140-449: Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humourist , and screenwriter, best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ( HHGTTG ) . Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a " trilogy " of five books which sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into
280-420: A 42 Puzzle designed by Adams, which was later incorporated into paperback covers of the first four Hitchhiker's novels (the paperback for the fifth re-used the artwork from the hardback edition). In 1980, Adams began attempts to turn the first Hitchhiker's novel into a film, making several trips to Los Angeles, and working with Hollywood studios and potential producers. The next year, the radio series became
420-657: A heart attack due to undiagnosed coronary artery disease on 11 May 2001, aged 49, after resting from his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California . His funeral was held on 16 May in Santa Barbara. His ashes were placed in Highgate Cemetery in north London in June 2002. A memorial service was held on 17 September 2001 at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square , London. This became
560-644: A December 2005 auction. In England, meanwhile, Harrison met sitar maestro Ravi Shankar , who agreed to train him on the instrument. During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, the Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos , who had expected them to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace . When presented with
700-405: A backing band and electric instrumentation , and "dressed in the height of Mod fashion". As a result, Gould continues, the traditional division between folk and rock enthusiasts "nearly evaporated", as the Beatles' fans began to mature in their outlook and Dylan's audience embraced the new, youth-driven pop culture. During the 1964 US tour , the group were confronted with racial segregation in
840-580: A bass guitar with the proceeds, joined in January 1960. He suggested changing the band's name to Beatals , as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets . They used this name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles , before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle . By early July, they had refashioned themselves as
980-588: A bright, joyous, original sound, filled with ringing guitars and irresistible melodies." That "ringing guitar" sound was primarily the product of Harrison's 12-string electric Rickenbacker , a prototype given to him by the manufacturer, which made its debut on the record. Touring internationally in June and July, the Beatles staged 37 shows over 27 days in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. In August and September, they returned to
1120-421: A broken engagement, they married on 25 November 1991. Adams and Belson had one daughter together, Polly Jane Rocket Adams, born on 22 June 1994, shortly after Adams turned 42. In 1999, the family moved from London to Santa Barbara, California , where they lived until his death. Following the funeral, Jane Belson and Polly Adams returned to London. Belson died on 7 September 2011 of cancer, aged 59. Adams died of
1260-587: A character in The Hitchhiker's Guide . Adams also designed the cover of one issue of the Broadsheet , and had a letter and short story published in The Eagle , the boys' comic, in 1965. A poem entitled "A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining" written by Adams in January 1970 at the age of 17, was discovered in a cupboard at
1400-466: A collection of singles. Now we were really beginning to think about albums as a bit of art on their own." Released in December, Rubber Soul was hailed by critics as a major step forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music. Their thematic reach was beginning to expand as they embraced deeper aspects of romance and philosophy, a development that NEMS executive Peter Brown attributed to
1540-605: A condom in a concrete corridor; the authorities deported them. Lennon returned to Liverpool in early December, while Sutcliffe remained in Hamburg until late February with his German fiancée Astrid Kirchherr , who took the first semi-professional photos of the Beatles. During the next two years, the Beatles were resident for periods in Hamburg, where they used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances. In 1961, during their second Hamburg engagement, Kirchherr cut Sutcliffe's hair in
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#17327801812421680-510: A controversy with Christians in America's conservative Bible Belt region. The Vatican issued a protest, and bans on Beatles records were imposed by Spanish and Dutch stations and South Africa's national broadcasting service . Epstein accused Datebook of having taken Lennon's words out of context. At a press conference, Lennon pointed out, "If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it." He claimed that he
1820-544: A copy of the British single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in mid-December 1963 and began playing it on-air. Taped copies of the song soon circulated among other radio stations throughout the US. This caused an increase in demand, leading Capitol to bring forward the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by three weeks. Issued on 26 December, with the band's previously scheduled debut there just weeks away, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold
1960-415: A faster tempo, a studio session in late November yielded that recording, of which Martin accurately predicted, "You've just made your first No. 1". In December 1962, the Beatles concluded their fifth and final Hamburg residency. By 1963, they had agreed that all four band members would contribute vocals to their albums – including Starr, despite his restricted vocal range, to validate his standing in
2100-554: A few minutes' walk away, in the late 1980s. In the early 1980s, Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson , who was separated from her husband at that time. Adams later dedicated his book Life, the Universe and Everything to Emerson. In 1981, Emerson returned to her husband, Peter Stothard , a contemporary of Adams at Brentwood School , and later editor of The Times . Adams was soon introduced by friends to Jane Belson, with whom he later became romantically involved. Belson
2240-693: A few months after his birth to the East End of London , where his sister, Susan, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957; Douglas, Susan and their mother moved then to an RSPCA animal shelter in Brentwood, Essex , run by his maternal grandparents. Each parent remarried, giving Adams four half-siblings. A great-grandfather was the playwright Benjamin Franklin Wedekind . Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At
2380-410: A friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender." Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of endangered species . This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series Last Chance to See , in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the kākāpō and baiji , and
2520-434: A further progression outside the traditional boundaries of popular music. As the lyrics grew more artful, fans began to study them for deeper meaning. While some of Rubber Soul ' s songs were the product of Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting, the album also included distinct compositions from each, though they continued to share official credit. " In My Life ", of which each later claimed lead authorship,
