George Harrison is sitting in a vast soundstage at Twickenham Film Studios, explaining to Ringo Starr and film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg how a BBC2 sci-fi series called Out Of The Unknown, that he watched the previous evening, has inspired a new song. Harrison is sporting the same black fur coat he wears on the iconic rooftop concert and perched on his knee is John Lennon’s 1965 Epiphone Casino.

It’s mid-morning on Tuesday 7 January, 1969 and the next Beatle to arrive is Paul McCartney. “Good morning,” says the bearded bassman chirpily as he strides across the floor. “Do you wanna hear a song I wrote last night?” Harrison asks him. “It’s just a very short one, called I Me Mine”.

What follows is a beautifully plaintive and sparse rendition with Harrison’s voice sounding particularly pure. “Lovely” exclaims Lyndsey Hogg. McCartney, with hands in pockets, stands beside Harrison and stares down at his fingers on the fretboard, but says nothing. Then John Lennon arrives. Harrison, now standing, runs through the song again but speeds it up. “Run along son, see you later,” jokes Lennon. “We’re a rock and roll band you know”.

If one incident highlights the tortuous position that George Harrison found himself in as part of The Beatles then this is it. It’s just one of a number of incidents captured in Peter Jackson’s three-part 2021 documentary Get Back, in which Harrison employs impressive levels of tenacity and tact to push his own songs forward to Lennon and McCartney. Their songwriting partnership was a source of both inspiration and frustration for George. They are ostensibly the gatekeepers, two strong personalities locked into an even stronger autonomous partnership.

Only in the months leading up to The Beatles’ break-up was Harrison’s contribution and his songwriting abilities finally acknowledged by its two principal songwriters. “Until this year our songs have been better than George’s,” said McCartney bluntly in the Get Back film. “Now, this year, his songs are at least as good as ours."

In the years and decades following the break-up of The Beatles, George Harrison’s contribution to the band would be completely reassessed and his songs, such as Something and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, would be recognised as some of The Beatles’ greatest works.

As Frank Sinatra said of Something in his introduction to the song during a performance in 1982: “It’s one of the best love songs I believe to be written in 50 or 100 years… it really is one of the finest.”

Despite such accolades, Harrison possibly felt undervalued within The Beatles at times. Subsequent comments also suggest that he may have contributed to more Beatles songs than he is given credit for.

In a 1987 interview for the TV series W. 57th Street, the whole issue of songwriting credits came up when broadcaster Selina Scott asked Harrison for his reaction to a comment from John Lennon.

“In an interview before his death, John Lennon said he was really hurt by you, that you’d never mentioned in your autobiography any of the influences that he had on you,” said Scott.

“He was annoyed because I didn’t say that he had written one line of this song, Taxman,” replied Harrison. “Did you tell him that?” asked Scott. “Well I didn’t because he was already dead after that” replied Harrison, “but the point to that was that I also didn’t say how I wrote two lines to Come Together or three lines to Eleanor Rigby, you know, I wasn’t getting into any of that. I think in the balance I would have had more things to be niggled with him about than he would have with me.”

Scott then cited Lennon mentioning that Harrison had idolised him as a young boy. “Well that’s what he thought,” laughed Harrison. “I liked him very much, he was a groove, he was a good lad, but at the same time he misread me. He didn’t realise who I was and this was one of the main faults of John and Paul. They were so busy being John and Paul, they failed to realise who else was around at the time.”

In the same interview Harrison touched on the legacy of being a Beatle. “It just annoyed me that people got so into The Beatles. It’s not that I don’t like talking about them, I’ve never stopped talking about them… in the end it’s like ‘Oh sod off with The Beatles’ you know?’'”

By 1969, Harrison was feeling smothered by his existence as a Beatle. Things famously came to a head when Harrison said to McCartney: “I’ll play whatever you want me to play. Or I won’t play at all if you don’t want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I’ll do it.”

It took Harrison leaving the band on 10 January 1969, with the witty, parting riposte of “See you ‘round the clubs”, for McCartney and Lennon to really take stock of his contribution. Although as Paul McCartney says in Martin Scorcese’s documentary Living In The Material World, he and John were well aware of George’s talents.

“We didn’t underestimate George. We knew that he was peaking as we got to those records. He’d not been really interested in the beginning I don’t think. And because John and I did so much of the writing he could just leave it to us. But I think he realised you know that there was something in this, [that] artistically and financially it was a good thing to get into. At that time we realised that he was really coming up with the goods.”

Few issues will drive a wedge within a band faster than the subject of who wrote what on which song. And when that band is The Beatles, the creative and commercial stakes couldn’t be higher.

After the Beatles’ break-up, Lennon took a number of verbal swipes at his former band members, and uncredited songwriting contributions were a theme. In a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine, Lennon talks about the writing of Eleanor Rigby but refers only to McCartney. George’s own alleged contribution to that song is not mentioned.

"It's his first verse,” said Lennon about McCartney, “and the rest of the verses are basically mine. But the way he did it was... he knew he'd got the song, so rather than ask me, 'John, do these lyrics' because, by that period, he didn't want to say that to me, okay..."

But this is not how Paul McCartney remembers it. “John helped me on a few words but I'd put it down 80–20 to me,” McCartney said in Barry Miles’s 1997 biography Many Years From Now. “So what he said was, ‘Hey, you guys, finish up the lyrics', while he was fiddling around with the tracks or arranging it, at the other part of the giant studio and EMI.”

A number of accounts cite Harrison coming up with the intro/bridge line for Eleanor Rigby. In David Scheff’s book All We Are Saying, Lennon is quoted as saying: “I do know that George Harrison was there when we came up with ‘Ah, look at all the lonely people’. [Paul] and George were settling on that as I left the studio to go to the toilet, and I heard the lyric and turned around and said, ‘That’s it!’”

There is no firm evidence that George came up with the line, only that he was there when it was written. But it’s one of the Beatles songs on which all the band had an input. All were present when McCartney presented the first verse and melody, as was Lennon’s childhood friend Pete Shotton, who in Kenneth Womack’s 2014 book All We Are Saying, remembers Lennon’s contribution amounting to “virtually nil”.

In Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, George talks about writing credits for Lennon/McCartney songs and he uses Eleanor Rigby as an example of a track on which his name is not credited, despite having made the contribution.

Of course, ideas and suggestions often occur spontaneously and quickly. No-one is sitting there logging who has contributed exactly what and it’s often difficult to remember in retrospect who came up with a particular phrase, motif or chord. It’s clear from Peter Jackson’s film that The Beatles helped each other out with ideas, as is the case when George Harrison works with Ringo on Octopus’s Garden.

Similarly, it seems quite possible that Harrison could have contributed a line or two of lyrics to Come Together although there is no documented evidence to suggest that he did. When he mentioned in the 1987 interview that he contributed lines to Come Together, he may simply have been using a random song to demonstrate a broader point.

One song that George certainly did have a hand in though was She Said, She Said, the final track recorded for the Revolver album, inspired by an LSD-influenced conversation between John Lennon and actor Peter Fonda.

In The Beatles Anthology, Harrison recalled helping Lennon construct the song from "maybe three" separate segments that Lennon had. Harrison described the process as “a real weld”. In his 2017 book Who Wrote the Beatle Songs?, author Todd Compton credits Lennon and Harrison as being the song's true composers.

It’s been claimed that Harrison didn’t want a co-write credit. It’s also been claimed he became thoroughly disillusioned when he didn’t receive one. Whatever the truth, it demonstrates that on at least one occasion, George Harrison had a hand in co-writing a song for which he received no songwriting credit.

For George, the break-up of The Beatles signified creative emancipation. He was soon revelling in his post-Beatles life and the solo opportunities it brought him. He topped the UK and US charts with the hugely acclaimed All Things Must Pass triple album (1970) and his 1973 album Living In The Material World was a critical and commercial triumph.

Speaking on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971, Harrison said he was overcome with relief when The Beatles’ broke up and compared it to leaving the family home.

“Some people can’t understand that, you know, because The Beatles were such a big deal. They can’t understand why we should actually enjoy splitting up, but there’s a time. People grow up and leave home or whatever they do. They go for a change, and it was really time for a change.”

It was a view echoed by Harrison in an interview with Musician magazine in 1987. “I just got so fed up with the bad vibes,” he said. “I didn’t care if it was The Beatles. I was getting out.”

• The 5 George Harrison post-Beatles songs you need to hear

Robben Ford’s head must have been spinning. Here he was, a blues guitar prodigy, barely in his twenties, and having signed up with the LA Express, the fusion band led by saxophonist Tom Scott, the gigs were coming in fast.

There was the tour with Joni Mitchell, playing the material from Court And Spark, their performances captured on tape and released as the Miles Of Aisles live album. Mitchell then called the band back to accompany her in the studio as she tracked The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. It was an education.

As Ford told MusicRadar, Joni Mitchell knew how to produce electric guitar sounds, and these were the kinds of collaborations that a young, talented musician would get into the business for. “She was always the easiest person in the world to be around, to work for, never uptight or heated,” he said.

Ford was not altogether a rookie. In 1971, he and his brothers had the Charles Ford Blues Band, named for their father, and in their early professional assignments they had backed legendary blues harp player Charlie Musselwhite.

Under Scott’s wing, however, Ford was seeing a completely different world, and they had just landed a gig to back George Harrison on his 1974 studio album, Dark Horse. Joni Mitchell and a Beatle in the same year.

Ford grew up in small-town California, in a place called Ukiah, a two-hour drive from San Francisco. It was the best part of a working day from Los Angeles, nigh-on 500 miles on the road. Here he was with a Beatle. Ford lets out a laugh at the memory.

“Well, in those days… I was 22! Twenty-two years old, you don’t know [anything],” he says, joining MusicRadar over Zoom. “And I’m from a small town, and had only in the last couple of years, I had spent two years with Jimmy Witherspoon, and that was in LA, and so being exposed to the city [laughs], all of that, really, I was very green.”

The sight of Harrison took a bit of getting used to. Playing music with him, less so.

“When I first met him I was just speechless,” says Ford. “But when we started playing, he gave no direction, he liked the way I played, and I would just be myself.”

The gig was well within Ford’s capabilities. If anything, he was playing within himself. Not that this was a bad thing. It was only when he went out on tour on the Dark Horse Tour that he could stretch out a bit as a player, playing White Album classic While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

“I really enjoyed playing that song; that was where George and I actually traded back and forth,” he told Guitar World, in 2025. “But my style and his were so different, as he was a very simple player, with long notes, and I was into playing a lot of notes.”

The chord patterns, too, were simple. Ford was building a vocabulary of more complex voicings. “Cowboy chords” and open voicings were mother’s milk to him. Ford was playing a Guild Starfire IV semi-hollow electric guitar. He wasn’t much one for effects, just the trusty Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz Tone and an MXR Phase 90. Mesa/Boogie provided his, and Harrison’s, backline.

“It wasn’t difficult to do,” he says, Harrison made him feel totally at ease. “There was nothing that made me feel uptight or insecure.”

Harrison would have had good reason to look on the Dark Horse era very differently. There was a lot to make him feel uptight and insecure. Harrison had marital trouble. His marriage with Pattie Boyd was coming apart.

There was also the ever-attendant pressure as the Beatle alumnus, that everything had to measure up to what he did with John, Paul and Ringo.

Paul McCartney speaks of similar pressures in Man On The Run, the 2025 documentary from director Morgan Neville that charts McCartney’s efforts to get Wings off the ground, to get his life back after the dissolution of the Fab Four. Even when he could outrun the shadow of the Beatles musically, the spectre of legal proceedings against their former manager, Allen Klein, were a different story.

Harrison was down but he was hardly out. After catching Joni Mitchell’s live in London, he liked what he saw of the LA Express and invited them to Friar Park to work with him on his record.

They would ultimately be in illustrious company. Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones and Harrison’s fellow Beatle alum Ringo Starr would play on the UK lead single, Ding Dong, Ding Dong, a psychedelic glam-rock stomper for New Year’s Eve that is worth checking out (and cranking loud) for the Phil Spector-inspired production alone. It is a 360º experience.

Its B-side, the instrumental Hari’s On Tour (Express), is also essential listening. On the Dark Horse tour, Harrison would open his shows with it. This was also a track where the LA Express, and the young Robben Ford, would earn their corn.

How do you even categorise this, all that slide guitar, the horns, the propulsive rhythm? Psych-country? Whatever it was, it wasn’t the Beatles, even if the album cover had something of that lysergic Sgt. Pepper’s quality.

Ford also played on the woozy blues of Simply Shady, and joined Harrison on acoustic guitar for the title track, another song that’s deserving of reappraisal.

It was recorded live during rehearsals for the tour, and foreshadowed the criticism that would plague the tour. Harrison’s misfortunes were compounded by laryngitis.

You have to laugh at the “Dark Hoarse” takes that were published following the US tour (surely/hopefully Harrison would have once enough time had gone by), but on record Harrison’s fried voice takes on a Dylan-esque quality, almost overdriven in its attempt to find its place in the mix. It’s more Tom Waits than Taxman. Compare and contrast this with the early 1973 take included as a bonus track on later reissues.

But so what if Dark Horse wasn’t quite as artistically confident as All Things Must Pass, Harrison’s 1971 debut solo masterpiece, or that it didn’t have the promethean magic of the Beatles?

What Dark Horse does have is a sound that’s ripe for rediscovery, some great guitar playing (chef’s kiss for the skronky slide on Māya Love), and the sound of a young guitarist who had officially arrived.

Robben Ford was speaking to MusicRadar in advance of his new studio album’s release. Two Shades Of Blue is available to preorder, out 27 March via Provogue.

• “I said, ‘Oh, Joni, that’s gonna sound terrible. You need an amp, man! You need some tubes vibrating. You need some air! She goes, ‘Would you just try it?’”: Robben Ford reveals how Joni Mitchell helped him nail his guitar tone on a ’70s classic

Don Was has seen John Mayer’s command of the electric guitar up close. He was in the control room for 2012’s Born And Raised, its 2013 follow-up Paradise Valley, and spent much of 2020 holed up in the studio with Mayer as he made Sob Rock during the pandemic.

Few producers know Mayer’s playing better. So when Was likens Mayer to George Harrison, citing his gift for crafting sounds out of left field that elevate a song, he doesn’t do so lightly.

“His guitar tones are unparalleled,” says Was, speaking to Tom Butwin of the the Everything Mayer Podcast and YouTube show. “They’re not just evocative, cool sounds, but they’re thick, and they’re warm, and they jump out of speakers, and I’m not sure how he does it.”

How he does it is not just a question of gear. You can have the PRS Silver Sky signature guitar. You could get Mayer’s guitar plugin suite from Neural DSP, the Archetype: John Mayer X, which collects captures of not one but three of his most holy grail tube amps.

But Was argues it’s not the same thing. You need his brain and his hands, too.

“Yes, he’s got the best gear you can have, but I’ve played his guitars and I don’t sound like him,” he says.

Was believes casual listeners might miss some of the subtle guitar details in Mayer’s recordings, but these are exaclty the kinds of sounds that catch the ear of players.

“I think people might take that for granted, but that’s one of the first things I notice when I listened to those records after not hearing them for a while,” continues Was. “It’s like, ‘Holy cow, man!’”

This makes him think of Harrison. But he went further, and says – cautiously – that Mayer could be even better than the late Beatle when it comes to teasing out unique sounds from his instrument.

“George Harrison was good at stuff like that, getting distinctive sounds that you only hear once on a certain song but it makes the song heaven, and that’s a strength of John’s,” explains Was. “He has the same thing. You notice I was loath to say John’s better than George Harrison. I just thought that ain’t gonna sit well with people. But he might be better than George Harrison.”

