Beatles, The

Beatles, The, the most important rock group in history. M EMBERSHIP: John Lennon, rhythm gtr., pno., har., voc. (b. Woolton, Liverpool, England, Oct. 9, 1940; d. N.Y.C., Dec. 8, 1980); Paul McCartney, bs., pno., bjo., trpt., voc. (b. Allerton, Liverpool, June 18, 1942); George Harrison, lead gtr., sitar, pno., voc. (b. Wavertree, Liverpool, Feb. 24, 1943); Ringo Starr (b. Richard Starkey), drm., voc. (b. Dingle, Liverpool, July 7, 1940). Early members included Stuart Sutcliffe, bs. (b. Edinburgh, Scotland, June 23, 1940; d. Hamburg, Germany, April 10, 1962); Pete Best, drm. (b. Madras, India, Nov. 24, 1941).

The evolution of The Beatles began in 1956 when John Lennon formed a group called The Quarrymen. In July 1957, he met Paul McCartney, who subsequently joined the group. George Harrison joined in August 1958 and, by 1959, they were down to a trio. The group’s name changed several times during that year, eventually becoming The Silver Beatles. Bassist Stu Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best joined the group in January and August 1960, respectively. Subsequently performing in Hamburg, Germany, for three months as The Beatles, the group later backed singer Tony Sheridan in Hamburg in June 1961 and recordings done with Sheridan were later released on albums. In Hamburg, the group completed their musical apprenticeship, playing rigorous night-long shows to unappreciative audiences; live recordings made at the Star Club in 1962 were eventually issued in 1977.

The Beatles returned to England and took up residence at The Cavern, a club in Liverpool, beginning in February 1961. In April, Stu Sutcliffe left the group; he died of a brain hemorrhage in Hamburg on April 10, 1962. In November 1961, record shop owner Brian Epstein discovered the group at The Cavern and attempted to secure them a recording contract. They were initially rejected by Decca and later picked up by the Parlophone subsidiary of EMI (British Capitol) in May 1962. That August, Ringo Starr quit Rory Storm’s Hurricanes and replaced Pete Best on drums. Best later recorded an album for Savage Records and served as “technical advisor” for the 1979 Dick Clark production The Birth of The Beatles , which aired on ABC-TV. By the late 1990s, Pete Best had formed The Pete Best Combo, recording Best for Music Club Records.

In September, with George Martin producing, The Beatles conducted their first recording session. In October, their first single, “Love Me Do,” was issued in Great Britain on Parlophone Records, becoming a modest hit. Their second single, “Please Please Me,” quickly proved a smash hit. The Beatles’ first British album, Please Please Me , issued in March 1963, remained near the top of the charts for six months. Their second album, With The Beatles , issued in November, initiated a string of 11 consecutive studio albums of new material to top the British album charts.

In the United States, the next Beatles single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” backed with “I Saw Her Standing There,” was released in January 1964, with heavy promotion by Capitol. The song became a top hit within two weeks and proved to be one of the fastest-selling singles of the 1960s, eventually selling 15 million copies worldwide. In February, The Beatles performed on CBS television’s Ed Sullivan Show before an estimated audience of 73 million and launched their debut U.S. tour, with massive media coverage.

The dam burst. Nothing could stop The Beatles, and in their wake followed dozens of British groups. Indeed, Lennon and McCartney provided a number of hit songs to up-and-coming British groups, including “Hello Little Girl” for The Fourmost, “Bad to Me” for Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, and “It’s for You” for Cilia Black. Peter and Gordon scored with their “World without Love” (a top British and American hit) and “I Don’t Want to See You Again,” and The Rolling Stones’ first major British hit came with Lennon and McCartney’s “I Wanna Be Your Man.”

For many weeks after the release of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” The Beatles dominated the highest chart positions with the top hits “She Loves You” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” (on Capitol), “Please Please Me” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret” (on Veejay), and “Twist and Shout” and “Love Me Do,” backed with “PS. I Love You” (on Tollie). In March 1964, the group began work on their first film, A Hard Day’s Night , and John Lennon published his first book, In His Own Write . The film premiered in July and the British A Hard Day’s Night album comprised entirely songs written by Lennon and McCartney. The Beatles’ second U.S. tour began in August, and the following February and March they recorded and filmed their second movie, Help! , which opened in late July. In June, Lennon published his second book, A Spaniard in the Works . Through mid-1965, The Beatles continued their string of hit singles with the top hits “A Hard Day’s Night,” “I Feel Fine” (backed with “She’s a Woman”), “Eight Days a Week,” and “Ticket to Ride,” and the major hits “And I Love Her,” “I’ll Cry Instead,” and Carl Perkins’s “Matchbox” backed with “Slow Down.”

