Beatles FAQ

  None of The Beatles had a background in classical music. 

Always intensely competitive, The Beatles monitored the output of their rivals closely. None came close to matching their commercial success. Why Dylan loomed large For The Beatles record sales this was not the only criteria that mattered. Above all, they wanted to impress their peers: especially those young people in Liverpool and London who were also avid readers of the music press, buyers of imported records and habitues of the coolest clubs.   Of their direct competitors, Bob Dylan loomed largest. Lennon later conceded that their British rivals never felt like too much of a threat. They liked The  Stones, The Who and the Kinks and would sometimes borrow their innovations - the guitar sound on You Really Got Me for, for example. But they never doubted that they would lose their top spot in the NME poll. Dylan was different. For a start, he was American and this automatically gave his status an uplift. They believed him to be authentic In some respects he represented mu...

The first meeting of The Beatles and Bob Dylan was in a room at the Delmonico Hotel in New York on Friday 28 August 1964.

John Lennon was very short-sighted but in his teens refused to wear spectacles in public.

 John Lennon was later embarrassed about the source of one of his contributions to the Abbey Road medley. It was based on a newspaper story he read early in 1967.

 

On 29 September, I967, John Lennon worked with George Martin and the Abbey Road sound engineers on a potential new Beatles single.

Reluctant Santas: Beatles Christmas Show at the Cavern 1961 December 1961 brought a packed gigging schedule.  Christmas boiled dow to to a single day off for turkey and flopping on the sofa in paper hats. On December 9th The Beatles signed contracts appointing Brian Epstein as their new manager. Epstein then gave each a pointed Christmas gift — a travel alarm clock. Attached was a business card with the message: ‘My little bit to get you all on time.’ This alluded to their chaotic timekeeping — Paul McCartney had infamously been having a bath during one crucial meeting. But as Lewisohn points out, it offered hope that they would be ‘going places’. Christmas 1961 — Beatles upstaged by BOXING NIGHT On December 27, the coldest night in a decade, The Cavern held a Beatles Christmas Party. It got off to a rocky start when Pete Best phoned in sick. Who could stand in on the sticks? Well, there was their new pal from Hamburg, who happened to have a night off from Hurricane dutie...

In December 1960 The Beatles returned to Liverpool from Hamburg, where they had built a reputation as a live act.  This earned them a prestigious new date for 27 December 1960 as the headliners at the Litherland Town Hall Ballroom. This was arranged by the influential local DJ, Bob Wooler — months later the victim of an infamous assault by John Lennon. Wooler announced them on stage in typically hyperbolic fashion: Direct from Hamburg — the sensational BEATLES The performers on stage were dressed in black leathers and drainpipe trousers. They had American guitars and amps and seemed from another more exotic world. Some in the crowd were amazed that these strange Germans spoke to the audience in fluent Scouse speakers, . To a roar from the packed hall, Paul launched into Little Richard's Long Tall Sally. 

British album releases generally did not include singles