Comparing guitar players is a dangerous game. There is no better, not really, and even if there is, then you can be guaranteed that no one will agree with you. When Was says that Mayer might be better than George Harrison, he places the emphasis on the might.

What Was is in no two minds about is Mayer’s talent for putting a composition together. That is what sets him apart from everyone else he has worked with, e.g. Bob Dylan, the B-52s, the Rolling Stones, and, yes, George Harrison, like in 1990 when Harrison came in to play a solo on Dylan’s Under The Red Sky.

“I’ve never seen anyone with that many ideas for arrangements. He’s never short of ideas,” says Was. “It’s always, you know, ‘We have to do something in this section here.’ He’ll find 10 different, really elegant ways of of making that section work.

“And my job is never to tell him what to play; it’s to help him sort through the wealth of information that he’s laid down, to choose the most effective. His arrangement skills are incredible.”

It was always a challenge for George Harrison to assert himself as a songwriter within The Beatles – such was the dominance of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

One only has to view Peter Jackson’s acclaimed 2021 documentary Get Back to observe the conversational nuances and subtle persistence that George had to employ in his bid to get his songs heard.

One song that Harrison presented to the band was Isn’t It A Pity, a majestic and melancholic reflection on broken relationships and lack of universal empathy, which was rejected for inclusion on Beatles’ releases on three separate occasions.

According to Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn, Harrison first brought Isn’t It A Pity to the band in 1966 during the Revolver sessions.

Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick recalled the song then being put forward for inclusion on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 and rejected.

One year later, Harrison presented the song again, hoping to record it for the 1968 double album The Beatles, also known as ‘The White Album’.

A taped conversation captures Harrison telling Lennon that the latter had vetoed Isn’t It A Pity three years earlier, with Harrison adding that he had considered offering the song to Frank Sinatra.

The Beatles never did record Isn’t It A Pity. Neither did Frank. The first chance the public had to hear it was on All Things Must Pass, Harrison’s stunning, sprawling triple solo album, which he co-produced with Phil Spector and which was released in November 1970.

Ultimately, The Beatles’ loss was Harrison’s gain. Isn’t It A Pity is one of his finest compositions, described by writer Simon Leng as the emotional and musical centrepiece of All Things Must Pass. It is also a song inspired by humanitarian love and praised for its poignancy, sophistication and emotional depth.

In some ways, it’s easy to see why The Beatles might not have been drawn to Isn’t It A Pity back in 1966. There’s a mantra-type feel to its enigmatic, descending chord structure, which builds yet doesn’t progress in a traditionally structural sense.

Its power lies in its sweeping, melodic intensity – the ascending chord structure of G-Em6-Cmaj7-G-Ddim-C-G set against the descending strings and the directness of its lyrics.

“Isn't it a pity?/Now isn't it a shame/How we break each other's hearts/And cause each other pain”

In his 1980 autobiography I Me Mine, Harrison explained that Isn't It a Pity is about “whenever a relationship hits a down point” and how "we all tend to break each other's hearts, taking and not giving back". He went on to explain: “It was a chance to realise that if I felt somebody had let me down, then there's a good chance I was letting someone else down.”

Two versions of the song would be released.

Version one closes the first side of the All Things Must Pass album and is the longer rendition, clocking in at a 7:11 running time.

This is an epic, Spector-influenced performance and features an array of musicians, including Klaus Voormann on bass, Billy Preston on keyboards, as well as multiple percussionists.

Ringo Starr and session keyboardist Bobby Whitlock played on both versions of the song, while classical composer, pianist and arranger John Barham provided the orchestral and choral arrangements on version one and the woodwind arrangements on version two.

Harrison’s newly adopted slide guitar technique is a real highlight of Isn’t This A Pity and the All Things Must Pass album. In one of his deep dives into Harrison’s solo work, Beatles historian Bruce Spizer noted that the opening slide solo on Isn’t It A Pity has a near-identical melody to the one Harrison vocalised when playing the song to the other Beatles during the Get Back sessions on 26 January 1969.

Version one of It’s A Pity begins small and slowly builds. This version reflects Harrison and Barham’s desire to incorporate orchestration into the rock sound of All Things Must Pass. Barham stayed at Harrison’s home Friar Park while he created the scores for Isn’t It A Pity and other tracks on the album, drawing on melodies that Harrison sang to him or played on piano and guitar.

Much of the lush grandeur in It’s A Pity comes from the orchestration and elements that are gradually added, such as the tambourine that enters the mix at 0:47 against acoustic guitar, piano and strings. At 1:10 of version one, the rhythm section kicks in.

Harrison’s vocal is beautifully understated and matter-of-fact, as though he is non-judgementally delivering up the words for the listener to interpret as they wish.

There’s a calm, wistful timbre to his voice and a seemingly effortless delivery to his mid-to-high tenor range. “Some things take so long/But how do I explain/When not too many people/Can see we're all the same?”

At 1:40, piano makes its presence felt in the mix as Spector soaks the vocals in reverb. Then, at 2:07, high strings rise in a beautiful ascending melody before Harrison’s slide guitar solo comes in at 2:21.

From 2:38 onwards, the cyclical chord structure continues for the remaining four and a half minutes, complete with brass, timpani, more slide guitar soloing and even a Hey Jude-style “Na-na-na-na” chorus.

Harrison’s slide guitar features Indian raga cadences and both strings and slide guitar complement each other. As Ian Inglis puts it in his 2010 book The Words And Music Of George Harrison, the effect of Harrison’s “elaborate patterns” on slide guitar is to “counterbalance the underlying atmosphere of pessimism with shafts of beauty”.

Harrison played multiple guitars on the recording, and in line with Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound aesthetic, three members of the Beatles-affiliated band Badfinger played rhythm guitar.

It’s a technique Spector repeated with the keyboards. Billy Preston told his biographer Mark Bibowsky that he had reservations about Spector's preference for having several keyboard players playing the same chords in different octaves, to strengthen the sound. “But with George's stuff it was perfect,” Preston said.

In direct contrast to his own experience in The Beatles, Harrison was happy to allow the musicians the freedom to express themselves in their playing. According to Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland, Harrison was unassuming and patient throughout the sessions.

Molland recalled: “He’d come over to us, bring the guitar over and say, 'Okay, this is Isn't It A Pity.’ He'd go through the song with us once or twice, and show us the changes; you know George used all those diminished chords.”

Version one of the song was recorded on Wednesday 3 June 1970, and was one of 19 takes that Harrison and the musicians laid down. But he was not totally satisfied with the results, and a new arrangement was worked out during this session.

A further 30 takes were later recorded, at a slightly slower tempo and with organ and piano more prominent in the mix. The final take, 4:48 in length, was the one chosen as the best, and that became version two on All Things Must Pass.

In his last recorded audio interview to coincide with the 30th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass, on 15 February 2001, Harrison said the second version came about by complete chance “weeks later” after one of the backing musicians began playing the song during a session.

Version two is a noticeably slower, more stripped-down and intimate performance. It also features a much leaner line-up of musicians, including Eric Clapton on guitar, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and Carl Radle on bass, three of the four musicians who would make up Derek and the Dominos and who would later that year record Layla and Assorted Other Love Songs.

Similar string and guitar parts appear in the solo section, which begins at 2:22 after a strident tom build-up from Ringo. But the solo slide and orchestral cadences are far less grandiose than version one.

In some ways, this second version is more akin to the raw, natural sound of The Band, who had been a huge inspiration for Harrison.

This version has a gentle groove and masses of space within the mix. It’s almost a yearning, reflective reprise of version one – beautiful, moving and mournful – like hearing a long-lost demo that contains the raw essence of what the writer always intended.

Version one of Isn’t It A Pity was released as a double A-side with My Sweet Lord, on 23 November in the US. It was a phenomenal success, with both sides reaching No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, starting on 26 December 1970.

The single and the album stunned the music industry, elevating Harrison above Lennon and McCartney in the period immediately following The Beatles’ break-up.

The strength of Isn’t It A Pity was reflected by the calibre of the artists that subsequently covered it.

In 1972, Nina Simone released an 11-minute version, a powerful, deeply spiritual performance, which has been described as more profound and soul-stirring than the original.

Graham Nash, Jonathan Wilson, Annie Lennox, Cowboy Junkies and Galaxie 500 have all covered the song.

But one of the most affecting performances of Isn’t It A Pity took place at the Concert For George in 2002, staged in the year after Harrison's death, when Eric Clapton and Billy Preston performed along with a large band that included Harrison’s son Dhani and Jeff Lynne of ELO.

It’s a deeply stirring and soulful performance, with a stunning vocal and organ solo from Preston in particular that made it the high point of the whole event.

A decade earlier, in December 1991, George Harrison undertook his final tour, playing 12 concerts with his friend Eric Clapton and his band in Japan. Keyboard player Chuck Leavell recalled the impact that Isn’t It A Pity would have on the audience each night.

“The lyrics are just a great comment, anyway,” Leavell told writer Elliot J Huntley, “but in performance the song had a wonderful way of building throughout its course, culminating in the crescendo at the end. At this point I always looked out at the audience to see their faces and could see how visibly moved they were by that song in particular.”

On its release, Isn’t It A Pity was widely acclaimed by critics. In an astute review the NME’s Alan Smith noted that the song "catches the mood of aching tolerance of pain, which Harrison can do so well.”

Isn’t It A Pity, concluded Smith, “will stand out from the album with the passing of the years.”

When you think of rock anthems, the roaring riffs of electric guitars often steal the spotlight. Yet, tucked away beneath the layers of distortion, many of your favourite hits have a surprising origin: they were initially crafted on the humble piano before transforming into the powerhouse, guitar-driven masterpieces we adore today.

From the haunting melodies of Fleetwood Mac to the hard-hitting nu metal tracks of Papa Roach, the piano has played a crucial role in shaping the sound of rock music. These timeless classics might even inspire you to ditch the guitar and explore the sonic possibilities of a digital piano when searching for fresh songwriting inspiration.

Today, we delve into the stories behind legendary tracks from artists like Ozzy Osbourne and George Harrison, revealing how a simple piano riff can evolve into rock magic. Get ready to view your favourite songs in an entirely new light.

1. Ozzy Osbourne – Mama, I’m Coming Home

Ozzy Osbourne's Mama, I’m Coming Home is a heartfelt ballad that has resonated deeply with metal fans since its release in 1991, and its impact has only intensified following the legendary singer's passing. The song serves as a poignant reflection on love and longing, highlighting the raw vulnerability that lies beneath Ozzy's heavy metal persona.

The powerful lyrics were written by another metal icon, Lemmy of Motörhead, while the music was created by Ozzy’s longtime collaborator, Zakk Wylde. In an interview with our sister publication, Guitar World, Zakk explained that the song initially began as a piano piece that he and Ozzy were experimenting with.

“That actually came from me and Oz jamming on the piano in my apartment in North Hollywood,” he recalls. “So it started on piano, and then when we got in the studio, I transposed it to guitar. It’s in open E, which is where I developed the guitar line that moves from E to A. My love for the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd also influenced the Albert Lee-style country bends at the beginning."

2. Papa Roach – Last Resort

When discussing nu metal anthems, Last Resort by Papa Roach stands out as one of the most enduring tracks of the decade. Released as the lead single from the band's Infest album in early 2000, the song explores struggles with mental health and the isolation that often accompanies such challenges. Its candid lyrics tackle themes of depression and suicidal thoughts, giving voice to those who face similar experiences.

At the heart of the track is an infectious, looping guitar riff that drives the entire song. Interestingly, this metal classic originated as a classical-inspired piano line crafted by bassist Tobin Esperance.

In an interview with Metal Hammer, lead vocalist Jacoby Shaddix reveals the story behind the now-iconic riff: “We were living in this infamous house in Sacramento with some other bands from the scene, and we were rehearsing in there at the time. The first time the Last Resort riff came around, Tobin was playing it on piano. It sounded like a classical music piece, but we put it on the guitar, gave it that beat, and I remember our manager heard it through the wall and he barged through, like, ‘Play that again, man! That was sick!’ I was like, ‘We need to put this on the record.’”

3. Argent – God Gave Rock and Roll to You

God Gave Rock And Roll To You is such a positive and uplifting track that it's hard to imagine its writer, Russ Ballard, going through one of the darkest periods of his life while composing this classic.

Written during a tumultuous time for Ballard, the song reflects his journey from despair to hope, showcasing the emotional depth rock music can convey. With its uplifting lyrics and infectious energy, the track celebrates the joy of creativity and the belief that music can serve as a guiding light in challenging times.

“I felt blissful when I started writing 'God Gave Rock And Roll To You,'” Ballard recalls in Classic Rock issue 0271. “That was the opposite of how I’d felt the year before. My parents had both been really ill; my dad had prostate cancer, and my mum had bowel cancer simultaneously. I had felt so low.”

However, "God Gave Rock And Roll To You" marked the end of his darkness. “It was wonderful to feel myself come out of that depression,” Ballard remembers. “I felt so uplifted. It probably only took me twenty minutes to write it. I’ve always liked gospel music. With the lyrics, I was expressing that we live on this incredible planet, and when you find a passion, everything makes sense. On the other hand, if you settle for just a job to pay the bills, that’s very sad.”

He adds, “The song was written on this heavy Eavestaff upright piano I received for my twenty-first birthday. That may seem strange for a rock song, but I also wrote Since You’ve Been Gone on a piano. As a kid, I learned classical piano, and as soon as my mum and dad left the room, I would play like Jerry Lee Lewis."

4. Fleetwood Mac – Rhiannon

Inspired by the Welsh mythological figure, the haunting Rhiannon tells the story of a woman who embodies freedom and independence. With Stevie Nicks’ ethereal vocals leading the way, andLindsey Buckingham's now legendary guitar riff providing the backing, it's difficult to imagine Nicks sitting down at the piano to write the song - and it's even more difficult to comprehend that it only took her 10 minutes!

“I just fell in love with the name, sat down, and wrote the song in about 10 minutes," Nicks says. "I found out later that the whole story is already written in Welsh mythology,” she explained. “I play piano terribly, [but I] can sit down, and 20 minutes later come up with a complete song, lyrics and all,” she mused. “Lindsey’s going, ‘I’ve been playing since I was eight years old, and I practise every day, and I have to kill myself to write a song’.”

5. George Harrison - Something

Considered one of the finest songs in Harrison’s catalogue, Something was written in 1968 during the White Album sessions. As with other Harrison tracks, such as Old Brown Shoe, he would use the piano rather than a guitar to write the song. It’s difficult to separate the song from its rather unique and very Harrison guitar tone, but we can certainly see how the song would start life as a piano-based song.

Taken from a Guitar Player interview, Harrison talks about writing the song, saying, “There was a period during that album when we were all in different studios doing different things trying to get it finished, and I used to take some time out,” he says. “So I went into an empty studio and wrote Something.”

In hindsight, Something is seen as one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, but fellow Beatles Paul McCartney and John Lennon were initially lukewarm about the track, questioning its commercial appeal and Harrison's ability as a songwriter. Despite this doubt, Something would go on to earn immense acclaim, with Frank Sinatra famously calling it “the greatest love song ever written.” Its heartfelt lyrics and enchanting melody have ultimately secured its place in music history, showcasing Harrison's exceptional talent and the complex dynamics within the band at the time.

Feeling inspired? 

If you’re feeling inspired by the stories of these piano-based songs, it might be the perfect time to ditch the guitar and jump on the piano! Check out our guide to the best beginner digital pianos to help you find the right instrument to channel your new found creativity.

Whether you're just starting out or looking for an upgrade, our guide has got you covered for your musical journey – and if you fancy getting better at playing, be sure to take a look at our guide to the best online piano lessons.

Finneas O’Connell, the songwriter and producer who’s probably still best known for being Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator, has named his five favourite guitarists, and he’s made some interesting choices.

Talking to Consequence, he picked out five very melodic players, three of whom have instantly recognisable styles.

First of all there’s Nile Rodgers, who Finneas describes as “a super important” guitarist. “This is demonstrating my age, or lack of age, but I was really introduced to Nile Rodgers by way of Daft Punk when the Random Access Memories album came out, and then retroactively learned that he was a genius musician and a genius producer also. But what a guitarist.”

Then there’s George Harrison: “He provided such unbelievable, beautiful guitar work, especially in a band with Paul and John, who could be the other two great guitar players on this list."

They're not, though, as Finneas also includes Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante: “He has written such deeply musical, memorable parts on the guitar," he says.

He also names two female players. Annie Clark aka St Vincent is “writing the hookiest, most ferocious parts,” he says, and then there's Leslie Feist, a singer-songwriter who has never really received many props for her guitar work.

“She’s really a guitar hero of mine,” says Finneas. “She’s such an emotive player, I kind of can’t believe how complicated the parts she’s playing are all while she’s singing. She’s so cool and I’ve always been really impressed by her.”

Maybe he can relate. Like her, Finneas is a somewhat underrated guitarist, though there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, of his clean, understated style on both his sister’s and his own albums.

Whatever, he’s certainly humble about it: “I don’t think of myself, nor does anyone else think of me, as a particularly extraordinary guitar player,” he told Consequence.

Despite tensions that would see John Lennon leaving and the band’s eventual split a few months later, the recording sessions for 1969’s Abbey Road saw The Beatles at a creative peak. A mix of rock, pop, blues and prog, the album’s musical influences are diverse and there’s inspiration aplenty for all budding guitarists even now, 50 years on.

George Harrison’s lead work on Come Together and Something is considered some of his most expressive and melodic playing, and Sun King takes influence from Brit blues legend Peter Green’s instrumental work in Fleetwood Mac’s classic Albatross.

George’s Leslie-driven Telecaster tones on Something are without doubt a major part of Abbey Road’s sonic trademark as are the double-tracked arpeggios on I Want You (She’s So Heavy).

All of this means there’s plenty of material for us guitarists to learn from - and ‘less is more’ is the overriding lesson. Aim for understated lead lines that could stand on their own as vocal melodies and you’ll be on the right track.

We’re also looking at a cool Beatles chord trick below, but it’s also worth thinking about how to solo over parallel changes - we recommend targeting notes from the chords. For example, if you’re changing from D to Dm, the only note that changes is F# in the D chord and F in the Dm, so make sure to land on these in your leads.

1 Parallel chords

2. Arpeggios with modulation effect 

Simple arpeggios like these can be heard throughout Abbey Road, notably on tracks like Something, Sun King and Octopus’s Garden. The line in bar 1 could easily be developed into a lead idea – it’s almost the same shape as the C# minor pentatonic scale after all. The altered chord at the end is pure Beatles!

3. Melodic lead 

Abbey Road features some of George Harrison’s finest playing and songwriting. This lick focuses on his use of the major pentatonic scale to create cool melodies and motifs. The finger slide between notes is a handy way to move from the 5th position up as high as the 17th fret. A neck pickup and spring reverb give authentic ambience.

• How to play like John Lennon: 4 key guitar lessons from the early Beatles era

They say you should never meet your heroes. But Steve Lukather has been talking about the time he met one of his – George Harrison. And the ex Beatle didn’t disappoint. Far from it.

In an interview with Guitar World, the Toto guitarist recalls crossing paths with the Harrison in 1992, just before he was due to commemorate bandmate Jeff Porcaro. "I had met George a few days before we were doing a tribute to Jeff Porcaro after he tragically passed. I said, 'Hey, man, I just wanted to say hi and thank you for my career.' He turned out to be the nicest, funniest guy I'd ever hung out with."

The two guitarists got chatting and Lukather, being the polite fella that he is, tentatively asked Harrison if he’d like to come along to the Porcaro show. “(I said) ‘I’ll leave a couple of tickets for you,’ never in a million years thinking he’d take them,” says Lukather. “Sure enough, the last thing we were going to do was A Little Help From My Friends, which was the Joe Cocker version, ironically!

“So, we’re all sitting in the dressing room getting the vocal parts down, and somebody goes, ‘There’s somebody here to see you.’ I said, ‘Dude, right now? Really!?’ They go, ‘No, I think you want to see them – this guy’s from Liverpool…’ I went, ‘No fucking way.’”

“The door opens up, and George is standing there. There were a lot of famous people in the room, but when a Beatle walks in, it’s got a different vibe, man.”

Too right there were other famous people there. Sharing a stage with Lukather that night was another guitar icon: one Eddie Van Halen, as well as Don Henley and David Crosby.

Lukather said he’ll never forget the night – he handed Harrison his old ‘59 Les Paul and the Quiet One joined Van Halen and Lukather on stage.

“I gave him my Les Paul (to use), which, just by him holding it, increased its value by, like, a million dollars,” recalls Lukather. “I know this because I got my guitar appraised, because there are pictures of me and George, and George is playing that guitar.”

That Les Paul may have been blessed by a Beatle, but Lukather says he has no intentions in parting company with it. "I'm never gonna sell that," he insisted. "My son Trev, a great guitar player, will get it.”

A hoard of legal papers relating to the Beatles' break up and final legal separation have been discovered and will be auctioned off later this month.

Over 300 pages of typed documents compiled by the group’s various advisors and legal representatives were found in a cupboard where they had been stashed since the 1970s. Auctioneers Dawsons are selling them on December 12 in Maidenhead – they are expected to fetch anywhere between £5000 and £8000.

Denise Kelly, Head of Entertainment and Memorabilia at Dawsons said that the documents had only been discovered in bthe last year after the seller’s brother died. They reveal how fiendishly complicated, and exhausting, the whole process was: "As I read the minutes of meetings - notes which included discussions between the legal teams and accountants - I wondered how on earth they were going to sort everything out, and at times I could sense panic in the room as more and more complexities came to light.”

"One of the lawyers even suggested during one meeting when they had gone round and round and round in circles: ‘Would it be easier if The Beatles just retired?’"

She added: "It has crossed my mind that if I were a script writer, these documents would be all I'd need to tell the real story of what led to one of the best-selling bands in history splitting up and going their separate ways."

As we all know, the Beatles' break-up was drawn-out and acrimonious. Though the group had ceased to function as a creative unit after the release of Abbey Road in 1969, the four were still linked as one legal entity via Apple Corps, which had by then fallen under the control of Allen Klein. 

Paul McCartney essentially had to sue his three bandmates, and Klein, to break up the partnership. This he began in early 1971, but as is the way when large sums of money are at stake and lawyers are involved, things dragged on for years. The final documents ending The Beatles were only signed in December 1974, fifty years ago this month.

Inevitably, the legal marathon coloured the four members’ songwriting. George Harrison’s Sue Me Sue You Blues, from his 1973 Living In The Material World album comments in typically sardonic fashion on the whole turgid process: ‘Hold your Bible in your hand/Now all that's left is to find yourself a new band’.

Later in the year McCartney and Wings released Band On The Run. The title track is in itself a metaphor for escape from the legal morass, pivoting as it does on the phrase ‘if we ever get out of here’, which Harrison had a habit of using during the Beatles’ endless legal meetings.

George Harrison passed away on this day, 29 November, 2001.

There’s a memorable scene in Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary Get Back where a microphone concealed in a pot of flowers in the dining room at Twickenham Studios picks up a discussion between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It’s early afternoon on Monday 13 January, 1969 and the pair are discussing the sudden departure of George Harrison from The Beatles and an unsuccessful meeting the previous day to try and resolve the situation.   

“It’s a festering wound and yesterday we allowed it to go even deeper and we didn’t give him any bandages,” observes Lennon drolly. “I do think that he’s right,” concedes McCartney, “that’s why I think we’ve got a problem now.” 

Harrison left after McCartney allegedly accused him of “vamping” on the rehearsals for the song Get Back. But there was a deeper issue at stake. By then Harrison had emerged as a songwriter of real merit. Wedged between two mercurial talents, both unable to rescind creative ground, he doggedly and delicately chose his moments to push his own material forward. 

The Beatles split on 10 April 1970 sparked creative emancipation for George. On 27 November that year, he released All Things Must Pass, his third solo album and the first ‘true’ triple album in rock history. It’s a stunning, sprawling work of real breadth and ambition, enhanced by George’s distinctive slide guitar work. He released 12 solo albums in his life, but All Things Must Pass is arguably the finest. The album was a critical and commercial triumph, reaching No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1987, he released the platinum-selling album Cloud Nine and one year later, formed The Travelling Wilburys with Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. They released two critically acclaimed albums. “George absolutely adored the Wilburys,” recalled Tom Petty. “That was his baby from the beginning.”

In 1994, Harrison collaborated on The Beatles Anthology project , which included recording Free As A Bird (1995) and Real Love (1996), two new Beatles songs built around solo vocal and piano tapes recorded by John Lennon. “I hope somebody does this to all my crap demos when I'm dead,” quipped Harrison, “make them into hit songs.”

While Harrison may not have possessed the same hook-laden sensibilities of John and Paul, his songwriting had a real beauty and depth. "It may seem a funny thing to say,” he once recalled. “It's just like, I write lyrics and I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together — that makes me."

1.  All Things Must Pass – All Things Must Pass (1970)

Eastern philosophy meets Western pop sensibilities on this song, which was originally recorded by Harrison on his 26th birthday as a demo for The Beatles. Like Clapton, Harrison was hugely inspired by Music From The Big Pink, the 1968 debut album by The Band. In late 1968, Harrison visited Woodstock and jammed with The Band. In 1987, he told journalist Timothy White that his starting point for All Things Must Pass was The Weight, a song that “had a religious and a country feeling to it”. 

On 10 January 1969, Harrison presented All Things Must Pass to The Beatles but it was ultimately rejected. 

He gave the track to Billy Preston to record and then decided to record it himself. Sessions took place at Abbey Road Studios between 26 May and early June 1970, with Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman, pianist Bobby Whitlock and drummers Jim Gordon and Ringo Starr as the early nucleus. 

When it came to the guitars chosen to use on the album, Harrison and Clapton kept it simple. "For George, it was Stratocaster time," Klaus Voormann told //Sound And Vision// in 2021, referring to Harrison’s hand-painted 1961 Fender Sonic Blue Stratocaster, dubbed 'Rocky'. “And Eric played a Les Paul, sometimes switching to a Strat, as well. For acoustic guitar, Harrison played a Harptone. He was playing these all the time. They're a very loud, hard rhythm guitar, compared to Martins, which are more mellow." 

All Things Must Pass is a soulful, soaring track, with lyrics based on a translation of part of chapter 23 of the Tao Te Ching. The death of Harrison’s mother in July 1970 lent an added poignancy to this majestic composition. 

2.  My Sweet Lord - All Things Must Pass (1970)

One of Harrison’s most iconic solo efforts that reached No. 1 in 15 countries across the world. Once again, his spirituality informs the lyrics. The top-line melody on the chorus is set against a blissfully simple A-Em chord sequence.

The track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 28 May 1970 and Harrison assembled a huge cast of musicians. There are five guitarists playing acoustics on the song: Harrison, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, and Badfinger’s Pete Ham and Joey Molland. John Barham arranged the strings, which consisted of eight violins, eight violas, four cellos and two double basses. 

Around two minutes in there is a key change from E major to F#major, which pushes Harrison’s vocals and heightens the impassioned delivery. The real standout element on the track though is his masterful slide playing, which is the real sonic signature. 

According to Phil Spector, who co-produced the track, Harrison was an utter perfectionist in the studio. “My Sweet Lord must have taken about twelve hours to overdub the guitar solos,” recalled Spector. “He must have had that in triplicate, six-part harmony, before we decided on two-part harmony. Perfectionist is not the word ... He was beyond that.”

For all its merits, the success of My Sweet Lord was overshadowed a few months after its release when Harrison was sued for copyright infringement by the publisher of He’s So Fine, a 1963 hit for girl group The Chiffons. On 31 August 1976, Harrison was found guilty of “subconsciously” plagiarising He’s So Fine, which was written by Ronnie Mack. 

"I wasn’t consciously aware of the similarity between He’s So Fine and My Sweet Lord when I wrote the song," wrote Harrison in his autobiography I Me Mine. "Although when my version of the song came out and started to get a lot of airplay, people started talking about it, and it was then I thought, 'Why didn’t I realise?' It would have been very easy to change a note here or there, and not affect the feeling of the record."

3. Isn’t It A Pity – All Things Must Pass (1970)

George Harrison never lost faith in Isn’t It A Pity, despite it winding up on The Beatles’ pile of rejected songs on numerous occasions. He originally presented it to the band on the 1966 Revolver sessions and engineer Geoff Emerick recalls him putting it forward for Sgt Pepper. Two years later it was roundly rejected for the Get Back sessions in January 1969. In a taped conversation from those sessions, Harrison reminded John Lennon that he had vetoed Isn't It A Pity three years earlier, adding that he was considering offering the song to Frank Sinatra. 

The song fits seamlessly within the themes of spiritual salvation and friendship that pervade the All Things Must Pass album. It’s a powerful, ominous ballad, with a timeless message. “Isn't It A Pity is about whenever a relationship hits a down point,” Harrison explained in his 1980 autobiography I Me Mine. “It was a chance to realise that if I felt somebody had let me down, then there's a good chance I was letting someone else down."

It’s an anthemic and deeply moving ballad that has been described as the emotional and musical centrepiece of the All Things Must Pass album. When he finally recorded it, he paired it with My Sweet Lord to create a powerful double A-side debut single. The song also provided a showcase for his elaborate slide guitar patterns. 

Throughout the album sessions, Harrison and Clapton’s guitar amps were set up in the middle of the room. Clapton was keen to play through a small 5-watt Fender Champ. "It was a time when they were asking, 'Are we gonna use that little Champ amp, or are we gonna take a proper amplifier?’," recalled Klaus Voorman, in an interview with Sound & Vision. "Because they were all crazy about those Champ amps. Eric came up with this, and everybody went, 'Oh, yeah, Champ amp!'"

4. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) – Living In The Material World (1973)

When released as a single, this track reached No. 1, nudging Wings off the top slot. On Living In The Material World, Harrison abandoned the vast sonic soundscapes of Phil Spector’s production opting for a more minimal sound with a tightly-knit core of musicians – drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Klaus Voorman, pianist Nicky Hopkins and organist Gary Knight.

Harrison described the song as "a prayer and personal statement between me, the Lord, and whoever likes it".

His voice has a nice rasp to it, suggesting he’s already attempted a few takes. There’s an upbeat yet soothing feel to the track. Production is lean with some nifty slide guitar work from Harrison.

His acoustic guitar and Hopkin’s piano are prominent but the drums are way down in the mix. Legendary session drummer Jim Keltner recalled his contribution on the song to Uncut in 2023: "The drums are kind of subdued, but I was playing a very busy little syncopated part, trying to play with the guitar – and George was so easy to play with. When we finally got the take, I remember listening and thinking, I wouldn't have got away with that with anybody else. Any other producer would probably have said, ‘Okay, that's cool, now let's have a proper backbeat and nail it down’."

5. Handle With Care – The Travelling Wilburys (1988)

A flawless slice of power pop and one that provided the impetus for the formation of The Travelling Wilburys, the informal supergroup consisting of Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. The track has everything: unforgettable hooks, an enigmatic descending bass line, a soaring bridge and some sharp, memorable lyrics; “I've been fobbed off, and I've been fooled / I've been robbed and ridiculed / In daycare centres and night schools / Handle me with care.”

