FORMED:
1960, Liverpool, England DISBANDED: 1970 The Beatles
were the most popular and influential rock act of all
time. They established the prototype for the self-contained
rock group that wrote and performed their own material.
As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness
were of the first order, and led to the evolution of
rock from its rhythm and blues based form into a style
that was far more versatile, but equally intuitive.
As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were
among the best and most expressive vocalists in rock;
the group's harmonies were intricate and exhilarating.
As performers, they were exciting and photogenic; when
they retreated into the studio, they were instrumental
in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered
arrangements. They were also the first British rock
group to achieve worldwide prominence, launching a British
Invasion that made rock truly an international phenomenon.
Guitarist
John Lennon got hooked on rock 'n' roll in the mid-1950s,
and formed a band, the Quarrymen, at his Liverpool high
school. Around mid-1957, the Quarrymen were joined by
another guitarist, Paul McCartney, nearly two years
Lennon's junior. A bit later they were joined by another
guitarist, George Harrison, a friend of McCartney's.
The Quarrymen changed their name to the Silver Beatles
in 1960, and just as quickly dropped the "Silver" becomming
"the Beatles". Finding a permanent drummer
was a vexing problem. Pete Best joined in the summer
of 1960. He successfully auditioned just before they
left for a several-month stint in Hamburg, Germany.
When they returned to Liverpool at the end of 1960,
the band were suddenly the most exciting act on the
local circuit. They consolidated their following in
1961 with constant gigs in the Merseyside area, most
often at the legendary Cavern Club. They also returned
for engagements in Hamburg during 1961, McCartney took
over on bass, Harrison settled in as lead guitarist,
and Lennon had rhythm guitar; everyone sang. In mid-1961
the Beatles made their first recordings in Germany,
as a backup group to a British rock guitarist-singer
based in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan.
Near
the end of 1961, the Beatles' exploding local popularity
caught the attention of local record store manager Brian
Epstein, who was soon managing the band as well. He
used his contacts to swiftly acquire a January 1, 1962
audition at Decca Records. After weeks of deliberation,
Decca turned them down, as did several other British
labels. Epstein's perseverance was finally rewarded
with an audition for producer George Martin at Parlophone,
an EMI subsidiary; Martin signed the Beatles in mid-1962.
In
August 1962, drummer Pete Best was kicked out of the
group, a controversial decision that has been the cause
of much speculation since. He was replaced with Ringo
Starr (born Richard Starkey) who had previously been
drummer with another popular Merseyside outfit, Rory
Storm and the Hurricanes. Starr had been in the Beatles
for a few weeks when they recorded their first single,
"Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You," in September 1962. Both
sides of the 45 were Lennon-McCartney originals, and
the songwriting team would be credited with most of
the group's material throughout the Beatles' career.
The
Beatles phenomenon didn't truly kick in until "Please
Please Me," which topped the British charts in early
1963. This was the prototype British Invasion single--an
infectious melody, charging guitars, and positively
exuberant harmonies. The same traits were evident on
their third 45, "From Me to You" (a British #1), and
their debut LP, Please Please Me. Although it was mostly
recorded in a single day, Please Please Me topped the
British charts for an astonishing 30 weeks, establishing
the group as the most popular rock 'n' roll act ever
seen in the UK. They added an unmatched songwriting
savvy a brash guitar-oriented attack, wildly enthusiastic
vocals, and the embodiment of the youthful flair of
their generation.
All of their subsequent albums and singles would show
remarkable artistic progression (though never at the
expense of a catchy tune). Even on their second LP,
With the Beatles (1963), it was evident that their talents
as composers and instrumentalists were expanding furiously,
as they devised ever more inventive melodies and harmonies,
and boosted the fullness of their arrangements.
The
1963 singles "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your
Hand" established the group as a phenomenon never before
seen in the British entertainment business, each single
sold over a million copies in the UK. After some celebrated
national TV appearances, Beatlemania broke out across
the British Isles in late 1963, the group generating
screams and hysteria at all of their public appearances,
musical or otherwise.
"I
Want to Hold Your Hand," stormed to the top of the US
charts within weeks of its release on December 26, 1963.
The Beatles' television appearances on "The Ed Sullivan
Show" in February of 1964 launched Beatlemania on an
even bigger scale than it had reached in Britain. In
the first week of April 1964, the Beatles had the top
five best-selling singles in the US; they also had the
top two slots on the album charts, as well as other
entries throughout the Billboard Top 100. No one had
ever dominated the market for popular music so heavily.
The Beatles themselves would continue to reach #1 with
most of their singles and albums until their 1970 breakup.
