Hi Pack Ratters. It's finally here. It's hard to say the Year 2000, not 19 something.
Well, to start the next millennium, let's look back at the 1960s and the greatest rock group in the world. I believe anyone who has collected Beatles memorabilia will find they've kept something of great value.
This will be part one of a two-part article. So, let's go back to the sixties.
Not Elvis, not Elton, not Michael Jackson or the Rolling Stones. No other performer or group dominated the Canadian or American charts like the Beatles.
Consider their 20 #1 singles, or their achievement of having simultaneously placed nine songs in the Top 100. And most astonishing of all, their unprecedented accomplishment of having five songs -- Can't Buy Me Love, Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Please Please Me – make the top five chart hits on the week of April 4, 1964.
We will also look at two members of the group this month, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, courtesy of the following excerpts from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia.
John Lennon (1940-80): British rock musician-songwriter, born in Liverpool, England; founder of pop group Quarrymen (which appeared under various names) 1955-62.
He founded the Beatles in 1962 and was the group's lead singer and intellectual until its dissolution in 1970. He had one son, Julian, with first wife Cynthia Powell, and in 1968 released the controversial album Two Virgins (on whose cover he and second wife, Yoko Ono, appeared completely nude).
After an intense period of self-discovery, he released he most impressive solo album, Plastic Ono Band (1970) followed by the haunting Imagine (1971). After taking time off to raise his second son, Sean, Lennon recorded his last album Double Fantasy (1980), which features a love dialogue with Yoko Ono.
Other albums include The Wedding Album (1969), Mind Games (1973), Walls and Bridges (1974), Rock'n'Roll (1975); numerous film appearances and awards with Beatles, Yoko Ono, and solo.
He was murdered by obsessed fan Mark David Chapman outside apartment building in New York City. Posthumous releases include Heartplay (1983), Milk and Honey (1984). Yoko Ono and syndication firm Westwood One released a 52-week series of compiled Lost Lennon Tapes in 1988 over the radio. He was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Beatles in 1988.
Paul McCartney (born 1942), British rock musician and songwriter. As a member of the Beatles, McCartney wrote and performed songs that revitalized popular and critical interest in rock and roll. After the group broke up, he further secured his importance in music history through is work with Wings and as a solo artist.
James Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool, England. He learned to play the piano by ear in his youth and bought his first guitar as a teenager. He joined the Quarrymen in 1956 and began writing songs with the group founder, John Lennon. The band, which changed names several times, signed a recording contract in 1962 as the Beatles. McCartney served primarily as a bassist and vocalist, singing the lead on Yesterday (1965), Penny Lane (1967), Hey Jude (1968), and many others.
Lennon and McCartney wrote most of the group's material, including its first single, Love Me Do (1962); its first British chart-topper, Please Please Me (1963); and the 1966 Grammy award winner for best song, Michelle.
The Beatles won an Academy award for best original song score for Let It Be (1970), their last film before disbanding. That same year, the solo effort McCartney was released, featuring the song Maybe I'm Amazed.
In 1971, McCartney collaborated with his wife, Linda, on Ram. The two went on to found the group Wings, which recorded the hit songs, My Love (1973), Listen to What the Man Said (1975), Silly Love Songs (1976), and With a Little Luck (1978). With Wings collaborator Denny Laine, McCarney wrote Mull of Kintyre (1977), the first single ever to sell two million copies in Britain.
McCartney returned to a solo career with albums such as McCartney II (1980), Press to Play (1986), Flowers in the Dirt (1989), and Off the Ground (1993). The National Academy Recording Arts and Sciences honoured McCartney with a lifetime achievement award in 1990.
The Beatles were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Although Lennon's murder in 1980 destroyed the possibility of ever staging a complete Beatles reunion, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr gathered to complete some unfinished Lennon recordings to add to The Beatles Anthology, a collection issued in successive volumes beginning in 1995.
See you next month for Part Two.