Beatles News
Rare censored footage of the tight security put in place by Tokyo police when the Beatles came to Japan to perform in 1966 has finally reached the public domain.
The nearly 36-minute black and white silent movie shot by the Metropolitan Police Department documents a level of security normally accorded to state guests.
The group was in Japan from June 29 to July 3. It was their first and last tour in Japan as a band.
It shows police meetings to discuss security measures and officers at checkpoints set up around Haneda Airport in the capital for the arrival of the four-member group.
The footage also captures a vehicle displaying a banner that read “Demoralizing Beatles must be driven out” heading in the direction of the cameraman.
Source: asahi.com
George Harrison once revealed that he read his album reviews. However, that didn’t mean he cared about what they said. He read them out of curiosity, but they didn’t affect him or his playing. Anyway, George wasn’t making music for the critics.
The former Beatle never liked explaining himself or his songs. He said whatever he was trying to say was plain as day in the lyrics. If they weren’t obvious, he was OK with fans’ interpretations. However, George wasn’t making music for anyone but God. In the mid-1960s, Ravi Shankar taught him that “God is sound.”
So, it’s surprising that George cared enough to read about what others said about his music. George explained he read some reviews if he came across them.
“I canceled all my newspapers five years ago, so I don’t really know what people say,” he said. “If I do see a review of an album I’ll read it, although it doesn’t make too much difference what they say, because I am what I am whether they like it or not.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison was “by far the best” musician in The Beatles during their seminal stint playing on Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, a German friend of the band has said. Meanwhile John Lennon was still learning, while former drummer Pete Best was still glum about his departure almost 30 years after he was replaced by Ringo Starr, Hans-Olaf Henkel added.
The 82-year-old former MEP told Express.co.uk he got to know The Beatles thanks to an old flame - photographer Astrid Kirchherr.
Ms Kircherr had introduced Mr Henkel to Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon’s art school friend who was the band’s bass player, and whom she was later engaged to before he died at the tragically young age of 21 of a brain haemorrhage.
Mr Henkel said: ”During 1961 I went to the Top Ten Club located on the Reeperbahn many times to hear the Beatles - and see Astrid.
Source: Ciaran McGrath/express.co.uk
It was 53 years ago today (September 26th, 1969) that the Beatles' final album, Abbey Road, was released. Although the Let It Be album was released the next year featuring earlier unreleased tracks, Abbey Road was the last album the group recorded together. The album's working title had been Everest — after a brand of cigarettes their engineer Geoff Emerick smoked — before the group simply chose the name of the street where their recording studio was located.
Abbey Road spent 11 weeks at Number One and featured the double A-sided single “Come Together” and “Something,” the highest-charting Beatles song written by George Harrison. Paul McCartney commented on the song in The Beatles Anthology saying, “'Something' was out of left field. . . It appealed to me because it has a very beautiful melody. I thought it was George's greatest track.”
Source: Music News/vermilioncountyfirst.com
The light in John Lennon's old bedroom will be left on overnight next month.
Mendips, Lennon's childhood home in Woolton, where he lived from 1945 to 1963, is now owned by the National Trust. Lennon's widow Yoko Ono bought the house in March 2002, and donated it to the National Trust in order to save it from demolition and property speculators.
The childhood home of Paul McCartney - 13 Forthlin Road - is also owned and managed by the National Trust, with many citing it as the birthplace of the Beatles.
On October 9 every year, the light in John's old bedroom in Mendips is left on overnight by the managers of the house, to mark the former Beatles' birthday. This year would have been the music legend's 82nd.
John lived at the Woolton address with his Aunt Mimi. He would later move out in 1963 as the Beatles rocketed to stardom.
Source: Aaron Curran/liverpoolecho.co.uk
The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr recently spoke to USA TODAY’s Melissa Ruggieri and reflected on how Paul McCartney and John Lennon prepared the song, ‘Yello Submarine,’ in which Starr took over the lead vocals.
‘Yellow Submarine,’ a product of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership, appeared on the band’s 1966 album, ‘Revolver.’ The track became a big hit from the day it premiered, reaching number 1 in many countries. It was intended to be a fun children’s song and stood out with its simple lyrics and melody. What McCartney and Lennon had in their minds was to create a song specifically for Ringo Starr.
Source: Bihter Sevinc/rockcelebrities.net
John Lennon said he would play Buddy Holly’s songs while he was just hanging out. He was more familiar with early rock ‘n’ roll songs than he was with The Beatles’ material. John covered a Holly song and it appeared on a hit album.
John Lennon said he was more familiar with early rock songs than he was with The Beatles’ songs. For example, he said he could play one of Buddy Holly’s songs “backwards.” Notably, John recorded the track for one of his hit albums. He said making the album was costly.The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes an interview from 1980. In it, John discussed rock ‘n’ roll. “I remember the old rock songs better than I remember my own songs,” he said. “If I sat down in a room and just started playing, if I had a guitar now and we were just hanging out singing, I would sing all the early and mid-’50s stuff — Buddy Holly and all. I remember those.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
The cover of a John Lennon album features him and Yoko Ono naked. John said “people got so upset by it.”
The former Beatle said his relationship to the press changed after the release of the album.
One of John Lennon‘s albums features him and Yoko Ono nude on the cover. Subsequently, John responded to the claim he and Yoko only created the cover for “shock value.” Notably, the album became far more popular in the United States than it was in the United Kingdom.John responded to the claim he and Yoko got naked for shock value. “Well, that’s ridiculous, you know,” he said. “Later people started saying, ‘They’ll do anything for publicity,’ and then when we stopped talking to the press, we became ‘recluses,’ but we got more publicity than when we talked to the press.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney has worked with some of the most prolific singers, songwriters, and musicians in the music business. However, he never had the chance to collaborate with Prince before his 2016 death. Ten years prior, McCartney wrote a secret letter to Prince asking him to donate to a cause near and dear to The Beatles‘ bassist’s heart. What did the note say?
Revolution members Bobby Z, Dez Dickerson, and Matt Fink piqued Prince’s interest when they started playing The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on their tour bus’ speakers while the Revolution toured Purple Rain. The Beatles consisted of McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
Per Diffuser, Prince didn’t seem that impressed with the collection of Sgt. Pepper songs. “He said, ‘What’s that?'” Bobby Z explained. “We said, ‘That’s Sgt. Pepper.’
Source: Lucille Barilla/cheatsheet.com
“The Masked Singer” sent home its first round of contestants on Wednesday night, and Eric Idle was unmasked as Hedgehog. Despite leaving the show the first night, the actor said he’d already accomplished exactly what he came to do.
After surviving pancreatic cancer, the actor told TheWrap he was on a mission to prove to himself that he had what it took to step back out onstage.
“I thought, well, actually, this is rather a good opportunity for me to see if I can still do this,” he said. “I had a bit of an epiphany and I thought, ‘You know what? It’s time I came out to cancer and told people that this is good news.'”
Source: Katie Campione/yahoo.com
