History of the Beatles Part Two: John Lennon

Welcome to part two. In this part we will go over the history of John Lennon from his birth in 1940 to the retirement of the Quarrymen name in 1960.

John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool on 6 October, 1940 to Alfred Lennon (1912 - 1976) and Julia Lennon (born Julia Stanley; 1914 - 1958). Young John would not spend most of his childhood with his parents however as his father Alfred would show up very infrequently because his was in the navy and wouldn't just disappear for six months after Alf would desert said navy. When Alf came back, Alf and Julia would fight over custody of John before Julia managed to give custody to her sister, Mary Elizabeth Smith (born Mary Elizabeth Stanley; 1906 - 1991) or "Mimi" as she was commonly called. John would never see Alf again for 20 years after a failed attempt from Alf to emigrate him and John to New Zealand in 1946. You could say that John had daddy issues and that would be important not just his relationship with his father but also his relationship with his own son but that's a story for another time.

John would spend the rest of his childhood living with Mimi and her husband, George Toogood Smith (1903 - 1955) with his mother Julia frequently visiting. It was in the early 1950's when Julia introduced John to the world of music through by teaching him to play the banjo. He loved to watch guys like George Formby (1904 - 1961) at the Blackpool Tower Circus growing up. 1956 would be the year when John would recieve his first guitar from Julia and later that year would form the Quarrymen with Eric Griffiths at Quarry Bank High School which he began attending in 1952. Not everyone believed that John could make it as a musician as her aunt Mimi had told him "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never making a living out of it."

Lennon would continue to play for the Quarrymen even after he graduated from Quarry Bank High School in 1957 and attended the Liverpool College of Art. There he would meet his girlfriend and future wife Cynthia Lillian Powell (1939 - 2015) who would come along with Lennon to plenty of Quarrymen and early Beatles performances. Lennon would also meet Paul McCartney after McCartney attended a Quarrymen performance in 1957. Lennon would invite McCartney to join the band as the lead guitarist and he accepted. Lennon would also add McCartney's friend George Harrison into the mix in 1958 as he was a better lead guitarist then McCartney. Lennon initially didn't want to bring Harrison aboard because at the time, Harrison was 14 but eventually warmed up to him a month later when he turned 15.

Not everything was sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everywhere for Lennon as he lost his uncle George to liver haemorrhage in 1955 and what struck him the most was the death of his mother Julia who got hit by a car in 1958. 1958 is probably one of his lowest moments as not only did he have to deal with the loss of a loved one but also most of the Quarrymen member had left that same year leaving just Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. Something good did come out of it as Lennon managed to form a closer bond with McCartney as he too was going through the loss of his own mother.

In 1960, Lennon would manage to recruit fellow Liverpool College of Art student Stuart Sutcliffe as the Quarrymen's bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe (or the Fab Three plus one is what I like to call them) would modify the Quarrymen to something new in need of some sort of reboot. Lennon and Sutcliffe would come up with the name, "the Silver Beetles" because they both like the name of Buddy Holly's (1936 - 1959) band "the Crickets." We're now back to 1960 but we're not done with the 1940's and 50's just yet as we still have to go over two more guys until we can continue the story. John Lennon's story has a lot more to tell but that story will have to continue for another time. Tune in next time as we tell the story of Paul McCartney from 1942 to 1960.

Real talk here, I already had a whole paragraph I posted that was on part one but because I need four more blog posts before January 22, I moved any history focusing on John Lennon to this page but apparently I either didn't cut and paste correctly or wix just straight up deleted it. If there's one I hate the most on wix is the blog post editing is horrible. There's no undo button and if I somehow accidentally undo there's no redo button either.