Musician Spotlight: The Beatles

Starting off life as The Quarrymen and The Silver Beatles, often referred to as ‘The Fab Four’, The Beatles could well be the most influential musical group the world has ever seen, spawning a multitude of similar setups – some more popular than others – and creating a new type of music that combined blues, jazz, and rock together to create a popular music (‘pop’) that had never been heard before.

The group’s most well-known line-up consists of John Lennon (9th October 1940 – 8th December 1980), Paul McCartney (born 18th June 1942), George Harrison (25th February 1943 – 29th November 2001), and Ringo Starr (born 7th July 1940), whose real name is Richard Starkey. However, the group did have some earlier members including Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best.

The Beatles came together in Liverpool in 1960, although Lennon and McCartney had been playing as a duo since 1957. They had some moderate success playing in local clubs such as The Cavern Club, but it wasn’t until 1961 when Brian Epstein, a record shop manager in Liverpool, saw them perform that things really started to change. He became their manager, convinced that the boys had something special about them and, as it turned out, he was right.

Epstein wouldn’t let it go, and he constantly sent letters and tapes of The Beatles’ music to anyone he could think of who might listen. Finally he secured them a contract with Parlophone, part of the huge EMI music label. At Parlophone’s helm was George Martin, and the first things he did for The Beatles was to hire a new drummer (that was Ringo Starr, replacing Pete Best), and changing ‘Please Please Me’ from a slow ballad into a fast-paced pop song – the song that would propel The Beatles to stardom.

The Beatles only gained popularity over the next few years. By 1963, the fascination with The Beatles had reached unimaginable levels, and the term ‘Beatlemania’ was coined to describe the group’s ardent fans.

There was something about the way the group looked, sounded, interacted with one another and their followers, that breached all barriers; everyone could be a Beatles’ fan; young and old, black and white, rich and poor, male and female… it gave people something to hold onto and to find comfort in, and it was like nothing that had ever been seen before.

Check out this classic performance of one of their biggest hits “Hey Jude”:

In 1964, The Beatles went to America, and exactly the same love erupted in the US as it had in the UK – the ‘British invasion’ had started.

After each band member received MBEs in 1965, this seemed to spur them on, perhaps convincing them that they really did have the talent and skill to do more, and the band’s output increased dramatically, with many new influences including psychedelia and transcendental meditation rising to the fore. The fans still adored them, but, sadly, The Beatles no longer adored one another, and by 1970 they had disbanded.

Despite only being active for seven years, the difference John, Paul, George, and Ringo made to the world of music and the world at large cannot be underestimated. Read more of their fabulous careers and recordings here.