Beatles News
As fans of The Beatles are aware, the beloved British group wasn't afraid to write about a plethora of topics, ranging from octopuses ("Octopus's Garden") to a fictitious band ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"). So it shouldn't be all that surprising that one of the songs off of 1968's White Album was based on singer and bassist Paul McCartney's dog, Martha.
During a 1968 interview with Radio Luxembourg, McCartney shared some insight into penning said tune, titled "Martha My Dear." He explained he didn't intend to write a song that focused on the Old English Sheepdog.
"You see, I just start singing some words with a tune, you know what I mean. I don't ever write a song thinking, 'Now I'll write a song about...' I do sometimes, but mainly I don't. Mainly I'm just doing a tune, and then some words come into my head, you know. And these happened to be 'Martha My Dear, though I spend my days in conversation.' It doesn't mean anything, you know, but those just happened to come to my head," said the famed musician, now 83.
He clarified that the song "is about [his] dog" and suggested that some listeners have thought otherwise.
"So you can read anything you like into it, but really it's just a song. It's me singing to my dog," said McCartney with a laugh in the 1968 interview.
Source: yahoo.com/Nicole Moore
While Ringo Starr is a familiar face to many as the drummer for The Beatles, not to mention his impressive solo music career, he also has some talented children who most people don't know much about. After getting married to his first wife, Maureen Cox, in 1965, the couple welcomed three children. First came sons Zak and Jason Starkey, with the couple's only daughter, Lee Starkey, born in 1970. Although she hasn't spent too much time in the public eye, based on what we've seen over the years, Lee has grown up to be a beautiful woman, looking like the perfect mix of her parents.
Despite having such a famous father, Lee has lived quite a private life. She occasionally attends events in support of Starr or stuff happening in the world of fashion and music in London, but isn't in the spotlight often. Even with so few photos of Lee, it's easy to see that she inherited her parents' good looks. Her intense eyes are just like her mother's, as is her rounder face shape. Meanwhile, her smile seems to be all Starr.
Lee wore her hair dark for most of her upbringing, taking on an edgier look that made her similarities to Starr and Cox more striking. At one point, she even experimented with pink hair. As an adult, Lee has taken to keeping her hair some shade of blond. Her brothers might basically be twins to Starr, but Lee looks more like a blend of their parents. In 2009, Lee also passed on her genes to her kids, Smokey, Jakamo, and Ruby (pictured above with Lee), who are three of eight grandchildren Starr has. Lee welcomed the triplets with ex-Kasabian and Beady Eye guitarist Jay Mehler.
Source: yahoo.com/Devon Forward
More than six decades after Beatlemania, Ringo Starr, 85, is still as busy as ever. One of the most beloved figures in rock music, the former Beatles drummer is still dazzling fans with his perfect rhythm and affable onstage personality. But Starr's recent tour stop in San Jose, California, left fans completely stunned by the icon's appearance.
"The dude looks 45," commented one fan on a social media post shared to TikTok of Starr's performance of the Beatles hit "I Wanna Be Your Man." Wearing white jeans and a star-themed jacket, with his hair long and his signature sunglasses in place, the famed drummer seems to defy his age with his timeless looks.
"He takes good care of himself," noted one commenter.
Another added, "No one ever told Ringo he was supposed to get old, and since it didn't occur to him naturally, he simply hasn't bothered."
Other fans attributed Starr's youthful energy and appearance to doing what he loves. Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band—including Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette, and Buck Johnson—wrapped up an early summer tour in which they performed a mix of Beatles classics, solo hits, and songs from fellow band members' catalogs.
Source: yahoo.com/Meredith Gordon
John Lennon believed that the important nuances about that relationship were lost in the public discourse, as an interview from 1975 shows.
George Martin was instrumental in transforming The Beatles into the global pop phenomenon they are known as today. For example, Rolling Stone wrote in 2016 that it was Martin who convinced Paul McCartney to "grab an acoustic guitar and just sing" what would become "Yesterday", when the band didn't know how to materialize the song that came to McCartney in a dream. He also introduced a string quartet to the band, Rolling Stone added.
In an interview with BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test, John Lennon argued that neither The Beatles nor George Martin were solely responsible for the band's magic. Both parties had their fill of work and benefited from each other's input (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):
"It's hard to describe the relationship. They either say 'Martin did everything,' or 'The Beatles did everything.' It was neither one. George had done little to no rock and roll when we met him, and we'd never been in the studio, so we did a lot of learning together."
