Tabla de contenidos para PEOPLE The Beatles 1969 en People

“YOU COULD GO A BIT faster, Ringo!” “Okay, George!” That Beatles banter was caught on tape during an April 14, 1969, recording session. But George Harrison was on holiday, and Ringo Starr was at Twickenham Film Studios that day shooting The Magic Christian. The voices impersonating the two absent members belonged to John Lennon, at work that day with only his long-time songwriting partner Paul McCartney. That they were in good spirits while they were recording “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” Lennon’s rock and roll reportage on his recent wedding, was something of an achievement. A year earlier he and McCartney had almost come to blows over Yoko Ono’s presence in the studio during the making of The White Album. According to the record’s sound engineer Geoff Emerick, “Either…

FRONT COVER (Clockwise from top right) Bob Dear/AP; Daily Herald/Mirrorpix/Getty Images; Tom Blau/Camera Press/Redux; Chris McHugh/Shutterstock TITLE PAGE/CONTENTS 1 Everett; 2-3 Robert Landau/Corbis/Getty Images THEIR FINAL YEAR IN PICTURES 4-5 RBO/Camera Press/Redux; 6-7 Everett; 8 (from top) JRC /The Hollywood Archive/Alamy; William Lovelace/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 9 C. Maher/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 10 Shutterstock; 11 Michael Brennan/Getty Images; 12-13 (from left) Bettmann/Getty Images; Cummings Archives/Redferns/Getty Images; Alamy; 14-15 (from left) John Downing/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Christie’s/Getty Images; 16-17 Alamy; 18-19 Douglas Kirkland/Corbis/Getty Images; 20 Keystone Press Agency/Keystone/Zuma; 21 Cummings Archives/Redferns/Getty Images; 22 Jeffrey Mayer/Getty Images; 23 Daily Mail/Shutterstock; 24-25 Mark and Colleen Hayward/Getty Images; 26 Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; 27 (bottom, from left) Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images; SOLO Syndication; 28 Bettmann/Getty Images; 29 (from top) THA/Shutterstock; Mirrorpix/Getty Images HOW 1969 CHANGED…

‘THE MAIN DOWNFALL IS THAT WE WERE LESS BUSINESSMEN AND MORE HEADS…. WE GOT A MAN IN [KLEIN] WHO STARTED TO SAY, “COME ON, SIGN IT ALL OVER TO ME,” WHICH WAS THE FATAL MISTAKE’—McCARTNEY, TO ROLLING STONE IN 1974 ‘WE WENT THROUGH WEEKS OF ALL SAYING, “WHY DON’T WE CALL IT BILLY’S LEFT FOOT?” AND THINGS LIKE THAT. AND THEN PAUL JUST SAID, “WHY DON’T WE CALL IT ABBEY ROAD?”’—RINGO STARR…

“THERE! CUT THE TAPE THERE!” John Lennon shouted. It was Aug. 20, 1969, and the Beatles were gathered at EMI’s London studio complex on Abbey Road, listening to a playback of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” his anguished love song for new wife Yoko Ono. The track seemed headed for one last crescendo prior to the fade-out when Lennon suddenly yelled that instruction. Surprised, the sound engineer dutifully picked up a pair of scissors and sliced the tape in midmeasure. The effect of the abrupt, unexpected silence was “electrifying,” wrote Mark Hertsgaard in A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles. Exactly one month later, on Sept. 20, Lennon made another sudden exclamation that would ultimately silence the Beatles and sever the ties that…

“SORRY GIRLS, HE’S MARRIED.” When the Beatles played the Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964, producers helpfully put the name of each band member on the screen under a close-up of his face. And along with John Lennon’s name, they included that disappointing bit of news: He was off the market. Five years later Ringo had married, George had wed, John had divorced and would remarry. Now with Paul, the last bachelor Beatle (who also happened to be the one who set the most hearts throbbing), heading to the altar, the band’s press office knew what it had to do and alerted the mournful fandom. As a result, reported The Washington Post, “a wild scene” erupted outside Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman’s March 12, 1969, wedding at the Marylebone Registry…

GEORGE HARRISON ARRIVED at London’s Twickenham Film Studios, where the Beatles were gathering on Jan. 2, 1969, to begin filming themselves recording a new album. He had a batch of new songs written during an extended vacation in the States, and he was eager for his bandmates to hear them. After years of experimentation with the sitar, Harrison had rediscovered his love for guitar-based American music. “I had just been hanging out with Bob Dylan and the Band, having a great time,” recalled Harrison in 1995. During the sojourn, his wife, Pattie Boyd, joined him for Thanksgiving with Dylan and his family. Harrison stayed on and cowrote with Dylan and communed with Levon Helm and the Band. All the Beatles seemed ready for a return to their roots and tentatively…

WHAT IF THE BEATLES HAD played Woodstock? Legend has it that they were asked to headline the show but turned it down because John Lennon insisted on a spot for Yoko Ono’s band. Others blamed Lennon’s inability to get a visa because of a drug arrest. The more likely reason was that the band was mired in the Abbey Road sessions and had sworn off playing live three years earlier. Still, when it was all over, Lennon marveled, “It was the biggest mass of people ever gathered together for anything other than war. Nobody had that big an army.” Indeed, the peaceful gathering of more than 400,000 on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in the upstate town of Bethel, N.Y., were treated to 32 acts—including Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Janis…