“When they were good they were very very good, but when they were bad they were horrid.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (slightly modified)
We’re coming up to another Make-Money-Off-Of-The-Beatles season (more details below) so a few things need to be said about the group. Millions of words have been written about The Beatles in newspapers, magazines, books, and on websites, most of it laudatory. I have read dozens of those books and listened carefully to all of their music, and have concluded that there are some things about the Beatles phenomenon which are rarely talked about but which need to be said, including some things that are anything but laudatory:
1. THE BAD – As individuals the Beatles were not always charming and wonderful, and approximately half of their albums contain mediocre to good music (with the occasional very good track) but for the most part nothing that could be called great. Then there are the terrible tracks, such as I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and Why Don’t We Do It In The Road. Furthermore, they were politically far behind many other groups at a very political period of time.
2. THE GOOD – Three of their thirteen studio albums contain music that is as good as or better than the best classical, jazz or world music I have ever heard (and I have heard a lot). The Beatles were able to combine an incredible degree of talent, obsessive perfectionism, and an exceptional ability to think outside the box musically, and create music no one else can touch. Their cultural influence was also enormous. They were pioneers in many ways, they contributed to the recordings of hundreds of others, revolutionized recording methods and music films, and created Apple Corps to try and reform capitalism.
3. THE WRONG – Various myths and misinformation about The Beatles need to be corrected. This won’t take long.
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A. THE BAD
In general The Beatles had incredible fame (though not necessarily because of anything they did, with the exception of Paul), and though their mainstream cultural influence was considerable, politically they were behind most of their contemporaries. Paul was conservative, and George and Ringo were not interested in such matters. John attempted to make some political statements at press conferences but they were ignored. As musicians / composers, at their peak they were incomparable but as political forces they were laughable. Paul (and George Martin and Brian Epstein) made sure they were safe politically as far as parents are concerned. The Beatles as the safe ones versus the Rolling Stones as the dangerous ones was largely a media myth contrived to sell newspapers but their respective songs came to reinforce that myth.
Here are ten recordings by people contemporary with The Beatles all of which are more politically insightful than anything The Beatles ever did: Five to One (The Doors), Black Day in July (Gordon Lightfoot), Democracy (Leonard Cohen), Salt of the Earth (The Rolling Stones), Living on a Thin Line (The Kinks), Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), Masters of War (Bob Dylan), Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane), For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield) and Safe in My Garden (The Mamas and The Papas).
John Lennon wrote Imagine about “no possessions” sitting in his mansion. He was a comfortable white male radical. On the other hand President Nixon worked hard to get him deported because of his political statements. Of course it wasn’t his fault that he was privileged, famous and rich, not to mention male and white, as long as he acknowledged it. The great political radicalism some praised him for was also not particularly substantive. He was unable to put together any worthwhile political analysis. He discussed political science with the noted Marxist theorist Tariq Ali but confessed that the conversations didn’t last long because he couldn’t understand what Ali was on about. He also fashioned himself a working class hero but he was more middle class (lower) than working class.
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2. Paul McCartney was pretty lightweight politically. He did a pro-Irish independence song only because Lennon had done one first. He was engaged to well-established and talented actor Jane Asher but broke it off because he wanted her to give up her career if she married him and she refused. McCartney was also fine with crossing a strike line when the teachers at a nearby school went out on strike. He desperately wanted to be avant-garde but he only dabbled in it while Lennon took it seriously. McCartney also wanted to be accepted by the British upper class and he happily accepted a knighthood, something none of the others would have done. All four Beatles were all awarded their MBE’s (Members of the British Empire) from the Queen but John later sent his back. McCartney was desperately jealous of John’s aggression and confidence.
By my estimate McCartney had a bit more pure musical talent than Lennon but that’s not enough. Lennon was the better lyricist. McCartney was also more mainstream than Lennon, and less imaginative. Lennon really was the legitimate de facto leader of The Beatles. Since Lennon’s assassination he has been promoted to sainthood, unjustifiably, and that must piss McCartney off. Lennon also openly and viciously attacked McCartney (with the song How Do You Sleep? with George Harrison on guitar) but McCartney never openly retaliated. His response was more covert.
McCartney and Lennon had also agreed early on to officially label any songs they wrote as Lennon / McCartney compositions, even if only one of them had done the bulk of the work. After Lennon’s death McCartney pointed out that the song Yesterday was the most covered Beatles song of them all and was arguably their most popular song, that McCartney wrote the song completely on his own, and said that he would simply like the record to show that it was a McCartney / Lennon song. He wasn’t asking that Lennon’s name be removed, just that it appear second. It sounds kind of reasonable but it also sounds kind of petty. You be the judge.
Of all The Beatles McCartney has been the most ambitious by far. His recording Mull of Kintyre sold more copies than any record of The Beatles. He has recorded 39 albums (the last one in 2020) including several featuring large scale classical works. There are more than 2200 cover versions of his song Yesterday and in 2015 McCartney was worth 1.241 billion Canadian dollars.
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3. George Harrison, like Lennon, was much more of a risk-taker than McCartney, in imbibing hallucinogens and later embracing religion in an increasingly secular world. Harrison was a devout follower of Hinduism, a religion that believes, for example, in delegating some people to horrendous lives of deprivation (The Dalit caste) for supposed sins in past lives. At least Lennon had the good sense to be an atheist.
Much has been made of the fact that Lennon and McCartney were so talented and dominant in The Beatles that Harrison usually got only one or two compositions per Beatles album. Yes, I would place Harrison’s song Within You, Without You on the list of the ten greatest Beatles tracks. Yes, some of Harrison’s songs with The Beatles, like Taxman and Something, were good. He also introduced sophisticated classical Indian elements into the Beatles’ repertoire. However, most of his compositions were mediocre at best. I kept buying Harrison’s solo albums and being disappointed. I can name a dozen McCartney or Lennon songs, recorded as solo artists, that were better than anything Harrison did as a solo artist.
