The Beatles Biography

Biography of The Beatles. Detailed The Beatles profile and review.

The Beatles were the most influential, groundbreaking and successful popular music group of the rock era. No artists of any sort, with the arguable exception of Elvis Presley, have achieved the Beatles' combination of popular success, critical acclaim and broad cultural influence.

The Beatles were John Lennon (rhythm guitar/keyboards), Paul McCartney (bass/piano/guitars), George Harrison (lead guitar/sitar), and Ringo Starr (drums), all from Liverpool, Merseyside, in England. Although Lennon and McCartney were initially the principal songwriters, Harrison and Starr made significant contributions as the band matured. George Martin produced almost all of the Beatles' recordings.

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The Beatles created a sensation in late 1963 in the UK (the phenomenon was dubbed "Beatlemania" by the British press), notable for the hordes of screaming and swooning young women the group inspired. Beatlemania came to North America in early 1964, and the band's popularity extended across much of the world. Within the space of five years, their music progressed from the apparent simplicity of their early hits (such as "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand") to artistically ambitious suites of songs (such as the albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road). By writing their own songs, exploring the possibilities of the recording studio and striving for unprecedented quality in every recording they released, the Beatles had far reaching effects on popular music. The band made feature films that were the subject of unprecedented press scrutiny, and became symbolic leaders of the international youth counterculture of the 1960s, publicly exploring Eastern mysticism, psychedelic drugs and revolutionary politics. The group disbanded in 1970.

The Beatles also had a limited, but largely successful, film career, beginning with A Hard Day's Night (1964). It was a comic farce (often compared to the Marx Brothers) directed in a black-and-white documentary style by the up-and-coming Richard Lester, then known for directing the television version of the Goon Show. In 1965 came Help!, a Technicolor extravaganza shot in exotic locations in the style of a James Bond spoof. The Magical Mystery Tour (the concept of which was adapted from Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters LSD-oriented bus tour of the UK), was critically slammed when it aired on British television in 1967, but is now considered a cult classic.

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The animated Yellow Submarine followed shortly after, but had little input from the Beatles themselves, save for a live-action epilogue, and the contribution of four new songs for the film, including a holdover from the Sgt. Pepper sessions, "Only A Northern Song". Nonetheless, it was acclaimed for its boldly innovative graphic style and clever humor as well as the soundtrack.

Finally, the documentary of a band in terminal decline, Let It Be was shot over an extended period in 1969; the music from this formed the album of the same name, which although recorded before Abbey Road, was (after much contractual to-ing and fro-ing and significant tinkering by producer Phil Spector) their final release.

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Unlike their contemporaries the Rolling Stones, blues seldom directly influenced the Beatles. Though they drew inspiration from an eclectic variety of sources, their home idiom was closer to pop music. Their distinctive vocal harmonies were influenced by early Motown artists in the U.S. Chuck Berry was perhaps the most fundamental progenitor of the Beatles' sound; the Beatles covered "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Rock And Roll Music" early in their careers on record (with most other Berry classics heard in their live repertoire). Chuck Berry's influence is also heard, in an altered form, in later songs such as "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me And My Monkey" (1968) and "Come Together" (1969) (when "Come Together" was released, the owner of Chuck Berry's copyrights sued John Lennon for copyright infringement of his song "You Can't Catch Me", after which the two reached an amicable settlement, the terms of which included the agreement that Lennon cover some Chuck Berry songs as a solo artist).

Some people claim The Beatles' biggest influence was Elvis Presley. This is a matter of debate. Paul was quoted in an interview as saying that Elvis was the reason he picked up the guitar. John was also said to have loved Elvis' music. But others claim that, given that The Beatles sound little or nothing like Elvis, and little of his handprint can be seen in their catalog, and also given that they have so many other influences in chamber pop, RandB, soul, and early rock, Paul and John must have obviously gotten that feeling from a lot of other artists, and Paul would have surely picked up a guitar due to that feeling he got from any of the myriad other influences.

