Beatles News
If you had told me when I was a young teenager — swooning over a certain mop-topped quartet from Liverpool, like most girls my age at the time — that I would one day talk to Pete Best, the drummer often called "the fifth Beatle," I would have giggled in disbelief.
Even though my allegiance was clearly to John, Paul, George and Ringo, I had heard of the drummer who played with the Silver Beatles before Ringo joined the band.
Yet, there I was one afternoon last week, a teenager no more, on the phone with Best, laughing away at his stories and talking easily to the man who played drums before Ringo took the number four spot as he spoke about "The Best of the Beatles," his upcoming show at the United.
That's because Best — who turned 83 last November — was charming, entertaining, funny and easy to talk to.
"It will be my first time in Rhode Island," said Best, who formed the Pete Best Band in the late 1980s and has been touring ever since, bringing the "sound of the Beatles in their formative years" to audiences worldwide.
"It's a powerhouse of a show," he told me with enthusiasm. "There's lots of energy."
Source: thewesterlysun.com/Nancy Burns-Fusaro
On August 30, 1972, John Lennon played his only full-length post-Beatles concert at Madison Square Garden. But what led to that moment? One to One: John & Yoko, directed by Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald, explores 18 pivotal months in Lennon and Ono’s life, from their move to Greenwich Village to their evolving approach to activism. The film immerses viewers in their world—restored concert footage, archival TV clips, and a meticulously recreated NYC apartment where they watched everything from Nixon’s speeches to The Price Is Right. With newly remixed audio by Sean Ono Lennon, this documentary is a seismic revelation that challenges everything we thought we knew about John & Yoko’s American journey.
Source: thatericalper.com/Eric Alper
Sean Ono Lennon was just five years old when his father John Lennon was murdered.
He has now opened up about how it felt to hear previously unheard recordings of his late dad during the production of new Kevin Macdonald documentary One To One: John & Yoko.
"I was completely floored," Sean told Mojo of listening to the box of tapes of conversations between John and drummer Jim Keltner, Allen Klein and MC5 manager John Sinclair that was only recently discovered.
"I think maybe not everyone realises how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him.
"I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone's familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad."
Source: goldradio.com/Mayer Nissim
With a hit new album under his belt, a concert special filmed at the Ryman Auditorium now streaming and a slew of upcoming tour dates, Ringo Starr is as busy as ever. So it’s fair enough that when he brings up talk of slowing down, his three kids consider him something like the drummer who cried wolf.
“Sometimes when I finish a tour, I’m like, ‘That’s the end for me.’ And all my children say, ‘Oh, Dad, you’ve told us that for the last 10 years.’ And they get fed up with me,” Starr tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I do feel, ‘Oh, that’s got to be enough,’ and then I get a phone call: ‘We’ve got a few gigs if you’re interested.’ Okay, we’re off again!”
The drummer, 84, will set off again with his All Starr Band in June for a 10-date tour, and in September, they’ll play six shows as part of a Las Vegas residency at The Venetian Theatre. Starr — who is dad to sons Zak, 59, and Jason, 57, and daughter Lee, 54, with late ex-wife Maureen and stepdad to wife Barbara Bach's kids Francesca, 56, and Gianni Gregorini, 52 — has played with his namesake band since 1989, and the current lineup includes Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson.
Zak Starkey and Ringo Starr in London in September 2016. David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty
“In those days, I had a phone book, so I found guys who were musicians and I’d call them,” he says of the band’s early days.
Source people.com/Rachel DeSantis
We know that The Beatles influenced rock and roll like no band or artist before or since. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how music might have progressed without the example they set. But it’s also important to note the Fab Four weren’t above borrowing what they liked from others.
John Lennon’s 6 Favorite Beatles Songs
“If I Needed Someone,” found on The Beatles’ landmark 1965 album Rubber Soul, features lyrics that owe a great deal to the unique sensibilities of the song’s writer, George Harrison. But musically, it’s indebted to another ‘60s band of note: The Byrds.
“Someone” Special
By 1965, George Harrison had developed a great deal as a songwriter, and his contributions to The Beatles’ albums started to become a bit more frequent. In the first four albums of the band’s career, he managed just a single solo composition. But on the group’s first album of 1965 (Help!), Harrison earned two writing credits.
He would also write a pair of tracks on Rubber Soul, released at the end of that same year. That was an album where the group took a huge leap in both their songwriting depth and studio wizardry. “If I Needed Someone” delivers on both counts.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
Across his time in The Beatles and as a solo artist, John Lennon wrote countless iconic songs. With Paul McCartney, he was part of the most legendary songwriting partnership of all time, which was the driving creative force behind The Beatles.
