The
Beatles were the most popular and influential rock act of all time, but
their significance cannot
solely
be measured in sales records (as impressive as those are). They synthesized
all that
was
good about early rock and roll, and changed it into something original
and even more exciting. 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 second to none, and
key to the
evolution
of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more
eclectic, but equally
visceral.
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 (at least until touring had ground them down) 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
and teenage rebel 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
would change
lineups
constantly in the late 1950s, eventually reducing to the core trio of guitarists.
The
Quarrymen changed their name to the Silver Beatles in 1960, quickly dropping
the "Silver" to
become
just the Beatles. Lennon's art college friend Stuart Sutcliffe joined on
bass, but finding a
permanent
drummer was a vexing problem until Pete Best joined in the summer of 1960.
He
successfully
auditioned for the combo just before they left for a several-month stint
in Hamburg,
Germany.
When they returned to Liverpool at the end of 1960, the band--formerly
also-rans on the
exploding
Liverpudlian "beat" scene--were suddenly the most exciting act on the local
circuit. They
consolidated
their following in 1961 with constant gigging in the Merseyside area, most
often at the
legendary
Cavern Club.
They
also returned for engagements in Hamburg during 1961, although Sutcliffe
dropped out of the
band
that year to concentrate on his art school studies there. McCartney took
over on bass,
Harrison
settled in as lead guitarist, and Lennon had rhythm guitar; everyone sang.
In mid-1961 the
Beatles
(minus Sutcliffe) made their first recordings in Germany, as a backup group
to a British rock
guitarist-singer
based in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan. (Sutcliffe, tragically, would die of a
brain
hemorrhage
in April 1962).
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 that has been heavily
bootlegged (some
tracks
were officially released in 1995). 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),
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.
The
Beatles had taken the best elements of the rock and pop they loved and
made them their own.
Since
the Quarrymen days, they had been steeped in the classic early rock of
Elvis, Buddy Holly,
Chuck
Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and the Everly Brothers; they'd also
kept an ear open to
the
early '60s sounds of Motown, Phil Spector, and the girl groups. They added
an unmatched
songwriting
savvy (inspired by Brill Building teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole
King), a brash
guitar-oriented
attack, wildly enthusiastic vocals, and the embodiment of the youthful
flair of their
generation,
ready to dispense with post-war austerity and claim a culture of their
own. They were
also
unsurpassed in their eclecticism, willing to borrow from blues, popular
standards, gospel, folk,
or
whatever seemed suitable for their musical vision. Producer George Martin
was the perfect foil for
the
group, refining their ideas without tinkering with their essence. During
the last half of their career,
he
was indispensable for his ability to translate their concepts into arrangements
that required
complex
orchestration, innovative applications of recording technology, and an
ever-widening array
of
instruments.
Just
as crucially, the Beatles were never ones to stand still and milk formulas.
All of their subsequent
albums
and singles would show remarkable artistic progression (though never at
the expense of a
damn
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 not just
as a successful
pop
act, but as a phenomenon never before seen in the British entertainment
business, as 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.
Capitol,
which had first refusal of the Beatles' recordings in the United States,
had declined to issue
the
group's first few singles, which ended up appearing on relatively small
American independents.
Capitol
took up its option on "I Want to Hold Your Hand," which 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 (and the entire
British Invasion)
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; it's doubtful than anyone ever will again. 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. (Until 1967, the group's British albums
were often truncated
for
release in the States; when their catalog was transferred to CD, the albums
were released
worldwide
in their British configurations.) In retrospect, critics have judged Beatles
for Sale (late
1964)
and Help! (mid-1965) as the band's least impressive efforts. To some degree,
that's true.
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
were
also pushing the limits of studio rock by devising new guitar and bass
textures, experimenting
with
distortion and multi-tracking, and using unconventional (for rock) 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 formed the bed of these
increasingly
imagistic,
ambitious lyrics; the group's eclecticism now encompassed 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").
For
the past couple of years, live performance had become a rote exercise for
the group, tired of
competing
with thousands of screaming fans that drowned out most of their vocals
and instruments.
The
final concert of their 1966 American tour (in San Francisco on August 29,
1966) would be their
last
in front of a paying audience, as the group decided to stop playing live
in order to concentrate on
their
studio recordings. This was a radical (indeed, 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 squelched these concerns. Frequently cited
as the strongest
double-A-side
ever, the Beatles were now pushing forward into unabashedly psychedelic
territory in
their
use of orchestral arrangements and mellotron, without abandoning their
grasp of memorable
melody
and immediately accessible lyrical messages.
Sgt.
Pepper, released in June 1967 as the Summer of Love dawned, was the definitive
psychedelic
soundtrack.
Or, at least, so it was perceived at the time: subsequent critics have
painted the album as
an
uneven affair, given a conceptual unity via its brilliant multi-tracked
overdubs, singalong melodies,
and
fairy tale-ish lyrics. Others remain convinced, as millions did at the
time, that it represented pop's
greatest
triumph, or indeed an evolution of pop into art with a capital A. In addition
to mining all
manner
of roots influences, the musicians were also picking up vibes from Indian
music, avant-garde
electronics,
classical, music hall, and more. 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 bombed when it was premiered on BBC television in December
1967,
giving
the media the first real chance it had ever had to roast the Beatles over
a flame. (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.
While largely abandoning their psychedelic instruments to return to guitar-based
rock, they
maintained
their whimsical eclecticism, proving themselves masters of everything from
blues rock to
vaudeville.
As individual songwriters, too, it contains some of their finest work (as
does the brilliant
non-LP
single from this era, "Hey Jude"/"Revolution").
But
by the White Album, it was clear (if only in retrospect) that each member
was more concerned
with
his own expression than that of the collective group. In addition, 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 did climb 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.
In
fact, there had been no recording done by the group as a four-man unit
since August 1969, and
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 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.