The song was originally recorded as a throwaway b-side until his label, Warner Bros, intervened. Harrison contacted Lynne, who was working with Orbison at the time. Dylan was roped in when they decided to use the garage studio at his house in Malibu to record the track. Petty became involved only when Harrison dropped by his house to retrieve a guitar.

The track was released as a single on 17 October 1988 and became the Travelling Wilburys’ most successful single, reaching No. 21 in the UK, No, 45 in the US and top five in Australia and New Zealand. 

• George Harrison: his 10 greatest Beatles songs

A little bit of electric guitar auction history was made yesterday (20 November) when George Harrison’s iconic Futurama was sold for $1.27 million, a world record fee for one of the former Beatles’ guitars.

The event, hosted by Julien’s Auctions, also saw one of the most historically significant and downright awesome Fender Stratocasters sell for big money as Mary Kaye’s original 1956 Strat fetched $222,250. But as forecasted, it was Harrison’s Futurama that was the star of the show.

What wasn’t expected was the fee. This was more than twice the estimated value of the guitar. What makes it all the more remarkable is that the Futurama is hardly what you would call a high-end build. It is not one of Harrison’s vintage Gretsch guitars. It is not his Rocky Strat.

Harrison paid just £58 for this oddball electric. Ironically, he picked it up on 20 November 1959 from Hessy’s music shop in Liverpool, and 65 years later to the day it broke the one-million dollar barrier.

“George Harrison’s iconic Futurama guitar, one of the most important guitars in rock and roll history and formative to The Beatles’ sound, has made history at today’s auction,” said Martin Nolan, executive director, Julien’s Auctions. “We’re beyond thrilled to add this Harrison guitar to the Julien’s Auctions’ million-dollar club, which already includes guitars from John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Kurt Cobain.”

That it commanded such a price speaks to its place in Beatles history. It was there from the start. Harrison took it to Hamburg as the Beatles launched their career onstage, playing night after night, a gruelling apprenticeship that whipped them into shape. It also featured on early Beatles recordings.

Made in the former Czechoslovakia and imported by Selmer’s, the Futurama has a cult appeal. Just look at it. It’s got that pawnshop curio vibe, with its plastic pickguard, pickup coverings and controls looking as though they were sourced from Fisher Price.

Harrison wasn’t alone in recognising its charms. Merseybeat icon Gerry Marsden owned one, as did Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.

Harrison’s Futurama is an early model, with the 1/4” jack input mounted at an angle on the front top of the body, just like a Strat. Later it would be repositioned to the side of the body. The fingerboard would be dyed to look like the rosewood fingerboards that Fender started rolling out in 1959.

Other big sales from the auction included blues guitar pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s 1939 Gibson L5 Archtop, which went for $76,200, and Eric Clapton’s own stage-played and autographed Custom Shop signature Strat, which changed hands for $65,000.

The Beatles are the most recognisable band of all time. Their music has stood the test of time for seven decades. They were at the forefront of the rock revolution of the 1960s and they paved the way for many musicians to follow in their footsteps – especially guitarists.

Even though the band's recording career lasted less than a decade, their influence has remained strong to this day with modern bands still quoting the Fab Four as an influence on songwriting and techniques.

Through their stellar catalogue of music, there are so many lessons we as guitar players can learn and use in our own playing. In this lesson we’re going to talk about five things you can learn from John, Paul and George to put to use right away.

Check out the video and follow along with the tips below on subjects including chord progressions and fingerpicking.  

1. Using the relative minor for contrast

When writing a song, having contrasting sections is important because this is one trick that hooks the listener in and keeps their attention. Contrast also allows a song to move through different moods and emotions.

One thing the Beatles did to create this effect is to switch to a relative key for a section change. In this example, we’re going to use the song Misery from 1963 Please Please Me. This song is in the key of C Major. All keys have a relative key which means it shares all the notes/chords with another key. C Major’s relative key is A Minor. These two keys share the same notes and chords:

Although both keys share the same chords, the emphasis is on the I chord, this is the chord that gives the key it’s overall identity. If your progression focuses on the I as a major chord, the progression feels Major, if it emphases the I as a minor chord, the opposite is true.

We can use this as a turning point in a song to keep the overall key and chord sequence intact, but change the mood of the song.

In the song Misery, the verse progression uses the chords C, F and G, but the chorus switches to Am, C and G. This change creates a contrasting section that takes on a different feel.

2. The minor IV chord

If you want to add a little bit of excitement into your major chord progressions, you can take a leaf out of the Beatles and add a Minor IV chord. This is a chord that is not usually found in a major key, but introducing it can be a really great way to spice up a chord progression.

This works great in slower songs, such as the classic In My Life.

This song is made up of an A Major (I), E Major (V), F#m (VI) and D (IV), but after the D chord, there is a brief move to the Dm (Minor IV) before returning to the root.

While the Minor IV chord does not necessarily fit into the key, it can be a great passing chord on the way back to the root. It creates a moment of tension before resolving back to the I chord. 

3. Outlining a chord progression

If you are playing in a two-guitar band, or just want to write two guitar parts that weave in and out of each other, you can learn a lot from the Harrison/Lennon approach.

In the song I Saw Her Standing There, you can hear two different guitar parts that are both different, but complementary to each other.

One guitar is playing a I IV V progression using E7, A7 and B7 chords while the other is playing two different parts over the progression. The first part is an E7 triad without the E note, mixed with a simple lead lick. The second part is a walking blues style riff that frames the chords being played by the other guitar.

In isolation, both parts are very different, but when overlaid on each other, they create a really interesting sound where one guitar plays the straight chords and the other frames the progression with other voicings or single notes.

Using deceptive cadences

Sometimes when you hear a new song for the first time, or you write a chord progression on your guitar, you may have a sense of familiarity even if you’ve never heard or played that particular piece before. This is cause by our ears recognizing things in the composition that it deems familiar.

This is usually chord progressions. As we found in our study of Taylor Swift's hit songs, we have these, and specific chord resolutions and movements that we hear in most of our favourite tracks. Our ears become tuned to hearing these things.

If you want to add something to a song that breaks this familiar feeling, you can use a deceptive cadence. This is when we bring a new chord into the progression that does not belong to the progression before resolving it back into the progression that we expect.

In the Beatles track P.S I Love You we hear this in action. The track is in the key of D Major, so we expect these chords:

For the most part, this is what we get. However, before the track goes to the C, you’ll notice an out of place Bb Major chord being played. This would be a bVI chord, which is not part of the major key of D major. This borrowed chord creates a feeling of tension before going back to the C chord which we expect to hear.

A deceptive cadence is a great way to attract some attention to a part of a song by making the listener really aware that something has changed. This doesn’t just work with a bVI chord. You can try this with any chord that is not part of the key you’re playing in. 

5. Paul McCartney's Blackbird fingerpicking

The picking pattern for the song Blackbird is probably one of the biggest Beatles riffs that people play wrong. Often notated as entirely fingerpicked, this classic track is actually played by Paul McCartney with a really unique fingerstyle approach.

Rather than picking every single note, the pattern utilizes single-picked notes along with micro strums with the index finger.

The pattern can be broken up into two halves. The first half involves playing the A and B strings with the thumb and index finger at the same time. Then you play the G and B strings with the index finger in a mini downward strum motion, before up picking the single B string with the same index finger.

The second half starts with the A string being played with just the thumb, the B string being picked with an index finger upstroke and ending on an index finger downward, micro strum of the G and B strings. 

This rhythm can be applied to other chords and used in your own songwriting to create some fast-paced feeling fingerstyle riffs and progressions. Try it with some open and barre chords and feel the driving energy that it gives your own chord progressions.

• "The Beatles were never afraid to experiment with their chord choices inside songs": here are 4 to inspire your guitar playing

The Beatles have written some of the most iconic pop and rock songs of all time. The songwriting dynamic between each member has given the world hit after hit. Inside these hits are some fantastic chord choices.

The Beatles were never afraid to experiment with their chord choices inside songs. In this lesson we’re going to look at four chords from their catalogue of mega hits.

Fadd9

Any Beatles fan will recognize this chord from the instant they hear it… this is the iconic Hard Days Night chord. This chord has been hotly contested ever since guitar players developed a love of arguing on the internet. 

The chord is best seen as an Fadd9, a simple F Major chord with the add9 note at the top. It can also be viewed as a G9sus4/F because of the notes included in the chord, but given the key of the song, Fadd9 is the most logical name for this chord.

F#m7

This variation of an F#m7 chord appears in the chorus of the track Hey Jude. The recorded version is played with a capo on the 1st fret.

This is a nice alternative to a standard m7 chord to use in progressions. By placing the b7 note at the top of the chord an octave higher than where it first appears. This gives the chord a very rich and melodic flavour.

Am7/G

In the intro to the song While My Guitar Gently Weeps, this Am7/G chord appears. The first part of the song is a continuous Am chord with a moving root that walks down. This is a useful technique to create the feeling of movement without changing your overall chord.

The addition of the G is what makes this an Am7, without the G this would be a standard Am chord.

You can use this theory in your own songwriting by trying different root notes with the chord.

E7b9

The intro to the track I Want You (She’s So Heavy) contains this E7b9 chord which is a really moody-sounding voicing that makes for a perfect dominant 7 substitution. As guitar players, we’re very accustomed to the E7#9 chord, otherwise known as the Hendrix chord. 

Switching the 9 for a b9 takes the chord to a whole new place. It has an element of suspense to it and works great as a passing chord on the way to a resolution.

• 'At his musical core, John Lennon had a wonderful way with chords': Here are 4 of his Beatles voicings and guitar rhythm ideas to inspire you

There are shows, albums, songs that changed the trajectory of musicians' lives – they may have even inspired the dream that made them aspire to be musicians. But these are usually pockets of experiences, from hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit on the radio to being in the eye of the storm at a Sex Pistols gig in 1977. But what about impacting millions at the same moment in time? Well that actually happened once in front of an estimated 73,700 million people.

"Four guys, playing and singing, writing their own material", Bruce Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir, Born To Run of seeing The Beatles perform five songs on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday 9 February 1964. "Rock 'n' roll came to my house where there seemed to be no way out ... and opened up a whole world of possibilities."

Television was a door to the world in the '60s, where perhaps the internet has become a huge chasm now. There had been seismic moments in rock n' roll before this with Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, but no band had ever affected so many people at once. 

The testament is how many young people were watching that day who later became music icons: "I remember exactly where I was sitting", reflected Chrissie Hynde later. "It was amazing. It was like the axis shifted ... It was kind of like an alien invasion." 

As we'll see, the list of artists inspired that day goes on. But what did the Beatles themselves make of their first American television appearance?

“[There are] a trillion people who say that, ‘I knew that’s what I wanted to be when I saw you four-headed monster on the telly … I’ve got to be part of this'," Paul McCartney reflected in the podcast McCartney: A Life In Lyrics. “Our current manager of Beatles’ Apple Records says that, Bruce Springsteen says that, David Letterman says that. They all formed on that night, formed this future for themselves. And there we were in Liverpool [a few years earlier] forming this future, in the same kind of deal.”

For McCartney and Lennon those moments had come from hearing and seeing The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. They saw what they could be. 

"Buddy Holly for us was amazing, for a number of reasons. He sang and played guitar," reflected McCartney on the podcast. "Elvis just sang and Scotty Moore played guitar. [Buddy] not only played guitar, he played the solos – normally if you played guitar  [and sang] there was another guy who played lead guitar but Buddy sang, played guitar and played the solos. He also wrote the stuff – so this was like an all-inclusive one-man band. We really thought that was great – this is what we have to do."

In this context, and even at this early stage in the Beatles creative arc, they were already unwittingly about to pass the torch on. And Buddy's influence with his horn-rimmed glasses even helped Lennon feel more comfortable wearing his own spectacles in public. Then there was the name of his band, The Crickets.

"My memory of it was that we were striving to find something with a dual meaning, because of The Crickets," explained McCartney. 

By 1964 the Beatles had already ticked off some of their ambitions including number-one records and appearing on Sunday Night At The Palladium. The US was part of their dream – the home of many of their influences. And the biggest show for them there was hosted by Ed Sullivan.

It was already nearly 16 years in by the time the Beatles performed three separate appearances on their US visit. It held a Sunday night on CBS, the vaudeville-style entertainment show was a rite of passage for any entertainer trying to gain a foothold on the hearts and minds of the US public. Elvis Presley had appeared in 1956 – Sullivan caving in during a ratings battle after vowing to never have The King perform in front of the show's family audience.

Such was the perception of rock n' roll trailblazers at the time, but by 1964 the demand was undeniable, with Beatlemania in full force across Europe and was now storming the Atlantic, with records sales fuelled by radio play alone up until then. 

Sullivan had seen the furore around the band in person when he was travelling through Heathrow airport in late 1963. The Fab Four were returning to the UK from Stockholm after a TV appearance and were greeted by a throng of enthusiastic fans. Sullivan could see the parallels with Elvis in the previous decade.

"We were arriving from Stockholm into London airport and at the same time the Prime Minister and the Queen Mother were also flying out, but the airport was overrun with teenagers," George Harrison noted to the US press in 1964. "Thousands of them waiting for us to get back. Ed Sullivan arrived at that time and wondered what was going on."

Sullivan offered Brian Epstein a single show slot, but the shrewd Beatles manager countered with a lower fee in exchange for three appearances and top-billing. The deal was done. 

The Beatles arrived in the US at New York's JFK Airport on 7 February 1964 and were duly greeted by an estimated 3,000 fans. Beatlemania had truly arrived before they'd even set foot on the tarmac, and the band's charismatic display at their first press release only swelled the waves of excitement around their arrival. The Ed Sullivan taping show two days later would be the musical payoff that proved the hype was justified, with a reported 50,000 people applying for tickets to watch it in person. 

The appearances were the focus of the trip, after all. "We're over here to do three Ed Sullivan TV shows, and meet the press, and a bit of a rest on Miami Beach," explained Harrison, who had actually beaten his bandmates to US soil the previous September when he visited his older sister Louise in Illinois. 

"Now yesterday and today our theater's been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation, and these veterans agreed with me that the city never has the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool, who call themselves The Beatles," began Sullivan at 8pm EST on 9 February in CBS Studio 50 in New York as he introduced the band. "Now tonight, you're gonna twice be entertained by them. Right now, and again in the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles. Let's bring them on."

Before he could finish the live audience had already erupted. McCartney counted the band in and The Beatles went into All My Loving with full gusto. The Beatles had arrived in New York and millions of US living rooms and they had all the moves and chops that only a well-honed live unit could know. They made it look easy…

But the idea that the band could just waltz in and deliver the goods in the US is a falsehood; despite their undeniable musical talents, the Beatles had to put the prep work in for the Ed Sullivan Show. They knew the stakes were high for their debut performance on national television in the US. But there was a problem nobody could have foreseen. 

Following another press conference at the Plaza Hotel where they were staying New York in the morning of Saturday 8 February, Lennon, McCartney and Ringo Starr headed off for a walk in Central Park, where they were followed by around 400 enthusiastic female fans. 

But George Harrison was absent. He had a high temperature, and his appearance for the show was in jeopardy. After a visit from a doctor, his sister Louise came to his aid, administering medicine every hour while everyone waited to see if that would be enough.  

According to the Beatles Bible, the rest of the band travelled by limousine to the CBS studios on Broadway at 1.30pm the same day to begin the first of several rehearsals their appearance on the The Ed Sullivan Show. Fans slowed the journey as they moved to get a glimpse of the musicians and mounted police were forced to intervene.

The rehearsals weren't focussed on musical performance and sound-checking as the priority, the band and camera crew had to be prepared for the television performance side. Beatles road manager Neil Aspinall and the show's production assistant Vince Calandra stood in for George as camera positions were assigned and rehearsed. 

