History

Formation, Hamburg, and UK popularity (1957–1962)

In March 1957 John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to The Quarrymen after discovering that a respected local group was already using the name.^[3] Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a guitarist shortly after he and Lennon met that July.^[4] In February 1958 McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the group. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, who was impressed by his playing but initially thought him too young for the band. After a month of persistence, Harrison joined as lead guitarist.^[5][6] By January 1959 Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began studies at the Liverpool College of Art.^[7] The three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as "Johnny and the Moondogs",^[8] were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer.^[9] Lennon's art school friend Stu Sutcliffe, who had recently sold one of his paintings and purchased a bass guitar, joined in January 1960, and it was he who suggested changing the band's name to "Beatals" as a tribute to Buddy Holly and The Crickets.^[10] According to band historian Mark Lewisohn, they used the name through May, when they became "the Silver Beetles", before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July they changed their name to "the Silver Beatles", and by the middle of August to "the Beatles".^[11]
Their lack of a full-time drummer posed a problem when the group's unofficial manager, Allan Williams, arranged a resident band booking for them in Hamburg, Germany, so before the middle of August they auditioned and hired Pete Best. The five-piece band left four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3½-month residency.^[12] Lewisohn writes: "They pulled into Hamburg at dusk on 17 August, the time when the red-light area comes to life ... flashing neon lights screamed out the various entertainment on offer, while scantily clad women sat unabashed in shop windows waiting for business opportunities".^[13]