Do the Beatles get too much credit..

Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead

"The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band," said Bob Weir. "What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing"

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys

"Upon first hearing Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Brian Wilson said, “I really wasn’t quite ready for the unity. It felt like it all belonged together. Rubber Soul was a collection of songs…that somehow went together like no album ever made before".

Roger McGuinn of the Byrds

"As I said, we were influenced by The Beatles, and we wanted to be a band like that, and when I was working with Bobby Darin, and then in the Brill Building, my job was to listen to the radio, and emulate the songs that were out there. I had already been working on mixing The Beatles’ music with folk music in Greenwich Village, and I had noticed that they were using folk-influenced chords in their music. They used passing chords that were not common in rock’n’roll and pop songs of that time. I remember listening to them, and thinking that the Beatles were using folding chord construction. That comes from their skiffle roots, they will have learned those chords in their skiffle days, and just brought them into their own writing.”

Pete Townshend of the Who

"In a 1967 interview Pete Townshend of the Who commented "I think "Eleanor Rigby" was a very important musical move forward. It certainly inspired me to write and listen to things in that vein"

Robert Fripp on hearing the Beatles Sgt Pepper

Robert Fripp- "When I was 20, I worked at a hotel in a dance orchestra, playing weddings, bar-mitzvahs, dancing, cabaret. I drove home and I was also at college at the time. Then I put on the radio (Radio Luxemburg) and I heard this music. It was terrifying. I had no idea what it was. Then it kept going. Then there was this enormous whine note of strings. Then there was this colossal piano chord. I discovered later that I'd come in half-way through Sgt. Pepper, played continuously. My life was never the same again"

Some of the reaction towards "Strawberry Fields Forever"

"Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys said that "Strawberry Fields Forever" was partially responsible for the shelving of his group's legendary unfinished album, Smile. Wilson first heard the song on his car radio whilst driving, and was so affected that he had to stop and listen to it all the way through. He then remarked to his passenger that The Beatles had already reached the sound The Beach Boys had wanted to achieve. Paul Revere & The Raiders were among the most successful US groups during 1966 and 1967, having their own Dick Clark-produced television show, Where the Action Is. Mark Lindsay (singer/saxophonist) heard the song on the radio, bought it, and then listened to it at home with his producer at the time, Terry Melcher. When the song ended Lindsay said, "Now what the f**k are we gonna do?" later saying, "With that single, The Beatles raised the ante as to what a pop record should be"