Beatles News
Creative collaboration isn’t easy, especially on a professional level. There’s a lot more to it than compatibility or friendship. There are deadlines and conflicting opinions. It’s rarely as simple as a mutual agreement to make a great album. One of the most iconic collaborations in music history is that of George Martin and the Beatles. While the band members credited Martin with complementing their wild ideas with his vast knowledge of music theory, their relationship wasn’t smooth sailing all the time.
There was one song in particular that hurt Martin in the process. Though it was ultimately due to a time constraint, this snub from the Beatles broke Martin’s heart.
The Beatles have been more than complimentary of Martin over the years. They have repeatedly acknowledged his influence on their careers and have mourned him in the years since his passing.
“He had a very great musical knowledge and background,” John Lennon once said of Martin. “He taught us a lot, and I’m sure we taught him a lot through our sort of primitive musical ability.” “She’s Leaving Home”
Despite their love for Martin, their relationship wasn’t flawless. During the making of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles were becoming far more self-sufficient and thus made some decisions that didn’t keep Martin at the helm. One song on the album, “She’s Leaving Home”, was a particularly sore spot for Martin.
“At that time, I was still having to record all my other artists,” Martin once said. “One day, Paul rang me to say: ‘I’ve got a song I want you to work with me on. Can you come round tomorrow afternoon? I want to get it done quickly. We’ll book an orchestra, and you can score it.’ ‘I can’t tomorrow, Paul. I’m recording Cilla at two-thirty.’ […] ‘All right, then,’ he said, and that ended the conversation.”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
Yoko Ono will stage her first solo museum exhibition in Southern California at the Broad museum this spring. The legendary 92-year-old artist, activist and wife of John Lennon is set to open her show, “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” on May 23. The interactive exhibition, organized in collaboration with Tate Modern in London, will run through Oct. 11, 2026, the Broad announced Thursday.
One of the first things guests will see when they approach the museum during Ono’s show will be an outdoor installation created using the Broad’s olive trees from its outdoor plaza. These will be transformed into “wish trees” for the city — a nod to an installation that Ono first created in 1996 at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica. Viewers will be invited to write wishes on tags and attach them to the branches.
“Yoko’s work has never been bound by place or time, but this really feels like the right moment for a show like this in Los Angeles,” Ono’s studio director, Connor Monahan, wrote in an email. “Her work transforms audiences from observers into participants, helping to shape the works and the exhibition itself. That sense of agency and connection feels especially powerful right now, and I think Los Angeles, with its spirit of experimentation and openness, will really embrace that.”
Ono has been a riveting, beloved and sometimes controversial force in the worlds of music, art and pop culture since the early 1960s when she became associated with New York’s John Cage-inspired Fluxus movement — formed by a community of experimental artists who based their work in performance practice and avant-garde principles.
Source: Jessica Gelt/latimes.com
A compilation album of unreleased materials by The Beatles faced strong objections from the surviving band members.
Paul McCartney suggested the project should not be released while George Harrison and John Lennon‘s estate called on the compilation to be scrapped entirely. Sessions, the proposed 1985 compilation album, was ultimately cancelled after the Fab Four intervened, though all was not lost and the project would be revived a decade later. Sessions served as the foundation for the Anthology project from The Beatles, a career-spanning look back at the band’s achievements and work together. Sessions had been the original plan for the group, though it was ultimately scrapped. The album would have featured thirteen at-the-time unreleased songs by The Beatles, including Leave My Kitten Alone and an alternative version of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. But life goes on, and the band would object to releasing the work entirely.
Compilations had been released in the past, including The Beatles Ballads and Love Songs, as well as a live album of their performance at the Hollywood Bowl. But it seemed a step too far to have the group’s archival tapes and unreleased materials picked through. Fans seem glad the Sessions project was scrapped, especially since it led to a much more rewarding piece of work.
A post to the r/Beatles subreddit saw fans share their thoughts on the cancelled album. One person wrote: “It later turned into the Anthology project, with most of the stuff set for release on that album ending up on the Anthology 1-3 albums.”
Source: Ewan Gleadow/cultfollowing.co.uk
John Lennon and Paul McCartney built their songwriting partnership on a mutual understanding that whoever wrote the song would have the final say-so in how that track turns out, but that doesn’t mean they always agreed with one another. One such example came from their penultimate album, Abbey Road. Years after its release, Lennon would lament over the fact that McCartney insisted on singing the lead vocal.
Speaking to David Geff during one of his final interviews before his death in 1980, Lennon discussed “Oh! Darling” and what he liked (and didn’t like) about the blues rocker. He described the song as “a great one of Paul’s that he didn’t sing too well. I always thought that I could’ve done it better. It was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he’s going to sing it. If he’d had any sense, he should have let me sing it.”
To some degree, I’d be inclined to agree with Lennon. Of the two musicians, he was certainly the grittier of the two. “Oh! Darling” sounds more akin to Lennon’s composition, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, than, say, McCartney’s “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, elsewhere on the album. Hearing how Lennon interpreted those blues lines would have undoubtedly been an interesting example of how the men differed in their vocal approach. But alas, the songwriter got the final say. And in this case, that was McCartney.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Paul McCartney reflects on Lennon’s 1980 death in his new book. McCartney recalls their last conversation as positive and without conflict.
He describes working in shock after learning about Lennon’s murder.
Beatles icon Paul McCartney is reflecting on the 1980 death of lifelong friend and former bandmate John Lennon in his new book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run.
“It was just too crazy,” McCartney, 83, recalled. “We just said what everyone said; it was all blurred. It was the same as the Kennedy [assassination]. The same horrific moment, you know. You couldn’t take it in. I still haven’t taken it in. I don’t want to.”
Although the Beatles split in 1970, a decade before Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City home, McCartney revealed he and Lennon were on good terms at the time. “That is a nice thing, a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out,” he continued. “But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn’t have any kind of blowup.”
According to McCartney, he received a call from his manager “early in the morning” informing him of Lennon’s December 8, 1980, murder.
Lennon was shot in the back while entering his New York City home with wife Yoko Ono, after a day in the studio. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. Lennon was just 40 years old. “Nobody could stay home with that news,” he added, explaining that he and former Beatles Ringo Starr and George Harrison headed to the studio after learning the news. “We all had to go to work and be with people we knew. Couldn’t bear it. We just had to keep going. So, I went in and did a day’s work in a kind of shock.”
Source: Kayla Aldecoa/parade.com
As many people ask Sir Paul McCartney about his second band Wings as they do The Beatles, the veteran musician has said.
"Suddenly Wings has found its moment," said 83-year-old McCartney. "There's a generational shift at play and it's like being transported back on a magic carpet." Speaking ahead of the launch of the book Wings: The Story Of A Band On The Run, which McCartney has written alongside American historian Edward "Ted" Widmer, he said he found many people tell him Band On The Run is their favourite album.
Wings had 12 UK top 10 singles, including the Christmas number one Mull Of Kintyre, as well as eight UK top 10 albums, including two number ones. The band is best known for songs such as Jet, Silly Love Songs and Live And Let Die, the theme to the 1973 James Bond film.
McCartney said he "didn't really know how to be in a band" after The Beatles split up in 1970. "It was a complete blank canvas," he said.
"We would go on the road with no plans, no hotels booked, no gigs lined up and we thought the only place we might find a captive audience was at a university - a completely off-the-wall idea but I'm glad we did it."
'The big time'
McCartney started Wings in 1971 with his late wife Linda McCartney and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine. "The times with Wings were exciting because we built up to it and eventually we hit the big time," he said. "There was a particular kind of excitement in achieving that goal."
The singer and bassist explained: "I don't spend a lot of time looking back in general. "I like to live in the moment. Like everything else, it's a timing thing. "In recent years, I noticed I'd be asked just as many questions about Wings in interviews as I would about The Beatles.
"People would tell me that the first thing they heard of mine was Band On The Run or Jet, or that their favourite album was a Wings one.
"The reception for these songs in our live shows often takes me by surprise too."
Source: Paul Burnell/bbc.com
These are some of the behind-the-scenes Beatles photos from A Hard Day's Night and Help! Unseen photos of The Beatles, taken by a crew member shooting their films, have been sold at auction.
The archive was listed as three lots by auctioneers Richard Winerton in Lichfield, Staffordshire, on Monday and went under the hammer for a total of £1,720. The Beatles photos had a guide price of £500 to £700 and sold for £660, film scripts and movie photos estimated at £750 went for £600, while pop music and 1980s autographs expected to fetch £250 to £350 went for £460.
The collection came to light during a day of filming in Coventry for ITV antiques programme Dickinson's Real Deal.
The collection belonged to Edward Tucker, from Cambridgeshire, who worked for decades in the movie industry, before he died eight years ago aged 83. Items also included behind-the-scenes images from Help! and A Hard Day's Night, and were brought to auction by Mr Tucker's family.