2660-612: A group called "Adams-Smith-Adams". He became a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing very little work – he recalled having completed three essays in three years – he graduated in 1974 with a 2:2 in English literature . After leaving university, Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the Footlights Revue appeared on BBC2 television in 1974. A version of
2800-751: A message forum on his own website to avoid the issue. In 1996, Adams was a keynote speaker at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) where he described the personal computer as being a modelling device. The video of his keynote speech is archived on Channel 9 . Adams was also a keynote speaker for the April 2001 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, one of the major technical conferences on embedded system engineering. Adams moved to Upper Street , Islington , in 1981 and to Duncan Terrace,
2940-452: A million copies in under four weeks. It became their first single to sell a million copies, and remained the biggest-selling record in the UK until 1978. The success brought increased media exposure, to which the Beatles responded with an irreverent and comical attitude that defied the expectations of pop musicians at the time, inspiring even more interest. The band toured the UK three times in
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#17327801812423080-684: A million copies, becoming a number-one hit in the US by mid-January. In its wake Vee-Jay released Introducing... The Beatles along with Capitol's debut album, Meet the Beatles! , while Swan reactivated production of "She Loves You". On 7 February 1964, the Beatles departed from Heathrow with an estimated 4,000 fans waving and screaming as the aircraft took off. Upon landing at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport , an uproarious crowd estimated at 3,000 greeted them. They gave their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show , watched by approximately 73 million viewers in over 23 million households, or 34 per cent of
3220-453: A new cast of characters. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was published in 1987, and was described by its author as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics". A sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul , was published a year later. It was Adams's first original work since So Long, and Thanks for All
3360-546: A potential film script, called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen , which later became his novel Life, the Universe and Everything (which in turn became the third Hitchhiker's Guide radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its 17th season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three Doctor Who serials starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor : The episodes authored by Adams are some of
3500-482: A problem". As a result, six covers from their extensive repertoire were chosen to complete the album. Released in early December, its eight original compositions stood out, demonstrating the growing maturity of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. In early 1965, following a dinner with Lennon, Harrison and their wives, Harrison's dentist, John Riley, secretly added LSD to their coffee. Lennon described
3640-551: A recording of his reading of Life, the Universe and Everything and editing, Adams can be heard playing the part of Agrajag posthumously. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless made up the fourth and fifth radio series, respectively (on radio they were titled The Quandary Phase and The Quintessential Phase ) and these were broadcast in May and June 2005, and also subsequently released on Audio CD. The last episode in
3780-793: A rhino suit; Adams wore the suit while travelling to the mountain before the climb began. About £100,000 was raised through that event, benefiting schools in Kenya and a black rhinoceros preservation programme in Tanzania . Adams was also an active supporter of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Since 2003, Save the Rhino has held an annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture around the time of his birthday to raise money for environmental campaigns. Adams bought his first word processor in 1982, having considered one as early as 1979. His first purchase
3920-430: A rock musician". Adams's official biography shares its name with the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd . The opening section of " Shine On You Crazy Diamond " was featured in a section of the third episode of the original 1978 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series (broadcast only, cut from commercial releases). Adams was friends with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and, on Adams's 42nd birthday, he
4060-407: A series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of the music, lending it respectability. With the Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack . When writing the sleeve notes for the album, the band's press officer, Tony Barrow , used the superlative the "fabulous foursome", which
4200-528: A show in Atlanta, the Beatles gave one of the first live performances ever to make use of a foldback system of on-stage monitor speakers. Towards the end of the tour, they met with Elvis Presley , a foundational musical influence on the band, who invited them to his home in Beverly Hills . Presley later said the band was an example of a trend of anti-Americanism and drug abuse. September 1965 saw
4340-437: A succession of drummers, including Pete Best , before inviting 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 domestic success after they signed with EMI Records and achieved their first hit, " Love Me Do ", in late 1962. As their popularity grew into the intense fan frenzy dubbed " Beatlemania ",
Douglas Adams - Misplaced Pages Continue
4480-512: A television series , several stage plays, comics, a video game , and a 2005 feature film . Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy 's Hall of Fame. Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for
4620-520: A third radio series, based on the third novel in the Hitchhiker's series. They also discussed the possibilities of radio adaptations of the final two novels in the five-book "trilogy". As with the film, this project was realised only after Adams's death. The third series, The Tertiary Phase , was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and was subsequently released on audio CD. With the aid of
4760-563: A three-motion-picture deal, primarily for the commercial potential of the soundtracks in the US. Directed by Richard Lester , A Hard Day's Night involved the band for six weeks in March–April 1964 as they played themselves in a musical comedy. The film premiered in London and New York in July and August, respectively, and was an international success, with some critics drawing a comparison with
4900-477: A week-long brainstorming session with the Lucasfilm Games team for the game Labyrinth . Later he was also involved in creating Bureaucracy as a parody of events in his own life. Adams was a founder-director and Chief Fantasist of The Digital Village , a digital media and Internet company with which he created Starship Titanic , a Codie award -winning and BAFTA-nominated adventure game , which
