Beatles News
At 87, the dapper insider is releasing a new book of interviews conducted in 1980 and 1981 with the band and people nearest to it.
Peter Brown was a witness to some of the Beatles’ most important moments. His new book with the writer Steven Gaines is the oral history “All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words.
Peter Brown stood in his spacious Central Park West apartment, pointing first at the dining table and then through the window to the park outside, with Strawberry Fields just to the right. “John sat at that table looking through here,” Brown said, “and he couldn’t take his eyes off the park.”
That’s John as in Lennon. And the story of the former Beatle coveting this living-room view in 1971 — and how Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, eventually got their own place one block down, at the Dakota — is just one of Brown’s countless nuggets of Fab Four lore. In the 1960s he was an assistant to Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, and then an officer at Apple Corps, the band’s company. A key figure in the Beatles’ secretive inner circle, Brown kept a red telephone on his desk whose number was known only to the four members.
Source: Ben Sisario/nytimes.com
John Lennon’s long-lost Hohner harmonica, featured on Beatles classics such as “From Me To You” and “Please Please Me,” has been found over fifty years after it first went missing.
The Association of Chromatic Harmonicas (ACH!), the leading harmonica historical society, announced Monday that the 1959 Model-C Chromatica Harmonica had been rediscovered and that the instrument had been mailed to John’s son Sean in a padded envelope with signature requested.
The story of this legendary harmonica begins in 1960 as the Beatles (John, Paul, and George with then-members Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe) traveled through the Netherlands by Volkswagen van on their way to their first Hamburg residency. Allen Williams, their manager at the time, stopped in Arnhem when Pete requested a bathroom break. As the group stepped into De Oude Mondharmonicawinkel (Ye Olde Harmonica Store) to use the facilities, Lennon slipped a harmonica into the pocket of his trousers. Not to be outdone, McCartney nicked a few licorice drops from a bowl at the cash register.
It was Beatles producer George Martin who first suggested that Lennon try blowing into the instrument rather than just slapping it against his arm. Before long, he had mastered the harmonica well enough to add it to the Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do.” But not everyone in the group was happy with John’s new toy. When George Martin asked the group if there was anything that they didn’t like about the song, George Harrison said “Yeah, I don’t like John’s harmonica.” Nevertheless, Lennon continued to play the instrument on many of the Beatles’ earliest recordings.
Source: Scott Freiman/culturesonar.com
Paul McCartney recently penned an essay for The New Yorker about writing "Eleanor Rigby." The Beatles' beloved song was inspired by "an old lady" that McCartney helped out while growing up. "Hearing her stories enriched my soul and influenced the songs I would later write," he said.l
Paul McCartney offered a deeper look at his creative process in a new essay for The New Yorker, titled "Writing 'Eleanor Rigby.'"
The beloved song by The Beatles was released on August 5, 1966 as the second track on the band's seventh album "Revolver." It was conjointly issued as a double A-side single alongside "Yellow Submarine."
The song's titular character has long been a source of intrigue for Beatles fans. It's widely assumed that McCartney was inspired by a grave marked with "Eleanor Rigby" at St. Peter's Church in Woolton, where he met John Lennon as a teenager in 1957.
McCartney has said this wasn't the case, and reiterated in the essay that he doesn't remember seeing the grave, though admits he "might have registered it subliminally."
Instead, the 79-year-old rocker attributed the song's inspiration to "an old lady that I got on with very well."
Source: Callie Ahlgrim/businessinsider.com
John Lennon once said that George Harrison wasn't hip anymore. Here's a look at whether he was right or not.
Even The Beatles didn’t always knock it out of the park. Case in point: John Lennon once said that George Harrison wasn’t hip anymore. Here’s a look at whether he was right.
The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations With John Lennon features an interview from 1975. In it, John said he wasn’t impressed with one of George’s live shows. “Now it’s always The Beatles were great or The Beatles weren’t great, whatever opinion people hold,” he said. “There’s a sort of illusion about it. But the actual fact was The Beatles were in for eight months, The Beatles were out for eight months.
“The public, including the media, are sometimes a bit sheeplike and if the ball starts rolling, well, it’s just that somebody’s in, somebody’s out,” he said. “George is out for the moment. And I think it didn’t matter what he did on tour.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Lorne Michaels tried and failed to reunite The Beatles on SNL, despite offering a check for $3,000 and 3 songs.
Lorne Michaels almost succeeded, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney considered going to the studio that night.
George Harrison showed up to SNL to get the $3,000 check, but Michaels refused unless the whole band reunited.
As the man behind Saturday Night Live throughout almost all of its history, Lorne Michaels has accomplished amazing things. Between casting a slew of performers who have become rich and famous and making the masses laugh for decades, Michaels' legacy will go down in history.
On top of that, Michaels has managed to convince most of music's biggest stars to appear on his show. However, one thing that Michaels never pulled off was was reuniting The Beatles on SNL.
