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In the middle of 1962 Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr who had been playing with The Beatles on several dates when Pete Best was sick. Later that year their first single ‘Love Me Do’ was issued. In 1963 the ‘Beatlemania’ craze had started and many fans across the world were known to have Beatlemania, which hit the United States hard after The Beatles performed on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ in 1964.
That year the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ received the highest ratings in the history of television due to The Beatles and following on from this they then went on to tour America for the first time and starred in their first motion picture ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.
Their biggest year was 1964 when they conquered the biggest record market in the world – America. In addition to this they also brought back rock ‘n’ roll to America and cheered those up who were still suffering the death of John F. Kennedy.
The Beatles’ second motion picture ‘HELP’ premiered later that year and they then went on to perform for a record live audience of 55,000 fans at the Shea Stadium in New York.
In 1966, The Beatles were under some heavy pressure from the press after John Lennon made a remark that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus and was made to apologise shortly after. During the 1960’s The Beatles affected not only the music scene but styles and fashions of the decade! They transformed the music and record industry and started the ‘Pop Promo Film’, what is known as ‘The Music Video’ today. Most of their albums from ‘Please Please Me’ to ‘Abbey Road’ were all massively popular and unique in their own way.
However, things started to go a bit pair shaped in the middle of the 60’s when their manager Brian Epstein died. A tragedy like this shook the band and things started to fall apart. On top of this, the group started to be introduced to drugs such as marijuana and LSD. The Beatles played their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29th, 1966.