Harrison was also a good guitarist, but was not great. I can name ten others, at least, who I think were better (Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Chet Atkins, Brian May, David Gilmour, Joe Bonamassa, Orianthi, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey and so on, not to mention classical guitarists such as Julian Bream and Liona Boyd). But then again, I’m not a guitarist.
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4. Ringo Starr (whose real name is Richard Starkey) is the most under-rated member of the group, and the most sane. Listen to his drumming on Beatles songs such as A Day in the Life and Rain. It’s brilliant. He also took lead vocals on at least one track per Beatles album and he even composed several songs recorded by the Beatles and contributed, as composer, to others. Lennon prided himself on being a Working Class Hero but Starr really was working class. He grew up in the slums of Liverpool (an area known as Dingle). He was not as sophisticated or articulate as the others but I identify with him somewhat. He, like me, spent a great deal of his childhood in hospitals – we’re talking years. He, like me, didn’t learn to read at school, but while sick at home. I taught myself how to read, Starr did the same, with some help from his babysitter, Mary Maguire. Ringo was not just a much better drummer than Pete Best (the drummer he replaced just before Beatlemania exploded), his personality was a far greater asset to the group than Best’s. Starr had the most justification for being angry, bitter and aggressive over his lot in life growing up but he was the most optimistic, uncomplicated, happy and confident member of the group long before the group was famous. Good on him.
B. THE GOOD
It would be good to remember not just that The Beatles made stadia full of teenagers scream, but that they also created ground-breaking complex musical masterpieces, attempted to civilize unregulated capitalism (Apple Corps) which is an impossible task, encouraged a lot of people to think about important things, expanded our musical horizons, came up with important new recording studio techniques, and made an enormous number of people optimistic and happier.
The first Beatles’ album I bought was Sgt. Pepper, recorded when they were at the peak of their creative power. Before that I was listening to and playing Bach’s fugues with up to four intertwining melodies, and Brubeck compositions with their complex rhythms and atypical time signatures. Blockbuster Beatles hits like She Loves You and A Hard Day’s Night I found boring. My point is that my high praise of their later musicality is not an exaggerated response from a teenage Beatlemaniac for whom everything The Beatles did was perceived automatically as wonderful. The first Beatle track that caught my ear was In My Life ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBcdt6DsLQA&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic ) and when I heard the single Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8&ab_channel=TheBeatlesVEVO ) I realized for the first time that there was more to The Beatles than met the ear. Anyone who can’t see how innovative this single was, whether you like it or not, is musically limited. I had overlooked their previous album, Revolver, completely and that was the record that spawned Rock Music from the ashes of pop, and rock and roll.
The Beatles released an early concept album with Sgt. Pepper. It was such a breakthrough that people almost got a little tired of the praise for it and started to say it was over-rated. Forget all that, and forget the imperfect people who created it, and just do an objective assessment of its musical quality and innovation in the context of its time and it gets incredibly high marks.
In their day The Beatles composed and recorded music in an amazing range of musical styles, including hard rock (Birthday), light pop (Eight Days a Week), love ballads (Michelle), good old Rock and Roll (I’m Down), a lullaby (Good Night), a sonic montage (Abbey Road second side), novelty music (Yellow Submarine), world music (Within You Without You), baroque (Eleanor Rigby – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gluNoLVKiQ&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic ), experimental / musique concrete (Tomorrow Never Knows), psychedelic rock (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), progressive rock (I Am The Walrus), music hall (Honey Pie), ballad (The Ballad of John and Yoko), blues (Yer Blues), folk rock (Mother Nature’s Son), punk rock (Why Don’t We Do It In The Road), calypso (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da), dirge / lament (Julia), honky tonk (Rocky Raccoon), avant-garde / sound collage (Revolution 9), children’s music (All Together Now), punk rock (Helter Skelter), and country (What Goes On).
They used carefully constructed imaginative layered sounds on several tracks (Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite, Lovely Rita, I Am the Walrus), and explored Third Stream effects combining contemporary rock with music hall (When I’m Sixty-Four, Your Mother Should Know) and classical (Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane) styles of music, they sometimes did away with the traditional architecture of popular recordings, they would often insert extra beats in such a natural way that they went unnoticed while improving the overall effect (Blackbird, A Day in the Life), and they played with time signatures (All You Need is Love, Happiness is a Warm Gun). Some have judged the final track on Sgt. Pepper to be the greatest rock song ever recorded. It sort of sounds minor but it’s in a major key, it’s really two songs in one, and it was banned on the BBC. I have no idea how likely it is that you have heard the track but if you haven’t, here it is ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSGHER4BWME&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic ).
KAOHSIUNG HARBOUR AT SUNRISE
By Yu-Jheng Fang – Morning on the ferry, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79935929
If you were to note the number of beats per bar in most pieces of Western music you would get just one long string of fours (or threes if it was a waltz). Any slight variation is unusual. Here is what you get with the Beatles’ track Good Morning Good Morning (and yet the song flows naturally): 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 2 4 3 2 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 2 then each four beat bar (assuming a quarter note for each beat) gets 12 eighth notes (played on a cymbal) per bar, for six bars, then 3 3 4 3 3 2 4 3 2 4 2 3 3 4 4 then the guitar solo – 3 3 2 2 3 3 2, then the twelve eighth notes in four beat bars for six bars again, then 3 3 4 3 3 2 4 3 2 4 3 3, and repeated bars of 4 as the song fades out. Here is the track. See if you can follow the pattern I’ve set down above – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjb9AxDkwAQ .
A second track that I think is full of musical surprises, fascinating layers and a bit of King Lear is I Am the Walrus which has probably been overlooked because it was part of the horribly embarrassing Beatle disaster known as the film ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. I include it here – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSGHER4BWME&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic ).
