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The Beatles is one of the most popular and legendary rock band of all time.
On this site there are biographies of the band members.

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The Beatles were a legendary rock group that transformed popular music for more than a decade, beginning in 1960, and produced songs like 'Yesterday,' 'Hey Jude,' 'Day Tripper' and 'Come Together.' Learn more about John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, only at Biography.com.

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By Steve Turner

This book contains information about every single song by The Beatles and the story behind them.
Hello Goodbye "This song is about everything and nothing".

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Pretty much just talks about each of the band members. (also some of the ones that dropped out).

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Just who are the Beatles anyway?

The Beatles were a four piece band from Liverpool, England and were, and still are, one of the top musical groups of the 1960's. Much has been written about the members of the Beatles since they burst into popular culture in 1962 and more will be explored (and written) about one of the greatest musical groups of all time in the found on this site.

Although in the beginning, there were five members of the Beatles, the band that became world-famous was comprised of only four members and they were:

John Winston Ono Lennon was born in Liverpool, England on 9th October 1940. He is generally regarded by many to have founded the Beatles and is often seen by historians as the band's leader despite the four strong personalities within the group. Indeed, when people refer to the Beatles individually it is usually John's name spoken first. John's personal history is also the most dramatized out of the four Beatles, although this could have something to do with the tragic circumstances of his death in 1980.

Lennon began his musical career at the age of 16 when he founded the Quarrymen in 1956. this band was initially made up of Lennon on guitar and lead vocals and his schoolmates Len Garry, Pete Shotton, Rod Davis, Eric Griffiths and Colin Hanton. A few other friends of Lennon came in and out of the Quarrymen but it was a summer day in 1957 when at a church fete gig a young Paul McCartney, who himself played guitar and sang, was watching the Quarrymen play. Lennon & McCartney briefly met but it was their destiny to be together and a short time later, Paul McCartney had joined the Quarrymen and the two quickly carved up the atmosphere together. Paul introduced John to another guitar player, George Harrison.

These three would form a tight bond together as the other members of the Quarrymen faded away and the band became the Beatles. When Ringo joined in 1962, the puzzle was complete and the Beatles became the biggest phenomenon that the world has ever seen. John Lennon left the Beatles in 1969 with Paul McCartney announcing the split publicly in April 1970. Lennon embarked on a solo career with wife Yoko Ono which sometimes saw him collaborate with George and Ringo on their albums and vice versa.

In 1975, John decided to retire from music and dedicate his time to his family and he remained in retirement for 5 years until in October 1980 he released a single with the album 'Double Fantasy' following in November. What was to be a new beginning for John was tragically ended on 8th December 1980 when a mentally ill person who claimed to be a fan shot him dead in the doorway to the Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived in New York City. This sudden and tragic end to the life of John sparked outpourings of grief worldwide, not least by his three former bandmates in the Beatles. George released 'All Those Years Ago' as a tribute to his late friend and Paul wrote 'Here Today' which he still performs live today in honour of his old songwriting partner.

James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool, England on the 18th June 1942. He is regarded by many to be the most musically proficient Beatle, teaching himself a number of instruments such as Piano, Drums, Guitar and his primary instrument, Bass. Paul studied at the Liverpool Institute with George Harrison, who was in the year below him and both of them became friends due to their love of music. When they both joined the Quarrymen their path together was set for the next 12 years as the Quarrymen became the world famous Beatles.

Paul was very driven to be successful from the beginning and it is said that he once took Brian Epstein aside and quietly told him that if the Beatles didn't become famous that he would still like him to be his manager. Paul has gotten an unfair amount of criticism for his role in the Beatles break-up, mainly due to McCartney's use of the announcement to sell his debut solo record 'McCartney' in 1970. After the death of Brian Epstein, Paul became the Beatles' artistic manager, it was never an official position but that is the best way to describe his role in the management of the Beatles after Epstein.

McCartney was unwilling to sign up notorious American businessman Allen Klein as the Beatles manager which angered John, George & Ringo who had already agreed that he would handle their affairs. Also, many have cited John Lennon's immediate post Beatles interviews where Lennon was harsh in his treatment of his former songwriting partner.

As it turned out though, Paul was right to steer clear of Allen Klein as he screwed over John & George's affairs in the 1970s. After the Beatles split, McCartney formed Wings with his wife Linda and ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine in the 1970s and continued to release albums with them. In 1973, Wings became the first rock band to record the theme to a James Bond film, 'Live and Let Die'.

Wings went through many line-up changes until early 1980 when Paul got busted in Japan for possession of Marijuana. This effectively ended Wings and when McCartney learned of the death of his friend and former band mate John Lennon, it scared Paul from performing live until 1989 when he put a new band together and went out on a world tour. Paul still continues to play live to this day and is about to release his 24th album which is aptly named 'New' in 2013.

George Harrison was born on February 25th 1943 in Liverpool, England. Compared to John, Paul & Ringo, George's early life was pretty stable and he had the love and support of all his family. He began his life in 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree and his earliest memory was sitting at the top of the stairs on his potty doing a poo and shouting "Finished!".

But George was far from finished where his life was concerned. In 1950, the family moved out of Arnold Grove and over to 25 Upton Green in Speke, an area which houses what was then called Liverpool airport. It's now known as the Liverpool John Lennon airport.

As the youngest member of the Beatles, George was always happy playing guitar and he would sing lead on a few numbers but it wasn't until the Beatles recording career started that George tried his hand at songwriting, his first song 'Don't Bother Me' was featured on the Beatles second album 'With The Beatles' in 1963. George later said he didn't care much for the song and wrote it when he was ill in bed during a Beatles tour of Britain in 1963.

George's contributions to the Beatles legend are far more concentrated. You could say that Harrison himself kicked off the hippie movement by involving the Beatles in the teachings of the Maharishi in 1967. He most definitely brought the Indian sitar into pop music by using it on 'Norwegian Wood'

When the Beatles came to an end in 1970, George emerged with a massive hit album 'All Things Must Pass' and during the 70s he remained active in recording albums and singles. A disastrous 1974 tour of the United States put him off touring for nearly 20 years and George was content to tend to his huge garden at Friar Park in Henley-On-Thames and make an album when he felt like it. In 1978, George set up Handmade Films to produce and distribute the Monty Python film 'The Life of Brian' after EMI pulled out due to the controversial nature of the film. When asked why he wanted to finance the film, George replied "because I want to see it" and the Python team all agreed that it must have been the most expensive cinema ticket in history. Handmade Films' other credits include: 'The Long Good Friday' (1980), 'Time Bandits' (1981), The Madonna and Sean Penn film 'Shanghai Surprise' (1986), in which Harrison himself makes a cameo, 'Withnail & I' (1987) and 'Nuns on the Run' (1990). George sold the company in 1994.

After the death of John Lennon in 1980, Harrison became even more reclusive and remained so for much of the 1980s, with 1982's 'Gone Troppo' being his last release for 5 years. In 1987 he returned with 'Cloud Nine' which was hailed as his best album in years and also had a major hit with 'Got My Mind Set On You'. It was also around this time that Harrison teamed up with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty to form The Travelling Wilburys. This spawned two albums known as 'Volume One' in 1988 and 'Volume Three' in 1990. In case you're wondering, there is no Volume Two. Orbison's death in 1988 kind of put the Wilburys band to bed and even though there was talk of a tour, it never came to fruition.

After a tour of Japan with Eric Clapton in 1991, Harrison got involved in the Beatles Anthology and, as such, didn't release any new music besides the two new Beatles singles 'Free As A Bird' in 1995 and 'Real Love' 1996.

The end of the decade was a troubling time for George, in 1997 he was diagnosed with throat cancer, which was operated on successfully. Then in 1999, a psychopath broke into his Friar Park home while he and his wife Olivia were sleeping and stabbed George more than 40 times. Olivia managed to subdue the intruder by striking him repeatedly with a lamp. George survived. Close friend Eric Idle recalled: "George had just hired a new house manager and as he was being stretchered out into the ambulance in his bloody pyjamas, he asked him 'What do you think of the job so far?', he also asked me on the telephone why this didn't happen to the Rolling Stones!"

