Beatles News
Ringo Starr’s steady beat and underrated skills behind the drum kit made him the perfect drummer for The Beatles. It’s not a coincidence that the Fab Four shot to stardom soon after Ringo joined. Still, it wasn’t a cakewalk. Ringo said joining The Beatles was like going to school, and not just because he had to learn new songs.
Ringo was well known to The Beatles before they asked him to join.
Various childhood illnesses kept him out of school for years, but he discovered his passion for drumming during one hiatus. He never completed his childhood schooling, but that might have been a wise choice. Ringo built a reputation as Liverpool’s best drummer with Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, who performed in Hamburg, Germany, during some of The Beatles’ residencies there.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
When The Beatles first exploded in popularity they set out on tours around the UK. The Fab Four squeezed into a small car and drove around Blighty to play their music to the growing fanbase that would create Beatlemania. But, considering Ringo Starr was the final member of the band to join the group, he was the last person the rest of the team wanted to sleep with in hotels around the country.
Starr was recruited into The Beatles in August 1962 after they dropped their first drummer from the band, Pete Best. While he gelled with the band musically and personally quickly, he was still an outsider joining the tight-knit threesome of pals John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
George Harrison said the Concert for Bangladesh was a “stroke of luck” because there was no rehearsal. Thankfully, everything went to plan during the benefit concert.
In late 1971, Shankar told George about the humanitarian crisis in East Pakistan.
A devastating cyclone killed 500,000 people. After months of inaction from the West Pakistani government, people wanted a change. Eastern nationals declared themselves the independent country of Bangladesh. It started a bloody war. The Western Pakistani troops committed genocidal acts on the Bengali people.
“The more I read about it and understood what was going on, I thought, ‘Well, we’ve just got to do something,’ and it had to be very quickly,” George told Fugelsang. “And what we did, really, was only to point it out. That’s what I felt.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison said his only ambition was to be God-conscious, not to be a rock star. Although, his career as a guitarist led him to spirituality.
If George never became a rock star, he might not have become spiritual.
Spirituality came to George after a series of coincidental events. First, he heard Indian music on the set of The Beatles’ Help! When he started learning sitar, friends told him about Ravi Shankar.
Around this time, George took LSD for the first time and said it opened his mind up to “God-consciousness.” However, he didn’t know what that meant.
In 1965, George met Shankar, who immediately wanted to teach George everything he knew. The most important lesson Shankar taught George was that God is sound and that by playing the right notes, one can connect to God.
In 1966, George, his wife, Pattie Boyd, and Shankar took a six-week trip to India. George began learning about meditation and yoga. A year later, George learned Transcendental Meditation from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Some of The Beatles had different feelings on one of The Beatles’ songs from Abbey Road. An anvil was used as an instrument on the song. John felt the track was incredibly expensive.
A song from The Beatles‘ Abbey Road uses an anvil as an instrument. A sound engineer said Paul McCartney and John Lennon had conflicting opinions about the song. On the other hand, George Harrison called the song “fruity” but felt it was well-executed.
Geoff Emerick worked as a sound engineer on The Beatles’ Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road. In a 2022 interview with MusicRadar, he recalled the creation of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” “There were two struggles going on with this song: Paul and John fighting over whether it should even exist!” he said.
“John called it ‘more of Paul’s granny music,'” Emerick added. “But there was my own struggle coming up with the sounds that should go on it.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney’s destiny was to be a musician. That didn’t stop the Beatles bassist from considering other types of employment as a young man, however. He considered several options. One, however, seemed very idealistic and practical, much like McCartney himself. The musician once dreamed of becoming a “faithful” truck driver “going long distances”.
Per Britannica, McCartney’s young life in Liverpool, England was typical of the working class. His father Jim worked at the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. Mother Maria was a midwife.
The McCartney extended family were all hard workers who also knew how to have fun. Jim was the leader of Jim Mac’s Jazz Band and passed his love of music on to his two sons, Paul and Michael. However, the senior McCartney believed that while making music was a nice hobby, a full-time life as a musician was not the way to support a family. So he begged his son to find a permanent, full-time job.
Source: localtoday.news
George Harrison‘s first wife, Pattie Boyd, reflected on her life as a Beatles wife in a new interview upon publication of her book, Pattie Boyd: My Life in Pictures. She discussed George’s impact on her life and revealed he would be the person she would love to have one last conversation with.At 19 years old, Boyd was sent by her modeling agency to Paddington Station on Mar. 2, 1964, for a small part in The Beatles’ first film, A Hard Day’s Night. She met John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, whom Boyd said “was the best-looking man I had ever seen,” according to Far Out Magazine.
Harrison appeared to be equally as smitten with Boyd, for as filming ended for the day, Harrison asked the young model, “will you marry me?” When she didn’t respond, he continued: “Well, if you won’t marry me, will you have dinner with me tonight?”
Boyd had a boyfriend, so she declined. However, after breaking it off with photographer Eric Swayne, she was asked to take care of her final obligations for the film, where she met the guitarist again. Harrison reiterated his dinner offer, and Boyd accepted. From that moment on, they were inseparable and tied the knot on Jan. 21, 1966.
Source: Lucille Barilla/cheatsheet.com
Music copyright remains one of the most complicated issues in the business, especially regarding sampling. It is also utterly hard to draw a line between where inspiration ends and straight-up plagiarism begins. All in all, being inspired by something is almost inescapable and not quite the same as copying.
Considering that good old music has formed the basis of numerous great new tracks, labeling even the slightest inspiration as plagiarism doesn’t seem reasonable. Even the best musicians have been inspired by someone else’s work while trying to create something new, yet they have managed to produce an original brand new piece of work, although they have added something from those already in existence.
However, no one can deny that it is still challenging to decide where the inspiration really ends and plagiarism starts. So not surprisingly, the majority of artists have struggled with legal battles regarding copyright issues. The late Beatle George Harrison also found himself at ends with the law due to the suspiciously familiar melody of his 1970 song ‘My Sweet Lord.’
Source: Bihter Sevinc/rockcelebrities.net
George Harrison may have been known as the 'Quiet Beatle', but by the end of the band's lifespan, he had proved to be a songwriting force.
While Paul McCartney and John Lennon shared songwriting duties for much of The Beatles' output, George Harrison eventually came out of his shell and showed just what he was also capable of.
Not only did he write and perform some of The Beatles' finest moments - 'Something', 'Here Comes the Sun', While My Guitar Gently Weeps' just for starters - but he went on to have his own successful solo career.
Here are just 10 of George's greatest solo songs:
Source: Tom Eames/smoothradio.com
Ringo Starr didn’t enjoy playing drums on The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” Ringo felt the song was inspired by a certain genre of music. The tune appeared on an extremely popular album.
Ringo Starr didn’t enjoy playing on The Beatles‘ “Here Comes the Sun.” Subsequently, he discussed his feelings about the song and its success. Notably, the tune did not chart highly in the United Kingdom.Geoff Emerick worked as a sound engineer on The Beatles’ Abbey Road, as well as other classic albums such as Paul McCartney & Wings’ Band on the Run and Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedrooms. During a 2022 interview with MusicRadar, he discussed his feelings regarding “Here Comes the Sun.” “Another George winner, and again, he knew it — his confidence was growing each day,” Emerick recalled.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
