His winning streak hit some rough spots in the mid-'70s, with his last two albums for Apple - 1974's Dark Horse and 1975's Extra Texture (Read All About It) - slowing his momentum, leading him to a respectable plateau where he stayed after establishing his Dark Horse label in 1976 with the release of Thirty Three & 1/3. All Things Must Pass and its smash single "My Sweet Lord" - a single that topped the charts around the world - also cemented Harrison's image as a mystic seeker, a reputation underscored by his 1971 superstar charity event The Concert for Bangladesh and 1973's Living in the Material World, back-to-back hits that established him as a superstar outside of the Beatles. Still, it wasn't until the 1970 release of All Things Must Pass, the post- Beatles triple album that was effectively his solo debut, that the general audience appreciated the depth of his talents. Later Beatles albums hinted at this flowering of talent The Beatles and Abbey Road contained some of his strongest work, with the latter including the standard "Something," a song Frank Sinatra called "the greatest love song of the past 50 years." With the introduction of psychedelics, spirituality, and Indian music in the mid-'60s, George's horizons expanded considerably and he started to come into his own as a musician, releasing a pair of experimental albums on Apple's Zapple offshoot before settling into a songwriting style that spliced Dylanesque introspection with his natural pop grace, while also developing a unique slide guitar technique that owed nothing to the blues.
Harrison's measured, considered persona was reflected in his music, particularly his clean, composed lead guitar parts but also in his earliest songs for the Beatles where he didn't seem to waste a line. He preferred sly provocations to larger-than-life bravado. He favored wry wit to Ringo Starr's clowning, and he never indulged in either John Lennon's penchant for controversy or Paul McCartney's crowd-pleasing antics. Nicknamed "the Quiet Beatle" at the height of Beatlemania, George Harrison did indeed seem somewhat reserved compared to the other members of the Fab Four.