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Beatles News
Fifty years back, on January 30, 1969, George Harrison stepped on to the roof of his group's Apple headquarters in London and plugged in a Fender Telecaster. Famously, it would be The Beatles' last ever public performance. Not quite so famously, his guitar was an unusual model, a new Rosewood Telecaster that he'd recently received from Fender.
In fact, it was the fourth Fender guitar that The Beatles had acquired. During their early years, the group hadn't owned any Fenders, although George had written to a friend in 1960 that the guitar he "might manage" was a Strat. Instead, he decided to indulge his passion for Gretsch guitars—the brand used by one of his six-string heroes, Chet Atkins—and bought a secondhand Duo Jet, and, later, a couple of Country Gents and a Tennessean. The Beatles - "Don't Let Me Down," live on the Apple rooftop.
But George didn't have to wait too long to get his Fender: in 1965, he and John Lennon each acquired a secondhand Strat for studio use. Two years later, Paul McCartney bought an Esquire. Paul was becoming increasingly confident with six rather than four strings. After all, he'd started in the group as a guitarist. He soon put the new Esquire to good use, for exa details
Eric Clapton has revisited a track on which he featured from his friend George Harrison’s classic All Things Must Pass album. Clapton collaborates on Sheryl Crow’s new version of the enduring ‘Beware Of Darkness’ from her upcoming, all-star Threads album. The new interpretation also features in-demand Grammy-winner Brandi Carlile, who as reported is also the co-producer of the upcoming album by country star Tanya Tucker.
Threads features several other tracks that have been unveiled in recent weeks, including the most recent, ‘Still The Good Old Days,’ featuring Joe Walsh. In addition to other notables whose involvement we’ve already observed, such as Keith Richards, Vince Gill, St. Vincent and Maren Morris, the album will include contributions from James Taylor, Kris Kristofferson, Chuck D, Gary Clark Jr and Andra Day.
Source: By Paul Sexton/udiscovermusic.com
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After the Beatles’ breakup, fans learned in detail how much John Lennon resented Paul McCartney (and vice versa). In an interview with Rolling Stone, John skewered his old bandmate, describing his first album as “rubbish” and otherwise treating him with condescension.
But those were the ugly days of the early ’70s. At the start of the ’60s, the pair were incredibly tight. They hung out together, wrote hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand” side-by-side, and generally behaved like brothers toward one another.
After John’s son Julian was born in ’63, Paul became (in John’s words) “like an uncle to him.” Even as their relationship began to deteriorate in the late ’60s, the old songwriting duo didn’t lose that connection. Paul helping John record “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in ’69 offers a great example.
Source: cheatsheet.com
detailsIn an exclusive Screen Rant interview, Yesterday director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis discuss why Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr don’t have cameos. The British romantic comedy features an alternate universe where The Beatles never existed, allowing the protagonist to become famous by performing the band’s catalog of hits.
Yesterday stars Himish Patel as Jack Malik, a Suffolk musician who struggles to pay the bills. He receives support from long-time friend and manager Ellie Appleton (Lily James), whose primary job is teaching children. After an international power outage, a near-tragedy leaves Jack in the hospital and he soon learns that McCartney, Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon never became famous as The Beatles. Incidentally, Jack creates a master plan to perform The Beatles’ music and takes full credit as the creative genius behind the work. Produced for $26 million, Yesterday has earned just over $6 million at the box office since releasing on June 28 in the United Kingdom, and includes supporting performances from Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live), Lam details
I was more than halfway through a recent “London Rocks” tour—a jaunt which promises to lead its customers through the landmarks of British popular music—when I noticed that our guide had pointed out many more things that no longer exist than ones that still do. We’d peaked through the windows of the former Musicland record shop where a young Elton John worked in the late ’60s (now, it’s a store that sells pricey wedding gowns). We strolled the alley where Marianne Faithfull languished as a homeless heroin addict in the mid-’70s (currently, it’s headquarters to the Good Housekeeping Institute), then breezed by the studio where Queen recorded key parts of “Bohemian Rhapsody” (a locale since privatized into a $10 million single family home), before gazing at the vestigial entrance to the Marquee Club, where everyone from Hendrix to the Sex Pistols wailed. (It’s now—what else?—luxury lofts).