In the early days, the two wrote songs together at Paul's childhood home on Forthlin Road in Allerton. As they grew older and artistic differences within The Beatles emerged, the two tended to write independently before presenting songs to each other for final tweaks.
Speaking about working with Paul, John told Playboy in a 1980 interview: "(Paul) provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock 'n' roll.
"But, of course, when I think of some of my own songs - 'In My Life', or some of the early stuff, 'This Boy' - I was writing melody with the best of them."
About John and Paul's special working relationship, Wilfred Mellors wrote in 1972: "Opposite poles generate electricity: between John and Paul the sparks flew. John's fiery iconoclasm was tempered by Paul's lyrical grace, while Paul's wide-eyed charm was toughened by John's resilience."
Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk/Dan Haygarth
One To One – the new film about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s radical 1971-73 – is full of fear, intimacy and great music. “I was completely floored,” says Sean Lennon.
It’s 1972 and John Lennon is talking to drummer Jim Keltner on the phone, about a tour he’s planning that will end in Miami Beach to coincide with a protest at August’s Republican National Convention. The ex-Beatle’s ongoing challenge to President Nixon and the US political establishment has him buzzing, but Keltner sounds a note of concern. Does Lennon realise he’s playing with fire? Has he considered the risks?
Lifted from a recently discovered box of tapes, the audio is one of the stars of One To One: John & Yoko, Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ vivid and visceral new film about Lennon and Yoko Ono’s period of controversial activism, 1971-73. The pair’s recorded phone conversations with Keltner, Allen Klein, MC5 manager John Sinclair and more provide some of the film’s most surprising insights. One viewer was particularly struck.
Source: mojo4music.com/Danny Eccleston
The Beatles’ drummer Ringo Starr was inspired to write one of his most famous tracks, Octopus's Garden, after briefly leaving the band.
The 84-year-old rock star left the Fab Four during the recording of The White Album, after he got the sense that his bandmates, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison were getting along better without him.
Speaking on The Jimmy Kimmel Show, Starr confirmed he wrote one of his best-known songs during his break.
He said: "It came because on the White Album, I left the band. And I left the band because I didn’t think I was really part of it or playing great and I went and knocked on John [Lennon]’s door and said ‘I feel you three are so close, and I’m out of it,’ and he said ‘I thought it was you three.’
“And then I went to Paul [McCartney]’s and I said ‘I gotta tell you I feel like I’m not part of the band and I’m not playing good and you three are really close’ and he replied ‘I thought it was you three’.
Source: themirror.com/Hannah Furnell
This February 23, George Harrison would’ve turned 82. But, as is often the case, the universe had a different plan in mind, and – instead – the former Beatle left us at age 58 way back in 2001.
But despite his early exit, Harrison left behind a staggering amount of “stuff to listen to,” much of which is – inarguably at this point – historically important, if not the fodder of legend. In this feature, we’ve attempted to pinpoint – album by album – his greatest songs, solos, guest appearances and production credits.
We’ve started the timeline at 1963, excluding anything “unofficial” (sorry, Star Club, BBC and Decca!) but including his most impactful cameos. No, it’s not complete (not gonna happen!), but all the biggies (and a few smallies) are here. Dig in!
Enter, Beatlemania....
The Beatles – Please Please Me (1963)
Source: guitarworld.com/Damian Fanelli, Neville Marten, Bill DeMain, Ian Fortnam
People like to debate about the identity of the fifth Beatle, but there’s really only one answer that makes sense. George Martin was the guy in the room with the four members of the group for the vast majority of their recordings, and his input into their music was often essential to its overall effect.
We could have made this list much longer if we chose. But here are five instances where George Martin’s expertise and taste as a producer made a massive difference in The Beatles‘ catalog.
“Please Please Me” from Please Please Me (1963)
When The Beatles signed with the Parlophone branch of EMI, Martin, who served as the in-house producer for the label, wasn’t quite sure what he’d been handed. They came in with what he felt was an inferior drummer (which led to the hiring of Ringo Starr to replace Pete Best), and he didn’t think their original songs were all that great. In fact, he forced them to raise their game by refusing to allow them to record “Please Please Me” in its original, Roy Orbison-influenced arrangement. The Beatles listened to his advice, sped up the tempo, and came away with their first No. 1 single in the UK.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia
