Voodoo Child ..The Jimi Hendrix Story

I'd heard of Hendrix, when I was a youngun, I mean if you followed Thorpey or Kevin Borich and had the pleasure of reading a interview with Cream, you musta heard of Jimi RIGHT? 

Someone I knew had "Are you Experienced", and I listened and old mate Graham Kelly raved about it, I thought cool...thats a bit different THEN one of the Sydney tv channels played the Woodstock doco/movie and then I saw Jimi and my brain went WOW...just fkn WOW....and besides you have to respect someone who plays his Strat upside down and makes it sing....ANYWAY..To the Tale of the Voodoo Child

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970...In his brief four-year reign as a guitar superstar, Jimi Hendrix expanded the vocabulary of the electric rock guitar more than anyone before . Hendrix was a master at coaxing all manner of unforeseen sonics from his instrument, often with innovative amplification experiments that produced astral-quality feedback and roaring distortion. His frequent hurricane blasts of noise and dazzling showmanship --

 he could and would play behind his back and with his teeth and set his guitar on fire -- has sometimes obscured his considerable gifts as a songwriter, singer, and master of a gamut of blues, R&B, and rock styles.

When Hendrix became an international superstar in 1967, it seemed as if he'd dropped out of a Martian spaceship, but in fact he'd served his apprenticeship the long, mundane way in numerous R&B acts on the Deep south chitlin circuit. During the early and mid-'60s, he worked with such R&B/soul greats as Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, and King Curtis as a backup guitarist. 

Occasionally he recorded as a session man (the Isley Brothers' 1964 single "Testify" is the only one of these early tracks that offers even a glimpse of his future genius). But the stars didn't appreciate his show-stealing showmanship, and Hendrix was straight-jacketed by sideman roles that didn't allow him to develop as a soloist. The logical step was for Hendrix to go out on his own, which he did in New York in the mid-'60s, playing with various musicians in local clubs, and joining white blues-rock singer John Hammond, Jr.'s band for a while.

In 1961, Hendrix enlisted in the US Army; he was granted an honorable discharge the following year. In 1963, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he played numerous gigs on the chitlin' circuit. In 1964, he earned a spot in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later that year he found work with Little Richard, with whom he continued to play through mid-1965. He then joined Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after having been discovered by bassist (and Slade manager) Chas Chandler of the Animals. 

In 1967, Hendrix earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". Later that year, he achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. The world's highest paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before dying from barbiturate-related asphyxia at the age of 27.

Inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues, Hendrix favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in developing the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock, and pioneered experimentation with stereophonic phasing effects in music recordings.

Hendrix was the recipient of several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously; the Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked his three non-posthumous studio albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland among the 100 greatest albums of all time and they ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time.


The Jimi Hendrix Experience formed in Westminster, London in October 1966. Composed of Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding, and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was rocked until June 1969. In this time the group released three successful studio albums. After Redding left the band, Hendrix and Mitchell stayed together through other projects. The Experience 'reunited' in 1970 with Billy Cox dubbed "The Cry of Love", until Hendrix's death in September 1970. Redding died in 2003, and Mitchell became the last original member of the band to die, in November 2008.

Widely recognized as hugely influential on the development of hard rock and heavy metal in the late-1960s and beyond, The Experience were best known for the skill, style and charisma of frontman Hendrix, who has been voted one of the greatest guitarists by various music publications and writers. All three of the band's studio albums, Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967) and Electric Ladyland (1968), were featured in the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time – each within the top 100 – at positions 15, 82 and 54 respectively. In 1992, The Jimi Hendrix Experience were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

To be honest, I'm still stunned that Jimi would only record three fully conceived studio albums in his lifetime. , Hendrix pioneered the use of the studio itself as a recording instrument, manipulating electronics and devising overdub techniques (with the help of engineer Eddie Kramer in particular) to plot uncharted sonic territory. 

Not that these albums were perfect, as impressive as they were; the instrumental breaks could meander, and Hendrix's songwriting was occasionally half-baked, never matching the consistency of Are You Experienced (although he exercised greater creative control over the later albums).

The final two years of Hendrix's life were turbulent ones musically, financially, and personally. He was embroiled in enough complicated management and record company disputes (some dating from ill-advised contracts he'd signed before the Experience formed) to keep the lawyers busy for years. He disbanded the Experience in 1969, forming the Band of Gypsies with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox to pursue funkier directions. He closed Woodstock with a sprawling, shaky set, redeemed by his famous machine-gun interpretation of "The Star Spangled Banner." 

The rhythm section of Mitchell and Redding were underrated keys to Jimi's best work, and the Band of Gypsies ultimately couldn't measure up to the same standard, although Hendrix did record an erratic live album with them. In early 1970, the Experience re-formed again -- and disbanded again shortly afterward. 

At the same time, Hendrix felt torn in many directions by various fellow musicians, record-company expectations, and management pressures, all of whom had their own ideas of what Hendrix should be doing. Coming up on two years after Electric Ladyland, a new studio album had yet to appear, although Hendrix was recording constantly during the period.

While outside parties did contribute to bogging down Hendrix's studio work, it also seems likely that Jimi himself was partly responsible for the stalemate, unable to form a permanent lineup of musicians, unable to decide what musical direction to pursue, unable to bring himself to complete another album despite jamming endlessly. A few months into 1970, Mitchell -- Hendrix's most valuable musical collaborator -- came back into the fold, replacing Miles in the drum chair, although Cox stayed in place. It was this trio that toured the world during Hendrix's final months.

It's extremely difficult to separate the facts of Hendrix's life from rumors and speculation. Everyone who knew him well, or claimed to know him well, has different versions of his state of mind in 1970. Critics have variously mused that he was going to go into jazz, that he was going to get deeper into the blues, that he was going to continue doing what he was doing, or that he was too confused to know what he was doing at all. The same confusion holds true for his death: contradictory versions of his final days have been given by his closest acquaintances of the time. He'd been working intermittently on a new album, tentatively titled First Ray of the New Rising Sun, when he died in London on September 18, 1970, from drug-related complications.

Jimi recorded a massive amount of unreleased studio material during his lifetime. Much of this (as well as entire live concerts) was issued posthumously; several of the live concerts were excellent, but the studio tapes have been the focus of enormous controversy for over 20 years. These initially came out in haphazard drabs and drubs (the first, The Cry of Love, was easily the most outstanding of the lot). In the mid-'70s, producer Alan Douglas took control of these projects, posthumously overdubbing many of Hendrix's tapes with additional parts by studio musicians. In the eyes of many Hendrix fans, this was sacrilege, destroying the integrity of the work of a musician known to exercise meticulous care over the final production of his studio recordings. Even as late as 1995, Douglas was having ex-Knack drummer Bruce Gary record new parts for the typically misbegotten compilation Voodoo Soup. After a lengthy legal dispute, the rights to Hendrix's estate, including all of his recordings, returned to Al Hendrix, the guitarist's father, in July of 1995.

With the help of Jimi's step-sister Janie, Al set up Experience Hendrix to begin to get Jimi's legacy in order. They began by hiring John McDermott and Jimi's original engineer, Eddie Kramer to oversee the remastering process. They were able to find all the original master tapes, which had never been used for previous CD releases, and in April of 1997, Hendrix's first three albums were reissued with drastically improved sound. Accompanying those reissues was a posthumous compilation album (based on Jimi's handwritten track listings) called First Rays of the New Rising Sun, made up of tracks from the Cry of Love, Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes.

South Saturn Delta Later in 1997, another compilation called South Saturn Delta showed up, collecting more tracks from posthumous LPs like Crash Landing, War Heroes, and Rainbow Bridge (without the terrible '70s overdubs), along with a handful of never-before-heard material that Chas Chandler had withheld from Alan Douglas for all those years.

Radio One More archival material followed; Radio One was basically expanded to the two-disc BBC Sessions (released in 1998), and 1999 saw the release of the full show from Woodstock as well as additional concert recordings from the Band of Gypsies shows entitled Live at the Fillmore East. 2000 saw the release of the Jimi Hendrix Experience four-disc box set, which compiled remaining tracks from In the West, Crash Landing and Rainbow Bridge along with more rarities and alternates from the Chandler cache.

The family also launched Dagger Records, essentially an authorized bootleg label to supply harcore Hendrix fans with material that would be of limited commercial appeal. Dagger Records has released several live concerts (of shows in Oakland, Ottawa and Clark University in Massachusetts) and a collection of studio jams and demos called Morning Symphony Ideas.

Do you thinks his sexy - The tale of Rod Stewart

 Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is in my humble opinion is one of the greatest rockers of the modern age AND one of the best selling artists of all time, having sold over 100 million records worldwide, which helps the cred somewhat

First time I saw Rod was on Sounds with Donny Sutherland, the song, Sailing, then I found out he was a soccer fan and that was me hooked

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album), and his early albums were a fusion of rock, folk music, soul music and R&B. His aggressive blues work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces influenced heavy metal genres. From the late 1970s through the 1990s, Stewart's music often took on a New Wave or soft rock/MOR quality, and in the early 2000s he released a series of successful albums interpreting the Great American Songbook. Stewart's albums and singles sales total has been estimated by various sources to be between 100 million and 200 million copies.

Stewart left school at age 15 and worked briefly as a silk screen printer. Spurred on by his father, his ambition was to become a professional footballer. In summer 1960, he went for trials at Brentford F.C., a Third Division club at the time. However, contrary to longstanding popular belief, Stewart states in his 2012 autobiography that he was never signed to the club and that the club never called him back after his trials. In any case, regarding possible career options, Stewart concluded, "Well, a musician's life is a lot easier and I can also get drunk and make music, and I can't do that and play football. I plumped for music ... They're the only two things I can do actually: play football and sing."