The Beatles also wrote songs about a wide range of topics besides teenage lust. Some of their most thoughtful well-crafted songs talk about single mother poverty (Lady Madonna), runaways (She’s Leaving Home), domestic abuse (Getting Better), the failure of Christianity (Eleanor Rigby), the unnatural early death of a parent (Julia), Black Power (Blackbird), the love of nature (Mother Nature’s Son), death (She Said, She Said), Hinduism (The Inner Light), empty lives (Nowhere Man), the hallucinogenic experience (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), a surreal circus (Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite), metaphysical universal well-being (Across the Universe), friendship (Two Of Us), a serial killer (Maxwell’s Silver Hammer), the terror felt by a young boy whose parents are breaking up (Hey Jude), levels of reality (A Day in the Life) and The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Tomorrow Never Knows). Even as solo artists The Beatles wrote songs about The Troubles (Give Ireland Back to the Irish), old age (Treat Her Gently / Lonely Old People), heroin withdrawal (Cold Turkey) and working class insurrection / revolution (Power to the People).
The Beatles were pioneers, being the first band of any note:
- – to perform in a stadium rather than just a theatre or club (the Shea Stadium concert 1965 was the highest grossing concert of all time up to that point, with the largest audience up to them – 55 000 people, introduced by Ed Sullivan – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6DfG7sml-Q&ab_channel=TheBeatles )
- – to play for an international audience via communication satellite – Our World – June 25, 1967 – All You Need is Love – live not lip-synched – with an audience of 600 million people.
- – to compose most of their own material, unheard of at the time
- – to create innovative studio techniques: building a recording from a series of short tape loops, using guitar feedback (I Feel Fine), backmasking, i.e. playing a musical clip in reverse (Rain, I’m Only Sleeping). They encouraged the people they worked with to be innovative as well. Normal double tracking is when you play two different versions of a vocal track together so the small variations between the two sounds create an overall denser sound which is better than simply taking one tape, copying that perfectly, and combining the two identical duplicates. Their audio engineer Ken Townsend invented a way of creating automatic double tracks by taking a vocal track and adding an identical second copy to the first but with about 100 milliseconds in between the tapes so they were ever so slightly out of sync. For example, on I’m Only Sleeping the lyric “lift my head” is a normal single track followed by “I’m still yawning” with automatic double tracking added – the song also features backmasking ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT5j9OQ7Sh0&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic )
- – to film rock music videos
- – to star in a musical feature film that was of high quality instead of those terrible old American rock and roll films that saw the music purely as a profit generator
- – to introduce Indian instrumentation into Western pop music. Norwegian Wood was the first Western pop song to feature a sitar then Steely Dan, The Moody Blues, The Rolling Stones, Traffic and other bands followed suit.
- – to use unusual and elaborate album cover art – not just a group photo plus title (including their controversial suppressed butchered babies cover, and the full frontal male and female nudity of Two Virgins).
- – to include the lyrics to an album’s songs (Sgt. Pepper)
- – to create their own music / film company, Apple Corps, in an attempt to maintain creative control and negotiate fairer contracts than those imposed by the big music business corporations. Other musicians then followed their example (Led Zeppelin – Swan Song Records, Jefferson Airplane – Grunt Records, Leon Russell – Shelter Records and so on). George even started his own record company (Dark Horse) and so did Ringo (Ring O’Records). George also started his own music publishing business (Harrisongs) and so did Ringo (Startling Music).
- – In England the centre of the music industry was London and if you came from the North, you were looked down upon or ignored. The Beatles satirized that prejudice on their track Only a Northern Song. The Beatles opened the door for musicians from Liverpool (e.g. Elvis Costello), Newcastle (e.g. Dire Straits), Manchester (e.g. Oasis), Leeds (e.g. Chumbawamba), and Sheffield (e.g. Joe Cocker, Arctic Monkeys).
- – to include non-musical material (cut-outs, posters and so on) with an album
- – to succeed in the U.S. – Many British musical artists attempted to break into the American market with little or no success but The Beatles were enormously success, opening the door for The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Dave Clark Five, Led Zeppelin, Cream, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Jethro Tull, Traffic and so on.
- – to include guest artists on their recordings. Before The Beatles, if a band wanted to record an album they went into the studio and did so. End of story. Sometimes they used session musicians as well as band members but these were professionals who were paid for their services, and who may not have ever met any of he band members before. They were anonymous though often very talented mercenaries. But then when The Beatles recorded The White Album Harrison invited his good friend Eric Clapton to play a solo on the track While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Clapton was a friend, he was a famous and successful musician in his own right, he played for free. That was unheard of. On their last album The Beatles invited Billy Preston to record with them (keyboards) as a de facto member of the band for the entire album. After that prominent musicians in the hundreds were playing on the records of their friends.
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The Beatles were multi-instrumentalists and talented vocalists. Here are the instruments they played and the vocals they contributed to their records:
JOHN – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo, ukulele, Jew’s harp, harmonica, bass harmonica, piano, electric piano, mellotron, clavioline, harmonium, harpsichord, glockenspiel, organ, snare drum, percussion (tambourine, maracas), tape loops, sound effects, lead vocals, backing vocals, harmony vocals
PAUL – bass guitar, double bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, trumpet, drums, piano, clavichord, electric piano, Lowery and Hammond organs, mellotron, harmonium, recorder, penny whistle, percussion (claves, maracas, cowbell, timpani, hand shake bell), tape loops, sound effects, lead vocals, backing vocals, harmony vocals
GEORGE – electric guitar (six string and twelve string), slide guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, sitar, tambura, swarmandal, harmonica, violin, bass harmonica, Hammond organ, percussion (guiro, maracas, tambourine), tape loops, sound effects, lead vocals, backing vocals, harmony vocals
RINGO – drums, congas, Hammond organ, piano, harmonica, percussion (tambourine, maracas, claves, cowbell, tubular bells, cymbals, shakers, sleigh bells), Arabian loose-skin bongos, tape loops, lead vocal, backing vocals
By Yu-Jheng Fang – Morning on the ferry, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79935929
The Beatles were able to come up with some pretty intricate harmonies instinctively, for example, Because from their final album Abbey Road – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL0tnrl2L_U&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic . All four were also composers. Most Beatles compositions were by John and Paul (138), many were by George alone (22) and Ringo composed on his own (3). John, Paul and Ringo wrote What Goes On, and all four wrote seven tracks together. They use a string quartet on Yesterday, a string octet on Eleanor Rigby, and an orchestra on A Day in the Life. They use various Indian instruments on several tracks (e.g. Norwegian Wood, Love You To). They also covered songs by others on their early records, including songs composed and originally recorded by African-American artists, many of whom had been ignored in their own country because of their race. John was a great fan of Chuck Berry and Paul was a great fan of Little Richard.
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While doing all that they produced high quality material at a prodigious pace and were able to achieve 7 consecutive UK Number Ones, 6 U.S. Number Ones in 1964 (the old record was four), the most U.S. Number One singles of all time, and on April 4, 1964 they had the Number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 positions on the U.S. pop charts. In their spare time they toured extensively.
Musical experts have taken a careful look at Beatle music, particularly from Revolver on because it was mature, complex and innovative, completely different from the earlier music released by a charming quartet of moptops whose audiences consisted of screaming teenage girls and, I presume, a not inconsiderate number of gay young men. In my sixty-five years of listening, analysing and playing thousands of musical works there have been only four times when I have listened to something and when it ended I was speechless, breathless and overwhelmed. The music wasn’t just brilliantly executed and it wasn’t that it was just intricately complex or in your face. In each case the music completely shifted cognitively and philosophically how I perceived an entire musical genre. There were unmediated silly bits ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysDwR5SIR1Q&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic ) and there were serious bits ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsffxGyY4ck&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic ) I had heard something unlike anything else I had heard before. I felt like that after hearing Sgt. Pepper. I came to it without any preconceptions surrounding the members of the band. I was so out of touch with pop music that I didn’t even know the names of the individual Beatles and couldn’t identify who the singers of the songs were. Musicologists have deciphered the complexities and innovations of Beatle recordings though the Beatles themselves were auto-didacts and were aggressively disdainful of the findings of those experts. They had an instinctive suspicion and dislike of any elitist exaggerated intellectual dissection of what they had done. To them music was something emotional, and often joyful and unmediated. It just happened in their case to be both natural and revolutionary, unmediated and complex, which is why it is as good as it is.
It is also often forgotten how much the members of The Beatles encouraged / assisted other artists by composing works for them, playing on their records or producing their work. We’re talking about contributions in the hundreds: They played, they wrote and co-wrote songs, they produced and co-produced, arranged and remixed and conducted many tracks. McCartney also formed his own group (Wings) as did Starr (Ringo Starr’s All-Starrs) and Lennon (The Plastic Ono Band). Even George went on tour with his own band and he was also a member of the band The Traveling Wilburys.
C. WRONG
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2321366
- No, John did not say that The Beatles were better than Jesus though that is what the media reported in the United States, and that led to teenagers en masse in the southern United States taking their Beatles records out and publicly destroying them, spurred on by rabid disc jockeys. It also led to death threats when the band toured large stadia and were easy targets for snipers. Lennon said that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus, and people in Britain either ignored him or thought he might be right, though something like that would be very hard to measure. Some cultures encourage deadly anger whether or not it’s justified. Even if Lennon had said what they thought he said civilized people in democratic societies welcome diverse opinions. No death threats please.
- The manager of The Beatles, Brian Epstein, seemed like a pretty straightforward sort of bloke, an ordinary businessman from the north of England. We don’t hear anything about Brian Epstein’s homosexuality in the early days of Beatlemania, and for good reason. For all but one month out of his entire lifetime Epstein’s homosexuality was illegal in England subject to harsh legal penalties and considerable negative social condemnation. Being homosexual only became legal in England on July 27, 1967 with the royal assent of The Sexual Offences Act and exactly one month later, on August 27, 1967, Brian Epstein passed away.
- Lennon’s marriage was kept secret at first to keep female fan interest in John intense.
- Lennon has been portrayed as a woman beater. John grew up in working class Liverpool in the 1940’s when men beat uncooperative girlfriends and he tried it just once while dating his first wife Cynthia Powell and her negative reaction was so immediate and aggressive he never tried it again. He also co-wrote the misogynist song Run For Your Life and later he openly admitted how wrong he was to have done so. James Brown, Gene Vincent or The Rolling Stones never apologized for worse misogyny, Eric Clapton has never apologized for his racism. David Bowie went through a Nazi phase. Lennon had his faults but don’t start exaggerating them or manufacturing new ones.
- Pete Best, their original drummer, was fired from the group just months before their mega-success, a fact that led to his later suicide attempt. There has been some debate as to who was the better drummer, Pete or Ringo. The evidence is clear, however, that Pete really was inferior to Ringo as a drummer, as the recordings show. Ringo’s personality also fit in with the group much better, and as tough as his background was he also had a great positive outlook on life. Pete was far more aloof and dour.
- Brian Epstein was nice and seen as capable and competent but because he was so nice he was quite incompetent as a manager. Allen Klein attempted to manage The Beatles and he would have made better deals than Epstein but it still would have been disastrous because he would be the greatest benefactor of any of those deals. Profit would also always take precedence over quality in his eyes. McCartney was right about the fact that Allen Klein was not to be trusted.
- George Martin was a bigger part of their success than some people realize. He gave them an audition and a recording contract when others had turned them down. He was a producer, arranger, composer, conductor and musician for them. He produced almost all of The Beatles’ recordings and he played on many of them as well as composing arrangements for them. He was also willing to accommodate and facilitate their sonic explorations. Outside of The Beatles he had produced and composed dozens of highly successful recordings both before and after The Beatles came along.
- From time to time individual Beatles talked about segregation, the War in Vietnam and other controversial topics but they were supposed to be Mop Tops so their comments were never reported. They took drugs, drank alcohol and swore at a time when they were seen as innocent pop singers.
- Lennon’s lengthy Rolling Stone interviews were full of anger and nonsense, much of which was easily fact checked and found to be false. He seemed to hate The Beatles so he attacked everything to do with them. There is some evidence that he was using heroin, and possibly cocaine, at the time.
