It’s now 60 years since the word “Beatlemania” entered the world’s vocabulary. In the UK the phenomenon bursts when John Lennon instructs Elizabeth the Queen Mother and other affluent attendees to rattle their jewellery at the Royal Variety Performance in October 1963. In the USA, it breaks when Capitol is forced to rush-release “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in December, after it’s played on a radio station in Washington DC.
Those might be the facts of the news events, as newspapermen and TV stations try to get across an unprecedented phenomenon – but the sheer joy of that moment in time is something which The Beatles have continued to bring us down the decades since.
The fresh selection of pictures in our latest publication gives a flavour of that enduring appeal. The group’s music was remarkable for its rate of change, and so were the band themselves, taking on new influences, new hairstyles, and whole new outlooks. What didn’t change was the band’s essential personality – throughout nearly all their career, they remained as charismatic, intelligent and playful as they were at the start.
A day in the life? This is the life of The Beatles, in 100 pages. From their residencies at disreputable Hamburg clubs, to recording their hits, charming a whole new medium – television – and conquering America, The Beatles: A Life In Pictures brings you closer to John, Paul, George and Ringo. On each spread here, you’ll also find instructive remarks from The Beatles themselves and their associates, selected from the archives of NME, Melody Maker and Uncut.
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