Lucille Barilla - The Beatles: Story of the Band that Changed the World

Of all the bands that have ever made an impact around the world, none have ever been as beloved as The Beatles. Their music, and message, not only crosses cultural lines, but generational lines as well.

The Beatles are arguably the most successful band of all time, with album and single sales of over one billion units.

Paul McCartney is still a successful musician, having just won a Grammy for Best Historical Album, Band on the Run (Paul McCartney Archive Collection, Deluxe Edition). Ringo Starr still tours ever summer with a different version of his All-Starr Band. A documentary about George Harrison, titled George Harrison, Living in the Material World , was recently honored at the 2012 Critics Choice Awards for Best Documentary. Over 100 of John Lennons legendary drawings will be displayed at the Hotel Crowne Towers, Copenhagen, Denmark this coming year.

A Fateful Beginning

It was the fateful day of July 6,1957 that John Lennon first set eyes on Paul McCartney, and he did not like what he saw one bit. Lennon was the unspoken leader of the skiffle band The Quarry Men and McCartney was attending the St. Peters Parish Church annual fete where the band was playing.

Lennon wasnt all impressed with McCartneys guitar playing skills. What most impressed him was the fact that Paul knew all the words to the popular songs of the day, a feat that Lennon could not master. Usually, he would mumble his way through the words of a song if he did not know them, playing louder to overtake his shortcoming.

McCartney actually knew all the words he was singing, and that impressed Lennon very much. So much so, in fact, that he wrote out the words of Eddie Cochrans Twenty Flight Rock for Lennon, as well as Gene Vincents Be Bop A Lu La.

The fact that McCartney also knew how to tune a guitar was a major plus.

The one thing that kept John from allowing Paul to be in the band outright was the fact that he was the undisputed leader of The Quarry Men. Paul would be a direct threat to his position in the band. Despite his misgivings, John told Paul he could join the band.

Paul McCartney was the son of James and Mary McCartney; he had one brother, Michael. His father, who was a gifted musician, taught young Paul and Michael how to play various instruments. Mary was a midwife who died at a young age of breast cancer, leaving Jim to raise his two boys alone. Paul never got over his mothers death and became a caretaker of young Michael for many years afterward, while his father struggled to hold the family together.

Shortly after Paul signed on, he told John about a friend of his, whose father drove the bus he took to classes at Liverpool Institute. What turned John off from this accomplished guitar player was the fact that he was just 14 years old. This, of course, was George Harrison.

The son of Harry and Louise Harrison, George was one of four children. George was a loving child but not the best student, so it was with great relief that Louise found her son had a natural musical ability, giving him a goal to work toward, and a way to take care of himself.

George was never officially asked to join The Quarry Men. In fact, he just found himself tagging along to all of their gigs and doing whatever it was John asked him to do. There was a popular song Raunchy at the time, and John asked George to play it wherever and whenever he wanted. George happily obliged.

It was during this time of creative blossoming for the band that John suffered his deepest loss. When he was a young boy, Johns father, Freddie Lennon, returned to the life of a seaman, spending years away from his family. Shortly after, his mother, Julia, gave John to her sister Mimi to raise, as she knew Mimi would do a better job with the child than she ever could.

Mimi raised John in a loving home and when he was an older teen, he reunited with Julia and found the carefree upbringing he longed for. Julia taught him to play the banjo and gave him a love of all things musical, while Mimi discouraged Johns musicianship and told him to find a better way to spend his time.

John later found a young lover in art college classmate, Cynthia Powell, but it was the acceptance of Julia he craved most of all. Julia was the unrequited love of Johns life and just as soon as he felt he was a part of her life again, she was killed in a horrific bus accident, just minutes from her sister Mimis home.

After taking a break from music for a short time, the band reunited and continued to play whatever gigs they were offered. One memorable stint was at a new club called The Casbah, owned by Mona Best. Her eldest son Pete was a drummer who eventually would take the spot vacated by drummer Ken Browne.

Art college also brought John to the person who would have the most influence in his life other than Julia: Stu Sutcliffe.

Stu was a passionate artist who was so involved in his work that he would paint in a basement, where his professor would come and check on his progress. The affect he had on an impressionable John Lennon was instant. He was fascinated by the way Stu dressed, how passionate he was about his art, and how he discussed painters like Van Gough with ferocity.

Lennon began to take his art classes more seriously because of Stu. Stu, on the other hand, found a benefit to his time spent with John. He desperately wanted to be in a band and as Stu could be a vehicle for his passion for art, John could help Stu reach his goal of being a musician: he would become the bands first bassist, prior to McCartney taking over the instrument.

With the band in place, they named themselves The Silver Beatles. Additionally, with John Lennons art career going nowhere, Paul having finished his requisite school exams and George now 17 (and able to work full time legally), the band was asked if they wanted to come to Germany to hone their chops at some local clubs. Bands such as Derry and the Seniors and The Tony Sheridan Band had success in clubs like the Kaiserkeller, and since The Silver Beatles had drawn up a good following in their native Liverpool, they too were asked to join the fold.

The band lived at the Indra movie house across the street from the Kaiserkeller, their room right behind a cinema screen. They had no bathroom and had to wash up in the washrooms for moviegoers.

Continually urged by their boss, Bruno Kaiserkeller, to Mak show boys! ( Shout! The Beatles in their Generation , Philip Norman), the band would play for four-hour stretches at a time, and often until four or five in the morning. Hopped up on amphetamines, the band would stay hyper and awake all night and get through their show. The only person who did not indulge in the drug-induced hyperactivity was Pete Best.

After months in Germany honing their act, the band was more focused and dead-set on success than ever. Gone were the scared young men from Liverpool who huddled together when they played, afraid to make a mistake. Months of eight-hour shows an night had turned them into a lean, mean music machine.

During this experience, Stu endured a beating after a show that resulted in a blow to the head. This would later yield deadly results.

Returning to Liverpool, the band was originally thought to be German. Only later did fans find out that the band they were seeing live was indeed one of their own.

Bass player Sutcliffe had remained in Germany, having fallen in love with aspiring photographer Astrid Kirchherr. While living with Astrid, Stu had begun having terrible headaches, so bad that the pain was blinding. Scans of his brain were taken and nothing presented itself as abnormal, but in fact, it was an aneurysm that later killed the young Stu at age 22.