Despite what the detractors would have us believe, the 4 most celebrated Liverpudlians are John, Paul, George and Ringo; not Dalglish, Keegan, Rush and Gerrard.Collectively, these Liverpool’s favourite sons made up The Beatles, the most successful music group of all time for not only are they the undisputed holders of the most #1 hits as a band, changed the way music sounds, serve as inspiration to countless other bands until today and they also birthed “Yesterday”, the most covered song of all time. Even after disbandment, they went on to become accomplished solo performers in their own rights, chalking up no.1 hits independently of each other.
However, before they struck big time, The Beatles underwent numerous changes in their line-up most notably with Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe. The circumstances surrounding the quitting of Pete Best, their former drummer; are still shrouded in mystery. Popular opinion has it that he was the best looking of the lot and that attracted too much attention, thus eclipsing the band as a whole and the nagging suspicion that he was seen as maverick only exacerbated things. Stuart Sutcliffe, on the other hand, was a bassist who fell in love with a German, Astrid Kirchherr whilst the group was touring Germany and eventually opted out of the band. For the uninitiated, Stuart Sutcliffe will always be remembered as the member who gave the band its name though it was initially spelled as The Beetles, a sort of homage to both his and John Lennon’s favourite band, Buddy Holly & The Crickets. Astrid Kirchherr is credited by many as the person who influenced the rest of the members to sport the mop-top hairstyle. Eventually, the band settled on Richard Starkey, who’s more popularly known by Ringo Starr. This final line-up would eventually proceed to take the world by storm.
Yet, ironically, the executives at Decca Records myopically refused to sign them on as recording band quoting the now infamous line “guitar bands are on their way out”. This unfortunate incident has now been dubbed as “The Decca audition” and ranked as one of the biggest mistakes in music history. Decca’s loss was Parlophone’s gain as they saw it fit to sign The Beatles as recording band and the person responsible for this was none other than Sir George Martin. The latter would go on to produce many of the band’s successful albums until he was surprisingly dropped in favour of Phil Spector. Notwithstanding, Sir George Martin will always be referred to, as the 5th Beatle. Unbeknownst to many, he also contributed the piano solo part in one of the group’s hits, “In My Life”
It didn’t take long before The Beatles had their first #1 hit in 1962 with “From Me to You” but success in USA continued to elude them. Seeing how their countryman, Cliff Richard tried but failed to make it big there, The Beatles bide their time. Their big break came in 1964 when “I Want to Hold Your Hand” topped the Billboard charts. Suddenly, they found themselves the darling of the American public and their subsequent appearance on The Ed Sullivan show only propelled their fame further. 75% of the American public who watched television on that fateful night tuned into this show. Later in the same year, they held the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Now, 45 years later, not a single act has managed to duplicate this feat. With the conquering of USA, it could finally be said that the music world was in their hands.
The Beatles’ phenomenal success paved the way for other British acts to stamp their mark on the music scene. Acts like The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermit, The Kinks, The Who, et al all benefited from the opening of floodgates by none other than The Beatles. The successes of these British acts are now known as The British Invasion. The American media then proclaimed England as the centre of music and fashion world. Hardly an exaggeration really, since the then British fashion also complemented their brand of music well.
From then on, nothing seemed capable of stopping The Beatles’ scale to greater popularity. Not even when John Lennon cheekily remarked that “We (The Beatles) are more popular than Jesus now” did it severely dent their popularity though it generated short-lived adverse publicity and the American radio stations refused to play their songs for a while. All things considered, this did little damage to their career in the States.Throughout this group’s lifespan, they were influenced by various artistes. Those who follow their career will notice that The Beatles evolved from a band which sang mainly about “matters of the heart” to some things of more substance. For this, they had Bob Dylan to thank for. Bob Dylan is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest poet lyricists and when The Beatles were told that their lyrics meant little, it spurred the band to change. In turn, Bob Dylan was also influenced by The Beatles when he started to experiment with electric instruments at Newport Folk Festival, much to the chagrin of the crowd who thought he had discarded his roots in folk rock.
The other peers worth mentioning are Beach Boys, an American band. Many musical watchers believe there was an intense but healthy rivalry between these 2 bands as evident by their albums. Their respective albums “A Hard Day’s Night” and “The Beach Boys Today!” were selling briskly but The Beatles next project, “Rubber Soul” raised the bar with the incorporation of sitar amongst other things. Brian Wilson, the brains behind the American band acknowledged that this album had no poor tracks and was inspired to produce a better album which would be subsequently known as “Pet Sounds” When it was finally released, Paul McCartney readily paid tribute to their American counterparts, saying it was his favourite album. Not known for resting on their laurels, The Beatles followed it up with the revolutionary album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, which spent 15 weeks on top of the Billboard charts. This led Brian Wilson to stop competing with The Beatles and finally put paid to the competition between these 2 bands.
Unfortunately, due to deep seated differences amongst band members, they finally called time on the band in 1970. Any faint hope of a reunion was all but dashed when John Lennon was gunned down by Mark David Chapman in 1980. Until today, The Beatles are still a force to be reckoned with, and interests in the band have not waned for they have already inscribed themselves into the rock & roll pantheon.
In 1999, as expected, The Beatles were included in Time magazine's list of The Most Important People of the 20th Century.
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