“A guitars all right John but you’ll never earn your living by it.” This warning was given to John Lennon, born John Winston Lennon in Liverpool, England on October 9, 1940, repeatedly by his Aunt Mimi while growing up. Boy was she wrong. John Lennon makes up ј of the most renown band that has crossed over three decades, The Beatles.
The story of the Beatles began in 1956. During the early 50’s Liverpool was hit by the skiffle craze. Skiffle music was an improvised form of jazz and hillbilly sounds that was produced with rudimentary instruments such as guitars, washboard, jugs and packing case single string bass. All of the Beatles were influenced by this new form of music. Both John and Paul McCartney, born James Paul McCartney on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool, begged their families for guitars in order to pursue their musical careers. In 1956 John Lennon was playing at the Woolton Parish Church with his band, The Quarrymen. Paul was in the audience and was very impressed with Jon’s musical talent. After the show Paul played a couple of songs for John. Of his first encounter with John Paul states, “Quite a nice chap, but he did smell rather beery.” A week after Pete Sholton, a mutual friend, informed Paul that John was impressed with his playing and that it would be ok if he joined the group. Paul accepted the offer and played publicly with the group for the first time at the Conservative Club in Broadway. After the show Paul played a couple of songs that he had written to john. After this John began writing his own tunes and bouncing them off to Paul, beginning the greatest two-man songwriting partnership of this century.
While John and Paul’s family were somewhat opposed to their plans George Harrison, born February 24, 1943, was encouraged. His mother bought him a guitar after seeing drawings of guitars her son had made in his notebook. For George learning how to play the guitar was a slow and grueling process. His mother claims that sometimes he would sit up in his room and practice until his fingers bled. But George’s dedication paid off and in 1956 when he formed his own band called the Rebels. George and Paul took the same bus to school together and soon realized that they both were interested in music. They would even go to each others houses to play guitar. Soon afterward George was asked to join the band. Unfortunately, the band broke up shortly afterward.
In 1960 John, Paul, and George along with drummer Pete Best and bassist Stuart Sutcliff, a friend of John’s from art school, reformed the Quarrymen. They considered the names “Long John and the silver Beatles” and “The Silver Beatles” but finally decide on the Beatles. The name The Beatles came from a number of sources. It was the name of a motorcycle gang in the film “The wild One”. The spelling comes from a play on words by John and Stuart-the “a” makes it “beat” as in the type of music they played. “Beatles” is also a variation of the “crickets” which was Buddy Holly’s band and a musical influence to the Beatles.
In 1962 The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, got them an audition for Decca Records on January 1, 1962. After several weeks Decca rejected the Beatles, even going as far as to say the now infamous comment, “Guitar groups are out”. After being rejected by EMI, Pye, and other small companies the producer of Parlophone, George Martin, decided to give The Beatles their big chance and they released their first single Love Me Do/PS I Love You. By that time the band had some major member changes. Sutcliff had died of a brain hemorrhage shortly after quitting the band so Paul took over bass guitar. And after George Martin told Epstein that drummer Pete Best was “not good” Ringo Starr, born Richard Starkey on July 7, 1940, of the group Rory and the Hurricanes, was recruited to take his place. The single did so well, peaking at #17 on the UK charts, that The Beatles recorded and released their first LP titled Please, Please Me, which later topped the charts at #1 for nearly eight months. After a string of number one singles the Beatles decided to conquer the US. Immediately after Christmas the single I Want to Hold your Hand and the LP Please, Please Me was released in the US and within a month it reached #1 and # 2 on the Billboard Charts. And on February 9 1964 the band appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, which was a major career move because it was viewed by millions of people. By the time they were nominated for a Grammy Beatlemania had officially swept America. They were so popular that they decided to venture into the world of movies. They began filming their first movie, A Hard Days Night, in March and were released worldwide in July. Both the movie and the single reached #1 on both countries. A month later their first tour began at Cow Palace in San Francisco.
Because A Hard Days Night was a major success the Beatles began filming their second film Help! on February 25, 1965 in the Bahamas, and was released along with the soundtrack nearly five months later. Like before both the movie and the soundtrack reached #1 in the UK and US. On September 25 of that year ABC premiered the Beatles Cartoon which was a huge hit. It seemed like the Beatles could do no wrong. Unfortunately, nearly a year later the band would be in the middle of a huge religious controversy.
