Beatles News
Earlier this week, model, photographer, and ex-wife of George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, appeared on the inaugural episode of Miss O'Dell: Abbey Road To Tulsa Time, a new podcast hosted by music industry icon Chris O'Dell, who worked with everyone from the Beatles to the Stones to Bob Dylan. Around the 33-minute mark, O'Dell asks Boyd about the ambitious Beatles biopic project from Sam Mendes that’s currently in the works. Aimee Lou Wood was cast to play Boyd in the upcoming film, which Boyd learned about not because Mendes, or anyone working on the project, reached out to her. And, she does not seem happy about it.
“Now, I might be completely wrong, but I would have thought it would be polite to mention it to me or let me know that they got someone who’s going to be playing me. Don’t you think they’d let me know? Well, I haven’t been contacted by anyone,” she said. “I could have really told them great stories. But I don’t think they want to know. I think they want to create something that’s completely different, like a different story.”
Boyd added that the forthcoming biopics seem to have “nothing to do with the truth. Nothing to do with what really happened because they don’t want to talk to anyone who was there.” Instead, it’s “the filmmaker’s creation of what they think happened.”
I mean, she has a point here. It would make sense that someone would reach out to her, not only to get her perspective, but also because Wood is literally portraying her in the film. In an interview from this March, Wood gave some vague quotes about how intimidating this biopic project is. “I am going to have to really prep, and I am going to have to really be detailed about that, because she is someone who is so recognisable, and obviously not do an impression," she said.
Well, duh. And again, I am confused about why not actually contacting Boyd would be part of the prep. But hey, I know nada about this Hollywood business stuff.
Source: stereogum.com/Margaret Farrell
It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has gotten some intense backlash from notable figures in pop culture, and this even includes the one and only Paul McCartney.
The Beatles icon recently talked about American politics during a podcast interview, where he began making some comments on the current presidential administration. During the interview, he spoke about how he felt Americans were only getting more violent, angry, and more, especially in “Trump’s America.” Though he didn’t dwell on the current state of the country’s politics for long, what he said struck a nerve with some social media users, who weren’t into his comments. Read more about the situation below.
Paul McCartney Calls Out 'Trump's America' & Says Americans Are 'At Each Other's Throats'
Easily one of the most influential musicians in the world is Paul McCartney, whose music, both during his years with the Beatles and afterward, has brought people from all walks of life together for decades.
In addition to his music, Paul has also built a reputation for being more outspoken politically, especially these days, with the controversial Apprentice star as president. Recently, he was a guest on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, where he talked about a variety of topics as he answered questions from some members of his loyal fanbase. At one point, he began talking about the unifying power of his music, especially the infamous Beatles song, "Hey Jude."
Source: yahoo.com/Abigail Connolly
You might think it would be a thrill to inspire a Beatles song. Well, only if it were a complimentary track. If you landed on their bad side, especially John Lennon’s, you might end up immortalized for all the wrong reasons.
In 1968, Lennon wrote a stinging rebuke that wound up on The White Album later that year. Ironically, it targeted a person who had only recently been the subject of Lennon’s sincere admiration.
A Fateful Retreat
The Beatles headed to India in 1968, intent on studying meditation from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. After the death of their manager Brian Epstein the previous year, the band was seeking new challenges and inspirational guidance.
John Lennon was all-in with the project when he arrived. He felt that the Maharishi, who seemed to always be smiling, was as good a guru as any to follow. Lennon and the other Beatles received their mantras and did their meditating. They spent the idle hours writing dozens of songs, many of which appeared on The White Album later that year.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia
George Harrison was known as the "Quiet Beatle," but his songwriting spoke volumes.
The Beatles icon, who passed away in 2001, wrote 22 tracks for the Fab Four, a few of which remain among their most memorable. Unlike many of his peers, Harrison was more reserved and introspective. He wasn’t drawn to the glitz and glamour of fame; instead, he thrived on genuine connection and spirituality. Some of his Beatles songs show this side of him, while others might catch you off guard.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon handled most of the group’s songwriting, with many tracks credited as McCartney-Lennon originals. Ringo Starr, the band's drummer, contributed just two songs.
In an interview, commenting on Harrison as a singer and a songwriter, Lennon once said, "George didn’t even use to sing when we brought him into the group; he was a guitarist. He wasn’t in the same league for a long time. That’s not putting him down, he just hadn’t had the practice at writing that we had.”
A decade later, Harrison was the first Beatle to hit No. 1 as a solo artist following the band's breakup in 1970 with "My Sweet Lord." If that's not proof of his exceptional creativity and lyrical mastery, what is?
Let's drop the needle on five of the 22 tracks Harrison wrote for The Beatles.
"HERE COMES THE SUN"
One of the most well-known Beatles' songs of all time came from the brilliant mind of Harrison. He wrote "Here Comes The Sun" during a stressful time for the Fab Four, escaping business meetings to relax at Eric Clapton's garden estate. That burst of sunshine became one of the band's warmest songs, fusing acoustic guitar with an early Moog synthesizer.
Source: mentalfloss.com/Logan DeLoye
Paul McCartney old and new, ancient and contemporary, come together on The Boys of Dungeon Lane, the 27th studio album of his post-Beatles career. The melodious pop genius of his youth and the venerable elder statesman of rock culture look back with rheumy, sentimental eyes on the memories and influences of his youth.
“Grandpa Paul sounds old,” you might think during the opening bars of As You Lie There. Really, every one of McCartney’s 83 years can be detected in his shaky, thinning voice, reminiscing saucily about a teenage crush over dreamy acoustic chords.
Yet in a snap he can bring the past sharply into the present with musical flourishes akin to colourising a black-and-white film, his own deft harmonies rising to expand his vocal timbre, his sustained electric guitars snaking nimbly into the flourishing bass and thumping drums of the greatest one-man band in pop history. When McCartney hits the high chorus of the epic, shapeshifting As You Lie There, then unleashes a joyous background roar of “yeah yeah yeah” with that Little Richard wail and mop-top head shake, you hear the very same joyful enthusiasm he brought to the Fab Four when he embarked on his recording career in 1962, aged 20.
Dungeon Lane was one of McCartney’s Liverpool childhood haunts, and his own past infuses this album. The elegant Salesman Saint sentimentally recalls the stoic struggles of McCartney’s parents and the whole post-war generation, concluding with a cheery slice of horn-rippling jazz as if a swing party had broken out in McCartney’s front room.
His ebullient duet with Ringo Starr, Home To Us, is a rocking singalong romp to rival Get Back, the trilling harmonies of Chrissie Hynde and Sharleen Spiteri adding Wings-style vocal flavour, whilst Ringo’s thumping drum fills will put a smile on every Beatles fan’s face. Down South offers scruffy acoustic whimsy about hitch-hiking with George Harrison, whilst John Lennon is recalled on the tender ballad Days We Left Behind, with McCartney really leaning into the vulnerability of his older voice.
Source: telegraph.co.uk/Neil McCormick
While on the whole the '70s are known for uplifting disco numbers and epic rock hits, music groups did put out a few quiet, sad tunes in the decade. The publication Far Out recently shared a list of the "five most tragic songs of the 1970s."
The ranking, published on May 21, featured devastating '70s hits likeJim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" and "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor. George Harrison's 1970 song, "Isn't It a Pity," which deals with the end of a partnership, was named the "most tragic song" released in the 1970s. According to the publication, Harrison shared some insight into the lyrics of the song, off his 1970 record All Things Must Pass, while writing his autobiography, I, Me, Mine.
"‘Isn’t It a Pity’ is about whenever a relationship hits a down point. It was a chance to realise that if I felt somebody had let me down, then there’s a good chance I was letting someone else down. We all tend to break each other’s hearts, taking and not giving back," shared the former Beatle in the book, published in 1980.
Harrison played some of the seven-minute song during a 1974 interview on Rock Around the World with Alan Freeman. After he was finished singing, Harrison said the tune was about him "breaking everybody’s heart." When asked to clarify what he meant, the musician, who died in 2001 at the age of 58, replied, "I don’t know."
Source: yahoo.com/Nicole Moore
Paul McCartney, a surprise guest on the final episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” provided a poignant capper to the series by being given the ceremonial honor of turning out the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theater, a location with which he has plenty of history.
The final number had McCartney and Colbert singing the Beatles‘ classic “Hello Goodbye,” accompanied by Elvis Costello, former band leader Jon Batiste and current band leader Louis Cato, eventually joined on stage by a parade of staffers dancing through and around the stag in a line, as the house band finally gave the ’60s tune a New Orleans-style coda.
Then Colbert was seen in a filmed bit taking McCartney backstage to the electrical breakers, where the legendary rocker was seen flipping a switch that not only turned the lights out but sent the Sullivan Theater into a green interdimensional portal introduced earlier in the show by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The symbolic gesture followed McCartney’s stint as the show’s final interviewee as well as last musical performer, in which the host asked him to share stories about his first visit to the theater 62 years ago.