After this, it emerged the cancer had returned and this time there was very little that George could do to stop it. After a year of treatment at various clinics and a somber goodbye to his family and friends and former bandmates Paul & Ringo, George died on the 29th November 2001 at 58. His last album, 'Brainwashed' was completed and released the following year and his old friend Eric Clapton organized a tribute to him 'Concert For George' at the Royal Albert Hall which featured performances by all the musicians George had worked with in his life.

Richard Starkey was born on July 7th 1940 in Liverpool, England. As a young child, Richard was in and out of hospital with various bouts of illness. It was while in hospital that young Richard started tapping his fingers, foreshadowing what was to become of him. Richard had many dreams when he was a teenager, one was that he wanted to go to sea as a merchant seamen, another was to emigrate to Houston, Texas to live with his blues hero Lightnin' Hopkins. He joined a neighbour's band called The Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. This group disbanded as Eddie was getting married but Richard soon found work with other skiffle groups and by 1959 was playing with the top band in Liverpool, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. It was during a stint at Butlins holiday camp that Richard decided on a stage name: Ringo Starr, on the account that he wore a lot of rings. Ringo's apprenticeship was with Rory and in the Autumn of 1960, the group went to Hamburg, Germany to play on the Reeperbahn. While there, Ringo met and became friends with another band that had come over from Liverpool called The Beatles.

Ringo would continue to see, hang out and occasionally sit in with the Beatles in both Germany and Liverpool. By 1962, John Paul & George realised that Ringo was the drummer they needed.

Ringo was the last to join the Beatles and thus, the band was complete. Within a year they were stars in Britain and Europe and the year after that they conquered the rest of the world. Ringo was also responsible for the song titles of 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. On early albums, Ringo was given songs to sing by John and Paul but eventually started writing his own material towards the end of the band's lifetime and his song 'Octopus's Garden' on their final recorded album 'Abbey Road' is a classic song that enthralls children of all ages.

After the Beatles split, Ringo released a steady stream of solo albums, the most famous of which was 'Ringo' in 1973 and always remained close with his former bandmates, most notably George Harrison whom he worked with on several occasions up until George's death. By the end of the 1970s Ringo's solo career was dwindling and his alcoholism was becoming a huge problem. In 1984 he narrated the first two seasons of Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends which got him a whole new generation of fans. By 1988 he and his wife Barbara Bach had hit rock bottom in regards to their drinking and they attended a detox clinic in Arizona. This proved to be a re-birth for Starr as the next year he formed the All Starr Band which has included an ever changing line-up of famous musicians. Ringo still tours with his band and his mantra of 'Peace and Love' will out live us all.

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FORMER & TEMPORARY MEMBERS OF THE BEATLES

The Beatles, in the beginning, were quite different from the band they were when they came to prominence. Here are the notable former and temporary members of the Beatles:

Pete was the Beatles original drummer for two years before Ringo joined up and he was rather cruelly and unceremoniously fired from the band. Although Best insists he was never given the real reason for his dismissal, the other Beatles and their producer George Martin have given several theories as to why. Whatever happened, Best played with them during the bands' crucial formative years in Hamburg. Pete is still active today with his own band and tours regularly.

Stuart Sutcliffe was the original bass player of the Beatles before Paul took over the role. While the band were in Hamburg they met photographer Astrid Kircherr who took the definitive portraits of the Beatles in their pre-fame years. Stuart and Astrid fell in love and Sutcliffe left the Beatles in mid 1961 to stay in Hamburg with her and pursue his love of painting. Thus missing out on being a member of one of the biggest selling musical groups of all time, though he wouldn't live long enough to regret it.

Tragically, Sutcliffe died of a brain hemorrhage in April of 1962, mere months before the Beatles released their first UK single that would see them become a worldwide phenomenon.

Jimmie Nicol was drafted into the Beatles when Ringo Starr fell ill with tonsillitis on the eve of the bands' first world tour in 1964.

Although the fans may have forgotten Jimmie, the Beatles never did. During his ten day tenure with the greatest musical group of all time, John and Paul would ask him how he was settling in and Nicol's reply would always be, "It's getting better."

In 1967, Paul, while walking his dog Martha with Beatles biographer Hunter Davies, remarked that the weather was getting better, and began to laugh, remembering Nicol. This inspired him to write 'Getting Better' which was included on the Sergeant Pepper album. Again, during the sessions for Let It Be in 1969, when discussing a possible Beatles tour, McCartney remarked, "I think you'll find we're not going abroad 'cause Ringo just said he doesn't want to go abroad. You know, he put his foot down. Although Jimmie Nicol might go abroad." It's also said that McCartney wanted Nicol to be involved in the Beatles Anthology, but Nicol wasn't interested. Jimmie Nicol currently lives a reclusive life in London.

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Just who are the Beatles anyway? The Beatles were a four piece band from Liverpool, England and were, and still are, one of the top musical groups of the 1960's.

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Leader of The Beatles - John Lennon
This website talks about the band members, their band names and some obstacles in their journey.

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How The Beatles have influenced the pop music culture. There is information on the history of The Beatles and where they used to perform and how popular they are.

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No band has influenced pop culture the way the Beatles have. They were one of the best things to happen in the twentieth century, let alone the Sixties. They were youth personified. They were unmatched innovators who were bigger than both Jesus and rock & roll itself: During the week of April 4, 1964, the Beatles held the first five slots on the Billboard Singles chart; they went on to sell more than a billion records; and 2000's 1, a compilation of the Beatles Number One hits, hit Number One in 35 countries and went on to become the best-selling album of the 2000s.

Every record was a shock when it came out. Compared to rabid R&B evangelists like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles arrived sounding like nothing else. They had already absorbed Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry, but they were also writing their own songs. They made writing your own material expected, rather than exceptional. As musicians, the Beatles proved that rock & roll could embrace a limitless variety of harmonies, structures, and sounds; virtually every rock experiment has some precedent on Beatles records. As a unit the Beatles were a synergistic combination: Paul McCartney's melodic bass lines, Ringo Starr's slaphappy no-rolls drumming, George Harrison's rockabilly-style guitar leads, John Lennon's assertive rhythm guitar - and their four fervent voices. As personalities, they defined and incarnated Sixties style: smart, idealistic, playful, irreverent, eclectic. Their music, from the not-so-simple love songs they started with to their later perfectionistic studio extravaganzas, set new standards for both commercial and artistic success in pop.

Lennon was performing with his amateur skiffle group the Quarrymen at a church picnic on July 6, 1957, in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton when he met McCartney, whom he later invited to join his group; soon they were writing songs together, such as "The One After 909." By the year's end McCartney had convinced Lennon to let Harrison join their group, the name of which was changed to Johnny and the Moondogs in 1958. In 1960 an art-school friend of Lennon's, Stu Sutcliffe, became their bassist. Sutcliffe couldn't play a note but had recently sold one of his paintings for a considerable sum, which the group, now rechristened the Silver Beetles (from which "Silver" was dropped a few months later, and "Beetles" amended to "Beatles"), used to upgrade its equipment.

Tommy Moore was their drummer until Pete Best replaced him in August 1960. Once Best had joined, the band made its first of four trips to Hamburg, Germany. In December Harrison was deported back to England for being underage and lacking a work permit, but by then their 30-set weeks on the stages of Hamburg beer houses had honed and strengthened their repertoire (mostly Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and Buddy Holly covers), and on February 21, 1961, they debuted at the Cavern club on Mathew Street in Liverpool, beginning a string of nearly 300 performances there over the next couple of years.

In April 1961 they again went to Hamburg, where Sutcliffe (the first of the Beatles to wear his hair in the long, shaggy style that came to be known as the Beatle haircut) left the group to become a painter, while McCartney switched from rhythm guitar to bass. The Beatles returned to Liverpool as a quartet in July. Sutcliffe died from a brain hemorrhage in Hamburg less than a year later.

