George Harrison Japan

George Harrison went quiet not long after the second Traveling Wilburys album, surfacing only for the Beatles' Anthology in the mid-'90s. He was recording all the while, yet he died before completing the album that would have been the follow-up to 1987's Cloud Nine. His son, Dhani, and his longtime friend/collaborator Jeff Lynne completed the recordings, released late in 2002, nearly a year after George's death, as Brainwashed…

Teaming with legendary Beatles obsessive Jeff Lynne, George Harrison crafted a remarkably consistent and polished comeback effort with Cloud Nine. Lynne adds a glossy production, reminiscent of ELO, but what is even more noticeable is that he's reined in Harrison's indulgences, keeping the focus on a set of 11 snappy pop/rock numbers…

"This Is Love" is a song by George Harrison, the former lead guitarist for the Beatles. Harrison co-wrote the song with Jeff Lynne. It is the fifth track on Harrison's eleventh studio solo album, Cloud Nine, which was released in 1987. In June 1988, the song was also released as the third single from that album, peaking at number 55 on the UK Singles Chart…

Somewhere in England had a troubled birth, for when Harrison originally submitted it for release in November 1980, Warner Bros. rejected it, claiming that four songs – "Flying Hour," "Lay His Head," "Sat Singing," and "Tears of the World" (once available on the bootleg "Ohnothimagen") – were not worthy of being issued…

George Harrison and Eric Clapton played twelve concerts in Japan in December of 1991. This was the second solo tour of George Harrison's career, and ended up being his last. Recordings of performances from this tour were released on Harrison's 1992 album Live in Japan. The tour featured mostly Harrison's performances as a lead artist with Clapton taking the lead role in the middle of the shows for four songs.

Released just after George left Apple for his own Dark Horse label (and appearing in stores just in time for the Christmas season of 1976), The Best of George Harrison neatly splits into a side of Harrison solo hits and a side of his Beatles tunes. This is the only solo Beatles hits compilation to rely so heavily upon Fab Four recordings, which is a good indication of how George didn't rack up as many charting singles as John, Paul, or Ringo, but having the Beatles tunes here does paint a fuller portrait of Harrison's work as a singer/songwriter, even if it makes the collection somewhat less useful – after all, most listeners would want a George Harrison compilation to focus on his solo recordings, not the Beatles' hits they already have.

George Harrison's albums have been notoriously uneven, but despite the rough patches, his talent for songcraft never really left him, as the compilation The Best of Dark Horse (1976-1989) proves. A 15-song retrospective covering five albums, The Best of Dark Horse contains nearly every gem from 33 1/3, George Harrison, Somewhere in England, Gone Troppo, and Cloud Nine, including "Crackerbox Palace," "All Those Years Ago," "Got My Mind Set on You," "Cloud 9," "When We Was Fab," and the lovely "Blow Away." For most casual fans, the record will be a welcome summation of a hit-and-miss era of Harrison's career.

Hands down, this epochal concert at New York's Madison Square Garden – first issued on three LPs in a handsome orange-colored box – was the crowning event of George Harrison's public life, a gesture of great goodwill that captured the moment in history and, not incidentally, produced some rousing music as a permanent legacy…