The most successful pop group of the 20 century; they changed popular culture forever. From their first studio contract in 1962 until 1970, the Beatles lineup consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, this lineup was formed upon mutual agreement between the musicians and producer George Martin and manager Brian Epstein. This famous lineup is also known as "Fab Four" while many other musicians claimed the "Fifth Beatle" status. Those other musicians who performed with The Beatles on various gigs, tours, recordings, and on part-time basis were: singer Tony Sheridan, bassist Stue Satcliff, guitarist Eric Clapton, drummers Pete Best, Andy White, Tommy Moore, Jimmy Nicol, and Neil Aspinall on harmonica and percussion, assistant and Hammond organ player Mal Evans, electric piano player Nicky Hopkins, and pianist Billy Preston, the only artist to receive joint credit on a Beatles record. The four Beatles sometimes referred to Brian Epstein as the fifth Beatle, albeit the label is now more often applied to George Martin, who produced nearly all the Beatles recordings, made arrangements and orchestrations, and played piano on several songs.

Both Ringo Starr and George Harrison were singled out for praise for their performances in the first Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night (1964); manager (and former drama student) Brian Epstein predicted that Starr would turn out to have considerable acting ability. He did indeed begin a second career in movies as the Beatles broke up, while bandmate Harrison first befriended the Monty Python comedy troupe, then became a movie producer after he financed the Pythons' Life of Brian (1979). (John Lennon and Paul McCartney had briefer movie careers, with Lennon appearing in How I Won the War (1967) and McCartney making Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984).)

After the Beatles stopped giving live performances in 1966, instead of appearing live on TV to promote their latest singles, they made "promos" - a forerunner of music videos - and the promotional clips played in their place. Individual members of The Beatles sometimes appeared on TV to give interviews, but not to perform as a group.

Their initial 1962 recording contract with Parlophone Records in England (a division of EMI) was for a series of singles, at a minimal royalty rate. After "Please Please Me" became a hit, EMI gave them a full five-year contract for singles and albums, and better royalties. Brian Epstein negotiated a new contract for them in 1967 just before he died; with its basic terms fulfilled by late 1969, Allen Klein was able to renegotiate with EMI, and got the band the highest royalty rate ever paid to a recording artist or group up to that time - a whopping 69¢ per album. John Lennon had already effectively quit the Beatles, but agreed to keep mum about it until the deal was complete; Paul McCartney announced the debut of his first solo album a few months later. The official dissolution of The Beatles was final in 1975.

Their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show actually wasn't the first time the Beatles had been seen on American television. A film clip of them performing in England had run earlier on _"Jack Paar Show, The" (1957)_, but Ed Sullivan gave them first live TV appearance in America.

George Harrison nearly missed their first Ed Sullivan show, because he'd come down with the flu. He spent much of their rehearsal time sick in bed at the hotel, and only made the show after a doctor came to their suite with enough medications to get him through the performance. He was substituted by The Beatles assistant, Neil Aspinall, during rehearsals.

Their infamous "butcher cover" for the "Yesterday and Today" album came about from the Beatles' disdain for photo sessions, and also the way Capitol Records in America tended to "butcher" their British LPs in repackaging. (Capitol's producers used to skim tracks off two or three albums, add a stereo mix of their newest single, and issue the results as their "latest album", ignoring the work the Beatles and producer George Martin had put into crafting the earlier ones.) Protests from fans, parents, and radio DJs over the cover design forced Capitol to change the photo - and soon after, they changed their issuing and packaging policies in order to comply with the copyvio rules.

"Saturday Night Live" (1975) had a running joke in the 1970s, where producer Lorne Michaels would appear on camera, and invite the Beatles to reunite for one more set on the show, for the handsome sum of $3200 (later upped to $3500). The joke spoofed both the grandiose offers made by Sid Bernstein and other promoters to the Beatles to perform again through those years, and the relatively small budget SNL was given to bring on top musical acts. On one show night, John and Paul (who was visiting John in New York) happened to be watching, and joked about going down to the studio, just for a laugh. George Harrison did actually appear on another night; a mock argument happened on camera when he was told he couldn't collect the whole fee, since the offer was only for the whole band.

Three of the Beatles married their wives and had their first children born in the 1960s: John (to Cynthia Lennon, mother of Julian Lennon) in 1962, Ringo (to Maureen Starkey, mother of Zak Starkey) in 1965, and Paul (to Linda McCartney, mother of Mary McCartney) in 1969. George Harrison was the only Beatle who had a child born out of wedlock, his son, Dhani Harrison, was born one month before he married second wife, Olivia Trinidad Arias, who became Olivia Harrison. George was previously married to Pattie Boyd from 1966 - 1969; they did not have children.

One of the reasons their 1968 "White Album" (whose formal title was simply "The Beatles") was a double album with thirty-three songs was because the band had misinterpreted their 1967 contract renewal. Since the deal with EMI was for a minimum of seventy recorded songs within nine years (either as a group or as solo artists), they sought to deliver those seventy recordings as early as possible, then look for another deal. Allen Klein, their manager, pointed out to the band that however early those songs were delivered, each member was still under exclusive contract to EMI until 1976. The fact that they had submitted the required number of songs (between the "White Album", "Abbey Road", the in-progress "Let It Be", recent singles, and solo projects) by the fall of 1969, however, gave them a bargaining chip for renegotiations.

