Tracks is publishing the images to mark the 60th anniversary of “Love Me Do,” which the Beatles released in October 1962.For decades, Beatle fans have shared in the knowledge of the “Trinity Team” of Brian Epstein, George Martin, and Dick James. “He followed the Beatles at some of the very early gigs,” Wane tells CNN. The Liverpool-based fan who took the photographs is still alive, but he doesn’t want his name made public. “Days later, Brian Epstein saw the Beatles in the Cavern, offered to become their manager and set them on course that changed our world.” “Three months from here, John and Paul went to Paris and returned with what became known as ‘the Beatles haircut,’” Lewisohn adds. But their luck-and the course of musical history-was about to change. “No other photos show them dressed this way.”Īt this early stage of their career, the band members were still roughing it, having just returned from a 90-day tour in Germany, where they played 500 hours of music, according to Lewisohn. Historian Mark Lewisohn, who has written a number of books about the Beatles, says in a statement that the photos show the band members in “leather trousers and cotton tops,” before they had figured out their signature looks, per BBC News. The photos were taken by a Liverpool-based fan. Drummer Ringo Starr wouldn’t join the band until 1962, a little over a year later, completing the “Fab Four.” The newly discovered photos feature John Lennon, 20, and Paul McCartney, 19, singing and playing guitar George Harrison, 18, also plays guitar, while Best, 19, plays drums behind them. Lennon and McCartney first performed there together in 1957. There’s very, very, very few.”Īll of the Beatles were born in Liverpool, and the city is where the band formed.

“That’s why there are so few shots of the Beatles in the Cavern. “Not many people had cameras back then,” says Wane. Paul Wane, managing director at Tracks, a music memorabilia company based in the United Kingdom that owns the photos, tells CNN’s Jack Guy that the photos were taken by a fan who followed the nascent pop band in the early 1960s, before they had officially released any music. The band would release its first single, “ Love Me Do,” a year later. Now, rare photos of the group-including original drummer Pete Best-from that performance have been discovered.

In 1961, shortly before their rise to fame, the Beatles played a local gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

Mark lewisohn beatles