The Beatles History and Biography (Lire version française)

The Beatles were a pop and rock music group from Liverpool, England, who continue to be held in the very highest regard for their artistic achievements, their huge commercial success, and their groundbreaking role in the history of popular music. Consisting of John Lennon (1940-1980), Paul McCartney (born 1942), George Harrison (1943-2001) and Ringo Starr (born 1940), the group's innovative music, films, and style helped define the 1960s.  The Beatles created many sales records and charted more than fifty top 40 hit singles. They were the first British band to achieve major ongoing success in the United States, scoring no fewer than twenty-seven #1 hits in the USA & UK alone, becoming the biggest musical act of the twentieth century. EMI estimated in 1985 that the band had sold over one billion records worldwide[1]. Their ballad "Yesterday" may be the most-covered song in the history of recorded music (about 3,000 versions of it exist). Their earliest compositions were mainly rock ‘n’ roll or R&B-rooted pop songs with the occasional ballad. But they grew increasingly eclectic as composers, arrangers, and performers over the years. They composed songs and arranged them in a wide array of musical styles – occasionally fusing genres. The constant factor in the vast majority of their songs was their focus on melody. Despite the wide array of musical styles utilised, Beatles recordings were readily identifiable because of their distinctive vocals. In addition to their core pop and rock styles, The Beatles' canon included songs flavoured with folk, country, rockabilly, blues, soul, doo-wop and many other musical genres. They were also pioneers of new musical directions such as psychedelia ("Strawberry Fields Forever") and hard rock ("Helter Skelter," "Revolution"). Their use of chamber and baroque orchestrations (scored by producer George Martin) on recordings such as "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby", "In My Life" and "For No One" was another first in contemporary popular music. They also pioneered many innovative production techniques and their epoch-making 1967 LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is often cited as one of the first concept albums. Their clothes, hairstyles, and choice of musical instruments made them trendsetters throughout the decade; their growing social awareness, reflected in the development of their music, saw their influence extend far beyond the music scene into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s, and their enduring popularity with successive generations of both fans and musicians has cemented their reputation for being some of the most influential music artists of all time. The group disbanded in 1970 amid much strife. Thirty-five years later, in 2005, the American entertainment industry magazine Variety named them the most iconic entertainers of the 20th century History Rhythm guitarist John Lennon became known for his political activism, as well as his love for guitar-centered rock and roll. He penned such songs as "Help!", "In My Life", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "I Am the Walrus" and "Across the Universe". In March 1957, John Lennon formed a skiffle group The Quarrymen (fleetingly known as The Blackjacks). In July of that year, Lennon met Paul McCartney while playing at the Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete, and shortly afterwards, Lennon invited McCartney to join his fledgling group. The lineup that McCartney joined featured Lennon, Rod Davis on banjo, Eric Griffiths on guitar, Len Garry on "tea-chest" bass, Pete Shotton on "washboard", and Colin Hanton on drums. In February 1958 the young guitarist George Harrison joined the group, which was then playing under a variety of names. A few primitive recordings of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison from that era have survived. During this period, members continually joined and left the line up. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison were the only constant members. Hanton left in 1959. The first regular gigs for the group were at a club named The Casbah, created by Mona Best in the basement of her family's home. Best had noticed the number of young friends visiting her son, Pete, at the house and decided to turn part of the cellar into a private club, which eventually developed into a club for young people with live groups. It was one of the first cellar clubs in Liverpool to present rock 'n' roll groups exclusively, as opposed to the strict policy of jazz for venues such as The Cavern and the Cat A Coombs. The Cavern was one of the more well-known spots where the band performed during their independent years. The Casbah Coffee Club opened in August 1959, and the resident group was The Quarrymen — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ken Brown on drums, who would soon be cast off. The Quarrymen went through a progression of names: Johnny and The Moondogs, The Silver Beetles, and eventually arriving at The Beatles. The origin of the name "The Beatles" with its unusual spelling is usually credited to John Lennon, who said in a piece written in the first issue of Mersey Beat, "Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision - a man appeared in a flaming pie and said unto them 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'. 'Thank you, Mister Man,' they said, thanking him."