Increasing sophistication in the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney became evident after mid-1965. The words to the top hits “Help” and “Yesterday,” the smash hit “Nowhere Man” and the major hit “Eleanor Rigby,” and songs such as “In My Life” (from Rubber Soul) possessed a profound emotional intensity not apparent in earlier work. Completing their third North American tour in August 1965, The Beatles scored a top hit with “We Can Work It Out”/”Day Tripper” at year’s end. George Harrison’s songwriting ability began to be showcased with Revolver , which contained three of his songs: “Taxman,” “Love You To,” and “I Want to Tell You.” The Beatles conducted their final American tour in August 1966 as “Yellow Submarine” (backed with “Eleanor Rigby”) was becoming a smash hit.

With the single “Rain” (the flip side of the top hit “Paperback Writer”) and songs such as “Tomorrow Never Knows” (from Revolver) , The Beatles began utilizing involved studio production techniques in their recordings. The contributions of producer- arranger George Martin became particularly strong between 1966 and 1968. Lyrically, the songs of Lennon and McCartney began a tendency toward the bizarre and surreal, often defying logical explanation. This penchant for the surreal, first evident with “Norwegian Wood” (from Rubber Soul) , continued with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, the quintessential “A Day in the Life” (from Sgt. Pepper) , and the singles “Strawberry Fields Forever”/”Penny Lane” and “I Am the Walrus.”

Focusing their attention on recording, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was issued in June 1967, with advance sales of one million plus. It remained on the American album charts for more than three years and eventually sold more then eight million copies in the United States. The first Beatles album to be identical in its British and American versions, Sgt. Pepper entailed 700 hours of studio time. As the music industry’s first recognized concept album, the record was highly acclaimed by critics and marked perhaps the high point of The Beatles’ recording career. The album included “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds/’ “With a Little Help from My Friends” (sung by Ringo), Harrison’s self-consciously philosophical “Within You, Without You,” and the quintessential 1960s production, “A Day in the Life.” The singles “All You Need Is Love” and “Hello Goodbye” became top hits before year’s end, followed by the smash “Lady Madonna” the next spring.

Individual endeavors by members of The Beatles began in 1967 with the acting debut of John Lennon in the film How I Won the War and Paul McCartney’s recording of the soundtrack to the film The Family Way . During the year, the group scripted, cast, directed, and edited the made-for-television movie Magical Mystery Tour , a conspicuous failure in its poor editing and photography. The soundtrack album, released in November in the United States only, included “The Fool on the Hill,” “I Am the Walrus,” and “All You Need Is Love.” In 1968, George Harrison composed, arranged, and recorded his own music for the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall . Lennon, now with conceptual artist Yoko Ono, recorded with her the controversial Two Virgins album. In July, the animated movie Yellow Submarine premiered. It was probably the most artistically successful film with which The Beatles were associated. Furthermore, it was one of the most engaging psychedelic movies of the late 1960s. The soundtrack album included the title song and “All You Need Is Love.”

In April 1968, The Beatles had formed their own record company, Apple. The first single for the label, “Hey Jude” (backed with “Revolution”), was released in August and became a top hit. The double-record set entitled The Beatles (also known as The White Album) , issued in November, was the first album on Apple. Disjointed and revealing the tell-tale signs of a Lennon-McCartney rift, the album contained such diverse songs as “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Blackbird,” “Revolution,” and Harrison’s superlative “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (recorded, without credit, with Eric Clapton). It remained on the American album charts for nearly three years and sold more than seven million copies in the United States.

During most of 1969, the individual Beatles worked apart. Ringo appeared in the movie The Magic Christian . The soundtrack album contained a solo McCartney composition, “Come and Get It,” a near-smash hit for Badfinger. In March, John Lennon married Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman. The marriages seemed to mark the informal end of The Beatles. During the year, The Beatles scored top hits with “Get Back” and “Come Together” (backed with Harrison’s smash hit “Something”) and the near-hit “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” John Lennon became the first Beatle to perform publicly outside the group in September with The Plastic Ono Band in Toronto.

The only Beatle album release of 1969, Abbey Road (named for the studio in which the group had recorded since 1962), was issued in November and became their most popular album, selling more than nine million copies in the United States. It included Lennon’s “Come Together,” Harrison’s “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” Ringo’s “Octopus’s Garden,” and “She Came in through the Bathroom Window.” The Abbey Road album was actually the final Beatles recording. Let It Be , initially produced by George Martin and later reworked by Phil Spector, was held up by remixing disputes and film editing problems and was eventually issued in May 1970. The album included the top hits “Let It Be,” “Get Back,” and “The Long and Winding Road,” The Beatles’ final single release.

On the last day of 1970, Paul McCartney sued for dissolution of The Beatles’ partnership, which legally ended on Jan. 9, 1975. Subsequent Beatles album releases were the live sets Live at Star Club and Live at the Hollywood Bowl (recorded in 1964 and 1965), Rarities , and various anthology sets. The individual members of The Beatles recorded a number of albums for Apple in the first half of the 1970s, most notably Paul McCartney’s McCartney (1970) and Band on the Run (with his group, Wings; 1973), George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (1970) and The Concert for Bangladesh (1972), John Lennon’s Imagine (1971), and Ringo Starr’s Ringo (1973).

Throughout the 1970s, rumors persisted that The Beatles would reunite for touring or recordings, but such speculation finally and tragically ended with the murder of John Lennon in N.Y.C. on Dec. 8, 1980. The remaining three, plus Linda McCartney, jointly recorded the 1981 tribute to Lennon, “All Those Years Ago,” written by Harrison.

The public’s fascination with The Beatles was sustained in the early 1980s through the film documentary The Compleat Beatles (1982) and long- time associate Peter Brown’s book, The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of The Beatles (1983). In August 1985, superstar Michael Jackson purchased the copyrights to 40, 000 songs, including over 200 Lennon-McCartney songs. During the 25th anniversary year of The Beatles’ first recording, 1987, Capitol Records issued for the first time on CD The Beatles’ first seven albums in their British versions (U.S. versions contained one to four fewer songs) and their last five albums (U.S. and British versions were identical). Sgt. Pepper , released in June, rapidly became the best-selling CD of all time.

In 1994, the movie Backbeat focused on the early days of The Beatles and Stu Sutcliffe in particular. Late in the year, Apple Records issued The Beatles’ Live at the BBC , 56 songs recorded for broadcast by the radio station between March 1962 and June 1965. Consisting largely of cover songs, the album quickly sold more than five million copies. In November 1995, the three-part special The Beatles Anthology aired on ABC television, and the end of the first program featured the debut of “Free As a Bird,” a Lennon demonstration record completed by the former Beatles, which became a near-hit. Capitol subsequently issued three double-CD sets of Anthology albums that demonstrated the remarkable popularity of a group that had disbanded a quarter of a century ago.

The most important rock group in history, The Beatles’ unprecedented commercial success was paralleled by their masterful artistic achievements and widespread cultural impact. Musically, The Beatles were the group that institutionalized many of the advances pioneered in rock music in the late 1950s, from the selfcontained music group to the use of sophisticated arrangements and studio production techniques. In encompassing so many diversified forms of music (pop love songs, ballads, novelty songs, folk, country-and-western, rhythm-and-blues) within the basic rock ‘n’ roll format, The Beatles revitalized rock ‘n’ roll. Their music exhibited a fresh, clean, exuberant sound that contrasted sharply with the vapid pop ballads and dance songs pervading popular music in the early 1960s. Initiating an eclecticism that was to become one of their trademarks with Something New , The Beatles went beyond the standard three-chord progression, often utilizing diminished or augmented seventh and ninth chords while devising intriguing melodies and developing engaging vocal harmonies. Particularly after the Help! album, songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney brought an unprecedented lyric sophistication to rock music, writing songs of a personal and emotionally evocative nature. Their frequent philosophical concerns in lyrics widened the intellectual boundaries of rock in a manner rivaled only by Bob Dylan. Beginning with the Revolver album, perhaps the most innovative rock album ever made, The Beatles introduced novel instrumental combinations into rock, explored elaborate electronic production techniques under George Martin, and sparked the use of the East Indian sitar in rock music. The landmark Sgt. Pepper album, regarded by many as the first fully realized concept album and certainly an astounding work, may be the best known rock album of all time; its intricate jacket design also set new standards for the developing field of album artwork.

Within the music industry, The Beatles’ enormous success turned the industry away from its preoccupation with individual singers performing songs written by professional songwriters toward music groups performing original material. The consistency of The Beatles’ musical performances switched the focus of the consuming public’s attention from singles to albums. The Beatles’ rise enabled dozens of other British musicians to express themselves musically and achieve popularity, thereby breaking the American stranglehold on British popular music. Perhaps most significantly, the musical and songwriting advances pioneered by The Beatles led critics to view rock music as a valid art form in and of itself, and induced the public to perceive rock music as a total, internally coherent form of conscious experience. In social terms, The Beatles brought public attention to psychedelic drugs, the peace movement, Indian music, and Eastern spiritualism. Moreover, they helped promote a growing youth culture and inspired many young people to begin playing music by and for themselves, making music an essential part of their lifestyle. The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Producer George Martin was inducted in 1999.