Source: Jim Farber/thedailybeast.com
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The Beatles icon Paul McCartney recently performed in Phoenix, and he called out the audience for becoming a ‘black hole’ when he performs new material off his latest album Egypt Station. Paul McCartney’s official website recently made a surprising Greta Van Fleet claim.
He said after performing “Lady Madonna” and “Eleanor Rigby” that fans are far kinder when he plays old classics.
“One thing is, we know which songs you like,” he said. “Because what happens is when we do an old Beatles song? The place lights up with your phones. And it’s like a galaxy of stars. And then when we do a new one, it’s like a black hole. But we don’t care. We’re gonna do ’em anyway.”
McCartney and his band then performed “Fuh You” which led to the ‘black hole.’
Source: Brett Buchanan/alternativenation.net
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Danny Boyle’s film Yesterday asks a provocative question – how would the world be different if the Beatles had never existed for anyone else around you? Would playing them these songs elicit the same emotional response these tunes have had for decades, or would they be considered merely a bunch of twee melodies suitable for background enjoyment? Thankfully we don’t have to live the nightmare scenario of a world without these songs from Macca, Johnny, George and Ringo, graced with music that’s been the world’s shared soundtrack since the early 1960s.
Yesterday has some strong cover versions of the Fab’s tunes, with the performance of these “lost” songs central to Richard Curtis’ screenplay. Many other films have used reinterpretations of Beatles tunes in various ways, providing through reinterpretation a different look at what these songs fundamentally represent, using these themes and variation to celebrate the classical canon of Western pop music while making the works unique.
Source: Jason Gorber/slashfilm.com
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A few years ago, director Danny Boyle sat at his desk and wrote several letters by hand. One he sent to Paul McCartney, another to Ringo Starr. The final two missives wended their way to Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, widows of John Lennon and George Harrison respectively.
Boyle was a huge Beatles fan. But that wasn’t his motive for putting pen to paper. He and Richard Curtis, the romantic comedy doyen behind Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, were in the early stages of collaborating on what would eventually become the film Yesterday.
The movie is a love letter to the songs of John, Paul, Ringo and George. It asks us to imagine a world in which just one person – portrayed by former EastEnders actor Himesh Patel – remembers their music (with gooey, cheek-dampening results).
Source: Ed Power/telegraph.co.uk
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It’s a film about stealing The Beatles’ songs, so it’s not surprising moviegoers are asking if the surviving members of the band show up in “Yesterday.” Sadly, it doesn’t look like Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr play themselves in the film. They are, however, definitely aware of the movie.
“Yesterday” follows a struggling singer-songwriter (Himesh Patel) who wakes up and discovers that he is seemingly the only one who remembers The Beatles. By passing off their hits as his own, his career skyrockets.
While there’s a chance for a surprise in the movie, McCartney and Starr are nowhere to be found in the official cast credits. However, Ringo is listed as an uncredited role on IMDb, played by David Lautman. If they appear, it doesn’t look like the real men will play themselves.
The Beatles are very much aware of the movie, though. “Yesterday” director Danny Boyle was worried about upsetting the men and the widows of George Harrison and John Lennon. He wrote them letters to tell them his plan.
Source: Nicole Massabrook /ibtimes.com
Yellow Submarine, a 1968 animated feature in which cartoon versions of The Beatles help the kindly citizens of Pepperland resist the authoritarian, fun-hating Blue Meanies. Based (very loosely) on a cheery, kid-friendly, sea shanty-like song that was originally released on the band’s 1966 album Revolver, the movie was the group’s third theatrical release, following the huge hits A Hard Day’s Night and Help! (The Beatles also starred in an hourlong 1967 TV special, Magical Mystery Tour.) Like those earlier films, Yellow Submarine is loaded with catchy music and absurdist humor, and it imagines band members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr as fictional characters on a mission to make a drab world more entertaining.
Source: Noel Murray/theverge.com
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If you like a heavy dose of drama with your classic rock, then the late period of The Beatles has it all for you. Before the breakup, there were near-fistfights between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and an actual scuffle between John and George Harrison.
