Beatles News
It is well known that the Beatles had stopped performing live by the late 1960s.
By 1966, the Fab Four were working hard on what would be their eighth album - but they wanted to majorly switch it up. Instead of just stringing together another batch of singles into an album, the band's primary songwriters, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, wrote a concept album: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The album has become one of The Beatles' biggest and best-known albums of all time. Not only did it include such iconic hits as its title track and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, but it also housed With a Little Help from My Friends and A Day in the Life.
Source: Aaron Curran/liverpoolecho.co.uk
George Harrison claimed The Beatles couldn’t do anything creative without people hassling them. The press and fans were always trying to figure out the group’s creative process. Meanwhile, the record companies and executives were always trying to change things.
With how popular The Beatles were, all eyes were constantly on them. Everyone, the press, fans, and even fellow musicians, wanted to know their secret to success. They didn’t exactly have one, according to George.
During a 1967 interview, Melody Maker (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) asked George if he could explain where The Beatles were at musically.
“We’re not trying to do anything,” George said. “This is the big joke. It’s all Cosmic Joke. Everyone gets our records and says ‘wonder how they thought of that?’ or ‘wonder what they’re planning next?’ or whatever they do say.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon and Paul McCartney might not have taken The Beatles to legendary heights without Ringo Starr and George Harrison’s help. Still, there’s no denying that John and Paul were the creative driving forces behind the band and responsible for some of The Beatles’ biggest hits. Paul and John kept writing hits after the Fab Four fractured, including some all-time great Christmas songs. Between John’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” and Paul’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” which has been covered more? Let’s find out.
Paul and John grew up as friends who shared similar life experiences before they formed a band. Both lost their mother at young ages, for instance. Their similar backgrounds and love for music helped them bond.
When they started playing and later writing music together, John and Paul were a tight-knit twosome. They often wrote in tandem and bounced ideas off each other. At the same time, the pair remained competitive against each other, striving to write more and bigger Beatles hits.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
From the explosive opening of Can't Buy Me Love to the closing chords of The End, Sir Paul McCartney played one of Glastonbury's greatest ever sets this summer.
Over the course of three hours, he brought new life to the classics that established him as the planet's most successful and influential living songwriter.
Along the way, he duetted with Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl; played Something on George Harrison's own ukulele; and blew the fireworks budget for a thrilling Live And Let Die.
It was an emotional night from the outset, when fans stopped Sir Paul in his tracks by singing Happy Birthday.
"For me?" asked the star, who'd turned 80 a week earlier.
It was equally moving when Sir Paul played I Got A Feeling as a duet with John Lennon, whose vocals had been isolated for Peter Jackson's Get Back documentary.
For a moment, the two friends were reconnected and trading melodies again; Lennon frozen in time, as Sir Paul surveyed an audience they could, in a different universe, have shared.
Source: Mark Savage/bbc.com
Being two rock music icons of the same era isn’t the only thing David Crosby and George Harrison share. These two musicians also had a close friendship, so much so that the CSNY icon wrote a song dedicated to the Beatles’ lead guitarist earlier in his time with the band. During a recent interview with Goldmine, he remembered its creation process as well as his relationship with Harrison.
When the interviewer mentioned the 1973 Byrds reunion album, Crosby first said, “It is a better album than most people give it credit for, I think. Thanks, man.” He then went on to talk about ‘Laughing,’ revealing that the song had an intention, “I think ‘Laughing’ is one of my better songs. It was written with a purpose.”
Later in the conversation, David Crosby opened up about his relationship with the Beatles members and said, “I was friends with George Harrison. He was the Beatle who I was closest to. I was friends with all of them, and I am still friends with Paul and Ringo, but I was closest with George. I would go to his house for dinner. We hung out. We talked a lot. He was very friendly. We played a bunch of music together. We had a long and fruitful relationship. I liked him a lot.”
Source: Melek Nur Pervan/rockcelebrities.net
From 1963 to 1969, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr headed to the studio to record Christmas singles for The Beatles’ fan club. Their earliest Christmas records captured the camaraderie of the band members. Over the years, the records lost some of their early playfulness, particularly with Harrison’s parts. His final contribution clocked in at just six seconds long. In 1963, The Beatles sent their first Christmas record to paying members of their fan club. Backed only by chimes, the band performed a heavily ad-libbed version of “Good King Wenceslas.” Included with the song was a great deal of banter back and forth between the band.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Allan Kozinn talks with 207 about what he learned through writing the book that focuses on Paul McCartney from 1969 to 1973.
PORTLAND, Maine — Allan Kozinn wrote about music for more than 35 years for The New York Times, at times writing extensively about Paul McCartney and The Beatles.
His latest book, “The McCartney Legacy,” is the first of a projected three-volume series on Paul McCartney from 1969 to 1973.
The book begins in the final years of The Beatles and goes through the years that followed. Kozinn writes about some of the hardships McCartney faced in the early 70s, how he dealt with the band's breakup, and what it meant for his musical and financial future.
Source: Aaron Tanguay/newscentermaine.com
With Peter Jackson's epic three-part documentary miniseries The Beatles: Get Back currently celebrating its one-year anniversary, many fans have been wondering if more material from the famous sessions will be unleashed on the public. When it was put out on DVD and Blu-ray earlier this year, it only contained the same 468 minutes that’s available streaming on Disney+, with no extra footage or bonus material of any kind, so there’s been a lot of speculation about a possible extended future edition.
Jackson assembled Get Back from 60 hours of footage and over 150 hours of audio of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr working in January 1969. This would become Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary and the same-titled Phil Spector-produced LP, Let it Be. Jackson told The Hollywood Reporter journalist Kim Masters on The Business podcast that “there’s five or six hours of fantastic material that we didn’t include, and I don’t want it to go back into the faults for fifty years. So, let’s just say that it’s a conversation that’s happening, but it’s not necessarily a definitive one at this point."
Source: Daniel Cook Johnson/movieweb.com
In May 1963, William and Margaret Young left a Glasgow, Scotland slum with seven of their eight children, including George, Angus, and Malcolm, and moved to Sydney, Australia, to begin a new life, according to "AC/DC – The Early Years & Bon Scott." The boys would soon turn to music in their new homeland. But one brother, Alex, stayed behind in Scotland and eventually drifted down to London, where he would unknowingly become the connection between the Beatles and AC/DC.
By the late 1960s, the Beatles were making a lot of money and decided, in part for tax reasons, to launch Apple Corps, an umbrella company for their various projects. "It's a business concerning records, films, and electronics," John Lennon announced during a press conference in New York City in May 1968, according to NPR. The band released both its own music, beginning with the single "Hey Jude" in August 1968, and other artists' music as well. Apple Publishing was one of their early endeavors and this is where Alex Young comes into the picture.
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John Lennon felt The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” inspired a song from the 1970s. He was correct.
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” became a massive hit in the United States.
The Beatles‘ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” inspired a song from the 1970s. John Lennon noticed the similarity. Subsequently, he confronted the song’s writer while drunk.Devo is a nerdy rock band most known for the hit single “Whip It.” During a 2022 interview with Stereogum, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh discussed one of his band’s early songs.“If you listen to the first song on the first Devo record, I start off ‘Uncontrollable Urge’ with basically the same intro as ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand,'” Mothersbaugh revealed. “In the song, there’s a deconstructed ‘yeah yeah yeah.’ It didn’t go unnoticed by John Lennon.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
