The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. They became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act in the history of popular music.^[1] The group's best-known lineup consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later utilized several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic rock, often incorporating classical and other elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as their songwriting grew in sophistication, they came to be perceived by many fans and cultural observers as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era's sociocultural revolutions.
The band built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first modest hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. They acquired the nickname the "Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market. From 1965 on, the Beatles produced what many critics consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968), and Abbey Road (1969). After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers. Lennon died in 1980 after having been shot by a deranged former fan, and Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001. McCartney and Starr remain musically active.
They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. According to the RIAA, as of 2012 the Beatles have sold 177 million units in the US, more than any other artist. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful "Hot 100" artists. As of 2012, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received 7 Grammy Awards from the American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and 15 Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, the Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion units.

History

1957–62: formation, Hamburg, and UK popularity

History of The Beatles The Quarrymen In Hamburg At The Cavern Club Decca audition Beatlemania in the United Kingdom North American releases In the United States 1966 More popular than Jesus Studio years In India Break-up Reunions Line-ups Religious beliefs Timeline This box: view talk edit

In March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a respected local group was already using the name.^[2] Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he and Lennon met that July.^[3] In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison was too young to join. After a month of Harrison's persistence, they enlisted him as their lead guitarist.^[4][5] By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began studies at the Liverpool College of Art.^[6] The three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs,^[7] were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer.^[8] Lennon's art school friend Stu Sutcliffe, who had recently sold one of his paintings and purchased a bass guitar, joined in January 1960, and it was he who suggested changing the band's name to Beatals as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets.^[9] They used the name through May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July, they changed their name to the Silver Beatles and by the middle of August to the Beatles.^[10]
Their lack of a full-time drummer posed a problem when the group's unofficial manager, Allan Williams, arranged a resident band booking for them in Hamburg, Germany, so in mid-August they auditioned and hired Pete Best. The band, now a five-piece, left four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3½-month residency.^[11] Beatles' historian Mark Lewisohn wrote, "They pulled into Hamburg at dusk on 17 August, the time when the red-light area comes to life ... flashing neon lights screamed out the various entertainment on offer, while scantily clad women sat unabashed in shop windows waiting for business opportunities".^[12]
Koschmider had converted a couple of strip clubs in the district into music venues, and he initially placed the group at the Indra Club. After closing the Indra due to noise complaints, he moved them to the Kaiserkeller in October.^[13] When he learned they had been performing at the rival Top Ten Club in breach of their contract, he gave the band one month's termination notice,^[14] and reported the underage Harrison, who had obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities about his age.^[15] The authorities arranged for Harrison's deportation in late November.^[16] One week later, Koschmider had McCartney and Best arrested for arson after they set fire to a tapestry on the wall in their room; the authorities deported them.^[17] Lennon returned to Liverpool in early December, while Sutcliffe remained in Hamburg through late February with his German fiancée Astrid Kirchherr,^[18] who took the first semi-professional photos of the Beatles.^[19]
During the next two years, the Beatles were resident for periods in Hamburg, where they used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances.^[20] In 1961, during their second Hamburg engagement, Kirchherr cut Sutcliffe's hair in the "exi" (existentialist) style, later adopted by the other Beatles.^[21][22] When Sutcliffe decided to leave the band early that year and resume his art studies in Germany, McCartney took up the bass.^[23] Producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four-piece group through June 1962, and he used them as Tony Sheridan's backing band on a series of recordings.^{[24][nb 1]}
After completing their second Hamburg residency, the band enjoyed increasing popularity in Liverpool, particularly in Merseyside, with the growing Merseybeat movement. However, they were also growing tired of the monotony of numerous appearances at the same clubs night after night.^[26] In November, during one of the group's frequent appearances at the Cavern Club, they encountered Brian Epstein, a local record store owner and music columnist.^[27] He later recalled, "I immediately liked what I heard. They were fresh, and they were honest, and they had what I thought was a sort of presence ... [a] star quality."^[28] Epstein courted the band over the next couple of months, and they appointed him manager in January 1962.^[29] After an early February audition, Decca Records rejected the band with the comment "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein".^{[30][nb 2]} Tragedy greeted them upon their return to Germany in April, when a distraught Kirchherr met them at the airport with news of Sutcliffe's death the previous day from what would later be determined a brain haemorrhage.^[32] The following month, George Martin signed the Beatles to EMI's Parlophone label.^[32]

