Beatles News
It was 60 years ago today (April 14th, 1963) that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones first met. The Beatles, who were new on the scene in London, had heard about the group through word of mouth, and were in the audience at the Stones' show in Richmond at the Crawdaddy Club at the Station Hotel. Shortly thereafter, George Harrison personally recommended that Decca Records — the same label that had passed on the Beatles — sign a deal with the still-unknown Stones.
In 1988 when Mick Jagger inducted the Beatles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he recalled first laying eyes on the group while on stage, remembering, "We were playing a little club in Richmond and I saw right in front of me, there they were — THE FAB FOUR. The four-headed monster. They never went anywhere alone. And they had on the most beautiful long, black leather trench coats." Jagger joked that, "I thought to myself, 'If I have to learn to write songs to get one of those, I will.'"
Source: Music News/vermilioncountyfirst.com
On This Day, April 14, 2009: George Harrison gets a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Beatle George Harrison, who passed away in November, 2001, was honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.
The ceremony was attended by Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani, along with the late rock star’s famous friends, including Sir Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Sheryl Crow, Eric Idle, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson and more.
The star, at 1750 Vine Street, was the 2,382nd star on the Walk of Fame.
Source: kslx.com
The Beatles didn’t have nearly as bad a reputation as bands like The Rolling Stones, but even they dealt with scandals in their time as a band. Many of these seem tame by today’s standards, but they still placed the band in hot water with the general public. Here are four of the scandals that The Beatles faced throughout the 1960s.
In 1966, John Lennon entangled The Beatles in what was likely their biggest controversy. In an interview, he spoke about the enduring quality of rock music versus religion.
“Christianity will go,” he said, per Rolling Stone. “It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I know I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first – rock & roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
The first time music producer George Martin began working with the Beatles in May 1962, he thought little of them or their songwriting skills. "The material was either old stuff ... or very mediocre songs they had written themselves," he recounted in "All You Need Is Ears: The Inside Personal Story of the Genius Who Created the Beatles." He would later recall that they were "rotten composers" whose "own stuff wasn't any good" (via The Beatles: The Biography). Martin laid into the crestfallen band for more than an hour, ticking off all the negatives, including the band's "lack of suitable material."
In response, George Harrison cheekily retorted that he didn't like Martin's tie, which shocked his bandmates, but had Martin in stitches. Harrison broke the ice and helped solidify a history-making creative union. As Martin and the Beatles continued to work together, the producer's opinion of Paul McCartney and John Lennon's songwriting changed for the better, especially when their songs continued to become massive hits. But Harrison had a harder time of it since he hadn't been writing as long as Lennon and McCartney.
Source: Andrew Amelinckx/grunge.com
There’s not much Lennon music heard in this doc about his affair with May Pang, and given how much Pang trashes his wife, Yoko Ono, it’s no surprise it was withheld.
Interest in John Lennon’s personal life goes back to early ’60s Beatlemania, when a waggish producer on the Ed Sullivan Show captioned a shot of the then-moptop, “Sorry girls, he’s married.”
As we have learned over and over, the emotionally damaged and frequently volatile Lennon was often no picnic as a spouse.
During his second marriage, to the artist Yoko Ono, Lennon had a long and serious affair with May Pang, who had been a personal assistant to the couple in the early 1970s. This sojourn has been nicknamed Lennon’s “lost weekend,” partly because of the drunken acting out he did with Pang in tow. Also because he reunited with Ono in 1975, had a child with her, and entered a period of devoted, near-reclusive domesticity before he was assassinated in 1980.
Source: Glenn Kenny/nytimes.com
The Beatles exist in a stratosphere all their own decades after they broke up. The music still resonates, and the band members — living and dead — are still celebrated. So are the group’s other projects, such as The Beatles’ first movie A Hard Day’s Night. It cost $500,000 to make, which was well worth it beyond the box office receipts. Paul McCartney said filming the movie was nerve-wracking, but it came with a huge payoff.
George Harrison (from left), Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon on the set of The Beatles' movie 'A Hard Day's Night' in 1964.
‘A Hard Day’s Night’ more than recouped its $500,000 budget
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) was like many other movies. A screenwriter (Alun Owen) penned the script. A director (Richard Lester) helmed the shoot. And actors (many of them anonymous in the U.S. aside from The Beatles) performed in it.
Yet it comes off as a quasi-documentary with Paul, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr fending off rabid fans at the height of Beatlemania as they try to get to a TV appearance.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
Before The Beatles became global superstars in 1964, the band was rocking Liverpool’s Cavern Club. They eventually found their way to producer George Martin, and the band released two singles that had modest commercial success in 1962.
The Beatles recorded their first LP, Please Please Me, over a single day in 1963. It was released in the U.K. on March 22, 1963, and popular music would never be the same.
Looking back on 60 years since the album’s debut, here are seven little-known facts about the Fab Four’s first full-length record:
1. The Beatles Beat Themselves
Please Please Me spent 30 weeks at No. 1 on the U.K. album charts. It eventually dropped to No. 2 behind the band’s second LP, With The Beatles.
Source: Ryan Berenz/remindmagazine.com
If it was possible to pinpoint a single moment when the Beatles’ journey took a turn away from “just pop stars” to being serious artists, then it was the release in December 1965 of their second LP of the year, Rubber Soul.
Just four months earlier, Help! had shown signs that their music was becoming more erudite, with songs like “Yesterday” and “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” bringing new sounds to the mix. By the following year’s Revolver, they were charting a new course, reinventing pop music with otherworldly pieces like “Eleanor Rigby” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
Rubber Soul, sandwiched between the two, reflects the joys of both camps. Glorious pop songs such as “Drive My Car,” “Nowhere Man,” and “If I Needed Someone” seem loaded with a knowing wink that the times were indeed a-changin’. But it was on “Michelle,” “Norwegian Wood,” and “In My Life” that the sophistication of their songwriting and performance clearly raised the bar.
Source: Paul McGuinness/yahoo.com
When The Beatles broke up in 1970, each member wasted no time jumpstarting their solo careers. George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon released solo work in the same year. Some had more success than others, but it proved that each member could work without being part of The Beatles. Here is a ranking of the first solo albums released by each member.
4. ‘Sentimental Journey’ – Ringo Starr
Surprisingly, Ringo Starr was the first Beatle to drop a solo album, released a few weeks before The Beatles officially announced they were breaking up. Sentimental Journey is a collection of covers performed by Starr and produced by George Martin. While many of the covers are nicely done, many Beatles fans were confused about Starr emerging with an album that stuck closer to the popular music formula.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Many of The Beatles’ songs are perfection. While not every song is a knockout, many have remained prominent, even as the years go by. However, John Lennon was often cynical about some of his work with The Beatles, and there is one song he said he wished he could have re-done, and it may surprise fans. The Beatles all grew up in Liverpool, and several songs are based on locations from their hometown. John Lennon wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever” about a location he used to play in as a child near his home. The 1967 track is based on a garden from Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool. In Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney detailed what the garden looked like and why it was important to Lennon.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