- The Beatle track Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had a surrealistic atmosphere and once listeners noticed that the initials of the main words in the title spelled out LSD (aka acid) many were convinced that it was a drug song. Lennon always denied this saying that it was inspired by a drawing done by John’s son Julian of a nursery school classmate named Lucy. Years later Paul said that yes the song was inspired by Julian’s painting but it was also meant to describe an acid trip as John and Paul were dropping acid at the time.
- Yoko Ono did not break up The Beatles. I have no use for her work which I view as self-indulgent and uninteresting, but that’s irrelevant. Lennon loved her, her music, and her art. He was completely unwilling to try to understand where the criticism of her by the other Beatles was coming from. On the other hand the other three didn’t like a female invading what they saw as a male domain (the recording studio) either so they were out of line too. John and Paul have always been at least slightly at odds and those differences were widening near the end; that divergence is what caused the group to disband once George also started to veer off in his own direction as well.
The Beatles’ phenomenal worldwide success was in large part due to their abilities as musicians and composers, their sheer hard work, and their engaging personalities, but there was more to it than that. When Beatlemania first surfaced at a concert at Litherland Town Hall in England the music industry soon realized what they had and began to make money off the group. When Capitol Records saw what was happening in England they put a media blitz on the group and shifted into high gear. The American music industry had four things going for it:
- After the October Missile Crisis followed by Kennedy’s assassination the American public needed something escapist, something to smile at.
- The Beatles’ music wasn’t great but it was still quite good, and it was different.
- The Beatles mocked the press at press conferences in a friendly way, they were harmlessly rebellious, engaging and cheeky.
- The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was principled, hardworking, nice and inexperienced. The unprincipled, profit-driven, not nice maniacs at Capitol Records took him, and The Beatles, for a ride
There is a long history of people besides The Beatles themselves making money off of The Beatles. Disney has recently given director Peter Jackson carte blanche to take 56 hours of recordings from the infamous Get Back Beatles sessions which took place fifty-two years ago as the band unravelled, and fashion three two-hour specials to be broadcast on Disney Plus in late November. It will be accompanied by some elaborate, and pricey, merchandise. That McCartney and Starr are still both alive, are looking somewhat younger than they are, and are both behind the project helps. At about the same time a new 50th Anniversary edition of George Harrison’s first solo triple album, All Things Must Pass, will also be released. That edition is available in any of nine, count them, nine different packages utilizing different media, including books and other items, the most expensive package going for $999.98 . There is still enough of a demand, apparently. You see, there are Baby Boomers out there who are getting pretty old and are desperate to relive their youth, and who have had a chance to accumulate the financial wherewithal to buy this stuff. Two things to keep in mind:
- Those Get Back sessions produced only one great song (Let It Be), a couple of good ones (maybe Two of Us and Across the Universe) and a mountain of forgettable fluff. But it was the group’s last hurrah. The fans loved it all uncritically then, and probably will now.
- George’s original All Things Must Pass three record set was a surprise because there was so much half decent material on it but there are only two tracks, IMHO, worth listening to more than a few times (Awaiting On You All and Beware of Darkness). His Beatle tracks Within You Without You and Taxman were better than anything on All Things Must Pass. Remember, only one of The Beatles put out a solo album that went to Number One and also contained two, not just one but two Number One hit singles, something none of the others have ever matched. It wasn’t George. It wasn’t John or Paul either. It was Ringo Starr’s album Ringo.
How influential were The Beatles? Hard to say. As rock music began to take off as adult music as opposed to teenage Pop and Rock And Roll, the genre became exploratory and expanded dramatically. It embraced a wide range of instrumentation, complex and lengthy musical forms and sophisticated lyrics about a wide variety of subjects. Below is a chronological list of fourteen of the more famous examples of rock songs / albums that rise above the usual level of quality and complexity seen in most pop songs. All fourteen were released after The Beatles released their album ‘Revolver’. Twelve of the songs / albums were released after The Beatles released their album ‘Sgt. Pepper’. Some of these later recordings may have been in reaction against The Beatles. Some may have been influenced favourably by them. Draw your own conclusions. Since music has a subjective element to it, you will probably be able to come up with some examples of rock recordings that pre-date ‘Revolver’ which you consider to be more important than ‘Revolver’ or ‘Sgt. Pepper’ in terms of musical substance and innovation but I can’t think of any.
- REVOLVER – released August 5, 1966
- The End – The Doors – released January 4, 1967.
- Canadian Railroad Trilogy – Gordon Lightfoot – released April 1967
- SGT. PEPPER- released May 26, 1967
- Horse Latitudes – The Doors – released September 25, 1967
- The Progress Suite – Chad and Jeremy – released late 1967
- S.F. Sorrow – The Pretty Things – released 1968
- Wheels of Fire – Cream – released August 9, 1968
- In Held ‘Twas In I – Procol Harum – released September 1968
- The Village Green Preservation Society – The Kinks – released November 1968
- Beggars’ Banquet – The Rolling Stones – released December 6, 1968
- Tommy – The Who – released May 23, 1969
- Atom Heart Mother – Pink Floyd – released October 2, 1970
- Aqualung – Jethro Tull – released March 1971
- Sail Away – Randy Newman – released May 1972
- Animals – Pink Floyd – released January 21, 1977
I leave you with another track rarely talked about but which is quietly sinister. The best part is the thirty second bit at the end. It’s in 4 / 4 but every so often they throw in a 2 / 4 bar to keep things unsettled. It is a well-crafted uncomfortable track that is vaguely sinister. It is one of those minor masterpieces, like Hey Bulldog or Lady Madonna, that are so intriguing and which The Beatles were so good at. Here’s the track – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zeyej5bfZE&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic .
By Resampled from digital copy included on The Beatles USB Box Set, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25367440
BEATLES DATA:
1. Recordings
One of the surprising and sometimes overlooked aspects of The Beatles’ activities is the phenomenal rate of high quality output. They were incredibly active musically but were such perfectionists, and they were so musically creative, that the quality of their output remained impressively high. What follows is a fairly short distillation of their creative output. The Wikipedia entries on their discographies as a band and as individuals are massive (particularly for Paul).
