Beatles News

Paul McCartney has fired a loyal caretaker from his Scottish estate after twenty years of service. Jimmy Paterson is said to be shocked at being given three months notice by the musician to vacate the High Park Farm on the Mull of Kintyre, where he is the live-in caretaker.

It is believed estate manager Bobby Cairns, 52, who lives in nearby Campbeltown, has also been let go after 35 years. A source close to Jimmy, 50, told The Sun newspaper: "They are very upset. They have been loyal servants to Paul and did the whole vegetarianism thing with no killing on the farm. They stuck to his principles so it seems quite harsh to dump them now."

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John Lennon’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was defaced with graffiti and other markings over the weekend, just days before what would have been his 73rd birthday on Wednesday.

Vandals scrawled messages, drew a smiley face and added other scribbling over the star on Vine Street near the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood. The Beatles’ group star and the individual stars for the other members of the group were not damaged. Peace activist Jerry Rubin, who spearheads an annual celebration at Lennon’s star on the musician's birthday, said Monday that “the special annual public birthday celebration for John Lennon will take place as enthusiastically as ever” this year.

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Please Please Me, With the Beatles and Beatles for Sale return to Liverpool after being sent from Crease's Music Store 50 years ago. A Beatles fan from across the Atlantic donated her prized collection of Fab Four records to Liverpool on her first ever visit to the city.

Vicky Mary, who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, was 13 years old when Beatlemania swept the US in the 1960s. As a teenager she was so obsessed with John, Paul, George and Ringo she ordered their first three LPs from Crease’s Music Store on County Road. But Vicky, who paid for the records by bankers draft from more than 3,500 hours away, had never been to the home city of her idols. Now, after decades enjoying the sounds of Liverpool, she has been able to take in its sights, after tourist board Marketing Liverpool arranged for her to be flown over.

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Source: Liverpool Echo

The Fifth Beatle, the upcoming Brian Epstein biopic, will include songs from the Beatles' catalog—the first time a dramatization about the Fab Four has done so. The film, set for release sometime in 2014, follows the private life of the band's manager, who accidentally overdosed in 1967.

Epstein, a closeted gay businessman, is largely credited with bringing the band to the public's attention. He heard the band during his lunch break at the Cavern Club and pursued a record deal with EMI after getting the boys to take him on as manager. Producer Bruce Cohen (American Beauty, Silver Linings Playbook) has closed a deal to board the film, according to a report from Deadline. The title of The Fifth Beatle comes from a phrase Paul McCartney used to refer to Epstein/

Source: RTT News

Thirty-three years ago, when he was writing the mournful epilogue to the book that still stands as a benchmark, Philip Norman tried to communicate how it felt: a world after the Beatles. He pictured a widow in a lofty apartment on Fifth Avenue, myriad lawyers and accountants mired in wrangling over the band’s money, and a still-beautiful barmaid in Hamburg, tired of the old questions (“Did you really invent the Beatle cut?”).

And in Pinner, Middlesex, there was “a serious young man of 22” who sat alone in his room with his Beatles bootleg recordings, hour after hour, picking up the mutterings and whispers that echoed from the long-gone Sixties. His name was Mark Lewisohn. The wheel comes full circle and little has changed. A publishing boom has kept pace with the band’s popularity over the decades, and this autumn will see the spotlight fall on Beatles Solo: The Illustrated Chronicles Of John, Paul, George, And Ringo After The Beatles by Mat Snow and The Beatles In America by Spencer Leigh, as well as biographies of George Harrison and Paul details

An upcoming book about George Harrison's life will reveal darker secrets about the late Beatles guitarist, including rifts with Paul McCartney and how being in the band nearly sent him spiralling into a nervous breakdown.

Graeme Thomson, author of George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door, spoke those who knew Harrison best, including ex-wife Pattie Boyd and close friend Roger McGuinn of The Byrds. Glyn Johns, who produced the band's final album Let It Be, revealed Harrison wanted to quit the band during the recording after rows with bandmate Paul McCartney. "It was very uncomfortable," said Johns in The Daily Mail. "To watch this begin and be there in the immediate aftermath was very unpleasant."

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LIFE magazine photographer Bill Eppridge, who chronicled The Beatles arrival in the U.S. and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, died on Wednesday at a Danbury, Conn., hospital. He was 75.

Eppridge of New Milford, Conn., had been in the intensive care unit at Danbury Hospital for several weeks suffering from a blood infection that was the result of a fall where he injured his hand, according to the his hand, according to the National Press Photographers Association. Eppridge's work was showcased in an >exhibit at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield earlier this year. At the time of his death, Eppridge was putting the final touches on a book recalling his days with The Beatles in February 1964.Speaking with The Republican in March, Eppridge said he was a contract photographer for LIFE magazine when he was assigned to cover The Beatles’ arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Feb. 7, 1964.

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As Sir Paul McCartney prepares to release his first solo album in six years he tells of how his happiness with his wife Nancy Shevell has inspired his writing, how he struggles not to repeat the past and how his wedding DJ ended up as a producer on the album New.Is New a joyful album?

This is a happy period in my life, having a new woman - so you get new songs when you get a new woman. But in actual fact there is a lot of sadness mixed in on the record - the more you listen to it you'll find pain getting changed to laughter - there is quite an undercurrent of that. But generally I'm having a good time so I hope that's made it onto the record

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An investigation is under way into why £2m of Merseyside taxpayers’ money was spent on Beatles memorabilia that turned out to be worth only £300,000.

The ECHO can reveal that items, including a pair of John Lennon’s glasses and George Harrison’s first guitar, bought by Merseytravel in 2008, have been revalued and found to be worth only £300,000 – £1.7m less than the original valuation. And the ECHO has learned that lawyers for the passenger transport authority – which bought The Beatles Story museum in the Capital of Culture year – had raised concerns over the valuation at the time.

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Sir Paul McCartney has revealed that he has been urged to collaborate with Thom Yorke. The music icon's daughter Stella McCartney is said to have advised him to work with the Radiohead frontman, but he is concerned that he may refuse the offer.

Speaking to NME , he said: ''My daughter Stella is very keen. She's got a project, she keeps saying to me, 'Ring Thom and just go into the studio and just see what you come out with'. ''I'm a bit sort of paranoid to just ring him up. 'Hey Thom, it's Paul here. What do you fancy, what are you doing? Do you fancy writing something?' Just in case he says, 'Er, actually I'm busy'.'' Paul also named Bob Dylan as a possible collaborator in the future, but admitted that John Lennon will always be his top songwriting partner.