"He had very great musical knowledge and a background, so he could translate for us and suggest a lot of things, which he did. He'd come up with amazing technical things like slowing down the piano and playing it slowly and putting it on and things like that, you know."
Source: Guitar World
Paul McCartney, like any passionate fan of the Beatles, finds it difficult to choose his favorite album from the iconic rock band.
The legendary musician, 83, is Willie Geist’s latest Sunday Sitdown guest. Together, the two discussed McCartney’s decades-long career in the music industry, both with the band and as a solo artist. During their chat, Willie asked McCartney if he could name one album in the band’s discography that represents the Beatles at their “best.”
“That’s always a very difficult question, you know?” McCartney replied. “My mind went to ‘Rubber Soul,’ because I think that was a change in what we’d been doing.”
He said the 1965 album, their sixth, was a little more “advanced.” But, of course, he couldn’t highlight just one album in the band’s extensive catalogue. “Then I’d have to say ‘Sgt. Pepper’ was, like, a crazy different experience,” he continued, referring to their 1967 album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
He had one more album to add that is many fans’ favorite. “And then I would probably finish up with ‘Abbey Road,’” he said.
McCartney, who released his 12th studio album, “The Boys of Dungeon Lane,” on May 29, still reflects on his time in the band and their monumental success. He recalled the Beatles making their American debut on the “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964.
Source: today.com/Ariana Brockington
The numbers increasingly add up for Ringo Starr, whose sold-out Friday night San Diego performance at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay was the second date on the 2026 spring tour by this two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and his six-man All-Starr Band.
Ringo Starr, with new San Diego and L.A. concerts set, talks candidly: ‘I’m giving away all the secrets here!’ he says
Their 21-song repertoire ranged from “Matchbox,” the Carl Perkins-penned 1956 rockabilly rave-up that opened the evening, to the concert-closing double-punch of The Beatles’ 1967 classic, “With a Little Help From My Friends,” and the sing-along chorus of John Lennon’s sadly still-timely 1969 anti-war anthem, “Give Peace a Chance.”
In between came an array of favorites from the songbooks of Starr and The Beatles, including “It Don’t Come Easy” and “I Wanna Be Your Man,” plus hits by Toto, Average White Band and Men At Work. Three of those bands’ key members — Toto guitarist-vocalist Steve Lukather, former Average White Bands bassist/singer Hamish Stewart and Men At Work singer-guitarist Colin Hay — are All-Starr Band veterans. Each clearly relishes still sharing the stage with a rock legend who, improbably, is now 85-going-on-just-17.
Starr was featured on drums or vocals (and sometimes both simultaneously) on all but one selection in the 103-minute concert. Still as boyishly slim as Mick Jagger, three years his junior, he was consistently compelling whether singing center stage or drumming in unison with Gregg Bissonette.
Source: sandiegouniontribune.com/George Varga
They were best friends since they were teenagers. Together they wrote some of the greatest songs the world has ever known. In 1971, they tried to destroy each other, one record at a time.
By the time Paul McCartney released Ram in May 1971, The Beatles had been done for just over a year. Those wounds were still very fresh. The lawyers had moved in and buried inside that new album was a line John Lennon just couldn't ignore.
"Too many people preaching practices / Don't let them tell you what you wanna be."
Those lyrics were a shot aimed directly at Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, at their protests, their activism and the whole new life they'd built together. The insult was subtle enough to deny, yet sharp enough to hurt.
Lennon wasn't in the mood to ignore it or let it go. "It starts off with 'too many people going underground. That was your first mistake. You took your lucky break and broke it in two,'" Lennon said later. "Now, if that doesn't mean what it says, I don't know what."
So Lennon sat down and wrote back his reply.
"How Do You Sleep?" came out swinging. Lennon was hurt and went after everything, calling McCartney's solo work "muzak," suggesting the only song he wrote worth remembering was “Yesterday”, questioning how anyone, especially a star of that caliber, could live with themselves after falling so far. With George Harrison on slide guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass and the cameras rolling, Lennon recorded one of the most brutal take down songs one musician has ever aimed at another.
