Beatles News
The Monkees musician Peter Tork had the excellent opportunity to play with and learn from some of the most iconic musicians of the 1960s and 70s. One of his most memorable jam sessions included Ringo Starr, who played the drums, while Peter handled the keyboards. In an interview, Peter said he was grateful to have learned “so much” from The Beatles percussionist.
Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones crossed paths with the Fab Four several times. Mike and John Lennon became fast friends when The Monkees member scheduled a meeting during a trip to London with his wife, Phyllis.
In his biography “Infinite Tuesday,” Nesmith spoke of his first meeting with Lennon and their subsequent friendship. “Before I arrived in London, I had not met John Lennon and didn’t even know how to contact him. So I thought if I could meet him, it would be a great addition to the trip,” Nesmith wrote.
Source: Lucille Barilla/cheatsheet.com
Brandon Toews of Drumeo explored the truly underrated genius of Ringo Starr, noting how Starr instinctively knew how to accompany each song from the drum’s point of view.
Drummer, singer, songwriter, bandleader, rock ‘n’ roll pioneer…Ringo is responsible for making drumming look cool and inspiring countless people to take up the instrument. …BUT… Is Ringo Starr one of the greatest drummers of all time? Or is he only famous because he was a member of The Beatles?
Toews also pointed out how Starr’s left-handedness on a right-handed kit gave him his signature style.
In the words of Ringo, “I’m no good on the technical things. I’m your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills because I’m really left-handed playing a right-handed kit”. …While this may be true, it didn’t stop him from coming up with drum fills that were original musical and ultimately memorable.
Source: Lori Dorn/laughingsquid.com
Paul McCartney wrote a song that made him feel “optimistic” following The Beatles‘ split. For a while, he didn’t know what to do with himself. How do you follow The Beatles?
You can hear Paul’s desperation to keep The Beatles alive in their song “Get Back.” He thought they could stay together if they tried returning to their roots. However, John Lennon couldn’t contain his excitement about moving on and leaving Paul behind. He was done living in the past.
Eventually, Paul couldn’t deny that The Beatles had grown apart. All their other financial problems aside, they’d become four extremely different people. So Abbey Road was their final album, and Paul quickly got to work on his debut solo album. Despite seeming ready to move on, Paul had entered a rut.
During a 2016 interview with Mastertapes for Radio 4 (per the Guardian), Paul revealed he drank heavily and often contemplated quitting music after The Beatles split. It was a dark period for Paul; he didn’t know what to do next.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
The “Fab Four” are also fathers, with each Beatles member getting married and having at least one child. When Ringo Starr has his first son with Mo Starkey, he chose a name that sounded “western” — even if he didn’t think it was a cowboy name.
Here’s what the drummer said about his child’s name.
Which members of the Beatles have children?
All four Beatles members were married at one point, the first of whom was John Lennon. He wed his college sweetheart after she became pregnant with their first son, Julian.
The couple eventually divorced (with Paul McCartney writing “Hey Jude” for Lennon’s son), and Lennon had a second child with Yoko Ono.
McCartney has five children — Heather, Mary, Stella, James and Beatrice McCartney. Four of those were with his late wife, Linda McCartney.
George Harrison’s only child is Dhani Harrison, through his marriage with his second wife, Olivia, born in 1978. The Beatles’ drummer, Ringo Starr, married his girlfriend Mo Starkey (then Maureen Tigrett) after she became pregnant with their first child.
Source: Julia Dzurillay/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr needed time to find his voice in The Beatles, but he was no stranger to using it. He complained about being ignored during the making of Rubber Soul. His bandmates rewarded him with a larger role on the record. The drummer used his voice again later. Ringo hated The Beatles’ drug use being covered by the press (though not because it made him look bad), and he said something about it.
Ringo Starr announces his Concert for All Generations at a 1989 press conference in California.
Not counting the amphetamines German club promoters fed them to keep them going during marathon performances, The Beatles first got high with Bob Dylan in a New York hotel room in 1964. The Fab Four were hardly strangers to other illegal substances for the rest of their career.