[4] Also, according to John Lennon, the group's name was a combination word-play on the insect "beetles", a nod to Buddy Holly's band (the Crickets) and the word "beat" which in the late 1950s and early 1960s carried both musical connotations (the beat of a song) and pop-cultural connotations (relating to the Beat generation). In 1960, their unofficial manager, Allan Williams, arranged for them to perform in clubs on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany. In August 1960, McCartney invited Pete Best to become the group's drummer. In Hamburg (particularly at the infamous Kaiserkeller club) they honed their skills as performers and broadened their reputation. While in Hamburg, The Beatles were recruited by singer Tony Sheridan to act as his backing band on a series of recordings for the German Polydor Records label, produced by famed bandleader Bert Kaempfert. Kaempfert signed the group to its own Polydor contract at the first session in June 1961. On 23 October, Polydor released the recording "My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur)", which made it into the German charts (#5, according to a Paul McCartney interview). They were deported from Germany on one occasion in 1960, when their work permits had expired, and it was discovered that Harrison was underage. Upon their return from Hamburg, the group was enthusiastically promoted by Sam Leach, who presented them over the next year and a half on various stages in Liverpool 49 times, including the famed "Operation Big Beat in 1961", at which 3000 people paid to see The Beatles perform along with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, Taylor and The Dominoes, Gerry and The Pacemakers and others at the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton. Brian Epstein, manager of the record department at NEMS, his family's furniture store, took over as the group's manager in 1962 and led The Beatles' quest for a British recording contract. After one last session for Polydor in May 1962, Epstein and Kaempfert jointly agreed to cancel the group's contract with the German label. Initially, DECCA Records expressed interest in the group; however they ultimately rejected The Beatles, citing their own research indicating guitar groups were "on the way out". Epstein persisted in shopping "the lads", and secured a meeting with producer George Martin of EMI's Parlophone label. Martin, a well known producer of comedy and novelty albums, listened to the acetates of the group and expressed an interest in hearing them in the studio. On 6 June he brought the quartet to London's Abbey Road studios, and after some consideration decided to grant The Beatles a recording contract. In August 1962, Pete Best was dismissed and replaced by Ringo Starr, whose real name was Richard Starkey. Starr had been the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and had played with The Beatles several times in Hamburg. Though Best had some popularity and was considered good-looking by many female fans, the three founding members had become increasingly unhappy with his drumming, his moody personality and his refusal to adopt their distinctive hairstyle as part of their unified look. Starr had been known to the three from Hamburg days and was thought by them to be a superior drummer - and more compatible in personality and humour. The Beatles' first sessions in September 1962 produced a minor UK hit, "Love Me Do", which charted. ("Love Me Do" subsequently reached the top of the US singles chart in May 1964.) This was swiftly followed by the recording of their second single Please Please Me. Three months later they recorded their first album (also titled Please Please Me), a mix of original songs by Lennon and McCartney along with some covers. The band's first televised performance was on a programme called People and Places transmitted live from Manchester by Granada Television on 17 October 1962. Although the band experienced great popularity in the record charts in Britain from early 1963 onwards, Parlophone's American counterpart, Capitol Records (which was owned by EMI), refused to issue the singles "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "From Me To You"[3] in the United States, partly because no British act had ever had a sustained impact on American audiences beyond one-off hits. Vee-Jay Records, a small Chicago label, is said by some to have been pressured into issuing these singles as part of a deal for the rights to another performer's masters. Art Roberts, music director of Chicago powerhouse radio station WLS, placed "Please Please Me" into rotation in late February 1963, making it possibly the first time a Beatles' record was heard on American radio. Other US stations played Beatles records sporadically, but to no real effect. Vee-Jay's rights to The Beatles were cancelled for non-payment of royalties. In August 1963 the Philadelphia-based Swan label tried again with The Beatles' "She Loves You", which also failed to receive airplay. A testing of the song on Dick Clark's TV show American Bandstand resulted in laughter and scorn from American teenagers when they saw the group's unusual haircuts. Murray the K featured "She Loves You" on his 1010 WINS record revue in October to an underwhelming response. Following Brian Epstein's success in early November in persuading Ed Sullivan to commit to presenting The Beatles on three editions of his show in February (even though the group had no American record label at the time of Sullivan's commitment), Epstein parlayed this guaranteed exposure into a record deal with Capitol Records. He by-passed Dave Dexter, the A&R executive who had rejected the group four times by then, and dealt directly with Capitol president Alan W. Livingston, who was impressed by what Epstein had lined up. He committed to a mid-January release for "I Want To Hold Your Hand"[4], with the expectation that by the date of The Beatles' first appearance on Sullivan (scheduled for February 9) the disc might have reached the Hot Hundred and thus be boosted higher up the charts by the consecutive TV appearances. There was obviously no expectation that a completely unknown