With Love, From Beatles to Truth

George Harrison was that most curious of characters. Although pencilled as 'the quiet one' of the four Beatles, he was actually the most chameleonic, and certainly the most philosophical of the men who had curated the greatest music of the 1960s. Everything he wrote was shaped by instinct, every quip he delivered was carefully constructed, and everything he played on guitar was delivered with a passion that went beyond professionalism. And yet, cornered in the world's most successful pop sensation, it was growing harder for him to acquiesce to the demands of an audience he simply had no interest in pandering to. Instead, he found solace in India (where he had travelled almost annually since he took his wife Pattie there in 1966). He was also spending more time in the balmy American climes, where Bob Dylan and The Band were enjoying a collaboration based on instinct, intuition and principle. Indeed, Music From Big Pink seemed to pinpoint a new form of collaboration, but if Harrison had hoped his better-known group was going to follow Robbie Robertson's lead, he was sure to be disappointed.

By 1968, tensions were simmering within The Beatles. Increasingly perceived as the junior writer of the group, Harrison's desire to record more of his own material was being met with apathy by his bandmates. Aggrieved by the constraints of the band, Harrison made a bold move that radically changed the discourse of the operation, and typified the way he would work as a solo artist. Discouraged by what he perceived as their lack of interest in 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', Harrison invited Cream superstar Eric Clapton to record the propulsive guitar lick. If the intention was to motivate his bandmates to put their back into the recording, it worked, and Harrison was duly impressed with the piano part McCartney recorded as an intro. Lennon, too was relying on outside counsel, spending more and more time with avant-gardist and girlfriend Yoko Ono, and by the time the band had reconvened for their next album - one they hoped to perform for live audiences - Ono now firmly sat beside the man she was soon to marry. 'It's a question of mutual respect', Clapton surmised. 'I have a great deal of respect for (Harrison) because there have probably been a thousand times when he wanted to quit The Beatles and do something on his own ... Paradoxically, he respects me for having the courage to walk out on groups because I don't like what I am doing. He has often said to me that he does not see me in any band for very long, and I think he has a strange regard for my facing up to impossible situations and just cutting out. But he never has'.

Harrison never quit, but there were moments when he questioned his place in the band: 'There used to be a situation where we'd go in (as we did when we were kids), pick up our guitars, all learn the tune and chords, and start talking about arrangements', Harrison recalled. 'But there came a time ... when Paul had fixed an idea in his brain as to how to record one of his songs ... It was taken to the most ridiculous situations, where I'd open my guitar case and go to get my guitar out, and he'd say, 'No, no, we're not doing that yet' . It got so there was very little to do other than sit around and hear him going, 'Fixing a hole...' with Ringo keeping the time'.

In January 1969, The Beatles congregated at Twickenham Studios to successfully compile a setlist that could be released concurrently as a film and a record. In stark contrast to the band's more ornate approach to studio craft, this was their chance to wipe the slate clean and show themselves as the powerhouse quartet they knew themselves to be - the title Get Back had both literal and compositional resonances, and composers John Lennon and Paul McCartney savvily rose to the occasion by adding a roaring, rollicking title track that would double as lead single and conceptual hook. Harrison was writing prolifically, having contributed four numbers to the band's eponymous double album (from here on known as The White Album). But faced against two mighty partners, his contributions were steadily being overlooked in favour of undistinguished and disappointing Lennon numbers.

Worse than that, McCartney - now firmly positioned as the band's musical director - had specific visions for his work, which didn't often align with Harrison's. It was at the bassist's insistence that Michael Lindsay-Hogg be granted haven into their headquarters to film and record the band rehearsing, but the bassist may have been less eager had he known the extent to which Harrison's temper would erupt before the cameras. 'I'll play what you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play'. (Peter Jackson's re-edit demonstrated a more nuanced version of the dispute between the two musicians, but it ultimately didn't sting any less than it did on the footage from 1970.) Between these two men - both notably hairier than they'd appeared to the public in 1963 - sat drummer Ringo Starr: clearly upset by the words being thrown by two dear friends. Always the most sensitive band member, Starr was also the most down-to-earth, and it's likely it was he who convinced the other three to perform their new material on the top of Apple Studios.

What the band performed for the public in January 1969 wasn't brilliant, but it compensated by virtue of its ramshackle ferocity; not forgetting the element of surprise. As a finale to the documentary, the performance proved to be an exhilarating close, but it would be the last time these four men appeared in public together. A chance to rebrand the outfit now felt like the last emblems of the group, and wisely the film was released under the more apposite name, Let It Be. For contemporary viewers, it felt like a codicil to a decade of incredible work, but the film exemplified the band's lack of organisational skills in kaleidoscopic strokes and palettes. It made the mythology that bit too real for the wide-eyed Beatle fan aching for one final escape into the realm of imagination and wonder.

But before The Beatles had the chance to release this feature, they put their differences aside to record Abbey Road - a triumphant album that boasted the band's adept use of harmony vocals ('Because') and synthesizer ('Maxwell's Silver Hammer'), before culminating in a 16-minute medley that sounded like their entire catalogue condensed into a zestful sound collage. Typically, McCartney led the band through the (admittedly jaw-dropping) medley, but that's not to say that Lennon was off his game, as 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' - a near-eight-minute rocker laced with urgency, understanding and an inspired Santana-esque bridge - proved. And yet, the album's most fondly-remembered number was a Harrison tune. A favourite with stalwarts Shirley Bassey and Frank Sinatra, 'Something' dispelled any unfair notions held against Harrison. With 'Something', Harrison demonstrated an ability that could rival Lennon for canniness and deep-rooted intelligence, yet the song had a viewpoint that was as achingly romantic as the most longing of McCartney's work. Producer George Martin was stunned with the song's maturity and embellished the piece with an exquisite string accompaniment. Most importantly, Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd was touched by the work - something she wore with great pride in the decades to come: 'He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me. I thought it was beautiful...'.

A precocious guitar player, Harrison had begun enjoying other pursuits, and through his connections to the Krsna movement, he combined his two loves in one form: music. In his eyes, his marriage was verifiable proof of religion: 'All love is part of a universal love. When you love a woman, it's the God in her that you see'.

But for all his idiosyncratic values and practices, he recognised that he belonged in an industry of commerce - a boulder that frequently halted the musician on his journey to inner peace. It was all very well to travel to India in an effort to reconnect with their personal environments (as The Beatles did in 1968 following the death of manager Brian Epstein), but London, legal issues and music always had a way of calling them back to work. And with the band's label Apple rapidly losing money, the four men decided to swallow any pride that was left standing, and hire professional counsel. Paul McCartney's partner Linda Eastman had left America behind for the more bohemian adventures that awaited her in England. Her father Lee was a lawyer, and though his daughter lacked interest in pursuing a career in his field, his soon-to-be son-in-law thought Lee's acumen might come in handy. McCartney suggested Lee Eastman as a possible candidate to his bandmates, although he later conceded that his standing as a relative didn't make him an objective bystander, especially considering the diversity of interests within the group. While McCartney might've been happy to accept another candidate, he pointedly refused to countenance Allen Klein - a man John Lennon figured could help The Beatles out of their predicament. Klein had grit - a trait which won him Harrison's confidence - but McCartney could not be swayed on the matter. In an attempt to level the field, McCartney encouraged Ringo Starr to side with Eastman, but the drummer wouldn't...