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Sir Ringo Starr, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John and Mary McCartney attend the Disney Original documentary premiere (Dave

Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr were joined by a host of famous faces as they celebrated the UK premiere of a new documentary on Abbey Road Studios.

Directed by Sir Paul’s daughter Mary, If These Walls Could Sing is billed as the “first feature-length documentary” on the world-famous London venue.

The Beatles recorded most of their music at Abbey Road, with their 11th studio album released in 1969 named after the venue.

The Disney original documentary will explore the “breadth, diversity and ingenuity” of the studios across its nine decades.

It will also feature “intimate interviews” revealing how “artists, producers, composers and the dedicated engineers and staff of Abbey Road all found their musical language and community, while vivid archive footage and session tapes give exclusive access to these famously private studios”.

Source: Naomi Clarke/Yahoo Entertainment

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Ringo Starr never seemed to let fame change his personality. A Beatles business partner said he and his wife lived like simple people in their mansion. Starr had a casual response to a near-death experience in Mexico. The drummer’s down-to-earth attitude is part of his personality. And there’s more proof. Ringo had a classic reaction that included making a joke when one of his solo albums flopped.

Ringo’s 1992 album Time Takes Time was a comeback record of sorts.

It was The Beatles drummer’s first album of new material since 1980’s Stop & Smell the Roses (1983’s Old Wave didn’t land in the United States until 1994). Time Takes Time was also his first solo record since embracing sobriety. Starr spent years living with his addiction. He finally heard his little voice telling him the truth about his addiction when he found sobriety in 1988.

Starr enlisted the help of Tom Petty, Harry Nilsson, Jeff Lynne, Jeff Baxter (of the Doobie Brothers), and dozens more professionals on Time Takes Time. He designed it to be a No. 1 hit, but it failed miserably.

Did Ringo dwell on his failure? Of course not. The grounded Ringo had a classic response to his solo album flop that included making a joke about the record company’s name.

Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com

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An idea or experience generated many of The Beatles‘ most prolific songs. John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison regularly dove into their personal history to pen some of their most memorable tunes as a band and solo artists. Paul McCartney admits to focusing on core memories to help flesh out some of his biggest hits, including a drunken experience that formed the backstory of his 1982 tribute to John Lennon, “Here Today.”

McCartney has a method he uses to generate song ideas. This formula has served him well for over 60 years. He shared his technique in an interview with NPR.

“If I were to sit down and write a song, now, I’d use my usual method: I’d either sit down with a guitar or at the piano and just look for melodies, chord shapes, musical phrases, some words, a thought just to get started with,” he shared. 

Source: Lucille Barilla/cheatsheet.com

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George Harrison‘s son, Dhani, grew up around a lot of good music; it was unavoidable. From Dhani’s perspective, though, his life was ordinary. He thought his father “pushed buttons for a living” and had no idea George helped make Yellow Submarine.

Eventually, Dhani learned about his famous father. George kept Dhani out of the spotlight because he wanted his son to have a good childhood, unlike some musicians’ children.

Once Dhani knew about his past and fame, though, George never pushed music on him or tried to get him to follow in his footsteps. That choice was up to Dhani. He took a long time to decide.'

Source: Hannah Wigandt /CheatSheat

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The wife of late Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison has expressed joy about her return to Liverpool as she hopes to show a new side of him to fans.

Olivia married George - famed for penning the likes of Here Comes the Sun for the Fab Four - in 1978, and was with him until his death in 2001. Her collection of poems, Came the Lightening, was published last month (November 2022) but has been years in the making.

Olivia told the ECHO she started writing in "2018 or 2019", but when 2021 came around - two decades on from George's death - she realised she could release a collection with one poem for each year without him.

Source: Storm Newton/liverpoolecho.co.uk

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George Harrison once revealed which of his songs he liked best that everyone else overlooked. The former Beatle tended to like the songs that didn’t do well on the charts.

In his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, George wrote that writing songs stemmed from something deeper in someone like him who was born during a war. If you get all the persecution of being born in war, vibrations making you wonder what it’s all about, “you can see where it all comes out. I mean in your dreams.

