name	Brian Epstein
background	non_performing_personnel
birth name	Brian Samuel Epstein
born	September 19, 1934Liverpool, England, UK
died	August 27, 1967London, England, UK
occupation	Businessman, personal manager, impresario
years active	1961–1967
associated acts	The Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas,The Fourmost, Cilla Black
website	Official site }}

Brian Samuel Epstein (; 19 September 1934 27 August 1967), was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle. His management company was named NEMS Enterprises after his family's music stores, also called NEMS (North End Music Stores).

Epstein paid for The Beatles to record a demo in Decca's studios, which Epstein later persuaded George Martin to listen to, as Decca were not interested in signing the band. Epstein was then offered a contract by Martin on behalf of EMI's small Parlophone label, even though they had previously been rejected by almost every other British record company. Martin later explained that Epstein's enthusiasm and his confidence that The Beatles would one day become internationally famous convinced him to sign them.

Epstein died of an accidental drug overdose at his home in London in August 1967. The Beatles' early success has been attributed to Epstein's management and sense of style. McCartney said of Epstein: "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian".

Family and early life

Epstein's grandfather, Isaac Epstein, was from Lithuania (part of the Russian Empire at that time) and arrived in England in the 1890s, at the age of eighteen. His grandmother, Dinah, was the daughter of Joseph (who was a draper) and Esther Hyman, who emigrated from Russia to England (c. 1871/72) with their eldest son, Jacob. The Hymans had six more children.

Isaac Epstein married Dinah Hyman in Manchester in 1900. In 1901, Isaac and Dinah were living at 80 Walton Road, Liverpool, with Isaac's sister, Rachael Epstein, above the furniture dealership he had recently founded. Dinah and Isaac's third son was Harry Epstein; the father of Brian Epstein. Eventually the family moved to a larger home at 27 Anfield Road, Liverpool (now a Beatles-themed hotel called Epstein House). After Harry and his brother Leslie had joined the family firm, Isaac Epstein founded "I. Epstein and Sons", and enlarged his furniture business by taking over adjacent shops (62/72 Walton Road) to sell a varied range of other goods, such as musical instruments and household appliances. They called the expanding business NEMS (North End Music Stores) which offered lenient credit terms, and from which McCartney's father once bought a piano. thumb|right|200px| Brian Epstein as an infant Epstein's mother was formally named Malka (although always known by her family as Queenie, Malka translating as "queen" in Hebrew), and was a member of the Hyman furniture family, which owned the successful Sheffield Veneering Company.

Epstein was born on 19 September 1934, in Rodney Street, Liverpool, England. Harry and Queenie also had another son, Clive, who was born 22 months after his older brother. During World War II, the Epsteins moved to Southport—where two schools expelled Epstein for laziness and poor performance—but returned to Liverpool in 1945. The Epsteins lived at 197 Queens Drive, Childwall, in Liverpool, living there for 30 years.

After his parents had moved him from one boarding school to another, the 14-year-old Epstein spent two years at Wrekin College in Shropshire, where he was taught the violin. Shortly before his 16th birthday, he sent a long letter to his father, explaining that he wanted to become a dress designer, but Harry Epstein was adamantly opposed to this idea, and his son finally had to "report for duty" at the family's furniture shop. After serving an apprenticeship for six months for another company, he started work for his family's business on a £5 per week wage, and was congratulated on the first day of work after selling a £12 dining room table to a woman who had originally wanted to buy a mirror.

In December 1952, Epstein was drafted as a data entry clerk into the Royal Army Service Corps, and was posted to the Albany Street Barracks near Regent's Park, in London, where he was often reprimanded for not picking up his army pay. After returning to Liverpool Epstein was put in charge of Clarendon Furnishing shop in Hoylake, and in 1955 was made a director of NEMS. In September 1956, he took a trip to London to meet a friend, but after being there for only one day, he was robbed of his passport, birth certificate, chequebook, wristwatch, and all the money he had on him. As he did not want his parents to find out, he worked as a department store clerk until he had earned enough money to buy a train ticket back to Liverpool. Back in Liverpool, he confessed his homosexuality to a psychiatrist—a friend of the Epstein family—who suggested to Harry Epstein that his son should leave Liverpool as soon as possible. During the sessions Epstein revealed his ambition of becoming an actor, so his parents allowed him go to London to study.

After saying the he "felt like an old man at the age of 21", Epstein attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. His RADA classmates included actors Susannah York, Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole, but Epstein dropped out after the third term, saying that he had become "too much of a businessman to enjoy being a student, and I didn't like being a student at all." In 1964, he revealed that he would have liked to produce a theatre play, or even act, "in something by Chekov", or a "straight drama" by John Osborne.

Back in Liverpool, his father put his son in charge of the record department of the newly-opened NEMS music store on Great Charlotte Street. Epstein worked "day and night" at the store to make it a success, and it became one of the biggest musical retail outlets in the North of England. The Epsteins opened a second store at 12–14 Whitechapel, and Epstein was put in charge of the entire operation. Epstein often walked across the road to the Lewis's department store (which also had a music section) where Peter Brown was employed. He watched Brown's sales technique and was impressed enough to lure Brown to work for NEMS with the offer of a higher salary and a commission on sales. On 3 August 1961, Epstein started a regular music column in the Mersey Beat magazine, called 'Record Releases by Brian Epstein of NEMS'.

The Beatles

The Beatles' name was supposedly first noticed by Epstein in issues of Mersey Beat, and on numerous posters around Liverpool, before he asked Bill Harry who they were, as Harry had previously convinced Epstein to sell the magazine at NEMS. (The Beatles were featured on the front page of its second issue). The Beatles had recorded the "My Bonnie" single with Tony Sheridan in Germany, and some months after its release Epstein asked Alistair Taylor about it in NEMS. Epstein's version of the story was that a customer, Raymond Jones, walked into the NEMS shop and asked him for the "My Bonnie" single, which made Epstein curious about the group. Taylor later claimed that he had used the name of Jones (a regular customer) to order the single and paid the deposit himself, knowing that Epstein would notice it, and order further copies. Harry and McCartney later repudiated Epstein's story, as Harry had been talking to Epstein about The Beatles for a long time (being the group he promoted the most in the Mersey Beat magazine) with McCartney saying, "Brian [Epstein] knew perfectly well who The Beatles were—they were on the front page of the second issue of Mersey Beat".

The Beatles were due to perform a lunchtime concert in the Cavern Club on 9 November 1961. According to the club's owner, Sytner, Epstein had visited the club quite a few times previously on Saturday nights, once asking Sytner to book a group for his twenty-first birthday party. Epstein asked Bill Harry to arrange for Epstein and his assistant Taylor to watch The Beatles perform, so Epstein and Taylor were allowed into the club without queuing, with a welcome message being announced over the club's public-address system by Bob Wooler, who was the resident DJ. Epstein later talked about the performance: After the performance, Epstein and Taylor went into the dressing room—which he later called "as big as a broom cupboard"—to talk to the group. The Beatles, all regular NEMS customers, immediately recognised Epstein, but before Epstein could congratulate them on their performance, Harrison said, "And what brings Mr. Epstein here?" Epstein replied with, "We just popped in to say hello. I enjoyed your performance". He introduced Taylor, who merely nodded a greeting, and then said, "Well done, then. Goodbye.", and left. Epstein and Taylor went to Peacock's restaurant in Hackins Hey for lunch, and during the meal Epstein asked Taylor what he thought about the group. Taylor replied that he honestly thought they were "absolutely awful", but there was something "remarkable" about them. Epstein waited a long time before saying anything further, just sitting there smiling slightly, but eventually saying, "I think they're tremendous!" Later, when Epstein was paying the bill, he grabbed Taylor's arm and said, "Do you think I should manage them?"

The Beatles played at The Cavern over the next three weeks, and Epstein was always there to watch them. He contacted Allan Williams (their previous promoter/manager) to confirm that Williams no longer had any ties to them, but Williams advised Epstein "not to touch them with a barge pole", because of a Hamburg concert percentage the group had refused to pay him.

Management contract

In a meeting with the group at NEMS on 3 December 1961, Epstein proposed the idea of managing them. Lennon, Harrison and Pete Best arrived late for the meeting in the afternoon at 4 pm—they had been drinking at the Grapes pub in Mathew Street—but McCartney was not with them, because, as Harrison explained, he had just got up and was "taking a bath". Epstein was upset at this, but was placated by Harrison jokingly saying, "He may be late, but he'll be very clean." Lennon had invited Wooler to be at the meeting so he could later give his opinion of Epstein, but introduced him by saying, "This is me dad". Epstein was reticent throughout the short meeting, only asking if they had a manager (to which they replied in the negative) and culminating with, "It seems to me that with everything going on, someone ought to be looking after you". Epstein had further meetings with the group on 6 December and 10 December 1961. On 13 December 1961, after Epstein's invitation, Mike Smith of Decca records travelled from London to Liverpool to watch the group at the Cavern Club, which led to an audition in London on 1 January 1962 (see The Decca Audition).

Being under the age of 21, McCartney, Harrison and Best had to have the legal consent of their parents to enter into a contract. Best and his mother (Mona Best, owner of The Casbah Coffee Club) were impressed with Epstein because of his office, expensive watch, suits and large car, as were the other Beatles, and Best’s mother thought Epstein "could be good for them [The Beatles]". McCartney's father was sceptical about a Jewish manager, and warned his son to be careful about finances. Lennon's guardian, Mimi Smith, refused at first, believing that Epstein had enough money to drop the group after a few months when something else came along that interested him, but as Lennon had just turned twenty-one, his Aunt's advice could be ignored.

The Beatles finally signed a five-year contract with Epstein on 24 January 1962, which gave Epstein 25 per cent of their gross income. The Beatles would then share any income after various expenses had been deducted. Epstein then formed the management company NEMS Enterprises, telling his parents that managing The Beatles was only a part-time occupation, and would never interfere with the family business. The Beatles signed Epstein's first management contract, but Epstein did not sign it himself, although English law would have enforced the contract through the doctrine of part performance. He later told Taylor, "Well, if they ever want to tear it up, they can hold me but I can't hold them". The contract stated that Epstein would receive a management commission of 25% per cent of their gross income, after a certain financial threshold had been reached. The Beatles argued for a smaller percentage, but Epstein pointed out that he had been paying their expenses for months, without receiving anything in return. On 1 October 1962, four days before the release of "Love Me Do", Epstein signed Lennon and McCartney to a three-year NEMS publishing contract.

Appearance on stage

Although Epstein had had no prior experience of artist management, he had a strong influence on their early dress-code and attitude on stage. When Epstein discovered the band, they wore blue jeans and leather jackets, performing at rowdy rock 'n' roll shows where they would stop and start songs when they felt like it, or when an audience member requested a certain song. Epstein encouraged them to wear suits and ties; insisted that they stop swearing, smoking, drinking or eating onstage; and also suggested the famous synchronised bow at the end of their performances. McCartney was the first to agree with Epstein's ideas, believing it was, in part, due to Epstein's RADA training. Epstein explained that the process from leather and jeans to suits was a slower process: "I encouraged them, at first, to get out of the leather jackets and jeans, and I wouldn't allow them to appear in jeans after a short time, and then, after that step, I got them to wear sweaters on stage, and then, very reluctantly, eventually, suits." The collarless suits the group started wearing were of German design (they had seen them in Hamburg), which Epstein approved of, saying: "I thought it was an excellent design at the time."

Lennon was against the idea of wearing suits and ties, but later said, "I'll wear a suit. I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me". Epstein began seeking publicity by "charming and smarming ... the newspaper people", as Lennon said in 1972. According to McCartney, "The gigs went up in stature and though the pay went up only a little bit, it did go up", and that the band was "now playing better places". Another improvement Epstein made was that the group was now far more organised, having a single concert diary in which to record bookings, rather than using whoever's diary was to hand. Although usually calling him Mr Epstein, or Brian, in interviews, the group abbreviated his name to "Eppy" or "Bri" in private, which they did for anyone connected to them that were considered friends.

Record contract

Epstein made numerous trips to London to visit record companies with the hope of securing a record contract, but was rejected by many, including Columbia, Pye, Philips, Oriole, and most famously, Decca (see The Decca audition). The Beatles later found out that Epstein had paid Decca producer Tony Meehan (ex-drummer of the Shadows) to produce the studio recordings. While Epstein was negotiating with Decca, he also approached EMI marketing executive Ron White, who later contacted EMI producers Norrie Paramor, Walter Ridley, and Norman Newell, but they all declined to record the group. White could not contact EMI's fourth staff producer, Martin, as he was on holiday.

On 8 May 1962, Epstein visited the HMV (EMI) store at 363 Oxford Street, London, to have the Decca audition tape transferred to 78 rpm acetates. An HMV disc-cutter named Jim Foy liked the recordings, and suggested that Epstein should contact Sid Coleman, the head of EMI's record publishing company, Ardmore & Beechwood, who had offices on the top floor. Coleman liked the recordings, and sent Epstein to Martin, the A&R; manager of Parlophone. On 9 May 1962, Epstein met Martin at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, and immediately sent a telegram to The Beatles in Hamburg confirming that they had been accepted. The Beatles were signed by EMI's small Parlophone label after the group had been rejected by almost every other British record company, and without Martin ever having seen them play live. Martin later explained that Epstein's enthusiasm, and his conviction that The Beatles would one day become internationally famous, convinced him to sign them.

The Beatles' recording contract that EMI offered Epstein gave them one penny for each record sold, which was split among the four members, meaning one farthing per group member. The royalty rate was further reduced for singles sold outside the UK, on which the group received half of one penny (again split between the whole band) per single. Martin said later that EMI had "nothing to lose" by signing a contract with them.

Martin scheduled an audition at Abbey Road Studios which convinced Martin that they were good enough, but with one exception: He felt the recording would be better served by an experienced session drummer in place of Best. When the news came that Martin wanted to replace Best on their recordings with a session drummer, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison asked Epstein to fire Best from the band. Epstein agonised about the decision, and asked the Cavern's DJ, Bob Wooler, if it was a good idea, to which Wooler replied that Best was very popular with the fans and they would not like it at all. Starr took his place, as Starr had previously played with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and had previously stepped in to drum with them when Best was ill or unable to play.

Epstein renegotiated EMI's royalty rate, and on 27 January 1966, The Beatles signed a new nine-year contract with EMI, but with a clause stating that 25 per cent would be paid to NEMS for the full nine years, even if The Beatles decided not to renew their management contract with Epstein, which was up for renewal the following year.

After Candlestick Park

The Beatles' hectic schedule of touring, television, and film work between 1963–65 kept Epstein very busy. Their last live concert was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29 August 1966, and Epstein's management duties changed to reflect the changing nature of their career. He wanted them to continue touring, but they adamantly refused.

Business dealings

Epstein once offered the individual Beatles a fixed wage of £50-a-week for life, instead of receiving money from record sales. Harrison remembered that he was earning £25 a week at the time—which was more than the £10 a week his father was earning—but the group declined Epstein's offer, as they thought that they were worth much more than £50-a-week.

The Beatles' concerts were booked by Epstein himself, and he also presented groups managed by NEMS as an opening act, thereby making money for NEMS as the promoter, booking agent, and manager for all the concerts. NEMS had a staff of 25 at the time of its move from Liverpool to London in 1964. The Beatles were constantly in demand by concert promoters, and Epstein took advantage of the situation to avoid paying some taxes by accepting "hidden" fees on the night of a performance, which he always kept in a brown paper bag.

Epstein also successfully managed Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (who had three hits with Lennon-McCartney songs) the Fourmost (their first two singles were written by Lennon) the Cyrkle (Epstein's first American group) and Cilla Black (who was Epstein's only female artist) as well as Tommy Quickly, and Sounds Incorporated (later known as Sounds Inc.). He sent his stable of artists on "package tours" around the UK (as was common at the time) which meant each act played short sets, interspersed with a compère or a comedian. Epstein revealed that even though he was entitled to be reimbursed by acts for expenses incurred, he paid for his own flights to and from the US, as he did not see himself as being part of a touring group, and that photographs, transport, and international telephone calls were paid from his own 25 per cent share in profits.

The Beatles toured the Philippines in July 1966, playing two shows at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manilla, but Epstein unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, when presented with an invitation to a breakfast party. Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had been their policy never to accept such official invitations. The Beatles and their entourage were ejected from their hotel the same day and were given a police escort to the airport, even though Epstein made a televised statement publicly apologising for the misunderstanding, which was not heard because of static. They boarded the plane to fly home, but Epstein and Beatles' assistant, Mal Evans, were ordered off, with both believing they would not be allowed back on the plane. Epstein was forced to give the tax authorities £6,800 worth of Philippine peso notes from the Manila shows, and had to sign the tax bond verifying the exchange before being allowed back on the plane.

Epstein added the Vic Lewis Organisation under the control of NEMS in 1966, and later brought impresario Robert Stigwood in as a manager. He offered to sell the control of NEMS to Stigwood, but did not tell any of the group about the decision. McCartney had been taking a much more active interest in NEMS' finances, as the group were becoming aware that some artists with more ruthless managers—such as the Rolling Stones under Allen Klein—claimed to be receiving more commercially advantageous terms. After Epstein's death his brother, Clive, took over the control of NEMS; being the second largest shareholder of the company. Stigwood then tried to take over the management of NEMS, but all four Beatles vehemently opposed him, with Lennon saying, "We don't know you. Why would we do this?"

McCartney admitted that they signed all the contracts Epstein presented to them without reading them first, but when Lennon was asked for a comment about Epstein's business dealings after Epstein’s death, he said, "Well, he was alright. I've found out since, of course, that he wasn't quite as honest to us as he made out". Many other interviews with Lennon report him as being very loyal to Epstein, however, even saying, "We had complete faith in him when he was running us. To us, he was the expert". When asked, in 1964, about his own standing as a manager or businessman, Epstein replied, "Fair, as a businessman, fair. I've got a business background, and probably, a reasonable business brain. I'm no, sort of, genius [laughter]." Asked about his defects, Epstein said, "I'm probably too conscious of ideas, rather than finance behind ideas."

Merchandising

Before The Beatles achieved nationwide success in Britain, Epstein had permitted a company (run by his cousins that catered initially to fan club members) to produce Beatles' sweaters for 30 shillings and badges for 6 pence, eventually selling 15,000 sweaters and 50,000 badges as The Beatles' popularity grew. When Beatlemania stormed the UK in November 1963, Epstein was besieged by novelty goods companies wanting to use The Beatles' name on plastic guitars, drums, disc racks, badges, belts and other merchandise. Epstein was adamant that The Beatles would not directly endorse any product, but through NEMS Enterprises he would grant discretionary licences to companies who were able to produce a quality product at a fair price, although many companies were already selling products without a licence.

During the first Beatles' flight to America, Epstein was offered numerous samples of products by merchandisers, including clocks, pens, cigarette lighters, plastic wigs, bracelets, and games, but Epstein rejected all of them. David Jacobs, the lawyer for NEMS, had already given away 90 per cent of merchandising rights to Nicky Byrne in England, which later turned out to be a financial disaster, as that left only 10 per cent for Epstein, NEMS and The Beatles. Byrne took over Epstein's Stramsact merchandising in the UK and set up Seltaeb (Beatles spelled backwards) in the US. While The Beatles were ensconced in the Plaza hotel in New York, Epstein was further besieged by calls and visits from merchandisers, promoters, television commentators, and hustlers—all demanding to talk to him.

Mindful of the number of records the group was selling in America, Capitol records sent a well-spoken Yorkshire girl, Wendy Hanson, to the Plaza hotel to act as Epstein's secretary, and to filter his calls. Hanson later worked solely with Epstein in his Albemarle Street office, which was separate from the NEMS office. Lennon later said: "On the business end he [Epstein] ripped us off on the Seltaeb thing". McCartney said years later: "He [Epstein] looked to his dad for business advice, and his dad knew how to run a furniture store in Liverpool".

Lenmac

Epstein asked chartered accountant James Trevor Isherwood to set up a company to collect Lennon and McCartney's PRS payments—called Lenmac—which he did on 12 May 1964. When he first visited Epstein's office, Isherwood was surprised to learn that Epstein took 25 per cent of the gross income, and not what he thought was the usual 10 per cent other managers received at that time. All of Epstein's expenses were also deducted from any of his artists' gross income, which meant office rental, staff wages, travel, telephone costs, and entertaining expenses. Before his death, Epstein knew that the renegotiation of his management contract (up for renewal on 30 September 1967), would reduce his management fee from 25 to 10 per cent, and would also mean a larger drop in NEMS income, as The Beatles' concert fees would be taken out of the equation.

Publishing

The Beatles entered into a publishing agreement with Dick James Music (DJM) who set up a company called Northern Songs. Epstein agreed that James should receive 25 per cent of the shares, and Charles Silver, his financial partner and accountant, should also receive 25%. Lennon and McCartney received 20 per cent each, and Epstein held the remaining 10 per cent. The Beatles' PRS income increased rapidly, and Epstein asked Isherwood to work out a way of avoiding the tax that Lennon and McCartney would have to pay. Isherwood suggested a Stock-market flotation for Northern Songs, and further advised Epstein that Lennon and McCartney should move to houses near his [Isherwood's] in Esher during the flotation, which Lennon, Harrison, and Starr did. Only Epstein and McCartney remained in London.

Promoter and presenter

After moving to London, Epstein rented an office in Monmouth Street in 1965, and later bought the lease of the Saville Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. He promoted new works by writers such as Arnold Wesker in productions that occasionally fell foul of the Lord Chamberlain by including "obscene" content or nudity. Epstein changed the programme to that of a music venue in 1966, presenting various US acts. On 20 February 1967, Epstein sacked the manager of the theatre, one Michael Bullock, for lowering the safety curtain shortly before the end of a Chuck Berry concert the previous day, which Epstein was watching with Lennon and Starr. Two fans climbed on stage to dance, the curtain came down and they were pushed from the stage. Although Bullock had not given the order, he was held responsible. Epstein was asked to appear on several music-based TV programmes in Britain after the success of The Beatles, and also hosted a regular part of the US TV show Hullabaloo, by filming his appearances in the UK.

Personal life

Throughout Epstein's life he was known to be kind and caring to his family, friends of his family, and business colleagues. When Lennon married Cynthia Powell, on 23 August 1962, Epstein attended the wedding as the best man and paid for their celebration lunch afterwards. During Cynthia's pregnancy, Epstein paid for a private room in a hospital and offered the Lennons the sole use of his flat on Falkner Street when they needed somewhere to live. He also agreed to be the godfather to Lennon's son Julian.

Sexual orientation

Epstein's homosexuality was not publicly known until years after his death, although it had been an open secret among his friends and business associates. While Epstein was in the Army, he had a tailor make an officer's uniform for him that he wore when cruising the bars of London, but was arrested one night (for impersonating an officer) at the Army and Navy Club in Piccadilly by the Military Police. Epstein managed to avoid a court martial by agreeing to see an army psychiatrist, who uncovered Epstein's sexuality. He was discharged from the army after 10 months on the medical grounds of being "emotionally and mentally unfit", although Epstein later stated that his first homosexual experience was after he returned to Liverpool.

Epstein spent a year studying acting at RADA, but dropped out shortly after his arrest for "persistent importuning" outside a men's public toilet in Swiss Cottage, London. When Epstein first saw The Beatles perform he noticed their stage attire first, saying: "They were rather scruffily dressed, in the nicest possible way, or I should say in the most attractive way: black leather jackets, jeans, long hair of course." McCartney said that when Epstein started to manage The Beatles, they knew that Epstein was homosexual, but did not care, because Epstein encouraged them professionally and offered them access to previously off-limits social circles.

Although Lennon often made sarcastic comments about Epstein's homosexuality to friends and to Epstein personally, nobody outside their closed circle was allowed to comment on it. Ian Sharp, one of Lennon's art school friends, once made a sarcastic remark about Epstein, saying, "Which one of you [The Beatles] does he fancy?" Sharp was sent a letter by Epstein's office within 48 hours that demanded a complete apology. Sharp apologised but was then completely ostracised, and was told by McCartney in a letter to have no contact at all with any of them in the future. Epstein used to go on holiday to places such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, or Manchester at weekends, as the attitude to homosexuals was not as unforgiving as in Liverpool, although there were several gay bars in Liverpool.

In his biography, Best claims that Epstein drove them both to Blackpool one evening, and Epstein declared to Best his "very fond admiration" for him. Epstein is then supposed to have said, "Would you find it embarrassing if I ask you to stay in a hotel overnight?" Best replied that he was not interested, and the two never mentioned it again. There were rumours of a brief sexual encounter between Lennon and Epstein when they both went on a four-day holiday together to Barcelona in April 1963. Lennon always denied the claims, telling Playboy in 1980: "It was never consummated, but we had a pretty intense relationship". Lennon's first wife Cynthia also maintains that Lennon's relationship with Epstein was platonic. A fictionalised account of the Spanish holiday was portrayed in the 1991 film The Hours and Times. Epstein's sexual preferences contrasted sharply with the individual Beatles' tastes, as when they were on tour they would indulge themselves with varied drugs and "sexual orgies", with fans or prostitutes.

In October 1964, Epstein's autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise, was published in the UK and later in the US. It was ghost-written by journalist Derek Taylor, who had served as Epstein's assistant that year, then later as the publicist for NEMS from 1968–1970. (Lennon reportedly once quipped that the memoir should have been titled A Cellarful of Boys.) Male homosexual relations were illegal throughout the UK until September 1967 (only one month after Epstein's death) when gay sex was legalised in England and Wales (remaining illegal in Scotland and Northern Ireland until 1980 and 1982, respectively).

Drug use

After the start of his management career, Epstein started taking stimulants—usually preludin, which was legal at the time—which Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr also took, and had previously taken in Hamburg. He explained his use of the drug as the only way of staying awake at night during numerous concert tours. In 1964, Brown started to notice that Epstein was taking too many pills, because Epstein often had a cough at parties, which Brown knew was Epstein's way of secretly putting pills into his mouth without anyone noticing. McCartney often met Epstein at late-night clubs in London, and remembered that Epstein would often grind his jaws, once saying, "Ugghhh, the pills" to McCartney.

In 1964, after having been introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York, McCartney remembered Epstein standing in front of a mirror, pointing at himself and repeatedly saying "Jew!", and laughing loudly, which McCartney found hilarious and "very liberating". Epstein later became heavily involved in the 1960s drug scene, and during the four months when the Sgt. Pepper album was being recorded, Epstein spent his time on holiday, or at the Priory Clinic in Putney, where he tried unsuccessfully to curb his drug use. He left the Priory for the party to launch Sgt. Pepper to selected journalists at his house at 24 Chapel Street, but went straight back to the Priory afterwards.

Epstein added his name to an advertisement that appeared in The Times on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by 65 people, including The Beatles, Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, 16 doctors, and two members of parliament. Epstein responded to questions about the advertisement by saying, "My opinion is that pot smoking is definitely less harmful than drinking alcohol ... I am not addicted to either, but I have been very drunk and very 'high'." After McCartney's admission on 19 June 1967, of his use of LSD, Epstein defended McCartney to the media, admitting that he had also taken it himself.

Gambling

On 27 August 1965, The Beatles and Epstein visited Elvis Presley at his house Perugia Way in Los Angeles, California, where Colonel Tom Parker and Joe Esposito set up a roulette wheel and several packs of playing cards. Epstein immediately wanted to play, as he was known for his love of gambling for high stakes. McCartney frequently visited gambling clubs in London, such as Curzon House, Epstein's favourite club, and often saw Epstein gambling there. He once saw Epstein put a Dunhill lighter on the table that was worth £100 (worth approximately £1,300, or $2,500 as of 2009) and then lose it during a game of cards. Epstein would often lose thousands of pounds by playing baccarat or chemin de fer, but would stay at Curzon House the whole evening, eating an expensive meal and drinking fine wines. The club never presented Epstein with a bill, as they knew that he lost so much in their casino.

Death

A few weeks before his own death, Epstein attended a traditional shiva in Liverpool after his father died, having just come out of the Priory clinic where he had been trying to cure his acute insomnia and his addiction to amphetamines. Epstein made his last visit to a Beatles' recording session on 23 August 1967, at the Chappell Recording Studios on Maddox Street, London.

On 24 August, Epstein asked Brown and Geoffrey Ellis down to Kingsley Hill (approximately 50 miles from his home in Chapel Street) which was Epstein's country home in Warbleton, East Sussex, for the Bank Holiday weekend. After they got there, Epstein decided to drive back to London by himself because an expected group of rent boys he had invited failed to arrive, although they did turn up after Epstein left. Epstein phoned Brown the next day at 5 o'clock in the afternoon from his Chapel Street house in London. Brown thought that Epstein sounded "very groggy", and suggested that Epstein take a train back down to the nearest train station, in Uckfield, instead of driving under the influence of Tuinals. Epstein replied that he would eat something, read his mail and watch Juke Box Jury before phoning Brown to tell him which train to meet. He never called again.

Epstein died of an overdose of Carbitral, a form of barbiturate, or sleeping pill, in his locked bedroom, on 27 August 1967. He was discovered after his butler had knocked on the door, and hearing no response, he asked the housekeeper to call the police. Epstein was found on a single bed, dressed in pajamas, with various correspondence spread over a second single bed close by. At the statutory inquest, his death was officially ruled as accidental, and was probably caused by a gradual buildup of Carbitral in his system, mixed with alcohol. It was revealed that he had taken six Carbitral pills in order to sleep, which was probably usual, but meant that his tolerance was very close to becoming lethal.

The Beatles were in Bangor at the time with the Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Epstein had previously agreed to travel to Bangor after the August Bank Holiday. The stunned Beatles asked the Maharishi for his advice, but he firmly told them that Epstein's death, "being within the direct realm of the physical world, is not important". A concert by Jimi Hendrix at Epstein's Saville Theatre was cancelled out of respect on the evening that he died.

Brown wrote in his memoir, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles, that he had once found a suicide note written by Epstein and spoke with him directly about it. According to Brown, the note read in part, "This is all too much and I can't take it anymore". Brown had also found a will, in which Epstein left his house and money to his mother and his brother (Brown himself being a small beneficiary). When confronted with the notes, Epstein told Brown that he was grateful Brown had not told anyone, and said that he was sorry he had made Brown worry. He explained that he had simply taken one pill too many and that he had not intended to overdose; promising to be more careful from then on. Brown later wrote that he wondered if he was really doing Epstein a favour by not showing the note to Epstein's doctor, Norman Cowan, who would have stopped prescribing drugs. The coroner, Gavin Thurston, told the Westminster inquest that Epstein's death was caused by an overdose of Carbitral, ruling it an accidental death. The pathologist, Dr. Donald Teare, stated that Epstein had been taking bromide in the form of Carbitral for some time, and that the barbiturate level in Epstein's blood was a "low fatal level".

The Beatles did not attend Epstein's funeral, wishing to give his family privacy by not attracting the media and fans. Epstein was buried in section A grave H12, in the Long Lane Jewish Cemetery, Aintree, Liverpool. The service at the graveside was held by Rabbi Dr Norman Solomon, who said, disparagingly, that Epstein was, "a symbol of the malaise of our generation". A few weeks later, on 17 October, all four Beatles attended a memorial service for Epstein at the New London Synagogue in St John's Wood (near Abbey Road studios), which was officiated by Rabbi Louis Jacobs.

Legacy

Epstein was overlooked when Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were honoured with the MBE in 1965—Harrison once said that the MBE stood for "Mister Brian Epstein". The Beatles were among the earliest entrants into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Epstein is not in the Hall's "Non-Performer's Section". Martin Lewis—previously Taylor's assistant—created The Official Brian Epstein Website, which includes a petition that Epstein be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Lewis also organised the 1998 re-publication (in the US) of Epstein's 1964 autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise.

McCartney summarised the importance of Epstein when he was interviewed, in 1997, for a BBC documentary about Epstein by stating: "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian". In his 1970 Rolling Stone interview, Lennon commented that Epstein's death marked the beginning of the end for the group: "I knew that we were in trouble then ... I thought, 'We've fuckin' had it now'". Thirty years after Epstein's death, McCartney said, "Brian would really be happy to hear how much we loved him". The first contract between The Beatles and Epstein was auctioned in London in 2008, and was sold for £240,000.

Epstein was asked about the future of The Beatles and, as he termed it, their "fresh, honesty", which the interviewer thought could be "corrupted by time". He replied by saying, "I think they will go in the reverse direction, and become more honest."

Notes

References

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External links

The Official Brian Epstein Website

Epstein biography and sound clips

Epstein's Gravesite

"The Fifth Beatle" Website (A website about a proposed movie about Epstein)

Fyne Times - Brian Epstein

BBC Archive interview with Epstein

Lasting Legacy: Beatle Number Five article

Category:1934 births Category:1967 deaths Category:Accidental deaths in England Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Category:Ashkenazi Jews Category:Businesspeople from Liverpool Category:Drug-related deaths in England Category:British Jews Category:English businesspeople Category:English Jews Category:English music managers Category:English people of Lithuanian descent Category:English people of Russian descent Category:Gay writers Category:LGBT businesspeople Category:LGBT Jews Category:LGBT people from England Category:Old Wrekinians Category:People associated with The Beatles Category:People educated at Clayesmore School

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name	John Lennon
alt	A bearded, bespectacled man in his late twenties, with long dark brown hair and wearing a loose-fitting pajama shirt, sings and plays an acoustic guitar. White flowers are visible behind and to the right of him.
background	solo_singer
birth name	John Winston Lennon
birth date	October 09, 1940
birth place	Liverpool, England
death date	December 08, 1980
death place	New York, New York
instrument	Vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica, harmonium, electronic organ, six-string bass
genre	Rock, pop
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, writer
years active	1957–75, 1980
label	Parlophone, Capitol, Apple, EMI, Geffen, Polydor
associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, The Dirty Mac, Yoko Ono
notable instruments	Rickenbacker 325Epiphone CasinoGibson J-160E }}

John Winston Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Along with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his infant son Sean, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, becoming controversial through his political and peace activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.

As of 2010, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

History

1940–57: Early years

Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son's birth. He was named John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother, but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man's child—rejected the idea. After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool's Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, 'Bobby' Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.

Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton. His aunt bought him volumes of short stories, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when he was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, learning how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.

In September 1980 he talked about his family and his rebellious nature: }}

He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon's senior, Parkes took him on trips, and to local cinemas. During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby. After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16." He was 14 years old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).

Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, "A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad." He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called The Daily Howl, but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: "Certainly on the road to failure ... hopeless ... rather a clown in class ... wasting other pupils' time."

His mother bought him his first guitar in 1956, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she "lent" her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations. As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it". On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths' house, was struck by a car and killed.

Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and headmaster intervened. Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model's lap during a life drawing class. He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was "thrown out of the college before his final year."

1957–70: The Quarrymen to The Beatles

1957–65: Formation, commercial breakout, and touring years

The Beatles evolved from Lennon's first band, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by him in September 1956 when he was 15, and began as a skiffle group. By the summer of 1957 the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle, and half rock and roll. Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, held in Woolton on 6 July at the St. Peter's Church garden fête, after which McCartney was asked to join the band.

McCartney says that Aunt Mimi: "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon. According to Paul's brother Mike, McCartney's father was also disapproving, declaring Lennon would get his son "into trouble"; although he later allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the McCartneys' front room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this time, the 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", a UK top 10 hit for The Fourmost nearly five years later.

George Harrison joined the band as lead guitarist, even though Lennon thought Harrison (at 14 years old) was too young to join the band, so McCartney engineered a second audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year The Beatles, engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, Germany, and desperately in need of a drummer, asked Pete Best to join them. Lennon was now 19, and his aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with him to continue his art studies instead. After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. Like the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg, and regularly took the drug, as well as amphetamines, as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.

Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager from 1962, had no prior experience of artist management, but nevertheless had a strong influence on their early dress code and attitude on stage. Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me". McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and drummer Ringo Starr replaced Best, completing the four-piece line-up that would endure until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached #17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963, a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold, which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, Twist and Shout. The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With few exceptions—one being the album title itself—Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that–to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant". In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest".

The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK during the beginning of 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at his audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery." After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, moviemaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. The Beatles received recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1965.

Lennon grew concerned that fans attending Beatles' concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result. Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I meant it ... It was me singing 'help'". He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period), and felt he was subconsciously seeking change. The following January he was unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by Lennon, Harrison and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug. When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in an elevator at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical." A few months later in March, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity." The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed—burning of Beatles' records, Ku Klux Klan activity, and threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.

1966–70: Studio years, break-up and solo work

Deprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band. Since his involuntary introduction to LSD in January, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of the year." According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon's continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him "close to erasing his identity". 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by TIME magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness", and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed Lennon's lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon–McCartney's early years.

In August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales, and were informed of Epstein's death during the seminar. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared". They later travelled to Maharishi's ashram in India for further guidance, where they composed most of the songs for The Beatles and Abbey Road.

The anti-war, black comedy How I Won the War, featuring Lennon's only appearance in a non–Beatles' full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967. McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project, the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's acclaimed, Lewis Carroll-inspired "I am the Walrus", was a success. With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation comprising Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, "artistic freedom within a business structure", but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney's own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple’s chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney never signed the management contract.

At the end of 1968, Lennon featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, comprising Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film. Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called "Bag One" depicting scenes from their honeymoon, eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated. Lennon's creative focus continued to move beyond The Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (known more for its cover than for its music), Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. In 1969 they formed The Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. In protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced. Between 1969 and 1970 Lennon released the singles "Give Peace a Chance" (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969), "Cold Turkey" (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin) and "Instant Karma!".

Lennon left the group in September 1969, and agreed not to inform the media while the band renegotiated their recording contract, but he was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was, "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!" He later wrote, "I started the band. I disbanded it. It's as simple as that." In later interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, "I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record." He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr "got fed up with being sidemen for Paul ... After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?"

1970–80: Solo career

1970–72: Initial solo success and activism

In 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for four months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but they felt no need to continue and returned to London. Lennon's emotional debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), was received with high praise. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock." The album featured the songs "Mother", in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection, and the Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric "you're still fucking peasants", fell foul of broadcasters. The same year, Tariq Ali's revolutionary political views, expressed when he interviewed Lennon, inspired the singer to write "Power to the People". Lennon also became involved with Ali during a protest against Oz magazine's prosecution for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as "disgusting fascism", and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single "God Save Us/Do the Oz" and joined marches in support of the magazine.

With Lennon's next album, Imagine (1971), critical response was more guarded. Rolling Stone reported that "it contains a substantial portion of good music" but warned of the possibility that "his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant". The album's title track would become an anthem for anti-war movements, while another, "How Do You Sleep?", was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics from Ram that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed, were directed at him and Ono. However, Lennon softened his stance in the mid-1970s and said he had written "How Do You Sleep?" about himself. He said in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul ... to create a song ... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta ... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and The Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time".

Lennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971, and in December released "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". To advertise the single, they paid for billboards in 12 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, "WAR IS OVER—IF YOU WANT IT". The new year saw the Nixon Administration take what it called a "strategic counter-measure" against Lennon's anti-war propaganda, embarking on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him: embroiled in a continuing legal battle, he was denied permanent residency in the US until 1976.

Recorded as a collaboration with Ono and with backing from the New York band Elephant's Memory, Some Time in New York City was released in 1972. Containing songs about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, and Lennon's problems obtaining a green card, the album was poorly received—unlistenable, according to one critic. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", released as a US single from the album the same year, was televised on 11 May, on The Dick Cavett Show. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word "nigger". Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant's Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility. Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances.

1973–75: "Lost weekend"

While Lennon was recording Mind Games (1973), he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing 18-month period apart, which he later called his "lost weekend", was spent in Los Angeles and New York in the company of May Pang. Mind Games, credited to the "Plastic U.F.Ono Band", was released in November 1973. Lennon also contributed "I'm the Greatest", to Starr's album Ringo (1973), released the same month. (an alternate take, from the same 1973 Ringo sessions, with Lennon providing a guide vocal, appears on John Lennon Anthology).