The band's dedication to detail was revealed when they reportedly asked to view a playback of the rehearsal footage – apparently a first for any musical guest on the show. 

"The main thing I was aware of when we did the first Ed Sullivan Show was that we rehearsed all afternoon," remembered Ringo Starr in The Beatles Anthology. "TV had such bad sound equipment – it still has today, usually, but then it was really bad – that we would tape our rehearsals and then go up and mess with the dials in the control booth. We got it all set with the engineer there, and then we went off for a break."

That's when the second potential disaster struck.

"The story has it that while we were out, the cleaner came in to clean the room and the console, thought, ‘What are all these chalk marks?’ and wiped them all off," recalled Starr. "So our plans just went out the window. We had a real hasty time trying to get the sound right."

George and the sound mostly recovered (McCartney would later comment that he thought Lennon's mic was too low) for the main event the next day and by the second song of the show's performance, the preparation was clearly paying dividends as the band nailed their camera cues. 

McCartney was on lead vocals again on a cover of Meredith Wilson's Til There Was You – a ballad to win around the skeptical parents, perhaps? It didn't last long as the band fired things up with She Loves You to showcase the full force of the Lennon/McCartney/Harrison harmony machine, the latter Harrison on his Gretsch Country Gentlemen. In under seven minutes The Beatles had lit a creative fire that would blaze for decades.

"I was 13, and already somewhat of a music fan," Tom Petty told Paul Zollo for the Grammy Awards site in 2014. "This was the great moment in my life, really, that changed everything. I had been a fan up to that point. But this was the thing that made me want to play music. You saw that it could be done. There could be a self-contained unit that wrote, recorded and sang songs. And it looked like they were having an awful lot of fun doing it.

Petty's parents were dismissive and left the room during the performance, but he and his brother were captivated.

"These weren't days when you had rock and roll on television very frequently at all. And [the Beatles] were so ready for it," he added. "They're so professional, and they have their act so down. Their presentation is beyond compare. It's amazing, when you watch it now, how aware they are of where the cameras are, and what to do. And their songs were just fantastic, and so original. They were the right people at the right time at the right spot with the right songs.

The musical impact soon became evident.

"Really, within weeks of that show, you began to hear the sounds of garage bands on the weekends leaking through the neighborhood — of kids out in the garage playing," recalled Petty. "And it became my mission to find an electric guitar, and to meet friends who could play with me. And that happened rather organically. So many people were doing it.

Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Forgety would later recount the impact of seeing the performance on the song I Saw It On TV, from his 1985 solo album Centerfield: 'We gathered round to hear the sound comin' on the little screen / The grief had passed, the old men laughed, and all the girls screamed / 'Cause four guys from England took us all by the hand/ It was time to laugh, time to sing, time to join the band.'

The list of future musicians from the baby boomer generation hit by a thunderbolt of inspiration that night goes on… Billy Joel, Heart's Nancy Wilson, Gary Rossington, Gene Simmons, Geddy Lee, Joe Perry, Marky Ramone,  Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Elliot Easton, Foreigner's Lou Gramm, Richie Sambora, future Bruce Springsteen bandmate Steven Van Zandt, Steve Lukather and Micky Dolenz. 

The night The Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan Show, boy, that was something. Seeing them on TV was akin to a national holiday," Joe Perry told MusicRadar in 2009.  "Talk about an event. I never saw guys looking so cool. I had already heard some of their songs on the radio, but I wasn't prepared by how powerful and totally mesmerizing they were to watch. It changed me completely. I knew something was different in the world that night."

Future Bon Jovi star Richie Sambora was equally entranced. “One of my earliest memories was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room of the house I grew up in and looking up at the black-and-white TV set and watching the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show," he told us in 2009. "I was five years old and I remember thinking, ‘Wow! That’s what I want to do.’ I know it sounds absurd – most five-year-old boys say they want to be firemen or policemen or baseball players, or even the president. Not me. I wanted to be one of the Beatles. 

"They were the most incredible thing I ever saw. I couldn't put it into any kind of historical context at the time - I couldn't rank it with the Kennedy assassination or anything like that - but I knew, even at that young age, when I barely knew anything about anything, that I was witnessing something truly life-changing. And not just for me, but for everybody as well."

Any budding songsmiths who missed out on the show's barnstorming intro could have caught the outro of I Saw Her Standing There and I Want To Hold Your Hand to seal the deal. The Beatles had realised their ambition of becoming writers and performers that Buddy Holly inspired them with, and now America knew it too. 

As agreed with Epstein, two more Sullivan broadcasts would follow, and this is where it gets confusing; earlier in the day on 9 May and before the five-song show debut the band performed Twist And Shout, Please Please Me and another version of I Want To Hold Your Hand that would be used for broadcast of the Ed Sullivan show on 23 February.

The Beatles' performance for the Ed Sullivan Show on 16 February reached an estimated 70 million people and saw them perform on a stage at the Hotel Deauville in Miami Beach for a broadcast of the songs She Loves You, This Boy and All My Loving. They also closed the show with I Saw Her Standing There, From Me to You, and I Want to Hold Your Hand.

The band, by then evolved into their Help! era, would come back over a year later on August 14 1965 to perform a six-song set. By then the musical landscape had changed around their impact, an influence on songwriting, performance and even fashion that's still felt today. 

"We were aware that Ed Sullivan was the big one because we got a telegram from Elvis and [his manager] the Colonel," reflected George Harrison on the impact of that day in '64 when they helped set a record for US television viewing figures. "And I’ve heard that while the show was on there were no reported crimes, or very few. When The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, even the criminals had a rest for ten minutes.” 

• The lost 1971 John Lennon and Yoko Ono interview on the Beatles' split when they insisted Michael Parkinson wore a black sack over his head

The late Michael Parkinson is rightly regarded as one of the premier television interviewers in the UK and the list of stars that appeared on his BBC chat show encompassed nearly every big name from the '70s to the early 2000s. It's a surprised then to discover that the BBC wiped most of its first series – including a bizarre but revealing 1971 appearance by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

This wasn't unusual at the time; for reasons cited including the broadcaster having no concrete policy on archiving until 1978 and simply needing to wipe tapes so they could be reused, or destroyed as they weren't deemed of value. This meant early episodes of iconic shows including Dr Who, Not Only Peter Cook By Dudley Moore, Hancocks Half Hour, Steptoe And Son and The Avengers were lost forever. Mostly…

In 2009's An Audience With Michael Parkinson, he revealed that a recording of his 1971 interview with Lennon and Ono existed, despite the whole first series of his chat show that it was a part of being wiped from the BBC archive.

Lennon's appearance on show at the time was vital for Parkinson. He was struggling to attract big guests for its initial eight-week run but already knew the Beatle to call in a favour. At the time there were still many questions hanging over the real reasons for the Beatles' April 1970 parting, with contrasting perspectives beginning to surface. Parkinson recalls how Lennon was initially reluctant to revisit that particular subject. 

"He came back to me about a day later and said, 'We've talked about this, I hate talking about the Beatles, you know that,'" Parkinson remembered Lennon telling him. But he would appear on the show, under two conditions. The first being that his partner Yoko Ono appeared with him. This wasn't surprising at all. The second condition was.

"[He said], 'If you want to talk about the Beatles, you have to climb inside a sack and do the interview about the Beatles in a sack,'" recounted Parkinson. "I would have it hanging upside down off the Sydney Harbour Bridge just to get John in the studio."

This wasn't as random as it might first appear. In 1969 Lennon and Ono had given an infamous press conference at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, Austria where they introduced the concept of 'bagism' – their goal for total communication, and the duo spoke from inside a giant white bag.

The idea was a visual way to illustrate their goal of removing potential prejudice based on physical appearance from the conversation – therefore helping to take each other's viewpoints and ideas more seriously. This was total communication.

Two years later and it was apparently still on Lennon and Ono's minds as they appeared on Parkinson's show as agreed. Following Lennon's murder in December 1980, the BBC contacted Parkinson to ask about showing the interview again. Then they hit an obstacle – the corporation hadn't just erased the tapes, but the whole first series of the Parkinson chat show. It was lost, until years later when Parkinson was contacted out of the blue by a film producer in America who was making a feature film called Imagine (released in 1988) on Lennon and asked permission to use the footage of the interview that was sitting on his desk.

The producer wouldn't reveal where he'd got it from but the bootleg footage was indeed genuine. The previously lost footage of the interview – captured in 16mm film  and then stretched to 35mm and colourised from a black and white TV broadcast – has still never been shown in full, but the Audience With Parkinson show at least let's us see a key moment segment when Lennon tackles the still-sensitive subject of the Beatles' split… and the sack comes out.

To his credit in the clip shown below Parkinson feigns surprise, and Ono seems especially enthusiastic about him putting the sack on as the conversation approaches the Fab Four. Lennon is especially animated when confronted with the claim that Ono may be responsible for the split, and is understandably passionate about fighting the misconception.

"Listen, I'll tell you –people on the street and kids do not dislike us," began an indignant Lennon. "It's the media – I'm telling you. It's not us. We go on the street and the lorry drivers wave, 'Hello Yoko, hello John – all that jazz. And I judge it by that. My records still sell well. Her records sell alright. People in general aren't [bothered] even though they've had this propaganda."

As Parkinson presses Lennon on whether Ono's presence during Beatles sessions may have led to tensions with the other members Lennon is forthright. "The tension was already there, you see," he responds. "After Brian died…"

At that point Lennon remembers the bag clause. And out comes the large black sack with Parkinson putting it over his head, with Lennon citing that "It's total communication if you're in the bag". Yoko points out that Parkinson, "Looks very elegant". 

The interview continues. "When Brian [Epstein, Beatles manager] died we got a bit lost," continues Lennon. "We needed a manager. Because all of us are artists… we can't manage ourselves or look after ourselves in that way. But it's a lot for four big heads like the Beatles to stay together for such a long time."

Then comes perhaps the crux of Lennon's perspective on the Beatles dissolution – especially George Harrison's situation, and it's hard to argue with.

"Then there's the thing of making, or making it big and breaking into America," he adds. "We had a goal together, but when we reached the age of 28 or 29 it began to be, 'What's the goal? We've made it.' We were getting more talented and George began to write lots of songs. He couldn't even make an album – he was lucky to get a track on an album. 

"We all started to get interested in our own music and going different ways," Lennon continued. "If you hear our separate albums, they're similar but our personalities have developed and they were a bit stifled in the Beatles I think. Between us now we sell ten times more records than the Beatles did individually if you added them all together. We're doing far better than we were then."

At this point Lennon breaks into laughter, probably realising that talking to a man wearing a giant black sack is somewhat absurd. Parkinson's wish to come out of the bag is granted. And it would be fascinating to hear what Lennon and Ono talk about next but as yet, the rest of the footage is not available online.

"It's an important document of a friendship with John," concluded Parkinson looking back on the interview in 2009. "And also a reminder of the part he played actually in making the show a success. When he did this the floodgates opened." 

• Paul McCartney: "I had been able to accept Yoko sitting on a blanket in front of my amp… but then when we broke up, John turned nasty"

We're remembering the great Duane Eddy, who passed away on 30 April 2024, with the story from 2011 of how he recorded his iconic 1960 take on the theme to the detective TV series Peter Gunn. 

Turn the clock back 50 years and you weren't a proper electric guitarist unless you had a generous quiff and a twang-heavy tone drenched in Grand Canyon-sized reverb. 

This was at least partly down to Duane Eddy, the late Gretsch-toting rock ’n’ roller whose grasp of the twang built him a career that lasts to this day. The New York-born, Arizona-raised guitarist bagged chart success with songs such as Rebel Rouser and Because They’re Young, but scored his biggest hit in 1960 with a cover of the theme tune from the popular '50s detective series Peter Gunn.

Check out the original version, penned by Pink Panther composer Henry Mancini, on YouTube and you’ll discover it’s pretty lightweight compared to Eddy’s adaptation. The twangster’s take pairs a lung-bursting saxophone part with his ominous guitar riff, which is smothered in reverb (or echo in old money). Audiences loved Eddy’s heavier version of the tinny TV tune; in the early '60s, like today, the kids just wanted to rock.

Asked how he came up with the cover, Eddy explains: “I was at Audio Recorders, the studio in Phoenix, working on my second album, Especially For You. My
sax player, Steve Douglas, had this idea to cover the theme from the TV show Peter Gunn. 

"Lee Hazlewood [the producer who also famously teamed up with Nancy Sinatra] was there and I said to him, ‘Whaddya think?’ He said: ‘Well, there’s not much for you to do on it, is there?’ So I said, ‘I could add a little intro that’s off the beaten track and then I’ll just do the riff.’ So we did it, and the record company in Australia put it out as a single and the record company in England heard about it and put it out there too. Then Jamie Records put it out six months later in the States."

Was he a fan of the Peter Gunn TV show, then? “Not really,” Duane shrugs. “I watched it a few times. I didn’t watch much TV in those days, because I was working at nights in clubs and honky-tonks.”

Asked why he preferred to play his riffs on the low E and A strings, he explains: “I realised that the high strings didn’t have the power and the punch of the low ones. I played the melody down low on Rebel Rouser too. I’m actually not playing as low as I sound. [As] George Harrison said, ‘When the Beatles play a low E, it sounds like a low E. When Duane plays it, it sounds an octave lower!’”

The gear Eddy used to deliver the twang will make any fan of 1960s guitar drool. “I used my 1957 6120 Chet Atkins Gretsch,” he tells us. “I was using medium Gretsch strings and I used a small jazz player’s pick. I had a very powerful amp, a reworked Magnatone hopped up to about 100 watts, with a 15-inch JBL speaker to replace the original Jensen. It had a lot of power and a lot of clarity.”

If you ever get tired of dragging your effects unit around, learning the lengths Eddy had to go to in order to generate his world-famous reverb may make you feel fortunate...

“To get the reverb,” he chuckles, “we used a 2000-gallon water tank out back of the studio, with a speaker at one end and a mic at the other – and we ran the guitar sound through that. Then, when we took the record to Gold Star Studios in LA to mix it, they also had a great echo there, so we combined the two and that’s how we got that beautiful echoey sound.”

If you’re wondering how big a 2000-gallon metal tank is, Eddy helpfully reveals: “It was about the size of a bus! We went down to the Salt River in Phoenix and there was a junkyard down there full of old, rusted-out water tanks. Some of them weren’t rusted yet, they were just old, and they were perfect for our purposes. We yelled into a bunch of them to see which ones sounded best and we finally found one that we liked, so the studio owner bought it and trucked it up to the studio and made a wooden rack to hold it out in the parking lot.”

Getting decent reverb via a bungalow-sized water tank wasn’t always straightforward, as Eddy goes on to explain. “We used to have to go out there and chase the birds off it in the morning! And sometimes we would be in the middle of a take and all of a sudden a fire truck would go past with its sirens blazing. It would reverberate through that tank, and we’d have to quit and do the take again.”

Drenched in echoey tones, Duane’s version of the song became a worldwide hit, which he attributes to that monster guitar tone. “I think people liked the atmosphere,” he reflects. “It’s a very clever song, actually. The way it’s written it’s so distinctive, with the guitar and sax melodies that fit together so well.
I think people recognise that.”

A reworking with the Art Of Noise in 1986 introduced the song to a new generation of music fans and the song has become a classic of its era. (“I liked that version,” Eddy says. “It was very unusual, very strange and very avant garde... As they said to me at the time, ‘We avant garde a clue what we’re doing here!’”) But the guitar tone is now a relic lost in time, because the water tank is history. In Eddy’s own words: “Oh, it’s long gone. They got rid of it in the '70s. They cut it up and sent it to the junk yard – again!”

