Beatles News
When you're as famous as Phil Collins, you're bound to bump elbows with some of the greats—but good ol' Phil's elbow-rubbing with Paul McCartney wasn't a pleasurable experience. Specifically, it ignited the most legendary of all grudges that Collins isn't about to let go of anytime soon.
In the U.K. Sunday Times in 2016, Collins fondly recalled their first meeting over a decade ago:
"I met him when I was working at the Buckingham Palace party back in 2002. McCartney came up with [his then-wife] Heather Mills and I had a first edition of The Beatles, by Hunter Davies, and I said, 'Hey, Paul, do you mind signing this for me?' And he said, 'Oh, Heather, our little Phil's a bit of a Beatles fan.' And I thought, 'You f*ck, you f*ck.' Never forgot it."
Source: Sammy Nickalls/goodhousekeeping.com
Before John Lennon‘s murder in 1980, his oldest son, Julian Lennon, didn’t get to make very many memories with him. But he recalled one moment with the former Beatle that still stands out.
How close were John and Julian Lennon? And what “simple moment” did Julian say was one of his fondest with his iconic father?
Julian Lennon was born in 1963 to John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia. That marriage ended, and the rock and roll icon married Yoko Ono. After that, Julian’s time with his father was always short and fleeting.
“[My] relationship with dad was very few [and] far between, really,” he told BBC (as transcribed by Rock and Roll and Garage.) “There are fond flashes of memories.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
On December 8, 1980, renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz stood over John Lennon and Yoko Ono's bed with a camera.
Leibovitz had been welcomed into the couple's apartment on the Upper West Side and was tasked with snapping a portrait of the Beatles superstar.
The cover photo was supposed to be a solo shot of Lennon, but the rocker had demanded his wife be in the frame.
He told Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner: "If they don't want the two of us, we're not interested."
When she arrived, Leibovitz decided she wanted the pair to be locked in an embrace, but Ono didn't want to be naked.
So instead, a nude Lennon wrapped himself around the fully-clothed Japanese artist and Leibovitz took a Polaroid photo.
"You've captured our relationship exactly," Lennon, 40, told her after he saw the image.
Source: April Glover/celebrity.nine.com.au
Paul McCartney’s guitar recently broke a record for the most expensive bass, but the iconic member of The Beatles was not the original owner of the priciest instrument in the world. Here’s how much The Fab Four star’s bass guitar sold for and who holds the record for the most expensive instrument.
Paul McCartney is a legendary musician who can play over 40 instruments, including the bass guitar, electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, and piano. He is quite attached to his guitars, even humanizing them at times.
According to Goodreads, McCartney once said, “Music is like a psychiatrist. You can tell your guitar things that you can’t tell people. And it will answer you with things people can’t tell you.”
He’s not the only member of the band with the habit of personifying his instruments. His fellow Beatle George Harrison gave his guitar human traits in the song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
Keith Richards and George Harrison got along well. They were the only two people in the 1960s who had experienced what it was like to play lead guitar in hugely popular rock bands. Even though The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were rival bands, George and Keith Richards had a mutual admiration society.
They stayed in touch even after their careers diverged years later.
George Harrison and Keith Richards had a bond
Richards claimed that he and George had a “bond” in the special “Remembering George” edition of Rolling Stone.
Richards said, “George and I kind of formed a bond in that we felt we were kind of fulfilling the same role within our respective bands, without really talking about it, although we did have a laugh here and there. “It was a wink and a nod to imply that they wouldn’t be anywhere without us.
Source: Micheal Kurt/technotrenz.com
After jamming together in 1968 and 1970, George Harrison took the stage to perform with Bob Dylan for the first time at the Concert for Bangladesh. They didn’t perform together until 1987 when Dylan invited George to play with him and the blues musician Taj Mahal. Then, in early 1988, George and Dylan played together during the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions, where they were both honorees.
However, George didn’t think he’d be able to perform with Dylan during his 1988 tour.
After a motorcycle accident in 1966, Dylan went into semi-retirement. Rolling Stone wrote that by the summer of 1971, he’d become “something of an apparition.”
By the time George planned the Concert for Bangladesh, Dylan had played only a hand full of shows since 1966 and none in the previous two years. George struggled to get Dylan to sign on to the benefit concert.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Of course I wanted to talk with Michael Lindsay-Hogg about the Beatles. Everyone wants to talk with him about the Beatles, especially since his star turn in “Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s epic documentary, which debuted last fall on Disney+.
In January 1969, Lindsay-Hogg was the brash young film director who tried to charm and cajole John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr through warring agendas as they hashed out new songs and gave their last concert on a London rooftop. Soon after that, he started shaping his nearly 60 hours of footage into the documentary “Let It Be,” a film largely unavailable since its initial theatrical run in 1970.
Lindsay-Hogg’s footage, as well as more than 100 hours of audio that he recorded with his crew, some of it with hidden microphones, got new life when Jackson cleaned it up and reassembled it for his nearly eight-hour series. McCartney and Starr, along with most critics, hailed “Get Back” as an upbeat corrective to Lindsay-Hogg’s more somber take.
Source: Alex Williams/forbesindia.com
John Lennon said one of The Beatles’ songs was “like an old-time ballad.” In addition, he felt the song was similar to The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” John didn’t like the way the press reacted to the track.
According to the book Lennon on Lennon: Interviews and Encounters with John Lennon, John discussed “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in a 1969 interview. “It’s something I wrote, and it’s like an old-time ballad,” he said. “It’s the story of us going along, getting married, going to Paris, going to Amsterdam, all that. It’s ‘Johnny B. Paperback Writer.'”
John criticized the way the press reacted to “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” “The story came out that only Paul and I were on the record, but I wouldn’t have bothered publicizing that,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison wrote one of his most famous songs, “Something,” about the one thing he loved most, Krishna. Many people thought the Beatle was singing about his wife, Pattie. However, George liked when people couldn’t figure out if he singing about God or a woman. They were interchangeable to him.
Although, George really was singing about Krishna this time. He just didn’t want to sing, “Something in the way he moves me” because he didn’t want fans to think he was gay.
George Harrison wearing black with members of the Hare Krishna temple in 1969.
Source: cheatsheet.com
During a dualistic time in his life, George Harrison recorded his first post-Beatles record, All Things Must Pass. After enduring years of Paul McCartney and John Lennon pushing him aside, George unleashed his mammoth triple album. It’s full of the songs he’d stockpiled. George had had the album mapped out before he even set foot in a recording studio. He even knew which track he wanted fans to hear first.
In a 2001 interview with Billboard, George talked about All Things Must Pass. The publication asked if it was a big decision to make “I’d Have You Anytime” the first track.
“It probably was, because it goes, ‘Let me in here…’ [laughs],” George said. “It just seemed like a good thing to do; it was a nice track, I liked that. And maybe subconsciously I needed a bit of support. I had Eric [Clapton] playing the solo, and Bob had helped write it, so it could have been something to do with that.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
