“My father once said to me, ‘I play the notes you never hear.’ He focused on touch and control partly because he never thought he was any good, really. He knew he was good at smaller things: not hitting any off notes, not making strings buzz, not playing anything that would jar you. ‘Everyone else has played all the other bullshit,’ he would say. ‘I just play what’s left.’” - Dhani Harrison
“George was the best guitarist in the group. I mean, we were all pretty good, but George was lead guitar. John would take turns because John was good too. He had a more primitive style, but George was more technical, more practical, and we all thought he was a great guitar player. The nice thing was that he didn’t really emulate anyone.” - Paul McCartney
“Do you know that George wanted to redo his guitar solos on ‘Gimme Some Truth’ and ‘How Do You Sleep?’ That’s the best he’s ever fucking played in his life! He’d never get that feeling again. He’d go on forever if you let him.” - John Lennon
“He loved to find the right note, and if you listen to anything he’s playing the solo on, he certainly did. If I had him on my records, you didn’t have to read it. You’d just – ‘Oh that’s George’. He found that incredible…it’s like haunting and emotional sound he got from his slide-ish guitar.” - Ringo Starr
“He was clearly an innovator. George, to me, was taking certain elements of R&B and rock and rockabilly and creating something unique.” - Eric Clapton
“Eric himself said about his playing, ‘those little lines and little melodies that George creates, they’re little gems, they’re just beautiful.’” - Klaus Voormann
“He was a very thoughtful player. I never saw him do any improvisation at all. In our interactions, with me, he worked in a way I’ve never seen anyone else work. He worked on the solo in the studio, he sat in the control booth, plugged the guitar into the board, and had the tape played over and over. He worked out exactly what he was going to play, and laid it down. He could develop an instrumental hook, and that is much harder than playing a hot solo. He could develop a simple little melodic idea that would be repeated in the course of a song, so that you would never be able to hear the song without hearing this hook. He was really good at that.” - David Bromberg
“George would play three notes, then stop, and say, ‘No. I don’t care for that note there. Let me think.’ He’d search around, and, after a while, he’d have this solo that was a masterpiece. I started to appreciate that approach later on in life. In my early days, I was more into just going for it.” - Alvin Lee
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