The Beatles had been playing regularly to packed houses at the Cavern when they were spotted on November 9 by Brian Epstein (b. Sep. 19, 1934, Liverpool). After being discharged from the British Army on medical grounds, Epstein had attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London for a year before returning to Liverpool to manage his father's record store.

The request he received for a German import single entitled "My Bonnie" (which the Beatles had recorded a few months earlier in Hamburg, backing singer Tony Sheridan and billed as the Beat Brothers) convinced him to check out the group. Epstein was surprised to discover not only that the Beatles weren't German but that they were one of the most popular local bands in Liverpool. Within two months he became their manager. Epstein cleaned up their act, eventually replacing black leather jackets, tight jeans, and pompadours with collarless gray Pierre Cardin suits and mildly androgynous haircuts.

Epstein tried landing the Beatles a record contract, but nearly every label in Europe rejected the group. In May 1962, however, producer George Martin (b. Jan. 3, 1926, North London, Eng.) signed the group to EMI's Parlophone subsidiary. Pete Best, then considered the group's undisputed sex symbol, was asked to leave the group on August 16, 1962, and Ringo Starr, drummer with a popular Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, was added, just in time for the group's first recording session. On September 11 the Beatles cut two originals, "Love Me Do" b/w "P.S. I Love You," which became their first U.K. Top 20 hit in October. In early 1963 "Please Please Me" went to Number Two, and they recorded an album of the same name in one 10-hour session on February 11, 1963. With the success of their third English single, "From Me to You" (Number One), the British record industry coined the term "Merseybeat" (after the river that runs through Liverpool) for groups such as the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and the Searchers.

By mid-year the Beatles were given billing over Roy Orbison on a national tour, and the hysterical outbreaks of Beatlemania had begun. Following their first tour of Europe in October, they moved to London with Epstein. Constantly mobbed by screaming fans, the Beatles required police protection almost any time they were seen in public. Late in the year "She Loves You" became the biggest-selling single in British history (in the years since, only six other singles have sold more copies there). In November 1963 the group performed before the Queen Mother at the Royal Command Variety Performance.

EMI's American label, Capitol, had not released the group's 1963 records (which Martin licensed to independents like Vee-Jay and Swan with little success) but was finally persuaded to release its fourth single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and Meet the Beatles (identical to the Beatles' second British album, With the Beatles) in January 1964 and to invest $50,000 in promotion for the then unknown British act. The album and the single became the Beatles' first U.S. chart-toppers. On February 7 screaming mobs met them at New York City's Kennedy Airport, and more than 70 million people watched each of their appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 and 16. In April 1964 "Can't Buy Me Love" became the first record to top American and British charts simultaneously, and that same month the Beatles held the top five positions on Billboard singles chart ("Can't Buy Me Love," "Twist and Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Please Please Me").

Their first movie, A Hard Day's Night (directed by Richard Lester), opened in America in August; it grossed $1.3 million in its first week. The band was aggressively merchandised - Beatle wigs, Beatle clothes, Beatle dolls, lunch boxes, a cartoon series - from which, because of Epstein's ineptitude at business, the band made surprisingly little money. The Beatles also opened the American market to such British Invasion groups as the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks.

By 1965 Lennon and McCartney rarely wrote songs together, although by contractual and personal agreement songs by either of them were credited to both. The Beatles toured Europe, North America, the Far East, and Australia that year. Their second movie, Help! (also directed by Lester), was filmed in England, Austria, and the Bahamas in the spring and opened in the U.S. in August. On August 15 they performed to 55,600 fans at New York's Shea Stadium, setting a record for largest concert audience. McCartney's "Yesterday" (Number One, 1965) would become one of the most often covered songs ever written.

In June the Queen of England had announced that the Beatles would be awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). The announcement sparked some controversy - some MBE holders returned their medal - but on October 26, 1965, the ceremony took place at Buckingham Palace. (Lennon returned his medal in 1969 as an antiwar gesture. Interestingly, even though he rejected the medal, the honor itself cannot be returned; Lennon technically remained an MBE.)

