George Harrison died on November 29, 2001, at 58. The Beatles’ lead guitarist was also the songwriter behind “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” and his solo career gave him room to develop songs that hadn’t reached the band’s records.
Both Beatles songs appeared on Abbey Road in 1969. “Something” also became the first Harrison composition issued as a Beatles A-side, paired with “Come Together” on a double A-side single that reached No. 1 in the United States. Within the album, his writing occupied two prominent positions: “Something” was the second track, while “Here Comes the Sun” opened side two.
When Harrison began preparing All Things Must Pass in May 1970, he brought a substantial reserve of material into the studio. Across two days at Abbey Road, he recorded 30 demos, mixing newer songs with compositions that had accumulated during his Beatles years. The title song was among those he had tried during the band’s Let It Be sessions. He recalled those attempts as a way of trying to interest the others in his writing.
The finished album gave that material a much larger setting. Working with co-producer Phil Spector, Harrison recorded arrangements built around multiple guitars, keyboards, drums and percussion. The musicians learned their parts and played together, with voices, horns and strings added as needed. “Many of the tracks were virtually live,” Harrison recalled in the session history published by his estate. The scale came from people performing together in the room as well as the production applied afterward.
Released in November 1970, All Things Must Pass filled three LPs, including a disc of studio jams. “My Sweet Lord” made Harrison the first Beatle to score a solo No. 1 single in both Britain and the United States. Alongside that hit, songs such as “What Is Life” and “Isn’t It a Pity” gave listeners a much broader introduction to his work outside the group.
In 1971, Ravi Shankar asked Harrison to help people displaced by the humanitarian crisis in East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Famine, floods and civil conflict had driven 10 million refugees into India. Shankar brought that emergency to his friend, and Harrison helped turn the appeal into a large public benefit. They organized two benefit concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden on August 1. The Concert for Bangladesh brought Harrison’s Beatles and solo songs into the same performance: the live album included “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun” and “My Sweet Lord.” The shows and their three-album recording generated millions for UNICEF’s work, according to UNICEF USA.
Harrison’s death left another recording project unfinished. His son Dhani Harrison had been working with him on Brainwashed, with plans to take the material to Jeff Lynne and continue together. In a 2021 interview with Rock & Roll Globe, Dhani described returning to the studio with Lynne after his father died and completing the record. “I’d been making music with him my whole life, and I didn’t stop after that,” Dhani told the publication.
Brainwashed was released in 2002, with “Any Road” and “Stuck Inside a Cloud” among its 12 tracks. The instrumental “Marwa Blues” went on to win the 2004 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