• Classic interview: Duane Eddy 

Day Tripper, I Feel Fine, Revolution, Lady Madonna, Hey Jude, We Can Work It Out, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Don't Let Me Down… just some of The Beatles' classics that never made a studio album. 

That's how good Paul, John, George and Ringo were in their seven years, seven months and 24 days together as a band. But there's a true Beatles b-side that fascinates even more than those songs, and it found them and their studio geniuses at the point of accelerated evolution.

“This is a song I wrote about people who are always moaning about the weather all the time,” John Lennon once said of the Revolver-era Rain. The word 'I' there suggesting the Lennon / McCartney credit the song carries needn't apply. 

This is in contrast to Lennon's memory of the genesis of Rain's A-side, Paperback Writer's. "I think I might have helped with some of the lyrics," he told Hit Parader Magazine in 1972. "Yes, I did. But it was mainly Paul's tune." But he clearly saw Rain as his song. Indeed, in the same interview, it was one of a number of Beatles songs he listed as being written by himself.  

Paul McCartney remembered things differently. Though noting Lennon was the more dominant contributor to the song, he said it was still a "70-30" authorship and seemed to play the idea of his late bandmate as its instigator down. “I don’t think he brought the original idea, just when we sat down to write, he kicked it off,” McCartney claimed to Barry Miles in his 1997 biography of the Beatle, Many Years From Now. 

“Songs have traditionally treated rain as a bad thing and what we got on to was that it’s no bad thing," he said of its inspiration. "There’s no greater feeling than the rain dripping down your back.”

Authorship aside, McCartney and Lennon's reading of Rain's songs's lyrical meaning seems to be quite literal, but on the sonic side, it was clear Lennon may have wanted to go much further on Rain than what the band ended up releasing.

“It was the first time I discovered [backward music],” he told Rolling Stone in a 1968 interview. “On the end of Rain you hear me singing it backwards. We’d done the main thing at EMI and the habit was then to take the songs home and see what you thought a little extra gimmick or what the guitar piece would be.

“So I got home about five in the morning, stoned out of me head," Lennon remembered after recording the main session in the studio. "I staggered up to me tape recorder and I put it on, but it came out backwards, and I was in a trance in the earphones, what is it — what is it?” he said. 

Lennon was hooked on what he heard. “It’s too much, you know, and I really wanted the whole song backwards almost, and that was it,” he admitted. “So we tagged [the backwards part] on the end. I just happened to have the tape the wrong way round, it just came out backwards, it just blew me mind.” 

This small outro seemed revolutionary for a pop song in 1966 – coming just over two months before the release of Tomorrow Never Knows on revolver. But despite Lennon's belief that it was "the first backwards tape on any record anywhere", it wasn't. Backmasking – purposefully recording a vocal line backwards onto tape – dates back to the 1959 song Car Trouble by US vocal group Eligibles adding some comedy lines from an imagined girlfriend's angry father. But the Beatles' first use of it brought it into a sharp mainstream focus that was a far cry from the novelty, though trailblazing context of the Eligibles. 

Revolver closer Tomorrow Never Knows is the most famous use of a backwards guitar solo (played by George Harrison) and probably came first as far as a studio recording is concerned (recording on it began about a week before Rain and Paperback Writer). Lennon's happy accident with Rain came in the same month of April 1966. But there's much more to this song to define it as not just historically important, but progressive is terms of musicianship and sound.

This extends to the other Beatles and the unofficial members outside of the Fab Four. Producer George Martin and the experimental spirit of engineer Geoff Emerick's moves towards changing the role of a recording studio from simply capturing performance to playing an instrument-like role in musical creation were coming to fruition. 

It was Emerick – then just 20 years old and newly made engineer for the Revolver sessions on the recommendation of George Martin – who decided to amplify the dynamics of Ringo Starr's intricate fills on the song against the recording conventions of EMI at the time. The results delighted the drummer, but it's hard to deny he drew something extra from himself with his performance.

"My favorite piece of me is what I did on Rain," Starr reflected in 1984. "I think I just played amazing. I was into the snare and hi-hat. I think it was the first time I used the trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat. 

"I think it's the best out of all the records I've ever made. Rain' blows me away. It's out in left field. I know me and I know my playing... and then there's Rain."

The song, the sound, the feel – Rain sounds like British indie rock decades ahead of its realisation. No wonder it inspired Liam Gallagher & Co's pre-Oasis moniker before brother Noel changed their fortunes with Live Forever. Emerick's influence on the sound of Rain went even further than Ringo.

"Rain also had an unusual sonic texture, deep and murky," recalled the late engineer in the Howard Massey co-written 2006 book Here, There And Everywhere: My Life Recording The Music Of The Beatles. "This was accomplished by having the band play the backing track at a really fast tempo while I recorded them on a sped-up tape machine. When we slowed the tape back down to normal speed, the music played back at the desired tempo, but with a radically different tonal quality."

The Beatles' studio team had already discovered the value of this in the Tomorrow Never Knows sessions, but the practical reality of what was needed to achieve it is striking. The band played the original speed in the key of A (or not quite as I'll explain later), and when slowed it was in the key of G. Take a listen to the instrumental recording of Rain above to hear just how fast that original backing track speed was too. 

The performances beyond Starr's also play crucial parts in this crafted psychedelic three-minute wonder.  The bassline is surely one of McCartney's greatest in a notable period for his low-end prowess. A sibling of Revolver's Taxman, his verse parts don't repeat as his inventive melodic lines flow through the changes of what is mostly just two chords (G major and Csus2). McCartney's groove has a suitably watery quality in the song.

McCartney's bass was arguably more prominent on Rain and Paperback Writer than on any previous Beatles recording. He was bolstered by the sustain of his ’64 Rickenbacker 4001S – a move from the Hofner influenced by the more powerful low-end mix he was hearing in Motown soul from the US of the time. But the guitars are less simple to credit for sure.

Rain was tracked during the two sessions on Thursday 14 April 1966 – recorded the day after the majority of Paperback Writer was laid down. Work on the track, including overdubs and mixing was completed on 16 April with the song released with Paperback Writer on 30 May. We know from Andy Babiuk's superb Beatles Gear book that for the A-side session Lennon was photographed in the studio with a newly acquired orange Gretsch 6120 around that time - that was reportedly never seen again afterwards. 

It's tempting to attribute the droning quality of Harrison's arpeggiated chords to that of the Indian classical music Harrison had discovered during the filming of Help in 1965. This had resulted in the use of a sitar on Rubber Soul's Norwegian Wood later in the same year. The tape manipulation certainly aided to the ethereal quality of Rain's guitar, and the electronically double-tracked vocal sounds pioneered by Abbey Road engineer Ken Townsend played their part too. 

The band recorded five rhythm takes for the song in Abbey Road's EMI Studio 3 with the fifth decided as the keeper. Lennon also sang vocal harmonies with himself on the chorus. But hearing the original speed version of Rain still reveals an atonal quality to the guitar that feels slightly sitar-like to my ears. And it's due to the tuning. As Mike Pachelli reveals in his insightful lesson above, the guitars were originally tuned above concert A in reality before the recording was slowed down – somewhere around A#. 

It's never been confirmed for certain what guitars were used on Rain. There are a three in contention; an Epiphone Casino, Lennon's new Gretsch or George's mainstay 1964 Gibson SG standard he's seen with for one of the song's multiple promotional videos. 

Yes, videos in the plural – seven in total for between Rain and Paperback Writer. The former's three videos were not just unusual for a Beatles b-side, but arrived at a time when the precedent of any promotional video for a song didn't exist. The idea came about for a very specific reason.

"The idea was that we’d use them in America as well as the UK," Harrison explained in the Beatles' Anthology book. The guitarist had been keen for the band to focus on studio work over promotional live performances and the concept of a video suited these ends. "Because we thought, ‘We can’t go everywhere. We’re stopping touring and we’ll send these films out to promote the record.’ It was too much trouble to go and fight our way through all the screaming hordes of people to mime the latest single on Ready Steady Go! Also, in America, they never saw the footage anyway.

"Once we actually went on an Ed Sullivan show with just a clip," Harrison added. "I think Ed Sullivan came on and said, ‘The Beatles were here, as you know, and they were wonderful boys, but they can’t be here now so they’ve sent us this clip.’ It was great, because really we conned the Sullivan show into promoting our new single by sending in the film clip. These days obviously everybody does that – it’s part of the promotion for a single – so I suppose in a way we invented MTV.

Add that one to the list of Beatles innovations too then. 

• "Because I don't read music, I didn't know what the melody that went with it was": Paul McCartney explains why his musical limitations and "stealing" benefitted the Abbey Road medley that gave us The Beatles' true swansong

On 12 October, 1965, the four members of The Beatles arrived at EMI Recording Studios in Abbey Road, London to begin work on their sixth album, which would become Rubber Soul. This was the first time that they had been able to record an album free of concert, radio or film commitments and they seized the opportunity. Over the next four weeks, Studio Two, they pushed sonic boundaries and unveiled a set of songs that was unlike anything they had written or recorded before.

The album that emerged would signal a gigantic shift from their previous release Help! and would have a huge impact on their peers. Almost six decades on from its release, Rubber Soul remains one of the most influential albums of all time.

For The Beatles, the sounds and social upheavals of America had a galvanising impact. In August 1965 they had undertaken a 16-date tour of the US, where they were exposed to the rousing soul of Motown and Stax as well as the raw, politicised folk-rock of Bob Dylan and The Byrds. By the time they returned to Abbey Road their musical horizons had been significantly broadened. 

On this album the band blended folk, rock and soul, and explored mature themes, with socially conscious lyrics.

“Things were changing,” said Paul McCartney in The Beatles Anthology documentary series in 1995. “The direction was moving away from the poppy stuff like Thank You Girl, From Me To You and She Love You… we’d come to a point where we thought, ‘We’ve done that. Now we can branch out into songs that are more surreal, a little more entertaining’. And other people were starting to arrive on the scene who were influential. Dylan was influencing us quite heavily at that point.”

Rubber Soul was also their first album that was influenced by marijuana. “Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially with the writers,” reflected Ringo in the 1995 Anthology documentary. “We were expanding in all areas of our lives, opening up to a lot of different attitudes.”

The band already had one track ready, Wait, a leftover from the Help! Sessions. But the song that really kickstarted the album was Drive My Car, a direct homage to the Stax sound the band loved. The song’s bass-heavy R&B Stax feel had much to do with George Harrison, who was infatuated with Otis Redding’s 1965 hit Respect. 

The song was conceived by McCartney who arrived at Lennon’s Weybridge home for a writing session, with the tune in his head. "The lyrics I brought in were something to do with golden rings, which are always fatal [to songwriting],” recalled McCartney in a 1994 interview, quoted in Far Out magazine. 

“I came in and I said, 'These aren't good lyrics but it's a good tune’. Well, we tried, and John couldn't think of anything, and we tried, and eventually it was, 'Oh let's leave it, let's get off this one’. So we had a break... then we came back to it, and somehow it became 'drive-my-car' instead of 'gol-den-rings,' and then it was wonderful, because this nice tongue-in-cheek idea came."

The lyrics, rich in sexual innuendo, focus on an aspiring actress who hires a ‘chauffeur’. Drive My Car was recorded on 13 October 1965 in a session that ran well after midnight. This was the album on which McCartney first used a Rickenbacker 4001S bass, with a fuller, punchier tone that would become a defining feature of the sound on Rubber Soul. McCartney opted for a Vox AC100 amp and a Fender Bassman. Lennon and Harrison, meanwhile, played through Vox AC30 and AC100 amps.

This was also the album on which Stratocasters were used for the first time. “I decided I'd get a Strat, and John decided he'd get one too," Harrison is quoted as saying in Andy Babiuk’s 2016 illustrated book, Beatles Gear. “So we sent out our roadie, Mal Evans… and he came back with two of them, pale blue ones. Straight away we used them on the album we were making at the time, Rubber Soul.” 

George's would give his '62 Strat a Day-Glo makeover in 1967 ahead of the Magical Mystery Tour album – it would be nicknamed Rocky and he'd continue to use it for slide well into his solo album years. 

On Drive My Car, Harrison plays a Stax-style bass line on his new Strat and McCartney doubles up on the Rickenbacker bass. This was also the song on which McCartney played his first guitar solo on a Beatles track, a slide solo, with his 1962 Epiphone Casino. 

Harrison and Lennon’s new Sonic Blue Strats can be heard across the album but they really shine through on Nowhere Man, particularly on Harrison’s solo. But the genesis of the song was the result of a frustrating few hours in the studio for John Lennon. 

“I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down,” Lennon told Playboy magazine in 1980. “Then Nowhere Man came, words and music, the whole damn thing as I lay down.”

Another new instrument that featured on the album, on tracks such as If I Needed Someone, was Harrison’s new Rickenbacker 360/12, which he had acquired when the band played a show in Minneapolis on 21 August 1965. 

The Rickenbacker was presented to him by a local guitar store at a press conference that day and he played it on stage that evening. “That’s fab,” Lennon reportedly said as Harrison was presented with the guitar, “Where’s mine?”

Rubber Soul was the album on which the band started to strive for more expressive sounds and arrangements. On Girl, high equalisation was applied to Lennon’s voice to capture the hissing sound as he drew breath. Lennon put a capo on the eighth fret of his Gibson J-160E, which made it sound like a bouzouki, enhancing the Meditarrenian flavour of the song – McCartney had written part of the music that was used in the outro while on holiday in Greece in September 1963.

In the song Girl that John wrote, there’s a Zorba-like thing at the end that I wrote which came from that holiday," McCartney told Barry Miles in the book Many Years From Now. "I was very impressed with another culture’s approach because it was slightly different from what we did. We just did it on acoustic guitars instead of bouzoukis."

The Word, with its concept of universal love, features a stunningly fluid bass groove and rhythmic piano from McCartney, the latter being heavily manipulated using compression and equalisation.

On Harrison’s Think For Yourself, McCartney recorded two bass tracks, one through a distortion unit, which is credited as 'fuzz bass' on the sleeve credits. EMI built their own distortion boxes, although it’s possible McCartney used a prototype Vox Tone Blender.

A real high point on the album is Lennon’s Norwegian Wood, initially recorded with the working title of This Bird Has Flown. It was the first track by a rock/pop band to feature sitar, played on a cheap instrument bought by George Harrison from an Indian gift shop in London’s Oxford Street. It was the start of Harrison’s interest in Indian culture.

It’s to George Harrison’s eternal credit that he refused to be daunted by the songwriting prowess of Lennon and McCartney. On Rubber Soul, he contributes two songs, If I Needed Someone, one of his best compositions, and Think For Yourself.

“Songwriting for me, at the time of Rubber Soul, was a bit frightening because John and Paul had been writing since they were three years old,” recalled Harrison in the Beatles Anthology book, published in 2000. “It was hard to come in suddenly and write songs. They’d had a lot of practice… I had to come from nowhere and start writing, and have something with at least enough quality to put on the record alongside all the wondrous hits. It was very hard.”

As the recording progressed, the influence of the soul music of Stax and Motown and the electric folk of Dylan really came to the fore. Harrison’s Think For Yourself was inspired by Dylan’s Positively Fourth Street, while You Won’t See Me has a distinct Motown feel. McCartney’s Michelle meanwhile, is evocative of wistful French pop.

Then of course there is In My Life, a beautifully sparse and evocative song in which Lennon looks back on the Liverpool of his youth. In Mark Hertsgaard’s 1996 book A Day In The Life: The Music And Artistry Of The Beatles, Lennon is quoted as saying the song is his “first real major piece of work”.

As Rubber Soul took shape, it became clear that this was a record that was being conceived as a single cohesive work. “I think Rubber Soul was the first of the albums that presented a new Beatles to the world,” explained George Martin in Kenneth Womack’s 2017 book Maximum Volume: The Life Of Beatles Producer George Martin (The Early Years, 1926-1966). "We were thinking about the albums as an entity of its own and Rubber Soul was the first one to emerge in this way."