THE BEATLES – Please Please Me; With The Beatles; A Hard Day’s Night; Beatles For Sale; Beatles VI; Help!; Rubber Soul; Revolver; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; The Beatles (aka The White Album); Yellow Submarine; Abbey Road; Let It Be; Hey Jude – Live at the Hollywood Bowl; Live at the BBC Vol. 1; Live at the BBC Vol. 2; various compilation albums and box sets; Rarities; Anthology One; Anthology Two; Anthology Three; Let It Be . . . Naked; Love; plus all sorts of other collections put together without input from any of The Beatles (e.g. The Beatles at the Star Club LIVE), plus hundreds of these and slight variations of these but with different local titles and packaging in many countries around the world. There were also 13 Extended Plays and 22 singles originally released in the United Kingdom, and many more released internationally. There have also been limited release Christmas albums, flexi-discs, miscellaneous unusual one offs (e.g. No One’s Gonna Change Our World; Jojo Rabbit) and hundreds of bootlegs. Finally, a huge number of music videos, home videos, television series, documentaries and feature films.
After the Beatles disbanded amongst considerable bitterness between Paul on one side and the other three on the other side, Ringo attempted to act as peacemaker. He released his solo album Ringo and for the first, and only, time all four live Beatles played on the same album after the breakup, at Ringo’s request. As soon as John was killed any second such reunion became impossible. After John was murdered Paul joined with George and Ringo to record the track All Those Years Ago written by George in honour of John, and some years later all three collaborated amicably on the massive Anthology recordings. The only other time that all four Beatles recorded together after the breakup was when, years after John died, Paul, George and Ringo recorded a track (Free As A Bird) incorporating an old vocal recording made by John before he died.
By Resampled from digital copy included on The Beatles USB Box Set, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142095
JOHN LENNON – Two Virgins; Life With The Lions; Wedding Album; John Lennon / The Plastic Ono Band; Imagine; Some Time in New York; Mind Games; Walls and Bridges; Rock ‘N’ Roll; Double Fantasy; Milk and Honey; Live Peace in Toronto 1969; Live in New York City, plus many compilations, box sets, singles, home videos and music videos.
PAUL McCARTNEY – Liverpool Sound Collage; McCartney; Ram; McCartney II; Tug of War; Pipes of Peace; Give My Regards to Broad Street; Press to Play; The Melodiya Release (in Russia); Flowers in the Dirt; Off the Ground; Flaming Pie; Run Devil Run; Driving Rain; Chaos and Creation in the Backyard; Memory Almost Full; Kisses on the Bottom; New; Egypt Station; McCartney III; Liverpool Oratorio; Standing Stone; Working Classical; Ecce Cor Meum; Ocean’s Kingdom; The Family Way; Thrillington; Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest; Rushes; Twin Freaks; Electric Arguments; McCartney III Imagined – plus Wings albums: Wild Life; Red Rose Speedway; Band on the Run; Venus and Mars; Wings at the Speed of Sound; London Town; Back to the Egg – plus nine LIVE albums, 4 compilations, 17 box sets, 12 promotional and limited release recordings, 36 soundtracks and other appearances, 91 singles, 33 promotional and limited release singles, 24 other charted songs, 49 home videos and television specials, 96 music videos, and many collaborations.
GEORGE HARRISON – Wonderwall Music; Electronic Sound; All Things Must Pass; Living in the Material World; Dark Horse; Extra Texture; Thirty-Three and a Third; George Harrison; Somewhere in England; Gone Troppo; Cloud Nine; Brainwashed; plus two live albums, four compilation albums, four box sets, 29 standard singles, 7 promotional singles, 2 video albums, and a long list of collaborations.
RINGO STARR – Sentimental Journey; Beaucoups of Blues; Ringo; Goodnight Vienna; Ringo’s Rotogravure; Ringo The Fourth; Bad Boy; Stop and Smell The Roses; Old Wave; Time Takes Time; Vertical Man; I Wanna Be Santa Claus; Ringo Rama; Choose Love; Liverpool 8; Y Not; Ringo 2012; Postcards From Paradise; Give More Love; What’s My Name – plus two live solo albums, nine Ringo Starr’s All-Starrs albums, six compilation albums, and a children’s album called Scouse the Mouse. He also released 46 standard singles, 8 promotional singles and three Extended Plays, and he collaborated with a long list of other artists. He also released 12 video albums and 28 music videos.
By Resampled from digital copy included on The Beatles USB Box Set, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142095
2. Beatle Contributions to Recordings by Others
These contributions only include recordings which have been released. Various Beatles also contributed to a handful of recordings which have never been released. They have also performed on a variety of charity records alongside other artists. Not included are the many occasions on which one or more of The Beatles contributed to recordings made by other Beatles.
JOHN LENNON and PAUL McCARTNEY together wrote songs that The Beatles never recorded, songs that they gave to the following people to record – Mary Hopkin; The Applejacks, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Tommy Quickly, The Fourmost, Cilla Black, The Strangers, Peter and Gordon, and P.J. Proby. They also gave songs away initially to the following people, songs that The Beatles later also recorded themselves – Aretha Franklin, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, Joe Cocker and The Rolling Stones. GEORGE gave one of his songs (Something) to Joe Cocker as well before later recording it himself. He also gave Jesse Ed Davis his song Sue Me, Sue You Blues who recorded and released it before George released his version a year later.