On March 4, 1965, John, in an interview with London Evening Standard writer Maureen Cleave, stated that “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. Were more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first- rock-n-roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.” What John meant to say by that comment was that their fans believe that they’re bigger than Jesus, not the Beatles themselves. When the article appeared in a teen magazine nearly five months later the US was infuriated. “Beatle Burnings” were held in which people pubicaly incinerated Beatle posters, albums, and all other Beatle collectibles. Although he was notorious for not doing so, John later repeatedly apologized for the comment at a press conference in Chicago.
Right before the “Beatle Burnings” the Beatles were amidst another controversy when they released the LP Yesterday and Today with its “butcher cover” in which the band was pictured wearing butcher aprons with pieces of several baby dolls around them. These singles were later recalled, and re shot after major public outcry.
Even after those two controversies the Beatles could not go out in public without hordes of screaming women chasing after them. John stated the following in an interview, “The bigger we got, the more unreality we had to face. It was all just a bad joke to me.” In fact Beatlemania got so out of hand that the band began to fear for their lives. Their last concert ever was held in Candlestick Park in San Francisco after a firecracker went off and the band thought they were being shot at. Later on that year a rumor surface that threatened the future of the Beatles.
Rumors began to circulate that Paul was killed in a car crash and that the “Paul” that was in the band was an imposter. A couple of years later Fred LaBour wrote a very lengthy and detailed article in the Michigan Daily about the hidden clues on the band’s LP and songs that Paul is dead. Paul and the rest of the band have denied this ever happened.
On February 13, 1967 the Beatles hit a totally new artistic direction in both writing and recording when they released the US singles Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. Another pivotal moment for the group happened after their trip on a “transcendental meditation” with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This trip influenced the band greatly especially George and John. They even wrote some songs while in India and were later recorded at George’s home in Esher. Shortly after they set off to India the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, was found dead in his home. A couple of days later the band announced that they will manage themselves from then on.
The Beatles later formed a partnership called Beatles &Co on April 19 of that year. A year later the Apple Corps Ltd opened its doors to business to manage the works of George, Ringo, John, Paul and friends. The Apple Corps Ltd was first conceived by John and Paul as a type of vast international conglomerate of what they named “western communism”. Apple took control of all of the Beatles management concerns including Beatles limited, Subafilms, the Beatles Company, and Seltaeb Inc. Although originally opened in London Apple eventually branched out to several different countries. Apple was not as successful as everyone had hoped. Zapple Records was a new recording label from Apple. Unfortunately, it closed down after a year. Apple films didn’t do to well either, although it doesn’t compare to the failure of its so called electronics division. One of creator Alex Mardas’ ides was creating an artificial sun that would hang suspended over Savile Row, thus warming the entire neighborhood. Thankfully this or any of Alex’s inventions were ever commercially manufactured or marketed to the public. Regrettably, the Apple boutique, where a variety of Beatles memorabilia were sold including textured mesh seam free nylons, plastic guitars with their own carrying case, Flip Your Wig board game and even Beatles wigs, was shut down after losing huge amounts of money.
Although the business they created was deteriorating, the Beatles didn’t making successful records. The critically acclaimed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, won four Grammy’s at the Grammy’s ceremony. The Beatles didn’t stop selling records either. After a string of #1 hits, the Beatles released Hey Jude which became a #1 hit in both the UK and the US and turned out to be their biggest hit ever.
In February of 1969 Allen Klein was named the Beatles business manager. Klein made the Beatles believe that Epstein had cheated the band out of millions of dollars prompting the band to terminate their relationship with NEMS, Epstein’s company. Paul tried to convince the rest of the band to use Eastman & Eastman as their legal consultants but it fell on deaf ears. On August 20, 1969 recording for Abbey Road began. This was the last recording session in which all the Beatles were present. This was the beginning of the end of the Beatles.
Throughout 1969 and 1970 Paul had been quoted in several magazines alluding to the breakup of the Beatles. On December 31, 1970 Paul filed a lawsuit against Beatles &Co to dissolve the partnership and sever ties with Alan Klein. The Beatles officially broke up.
Each of the Beatles has had a post-Beatle success. And even after they broke up the Beatles “empire” continued making money. EMI released several records of Beatles recordings, new and old, and Beatles collectibles are still sold today.
On December 8, 1980 the world lost John Lennon and the dream of a Beatles reunion. John Lennon was shot by a nameless assassin waiting outside his home with a .38-calibar Charter Arms revolver. John left behind his wife Yoko Ono and sons Sean Ono and Julian Lennon.
On November 29, 2001 after a long battle with cancer, George Harrison died at 1:30pm at a friend’s home with his family by his side.
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