foreign artist could climb to the number one position just three weeks after the scheduled mid-January release. A series of unplanned circumstances triggered premature extensive airplay of an imported copy of the single on a Washington DC radio station in mid-December. Capitol decided to take advantage of the positive consumer reaction and brought forward release of the record to December 26. Several New York radio stations - including WMCA, WINS and WABC - began playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on its release day, and the Beatlemania that had started in Washington was duplicated in New York and quickly spread to other markets. The disc was an immediate success on New York radio, especially with school children, who, because they were on Christmas break, heard the record more frequently in daytime than they would have otherwise. The record sold one million copies in just 10 days, and by January 16 Cashbox Magazine had certified The Beatles record #1 (in the edition published with the cover-date January 23). The record had thus been number one for three weeks prior to The Beatles' arrival in America, contributing to the hysterical fan reaction at JFK Airport on February 7, 1964. The Beatlemania that had been rapidly growing within the United States since late December was immeasurably boosted with the three consecutive national television appearances by the group on The Ed Sullivan Show. A record-breaking 73 million viewers — approximately 40% of the US population at the time — tuned in to the first Sullivan appearance on February 9. This remains (by percentage of population) one of the largest viewing audiences ever in the US. The band had become a worldwide phenomenon, with worshipful fans and angry denunciations by cultural observers and established performers such as Frank Sinatra, sometimes on grounds of the music (which was thought crude and unmusical) or their appearance (their hair was considered 'scandalously long'). Despite the naysayers, during the week of April 4, 1964 The Beatles held the top five places on the Billboard Hot 100, a feat that has never been repeated. In mid-1964 the band undertook their first appearances outside of Europe and North America - touring Australia and New Zealand. Just before the tour began, Starr was briefly hospitalised with a severe attack of pharyngitis, so a session drummer named Jimmy Nicol was drafted in for several concerts on the Australian leg. When they arrived in Adelaide, The Beatles were greeted by what is reputed to be the largest crowd of their touring career, when over 300,000 people — about one-third of the entire population of the city at that time — turned out to see them. In September of that year, baseball owner Charles O. Finley paid the band the unheard of sum of $150,000 to play in Kansas City, MO, the most ever paid to a single act for one performance. In 1965 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II officially bestowed upon them the MBE, a civic honour nominated by the Prime Minister of the day - at that time Harold Wilson. The MBE award - at that time primarily given to military veterans and civic leaders - sparked some conservative MBE recipients to return their awards in protest. On August 15 of that year, The Beatles performed at the first stadium concert in modern rock, playing at Shea Stadium to a crowd of 56,000. Lennon, Harrison, and Starr began experimenting with LSD later that year. Lennon and Harrison were given their first dose (without their knowledge) at a dinner party when their host (a dentist) spiked their drinks, while Starr took his first trip at a party with Peter Fonda and members of The Byrds. McCartney followed suit in November 1966. In July 1966, an out-of-context re-printing of a comment from a serious interview caused a backlash against The Beatles from religious and social conservatives in the Bible Belt of the US. In a serious interview in a respected British newspaper, Lennon had offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that the group was in some respects "more popular than Jesus" - something he referred to as a topic that should cause concern and consideration. Viewing the comment divorced from its original context, many religious groups, including the Holy See, voiced strong objections, and Beatles records were banned and burned in many cities and towns across America (primarily in the South) and from countries such as South Africa. These events, along with threats from racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, eventually forced Lennon to apologise for his remarks several times, including at a Chicago press conference. Lennon tried to point out that he was merely commenting on the Beatlemania phenomenon, not trying to literally equate the group to Jesus, saying about his own comment that "It was wrong, or it was taken wrong." The Beatles performed their last concert before paying fans in Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29 August 1966. From this time until the group dissolved in early 1970, The Beatles concentrated on recording music. The group's compositions and musical experiments raised their artistic reputations while they retained their tremendous popularity. However, The Beatles' situation took a turn for the worse when manager Brian Epstein died in August 1967 at the age of 32, and the band's affairs began to unravel. Just two months earlier, on June 25th 1967, The Beatles became the first band ever globally transmitted on television, in front of an estimated 400 million people worldwide. The Beatles were a segment within the first-ever worldwide TV satellite hook-up - a show titled Our World. The Beatles' contribution was transmitted live from the EMI Studios at Abbey Road in London, and their Song All You Need Is Love was recorded live