Beatles News
George Harrison and his wife, Olivia, welcomed their only son, Dhani, in 1978. They named him after two Indian musical notes. George strived to raise Dhani out of the spotlight and away from his fame. However, that doesn’t mean George shielded him away from anything. The former Beatle didn’t hold back from telling Dhani things and treated him like an adult.Shortly after Dhani was born, George and Olivia decided to keep him as much away from the spotlight as possible. George already wanted to stay away from people, so it wasn’t that hard. George said it was unfortunate that John Lennon’s kids had grown up in the height of publicity and hadn’t gotten a chance to be kids. He didn’t want Dhani to go through a similar thing.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney’s planned new musical wouldn’t be the first time an actual Beatle created something original for Broadway. But it would be wonderful.
Three years ago, McCartney announced he was writing his first musical – a stage adaptation of Frank Capra’s 1946 movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” a holiday evergreen in which Jimmy Stewart plays a man disappointed with his life who gets to see what the world would be like had he never been born.
The show seemed likely to wind up on Broadway, considering the credentials of his collaborators: book writer and co-lyricist Lee Hall (Tony winner for “Billy Elliot”; Network); producer Bill Kenwright (Tony-winner for “A Doll’s House” revival; “Passing Strange.”) There was even talk at the time of opening around Christmas, 2020.
Source: newyorktheater.me
The Beatles‘ “Eleanor Rigby” is one of the Fab Four’s most famous ballads. During the songwriting process, Paul McCartney asked John Lennon and a pair of others to work on the lyrics of the song. John explained why Paul’s actions offended him.John said Paul didn’t directly encourage him to work on “Eleanor Rigby.” “But by that time he didn’t want to ask for my help, and we were sitting around with [The Beatles’ personal assistant] Mal Evans and [music industry executive] Neil Aspinall, so he said to us, ‘Hey, you guys, finish up the lyrics.'” John was incensed by Paul’s actions. “Now I was there with Mal, a telephone installer who was our road manager, and Neil, who was a student accountant, and I was insulted and hurt that Paul had just thrown it out in the air,” he said.
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison and Eric Clapton had an interesting relationship. In the early 1970s, Clapton fell in love with George’s first wife, Pattie Boyd. She eventually left the former Beatle and married Clapton. However, this drama did nothing to the pair’s friendship.
While in The Beatles, George envied Clapton’s autonomy, but there was never any competition between them. There might have been if George toured more throughout his career, though.
In 1991, George announced that he was going on a tour of Japan with Clapton. It was his first tour since his first solo tour of the U.S. in 1974. George had played various gigs over the years, but nothing like this. He didn’t like touring very much. He once said he’d rather jam with his friends at a remote Holiday Inn somewhere. However, touring with Clapton made him feel better about it.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Drug song? Psychedelic whimsy? Or is it just about a submersible vehicle painted in a bright colour? Let’s delve into the mind of Paul McCartney…
53 years ago, The Beatles premiered their psychedelic full-length cartoon feature Yellow Submarine in London. A star-studded affair at The London Pavilion on Wednesday 17 July 1968, The Fab Four took time out from recording "The White Album" to see the film, joined by stars like Rolling Stone Keith Richards, model Twiggy and the first public appearance of Yoko Ono with John Lennon.
But why had The Beatles recorded such a child-like song in the first place? And what were they doing making cartoons anyway?
Source: Radio X
In the history of popular music, no band has had their catalog picked apart to the extent that the Beatles have. Every aspect of every song has been analyzed. From what key the song was written in, to what it was written on, to who wrote it, to where it was recorded. Sometimes, the minutiae of different takes or demos of the same song have been obsessed over. This is just another example of why the Beatles are thought to be the most popular and successful band ever.
According to Far Out, the first song the Beatles ever recorded is a more difficult question to answer than one would think. They booked studio time as early as 1958 while still known as the Quarryman, but their first song recorded by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr was "Love Me Do."
Source: Matt Reigle/grunge.com
Ron Howard’s “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years” is based on the early part of the Fab Four’s career (1962-1966), when they first captured the world’s attention.
And along with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, it also features a now-familiar face — Sigourney Weaver.
At TheWrap’s Screening Series Thursday night, moderator Steve Pond asked the filmmakers how they spotted the “Alien” actress — who was then just a young Beatles fan — in the crowd at a Hollywood Bowl concert in 1964 or ’65.
The film’s editor Paul Crowder explained — and the story is even more bizarre than you’d imagine.
“We were going through the footage and there is a big party and Groucho Marx gets out of the car and they’re interviewing him and ask him if he’s coming to see the Beatles — Marx is like ‘nah, I’m here to drink,'” Crowder said. “So the cameraman pans around and there were two girls sitting in the car, and I’m like ‘God, that looks like Sigourney Weaver over there.
Source: Umberto Gonzalez/thewrap.com
The Who’s Pete Townshend allegedly helped Eric Clapton romance George Harrison‘s first wife, Pattie Boyd. George and Boyd married in 1966, but Clapton fell in love with her shortly after. He needed Townshend to distract the former Beatle so he could sweep Boyd off her feet.
In 1964, George met actor and model Pattie Boyd on the set of The Beatles’ first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. That first day they met, George asked Boyd to marry him. She declined but agreed to a date. They married in 1966. However, their marriage started to crack in 1970, when George discovered that Clapton loved Boyd.
Clapton met Boyd in London and played her a song he wrote for her. It was called “Layla.”
“We met secretly at a flat in South Kensington,” Boyd said (per New York Post). “Eric had asked me to come because he wanted me to listen to a new number he had written. He switched on the tape machine, turned up the volume and played me the most powerful, moving song I had ever heard. It was ‘Layla.'”
Source: cheatsheet.com
“Did you know,” whispered a pop cognoscente, “that the Beatles invented Scotch and Coke? No one drank it before 1962” A trestle table in the garden of a small chateau, in the hills above Toulon, was appropriately filled with bottles of both – and nothing else. It was just after midnight, the air was thick with the scent of pine, and everyone at the party was being very, very nostalgic. Paul McCartney had not only given his first concert for six years in this obscure and charming place, but actually hadn’t rushed off afterwards, “Ten years …” mused the cognoscente, mixing himself another Beatle Special. McCartney strode jerkily around, shaking hands and looking cheerful, acting as though everything was quite as it always was, that he had not been a hermit from publicity for the last five years (to the extent that rumours swept America that he was dead), and had not been one of the most publicised entertainers in history before that.
Source: Robin Denselow/theguardian.com
John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married for over a decade, and the former Beatle said he learned everything from her. He explained that they had a teacher and student relationship, a dynamic he said most people didn’t understand. While Lennon designated the roles, Ono noted that they both learned from each other. They both gave insight into their relationship and what they learned from it.Lennon and Ono met in 1966, when he was still married to his first wife, Cynthia. She had an art installation at a gallery that he went to see.“There was a sign that said, Hammer a nail in, so I said, ‘Can I hammer a nail in?’ But Yoko said no, because the show wasn’t opening until the next day,” Lennon told Playboy in 1980. “But the owner came up and whispered to her, ‘Let him hammer a nail in. You know, he’s a millionaire. He might buy it.’ And so there was this little conference, and finally she said, ‘Okay, you can hammer a nail in for five shillings.’”
Source: cheatsheet.com
