This is an overall view of how The Beatles met, devloped as a band, and eventually conquered the world. It's not anywhere near finished, so if it ends abruptly you won't be wondering why! But I'll type the rest in when I get a chance, very soon, so come back & check it out.
In 1964 it seemed as though they had come from nowhere, so sudden was their success. But behind them lay 8 years of hard work, & frequent dissapointment. Yet they were determined, & they were lucky. Playing the right clubs, & meeting the right people at critical moments in their careers. But most of all, they were good. Very good, crafting a distinct style out of their musical heritage. That style would change over the years, & move into realms never dreamed of in 1964. But The Beatles would often return to their roots, & reach back across the Atlantic to the pounding rythyms they heard long ago as school boys.
These roots lay in the rich soil of American Rythym & Blues. Originally recorded by black musicians, it was adopted by white Country & Western singers into a rollicking new craze, called Rock & Roll. With rock & roll as their anthem, American teenagers began to threaten the comfortable & secure world of their parents. They became rebels, without a cause except for these new rock & roll rythyms. Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, & Eddie Cochran all became their idols.
3,000 miles across the Atlantic, a similar teenage rebellion was brewing. The British kids had already started a music craze of their own. A less threatening, more traditional folk style called skiffle. Skiffle was a form of hillbilly blues originally played on washboards, kazoos, & a one-string bass. Overnight, every British kid became a skiffle fan.
In 1956, John Lennon was a 16 year old troublemaker. School for John did little more than provide the inspiration for his outlandish pranks. When he was 6, John's father dissapeared on a merchant ship. John was left in the care of his Aunt Mimi. His free-spirited mother Julia became more like an affectionate friend. John's musical career began at age 10 with a harmonica given to him by his Uncle George. When skiffle hit England, Mimi bought him a guitar. John soon formed his own group - The Quarrymen. They covered all the big skiffle hits, but from the begining, John, like all the other Liverpool teenagers, wanted to play rock & roll.
Paul McCartney had never met John Lennon. Paul was 14 years old & went to a different school. Unlike John, Paul was well behaved, reserved, & eager to please. Paul's father, a part time musician, bought his son a guitar to help him through the sorrow of his mothers' death. Soon Paul was also driven by a passion to play hard rock & roll, like his new heroes: Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, & Buddy Holly.
In the summer of 1957, Paul attended a local church festival in nearby Woolton. The entertainment that day was The Quarrymen. A mutual friend introduced Paul to John. Paul was impressed that John had a band. John was impressed that Paul could tune a guitar. The following week, Paul became one of The Quarrymen. Their first year together was neither glamorous nor lucrative. While still schoolboys, they struggled for every chance to play. Carrying their equipment on busses, suffering indifferent audiences, rarely getting paid, but dreaming of stardom. The arrival in England of top American artists like Bill Haley fueled The Quarrymen's dreams.
But back in the U.S., rock & roll was facing hard times. Elvis Presley was drafted into the Army; Chuck Berry was sentenced to 2 years in jail for violating the Mann act; Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, & J.P. "big bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash; Jerry Lee Lewis enraged America by marrying his 14 year old cousin. All of the bad boys were out. By 1959 the original stars had been replaced by a new order of teen idol. They were clean cut & harmless, fabricated by the American music industry in an attempt to tame rock & roll.
In London the British music moguls followed suit. But while the rest of Britian turned to pop music, Liverpool teenagers still listened to rythym & blues. People who worked on the ships in Liverpool used to bring back records from America. All the Liverpool groups would grab them to learn new songs & imitate or copy the artists. One of these groups copying records was The Quarrymen. Now consisting of John & Paul, both playing rythym guitars, & 2 new members: 16 year old lead guitarist George Harrison, & an art college friend of John's, Stuart Sutcliffe.
To his classmates, George Harrison was the boy who's father drove the bus they all rode to school. The youngest of 4 children, George was the family favorite. But even as a child, he had an independant & solitary nature. In 1956 George got his first guitar. Playing did not come as naturally to him as it did to his friend Paul McCartney. But he was patient & determined. His mother sat up with him night after night as he taught himself to pick out Buddy Holly songs. George trailed after The Quarrymen, hopeing to join. But John Lennon tended to see George, all of 14, as not much more than a child. He was eventually accepted, not only for his guitar playing, but also because his mother could tolarate their noisy rehersals.
Stuart Sutcliffe, on the other hand, was the most promising artist at the Liverpool Art College. A classmate of John's, he developed an interest in rock & roll as a way of enhancing his bohemian image at school. He couldn't play a note, but was in anyway once he bought a guitar with the money he won in a local art exhabition.
With the new members came changes in name. First it was Johnny & The Moondogs. Then The Silver Beetles. And finally, in 1960, The Beatles. But they still couldn't get paying gigs.
Their first shows under the new name were at the Liverpool Art College. George & Paul went to Liverpool Institute, & John & Stu were going to the Art College. The Beatles didn't have money to buy equipment, so Stu & a friend of his, Bill Haley, put forth the proposition that the student union pay for PA equipment. In return, The Beatles began to play at all the dances, & were regarded as the regular Art College band.
