1943–57: Early years
Further information: The Quarrymen
Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, on 25 February 1943, Harrison was the youngest of four children of Harold Hargreaves Harrison and his wife Louise (née French).[3] He had one sister, Louise, and two brothers, Harry and Peter.[4] His mother was a shop assistant from a Catholic family with Irish roots, and his father was a bus conductor who had worked as a ship's steward on the White Star Line.[5] His future wife, the model Pattie Boyd, described Harrison's parents as "quite short and very Liverpudlian".[6] According to Boyd, Harrison's mother was particularly supportive: "All she wanted for her children is that they should be happy, and she recognized that nothing made George quite as happy as making music."[6] An enthusiastic music fan, she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons' windows.[7] While pregnant with George, she often listened to the weekly broadcast Radio India. Harrison's biographer Joshua Greene wrote, "Every Sunday she tuned in to mystical sounds evoked by sitars and tablas, hoping that the exotic music would bring peace and calm to the baby in the womb."[8]
Harrison was born and lived the first six years of his life at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool, in a terraced house in a cul-de-sac.[9] The home had an outdoor toilet and its only heat came from a single coal fire. In 1949 the family were offered a council house and moved to 25 Upton Green, Speke.[10] In 1948, at the age of five, Harrison enrolled at Dovedale Primary School.[11] He passed his 11-plus examination and attended the prestigious Liverpool Institute from 1954 to 1959.[12]
Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, Hoagy Carmichael, and Big Bill Broonzy. In early 1956 he had an epiphany: while riding his bicycle, he heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" playing from a nearby house, and the song piqued his interest in rock and roll.[13] He often sat at the back of the class drawing guitars in his schoolbooks, and later commented, "I was totally into guitars".[14]
Although apprehensive about his son's interest in pursuing a music career, in late 1956 Harrison's father bought him a Dutch Egmond flat top acoustic guitar.[15] A friend of his father's taught Harrison how to play "Whispering", "Sweet Sue", and "Dinah", and inspired by the music of Lonnie Donegan, Harrison formed a skiffle group called the Rebels with his brother Peter and a friend, Arthur Kelly.[16] On the bus to school Harrison met Paul McCartney, who became a member of John Lennon's band the Quarrymen, and the pair bonded over their shared love of music.[17]
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