In mid-1957, John Lennon formed a band called "The Quarrymen". Paul McCartney joined in July 1957 and George Harrison joined in February 1958. In the fall of 1959 they changed their name to "Johnny and the Moondogs". In January of 1960 Lennon's friend Stuart Sutcliffe joined. They changed their name to "The Silver Beetles", then "The Silver Beats" and later "The Silver Beatles". In May 1960, drummer Tommy Moore joined and the band finally settled on "The Beatles" as they toured Scotland with singer Johnny Gentle. In August 1960 Tommy Moore was replaced by drummer Norman Chapman, then by drummer, Pete Best, but the name of the band stayed. In 1960 and 1961 Ringo Starr made numerous appearances replacing Pete Best in Liverpool and In Hamburg. The final cast of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr was formed before their first recording contract, in August 1962, upon their mutual decision with their producer George Martin and manager Brian Epstein.

In 1963, the CBS Evening News did a segment on the popularity of The Beatles in England. Ed Sullivan called Walter Cronkite after the broadcast to ask him about the band.

Ranked #25 on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists.

Ranked #1 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll.

The Beatles were the first stars of the rock 'n' roll era to be immortalized in London's Madame Tussauds waxwork museum. The band's personal tailor Dougie Millings supplied the suits for the wax effigies.

At the time of writing (2008) they remain the only band to have won two Brit (British Phonographic Industry) Awards for their Outstanding Contribution to Music, in 1977 and in 1983. In addition, they are the only band which has had two members receive the Outstanding Contribution Award individually, John Lennon posthumously in 1982 and Paul McCartney in 2008.

Geoff Emerick, a principal recording engineer on The Beatles' classic "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967), estimates that the entire album took 700 hours to complete over a period of 129 days. First track to be recorded was "When I'm Sixty-Four" (December 6, 1966 at Abbey Road studio two).

When "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released in 1967, it was the first album to feature printed lyrics of all songs on its sleeve. The album was also the first to have a gatefold sleeve format.

Ringo Starr (the eldest Beatle) and Paul McCartney are the only former Beatles to make it to their 64th birthdays.

A Hard Day's Night

The Beatles had a successful film career, beginning with A Hard Day's Night (1964), a loosely scripted comic farce, sometimes compared to the Marx Brothers in style. It focused on Beatlemania and their hectic touring lifestyle, the movie was directed in a quasi-documentary style in black-and-white by the up-and-coming Richard Lester, who was known for having directed a television version of the successful BBC radio series The Goon Show as well as the off-beat short film The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film, with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.

Help!

In 1965 came Help!; an Eastmancolour extravaganza, which was also directed by Lester. The film was shot in exotic locations (such as Salisbury Plain, with Stonehenge visible in the background; the Bahamas; and Salzburg and the Tyrol region of the Austrian Alps) in the style of a James Bond spoof along with even more Marx Brothers-style zaniness: For example, the film is dedicated "to Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine." It was the first Beatles film filmed in colour.

Magical Mystery Tour

The Magical Mystery Tour film was essentially McCartney's idea, which was thought up as he returned from a trip to the U.S. in the late spring of 1967, and was loosely inspired by press coverage McCartney had read about Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters' LSD-fuelled American bus odyssey.[1] McCartney felt inspired to take this idea and blend it with the peculiarly English working class tradition of charabanc mystery tours, in which children took chaperoned bus rides through the English countryside, destination unknown. The film was critically dismissed when it was aired on the BBC's premier television network, BBC-1, on Boxing Day — a day primarily for traditional "cosy, family entertainment"[citation needed]. While the film has historical importance as an early advance into the music video age, at the time many viewers found it plotless and confusing. Compounding this culture clash was the fact that the film was made in colour and made use of colour filters for some of the scenes - particularly in a sequence for "Blue Jay Way". In December 1967 practically no-one in the UK owned a colour receiver, the service only having started a few months earlier.

Yellow Submarine

The animated Yellow Submarine followed in 1968, but had little direct input from The Beatles, save for a live-action epilogue and the contribution of five new songs (including "Only a Northern Song", an unreleased track from the Sgt. Pepper sessions). It was acclaimed for its boldly innovative graphic style and especially stinging pangs of heartbreak, along with the soundtrack. The Beatles are said to have been pleased with the result and attended its highly publicised London premiere, every one of The Beatles thought their own voices (narrated by actors) were not quite right, whilst saying that the other three were perfect.

Let It Be

Let It Be was an ill-fated documentary of the band that was shot over a four-week period in January 1969. The documentary — which was originally intended to be simply a chronicle of the evolution of an album and the band's possible return to live performances — captured the prevailing tensions between the band members, and in this respect it unwittingly became a document of the beginning of their break-up.

The band initially rejected both the film and the album, instead recording and issuing the Abbey Road album. But with so much money having been spent on the project, it was decided to finish, and release, the film and album (the latter with considerable post-production by Phil Spector) in the spring of 1970. When the film finally appeared, it was after the break-up had been announced.

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