From The Quarrymen to The Fab Four – Becoming The Beatles

To many people, The Beatles are the “Fab Four” of John, Paul, George and Ringo – that’s it, end of story.

However, along the way, they had the help of many friends, without whom the final Fab Four that shook the world would never have been.

I am often asked about how they went from being Quarrymen to Beatles, and it isn’t as simple as you might think. I decided to do the timeline/ flowchart and it took hours, but it shows the contributions that were made by just about every musician along the way. This will hopefully explain the story of the transition from the Quarrymen to The Beatles.

Summer 1956

John Lennon (guitar), Pete Shotton (washboard) and Bill Smith (tea-chest bass) decided to start a skiffle group at Quarry Bank School. They quickly recruited Eric Griffiths (guitar) and Rod Davis who had just acquired a banjo. This was in the summer of 1956. They called themselves The Quarry Men – or Quarrymen – after their school, Quarry Bank, the first line of the school song and the Quarry in Woolton.

They had friends who sometimes played with them. Bill Smith, who didn’t turn up to many practices, was quickly replaced: plus Ivan Vaughan and Nigel Walley who were John and Pete’s friends and occasionally played the tea-chest bass, but didn’t really want to stick at it.

So we have,

John, Pete, Eric, Rod, Ivan, Nigel or Bill

Ivan went to the Liverpool Institute and made friends with Len Garry so Ivan introduced him to the group to take on the role of tea-chest bass.

John, Pete, Eric, Rod and Len

One of Eric’s neighbours was Colin Hanton and, when Eric discovered Colin had a set of drums, he was recruited too.

This was all by the end of 1956.

John, Pete, Eric, Rod, Len and Colin.

They met up and practised in each other’s homes regularly.

The next recruit was another school friend of Ivan’s called Paul McCartney, whom he introduced to John at St. Peter’s Church fete on 6 July 1957. Paul played with the Quarrymen at the Youth Club for a few weeks, before making his official debut in October 1957.

Things started to move quickly from then. Rod left within a couple of weeks as he was more into folk music than rock ‘n’ roll, so he decided to leave. Pete too left soon after as he wasn’t musical and was only there because he was John’s best friend.

John, Eric, Len, Colin and Paul

By this time, Paul had become friends with George Harrison and wanted him to join. George eventually joined at the end of 1957, and they obviously didn’t need 4 guitars. Eric left, having been given the option of buying a bass guitar, or leaving. Len left around this time too.

John, Colin, Paul and George

Occasionally in 1958, when they had a piano at a venue, John Duff Lowe joined them too.

John, Colin, Paul, George and John Duff Lowe

With this line up, they made their first record at Percy Phillips’ studio on 12^th July 1958; “In Spite of All The Danger”/ “That’ll Be The Day”.

John, Colin, Paul and George.

Around March 1959, Colin had a row with the others and decided he had had enough, so he quit.

John, Paul and George.

By thhe spring of 1959, there are no more bookings. They even dropped the name Quarrymen and appeared as “The College Band” at the end of the year when appearing at the Art College dances. John started drinking heavily after his mum died, and lost interest in music and the group.

The Quarrymen eventually split up, and George joined the Les Stewart Quartet with Ken Brown. They walked out on the group after an argument about playing at The Casbah, and began playing as a duo.

George and Ken

George brought John and Paul back to reform the Quarrymen to open the Casbah on 29 August 1959.

George, Ken, John and Paul

After an argument over money, Ken left and the Quarrymen walked out of The Casbah in October 1959.

John, Paul and George

They changed their name to Johnny and the Moondogs for one talent show. They then recruited John’s art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe and became The Beatals – a letter written by Stuart dated January 1960 mentioned their new name.

The name was Stuart’s suggestion, in honour of Buddy Holly and the Crickets. It’s an insect thing – crickets – beetles. This was not after the film The Wild Ones, which was actually banned in this country until 1967.

Interestingly, for my second book, The Fab One Hundred and Four, I interviewed 1960s beat poet Royston Ellis. Ellis was famous for introducing them to drugs in Gambier Terrace by taking apart the Vicks inhaler.

Royston claims that, as shown in an article in the Record Mirror on 9 July 1960 about his poetry tour with rock music accompanying him. He mentions that he was thinking of bringing down to London a Liverpool group which he considers is most in accord with his poetry. The name of the group? The Beetles!

Ellis said, “I still maintain it was the result of a conversation I had with John and George that led to the name change. When I asked them what they were going to call themselves they said the Beetles. I asked how they spelled it and John said ‘Beetles’ because he liked the Volkswagen car known as the Beetle.” He continued that he suggested that “because I was a beat poet and they were going to back me, and because they played beat music, why didn’t they call themselves The Beatles.”  Royston was the “man on the flaming pie”.

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Royston

At this point, an interesting temporary insertion to our list is Mike McCartney. He has made a few mentions over the past few years of being a drummer for the Quarrymen and for The Beatles. In the manner of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Pete Nash and I set about trying to solve this riddle.

Mike and The Quarrymen? There is a photo of Mike with the Quarrymen drums, so I spoke to Colin Hanton. He has had a conversation with Mike about this, having been the Quarrymen’s first drummer. Colin had joined the Quarrymen months before John and Paul met in July 1957. Mike then had a bad accident at Scout camp and broke his arm in several places, damaging nerves and leaving him in hospital for weeks. By his own admission, any hope of playing drums had gone. He faced several months of physiotherapy to get his arm working again.

As we’ve seen, Colin was the drummer until spring of 1959, when the Quarrymen were reduced to just John, Paul and George. They played at George’s brother’s wedding on 20 December 1958 as a threesome. George left to join the Les Stewart Quartet in early 1959 and the Quarrymen of John, Paul, George and Ken Brown opened the Casbah on 29 August 1959. Stuart had now joined and in May 1960, Allan Williams became manager and recruited Tommy Moore. Therefore, we reckon that Mike must have stood in as a temporary drummer sometime in April 1960.

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Mike?

After Allan Williams became the manager, Brian Casser, of Cass and the Cassanovas, suggested a new name, Long John Silver and The Beatles, but they settled on The Silver Beetles and then The Silver Beatles. They did this as Brian helped them find a drummer through Allan’s intervention and at Brian Casser’s suggestion on 5 May 1960, they recruited Tommy Moore and soon go off for the Johnny Gentle tour of Scotland.

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Tommy

Appearing as The Silver Beats at Lathom Hall on 14 May, they were drummer-less, so they borrowed Cliff Roberts to drum for them. His band, Cliff Roberts and the Rockers, were also appearing.

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Cliff

They set off for Scotland for their first appearance on 20 May backing local singer Johnny Gentle. They appeared on the advertising as “ITV Star of ‘Oh Boy’ and ‘Wham’ Johnny Gentle and His Group”. Some of them even used pseudonyms for the trip.

John, Paul Ramon, George – Carl Harrison, Stuart – Stu De Stael, Tommy and Johnny Gentle.

When they returned, Tommy quit to take up a proper job! So on 14 June 1960 at the Grosvenor Ballroom, they had no drummer, and when John asked if there were any drummers in the room, Ron the Teddy Boy stepped up and bashed away at the drums – Lennon and the Silver Beatles were too scared to challenge him! So for one night only, Ron the Ted was the drummer!

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Ronnie

They then recruited accomplished drummer Norman Chapman in June 1960.

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Norman

However, Norman’s time was cut short when he was called up for National Service after only a few weeks.

The group returned to the Casbah where Ken Brown had formed a new group called the Black Jacks with Mona Best’s son Pete Best. They needed a drummer to go to Hamburg, and knowing Pete and that he was a decent drummer, they recruited him and changed their name to The Beatles.

John, Paul, George, Stuart and Pete

When they returned from Hamburg in December 1960 without Stuart, Chas Newby joined them for four gigs over Christmas where they first appeared as The Beatles at the Casbah. Chas was in Pete’s old band the Black Jacks.

John, Paul, George, Pete and Chas

Chas returned to college and Stuart returned from Hamburg to take up his place with the group again.

John, Paul, George, Pete and Stuart

Stuart decided to quit in Hamburg, and so the four Beatles were:

John, Paul, George and Pete

In June 1961, under a contract with producer Bert Kaempfert, they recorded “My Bonnie” under the name of Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers.

Tony, John, Paul, George and Pete

Stuart died in Hamburg at the age of only 21 in April 1962.

Brian Epstein had become manager, and on the first night under his management at Macdona Hall, Wirral on 1 February 1962, John had laryngitis and so Rory Storm stepped in at the last minute.

Rory, John, Paul, George and Pete

They became the best rock ‘n’ roll group in Liverpool and Hamburg and, with Brian Epstein’s management, they secured a record deal with George Martin at Parlophone, part of the EMI group.

John, Paul, George, Pete, Gerry Marsden, Karl Terry, Fred Marsden, Les Chadwick and Les Maguire.

On 19 October 1961, The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers joined forces with Karl Terry at Litherland Town Hall to perform as the Beatmakers. There was George on lead guitar, Paul playing rhythm with the drumming being split between Pete Best and Freddie Marsden. Les Chadwick played bass guitar and John Lennon played piano with Karl Terry joining in the vocals. Finally, Gerry Marsden played guitar and sang, with Les Maguire on the saxophone.

They don’t really count as band members, but it sounds like great fun!

John, Paul, George and Pete

They were due to start recording at the beginning of September, but on 16 August 1962, Pete Best left and after initially agreeing to play for the interim bookings, Johnny Hutchinson sat in with The Beatles.

John, Paul, George and Johnny

On 18 August 1962, Ringo Starr made his debut with The Beatles as a replacement for Pete Best who was dismissed without warning two days before.

They became the “Fab Four” and conquered the world.

John, Paul, George and Ringo.

That takes us from June 1956 to August 1962 before we reached the final, famous, line-up.

Then of course there was Andy White, Jimmy Nicol and Billy Preston among many others brought in temporarily, but we’ll leave it there; I think that is complicated enough for now.

The Evolution of The Beatles

To discover this amazing story of how they went from being John, Pete, Bill and Eric to John, Paul, George and Ringo, it is all contained within David Bedford’s follow up to Liddypool, “The Fab One Hundred and Four: The Evolution of The Beatles”