Beatles News
The Brazilian artist who has been spreading the music of his country around the world for some 60 years was channelling The Beatles on December 28, 1968.
Pianist Sergio Mendes, a fixture in the American album charts with his group Brasil ’66 from that year onwards, was on the bestsellers again with Fool On The Hill. The record featured their version of the song from the Magical Mystery Tour EP of the year before, and on the last chart of the year, Mendes’ album climbed to the top of Billboard’s Bestselling Jazz LPs chart.
The album had entered the mainstream pop album chart at No. 102 in early December, soaring to No.58 and then No.18. As it hit the top of the jazz survey, it was at No. 11 on the pop side and would go as high as No. 3 in the new year, the group’s highest-ranking LP in the American market. Fool On The Hill was their third top ten album in two years, and their fourth gold disc.
Source: Paul Sexton/yahoo.com
Ringo Starr released the song “Elizabeth Reigns” on his Ringo Rama album. Ringo Starr thought the song would lose him the knighthood. In 2018, Ringo Starr was knighted.
In 1997, Paul McCartney was knighted, and Ringo Starr received the honor over two decades later. Starr was happy to accept, but he hadn’t anticipated it. He believed that McCartney would be the only Beatle to receive the knighthood. Starr thought that one of his songs would disqualify him.
While Starr was in the studio with musician Dean Grakal, the latter asked what “ER” meant. It referenced the queen’s Golden Jubilee, and Grakal began to write a song about it.
“‘Elizabeth Reigns’ was a question from Dean Grakal,” Starr told Goldmine in 2003. “‘What does ER mean,’ because when we were recording at my place, Rocca Bella, it was Jubilee madness all over England. And the concert was corning on, one of the boys were there. And anyway on a day off they went into town and saw all these banners about the big Jubilee.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
On April 10, 1962, Stuart Sutcliffe died in the arms of his fiancée. He collapsed during an art class in Hamburg and died in an ambulance - he was just 21 years old.
Sutcliffe was an original member of the Beatles, introduced to John Lennon by a mutual friend at the Liverpool Art College. Convinced to play bass by Lennon and McCartney he joined the band on their much-mythised stint in Hamburg.
Despite his name not being echoed in the annals of music history like the rest of his former band-mates, his short life had a profound impact on the Beatles. Now, 60 years on from his death his legacy is being preserved by the Sefton Park Hotel, in Aigburth, Sutcliffe's family home from 1959 to 1971.
Source: James McNeill/liverpoolecho.co.uk
John Lennon explained why George Harrison worked a certain instrument into the song. John was a huge fan of the instrument.
A sound engineer said one of The Beatles‘ songs “got close to a breaking point.” Subsequently, he said George Harrison incorporated “intense” instrumentation into the song. Notably, the tune in question featured an instrument that was revolutionary at the time.
Geoff Emerick was a sound engineer for Abbey Road. During a 2022 interview with MusicRadar, he discussed “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” “A fascinating song, very indicative of John’s mood at the time — he was consumed with all things Yoko,” he said.
Emerick was initially uneasy with one of John’s directives for the song. “I thought the song was going to have a fade out, but suddenly John told me, ‘Cut the tape,'” he recalled. “I was apprehensive at first — we’d never done anything like that. ‘Cut the tape?’ But he was insistent, and he wound up being right. The track, and side one, ends in a very jarring way.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison said The Beatles were shell-shocked from the 1960s. The Fab Four had been through a lot in the peace and love decade. However, they dealt with it in their own way.
In The Beatles’ early days, all the group wanted was to make music and make it to the top. When they arrived at the top, they realized it all came with a price. They had no idea how to handle becoming one of the world’s most famous rock ‘n’ roll bands.
Beatlemania blew them away. It was dangerous everywhere they went, and everyone wanted a piece of them. In Martin Scorsese’s documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, George said he and the band were always a bit nervous during each step they went up the ladder, but that was the good thing about being a four-piece; they had each other, especially if things
got bad or overwhelming.
In a 1987 interview with Creem Magazine, George explained, “We always had a sense of humor. When we were left alone, the four Beatles, we had fun, and we had a good sense of humor. We took the ups and the downs together and, I think because we had each other, we helped each other from going crazy or having nervous breakdowns.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison claimed the BBC could’ve been better. The former Beatle was never afraid to reveal his true opinions about things.
It says something about George’s personality that he could call out the wrongs of the BBC on the BBC. During a 1969 interview with David Wigg on BBC Radio, George explained that he wished the broadcast corporation’s radio division was more like American radio.
“The thing is that you can set a high standard and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a hit,” George said. “You know, this is one thing. I don’t know, the market for hits is … you know, I just can’t figure it out, I know when the Beatles put out a single it’s a ‘hit.’ But I don’t know if … sometimes I feel that if somebody else had put out the same thing but done in their way it mightn’t be a hit.
“I don’t know. It’s very difficult. I’ve really decided I haven’t got a clue what’s commercial and what isn’t. And that’s the problem, you know, trying to decide what is and what isn’t a single. I think the American idea is really good where they just put out an album and the stations over there, you know, they have a lot of independent stations, unlike Britain, you see.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles' repertoire of music was made up largely of tracks written by the band's main songwriting duo, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. However, on a few occasions throughout the Fab Four's career, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were given opportunities to include some tracks of their own on the records. One of Harrison's biggest and best known was Taxman, which was put into their seventh studio album, Revolver. But the recording process was bogged down in politics.
Taxman was written and performed by Harrison on the record. However, he just could not find a way to finish the song perfectly. He felt it needed a solo but couldn't come up with anything good enough for the song.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
A small café in Basking Ridge, New Jersey was recently graced with an unexpected visit from international music icon, Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell.
Blue Café is well-known for its delicious food and great service as pointed out by Dolores Cirra, admin of the BaskingRidgeMoms Facebook group. TAPinto got to sit down with Barbara and Chris Chutnik who own Blue Café where they recounted their distinguished guests' visit - all thanks to Ms.Cirra's arranging.
Barbara immediately recognized the famous pair and warmly invited them to sit down while keeping it low-key as requested by their guests. As McCartney enjoyed a cappuccino, he chatted with Barbara about accompanying his wife on adventures involving her trucking business.
Source: Bobbie Peer/tapinto.net
Paul McCartney has discussed finding it difficult to properly grieve and put into words what John Lennon meant to him after his former Beatles bandmate was killed in late 1980.
“It was difficult for everyone in the world, ’cause he was such a loved character, and such a crazy guy. He was so special,” McCartney said during a recent interview with SiriusXM’s The Beatles Channel about the making of his 1982 solo album ‘Tug Of War’.
“It had hit me, so much so that I couldn’t really talk about it,” McCartney said, explaining that he felt unable to share in the mass outpourings of tributes and collective grieving that took place following Lennon’s death.
Source: Alex Gallagher/nme.com
In 1980, Ringo Starr called Cynthia Lennon, John Lennon’s ex-wife, to break the news that the musician had died. She said that in the grief, chaos, and confusion that followed, she had two clear thoughts. One was of a warning Lennon received from a psychic, and the other was of a number that had a bizarre importance in his life. She shared all the ways that it had cropped up in both his life and death.
In 1980, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon outside his New York City apartment building. Cynthia was in England, staying with Maureen Starkey, Starr’s ex-wife. That night, she was awoken by Starkey’s screaming.
“I was asleep in the spare room when screams woke me,” she wrote in her book John. “It took me a few seconds to realize that they were Mo’s. At that moment, she burst into my room. ‘Cyn, John’s been shot. Ringo’s on the phone — he wants to talk to you.'”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
