Beatles News
Ex-Beatle and top recording star Paul McCartney (left) shakes with Paul McCartney ... [+] (right) in a World War I battlefield scene from a video to promote his title role British release single "Pipes of Peace" from the album of the same name. Filmed in Kent, England, McCartney depicts a British soldier (left) and a German soldier (right) meeting during a ceasefire when troops used to play football before returning to their trench warfare.
Source: Peter Suciu/forbes.com
With songs from 1970 to last year, Mega Macca collection makes a "Wonderful Christmastime" gift.
The new Paul McCartney box set includes more than 50 years of singles – 65 re-creations of previous 7-inch releases and 15 new ones, plus a book – in a wood crate that comes with straps to make it easier to lift. Have silly love songs ever weighed so much? It’s the ultimate way to preserve, and sell, a music format that was originally intended to be disposable.
All told, The 7” Singles Box makes a solid case for McCartney as the auteur of the three-minute pop song. In The Beatles, McCartney helped remake the album as an ambitious art form – but he remains devoted enough to singles to keep a jukebox in his London office. By some measures, he’s the most successful singles artist of all time: The Beatles are No. 1 on Billboard’s ranking of the top-charting Hot 100 acts of all time and McCartney is No. 13 as a solo artist (including his work with Wings). When it came out, “Mull of Kintyre” was the best-selling single in U.K. history – and it may not even be one of the dozen best songs here.
Source: Robert Levine/billboard.com
It’s hard to argue that Ringo Starr didn’t make significant contributions to classic rock music. He put the beat in The Beatles and found fame and fortune because of it, but living a life of luxury was never his intention. Ringo and his wife lived like simple people in their mansion; the money, honors, and awards were just side benefits of making music. Yet Ringo’s songs helped him earn a rare honor in France years before the British recognized his greatness.
Ringo Starr with his medal after earning France's highest honor as Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, the only member of The Beatles to be so honored.
Ringo probably could have retired at 30 years old when The Beatles broke up in 1970, but that wasn’t his way. The drummer felt the need to keep going. He found success when he did.
Several of Ringo’s solo songs found chart success in the United States and the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. His solo hits helped Ringo lead a jet-setting lifestyle that allowed him to flit between England, the U.S., and Monaco at a moment’s notice.
The drummer lived part-time in a luxury apartment in Monaco. The tiny European country was where Ringo received a rare French honor years before the English did the same.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
It’s not easy getting a record deal from a label, considering that even the legendary Beatles struggled to convince numerous executives to sign them in. Recently, during the premiere of Mary McCartney’s ‘If These Walls Could Sing,’ Ringo Starr shared with the Scottish Sun how challenging it was for the band to find a label and how the Abbey Road Studios were there to save them.
It might be safe to say that Abbey Road had been pretty welcoming when the four lads of the Beatles were looking for any place to record their tunes, but the record executives weren’t so sure about the band’s talents. So, when Ringo was asked how important was Abbey Road Studios in the Beatles’ career, the drummer decided to pay some tribute.
“They have a little bit for us,” Starr said as he discussed what was so special about the famous recording studio. “We were just blessed that we got a record deal because of George Martin, and he was working out of here because we were refused by many record labels. And George took a chance, and then we came here, and we did ‘Love Me Do,’ and we went on from there.”
Source: Melisa Karakas/rockcelebrities.net
George Harrison surprised his friend and comedian, Eric Idle, the first time they met. The former Beatle brought his soon-to-be friend to the recording studio, where another singer-songwriter was recording.
Idle wrote, “I had heard that George wanted to meet me, but I was somewhat shy of meeting him. I was shy and tried to avoid him, but he snuck up on me in the back of the theater as the credits began to roll. I hadn’t yet learned he was unstoppable.
“We began a conversation that would last about twenty-four hours. Who could resist his opening line? ‘We can’t talk here. Let’s go and have a reefer in the projection booth.’ No telling what the startled projectionist felt as a Beatle came in with one of the actors from the movie he had just projected and lit up a joint.”
Idle couldn’t get rid of George after that.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison said The Beatles needed space to grow. That was one of the biggest reasons they separated in 1970. They all just wanted to fly the nest and experience other things.
During a 1987 interview, Dutch TV pointed out to George that he was only 27 when The Beatles split, yet he’d experienced many unimaginable things. Dutch TV asked what kind of person he was and what he felt when The Beatles split.
George replied, “In no less than 25 words? I don’t know. At the time, when we split, we’d had too much input from everything, all that being closed together, mania, everything like that. We needed a rest from each other, and we needed space to grow.
“I think it’s important because we’re growing all the time and when you, like that situation, it’s just like a family. You’re so close together, and then you grow older, and you want to move, and you want to go into your own house and have your own friends, and that was necessary.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles included four main band members: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. There were other important band mates before they settled on those four. A Beatles historian named two Beatles whom he called calming influences on Lennon. One was another part of the Fab Four, and one was one of their former colleagues.David Bedford was a guest on the Beatles City podcast on Aug. 23, 2020. Bedford has written books and made documentaries about the band. Here are the two other Beatles whom his sources tell him calmed Lennon over the years. Lennon was perhaps closer to McCartney than Starr and Harrison, because they wrote songs together. For one year, The Beatles had Stuart Sutcliffe on bass. Sutcliffe was a classmate of Lennon’s at Liverpool College of Art and he left the Beatles in 1961 to pursue his art.
Source: Fred Topel/cheatsheet.com
From 1963 to 1969, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr recorded a Christmas record for The Beatles’ fan club members. The records were often chaotic, featuring ad-libbed songs, skits, and direct addresses to fans. On their first record, which the band made in the early days of Beatlemania, McCartney spoke directly to the fan club. He told them they were no longer interested in a candy fans had been pelting at them.
The Beatles formed in 1960 and, by 1964, were international celebrities. Beatlemania began in England before 1964, but they reached unprecedented levels of fame on their first visit to the United States. While they appreciated their fans and their new level of success, it could be overwhelming. Scottish concert promoter Andi Lothian recalled how quickly their shows could devolve into chaos.
“The girls were beginning to overwhelm us,” he told The Guardian in 2013. “I saw one of them almost getting to Ringo’s drumkit and then I saw 40 drunk bouncers tearing down the aisles. It was like the Relief of Mafeking! It was absolute pandemonium. Girls fainting, screaming, wet seats. The whole hall went into some kind of state, almost like collective hypnotism. I’d never seen anything like it.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison said he was in “another world” while The Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. He’d recently experienced the essence of spirituality in one of the holiest places in India. It put things into perspective for him.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote that George felt awkward being back in London after returning from his six-week trip to India. During his trip, he meditated and read spiritual texts at the base of the Himalayan mountains. The beautiful experience catapulted George into spirituality like nothing else.
So, it’s understandable how hard it was for George to return. It was especially hard for him because The Beatles hadn’t had a spiritual awakening and weren’t coming up with exciting ideas.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
“Love Me Do,” the Beatles’ first single, has never received the plaudits that so much of their output has, and yet, there may have been no more important statement of purpose for the band.
Released in October 1962, “Love Me Do” was also the Beatles’ first hit, reaching #17 in the charts in Britain—even if that was largely because manager Brian Epstein bought up many copies himself, a technique known as “padding.”
The Beatles themselves regretted that they were missing out on the excitement back home—the presumed afterglow of landing a hit—by having to go to Hamburg for a final time as a club band. “Love Me Do” was where the action was, and who could fault The Beatles for wishing to be near their first trace of an epicenter?
The first noticeably different thing about “Love Me Do” is its unusual title. Love me do? The language mirrors a crisp, highly class-conscious, English form of conversation, the province of an older woman in society rather than a working-class Beatle.
Source: Colin Fleming/bestclassicbands.com
