By Michael Laster

In 1971, after releasing All Things Must Pass, George played guitar on John’s second post-Beatles album, Imagine.

That same year, Ravi Shankar approached George about the ongoing genocide and refugee crisis in East Pakistan, soon to be Bangladesh. George decided to organize a benefit concert to raise money for relief efforts. This historic benefit concert would define all future benefit concerts, such as Live Aid in 1985. The event was held at Madison Square Garden, with tickets selling out immediately. The audience for the two concerts held in one day amounted to over $40,000 total. Each of the concerts opened with Ravi Shankar’s ensemble, followed by the rock acts, consisting of George, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and Ringo.

George asked John and Paul to join, but Paul refused because it was being managed by Allen Klein, whom he didn’t want taking credit for a Beatles reunion. John initially planned on being part of it, but then dropped out after an argument with Yoko about her not being invited to take part. For the event, George wrote a song that was released as a single for the cause, aptly titled Bangla Desh.
George’s highlights from the concert include his duet on While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Eric Clapton, and with Bob Dylan on If Not For You.  The concert wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the friendships George forged over the years, and the trust he had earned as a musician and as a person. However, due to Allen Klein failing to register the concert as a tax-exempt charity event, most of the funds were held up in an escrow account for over a decade. He, John, and Ringo fired Klein two years later. Luckily though, around two million dollars was able to reach UNICEF funds before the IRS got involved. Ultimately, when the funds became available, another 8.8 million went to the refugees. This concert was the peak event of George’s entire professional career, and profits from the album and film are still going to UNICEF.

George’s next album was Living In The Material World. In some ways, it can be said to almost be the opposite of All Things Must Pass. This album has a more intimate sound, in contrast to the wall-of-sound Phil Spector used on the latter. George produced this album by himself, as Phil Spector’s behavior and alcoholism became more erratic. It is praised for its production, in addition to George’s contributions on slide guitar. The stand-out track is Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth).
The lyrics on many of the songs can be seen as somewhat preachy, as if he’s painfully waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to his level of spiritual attainment. If John Lennon’s negative side can be summarized as an aggressive “screw you,” George’s could be summed up as a more passive-aggressive, “I can’t be bothered.” This theme would come up again and again in his songs, including a song from the album called The Day The World Gets Round.

George was extremely bothered by his perception of the state of the world, its corruption, and people’s negativity, greediness, and attachment to worldly things. He struggled with his own humanness during this time, oscillating between periods of seclusion that included prayer and chanting, then returning to the life of a rock star with partying, women, and drugs, namely cocaine. In 1980, John summed up George’s relationship with religion with his iconic sense of wit: “George is a frightened Catholic: God one day, coke the next. He gets so high he scares himself back to church.”

Obviously George was Hindu at this point in his life, but it’s very possible that his Catholic upbringing, and resentment towards its strict guilt-ridden teachings were unconsciously playing out in the intensity of his spiritual beliefs. Even though he enjoyed living life to the fullest, it’s apparent that ever since he became interested in Hinduism, a part of him resented being in a body, with all the drama that comes with it. This slightly detached attitude towards worldly things was part of his outlook until the end of his life.

It was during this time in 1974 that he and Pattie separated. Four years earlier, during a party, George found Pattie and Clapton together outside, and asked what was going on. Clapton confessed he was in love with her, and George calmly asked Pattie who she wanted to go home with. She chose George, though the marriage deteriorated in spite of George and Clapton remaining good friends. This was due to a combination of George’s drug use, obsession with meditation, and growing emotional distance.

Also, Pattie was unable to conceive, and George was unwilling to adopt. But the main source of the deterioration was his infidelities. Unlike Paul’s newfound monogamy after meeting Linda, George didn’t want to give up the perks that came with celebrity that he had grown accustomed to back in Hamburg at the young age of 17. As George was becoming more emotionally distant from Pattie, Eric Clapton became increasingly infatuated with her. In fact, she was the subject of several songs of his, including his 1971 hit “Layla.” Eventually, the final straw for Pattie was when George had an affair with Ringo’s wife Maureen in 1974. When George told Ringo about his feelings towards Maureen, Ringo allegedly said “Better you than someone we don’t know.”

Ringo and Maureen were having their own problems at the time, including Ringo’s alcoholism and his own string of affairs, and he later confessed to not being a very good husband.

While events like these would be devastating to most, George, Ringo, Clapton, Maureen, and Pattie all remained on good terms throughout their lives, in spite of the separations. George and Pattie’s divorce lawyer even remarked on how amicably they separated, with George happily attending Clapton and Pattie’s wedding five years later.

Later that year, in 1974, George went on his first solo tour to promote his newest album, Dark Horse. It would prove to be a low point in his career – not only was his drug use at an all time high, but right as the tour began, he developed laryngitis, causing the critics to label the tour as “Dark Hoarse,” with an “a”. It didn’t help matters that he distanced himself from playing Beatles numbers that fans wanted to hear, and when he did play the occasional Beatles number, he’d change the lyrics to something related to God or Krishna.

That same year, George met Olivia Arias, who worked in the marketing department of A&M Records, the distributor of George’s new label, Dark Horse. A romantic relationship quickly ensued, and they married four years later in 1978. She gave birth to their son Dhani a month before the wedding.

After Living in the Material World, George’s albums failed to gain much traction, though some songs from these albums do stand out. On Dark Horse, the title track is a highlight in spite of his laryngitis. On the Extra Texture album, Tired of Midnight Blue was a standout.

Here we’ll pause to talk about the lawsuit over My Sweet Lord, from his debut album – All Things Must Pass.

In 1971, Bright Tunes Music Corporation accused George of plagiarizing the 1963 song, He’s So Fine, from the girl group, The Chiffons. In 1976, George had to go to court in New York and demonstrate to a jury how he wrote songs, something he found to be completely absurd, since he grew up noticing passing similarities of hundreds of songs to one another. In fact, he claimed that the inspiration came from the non-copyrighted song, Oh Happy Day. Ultimately, the judge ruled against George.

But something interesting happened between the verdict and the calculation of damages. Allen Klein, who was at first George’s defender on the case, ended up buying Bright Tunes after being fired. This means Klein went from being George’s lawyer to the plaintiff within the same case, hoping to cash in on whatever George would have to pay in damages. Such a move is completely unique and unprecedented. But in 1981, the judge found that what Klein had done was unethical, and ruled that George had to buy Bright Tunes from Klein for around half a million dollars. So, in effect, George lost the ruling, but because of his former manager’s behavior, he ended up winning by owning the company that sued him. He would ironically earn royalties from both songs.

The track from his album Thirty Three & 1⁄3 titled This Song purposely mocks the idea of suing over plagiarism by using the bass line to Sugar Pie Honey Bunch, which shares a similarity to the song, Rescue Me. The music video features friends of George, including Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, as one of the characters in drag.

1976 was also the year George appeared on Saturday Night Live alongside host Paul Simon, where they performed Simon’s song, Homeward Bound.

In 1978, George branched out into creating a movie production company with his newest business partner, Denis O’Brien. It was called HandMade Films, and the initial purpose of its creation was to help fund the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian. Here, Monty Python member John Cleese talks about George saving the film. George’s production company produced many other successful films, such as Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, and The Long Good Friday, starring Bob Hoskins. In the mockumentary, All You Need Is Cash, about the Rutles (pronounced) Ruhtles), based on the Beatles, George briefly appeared as a news anchor.

His next self-titled album includes the song Not Guilty, which he originally wrote after The Beatles’ retreat in India. It represents his defense against the backlash from the other three following their break from the Maharishi, in addition to his struggle for artistic freedom within the band.

While working on his album, Somewhere In England in 1980, George was woken up by his wife with the news that John had been killed.

The song All Those Years Ago from 1981 was originally intended as a song to give to Ringo, but after John’s death, George changed the lyrics to reflect his memories of John. Ringo played drums on the track, and Paul and Linda lent backing vocals.

The following year, in 1982, George released the album Gone Troppo, mostly to negative reviews. Frustrated by the pressures of the music industry, George took a hiatus for about five years, where he spent his time at home gardening, traveling, and watching motor races. In George’s words, “I know that racing is to a lot of people, dopey, maybe from a spiritual point of view. Motor cars – polluters, killers, maimers, noisemakers. Good racing, though, involves heightened awareness for the competitors. Those drivers have to be so together in their concentration, and the handful of them who are the best have had some sort of expansion of their consciousness.”

