Beatlemania
...Lennon was born in Liverpool on 9 October 1940. He was shot dead in New York on 8 December 1980. Rhythm guitar, keyboards, harmonica, vocals. Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool on 18 June 1942. Bass guitar, keyboards, lead guitar, drums, vocals. George Harrison was born in Liverpool on 25 February 1943. Lead guitar, sitar, keyboards, vocals.
The Beatles evolved from an amateur teenage skiffle group, the Quarry Men, formed by Lennon in 1956 and named after his school, Quarry Bank High. McCartney joined the Quarry Men in July 1957, Harrison in March 1958. The only artefacts left of the Quarry Men period is a cover version of Buddy Hollys That'll Be The Day and a McCartney-Harrison composition, In Spite of All The Danger, both available on the double-CD Anthology 1 (see links to CDs on the left). Other early group names were The Beatals (March 1960) and The Silver Beatles (May 1960).
In August 1960, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison - together with Stuart Sutcliffe (born in Edinburgh on 23 June 1940; died in Hamburg on 10 April 1962), bass guitar, and Pete Best (born in Madras on 24 Nov 1941), drums became the Beatles. Between then and November 1962 the group played many gigs in and around Liverpool, and also, with decisive effect on their development as performers, four extended residencies at various clubs in Hamburg's red-light district Reeperbahn. Sutcliffe, a talented painter, left in December 1961, being replaced on bass by McCartney, who, until then, had played guitar and piano. According to MacDonald, the Beatles were influenced by rock 'n' roll and black music, by Doo-wop and Tamla-Motown records, especially by William "Smokey" Robinson (although, in my opinion, they completely lack the soul feeling).
In November 1961, a Liverpool music shop owner, Brian Epstein (born in Liverpool in 1934; died in London on 17 August 1967), heard the Beatles at...
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