With 1965's Rubber Soul, the Beatles' ambitions began to extend beyond love songs and pop formulas. Their success led adults to consider them, along with Bob Dylan, spokesmen for youth culture, and their lyrics grew more poetic and somewhat more political.

In summer 1966 controversy erupted when a remark Lennon had made to a British newspaper reporter months before was widely reported in the U.S. The quote - "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now" - incited denunciations and Beatles record bonfires. The anti-Beatles backlash was particularly intense in the U.S., where the group was set to begin a tour just two weeks after the controversy erupted, and included death threats against the group. Largely out of concern for the safety of his fellow band members, Lennon apologized at a Chicago press conference.

The Beatles gave up touring after an August 29, 1966, concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park and made the rest of their music in the studio, where they had begun to experiment with exotic instrumentation ("Norwegian Wood," 1965, had featured sitar) and tape abstractions such as the reversed tracks on "Rain." "Strawberry Fields Forever," part of a double-sided single released in February 1967 to fill the unusually long gap between albums, featured an astonishing display of electronically altered sounds and hinted at what was to come. With "Taxman" and "Love You To" on Revolver, Harrison began to emerge as a songwriter.

It took four months and $75,000 to record Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band using a then state-of-the-art four-track tape recorder and building each cut layer by layer. Released in June 1967, it was hailed as serious art for its "concept" and its range of styles and sounds, a lexicon of pop and electronic noises; such songs as "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and "A Day in the Life" were carefully examined for hidden meanings. The album spent 15 weeks at Number One (longer than any of their others) and has sold over 8 million copies. On June 25, 1967, the Beatles recorded their new single, "All You Need Is Love," before an international television audience of 400 million, as part of a broadcast called Our World.

On August 27, 1967 - while the four were in Wales beginning their six-month involvement with Transcendental Meditation and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (which took them to India for two months in early 1968) - Epstein died alone in his London flat from an overdose of sleeping pills, later ruled accidental. Shaken by Epstein's death, the Beatles retrenched under McCartney's leadership in the fall and filmed Magical Mystery Tour, which was aired by BBC-TV on December 26, 1967, and later released in the U.S. as a feature film. Although the telefilm was panned by British critics, fans, and Queen Elizabeth herself, the soundtrack album contained their most cryptic work yet in "I Am the Walrus," a Lennon composition.

As the Beatles' late-1967 single "Hello Goodbye" went to Number One in both the U.S. and Britain, the group launched the Apple clothes boutique in London. McCartney called the retail effort "Western communism"; the boutique closed in July 1968. Like their next effort, Apple Corps Ltd. (formed in January 1968 and including Apple Records, which signed James Taylor, Mary Hopkin, and Badfinger), it was plagued by mismanagement. In July the group faced its last hysterical crowds at the premiere of Yellow Submarine, an animated film by Czech avant-garde designer and artist Heinz Edelmann featuring four new Beatles songs; a revised soundtrack featuring nine extra songs was released in 1999 (Number 15).

In August they released McCartney's "Hey Jude" (Number One), backed by Lennon's "Revolution" (Number 12), which sold over 6 million copies before the end of 1968 - their most popular single. Meanwhile, the group had been working on the double album The Beatles (frequently called the White Album), which showed their divergent directions. The rifts were artistic - Lennon moving toward brutal confessionals, McCartney leaning toward pop melodies, Harrison immersed in Eastern spirituality - and personal, as Lennon drew closer to his wife-to-be, Yoko Ono. Lennon and Ono's Two Virgins (with its full frontal and back nude cover photos) was released the same month as The Beatles and stirred up so much outrage that the LP had to be sold wrapped in brown paper. ( The Beatles, went to Number One, Two Virgins peaked at Number 124.)

The Beatles attempted to smooth over their differences in early 1969 at filmed recording sessions. When the project fell apart hundreds of hours of studio time later, no one could face editing the tapes (a project that eventually fell to record producer Phil Spector), and "Get Back" (Number One, 1969) was the only immediate release. Released in spring 1970, Let It Be is essentially a documentary of their breakup, including an impromptu January 30, 1969, rooftop concert at Apple Corps headquarters, their last public performance as the Beatles.

