1969
Jan. 2: Work begins on planned project to release an album and film of the Beatles recording an album. Originally called “Get Back,” it later becomes “Let It Be,” which sums up the attitudes of the Beatles after the tumultous events during the filming, which basically show the group falling apart. During the sessions, Ringo and George quit at one time or another.
Jan. 10: Harrison tells McCartney he was fed up at his "getting at him" and quits the group, though he returns a few days later.
Jan. 30: The group performs in a surprise (to their neighbors) rooftop concert on top of the Apple offices on Savile Row. The concert is filmed and some footage is used in “Let It Be.”
March: John marries Yoko Ono. Part of their honeymoon consists of a bed-in Amsterdam.
March 12: Paul marries Linda Eastman, a photographer.
May 8: Allen Klein and Ringo, George and John contract to allow Klein to take charge of several Apple Corps companies. Paul refuses to go along, wanting his in-laws to represent him. On May 20, Klein sweeps into Apple and fires a number of executives and hangers-on.
Aug. 20: The last time the four Beatles are together in the studio, doing mixing work on “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”
Sept. 26: The album “Abbey Road” is released. The cover shot of the group walking across the usually busy street makes the site a popular tourist attraction.
Oct. 6: The Beatles release the single "Something"/"Come Together" in the U.S. It's George Harrison's first A-side (the song that got the bigger promotion). Frank Sinatra once called "Something" "the greatest love song ever written," though he sometimes misidentified the song as a Lennon-McCartney composition. He recorded two versions of it, one of which contains a unique Sinatra touch to the lyrics: "You stick around, Jack, it might show."
Dec. 7: George Harrison and Eric Clapton are guest performers with Delaney and Bonnie in a live show at Croyden's Fairfield Hall. The performance is later issued on record as "Delaney and Bonnie On Tour." Harrison and Clapton later do several more dates with the band in Scandinavia.