George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle

by Philip Norman Narrated by David Holt

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Philip Norman is an expert at writing about The Beatles, so no one is better equipped to deliver the biography of George Harrison. Norman dives deep into who Harrison really was, from his sense of inferiority to his undoubted musical genius.

From the premiere Beatles biographer-author of the New York Times bestseller John Lennon: The Life and Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation-a rare and “absorbing biography” (Wall Street Journal) of George Harrison, the most misunderstood and mysterious Beatle, based on decades-long research and unparalleled access to inside sources.

Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote.

Now, Philip Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions in this “keen and lovely tribute” (Booklist, starred review). Compared to songwriting luminaries John Lennon and Paul McCartney he was considered a minor talent, yet he composed such masterpieces as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Here Comes the Sun,” and his solo debut album All Things Must Pass appears on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever. Modern music critics place him in the pantheon of sixties guitar gods alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page.

Harrison railed against the material world yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax. He spent years lovingly restoring his Friar Park estate as a spiritual journey, but quickly mortgaged the property to help rescue a film project that would be widely banned as sacrilegious, Monty Python's Life of Brian. Harrison could be fiercely jealous, but not only did he stay friends with Eric Clapton when Clapton fell in love with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, the two men grew even closer after Clapton walked away with her.

Unprecedented in scope and filled with numerous color photos, this rich biography captures George Harrison at his most multi-faceted: devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian, and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

George Harrison offers a full serving of Beatlemania through the specific lens of the group’s youngest member. The entire dynamic of The Beatles is on full display in these career-spanning chapters. Thanks to illuminating anecdotes that reveal the band’s complex relationships, Beatles fans will be enthralled page after page.”
—BookPage

“Being in the Fab Four might have given Harrison fame, wealth and boundless opportunity, but as Philip Norman shows in this absorbing biography [with] its eye for period detail, the burden it placed on his far-from-resilient shoulders stayed with him for the rest of his life.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Norman’s book will likely go down as the best and most comprehensive single volume biography. And it’s a solid choice as a Christmas gift for the Beatles fan on your ‘nice’ list.”
—Houston Press

“Norman has fashioned an authoritative portrait of Harrison that leaves you liking and feeling sympathy for his subject while being fully aware of the tetchiness...that was never far away. Norman is something of a one-man Beatles industry.”
—The Times of London

“Compelling and well-told...Norman makes the story of the reluctant Beatle new with unflinching honesty and fairness.”
—Notes: The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association

“[A] wonderful new biography. . . Philip Norman captures [Harrison’s] class consciousness vividly [and] does a marvelous job evoking Harrison’s working-class Liverpool upbringing. Norman writes with a mix of affection, irreverence and whimsy that feels perfectly aligned with his subject.”
—Robert Dean Lurie, The Spectator World

“Norman captures the creativity, the humanity, and the great humor of the man in this keen and lovely tribute.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Norman knows his subject and the soulful torments Harrison endured. A well-informed biography of an enigmatic musician.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“George Harrison was not just the reluctant Beatle. With his wizardly vim on the guitar, feathery voice, and knack for songcraft, he was certainly the most underrated one. Here, the Fab Four's inimitable chronicler Philip Norman gives us the portrait of Harrison's remarkable life that only he can: myth-dispelling, richly detailed, and full of humor. The story of how this young, poor, quiet Liverpool kid rose to musical mastery and fame is the triumph of an oft-overlooked hero—and a delight on every page.”
—Ian S. Port, author of The Birth of Loud

BookPage

Offers a full serving of Beatlemania through the specific lens of the group’s youngest member…Thanks to illuminating anecdotes that reveal the band’s complex relationships, Beatles fans will be enthralled page after page.”

The Times (London)

An authoritative portrait of Harrison that leaves you liking and feeling sympathy for his subject while being fully aware of the tetchiness…that was never far away.”

Booklist (starred review)

Norman captures the creativity, the humanity, and the great humor of the man in this keen and lovely tribute.”

Pattie Boyd

'You've got him' 

editor of Mersey Beat Bill Harry

‘You have taken your readers right down the steps and into the Cavern as it really was’ 

DECEMBER 2023 - AudioFile

David Holt raises the level of this unadorned but deeply researched biography of George Harrison--the reluctant, shy, sometimes overlooked Beatle. The dichotomies and contradictions of his complicated life abound, a life sadly cut short by cancer. His excessive cocaine use is discussed as continuously as his life journey with deep meditation. Holt has a relaxed, comfortable style and a just-British- enough accent to inform and entertain. Harrison's excellent musicianship on lead guitar and sitar is at the heart of the narrative. Neither his personal strengths and weaknesses are sensationalized. While not covering any new ground, this is a workmanlike biography-- well narrated despite its unvaried tone. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2023-08-10
The author of biographies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney turns his attention to George Harrison (1943–2001).

“Fuck off…can’t you see I’m meditating?” Thus quoth George—never Sir George, for unlike bandmates Sir Paul and Sir Ringo, Harrison was never knighted. That fact, reports longtime Beatle-watcher Norman, seems to have rankled, for if Harrison seemed to be bucking for sainthood throughout much of his too-short life, he was also all too human. His wife, Pattie Boyd Harrison, once asked George’s assistant, “What’s he got his hands in today, the prayer-beads or the cocaine?” Norman is no mean-spirited, character-assassinating biographer in the Albert Goldman vein, but he does seem to take a certain pleasure in catching Harrison out doing things he shouldn’t have, such as seducing Ringo’s wife—no secret, and present in other Harrison bios, but lingered over all the same. The author makes a few things clear: Harrison was a nimble guitarist, one of the best in the business, but he was undervalued by both Lennon and McCartney as a songwriter, which resulted in his long-pent-up solo effort, All Things Must Pass, a dark horse that charted higher than any of their solo efforts. Regrettably, its biggest hit was legally proven to have been inadvertently plagiarized. A creature of “endless self-contradictions,” Harrison was the one Beatle who grew up in true poverty, and while he claimed to renounce the material world, he also spent fortunes on the creature comforts of his British estates and Hawaiian getaway. Given to bad puns (“Vengeance Is Mine Saith the Chord”) and occasional clunkiness—e.g., Tom Petty was “the blondest man in Country rock”; after the Beatles broke up, “Beatleness still ran through him like the grain in old oak”—Norman nonetheless knows his subject and the soulful torments Harrison endured. The quiet Beatle turns out to have feet of clay—a surprise to some, perhaps.

A well-informed, serviceably written biography of an enigmatic musician.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159899729
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/24/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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