Beatles FAQ

The Beatles first played the Cavern on February 9, 1961: a lunchtime session for which they were paid £5. Despite lengthy absences in Hamburg, they would do over 290 more gigs there over the next two years. On Good Friday, 12 April, 1963, they gave their penultimate performance there, returning in triumph as national chart toppers. This was widely assumed to be their farewell to the tiny venue. But an obscure contractual obligation to a local promoter brought them back to do one more date down those cellar steps. Final Cavern Gig Their last performance was on Saturday, August 3rd, 1963. It would prove a chaotic swansong.  The crowds outside were going mad. By the time John Lennon had got through the cordon of girls, his mohair jacket had lost a sleeve. I grabbed it to stop a girl getting away with a souvenir. John stitched it back on. Read full story    Why did The Beatles Stop Performing Live ?

On the 22nd August 1969, The Beatles completed their final official engagement.  

​ 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,...