5040-428: Is considered a highlight of the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue. Harrison called Rubber Soul his "favourite album", and Starr referred to it as "the departure record". McCartney has said, "We'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand." However, recording engineer Norman Smith later stated that the studio sessions revealed signs of growing conflict within the group – "the clash between John and Paul
5180-538: The BBC , also joined the airport reception, the first of more than 100 such events. The next day, the band began its fourth tour of Britain within nine months, this one scheduled for six weeks. In mid-November, as Beatlemania intensified, police resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth. On 4 November, they played in front of The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret during
5320-612: The Doctor Who 2012 Christmas episode " The Snowmen ", writer Steven Moffat was inspired by a storyline that Adams pitched called The Doctor Retires . The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a concept for a science-fiction comedy radio series pitched by Adams and radio producer Simon Brett to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Adams came up with an outline for a pilot episode, as well as a few other stories (reprinted in Neil Gaiman 's book Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to
5460-654: The Edinburgh Fringe festival. By Christmas, work had dried up again, and a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother. The lack of writing work hit him hard, and low confidence became a feature of Adams's life: "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence [...] I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it." Some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for The Burkiss Way in 1977 and The News Huddlines . He also wrote, again with Chapman,
5600-640: The Kaiserkeller in October. When he learned they had been performing at the rival Top Ten Club in breach of their contract, he gave them one month's termination notice, and reported the underage Harrison, who had obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities about his age. The authorities arranged for Harrison's deportation in late November. One week later, Koschmider had McCartney and Best arrested for arson after they set fire to
5740-585: The Marx Brothers . United Artists released a full soundtrack album for the North American market, combining Beatles songs and Martin's orchestral score; elsewhere, the group's third studio LP, A Hard Day's Night , contained songs from the film on side one and other new recordings on side two. According to Erlewine, the album saw them "truly coming into their own as a band. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums coalesced into
Douglas Adams - Misplaced Pages Continue
5880-604: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, 1988, and each principal member was individually inducted between 1994 and 2015. In 2004 and 2011, the group topped Rolling Stone ' s lists of the greatest artists in history . Time magazine named them among the 20th century's 100 most important people . In November 1956, sixteen-year-old John Lennon formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool . They were called
6020-682: The Royal Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre . Please Please Me maintained the top position on the Record Retailer chart for 30 weeks, only to be displaced by its follow-up, With the Beatles , which EMI released on 22 November to record advance orders of 270,000 copies. The LP topped a half-million albums sold in one week. Recorded between July and October, With the Beatles made better use of studio production techniques than its predecessor. It held
6160-578: The Tidewater area of Virginia from Gene Loving of radio station WGH and was featured on the "Rate-a-Record" segment of American Bandstand , but it failed to catch on nationally. Epstein brought a demo copy of " I Want to Hold Your Hand " to Capitol's Brown Meggs , who signed the band and arranged for a $ 40,000 US marketing campaign. American chart success began after disc jockey Carroll James of AM radio station WWDC , in Washington, DC, obtained
6300-403: The album era , as albums became the dominant form of record use over singles . These records also increased public interest in psychedelic drugs and Eastern spirituality, and furthered advancements in electronic music , album art , and music videos . In 1968, they founded Apple Corps , a multi-armed multimedia corporation that continues to oversee projects related to the band's legacy. After
6440-442: The fine-tuned universe argument for God. He remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs. "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing." The evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins invited Adams to participate in his 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures , where Dawkins calls Adams from
6580-489: The most influential band of all time and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form. Rooted in skiffle , beat , and 1950s rock 'n' roll , their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. The band also explored music styles ranging from folk and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock . As pioneers in recording , songwriting, and artistic presentation,
6720-457: The " exi " (existentialist) style, later adopted by the other Beatles. Later on, Sutcliffe decided to leave the band early that year and resume his art studies in Germany. McCartney took over bass. Producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four-piece group until June 1962, and he used them as Tony Sheridan 's backing band on a series of recordings for Polydor Records . As part of
6860-751: The 20 February 1977 episode of Doctor on the Go , a sequel to the Doctor in the House television comedy series. After the first radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on Week Ending and a pantomime called Black Cinderella Two Goes East . He left after six months to become the script editor for Doctor Who . In 1979, Adams and John Lloyd wrote scripts for two half-hour episodes of Doctor Snuggles : "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes eight and twelve). John Lloyd
7000-640: The American population. Biographer Jonathan Gould writes that, according to the Nielsen rating service, it was "the largest audience that had ever been recorded for an American television program ". The next morning, the Beatles awoke to a largely negative critical consensus in the US, but a day later at their first US concert, Beatlemania erupted at the Washington Coliseum . Back in New York
7140-638: The Animals , Petula Clark , the Kinks , and the Rolling Stones to achieve success in America. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five. Capitol Records' lack of interest throughout 1963 did not go unnoticed, and a competitor, United Artists Records , encouraged its film division to offer the Beatles
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#17327801812427280-709: The Beatles faced a fierce backlash from US religious and social conservatives (as well as the Ku Klux Klan ) over a comment Lennon had made in a March interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave . "Christianity will go", Lennon had said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right ... Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." His comments went virtually unnoticed in England, but when US teenage fan magazine Datebook printed them five months later, it sparked
7420-476: The Beatles recorded ten songs during a single studio session for their debut LP, Please Please Me . It was supplemented by the four tracks already released on their first two singles. Martin considered recording the LP live at The Cavern Club, but after deciding that the building's acoustics were inadequate, he elected to simulate a "live" album with minimal production in "a single marathon session at Abbey Road". After
7560-481: The Beatles replaced him in mid-August with Ringo Starr , who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join them. A 4 September session at EMI yielded a recording of " Love Me Do " featuring Starr on drums, but a dissatisfied Martin hired drummer Andy White for the band's third session a week later, which produced recordings of "Love Me Do", " Please Please Me ", and " P.S. I Love You ". Martin initially selected
7700-631: The Beatles revolutionized many aspects of the music industry and were often publicized as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements. Led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney , the Beatles evolved from Lennon's previous group, the Quarrymen , and built their reputation by playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg , Germany, over three years from 1960, initially with Stuart Sutcliffe playing bass . The core trio of Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison, together since 1958, went through
7840-586: The Fish. After the book tour, Adams set off on his round-the-world excursion, which supplied him with the material for Last Chance to See . The Salmon of Doubt was incomplete when published posthumously. Adams played the guitar left-handed and had a collection of 24 left-handed guitars when he died (having received his first guitar in 1964). He also studied piano in the 1960s. Pink Floyd and Procol Harum had important influence on Adams's work. During his segment on music discussion programme Private Passions , Adams remarked that he "would have loved to have been
7980-590: The Galaxy Companion ) that could be used in the series. According to Adams, the idea for the title occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck , Austria, gazing at the stars. He was carrying a copy of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe , and it occurred to him that "somebody ought to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ". Despite the original outline, Adams was said to make up
8120-514: The Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. They also performed as the Rainbows . Paul McCartney later told New Musical Express that they called themselves that "because we all had different coloured shirts and we couldn't afford any others!". Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe , who had just sold one of his paintings and was persuaded to purchase
8260-404: The Quarrymen , a reference to their school song "Quarry men old before our birth". Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney met Lennon on 6 July 1957, and joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after. In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison , then aged fifteen, to watch the band. Harrison auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison
8400-546: The Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python 's Graham Chapman . The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of Monty Python for a sketch called " Patient Abuse ". The pair also co-wrote the "Marilyn Monroe" sketch that appeared on the soundtrack album of Monty Python and the Holy Grail . Adams is one of only two people other than
8540-567: The Silver Beatles , and by the middle of August simply the Beatles . Allan Williams , the Beatles' unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg . They auditioned and hired drummer Pete Best in mid-August 1960. The band, now a five-piece, departed Liverpool for Hamburg four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -month residency. Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn writes: "They pulled into Hamburg at dusk on 17 August,
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#17327801812428680-598: The Starr version of "Love Me Do" for the band's first single, though subsequent re-pressings featured the White version, with Starr on tambourine. Released in early October, "Love Me Do" peaked at number seventeen on the Record Retailer chart. Their television debut came later that month with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places . After Martin suggested rerecording "Please Please Me" at
8820-519: The UK edition), Christopher Cerf (in the US edition), and Terry Jones (in the US paperback edition). It also includes eleven chapters of his unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt , which was originally intended to become a new Dirk Gently novel, but might have later become the sixth Hitchhiker novel. Humourist Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
8960-411: The US, with a 30-concert tour of 23 cities. Generating intense interest once again, the month-long tour attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 people to each 30-minute performance in cities from San Francisco to New York. In August, journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the Beatles to meet Bob Dylan . Visiting the band in their New York hotel suite, Dylan introduced them to cannabis . Gould points out
9100-426: The US. A similar situation arose during their May–June tour with Roy Orbison . In late October, the Beatles began a five-day tour of Sweden, their first time abroad since the final Hamburg engagement of December 1962. On their return to the UK on 31 October, several hundred screaming fans greeted them in heavy rain at Heathrow Airport . Around 50 to 100 journalists and photographers, as well as representatives from
9240-415: The United Kingdom to reach number one. The band's third single, " From Me to You ", came out in April and began an almost unbroken string of seventeen British number-one singles, including all but one of the eighteen they released over the next six years. Issued in August, their fourth single, " She Loves You ", achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of
9380-454: The age of nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School . He attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964, then the main school until December 1970. Adams was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall by the age of 12, and stopped growing at 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m). His form master, Frank Halford, said that Adams's height had made him stand out and that he had been self-conscious about it. His ability to write stories made him well known in
9520-415: The airport with news of Sutcliffe's death the previous day from a brain haemorrhage . Epstein began negotiations with record labels for a recording contract. To secure a UK record contract, Epstein negotiated an early end to the band's contract with Polydor, in exchange for more recordings backing Tony Sheridan. After a New Year's Day audition, Decca Records rejected the band , saying, "Guitar groups are on
9660-415: The album Introducing... The Beatles , comprising most of the songs of Parlophone's Please Please Me , but a management shake-up led to the album not being released. After it emerged that the label did not report royalties on their sales, the licence that Vee-Jay had signed with EMI was voided. A new licence was granted to the Swan label for the single "She Loves You". The record received some airplay in
9800-446: The album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins." Lennon said little thought went into composition at the time; he and McCartney were "just writing songs à la Everly Brothers , à la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought of them than that – to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant." Released in March 1963, Please Please Me was the first of eleven consecutive Beatles albums released in
9940-400: The album, recorded between August and October 1964, to continue the format established by A Hard Day's Night which, unlike their first two LPs, contained only original songs. They had nearly exhausted their backlog of songs on the previous album, however, and given the challenges constant international touring posed to their songwriting efforts, Lennon admitted, "Material's becoming a hell of
10080-539: The audience to read a passage from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe which satirises the absurdity of the thought that any one species would exist on Earth merely to serve as a meal to another species, such as humans. Dawkins also uses Adams's influence to exemplify arguments for non-belief in his 2006 book The God Delusion . Dawkins dedicated the book to Adams, whom he jokingly called "possibly [my] only convert" to atheism and wrote on his death that "Science has lost
10220-792: The band acquired the nickname "the Fab Four". Epstein, Martin or other members of the band's entourage were sometimes informally referred to as a " fifth Beatle ". By early 1964, the Beatles were international stars and had achieved unprecedented levels of critical and commercial success. They became a leading force in Britain's cultural resurgence, ushering in the British Invasion of the United States pop market. They soon made their film debut with A Hard Day's Night (1964). A growing desire to refine their studio efforts, coupled with
10360-447: The band members' "now habitual use of marijuana". Lennon referred to Rubber Soul as "the pot album" and Starr said: "Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially with the writers. And because they were writing different material, we were playing differently." After Help! ' s foray into classical music with flutes and strings, Harrison's introduction of a sitar on " Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) " marked
10500-409: The band over the next couple of months, and they appointed him as their manager in January 1962. Throughout early and mid-1962, Epstein sought to free the Beatles from their contractual obligations to Bert Kaempfert Productions. He eventually negotiated a one-month early release in exchange for one last recording session in Hamburg. On their return to Germany in April, a distraught Kirchherr met them at
10640-564: The basis for a BBC television mini-series broadcast in six parts. When he died in 2001 in California, he had been trying again to get the film project started with Disney , which had bought the rights in 1998. The screenplay was rewritten by Karey Kirkpatrick and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film was released in 2005. Radio producer Dirk Maggs had consulted with Adams, first in 1993, and later in 1997 and 2000 about creating
10780-513: The beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a pepper-pot outfit and loads a missile onto a cart driven by Terry Jones , who is calling for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman also attempted non-Python projects, including Out of the Trees . At this point, Adams's career stalled; his writing style was unsuited to
10920-468: The burgeoning youth culture. The group's popularity generated unprecedented interest in British music, and many other UK acts subsequently made their American debuts, successfully touring over the next three years in what was termed the British Invasion . The Beatles' success in the US opened the door for a successive string of British beat groups and pop acts such as the Dave Clark Five ,
11060-508: The challenging nature of their concert tours, led to the band's retirement from live performances in 1966. During this time, they produced albums of greater sophistication, including Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). They enjoyed further commercial success with The Beatles (also known as "the White Album", 1968) and Abbey Road (1969). The success of these records heralded
11200-464: The character of Professor Chronotis . Big Finish Productions eventually remade Shada as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBC website in 2003, and subsequently released as a two-CD set later that year. An omnibus edition of this version was broadcast on the digital radio station BBC7 on 10 December 2005. In
11340-452: The commercialised popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. To many of Dylan's followers in the folk music scene, the Beatles were seen as idolaters, not idealists." Within six months of the meeting, according to Gould, "Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona"; and six months after that, Dylan began performing with
11480-599: The country at the time. When informed that the venue for their 11 September concert, the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida , was segregated, the Beatles said they would refuse to perform unless the audience was integrated. Lennon stated: "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now ... I'd sooner lose our appearance money." City officials relented and agreed to allow an integrated show. The group also cancelled their reservations at
11620-405: The customary group photograph, its Aubrey Beardsley -inspired cover – designed by Klaus Voormann , a friend of the band since their Hamburg days – was a monochrome collage and line drawing caricature of the group. The album was preceded by the single " Paperback Writer ", backed by " Rain ". Short promotional films were made for both songs; described by cultural historian Saul Austerlitz as "among
11760-423: The details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 218201624 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:49:41 GMT The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison , and Ringo Starr . They are widely regarded as
11900-461: The early 1980s, during their collaboration on Infocom's version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . While living in New Mexico in 1993 he set up another e-mail address and began posting to his own USENET newsgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams, and occasionally, when his computer was acting up, to the comp.sys.mac hierarchy. Challenges to the authenticity of his messages later led Adams to set up
12040-413: The experience: "It was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. I was pretty stunned for a month or two." He and Harrison subsequently became regular users of the drug, joined by Starr on at least one occasion. Harrison's use of psychedelic drugs encouraged his path to meditation and Hinduism. He commented: "For me, it was like a flash. The first time I had acid , it just opened up something in my head that