Photos from the set of A Hard Day's Night feature Ringo Starr filming in April 1964 in Edgehill Road, West Ealing.
Director Richard Lester was in one shot taken while "working out the comedic scene where the hapless drummer is arrested after a woman falls down a hole in the road he covered with his coat," according to the auctioneers.
Other photos showed Sir Paul McCartney and George Harrison. The auctioneers said Mr Tucker was a grip - a technician responsible for building and maintaining equipment supporting cameras and other production gear.
Source: Richard Price/bbc.com
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band begins darkly, with tolling bells that Lennon had slowed down in the studio to mimic a horror film he’d recently watched. The bells open “Mother”, a despairing song revealing Lennon’s feelings of abandonment.
But the anguish in “Mother” quickly gives way to “Hold On”, a comforting hymn aimed inward. He was reeling from the chaos of The Beatles’ break-up, global events, and fame. And he needed to be sure he’d survive.
Midway through the album, Lennon sings “Love”, a song one might view as both a declaration and a plea. With The Beatles, he once sang how love is all you need. But the Summer of Love had come and gone. The 1970s arrived, war continued, and so he soothed himself with “Hold On”.
About “Hold On”
Lennon directs the comforting message of “Hold On” mostly at himself, but also at Yoko Ono and the rest of the world. Written against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, Lennon’s optimistic lyric reads like a lonesome and desperate appeal.
When you’re by yourself,
And there’s no one else,
You just have yourself,
And you tell yourself,
Just to hold on.
The track was co-produced by Lennon, Ono, and Phil Spector. It features Ringo Starr on drums and Klaus Voormann on bass. And the sparse mix stands apart from the dense and highly orchestrated mixes Spector was famous for creating. Subconsciously, Lennon may have preferred a spacious arrangement to combat his fears at the time. The last thing he needed was Spector’s overwhelming Wall of Sound.
Oh, and when you’re one,
Really one,
Well, you get things done,
Like they’ve never been done,
So, hold on.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Thom Donovan
Behind every great man there’s a great woman, the saying goes – and now the fabulous four women behind The Beatles are to be portrayed by four great Hollywood actresses.
Skyfall director Sam Mendes, who is producing four linked films, each focusing on a different member of The Beatles, has now cast the Fab Four’s wives for the ambitious project.
White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood, 31, will play George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd, while Irish Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, 31, has been cast as Linda McCartney, the muse to many of Paul McCartney’s songs.
Anna Sawai, 33, who has made a name for herself in the US drama series Shogun, will appear as John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, and British actress Mia McKenna-Bruce, 28, will play Maureen Cox, the wife of Ringo Starr.
In Mendes’s four films, Saltburn star Barry Keoghan, 33, plays Starr, Fantastic Four actor Joseph Quinn, 31, will be Harrison, leading Triangle Of Sadness cast member Harris Dickinson, 29, takes on the Lennon role and Gladiator II hunk Paul Mescal, 29, will be McCartney.
Irish Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan , 31, has been cast as Linda McCartney, the muse to many of Paul McCartney’s songs
Paul McCartney and his wife Linda McCartney, of British rock group Wings, at Abbey Road Studios to record the album 'Venus And Mars' in 1974
White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood , 31, will play George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd. Guitarist George Harrison poses for a portrait with his Pattie Boyd in 1966. Anna Sawai, 33, who has made a name for herself in the US drama series Shogun, will appear as John Lennon ’s wife Yoko Ono
John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their home at Tittenhurst Park in 1970.
Source: Katie Hind Consultant/dailymail.co.uk
The strangest rumour started floating around just as the Beatles were breaking up – that I was dead. We had heard it long before, but suddenly, in that autumn of 1969, stirred up by a DJ in America, it took on a force all its own, so that millions of fans around the world believed I was actually gone.
At one point, I turned to my new wife and asked, “Linda, how can I possibly be dead?” She smiled as she held our new baby, Mary, as aware of the power of gossip and the absurdity of these ridiculous newspaper headlines as I was. But she did point out that we had beaten a hasty retreat from London to our remote farm up in Scotland, precisely to get away from the kind of malevolent talk that was bringing the Beatles down.
But now that over a half century has passed since those truly crazy times, I’m beginning to think that the rumours were more accurate than one might have thought at the time. In so many ways, I was dead … A 27-year-old about-to-become-ex-Beatle, drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows that were sapping my energy, in need of a complete life makeover. Would I ever be able to move on from what had been an amazing decade, I thought. Would I be able to surmount the crises that seemed to be exploding daily?
Source: Paul McCartney/theguardian.com