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The Beatles were fond of Little Richard, and some of their songs — especially their early work — featured falsetto calls very similar to those Little Richard offered as punctuation in his own songs, notably Long Tall Sally. In 1962 he took the Beatles with him on a tour of Hamburg, and they performed together at the Star Club. Long Tall Sally was a permanent fixture on their concert performances and McCartney's effort on the album version is widely regarded as among his best rock vocal recordings.

A significant and acknowledged musical composition influence on McCartney was Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, who was, in turn, spurred on by the work of the Beatles. Brian Wilson acknowledges that the American Version Rubber Soul challenged him to make Pet Sounds, the album that in turn inspired McCartney's vision of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Another example is the song "Back in the USSR", which, based on a suggestion by Mike Love to McCartney, contains overt allusions to the Beach Boys' "California Girls".

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The Everly Brothers were another major influence on the Beatles, with Lennon and McCartney consciously trying to copy Don and Phil Everly's distinctive two-part harmonies. Their vocals on two 1962 recordings, "Love Me Do" and "Please Please Me" owed much to the Everly's powerful vocal innovation on "Cathy's Clown" (1960), the first recording to ever reach number one simultaneously in the USA and in England. "Two of Us", the opening track on Let It Be is overtly composed in the Everly style, with McCartney at one point acknowledging this with a spoken "Take it Phil."

The song-writing of Gerry Goffin and Carole King was yet another influence upon the Beatles, and it could be said that one of the Beatles' many achievements was to marry the relative sophistication of Goffin and King's songs (which used major-seventh chords, for example) with the simplicity of Buddy Holly, Berry and the early rock-and-roll performers. Goffin and King had initially inspired Lennon and McCartney's songwriting partnership; Lennon and McCartney's goal when they started was to become the next Goffin and King.

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John Lennon's early style owed a huge debt to Buddy Holly and to Roy Orbison ("Misery" from 1963 and "Please Please Me" from 1963). "That'll Be the Day" was the first song Lennon learned to play and sing accurately, not to mention the first song the proto-Beatles ever put to vinyl. McCartney admitted, "At least the first forty songs we wrote were Buddy Holly influenced". Lennon offered that Holly "made it okay to wear glasses. I WAS Buddy Holly." The naming of the Beatles was, of course, Lennon's way of paying tribute to, and recognizing the name of Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets. The Beatles covered Holly's "Words of Love" on their album Beatles for Sale.

After becoming acquainted with the work of Bob Dylan, Lennon became influenced heavily by folk music ("You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and "Norwegian Wood" from 1965). Lennon played the major role in steering the group toward psychedelia ("Strawberry Fields Forever" Tomorrow Never Knows and "I Am the Walrus" from 1967), and renewed his interest in earlier rock forms at the close of the Beatles' career ("Don't Let Me Down" from 1969).

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Paul McCartney is perhaps best known as the group's romantic balladeer: beginning with "Yesterday" (1965), he pioneered a modern form of art song, exemplified by "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Here There and Everywhere" (1966), and "She's Leaving Home" (1967). Meanwhile, McCartney maintained an affection for the driving RandB of Little Richard in a series of songs which John Lennon dubbed "potboilers", from "I Saw Her Standing There" (1963) to "Lady Madonna" (1968). "Helter Skelter" (1968) — arguably an early heavy metal song — is a McCartney composition. McCartney's mastery of the piano and keyboards played huge roles both in his role as a composer and as a versatile musician/composer in the studio. Neither McCartney nor Lennon ever learned to read music.

Originally, The Beatles' work focused around themes of optimistic, giddy, love akin to that of a boy who had just fallen in love, as typified by their performances of songs on The Ed Sullivan Show, such as "All My Loving", "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand".

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George Harrison derived his early guitar style from 1950s rockabilly greats such as Carl Perkins, Scotty Moore (who worked with Elvis Presley) and Duane Eddy. "All My Loving" (1963) and "She's A Woman" (1964) are prime examples of Harrison's early rockabilly guitar work.

In 1965, George Harrison broke new ground in the West by recording with an Indian sitar on "Norwegian Wood". A result of his long and continued collaboration with Sri Ravi Shankar, a famous Hindustani musician, many of his following compositions were based on Hindustani forms, most notably "Love You To" (1966), "Within You, Without You" (1967), and "The Inner Light" (1968). Indian music and culture also influenced the band as a whole, with the use of swirling tape loops, droning bass lines, and mantra-like vocals on "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966) and "Dear Prudence" (1968). Harrison retained Western musical forms in his later compositions, where he emerged as a significant pop composer in his own right, occasionally reprising major themes that indicated his new relationship with Hindustani music and the Hindu god Krishna. His later guitar style, while not displaying the virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton, became distinctive with its use of clear melodic lines and subtle fills ("Something" [1969], "Let It Be" [1970]) in contrast to the increasingly distorted riffs and rapid-fire guitar solo work of his contemporaries.

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Ringo Starr's contributions to The Beatles' sound are less known compared to the other Beatles, as Starr himself rarely actually wrote songs. While he is mostly appreciated for his gentle comic baritone ("Yellow Submarine" 1966, "Octopus's Garden" 1969), steady drumming, and everyman image, he was likely responsible for the group's occasional interest in surprisingly authentic country sounds ("What Goes On" 1965; "Don't Pass Me By" 1968 with Lennon) and his own performance on Buck Owens' "Act Naturally".

In the Beatles' later music, the pace of the songs tends to be moderate, with more of the interest usually (but not always) coming from the melody and the orchestration than the rhythm. "Penny Lane" (1967) is a good example of this style. Their earlier songs were often a bit faster paced. Throughout their career, their songs were rarely riff-driven. "Day Tripper" (1965) and "Hey Bulldog" (1969, recorded 1968) are among the exceptions.

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There was an abrupt change in direction due to the Beatles' decision to stop touring in 1966. Reportedly stung by criticism of "Paperback Writer", the Beatles poured their creative energies into the recording studio in a determined attempt to produce material they could be proud of. There had already been a clear trend towards progressively greater complexity both in technique and style, but this now accelerated noticeably, as was evident on "Revolver". The subject matter of the post-touring songs was no longer you, I, love, boy meets girl, etc., and this took them very far from the days in 1963 when their material had shown some similarity with, say, the work of The Hollies. Now all manner of subjects were introduced, from home repair and circuses to nonsense songs and others that defied description.

The extreme complication evident on Sgt. Pepper's reached its height on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album. Parts of this, specifically "It's All Too Much" and "Only A Northern Song", were left over from 1967 and ended up being used only on Yellow Submarine in January 1969 apparently because the Beatles themselves weren't much interested in this as a project and didn't feel inclined to greatly exert themselves producing a lot of new material for it.

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After the Revolver/Sgt. Pepper's phase, the creative surge seemed to exhaust itself, and their self-titled double album, largely written in India, reverted to a much simpler style and sometimes to simpler subjects (for example "Birthday"). Some of it (for example "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" and "Wild Honey Pie") were far less complex than much of their material from just a year or two before, and in 1969, the band began to disintegrate during sessions for the abortive Get Back project (which eventually emerged in 1970, much altered, as Let It Be) which had been intended to be a return to more basic songs, avoiding massive editing or otherwise artificial influences on the final output (ironically Let It Be was heavily overdubbed and edited by producer Phil Spector's wall of sound technique). Not wanting to leave things like that, the last album the Beatles recorded, Abbey Road, represented a mature attempt to integrate what they knew, and use recording studio techniques only to improve the songs, rather than to experiment to see what happened. It represented one final effort, as McCartney once put it, to "leave 'em laughing".

Beatle music is still performed in public by tribute bands such as the Bootleg Beatles, and shows like Beatlemania!. They are also the basis for Eric Idle's parody band, The Rutles (1978).

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Members of group as instrumentalists and composers

Most fans know that Paul played bass, John guitar, George lead guitar and Ringo drum kit. But there is more beyond this point. All the Beatles had some proficiency on the piano and all of them used it to compose songs, which helps us to understand the exceptional breadth of the Beatles music catalog.

