About 

Back circa 1994, very few high schools had their own web page.  Smoky Hill High School was different.  There was a small but powerful group of the computer-elite students ("geeks" to the rest of us) who gave the school an advantage.  This group was responsible for creating one of the first "online" high schools in the United States.  Smoky Hill (which is located in Aurora, CO - in the Cherry Creek School District) quickly had its own domain, email for all of its students, available web space, and Ethernet connections throughout the school. 

Soon, (perhaps 1996) a few pages were created. One of these pages were "Beatles Lyrics and Album Covers", which was founded and compiled by Wes Garten.  It just so happened (and quite coincidentally) that this would coincide with a resurgence of popularity for the Beatles with the release of Volumes One, Two and Three of "The Beatles Anthology" on Compact Disc.  Wes' page became a global smash hit within a year.  Soon, people from all over the world were sending him emails, requesting information and praising his work.  His page took up more space on the Schools computers than all other pages combined!  I suppose the English didn't translate well, as many international users wondered if he knew the Beatles personally.  (with one email in which a fan from Brazil exclaimed to Wes, "I love you George Harrison!")   The plan was that all great web pages would be kept on the server indefinitely, even after its creator graduated.  In 1999, Wes and his high tech pals did graduate, as well as the aforementioned computer-gurus.  Unfortunately, it seems no one was left to care for the servers, or the computing program at all. www.Smoky.org has since gone offline, and hasn't returned to the public since.

In 1998 and several dozen times over a year period, I came across Beatles Lyrics and Album Covers, watching the wheels as the page changed from a boom site to digital tumbleweeds.  I have been  hearing impaired since an operation in late 1997 (age of 18), yet grew up revering the Beatles and listening to their music.  In May of 1999,  I took it upon himself to "rescue" the site -- giving it a new domain 
( http://beatleslyrics.tripod.com/ ), updating news, songs and listings, and throwing in a cool feature or two.

For most of 1999 and 2000, I looked rather unofficially for Wes to make sure he is aware that his site is still alive and well, even after his original domain has vanished from the Internet.  In late October of 2000, I received email from Wes' high school friend, and soon after, from Wes himself explaining how his life has taken him far and away from his beginnings at Smoky Hill, and his gratitude for keeping his High School computer project alive. 

The site has since blossomed and bloomed once again with the umpteenth Beatles "Revolution" with the November 2000 release of "Beatles 1".  A new generation of Beatles Fans has been born from the mold set up by current teen pop phenomenon's N'Sync,  Britney Spears and traditional Rock and Roll bands like U2, Dave Mathews Band and countless others around the world. 

Unfortunately for me, the Beatles didn't exactly find this site an attempt to share the love - they found it a blant infringement on trademarks and copyrights and threatened myself with legal action if I did not pull Beatles Lyrics and Album Covers off the World Wide Web. This included the domain name www.beatlelyrics.com being turned over to Apple Corp. LTD

Not only that, but Sony Music followed up telling me I was causing this BILLION DOLLAR corporation damages and irreparable injury...

SO here I am again, tempting fate by reposting Beatle Lyrics and Album covers und the new moniker of FAB FOUR LYRICS AND ALBUM COVERS. Enjoy while you can...

Thanks,
John Fontana