By Jean-Luc – originally posted to Flickr as Rog and Pete, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6378794
PAUL wrote or co-wrote songs for each of the following people – Michael Jackson; George Michael; The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and Liverpool Choristers; Anya Alexeyev; Peter and Gordon; The Chris Barber Band; George Benson and Al Jarreau; Cilla Black; The Black Dyke Mills Band; Carlos Mendes; Mary Hopkin; Badfinger; Johnny Cash; John Christie; Elvis Costello; Roger Daltrey (of The Who); Johnny Devlin and the Devils; Donovan; Duane Eddy; The Everly Brothers; Charlotte Gainsbourg; Allen Ginsberg; Peggy Lee; The London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; George Martin; Linda McCartney; Mike McGear; Carlos Mendes; Heather Mills; Frank Ocean; Carl Perkins; Thelma Plum; Michael Salvatori and C. Paul Johnson and Martin O’Donnell; Nitin Sawhney; The Steve Miller Band; Scaffold; Rod Stewart; 10cc; John Williams; Chip Z’Nuff
PAUL performed on recordings by each of the following people – Michael Jackson; The Rolling Stones; Brian Wilson; George Michael; Eric Clapton; Jackie Lomax; Rusty Anderson; Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers; Badfinger; The Chris Barber Band; The Beach Boys; Tony Bennett; George Benson and Al Jarreau; Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas; Cilla Black; The Bloody Beetroots; The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band; Johnny Cash; The Christians; Alma Cogan; Alice Cooper; Elvis Costello; The Crickets; Donovan; Duane Eddy; The Escorts; The Everly Brothers; Adam Faith; Jimmy Fallon; The Foo Fighters; The Fourmost; Charlotte Gainsbourg; Allen Ginsberg; Godley and Creme; Roy Harper; Fran Healy; The Hollywood Vampires; Mary Hopkin; Yusuf Islam; Billy Joel; Kenney Jones; Paul Jones; Laurence Juber; Denny Laine; Lulu; Linda McCartney; Mike McGear; Roger McGough and Mike McGear; The Steve Miller Band; Heather Mills; Eddie Murphy; Yoko Ono; Lindsay Pagano; R.A.A.D.D. (Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving); Rihanna; Nitin Sawhney; Scaffold; Tony Sheridan; The Silkie; Carly Simon; The Smokin’ Mojo Filters; Spirit of Play; Freddie Starr; Rod Stewart; Super Furry Animals; James Taylor; 10cc; Thornton, Fradkin & Under And the Big Band; Klaus Voormann; Kanye West, Theophilius London and Allan Kingdom; John Williams; Stevie Wonder;
PAUL produced or co-produced one or more tracks for each of the following people – The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and Liverpool Choristers; Johnny Cash; Carl Perkins; Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers; Badfinger; The Black Dyke Mills Band; The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band; The Crickets; Marianne Faithfull; The Fourmost; Grapefruit; Mary Hopkin; Laurence Juber; Denny Laine; Peggy Lee; Linda McCartney; Mike McGear; Roger McGough and Mike McGear; The Radha Krsna Temple (London); Scaffold; Spirit of Play; John Williams;
PAUL arranged one or more tracks for each of the following people – Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers; Cilla Black; Gerry and the Pacemakers; Mary Hopkin; Scaffold; The Silkie;
PAUL conducted on one or more tracks for each of the following people – The Black Dyke Mills Band
PAUL remixed one or more of the tracks for each of the following people – The Everly Brothers
By Helge Øverås – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3473993
JOHN wrote or co-wrote songs for each of the following people – David Bowie; Ronnie Hawkins; Keith Moon (of The Who); Harry Nilsson; Johnny Winter; Darren Young with John Barry and his Orchestra; Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
JOHN performed on recordings by each of the following people – Chuck Berry; David Bowie; The Rolling Stones; Elephant’s Memory; Adam Faith; Ronnie Hawkins; Elton John; Harry Nilsson; Phil Ochs; Yoko Ono; David Peel and the Lower East Side; R.A.A.D.D. (Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving); Tony Sheridan; Spirit Choir; Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention;
JOHN produced or co-produced one or more tracks for each of the following people – Mick Jagger; Lori Burton and Patrick Jude; Dog Soldier; Elephant’s Memory; Harry Nilsson; Yoko Ono; David Peel and the Lower East Side; The Silkie; Spirit Choir;
JOHN arranged one or more tracks for each of the following people – Cilla Black; Gerry and the Pacemakers; Grapefruit; Harry Nilsson;
By Eva Rinaldi – https://www.flickr.com/photos/evarinaldiphotography/7175840985/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19858385
GEORGE wrote or co-wrote songs for each of the following people – Jackie Lomax; Cream; Donovan; Ashton, Gardner and Dyke; David Bromberg; Eric Clapton; Jesse Ed Davis; Jimmy Helms; Alvin Lee and Mylon Le Favre; Garry Moore (of Thin Lizzy); Billy Preston; Phil Spector; Ronnie Spector; Doris Troy;
GEORGE performed on recordings by each of the following people – Bob Dylan; James Taylor; Jackie Lomax; Harry Nilsson; Cream; Ashton, Gardner and Dyke; Badfinger; Mike Batt; Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings; Blind Faith; David Bromberg; Gary Brooker (of Procol Harum); Vicki Brown; Jack Bruce (of Cream); Jim Capaldi (of Traffic); Belinda Carlisle (of The Go-Go;s); Cheech and Chong; Eric Clapton (of Cream); The Singing Rebels Band (with Billy Connolly and Chris Tummings); Jesse Ed Davis; Delaney and Bonnie and Friends; Lonnie Donegan; Duane Eddy; Electric Light Orchestra; Adam Faith; Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac); John Fogerty (of Creedence Clearwater Revival); Sylvia Grifffin; Daryl Hall and John Oates; The Jeff Healey Band; Jimmy Helms; Nicky Hopkins; Jim Horn; Larry Hosford; Jools Holland’s Rhythm an Blues Orchestra; Denny Laine; Alvin Lee (of Ten Years After); Alvin Lee and Mylon Le Favre; Jeff Lynne; Taj Mahal and the Graffiti Band; Dave Mason; Garry Moore (of Thin Lizzy); Mike Moran; Jimmy Nail; Nervous; Don Nix; Yoko Ono; Roy Orbison; Carl Perkins; Tom Petty; Platinum Weird; Billy Preston; The Radha Krsna Temple (London); Rubyhorse; Leon Russell; Tom Scott; Ravi Shankar; Del Shannon; Tony Sheridan; The Silkie; Paul Simon; Peter Skellern; ‘Legs’ Larry Smith; Phil Spector; Ronnie Spector; Splinter: Doris Troy; Bobby Whitlock; Ron Wood (of The Rolling Stones); Gary Wright; Derek and the Dominos; Bobby Keys;
