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The English ROCK MUSIC group The Beatles
gave the 1960s its characteristic musical flavor and had a
profound influence on the course of popular music, equaled
by few performers. The guitarists John Winston Lennon, b.
Oct. 9, 1940; James Paul McCartney, b. June 18, 1942; and
George Harrison, b. Feb. 25, 1943; and the drummer Ringo Starr,
b. Richard Starkey, July 7, 1940, were all born and raised
in Liverpool. Lennon and McCartney had played together in
a group called The Quarrymen. With Harrison, they formed their
own group, The Silver Beatles, in 1959, and Starr joined them
in 1962. As The Beatles, they developed a local following
in Liverpool clubs, and their first recordings, "Love
Me Do" (1962) and "Please Please Me" (1963),
quickly made them Britain's top rock group. Their early music
was influenced by the American rock singers Chuck BERRY and
Elvis PRESLEY, but they infused a hackneyed musical form with
freshness, vitality, and wit.
The release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1964
marked the beginning of the phenomenon known as "Beatlemania"
in the United States. The Beatles' first U.S. tour aroused
a universal mob adulation. Their concerts were scenes of mass
worship, and their records sold in the millions. Their first
film, the innovative A Hard Day's Night (1964), was received
enthusiastically by a wide audience that included many who
had never before listened to rock music.
Composing their own material (Lennon and McCartney were the
major creative forces), The Beatles established the precedent
for other rock groups to play their own music. Experimenting
with new musical forms, they produced an extraordinary variety
of songs: the childishly simple "Yellow Submarine";
the bitter social commentary of "Eleanor Rigby";
parodies of earlier pop styles; new electronic sounds; and
compositions that were scored for cellos, violins, trumpets,
and sitars, as well as for conventional guitars and drums.
Some enthusiasts cite the albums Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver
(1966) as the apex of Beatle art, although Sergeant Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), perhaps the first rock album
designed thematically as a single musical entity, is more
generally considered their triumph. The group disbanded in
1970, after the release of their final album, Let It Be, to
pursue individual careers. On Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was
fatally shot in New York City. In 1991, Paul McCartney's classical
composition Liverpool Oratorio was performed to some acclaim
in Britain and the United States.
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