Abbey Road Studios main entrance

The band's first recording session under Martin's direction took place at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London on 6 June 1962.^[33] Martin immediately complained to Epstein about Best's poor drumming and suggested they use a session drummer in his stead.^[34] Already contemplating Best's dismissal,^[35] the Beatles replaced him in mid-August with Ringo Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join them.^[33] A 4 September session at EMI yielded a recording of "Love Me Do" featuring Starr on drums, but a dissatisfied Martin hired drummer Andy White for the band's third session a week later, which produced recordings of "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "P.S. I Love You".^[33] Martin initially selected the Starr version of "Love Me Do" for the band's first single, though subsequent re-pressings featured the White version, with Starr on tambourine.^[33] Released in early October, "Love Me Do" peaked at number seventeen on the Record Retailer chart.^[36] Their television début came later that month with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places.^[37] A studio session in late November yielded another recording of "Please Please Me",^[38] of which Martin accurately predicted, "You've just made your first No.1."^[39]
In December 1962, the Beatles concluded their fifth and final Hamburg residency.^[40] By 1963, they had agreed that all four band members would contribute vocals to their albums—including Starr, despite his restricted vocal range, to validate his standing in the group.^[41] Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership, and as the band's success grew, their dominant collaboration limited Harrison's opportunities as a lead vocalist.^[42] Epstein, in an effort to maximize the Beatles' commercial potential, encouraged them to adopt a professional approach to performing.^[43] Lennon recalled him saying, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change—stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking".^[44] Lennon said, "We used to dress how we liked, on and off stage. He'd tell us that jeans were not particularly smart and could we possibly manage to wear proper trousers, but he didn't want us suddenly looking square. He'd let us have our own sense of individuality".^[44]

1963–66: Beatlemania and touring years

Please Please Me and With the Beatles

In February 1963, the Beatles recorded ten songs during a single marathon studio session for their debut LP, Please Please Me. The album was supplemented by the four tracks already released on their first two singles.^{[45][nb 3]} After the moderate success of "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" met with a more emphatic reception. Released in January 1963, two months ahead of the album of the same name, the song reached number one on every chart in London except Record Retailer, where it stalled at number two.^[46] Recalling how the Beatles "rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day", Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine comments, "Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins."^[47] Lennon said little thought went into composition at the time; he and McCartney were "just writing songs à la Everly Brothers, à la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought of them than that—to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant."^[48]

Their logo was based on an impromptu sketch by instrument retailer and designer Ivor Arbiter.^[49]

Released in March 1963, the album initiated a run during which eleven of their twelve studio albums released in the United Kingdom through 1970 reached number one.^[50] The band's third single, "From Me to You", came out in April and was also a chart-topping hit, starting an almost unbroken string of seventeen British number one singles for the Beatles, including all but one of the eighteen they released over the next six years.^[51] Released in August, the band's fourth single, "She Loves You", achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks.^[52] It became their first single to sell a million copies, and remained the biggest-selling record in the UK until 1978, when "Mull of Kintyre", by McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings, surpassed it in sales.^[53] Their commercial success brought increased media exposure, to which the Beatles responded with an irreverent and comical attitude that defied the expectations of pop musicians at the time, inspiring even more interest.^{[54][nb 4]} As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold. Greeted with riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans, the press dubbed the phenomenon "Beatlemania".^[56][57]

McCartney, Harrison, Swedish pop singer Lill-Babs and Lennon on the set of the Swedish television show Drop-In, 30 October 1963^[58]

In late October, the Beatles began a five-day tour of Sweden, their first time abroad since the final Hamburg engagement of December 1962.^[59] Upon their return to the UK on the 31 December, "several hundred screaming fans" greeted them in heavy rain at Heathrow Airport wrote Lewisohn. Around fifty to a hundred journalists and photographers as well as representatives from the BBC also joined the airport reception, the first of more than one hundred such events.^[60] The next day, they began their fourth tour of Britain within nine months, this one scheduled for six weeks.^[61] In mid-November, as Beatlemania intensified, police resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth.^[62]
Please Please Me maintained the top position on the Record Retailer chart for thirty weeks, only to be displaced by their follow-up, With the Beatles, which EMI delayed the release of until sales of Please Please Me had subsided.^{[63][nb 5]} Recorded between July and October, With the Beatles made better use of studio production techniques than its predecessor.^[65] It held the top spot for twenty-one weeks with a chart life of 40 weeks.^[66] Erlewine described the LP as "a sequel of the highest order—one that betters the original".^{[67][nb 6]} The album caught the attention of music critic William Mann of The Times, who suggested that Lennon and McCartney were "the outstanding English composers of 1963".^[65] The newspaper published a series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of the music, lending it respectability.^[69] With the Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack.^[70] In writing the sleeve notes for the album, the band's press officer, Tony Barrow used the superlative the "fabulous foursome", which the media widely adopted as the "Fab Four".^[71]

