Claim: Stuart Sutcliffe was the original bass player of the Beatles.

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960 . With members John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr , they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era . Rooted in skiffle , beat and 1950s rock and roll , the Beatles later experimented with several musical styles , ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock , often incorporating classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways . In 1963 their enormous popularity first emerged as `` Beatlemania '' , and as the group 's music grew in sophistication in subsequent years , led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney , they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s .   The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960 , with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player . The core of Lennon , McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers , including Pete Best , before asking Starr to join them in 1962 . Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act , and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings , greatly expanding their popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit , `` Love Me Do '' , in late 1962 . They acquired the nickname `` the Fab Four '' as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year , and by early 1964 became international stars , leading the `` British Invasion '' of the United States pop market . From 1965 onwards , the Beatles produced increasingly innovative recordings , including the albums Rubber Soul -LRB- 1965 -RRB- , Revolver -LRB- 1966 -RRB- , Sgt. Pepper 's Lonely Hearts Club Band -LRB- 1967 -RRB- , The Beatles -LRB- commonly known as the White Album , 1968 -RRB- and Abbey Road -LRB- 1969 -RRB- . After their break-up in 1970 , they each enjoyed successful musical careers of varying lengths . McCartney and Starr , the surviving members , remain musically active . Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980 , and Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001 .   The Beatles are the best-selling band in history , with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide . They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act . According to the RIAA , the Beatles are also the best-selling music artists in the United States , with 178 million certified units . In 2008 , the group topped Billboard magazine 's list of the all-time most successful `` Hot 100 '' artists ; , they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with twenty . They have received ten Grammy Awards , an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards . The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 , and all four were inducted individually from 1994 to 2015 . They were also collectively included in Time magazine 's compilation of the twentieth century 's 100 most influential people .