During his break from releasing albums, he did appear on stage with Carl Perkins in 1986, singing Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, a Carl Perkins original that George sang in the Beatles’ early days.

When George returned to the music scene in 1987, he teamed up with producer Jeff Lynne for his album, Cloud 9. It is generally considered his best since the early 70’s, and the only album of his since All Things Must Pass to go platinum, selling over 1 million copies. While the album as a whole did well, much of the success was due to a song on the album that wasn’t an original, the song, Got My Mind Set On You, written by Rudy Clark, originally performed by James Ray in 1962.

George, now no longer shying away from Beatles nostalgia, also released a song called When We Was Fab, co-written by Lynne. Ringo played drums, and contributed backing vocals for the song, in addition to appearing in the music video.

Shortly after the success of Cloud 9, George and Jeff Lynne assembled the all-star group, The Traveling Wilburys in 1988, consisting of themselves, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison. While George fostered the spirit of collaboration, he was the primary leader and songwriter behind the group and their major hits, which include Handle With Care, and End of The Line. Their first album, Traveling Wilburys Volume 1, won a Grammy in 1990 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

The title of their hit, Handle With Care, was inspired by a cardboard box in Bob Dylan’s garage.   Sadly, Roy Orbison died of a heart attack during the recording of their first album. After their second album, which was dedicated to his memory, they went their separate ways again as solo artists.

It was during this period in the late 80’s that George started having some major financial issues with his film company, HandMade Films because of numerous box office flops. Needing to recoup some of the losses, Eric Clapton persuaded George to join him for a concert tour of Japan, in spite of George’s dislike of touring. The tour of Japan in December 1991 would be George’s last series of public concerts. Unlike his Dark Horse tour from 1974, where he tried to put his past as a Beatle behind him, he now embraced the fan favorites, in addition to the newer material.

Shortly after the tour, George agreed to sign on to the Anthology series with Paul and Ringo. This involved extensive interviews about his experience in the Beatles and the creation of their songs, in addition to working on completing John’s unfinished material with the other three. His producer, Jeff Lynne, led the project in McCartney’s home studio. George contributed his trademark slide guitar to two of these tracks: Real Love, and Free As A Bird.

During the 90’s, George became especially fond of the ukulele, often preferring it to the guitar when playing for fun.

In 1997, George appeared alongside his longtime friend and sitar mentor, Ravi Shankar, on the TV channel VH1 to promote Shankar’s album, Chants of India, which he helped produce. On the program, George performed his debut album’s title track, All Things Must Pass, and a new song called Any Road.

Shortly after this appearance, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, which he attributed to smoking, and seemed to respond successfully to treatment.

Two years later, George was attacked in his home in Friar Park by a paranoid schizophrenic man with a long history of psychiatric admissions who had recently been discharged from a mental health ward. George suffered over 40 stab wounds and a punctured lung. He was saved by his wife Olivia who was also injured in the attack, but managed to hit the attacker on the head with a table lamp

After recuperating from the attack, two years later, the cancer returned. George put most of his remaining energy into finishing his final album, Brainwashed. It is a summation of his life experience, containing his usual witty inside jokes, references to his spiritual beliefs, and cynicism towards the modern world. His voice is understandably weaker than usual, but shouldn’t be an obstacle for those who can also enjoy the later works of Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. But unlike his voice, his illness left no mark on his slide guitar playing, which was just as strong as ever. Jeff Lynne and George’s son Dhani helped complete the album after George’s death, following specific directions left by George.

During the final days of his life, Paul let George and his family stay at one of his homes to protect them from being hounded by the press. He died at age 58 on November 29th, 2001, and his ashes were scattered into the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India.

Paul and Ringo were interviewed shortly after his death. A memorial concert was filmed a year later, called Concert For George, which featured most of his past collaborators and friends, including Paul, Ringo, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, and George’s son, Dhani.

He will always be remembered as the guitarist in the Beatles who wrote While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something, and Here Comes The Sun, but as we’ve seen, his uniqueness as a songwriter has yet to be fully appreciated and recognized by the larger public. This is mainly because George lost his taste for fame and stardom early on. The majority of his life was dedicated to friendship, music making, family, and spirituality. According to his family, his final message was “Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another.”