The Beatles: The Worst Grifters In The History of Popular Music?

Adebayo Adeniran
4 min readDec 12, 2023

Read on…

The Fab Four. Image via Wikimedia commons

If all you knew about popular music was what you read in the mainstream western press, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was Elvis Pressley who invented Rock and roll.

Or those young gentlemen from Southern England, whose name was taken from a song by Muddy Waters.

Or the famous quartet from Liverpool, the North of England.

So why have I written this?

To make folks privy to the extraordinary distortion of history and role of Liverpool’s finest.

To millions of Brits and indeed Americans, The Beatles represent the very best of popular music and everything else pales by comparison.

But nothing could be further from the truth in my view.

The history of Rock and roll can never be told without the likes of Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

It was their genius which started the multi-billion dollar industry; it was their creativity which made it possible for the likes of Elvis, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles to exist and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the listed names covered their songs.

While Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey were distinctly average singers, they more than made up…

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Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible