Surrounded by press, The Beatles wave at fans as they arrive in New York City in 1964.Images via United Press International
By
Val Barone
Published Jan 30, 2026, 8:41 PM EST
Val Barone is a journalist working remotely and specializing in music features. A passionate music lover, she keeps up to date on the latest developments in the entertainment world, and in the past five years, she's written for several sites, including ScreenRant, MovieWeb, TheThings, and Far Out Magazine. She covers breaking news in the music world and loves sharing stories about the classic rock musicians she grew up listening to. As a Gen Z writer, she offers a fresh perspective on the events that change music history.
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When one looks back at the history of The Beatles, it was a combination of chance and incredibly hard work. The Fab Four were all from the same town and started working together when they were only teenagers, but while their success can partially be attributed to luck and talent, the truth behind their stardom is that they worked themselves to the bone in ways that would frankly be considered illegal nowadays. In 1960, when all of them were still teenagers, and George Harrison was still underage, they received an offer that would change their careers, though they didn't know it at the time.
The Beatles' Residency in Hamburg Changed Their Careers Forever
By 1960, The Beatles had been playing together for three years, but not with the lineup that made them famous. At the time they received the offer to go to Hamburg to play a residency at a nightclub, the band consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and two former members: Stuart Sutcliffe, a friend of John Lennon's from art college, and Pete Best, who, Harrison admitted on The Beatles Anthology, they only hired because they needed a drummer and the manager of the club only wanted a five-piece act. Sutcliffe was the bass player at the time, but couldn't play well and was more interested in becoming a painter, and had only joined the group at Lennon's request.
With that mismatched lineup, The Beatles headed off to Hamburg. From the start, the band shares in the Anthology, the quest was complicated. They arrived at the club at night, and there was no one to greet them. When someone finally appeared, they were taken to sleep in the closed club. After that, they all shared a room in the backroom of a cinema for months. The band was between the ages of 17 and 20, with a drummer they didn't have chemistry with, and a bass player who couldn't play the bass. And yet, in those months, Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney became the greatest musicians in the world.
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Posts 16 By Fiona MacPherson-AmadorThey played in seedy clubs for half the day sometimes. Their sets spanned from eight to 12 hours a day, with little room for breaks, and they relied on drugs to keep them from falling down from exhaustion. And yet, in those intense and questionable sessions, their musicianship peaked. They learned to improvise, to communicate with each other on stage without a word. Sometimes they had to make a single song last for an hour, as they didn't have enough material to fill their endless sets.
In late 1960, however, their triumphant residency at the Kaiserkeller club was cut short when George Harrison was deported for being underage. Despite the intensity of the experience, the band returned the following year, once Harrison had turned 18. It was then that Sutcliffe left the band to move to Germany permanently, to stay with Astrid Kirchherr, a friend of the band who was a photographer and helped them curate their looks and stage presence. Paul McCartney took over playing bass then.
Hamburg Was Where The Beatles Connected With Ringo Starr
While Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison were constantly improving as musicians during their Hamburg residency, the three of them weren't entirely happy with Pete Best. So, whenever Best couldn't play one night, they would call in the drummer of another Liverpool band that was also playing clubs in Hamburg: Ringo Starr. Starr was playing with a band called Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, but enjoyed playing with the other three as they were friendly and excellent musicians. With his own band, Starr was also enduring the unforgiving schedule of the Hamburg clubs.
That experience established their relationship, and in 1962, after their last stint in Hamburg, when The Beatles were preparing to record their first album, they immediately thought of him. Producer George Martin had told them he liked the band but not the drummer, and the other three agreed and called up Starr to replace him.
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That album went to no. 1 in the United Kingdom, and for a lot of people, The Beatles came out of nowhere, an overnight success. Yet for years, they had been doing what no other band could. And after that first album, they went on to change the world.
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