The Beatles

The Beatles are the most important rock band in the history of the genre. Rock music changed irrevocably between the early 1960s and their breakup in 1970 and they are more responsible for those changes than any other group of musicians.

For our purposes they are extremely important too. They were also among the most significant pioneers of Art Rock, helping to create Art Rock proper, Avant Rock and, at the very least, helping to suggest Prog Rock.

The Beatles

• Lead Vocals:
  • John Lennon
  • Paul McCartney
  • George Harrison (occasionally)
  • Ringo Starr (1962-on, rarely)
• Guitars:
  • George Harrison
  • John Lennon
  • Paul McCartney
• Keyboards:
  • Paul McCartney (1963>)
  • John Lennon (1964>)
  • George Harrison (1967>, occasionally, studio only)
  • Ringo Starr (1968>, rarely, studio only)
• Bass Guitar:
  • Stuart Sutcliffe (1960-1962)
  • Paul McCartney (1962>)
  • George Harrison (1965>, occasionally)
  • John Lennon (1966>, occasionally)
• Drums:
  • Tommy Moore (1960)
  • Norman Chapman (1960)
  • Pete Best (1960-62)
  • Ringo Starr (1962>)
  • Paul McCartney (1968, rarely, studio only)
• Percussion:
  • Ringo Starr (1962>)
  • John Lennon (1962>)
  • Paul McCartney (1962>, studio only)
  • George Harrison (1962>, studio only)

Skiffle Origins

The Beatles began as a skiffle band, formed by John Lennon in 1956, when he was 16 years old. Skiffle is a hybrid folk music genre that emerged in the United States sometime in the early 20th century. It was revived in the UK in the 1950s. John Lennon and his school friends took up the music because it was popular and easy to play.

The Invention of Pop Rock

Prior to the British Invitation, popular music was divided into a number of genres:

• blues
• country and western
• folk
• gospel
• pop
• rhythm and blues (R&B)
• rock and roll
• soul
• surf

and other genres, including hybrids of the above styles. Many artists stuck to one genre, or they would stick to two or three at the most, and usually when they performed a song from one genre it was clearly from that genre. There was no such thing as "pop rock" because the genres were fairly distinct things, often with their own infrastructure (concert circuits, studios, labels, media). With their debut album, Please Please Me (March 1963) the Beatles changed that, they did so by covering songs from many different genres on the same record but, more importantly, by writing songs which combined ideas from different genres. That record wasn't released in the US, and its content wasn't released until nearly a year later, on two competing albums, which also included material from the Beatles' second album, With the Beatles (November 1963). With the Beatles is very much Please Please Me 2, but it further helped popularize the idea that there were no boundaries between most popular music genres (excepting blues, folk, country and gospel). And the British bands that followed the Beatles' wake often made similarly radical choices in covers and how they wrote songs. The British didn't see a difference between the different American genres, so they just played and wrote what they liked. The end result of The British Invasion was that old pop categories stopped existing as entirely or nearly independent categories, and instead became lumped under something called "pop rock".

The Invention of Folk Rock

The Beatles and other British Invasion bands blended a bunch of American popular music genres together but one genre which was conspicuously absent was folk.

Folk, at least the kind performed in New York City cafes in the early 1960s, had come a long way from its origins as, literally, the music of the people. By the early '60s, it was an esoteric genre for aesthetes in cafes, with songs often featuring direct confessions, or sociopolitical topics most Americans had little interest in (or with lyrics most Americans would decry as "communist"). Because this genre was so inaccessible, it was not readily combined with the other popular music genres of its day.

But the Beatles, particularly John Lennon, were big fans of folk music, and especially folk music's newest sensation, Bob Dylan. And it wasn't long before the Beatles began integrating musical and lyrical ideas of the folk scene, as well as adopting folk (and country) instrumentation. That flirtation with other genres began as early as March 1964, with "Can't Buy Me Love", but they really invented folk rock on A Hard Day's Night, released in July 1964.