GEORGE Harrison was born on February 25, 1943, in Liverpool, England. He began playing guitar at the age of 13, inspired by the music of British star Lonnie Donegan and the encouragement given by his schoolmate Paul McCartney. McCartney then introduced Harrison to John Lennon, who had then formed a band called the Quarrymen.

Harrison, recalling his early days with Lennon, remarked: "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. 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."

In 1960, the Quarrymen gave themselves a new name — the Beatles — and recruited drummer/ fellow Liverpool native Ringo Starr. Soon, hits followed and Beatlemania was born. Together they changed the face of modern music, ultimately becoming the barometer by which all pop acts are now measured.

Harrison’s guitar work, modelled on that of Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins among others, was essential to the Beatles — a singular force in the rebellious 1960s, influencing everything from hairstyle to music. He blended well with the band’s joyous sound, but rocked out widely on Long Tall Sally and turned dreamy on Something. Harrison had become an essential ingredient in Beatles’ music. His complex 12-string Rickenbacker, featured in Hard Day’s Night, was a major influence on contemporary bands and music beginners.

Harrison may not have been the leader but polls showed him the most popular of the fab four with US audiences. A personal partnership came in Harrison’s life in 1965, when making a film he met a teenage model Patti Boyd and married her in January 1966.

Although Harrison’s songwriting was often overshadowed by the works of Lennon-McCartney duo, he evolved both as a musician and a songwriter. He became interested in the sitar and later introduced it to a generation of musicians and music listeners on Norwegian Wood, a track from Rubber Soul album. Harrison soon started contributing more of his material to the band. His outstanding compositions were Taxman and Love You To on Revolver, If I needed Someone on Rubber Soul, I Need You for the soundtrack of Help! With You, Without You on Sgt. Pepper and While My Guitar Gently Weeps on the White Album. Musically, this was the Beatles’ best period, of course, culminating in the album Sgt. Pepper in 1967. It was an era of experimentation, psychedelia and Indian mysticism. More than any of the Beatles, Harrison craved for inner peace, which he eventually found in India. Late in 1966, after the Beatles had stopped touring, he and Patti came to India, where he studied the sitar with Pt. Ravi Shankar. He maintained a lifelong affiliation with this country. In 1967, Harrison introduced the other Beatles to the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and all four of them took up transcendental meditation along with their wives. Later Harrison was the only one who remained a follower — the others dropped out, with John Lennon mocking the Maharishi in the song Sexy Sadie.

Although the Beatles broke up in 1970 they continued to remain popular with the masses, as evidenced by the chart-topping success of last year’s Beatles 1, a compilation of the band’s most popular hits. George Harrison managed to enjoy sporadic success even after the split. He said: "The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1963. The second biggest break was getting out of them." Though both Lennon and McCartney went on to achieve great solo success, it was Harrison, the youngest Beatle, who first struck gold. All Things Must Pass was hailed as a masterpiece. But there was a controversy after My Sweet Lord — which swept all the releases in Europe and the USA — was deemed by a court to have been based on the 1962-hit She’s So Fine by the Chiffons.

By 1971 Harrison was actively linked with the Hare Krishna movement. He produced two benefit concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden for the people of Bangladesh after Pt. Ravi Shankar had told him of the poverty there. The three-record set of the same, with prominent guest artists, won him a Grammy, but certain allegations emerged about the mishandling of funds.

Harrison’s 1974 recording Dark Horse was a runaway success. He gave his record company the same title and this was also his preferred epithet for himself. Harrison justified: "The one that suddenly pulls out from behind the rest and barrels ahead to actually win the race. That’s me I guess."His relationship with Patti Boyd collapsed by this time and he later met his second wife Olivia, an assistant in the merchandising department at A&M records. They had a son, Dhani, in 1978. Things got better for Harrison in the late 1980s when he formed an impromptu supergroup, The Travelling Wilburys, which featured some of the superstars, including Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lyne and Roy Orbison. The Wilburys won Harrison his second Grammy. In this period Harrison founded Handmade Films to produce Monty Python’s Life Of Brian, and later produced Mona Lisa, Shanghai Surprise and The Long Good Friday. He sold the company for $8.5 million in 1994. Fame continued to follow Harrison. In 1999, he was nearly killed after being stabbed several times by an intruder who broke into his home in west of London. The man who claimed the Beatles were witches was later acquitted for he was proved insane. Although Harrison survived the ordeal, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, which eventually spread to his brain. The following year, Harrison saw the compilation of Beatles No.1 singles, which sold millions of copies. "The thing that pleases me the most about it is that young people like it," Harrison said. "I think the popular music has gone truly weird. It’s either cutesy-wutesy or its hard, nasty stuff. It’s good that this has life again with the youth."

On November 29 George Harrison died of cancer. He often said: I don’t know what as… you go on being reincarnated until you reach the actual truth. Heaven and Hell are just a state of mind. In a statement, the Harrison family said: "He left this world as he lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace, surrounded by family and friends." Harrison said: "Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another."

Pt. Ravi Shankar was present during Harrison’s final hours in California. "We spent the day before with him, and even then he looked so peaceful, surrounded by love," Shankar said in a statement a day after the death. "George has left so many precious memories and moments in all our lives which will remain with us forever."

Harrison has given so much to us in his lifetime and continues to do so even after his death, with his music and his wisdom. He appeared to feel just as we did; reason enough why Harrison’s music was so well accepted. His music was responding to the same impulses and the same quickening in the air. The lyrics, the melodies, the feelings — all were actually a part of us and nobody hesitated to make such music as anthems, that everybody could relate to.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon were both geniuses, but Harrison always remained an essential part. Above all George Harrison will be remembered for his music. He once said:"I think people who can live their life in music are telling the world: ‘You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don’t need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it’s the very best,’ and it’s the part I give most willingly."