On or around 5 January 1964, Stewart was drunk and waiting on the Twickenham railway station platform, playing "Smokestack Lightnin'" on his harmonica after having seen a rhythm and blues show by Cyril Davies and the All Stars at Eel Pie Island  All Stars singer Long John Baldry discovered him and invited him to sit in with the group (which passed into his hands and was renamed the Hoochie Coochie Men when Davies died of leukaemia on 7 January); when Baldry discovered Stewart was a singer as well, he offered him a job for £35 a week, after securing the approval of Stewart's mother. Quitting his day job at age nineteen, Stewart gradually overcame his shyness and nerves and became a visible enough part of the act that he was sometimes added to the billing as "Rod the Mod" Stewart  the nickname coming from his style of grooming and dress. Baldry touted Stewart's abilities to Melody Maker magazine and the group enjoyed a weekly residence at London's fabled Marquee Club. In June 1964, Stewart made his recording début (without label credit) on "Up Above My Head", the B-side to a Baldry and Hoochie Coochie Men single.

Guitarist Jeff Beck recruited Stewart for his new post-Yardbirds venture, and in February 1967, Stewart joined the Jeff Beck Group as vocalist and sometime songwriter. This would become the big break of his early career. There he first played with Ronnie Wood whom he had first met in a London pub in 1964; the two soon became fast friends. During its first year, the group experienced frequent changes of drummers and conflicts involving manager Mickie Most wanting to reduce Stewart's role; they toured the UK, and released a couple of singles that featured Stewart on their B-sides. Stewart's sputtering solo career also continued, with the March 1968 release of non-hit "Little Miss Understood" on Immediate Records.

Mercury Records A&R man Lou Reizner had seen Stewart perform with Beck, and in October 1968 signed him to a solo contract but contractual complexities delayed Stewart's recording for him until July 1969. Meanwhile, in May 1969, guitarist and singer Steve Marriott left English band The Small Faces. Ron Wood was announced as the replacement guitarist in June and in October 1969 Stewart followed his friend and was announced as their new singer. The two joined existing members Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones, who soon decided to call the new line-up Faces.

An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down became Stewart's first solo album in 1969 (it was known as The Rod Stewart Album in the US). It established the template for his solo sound: a heartfelt mixture of folk, rock, and country blues, inclusive of a British working-class sensibility, with both original material ("Cindy's Lament" and the title song) and cover versions (Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" and Mike d'Abo's "Handbags and Gladrags").

Stewart's 1971 solo album Every Picture Tells a Story made him a household name when the B-side of his minor hit "Reason to Believe", "Maggie May", (co-written with Martin Quittenton) started receiving radio play. The album and the single hit number one in both the US and the UK simultaneously, a chart first, in September. A loss of innocence tale set off by a striking mandolin part (by Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne), "Maggie May" was also named in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, which is one of three songs by him to appear on that list. The rest of the album was equally strong, with "Mandolin Wind" again showcasing that instrument; "(I Know) I'm Losing You" adding hard-edged soul to the mix; and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time", a cover of a Bob Dylan song. But the ultimate manifestation of the early Stewart solo style was the Stewart-Wood-penned "Every Picture Tells a Story" itself: powered by Mick Waller's drumming, Pete Sears's piano, and Wood's guitar work in a largely acoustic arrangement; it is a fast, rocking, headlong romp relating the picaresque adventures of the singer.

In late 1974 Stewart released his Smiler album. In Britain, it reached number one, and the single "Farewell" number seven, but only number 13 on the Billboard pop album charts and the single "Mine for Me" only number 91 on the Billboard pop singles charts. It was his last original album for Mercury Records. After the release of the double album compilation The Best of Rod Stewart he switched to Warner Bros. Records and remained with them throughout the vast majority of his career (Faces were signed to Warners, and Stewart's solo releases in the UK appeared on the Riva label until 1981).....In 1975 Faces toured the US twice (with Ronnie Wood joining The Rolling Stones' US tour in between) before Stewart announced the Faces' break-up at the end of the year.

Foot Loose & Fancy Free featured Rod's own band, the original Rod Stewart Group that featured Carmine Appice, Phil Chen, Jim Cregan, Billy Peek, Gary Grainger and John Jarvis, from 1977 continued Stewart's run of chart success, again reaching number two. "You're in my Heart" was the hit single, reaching number four in the US. The rocker "Hot Legs" achieved a lot of radio airplay as did the confessional "I Was Only Joking".

 In appearance, Stewart's look had evolved to include a glam element, including make-up and spandex clothes. Stewart scored another UK number one and US number one single with "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?", which was a crossover hit reaching number five on the Billboard black charts due to its disco sound.This was the lead single from 1978's Blondes Have More Fun...or do they?, which went to number one on the Billboard album charts and sold 4 million albums. It was to be Stewart's last number one album for 25 years.

A focal point of criticisms about this period was his biggest-selling 1978 disco hit "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?", which was atypical of his earlier output, and was crapped on by critics.  In interviews, Stewart, while admitting his accompanying look had become "tarty", has defended the lyrics by pointing out that the song is a third-person narrative slice-of-life portrayal, not unlike those in his earlier work, and that it is not about him. However, the song's refrain was identical to Brazilian Jorge Ben Jor's earlier "Taj Mahal" and a lawsuit ensued. Stewart donated his royalties from the song to UNICEF, and he performed it with his band at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979..... By this time, Stewart was notorious for his jet-set lifestyle, particularly the series of actresses and models he dated.

Roderick moved slightly to a more New Wave (BOOO) direction in 1980 by releasing the album Foolish Behaviour. The album produced one hit single, "Passion", which proved particularly popular in South Africa (reaching no. 1 on the Springbok Top 20 Charts and Radio 5 Charts in early 1981). It also reached No. 5 on the US Billboard Charts. In August 1981, MTV was launched in the US with several of Stewart's videos in heavy rotation. Later in 1981, Stewart added further elements of New Wave and synth pop to his sound for the Tonight I'm Yours album. The title song reached No. 20 in the U.S., while "Young Turks" reached the Top 5 with the album going platinum. On 18 December 1981, Stewart played the Los Angeles Forum, along with Kim Carnes and Tina Turner, broadcast around the world to a television audience of 35 million.

Stewart's career then went into a relative slump, and his albums between Tonight I'm Yours (1981) and Out of Order (1988) received harsh reviews from many critics. He was also criticised for breaking the widely observed cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa by performing at the Sun City resort complex in the bantustan of Bophuthatswana as part of his Body Wishes (1983) and Camouflage (1984) tours.

Stewart only had four US Top 10 singles between 1982 and 1988, "Young Turks" (No. 5, carrying over from 1981 into 1982), "Some Guys Have All the Luck" (No. 10, 1984), "Infatuation" (No. 6, 1984) and "Love Touch" (No. 6, 1986/ a Holly Knight/Mike Chapman collaboration), although "Baby Jane" became his sixth and final UK number one in 1983. It reached No. 14 in the US.[80] The corresponding Camouflage album went gold in the UK, and the single "Infatuation" (which featured his old friend Jeff Beck on the guitar) received considerable play on MTV. The second single "Some Guys Have All The Luck" reached No. 15 in the UK and No. 10 in the US.[80] A reunion with Jeff Beck produced a successful take on Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready", but an attempt to tour together fell apart after a few dates. He reached UK number two in 1986 with "Every Beat of My Heart". In January 1985, he performed at the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro before an estimated audience of over 100,000.

Then one night in late 93, I was watching tele and MTV UNplugged came on and lo and behold Rockin Rod had reunited with Ron Wood to record an MTV Unplugged concert ; the accompanying album, Unplugged...and Seated, launched the Top Ten hit single "Have I Told You Lately." This ended up being probably my favourite Rod album...its got a groove about it for sure.

In 2001, Stewart embarked on a new path with Human, an album that attempted to cross over to contemporary and urban audiences, but it failed with the critical and commercial public alike. His next project may have sounded equally unlikely, but it was much more successful. It Had to Be You, the first in his series crooning the Great American Songbook, became an adult contemporary favorite and lodged near the top of the album charts after its release in 2002. As Time Goes By followed it into the charts in 2003 and missed the top spot by only one notch. In late 2004, his third volume in the series (Stardust) hit number one. Thanks for the Memory became the fourth entry in the series in 2005. By the year's end, all four volumes were collected in The Great American Songbook Box Set.

In 2006, he continued his series of cover albums, but this time he focused on the rock & roll era. Still the Same: Great Rock Classics of Our Time appeared toward the end of the year, with a version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" as its lead single. Stewart next tackled soul and Motown classics with 2009's Soulbook but returned to standards for 2010's fifth installment of his Great American Songbook series, Fly Me to the Moon. Stewart continued to flirt with the idea of a Faces reunion throughout this period, but even when the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the spring of 2012, he stayed on the sidelines. Instead, Stewart prepped his first album for Verve: the seasonal set Merry Christmas, Baby, which appeared in October of 2012, the same month he published his memoir Rod: The Autobiography.
Time Authoring his memoir inspired Stewart to return to songwriting, a discipline he left behind in the '90s. His next album, Time -- his first for Capitol Records -- was comprised almost entirely of songs he had co-written and they all had a distinctly autobiographical bent. Time was released in May of 2013.

During his career, Rod Stewart has been a member of a number of groups including:

Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions (1963)

The Hoochie Coochie Men (1964–1965)

The Steampacket (1965-1966)

Soul Agents (1965–1966)

Shotgun Express (1966)

The Jeff Beck Group (1966–1969)

Faces (1969–197

rodstewart.com

1969 An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down

1970 Gasoline Alley

1971 Every Picture Tells a Story

1972 Never a Dull Moment

1980 Foolish Behaviour

1981 Tonight I'm Yours

1983 Body Wishes

1984 Camouflage

1986 Every Beat of My Heart

1988 Out of Order

1991 Vagabond Heart

1995 A Spanner in the Works

1998 When We Were the New Boys

2001 Human

2002 It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook

2003 As Time Goes By: The Great American Songbook 

2004 Stardust: The Great American Songbook 

2005 Thanks for the Memory: The Great American Songbook, Volume IV

2006 Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time

2009 Soulbook

2010 Once in a Blue Moon: The Lost Album

             Fly Me to the Moon... The Great American Songbook Volume V

2012 Merry Christmas, Baby

2013 Time

We Loved Them YEAH YEAH YEAH - Its the The Beatles

So much has been said and written about the Beatles -- that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans..SO I WON'T..I will however say that the first record anyone bought for me was Please Please Me a couple of years after it was released AND I had an auntie that forgot to go to school one day when the boys landed in Sydney (along with 50,000 of her closest friends methinks)....SO heres to the boys who on a bad day would kick the shit out of the Rolling Stones, contrary to popular belief and to the fact that their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970.

In March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a respected local group was already using the other name.Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he and Lennon met that July. In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison was too young to join. After a month of Harrison's persistence, they enlisted him as their lead guitarist.

By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began studies at the Liverpool College of Art.The three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer.Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe, who had recently sold one of his paintings and purchased a bass guitar, joined in January 1960, and it was he who suggested changing the band's name to Beatles as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets.They used the name through May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July, they changed their name to the Silver Beatles and by the middle of August to the Beatles.

 They combined all that was good about early rock & roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group that wrote and performed its own material. As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but equally visceral. As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive vocalists in rock; the group's harmonies were intricate . As performers, they were (at least until touring had ground them down) exciting, when they retreated into the studio, they were instrumental in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered arrangements. They were also the first British rock group to achieve worldwide prominence, launching a British Invasion that made rock truly an international phenomenon.

More than any other top group, the Beatles' success was very much a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Their phenomenal cohesion was due in large degree to most of the group having known each other and played together in Liverpool for about five years before they began to have hit records. Guitarist and teenage rebel John Lennon got hooked on rock & roll in the mid-'50s, and formed a band, the Quarrymen, at his high school. Around mid-1957, the Quarrymen were joined by another guitarist, Paul McCartney, nearly two years Lennon's junior. A bit later they were joined by another guitarist, George Harrison, a friend of McCartney. the Quarrymen would change lineups constantly in the late '50s, eventually reducing to the core trio of guitarists, who'd proven themselves to be the best musicians and most personally compatible individuals within the band.

Hamburg was the Beatles' baptism by fire. Playing grueling sessions for hours on end in one of the most notorious red-light districts in the world, the group was forced to expand its repertoire, tighten up its chops, and invest its show with enough manic energy to keep the rowdy crowds satisfied. When they returned to Liverpool at the end of 1960, the band -- formerly also-rans on the exploding Liverpudlian "beat" scene -- were suddenly the most exciting act on the local circuit. They consolidated their following in 1961 with constant gigging in the Merseyside area, most often at the legendary Cavern Club, the incubator of the Merseybeat sound.

They also returned for engagements in Hamburg during 1961, although Sutcliffe dropped out of the band that year to concentrate on his art school studies there. McCartney took over on bass, Harrison settled in as lead guitarist, and Lennon had rhythm guitar; everyone sang. In mid-1961, the Beatles (minus Sutcliffe) made their first recordings in Germany, as a backup group to a British rock guitarist/singer based in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan. the Beatles hadn't fully developed at this point, and these recordings -- many of which (including a couple of Sheridan-less tracks) were issued only after the band's rise to fame -- found their talents in a most embryonic state. The Hamburg stint was also notable for gaining the Beatles sophisticated, artistic fans such as Sutcliffe's girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, who influenced all of them (except Best) to restyle their quiffs in the moptops that gave the musicians their most distinctive visual trademark. (Sutcliffe, tragically, would die of a brain hemorrhage in April 1962).

Near the end of 1961, the Beatles' exploding local popularity caught the attention of local record store manager Brian Epstein, who was soon managing the band as well. He used his contacts to swiftly acquire a January 1, 1962, audition at Decca Records that has been heavily bootlegged (some tracks were officially released in 1995). After weeks of deliberation, Decca turned them down as did several other British labels. Epstein's perseverance was finally rewarded with an audition for producer George Martin at Parlophone, an EMI subsidiary; Martin signed the Beatles in mid-1962. By this time, Epstein was assiduously grooming his charges for national success by influencing them to smarten up their appearance, dispensing with their leather jackets and trousers in favor of tailored suits and ties.

One more major change was in the offing before the Beatles made their Parlophone debut. In August 1962, drummer Pete Best was kicked out of the group, a controversial decision that has been the cause of much speculation since. There is still no solid consensus as to whether it was because of his solitary, moody nature; the other Beatles' jealousy of his popularity with the fans; his musical shortcomings (George Martin had already told Epstein that Best wasn't good enough to drum on recordings); or his refusal to wear his hair in bangs. What seems most likely was that the Beatles simply found his personality incompatible, preferring to enlist Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey), a drummer with another popular Merseyside outfit, Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. Starr had been in the Beatles for a few weeks when they recorded their first single, "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You," in September 1962. Both sides of the 45 were Lennon-McCartney originals, and the songwriting team would be credited with most of the group's material throughout the Beatles' career.

What the Beatles had done was take the best elements of the rock and pop they loved and make them their own. Since the Quarrymen days, they had been steeped in the classic early rock of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and the Everly Brothers; they'd also kept an ear open to the early '60s sounds of Motown, Phil Spector, and the girl groups. What they added was an unmatched songwriting savvy (inspired by Brill Building teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King), a brash guitar-oriented attack, wildly enthusiastic vocals, and the embodiment of the youthful flair of their generation, ready to dispense with postwar austerity and claim a culture of their own. They were also unsurpassed in their eclecticism, willing to borrow from blues, popular standards, gospel, folk, or whatever seemed suitable for their musical vision. Producer George Martin was the perfect foil for the group, refining their ideas without tinkering with their cores; during the last half of their career, he was indispensable for his ability to translate their concepts into arrangements that required complex orchestration, innovative applications of recording technology, and an ever-widening array of instruments.

With the Beatles Just as crucially, the Beatles were never ones to stand still and milk formulas. All of their subsequent albums and singles would show remarkable artistic progression (though never at the expense of a damn catchy tune). Even on their second LP, With the Beatles (1963), it was evident that their talents as composers and instrumentalists were expanding furiously, as they devised ever more inventive melodies and harmonies, and boosted the fullness of their arrangements. "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" established the group not just as a popular music act, but as a phenomenon never before seen in the British entertainment business, as each single sold over a million copies in the U.K. After some celebrated national TV appearances, 

Beatlemania broke out across the British Isles in late 1963, and the group generating screams and hysteria at all of their public appearances, musical or otherwise.
Capitol, which had first refusal of the Beatles' recordings in the United States, had declined to issue the group's first few singles, which ended up appearing on relatively small American independents. Capitol took up its option on "I Want to Hold Your Hand," which stormed to the top of the U.S. charts within weeks of its release on December 26, 1963.

 the Beatles' television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964 launched Beatlemania (and the entire British Invasion) on an even bigger scale than it had reached in Britain. In the first week of April 1964, the Beatles had the Top Five best-selling singles in the U.S.; they also had the first two slots on the album charts, as well as other entries throughout the Billboard Top 100. No one had ever dominated the market for popular music so heavily; it's doubtful that anyone ever will again. the Beatles themselves would continue to reach number one with most of their singles and albums until their 1970 breakup.

Hard as it may be to believe today, the Beatles were often dismissed by cultural commentators of the time as nothing more than a fad that would vanish within months as the novelty wore off. 

The group ensured this wouldn't happen by making A Hard Day's Night in early 1964, a cinéma vérité-style motion picture comedy/musical that cemented their image as "the Fab Four": happy-go-lucky, individualistic, cheeky, funny lads with nonstop energy. The soundtrack was also a triumph, consisting entirely of Lennon-McCartney tunes, including such standards as the title tune, "And I Love Her," "If I Fell," "Can't Buy Me Love," and "Things We Said Today." George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade the Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles (along with Bob Dylan) would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. the Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the U.S. market for fellow Brits like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney.

Between riotous international tours in 1964 and 1965, the Beatles continued to squeeze out more chart-topping albums and singles. (Until 1967, the group's British albums were often truncated for release in the States; when their catalog was transferred to CD, the albums were released worldwide in their British configurations.) In retrospect, critics have judged Beatles for Sale (late 1964) and Help! (mid-1965) as the band's least impressive efforts. To some degree, that's true. Touring and an insatiable market placed heavy demands upon their songwriting, and some of the originals and covers on these records, while brilliant by many group's standards, were filler in the context of the Beatles' best work.

But when at the top of their game, the group was continuing to push forward. "I Feel Fine" had feedback and brilliant guitar leads; "Ticket to Ride" showed the band beginning to incorporate the ringing, metallic, circular guitar lines that would be appropriated by bands like the Byrds; "Help!" was their first burst of confessional lyricism; "Yesterday" employed a string quartet. John Lennon in particular was beginning to exhibit a Dylanesque influence in his songwriting on such folky, downbeat numbers as "I'm a Loser" and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away." And tracks like "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" and "I've Just Seen a Face" had a strong country flavor.

Rubber Soul Although the Beatles' second film, Help!, was a much sillier and less sophisticated affair than their first feature, it too was a huge commercial success. By this time, though, the Beatles had nothing to prove in commercial terms; the remaining frontiers were artistic challenges that could only be met in the studio. They rose to the occasion at the end of 1965 with Rubber Soul, one of the classic folk-rock records. Lyrically, Lennon, McCartney, and even Harrison (who was now writing some tunes on his own) were evolving beyond boy-girl scenarios into complex, personal feelings. They were also pushing the limits of studio rock by devising new guitar and bass textures, experimenting with distortion and multi-tracking, and using unconventional (for rock) instruments like the sitar.

