Beatles FAQ

Of all the women who married a Beatle, Maureen Starkey came closest to fulfilling the job description as seen my the average fan. Not mildly posh (Cynthia, Patty) or intimidatingly foreign (Linda and Yoko) she seemed to have risen from the ranks of the fans.  While the future Mrs Ono-Lennon claimed to have somehow missed Beatlemania, Maureen had been there from the outset - and had the bruised shins from rivals to prove it. If the dream was to to be serenaded by a Fab -then she was living it. Only that was never the deal Chez Starkey. Though well suited in fundamental respects, their record collections were mutually exclusive. Ringo was rock and roll man - with a long standing sideline in country and western. Maureen was much more old school - a lover of crooners  swept both her homeland and her adopted one. Her story is that she arrived in  It is true that her modernist musical set - John Cage and company - were not believed to be first first in line at Shea Stadium. It'...

Designer Robin Cruikshank was doing work for Apple in 1969 at a time when the Starkeys were abandoning the suburbs for north London. Ringo was impressed by Cruikshank's steel and glass work and invited him to designing some pieces for hiss new Hampstead/Highgate home.  The two men got on so well that they formed a company ROH — with Starr/Starkey owning 51% to Cruickshank’s 49%. Admittedly, Ringo’s investment was in relative terms small change dropped down his soon to be discarded old school sofa but it was another indication of the depth of his new interest. Blue Peter Ringo’s design contribution is unclear — he had no formal training but seems to have provided conceptual ideas — one being inspired by a visit to his local car showroom. Why not set the grille of a Rolls Royce into a stainless steel table? In addition to his investment and ideas, Ringo was an enthusiastic front man for the company in its early years. In 1971 he made a famous appearance on Blue Peter, in an unlikely ...

George Harrison and Paul McCartney first met while at secondary school.

First Ed Sullivan appearance - public domain The Beatles fly from London Heathrow to New York on 7 February, 1964 More than 10,000 girls are waiting - a major news event.

In late September 1963 George Harrison becomes the first Beatle to visit America. Map artwork by Jane Samson

  None of The Beatles had a background in classical music. 

Always intensely competitive, The Beatles monitored the output of their rivals closely. None came close to matching their commercial success. Why Dylan loomed large For The Beatles record sales this was not the only criteria that mattered. Above all, they wanted to impress their peers: especially those young people in Liverpool and London who were also avid readers of the music press, buyers of imported records and habitues of the coolest clubs.   Of their direct competitors, Bob Dylan loomed largest. Lennon later conceded that their British rivals never felt like too much of a threat. They liked The  Stones, The Who and the Kinks and would sometimes borrow their innovations - the guitar sound on You Really Got Me for, for example. But they never doubted that they would lose their top spot in the NME poll. Dylan was different. For a start, he was American and this automatically gave his status an uplift. They believed him to be authentic In some respects he represented mu...

The first meeting of The Beatles and Bob Dylan was in a room at the Delmonico Hotel in New York on Friday 28 August 1964.

John Lennon was very short-sighted but in his teens refused to wear spectacles in public.

 John Lennon was later embarrassed about the source of one of his contributions to the Abbey Road medley. It was based on a newspaper story he read early in 1967.