The 8 Greatest British Bands of All Time

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1. The Beatles -- The formation of The Beatles began in 1957, when a 16-year-old recent British school graduate named John Winston Lennon formed his first band, The Quarrymen, with his schoolmates. Later that year, after a concert, John met a 15-year-old boy who attended the Liverpool Institute named James Paul McCartney. The following year, 1958, John and Paul met a 15-year-old boy named George Harold Harrison. 2 years later, in 1960, after meeting drummer Pete Best and bassist Stu Sutcliffe, John left the Quarrymen to form a new band with his 4 new friends--first calling themselves The Silver Beetles before adapting their best-known name the following year--The Beatles. Within a year, Stu left the band to focus on a promising career as a painter before he was dead later that year of a massive stroke and was not replaced. Later that year, in 1962, after Pete Best quit The Beatles to pursue a lifelong career as a baker, a new drummer was hired named Richard Starkey, known professionally as Ringo Starr, though called Ritchie for short. Later that year, The Beatles signed their first record deal. In January 1964, 2 months after their first U.S. single, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," was released, their first U.S. album, "Meet The Beatles," was released. The following month, February 9, 1964, at 8 p.m., 73 million Americans tuned in to "The Ed Sullivan Show" and helped The Beatles become a household name. Until their 1970 breakup, The Beatles continued to have a string of U.S. and British hits--among them "Strawberry Fields Forever." In December 1980, 40-year-old John Lennon was murdered by Mark Chapman, a deranged, mentally-impaired man still in prison today. George Harrison died at age 58 after a long battle against cancer in November 2001, leaving Paul, Ringo, & Pete as the only surviving Beatles--though Paul & Ringo have enjoyed enormous success post-Beatles breakup.

2. The Hollies -- Their formation starts in 1947, when 2 5-year-old boys named Graham William Nash and Harold Allan Clarke of Lancashire, England met when Allan was the new kid in school and Graham was the only person willing to sit with him at lunch. 15 years later, in 1962, they formed their first band, The Hollies, alongside original drummer Donald "Don" Rathbone, original lead guitarist Vic Farrell, and original bassist Eric Heydock, all of whom were born in 1942. Vic Farrell, in 1963, left the band along with Don Rathbone, and soon afterwards, 17-year-old guitar prodigy Tony Hicks replaced Farrell and drummer Bobby Elliott replaced Rathbone, thus forming the classic Hollies lineup with hit U.S. and UK records such as "Look Through Any Window" & "Carrie Anne." Heydock was fired in 1966 and replaced by Bern Calvert as the new bassist. Nash left the band in late 1968 to form Crosby, Stills & Nash alongside his new American friends David Crosby & Steve Stills. A Lancashire, England native named Terry Sylvester, age 22, previously of the one-hit-wonder British rock group The Swinging Blue Jeans ("Hippie Hippie Shake") and before that, a local British music group called The Escorts, was chosen as Nash's replacement. 3 #1 U.S. hits followed, including "Long Cool Woman," "The Air I Breathe," and "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," followed before Clarke left to try a solo career that didn't pan out, thus returning to The Hollies before retiring from performing in 1999, due to his wife battling cancer (she recovered, thank God). In 2010, The Hollies were inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame; later that year, they released their first album of new material, "Then, Now, Always," in nearly 3 decades.

3. The Rolling Stones -- First forming in 1962, The Rolling Stones' original lineup consisted of lead vocalist Mick Jagger, lead guitarist Keith Richards, and drummer Brian Jones (who drowned in 1969). Also included over the last 5 decades are Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, & several others who have passed through the Stones--who are still a band as of this writing.

4. The Dave Clark Five -- The band's back story began in 1955, when a 15-year-old school dropout named Dave Clark, now age 71, began teaching himself how to play the drums. By 1962, he'd formed his first band alongside keyboardist Mike Smith (who died in 2008), saxophonist Denny Payton (who died of cancer in 2006), guitarist Lenny Davidson, and bassist Rick Huxley, who, known as The Dave Clark Five, had a string of #1 hits in the UK and U.S. between 1964 and 1967 before voluntarily breaking up in 1970.

5. The Outfield -- The hit 1980s rock group I NEVER knew were British until earlier today. First forming as The Baseball Boys in London, England in 1984, The Outfield had only 1 hit song in the U.S. in 1986 -- "Your Love" -- yet are still performing today in their native England and abroad.

6. Herman's Hermits -- I remember watching Peter Noone as host of VH1's now-defunct music video show "My Generation," NEVER knowing that 25 years earlier, as a 17-year-old kid in Manchester, England, that he was the singer for a band called Herman's Hermits.

7. The Kinks -- By the early 1960s, Belfast, Northern Ireland natives Ray and Dave Davies and their band, The Kinks, had relocated to London, England, where, by 1965, they'd leave to take the U.S. by storm with hit songs such as "You Really Got Me" & "All Day and All of the Night."

8. U2 -- In 1976, Irish high-school pals Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, and Adam Clayton first formed the band U2; 4 years later, in 1980, they released their first U.S. album. In 2010, the band celebrated 30 years of U.S. success.