While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Music of George Harrison

by Simon Leng

Far from being “the quiet one ” George Harrison was a writer and arranger of terrific power and beauty, and his guitar playing was fundamental to the Beatles' sound and success.



Now fully revised and expanded, this new edition of While My Guitar Gently The Music of George Harrison is the most comprehensive evaluation of George Harrison's musical career ever published. Treating each of Harrison's songs with unprecedented analysis, author Simon Leng reveals Harrison's eclectic approach – from teenage Nashville twang through Indian raga, psychedelia, gospel, soul, and pure pop – and thoroughly defines Harrison's role in the Beatles. First-hand accounts of the Concert for Bangladesh and the making of All Things Must Pass take the reader deep into the most fertile and controversial periods of Harrison's long solo career that culminated with Brainwashed .



Enhanced with insights from key figures who worked closely with Harrison throughout his extraordinary career, While My Guitar Gently Weeps is a remarkably stirring study and portrait of a great artist whose musical and spiritual quest changed the lives of millions of people around the world while redefining popular music and rock 'n' roll.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography

370 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

Reviews

[Desirée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought I should take a break from the Beatles lit but after the Lizard Cage I was ravenous for Beatles culture and history. Already had a suspicion that George is my soul mate but this book really made me fall in love with him, or at least the idea of him. Also appreciate how the author gives George all the credit he deserves as musician, saying that his role in the Beatles was never celebrated for his talent. Around the same time when I saw the ROlling Stone 500 greatest Guitarists of All Time (though I don't think it's accurate because it leaves out so many non-rock players, Django Reinhardt, Julian Bream, Andrés Segovia). George got number 11, I was so proud! Beat out all those guitarists who are revered as being so intense and talented, namely Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Van Halen, Dimebag Darrell, Stevie Ray Vaughan, even Carlos Santana. Then again, I don't know much about guitar but I did call the top three guitarists on that list (Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page). George is really magnificent. I read this at home but also on my trip to visit Linda in Boston and finished it in a coffee shop when I went to visit Jack in early December, Fall 2011.

[Paul Spence · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is SO nice to see George's music get the sympathetic in-depth treatment it deserves. Leng covers both the Beatles and post-Beatles eras. I'm sure George would have approved. After all, he was the one who said he was trying to dispose of the detritus of his past even as Beatles fans were insisting on dredging it up. Just as with Lennon, `the music was the thing' for George. And Leng delivers the goods. George would just love that Leng dispenses with George's Beatles past in 45 pages, leaving 280 for George's solo decades. Sometimes the musical analysis gets a bit too technical for most readers, but some of those readers may one day revisit the book after learning more about the technical side and be appreciative of Leng's attention to musical detail.

Of course, in doing justice to George I find that Leng errs on the side of being too positive re. many of George's more lugubrious meditations on Krishna consciouness. Rather: select out only the best of his solo work and juxtapose it with the best of the other three Beatles to create a Beatles future that extends way way beyond 1970. Though the individual Beatles might object to this mode of listening to their work, it's not their call to make but ours. And believe me, for true Beatles fans this is the way to go.

Leng has lots of insights into George's playing and composing, and his career. A welcome contribution Leng makes is to excerpt scads of local reviews that lauded George's 1974 Dark Horse tour performances. Falsely, the tour got the reputation of having been a disaster, but it was really only a single pan from `Rolling Stone' that did ALL the damage. Moreover, while George did feel mauled, he did not retreat into himself for very long afterward. Indeed he was prepared to set out on another tour in 1976, but was thwarted by hepatitis and then a cancelled record contract.

Bravo Simon Leng for doing so well a job so worth doing.

[Conrad Wesselhoeft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Leng achieves here what, to my knowledge, no other book about the Beatles--together or solo--ever has. He pulls George Harrison out of the shadows cast by Lennon and McCartney and elevates him to the much-deserved rank of first-rate artist and composer. That alone makes this an important book.

Leng reviews the entire Harrison catalog--from his earliest Beatles compositions ("Don't Bother Me," "I Want to Tell You") to his final posthumously released solo album Brainwashed. This tune-by-tune analysis can be ponderous, but it does illuminate some of Harrison's lesser-known gems, of which my favorites are: "Long, Long, Long," "The Inner Light," "Life Itself," "Your Love is Forever," "Dehra Dun," "Deep Blue," "Beware of Darkness," "Here Comes the Moon," and his ukulele version of an old Harold Arlen standard, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea."

Leng also charts Harrison's growth as a guitar player, from his early absorption of Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins to his signature solo slide work. (Just check out his exquisite slide on the tunes "Life Itself," "Marwa Blues," and his guest solo on Alvin Lee's "The Bluest Blue.")

For George Harrison fans, While My Guitar Gently Weeps is essential reading.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, Goodreads, once again you foil my intentions with no half stars possible. Make it 3.5.

Surely it must be possible to pen an appreciation of George Harrison's music without constantly disparaging John, Paul and Ringo (along with a sideswipe or two at other musicians). Sadly, that is not the case here. Leng seems to find it necessary to extol George in part by depreciating his band mates.

For all that, this book is a nice insightful look at George's recordings with and without the Beatles, with plenty of details about who played on which songs and some commentary on his considerable talent as a singer, songwriter and guitarist by these same musicians. It would've gotten five stars, but I got tired very quickly of all the sniping at the other ex-Beatles, along with some unneeded opinions about the music industry. Still, definitely worth a read for Beatles fans.

[Gracie · Rating 5 out of 5]

extra texture massively underrated!

[Ryan Copping · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely fantastic analysis of Harrison’s work. Though Leng clearly believes Harrison is a vastly underrated artist (a position I agree with), this is a serious and even-handed work, one of the few that seriously engage with his music beyond All Things Must Past. If you have any interest at all in George Harrison’s solo career, this is essential.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent overview of George Harrison.

[Patrick Barritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspired by the Get Back project I bought this for myself as a treat. It is a song-by-song appreciation of George Harrison's career a bit like the Macdonald book on the Beatles "Revolution in the Head".
A joy for me to go through the songs I know so well and hear a different perspective and also insights from interviews Simon Leng made with a few of the collaborators- mostly john Barham, Klauss Vormann, and the Splinter group George produced. I also was made aware of songs by George not released but you can find them on youtube. To hear of new stuff was such a suprise. Hard to believe the record company actually rejected those songs because they are great.
Simon Leng is clearly as much of a fan of George Harrison's music as me ! so I guess it is a little uncritical but I don't blame him for that.

[M Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize how in depth this book was going to be. I took a class in college to learn how to read music,just so I can understand the works better. George Harrison was a musical genius. Read this, understand the man behind the music.

[RA · Rating 3 out of 5]

More focused on the music and songs, but the author has his own opinion about events, reasons, histories, meaning, psychology, etc. of Beatle George. Some of it sounds like revisionism, but my main revelation is how much of his later music I missed, and am interested in listening to.

[Ulrike Bungert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annoying Brownnoser who wrote it, but interesting biography.