George Harrison is quoted in Far Out magazine as saying in 1990 that Rubber Soul was his favourite Beatles’ album. "We certainly knew we were making a good album. We did spend more time on it and tried new things. But the most important thing about it was that we were suddenly hearing sounds that we weren't able to hear before."

Rubber Soul was released on 3 December 1965 to universal acclaim and promptly went to No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic. The album blazed the trail for the emergence of albums as creative works in their own right and prompted a major shift away from singles. For The Beatles’s peers, it was a real lightbulb moment. 

“Rubber Soul blew my mind,” recalled Brian Wilson in an interview with Paste magazine in 2004. “I liked the way it all went together, the way it was all one thing. It was a challenge to me to do something similar. That made me want to make Pet Sounds, I didn’t want to do the same kind of music, but on the same level… It wasn’t pop music; it was something more advanced.” 

The album had a galvanising impact on the band’s peers such as the Stones and heralded in an era when for the first time, rock music was culturally legitimised and regarded as having real artistic merit.  The album “broke everything open,” recalled Steve Winwood in John Kruth’s 2015 book The Bird Has Flown: The Enduring Beauty Of Rubber Soul Fifty Years On. “It crossed music into a whole new dimension and was responsible for kicking off the sixties rock era." 

Dylan was a profound influence on Rubber Soul. But six months after he had been roundly booed at the Newport Folk Festival for fielding a full electric band, The Beatles too melded folk with rock and created something all their own. For UK folk artists meanwhile, it was also a wake-up call. As folk singer-songwriter Roy Harper recalled in a piece entitled The 101 Greatest Beatles Songs in the July 2006 issue of Mojo magazine: “They’d come onto my turf, got there before me, and they were kings of it, overnight. We'd all been outflanked.”

• John Lennon and George Harrison: 10 guitar lessons you can learn from their Beatles era

George Harrison was the archetypal lead guitarist. Like all great players, his style was the result of an eclectic mix of influences. Big Bill Broonzy, Django Reinhardt, Slim Whitman, Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins and Lonnie Donegan were all inspiration for the young Harrison.

By listening to a wide range of styles – blues, jazz, country, rockabilly and skiffle – he was able to develop his own individual sound and identity. Learning his craft by copying the playing he heard on records, George demonstrated a fluent soloing style from the start of The Beatles’ career. His role in the band was clearly defined as that of the ‘lead’ guitarist, adding memorable riffs, licks and solos that defined the band’s sound.

1. Outline the changes 

This example illustrates George Harrison’s country influences and, in particular, how a mixture of open-string lines, partial chords and single-note lines can all be used to outline a chord progression.

2. Transposing pentatonic ideas 

By working out the licks of American blues guitarists, George realised that the minor pentatonic scale could be transposed to ‘fit’ each chord in a 12-bar sequence.

The opening E minor pentatonic lick in this example is transposed down a 4th so that it can be repeated over the B chord in bar 3.

3. Carl Perkins and rockabilly influences 

George's rockabilly influences are outlined here in this Carl Perkins-style lick. Use alternate down-up style eighth-note picking throughout for best results, keeping your fretting hand in 2nd position (ie, with your first finger at the 2nd fret).

4. 12-string electric style 

George Harrison is well known for using a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar. The rich sound of the 12-string guitar allowed him to outline simple melodic ideas without any dropout in the fullness of the sound. 

• How to play like John Lennon: 4 key guitar lessons from the early Beatles era

In the latest extension to The Beatles Universe, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison will each get a full feature-length scripted biopic helmed by acclaimed director Sir Sam Mendes, it has been confirmed.

Details are naturally scarce at this point, but the movies will collectively "tell the astonishing story of the greatest band in history," culminating in The Beatles' breakup in 1970.

“I’m honoured to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” said Mendes, the acclaimed director of American Beauty and highly-rated Bond outings Skyfall and Spectre.

The fab four biopics are officially sanctioned by Apple Corps, guardians of The Beatles' IP and legacy, and have been signed off by the surviving Beatles and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison.

“To have The Beatles’ and Apple Corps’ blessing to do this is an immense privilege,” said co-producer Pippa Harris (Mendes also takes a co-production role, alongside Harris and Julie Pastor). 

"We intend this to be a uniquely thrilling, and epic cinematic experience: four films, told from four different perspectives which tell a single story about the most celebrated band of all time."

“Theatrical movie events today must be culturally seismic," added Tom Rothman, chair and chief executive of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group "Sam’s daring, large-scale idea is that and then some.”

While a release schedule is still unknown, Sony have teased an "innovative release cadence" and early whispers indicate a staggered, possibly overlapping rollout, with 2027 the target. We'll bring you more details and, hopefully, the first trailers, soon...

6 September 1968 wasn't memorable for everyone involved in the recording of the Beatles' White Album. 

When we quizzed him for details on the session earlier this year, engineer Ken Scott demurred "I was at the session, but It was just another day at the office so it didn't mean anything at the time. 

"It's become part of history, but I don't remember anything about it. Chris Thomas, who was George Martin's assistant, remembers nothing about it. John Smith, my assistant engineer, remembers nothing about it." 

Luckily, George Harrison himself is on record with better recall of the day he drafted in Eric Clapton to put the gloss on one of his key Beatles tracks, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

In the Beatles Anthology, Harrison recalls the song's birth as an exercise in randomness: "I was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes… The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Every little item that’s going down has a purpose.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a simple study based on that theory. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book. I picked up a book at random, opened it, saw ‘gently weeps’, then laid the book down again and started the song."

Not untypically, it seems John Lennon and Paul McCartney weren't overly enthusiastic when recording - the Beatles' first on 8-track - commenced in earnest in September 1968. "I'll tell you, I worked on that song with John, Paul and Ringo one day, and they were not interested in it at all."

"We tried to record it, but John and Paul were so used to just cranking out their tunes that it was very difficult at times to get serious and record one of mine. It wasn’t happening. 

"They weren’t taking it seriously and I don’t think they were even all playing on it, and so I went home that night thinking, ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ because I knew the song was pretty good."

So, a full day's labour at EMI Studio 2 on 5 September ended with 44 half-hearted takes in the can (including 17 earlier passes), and George still unhappy with his own attempts at a solo. 

Engineer Brian Gibson says in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, "George particularly wanted to get the sound of a crying guitar but he didn't want to use a wah-wah pedal, so he was experimenting with a backwards guitar solo. 

"We spent a long night trying to get it to work but in the end the whole thing was scrapped and it was around that time that Eric Clapton started to get involved with the song."

Indeed, it was the very next day that Harrison called in back-up in the form of friend Eric Clapton, both to sort out the troublesome solo and to bring Lennon and McCartney to heel for one last push on the track.

"The next day, I was with Eric, and I was going into the session, and I said, “We're going to do this song. Come on and play on it,” he told Guitar Player in 1987.

"He said, “Oh, no. I can't do that. Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records.”

"I said, “Look, it's my song, and I want you to play on it.

"So Eric came in and the other guys were as good as gold, because he was there. Also, it left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal."

In Anthology, Harrison says, "So he came in. I said, ‘Eric’s going to play on this one,’ and it was good because that then made everyone act better. Paul got on the piano and played a nice intro and they all took it more seriously."

"It left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal. So Eric played, and I thought it was really good," Harrison remembers.

But one last layer of polish was required. "We listened to it back and he said, “Ah, there's a problem though. It's not Beatle-y enough” – so we put it through the ADT to wobble it a bit."

Harrison would later say, “What happened when Eric was there on that day, and later on when Billy Preston  - I pulled in Billy Preston on Let It Be - it helped. Because the others would have to control themselves a bit more. John and Paul mainly because they had to, you know, act more handsomely.”

Clapton himself hasn't discussed the session much over the years, but did say "I knew George was happy, because he listened to it over and over in the control room."

Job very much done.

BONUS: Just because it's always worth a watch

Acclaimed American musician and synth aficionado Gary Wright has died at the age of 80, it’s been confirmed.

Best known for his ‘70s hits Love Is Alive and Dream Weaver - the latter of which he re-recorded for use in 1992 movie Wayne’s World - Wright began his career in ‘60s British blues-rock band Spooky Tooth, before releasing his debut solo album, Extraction, in 1970.

Wright was also a close collaborator of George Harrison, playing piano on the ex-Beatle’s All Things Must Pass album in 1970 and all of his subsequent releases for the next decade.

Spooky Tooth reformed in 1972, but it was three years later, after the band had split again, that Wright scored his biggest success. The Dream Weaver, his third album, was created almost entirely with keyboards and a drum machine, and yielded big US hits in the form of the (almost) title track and Love Is Alive.

More solo albums followed, and Wright also turned his hand to film soundtracks in the ‘80s. A spot in Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band put another Beatle-shaped feather in his cap, and his Wayne’s World contribution helped to introduce Wright’s music to a new generation of listeners..

Justin Wright, Gary’s son, told TMZ that his father died on Monday morning at his home in California. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia for several years.

Bernie Marsden, the legendary former Whitesnake guitarist and master of blues-rock guitar, has died, aged 72.

Marsden passed away on Thursday 24 August, with in the company of his wife, Fran, and daughters, Charlotte and Olivia. In a statement from the family, Marsden “never lost his passion for music, writing and recording new songs until the end”.

There are many things we could say about the guitar playing of Bernie Marsden. It was certainly influential enough for the University of Buckingham to award him an honorary master’s degree in 2015. Pictured in cap and gown he looked tickled by the  award. But it was strange to see him without an electric guitar in his hand. It would be central to his story.

Like many players of his age, Marsden got turned onto the instrument by Hank Marvin of the Shadows. But it was Eric Clapton who really opened his eyes to its potential. 

Clapton was young enough that Marsden could see something of himself in him. George Harrison of the Beatles was another primary influence, and so too the late Peter Green. Both would become friends.

Marsden would travel down from Buckingham to London to see Fleetwood Mac play, helping them load in, a good deed rewarded by a pint from Green. They were birds of a feather, and it was inevitable they would remain close.

Marsden’s first band of note was Skinny Cat, formed when he was 17. They wouldn’t last but supporting Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck, Slade and Gary Moore give Marsden a real taste for it, and he would cast the net wider. 

UFO was his first big gig. The big time it was not. Speaking to Louder in 2020, he admitted it was an eye-opener to a young kid like him.

“I was naïve and green, and thought that joining a pro band and moving to London was going to be like the cover of a Beatles EP, with everyone jumping in the air and being happy. It turned out to be anything but,” said Marsden, who often had to travel to gigs on his own. It was not a happy camp.

It was, however, a move up the ladder. The next moves involved session playing with Mickie Most, playing with Cozy Powell’s Hammer, then Babe Ruth, before Paice Ashton Lord changed everything. 

That was a great leap for Marsden, and perhaps also for Deep Purple fans reckoning with the stylistic evolution of this new project. 

“Paice Ashton Lord turned out to be a flash in the pan, although it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Marsden told Louder. He was right. He would record Malice In Wonderland with Paice Ashton Lord. As the curtain closed on Paice Ashton Lord, another opened.

Marsden got in at the ground floor with Whitesnake, joining guitarist Mike Moody and David Coverdale, and finally finding an outlet for his talent. In Coverdale, he knew he had someone he could work with, describing him as a “surrogate brother”.

He would record five studio albums with the band, co-writing the stone-cold classic Here I Go Again with Coverdale, and Fool For Your Loving, a track originally intended for BB King but one the record company had the good sense to make them use it for Whitesnake. That would become another evergreen hit. 

He would release two solo albums during his time with the band. When Whitesnake came to an end, Marsden was only 30 but thought he was washed up. His friend Cozy Powell, who was best man at his wedding, helped talk him round. Marsden formed Alaska – originally, as “Bernie Marsden’s Alaska”, such was the style at the time – tracking two albums, Heart Of The Storm and The Pack. 

One of Marsden’s most significant post-Whitesnake releases arrived in 1995, as he paid tribute to Peter Green on Green And Blues. Whitesnake was never out of sight in the rear-view mirror. In 2011, he got back on the stage with Coverdale and co at Sweden Rock Festival. They would not be strangers.

Latterly, Marsden had a portfolio career, scoring german TV show Frankie, collaborating with PRS and Gibson on a signature guitar, guesting on friends’ records and stages, recording the critically acclaimed solo album Shine in 2014. 

His legendary 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard ‘Burst of his, aka Beast, almost became like this extension of his personality and legacy. Little wonder there was outcry when the Beast was considered for sale earlier in June. Over the years he had lent the Beast to select friends – Joe Bonamassa was one such safe pair of hands. By popular appeal, Marsden decided to keep it. It was fitting that the Beast stayed with him to the end. 

Ringo Starr has weighed in on the idea that the surviving members of The Beatles used AI to digitally recreate John Lennon’s voice for a forthcoming ‘new’ Beatles song, as well as confirming that the track features all four members of The Beatles. 

Speaking in an interview with People, Ringo says of the vocal track, "This is absolutely John Lennon's voice, taken off — as neat as we can — a cassette. And that's all I can tell you!”

The Beatles drummer reiterates his point again on an upcoming episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now Podcast, saying that The Beatles would “never” fake John Lennon’s voice using AI. 

He also goes on to confirm that along with Lennon’s vocals, the song features all four Beatles, including George Harrison, “This was beautiful" says Ringo, "and it’s the final track you’ll ever hear with the four lads. And that’s a fact.”.

The confusion surrounding the use of AI came recently when Paul McCartney gave an interview to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in June, where he revealed that there was a new Beatles song in the works. 

As has been widely reported, Get Back producer Peter Jackson and his team including Giles Martin developed and used AI/machine-learning 'De-mix' technology during the making of the documentary in order to isolate instruments recorded on the same track.  

"When Peter Jackson did the film, where it was us making the Let It Be album, he was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette and a piano. He could separate them with AI. 

"He’d tell the machine ‘That’s a voice, this is a guitar, lose the guitar’".“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on and we just finished it up. It will be released this year."

Macca later took to Twitter to clarify his quote, assuring fans that the new song will not feature any artificially-created Lennon vocals. 

The ‘new’ song is believed to be Now and Then, which was demoed on a cassette tape by Lennon in 1979, and was one of three songs given to the surviving Beatles by Yoko Ono Lennon for 1994’s Anthology. Free as a Bird and Real Love were restored and completed by the remaining members, however Now and Then was left off the collection.

Paul McCartney told Q magazine in 1997 that the song’s exclusion from Anthology was due to George Harrison’s dislike of the tune, calling it “Fucking rubbish”. 

“It didn’t have a very good title, it needed a bit of reworking, but it had a beautiful verse and it had John singing it,” McCartney said. “George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.”

However, it is believed that overdub sessions took place with Jeff Lynne during the making of Anthology, meaning that Ringo’s statement about all four members featuring on the new song adds further weight to it being Now and Then.

Guitar lessons: Before the chemical-fuelled studio experimentation of their psychedelic ‘middle’ period, The Beatles were a remarkably well-honed hit machine. 

Their live-in-the-studio performances were tight, and their songwriting chops even tighter – they reeled off hits with remarkable sophistication for songwriters in their early 20s, with a work ethic that puts modern bands to shame.

With John Lennon locking down the rhythm, George Harrison’s instantly recognisable melodic lead guitar drew on 1950s influences including Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, while his early adoption of the Rickenbacker 12-string guitar introduced the world to a sound that is now synonymous with the vocabulary of 1960s pop. 

Read on for 10 timeless guitar lessons we can learn from John and George as they burned their names into the musical history books and gained the adoration of millions.

