Beatles News
Relive the music of iconic songwriter, musician and founding member of the Beatles in Crystal Lake this summer.
SoundTracks of a Generation presents “The Lennon Project,” a 100-minute retrospective of the songs and life of John Lennon, at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 15 at Raue Center for the Arts.
According to a news release from the Raue Center, the show will feature Jay Goeppner assuming the role of Lennon. Together with his SoundTracks band, Goeppner will take the audience on a chronological soundscape of Lennon’s career, from his time with the Beatles to his solo work.
The first half of the show will cover the Beatles’ decision to stop touring and focus on music composed in the studio, leading to iconic albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver,” “The Beatles,” “Abbey Road” and the rooftop concert for “Let It Be.”
The second half of the show will delve into Lennon’s solo career, featuring songs from The Plastic Ono Band to his signature albums “Imagine,” “Sometime In New York City,” “Mind Games,” “Walls & Bridges” and “Rock & Roll.” The show will conclude with selections from Lennon and Yoko Ono’s final recording, “Double Fantasy,” released just before his death on Dec. 8, 1980.
The show will also include multimedia images to create a monumental musical and emotional impact that Lennon brought to the world.
Source: shawlocal.com
Of all the things one might see on a shift as an Indiana state trooper, a lone Ringo Starr asking for a joy ride in your cop car isn’t likely top of mind. But such was the case for three lucky policemen who chose to remain nameless when the Indianapolis Star first reported on the strange encounter in September 1964. (After all, there were probably rules about giving celebrities tours of the city while on duty.)
The Beatles had made their way to the Hoosier State to perform at the State Fair Coliseum in the capital city on September 3, where they played to nearly 30,000 people. With Beatlemania on the rise, the quartet opted to stay in unsuspectingly humble accommodations at the Speedway Motel. That’s where the state troopers first encountered Starr, sitting by himself outside of the motel.
The Beatle Asked The Cops For A Tour Of The City
Per the Indianapolis Star, the Liverpudlian drummer approached the group of policemen and said, “Can’t sleep, chums. Suppose we could go for a bit of a ride in the country?” While Beatlemania was still on the rise, Starr and the rest of his bandmates were certainly well-recognized celebrities by this point, and the Indiana state troopers happily obliged.
The cops let Starr ride along in their car while they drove the Beatle past Monument Circle, the Governor’s Mansion, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Years later, during a 1989 visit to Late Night with David Letterman, Starr admitted to getting behind the wheel of the cop car at one point. When another LEO vehicle began pursuing their cruiser, the drummer said, “We had to drive up an alley and turn the lights out to hide” (via Indianapolis Monthly).
The troopers’ initial 1964 recollection didn’t include the Brit getting into the driver’s seat of a cop car, but it did include several quips the musician made to the police officers throughout his joy ride. “When he saw the Governor’s Mansion, he asked if the fence was to keep the governor in or the people out,” one policeman recalled.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
The John Lennon Estate and Universal Music have announced a reissue of John Lennon's 1973 album Mind Games in expanded Ultimate Collection editions on July 12.
The Lennon Estate and Universal Music note that the upcoming six-CD and two Blu-ray collection deluxe box set offers "an immersive, deep listening experience and in-depth exploration of this classic, yet underappreciated record."
The deluxe edition, which is authorized by Yoko Ono Lennon and produced by Sean Ono Lennon, is from the same audio team that worked on the critically acclaimed Imagine and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Ultimate Collections. This team includes triple Grammy-Award winning engineer Paul Hicks and mixers/engineers Sam Gannon and Rob Stevens.
Source: RTTNews
With an assist from Paul McCartney the Paralympic Games is starting its 100-day race to the opening ceremony in Paris on Aug. 28. The former Beatle has let “We All Stand Together” be used in an International Paralympic Committee promotional film. It’s the signature tune from an award-winning animated film McCartney wrote and produced 40 years ago. IPC president Andrew Parsons says “Sir Paul really understands what we stand for as a movement and he was so generous to us.” The Paris Paralympics opens Aug. 28 with a ceremony on the Champs-Élysées and Place de la Concorde.
Source: kesq.com
The Beatles: Get Back doc shows the band's final days recording Let It Be and culminates in their iconic rooftop concert.
The series dispels rumors of infighting but doesn't shy away from tensions among the band members.
John Lennon's shift towards activism and McCartney's struggles to keep the band together are highlighted in the documentary.
Peter Jackson's ambitious The Beatles: Get Back documentary series premiered on HBO in 2021. It had a total of three episodes, with eight hours of footage showing how The Beatles' final album Let It Be was made. Much of Get Back's archival footage has been pulled (and restored) directly from Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 1970 documentary about the album's making. Originally conceived as a feature film, The Beatles: Get Back is now dedicated to Hogg's original work, which forms the backbone of Jackson's poignant documentary.
Source: Charles Cameron, Shawn S. Lealos
We’re guessing there are other candidates that can stake a claim, but it’s hard to think off the top of our heads of any band or artist ever having a better recording year than The Beatles did in 1967. Fresh off their decision to cease touring, they focused their energies on the studio and released masterpiece after masterpiece.
We decided to dive into that impressive year and rank the five best songs that the Fab Four delivered in that magical 12-month stretch. See if you agree with our choices.
