Limited to only 2,500 copies worldwide, each numbered book is hand-bound in silk-screened fabric over padded boards with bronze page edges. The motif for the fabric design is matched to the original stage backdrops.
Each of the 308 pages in Concert for George is master printed in at least 4 colours, with extensive use of image varnishing and gold and bronze inks. The paper stock is an archival quality 200gsm matt art. Vivid coloured tracing paper pages are also included throughout the book.
Those fortunate to attend the Concert were given a 28-page commemorative booklet, bound in a beautiful embossed cover and fastened with an orange silk ribbon. Printed onto a cartridge paper stock, eight images depicting George through the years were presented within. One of these original booklets is included within the folding solander box that houses the limited edition book. In a pocket you'll also find four facsimile laminated back-stage passes.
Every book is signed by Olivia Harrison as a mark of her approval and all royalties from the sale of this book are donated to The Material World Charitable Foundation.
George Harrison
George Harrison MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work. Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group include "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something". Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt; subsequent influences were Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry.
By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and towards Indian classical music through his use of Indian instruments, such as sitar, which he had become acquainted with on the set of the movie Help![3] He played the sitar on numerous Beatles songs, starting with "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". Having initiated the band's embracing of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement. After the band's break-up in 1970, Harrison released the triple album All Things Must Pass, a critically acclaimed work that produced his most successful hit single, "My Sweet Lord", and introduced his signature sound as a solo artist, the slide guitar. He also organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to later benefit concerts such as Live Aid. In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles' Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974; he co-founded HandMade Films in 1978, initially to produce the Monty Python troupe's comedy film The Life of Brian (1979).
Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer. In 1988, he co-founded the platinum-selling supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. A prolific recording artist, he was featured as a guest guitarist on tracks by Badfinger, Ronnie Wood and Billy Preston, and collaborated on songs and music with Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Tom Petty, among others. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004.
Harrison's first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977. The following year he married Olivia Arias, with whom he had a son, Dhani. Harrison died from lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 58, two years after surviving a knife attack by an intruder at his home, Friar Park. His remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in a private ceremony in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. He left an estate of almost £100 million.
Olivia Harrison
Olivia Trinidad Harrison (née Arias; born May 18, 1948) is an American author and film producer, and the widow of English musician George Harrison of the Beatles. She first worked in the music industry in Los Angeles, for A&M Records, where she met George and then helped run his Dark Horse record label. In 1990, she launched the Romanian Angel Appeal to raise funds for the thousands of orphans left abandoned in Romania after the fall of Communism there.
Since her husband's death in 2001, Olivia has continued George’s international aid efforts through projects in partnership with UNICEF, and is the curator of film, book and music releases related to his legacy. She represents his voice on the Beatles' Apple Corps board and is similarly a director of his charity organisation, the Material World Foundation (MWF). Under the auspices of MWF, she has sponsored the preservation of film history in collaboration with American director Martin Scorsese. These restoration projects include short films by Charlie Chaplin and works from 1940s Mexican cinema.
She and her husband shared an interest in Eastern mysticism and spiritual practice, and her presence in his life, starting in the mid-1970s, began a period of more optimistic content in Harrison's music. At their Friar Park home in December 1999, when she overpowered a knife-wielding intruder who had repeatedly stabbed George, she was recognized as having saved her husband's life. Among Harrison's film projects, her production of Concert for George won the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video in 2005, and her co-production of Scorsese's 2011 documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World won an Emmy Award in the category "Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special". She authored books to accompany both these films, and in 2017 compiled a revised edition of George's 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine. She is the mother of George's son, Dhani Harrison, who is also a musician.