during the show. Among The Beatles' personal friends in the studio that day (seen by TV viewers) were Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Eric Clapton and Keith Moon. At the end of 1967, they received their first major press criticism in the UK with negative reviews of their surrealistic TV film Magical Mystery Tour. In 1968, the group spent the early part of the year in Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh, India studying transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Starr left India after a week, and McCartney after a month. The trip as a whole ended in controversy after three months when unsubstantiated claims that the Maharishi had attempted to seduce a female student at the camp led to the departure of the two remaining Beatles. Upon their return, Lennon and McCartney took a trip to New York in order to announce the formation of Apple Corps, an initially altruistic business venture which they described at the time as an attempt at "western communism". The latter part of 1968 saw the band busy recording the double album The Beatles, popularly known as The White Album due to its stark white cover. These sessions saw deep divisions opening within the band for the first time. Their final live performance was on the rooftop of the Apple building in Savile Row, London in January 1969 during the difficult "Get Back" sessions (later used as a basis for the Let It Be album). Largely due to McCartney's efforts, they recorded their final album, Abbey Road in the summer of 1969. The band officially broke up in April 1970, and one month later Let It Be followed as their last commercial album release. Following the breakup, the only album to feature all four Beatles (although not on the same song) was Ringo, a 1973 Starr solo album. Any hopes of a reunion were dashed when Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman, a mentally-ill fan, on December 8, 1980. However, a virtual reunion occurred in 1995 with the release of two original Lennon recordings which had the additional contributions of the remaining Beatles mixed in to create two hit singles, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love". Three volumes (six CDs in total) of unreleased material and studio outtakes were also released, as well as a documentary and television miniseries, in a project known as The Beatles Anthology. On December 15, 2005, McCartney and Starr, along with the families of Lennon and Harrison (who died 29 November 2001) sued EMI in a royalties dispute in which Apple Corps claimed EMI owes The Beatles £30 million. Studio style evolution Many observers have noted that understanding the success of The Beatles and their music begins and ends with an appreciation for the diverse ways in which they (especially Lennon and McCartney) blended their voices as instruments. The role of producer George Martin is often cited as a crucial element in the success of The Beatles. He used his experience to bring out the potential in the group, recognising and nurturing their creativity rather than imposing his views. His earlier production experience, ranging from acts such as Jimmy Shand to comedy recordings with members of The Goons, is said to have prepared him for the open-minded, sometimes experimental studio approach The Beatles developed as they became more experienced. Martin's work on solo projects with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan of The Goons impressed The Beatles, who were fans. Martin later said he was initially attracted to the group because they were "very charming people". In 1966, at the height of their fame and bolstered by the two films A Hard Day's Night and Help!, the band stopped touring. Performing for thousands of fans whose screaming typically drowned out the music had led to disillusionment and they decided to retire from touring and concentrate on making records. Their demands to create new sounds with every recording, personal experiments with psychedelic drugs and the studio expertise of EMI staff engineers including Norman Smith, Ken Townshend and Geoff Emerick all played significant parts in the innovative qualities of the albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), all of which still regularly appear in critics' listings of the best albums ever made. While most recording artists of the time were satisfied with using two, three or four tracks in the studio, The Beatles began to use linked pairs of four-track decks, and ping-ponging tracks two and three times became common. (EMI delayed the introduction of eight-track recording, already becoming common in American studios, until 1968 at Abbey Road.) Along with studio tricks such as sound effects, unconventional microphone placements, automatic double tracking and vari-speed recording, The Beatles began augmenting their recordings using instruments considered unconventional for pop music at the time, including string and brass ensembles, Indian instruments such as the sitar and the swarmandel, tape loops and early electronic instruments, including John Lennon's Mellotron (later used by many progressive acts such as The Moody Blues, King Crimson and Genesis) and George Harrison's Moog Synthesizer. The group gradually took greater charge of their own productions and McCartney's growing dominance in this role, especially after the death of Epstein, played a part in the eventual split of the group. Internal divisions within the band had been a small but growing problem during their earlier career; most notably, this was reflected in the difficulty that George Harrison experienced in getting his own songs onto Beatles albums, and in the growing artistic and personal estrangement between Lennon and McCartney. Drug use, personal factors and, above all, the unrelenting pressures and demands of their