A New Zealand John Lennon

I was reading the history of John Lennon and his father have tried to take him to New Zealand secretly, but his mother don’t let it happens, what if the father was successful and Lennon migrate to New Zealand? How this affect The Beatles?
 
I was reading the history of John Lennon and his father have tried to take him to New Zealand secretly, but his mother don’t let it happens, what if the father was successful and Lennon migrate to New Zealand? How this affect The Beatles?

Most likely no Beatles at all, which is a huge butterfly. A lot then hinges on whether another British band shakes-up the music industry & leads a "British Invasion" circa 1964-5.
Chances are it may be a little later than OTL, but there are a number of reasonable bands that could concievably have success.

John could stay with music, or go into art or writing. I can imagine him putting the guitar aside for a while, then getting back into music once the NZ music scene starts really taking off in the mid-late 60s when the likes of the Fourmyula emerge - if that emerges. I could even picture him getting into production from the mid '60s, and being a producer of note in the NZ music industry. (What if he becomes involved in the early days of NZ indie in the early 1980s? How about Flying Nun albums with the production credits: "Produced by John Lennon, Engineered by Doug Hood"?)

Paul McCartney would have found a spot in another band & done really well - he's not just a skillful songwriter & musician, but one hell of a workaholic.. which will take him a long way towards success.

As far as George & Ringo go - Ringo stays with Rory Storm & the Hurricanes (or some similar local Liverpool band), and George perhaps moves through a few bands.. it might even mean that George never develops an interest in sitar or never gets into slide guitar.
 
Another band or band might appear, but it's unlikely any such would replicate the Beatles' success. More like one group of stars among many - which changes the whole 60s dynamic since everyone isn"t trying to emulate one act.
 
Never forget the role of expanding technology in recording in the radical evolution of music in the sixties. The Beatles opened the floodgates, but the British Invasion had many more players. The Kinks are credited with literally creating "classic rock" with the release of "You Really Got Me" in August, 1964, a mere seven months after the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

Fifties rock re-defined American music in the late fifties. Then, by 1959, Elvis went into the Army for two years, Buddy Holly died and Chuck Berry went to prison for an affair with an underage girl. The next year, the Payola scandal invited federal legislation and religious conservatives called rock music "the work of the devil." So the cutting edge of music divided itself between Motown (Detroit/soul) and British rock. They were destined to collide and change the mainstream at some point. So without Lennon and the OTL Beatles, you still have the Kinks, Dave Clark Five, Rolling Stones, the Who, etc.
 
Unlikely that you can simply subtract the Beatles and assume everything else stays the same. How much shine do the Stones or Kinks get wo the Beatles as a precedent? Music obviously still develops but the path changes in unknowable ways.
 
Record and radio exec's refused to take a chance on British bands until the Beatles. They would have been unimpressed with almost everyone else - not enough market potential.
 
Unlikely that you can simply subtract the Beatles and assume everything else stays the same. How much shine do the Stones or Kinks get wo the Beatles as a precedent? Music obviously still develops but the path changes in unknowable ways.
It's not all the same, but at some point British rock makes a break, though later. In OTL, the Beatles entered the US in January, 1964 and by April, had five songs in the Billboard top ten. That would not happen in the ATL. The Beatles had a special break for recognition because they really followed Buddy Holly. The other groups, though, did not. They took a purely British tradition and changed world top 40 in late 1964 and 1965.

In the early sixties, the American market mellowed down with California beach music. The first British number one song on Billboard was Telstar by the Tornadoes in 1962. So, American marketers would have been receptive to something new if they were impressed. In late 1963, Phil Specter put out a big Christmas album with big name artists of the time. It was upbeat rock-and-roll, but sold poorly because the assassination of JFK in November cast a somber attitude, not receptive to new music. The stresses broke OTL in January as the Beatles made their debut.

Now without the Beatles, the stresses would still have been there. There was still much British music to market. While network radio might not have had much respect for British bands, Top 40 radio station marketers like Todd Storz and Gordon McClendon were interested in building audiences in individual cities. They didn't sell records and had little respect for national marketing.

At some point, somebody would have introduced British rock to the US and even without the Beatles, a rapid change would happened, only later. So if the spring of 1964 was delayed six or twelve months, how much would music have changed as of 1970? Also, don't forget the rapid advance of recording technology that was marketing home stereo systems that did not exist only a few years earlier.
 
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