Beatles News
BEATLES legend John Lennon planned to live out his retirement on an Irish island - until disaster struck.
This is Dorninish, a 19-acre island off the coast of Ireland, that was both John Lennon's dream, and a colony for New Age hippies.
"I hope we're a nice old couple living off the coast of Ireland, looking at our scrapbook of madness," Lennon one said, about his future with Yoko Ono.
Had Lennon not been killed in 1980, the legend would have gone through with his plans to turn Dorinish Island into his retirement retreat, according to his lawyer Michael Browne.
Other sources have said that Lennon was absolutely infatuated with the island, but that he wasn't ready to settle into island living and had wanted to wait until his career had slowed.
So he offered it out, free of charge, to the "King of the Hippies".
This was Sid Rawle, the founder of the Digger Action Movement.
Rawle was a New Ager, with an utopian vision of self sufficiency and communal living. He arrived on Dorninish with little more than his grand plans for raising livestock and growing vegetables.
His army of 30 hippies planned to set up a tribal community, where others could come to try an alternative way of living.
Source: Neha Dhillon/the-sun.com
A copy of The Beatles' "White Album" once owned by John Lennon is to go up for auction - with a starting bid of $50,000.
The stereo pressing of the 1968 self-titled double album from The Fab Four bears the serial number 0000006, which proves it once belonged to the former Beatle.
Lennon gifted the album to his chauffeur and bodyguard Les Anthony, who passed the record onto a relative. According to the auction house: "The LP was re-discovered after a television show named Find a Fortune was discussing rare records and the owner contacted the TV program and expressed his interest in selling the album.
"The program then contacted Mike Vandenbosch of More Than Music who purchased the historic piece."
This unique piece of Beatle history has now come up for sale by the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions.
The auction is live now and ends at midday (Central Time) on Saturday 24th February.
The auctioneers say that the album comes complete with the original poster that served as a lyric sheet, the four colour photos of each individual Beatle, and the black inner sleeves that only appeared with early editions of the LP.
They also state that "the jacket cover is in overall VG-EX 6 condition with some ring wear, bending, creasing, expected discolouration and staining" while the vinyl condition ranges from "Excellent" to "Near Mint" condition across the four sides.
It's long been thought that former Beatle roadie and manager of the band's Apple company Neil Aspinall held the mono edition of number 0000006 of the "White Album" and that only the group's inner circle held copies of numbers 0000001 to 0000020.
Source: Martin O'Gorman/radiox.co.uk
Every generation has it seminal events — for Baby boomers one of them was February 9, 1964, when The Beatles played on the “Ed Sullivan Show.”
That night 73.7 million viewers watched. It was more than 45 percent of all households. Today, only the Super Bowl gets those kinds of numbers.
The Beatles opened the show with “All My Loving”, “Till There Was You” and “She Loves You.” They closed with our Song of the Day, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The Beatles appeared on the show the next two weeks.
Sullivan’s guests rarely got paid. They looked at it as a shot in the arm for their careers.
Sullivan paid for The Beatles’ travel costs and $10,000 (equivalent to $80,000 today). Their appearances ushered in the British Invasion and influenced a generation to buy guitars, grow their hair long, and play music.
Some would become rock stars. Others just drove their parents crazy.
Sullivan’s musical director, Roy Bloch, wasn’t impressed with The Beatles. He made one of the worst predictions ever. He said, “The only thing that’s different is the hair, as far as I can see.I give them a year.”
Source: Sheldon Zoldan/news.wgcu.org
It’s hard to imagine a time when the Beatles weren’t the most famous band in the world — but in the early 1960s, the four lads from Liverpool were still trying to catch their big break.
So sets the scene for an anecdote from Paul McCartney’s podcast McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, the second season of which begins on Wednesday. In the first episode, the rocker, 81, offers a deep dive on the Beatles’ debut single “Love Me Do,” and recalls the group’s feelings toward stardom in the early days.
“There were all sorts of things, as I say, that you instinctively knew. Don’t try too hard. Don’t work too hard at reaching for it. ‘Cause the more you reach, the more it’ll recede,” he says on the podcast. “Just kid on that you don’t even want it. Something will happen.”
That phrase, “something will happen,” was one that McCartney says the Beatles often turned to, revealing that its origins actually came from when the group got into a minor car crash together and were stranded in a snow bank.
“We always related back to this accident we’d had on the motorway going up from London up to Liverpool where we’d skidded off into the snow, down a bank with our van, and at the bottom of the van were this, ‘How the hell are we ever gonna get home? It’s snowing. We’re freezing,’” McCartney recalls. “And someone in the group said, ‘Well, something’ll happen.’ And it was like, that became a mantra.”
Source: Yahoo
A George Harrison song that wasn’t a huge hit became influential. George’s song was commercially overshadowed by USA for Africa’s “We Are the World.”
George Harrison was not one of the artists featured on USA for Africa’s mega single “We Are the World.” Despite that, he paved the way for the song with his own music and actions. Here’s a look at a time when he took an influential moral stand.
'Killing It' Stars Rell Battle and Craig Robinson Tease Season
In 1971, George released the song “Bangla Desh” to raise money for the victims and survivors of the Bangladesh Liberation War and the ensuing genocide. He used a pair of concerts called The Concert for Bangladesh to raise funds for the same causes. Financial Times reports “Bangla Desh” was the first charity single. Since the idea of a charity single is so simple, it’s surprising no one had released one before the 1970s.
“Bangla Desh” was far from the last song of its kind. The genre came into full force in the 1980s with the release of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and USA for Africa’s “We Are the World.” The former has become a Yuletide staple, while the latter is primarily remembered for the array of artists who sang on it.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon quit The Beatles in 1969. That year, the band recorded an album that Lennon did not particularly like.
After The Beatles broke up, John Lennon frequently spoke critically about the work he made with the band. He said he didn’t consider himself a fan of The Beatles and complained about his bandmates. He had harbored negative feelings about the band while they were still together. According to longtime Beatles producer George Martin, Lennon was visibly fed up while recording one of the band’s final albums.
While Let It Be was the last album The Beatles released, they recorded it before Abbey Road. They recorded it in 1969, the same year Lennon announced he was leaving the band. According to Martin, Lennon’s fatigue with the group came through while recording Abbey Road.
“John got disenchanted with record production. He didn’t really approve of what I’d done or was doing,” Martin said in The Beatles Anthology. “He didn’t like ‘messing about’, as he called it, and he didn’t like the pretentiousness, if you like. I could see his point. He wanted good, old-fashioned, plain solid rock: ‘The hell with it — let’s blast the living daylights out!’ Or, if it was a soft ballad: ‘Let’ do it just the way it comes.’ He wanted authenticity.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Sometimes less is more.
At least that’s the thought behind Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Band on the Run (Underdubbed).”
Fifty years after its debut, the beloved album gets yet another rerelease, this time with a version that doesn’t include bonus tracks but instead pulls back some of the layers that were added after the original rough mixes. Hence, “underdubbed” in the title.
This isn’t the first time McCartney has revisited an album to strip off some of the bells and whistles to get closer to the original recording. He did it with the unfortunately titled “Let It Be Naked” back in 2003.
The “underdubbed” version of “Band on the Run” is notable for a slightly different song order from the U.S. release that will be jarring for those with the original sequencing committed to memory after decades of listening. The new order mirrors how the original tapes were discovered in McCartney’s archives and omits “Helen Wheels,” which McCartney didn’t intend to include on the album but did after it was a hit single.
Some of the changes with the songs themselves are subtle: a missing guitar riff or echo here, no backing vocals there. Others are more noticeable, like no orchestral overdubs, what sounds like a vocal flub on the title track and no vocals at all on “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.”
Source: The Greenville Sun
Ringo Starr posted a video update on his social media pages in which he unveiled new details about two recording projects on which he’s been working.
Last year, the former Beatles drummer announced during a Zoom Q&A with multiple media outlets that he was working on a country music EP with producer T Bone Burnett, and also was collaborating with producer and songwriter Linda Perry on another EP.
At the start of the update clip, the former Beatles drummer reported, “I’m still in the studio, and you know what’s happening? I was gonna do a … country EP, but as things are unfolding, it’s probably going to be like a real CD, 10 tracks. Can you believe it? I haven’t done one of them in a long time. So that’s getting made ready.”
He then shared some info about his collaborative EP with Perry, which is a four-track collection titled Crooked Boy.
“She wrote the songs for me. She produced them. She’s a beauty, so musical,” Starr said. “She has a great vibe. Peace and love, Linda.”
The video also displayed the Crooked Boy EP’s packaging, revealing that the songs are titled “Gonna Need Someone,” “Crooked Boy,” “February Sky,” and “Adeline.” In addition, Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi played on all four tracks, while Perry contributed guitar and backing vocals to some of the tunes.Crooked Boy will be the latest in a series of EPs that Starr began releasing in 2021. Ringo had recorded a couple of songs written by Perry for his previous EPs Change the World (2021) and EP3 (2022). His most recent EP, Rewind Forward, arrived in October 2023. The drummer’s last full-length album, What’s My Name, came out in 2019.
Source: Matt Friedlander/americansongwriter.com
Grammy-winner Jeff Tyzik’s new arrangements, transcribed and arranged from the original master recordings at Abbey Road, interface with candid photos of the band, taken from the archives of the official fan magazine, “The Beatles Book Monthly,” for “a magical musical and visual journey.”
“Twenty-five of The Beatles’ best-known songs (“Here Comes the Sun,” “Hey Jude,” “All You Need Is Love,” etc.) in orchestra-augmented arrangements while avoiding the tribute-band route,” cites the online note from Schirmer Theatrical, LLC, and Greenberg Artists. “The Beatles were ostensibly four guys singing about girls, and what we wanted to do in this project was to authentically and creatively embody the music.”
"The production comes with all orchestral arrangements, six musicians, and two technical crew members (video and sound),” informs the note.
Revolution is a stunning multimedia experience featuring new symphonic arrangements transcribed from the original master recordings at Abbey Road. Accompanied by hundreds of rare and unseen photos along with stunning video and animation,
ISO’s stage crew and lighting and sound team also earn special applause for synchronizing everything on stage.
A special note informs: "All music under license from Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC and Harrisongs LTD. All photos under license from The Beatles Book Photo Library. The show is not endorsed by or connected to Apple Corps or The Beatles.
"A portion of the proceeds from productions of “Revolution: The Music of The Beatles, A Symphonic Experience” are donated to the Penny Lane Development Trust (PLDT), a charitable community center located in Liverpool, UK, that provides an engaging environment where people can expand and explore their interests."
The Beatles were part of a larger consciousness in the 1960s. Indiana was part of the scene when “the Fab Four” came to Indianapolis on September 3, 1964, to perform at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum. ‘Every seat filled’ cites reports of the 5:00 p.m. show. But by 9:00 p.m., the crowd was so large that they performed on a much larger temporary stage erected on the dirt track in front of the grandstand.
Source: Rita Kohn/nuvo.net
The Beach Boys' Mike Love decided to pay tribute to The Beatles' George Harrison through song. Love explained why he respected the "My Sweet Lord" singer.
Some of the best Beatles tribute songs came from unexpected places. The Beach Boys’ Mike Love decided to pay tribute to The Beatles’ George Harrison through song. Love explained why he had had so much respect for the “Got My Mind Set on You” singer. He also compared the way audiences reacted to his band and The Beatles during the 1960s.
During a 2023 interview with Forbes, Love said his song “Pisces Brothers” is a tribute to George. Love felt that the two of them were “pieces brothers” because of their shared astrological sign. Love released the tune in honor of what would have been George’s 71st birthday in 2014. The Beach Boy revealed that “Pisces Brothers” is one of Love’s favorite tunes to perform and one of his favorite tunes in general.
“It’s a poem that I put to music,” Love explained. And I love doing it every night. It just takes me back to those times, you know. There’s very few songs touch me as emotionally as that, although the ‘Warmth of the Sun’ is one.” For context, “The Warmth of the Sun” is the song Love wrote with Brian Wilson about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
