Beatles FAQ

The final recording Beatles' sessions for  Abbey Road was on Wednesday, 20 August. Various tracks were finished, including 'Here Comes the Sun' and, fittingly, 'The End'. All four Beatles attended Two days later, they completed their final official engagement - a photoshoot at the new Lennon-Ono residence, Tittenhurst Park in Ascot - see here .   There were lighter moments.  John and Yoko led a couple of donkeys from a nearby stable to join the fun. Even a mystified George managed a smile, albeit from a safe distance. The Last Picture Show - surreal final Beatles photoshoot  - Medium free 5 min read. How the Beatles Broke up - fateful last meeting attended by John, Paul and Ringo (George was visiting his gravely ill mother in Liverpool) .

​ Ringo never aspired to be a principal songwriter for The Beatles but he does have two  sole writing credits.

Freddie Lennon in the mid 1960s

The room above the Bambi Kino cinema George Harrison was seventeen when he first arrived in Hamburg in August 1960. Though the legal age limit for performers was eighteen, club  owner Bruno Koschmider was initially unconcerned.  It was when The Beatles jumped ship to work at the bigger Top Ten that Koschmider found his conscience stirred. He then informed the police of his shocking discovery. Those devious Englishmen had an underage performer in their ranks . pen & ink sketch of Hamburg club owner Bruno Koschmider (1926-2000) The police duly deported Harrison on November 21. The guitarist spent his last night teaching John Lennon his parts before reluctantly packing a " crappy suitcase and things in boxes, paper bags with my clothes in, and a guitar." Homeward bound The logistics of getting home proved challenging, as George related in Anthology: Astrid and Stuart dropped me at Hamburg station. It was a long journey on my own on the train to the Hook of Holland. From ...

Throughout his life, George celebrated his birthday on February 25th. But in the early 1990s, there were claims of a newly discovered 'hospital document'. 

Four years after his recording debut, David Bowie had still made little progress. Despite a name change and several changes of musical style, he remained a fringe figure. Convinced that Deram (Decca) was mismanaging his career, Bowie was looking for a new label. In the spring of 1968, The Beatles announced the formation of Apple Records, a new label for ‘creatives’. Bowie immediately instructed his then-manager, Kenneth Pitt, to submit an audition tape. Swamped As a signed artist with a major label, Bowie might have expected an automatic hearing. Unfortunately, however, Apple's offer had backfired. The new label was besieged by aspiring musicians, managers, agents, artists, and hucksters. All were clamouring for an audition.    A further complication was that the new label would only recruit new talent with the agreement of all four (endlessly squabbling) Beatles. The office was filled with a mountain of demo tapes. From an early stage, any attempt to listen to them wa...

 Outside the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne, June 1964. An estimated 300,000 greeted The Beatles in Melbourne in June 1964. The Queen had only attracted half that number the preceding year. Aussie Beatlemania was particularly intense for the Melbourne stop because it marked the return of Ringo.  The drummer had been hospitalised a few days before the start of the tour. This had caused consternation amongst Beatle fans, but now he was climbing off his sickbed in London to join his buddies down under. Down Under It proved a difficult journey.  The flight was horrendous... It’s... a hell of a long way. I remember the plane felt like a disaster area to me. Fans clearly thought the effort worthwhile. Replacement drummer, Jimmy Nichol was less thrilled. He was sent back to London and obscurity, after a few weeks in the celebrity sun - read more .

The best-known interpretation of a Beatles song was performed sensationally at Woodstock in 1969. On Sgt. Pepper With a Little Help From My Friends is a charming sing-along, ideally suited to Ringo's vocal range.  Joe Cocker takes it to a different place. Paul's opinion Paying tribute to the late Sheffield singer, Paul McCartney said:   I remember him and [producer]  Denny Cordell  coming round to the studio and  Saville Row  and playing me what they recorded. It was just mind-blowing. He totally turned the song into a soul anthem, and I was forever grateful to him for doing that."

Photo by Saubhagya gandharv on Unsplash George Harrison’s first serious attempt at an ‘Indian’ composition had the unpromising working title of “Granny Smith”. George revealed his 'difficulty with words' in an interview with Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard in February 1966. Beautiful Words? He wishes he could write fine songs like Lennon and McCartney do, but he has difficulty with the words. “Pattie keeps asking me to write more beautiful words,” he said. He played his newest composition… ’Love me while you can: before I’m a dead old man…’ George was aware that these words were not beautiful. Evening Standard readers may have had the impression that “Love You To” was a love song celebrating George’s recent marriage to new Pattie (Boyd). The couple had, after all, just returned from a honeymoon in the (then) impossibly glamorous Barbados. Perhaps more pertinent, however, was another Maureen Cleave’s observation from the same interview. Indian music and culture,...

Pete Best was The Beatles' drummer from August 1960 until August 1962. He was with them in Hamburg and at their first Abbey Road recording session.  Best also played an important role in establishing The Beatles' popularity in Hamburg and Liverpool, but had a slightly distant relationship with the others. By the summer of 1962, the other Beatles were plotting against him. Using the pretext that George Martin had rejected his drumming as substandard, they approached Ringo Starr, an old friend of the band from Hamburg. Read the full story behind the sacking of Best (free on Medium 6 mins)