“So it’s the unwinding of your nervous system,” George wrote. “The corresponding experience to what winds you up comes out in your dreams. To write a song then, even one like ‘Don’t Bother Me,’ helps to get rid of some subconscious burden.

Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com

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At the height of Beatlemania, everyone was getting The Beatles’ mop top haircut. The same thing happened to a lesser extent when George Clooney rocked the Caesar in the ‘90s. The Beatles’ do came from an outside source. Original “Fifth Beatle” Stuart Sutcliffe’s fiance, Astrid Kirchherr did the mop top. Here’s how John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and former drummer Pete Best adopted the style. 

Beatles historian David Bedford appeared on the Beatles City podcast on Aug. 23, 2020 to talk about Sutcliffe. Bedford was also in charge of Sutcliffe’s fan club. He explained how Sutcliffe’s hairdo, from Kirchherr, became the signature Beatles style. 

Astrid Kirchherr gave Stuart Sutcliffe the first Beatles mop top

Sutcliffe was The Beatles’ first bass player. While performing with the band, he met Kirchherr. Their connection was intense and immediate. 

Source: Fred Topel/cheatsheet.com

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John Lennon said one song turned the Plastic Ono Band into The Beatles. He said people undervalued Yoko Ono’s role in the Plastic Ono Band. He discussed how people reacted to the group after one of their songs became a huge hit.

John Lennon said people dismissed the Plastic Ono Band when they released their first song, “Give Peace a Chance.” Subsequently, he said another song transformed the Plastic Ono Band into The Beatles. The track in question was an international hit.

The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon includes an interview from 1975. In it, John compared Wings to the Plastic Ono Band. “Wings is almost as conceptual a group as Plastic Ono Band,” he said. 

“Plastic Ono was a conceptual group, meaning whoever was playing was the band,” he added. “And Wings keeps changing all the time. It’s conceptual. I mean, they’re backup men for Paul.”

 

Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com

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The Beach Boys and the Beatles were often inspired by one another — with Brian Wilson noting similarities between “Girl Don’t Tell Me” and John Lennon’s songwriting. Here’s what we learned from the memoir I Am Brian Wilson. 

He’s one of the masterminds behind “God Only Knows,” “I Get Around,” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” Aside from his role in the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson often shared his support for other bands. That includes the Beatles, who rose in popularity around the same time. 

In his memoir, Wilson noted that the Beach Boys weren’t creating music “in a vacuum.” As they became popular, the group noticed the rise of rock and roll. They also noted the bands that impacted the music scene. 

“One of the most important parts of the takeover was the Beatles,” Wilson wrote. The Beatles even impacted the Beach Boys’ original music — inspiring specific sounds and harmonies. 

“I wrote a song called ‘Girl Don’t Tell Me,’” Wilson said in I Am Brian Wilson. “It was one of the first songs that Carl sang lead on, and one of the only songs we did from that time where we didn’t sing in the back of him. It was almost like a different sound.” 

Source: Julia Dzurillay/cheatsheet.com

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Paul McCartney has a musical gift that he displayed at a very young age. He learned how to play the piano and the guitar and formed The Beatles before many people even went to college. However, Paul McCartney didn’t achieve the same success as his other musical endeavors when he auditioned to become a choir boy and got rejected. 

Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio is a live album by Paul McCartney and Carl Davis, released in 1991. Davis and McCartney composed the show to commemorate the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 150th anniversary. The album was recorded and performed at the Liverpool cathedral during the show’s dress rehearsal. In an interview with Barnes and Noble’s James Daunt, McCartney shared how this project originated. 

“I knew Carl Davis, the composer and conductor, and his wife Jean, and Linda knew Jean. So he turned up one day and he said, ‘The Liverpool Philharmonic is having a big anniversary.’ I think it was 150 years,” McCartney said. “And he said, ‘And they’d like to commission you to write something.’ So I said, ‘Well, great.’ I had no idea what I was doing, but that’s me. 

Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com

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