12180-551: The extension of moral equality to include all great apes, human and non-human. In 1994, Adams participated in a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro while wearing a rhino suit for the British charity organisation Save the Rhino International . Puppeteer William Todd-Jones , who had originally worn the suit in the London Marathon to raise money and bring awareness to the group, also participated in the climb wearing
12320-509: The few that were not originally novelised, as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay. Shada was later adapted as a novel by Gareth Roberts in 2012 and City of Death and The Pirate Planet by James Goss in 2015 and 2017 respectively. Elements of Shada and City of Death were reused in Adams's later novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency , in particular,
12460-517: The first Beatle to discuss LSD publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society". Controversy erupted in June 1965 when Queen Elizabeth II appointed all four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after Prime Minister Harold Wilson nominated them for the award. In protest – the honour
12600-600: The first church service broadcast live on the web by the BBC. Two days before Adams died, the Minor Planet Center announced the naming of asteroid 18610 Arthurdent , named after The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy protagonist. In 2005, the asteroid 25924 Douglasadams was named in his memory. In May 2002, The Salmon of Doubt was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, as well as eulogies from Richard Dawkins , Stephen Fry (in
12740-616: The first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February, the Beatles' first nationwide, preceded three-week tours in March and May–June. As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold. On 13 October, the Beatles starred on Sunday Night at the London Palladium , the UK's top variety show. Their performance was televised live and watched by 15 million viewers. One national paper's headlines in
12880-487: The first radio series weekly in the UK starting 8 March 1978, lasting until April. The series was distributed in the United States by National Public Radio . Following the success of the first series, another episode was recorded and broadcast, which was commonly known as the Christmas Episode. A second series of five episodes was broadcast one per night, during the week of 21–25 January 1980. While working on
13020-402: The following day, the Beatles met with another strong reception during two shows at Carnegie Hall . The band flew to Florida, where they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show a second time, again before 70 million viewers, before returning to the UK on 22 February. The Beatles' first visit to the US took place when the nation was still mourning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
13160-412: The following days coined the term " Beatlemania " to describe the riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans who greeted the band – and it stuck. Although not billed as tour leaders, the Beatles overshadowed American acts Tommy Roe and Chris Montez during the February engagements and assumed top billing "by audience demand", something no British act had previously accomplished while touring with artists from
13300-429: The grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls. According to Beatles biographer Bill Harry , it has been incorrectly suggested that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" the US versions of the band's albums. Thousands of copies of the LP had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first-state" copy fetched $ 10,500 at
13440-404: The group's break-up in 1970, all principal former members enjoyed success as solo artists, and some partial reunions occurred. Lennon was murdered in 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001. McCartney and Starr remain musically active. The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time , with estimated sales of 600 million units worldwide. They are the most successful act in
13580-524: The group. Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership , and as the band's success grew, their dominant collaboration limited Harrison's opportunities as a lead vocalist . Epstein, to maximise the Beatles' commercial potential, encouraged them to adopt a professional approach to performing. Lennon recalled him saying, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change – stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking ...". On 11 February 1963,
13720-678: The history of the US Billboard charts , holding the record for most number-one albums on the UK Albums Chart (15), most number-one hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart (20), and most singles sold in the UK (21.9 million). The band received many accolades , including seven Grammy Awards , four Brit Awards , an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the 1970 documentary film Let It Be ), and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards . They were inducted into
13860-453: The internet community. It was hosted by BBC Online from 2001 to 2011. In 1990, Adams wrote and presented a television documentary programme Hyperland which featured Tom Baker as a "software agent" (similar to the assistant pictured in Apple's Knowledge Navigator video of future concepts from 1987), and interviews with Ted Nelson , the co-inventor of hypertext and the person who coined
14000-614: The invitation, Epstein politely declined on the band members' behalf, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations. They soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking no for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty. Immediately afterwards, the band members visited India for the first time. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity. – John Lennon, 1966 Almost as soon as they returned home,
14140-401: The last covers the band would include on an album until Let It Be 's brief rendition of the traditional Liverpool folk song " Maggie Mae ". The band expanded their use of vocal overdubs on Help! and incorporated classical instruments into some arrangements, including a string quartet on the pop ballad " Yesterday ". Composed and sung by McCartney – none of the other Beatles perform on
14280-420: The last series (with a new, "more upbeat" ending) concluded with, "The very final episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is affectionately dedicated to its author." Between Adams's first trip to Madagascar with Mark Carwardine in 1985, and their series of travels that formed the basis for the radio series and non-fiction book Last Chance to See , Adams wrote two other novels with
14420-519: The launch of an American Saturday-morning cartoon series, The Beatles , that echoed A Hard Day's Night 's slapstick antics over its two-year original run. The series was the first weekly television series to feature animated versions of real, living people. In mid-October, the Beatles entered the recording studio; for the first time when making an album, they had an extended period without other major commitments. Until this time, according to George Martin, "we had been making albums rather like
14560-408: The media widely adopted as "the Fab Four". EMI's American subsidiary, Capitol Records , hindered the Beatles' releases in the United States for more than a year by initially declining to issue their music, including their first three singles. Concurrent negotiations with the independent US label Vee-Jay led to the release of some, but not all, of the songs in 1963. Vee-Jay finished preparation for
