THE BEATLES (1960-1970)

The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool, in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic rock, often incorporating classical 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 as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era's sociocultural revolutions.

Starting in 1960, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period. 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 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 (White Album) (1968), and Abbey Road (1969). After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr, the remaining members, remain musically active.

According to the RIAA, the Beatles are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all time most successful "Hot 100" artists; as of 2014, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received 7 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Score and 15 Ivor Novello Awards. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, they are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion units. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beatles as the greatest artist of all time.

NAME ORIGIN, FORMATION & EARLY YEARS

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 other name. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he and Lennon met that July.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. By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began studies at the Liverpool College of Art.The three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. Lennon's art school friend Stuart 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.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.

Allan Williams, the Beatles' unofficial manager, arranged a resident band booking for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full-time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid-August. The Beatles were then a five-piece band. During 1962, the Beatles enjoyed increasing popularity in Liverpool with the growing Merseybeat movement. However, they were also growing tired of the monotony of numerous appearances at the same clubs night after night. 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. 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". Epstein courted the band over the next couple of months, and they appointed him manager in January 1962. In April, Stuart Sutcliffe was found dead as a result of brain haemorrhage. After the band was informed about the incident, they went on ,unsuccessfully, trying to sign any other record company in England. It was then that Martin signed the Beatles to EMI's Parlophone label.

Martin's first recording session with the Beatles took place at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London on 6 June 1962. Martin immediately complained to Epstein about Best's poor drumming and suggested they use a session drummer in his stead. Already contemplating Best's dismissal, the Beatles replaced him in mid-August with Ringo Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join them. 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". 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. Released in early October, "Love Me Do" peaked at number seventeen on the Record Retailer chart. Their television début came later that month with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places. A studio session in late November yielded another recording of "Please Please Me", of which Martin accurately predicted, "You've just made your first No.1". These recordings were included in their first album, "Please Please Me", a mix of original songs by Lennon and McCartney along with some covers.

BEATLEMANIA, SUCCESS & BREAK-UP

Beatlemania began in Britain on 13 October 1963 with a televised appearance at the London Palladium. Although the band was experiencing great popularity on the record charts in England by early 1963, 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, the reason being that no British act had ever made any impact on an American audience.

VeeJay Records, a small Chicago label, is said 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 the first and last time a Beatles' record was heard on American radio until December 1963 (it lasted a few weeks at the bottom of the charts this first time around). Veejay issued a corresponding album that summer in America, which also went nowhere.

In August 1963 the 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. In December 1963, during the weeks immediately following the Kennedy assassination, their music began slowly filling the American airwaves.

Beatlemania exploded in the United States with three national television appearances by the Beatles 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').

Some commentators have speculated that after the assassination of John F. Kennedy a depressed America was searching 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 and stage presence) to provide an enthusiastic jolt to a saddened nation. In 1964 they held the top five places on the Billboard Hot 100, a feat that has never been repeated.

In 1965 they were instated as Members of the Order of the British Empire. Lennon and Harrison began experimenting with LSD that year and McCartney would do likewise near the end of 1966. In July 1966 Lennon caused a backlash against The Beatles when he claimed during an interview that Christianity was dying, quipping that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus". Eventually he apologised at a Chicago press conference, acquiescing to objections by many religious groups including the Holy See as Beatles' records were banned or burned across the American South along with threats from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The Beatles, early 1967.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 pop music of the 20th century. The group's compositions and musical experiments raised their artistic reputations while they retained their tremendous popularity. The Beatles' financial fortunes took a turn for the worse however, when their manager Brian Epstein died in 1967 and the band's affairs began to unravel. That same year, The Beatles became the first band ever globally broadcast on television but the members were drifting apart. Their final live performance was on the roof at the Apple studios in London in January 1969 during the difficult "Get Back" sessions (later used as a basis for the "Let It Be" album). Also in 1969, largely due to McCartney's efforts, they recorded their final album, "Abbey Road". The band officially broke up in 1970 and a few months later "Let It Be" followed as their last commercial album release. Any hopes of a reunion were crushed when Lennon was assassinated in 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.