In early 1974, Lennon was drinking heavily and his alcohol-fuelled antics with Harry Nilsson made headlines. Two widely publicised incidents occurred at The Troubadour club in March, the first when Lennon placed a menstruation "towel" on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress, and the second, two weeks later, when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers. Lennon decided to produce Nilsson's album Pussy Cats and Pang rented an Los Angeles beach house for all the musicians but after a month of further debauchery, with the recording sessions in chaos, Lennon moved to New York with Pang to finish work on the album. In April, Lennon had produced the Mick Jagger song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" which was, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than 30 years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on The Very Best of Mick Jagger (2007).

Settled back in New York, Lennon recorded the album Walls and Bridges. Released in October 1974, it yielded his only number-one single in his lifetime, "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", featuring Elton John on backing vocals and piano. A second single from the album, "#9 Dream", followed before the end of the year. Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano. On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night"—a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted—reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Saw Her Standing There", which he introduced as "a song by an old estranged fiancee of mine called Paul".

Lennon co-wrote "Fame", David Bowie's first US number one, and provided guitar and backing vocals for the January 1975 recording. The same month, Elton John topped the charts with his cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", featuring Lennon on guitar and back-up vocals. He and Ono were reunited shortly afterwards. Lennon released Rock 'n' Roll (1975), an album of cover songs, in February. "Stand By Me", taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years. He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special A Salute to Lew Grade, recorded on 18 April and televised in June. Playing acoustic guitar, and backed by an eight-piece band, Lennon performed two songs from Rock 'n' Roll ("Stand By Me", which was not broadcast, and "Slippin' and Slidin'") followed by "Imagine".

1975–80: Retirement and return

With the birth of his second son Sean on 9 October 1975, Lennon took on the role of househusband, beginning what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry during which he gave all his attention to his family. Within the month, he fulfilled his contractual obligation to EMI/Capitol for one more album by releasing Shaved Fish, a compilation album of previously recorded tracks. He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6 am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him. He wrote "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Starr's Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980. He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, "we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family." During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed "mad stuff", all of which would be published posthumously.

He emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed the next month by the album Double Fantasy, which contained songs written during a journey to Bermuda on a 43-foot sailing boat the previous June, that reflected Lennon's fulfillment in his new-found stable family life. Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album Milk and Honey (released posthumously in 1984). Released jointly with Ono, Double Fantasy was not well received, drawing comments such as Melody Maker's "indulgent sterility ... a godawful yawn".

8 December 1980: Death

At around 10:50 pm on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in The Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times at the entrance to the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of the nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07 pm. Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.

Ono issued a statement the next day, saying "There is no funeral for John", ending it with the words, "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him." His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created. Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life; as of 2011, he remains in prison, having been denied parole six times.

Personal relationships

Cynthia Lennon

Lennon and Cynthia Powell met in 1957 as fellow students at the Liverpool College of Art. Although being scared of Lennon's attitude and appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with French actress Brigitte Bardot, so she dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said that she was engaged, he screamed out, "I didn't ask you to fuckin' marry me, did I?" She often accompanied him to Quarrymen gigs and travelled to Hamburg with McCartney's girlfriend at the time to visit him. Lennon, jealous by nature, eventually grew possessive and often terrified Powell with his anger and physical violence. Lennon later said that until he met Ono, he had never questioned his chauvinistic attitude to women. The Beatles' song "Getting Better", he said, told his own story, "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically—any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace".

Recalling his reaction in July 1962 on learning that Cynthia was pregnant, Lennon said, "There's only one thing for it Cyn. We'll have to get married." The couple were married on 23 August at the Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool. His marriage began just as Beatlemania took hold across the UK. He performed on the evening of his wedding day, and would continue to do so almost daily from then on. Epstein, fearing that fans would be alienated by the idea of a married Beatle, asked the Lennons to keep their marriage secret. Julian was born on 8 April 1963; Lennon was on tour at the time and did not see his son until three days later.

Cynthia attributes the start of the marriage breakdown to LSD, and as a result, she felt that he slowly lost interest in her. When the group travelled by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967, for the Maharishi Yogi's Transcendental Meditation seminar, a policeman did not recognise her and stopped her from boarding. She later recalled how the incident seemed to symbolize the ending of their marriage. After arriving home at Kenwood, and finding Lennon with Ono, Cynthia left the house to stay with friends. Alexis Mardas later claimed to have slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he informed her that Lennon was seeking a divorce and custody of Julian on grounds of her adultery with him. After negotiations, Lennon capitulated and agreed to her divorcing him on the same grounds. The case was settled out of court, with Lennon giving her £100,000, and custody of Julian.

Brian Epstein

The Beatles were performing at Liverpool's Cavern Club in 1962, when all four Beatles were introduced to Epstein after a midday concert. Epstein was homosexual. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of his reasons for wanting to manage the group was that he was physically attracted to Lennon. Almost as soon as Julian was born, Lennon went on holiday to Spain with Epstein, leading to speculation about their relationship. Questioned about it later, Lennon said, "Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship. It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. We used to sit in a café in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I'd say, 'Do you like that one? Do you like this one?' I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this." Soon after their return from Spain, at McCartney's twenty-first birthday party in June 1963, Lennon physically attacked Cavern Club MC Bob Wooler for saying "How was your honeymoon, John?" The MC, known for his wordplay and affectionate but cutting remarks, was making a joke, but ten months had passed since Lennon's marriage, and the honeymoon, deferred, was still two months in the future. To Lennon, who was intoxicated with alcohol at the time, the matter was simple: "He called me a queer so I battered his bloody ribs in".

Lennon delighted in mocking Epstein for his homosexuality and for the fact that he was Jewish. When Epstein invited suggestions for the title of his autobiography, Lennon offered Queer Jew; on learning of the eventual title, A Cellarful of Noise, he parodied, "More like A Cellarful of Boys". He demanded of a visitor to Epstein's flat, "Have you come to blackmail him? If not, you're the only bugger in London who hasn't." During the recording of "Baby, You're a Rich Man", he sang altered choruses of "Baby, you're a rich fag Jew".

Julian Lennon

Lennon's first son, Julian, was born as his commitments with The Beatles intensified at the height of Beatlemania during his marriage to Cynthia. Lennon was touring with The Beatles when Julian was born on 8 April 1963. Julian's birth, like his mother Cynthia's marriage to Lennon, was kept secret because Epstein was convinced public knowledge of such things would threaten The Beatles' commercial success. Julian recalls how some four years later, as a small child in Weybridge, "I was trundled home from school and came walking up with one of my watercolour paintings. It was just a bunch of stars and this blonde girl I knew at school. And Dad said, 'What's this?' I said, 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'" Lennon used it as the title of a Beatles' song, and though it was later reported to have been derived from the initials LSD, Lennon insisted, "It's not an acid song." McCartney corroborated Lennon's explanation that Julian innocently came up with the name. Lennon was distant from Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to his father. During a car journey to visit Cynthia and Julian during Lennon's divorce, McCartney composed a song, "Hey Jules", to comfort him. It would evolve into The Beatles song "Hey Jude". Lennon later said, "That's his best song. It started off as a song about my son Julian ... he turned it into 'Hey Jude'. I always thought it was about me and Yoko but he said it wasn't."

Lennon's relationship with Julian was already strained, and after Lennon and Ono's 1971 move to New York, Julian would not see his father again until 1973. With Pang's encouragement, it was arranged for him (and his mother) to visit Lennon in Los Angeles, where they went to Disneyland. Julian started to see his father regularly, and Lennon gave him a drumming part on a Walls and Bridges track. He bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul guitar and other instruments, and encouraged his interest in music by demonstrating guitar chord techniques. Julian recalls that he and his father "got on a great deal better" during the time he spent in New York: "We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general."

In a Playboy interview with David Sheff shortly before his death, Lennon said, "Sean was a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will." He said he was trying to re-establish a connection with the then 17-year-old, and confidently predicted, "Julian and I will have a relationship in the future." After his death it was revealed that he had left Julian very little in his will.

Yoko Ono

Two versions exist of how Lennon met Ono. According to the first, on 9 November 1966 Lennon went to the Indica Gallery in London, where Ono was preparing her conceptual art exhibit, and they were introduced by gallery owner John Dunbar. Lennon was intrigued by Ono's "Hammer A Nail": patrons hammered a nail into a wooden board, creating the art piece. Although the exhibition had not yet begun, Lennon wanted to hammer a nail into the clean board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her, "Don't you know who this is? He's a millionaire! He might buy it." Ono had supposedly not heard of The Beatles, but relented on condition that Lennon pay her five shillings, to which Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in." The second version, told by McCartney, is that in late 1965, Ono was in London compiling original musical scores for a book John Cage was working on, Notations, but McCartney declined to give her any of his own manuscripts for the book, suggesting that Lennon might oblige. When asked, Lennon gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to "The Word".

Ono began telephoning and calling at Lennon's home, and when his wife asked for an explanation, he explained that Ono was only trying to obtain money for her "avant-garde bullshit". In May 1968, while his wife was on holiday in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to visit. They spent the night recording what would become the Two Virgins album, after which, he said, they "made love at dawn." When Lennon's wife returned home she found Ono wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon who simply said, "Oh, hi." Ono became pregnant in 1968 and miscarried a male child they named John Ono Lennon II on 21 November 1968, a few weeks after Lennon's divorce from Cynthia was granted.

During Lennon's last two years in The Beatles, he and Ono began public protests against the Vietnam War. They were married in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam campaigning with a week-long Bed-In for peace. They planned another Bed-In in the United States, but were denied entry, so held one instead at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where they recorded "Give Peace a Chance". They often combined advocacy with performance art, as in their "Bagism", first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Lennon detailed this period in The Beatles' song "The Ballad of John and Yoko". Lennon changed his name by deed poll on 22 April 1969, adding "Ono" as a middle name. The brief ceremony took place on the roof of the Apple Corps building, made famous three months earlier by The Beatles' Let It Be rooftop concert. Although he used the name John Ono Lennon thereafter, official documents referred to him as John Winston Ono Lennon, since he was not permitted to revoke a name given at birth. After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon arranged for a king-sized bed to be brought to the recording studio as he worked on The Beatles' last album, Abbey Road. To escape the acrimony of the band's break-up, Ono suggested they move permanently to New York, which they did on 31 August 1971.

They first lived in the St. Regis Hotel on 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, then moved to a street-level flat at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, on 16 October 1971. After a robbery, they relocated to the more secure Dakota at 1 West 72nd Street, in May 1973.

May Pang

ABKCO Industries, formed in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company to ABKCO Records, recruited May Pang as a receptionist in 1969. Through involvement in a project with ABKCO, Lennon and Ono met her the following year. She became their personal assistant. After she had been working with the couple for three years, Ono confided that she and Lennon were becoming estranged from one another. She went on to suggest that Pang should begin a physical relationship with Lennon, telling her, "He likes you a lot." Pang, 22, astounded by Ono's proposition, eventually agreed to become Lennon's companion. The pair soon moved to California, beginning an 18-month period he later called his "lost weekend". In Los Angeles, Pang encouraged Lennon to develop regular contact with Julian, whom he had not seen for two years. He also rekindled friendships with Starr, McCartney, Beatles' roadie Mal Evans, and Harry Nilsson. Whilst drinking with Nilsson, after misunderstanding something Pang said, Lennon attempted to strangle her, relenting only when physically restrained by Nilsson.

On moving to New York, they prepared a spare room in their newly rented apartment for Julian to visit. Lennon, hitherto inhibited by Ono in this regard, began to reestablish contact with other relatives and friends. By December he and Pang were considering a house purchase, and he was refusing to accept Ono's telephone calls. In January 1975, he agreed to meet Ono—who said she had found a cure for smoking—but after the meeting failed to return home or call Pang. When Pang telephoned the next day, Ono told her Lennon was unavailable, being exhausted after a hypnotherapy session. Two days later, Lennon reappeared at a joint dental appointment, stupefied and confused to such an extent that Pang believed he had been brainwashed. He told her his separation from Ono was now over, though Ono would allow him to continue seeing her as his mistress.

Sean Lennon

When Lennon and Ono were reunited, she became pregnant, but having previously suffered three miscarriages in her attempt to have a child with Lennon, she said she wanted an abortion. She agreed to allow the pregnancy to continue on condition that Lennon adopt the role of househusband; this he agreed to do. Sean was born on 9 October 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday, delivered by Caesarean section. Lennon's subsequent career break would span five years. He had a photographer take pictures of Sean every day of his first year, and created numerous drawings for him, posthumously published as Real Love: The Drawings for Sean. Lennon later proudly declared, "He didn't come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and to the fact that he swims like a fish."

Former Beatles

Although his friendship with Starr remained consistently warm during the years following The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon's relationship with McCartney and Harrison varied. He was close to Harrison initially, but the two drifted apart after Lennon moved to America. When Harrison was in New York for his December 1974 Dark Horse tour, Lennon agreed to join him on stage, but failed to appear after an argument over Lennon's refusal to sign an agreement that would finally dissolve The Beatles' legal partnership. (Lennon eventually signed the papers while holidaying in Florida with Pang and Julian.) Harrison incensed Lennon in 1980 when he published an autobiography that made little mention of him. Lennon told Playboy, "I was hurt by it. By glaring omission ... my influence on his life is absolutely zilch ... he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book."

Lennon's most intense feelings were reserved for McCartney. In addition to attacking him through the lyrics of "How Do You Sleep?", Lennon argued with him through the press for three years after the group split. The two later began to reestablish something of the close friendship they had once known, and in 1974 even played music together again, before growing apart once more. Lennon said that during McCartney's final visit, in April 1976, they watched the episode of Saturday Night Live in which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer to get The Beatles to reunite on the show. The pair considered going to the studio to make a joke appearance, attempting to claim their share of the money, but were too tired. Lennon summarised his feelings towards McCartney in an interview three days before his death: "Throughout my career, I've selected to work with...only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono....That ain't bad picking."

Along with his estrangement from McCartney, Lennon always felt a musical competitiveness with him and kept an ear on his music. During his five-year career break he was content to sit back so long as McCartney was producing what Lennon saw as mediocre "product". When McCartney released "Coming Up" in 1980, the year Lennon returned to the studio and the last year of his life, he took notice. "It's driving me crackers!" he jokingly complained, because he could not get the tune out of his head. Asked the same year whether the group were dreaded enemies or the best of friends, he replied that they were neither, and that he had not seen any of them in a long time. But he also said, "I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on."

Political activism

Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon as what they termed a "Bed-In for Peace" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel; the March 1969 event attracted worldwide media ridicule. At a second Bed-In three months later at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal Lennon wrote and recorded "Give Peace a Chance". Released as a single, it was quickly taken up as an anti-war anthem and sung by a quarter of a million demonstrators against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC, on 15 October, the second Vietnam Moratorium Day.

Later that year, Lennon and Ono supported efforts by the family of James Hanratty, hanged for murder in 1962, to prove his innocence. Those who had condemned Hanratty were, according to Lennon, "the same people who are running guns to South Africa and killing blacks in the streets. ... The same bastards are in control, the same people are running everything, it's the whole bullshit bourgeois scene." In London, Lennon and Ono staged a "Britain Murdered Hanratty" banner march and a "Silent Protest For James Hanratty", and produced a 40-minute documentary on the case. At an appeal hearing years later, Hanratty's conviction was upheld.

Lennon and Ono showed their solidarity with the Clydeside UCS workers' work-in of 1971 by sending a bouquet of red roses and a cheque for £5,000. On moving to New York City in August that year, they befriended two of the Chicago Seven, Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Another peace activist, John Sinclair, poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in prison for selling two joints of marijuana after previous convictions for possession of the drug. In December 1971 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 20,000 people attended the "John Sinclair Freedom Rally", a protest and benefit concert with contributions from Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, and others. Lennon and Ono, backed by David Peel and Rubin, performed an acoustic set of four songs from their forthcoming Some Time in New York City album including "John Sinclair", whose lyrics called for his release. The day before the rally, Michigan State had drastically reduced the penalties for Sinclair’s crimes and three days after the rally, he was released on bail. The performance was recorded and two of the tracks later appeared on John Lennon Anthology (1998).

Following the Bloody Sunday incident in Northern Ireland in 1972, in which 13 unarmed civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army, Lennon said that given the choice between the army and the IRA (who were not involved in the incident) he would side with the latter. Lennon and Ono wrote two songs protesting British presence and actions in Ireland for their Some Time in New York City album: "Luck of the Irish" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday". In 2000, David Shayler, a former member of Britain's domestic security service MI5 suggested that Lennon had given money to the IRA though this was swiftly denied by Ono. Biographer Bill Harry records that following Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono financially supported the production of the film The Irish Tapes, a political documentary with a Republican slant.

According to FBI surveillance reports (and confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) Lennon was sympathetic to the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968. However, the FBI considered Lennon to have limited effectiveness as a revolutionary since he was "constantly under the influence of narcotics".

Deportation attempt

Following the impact of "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", both strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, the Nixon administration, hearing rumours of Lennon's involvement in a concert to be held in San Diego at the same time as the Republican National Convention, tried to have him deported. Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his re-election; Republican Senator Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that "deportation would be a strategic counter-measure" against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for admission to the United States. Lennon spent the next three and a half years in and out of deportation hearings until on 8 October 1975, when a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating " ... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds." While the legal battle continued, Lennon attended rallies and made television appearances. Lennon and Ono co-hosted the Mike Douglas Show for a week in February 1972, introducing guests such as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale to mid-America. In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to the INS defending Lennon, stating:

John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country’s so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!

On 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days. Ono, meanwhile, was granted permanent residence. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia; a place with "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people". Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the US. The press conference was filmed, and would later appear in the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon. Lennon's Mind Games (1973) included the track "Nutopian International Anthem", which comprised three seconds of silence. Soon after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in a political scandal came to light, and in June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, DC. They led to the president's resignation 14 months later. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, showed little interest in continuing the battle against Lennon, and the deportation order was overturned in 1975. The following year, his US immigration status finally resolved, Lennon received his "green card" certifying his permanent residency, and when Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president in January 1977, Lennon and Ono attended the Inaugural Ball.

FBI surveillance and declassified documents

After Lennon's death, historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI files documenting the Bureau's role in the deportation attempt. The FBI admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of them on the grounds that they contained national security information. In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to force the FBI to release the withheld pages. The ACLU, representing Wiener, won a favourable decision in their suit against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit in 1991. The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court declined to review the case. In 1997, respecting President Bill Clinton's newly instigated rule that documents should be withheld only if releasing them would involve "foreseeable harm", the Justice Department settled most of the outstanding issues outside court by releasing all but 10 of the contested documents. Wiener published the results of his 14-year campaign in January 2000. Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files contained facsimiles of the documents, including "lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges". The story is told in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The final 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file, which reported on his ties with London anti-war activists in 1971 and had been withheld as containing "national security information provided by a foreign government under an explicit promise of confidentiality", were released in December 2006. They contained no indication that the British government had regarded Lennon as a serious threat; one example of the released material was a report that two prominent British leftists had hoped Lennon would finance a left-wing bookshop and reading room.

Writing and art

Lennon's biographer Bill Harry writes that Lennon began drawing and writing creatively at an early age with the encouragement of his uncle. He collected his stories, poetry, cartoons, and caricatures in a Quarry Bank High School exercise book that he called the Daily Howl. The drawings were often of crippled people, and the writings satirical, and throughout the book was an abundance of wordplay. According to classmate Bill Turner, Lennon created the Daily Howl to amuse his best friend and later Quarrymen band mate, Pete Shotton, to whom he would show his work before he let anyone else see it. Turner said that Lennon "had an obsession for Wigan Pier. It kept cropping up", and in Lennon's story A Carrot In A Potato Mine, "the mine was at the end of Wigan Pier." Turner described how one of Lennon's cartoons depicted a bus stop sign annotated with the question, "Why?". Above was a flying pancake, and below, "a blind man wearing glasses leading along a blind dog—also wearing glasses".

Lennon's love of wordplay and nonsense with a twist found a wider audience when he was 24. Harry writes that In His Own Write (1964) was published after "Some journalist who was hanging around The Beatles came to me and I ended up showing him the stuff. They said, 'Write a book' and that's how the first one came about". Like the Daily Howl it contained a mix of formats including short stories, poetry, plays and drawings. One story, "Good Dog Nigel", tells the tale of "a happy dog, urinating on a lamp post, barking, wagging his tail—until he suddenly hears a message that he will be killed at three o'clock". The Times Literary Supplement considered the poems and stories "remarkable ... also very funny ... the nonsense runs on, words and images prompting one another in a chain of pure fantasy". Book Week reported, "This is nonsense writing, but one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge." Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers "took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me".

In combination with A Spaniard in the Works (1965), In His Own Write formed the basis of the stage play The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write, co-adapted by Victor Spinetti and Adrienne Kennedy. After negotiations between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director of the National Theatre, Sir Laurence Olivier, the play opened at the Old Vic in 1968. Lennon and Ono attended the opening night performance, their second public appearance together to date. After Lennon's death, further works were published, including Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986); Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook (1992), with Lennon's illustrations of the definitions of Japanese words; and Real Love: The Drawings for Sean (1999). The Beatles Anthology (2000) also presented examples of his writings and drawings.

Musicianship

Instruments played

His playing of a mouth organ during a bus journey to visit his cousin in Scotland caught the driver's ear. Impressed, the driver told Lennon of a harmonica he could have if he came to Edinburgh the following day, where one had been stored in the bus depot since a passenger left it on a bus. The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy. He would continue to play harmonica, often using the instrument during The Beatles' Hamburg years, and it became a signature sound in the group's early recordings. His mother taught him how to play the banjo, later buying him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen. As his career progressed, he played a variety of electric guitars, predominantly the Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino and Gibson J-160E, and, from the start of his solo career, the Gibson Les Paul Junior. Occasionally he played a six-string bass guitar, the Fender Bass VI, providing bass on some Beatles' numbers that occupied McCartney with another instrument. His other instrument of choice was the piano, on which he composed many songs, including "Imagine", described as his best-known solo work. His jamming on a piano with McCartney in 1963 led to the creation of The Beatles' first US number one, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". In 1964, he became one of the first British musicians to acquire a Mellotron keyboard, though it was not heard on a Beatles' recording until "Strawberry Fields Forever" in late 1966.

Vocal style

When Lennon recorded "Twist and Shout", the final track during the mammoth one-day session that captured the band's 1963 debut album Please Please Me, his voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming." In the words of biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll." The Beatles' producer, George Martin, tells how Lennon "had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice! ... put something on it ... Make it different.'" Martin obliged, often using double-tracking and other techniques. Music critic Robert Christgau says that Lennon's "greatest vocal performance ... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically ... echoed, filtered, and double tracked."

As his Beatles' era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes that Lennon was, "tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of 'Cold Turkey' and the cathartic John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band." David Stuart Ryan notes Lennon's vocal delivery to range from, "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a hard "rasping" style. Wiener too describes contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be "at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair" Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing The Beatles' Ed Sullivan Show performance of "This Boy" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: "As Lennon's vocals reached their peak ... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had."

Legacy

Music historians Schinder and Schwartz, writing of the transformation in popular music styles that took place between the 1950s and the 1960s, say that The Beatles' influence cannot be overstated: having "revolutionized the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts", the group then "spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers". Liam Gallagher, his group Oasis among the many who acknowledge the band's influence, identifies Lennon as a hero; in 1999 he named his first child Lennon Gallagher in tribute. On National Poetry Day in 1999, after conducting a poll to identify the UK's favourite song lyric, the BBC announced "Imagine" the winner.

In a 2006 Guardian article, Jon Wiener wrote: "For young people in 1972, it was thrilling to see Lennon's courage in standing up to [US President] Nixon. That willingness to take risks with his career, and his life, is one reason why people still admire him today." Whilst for music historians Urish and Bielen, Lennon's most significant effort was "the self-portraits ... in his songs [which] spoke to, for, and about, the human condition."

Lennon continues to be mourned throughout the world and has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes. In 2010, on what would have been Lennon’s 70th birthday, the John Lennon Peace Monument was unveiled in Chavasse Park, Liverpool, by Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The sculpture entitled ‘Peace & Harmony’ exhibits peace symbols and carries the inscription “Peace on Earth for the Conservation of Life · In Honour of John Lennon 1940–1980”.

Awards and sales

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership is regarded as one of the most influential and successful of the 20th century. As performer, writer or co-writer Lennon has had 25 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. His album sales in the US stand at 14 million units. Double Fantasy, released shortly before his death, and his best-selling, post-Beatles' studio album at three million shipments in the US, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon. Participants in a 2002 BBC poll voted him eighth of "100 Greatest Britons". Between 2003 and 2008, Rolling Stone recognised Lennon in several reviews of artists and music, ranking him fifth of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and 38th of "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time", and his albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, 22nd and 76th respectively of "The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) with the other Beatles in 1965. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Discography

Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (with Yoko Ono) (1968)

Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions (with Yoko Ono) (1969)

Wedding Album (with Yoko Ono) (1969)

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)

Imagine (1971)

Some Time in New York City (with Yoko Ono) (1972)

Mind Games (1973)

Walls and Bridges (1974)

Rock 'n' Roll (1975)

Double Fantasy (with Yoko Ono) (1980)

Milk and Honey (with Yoko Ono) (1984)

Menlove Ave. (1986)

Notes

Lennon was responsible for 25 Billboard Hot 100 number one singles as performer, writer or co-writer. Solo (2): "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", "(Just Like) Starting Over". With The Beatles (20): "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Feel Fine", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", "A Hard Day's Night", "Eight Days a Week", "Help!", "Ticket to Ride", "Yesterday", "Paperback Writer", "We Can Work It Out", "All You Need Is Love", "Hello Goodbye", "Penny Lane", "Hey Jude", "Something/"Come Together", "Get Back", "Let It Be", "The Long and Winding Road"/"For You Blue". As co-writer of and performer on release by another artist (1): "Fame" (David Bowie). As co-writer of releases by other artists (2): "A World Without Love" (Peter and Gordon), "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Elton John).

Citations

References

Further reading

Kane, Larry (2007). Lennon Revealed. Running Press. ISBN 9780762429660

Pang, May; Edwards, Henry (1983). Loving John: The Untold Story. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-37916-6.

Wiener, Jon. The John Lennon FBI Files

Yorke, Richard (1969). "John Lennon: Ringo’s Right, We Can’t Tour Again", New Musical Express, 7 June 1969, reproduced by Crawdaddy!, 2007.