This article will how Lorne Michaels tried to reunite The Beatles on SNL and totally failed. The article will also reveal how close Michaels' attempt to bring The Beatles back together came to succeeding.
Source: Matthew Thomas/thethings.com
Sir Paul McCartney grew close to his wife over a mutual love of hitting the dance floor.
The Beatles frontman - who has been married previously to the late Linda McCartney and Heather Mills - understood that Nancy Shevell, 61, was the woman for him when she and him were always the first ones to throw shapes, and even now there are always "certain songs" that get them moving.
Paul - who married Nancy in 2011 - wrote in his new book, 'The Lyrics: 1956 to Present': “After a show, when the band and crew get together for a drink, we’re always the first ones on the dancefloor. Certain songs will just get you dancing.
“There’s no denying it, I really enjoy dancing.
“It’s something my wife Nancy and I are particularly keen on.”
The ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ hitmaker recalled how he and Nancy got together on a trip Morocco - which began with them sleeping in separate rooms before a "nice and romantic" moment brought them together.
Source: uk.style.yahoo.com
President Jimmy Carter was asked to pick his favorite Beatles song, and he chose a song from John Lennon’s solo career. The former president discussed how much the tune in question affected audiences around the globe. John once said some listeners didn’t understand the tune’s message. President Jimmy Carter likes a John Lennon song that’s against nationalism.
During a 2007 interview with The News–Times, Carter was asked to name his favorite Beatles song. The song in question was not actually a Beatles tune, but it fits in with the band’s hippie image. “My favorite is ‘Imagine,'” he said. “When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places, in some of those nations, ‘Imagine’ has become a national anthem. If you go to Havana, for instance, you’ll see a statue of John Lennon.” Carter was referring to Lennon Park in Cuba.
Source: imdb.com
Inspiration can hit when you least expect it, and for Paul McCartney it came in the form of mishearing one of his road crew members while on tour with The Beatles. In a recent episode of his iHeartRadio podcast Paul McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, Macca revealed that he came up with the title for the band's iconic 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band after a member of his crew asked him for salt and pepper.
“I was with our roadie Mal [Evans], a big bear of a man,” he recalled. “I was coming back on the plane, and he said, ‘Will you pass the salt and pepper?’ And I misheard him. I said, ‘What? Sgt. Pepper?’ He said, ‘No, salt and pepper.’ And I always returned to one of the things about the Beatles, and me and John [Lennon], was that we noticed accidents.”
In each episode of the podcast, McCartney talks in depth about specific songs and recently spoke about the real reason he wrote "Hey Jude," which was penned for John Lennon's oldest son Julian after John and his first wife Cynthia divorced.
Source: Katrina Nattress/litefm.iheart.com
As Beatlemania swept through the Western World, the music of Lennon & McCartney pivoted at the end of 1964. The acoustic guitars of “No Reply,” “I’ll Follow the Sun,” and “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” replaced the electric sounds on “She Loves You,” “Please Please Me,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” This was a time before they found their footing with folk/rock and started moving toward a more psychedelic sound. The Beatles used more country elements and recorded Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, and Buddy Holly songs as they filled out their album Beatles for Sale. While they were in the studio recording “Eight Days a Week,” John Lennon started playing a guitar riff, which would go on to be the main structure of their next single. Let’s take a look at the story behind “I Feel Fine” by The Beatles.
Source: Jay McDowell/americansongwriter.com
Last fall the Beatles released “Now and Then,” a long-awaited digital reunion between all four Fabs was made possible through cutting edge technology. Touted as the final entry in the band’s storied cannon, it provided fans with a happy ending to a 60-year saga and the chance to hear Paul McCartney join voices with his late partner John Lennon once again. Though indeed moving, it was a reunion that didn’t occur in reality. The Beatles tragically never reconvened in the studio prior to Lennon’s murder on Dec. 8, 1980 — robbing the world of more potential Beatles albums, and McCartney of his dear friend.
Many assume that Lennon and McCartney’s recording relationship ended with the band’s breakup at the dawn of the ‘70s. But in truth, they quietly teamed up in an LA studio for a one-off impromptu session in 1974. The results were chaotic, unfinished, and (technically) unreleased, but the bootleg tapes are historic for capturing that iconic vocal blend for the very last time. It proves that despite the bitterness of the prior breakup, their bond remained intact.
The diverse and nuanced reasons for the Beatles’ split are as complex as the men themselves, requiring volumes of books — not to mention legal documents — to unravel. The partnership was dealt its mortal blow with the death of band manager Brian Epstein in August 1967. McCartney did his best to navigate the group through the ensuing upheaval, but his de facto leadership was read as overbearing by his band mates — particularly Lennon, who, since the world beating success of 1967’s groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, had largely abdicated his creative role due to his own emotional maelstrom of insecurity, boredom, and resentment. “After Brian died, we collapsed,” Lennon said in an infamous interview with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner in December 1970. “Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we went round in circles? We broke up then. That was the disintegration.”
Source: Jordan Runtagh/people.com
