Concerning
Before John, Paul, George and Ringo became the Beatles, they were simply four teenagers from Liverpool. Never could John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr have imagined they would go on to form one of the most successful groups in modern history, influencing the popular culture in not only music, but also fashion, film and global representation.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was difficult to imagine a band hailing from the relatively poor northwest port city of Liverpool, England, could get a gig in the thriving London music scene of the south, let alone export their eventual homegrown success to a world eagerly opening up to the counter-culture movement of the '60s and the burgeoning phenomenon that was called rock 'n' roll.
A fateful meeting between two music-loving teenagers in 1957 is where it all began. Sixteen-year-old rhythm-guitarist Lennon, the son of a merchant seaman, was performing with the Quarrymen, a skiffle (folk music blended with jazz or blues) band booked to perform at events at a church fete in Woolton, Liverpool. While setting up their instruments for the evening performance, the band’s bass player introduced Lennon to a classmate, 15-year-old McCartney, who would join in on a couple of numbers that night and soon would be offered a permanent spot in the Quarrymen.
Harrison, the son of a bus conductor and shop assistant, joined the Quarrymen as lead guitarist at age 15. Influenced by rockabilly, his guitar licks would help shape the group’s early sound. Though still performing as the Quarrymen, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison would go on to form the core that would soon become the Beatles.
—Lennon and McCartney first met while playing in a skiffle band
The name of the band was in flux during this period, which would witness the group play under monikers Johnny and the Moon Dogs as well as The Silver Beetles and The Silver Beats. An art school student and friend of Lennon’s, Stuart Sutcliffe, was brought into the band to play bass. Sutcliffe and Lennon are often credited with coining the name the Beatles, though various stories abound on the actual origins. The name that would become synonymous with modern music was a combination of beetles and beat, hence the Beatles.
Forging a friendship that would become the basis of their singer-songwriter partnership in the future, Lennon and McCartney would often go away together, playing acoustic sets in small pubs. “John and I used to hitch-hike places together,” McCartney says in Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “It was something that we did together quite a lot; cementing our friendship, getting to know our feelings, our dreams, our ambitions together. It was a wonderful period. I look back on it with great fondness.”
「The Beatles' first single」
The Beatles performed in Hamburg on and off from 1960 through 1962 with engagements back in Liverpool interspersed. It was at a performance at hometown venue the Cavern Club where Brian Epstein first saw the group play. Epstein was curious after hearing mention of them in his family-owned record store and in the pages of Mersey Beat magazine. He returned to take in the show a few more times and on December 10, 1961, Epstein approached the band about managing them, and a five-year contract was signed in January 1962.
Epstein saw the potential of the band, not just in their hometown but far beyond, especially now that the core four members were in place. He cleaned up their image and began to work in earnest to promote them. The band’s first U.K. single, “Please Please Me,” was recorded in November and released in January 1963. It topped the U.K. charts and began a streak that would see 11 of their 12 studio albums through 1970 reach No. 1 in the U.K. It would be Epstein who would eventually travel to the United States and secure a booking for the band on The Ed Sullivan Show.