By spring 1969 Apple was losing thousands of pounds each week. Over McCartney's objections, the other three brought in manager Allen Klein to straighten things out; one of his first actions was to package nonalbum singles as Hey Jude. With money matters temporarily out of mind, the four joined forces in July and August 1969 to record Abbey Road, featuring an extended suite as well as more hits, including Harrison's much-covered "Something" (Number Three, 1969). While its release that fall spurred a "Paul Is Dead" rumor based on clues supposedly left throughout their work, Abbey Road became the Beatles' best-selling album, at 9 million copies. Meanwhile, internal bickering persisted. In September Lennon told the others, "I'm leaving the group. I've had enough. I want a divorce." But he was persuaded to keep quiet while their business affairs were untangled. On April 10, 1970, McCartney released his first solo album and publicly announced the end of the Beatles. At the same time, Let It Be finally surfaced, becoming the group's 14th Number One album (a postbreakup compilation would become their 15th in 1973) and yielding the Beatles' 18th and 19th chart-topping singles, "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road."

Throughout the Seventies, as repackages of Beatles music continued to sell, the four were hounded by bids and pleas for a reunion. Lennon's murder by a mentally disturbed fan on December 8, 1980, ended those speculations. In 1988 the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. McCartney, citing business conflicts with the two other surviving members, did not attend. Relations between him and Harrison, in particular, had been strained for some time.

In January 1994 Goldmine magazine reported that McCartney, Harrison, and Starr had begun recording music for a long-rumored Beatles documentary the previous August, with more secret sessions scheduled. There were other signs that the three band members were on the mend - when Lennon was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1994, for instance, McCartney did the honors (McCartney himself was inducted in 1999). Later in 1994 Live at the BBC was released, featuring 56 songs the Beatles performed on the British radio between 1962 and 1965. It debuted at Number One in the U.K.; in the U.S., it debuted and peaked at Number Three.

The Beatles Anthology, the long-awaited six-hour television special, was broadcast over three nights in November 1995, coinciding with the release of the George Martin-compiled double-CD Anthology 1 (Number One), which featured alternate takes, demos, and rare tracks, and premiered the first new song by John, Paul, George, and Ringo since 1970. "Free as a Bird" (Number Six, 1995), a demo recorded by Lennon in 1977, was completed by the other three and produced by Jeff Lynne; it became the Beatles 34th Top 10 single. Lennon's lyrics didn't extend much beyond the title, and so Harrison and McCartney collaborated on lyrics for a new bridge.

Two additional double CDs, Anthology 2 and 3 (both Number One), followed in 1996, as well as an extended videotape version of the documentary. Anthology 2's "Real Love" (again a Lennon demo, from 1979, with modern additions by the others) reached Number 11 and became the group's 23rd gold single (the most of any group).

The Liverpool juggernaut continued to roll on in 2000: the Beatles became the highest certified act of all time, with over 113 million albums sold in America (which grew to 170 million albums in 2008); a coffee table book, The Beatles Anthology, topped the New York Times bestseller list; and 1, a collection of the band's Number One hit songs, became the Beatles' 19th chart-topping album, selling 25 million copies by 2005.

On November 29, 2001, George Harrison, diagnosed with lung cancer in the late 1990s, became the second Beatle to pass away. Three years later Capitol Records released all of the Beatles' U.S. albums (in both stereo and original mono versions) as two box sets, The Capitol Albums, Vols. 1 and 2. In 2006, George Martin and his son Giles produced a set of Beatles remixes, Love, for the soundtrack to Cirque du Soleil's theater production of the same name. The following year, McCartney and Starr appeared on CNN's Larry King Live to talk about the project; they joined Beatles widows Ono and Olivia Harrison in Las Vegas to celebrate the Love production's first anniversary.

