Beatles News
It must have been tough at times for George Harrison. To be in a band with the likes of Paul McCartney and John Lennon—that’s like being an All-Star athlete but sitting behind Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Kobe and Shaq.
But despite that situation, Harrison was able to write more songs that fans might remember for the Beatles. Many of the tracks he wrote became some of the group’s biggest hits. These are five songs you likely didn’t know Harrison wrote for the Beatles.
Source: Jacob Uitti/americansongwriter.com
The Beatles released their first hit “Love Me Do” on 5th October 1962, sparking a phenomenon known as 'Beatlemania' across the world.
Source: The Collector
The Beatles hired someone to build them a new studio. According to George Harrison, the entire project was a disaster for the band.
In the late 1960s, George Martin, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, among others, began voicing their concerns about someone working with The Beatles. “Magic” Alex Mardas was one of Apple Corps’ earliest employees and a friend of John Lennon. He promised them unique electronic decorations and improved recording equipment. The band enlisted him to build them a shiny new studio, a project Harrison later described as a complete disaster. George Harrison said Magic Alex Mardas was a disaster in the studio for The Beatles
As an Apple employee, Mardas grew familiar with The Beatles’ recording equipment and told them it was terribly out of date. Per the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, Mardas began telling them he could design a seventy-two-track studio that would be more advanced than any existing studio.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Janis Joplin was like a fireworks display. Brilliantly explosive, colorful and stunning, bombastic and captivating, a kaleidoscopic wonder burning loud and brightly that ends nearly as soon as it starts. Like far too many others in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, Joplin’s legacy is one of admiration and contemplation.
Age 27 at the time of her tragic death, Joplin released only three albums in her lifetime. A fourth, Pearl, was posthumously released the year after her death.
Joplin’s two albums with Big Brother & The Holding Company, 1967’s self-titled debut and 1968’s Cheap Thrills, immediately established the Port Arthur, Texas native as one of the all-time iconic voices in rock ‘n’ roll. Incorporating influences from pioneering Black musicians like Big Mama Thornton, Bessie Smith and Leadbelly, Joplin’s unparalleled vocal delivery and thrilling stage performances put her in the center of the late-1960s counter-cultural movement.
Released as a solo album, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! was delivered in 1969 and featured a new backing group, the the Kozmic Blues Band. In 1970, Joplin’s career evolved again as she formed a new supporting group called the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The same year, Joplin toured Canada on the Festival Express train tour with the likes of the Grateful Dead and The Band.
Source: Andy Kahn/Jambase.com
iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin will debut the much anticipated McCartney: A Life In Lyrics podcast. The 12-part series, based on the best-selling book, is hosted by the poet Paul Muldoon, who explains in the first episode, which I was given exclusively for first listen, "We worked together on a book looking at more than 150 of his songs. And we recorded many hours of our conversations. This is McCartney: A Life In Lyrics; a master class, a memoir and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic figures in popular music. Each episode is centered about the writing of a particular song and the circumstances surrounding it."
Episode one, premiering today, focuses on the song "Eleanor Rigby." But before that, McCartney offers some insight into his love of writing. An aspiring poet who was friends with the iconic poet Allen Ginsberg ("Howl"), McCartney exclaims at the outset of the 19-minute episode, "Oh my God, I wanted to become a person who wrote songs. And I wanted to be someone whose life was in music."
Source: Steve Baltin/forbes.com
Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" connects to a Beatles song George Harrison wrote. One of the songs was a much bigger hit than the other.
All roads lead to Rome — and all classic rock roads lead to The Beatles. Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” has a major connection to a song from The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. One of the songs blew the other out of the water commercially, no pun intended.
During a 1972 interview with Rolling Stone, Simon discussed the origin of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” “Me and Artie [Garfunkel] and [Simon’s wife] Peggy [Harper] were living in this house with a bunch of other people throughout the summer,” he said. “It was a house on Blue Jay Way, the one George Harrison wrote ‘Blue Jay Way’ about.” The two tracks are a study in contrast, as “Blue Jay Way” is a sleepy psychedelic tune, while “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is a forceful power ballad.
“We had this Sony machine and Artie had the piano, and I’d finished working on a song, and we went into the studio,” Simon added. “I had it written on guitar, so we had to transpose the song. I had it written in the key of G, and I think Artie sang it in E. E flat.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/Cheatsheet
John Lennon compared "Give Peace a Chance" to Elvis Costello's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding." A rabbi inspired the former.
Some classic rock stars got credit for things they didn’t do. John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” was inspired by a phrase he didn’t coin. Interestingly, the tune was inspired by a rabbi who was also a folk singer.
Source:Matthew Trzcinski/Cheatsheet
The run-up to Christmas and our Bristol production of The Happiest Days of Your Life seemed to drag on forever. I enjoyed doing the play, lightweight as it was. But my life was changing — Sheila, the RSC — and I wanted to get on with it.
Fortunately, we had a wonderful cast, and in it was a talented and pretty young actress with red hair named Jane Asher. Everyone knew that Jane was dating Paul McCartney, but we were all very circumspect around her and careful never to mention his name. Still, this was 1965, the year of Rubber Soul and the sold-out show at Shea Stadium in New York City. It was hard not to be starstruck by proxy.
One night after a performance, we were all sitting in the Old Duke pub when someone suggested a party game: We would go around the table, and each of us would answer the question, “If you were given a million pounds, what would be the first thing you bought with it?”
Source: Rollingstone.com
Best known to fans as "The Quiet Beatle," George Harrison was never one whom you can accuse of being the least significant member of arguably the greatest rock band of all time. That's because for the most part, he let his instrument do the talking, playing lead guitar parts that perfectly fit the mood of the song, may it be another one of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's many compositions, one of the Beatles' many (mostly early-period) cover tunes, or one of the few songs where his name (or Ringo Starr's) appeared on the songwriting credits. He was also a key part of the band's evolution from radio-friendly pop-rock to psychedelic experimentation, as the sitar parts he brought to some of his compositions added a new dimension to the Fab Four's increasingly eclectic sound in the mid-'60s.
Source: Lorenzo Tanos
English singer-songwriter Adele has been in Las Vegas for a while now set to perform at Caesars Palace till November 4. In a recent performance, the singer shared a hug with fellow English music legend Paul McCartney who was in attendance at her show.
In a video shared by Pop Crave on their X (formerly Twitter) account, Adele can be singing while waving to the people in attendance. She moves ahead and reaches a hand towards Paul who rather takes her in for a hug.
The entire crowd in the audience can be heard hooting for the historical moment as they end their quick meetup with a handshake.
“Adele and Paul McCartney share a hug at her show in Las Vegas,” captioned the video.
There is much in common among the two British singers with both having the most songs awarded with at least one Grammy.
Source: Jahanvi Sharma/hindustantimes.com
