Many members of S.I. Cannock and District recently relived some of their teenage years when Peter Cadman came to speak to the club about “The Fab Four – The Beatles.
We heard about their early lives in Liverpool and then moved onto their musical lives. John Lennon was 17yrs old and Paul McCartney just 15yrs when they started their ‘skiffle’ group. Paul was at school with George Harrison where he recruited him to join the group.
There were originally 5 members of “The Silver Beatles” John, Paul, George, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe who had their first gig in Hamburg, Germany, they actually stayed in Hamburg performing for 2 years. During this time Sutcliffe left the band.
Peter Cadman with Soroptimist Jill Mason who chaired the meeting.
Brian Epstein, their first manager, masterminded the image they came to be famous for and replaced Best with a new drummer, Ringo Star (real name Richard Starkey) and the Beatles were born. He got them their first record deal and ‘Love me Do’ was released in 1962, however their first hit was ‘From Me to You’ in 1963. Lennon and McCartney wrote the majority of their songs and their records were produced by George Martin, nicknamed the fifth Beatle.
International fame and success followed but the death of Brian Epstein in August 1967 heralded the beginning of the end for the boys. Following a disagreement about who would replace Epstein, the Fab Four gave their final live performance on the roof of the Apple studio in 1969
Each member had solo hits in the years that followed, some more successful than others!
Sadly Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980 and Harrison died in 2001.
Peter ended his look at the most famous group in the world with a quote from John Lennon “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”.
Many of the members left the meeting humming their favourite Beatles song!