1964's
A Hard Day's Night, a cinema verite-style motion picture
comedy/musical, cemented their image as the Fab Four--happy-go-lucky,
individualistic, cheeky, funny lads with nonstop energy.
The soundtrack was also a triumph, consisting entirely
of Lennon-McCartney tunes, including such standards
as the title tune, "And I Love Her," "If I Fell," "Can't
Buy Me Love," and "Things We Said Today."
Between
riotous international tours in 1964 and 1965, the Beatles
continued to pump out more chart-topping albums and
singles. All were hits, even 'Beatles for Sale' (late
1964) and 'Help!' (mid-1965), the band's least impressive
efforts. Touring and an insatiable market placed heavy
demands upon their songwriting, and some of the originals
and covers on these records, while brilliant by many
groups' standards, were filler in the context of the
Beatles' best work. The best songs from this period,
however, show the group continuing to move forward,
especially the singles "I Feel Fine," "She's a Woman,"
"Ticket to Ride," and "Help!," which boast increasingly
intricate guitar sounds and clever lyrics.
Although
the Beatles' second film, Help!, was a much sillier
and less sophisticated affair than their first feature,
it too was a huge commercial success. By this time,
though, the Beatles had nothing to prove in commercial
terms; the remaining frontiers were artistic challenges
that could only be met in the studio. They rose to the
occasion at the end of 1965 with Rubber Soul, one of
the classic folk-rock records.
Lyrically,
Lennon, McCartney, and even Harrison (who was now writing
some tunes on his own) were evolving beyond boy-girl
scenarios into complex, personal feelings. They devised
new guitar and bass textures, experimenting with distortion
and multi-tracking. They also used unconventional instruments
like the sitar. The "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" single
found the group abandoning romantic themes entirely,
boosting the bass to previously unknown levels, and
fooling around with psychedelic imagery and backwards
tapes on the B-side.
Drugs
(psychedelic and otherwise) were fueling their already
fertile imaginations, but they felt creatively hindered
by their touring obligations. Revolver, released in
the summer of 1966, proved what the group could be capable
of when allotted months of time in the studio. Hazy
hard guitars and thicker vocal arrangements with increasingly
imagistic, ambitious lyrics produced everything from
singalong novelties ("Yellow Submarine") and string
quartet-backed character sketches ("Eleanor Rigby")
to Indian-influenced swirls of echo and backwards tapes
("Tomorrow Never Knows").
The
Beatles tired of competing with thousands of screaming
fans who drowned out most of their vocals and instruments.
Their final concert of their 1966 American tour (in
San Francisco on August 29, 1966) would be their last
in front of a paying audience. They decided to stop
playing live in order to concentrate on their studio
recordings. This was an unprecedented step in 1966,
and the media was rife with speculation that the act
was breaking up, especially after all four Beatles spent
late 1966 engaged in separate personal and artistic
pursuits. The appearance of the "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry
Fields Forever" single in February 1967, however, squelched
these concerns. Sgt. Pepper, released in June 1967 as
the Summer of Love dawned, was the definitive psychedelic
soundtrack at the time.
When
the Beatles premiered their hippie anthem "All You Need
Is Love" as part of a worldwide TV broadcast, they had
been truly anointed as spokespersons for their generation
(a role they had not actively sought), and it seemed
they could do no wrong. Musically, that would usually
continue to be the case, but the group's strength began
to unravel at a surprisingly quick pace. In August 1967,
Brian Epstein--prone to suicidal depression over the
past year--died of a drug overdose, leaving them without
a manager. The group pressed on with their next film
project, Magical Mystery Tour, directed by themselves;
lacking focus or even basic professionalism, the picture
was much criticised when it was premiered on BBC television
in December 1967. (Another film, the animated feature
Yellow Submarine, would appear in 1968, although the
Beatles had little involvement with the project, either
in terms of the movie or the soundtrack.)
Judged
solely on musical merit, The White Album, a double LP
released in late 1968, was a triumph. The Beatles largely
abandoned their psychedelic instruments to return to
guitar-based rock. They maintained their whimsical eclecticism,
proving themselves masters of everything from blues
rock to vaudeville. But by the White Album, it was apparent
in retrospect that each member was more concerned with
his own expression than that of the collective group.
George Harrison was becoming a more prolific and skilled
composer as well, imbuing his own melodies (which were
nearly the equal of those of his more celebrated colleagues)
with a cosmic lightness. Harrison was beginning to resent
his junior status, and the group began to bicker more
openly in the studio. Ringo, whose solid drumming and
good nature could usually be counted upon (as was evident
in his infrequent lead vocals), actually quit for a
couple of weeks in the midst of the White Album sessions.
