History of The Beatles

History of The Beatles

The Early Years

In March of 1957, John Lennon formed a skiffle group called The Quarrymen (fleetingly known as The Blackjacks). In July of that year, Lennon met Paul McCartney whilst playing at the Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete. The line-up that McCartney joined featured Lennon, Rod Davis on banjo, Eric Griffiths on guitar, Len Garry on tea-chest bass, Pete Shotton on the ´Wash-board´, and Colin Hanton on drums. In February of 1958, the young guitarist George Harrison joined the group, which was then playing under a variety of names. A few primitive recordings of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison from that era have survived. During this period, members continually joined and left the line up. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison were the only constant members.

The Quarrymen went through a progression of names: Johnny and The Moondogs, Long John and the Silver Beetles, The Silver Beetles, and eventually arriving at the name of The Beatles. The origin of the name "The Beatles" with its unusual spelling is usually credited to John Lennon, who said that the name was a combination word-play on the insect "beetles," a nod to Buddy Holly's band (The Crickets) and the word "beat". He also said that it was a joke, meaning, "Beat-less".

In 1960, their unofficial manager, Allan Williams, arranged for them to perform in clubs on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany. In August 1960, McCartney invited Pete Best to become the group's drummer. While in Hamburg, The Beatles were recruited by singer Tony Sheridan to act as his backing band on a series of recordings for the German Polydor Records label, produced by famed bandleader Bert Kaempfert. Kaempfert signed the group to its own Polydor contract at the first session in June 1961. On 23 October, Polydor released the recording My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur), which made it into the German charts under the name "Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers". Upon their return from Hamburg, the group was enthusiastically promoted by Sam Leach, who presented them over the next year and a half on various stages in Liverpool 49 times.

Brian Epstein, manager of the record department at NEMS, his family's furniture store, took over as the group's manager in 1962 and led The Beatles' quest for a British recording contract. Epstein secured a meeting with producer George Martin of EMI's Parlophone label. Martin, a well-known producer of comedy and novelty albums, listened to the acetates of the group and expressed an interest in hearing them in the studio. On 6 June he brought the quartet to London's Abbey Road studios, and after some consideration decided to grant The Beatles a recording contract.

In August 1962, Pete Best was dismissed and replaced by Ringo Starr, whose real name was Richard Starkey. Starr had been the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and had played with The Beatles several times in Hamburg. Though Best had some popularity and was considered good-looking by many female fans, the three founding members had become increasingly unhappy with his drumming, his moody personality and his refusal to adopt their distinctive hairstyle as part of their unified look.

The Beatles' first sessions in September 1962 produced a minor UK hit, Love Me Do, which charted. (Love Me Do subsequently reached the top of the US singles chart in May 1964.) This was swiftly followed by the recording of their second single Please Please Me. Three months later they recorded their first album (also titled Please Please Me), a mix of original songs by Lennon and McCartney along with some covers. The band's first televised performance was on a program called People and Places transmitted live from Manchester by Granada Television on 17 October 1962.

Although the band experienced great popularity in the record charts in Britain from early 1963 onwards, Parlophone's American counterpart, Capitol Records (owned by EMI), refused to issue the singles Love Me Do, Please Please Me and From Me To You in the United States, partly because no British act had ever had a sustained impact on American audiences beyond one-off hits.

Vee-Jay Records, a small Chicago label, is said by some to have been pressured into issuing these singles as part of a deal for the rights to another performer's masters. Art Roberts, music director of Chicago powerhouse radio station WLS, placed Please Please Me into rotation in late February 1963, making it possibly the first time a Beatles' record was heard on American radio. Vee-Jay's rights to The Beatles were cancelled for non-payment of royalties.

In August 1963 the Philadelphia-based Swan label tried again with The Beatles' She Loves You, which also failed to receive airplay. A testing of the song on Dick Clark's TV show American Bandstand resulted in laughter and scorn from American teenagers when they saw the group's Beatle haircuts. Murray the K featured She Loves You on his 1010 WINS record revue in October to an underwhelming response.

Beatlemania

Following Brian Epstein's success in early November in persuading Ed Sullivan to commit to presenting The Beatles on three editions of his show in February, even though the group had no American record label , Epstein parlayed this guaranteed exposure into a record deal with Capitol Records. Capitol committed to a mid-January release for I Want To Hold Your Hand, A series of unplanned circumstances triggered premature extensive airplay of an imported copy of the single on a Washington DC radio station in mid-December. Capitol decided to take advantage of the positive consumer reaction and brought forward release of the record to December 26.

Several New York radio stations - including WMCA, WINS and WABC - began playing I Want to Hold Your Hand on its release day, and the Beatlemania that had started in Washington was duplicated in New York and quickly spread to other markets. The record sold one million copies in just 10 days, and by January 16 Cashbox Magazine had certified The Beatles record #1 (in the edition published with the cover-date January 23).

This contributed to the hysterical fan reaction at JFK Airport on February 7, 1964. A record-breaking 73 million viewers — approximately 40% of the US population at the time — tuned in to the first Sullivan appearance on February 9. During the week of April 4, 1964 The Beatles held the top five places on the Billboard Hot 100, a feat that has never been repeated.

In mid-1964 the band undertook their first appearances outside of Europe and North America - touring Australia and New Zealand. When they arrived in Adelaide, The Beatles were greeted by what is reputed to be the largest crowd of their touring career, when over 300,000 people — about one-third of the entire population of the city at that time — turned out to see them. In September of that year, baseball owner Charles O. Finley paid the band the unheard of sum of $150,000 to play in Kansas City, MO.

In 1965 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II officially bestowed upon them the MBE, a civic honour nominated by Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The MBE award - at that time primarily given to military veterans and civic leaders - sparked some conservative MBE recipients to return their awards in protest. On August 15 of that year, The Beatles performed at the first stadium concert in modern rock, playing at Shea Stadium to a crowd of 56,000.

Backlash and breakup of The Beatles

In July 1966, an out-of-context re-printing of a comment from a serious interview caused a backlash against The Beatles from religious and social conservatives in the Bible Belt of the US. Lennon had offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that the group was in some respects "more popular than Jesus" - something he referred to as a topic that should cause concern and consideration. Beatles records were banned and burned in many cities and towns across America (primarily in the South) and from countries such as South Africa. These events, along with threats from racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, eventually forced Lennon to apologise for his remarks several times.

The Beatles performed their last concert before paying fans in Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29 August 1966. From this time until the group dissolved in early 1970, they concentrated on recording music. The Beatles' situation took a turn for the worse when manager Brian Epstein died in August 1967 at the age of 32, and the band's affairs began to unravel. Just two months earlier, on June 25, 1967, The Beatles became the first band globally transmitted on television, in front of an estimated 400 million people worldwide. The Beatles were a segment within the first-ever worldwide TV satellite hook-up - a show titled Our World. The Beatles' contribution was transmitted live from the EMI studios at Abbey Road in London, and their song All You Need Is Love was recorded live during the show.

At the end of 1967, they received their first major press criticism in the UK with negative reviews of their surrealistic TV film Magical Mystery Tour.

In 1968, the group spent the early part of the year in Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh, India studying transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Upon their return, Lennon and McCartney took a trip to New York in order to announce the formation of Apple Corps, an initially altruistic business venture which they described at the time as an attempt at "western communism." The latter part of 1968 saw the band busy recording the double album The Beatles, popularly known as The White Album due to its stark white cover. These sessions saw deep divisions opening within the band for the first time.

Their final live performance was on the rooftop of the Apple building in Savile Row, London in January 1969 during the difficult "Get Back" sessions (later used as a basis for the Let It Be album). Largely due to McCartney's efforts, they recorded their final album, Abbey Road in the summer of 1969. The band officially broke up in April 1970, and one month later Let It Be followed as their last commercial album release.

Following the breakup, the only album to feature all four Beatles (although not on the same song) was Ringo, a 1973 Starr solo album. Any hopes of a reunion were dashed when Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman, a mentally ill fan, on December 8, 1980. However, a virtual reunion occurred in 1995 with the release of two original Lennon recordings which had the additional contributions of the remaining Beatles mixed in to create two hit singles, Free as a Bird and Real Love.

Three volumes (six CDs in total) of unreleased material and studio outtakes were also released, as well as a documentary and television miniseries, in a project known as The Beatles Anthology. On December 15, 2005, McCartney and Starr, along with the families of Lennon and Harrison (who died 29 November 2001) sued EMI in a royalties dispute in which Apple Corps claimed EMI owes The Beatles £30 million.