Beatles News

By the late 1960s, George Harrison had come to a realization: He could match the songwriting efforts of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Beatles fans probably started to see that around the days of Revolver (1966). By the time Abbey Road (1969) went out, there was no denying it.

“I could see everybody’s a Lennon/McCartney if that’s what you wanna be,” George said in early 1970. “But the point is nobody’s special. If Lennon/McCartney are special, then Harrison and Starkey are special, too. What I’m saying is that I can be Lennon/McCartney too.”

With “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” George no longer needed to prove his case. And indeed he’d learned some tricks from John and Paul. One such trick was starting with someone else’s line to get a song’s lyrics going.

Just as John had done with an Elvis Presley line on “Run For Your Life,” so George did with a James Taylor line at the start of “Something.” And he also ran with one of John’s lyrics to start “Here Comes the Sun.”

Source: cheatsheet.com

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 “Let It Be Christmas” returns to Naperville’s Community Christian Church with nine performances in December. The rock opera tells the story of Jesus’ birth through the music of The Beatles. (Jennifer Pedley)

For 12 years, a Naperville church has presented the story of Christmas set to the songs of The Beatles. The result is “Let It Be Christmas (The Gospel According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George and Ringo).”

“Let It Be Christmas” returns with nine performances at Community Christian Church in Naperville, presented by Epic Theatre Company. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6-7, Dec. 13-14 and Dec. 20 and 3 p.m. Dec. 7, Dec. 14 and Dec. 21; and 11 a.m. Dec. 21.

The cast consists of 80 local children and adults. Epic is associated with the church.

“It’s grown quite a bit. It’s been quite the evolution,” said Elic Bramlett, director of “Let It Be Christmas.”

How did they come up with the idea?

“Well, like all good ideas, we stole it from someone,” he laughed. “It helps that it is a good friend that we stole it from.”

Source: Annie Alleman/chicagotribune.com< details

When we look back at The Beatles’ career, it’s only natural that we trace their progress through the groundbreaking albums they made between 1963 and 1969. But that only tells part of the story. The Beatles may have helped shift the focus from singles to long-playing albums, but at the start of their career they were, first and foremost, a band that made phenomenal singles, many of which didn’t actually appear on their albums. With pop music still primarily a singles market in the mid-60s, The Beatles’ singles, then, offer something of a parallel discography: a different lens through which to trace their artistic trajectory.
1962: ‘Love Me Do’

The group had actually recorded a single even before signing with Parlophone. Credited as The Beat Brothers, John, Paul, George and Pete Best backed the English singer Tony Sheridan on a rocked-up version of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’, which was released on Polydor in West Germany. It was a customer’s request for that recording that led to Liverpool record-shop owner Brian Epstein tracking down and eventually managing The Beatles.

Source: udiscovermusic.com

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Ringo Starr is regarded as talentless by some fans of the Beatles. Others simply feel he didn’t have as much talent as the other three members of the band. Many Beatles fans might be surprised to know that Ringo did not play the drums on the group’s first hit, “Love Me Do.” Here’s why.

Despite what others have said about Ringo, the other Beatles were in awe of his talent. According to The Spectator, Paul McCartney has positive memories of the first time he saw Ringo drumming.

“This was, like, a grown-up musician. I remember the moment, standing there and looking at John and then looking at George, and the look on our faces was like …what is this?” he said. “And that was the moment, that was the beginning, really, of the Beatles.”

Although Paul said the Beatles weren’t really the Beatles until Ringo joined the band, the group’s producer, George Martin, felt differently. He didn’t like the sound Ringo brought the band’s recordings.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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Next month marks the 39th anniversary of John Lennon’s death at the hands of gunman Mark David Chapman outside the historic Dakota apartment building in New York City. Lennon fans will be eager to watch Killing John Lennon, “a dramatic psychoanalysis and step-by-step breakdown of the lead-up to one of the most infamous assassinations in history,” said Thomas Gould, Flame’s VP, Content Sales, Worldwide Transport. “The one-hour biographical documentary also explores the life of John Lennon leading up to his murder, when he broke up with The Beatles to pursue a solo career … and as a political activist alongside his wife Yoko Ono in New York city.”

