Beatles News
When The Beatles hired Ringo Starr, original drummer Pete Best’s fans revolted, and manager Brian Epstein wondered if they were right to. Best’s looks and attitude onstage won him many fans. Though John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison didn’t feel that Best fit in with them, Epstein wondered if Starr would be any better. According to Starr himself, Epstein didn’t believe he had the personality for the job.Best joined The Beatles in 1960 and played with the group in Hamburg and Liverpool. In 1962, however, the band decided they wanted to move in a different direction.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison claimed The Beatles formed because it was their destiny. Everything had been pre-determined for them because of something they did in their past lives. The spiritual Beatle believed in reincarnation and karma.
The Beatles performing on 'Top of the Pops' in 1966.
As someone who followed Hinduism dedicatedly (although his wife, Olivia, claims he never belonged to any spiritual organization), George believed in reincarnation and karma. In his memoir, I Me Mine, he explained, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” which is karma. You’ll be reincarnated if you do something in a past life that causes ripples. Then, your soul will be forced to walk the Earth over and over until you set things right.
In 1967, on The Frost Programme (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), he explained, “I believe in re-birth, and then you come back and go through more experience, and you die and you come back again and you keep coming back until you’ve got it straight. That’s how I see it.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Released on March 22, 1963, via EMI’s Parlophone label, the George Martin-produced LP heralded the arrival of the decade’s premier band as they climbed up the charts to the number one position.
The album’s John Lennon/Paul McCartney-penned title track was released as a single earlier that year. It was the Beatles’ second U.K. 7-inch (after 1962’s “Love Me Do”) and their first in the U.S.
On this day in 1963, the band appeared on the British television show Thank Your Lucky Stars for a mimed performance of the “Please Please Me” single. Broadcast across much of the U.K., the exposure greatly bolstered the Fab Four’s success.
Source: Rod Brakes/guitarplayer.com
The names. The feud. The money. The legacy. Buckle up. It’s about to get toasty. We’re diving into the history and meaning of the Michael Jackson song, “The Girl Is Mine,” featuring Beatle Paul McCartney.
Written by Jackson and producer Quincy Jones, “The Girl Is Mine” was recorded by Jackson and McCartney at Westlake Studios in L.A. from April 14-16. It was released on Jackson’s sixth solo album, Thriller, in 1982. That LP remains the greatest-selling popular music album of all time. Strangely, Jackson never performed “The Girl Is Mine” in his career.
The year before, in 1981, Jackson and McCartney had recorded the song, “Say Say Say” and “The Man” for McCartney’s fifth album, Pipes of Peace, which was released in 1983.
“The Girl Is Mine” topped the R&B singles chart upon its release and it peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It hit No. 8 in the U.K. and No. 1 in Spain. After just two years, the song had sold 1.3 million copies by 1985. It was certified Gold. Though, at the same time, critics believed it was the weakest song on the masterpiece, Thriller. The cover photograph for the single was taken by McCartney’s wife, Linda.
Source: Jacob Uitti/americansongwriter.com
Paul McCartney once revealed his favorite version of George Harrison‘s Beatles song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It wasn’t the original recording from The White Album. Interestingly, George’s favorite wasn’t the original either. Paul McCartney and George Harrison on a tour bus in 1966.
Each Fab Four had creative ways of coming up with songs. They had their influences and other things to help them. George’s go-to was spirituality and philosophy. In his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, George said Chinese philosophy helped him write “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
George explained that he had a copy of I Ching, the Chinese classic Book of Changes, which seemed to him to be based “on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental.”
He continued, “This idea was in my head when I visited my parents’ house in the north of England. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book—as it would be relative to that moment, at that time.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Last year, Dolly Parton was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, an honor she initially balked at after she asserted that she didn’t make rock ‘n’ roll music. She ended up accepting the award, though, and the whole incident led her to set out to record a rock album of her own. She has already said she wants to reunite Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on it — we’ll see if that happens! But it seems like a guest list is starting to come together and, because it’s Dolly Parton, it sure is a doozy.