External links

The Liverpool Lennons

BBC Archive on John Lennon

NPR Archive on John Lennon

John Lennon and Yoko Ono – slideshow by Life magazine

John Lennon hosted by EMI Group Limited

Unveiling of ‘Peace & Harmony’, European Peace Monument – Dedicated to John Lennon

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name	Pete Best
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Randolph Peter Best
alias	Pete Best
born	November 24, 1941Madras, Madras Presidency, British India
origin	Liverpool, England, United Kingdom
instrument	Drums, vocals
genre	Rock and roll, rock
occupation	Drummer, civil servant, songwriter, vocalist
years active	1959–68, 1988–present
associated acts	The Beatles,Lee Curtis & the All-Stars,Pete Best & the All-Stars,The Pete Best Four,The Pete Best Combo,The Pete Best Band
website	www.petebest.com
notable instruments	}}

Pete Best (born 24 November 1941) is a British musician, best known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in Madras, British India. After moving from India to Liverpool in 1945, Best's mother, Mona Best (1924–1988), started The Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the Bests' house in Liverpool, which became very popular—the membership list grew to over a thousand—and was where The Beatles (then known as The Quarrymen) played some of their first concerts. Best played there with his first band, The Black Jacks, and later with The Beatles.

Best joined The Beatles on 12 August 1960, only one day before they were to go to Hamburg to play a season of club dates. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, who were the co-founders and nucleus of the group, fired Best through their manager Brian Epstein on 16 August 1962, replacing him with Ringo Starr. Best is one of the group of people sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle". He later worked as a civil servant for 20 years, before starting The Pete Best Band. He has been married for over 45 years to Kathy Best; they have two daughters and four grandchildren.

Early life

Best's mother, Mona Best (née Alice Mona Shaw), was born in Delhi, India, and was the daughter of Thomas (an Irish major) and Mary Shaw. Her first son, Randolph Peter (Pete Best), was born in Madras (now Chennai), Madras Presidency, British India, on 24 November 1941. His father's name is unknown. Mona was training to become a doctor in the service of the Red Cross when she met Johnny Best. He came from a family of sports promoters in Liverpool which once owned and ran the Liverpool Stadium. After their marriage on 7 March 1944, at St. Thomas' Cathedral, Bombay, Rory Best was born. In 1945, the Best family sailed for four weeks to Liverpool on the Georgic, the last troop ship to leave India, carrying single and married soldiers who had previously been a part of General Sir William Slim's forces in south-east Asia. The ship docked in Liverpool on 25 December 1945.

The Beatles and Hamburg

In 1960, Allan Williams arranged a season of bookings for The Beatles in Hamburg, starting on 12 August 1960, but said that he was not impressed with them as a musical group, and hoped that he could find a better act to follow them.

Having no permanent drummer, McCartney looked for someone to fill the Hamburg position. Best had been seen playing with The Quarrymen in The Casbah, and it was noted that he was a steady drummer, meaning that he played the bass drum on all four beats in the bar, which pushed the rhythm. He was known in Liverpool as being "mean, moody, and magnificent" by female fans, which convinced McCartney he would be good for the group. After The Black Jacks broke up, McCartney convinced Best to go to Hamburg with the group, by saying they would earn £15 per week each. As Best had passed his school exams—unlike Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, who had failed most of them—he had the chance to go to a teacher-training college, but decided that playing in Hamburg would be a better career move. Best had an audition in the Jacaranda club—owned by Williams—and travelled to Hamburg the next day with The Beatles. Williams later admitted that the audition with Best was not needed, as the group had not found any other drummer willing to travel to Hamburg, but did not tell Best in case he asked for more money. The Beatles first played at the Indra club in Hamburg, but slept in the Bambi Kino (cinema) in small, dirty rooms, which were noisy, cold, and directly behind the screen. Upon first seeing the Indra, Best remembered it as being a depressing place that was filled with a few tourists, and having heavy, old, red curtains that made it seem shabby compared to the larger Kaiserkeller. As Best had been the only one to take O-Level German at school, it was left to him to communicate with the club's owner, Bruno Koschmider, and the clientele. After the closure of the Indra because of complaints about the noise, the group started a residency in the Kaiserkeller.

In October 1960, they left Koschmider's club to work at the Top Ten Club, which was run by Peter Eckhorn, as he offered the group more money, and a slightly better place to sleep, although by doing so they broke their contract with Koschmider. When Best and McCartney went back to the Bambi Kino to get their belongings they found it in almost total darkness. As a snub to Koschmider, McCartney found a condom in his luggage, attached it to a nail on the concrete wall of the room, and set fire to it. There was no real damage done, but Koschmider reported them both for attempted arson. Best and McCartney spent three hours in a local prison and were deported, as was George Harrison, for working under the legal age limit, on 30 November 1960.

Back in Liverpool, no-one contacted each other for two weeks, but Best and his mother made numerous phone calls to Hamburg to recover the group's equipment. The ex-Black Jacks guitarist Chas Newby was invited to play bass for four concerts, as bassist Stuart Sutcliffe had decided to stay on in Hamburg. Newby played with the group at Litherland Town Hall and at The Casbah. He was shocked at the vast improvement in their playing and singing, and remembered Best's drumming to be very powerful, which pushed the group to play harder and louder. It was probably due to McCartney that Best developed a loud drumming style, as he would often tell Best in Hamburg to "crank it up" (play as loud as possible). When the group returned to Hamburg, Best was asked to sing a speciality number, "Peppermint Twist", while McCartney played drums, but always felt uncomfortable being at the front of the stage.

"My Bonnie"

The reunited Beatles returned to Hamburg in April 1961. While playing at the Top Ten Club they were recruited by singer Tony Sheridan to act as his backing band on a series of recordings for the German Polydor Records label, produced by bandleader Bert Kaempfert. Kaempfert signed the group to a Polydor contract at the first session on 22 June 1961. On 31 October 1961, Polydor released the recording "My Bonnie" (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur) which appeared on the German charts under the name "Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers"—a generic name used for whoever happened to be in Sheridan's backup band. The song was later released in the UK. There was a second recording session on 23 June, and a third session in May 1962.

Decca, Parlophone, and dismissal

Brian Epstein, who had been managing The Beatles for less than a month, arranged for the group to have an audition at Decca Records on New Year's Day, 1962. They recorded 15 songs, mostly covers, and, as Lennon later admitted, were "terrified and nervous". A month later, Decca turned down the group, which Best was not informed about.

Five months later, on 6 June 1962, The Beatles played a Parlophone audition at Abbey Road Studios, for George Martin. Ron Richards and his engineer, Norman Smith, recorded four songs, which Martin (who was not present during the recording) listened to at the end of the session. The recording convinced Martin that the group was good enough to be signed to a contract (even though he had already signed a contract with Epstein) but with one exception; Martin and his engineers wanted to use an experienced session drummer in Best's place, as was common practice amongst producers. Many years later Martin still expressed regret about this decision and what followed: "I decided that the drums, which are really the backbone of a good rock group, didn't give the boys enough support. They needed a good solid beat and I said to Brian, 'Look, it doesn't matter what you do with the boys, but on record, nobody need know. I'm gonna use a hot drummer.' Brian [Epstein] said, 'Okay, fine.' I felt guilty because I felt maybe I was the catalyst that had changed his [Best's] life".

When the group heard that Martin and the engineers preferred a session drummer for their upcoming recording session, Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison asked Epstein to dismiss Best from the band. Before Epstein became The Beatles' manager, Best's mother had arranged all the bookings in Liverpool, after they had parted company with Williams. Epstein agonised about the decision. As he wrote in his autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise, he "wasn't sure" about Martin's assessment of Best's drumming and "was not anxious to change the membership of The Beatles at a time when they were developing as personalities ... I asked The Beatles to leave the group as it was." Epstein also asked Bob Wooler for advice, to which Wooler replied that it was not a good idea, as Best was too popular with the fans. Ultimately, Epstein decided that "if the group was to remain happy Pete Best must go". He summoned Best to his office and dismissed him on 16 August 1962, two years and four days after Best had first joined the group.

Best's friend, Neil Aspinall, was waiting for him downstairs in Epstein's NEMS record shop after the meeting. The two went to The Grapes pub, across from The Cavern Club, where The Beatles had often played. Starting in 1961, Aspinall had become good friends with Best and subsequently rented a room in the house where Best lived with his parents. Best had asked Aspinall to become the band's roadie, resulting in Aspinall buying an old Commer van for 80 pounds. He had been employed as the band's road manager and personal assistant, but was furious at the news, saying that he would stop working for them as well, but Best strongly advised him to remain with the group. Aspinall asked Lennon at the next concert why they had fired Best, to which he replied, "It's got nothing to do with you, you're only the driver."

Prior to Best's dismissal, during one of the extended business trips of Best's father, the 19-year-old Aspinall became romantically involved with Best's mother, Mona Best, who was 17 years his senior. During this period, he fathered a child by Mona: Vincent "Roag" Best. Roag Best was born in late July 1962, just three weeks prior to Best's dismissal. Despite his initial support after Best's dismissal, Aspinall elected to stay in the employ of the group, and ended his relationship with Mona (and their three-week-old baby, Roag).

Mersey Beat magazine editor, Bill Harry, has claimed that the vacant drummer position in The Beatles was initially offered by Epstein to Johnny Hutchinson of The Big Three, whom he also managed. Hutchinson turned down the job, saying, "Pete Best is a very good friend of mine. I couldn't do the dirty on him", although he did agree to play three bookings until Starr could join. Starr had previously played with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes—the alternate band in the Kaiserkeller—and had deputised when Best was ill or unable to play, in Hamburg and Liverpool. Best's dismissal was reported by Harry on the front-page of the Mersey Beat magazine, upsetting many Beatles fans. The Beatles encountered some jeering and heckling in the street and on stage for weeks afterwards, with some fans shouting, "Pete forever, Ringo [Starr] never!" One agitated fan headbutted Harrison in The Cavern, giving him a black eye.

Reasons for dismissal

Best was never fully told why he was dismissed, as the only reason Epstein stated was, "The lads don't want you in the group anymore". Epstein subsequently claimed in his autobiography that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought Best "too conventional to be a Beatle, and though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul". It has been documented (notably in Cynthia Lennon's book, John) that while Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison usually spent their offstage time together in Hamburg and Liverpool, writing songs or socialising, Best generally went off alone. This left Best on the outside, as he was not privy to many of the group's experiences, references, and in-jokes.

German photographer Astrid Kirchherr asked The Beatles if they would mind letting her take photographs of them in a photo session, which impressed them, as other groups only had snapshots that were taken by friends. The next morning Kirchherr took photographs in a municipal park called "der Dom" which was close to the Reeperbahn, and in the afternoon she took them all—minus Best, who decided not to go—to her mother's house in Altona. Best was described by Dot Rhone—McCartney's girlfriend at the time, who later visited Hamburg—as being very quiet, and never taking part in conversations with the group.

Clothes, drugs and hairstyle

On their first trip to Hamburg, The Beatles realised that the stage suits they wore could not stand up to the hours of sweating and jumping about on stage every night, so they all bought leather jackets, jeans and cowboy boots, which were much tougher. Best preferred to play in short sleeves, and so did not match the sartorial style of the group, even though he was later photographed wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Sutcliffe were introduced to drugs in Hamburg. As they had to play for hours every night, they often took Preludin to keep themselves awake, which were given to them by German customers or by Astrid Kirchherr, whose mother bought them. Lennon would often take four or five, but Best always refused.

It has been claimed that Epstein became exasperated with Best's refusal to adopt the mop-top-style Beatle haircut as part of their unified look, although Best later stated that he was never asked to change his hairstyle. In a 1995 BBC Radio Merseyside interview, Kirchherr explained: "My boyfriend, Klaus Voorman, had this hairstyle, and Stuart [Sutcliffe] liked it very, very much. He was the first one who really got the nerve to get the Brylcreem out of his hair, and asking me to cut his hair for him. Pete Best has really curly hair, and it wouldn't work".

Popularity

Best's popularity with fans was a source of friction, as many female fans considered Best to be the band's best-looking member. Radio Merseyside presenter, Spencer Leigh, wrote a book chronicling Best's firing, suggesting that the other members, McCartney in particular, were jealous. During the Teenagers' Turn showcase in Manchester, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison walked on stage to applause, but when Best walked on, the girls screamed. Best was surrounded at the stage door afterwards by attentive females while the other members were ignored after signing a few autographs. McCartney's father, Jim McCartney, was present at the time and admonished Best by saying: "Why did you have to attract all the attention? Why didn't you call the other lads back? I think that was very selfish of you". Lennon called the accusations of jealousy a "myth", and claimed that Best was only recruited for the band because The Beatles needed a drummer to go to Hamburg, and said, "We were always going to dump him when we found a decent drummer".

Mona Best's take on her son's sacking, as told to British television in 1963, with Best: "From the point of clash of personalties, well, probably that may be it because Peter did have a terrific fan club, you know, compared to the others". [Interviewer: "Too good looking perhaps?"] "I'll leave that for other people to say but from my point of view we haven't come here to sort of throw sticks and stones at the boys because there is no really hard feeling. There was at first, but it's just the way that it was done that has annoyed us. If it had been done a bit more straightforward it would have been more to the mark". Martin was shocked that Epstein had sacked Best: "He seemed to be the most saleable commodity as far as looks went. It was a surprise when I learned that they had dropped Pete. The drums were important to me for a record, but they didn't matter much otherwise. Fans don't pay particular attention to the quality of the drumming". Martin used session musician Andy White on the third session for "Love Me Do" on 11 September, and not Starr, who was Best's replacement.