1. The Beatles used minor chords to great effect. Here's five ways you can too:

Make you middle sections minor

A classic Beatles move is to go from a major chord sequence in a verse to one starting on the relative minor for a mood change in a bridge or chorus. Hear it on Misery.

2. It's all relative 

Listen to All I’ve Got To Do and you’ll hear two chords dominating: E and C#m. These are relative major/minor chords. The verse shifts between each chord as the tonal centre, never really settling on either.

3. Stray from the key

Based around E and A chords, the verse in Please Please Me is in E major. However, the break in the middle of the verse ‘borrows’ a G chord from the key of E minor, so the run is: E-G-A-B. It’s a momentary change of harmony and mood.

4. Parallel major/minor

Another classic Beatles move is the ‘parallel’ major to minor change. Try A-Am-E. It’s a basic change from A to E, except that the all-important Am leads you chromatically into the E chord.

5. Work out your relative minors

Learning the relationship between major chords and their relative minors unlocks all kinds of musical possibilities. If all of this talk of relativity is fogging your brain, you can use this simple method – start with the major chord of the key that you’re in, and move down three semitones. Or use our diagram (above) to help you.

2. George's octave shapes

In songs such as Please Please Me George Harrison would use the octave shapes shown here, instead of the more common shape played on the fifth and third strings.

There is no great benefit to this other than comfort. That said, if you transfer these shapes to a 12-string guitar you will find a different arrangement of the notes in various octaves, so it is worth experimenting.

3. Think around your chords 

Outline chords with root notes, arpeggios and two- or three-note chords. The mix of bass guitar arpeggios and two guitars playing partial chords creates a constantly changing rhythm part. Listen to I Saw Her Standing There.

4. Augment your changes 

Hang on an augmented chord to emphasise a change. Try E-Eaug-A, as a variation on the basic change from E to A. Ask Me Why is a great example.

5. The I-II-IV progression 

It may or may not be fair to say the Beatles ‘pioneered’ the I-II-IV-I progression in Eight Days A Week, but the sequence crops up in their later work, too. You Won’t See Me and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band are two prime examples of the band’s willingness to return to a musical staple.

6. Using deceptive cadences

In a classic I-IV-V chord progression, there’s always a sense that the V chord should be followed by the I. The effect is called ‘resolving’, and the sense that a musical line is coming to an end is known as a ‘cadence’. 

Just play the open chords D7 (the V), then G (the I) to hear it in action. The Beatles would often challenge the listener by deliberately heading off to a different chord after the V. 

For example, in Do You Want To Know A Secret, the VI follows the V, giving a sense that the root chord isn’t ‘home’. Try it – start with a I-IV-V progression (E-A-B, for example), and try heading to C#m, F#m or G#m after the B chord.

7. A simple idea can go a long way 

Stephen Hill and Michael Gagliano have spent years studying The Beatles’ sound, and have performed as Gorge and John in the Let It Be musical. This riff example of Twist And Shout that they show us proves a simple idea can go a long way.

It's D, G and A chords running through most of the song. Lennon played a slightly simpler part consisting of just the chords strummed with his usual energy and drive. George’s part included the short melody line on the 5th string, and he would simplify the open chords to two-note powerchords. 

Stephen and Michael include an extra line that the two guitarists would include in their live shows. This line was based on two-note chords used to outline a melody, rather than being used more generally as chords.

8. George's transposition of pentatonic ideas

By working out the licks of American blues guitarists, George realised that the minor pentatonic scale could be transposed to ‘fit’ each chord in a 12-bar sequence.

The opening E minor pentatonic lick in this example is transposed down a 4th so that it can be repeated over the B chord in bar 3

9. John's Chuck Berry-inspired soloing 

John Lennon didn’t play many solos in the early days of The Beatles. However, one of his best-known solos comes on Long Tall Sally, originally a Little Richard tune.

Our example showcases doublestops (two-note chords) and raucous string bends.

10. Contrasting guitar parts can complement 

Stephen Hill and Michael Gagliano again show us a famous riff; this time it's I Saw Her Standing There, and the two guitar parts are quite different.

 John Lennon’s part is a steady, chopping rhythm using a shape based on an open C7 chord, but which is moved up a few frets to make it an E7. The trick is to stab those chords while repeating the open sixth string underneath. 

George Harrison’s part is based on a different voicing of the E7 chord – an open D7 chord moved up two frets. More importantly, George adds single notes into these intro chords, and also mixes chords and a rock ’n’ roll-style arpeggio during the verse. 

Guitar lesson: learn 4 fab Beatles chords (including A Hard Day's Night)

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Best of 2023: Session drummer Jim Keltner has opened up about working with both John Lennon and George Harrison, and how the former Beatles relationship were like brothers when it came to their intra-band bickering.

Speaking to Uncut in celebration of the 50th anniversary of George Harrison’s second solo album, Living in the Material World (released May 1973), the session ace - who worked on solo material with Harrison, Lennon and Ringo Starr - recalled meeting Harrison for the first time, and the differences between George and John in the studio.

“The very first time I laid eyes on George was at John Lennon’s Ascot Sound studio on February 16, 1971. John was making Imagine. 

“George was walking into the hall. I’d gone to the bathroom and I came out and saw him and we just said, ‘Hi.’ He said that he really loved the Delaney & Bonnie record that I’d played on, Accept No Substitute…To have George say that to me was a big deal.”

“He was the most unusual person. John was just very, very normal. He was a regular kind of guy: funny, incredibly smart, and incredibly fast with everything. 

“Nothing took a long time. When we got to hanging out, it was fantastic but it was like living in a cloud. There’s so much John stuff that I just can’t remember because we were so loaded, and everything was so condensed, time-wise. 

“George was just the opposite. With George, it was always kind of mystifying how he would come up with stuff to do, and how easily he made it happen.”

However, while Keltner has racked-up 15 albums’ worth of material with Lennon, Harrison and Ringo collectively, he still observed that (much like family members), it didn’t qualify him to express his opinion on Paul McCartney around the former Beatles.

“Over the years with him and John, they could both be really brutal with Paul. I learned very early on that I couldn’t join them. 

“They both on different occasions said, ‘We can say that, but you shouldn’t.’ They were truly brothers who loved taking the piss out of each other, but they didn’t want anybody else doing it."

Session drummer Jim Keltner has opened up about working with both John Lennon and George Harrison, and how the former Beatles relationship were like brothers when it came to their intra-band bickering.

Speaking to Uncut in celebration of the 50th anniversary of George Harrison’s second solo album, Living in the Material World (released May 1973), the session ace - who worked on solo material with Harrison, Lennon and Ringo Starr - recalls meeting Harrison for the first time, and the differences between George and John in the studio.

“The very first time I laid eyes on George was at John Lennon’s Ascot Sound studio on February 16, 1971. John was making Imagine. 

“George was walking into the hall. I’d gone to the bathroom and I came out and saw him and we just said, ‘Hi.’ He said that he really loved the Delaney & Bonnie record that I’d played on, Accept No Substitute…To have George say that to me was a big deal.”

“He was the most unusual person. John was just very, very normal. He was a regular kind of guy: funny, incredibly smart, and incredibly fast with everything. 

“Nothing took a long time. When we got to hanging out, it was fantastic but it was like living in a cloud. There’s so much John stuff that I just can’t remember because we were so loaded, and everything was so condensed, time-wise. 

“George was just the opposite. With George, it was always kind of mystifying how he would come up with stuff to do, and how easily he made it happen.”

However, while Keltner has racked-up 15 albums’ worth of material with Lennon, Harrison and Ringo collectively, he still observed that (much like family members), it didn’t qualify him to express his opinion on Paul McCartney around the former Beatles.

“Over the years with him and John, they could both be really brutal with Paul. I learned very early on that I couldn’t join them. 

“They both on different occasions said, ‘We can say that, but you shouldn’t.’ They were truly brothers who loved taking the piss out of each other, but they didn’t want anybody else doing it."

Following up the release of the George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster earlier this year, Fender has just unveiled the similarly iconic George Harrison Rocky Stratocaster.

While the Fender Custom Shop has previously created replica models of the Beatles guitarist’s famous Strat, this Artist Signature version falls into a significantly more affordable price bracket.

When Harrison first acquired his 1961 Fender Stratocaster in ‘65, it was sporting a Sonic Blue custom colour finish.

Both he and John Lennon had matching Sonic Blue Strats at this point, and Harrison used his extensively on numerous Beatles recordings of the ‘60s.

Come ‘67, and with the Summer of Love in full swing, the guitar was given a distinctive psychedelic paintjob.

“During ’67, everybody started painting everything, and I decided to paint it,” Harrison once told an interviewer.

“I got some Day-Glo paint, which was quite a new invention in them days, and just sat up late one night and did it.”

The new Fender George Harrison Rocky Stratocaster features an alder body with a hand-painted replica finish that mimics the Beatle’s famous guitar in fine detail, from concentric Day-Glo patterns and pickguard motifs to the Grimwoods music shop decal on the headstock rear.

In keeping with the original instrument’s ‘60s heritage, the George Harrison Rocky Stratocaster has been fitted with vintage-style tuners and a 6-saddle Synchronized Tremolo with bent steel saddles.

A 3-ply mint green pickguard (fitted on Strats from 1959 to 1965) along with aged white control knobs and an aged white pickup selector switch tip add to the ‘60s vibe.

Period-correct for Strats made between 1959 and 1962, this guitar sports a 21-fret, 7.25” radius slab rosewood fingerboard atop a solid maple neck (Fender describes the profile as a '60s "C" shape).

Three ‘60s-style Stratocaster pickups provide the kind of clear, chiming tones that made this classic Fender solidbody such a success following its release in 1954.

Visit Fender for more information.

A piece of early Beatles history is going up for auction; the Liverpool house George Harrison lived in from the age of six to his late teenage years when the Fab Four began to take flight in 1962.

Harrison rehearsed with John Lennon and Paul McCartney at the house at 25 Upton Green in Speke, Liverpool. He originally moved to the three bedroom property with his family in 1949. 

Omega Auctions specialises in music memorabilia and is handling the sale on 30 November 2021 with an estimated price between £160,000 and £200,000. Prospective bidders can view the property by appointment over the two week period head of the action date.

George and his family lived in the house for 12 years. "During this period the house became a regular rehearsal venue for The Quarrymen and then latterly The Beatles, states the Omega Auctions listing. 'There are numerous pictures of George inside and outside the property (example pictures included in the listing).

'A truly unique opportunity to own the property where George spent his formative years and that played an important part in helping The Beatles flourish soon after the Harrison family moved in 1962,' the listing adds. 'Whether you want to live here yourself or be able to share the space with fellow fans this represents an excellent investment opportunity. Our current vendor bought the property in 2014 and according to Zoopla average house prices in the area have risen 20% since that date.'

The year Harrison and his family - including a sister and two brothers - left the house in 1962, the beginning of that same year The Beatles recorded a 15-song audition at Decca records' studio in West Hampstead and signed a contract with manager Brian Epstein. By October their single Love Me Do / P.S. I Love You was released with the Fab Four making trips to play residency shows at Hamburg's Star-Club during November. 

It was also the year Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the Beatles' drummer. 

The Omega listing notes that a few original features from the Harrison family's time at the 'specious' house still remain, including the bath, sink, some original doors, hanging rails in wardrobes and outbuildings complete with original doors and decor. 'In addition to this,' the listing adds, 'the vendor will also be including a large kitchen dresser unit that was found in the outbuildings and would have originally been in the kitchen when George and his family lived there'.

Omega also notes that a successful bidder can apply for an English Heritage blue plaque to note its significant link to a historical figure. Blue plaque criteria requires the individual linked to the property to have been dead for at least 20 years and have been connected to the building for a significant time or during an important period of their life. 

 To view the full listing for the house, head to Omega Auctions. 

The Fab Four... Beatles gigs

"If you want to play guitar to service a song, there's no one better to study than George Harrison," says guitarist and singer Joe Bithorn, who pays his respects to the late Beatle nightly as part of Rain, the much-heralded Beatles tribute band that has been packing 'em in on Broadway since last fall.

"George was one of the most versatile guitarists ever," Bithorn says. "He had many influences, and he was a very fluid instrumentalist. But he always knew that the song was key. Look at what he did in All My Loving, for example [shown in the above video]. Carl Perkins, Scotty Moore and Chet Atkins - George loved them all, and he managed to wrap a little of each player into one neat package that really lifts the song to a new level. Amazing."

George Harrison, backstage in 1965, warming up on his Gretsch Tennessean. © Bettmann/CORBIS

Bithorn caught the Beatle bug early - in fact, it was seeing Harrison play the solo to All My Loving on The Ed Sullivan Show that "sealed the deal for me and made me realize I wanted to play the guitar for a living." And that he did: by the age of 16, with a variety of influences that included Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, among others, Bithorn was already being recruited for studio sessions. He would eventually be hired by a touring production of Beatlemania, in which he portrayed Harrison on stage, which led to him joining Rain in 1983.

With Rain, Bithorn has traveled the world playing the music of The Beatles - and, more specifically, George Harrison - but for the next year or so, the guitarist (along with fellow 'Rainmakers' Steve Landes [John Lennon], Joey Curatolo [Paul McCartney] and Ralph Castelli [Ringo Starr]) will be entertaining sold-out crowds on the Great White Way. "It's really a blast playing Broadway," says Bithorn. "We get such a mix of people in the audience. Kids, their parents, their grandparents, folks from Baltimore, people from Tokyo on vacation - Beatles fans comes in all shapes and sizes. What we try to do is give everyone the experience of what it must have been like to see The Beatles live, and the only way to do that is to take apart the music and re-create it authentically."

According to Bithorn, Harrison's musical changes were fast. "In the middle period of The Beatles, George was very influenced by Indian music [check out the sitar tutorial in video one], but he was also into Bob Dylan, the blues and soul music, as well. All of it came out in his playing. He could be very complex, like the dual guitar lines that he and Paul played on And Your Bird Can Sing [see the below video for normal speed and slow demos] - an amazing display of musicianship that people ask me about all the time. But he would then turn around and do the simplest little thing, like using a pinky slide at the end of the solo to Drive My Car - probably a touch of his Eastern thing coming out there."

"Above all, George loved and valued melodies," says Bithorn, "and I think that's one of the most important musical lessons guitarists can take from him. Eventually, his abilities as an instrumentalist fueled his powers as a songwriter, and by the end of The Beatles, his writing was on par with that of John and Paul's. His reward finally came through with the songs Something [see the solo in the above video] and Here Comes The Sun [also demonstrated in the above clip]. The guitar playing is soulful, expressive, melodic and fluid, and it's all in the context of incredible songs."

Joe Bithorn takes center stage on Broadway, joined by Joey Curatolo (left), Steve Landes (right) and Ralph Castelli (top). © Walter McBride ./Retna Ltd./Corbis

When it comes to the Harrison's tools of the trade, Bithorn says that "Gretsch, Rickenbacker, Fender and Gibson guitars all come to mind, as well as Vox amps. The Beatles also used Fender amps, but I would have to say that the experimentation in the studio with various combinations are what really made the sounds.

"The opening of Sgt Pepper is actually three guitars, bass and drums," he explains. "It's easy to hear these tracks almost separately with the availability of ISO tracks. In our show, I recorded one of the parts which our keyboard player plays live while 'John' and I play the other parts. Many of the synth parts you here at our shows are played by me on guitar synth, so having the ultimate guitar-amp combination would be limiting to the music.

"At the end of the day we are trying to accomplish playing the music live with total respect and integrity to the magic and pure genius that The Beatles created in the studio," says Bithorn. "All four Beatles were staggering musicians, and George Harrison's contributions were integral. Bottom line: you couldn't take George away and still have The Beatles."