Their first gig outside the college was at the Jacaranda, a tiny coffee bar where they played in the cellar for 5 shilling each. The Jacaranda was owned by Allan Williams, a small time entrepreneur operating on Liverpool's bohemian fringe. His latest enterprise was suppling rock & roll groups to a club in Hamburg, Germany. When no other act was available, Williams proposed The Beatles. The group that was playing in Hamburg at the time was one of the big groups in Liverpool, Derry & The Seniors, with Howie Casey in the lead. He sent Allan Williams a letter saying "Look Allan, we've got a good thing going over here for all the Liverpool groups. But if you send that bum group, The Beatles, over to Hamburg, you're going to louse it all up. For god's sake, don't send them!"
The Beatles were going through one of their drummerless periods. They had played at a club run by Mrs. Best, whose son was Pete Best, who played drums. The Beatles introduced Best to Williams, who auditioned him. Allan said ok, he's good enough, now let's go to Hamburg.
Hamburg was the Las Vegas of Europe. It was exciting; they had a licence to do anything. To Englishmen of that generation, Hamburg was notorious for it's legendary caberet district, the Reeperbahn, which featured bizzare sex displays & open prostitution. The music was the least of the attractions. One of the first musicians to go to Germany was Tony Sheridan, a former regular on the British TV show "Oh Boy". In Hamburg he quickly became a local star & a permanent fixture on the Reeperbahn. Williams had booked The Beatles into two dreary clubs: The Kaiserkeller & The Indra, where for the next two months, they played a back-breaking schedule of up to 7 hours a night. The living accomadations, provided by the club owner, were a far cry from their tidy Liverpool homes.
Although Stu, the oldest band member, had only just turned 20, The Beatles, having grown up in a seaport town were far from naive. Yet their eyes were opened by the abundance of sex, drugs, & drink that Hamburg offered. The rough life & the hard hours far from home hardened them - and their music. The band got tighter, & their repertoire expanded. They were no longer that "bum group" that nobody wanted. They were professionals.
Bill Harry had shared a flat with John & Stu in their Art College days. While The Beatles were in Hamburg, he was at home, rapidly becoming an expert on the growing Liverpool beat scene. He would soon start a newspaper called Mersey Beat, to keep track of all the new groups & clubs. When The Beatles came back from Hamburg, they were still an unknown band. But Bill started promoting them in Mersey Beat as the "big" band in Liverpool, because they were close friends of his. A promoter realized their talent, & booked them for all his big gigs at Litherland Town Hall. The Liverpool teenagers loved them. Following their debut at Litherland, The Beatles became sought after by small dance hall owners throughout Liverpool.
Bob Wooler, a postal clerk with an encyclopedic knowledge of all the Liverpool bands, had recently become a DJ at The Cavern, the local Jazz club. When he began booking groups for the club's lunchtime sessions, among them were The Beatles. He converted The Cavern to rock & roll, & kept The Beatles as one of the regular bands. As in hamburg, The Beatles continued to practice & learn new songs.
John & Paul had written at least a hundred songs together since they met in 1956. But they hadn't recorded any, original or otherwise. Not until they went to Hamburg again in 1960, did they make their first record, and then only as a backup group for their friend, Tony Sheridan. The result: a rock & roll arangement of "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean", which was intended only for German release. More significant than that first record was Stuart Sutcliffe's decision to remain in Germany to paint, & to be with his German fiancee, Astrid Kirschner. When The Beatles returned to Liverpool, Paul was playing bass.
By the Fall of 1961, The Beatles were local stars in Liverpool & Hamburg. But playing The Cavern & the German clubs had become routine, a dead end. They seemed to progress as far as any group could outside of the musical mecca of London. Since the scene was so controlled by the London moguls, who didn't want to know anybody from the provinces, people belived, & The Beatles believed, & all the Liverpool groups believed, that they would enjoy making music & have a good time, but that would be all. It was only when Brian Epstein came on the scene that everything changed.
Brian Epstein: "I hadn't had anything to do with pop management, or management of pop artists, before that day that I went down to the Cavern club & heard The Beatles playing. And this was quite a new world really, for me."
Brian Epstein wasn't much of a rock & roll fan. His own tastes were towards theatre & light classical music. But as manager of the record department in his father's furniture store, he followed pop music as a necessity. Had there not been several requests for the Sheridan/Beatles "My Bonnie", Brian never would have visited a place like The Cavern. But on November 9, 1961 he did go to see The Beatles, & was immediatly struck by their music & beat, & their sense of humor on stage. Even afterward when he met them he was struck again by their personal charm. And it was there where his relationship with The Beatles started.
Though he knew nothing about managing a group, Brian convinced The Beatles he had the connections to make them famous. His family had money & owned record shops. The fact that he would have some pull in the music industry suddenly began to make people realize that it could maybe have some influence in getting The Beatles to become a national name. But before Brian could get them their "national name", he'd have to make a few changes. When he took them over, he had them lose the leather jackets & jeans, & had them all done up in suits to take promotional photographs. He really smoothed out their image.
In spite of Brian's efforts, The Beatles' horizion seemed hopelessly narrow. A third trip to Hamburg in 1962 only darkened their somber mood. Stu Sutcliffe had been suffering from severe headaches, ever since the group had been jumped by a gang, 2 years earlier. The day before they arrived, he died of a brain hemmorage. Stunned by the death of Stu & bored with playing the same old clubs, The Beatles needed some good news.
George Martin was as unlikely a producer for a rock & roll group as Brian Epstein was a manager. Although trained as a classical musician, he'd been producing eccentric comedy records at Parlophone, a specialty label owned by EMI. Ever on the alert for new ideas, Martin was intrigued by the demo Brian played. He arranged a recording test for The Beatles at Abbey Road #3 studio on June 6, 1962 to see what they could do. They played a funny slow version of "Please Please Me", & Martin liked "Love Me Do". He had them sing lots of different songs to find out whose voice was good. He was looking for a lead singer when he decided to have them all sing. But it wasn't The Beatles music that sold them to Martin, it was their charm. Martin signed them & set a recording date. But there would be one more change before then.
Pete Best initally in Liverpool was the most popular member of The Beatles, particuarly with the girl fans. Whenever The Beatles would appear all the girls would shout & scream for Pete. But he couldn't play drums & keep in time very well. So George Martin told Brian that they would get someone else for the recording sessions, & Brian could do whatever he wanted with Pete on stage. But Brian & The Beatles had been thinking the same thing, & decided to let Pete go.
The Beatles' new drummer was Richard Starkey, better known around Liverpool as Ringo Starr. Ringo hailed from a Liverpool slum called the Dingle, but spent most of his childhood in & out of hospitals. When the skiffle craze hit, he aquired a set of drums. He began to sit in with the local groups & eventually joined one of The Beatles' chief competitors, Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. When The Beatles needed a temporary drummer in Liverpool, Ringo would sit in. This time, he joined for good.
On September 11, 1962, The Beatles recorded "Love Me Do". Martin was very concious that this would not be the "big hit" he was looking for. But he was looking for something original, & this was the best that they had at that time. Taking his chances, Brian ordered 10,000 copies of Love Me Do for his Liverpool store. Not all of them sold, but enough to push the record onto the British charts, where it reached #17. Not bad for their first try, but not good enough to inspire George Martin's confidence. Martin wanted them to record a song written by a professional songwriter called "How Do You Do It". The Beatles said they'd rather do one of their own songs. Martin told them to give him one that was just as good as that one, & he'd do it. The Beatles came up with "Please Please Me", refurbished & spead up. As soon as they'd finished recording it, Martin knew it would be #1. "Please Please Me" was released in January of 1963. Within a month it was Britain's best-selling single.
Suddenly Martin had a hit group on his hands, & he wanted to get an album out as soon as possible. The obvious way to do it was to work very quickly. The album was called Please Please Me. They started at 9:00am & had the album wrapped up by 11:00pm. There was no mixing in those days, it was just straight recording into microphones onto the tapes. They left "Twist & Shout" until the end of the session & only did two takes of it, because any more than that & John's voice would have been shot.
Martin's hunch to make an album quickly paid off. At a time when few pop musicians composed their own songs, record buyers were surprised to find so many original hits on one album. After The Beatles' long climb, John & Paul, though barely in their 20's, had emerged as formidable songwriters, & along with Ringo & George, as remarkably polished performers. "She Loves You", like "Please Please Me", also shot to #1. This sudden success caught The Beatles & Brian Epstein by surprise. Though they could now be called stars, The Beatles continued to play places like The Cavern & do opening act shows for the established acts like Helen Shapiro & Tommy Roe. But their secret army of fans was growing. Teenagers began waiting in lines overnight for tickets to their shows. Membership in the Liverpool fan club grew to 100,000. Soon they even had trouble leaving their houses, as the fans would camp outside waiting for them to appear.
Sunday Night at the Palladium was Britain's most popular television program. When 15 million viewers tuned in on October 13, 1963 they had their 1st glimpse of The Beatles. The next day all of Britain was talking about The Beatles. Their new status was confirmed a week later by an invitation to appear at the most prestigious show of all, The Royal Command Performance. It was at this show where John said the line "The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands, & the rest of you just rattle your jewlery".
They were suddenly like royalty themselves. Four young men from Provincial Liverpool had become a national obsession overnight. It was not only their music that people loved. Witty, lively, & unpredictable, The Beatles charmed the press, & through the press, the world. They also showed themselves to be sensitive & thoughtful young men.
When asked what they would do afterwords:
Their second album, With The Beatles, was preceded by record breaking advance orders. The irrisistable energy & the unique vocal harmonies of the 6 new Lennon/McCartney songs & the 8 standards, produced a musical synthesis of remarkable originality.
The Beatles year end statistics for 1963 were staggering. Together, the singles "She Loves You" & "I Want To Hold Your Hand", accounted for 2.5 million in sales. For nearly half the year, The Beatles had monopolized the #1 spot on the British singles & album charts. The Beatles had conquered England. America was next.