Food, art and design buffs will surely appreciate Flame’s new eight-part series, A Long Weekend in…With Rory O’Connell. A world-renowned chef and food writer, O’Connell takes viewers on a whirlwind tour of art, culture, architecture during his culinary adventures in cities like Copenhagen, Vienna and Lisbon.

Source: apex.aero

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Elton John has opened up about how former Beatles guitarist George Harrison helped him during his long battle with drug addiction.

Speaking to Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio Breakfast show, the 72-year-old recalled how Harrison helped him when he was at the peak of his addiction. something he discussed in his recent memoir ‘Me’. The book sees Elton recalling the time he hijacked a Rolling Stones show while high on cocaine, as well as the moment when he mistook Bob Dylan for his gardener while high – describing him as “scruffy”.

Evans asked Elton what the “best piece of advice” was that Harrison gave him. “Stop putting that marching powder up your nose,” John laughed, before celebrating his 29 year sobriety with Evans. “Twenty-nine-years it’s been. The nose is still here!”

Elton also went on to give some advice to young musicians starting out now on the show. “You’ve got to play live…If you want to have a career, record sales will go up and down and people are so fickle,” Elton advised. He continued: “Now, when you’re young, they’ll drop you like a five-pound note on the floor and you’ details

The Beatles legend, Paul McCartney recently spoke to Billboard about a bunch of issues. Here, the iconic co-founder of the ‘Fab Four’ discussed the purchase of the current holding company, MPL, which McCartney bought back in the late sixties was an answer to not owning his own body of work with the Beatles. In addition, McCartney discusses how much equity he was given for his company, along with John Lennon. Paul McCartney just revealed what he ‘stole’ from Bono.

I think so. John and I felt screwed out of our rightful recompense. With our original agreement with Dick James, Dick went to us and said, “You can have your own company.” And we were young boys — we were young and foolish, but we were beautiful! And we said, “Wow, great.” So he gave us our own company, Northern Songs, which was 49% us, 51% him, which gave him voting control. Later, we went to him a couple of times and said, “Dick, now that we’ve done all this stuff, can we have a raise?” And he basically said, “I’m sorry, I can’t — you’re under contract.” I now know he could’ve just said, “I’ll give you a new contract.” So when I details

If you live in Arkansas, you know about Central High School, you know about the Little Rock Nine, and you know what happened in September of 1957.

But what you may not know – is the impact that moment had around the world.

"I think many Arkansans don't realize just how wide an impact the school crisis made. It was international headlines in every country around the world and reverberated across the globe," said Dr. John Kirk, a Professor of History at U-A Little Rock.

Kirk's an expert on the civil rights movement, with a focus on Little Rock's place in it. But, he's not the only person from the United Kingdom with an interest in Arkansas history.

In 2016, Sir Paul McCartney took the stage at Verizon Arena and shared his connection with our state's past. He told the crowd that the civil rights struggle in the U.S, specifically the Little Rock Nine, inspired one of the Beatles' biggest hits.

Source: JD Roberts, Ashley King/thv11.com

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When The Beatles were in the studio, Paul McCartney was most often the one driving everyone nuts during the recording process. That was certainly the case with “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” the Abbey Road track the other Beatles came to despise.

Paul’s obsession with getting a recording just right was the thing that got under his bandmates’ skin. During the White Album sessions, his endless tweaking of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” annoyed everyone involved — even the typically unflappable George Martin.

By most accounts, John Lennon had a different approach in the studio. John could be downright impatient when it came to recording his songs. In one case, he was willing to accept a Ringo drum part he disliked simply to move the process along. (Ringo later fixed it on his own.)

But John claimed the band (led by Paul) took a different tack when recording his tunes. He described an “atmosphere of casualness” he never noticed while recording Paul’s songs. And he said Paul “subconsciously tried to destroy” some of his greatest work.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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The catalogue of The Beatles is undoubtedly one of the most impressive in musical history. But what were John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr’s favourite Beatles album?

As a single unit under the moniker of The Beatles, the four individuals may have at times moved as one but in truth, their individualism would often lead them down different paths. The personalities of The Beatles are part of what endeared them to so many hearts across the world during their explosion in the swinging sixties.