“Hello Goodbye” was not the only musical number toward the end of the extended final telecast. In another filmed segment, Colbert was joined by Costello and Batiste for a seated rendering of a song that was surely unfamiliar to 99% of the viewing audience: “Jump Up,” a bluesy song Costello wrote in the mid-1970s that was not released until decades later, as a demo included as a bonus track on a “My Aim Is True” deluxe edition.
Source: variety.com/Chris Willman
Ringo’s rhythm and voice have provided the soundtrack for multiple generations. From his groundbreaking work with The Beatles to a remarkable solo career featuring 20 studio albums between 1970 and 2023, plus a recent string of popular EPs, Ringo brings an unparalleled musical legacy to every stage, making each concert on his tour a historic event.
Ringo's creativity shines beyond the music. He's an accomplished actor with over 15 film credits and an Academy Award®, an author of eight books, a visual artist with multiple global exhibitions, and even a photographer. His annual July 7th Peace and Love initiative has blossomed into a worldwide movement, and in recent years, Ringo was knighted, received an honorary degree as a Doctor of Music from Berklee College of Music, and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame with the Joe Chambers Musicians Legacy Award.
In January of this year, Ringo released Look Upopens in a new tab, his first country album in more than 50 years, which earned him his first top 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as well as landing him on multiple other Billboard charts. In the UK, the album secured Starr his first solo #1 album on the Official Country Chart, overtaking Taylor Swift and leading to him making his Grand Ole Opry debut. And now he brings his musical talent back to Las Vegas for a run of shows at The Venetian Theatre from September 17th through the 27th.
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band tickets are on sale now and can be purchased at any box office at The Venetian Resort or by calling 702.414.9000 or 866.641.7469.
Source: venetianlasvegas.com
A tour to help heal the rifts between members of The Beatles had been suggested by Paul McCartney, but amounted to nothing, the veteran songwriter has claimed.
McCartney, who would leave the band in the late 1960s, had hoped that getting back on stage with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, might help the band work through the problems laid bare in documentaries Let It Be and Get Back. But it appeared the tensions were too much for the Fab Four, with Lennon confirming his departure from the group privately to his bandmates. McCartney, who would go on to form Wings and later enjoyed a successful solo career, commented on his hopes of getting The Beatles back on the road and why it never came to pass.
In response to criticism from Philip Norman in his book, Shout!, the Blackbird songwriter says he tried his best to keep the band together in the late ’60s.
He said: “What the book says, about me being the great manipulator simply isn’t true. Nothing happened in The Beatles unless everyone wanted it to happen. But when there was a decision to be made, somebody had to say it out loud — and that usually turned out to be my job. I accepted it.
“I certainly wasn’t responsible for splitting up the Beatles, as some people think — in fact, I was the last one to come to that view. I’d wanted us to tour, to bring us closer together again.
“It all gets absorbed into the myth, your image builds up, it gets into plays and books, and it becomes the truth. Except that it wasn’t. There’s a story that I used to straighten John’s tie before we went on stage. That seems to have become a symbol of what my attitude was supposed to have been. I’ve never straightened anyone’s tie in my life, except perhaps affectionately.”
Source: cultfollowing.co.uk/Ewan Gleadow
By the late 1960s, the Beatles were driving much of pop culture’s direction, from electric guitars to psychedelia to Indian music and meditation. But their influence also became entangled in the era’s more controversial shifts — including widespread experimentation with drugs. That tension surfaced directly when George Harrison appeared on The Dick Cavett Show in November 1971. The host asked whether the Beatles bore responsibility for America’s growing drug culture.
“You had this tremendous influence on young people,” Cavett said. “Everyone knows you went through a drug phase. Did it ever occur to you that the fact that was known, and the fact that you were the Beatles, might have caused thousands of people to have drug problems that might not have otherwise?”
The audience bristled at the question, but Harrison responded without hesitation, beginning with a story that reframed the premise entirely.
So we had it; we went out to a club, and it was incredible.” “First of all, when we took the notorious wonder drug LSD, we didn’t know we were having it,” he said. “John and I had the drug when we were having dinner with our dentist. He put it in our coffee and never told us.”
The doctor, John Riley, had invited the two Beatles to dinner in spring 1965, where he spiked their coffee. At the time, Harrison said, neither he nor John Lennon knew much about LSD at all.
“It’s a good job we hadn’t heard of it,” he said, “because there’s been so much paranoia now created around the drug that people, if they take it, they’re already on a bad trip before they start.”
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox! “So we had it; we went out to a club, and it was incredible.”
Source: guitarplayer.com/Phil Weller
