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The Beatles Biography

(1960–70)

Related Works

Albums
1963 Please Please Me
1963 With The Beatles

1964 A Hard Day's Night
1964 Beatles For Sale
1964 The Savage Young Beatles (US)
1964 Ain't She Sweet (US)
1964 The Beatles With Tony Sheridan & Their Guests & Others (US)
1964 Meet The Beatles (US)
1964 The Beatles Second Album (US)
1964 Something New (US)
1964 Beatles '65 (US)
1965 The Early Beatles (US)
1965 The Beatles VI (USA)
1965 Help!
1966 Yesterday and Today
1965 Rubber Soul
1966 Revolver
1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1968 Magical Mystery Tour
1968 The Beatles
1969 Yellow Submarine
1969 Abbey Road
1970 Let It Be
1970 Hey Jude
1971 The Early Years
1977 The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl
1979 Rarities
1994 Live at the BBC
1995 Anthology 1
1996 Anthology 2
Compilations
1966 A Collection of Beatles Oldies
1973 The Beatles 1962-1966
1973 The Beatles 1967-1970
1976 Rock & Roll Music
1977 Love Songs
1988 Past Masters Volume 1
1988 Past Masters Volume 2

» More

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Related Sites

British musical quartet and a global cynosure for the hopes and dreams of a generation that came of age in the 1960s. The principal members were Paul McCartney (in full Sir James Paul McCartney; b. June 18, 1942, Liverpool, Merseyside, England), John Lennon (b. October 9, 1940, Liverpool—d. December 8, 1980, New York, New York, U.S.), George Harrison (b. February 25, 1943, Liverpool—d. November 29, 2001, Los Angeles, California, U.S.), and Ringo Starr (byname of Richard Starkey; b. July 7, 1940, Liverpool). Other early members included Stuart Sutcliffe (b. June 23, 1940, Edinburgh, Scotland—d. April 10, 1962, Hamburg, West Germany) and Pete Best (b. November 24, 1941, Madras [now Chennai], India).

Formed around the nucleus of Lennon and McCartney, who first performed together in Liverpool in 1957, the group grew out of a shared enthusiasm for American rock and roll. Like most early rock-and-roll figures, Lennon, a guitarist and singer, and McCartney, a bassist and singer, were largely self-taught as musicians. Precocious composers, they gathered around themselves a changing cast of accompanists, adding by the end of 1957 Harrison, a lead guitarist, and then, in 1960 for several formative months, Sutcliffe, a promising young painter who brought into the band a brooding sense of bohemian style. After dabbling in skiffle, a jaunty sort of folk music popular in Britain in the late 1950s, and assuming several different names (the Quarrymen, the Silver Beetles, and, finally, the Beatles), the band added a drummer, Best, and joined a small but booming “beat music” scene, first in Liverpool and then, during several long visits between 1960 and 1962, in Hamburg—another seaport full of sailors thirsty for American rock and roll as a backdrop for their whiskey and womanizing.

In autumn 1961 Brian Epstein, a local Liverpool record store manager, saw the band and fell in love. Unshakably convinced of their commercial potential, Epstein became their manager and proceeded to bombard the major British music companies with letters and tape recordings of the band, finally winning a contract with Parlophone, a subsidiary of the giant EMI group of music labels. The man in charge of their career at Parlophone was George Martin, a classically trained musician who from the start put his stamp on the Beatles, first by suggesting the band hire a more polished drummer (they chose Starr) and then by rearranging their second recorded song (and first big British hit), “Please Please Me,” changing it from a slow dirge into an up-tempo romp.