Apple Records, started by the group earlier in 1968
as a sort of utopian commercial enterprise, was becoming
a financial and organizational nightmare.
These
weren't the ideal conditions under which to record a
new album in January 1969, especially when McCartney
was pushing the group to return to live performing,
although none of the others seemed especially keen on
the idea. They did agree to try and record a "back-to-basics,"
live-in-the-studio-type LP, the sessions being filmed
for a television special. Harrison enlisted American
soul keyboardist Billy Preston as kind of a fifth member
on the sessions, both to beef up the arrangements and
to alleviate the uncomfortable atmosphere. In order
to provide a suitable concert-like experience for the
film, the group climbed the roof of their Apple headquarters
in London to deliver an impromptu performance on January
30, 1969, before the police stopped it; this was their
last live concert of any sort.
Generally
dissatisfied with these early 1969 sessions, the album
and film--at first titled Get Back, and later to emerge
as Let It Be--remained in the can as the group tried
to figure out how the projects should be mixed, packaged,
and distributed. A couple of the best tracks, "Get Back"/"Don't
Let Me Down," were issued as a single in the spring
of 1969. By this time, the Beatles' quarrels were intensifying
in a dispute over management: McCartney wanted their
affairs to be handled by his new father-in-law, Lee
Eastman, while the other members of the group favored
a tough American businessman, Allen Klein. It was something
of a miracle, then, that the final album recorded by
the group, Abbey Road, was one of their most unified
efforts (even if, by this time, the musicians were recording
many of their parts separately). It certainly boasted
some of their most intricate melodies, harmonies, and
instrumental arrangements. It also heralded the arrival
of Harrison as a composer of equal talent to Lennon
and McCartney, as George wrote the album's two most
popular tunes, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun."
The
Beatles were still progressing, but it turned out to
be the end of the road, as their business disputes continued
to magnify. Lennon, who had begun releasing solo singles
and performing with friends as the Plastic Ono Band,
threatened to resign in late 1969, although he was dissuaded
from making a public announcement. Most of the early
1969 tapes remained unreleased, partially because the
footage for the planned television broadcast of these
sessions was now going to be produced as a documentary
movie. For the accompanying soundtrack album, Let It
Be, Lennon, Harrison, and Allen Klein decided to have
celebrated American producer Phil Spector record some
additional instrumentation and do some mixing. By that
time it was released, the Beatles were no more.
Each
member of the band had begun to pursue serious outside
professional interests independently via the Plastic
Ono Band, Harrison's tour with Delaney and Bonnie, Starr's
starring role in the Magic Christian film, and McCartney's
first solo album. The outside world for the most part
remained almost wholly unaware of the seriousness of
the group's friction, making it a devastating shock
for much of the world's youth when McCartney announced
that he was leaving the Beatles on April 10, 1970. At
the end of 1970, McCartney sued the rest of the Beatles
in order to dissolve their partnership; the battle dragged
through the courts for years, scotching any prospects
of a group reunion. In any case, each member of the
band quickly established viable solo careers. Within
a short time, it became apparent both that the Beatles
were not going to settle their differences and reunite,
and that their solo work could not compare with what
they were capable of creating together. Despite periodic
rumors of reunions throughout the 1970s, no group projects
came close to materializing.
Any
hopes of a reunion vanished when Lennon was assassinated
in New York City in December 1980. The other Beatles
continued their solo careers throughout the 1980s, but
their releases became less frequent, and their commercial
success gradually diminished, as listeners without first-hand
memories of the combo created their own idols. Legal
wrangles at Apple prevented the official issue of previously
unreleased Beatles material for over two decades (although
much of it was frequently bootlegged). The situation
finally changed in the 1990s, after McCartney, Harrison,
Starr, and Lennon's widow Yoko Ono settled their principal
business disagreements.In 1994, this resulted in a double
CD of BBC sessions from the early and mid-'60s. The
following year, a much more ambitious project was undertaken:
a multi-part film documentary, broadcast on network
television in 1995, and then released (with double the
length) for the home video market in 1996, with the
active participation of the surviving Beatles. To coincide
with the Anthology documentary, three double CDs of
previously unreleased/rare material were issued in 1995
and 1996. Additionally, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr
(with some assistance from Jeff Lynne) embellished a
couple of John Lennon demos from the 1970s with overdubs
to create two new tracks ("Free as a Bird" and "Real
Love") that were billed as actual Beatles recordings.
Whether this constitutes the actual long-awaited "reunion"
is the subject of much debate. Still, the massive commercial
success of outtakes that had, after all, been recorded
25 to 30 years ago, spoke volumes about the unabated
appeal and fascination the Beatles continue to exert
worldwide.
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