The Beatles made their first professional recording, backing up Tony Sheridan on "My Bonnie" and "The Saints" for a record credited as Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers. During this session, John took lead vocals on "Ain't She Sweet." John and George recorded an instrumental, "Cry For a Shadow."

It was around this time that Liverpool record shop manager Brian Epstein decided to see and hear for himself what the fuss was all about. He'd been reading about the group and people were coming into his record shop asking for Beatle records. Epstein finally took a trip down into the dark and sweaty Cavern Club to see "the boys" perform live and decided almost immediately he wanted to manage the group. By December of '61, the Beatles had taken him up on his offer - a decision which John Lennon says gave the group just what it needed to move their career in a more wide-reaching direction. A respectable front man.

John had also been busy during this year writing articles for Mersey Beat, a music paper published by John's college friend, Bill Harry. The very first issue carried what became one of John's most famous pieces - the "flaming pie" Beatles biography. Harry asked John to become a regular contributor to the paper, which he gladly did. In fact, Harry said, John brought in "huge bundles of poems and stories" which Harry decided to publish regularly under the pseudonym, Beatcomber.

The extra publicity generated by these regular columns didn't hurt the group's standing in their hometown of Liverpool, where they won Mersey Beat's band popularity poll with no problem.

On August 23, 1962, John and Cynthia were married at Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool. The couple didn't have very much time to celebrate, as the Beatles had a show to play that night. John described the wedding ceremony this way, according to Lennon By John Robertson: "There was a drill going on all the time outside the Register Office. I couldn't hear a word the bloke was saying. Then we went across the road and had a chicken dinner. It was all a laugh." The restaurant where the Lennons celebrated their wedding with chicken was the same establishment where John's parents celebrated their marriage in 1938.

In 1962, another very important Beatle event took place: Drummer Pete Best was ushered out of the group by producer, George Martin, and Ringo Starr was invited to join. Starr was already a well-established drummer with a popular Mersey band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He was still wearing the Elvis/James Dean-style hairdo, along with a beard. In order to join the Beatles, he had to give up the grease and the beard.

So now..we finally have The Beatles as we all knew them. John, Paul, George and Ringo. With Brian Epstein as their manager. A few recordings under their belts. John was married to the pregnant Cynthia. And coming up - a recording session with producer George Martin. Martin was all set to have the Beatles record a song he'd chosen for them called "How Do You Do It?." But the Beatles had other plans. They wanted to play their own songs. The Lennon-McCartney tunes, "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" were eventually chosen as the Beatles' first U.K. single

During the early 60's, the group was flying high, touring England, Scotland and returning occasionally to Liverpool for Cavern gigs. They were also showing up on various television programs and gaining in nationwide popularity. John and Paul were busy writing songs for their band, as well as songs for other Liverpudlian groups, such as John's "Hello Little Girl" which was recorded by the Fourmost.

In February of 1963, the Beatles recorded their first album at Abbey Road Studios. Meet the Beatles would launch them into the worldwide market, but not before it nearly ruined John's voice on the Isley Brothers hit, Twist and Shout.

John on recording Twist and Shout in 1963:
"My voice wasn't the same for a long time after. Everytime I swallowed it was like sandpaper. We sang for 12 hours, almost non-stop. We had colds and we were concerned how it would affect the record. And by the end of the day, all we wanted to do was drink pints of milk."

On April 8, 1963, Cynthia gave birth to John Charles Julian Lennon at Sefton General Hospital in Liverpool. John was in London performing with the Beatles and didn't see his new son until April 10. He would write a letter to Cynthia later, telling her how happy he was that Julian had been born.

John and Cynthia's marriage was kept under wraps as much as possible in the early days. No one in the Beatles' circle would talk about Cynthia or the baby.

Strangely enough, despite the early precautions about keeping John's marital status out of the newspapers, when the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, a graphic on the screen with John's close-up said, "Sorry girls, he's married."

1964 was yet another banner year for John and The Beatles. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, The Beatles traveled to the United States to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, leading the way in what came to be known as "The British Invasion" of music; John published his first book, In His Own Write and the Beatles made their first feature length movie, A Hard Day's Night.

The Beatles' career was traveling at warp speed now - with live shows, movies, television appearances, more recordings, magazine articles. Beatlemania had infected every country in the Free World.

Because so many books have been written about the Beatles' recording career and date-by-date personal histories, we will not go into detail about it in this short bio. You can find dozens of books on the subject, a few of which will be listed on our recommended reading page.

Suffice to say, John Lennon was the leader of the band that changed the history of music. The Beatles were on top of the world, just where they had always planned to be. But fame is often a double-edged sword. While the Beatles were enjoying unprecedented success in the music world in the mid- to late-60's, their personal relationships didn't fare quite as well.

There were good times for all of the Beatles and their families during this period - but there was also a toll on family life. Being on the road constantly and recording in-between left little time for a normal home life.

While the publicists and photographers and teen magazine editors were fueling Beatlemania with happy-go-lucky stories of the "Fab Four" and their wives on sunny vacations, frolicking around swimming pools and hanging out with their families, another part of the story was happening behind-the-scenes.

The phrase, "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" certainly applied to The Beatles' wild ride. John described the after-show get-togethers as "orgies" that included women, alcohol, and drugs. Yoko commented later that when John told her about the behind-the-scenes partying during the Beatles touring days, she was actually shocked. Most fans in the early days probably would have been shocked as well to know what their "Fab Four" were up to when the curtain came down at night. The fans just assumed J,P,G and R were passing the time with playful Beatle pillow fights in those hundreds of hotel rooms...uh-huh.