14700-409: The moderate success of "Love Me Do", the single "Please Please Me" was released in January 1963, two months ahead of the album. It reached number one on every UK chart except Record Retailer , where it peaked at number two. Recalling how the Beatles "rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day", AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: "Decades after its release,
14840-496: The monotony of numerous appearances at the same clubs night after night. In November 1961, during one of the group's frequent performances at the Cavern Club , they encountered Brian Epstein , a local record-store owner and music columnist. He later recalled: "I immediately liked what I heard. They were fresh, and they were honest, and they had what I thought was a sort of presence ... [a] star quality." Epstein courted
14980-445: The musical and cultural significance of this meeting, before which the musicians' respective fanbases were "perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds": Dylan's audience of "college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style " contrasted with their fans, "veritable ' teenyboppers ' – kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in
15120-450: The original Python members to get a writing credit (the other being Neil Innes ). Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of Monty Python's Flying Circus . At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never gets started. At
15260-418: The previous November. Commentators often suggest that for many, particularly the young, the Beatles' performances reignited the sense of excitement and possibility that momentarily faded in the wake of the assassination, and helped pave the way for the revolutionary social changes to come later in the decade. Their hairstyle, unusually long for the era and mocked by many adults, became an emblem of rebellion to
15400-401: The publication of a tie-in book of the same name. In 1992, this was made into a CD-ROM combination of audiobook , e-book and picture slide show. Adams and Mark Carwardine contributed the 'Meeting a Gorilla' passage from Last Chance to See to the book The Great Ape Project . This book, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer , launched a wider-scale project in 1993, which calls for
15540-414: The radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as The Pirate Planet ) Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish was completed. He
15680-613: The recording – "Yesterday" has inspired the most cover versions of any song ever written. With Help! , the Beatles became the first rock group to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year . The group's third US tour opened with a performance before a world-record crowd of 55,600 at New York's Shea Stadium on 15 August – "perhaps the most famous of all Beatles' concerts", in Lewisohn's description. A further nine successful concerts followed in other American cities. At
15820-487: The rock band Disaster Area who appear in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , who planned to crash a space ship into a nearby star as a stunt during a concert. Gilmour also performed at Adams's memorial service in 2001, and what would have been Adams's 60th birthday party in 2012. Adams created an interactive fiction version of HHGG with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. In 1986 he participated in
15960-708: The school in early 2014. On the strength of an essay on religious poetry that discussed the Beatles and William Blake , Adams was awarded an Exhibition in English at St John's College, Cambridge (where his father had likewise been a student), going up in 1971. He wanted to join the Footlights , an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for comic talent. He was not elected immediately as he had hoped, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith; they formed
16100-512: The school. Adams became the only student ever to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing – something he remembered for the rest of his life, particularly when facing writer's block . Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in The Brentwoodian in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine Broadsheet , edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone , who later became
16240-555: The sessions, the Beatles were signed to Polydor for one year. Credited to "Tony Sheridan & the Beat Brothers", the single " My Bonnie ", recorded in June 1961 and released four months later, reached number 32 on the Musikmarkt chart. After the Beatles completed their second Hamburg residency, they enjoyed increasing popularity in Liverpool with the growing Merseybeat movement. However, they were growing tired of
16380-509: The stories as he wrote. He turned to John Lloyd for help with the final two episodes of the first series . Lloyd contributed bits from an unpublished science fiction book of his own, called GiGax . Very little of Lloyd's material survived in later adaptations of Hitchhiker's , such as the novels and the TV series. The TV series was based on the first six radio episodes, and sections contributed by Lloyd were largely re-written. BBC Radio 4 broadcast
16520-612: The subject of technology, including reprints of articles that originally ran in MacUser , and in The Independent on Sunday . In these, Adams claims that one of the first computers he ever saw was a Commodore PET , and that he had "adored" his Apple Macintosh ("or rather my family of however many Macintoshes it is that I've recklessly accumulated over the years") since he first saw one at Infocom's offices in Boston in 1984. Adams
16660-440: The television series Doctor Who , including the unaired serial Shada , co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season . He co-wrote the sketch " Patient Abuse " for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus . A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002. Adams
16800-570: The term. Adams was an early adopter and advocate of hypertext. Adams described himself as a "radical atheist ", adding "radical" for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this conveyed the fact that he really meant it. He imagined a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" to express his disbelief in
16940-457: The then-current style of radio and TV comedy. To make ends meet, he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, and chicken shed cleaner. He was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family, who had made their fortune in oil. During this time, Adams continued to write and submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976, his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close at
17080-484: The time when the red-light area comes to life ... flashing neon lights screamed out the various entertainment on offer, while scantily clad women sat unabashed in shop windows waiting for business opportunities." Koschmider had converted a couple of strip clubs in the district into music venues, and he initially placed the Beatles at the Indra Club . After closing Indra due to noise complaints, he moved them to
