YobslePtcLjzpaZ5bxhldzIe6KDppaZeZmjip10haKbltHZeZNl1JeyoYvYydB5mqqSpKOCpphjo9h8k5almHraw9w/the-beatles-meet-the-threetles-purple-chick-1.jpg' alt='The Beatles Kinfauns Demos S' title='The Beatles Kinfauns Demos S' />The Beatles Wikipedia. The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1. With members John Lennon, Paul Mc. Cartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1. Beatles later experimented with several musical styles, ranging from popballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways. In 1. 96. 3 their enormous popularity first emerged as Beatlemania, and as the groups music grew in sophistication in subsequent years, led by primary songwriters Lennon and Mc. Cartney, they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1. The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three year period from 1. Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, Mc. Cartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them in 1. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings, greatly expanding their popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, Love Me Do, in late 1. They acquired the nickname the Fab Four as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year, and by early 1. British Invasion of the United States pop market. From 1. 96. 5 onwards, the Beatles produced increasingly innovative recordings, including the albums Rubber Soul 1. Revolver 1. 96. 6, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band 1. The Beatles commonly known as the White Album, 1. Abbey Road 1. 96. By 1968, the Beatles had achieved commercial and critical success. The groups mid1967 release, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, was number one in the UK for. After their break up in 1. Mc. Cartney and Starr, the surviving members, remain musically active. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1. Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2. The Beatles are the best selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 8. They have had more number one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. They are also the best selling music artists in the United States, with 1. In 2. 00. 8, the group topped Billboard magazines list of the all time most successful artists as of 2. Hot 1. 00 chart with twenty. They have received seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1. They were also collectively included in Time magazines compilation of the twentieth centurys 1. History 1. 95. 71. Formation, Hamburg, and UK popularity. In March 1. 95. 7, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank High School. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a respected local group was already using the other name. Fifteen year old Paul Mc. Cartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he and Lennon met that July. In February 1. 95. Mc. Cartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fifteen year old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison was too young to join them. After a month of Harrisons persistence, during a second meeting, arranged by Mc. Cartney, he performed the lead guitar part for the instrumental Raunchy on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus,4 and they enlisted him as their lead guitarist. By January 1. 95. Lennons Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began studies at the Liverpool College of Art. The three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. Lennons art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe, who had recently sold one of his paintings and was persuaded to purchase a bass guitar, joined in January 1. Beatals, as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. They used the name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July, they had changed their name to the Silver Beatles and by the middle of August to the Beatles. Allan Williams, the Beatles unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid August 1. The band, now a five piece, left four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3 month residency. Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn writes They pulled into Hamburg at dusk on 1. August, the time when the red light area comes to life . Koschmider had converted a couple of strip clubs in the district into music venues, and he initially placed the Beatles at the Indra Club. After closing the Indra due to noise complaints, he moved them to the Kaiserkeller in October. When he learned they had been performing at the rival Top Ten Club in breach of their contract, he gave the band one months termination notice, and reported the underage Harrison, who had obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities about his age. The authorities arranged for Harrisons deportation in late November. One week later, Koschmider had Mc. Cartney and Best arrested for arson after they set fire to a condom in a concrete corridor the authorities deported them. Lennon returned to Liverpool in early December, while Sutcliffe remained in Hamburg until late February with his German fiance Astrid Kirchherr, who took the first semi professional photos of the Beatles. During the next two years, the Beatles were resident for periods in Hamburg, where they used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all night performances. In 1. 96. 1, during their second Hamburg engagement, Kirchherr cut Sutcliffes hair in the exi existentialist style, later adopted by the other Beatles. When Sutcliffe decided to leave the band early that year and resume his art studies in Germany, Mc. Cartney took up the bass. Producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four piece group until June 1. Tony Sheridans backing band on a series of recordings for Polydor Records. As part of the sessions, the Beatles were signed to Polydor for one year. Credited to Tony Sheridan the Beat Brothers, the single My Bonnie, recorded in June 1. Musikmarkt chart. After the Beatles completed their second Hamburg residency, they enjoyed increasing popularity in Liverpool with the growing Merseybeat movement. However, they were also growing tired of the monotony of numerous appearances at the same clubs night after night. In November 1. 96. The Cavern Club, they encountered Brian Epstein, a local record store owner and music columnist. He later recalled I immediately liked what I heard. They were fresh, and they were honest, and they had what I thought was a sort of presence . Epstein courted the band over the next couple of months, and they appointed him as their manager in January 1. Throughout early and mid 1. Epstein sought to free the Beatles from their contractual obligations to Bert Kaempfert Productions. He eventually negotiated a one month early release from their contract in exchange for one last recording session in Hamburg. Tragedy greeted them on their return to Germany in April, when a distraught Kirchherr met them at the airport with news of Sutcliffes death the previous day from what would later be determined to have been a brain hemorrhage. Epstein began negotiations with record labels for a recording contract. Skype Previous Version Install. In order to secure a UK record contract, Epstein negotiated an early end to the bands contract with Polydor, in exchange for more recordings backing Tony Sheridan. After a New Years Day audition, Decca Records rejected the band with the comment Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr.