The Beatles: Encyclopedia II - The Beatles - History

The Beatles - History

Main article: History of The Beatles

John Lennon formed a group, The Blackjacks, who became The Quarrymen, in March 1957. On July 6 that year, John met Paul McCartney through a mutual friend while playing at the Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete, and the two were soon playing music together, with Colin Hanton on drums, and Len Garry on "Tea-Chest" bass. In February 1958 the young guitarist George Harrison joined the group, which played under a variety of names. Recordings of John, Paul and George from that year still exist. During this period, members constantly joined, and left the line up. John, Paul and George were the only constant members. Hanton left in 1959.

The first regular gigs for the group were at a club created by Mona Best in the basement of her family's home, a large Victorian House with a vast complex of cellars at 8 Haymans Green in the West Derby area of Liverpool. Mona had noticed the number of young friends visiting her son, Pete, at the house and decided to turn part of the cellar into a private club. A more ambitious plan - a club for young people with live groups - developed. It was one of the first cellar clubs in Liverpool to present rock 'n' roll groups exclusively, as opposed to the strict policy of jazz for venues such as The Cavern and the Cat A Coombs. The Cavern was one of the more well-known spots the band performed at during their independant years. The Casbah Coffee Club opened in August 1959, and the resident group was the Quarrymen - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ken Brown, on drums, who would soon be cast off.

The Quarrymen went through a progression of names: Johnny and The Moondogs, The Silver Beetles, eventually arriving at The Beatles. The Beatles, dreamed up by John Lennon who told John Peel, "A man on a flaming pie said 'you shall be Beetles with an a', and we are.". 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. In Hamburg (particularly at the infamous Kaiserkeller club) they honed their skills as performers and broadened their reputation. They also met and befriended a group of German art students who called themselves "the Exis". This group, including Klaus Voorman who would later play bass on John's solo albums in the 1970's, had a big influence on the Beatles' image - in particular the introduction of the famous Beatle haircut - which would later be dubbed the "mop-top" by the world's press (however it is also said that early bass player Stuart Sutcliffe was actually the one responsible for the hair and clothing styles of the band). 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 October 23, Polydor published the song "My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur)", which made it into the German charts (#5, according to a Paul McCartney interview). They were deported from Germany on one occasion in 1960, when their work permits had expired, and it was discovered that George was under age.

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, including the famed “Operation Big Beat in 1961”, at which 3000 people paid to see The Beatles perform along with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, Taylor and The Dominoes, Gerry and The Pacemakers and others at the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton.

Brian Epstein, manager of the record department at NEMS, his family's furniture store, took over as the group's manager in 1962 and intensified The Beatles' quest for a British recording contract. After one last session for Polydor in May 1962, Epstein and Kaempfert jointly agreed to cancel the group's contract with the German label. On June 6, and having been rejected by almost every other record company in the UK, he brought the quartet to London's Abbey Road studios, having secured the interest of George Martin, principal producer with EMI's Parlophone label, then noted for its production of novelty records. After considerable thought he decided to grant The Beatles their first UK recording contract. Pete Best was fired in favour of Ringo Starr. It was rumoured that this was because Pete was the best looking member of the group, and was receiving too much attention from the female following. John Lennon can be quoted as saying on the subject, "Pete Best is a good drummer, Ringo Starr is a good Beatle". The reason given at the time was that, whilst he looked the part, his drumming was poor. This did not convince his army of fans back home in Liverpool. The new line-up recorded their first broadcast interview on the hospital station Radio Clatterbridge. The Beatles' first sessions in September 1962 produced a minor UK hit, "Love Me Do", which likely charted in part because Epstein had ordered a large quantity of the singles from EMI for his family's stores, a relatively common practise among pop artist managements in the UK in that era. ("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 programme called People and Places broadcast live from Manchester by Granada Television on 17 October 1962 and presented by Bill Grundy (who John 'dubbed' "Big Grunty" in his first book of poetry and prose, "In His Own Write").

Beatlemania reached a new crescendo in Britain on 13 October 1963 with a televised appearance at the London Palladium. Although the band experienced great popularity in the record charts in Britain from early 1963 onwards, Parlophone's American counterpart, Capitol Records (which was 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.

VeeJay 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. KRLA in Los Angeles played "From Me To You" and other US stations played Beatles records sporadically but to no real effect.

In August 1963 the Philadelphia-based Swan label (partly owned by Dick Clark) tried again with The Beatles' "She Loves You", which again failed to receive airplay. A testing of the song on his TV show American Bandstand resulted in laughter and scorn from American teenagers when they saw the group's unusual haircuts. Meanwhile, it is said that British airline stewardesses and others were bringing single copies of Beatles records into major US cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to share with friends.