Revolver As much of a progression as Rubber Soul was relative to their previous records, it was but a taster for the boundary-shattering outings of the next few years. The "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" single found the group abandoning romantic themes entirely, boosting the bass to previously unknown levels, and fooling around with psychedelic imagery and backward tapes on the B-side. Drugs (psychedelic and otherwise) were fueling their already fertile imaginations, but they felt creatively hindered by their touring obligations. Revolver, released in the summer of 1966, proved what the group could be capable of when allotted months of time in the studio. Hazy hard guitars and thicker vocal arrangements formed the bed of these increasingly imagistic, ambitious lyrics; the group's eclecticism now encompassed everything from singalong novelties ("Yellow Submarine") and string quartet-backed character sketches ("Eleanor Rigby") to Indian-influenced swirls of echo and backward tapes ("Tomorrow Never Knows"). Some would complain that the Beatles had abandoned the earthy rock of their roots for clever mannerism. But Revolver, like virtually all of the group's singles and albums from "She Loves You" on, would be a worldwide chart-topper.

After a couple of years, live performance had become a tedious exercise for the boys, tired of competing with thousands of screaming fans that drowned out most of their voices and instruments. A 1966 summer worldwide tour was particularly grueling: the group's entourage was physically attacked in the Philippines after a perceived snub of the country's first lady, and a casual remark by John Lennon about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus Christ was picked up in the States, resulting in the burning of Beatle records in the Bible belt and demands for a repentant apology. Their final concert of that American tour (in San Francisco on August 29, 1966) would be their last in front of a paying audience, as the group decided to stop playing live in order to concentrate on their studio recordings.

This was a radical (indeed, unprecedented) step in 1966, and the media was rife with speculation that the act was breaking up, especially after all four spent late 1966 engaged in separate personal and artistic pursuits. The appearance of the "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever" single in February 1967 squelched these concerns. Frequently cited as the strongest double A-side ever, the Beatles were now pushing forward into unabashedly psychedelic territory in their use of orchestral arrangements and Mellotron, without abandoning their grasp of memorable melody and immediately accessible lyrical messages.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in June 1967 as the Summer of Love dawned, was the definitive psychedelic soundtrack. Or, at least, so it was perceived at the time: subsequent critics have painted the album as an uneven affair, given a conceptual unity via its brilliant multi-tracked overdubs, singalong melodies, and fairy tale-ish lyrics. 

Others remain convinced, as millions did at the time, that it represented pop's greatest triumph, or indeed an evolution of pop into art with a capital A. In addition to mining all manner of roots influences, the musicians were also picking up vibes from Indian music, avant-garde electronics, classical, music hall, and more. When the Beatles premiered their hippie anthem "All You Need Is Love" as part of a worldwide TV broadcast, they had been truly anointed as spokespersons for their generation (a role they had not actively sought), and it seemed they could do no wrong.

Musically, that would usually continue to be the case, but the group's strength began to unravel at a surprisingly quick pace. In August 1967, Brian Epstein -- prone to suicidal depression over the past year -- died of a drug overdose, leaving them without a manager. They pressed on with their next film project, Magical Mystery Tour, directed by themselves; lacking focus or even basic professionalism, the picture bombed when it was premiered on BBC television in December 1967, giving the media the first real chance they'd ever had to roast the Beatles over a flame. (Another film, the animated feature Yellow Submarine, would appear in 1968, although the Beatles had little involvement with the project, either in terms of the movie or the soundtrack.)

 In early 1968, the Beatles decamped to India for a course in transcendental meditation with the Maharishi; this too became something of a media embarrassment as each of the four would eventually depart the course before its completion.

The Beatles [White Album]the Beatles did use their unaccustomed peace in India to compose a wealth of new material. Judged solely on musical merit, The White Album, a double LP released in late 1968, was a triumph. While largely abandoning their psychedelic instruments to return to guitar-based rock, they maintained their whimsical eclecticism, proving themselves masters of everything from blues-rock to vaudeville. As individual songwriters, too, it contains some of their finest work (as does the brilliant non-LP single from this era, "Hey Jude"/"Revolution").

The problem, at least in terms of the group's long-term health, was that these were very much individual songs, as opposed to collective ones. Lennon and McCartney had long composed most of their tunes separately (you can almost always tell the composer by the lead vocalist). But they had always fed off of each other not only to supply missing bits and pieces that would bring a song to completion, but to provide a competitive edge that would bring out the best in the other. McCartney's romantic melodicism and Lennon's more acidic, gritty wit were perfect complements for one another. By The White Album, it was clear (if only in retrospect) that each member was more concerned with his own expression than that of the collective group: a natural impulse, but one that was bound to lead to difficulties.

In addition, George Harrison was becoming a more prolific and skilled composer as well, imbuing his own melodies (which were nearly the equal of those of his more celebrated colleagues) with a cosmic lightness. Harrison was beginning to resent his junior status, and the group began to bicker more openly in the studio. Ringo Starr, whose solid drumming and good nature could usually be counted upon (as was evident in his infrequent lead vocals), actually quit for a couple of weeks in the midst of the White Album sessions (though the media was unaware of this at the time). Personal interests were coming into play as well: Lennon's devotion to romantic and artistic pursuits with his new girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) Yoko Ono was diverting his attentions from the Beatles. Apple Records, started by the group earlier in 1968 as a sort of utopian commercial enterprise, was becoming a financial and organizational nightmare.

These weren't the ideal conditions under which to record a new album in January 1969, especially when McCartney was pushing the group to return to live performing, although none of the others seemed especially keen on the idea. They did agree to try and record a "back-to-basics," live-in-the-studio-type LP, the sessions being filmed for a television special. That plan almost blew up when Harrison, in the midst of tense arguments, left the group for a few days. Although he returned, the idea of playing live concerts was put on the back burner; Harrison enlisted American soul keyboardist Billy Preston as kind of a fifth member on the sessions, both to beef up the arrangements and to alleviate the uncomfortable atmosphere. Exacerbating the problem was that the Beatles didn't have a great deal of first-class new songs to work with, although some were excellent. In order to provide a suitable concert-like experience for the film, the group did climb the roof of their Apple headquarters in London to deliver an impromptu performance on January 30, 1969, before the police stopped it; this was their last live concert of any sort.

Let It Be Generally dissatisfied with these early-1969 sessions, the album and film -- at first titled Get Back, and later to emerge as Let It Be -- remained in the can as the group tried to figure out how the projects should be mixed, packaged, and distributed. A couple of the best tracks, "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down," were issued as a single in the spring of 1969. By this time, the Beatles' quarrels were intensifying in a dispute over management: McCartney wanted their affairs to be handled by his new father-in-law, Lee Eastman, while the other members of the group favored a tough American businessman, Allen Klein.

Abbey Road It was something of a miracle, then, that the final album recorded by the group, Abbey Road, was one of their most unified efforts (even if, by this time, the musicians were recording many of their parts separately). It certainly boasted some of their most intricate melodies, harmonies, and instrumental arrangements; it also heralded the arrival of Harrison as a composer of equal talent to Lennon and McCartney, as George wrote the album's two most popular tunes, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun." the Beatles were still progressing, but it turned out to be the end of the road, as their business disputes continued to magnify. Lennon, who had begun releasing solo singles and performing with friends as the Plastic Ono Band, threatened to resign in late 1969, although he was dissuaded from making a public announcement.

For the still unfinished Get Back album, one last song, Harrison's "I Me Mine", was recorded on 3 January 1970. Lennon, in Denmark at the time, did not participate. In March, rejecting the work Johns had done on the project, now retitled Let It Be, Klein gave the session tapes to American producer Phil Spector, who had recently produced Lennon's solo single "Instant Karma!"

 In addition to remixing the material, Spector edited, spliced and overdubbed several of the recordings that had been intended as "live". McCartney was unhappy with the producer's approach and particularly dissatisfied with the lavish orchestration on "The Long and Winding Road", which involved a fourteen-voice choir and thirty-six-piece instrumental ensemble.McCartney's demands that the alterations to the song be reverted were ignored, and he publicly announced his departure from the band on 10 April 1970, a week before the release of his first, self-titled solo album.

On 8 May, the Spector-produced Let It Be was released. Its accompanying single, "The Long and Winding Road", was the Beatles' last; it was released in the United States, but not Britain. The Let It Be documentary film followed later that month, and would win the 1970 Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Sunday Telegraph critic Penelope Gilliatt called it "a very bad film and a touching one ... about the breaking apart of this reassuring, geometrically perfect, once apparently ageless family of siblings." Several reviewers stated that some of the performances in the film sounded better than their analogous album tracks. 

Describing Let It Be as the "only Beatles album to occasion negative, even hostile reviews", Unterberger calls it "on the whole underrated"; he singles out "some good moments of straight hard rock in 'I've Got a Feeling' and 'Dig a Pony'", and praises "Let It Be", "Get Back", and "the folky 'Two of Us', with John and Paul harmonizing together". McCartney filed suit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual partnership on 31 December 1970. Legal disputes continued long after their break-up, and the dissolution was not formalized until 29 December 1974.

All the boys went on to do pretty well on their own, John with the Plasctic Ono band, Paul and Linda McCartney with Wings, Ringo with his All Star Band and George with various solo albums and The Travelling Wilburys...John and George are no longer with us, we all know why, so I wont mention how they are no longer with us....Paul is still doing gigs,although its fair to say he is starting to slow down given that his in his 70's as is Ringo

BEATLEOGRAPHY

1963 Please Please Me 

1963 With the Beatles  

1964 Introducing...The Beatles 

1964 Meet the Beatles!  

1964 The Beatles' 

1964 A Hard Day's Night

1964 Something New

1964 Beatles for Sale

1964 Beatles '65 

1965 Beatles VI

1965 Help!

1965 Rubber Soul  

1966 Revolver

1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

1967 Magical Mystery Tour

1968 The Beatles [White Album]

1969 Yellow Submarine 

1969 Abbey Road

1970 Let It Be