Number 5
George Harrison
How could you have a top 10 greatest guitarist of all time list and not have the guitarist for the FRICKIN’ BEATLES?
Of all the people on this list, George Harrison is the most different. What do I mean by that? Well, Harrison wasn’t a blazing guitar wizard. Harrison had serious difficulty constructing solos, or even knowing where to go as he wrote. Harrison couldn’t do sweep picking (a technique to help players fill short periods of time with scales). If you had put Harrison in a room with his contemporaries like Hendrix, Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Jerry Garcia, or Jeff Beck, he would want to just recede into the shadows. He’d feel outclassed and outshined. And, to be frank, he would be. As a guitarist, George couldn’t hang with those guys. But, you may ask, why would I put him this high up on my list if I can confidently state that so many others around him were better technical guitarists?
Because he was THEIR idol.
Let me tell you a little story. George was with his best friend, Eric Clapton one morning. Very early in the morning. Sunrise, to be exact. They were walking around George’s yard and sat down next to a pond, just talking. Clapton said that when he was with George he would take his guitar with him on walks, something Clapton assures us that he would never do with anyone else. On this particular day, as they sat down by the pond, the sun started to rise. George picked up his guitar and wrote “Here Comes The Sun” right there, right then, in front of a blown away Eric Clapton, like it was nothing.
George Harrison just had it. Whatever “it” is that makes extraordinary people even more extraordinary, George had it. In spades. Had George Harrison had his own band that he wrote for they would have ended up being one of the biggest bands on the planet. But…he didn’t have his own band. He was in The Beatles with two of the most prolific songwriters, THE two biggest game changing songwriters of all time: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They knew they were great. They knew they had it all. And they felt they SHOULD do it all. Just pick up the guitar and play stuff, George, this is the John and Paul band.
But George, in spite of writing so many amazing songs, never seemed to have that kind of cocky swagger that is almost a prerequisite for being a lead guitarist. Hand Edward Van Halen a guitar in a room with Hendrix, Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Jerry Garcia, and Jeff Beck, not only does he not recede into the corner, he’d say “heck, check this out” and proceed to blow their minds. Jake E. Lee, Randy Rhodes, Roy Clark…anyone else on this list, that is how they are. They are great guitarists, in part, because they have an ocean of confidence and an unquenchable thirst to show off.
Not George.
You could understand how, after joining The Beatles at the ripe old age of 14, and being in a band with the two greatest songwriters of the Rock and Roll Era, that George could have some imposter syndrome. Ringo never had that because Ringo was the best Beatle. They would throw him a bone every now and then and, frankly, Ringo didn’t ask for many bones. Also, his songs were playful and silly and I’m sure McCartney and Lennon didn’t feel threatened.
They WERE threatened by George Harrison, who really wanted nothing more than to express himself artistically. He didn’t write silly songs about underwater adventures. He wrote cheeky protest songs like “Taxman”. He wrote masterpieces of the heart like “Something”, a song Frank Sinatra said was “the greatest love song of the past 50 years”. He wrote spiritual standards like “My Sweet Lord”. And he wrote THE guitarist’s guitarist's song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with his best friend, Eric Clapton. Clapton played on it because John, Paul, and Ringo had ZERO interest in it. It was only released as B-side to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, which is every reason you need for why George had to leave The Beatles. He wrote one of the top 5 Beatles songs and they only let him so they could have a B-side for some silly throw away song. And that’s to say nothing of all the riffs and leads that he brought to the table that are just named “by The Beatles”.
He wrote the very last song that The Beatles ever recorded, “I Me Mine”. And then, the gloves were off.
Harrison went on to write other incredible songs in a solo career.
Harrison went on to be a founding member of arguably the greatest supergroup of all time, The Traveling Wilburys with his friends Jeff Lynne (ELO), Bob Dylan, Tom Petty (a man who idolized him), and a singer Elvis Presley said he wanted to be able to sing like, Roy Orbison. Supergroup, indeed. And Harrison was the primary songwriter on their biggest hit “Handle With Care”.
George Harrison led an extraordinary life. That’s putting it lightly. George never viewed himself as the guitar god that he actually was. Perhaps he could have had the technical prowess of some of the others on this list had he not spent large amounts of time learning sitar and just focused on becoming the best guitarist ever. But he didn’t. He wasn’t interested in being the greatest. He was interested in writing great music. And, man, did he achieve that in the highest order.
George Harrison died on November 29, 2001 of lung cancer. He left behind nothing short of a mountain of incredible music that touched, and still touches, the lives of BILLIONS of people. He walked away from the biggest band of all time to do his own thing. He is, without a doubt, one of the most influential musicians, not just guitarists, to ever live. Nearly everyone on this list could actually play guitar better than George Harrison. Literally none of the other people on this list left the world with a catalog of music that George did.
And for that, George Harrison is my 5th greatest guitarist of all time.