A Brief History
On January 4, 1970, the Beatles, minus John Lennon, had their last studio session as the iconic group, marking an end of the phenomenon that was The Beatles, probably the greatest rock band of all time, and possibly the greatest musical act of any genre in music history.
Digging Deeper
That sad but sweet last session saw the three mop tops overdub and polish Paul McCartney’s “Let it Be,” a song that would go on to have the highest debut on Billboard and then reach #1 in the US.
By April of 1970, Paul had announced he was no longer part of the band, and the contentious dissolution of the Beatles took until December of 1974 to formally become final. Beatlemaniacs were torn between taking the side of Paul and approving of him leaving the band and the remaining members, notably John Lennon, arguing to this day as to why the band disbanded and who, if anyone, was at fault.
The Beatles made music history, selling the most records, having the greatest Billboard chart success with 20 number one hits, pulling in seven Grammys and an Academy Award for the score of the 1970 film, Let it Be. Of course, the Fab Four also garnered numerous other awards and were inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame at their earliest eligibility in 1988. Not surprisingly, each band member was individually inducted into the Hall in due time.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What was the main reason for the breakup of the Beatles?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Allport, Mr. Peggy. Collection of Quizzes, Fun Facts about Music of The Beatles: Challenging Quizzes for Serious Beatles Fans of All Time: Music Man Book. Independently published, 2021.
Katschke, Judy. The Beatles: A Little Golden Book Biography. Golden Books, 2023.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Lauren Gerson of a traveling exhibit curated by the GRAMMY Museum® and Fab Four Exhibits, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