GEORGE produced or co-produced one or more tracks for each of the following people – Badfinger; Ashton, Gardner and Dyke; Bob Dylan; Duane Eddy; Jackie Lomax; Monty Python; Garry Moore (of Thin Lizzy); Carl Perkins; Billy Preston; The Radha Krsna Temple (London); Ravi Shankar; ‘Legs’ Larry Smith; Phil Spector; Ronnie Spector; Splinter; Doris Troy; Lon and Derrek Van Eaton; Gary Wright;
GEORGE arranged one or more tracks for each of the following people – Julian Lennon;
GEORGE mixed or remixed one or more of the tracks for each of the following people – Brute Force; Monty Python
By Capitol Records – Billboard, page 19, 28 November 1970, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27031785
RINGO wrote or co-wrote songs for each of the following people – Cream; The Band; Billy Lawrie; Harry Nilsson; Guthrie Thomas; Doris Troy; John Wetton;
RINGO performed on recordings by each of the following people – Mick Jagger; Bob Dylan; Harry Nilsson; Jackie Lomax; Little Richard; Artists United Against Apartheid; The Attitudes; The All Occasions Brass Band; The Alpha Band; The Band; The Beach Boys; Delaney Bramlett; Middleman Burr; Alma Cogan; John Cleese and Bill Oddie; The Singing Rebels Band (with Billy Connolly and Chris Tummings); Rodney Crowell; Lonnie Donegan; Electric Light Orchestra; The Empty Hearts; Peter Frampton; Kinky Friedman; Graham Gouldman; Ben Harper; Bobby Hatfield; David Hentschel; Jools Holland; Mary Hopkin; Howlin’ Wolf; Ray Wylie Hubbard; Mark Hudson; Bobby Keys; B.B. King; Jenny Lewis; Jerry Lee Lewis; Nils Lofgren; The London Symphony Orchestra; Steve Lukather; Liam Lynch; Vera Lynn; The Manhattan Transfer; Ian MacLagan; Keith Moon (of The Who); Yoko Ono; Buck Owens; Carl Perkins; Tom Petty; Plaatinum Weird; Billy Preston; R.A.A.D.D. (Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving); The Radha Krsna Temple (London); Leon Redbone; Leon Russell; Paul Shaffer; Sheila E.; Kenny Wayne Shepherd; Carly Simon; Spirit of the Forest; Bruce Springsteen; Jon Stevens; Stephen Stills; Rory Storm and the Hurricanes; Benmont Tench; Guthrie Thomas; T. Rex; Doris Troy; Lon and Derrek Van Eaton; Klaus Voormann; Joe Walsh (of The Eagles); Jimmy Webb; Gary Wright
RINGO produced or co-produced one or more tracks for each of the following people – Harry Nilsson; T. Rex; Lorne and Lawrence Blair
OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS:
- George Harrison wrote the liner notes for the Chet Atkins album Chet Atkins Picks On The Beatles.
- The photo on the sleeve of the single Ain’t Love Enough released by The Attitudes was taken by George
- Ringo Starr wrote the liner notes on Count Basie’s album ‘Basie on the Beatles’.
- Paul McCartney contributed to the charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas? by Band Aid
- On the album ‘The Pet Sounds Sessions’ (The Beach Boys) there is an accompanying booklet which includes an interview with Paul McCartney
- On the album ‘It’s a Live-In World’ Ringo contributed an anti-heroin message
- Paul included a message on the album The Crowd released in support of the victims of a fire on a football pitch in Bradford, England in which fifty-five people died.
- In the 64 page booklet accompanying the Everly Brothers box set Heartaches and Harmonies Paul provided the Introduction
- When the ferry boat Herald of Free Enterprise sank killing one hundred eighty-eight people many pop stars in England recorded a benefit recording called Ferry Aid to which Paul contributed
- George wrote the liner notes for the album Young Master of the Sarod released by Aashish Khan
- Paul designed the jacket for the Zoot Money album Mr. Money.
- The liner notes for the album By Request (Matt Monro) were written by Paul
- George contributed dialogue to the Monty Python album ‘Monty Python Examines the Life of Brian’.
- Ringo Starr added his voice to the recording Solid Gold by Keith Moon
- Ringo adds some dialogue to Harry Nilsson’s album Son of Dracula
- Ringo adds dialogue to the soundtrack album Magic Christian Music
- Paul wrote the liner notes for the benefit record The Celebrity Selection of Children’s Stories featuring various artists
3. Who Are The Beatles?
There were early incarnations of the band before Ringo joined them so technically Pete Best, an earlier drummer, was also a Beatle. So was Stu Sutcliffe who was their bass player. Sutcliffe, who Lennon greatly admired, who was also a talented painter, and was the one who came up with the group’s name, died in 1962. He was twenty-one. The Beatles were actually born as soon as George joined Paul and John. In the time since then they used a variety of names, and the line-up included many people, such as Johnny Gentle, Jimmie Nichole, Tony Sheridan, Tommy Moore, Johnny Hutchinson, Simone Jackson, Craig Douglas and a Teddy Boy named Ronnie (last name unknown). There have also been people who were ‘almost Beatles’, that is people seen as candidates for the sobriquet The Fifth Beatle as aging fans debate the issue. The candidates include Murray the K (Murray Kaufman), Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Brian Epstein, and the usual winner in these debates, George Martin. Fifty-one years after the Beatles disbanded, 41 years after their unofficial leader was murdered, people are still publishing books and managing massive websites about their music and their early history, and the surviving Beatles are still coming up with new material.
By https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/stuart-sutcliffe-school-beatles-story-11512980, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59267626
According to The Kidd 