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Paul learned to play the piano as a young boy, but never learned to read music. Although he is known primarily as a bass player, McCartney experimented with almost every instrument, including Moog and Mellotron synthesizers, but it was his mastery of the piano as a compositional instrument that especially empowered him as a composer, something that only fellow pianists can begin to fully appreciate. George Martin and John Lennon have commented that McCartney was the most technically proficient guitarist and drummer in the band. For example, he plays lead guitar on "Taxman" and "Ticket to Ride"; drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and "Back in the USSR"; and piano on "Hey Jude" and "Let it Be."

John had problems playing rhythmic instruments as drums or even bass. You can see him in Help! movie (during song "Another Girl") playing drums uneasily and completely out of rhythm. He is not really playing it; the Beatles all switch their instruments during this clip. John also plays bass in "Back in the USSR", "Hey Jude" and "The Long and Winding Road," in which, if you listen closely, you can hear a few mistakes. You can even hear McCartney smile at him in one moment. Lennon reportedly had trouble keeping time, even on guitar, and the other Beatles admitted to teasing him about it. When the remaining Beatles reunited in the mid 90s to record some of Lennon's unreleased demo tracks, producer Jeff Lynne had to use studio technology to compensate for Lennon's flexible sense of tempo.

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George was good at playing melodic lines and riffs on guitar-like string instruments. In addition to lead guitars and sitars, he played bass on "Taxman" and "Two of Us".

Though Ringo has admitted his music knowledge outside of percussion is limited, he composed a couple of songs on the piano, including "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden". Ringo claims to have contributed the famous line 'Father Mackenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as walks from the grave' to "Eleanor Rigby", which was ostensibly written by McCartney. The line, which is his for sure is: 'Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there'. Starr is also known to have contributed to a number of song titles, which were in turn borrowed from homespun Liverpudlian sayings. Notable amongst them are: "A Hard Day's Night"; "Eight Days a Week" and "Tomorrow Never Knows".

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George Martin, The Beatles producer influenced all of late songs, but he also performed in few of them or even composed fragments. Paul and George M. had been sitting together by one piano rotating, each one playing one sentence. This is how "Hello, Goodbye" came to life. George Martin also composed all of orchestra parts.

In 1963, the Beatles gave their publishing rights to Northern Songs, a company created by Brian Epstein, and a music publisher, Dick James. Northern Songs went public in 1965, and Lennon and McCartney each held 15% of the company's shares, while Dick James and the company's chairman, Charles Silver, held a controlling 37.5% of shares. In 1969, James and Silver sold Northern Songs and its assets to a British TV company named Associated Television Corporation (ATV).

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In 1985, ATV's music catalogue was sold, and Michael Jackson was the highest bidder beating Paul McCartney with a reported $47 million for the publishing rights to approximately 159 to 260 Beatles songs. A decade later, Jackson and Sony merged their music publishing businesses. Since 1995, Jackson and Sony/ATV Music Publishing have jointly owned most of the Beatles songs.

While the Jackson-Sony collection includes practically all of the Beatles' greatest hits, they do not own the rights to every song. Paul McCartney bought the rights to "Love Me Do," "Please, Please Me," "P.S. I Love You," and "Ask Me Why" as Northern Songs never owned these early tunes and they were not included in the ATV deal. Sony reports that Jackson used his half of the Beatles' catalogue as collateral for a loan from the music company. However, Lennon's estate and McCartney still receive singer and songwriter royalties.

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George Harrison created his own company, 'Harrisongs', which owns the rights to his classics such as 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' and 'Something'.

Ringo Starr, Paul and Linda McCartney, and George Harrison all guest starred on The Simpsons although not at the same time. This makes The Simpsons the only non-variety show to feature all the surviving Beatles when recorded.

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George Harrison cooperated with Eric Idle and Neil Innes in authoring and filming (for television) the fictitious story of the Rutles, a "Rutlandbeat" group affectionately satirising the Beatles. Innes proved able to parody particular Beatles songs with lyrics and titles (e.g. "Ouch!") only marginally less believable than those of the Fab Four.

Song Octopus's Garden had been composed by Ringo during one of his dido strikes. Bored by recording, he went to sea. When he returned, the others welcomed him enthusiastically and recorded their friend's new song, making it the best of Ringo's works.

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