The Guitarist
 It's
fair to say George Harrison didn't just waltz into the Beatles' lead
guitar slot. Through talent and tenacity, he earned it. Harrison
was the funny-looking, skinny chap Paul McCartney used to see on the bus
to school. He had a flair for colorful clothes and, above all,
a love of the guitar, which he shared with the slightly older McCartney.
In 1958, with nothing more impressive on his resume but one gig at the
British Legion Club with his brother Peter and a couple mates, the 15 year
old began sitting in with the group McCartney had just joined -- The Quarry
Men -- and filled in when one or another of the guitarists didn't show.
Before long his chops -- honed from arduous practice and careful devotion
to R&B and Country and Western hits from America -- won him a permanent
position as the band's go-to guy. During a lean period in 1959 Harrison
played with the Les Stewart Quartet but by August he was back with the
Beatles to open the Casbah Club, and for every gig they played thereafter.
In a solo career populated by both worldwide hits and spectacular misses, Harrison has earned the respect of fans, musicians and critics alike with his unique palette of humor, devotion, irony and craftsmanship. "I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs," Harrison once told Beatles Monthly. "For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied ." |
1956:
Egmond
steel-strung Spanish style (sunburst, vintage unknown): In one account,
Harrison bought this "Beginner's Guitar," made in Holland by Egmond and
distributed by Rosetti, from schoolmate Raymond Hughes with £3 he'd
gotten from Mum.
for this guitar called it "the cheapest Model in our range" at four pounds,
seven shillings and six pence. While trying to adjust the action,
the lad accidentally unscrewed the neck from the body, but after a few
weeks in the cupboard, the Egmond was rescued by fellow guitar neophyte
Peter Harrison, who mended his brother's instrument. Harrison made
his show business debut with this guitar the following year at the Speke
British Legion Club, where The Rebels, a skiffle group formed by the Harrisons
and three mates, played their one and only gig. This guitar -- minus
its machine heads -- was auctioned off in London during the mid '80s, and
thanks to its anonymous British owner was on loan to the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in Cleveland from 1995 to 2002. In 2003 this little
Egmond -- now worth an estimated $800,000 -- went on display at The Beatles
Story Museum in Liverpool (below). 
1958:
Hofner
President f-hole acoustic (vintage unknown): In a quantum leap from
his first instrument, and with a little help from Mum, Harrison purchased
this handsome Hofner, a top-of-the-line, single-cutaway "cello style" model
with a sunburst finish and a "Compensator" tailpiece, for £30.
He played the President until swapping it to a member of the Swinging Blue
Jeans the following year for a Hofner Club 40.