Best as a drummer

Musically, Best has been judged to have had a limited rhythmic vocabulary that was seen as holding the other three band members back from their collective musical growth. Martin (see above) deemed Best's drumming to be inadequate for a recording. As stated in Bob Spitz's 2005 biography, "All Pete could do was play 'Fours'", a style of drumming that uses kick drum notes on every quarter note to hold down the beat. Spitz's book also contains engineer Ron Richards' account of his failed attempts to teach Best somewhat more complicated beats for different songs. Critic and Beatles historian Richie Unterberger described Best's drumming at the Decca session as "thinly textured and rather unimaginative", and said that Best "pushes the beat a little too fast for comfort". Unterberger thought Starr to be "more talented". Beatles critic Alan W. Pollack compared the Best, Starr, and Andy White versions of "Love Me Do", and concluded that Best was "an incredibly unsteady and tasteless drummer" on his version. Beatles historian Ian MacDonald, recounting the Decca audition, said that "Best's limitations as a drummer are nakedly apparent". MacDonald notes of the 6 June EMI audition that "...this audition version [of "Love Me Do"] shows one of the reasons why Pete Best was sacked: in moving to the ride cymbal for the first middle eight, he slows down and the group falters".

All the other Beatles went on record about the dismissal of Best. McCartney said: "It was a strictly professional decision. If he wasn't up to the mark... then there was no other choice." He also pronounced Best to be "a bit limited". Harrison said that "Pete kept being sick and not showing up for gigs" and admitted, "I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea." For his part, Starr said: "I felt I was a much better drummer than he [Best] was".

Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison all later stated that they regretted the manner in which Best was sacked. Lennon admitted that "we were cowards when we sacked him. We made Brian do it." McCartney stated: "I do feel sorry for him, because of what he could have been on to." Harrison: "We weren't very good at telling Pete he had to go. Historically it may look like we did something nasty to Pete and it may have been that we could have handled it better." Starr, on the other hand, feels he has no apology to make: "I never felt sorry ... I was not involved." Mark Lewisohn concluded that "Despite his alleged shortcomings, it was still shabby treatment ... the most underhand, unfortunate and unforgivable chapter in The Beatles' rise to monumental power."

After The Beatles

Soon after Best was dismissed, Epstein tried to console him by offering to build another group around him, but Best turned him down. Feeling let-down and depressed, he sat at home for two weeks—not wanting to face anybody or answer the inevitable questions about why he had been sacked. Epstein secretly arranged with his booking agent partner, Joe Flannery, for Best to join Lee Curtis & the All Stars, which then broke off from Curtis to become Pete Best & the All Stars. They signed to Decca Records, releasing the single "I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door", which was not successful.

Best later relocated to the United States along with songwriters Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington. As The Pete Best Four, and later as The Pete Best Combo (after increasing their number to five) they toured the United States with a combination of 1950s songs and original tunes, recording for small labels, but had little success. They ultimately released an album on Savage Records, Best Of The Beatles; a play on Best's name, leading to disappointment for record buyers who expected a Beatles compilation. The group disbanded shortly afterwards. Bickerton and Waddington were to find greater success as songwriters in the 1970s, writing a series of hits for the American female group, The Flirtations and a UK group, The Rubettes.

Later years

Best decided to leave show business, and by the time of Hunter Davies' authorised Beatles biography in 1968, he was not willing to talk about his Beatles association. Years later he stated in his autobiography, "The Beatles themselves certainly never held out a helping hand and only contributed to the destruction with their readily-printed gossip that I had never really been a Beatle, that I didn't smile, that I was unsociable and definitely not a good mixer. There was not a single friendly word from any one of them". During the height of Beatlemania he attempted to commit suicide, but was talked out of it by his mother, Mona, and his brother, Rory.

In 1963, he married Kathy, who worked behind the biscuit counter at a Woolworth's store. Best's marriage to Kathy has lasted for more than 45 years. They have two daughters (Beba and Bonita) and four grandchildren. Best did shift work loading bread into the back of delivery vans, earning £8 a week. His education qualifications subsequently helped him become a civil servant working at Garston Jobcentre in Liverpool, where he rose from employment officer to training manager for the Northwest of England, and, ironically, remembered "a steady stream of real-life Yosser Hughes types" imploring him to give them jobs. The most he could do, he recalls, was to offer to retrain them in other fields, "which was an emotional issue for people who had done one kind of work all their lives."

In time, Best began giving interviews to the media, writing about his time with The Beatles, and serving as a technical advisor for the television film, Birth of The Beatles. He found a modicum of independent fame, and has admitted to being a fan of his former band's music, and owning their records. In 1995, the surviving Beatles released Anthology 1, which featured a number of tracks with Best as drummer, including songs from the Decca and Parlophone auditions. He received a substantial windfall—between £1 million and £4 million—from the sales, although he was not interviewed for the book or the documentaries. The collage of torn photographs on the Anthology 1 album cover includes an early group photo that featured Best, but Best's head was removed, revealing a photo of Starr's head, taken from the Please Please Me cover photo. (The missing section of the photograph appears on the cover of the album Haymans Green). A small photograph of Best can be seen on the left side of the Anthology cover. Best appeared in an advertisement for Carlsberg lager that was broadcast during the first commercial break of the first episode of the Anthology TV series on ITV in November 1995. The tag line was "Probably the Pete Best lager in the world", a variation of Carlsberg's well known slogan.

The Pete Best Band

In 1988, after twenty years of turning down all requests to play drums in public, Best finally relented, appearing at a Beatles convention in Liverpool. He and his brother, Roag, performed for the audience and, afterwards, his wife and mother told him, "You don't know it, but you're going to go back into show business". Best now regularly tours the world with The Pete Best Band, sharing the drumming with his younger brother Roag. The Pete Best Band's album Haymans Green, made entirely from original material, was released on 16 September 2008 in the US, 24 October 2008 worldwide excluding the UK and 27 October 2008 in the UK.

Honours

On 6 July 2007, Best was inducted into the All You Need Is Liverpool Music Hall of Fame as the debut Charter Member. Best was presented with a framed certificate before his band performed. Liverpool has further honoured Best with the announcement, on 25 July 2011, that two new streets in the city would be named Pete Best Drive and Casbah Close.

Discography

Singles

"I'm Gonna Knock on Your Door" b/w "Why Did I Fall in Love with You" (Decca F 11929, Released: 1964) "Don't Play With Me (Little Girl)" b/w "If You Can't Get Her" (Happening 405, Released: 1965) "If You Can't Get Her" b/w "The Way I Feel About You" (Happening HA1117, Released: 1965) "Kansas City" b/w "Boys" (Cameo 391, Released: 1965) "(I'll Try) Anyway" b/w "I Wanna Be There" (Original Beatles Drummer 800, Released: 1965) "Kansas City" b/w "Boys" (Cameo 391, Released: 1965) "I Can't Do Without You Now" b/w "Keys to My Heart" (Mr. Maestro Records 711, Released: 1965)

Another "Peter Best" single, "Carousel Of Love"/"Want You" (Capitol 2092) is not by Best, but an Australian performer with the same name.

LPs

Best of the Beatles (Savage BM 71, Released: 1965)

* Includes: "I Need Your Lovin"; "Just Wait and See"; "Casting My Spell"; "Keys to My Heart"; "Why Did You Leave Me Baby?"; "Like My Sister Kate"; "I Can't Do Without You Now"; "I'm Blue"; "Some Other Guy"; "She's Alright"; "Nobody But You"; "Last Night"

The Beatle That Time Forgot [Original Version] (Phoenix PB-22, Released: 1981)

* Includes: "I'm Checking Out Now Baby"; "I'll Try Any Way"; "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)"; "How'd You Get to Know Her Name"; "She's Not the Only Girl in Town"; "If You Can't Get Her"; "More Than I Need My Self"; "I'll Have Everything Too"; "The Way I feel About You"; "Don't Play With Me (Little Girl)"; "Rock and Roll Music"; "All Aboard"

Rebirth (Phoenix PB-44, Released: 1981)

* Includes: "I Can't Do Without You Now"; "Off the Hook"; "She's Alright"; "I Need Your Lovin'"; "Why Did You Leave Me Baby"; "High School Shimmy"; "I Wanna Be There"; "Everybody"; "Pete's Theme"; "Keys to My Heart"

The Beatle That Time Forgot [Reissue] (Phoenix PHX 340, Released: 1982)

* Includes: "I'll Try Anyway"; "I Don't Know Why I Do (I Just Do)"; "She's Not the Only Girl in Town"; "More Than I Need My Self"; "I'll Have Everything Too"; "I'm Checking Out Now Baby"; "How'd You Get to Know Her Name"; "If You Can't Get Her"; "Rock and Roll Music"

CDs

Back to the Beat - (1995) The Pete Best Combo: Beyond the Beatles 1964-1966 (1996) Live at the Adelphi Liverpool 1988 - (1996) Best (1998) Casbah Coffee Club 40th Anniversary Limited Edition (2009) The Savage Young Beatles (2004) Haymans Green - Released 16 September 2008 (US), August 2008 (UK) (The Pete Best Band)

Filmography

Full length films

The Rocker (Cameo) DVD (UK) Directed by Peter Cattaneo 2008 Best of the Beatles DVD (US) Pete Best of The Beatles (UK) Directed by Geoff Wonfor

Theatre

BEST!, a comedy play written by Liverpool playwright Fred Lawless, was staged at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1995 and 1996. The play, which was mainly fiction, showed a scenario where after Pete Best's sacking from The Beatles, he went on to be become a world famous rock superstar while The Beatles struggled as one hit wonders. The play was critically acclaimed in both the Liverpool Echo and also in Spencer Leigh's 1998 book Drummed Out : The Sacking of Pete Best

Notes

References

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External links

Pete Best official site

Complete Pete Best Discography

A downloadable audio interview with Pete Best about his work with the Beatles and the path his life has taken since.

Pete Best interview from NPR Fresh Air program

The Occult World of the Beatles by William H. Kennedy Free Audio Book [Best describes Club]

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:English rock drummers Category:People from Chennai Category:The Beatles members Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:People educated at Liverpool Collegiate Institution

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The Fifth Beatle is an informal title that various commentators in the press and entertainment industry have applied to persons who were at one point a member of The Beatles, or who had a strong association with the "Fab Four" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) during the group's existence. The "Fifth Beatle" claims started appearing in the press immediately upon the band's sensational rise to global fame in 1963–1964 as the most famous quartet in pop culture.

At The Beatles' 1988 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, George Harrison at one point stated that there were only two "fifth Beatles": Derek Taylor and Neil Aspinall (referring to the Beatles' public relations manager and road manager-turned-business-executive, respectively). In a 1997 BBC interview, Paul McCartney stated: "If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was [Beatles' manager] Brian Epstein."

The term is not used to indicate the chronology of band members joining the group. Pete Best joined Lennon, McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe and Harrison on the eve of their Hamburg sojourn, the five using the monikers, "The Silver Beetles" and "The Silver Beatles" (they would experiment with "The Beat Brothers" and ultimately "The Beatles" while in Hamburg with Best).

Early group members

Before they became famous, The Beatles actually did sometimes have five members, so the following people could all be called "the Fifth Beatle":

Stuart Sutcliffe

Stuart Sutcliffe was the original bassist of the five-member Beatles. He played with the band primarily during their days as a club act in Hamburg, Germany. When the band returned to Liverpool in 1961, Sutcliffe remained behind in Hamburg. He died of a brain hemorrhage shortly thereafter. Instead of replacing him with a new member, Paul McCartney changed from rhythm guitar (with John Lennon) to bass and the band continued as a four-piece.

Sutcliffe was an accomplished painter, but when compared to the other Beatles, his musical skills were described as "inadequate", and his involvement in the band was mainly a consequence of his friendship with Lennon. Sutcliffe's input was, however, an important early influence on the development of the band's image; Sutcliffe was the first to wear what would later become famous as The Beatles' moptop hairstyle, asking his girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr to cut his hair in emulation of the hairdo worn by friend Klaus Voormann.

Pete Best

Pete Best was the original drummer of The Beatles. He played with the band during their time as a club act, in both Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany. The band during this time period consisted of Best, bassist Stuart Sutcliffe (see above), and guitarists Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and John Lennon. While Sutcliffe left the band in 1961, and died shortly thereafter, Best continued to perform with the band until 1962 when he was let go and replaced by Ringo Starr.

Other individuals

In addition, members of precursor bands (such as The Quarrymen) like Pete Shotton, Colin Hanton, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths, and Rod Davis, or any one of a number of temporary Beatles drummers, most notably Jimmie Nicol (see below), Andy White (the session drummer for the commonly-heard version of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You"), Norman Chapman, and Tommy Moore have been discussed in this context, albeit less often. Bassist Chas Newby also performed three gigs with the band after Sutcliffe's departure.

Business, management, and production

Brian Epstein

Brian Epstein, the band's manager from 1961 until his death in 1967, was instrumental in The Beatles' rise to global fame. Epstein "discovered" the band in Liverpool, saw their potential, and never wavered in his faith and commitment to them. He purposefully restricted his oversight of the band, limiting himself to business matters and public image, and gave the band free creative reign in their music. Epstein also doggedly sought a recording contract for the band in London at a crucial moment in their career, fighting their perception as provincial "northern" musicians.

