![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/George-Harrison-Musician-1984-The-Beatles-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Wed 15 October 2025 1:30, UK <\/p>\n
The second George Harrison<\/a> roared through songs like \u2018Something\u2019 or \u2018While My Guitar Gently Weeps\u2019, he earned himself a spot in the rankings of the greats. <\/p>\n Taking The Beatles\u2019 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n But his tastes were specific. \u201cAs far as listening to it, I\u2019d rather hear someone like Little Richard or Larry Williams,\u201d he once said. \u201cI never liked all that stuff in the late sixties after Cream had broken up \u2013 all those Les Paul guitars screaming and distorting,\u201d Harrison added, making it clear that he was a classic man. He wasn\u2019t into pedals so much, or tricks of the studio. He liked the sounds a guitar can make, and the tradition of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI like more subtlety \u2013 like Ry Cooder and Eric Clapton,\u201d he said, picking out two favourites. But, as always, even despite their complex connection, Harrison wasn\u2019t going to pass up a chance to lay the praise onto Clapton. <\/p>\n \u201cEric is fantastic. He could blow all those people off the stage if he wanted to, but he\u2019s more subtle than that,\u201d 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 \u2018Layla\u2019. Even when the two were caught in intense emotional tumult<\/a>, Harrison\u2019s belief in Clapton\u2019s greatness never faltered.\u00a0<\/p>\n