The band left the United Kingdom on 7 February 1964, with an estimated four thousand fans gathered at Heathrow, waving and screaming as the aircraft took off.^[77] Upon landing at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, an uproarious crowd estimated at three thousand greeted them.^[78] They gave their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 73 million viewers in over 23 million households,^[79] or 34 percent of the American population. According to the Nielsen rating service, it was "the largest audience that had ever been recorded for an American television program", wrote biographer Jonathan Gould.^[80] The next morning, the Beatles awoke to a negative critical consensus in the US,^[81] but a day later their first US concert saw Beatlemania erupt at Washington Coliseum.^[82] Back in New York the following day, the Beatles met with another strong reception during two shows at Carnegie Hall.^[79] The band then flew to Florida and appeared on the weekly Ed Sullivan Show a second time, before another 70 million viewers, before returning to the UK on 22 February.^[83]

A Hard Day's Night

Capitol Records' lack of interest throughout 1963 had not gone unnoticed, and a competitor, United Artists Records, encouraged their film division to offer the group a three-motion-picture deal, primarily for the commercial potential of the soundtracks.^[84] Directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night involved the band for six weeks in March–April 1964 as they played themselves in a mock-documentary.^[85] The film premiered in London and New York in July and August, respectively, and was an international success, with some critics drawing comparison with the Marx Brothers.^[86] According to Erlewine, the accompanying soundtrack album, A Hard Day's Night, saw them "truly coming into their own as a band. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums had coalesced into a bright, joyous, original sound, filled with ringing guitars and irresistible melodies."^[87] That "ringing guitar" sound was primarily the product of Harrison's 12-string electric Rickenbacker, a prototype given him by the manufacturer, which made its debut on the record.^{[88][nb 8]}
During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five.^{[89][nb 9]} Their popularity generated unprecedented interest in British music, and a number of other UK acts subsequently made their own American debuts, successfully touring over the next three years in what was termed the British Invasion.^[91] Their hairstyle, unusually long for the era and mocked by many adults, became an emblem of rebellion to the burgeoning youth culture.^[92]

McCartney, Harrison and Lennon perform on Dutch television in 1964

Touring internationally in June and July, the Beatles staged thirty-seven shows over twenty-seven days in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.^{[93][nb 10]} In August they returned to the US, with a thirty-concert tour of twenty-three cities.^[95] Generating intense interest once again, the month-long tour attracted between ten and twenty thousand fans to each thirty-minute performance in cities from San Francisco to New York.^[95]
In August, journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the Beatles to meet Bob Dylan.^[96] Visiting the band in their New York hotel suite, Dylan introduced them to cannabis.^[97] Gould points out the musical and cultural significance of this meeting, before which the musicians' respective fanbases were "perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds": Dylan's audience of "college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style" contrasted with their fans, "veritable 'teenyboppers'—kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in the commercialized popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. They were seen as idolaters, not idealists."^[98] Within six months of the meeting, "Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona", wrote Gould.^[98] Within a year, Dylan would "proceed, with the help of a five-piece group and a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, to shake the monkey of folk authenticity permanently off his back ... the distinctions between the folk and rock audiences would have nearly evaporated [and the group's] audience ... [was] showing signs of growing up."^{[98][nb 11]}