worldwide fame inevitably intensified these stresses. By the time of the sessions for The Beatles ("The White Album"), released in late 1968, the once close-knit members were clearly drifting apart both musically and personally. Several tracks were cut as de facto solo recordings by the principal composer, with the other band members more or less relegated to the role of session musician. This isolation is probably most notable on "Revolution 9", a wildly experimental John Lennon/Yoko Ono concoction of tape loops, "found sounds", and other studio trickery that the other Beatles reportedly despised and tried to keep off the album. However Paul McCartney also dabbled in avant-garde music and it was McCartney who had the strongest interest in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose "Hymnen" was heavily influential on "Revolution 9." Early Beatles use of "tape loops" on "Tomorrow Never Knows" were assembled primarily by McCartney. Despite the avant-garde "Revolution 9," "The White Album" was largely an abandonment of the heavily-synthesised and overdubbed psychedelic style the group had created with "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" in early 1967, continued through "Sgt. Pepper" and "Magical Mystery Tour," and a return to more conventionally-structured rock songs which could actually be performed by the band on stage. Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" even featured an outside musician (his friend Eric Clapton) performing the guitar solo; Clapton was reportedly brought in as the result of a bitter dispute between Harrison and Lennon, who at the time was reportedly considering sacking Harrison from the band. (Lennon declined -- or was not asked -- to play any instrumental parts on most of Harrison's songs on "The White Album.") The friction eventually drove Starr to take a two-week hiatus (this is generally reported as him temporarily quitting the band). During this time McCartney played drums on some of the tracks on the album, including "Back in the USSR," on which he also overdubbed most of the lead guitar parts. McCartney, the most technically adept guitarist in the band, had played lead guitar solos on selected songs as far as 1966's "Taxman" (ironically, a Harrison composition). McCartney's ability, or tendency, to tell (or show) the other members how to play their instruments, resulted in understandable friction at times (captured during one sarcastic exchange between Harrison and McCartney on the Let It Be film, the band's next project). The rapidly deteriorating relationships marred the troubled Get Back sessions in January 1969 — Lennon later colourfully denounced them as being the worst recordings of their career — and the project was made even more stressful by the presence of a film crew hired to capture the proceedings for a planned movie (which eventually became the Let It Be documentary). By this time another very significant factor had emerged — Lennon's passionate affair with Japanese artist Yoko Ono. The couple quickly became inseparable and Lennon further alienated the other Beatles by bringing Ono to almost every recording session, breaking the band's long-standing rule against outsiders at sessions. Due to the adverse reporting of this situation in later years, Ono came to be singled out as "the woman who broke up the Beatles" (although after Lennon's death, the surviving three Beatles denied Ono's presence had been a major influence in the breakup, rather one of a number of factors which had combined to cause the split). However, the band's differences were more or less put aside later in the year for the recording of what became their valedictory album, Abbey Road, which the group later recalled as being among the most enjoyable of their career. While "The White Album" and the original "Get Back" sessions emphasised a return to basic pop-rock song structures, Abbey Road took a step back in the direction of glossy production, although this time primarily consisting of instrumental backing produced by the classically-trained George Martin to help mold together disparate song fragments into a unified, orchestral suite in the tradition of classical compositions. Abbey Road featured considerable use of synthesisers, but usually in more conventional musical contexts rather than as a source for bizarre and unusual sound effects. The first side consisted of individual songs, including exceptionally strong pieces by each band member (Lennon's "Come Together," "Something" by Harrison, and even a very passable offering by Starr, "Octopus's Garden"). While the oft-noted "Golden Slumbers Suite" which ended the album (and, effectively, the group's career) was mainly McCartney's work, all four members were highly satisfied with the album overall. By the end of 1969 both Lennon and McCartney had effectively left the band and the only piece of unfinished business was the as-yet unreleased "Get Back" project. The Beatles had been very unhappy with the original tapes from the "Get Back" sessions (produced as usual by George Martin), and for some time it looked as if the material would be scrapped altogether. After a delay of several months, legendary American producer Phil Spector was brought in to edit, remix and overdub the tapes, and his heavily-orchestrated "Wall of Sound" production characterised the eventual release of the "Let It Be" album, released in early 1970 nearly a year after the group had ceased to function on an active basis. By this time, Lennon and Harrison had effectively decided to leave the band. McCartney made the move official at the start of 1970 when he began legal proceedings to dissolve the band's business partnership. Each Beatle went on to successful solo careers. Source : Wikipedia.org

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