It's April 1963.
John Lennon & Ringo Starr are 22 years old, Paul McCartney & George Harrison are 20. Lennon is newly married to Cynthia Powell who gives birth to their son Julian Lennon just after the Beatles debut album is released, though both the marriage and birth are kept hidden from the press.
Harrison has been in the band for 5 years, Starr just 7 months. Lennon & McCartney have played together for 6 years, writing around 30 songs, though many have not been performed in public or seriously considered for their record label auditions.
They’ve honed their performance skills playing over 200 gigs in Liverpool and spending 800 hours on stage in Hamburg (between 4 1/2 and 6 hours a night) playing “to raucous audiences of sailors, criminals and prostitutes” (RITH 397).
The band has been turned down by Columbia, HMV, Decca, Pye, and Oriole before being signed by by George Martin to Parlophone Records, a subsidiary of EMI most notable for comedy records.
After two unsatisfactory recording sessions they finally cut their debut single Love Me Do in Oct 62. This is followed by Please Please Me (the single) and Please Please Me (the debut album) and From Me To You in early 1963. This entire set of songs is recorded, overdubbed and mixed in little over 30 hours.
After two unsatisfactory recording sessions they finally cut their debut single Love Me Do in Oct 62. This is followed by Please Please Me (the single) and Please Please Me (the debut album) and From Me To You in early 1963. This entire set of songs is recorded, overdubbed and mixed in little over 30 hours.
The album spends 30 weeks in the UK no 1 spot and is only removed by the Beatles next album With The Beatles.
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