Epstein's death in essence marked the beginning of The Beatles' dissolution, as Lennon admitted later. Because he was not creatively involved with the band, Epstein was only infrequently called the "fifth Beatle", but over the years he and producer George Martin have clearly been recognised as the inner circle members who most profoundly affected the band's career. In an interview in the 1990s describing Epstein's involvement in the band's rise to fame, Martin declared "He's the fifth Beatle, if there ever was one".

Paul McCartney summarised the importance of Epstein to The Beatles when he was interviewed in 1997 for a BBC documentary about Epstein. He stated: "If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was Brian."

George Martin

The label is often applied to George Martin, who produced nearly all of The Beatles' recordings (later songs "Real Love" and "Free as a Bird" were produced by Jeff Lynne) and wrote the instrumental score for the Yellow Submarine film and soundtrack album, and the string and horn (and even some vocal) arrangements for almost all of their songs (with the famous exception of the Phil Spector re-production on the Let It Be album, and "She's Leaving Home", which was arranged by Mike Leander). His arrangement of the string octet backing for "Eleanor Rigby" was widely noted.

Martin's extensive musical training (which he received at the Guildhall School of Music) and sophisticated guidance in the studio are often credited as fundamental contributions to the work of The Beatles; he was without question a key part of the synergy responsible for transforming a good rock-and-roll group into the most celebrated popular musicians of their era. As writer Ian MacDonald noted, Martin was one of the few record producers in the UK at the time who possessed the sensitivity The Beatles needed to develop their songwriting and recording talent. Martin's piano playing also appears on several of their tracks, including "Misery" and "In My Life". Martin himself deflects claims of being the "fifth Beatle" to Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. In 2006, Martin inadvertently strengthened his image as the "fifth Beatle" by contributing the only piece of new music on the LOVE soundtrack: a string arrangement on top of George Harrison's solo acoustic demo of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from Anthology 3.

Neil Aspinall

A close personal friend of Pete Best (he actually lived in Best's house and fathered his youngest brother, Roag), Neil Aspinall would join The Beatles as their road manager, which included driving his old Commer van to and from shows, both day and night. After Mal Evans started work for The Beatles, Aspinall was promoted to become their personal assistant, and eventually ascended to the position of CEO for Apple Corps (a position he held until April 10, 2007).

Aspinall was involved in court cases on behalf of Apple over the years (including cases against The Beatles' then-manager Allen Klein, their label EMI, and the case against Apple Computer). He supervised the marketing of music, videos, and merchandising for the group. Aspinall also temporarily served as the group's manager following Epstein's death.

Although not a musician, Aspinall also made minor contributions to a handful of The Beatles' recordings. He played a tamboura on "Within You Without You", harmonica on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", some percussion on "Magical Mystery Tour", and was among the many participants singing on the chorus of "Yellow Submarine". As mentioned below, Harrison once claimed he, alongside Derek Taylor, was the fifth member.

Derek Taylor

British journalist Derek Taylor first met the band after reviewing their stage performance. Instead of the anticipated negative review of a rock-n-roll group, Taylor gave their act the highest praises. Invited to become acquainted with The Beatles' camp, he soon became a confidante, and gained his share of exclusives on them.

Eventually, he was hired away from his newspaper job by Epstein, who put him in charge of Beatles press releases, and playing media liaison to himself and the band. He also became Epstein's personal assistant.

By 1968, he became press officer for Apple Corps. As a VIP at Apple, Taylor had a major role in the company's ups and downs, making or enforcing many crucial business and personal decisions, for The Beatles and Apple's staff, and witnessing many key moments in the latter days of both. As mentioned above, Harrison once claimed he, alongside Aspinall, was the fifth member.

Jeff Lynne

Years after The Beatles had broken up, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr each worked with music producer Jeff Lynne on various solo projects, while Harrison and Lynne also worked together as members of the Traveling Wilburys. Lynne eventually became heavily involved with the Beatles Anthology, and produced the two Beatles reunion singles that resulted from that project, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love."

Musical contributors

During The Beatles' existence (specifically, 1960–70 and the Anthology project), several musicians recorded with The Beatles in a more limited capacity, either on a Beatles' album, or on another artist's album with two or more Beatles members appearing. Hence, such artists could be dubbed "the Fifth Beatle" for a single track or two. Notable artists include:

Tony Sheridan

While performing in Hamburg between 1960 and 1963, musician Tony Sheridan employed various backup bands. In 1961 The Beatles (comprising Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Pete Best), who had met Sheridan during their first visit to Hamburg in 1960, worked with him on their second. When German Polydor agent Bert Kaempfert saw the pairing on stage, he suggested that they make some recordings together. (At that period in time, Sheridan was the bigger name, with The Beatles as his backing band.) In 1962, after a series of singles (the first of which, "My Bonnie"/"The Saints" made it to #5 in the Hit Parade), Polydor released the album My Bonnie across Germany. The word "Beatles" was judged to sound too similar to the German "Pidels" (pronounce peedles), the plural of a slang term for penis, so the album was credited to "Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers". After The Beatles had gained fame, the album was re-released in Britain, with the credit altered to "Tony Sheridan and The Beatles".

Billy Preston

Apart from Sheridan, American pianist Billy Preston was the only artist to receive joint credit on a Beatles single, on "Get Back". Preston also played the organ on "Let It Be" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and the Fender Rhodes electric piano on "Don't Let Me Down" and "Get Back". Preston had been introduced to The Beatles during the early 1960s, but did not work with them until 1969, when Harrison invited him to join them for recording sessions in order to defuse tensions in the band. Lennon once suggested that Preston join The Beatles, even using the term "Fifth Beatle", but the idea was dismissed by the others. On the Let it Be album where Preston's performances are used the song credits list "with Billy Preston", clearly identifying him as separate from the main group, yet also giving him a level of individuality that separated him from studio session players. To distinguish him from the common level of controversy over who is the Fifth Beatle, he is sometimes given the unique title of the "Black Beatle".

Jimmie Nicol

During the band's 1964 tour, Ringo became ill and the Dutch and Danish legs of the tour were almost cancelled. Instead of cancelling, however, the band hired another drummer, Jimmie Nicol, to stand in until Ringo recovered. The photographer following the band for the 1964 tour, Harry Benson, recalls in his book The Beatles in the Beginning, that "John was pleasant to Nicol, Paul was ambivalent, and George downright didn't like him and thought he was too pushy." George and Ringo were close and Ringo felt threatened that he was being replaced, even if it were for just a small portion of the tour.

Nicol made the most of his time in the most famous band. He signed autographs and gave interviews. Eventually there were rumours that Ringo would be replaced, but Jimmy eventually was not accepted as a member of the group, and many fans reacted with disappointment, through letters and telegrams, that Ringo might be replaced. Eventually Ringo rejoined the band on June 14, in Melbourne, Australia. The next day Nicol, after playing a number of concerts in Sydney and Adelaide, giving interviews and signing autographs was escorted to the airport by Brian Epstein and flew home to Britain. It was later reported that Nicol was paid £500 for the gigs and was given a gold watch as a memento.

It is suggested, perhaps apocryphally, that the phrase "It's getting better" in the track "Getting Better" (on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album) was inspired by Nicol's stock response to repeated solicitous inquiries during his time with the band as to how he was coping.

Eric Clapton

Originally "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" had only the first guitar solo in the song off of the album. However Harrison thought that it sounded weak, and was lacking something. They called in Eric Clapton to perform the lead guitar on the song and it was decided to cut one verse entirely and add another guitar solo towards the end of the song.

Other candidates

Spurious/joke claims

Murray the K, a New York disc-jockey who was jokingly dubbed the "fifth Beatle" by George Harrison. Murray was one of the few who actually promoted himself with the title of Fifth Beatle. He is credited with coining the term "Fifth Beatle" when he referred to himself on air as such in 1964.

In 1962 radio announcer and disc-jockey Bob Rogers joined Australian radio station 2SM which jumped to number 1. In 1964 Rogers was chosen to represent 2SM on the Beatles' legendary tour through Europe, Asia and Australia. Consequently Rogers became known as "the fifth Beatle".

John Melendez, better known as "Stuttering John" from The Howard Stern Show, was sent to a press conference held for the announcement of a Ringo Starr tour, following the release of Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band in 1990, and asked him: "Now that Murray the K is gone, who is the fifth Beatle?" to which Ringo replied "You are".

George Best, star footballer of the 1960s, shared last name with Pete Best and celebrity lifestyle. Best was dubbed "The Fifth Beatle" and "O Quinto Beatle" by the Portuguese press after scoring twice for Manchester United in a 5–1 victory at Estádio da Luz against Benfica in the 1965–66 European Cup quarter-finals, mainly due to his Beatles-style "mop" haircut.

William Stuart Campbell, Paul McCartney's replacement according to the "Paul is dead" theory.

Tatsuya Ishida, comic artist, creator of the Sinfest comic strip, jokingly called himself "fifth Beatle" in the epigraph of his strip "Conscious Again" in 2000.

Little Richard, whose gift for flamboyant self-promotion is legendary, good-naturedly claims to have "taught The Beatles everything they knew" and at times has laid claim to the title. Indeed, Richard's songs and style influenced the early Beatles, and Paul McCartney's powerful vocal covers of his songs such as "Long Tall Sally" were important in The Beatles' early career. In reality, Richard's personal interaction with The Beatles occurred over a few days in early 1963, when The Beatles were second bill to Richard at several UK performances.

Broadcaster Brian Matthew, who introduced Saturday Club on the BBC Light Programme during the 1960s, remarked on a 2006 edition of BBC Radio 2's Sounds of the 60s (15 July 2006) that, not only had Best been accorded the "fifth Beatle" eponym, but that he himself had, on one occasion, been referred to as such.

Ed Rudy, the only American news reporter to travel with The Beatles on their entire first U.S. visit .

New York–based DJ Roby Yonge, whose high profile at WABC-AM helped perpetuate the "Paul is dead" theory.

Stephen Colbert, who, on the January 28, 2009 episode of The Colbert Report, asked ex-Beatle Paul McCartney if he could be the fifth Beatle, to which Paul replied no.

Fictional Fifth Beatles

The Rutles's All You Need Is Cash, a parody of the Beatles, refers to a "fifth Rutle", "Leppo", who "disappeared [in Hamburg] after stepping into a small chest with a small German fraulein". This is apparently a reference to Sutcliffe, who died in Hamburg, while "Leppo" rhymes with "Zeppo". Zeppo Marx was the "fifth" Marx Brother.

In the episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" of The Simpsons animated television show featuring Paul and Linda McCartney included a scene in which Apu Nahasapeemapetilon claimed to be the fifth "Bee-at-el"; Paul rolls his eyes and says "Sure you were, Apu."

Eddie Murphy starred in a 1983 Saturday Night Live sketch, playing the role of Clarence Walker, a man who claimed to be the fifth Beatle, as saxophonist, who was kicked out by Lennon and McCartney because they wanted to steal the glory. The sketch featured Clarence's "proof" of his claims: Some out-of-tune saxophone and backing vocal parts clumsily overdubbed on a few Beatles songs, and an obviously phony picture of Clarence standing in the middle of the four Beatles. When the clearly unbelieving TV show host (portrayed by Joe Piscopo) demands further proof of his claims, Clarence offers up a recording of a Beatles song played 'backwards', which reveals two Liverpudlian accented males declaring 'Hey Paul, let's get rid of Clarence and steal all of his good ideas!'

Another Saturday Night Live sketch in 1988 portrayed controversial John Lennon biographer Albert Goldman as the fifth Beatle. In the sketch, Goldman was the group's former tuba player who wrote the Lennon biography in revenge for being fired from the group.

In one episode of Roseanne, John Goodman's character Dan Conner jokingly referred to himself as the fifth Beatle when Roseanne mentions a crush on Paul McCartney.

In 2001, Dan Bern wrote a humorous song/story entitled "The Fifth Beatles". Bern imagines a world in which Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and various other well-known musicians do stints as members of the band.

An edition of BBC comedy Fist of Fun featured a "special guest" (played by Kevin Eldon) who claimed to be the tenth Beatle, on the basis that there were only five people with better claim to be the fifth Beatle than him. The fact that he was born in 1971 did not appear to be a problem to the man; he remarks, with some wonder, "If I had been born twenty years earlier, I could have been the fifth Beatle!"

In the Blizzard RTS PC game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, the Crypt Lord Anub'arak says "I'm the fifth beetle" after being repeatedly clicked on.

In the film The Million Dollar Hotel, the character Dixie (played by Peter Stormare) believes himself to be the fifth Beatle.

Terry Fator, a ventriloquist, who won the 2007 America's Got Talent introduced "Hyphen", a ventriloquist puppet who claims to have been the 5th Beatle, having been kicked out for breaking their bong. He (Hyphen) even points out that he is listed in credits as co-writer of most of the songs as they are all listed as written by Lennon Hyphen McCartney, and emphasizes that he is Hyphen. In addition, Hyphen sings similarly to The Beatles, and uses tunes of various famous Beatles' songs for his social commentary songs, such as "I wanna hold your hand" becoming "I wanna shoot your head" in reference to the Pirates in Somalia, and "Yesterday" being rewritten as the tale of how Hyphen used to be the 5th Beatle only just "Yesterday".

References

External links

5th Beatle on Dogonaut

"The Fifth Beatle" Website (A website about a proposed movie about Epstein)

Category:People associated with The Beatles

de:Fünfter Beatle es:El quinto Beatle hu:Az ötödik Beatle nl:De vijfde Beatle ja:5人目のビートルズ pl:Piąty beatles