On August 17, 1960, five young Britons were approaching the stage of a small night club in Hamburg, about to play music in that city for the first time. To reach the stage, they had come an almost unimaginable distance. From their home, in Liverpool, they had driven in a cream-and-green minibus to the port of Harwich. The bus, teetering under the weight of amplifiers and instruments, had been lifted onto a ferry by a crane. At first, the stevedores had refused to handle such a precarious load; a photograph captured the moment just after they changed their minds, with the sixties hanging in the balance.
Source: Ted Widmer/newyorker.com
detailsGeorge Harrison‘s son, Dhani, said Tom Petty’s death was just as hard for him as his father’s death was in 2001. Petty was one of George’s best friends. Both musicians felt as if they’d known each other in their past lives.
So, naturally, Dhani stayed close to Petty and George’s other friends after George died. Petty supported Dhani through everything. He became a pseudo father, uncle, and best friend.
Petty’s death deeply affected Dhani. He turned to his other uncle figure and his father and Petty’s Traveling Wilburys bandmate, Jeff Lynne, for comfort in the immediate aftermath.
“They’re my family, and they’ve always really looked after me, ever since my father passed away,” Dhani told Billboard. “Yeah, my heart’s broken. It’s tremendously sad and absolutely heartbreaking. He’s one of my best mates. It hasn’t hit me yet how much I’m going to miss him.
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsYoung fans were desperate to catch the Fab Four as they shot scenes for A Hard Day’s Night on board
The excitement was all too much for hundreds of Beatles fans when the band stopped off at a Somerset seaside town in March 1964 during filming for their highly acclaimed big-screen debut A Hard Day’s Night.
At Minehead, now part of the West Somerset Railway heritage line, one schoolgirl had to be escorted off the tracks by a police officer as she attempted to greet the Fab Four. While other youngsters stood in an orderly fashion next to the railway line, others stormed the tracks, clamouring at the windows of the restaurant car to get their pop idols’ attention.
Source: Jackie Butler/somersetlive.co.uk
detailsThe Beatles never attended the Grammy Awards. They never sat next to artists like the Mamas and the Papas, or maybe Frank Sinatra, and waited for the announcement. The Beatles never walked to the podium to give a witty speech, thanking fans.
Unfortunately, a Beatle never graced the Grammy stage until after The Beatles broke up.
Initially, their first two wins came in 1965. They won Best New Artist and Best Performance by a Vocal Group (for “A Hard Day’s Night”). That year, they were nominated for Record Of The Year (for “I Want To Hold Your Hand”) and Best Rock & Roll Recording (for “A Hard Day’s Night”).
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detailsBefore The Beatles managed themselves, the boy band had business owner Brian Epstein as their official manager. When talking about this rock group during a The Beatles: Get Back video clip, Epstein said he was “immediately struck” by their stage presence.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote songs together as teenagers. The duo eventually turned into a four-piece band that created original music. In 1961, business owner Epstein signed up to manage “four scruffy, unknown lads,” now known as the Beatles.
These artists became the world’s best-known boy band in the following years. They performed abroad and made history with songs like “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Even Epstein became well-known by fans, appearing in interviews separate from the group.
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detailsThe Beatles bassist Paul McCartney has been married three times. However, when he tied the knot with his third wife Nancy Shevell, he returned to a place filled with happy memories from his first marriage. McCartney’s 2011 marriage to Shevell at Old Marylebone Town Hall was a full-circle moment for the singer. He first wed Linda Eastman there 42 years prior in 1969. McCartney and Linda would remain married for 29 years until her death in 1998. The couple welcomed three biological children together: Mary, Stella, and James. McCartney adopted Linda’s daughter Heather from a previous marriage shortly after they wed.
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsOn Friday, Sean Lennon will open the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre which will be home to the University of Liverpool’s new 400-seat concert hall, The Tung Auditorium.
The event will be celebrated in the evening with a gala concert featuring composer Professor Shirley Thompson’s premiere of One World, a re-imagining and homage to the ex-Beatle’s iconic song Imagine.
A “thrilled” Yoko Ono, an honorary graduate of the university, said: “Thank you to the university and to the people of Liverpool for this wonderful honour.
“Liverpool has become part of me from years of going there, and with this new centre part of me will always be there – for that I’m very thankful.
“I think John is smiling about it too. I’m also very thankful that our son, Sean, is there in Liverpool for the celebrations around the opening.”
Source: Kim Pilling/standard.co.uk
detailsPaul McCartney once said he didn’t like to hear fans say One Direction was the new Beatles. Despite this, he said Harry Styles and the other members of One Direction were successful for one of the same reasons The Beatles were successful. Paul also revealed what he thought of One Direction’s songs.
The Beatles' Paul McCartney with a guitar
The Beatles and One Direction were compared numerous times over the years. Both the Fab Four and One Direction were British bands who started out making uptempo love songs and had young fans. During a 2013 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Paul said he didn’t like fans comparing other bands to The Beatles.
“I always think it’s a little bit unfortunate when you call [a band] ‘the new Beatles,'” the former Beatle opined. “It can be the kiss of death because people expect you to live up to what we did.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
details“Dylan… was really into the whole idea of it for the refugees….” says George Harrison over the restored footage above from 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh. The quiet Beatle’s scouser lilt will surely tug at your heartstrings, as will Harrison and Dylan’s careful rehearsal take of “If Not for You,” a song they did not end up playing together during the concert. It’s a significant shared moment nonetheless. As fans know, “If Not for You” became a keystone song for both artists at the turn of the 70s.
Dylan wrote the song the year previous as the first track on his 1970 New Morning, a record critics heralded as a return to form after the panned double album, Self Portrait. Harrison himself sat in on a session for the song and recorded a “languid early version,” notes Beatles Bible, “at Columbia’s Studio B in New York.”
Source: openculture.com
detailsGeorge Harrison‘s son, Dhani Harrison, worked on the former Beatle’s final album. He made sure one of the songs on the record was track seven for a specific reason. In addition, the song made a famous drummer cry every time he heard it.
Jim Keltner is a drummer who worked with numerous famous musicians. He played on songs by Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Celine Dion, and numerous others. During a 2005 interview with Modern Drummer, he discussed George’s final studio album Brainwashed. He said some of the songs from Brainwashed deeply affected him.
“One that makes me cry every time I hear it, and probably always will, is ‘Stuck Inside a Cloud,'” Keltner revealed. “That’s one of his older one’s that he used to play for me all the time. It had a magical, misty, very English sort of quality to it.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
details"You've got as many lives as you like, and more, even ones you don't want." George Harrison once spoke these now iconic words (per Brainy Quote). Regardless of the number of proverbial lives the late Beatles guitarist may or may not have lived, there's no question as to the number of lives he touched. In addition to being a founding member of The Beatles and one of the most sacred portraits of artistry in recent history, Harrison garnered a community of loved ones and fans who will never forget what offered during his life.
Source: Luke Holden
detailsFans turned out in droves to catch the Fab Four as they shot scenes for A Hard Day’s Night on board
Everywhere The Beatles went there were screaming fans, so in 1964 they headed West in search of quieter locations off the beaten track during filming for A Hard Day’s Night, their highly acclaimed big screen debut.
Regarded as a classic of the period, the musical comedy’s plot mimicked the group’s real life, with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr seen charging through a busy railway station, pursued by dozens of teenage schoolgirls. Then they jumped on a train that, in the story, was transporting them to London for a TV show.
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George Harrison and The Beatles‘ producer, George Martin, didn’t always see eye to eye. Initially, Martin didn’t like it when George would come forward with songs. However, George treated the producer with respect and thought of him as a close friend and collaborator until he died in 2001.Martin didn’t like George coming forward with songs either. He wanted “to concentrate on the guys who were giving me the hits,” Martin told CNN. He didn’t like George coming in and thinking he could be just as great. Initially, Martin “kind of tolerated” George’s songs. “Oh, yes, we must have a George song on this thing,” Martin would say condescendingly.
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsJohn Lennon revealed two books helped inspire “Imagine.”
He did not see the song as a condemnation of all religion.
“Imagine” was a hit in the 1970s and in the 1980s.
In John Lennon‘s 1971 hit “Imagine,” the former Beatle famously asked listeners to imagine a world with “no religion.” Subsequently, John elaborated on the meaning of that lyric. He also revealed what he thought when a church group wanted to change the lyrics of the song.According to the book All We Are Saying; The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John discussed the origin of “Imagine” in a 1980 interview. “[Activist and comedian] Dick Gregory gave Yoko and me a little kind of prayer book,” John recalled. “It is in the Christian idiom, but you can apply it anywhere. It is the concept of positive prayer. If you want to get a car, get the car keys. Get it? ‘Imagine’ is saying that.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsAs awards season in the film and TV industry races to an end, the past weekend was highlighted by some of the last major honors ahead of next weekend’s Academy Awards.
The Producers Guild of America on Saturday was the latest event to honor one of the favorite documentaries of this year’s season, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Directed by first-time filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the doc about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival picked up the PGA’s “Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures” honor for Joseph Patel, David Dinerstein and Robert Fyvolent.
The other nominees in the category were Summer of Soul‘s fellow Oscar nominees Flee, Ascension and Writing With Fire, as well as The First Wave, In the Same Breath, The Rescue and Simple as Water.
Source: Andrew Jeffrey/realscreen.com
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