The Beatles

THE BEATLES

John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met on July 6, 1957 when Lennon was performing with the Quarrymen. McCartney would join the group shortly thereafter and with the addition of George Harrison, the group became Johnny and the Moondogs in 1958 (“The Beatles Biography”). Stu Sutcliffe, a friend of Lennon’s, became the group’s bassist shortly after selling a painting for a large sum of money that was used to purchase new equipment at which point the group had been the Silver Beetles. However, this name would evolve into the Beatles that everyone knows the group as today (“The Beatles Biography”). Brian Epstein first noticed the group on November 9, 1961 at the Cavern, became their manager a few months later, and altered their appearance from leather jackets, tight jeans, and pompadours to collarless gray suits and new haircuts. In May 1962, George Martin signed the Beatles to a subsidiary of EMI’s Parlophone after the group had countless rejections from record labels across Europe. After Pete Best left the group on August 16, 1962, Ringo Starr became a member shortly before the group’s first recording session, and today we know the Beatles as being composed of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr (“The Beatles Biography”).

THE END OF THE BEATLES

August 29, 1966 marked the final tour date of the Beatles, as they began to shift their focus to making music in the studio and implementing new technological techniques (“The Beatles Biography”). Towards the end of the 1960s, it was evident that the members of the group were drifting from each other: Lennon was focused on confessionals and his future wife Yoko Ono, McCartney was gravitating towards pop, and Harrison was absorbed by Eastern spirituality. The splitting of the Beatles was something so complex that it cannot be blamed on a single force. Even Yoko Ono, who has been heavily blamed as one of the catalysts of the split, said “I don’t think you could have broken up four very strong people like them even if you tried. So there must have been something that happened within them – not an outside force at all” (Gilmore). The death of the groups manager, Brian Epstein, rocked the group at its core because it was he who kept the foursome grounded in what they were doing and what they embodied. Despite efforts to repair broken bonds, the group was unable to set aside their differences and Paul McCartney would sue to dissolve the Beatles on December 31, 1970 and the Beatles would be no more (Gilmore).