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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