Beatles News
After The Beatles broke up, the band’s former members feuded through song lyrics and interviews, but John Lennon’s son said the arguments were blown out of proportion. Lennon and Paul McCartney, who wrote many of the group’s songs together, had many arguments in the time after the group broke up. While the fighting between them was painful, Sean said it could have been worse.
Lennon grew increasingly frustrated with his bandmates because of the way they treated Yoko Ono.
“You can quote Paul, it’s probably in the papers, he said it many times at first he hated Yoko and then he got to like her,” Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1971. “But, it’s too late for me. I’m for Yoko. Why should she take that kind of s*** from those people?”
THE DAY JOHN MET PAUL, 6 JULY 1957.
John: The day I met Paul I was singing 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' for the first time on stage. There's a picture of me with a checked shirt on, holding a little acoustic guitar – and I am singing 'Be-Bop-A-Lula'.
Source Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
It was 60 years ago today when “Love Me Do” introduced the Beatles to the United Kingdom. A few months later, came their first album with a different version of “Love Me Do,” one featuring John, Paul, George, and … Andy.
During recording, producer George Martin had decided to pass by new drummer Ringo Starr in one session, in favor of veteran session drummer Andy White. (That version was later released in America.) Starr was relegated to the tambourine; on the single’s B side, “P.S. I Love You,” he’d been limited to the maracas.
Source: Yvonne Abraham/bostonglobe.com
According to BeatlesBible.com, the Fab Four had first recorded the song with original drummer Pete Best on June 6, 1962, at London’s EMI Studios — later Abbey Road Studios. Then, after Ringo Starr had replaced Best, the band took a second crack at the song at EMI on September 4 of that year.
Producer George Martin wasn’t happy with the quality of Ringo’s drumming on that version, so The Beatles reconvened once more time at EMI, on September 11, 1962, with session drummer Andy White sitting in and Starr on tambourine.
Initial copies of the “Love Me Do” single actually featured the version with Ringo, although the one with White was included on The Beatles’ debut U.K. album, Please Please Me, and The Beatles’ Hits EP, which were released in 1963 in March and September, respectively.
Source: ABC NEWS/kshe95.com
Hours before John Lennon's murder he put pen to paper, for perhaps the final time in his life, and now that document is up for grabs ... to any collector with deep pockets.
The typed letter was personally signed by JL on December 8, 1980 -- the day he was shot and killed outside his NYC home -- and it's believed to be the last legal doc with his autograph.
John sent it to his accountant, Barry Nichols, and it lists 3 people to whom John gave his proxy to vote at an annual meeting for the Beatles corporations ... which was happening 9 days later in London.
This particular memorabilia is expected to fetch between $30k and $50k ... and if it does, that would be a sweet deal considering his last autograph sold for $100k!
Source: tmz.com
In 1976, George Harrison was in India, and a local journalist set out to interview him — and score an autograph for a friend. After much searching, the journalist, C.Y. Gopinath, managed to track Harrison down. He had no interest in giving an interview, though. When Gopinath asked for his autograph, Harrison responded sourly.
After many exhausting years of touring and recording music, The Beatles took a trip to India to study Transcendental Meditation.
“The weeks the Beatles spent at the ashram were a uniquely calm and creative oasis for them: meditation, vegetarian food and the gentle beauty of the foothills of the Himalayas,” photographer Paul Saltzman wrote, per Rolling Stone. “There were no fans, no press, no rushing around with busy schedules, and in this freedom, in this single capsule of time, they created more great music than in any similar period in their illustrious careers.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
One of the songs from The Beatles‘ The White Album was about a guru John Lennon disliked. George Harrison said he came up with the sexy name of the song. Subsequently, George explained why the original name of the track didn’t work for him.
“I just called him ‘Sexy Sadie,'” he said. “Instead of [singing] ‘Maharishi, what have you done, you made a fool of … ‘ I was just using the situation to write a song, rather calculatingly but also to express what I felt. I was leaving Maharishi with a bad taste.”
According to Rolling Stone, John stopped looking up to the Maharishi because his friend Alex “Magic Alex” Mardas said the guru committed sexual misconduct against a female follower. No lawsuits were ever filed against the spiritual leader. Furthermore, John’s wife, Cynthia Lennon, said her husband hated the Maharishi’s preoccupation with money and fame.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr became famous drumming for The Beatles, but he didn’t rest on his laurels when they disbanded. He kicked off a modestly successful acting career before the group broke up, released solo records steadily since the 1970s (aside from a semi-retirement in the 1980s), and toured with several iterations of his All-Starr Band. Ringo and fellow Beatle George Harrison remained close enough that the drummer shared some incredible final moments with his one-time bandmate. Still, even though Ringo repeatedly asked George to join his All-Starr Band, the guitarist essentially refused in the most George way possible.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
A couple of years after legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar gave him the tools to start his spiritual journey, George became friends with the members of the Hare Krishna Temple, whose guru was Bhaktivedanta Swami, a.k.a. Prabhupada.
George met Shyamsundar, a devotee of the Haight-Ashbury temple, at The Beatles’ Christmas party in 1969. He told George he and the other devotees were living in a warehouse in Covent Garden and hoped to establish a temple in London.
Suddenly, George made it his mission to help them. He produced their album The Radha Krishna Temple and published Prabhupada’s KRSNA Book. After everything George did for them, the devotees made sure never to ask George for help again.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison once joked that his fellow Beatle, Ringo Starr, “might be a yogi disguised as a drummer.” The pair were close during their time with the Fab Four.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote that when The Beatles broke up, George was sad about not being bandmates with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and especially Ringo.
“Of course, they would remain close, communicate, see each other from time to time,” Greene wrote. “How could it be otherwise? They’d built a rapport that was nearly ‘telepathic,’ as Ringo had once described it.
“Of the three, George knew, Ringo could always be counted on for good humor and affection. Ringo would always be there for him. ‘For all I know,’ he said, ‘Ringo might be a yogi disguised as a drummer.'”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
In 1973, John Lennon and Yoko Ono temporarily separated, and he began dating the couple’s assistant, May Pang. Over the course of their relationship, she witnessed Lennon’s relationships with his former Beatles bandmates. She was there for some explosive fights, including one between Lennon and George Harrison. She explained that the ferocity of Harrison’s anger was frightening, even to Lennon.
After separating from Ono in 1973, Lennon moved out of the couple’s apartment. Ono has said that the separation, and Lennon’s subsequent relationship with Pang, did not hurt her.
“The affair was not something that was hurtful to me,” Ono told The Telegraph in 2012. “I needed a rest. I needed space.”
Lennon refers to the separation period as his “Lost Weekend,” though, in reality, it lasted roughly 18 months. While he was creatively productive, he also drank heavily and used drugs, sometimes leading to destructive behavior. During this time, he was involved with Pang.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
