Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 of The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art

Liverpool College of Art

Liverpool College of Art is located at 68 Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. It is a Grade II listed building.The building is currently owned by Liverpool John Moores University housing its School of Social Science....

. Sutcliffe and John Lennon

John Lennon

John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 are credited with coming up with the name "The Beatles", as they both liked Buddy Holly

Buddy Holly

Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...

's band, The Crickets

The Crickets

The Crickets are a rock & roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer/songwriter Buddy Holly in the 1950s. Their first hit record was "That'll Be the Day", released in 1957....

. As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Beatle

Fifth Beatle

The Fifth Beatle is an informal title that various commentators in the press and entertainment industry have applied to persons who were at one point a member of The Beatles, or who had a strong association with the "Fab Four" during the group's existence...

".

When The Beatles played in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, he met photographer Astrid Kirchherr

Astrid Kirchherr

Astrid Kirchherr is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days....

, to whom he was later engaged.