Source: yahoo.com.Deborah Cruz
There was a time during the Beatles’ rise to fame that Paul McCartney thought he had found the one place he could roam without being spotted.
During an interview on The Zane Lowe Show to discuss his deeply nostalgic new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, the 83-year-old musician shared memories of navigating the early days of Beatlemania alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. When looking back at that “very intense period of time” in the Sixties when the band shot to the top of the charts worldwide, Lowe asked McCartney how he managed to “remain relatable” and enjoy his life under the spotlight.
“I remember once in the early days of the Beatles, we were kind of recognized most places, but me and Ringo went on holiday with our girlfriends then to Greece and nobody knew us,” McCartney said, recalling thinking at the time: “This is great. Wow, we must come back here more often. Even when we get really famous, we can always come to Greece and they’re never going to know us.” He added, “But, of course, that didn’t work.” Soon, their music — and faces — reached Greece and beyond.
“I realized, ‘Oh, I’m going to be famous all my life, if I’m lucky,’ I thought, ‘Okay, big decision time.’ Now, you either stop and you just sort of think that was lovely. I had a great time with the music, and you do something else more anonymous or you carry on,” McCartney said. To handle the Beatles’ inescapable celebrity, the musician developed a “strategy.”
McCartney credited his family in Liverpool and being able to stay grounded thanks to the lessons they taught him growing up. “They are the kind of people who put people at ease,” he said, adding that he learned how to do the same by being around them.
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The Boys of Dungeon Lane released on Friday and Rolling Stone praised the record as MCartney’s latest “solo masterpiece.” “Overall, there’s the sense of a legend looking back on a life well spent,” Simon Vozick-Levinson writes in his review of the record. “This isn’t necessarily a new theme for McCartney, who’s been singing about what he once called his ever-present past for years now.” He adds: “the autumnal vibe is more pronounced than ever.
Source: rollingstone.com/Charisma Madarang
Fans of The Beatles may be aware of George Harrison's solo career, in which he quickly established himself as a successful artist in his own right. Shortly before and following the iconic group's breakup, the musician released a whopping 12 albums under his own name, with many of them enjoying critical acclaim, even more than five decades later.
In 1970, the Beatles' lead guitarist released All Things Must Pass, his third solo album and the first after the breakup of the legendary Liverpool four-piece. The record featured "My Sweet Lord," a song that has now taken the top spot on Grunge's list as the biggest No. 1 hit of 1970.
The track is arguably Harrison's most famous song after it left him in the middle of a huge music scandal that has gone down in history. In 1971, less than a year after the release of "My Sweet Lord," Harrison was accused of plagiarizing The Chiffons' 1963 song "He's So Fine."
Bright Tunes Music, the owners of "He's So Fine," sued the former member of The Fab Four, and the legal battle was dragged out for decades after his former manager, Allen Klein, purchased Bright Tunes and subsequently became the one to be suing his previous client.
Source: yahoo.com/Emma Kershaw
It’s incredible to think that just six and a half years after the Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, had peaked at a modest 17 in the UK chart, the band that went on to shake the foundations of popular culture were trying to find the right words to say goodbye.
The Fab Four’s final year had kicked off in a flurry of activity, with the writing and recording of the Let it Be LP documented in real-time by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, throughout January 1969.
Beginning at Twickenham Studios before relocating to the Apple Corps studios at 3 Savile Row, the events of that frosty month would become the stuff of legend.
Although intended to be a quite innovative, fly-on-the-wall insight into the songwriting process of the world’s favourite band, which would culminate in a triumphant return to the stage, Lindsay-Hogg’s final edit of the film depicted the Beatles as a band fast running out of road. Their slow demise was seemingly inevitable, or so the footage that made up the spirit-crushing 1970 docu-movie, Let it Be, suggested.
But once the rushes and archive material were finally exhumed, examined and polished-up to produce Peter Jackson’s expansive, eight-hour labour of love, Get Back in 2021, it was clear the unbearable atmosphere of animosity had been heavily overstated.
The established perception of non-stop bickering through that timeframe was pretty wide of the mark. However, it wasn't all smiles and japes either. Yes, the signs of the band’s inevitable dissolution were absolutely there, but the tension was counter-balanced by an obvious mutual respect, which the original film omitted.
Source: musicradar.com/Andy Price