Until 2007, the Beatles' Apple Corp. was in legal limbo with the Apple, Inc. computer company over use of the name. Apple Corp. had sued Apple, Inc. after the computer company opened its online iTunes music store; one result of the suit was that the Beatles' group and solo music was not made available for digital download. In February 2007, the two sides came to an agreement. Apple, Inc. would retain ownership of the name and license it back to the Apple Corp. record label. By October, all of the Beatles' solo works were available on iTunes, but as of early 2010 the Beatles catalogue was still not available on iTunes.

September 9, 2009 was a day of 21st century Beatlemania: Apple/EMI released remastered versions of the band's studio albums, with dramatically improved sound. (Mono versions were also available, though only as a box.) Also that day, The Beatles Rock Band video game hit shelves, featuring 45 Beatle songs; by the end of 2009, it had sold more than one million copies worldwide.

McCartney and Starr continued to tour and record throughout the 2000s. McCartney, who is reportedly a billionaire, released three solo albums during the decade as well as three live albums, including Good Evening New York City, which documented the inaugural concerts at New York's Citi Field in 2009. Starr released three albums in the 2000s, as well as 2010's Y Not. He appeared with McCartney at several events, including 2002's Concert for George, a charitable event held on the first anniversary of Harrison's death.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).

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No band has influenced pop culture the way the Beatles have. They were one of the best things to happen in the twentieth century, let alone the Sixties. They were youth personified.

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Sgt. Pepper is an album by The Beatles. It is the eighth album by The Beatles. This is when The Beatles have changed. Their music became different and so did their clothing etc.

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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released on 1st June, 1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the band's eighth album became the soundtrack to the "summer of love" but its appeal is timeless.

Work had begun on the recording in late 1966 and at one stage it was thought that both Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever would also be included but when these were released as a single in February, that idea was abandoned.

Revolver had only just been completed in time prior to the band flying off on yet another tour. Now that touring was behind them more time could be spent writing and recording. Between November 1966 and April, 1967, they spent over 400 hours in the studio - a far cry from the Please Please Me days.

Of course the music was more complex and now that touring was over, there was no need to consider what could be reproduced in front of a live audience.

In the studio The Beatles encouraged George Martin to achieve "the impossible" and in turn, George and the engineers would find innovative ways of realising this despite still using only four-track equipment.

For the fourth time in the UK, no single was lifted from the album and this also held true in the US. The album was also not banded, encouraging the listener to play it all the way through, pausing only to turn the disc over.

Not only was the music different, exciting and colourful so too was the way it was delivered. The glossy double wallet featured the guys in their Pepper uniforms surrounded by images of people they either admired or were interested in whilst on the back of the sleeve there were the lyrics to all the songs. Inside each side of the wallet were other surprises, a card featuring various cut-outs and in the initial pressings at least, the paper inner sleeve bore a psychedelic design.

In the Britain the album hit number #1 and between June, 1967 and February, 1968 spent a total of 27 weeks at the top during an initial chart run of 148 weeks. All of this, in spite of a BBC ban on "A Day In The Life".

In the US, the album was released in exactly same way as in Britain... well almost. The high-pitched tone and the garbled speech embedded in the UK run-out groove did not appear on the American release. The album enjoyed a fifteen week stay at the top of the US Top 200 albums during its initial chart run of 88 weeks.

NME April 1st, 1967

The Beatles' next LP, which has already taken over seven months to record is at last nearing completion. Titled 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' it will be finished during the second week of April. Among tracks now completed are 'A Day In The Life', a John Lennon solo on which he is backed by a 41-piece orchestra. 'When I'm 64' a novelty number in early phonographic style featuring Paul McCartney. 'Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning' a John and Paul duet augmented by Sounds Inc, 'She's Leaving Home' arranged by Mike Leander and employing added strings and 'Sergeant Pepper's Blues'.

NME May 20, 1967

Trust the Beatles to come up with something different! Their latest LP, 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' is a sort of concert. It starts with that number and ends with it, except for a finale piece called 'A Day In The Life'.

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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Released on 1st June, 1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the band's eighth album became the soundtrack to the "summer of love" but its appeal is timeless.