While some of that was down to the marketing of George Martin, it was certainly true that their different tastes and talents were an organic evolution of not only the band but the members as people in their own right.

This led to a beautiful tapestry of all four members’ songwriting expertise. Lennon and McCartney will always be remembered as the principal songwriters in the band but Harrison and Starr’s contribution can not be underestimated.

Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk

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When The Beatles came back from India in spring of 1968, they had written so many songs they couldn’t fit them on one album. So they did something they’d never done before: They recorded a double album. Though they released it as a self-titled record, it became known as The White Album.

That opened up some space for George Harrison. As recently as Sgt. Pepper’s (1967), the Fab Four had released albums that only featured one song by George. On The White Album, George had four songs he wrote and sang the lead vocal on.

And he had more ready to go that didn’t make the cut. The list included “Not Guilty,” which he released on his own 1979 album, and “Sour Milk Sea” which he gave to Jackie Lomax to record.

Of the four that went out on the album, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” ranks high on the list of George’s best songs. But the stirring “Long, Long, Long” wasn’t far behind. That track was a special kind of love song for The Beatles.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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Adopting Asher’s alphabetical format, here are some delightful — and less-than-delightful — takeaways from Asher’s book. (Space limitations kept me from including the full alphabet.)

A: A is for Abbey Road Studios. It was originally known as EMI Recording Studios and was inaugurated by Sir Edward Elgar, England’s famous classical composer who wrote that school graduation grind, “Pomp and Circumstance.” A is also for allusions. In James Taylor’s son details

Millennials can put Boomers down all they want, but I’m damned okay with the fact that I got to experience the undisputed best band ever changing  the world in real time. And all these years later, they’re still blowing our minds. I almost cried when the first remixed notes of “Come Together” poured from my pre-MP3 stereo, simultaneously remembering the joy that original Abbey Road produced from the moment I got it in my seventh-grade hands and feeling the losses that still ache — of the Beatles, of John and George, of youth’s dreams. 

But this edition, judiciously remixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, instantly reignited that joy. Throughout, the vocals and instruments just pop more vividly (and Billy Preston is fully heard at last), without disturbing the perfection of the Beatles’ last — and finest — masterpiece. And the add-ons are next-level. Too often, bonus content is underwhelming, but not here. The demos and alternate takes are incredible versions in their own right, often just as extraordinary as the chosen ones. And while several have appeared on the Anthology collection or elsewhere, they’re in full context here, enhance details

If you liked hearing The Beatles reference past songs in their work, 1968 was a very good year. The releases kicked off in March with Paul McCartney’s “Lady Madonna,” in which listeners got the chorus, “See how they run.”

That repeated a line from “I Am the Walrus,” the John Lennon masterpiece from a year earlier. But many more references would follow on the White Album (released later in ’68). On “Savoy Truffle,” George Harrison called out “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” from earlier in the recording sessions.

But John would outdo everyone with his laundry list of references on “Glass Onion.” Keeping the chain alive, he referenced both “Lady Madonna” and “I Am the Walrus” in the track while adding nods to songs from Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour.

The intent was to address the Beatles fans who were going overboard with interpretations of every word and sound on Fab Four recordings. And, even by John’s standards, “Glass Onion” was a mischievous bit of work.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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If you read about John Lennon’s songwriting methods, you realize he got ideas from everywhere. For what became his least favorite Beatles song, John used a line from an Elvis hit as a jumping-off-point on “Run For Your Life.”

In the Fab Four’s psychedelic days, John said he used a drawing his son Julian wrote as the inspiration for “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” And on his Sgt. Pepper masterpiece “A Day in the Life,” the song started just as John described. (He “read the news today, oh boy.”)

Starting in 1968, you hear the influence of Yoko Ono on his Beatles work. Whether it’s John’s turn toward experimental music or the lyrics to “Yer Blues,” it’s clear Yoko’s input had affected his writing.

It wasn’t just conscious songwriting efforts. Even relaxing on a couch while listening to Yoko play classical piano could inspire a song. And that very thing happened with this Abbey Road track.

Source: cheatsheet.com

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