17220-529: The top spot for 21 weeks with a chart life of 40 weeks. Erlewine described the LP as "a sequel of the highest order – one that betters the original". In a reversal of then standard practice, EMI released the album ahead of the impending single " I Want to Hold Your Hand ", with the song excluded to maximise the single's sales. The album caught the attention of music critic William Mann of The Times , who suggested that Lennon and McCartney were "the outstanding English composers of 1963". The newspaper published
17360-433: The way out, Mr. Epstein". However, three months later, producer George Martin signed the Beatles to EMI 's Parlophone label. Martin's first recording session with the Beatles took place at EMI Recording Studios (later Abbey Road Studios) in London on 6 June 1962. He immediately complained to Epstein about Best's drumming and suggested they use a session drummer in his place. Already contemplating Best's dismissal,
17500-460: The whites-only Hotel George Washington in Jacksonville. For their subsequent US tours in 1965 and 1966, the Beatles included clauses in contracts stipulating that shows be integrated. According to Gould, the Beatles' fourth studio LP, Beatles for Sale , evidenced a growing conflict between the commercial pressures of their global success and their creative ambitions. They had intended
17640-521: Was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the first person to buy a Mac in Europe, the second being Stephen Fry . Adams was also an " Apple Master ", celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (others included John Cleese and Gregory Hines ). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video
17780-433: Was a Nexu. In 1983, when he and Jane Belson went to Los Angeles, he bought a DEC Rainbow . Upon their return to England, Adams bought an Apricot , then a BBC Micro and a Tandy 1000 . In Last Chance to See , Adams mentions his Cambridge Z88 , which he had taken to Zaire on a quest to find the northern white rhinoceros . Adams's posthumously published work, The Salmon of Doubt , features several articles by him on
17920-581: Was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation , and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh . Adams was born in Cambridge , England, on 11 March 1952 to Christopher Douglas Adams (1927–1985), a management consultant and computer salesman, former probation officer and lecturer on probationary group therapy techniques, and nurse Janet (1927–2016), née Donovan. The family moved
18060-594: Was also co-author of two episodes from the original Hitchhiker radio series ("Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth", also known as "Episode Five" and "Episode Six"), as well as The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff . Adams sent the script for the HHGG pilot radio programme to the Doctor Who production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write The Pirate Planet . He had also previously attempted to submit
18200-439: Was at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders – some conservative MBE recipients returned their insignia. In July, the Beatles' second film, Help! , was released, again directed by Lester. Described as "mainly a relentless spoof of Bond ", it inspired a mixed response among both reviewers and the band. McCartney said: " Help! was great but it wasn't our film – we were sort of guest stars. It
18340-400: Was available on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. He said it was "awesome...", which was also the last word he wrote on his site. Adams used email to correspond with Steve Meretzky in
18480-514: Was becoming obvious", he wrote, and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right". Capitol Records, from December 1963 when it began issuing Beatles recordings for the US market, exercised complete control over format, compiling distinct US albums from the band's recordings and issuing songs of their choosing as singles. In June 1966, the Capitol LP Yesterday and Today caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed
18620-512: Was fun, but basically, as an idea for a film, it was a bit wrong." The soundtrack was dominated by Lennon, who wrote and sang lead on most of its songs, including the two singles: " Help! " and " Ticket to Ride ". The Help! album, the group's fifth studio LP, mirrored A Hard Day's Night by featuring soundtrack songs on side one and additional songs from the same sessions on side two. The LP contained all original material save for two covers, " Act Naturally " and " Dizzy Miss Lizzy "; they were
18760-457: Was inside of me, and I realised a lot of things. I didn't learn them because I already knew them, but that happened to be the key that opened the door to reveal them. From the moment I had that, I wanted to have it all the time – these thoughts about the yogis and the Himalayas, and Ravi 's music." McCartney was initially reluctant to try it, but eventually did so in late 1966. He became
18900-637: Was invited to make a guest appearance at Pink Floyd's concert of 28 October 1994 at Earls Court in London, playing guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" . Adams chose the name for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell , by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks, " High Hopes ". Pink Floyd and the song " Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun " in particular, inspired Adams to create
19040-403: Was published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster . Terry Jones wrote the accompanying book, entitled Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic , since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the h2g2 collaborative writing project, an experimental attempt at making The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a reality, and at harnessing the collective brainpower of
19180-475: Was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992. The books formed the basis for other adaptations, such as three-part comic book adaptations for each of the first three books, an interactive text-adventure computer game , and a photo-illustrated edition, published in 1994. This latter edition featured
19320-579: Was referring to how other people viewed their success, but at the prompting of reporters, he concluded: "If you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry." Released in August 1966, a week before the Beatles' final tour, Revolver marked another artistic step forward for the group. The album featured sophisticated songwriting, studio experimentation, and a greatly expanded repertoire of musical styles, ranging from innovative classical string arrangements to psychedelia . Abandoning
19460-575: Was the "lady barrister" mentioned in the jacket-flap biography printed in his books during the mid-1980s ("He [Adams] lives in Islington with a lady barrister and an Apple Macintosh"). The two lived in Los Angeles together during 1983, while Adams worked on an early screenplay adaptation of Hitchhiker's . When the deal fell through, they moved back to London, and after several separations ("He is currently not certain where he lives, or with whom") and
19600-504: Was too young. After a month's persistence, during a second meeting (arranged by McCartney), Harrison performed the lead guitar part of the instrumental song " Raunchy " on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, and they enlisted him as lead guitarist . By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began his studies at the Liverpool College of Art . The three guitarists, billing themselves as Johnny and
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