Beatles for Sale, Help! and Rubber Soul

The band's fourth studio LP, Beatles for Sale, evidenced a growing conflict between the commercial pressures of the band's global success and their creative ambitions, according to Gould.^[100] They had intended the album, recorded between August and October 1964,^[101] to continue the format established by A Hard Day's Night which, unlike the band's first two LPs, contained only original songs.^[102] The band, however, had nearly exhausted their backlog of songs on the previous album, and given the challenges constant international touring posed to the band's songwriting efforts, Lennon admitted, "Material's becoming a hell of a problem".^[103] As a result, six covers from their extensive repertoire were chosen to complete the album. Released in early December, its eight original compositions stood out, demonstrating the growing maturity of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership.^[102]
In early 1965, while they were his guests for dinner, Lennon and Harrison's dentist secretly added LSD to their coffee. Lennon described the experience: "It was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. I was pretty stunned for a month or two."^[104] He and Harrison subsequently became regular users of the drug, joined by Starr on at least one occasion. McCartney was initially reluctant to try it, but eventually did so in late 1966.^[105] He became the first Beatle to discuss LSD publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society."^[106]
Controversy erupted in June 1965 when Queen Elizabeth II appointed all four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after Prime Minister Harold Wilson nominated them for the award.^[107] In protest—the honour was at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders—some conservative MBE recipients returned their own insignia.^[108]

The US trailer for Help! with (from the rear) Harrison, McCartney, Lennon and (largely obscured) Starr

Released in July, the Beatles' second film, Help!, was directed by Lester. Described as "mainly a relentless spoof of Bond",^[109] it inspired a mixed response among both reviewers and the band. McCartney said, "Help! was great but it wasn't our film—we were sort of guest stars. It was fun, but basically, as an idea for a film, it was a bit wrong."^[110] The soundtrack was dominated by Lennon, who wrote and sang lead on most of its songs, including the two singles: "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride".^[111] The accompanying album, the group's fifth studio LP, contained all original material save for two covers, "Act Naturally" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"; they were the last covers the band would include on an album, with the exception of Let It Be's brief rendition of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae".^[112] The band expanded their use of vocal overdubs on Help! and incorporated classical instruments into some arrangements, notably the string quartet on the pop ballad "Yesterday".^[113] Composed by McCartney, "Yesterday" would inspire the most recorded cover versions of any song ever written.^[114]
The group's third US tour opened with a performance before a world-record crowd of 55,600 at New York's Shea Stadium on 15 August 1965—"perhaps the most famous of all Beatles' concerts", in Lewisohn's description.^[115] A further nine successful concerts followed in other American cities. At a show in Atlanta, the Beatles gave one of the first live performances ever to make use of a foldback system of on-stage monitor speakers.^[116] Towards the end of the tour they were granted an audience with Elvis Presley, a foundational musical influence on the band, who invited them to his home in Beverly Hills.^{[117][118][nb 12]}

1966–70: controversy, studio years and break-up

Events leading up to final tour

In June 1966, Yesterday and Today—one of the compilation albums created by Capitol Records for the US market—caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls. It has been suggested that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" the US versions of their albums.^[133] Thousands of copies of the album had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first-state" copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction.^[134] In England, meanwhile, Harrison met sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, who agreed to train him on the instrument.^[135]
During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, the Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected them to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace.^[136] When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on the band members' behalf, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations.^[137] They soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking no for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty.^[138] Immediately afterward, the band members visited India for the first time.^[139]
Almost as soon as they returned home, they faced a fierce backlash from US religious and social conservatives (as well as the Ku Klux Klan) over a comment Lennon had made in a March interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave:^[140] "Christianity will go," Lennon said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."^[141] The comment went virtually unnoticed in England, but when US teenage fan magazine Datebook printed it five months later—on the eve of the group's August US tour—it sparked a controversy with Christians in the American "Bible Belt".^[140] The Vatican issued a protest, and bans on Beatles' records were imposed by Spanish and Dutch stations and South Africa's national broadcasting service.^[142] Epstein accused Datebook of having taken Lennon's words out of context; at a press conference Lennon pointed out, "If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it."^[143] Lennon claimed he was referring to how other people viewed their success, but at the prompting of reporters, he concluded, "If you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry."^[143]
As preparations were made for the US tour, the Beatles knew that their music would hardly be heard. Having originally used Vox AC30 amplifiers, they later acquired more powerful 100-watt amplifiers, specially designed by Vox for them as they moved into larger venues in 1964, but these were still inadequate. Struggling to compete with the volume of sound generated by screaming fans, the band had grown increasingly bored with the routine of performing live.^[144] Recognizing that their shows were no longer about the music, they decided to make the August tour their last.^[145]