   He then formed The Travelling Wilburys with Dylan Tom Petty Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison.  Two brilliant albums followed and George never sounded happier.

Then he began to get ill with cancer, which sadly took him away in the end.  One last album ‘Brainwashed’ was recorded when he was desperately ill, but it is actually really good.

Then the light went out, and all we have is the DVDs and the music to remember him by.

His best album for me was ‘Living in the Material World’ which married ‘pop’ and his ‘spiritual philosophy perfectly.   The best song on that was ‘That is All.’.

But his best song ever was undoubtedly ‘Here Comes The Sun’, the most life-affirming song the Beatles ever wrote.