BAZA ZNANJA

Kurs: - Intermediate

Modul: Relative Clauses

Autor: prof. Gordana Matorkić

Naziv jedinice: The Beatles

THE BEATLES

The Beatles was the name of the famous British rock music group, which revolutionized popular music around the world in the 1960s, with their stimulating song writing and vibrant performances. For a band that played together barely ten years, The Beatles made a success that could not be compared to the success of any other music group.

More than just the leaders of a movement in rock music known as the British Invasion, the Beatles were the main force behind changing the concept of popular music stars from simple entertainers to social and spiritual gurus.

All the members of the band were born in Liverpool, England, in the early 1940s. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were the core song writing pair, met in 1957 while Lennon was performing with his band, The Quarry Men. McCartney joined the group later in 1957 and the following year guitarist George Harrison became a member. In January 1960 Stuart Sutcliffe, who was an art-school acquaintance of Lennon, joined as bass player, when the band finally got its name, The Beatles.

Drummer Pete Best accompanied the group to Hamburg, Germany, in August 1960, where for more than three months they played in many clubs. Best stayed in the band until June 1962, when Ringo Starr replaced him.

Sutcliffe left the band in early 1961, which caused McCartney’s change from rhythm guitar to bass. Later that year Brian Epstein a local businessman became the Beatles’ manager. After a number of rejections, he secured the group a record deal with Parlophone. The band released their debut-hit single, “Love Me Do,” in England in October 1962.

The Beatles made two feature films in the mid-1960s, A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help (1965) which were critically and commercially successful.

The pressures caused by the group’s extreme popularity, which was known as Beatlemania, resulted in safety problems for the group, especially when performing live. On August 29, 1966, the band played a show in San Francisco, California, which turned out to be their last public concert.

Worn down by the demands of their fame and by personal disagreements, the group began to splinter around the time of the release of The Beatles (1968), usually known as The White Album because of its plain white cover. These growing divisions within the band were displayed in the recording sessions that were filmed in 1969 for Let It Be, a documentary film about the album of the same name, which was released in 1970. The final Beatles studio album was Abbey Road (1969). McCartney formally announced the group’s break-up on April 10, 1970.

After the break each member of the group pursued another musical career, either as a solo artist or as bandleader. Despite individual successes, members were often approached with requests to reunite, fuelling wide speculation. This talk ended when Lennon was murdered by an obsessed fan in 1980.