All of them tried LSD. John Lennon developed a heroin addiction. Paul McCartney used cocaine for a time but stopped when he realized he hated the side effects. George Harrison and his wife Pattie Boyd had their house raided by police searching for drugs.
Ringo said drugs accelerated the pace at which The Beatles changed their sound. They went from writing sweet pop songs to experimenting with tape loops, backmasking, orchestras, and eastern instruments.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
Some of The Beatles‘ songs that became huge hits are mostly forgotten today. On the other hand, some of The Beatles’ songs that remained album tracks are as popular as ever. Notably, a very famous Beatles album track has its own music video.
5. ‘A Day in the Life’
“A Day in the Life” is one of The Beatles’ most acclaimed songs and one of the most important songs in the history of psychedelia. It even had a star-studded music video featuring appearances from Mick Jagger and Mike Nesmith. Despite this, the song was never actually a single.
Fans can find a lot in the song by reading between the lines. Much of the song’s lyrics revolve around mundane things like going to the movies or combing one’s hair. The music turns horribly sinister at several points in the track. Perhaps the song is about how so many horrible things lie behind banality.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles broke up in 1970 after releasing their 13th and final album, Let It Be. The band had been having a lot of problems in the years that preceded, with incessant arguing and even lawsuits filed against one another. But John Lennon knew the heartbreaking split was coming years before it actually happened.
Lennon felt the band's days were numbered from August 27, 1967, when Brian Epstein died.
Epstein was the band's manager, and the man who discovered The Beatles down a dusty alleyway in Liverpool, UK. He pushed them to change their look, replaced their drummer with Ringo Starr, and got them their first number-one singles. He was extremely close with every member of the band - particularly Lennon - so when he died in 1967 the Fab Four were devastated.
Epstein was found dead at his home aged 32. He suffered a combined alcohol and barbiturate overdose. The death was ruled accidental.
Lennon spoke candidly about learning of Epstein's death, and what he felt it meant for the band.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Paul McCartney and John Lennon met as teenagers and went on to have one of the most prolific — and fraught — relationships in music history. The two musicians wrote countless classic songs together, but they also had a complicated dynamic. They were highly competitive and fought publicly after The Beatles broke up. While McCartney now reflects fondly on their relationship, he once said they didn’t fully know each other.
McCartney met Lennon at a church festival in 1956. Lennon’s band, The Quarrymen, was playing, and McCartney immediately noted Lennon’s skill.
“They weren’t bad,” he said, per the book The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “John played the lead guitar. But he played it like a banjo, with banjo chords, as that was all he knew. None of the others had even as much an idea as John how to play.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
“Hey Jude” is one of The Beatles’ greatest songs, yet the track has plenty of secrets attached to it. It sounds like a perfectly recorded track, but there were a few hiccups, including a curse word that was left in the song. Paul McCartney revealed that Ringo Starr wasn’t there at the beginning of the first recording session as he had “slipped out” to use the bathroom.
The Beatles typically released shorter hits that ranged from two to four minutes. However, they exceeded expectations with “Hey Jude,” a song over seven minutes. For a while, the track was the longest song to reach No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In the 2015 book Conversations with McCartney, Paul shared that he and John Lennon were inspired to create an extended song after listening to Bob Dylan.
“We were cross-pollinating each other,” Paul recalled. “He’d bring out a long record, so we knew it’d be OK to do ‘Hey Jude’ long. ‘What d’you mean, man? ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ is six minutes 30 [seconds]. Why can’t we have one seven minutes?’ You started breaking boundaries, questioning previous values.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison wasn’t exactly sure if he felt like a Beatle in 1967, but he was “willing to go along with it.” Throughout his time with the group, George never felt like “Beatle George.” That was just a suit he sometimes put on, although reluctantly at the end.
During an interview on the BBC Radio program “Scene And Heard” (per Beatles Interviews), a reporter asked George how he felt about being out on the road again as “The Beatles” during the making of Magical Mystery Tour.
George didn’t know. He added that he’d never really known what it’d been like as The Beatles. As far as he was concerned, The Beatles was still something abstract. “It’s something that other people see us as The Beatles, and I try to see us as The Beatles but I can’t,” he said.
Soure: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