Parton was on The View this week, and she talked about some of the big names that are in the works for the upcoming album. Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty, Steve Perry, and Steven Tyler have all apparently already recorded their contributions. It was said that the album would include covers of “Stairway To Heaven” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” When asked if Mick Jagger would be on it, Parton said she was trying to get him, but that “Pink and Brandi Carlisle are singing on that particular song with me.”
Source: By James Rettig/stereogum.com
It took John Lennon a while to warm up to George Harrison, but the bandmates became good friends once he did. Lennon wanted to introduce Harrison to his aunt, Mimi Smith, but he knew Smith didn’t tend to like his friends. She wouldn’t let Paul McCartney into her house and once threw a fit in front of Lennon’s girlfriend, Cynthia. Because of this, Lennon worked hard to make Smith think she would like Harrison. Ultimately, though, his efforts were unsuccessful.
Smith took custody of Lennon after calling Social Services on his mother, Julia, twice. After taking him in, Smith made it clear that she had a specific set of expectations for her nephew. She did not want him playing in a band, and she didn’t want him spending time with people she deemed unsuitable. Lennon’s first wife, Cynthia, believed Smith was jealous of Lennon’s friends.
“Mimi wanted and expected John’s devotion, and if you got in her way you were not popular,” Cynthia wrote in her book John. “She constantly hounded and oppressed him. He constantly complained that she never left him alone and found fault with everything he did. Even before his mother died she had been the closest thing he had to a parent, and he wanted to please her, but she made it impossible for him.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison was the youngest member of The Beatles. He shot down Paul McCartney’s idea for the hit “Something,” but Macca and John Lennon shot down George plenty of times. He was a burgeoning songwriter, but they kept many of his songs off Beatles albums. His frustrations bubbled to the surface the closer the Fab Four got to the end of the road. Pattie Boyd once said George went into a shell after one Beatles fight, and she couldn’t reach him no matter what she did.
Pattie Boyd (left) and George Harrison leave court after paying a fine for cannabis possession in March 1969.
Paul and John Lennon wrote most of the songs that helped The Beatles climb the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. That hierarchy persisted even as George developed as a songwriter.
The so-called quiet Beatle often had one or two songs per Beatles album as John and Paul pushed for their tunes to make the cut. At that rate, George said he’d have to make a hundred Beatles albums to release the songs he penned during a particularly prolific year.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney had an interesting time working with Stevie Wonder on their song, “Ebony and Ivory,’ in 1982. The former Beatle said he had to be “super precise” around the virtuoso because he heard every mistake.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul said he wrote “Ebony and Ivory” in 1980 “as a response to the problem of racial tension, which had been the cause of a lot of friction in the U.K. around that time.”
Paul made the demo in Scotland in his little studio there. Shortly after, he decided to call Wonder to see if he wanted to do something together. The pair have known each other for a long time. They first met in 1966, after a 15-year-old Wonder played a show in London.
When Paul called the child prodigy about collaborating, they were thinking about writing something together. However, Paul told Wonder he had “Ebony and Ivory.” Wonder agreed to record it.
Paul and Wonder agreed to meet at Monserrat, where producer George Martin had a recording studio. Although, Paul had no idea how long it’d take for Wonder to show up.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon and the rest of The Beatles decided to fire Pete Best. John Lennon no longer wanted Pete Best in The Beatles, but admitted they didn’t treat him well when they fired him. Pete Best doesn’t hold a grudge against his former bandmates.
Before Ringo Starr, The Beatles was composed of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best. Best was the band’s first drummer and played with them during their residency in Hamburg, Germany. Ultimately, though, the other three band members felt that Best wasn’t a good fit in the group. They fired him, but Lennon admitted they were cowardly in how they did it.
In 1960, McCartney recruited Best, a local Liverpool drummer, to join The Beatles. He remained with the group for two years and became popular with fans after shows at The Cavern Club.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
