Part 1

Going Up

- Where are we going, fellas?

- To the top, Jimmy.

- And where's that?

- Why, the toppermost of the poppermost!

John Lennon and Paul McCartney met on 6th July 1957 at a Saturday evening fete in St Peter's Church, Woolton, in Liverpool, where the 16-year-old Lennon's skiffle group, The Quarry Men, was performing. McCartney, nearly two years his future partner's junior, impressed him with his knowledge of chords, obscure rock-and-roll lyrics, and the correct way of tuning a guitar. Quickly enrolled into The Quarry Men, McCartney showed Lennon his early efforts at songwriting, startling him into trying his own hand at composition. Their songbook grew steadily over the next five years.

Consisting mainly of Lennon's school cronies, The Quarry Men were amateurish, perpetually losing and gaining members, and winning fewer and fewer engagements during 1958 and 1959. The only notable event of this period was the recruitment, in March 1958, of the 15-year-old George Harrison, who - along with Lennon, McCartney, John Lowe (piano), and Colin Hanton (drums) - appears on The Quarry Men's sole surviving artefact: a ten-inch shellac 78 made, during the summer of that year, at Phillips Sound Recording Service, Liverpool, for the sum of seventeen-and-sixpence (87.5p). Lennon sings lead on both tracks - a version of Buddy Holly's 'That'll Be The Day' (a UK hit from late 1957) and a McCartney-Harrison composition [El] In Spite Of All The Danger, both available on Anthology 1. The latter, a dreary doo-wop pastiche, has little to recommend it, but [Elb] That'll Be The Day offers some reasonably nifty lead guitar (whether by Harrison or McCartney is unclear).

By the end of 1959, The Quarry Men existed chiefly as a name, the only survivors being Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison. As if to celebrate the new decade, March 1960 saw the birth of 'The Beatals', as Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's best friend and their reluctant new bass-player, rechristened them. For the moment drummerless and therefore largely gigless, they kept things going by rehearsing and recording rough home demos, three of which appear on Anthology 1: a McCartney rendition of Eddie Cochran's version of [Elc] Hallelujah, I Love Her So, a McCartney-Lennon spoof of The Ink Spots entitled [E2] You'll Be Mine, and a McCartney instrumental called [E3] Cayenne, which, again, features some capable Shadows-style lead guitar.

[E3b] My Bonnie(trad. arr. Sheridan)

Tony Sheridan lead vocal, lead guitar; Harrison lead guitar, backing vocal; Lennon rhythm guitar, backing vocal; McCartney bass, backing vocal; Pete Best drums

Recorded: 22nd June 1961, Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Hamburg.

Producer: Bert Kaempfert. Enginee