The Beatles

A Brief Background:

The Beatles were the most influential rock group in the history of "rock and roll". They were, in the words of John Lennon, "The Greatest show on earth." That pretty much summed it up. Consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the Beatles would go on to change the way rock music was made and recorded forever.

Starting out at the early age of 15, John Lennon with his guitar formed his own band called the "Quarry Men. Paul McCartney and a friend went to see the Quarry Men play. Later back stage, Paul showed John how well he could play guitar and sing with a song by Eddy Cochran called "Twenty Five Rock". John was so impressed that he asked Paul to join the band and and the next day Paul said yes.

Stu Sutcliffe was a friend of John's who he asked to join the band as bass player. Paul told John about a friend he has that is a really good guitar player......enter George Harrison. George became the lead guitarist for the band. George also introduced a friend into the band, Pete Best who bacame the drummer for the group.

The "Lads" got gigs in Germany and after a while there, got deported. Stu Sutcliffe decided to remain in Germany and marry his girlfriend thus leaving the band.

Meanwhile a man by the name of Brian Epstein was following the Beatles success of playing at clubs in Gemany and England and was very impressed by them. He later met "the boys" and discussed being their manager. After negotiating, a contract was signed making Brian Epstein the manager for the Beatles.

Considered to be the weakest link in the group by the rest of the band members and Brian Epstein, Pete Best was later fired by Brian Epstein. There was another drummer playing the music scene by the name of Richard Starkey, otherwise known as Ringo Starr playing with a group called "Rory and The Hurricanes. He later left that group and joined the Beatles.

John came up with the name Beatles. He had a vision at the age of twelve where he saw a man on a flaming pie who said to John, "You are Beatles with an 'A'.....let there be Beatles with an 'A'." Before being known as "the Beatles", The band was named "Johnny and the Quarry Men", "the Quarry Men" and "the Silver Beatles." Together, the four young lads from Liverpool England would go on to become the most phenomenonal band in music history, The Beatles.