(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Wed 15 October 2025 1:30, UK
The second George Harrison roared through songs like ‘Something’ or ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, he earned himself a spot in the rankings of the greats.
Taking The Beatles’ talent and levelling it up even further with some truly interesting, exciting and thrilling guitar lines, his position as one of the best is undebatable, yet Harrison himself would debate it.
Always open about his influences and heroes, Harrison was never shy about worshipping his own gods in public. He raved about Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins, and Gary Moore. He was never one to pretend that his own talent existed in a vacuum untouched by the work of others, instead, he was more than happy to dish out the praise.
But his tastes were specific. “As far as listening to it, I’d rather hear someone like Little Richard or Larry Williams,” he once said. “I never liked all that stuff in the late sixties after Cream had broken up – all those Les Paul guitars screaming and distorting,” Harrison added, making it clear that he was a classic man. He wasn’t into pedals so much, or tricks of the studio. He liked the sounds a guitar can make, and the tradition of that.
“I like more subtlety – like Ry Cooder and Eric Clapton,” he said, picking out two favourites. But, as always, even despite their complex connection, Harrison wasn’t going to pass up a chance to lay the praise onto Clapton.
“Eric is fantastic. He could blow all those people off the stage if he wanted to, but he’s more subtle than that,” he said, claiming that his old friend, then enemy, then friend again, was better than everyone. He held that belief forever though, throughout the ups and downs of Clapton secretly falling in love with his wife Pattie Boyd and seducing her away from him with songs like ‘Layla’. Even when the two were caught in intense emotional tumult, Harrison’s belief in Clapton’s greatness never faltered.
By that point, it was too foundational for Harrison to be rocked. Clapton’s impact on him was huge, even leading to moments like when Clapton came into the studio to play on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, inviting him to come and add his flair to his masterpiece. Bringing exactly the kind of raw power that Harrison loved, Clapton was his dream player, really.
“Sometimes it’s not what you do, it’s what you don’t do that counts,” Harrison said, claiming the power of a player is all in the subtlety, “Personally I’d rather hear three notes hit really sweet than to hear a whole lot of notes from some guitar player whose ears are so blown out he can’t hear the difference between a flat and a sharp.”
To him, there’s no better example of that than Clapton, and while plenty would celebrate Harrison as one of the best, he’d always put Clapton ahead of himself.
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