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 at the time of Sullivan's committment), Epstein parlayed this guaranteed exposure into a record deal with Capitol Records. He by-passed Dave Dexter, the A&R executive who had rejected the group four times by now, and dealt directly with Capitol president Alan Livingstone, who was impressed by what Epstein had lined up. He committed to a mid-January release for "I Want To Hold Your Hand", with the expectation that by the date of The Beatles' first appearance on Sullivan (scheduled for February 9) the disc might have reached the Hot Hundred and thus be boosted higher up the charts by the consecutive TV appearances. There was obviously no expectation that a completely unknown foreign artist could climb to the number one position just three weeks after the scheduled mid-January release.

However a series of unplanned events converged and triggered Capitol Records into moving the release date up by three weeks and rush-releasing the record on December 26. The disc was an immediate success on radio, especially with school children who, because they were on Christmas break, heard the record more frequently in daytime than they would otherwise have done. 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 with the cover-date January 23).

The airing of a 5-minute film report about Beatlemania in the UK on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite on Tuesday, December 10, 1963, is now understood to have been the trigger that led to a Washington DC radio station extensively playing a specially imported copy of the single, which in turn led to Capitol's decision to rush-release the disc.

The record being number one for three weeks prior to The Beatles' arrival in America is what led to the hysterical fan reaction at JFK Airport on February 7, 1964. This also contributed to the public fascination with The Beatles, as manifested by the record-breaking 73 million viewers - approximately 40% of the US population at the time - who tuned in to the first Sullivan appearance on February 9. This remains one of the largest viewing audiences ever in the US. The Beatlemania that had gripped the United States since late December was immeasurably boosted with the three consecutive national television appearances by the group on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February, 16 February and 23 February 1964. The pop-music band became a worldwide phenomenon, with worshipful fans and angry denunciations by cultural observers and established performers such as Frank Sinatra, sometimes on grounds of the music (which was thought crude and unmusical) or their appearance (their hair was considered 'scandalously long').

Many commentators have theorized that after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a depressed America was on the lookout for a way out of gloom and despair. So in effect, The Beatles were in the right place at the right time (with a unique combination of talent, stage presence and exuberant optimism) to provide an enthusiastic jolt to a grieving nation. This theory applies to a media keen to have a fresh positive story to counter-balance the sadness of the post-assassination period - and to a public that sought a balm for the national wound.

During the week of April 4, 1964, they 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 world tour, which included Australia and New Zealand. Just before the tour began, Ringo was briefly hospitalised with a severe attack of pharyngitis, so drummer Jimmy Nicol was drafted in for several concerts on the Australian leg. 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 1965 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II bestowed upon them the MBE, sparking some conservative MBE recipients to return their awards in protest. 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. Lennon, Harrison, and Starr began experimenting with LSD later that year. Lennon and Harrison were given their first dose unknowingly at a dinner party when their host (a dentist) 'spiked' their drinks, while Starr took his first trip at a party with Peter Fonda and members of The Byrds). McCartney followed suit in November 1966.

In July 1966 an out-of-context comment caused a backlash against The Beatles from religious and social conservatives, when in a serious interview Lennon offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that the group was "more popular than Jesus." Many religious groups, including the Holy See, voiced strong objections, and Beatles' records were banned and burned in cities and towns across America and around the world. These events, along with threats from racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, eventually forced Lennon to apologise for his remarks several times, including at a Chicago press conference. Lennon tried to point out that he was merely commenting on the Beatlemania phenomenon, not trying to literally equate the group to Jesus, saying about his own comment that "It was wrong, or it was taken wrong."

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, The Beatles concentrated on making some of the most remarkable recorded popular music of the 20th century. The group's compositions and musical experiments raised their artistic reputations while they retained their tremendous popularity. However, The Beatles' financial situation took a turn for the worse when manager Brian Epstein died in 1967 at the age of thirty-two, and the band's affairs began to unravel. That same year, The Beatles became the first band ever globally broadcast on television, in front of over 200 million people worldwide. At the end of 1967, they suffered their first major critical flop with the TV film Magical Mystery Tour.

In 1968, the group spent the early part of the year in Rishikesh, India studying transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Ringo left India after a week,and Paul after a month. The trip as a whole ended in controversy after three months when unsubstantiated claims that the Maharishi had attempted to seduce a female student at the camp led to the two remaining Beatles leaving. Upon their return, John and Paul 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, sessions for which saw deep divisions opening within the band for the first time. Their final live performance was on the rooftop of the Apple building in Saville 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.

Any hopes of a reunion were dashed when Lennon was murdered by a deranged 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 out-takes were also released, as well as a documentary and television miniseries, in a project known as The Beatles Anthology. On December 15, 2005, Paul and Ringo along with the families of John and George sued EMI in a royalties dispute in which Apple Corps. claimed EMI owes The Beatles £30 million.

The Beatles to this day stand as one of the most innovative art rock bands of all time, and while they are considered by many to be the pioneers of progressive music, new generations seem to think of them as nothing more than a british pop band, but they were so much more. Sadly many of today's music fans seem to forget that without the Beatles, rock music would not be the same.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki