Beatles News

In 1966, while returning from a tour in Manila to London, The Beatles made a three-day layover in Delhi. Kabir Bedi, a 20-year-old-freelance reporter with All India Radio at the time, managed to get an exclusive interview with the Fab Four. In his memoir Stories I Must Tell (Westland Books), Bedi wrote that he spoke to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr for 30 minutes by bluffing to their manager, Brian Epstein, that the government had asked for the interview.

When Bedi later learnt that AIR had taped other programmes over the interview, he was outraged and left the national broadcaster. He headed to Mumbai, where he worked in advertising companies and later became a model and an actor. Here are edited excerpts of Bedi’s encounter with the Beatles.

By 1966, the year I interviewed them, The Beatles had become one of the most successful groups in the history of pop music. “Beatlemania” was raging around the world. And here I was, a crazy fan just out of college, interviewing them in their hotel room, the only Indian reporter to get through to them.

Source: Kabir Bedi/ details

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that former Genesis frontman Phil Collins was in his musical career first and foremost a drummer. He’s had eight Grammy Award wins and sold millions of records, including his chart-topping albums Face Value, No Jacket Required, and Hello, I Must Be Going.

Easily considered one of rock’s greatest percussionists, here’s what Collins – who can be counted on for his brutal honesty – had to say about former Beatle Ringo Starr as a drummer.

The You’ll Be In My Heart singer was an extra in The Beatles’ 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night. Collins was 13 years old at the time. He sat among the crush of screaming fans in the film’s final scene during which the band finally performs.

Collins recalled in his 2016 memoir Not Dead Yet the thrill of that moment for him as a young kid watching the performance of a lifetime. As one of hundreds of students in the London area, Collins was ushered in for a reason unknown to them: they hadn’t been told The Beatles were filming a movie.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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A cinema where George Harrison and John Lennon spent their teenage afternoons has been saved from demolition.

Supermarket chain Lidl wanted to knock down the Abbey Cinema in Wavertree, Liverpool to make way for a new store.

The cinema, which closed in 1979, housed a branch of the Co-op supermarket until that shut in 2020.

Historic England (HE) said following a local campaign, the "rare survivor from the 1930s heyday of cinema" had been given Grade II listed status.

HE listings advisor Sarah Charlesworth added that she hoped "a sustainable new use" could now be found for the building.

Source: BBC News

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Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are releasing a cover of Grow Old with Me, one of the last songs John Lennon wrote before he died.

The two surviving members of The Beatles are set to reunite for a heartfelt cover of the John Lennon song, Grow Old With Me.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr’s rendition of the 1980 track will appear on Starr’s latest solo album, What’s My Name, due out this October.

Grow Old With Me was one of the last songs written by Lennon before his murder in 1980, and was posthumously released on the 1984 record Milk and Honey. The song came about because Lennon and Yoko Ono had both been inspired by the poetry of 19th-century couple Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

In 1980, Ono had awoken one morning with an idea for a song called Let Me Count the Ways – inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous sonnet, How Do I Love Thee? At the time, she called Lennon, who was in Bermuda and played him the song over the phone.

In turn, she suggested he write a response in the style of Robert Browning. Lennon got to work, and inspired by Browning’s poem, Rabbi Ben Ezra, he came up with Grow Old with Me, and rang Ono back to play it to her. details

One of the highlights of The Beatles‘ album Abbey Road was the drum solo Ringo Starr performed on the collection’s medley.

It was the only recorded drum solo Starr would provide The Beatles, and he did it grudgingly. Here’s why.

While the band was recording what’s come to be known as their “White Album” in 1968, the drummer hit a symbolic wall within the group. Feeling left out and, as he has said, a little flipped out by Yoko Ono’s constant presence in the recording studio, Starr took his leave. It was temporary, of course, but necessary, as Michael Seth Starr (no relation to Ringo) wrote in his biography of the drummer, Ringo: With a Little Help.

“Even Ringo had his limits, and he reached his boiling point on August 22,” Starr wrote. “Frustrated with the in-fighting, the mixed signals, and his own drumming – and ‘freaked out’ by Yoko Ono’s immutable presence – he walked out, quitting the band.”

Source: cheatsheet.com

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The Beatles have fans everywhere, but actually knowing individual members of the band is a privilege. Chevy Chase has had the privilege of knowing two Beatles. He still knows Paul McCartney, and Chase said he knew John Lennon, too. Lennon died in 1980 but Chase remembers spending time with him in New York. Chase was a guest on Rob Lowe’s Literally! Podcast on April 14. While discussing his early days on Saturday Night Live, Chase revealed he was also friendly with the Beatles members. The Beatles broke up in 1970. Chase was on Saturday Night Live from 1975-76. Living in New York in the late ‘70s, Chase would run into Lennon and Yoko Ono regularly. Here was Lennon’s New York hangout back then. “I was living on the west side around 71st street or something, close to the Hudson River,” Chase told Lowe. “He and Yoko lived somewhere near there too, because I’d see him quite frequently in the little park there, eating something and that’s where I liked to go to eat. I think the first time I met him, I had a huge sandwich in my hands. Anyway, then I’d walk back up 72nd street from the park with the two of them.”

Source: cheatsheet.com

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Since The Beatles made their way onto the scene in 1962 a number of bands have been compared to them. Most recently, the likes of One Direction stirred up the conversation again after becoming one of the best-selling bands on the planet. Since their debut, 1D have sold more than 36 million records and counting. They never beat The Beatles, however. The Fab Four have sold more than 600 million records worldwide since their debut. This is the kind of success Paul McCartney is not convinced will ever be recreated in the music industry.

Speaking to Esquire in 2015, the singer and guitarist was asked if the success they reached could ever be hit again, or if they were a product of their time.

Macca replied: “We don't live in that culture any more, that's true. We came out of a very rich period. But let's not forgot, those four boys were f*****g good.

“It wasn't just to do with the period. You name me another group of four chaps, or chapesses, who had what The Beatles had.”

Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk

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Paul McCartney said you can hear a vulgar message if you play one of the songs from The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band backward. However, he indicated this was not The Beatles’ intent. Here’s what happened when Paul played one of The Beatles’ most famous songs backward –and why he decided to do so in the first place.

During a 1974 interview with Rolling Stone, Paul discussed how fans found many hidden meanings in The Beatles’ work. For example, he mentioned some people believed the cover of Abbey Road contained clues revealing he died. He said it was easy to see hidden meanings in things if you were looking for hidden meanings.

Then he discussed backmasking. Backmasking is the phenomenon in which artists will put backward messages in their songs. While there are some examples of intentional backmasking, other times fans hear messages in songs played backward the artist did not intentionally put there. For example, Paul admitted that one of the songs from Sgt. Pepper sounded like it included a vulgar lyric when played backward even though he wasn’t aware of this until after the album’s completion.

Source: cheatsheet.com details

Last summer, Beck was at loose ends in Los Angeles. “My whole year was canceled, with the shutdowns and everything,” says the singer. “My engineer’s wife was having a baby, so he wasn’t available. I really hadn’t been making much music. My studio had been dark for a year.”

Then came word that Paul McCartney had a new solo album in the works — and that he’d asked for Beck to remix one of its songs. “‘OK, McCartney’s calling, let’s get in there and figure out how everything works!’” Beck recalls thinking. “It gave me something to do.”

Similar top-secret communiques went out to a select group of artists last year in the run-up to McCartney III, the laid-back DIY delight that McCartney recorded during the peak quarantine months and released in December. The result, out this week, is McCartney III Imagined, a kaleidoscopic sampler plate of remixes and cover versions from a roster that also includes St. Vincent, Phoebe Bridgers, Anderson .Paak, Damon Albarn, Khruangbin, and more.

Source: Simon Vozick-Levinson/Rolling Stone

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When a music veteran like former Beatle Ringo Starr voices his opinion on which of the current music makers have caught his attention, well, he’s got our attention.

Here’s what the All-Starr Band leader had to say about the music superstar he says is doing things right, plus the songs he’s been keeping on his playlist.

During the current pandemic, although Starr had to cancel in 2020 two of his All-Starr Band’s tours, he’s kept busy making new music.

In March, the Photograph singer released an EP called Zoom In, featuring five tracks. Starr recruited Sam Hollander, who’s served as music producer for Katy Perry, to work his magic on the songs, from the reggae-infused “Waiting for the Tide to Turn,” to the playfully rocking “Teach Me to Tango.”

Starr told Variety last month that the track he enjoyed creating most “was ‘Waiting for the Tide to Turn,’ because it was reggae. So it was the atmosphere of: Let’s make a reggae record… and I played reggae drums. I don’t know how you do that! I just do what I think of as reggae drums.”

Source: cheatsheet.com

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Paul McCartney never forgot a song he should have remembered.

In the early days, he and John Lennon would work on songs for a few hours and write down some lyrics on a “bit of paper” then forget what the song was by the next morning. But nothing was ever truly lost.

“Me and John were very excited to work with each other,” said McCartney, during a recent chat with Annie Clark (St. Vincent) on Instagram Live. “I could fill in anything he needed, he could fill in anything I needed, so I don’t really think we had too many forgettable songs.”

On the eve of the release of his McCartney III Reimagined, McCartney took to Instagram for two impromptu chats with St. Vincent and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, two artists handpicked to remix the original tracks off McCartney III, his 18th solo album, released in 2020, and ended up reminiscing on The Beatles, his deep connection to Lennon, and the power of a song.

Source: americansongwriter.com

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The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of the most acclaimed albums ever, however, it inspired a review that made the Fab Four bitter. Paul McCartney revealed the review was upsetting because of what it said about their producer, George Martin, and how that reflected on the rest of the band. Here’s what Paul had to say about Sgt. Pepper — and what Martin had to say on the same topic.During an interview with Paul Gambaccinni of Rolling Stone, Paul discussed many topics, including the album Ram, Steve McQueen, Marvin Gaye, and “Long Tail Sally.” Gambaccinni asked Paul how much Martin contributed to “Yesterday” and other songs by the Fab Four. Paul revealed “George’s contribution was quite a big one, actually…. George was in there quite heavily from the beginning.” Paul then started discussing a review of Sgt. Pepper that gave Martin a tremendous amount of credit for creating the album.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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Paul and Linda McCartney had one of the most famous celebrity realities ever, so it only makes sense that they fell in love with a song the night they met each other. Paul found the song very mysterious and thought it was inspired by the work of another famous composer. Here’s what he and Linda said about the song.According to the book Paul McCartney: Many years from now, Paul heard Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” for the first time the night he met Linda and was taken along with her songs. Paul said, “It was the first evening we had ever heard a record called ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ with words that felt the sea.” “The lyrics were all very weird and poetic and the subject was a famous Bach theme, but we didn’t know that. We just thought, ‘God, what an incredible record!’ It was like a marker record. It was a benchmark. “

Source: granthshala.com

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Paul McCartney is one of a variety of music stars set to appear on Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson, a new Apple TV+ docuseries that will premiere on July 30.

The six-part show will follow famed DJ and producer Ronson as he “uncovers the untold stories behind music creation and the lengths producers and creators are willing to go to find the perfect sound.” To do that, he’ll interview artists including McCartney, Foo Fighters‘ Dave Grohl, and Beastie Boys members Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond.

Each episode will end with Ronson debuting a new piece of original music, similar to the 2014 Foo Fighters docuseries Sonic Highways.

Other artists who’ll appear on Watch the Sound include Questlove, Charli XCX and King Princess.

McCartney previously collaborated with Ronson when he co-produced Sir Paul’s 2015 studio album, NEW.

Source: kticradio.com

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“Dear Prudence” is the instantly recognizable melody found on The Beatles‘ recording known as “The White Album.”

As the story goes, John Lennon wrote the tune for Prudence Farrow, sister of Mia Farrow.

Here’s the story behind Lennon’s inspiration, as well as what Prudence herself has said of the famous tribute to her.

In February 1968, The Beatles traveled to India to meet with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi “to cleanse their minds, bodies, and souls, contemplating the meaning of life at the feet of the Maharishi,” as Ringo Starr biographer Michael Seth Starr (no relation to the Beatle) wrote in Ringo: With a Little Help.

It was George Harrison’s commitment to the Maharishi’s teachings that had inspired in the band a desire for spiritual enlightenment. Thanks to The Beatles, perspectives in the West were changing towards Indian spirituality.

“The Maharishi, who was now billing himself as ‘The Beatles’ Guru,’ would enlighten them in the ways of Transcendental Meditation at his International Center for Meditation, a 14-acre compound surrounded by lush jungle and located in the mountains across the River Ganges details