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One of the biggest musical acts in history, The Beatles were John Lennon (guitar), George Harrison (guitar), Paul McCartney (bass) and Ringo Starr (drums). The Beatles evolved from an amateur teenage skiffle group, the Quarry Men, formed by Lennon in 1956 and named after his school, Quarry Bank High.

In November 1961, a Liverpool music shop owner, Brian Epstein, heard the Beatles at the Cavern, a local "beat" club where they played most of their pre-1963 British gigs. Becoming their manager, Epstein secured the group a recording contract in June 1962 with Parlophone.

After Epstein’s death from an overdose of tranquilizers in August 1967, the group gradually lost direction and the underlying conflicts between its otherwise intensely cohesive members soured. They managed to record some 80 more tracks. These were increasingly individual efforts, written and sometimes even recorded solo.