1970, The Beatles Transition Year

The Beatles quietly broke up in September 1969 just several weeks after their final sequentially recorded album Abbey Road was completed. To no one’s real surprise, John Lennon informed them that he was leaving. It wasn’t until the following April that the breakup became official. Millions of their fans around the world reacted with disbelief and incorrectly speculated that they would soon return to the studio and continue to revolutionize the music business. We now know the decision was final and John, Paul, George and Ringo would never step inside a recording studio together ever again.

But 1970 turned out to be a surprisingly productive year for all of them either as a soloist or as a collaborator with another band member. In total, they were individually involved with recording 8 albums containing 109 songs of which 62 were original. Three of the albums reached No1 in both the US, UK and other countries and one additional album peaked at No6 (US) and No8 (UK). Interestingly, it was those same 4 albums that contained all 62 of the original tracks. Finally, 3 songs that were released as singles from those albums also reached No1.

A few additional pieces of information. Ringo Starr played on 7 of the 8 albums. Phil Spector was the producer or co-producer of 3 of the 8 albums and George Martin was the producer of just one. The 3 songwriters either produced or…