Beatles News
Ringo Starr started a serious relationship around the time he joined The Beatles. The drummer said the sweetest words about his wife soon after they started dating, but the marriage came several years later. Still, Ringo’s wedding in 1965 proved how tight The Beatles’ relationships were before things went sour for the band.
Adding Ringo to the mix near the end of 1962 was a busy time for the fledging Beatles.
From a musical standpoint, adding the talented drummer was the spark they needed to achieve global fame. The Fab Four hit the British charts by the end of the year, released three No. 1 singles and a No. 2 in England in 1963, and conquered North America by early 1964.
Two of the Fab Four’s personal lives were quite busy. Ringo started dating Maureen Cox around the time he joined the band. John Lennon got married a few days after the drummer joined.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
In 1958, John Lennon’s mother, Julia, died, and George Harrison’s mom wanted to ensure her son’s friend was OK. Though he put on a brave face in public, she overheard a conversation between Lennon and his friends in the months before his mother’s death. He said something that gave her cause for concern. Because of this, she forced Harrison to check up on Lennon. Lennon’s parents separated when he was young, and his Aunt Mimi called Social Services on his mother twice. As a result, Mimi took custody of Lennon, and he had lessened contact with her as a child. When Lennon grew older, though, he began reconnecting with his mother over music. Mimi wouldn’t let him play music in the house, but Julia encouraged him.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison had many musical influences and often found ways to pay homage to those artists in his songs. Sometimes, he would unconsciously include a melody or riff he heard somewhere else. One song he wrote sounded too similar to another artist, and the consequences made him stop “listening to the radio.”
“My Sweet Lord” was released in 1970 on the triple album All Things Must Pass, but it was also released as a single. The song hit No. 1 on the charts worldwide, making Harrison the first Beatle to hit No. 1 after the band split. The song was produced by Phil Spector and also included musicians such as Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton on the recording. In a 1971 interview shared by loudersound.com, Harrison explained why he believed “My Sweet Lord” became a hit.
“As far as I’m concerned, My Sweet Lord was a hit because of the sound and its simplicity. The sound of that record, it sounds like one huge guitar. The way Phil Spector and I put that down was we had two drummers, a bass player, two pianos and about five acoustic guitars, a tambourine player, and we sequenced it in order.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Initially, George Harrison was hesitant about participating in The Beatles: Anthology. However, he realized this was his group’s first and only chance to tell their story how it truly happened. Still, George had problems with certain scenes that painted inaccurate pictures or sensationalized rumors of some of the band’s worst times.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote that George was initially reluctant to participate in The Beatles: Anthology. The project became an eight-part documentary, album, and book.
In an interview about the documentary, George said it was difficult at first because all three of the remaining Beatles, including John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, wanted to tell the story they wanted.
“It is difficult when four people are telling the story because it’s actually four different stories,” George said. “I mean, you must realize it’s got to be somewhat of a compromise when four people are involved. But we’re trying to just say how it felt to us.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the gas that fueled The Beatles’ engine. The pair were awful to former bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe, and they didn’t necessarily end their relationship with drummer Pete Best on good terms. Still, John and Paul’s individual and combined songwriting talents helped propel the Fab Four to international fame. Their relationship soured by the time The Beatles broke up, but Paul praised John by saying he was like The Beatles’ “little Elvis” decades after they played their final note together. There might not have been any higher praise than that.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon helped put The Beatles on the map. His innate songwriting skills and competitive partnership with Paul McCartney led to dozens of hit songs for the Fab Four. Those enduring tunes are lucrative enough that John’s son lives off The Beatles’ money. Yet he was ready to leave it all behind as soon as he met Yoko Ono. Their relationship included several artistic collaborations, but Yoko criticized John’s contributions to their first work together.
John married his first wife, Cynthia, in 1962, around the time The Beatles first entered the British charts with “Love Me Do.” We all know what happened next. A stream of hit songs and groundbreaking albums followed, and the Fab Four rewrote the rulebook for popular music.
Yet everything changed when John met Yoko at an art exhibit in 1966. He almost instantly fell in love with the no-holds-barred artist. John’s passion for Yoko was so strong that he once said he had no interest in The Beatles after meeting her. They married in 1969, and the Fab Four soldiered on until 1970 despite John’s seeming disinterest.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon made fun of Paul McCartney‘s “Another Day” in his tune “How Do You Sleep?” He was responding to his former bandmate’s song “Too Many People.” In 1970, The Beatles split. Shortly after, Paul sued the others in London’s High Court of Justice. He sought to dissolve the band’s contractual partnership after his bandmates appointed Allen Klein to preside over The Beatles’ financial affairs.
Paul wanted his father-in-law and brother-in-law, Lee and John Eastman, to be the group’s managers. However, as George Harrison said, he, John, and Ringo Starr weren’t trying to do what was best for Paul’s in-laws.
After Paul opened the lawsuit, John gave a defamatory interview with Rolling Stone. Paul grew sick of all the drama and wrote “Too Many People,” which appeared on 1971’s Ram. In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote it was a time when “John was firing missiles at me with his songs, and one or two of them were quite cruel. I don’t know what he hoped to gain, other than punching me in the face. The whole thing really annoyed me.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band - Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette - announced they will be touring in the Spring. It will be primarily a west coast tour, starting May 19 and concluding June 17. The 20 dates will include shows in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah. It will also see Ringo return to the Greek Theatre June 15.
“It’s a new year and here are some new tour dates,” Ringo affirmed. “I love playing with the All Starrs and can’t wait to be back out on the road again with this band. I send Peace and Love to you all and we hope to see you out there.”
Here is the list of tour dates:
Source: thebeatles.com
George Harrison didn’t know if his life was a “blessing or a curse.” On the one hand, George was blessed and fortunate enough to have become a rich and internationally famous rock star. On the other hand, there were times when he felt as if no one gave him the privacy he desperately craved.
According to Graeme Thomson’s George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door, George visited his childhood home in Liverpool in the mid-1970s. Looking up at the building, he thought: “How do I come into that family, in that house, at that time – and who am I anyway?”
After being with The Beatles and achieving worldwide success, George often questioned why God had placed him in that particular body and given him the life he had. Spirituality later taught him that everything was predetermined. George believed that God wanted him to be famous so that he could spread the spiritual word to all his fans. However, sometimes being famous wasn’t all that great.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Ron Howard has reflected on his experience directing The Beatles documentary Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, including meeting Paul McCartney.
The 2016 documentary film charted the band’s touring years from 1962 to 1966, including their final full public concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.
Speaking to NME during an exclusive Absolute Scenes interview about the project (shown above), Howard said: “I really related to and respected Paul McCartney. What a work ethic. He loves it.
“I feel that way about directing. I feel that way about telling stories.”
While making the documentary, Howard explained that he gained a further appreciation of the band’s songwriting.
Source: Adam Starkey/nme.com