By 1969, you had George quitting the band during the Let It Be sessions, John saying he was leaving for good, and Paul falling into a deep depression. Indeed, there was enough drama to fill hundreds of books, and writers have been on the job ever since.
Yet before the arrival of Yoko Ono on the scene in ’68, you could argue the band mostly avoided drama having to do with women. To that point, John had been married to his first wife Cynthia; Ringo married his first wife Maureen in 1965; and George also tied the knot (with model Pattie Boyd) in ’66.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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One of the problems about introducing your kids to the Beatles is assuming that the very obviously “kid-friendly” songs are the ones you should listen to. And while I admit that many children do love “Yellow Submarine,” or “Octopus’s Garden,” or “All Together Now,” let’s face facts. These songs are not cool, and by no means represent why the Beatles are dead-ass one of the coolest rock bands of all time. In other words, those three songs are kind of dopey. (You can throw in “Good Morning, Good Morning” and “Goodnight” while you’re at it.) If you’re going to listen to the Beatles with your kids, why don’t you actually listen to the Beatles, and not just the songs you think are kid-friendly?
With that in mind here are twelve great Beatles songs that I have tested out on my two-year-old with a vinyl turntable. “All You Need is Love” is not on this list, because that’s not the kind of list we’re dealing with here. These are songs that will make your kid move-and-groove and will remind you why the Beatles aren’t just “brilliant,” but more importantly, why they rock.
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It’s a notion that would leave Beatles fans Here, There and Everywhere crying out for Help!
A world without the transcendent songs of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr seems almost impossible to imagine more than 50 years after the Fab Four changed music forever.
But that’s the concept explored in “Yesterday,” a new movie where everybody except one man forgets about The Beatles.
“In reality, if they didn’t exist, the world would be an infinitely more different place, and it’s hard to really unravel that thread,” star Himesh Patel, 28, told the Daily News. “The aim of the movie is to use this conceit of them disappearing to kind of conversely celebrate how amazing their music is and how important it is in terms of its love. How the message of so many of the songs is love and friendship and celebration of what’s best in people.”
Source: MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO/gazettenet.com
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As The Beatles began experimenting with drugs in the second half of the 1960s, John Lennon and George Harrison formed a closer bond than they’d had in the past. They were both open to trying LSD, and you can hear the impact of the psychedelic drug on their music of the period.
By the time Yoko Ono entered the picture and recording for The White Album began in ’68, they had drifted apart considerably. On top of the strain Yoko’s presence had on relationships between the band members, George resented John’s lack of respect for his improving songwriting abilities.
The following January (’69), the tensions led to what producer George Martin described as a fistfight between John and George during the Let It Be sessions. However, by early 1970, they had joined Ringo in an alliance against Paul McCartney.
After the Beatles breakup, John and George remained friends and recorded together on John’s Imagine album. But their friendship fell apart as the ’70s dragged on. When John died, the two old friends from Liverpool were on bad terms.
Source: cheatsheet.com
‘I always used to joke that I ruined Linda’s career,” says Paul McCartney, sitting on a sofa in his office in Soho, London, with a selection of his late wife’s photographs spread on the table before him. “She became known as ‘Paul’s wife’, instead of the focus being on her photography. But, as time went on, people started to realise that she was the real thing. So, yeah, she eventually did get the correct reputation, but at first it was just blown out of the water by the headline-grabbing marriage.”
He has a point. Before she met and married him, in March 1969, Linda Eastman was an award-winning photographer. Born in 1941 and raised in a suburb of New York, she had studied under Hazel Archer – who taught the artist Robert Rauschenberg, among others – and was the first woman to shoot a Rolling Stone cover, featuring Eric Clapton. Her speciality was capturing pop stars in unguarded moments: a tearful Aretha Franklin; Jimi Hendrix mid-yawn; Janis Joplin backstage, her bottle of Southern Comfort already drained. But marriage to a Beatle tended to overshadow your own work and reputation, as Yoko Ono discovered.
Source: Alexis Petridis/theguardian.com details