5. “All You Need Is Love”
Amidst what was an incredibly busy year, The Beatles had to find time to write a song for a satellite television special that would be shown worldwide, since they were Great Britain’s representatives on the show. John Lennon rose to the occasion by delivering the message the world needed to hear, and still does. No, the recording isn’t the most dynamic, since the circumstances forced a kind of simplicity onto it. But that just means that everything gets out of the way so that Lennon can explain how nothing else matters if you have love in tow.
4. “She’s Leaving Home”
“Yesterday” might have paved the way and “Eleanor Rigby” solidified their technique, but, for our money, “She’s Leaving Home” stands as The Beatles’ best-ever borrowing classical music fusion. The story was taken from an item in a newspaper about a teenage runaway, but Paul McCartney (in the verses) and John Lennon (in the refrains as the parents) get to the heart of what makes this family tick, for good and bad. That kind of insight elevates what could have been a routine character sketch into something majestically bittersweet.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
The ex-wife of former-Beatle Paul McCartney is being sued by her hairstylist for failure to pay for more than a dozen $5,000 haircuts, according to court documents.
Celebrity hairstylist David Miramontes, who goes professionally by the name David Paul, claims that he began providing Heather Mills (pictured at left) haircuts in 2005, during an effort by the former model to revive her career, reports TMZ.com. Mills' moves included appearances on ABC's "Dancing With The Stars."
Source: David Schepp
t must have been quite a heavy load for Ringo Starr to carry as the Beatles changed the course of rock music. Starr has had a front-row seat for it all as the drummer in the band. Starr and Paul McCartney are the remaining live members of the Beatles. They have a deep kinship that was formed back during the active days of the Fab Four.
“Yeah, they know me,” Ringo Starr told AARP. “Paul loves me as much as I love him. He’s the brother I never had. As an only child, suddenly I got three brothers. We looked out for each other. We all went mad at different times. You can’t imagine what it was like, being in the Beatles. It got bigger and crazier.”
He even recalls the first time he heard the band on a record. “We were playing clubs, and then we made a record, Love Me Do. My God, there’s nothing bigger than that, our first vinyl. We found out the BBC was going to play Love Me Do at 2:17, or whatever time it was, and we pulled the car over. ‘Wow! We’re on the radio, man!'”
Source: Joe Rutland
George Harrison is known by many for the profound, questing nature of his songwriting. But he also often displayed a whimsical side that showed that he didn’t ever take himself too seriously. “Crackerbox Palace,” a Top-20 hit for Harrison in 1976, managed to touch on both extremes in his artistic arsenal.
What is the song about? And how did a chance meeting inspire it? Let’s find out about how George Harrison happened upon “Crackerbox Palace.”
George Harrison had formed his label Dark Horse Records in 1974, but wasn’t able to record anything on it until his contract with EMI ran out. 33 1/3, the album Harrison released in 1976 that included “Crackerbox Palace,” would be the first release on the Dark Horse label that would be used exclusively for Harrison releases in the future.
Harrison recorded the album at a studio he had built on his Friar’s Park estate in England. And he served as a host to his bandmates, who actually lived on the grounds while the record was being made. That collegial atmosphere worked its way into the record, one of the gentlest and most good-natured of his career.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
Songwriting inspiration can come from anywhere – but the realms of sleep are perhaps the most mysterious. It it the subconscious or something more? The not knowing is part of the magic, and dream-inspired songwriting has given birth to some absolute classics.
Whether it's a line, hook, riff or a whole song the writer wakes up to capture before it slips away again, we're here to look at the top 40 songs that owe their existence to 40 winks.
1. Drops Of Jupiter (Tell Me) – Train (Pat Monahan)
The US band's 2001 hit and Grammy-winner Drops Of Jupiter took a deeper dimension for listeners when its genesis was revealed by vocalist Pat Monahan. It was the band's breakthrough hit, but its inspiration came at a bittersweet price.
"I would give it back," Pat Monahan candidly told the Daily Blast in 2022. "I lost my mother that year so that's why the song was written. So I'd give the song back if I could still call my mom but it was a great gift that she gave me."
She came to me in a dream
A gift because Monahan felt that his late mum Patricia was reaching out to him one night. "She came to me in a dream and she said she can do all these things now, including swimming through the planets and coming back with drops of Jupiter in my hair. But I'd rather be there with you – heaven is overrated and you should really pay attention to your life, because this is important."
It wasn't just inspiration for a great song then, it was life advice for Monahan to carry forward with the band. But there was one thing the singer wanted to set straight with any guitarists coming after him after mishearing the 'Man heaven is overrated' line in the chorus.
"When the song came out people thought I was singing 'Van Halen is overrated' so I was getting hate mail like crazy," he told the Daily Blast.
2. Yesterday – The Beatles (Paul McCartney)
The ultimate dream song? It's certainly the most covered one. Paul McCartney stayed with former flame Jane Asher's family in London for three years in the mid-'60s. They allowed him to stay in the upstairs attic room. "Perfect for an artist," the Beatle recalled to Paul Muldoon in the excellent podcast series McCartney: A Life In Lyrics. "And I managed to get a piano in there – a small swan-off piano. I went to sleep one night and dreamed this tune.
When I woke up I thought, 'It's great – I love that tune'
"Somewhere in this dream I heard this tune, and when I woke up I thought, 'It's great – I love that tune'. It was so vivid that the songwriter couldn't pinpoint whether it was an existing song he was recalling from childhood.
Source: Rob Laing/uk.news.yahoo.com
