Beatles News
Two Beatle children - Stella McCartney and Zak Starkey - celebrate their birthdays on 13 September. Which Beatle was the first to have a child?
Heather McCartney (born 31 December 1962)
Technically, Heather is the eldest Beatle child by four months, but Paul is not her biological father: she was born to Joseph See Jr and Linda Eastman in 1962, but her parents divorced after two years of marriage. McCartney adopted Heather after he married her mother in March 1969.
Source: radiox.co.uk
The man who shot and killed John Lennon outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980 has been denied parole for a 12th time, New York corrections officials said Monday.
Mark David Chapman, 67, appeared before a parole board at the end of August, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Chapman shot and killed Lennon on the night of Dec. 8, 1980, as Lennon and Yoko Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment. Lennon had signed an autograph for Chapman on a copy of his recently released album, "Double Fantasy," earlier that day.
Source: abc7news.com
Ringo Starr has been in the music business for six decades, and he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. The drummer became famous playing with the Beatles, but those years represent just a fraction of his career. He’s contributed to some classic albums by other artists (and not just as a drummer) in addition to his steady stream of solo works and concert tours. Ringo’s career might have been quite different if not for a chance encounter with Ed Sullivan that led to the Beatles becoming international superstars.Any musician can release a song or album on the internet to help build an audience. But the Beatles had to cultivate a following the old-fashioned way — by playing live.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
Pattie Boyd has joked she demanded royalties from ex-husband Eric Clapton as part of their divorce settlement for inspiring his rock classic ‘Layla’.
The model and rock muse, now 78 and a successful writer, was wooed from her husband, Beatles guitarist George Harrison, after Eric played her his 1970 anthem and told her it was written in honour of his love for her.
But she resisted leaving George, who died aged 58 in 2001, for Eric until the Beatle’s cheating led to their divorce in 1974.
Pattie, who then divorced Eric, 77, in 1989, jokingly told the Sunday Times magazine she hasn’t received a penny from the track.
She said: “I asked for that in my divorce and he said, ‘Are you kidding?’ That’s why I have to write books.”
Source: crowrivermedia.com
George Harrison wasn’t overly fussed about his country’s monarchy and Queen Elizabeth II. He cared much more about the only figure above her, God. However, that doesn’t mean the former Beatle disliked the queen. He thought she was a very nice lady, but her niceness “made it worse somehow.”
According to Beatles Bible, Harold Wilson, the prime minister, nominated The Beatles for the award. Many speculated Wilson selected the Fab Four to gain the support of younger voters.
Shortly after, The Beatles held a press conference about the award at Twickenham Film Studios, where they watched a rough cut of Help!
“We thought that MBE stood for Mr. Brian Epstein because we always sign his contracts because he’s our manager,” Paul McCartney joked.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney admitted he has played The Beatles‘ “A Hard Day’s Night” incorrectly in recent years. In the same vein, he explained why he plays the song wrong. Notably, he revealed what it was like for him to listen to “A Hard Day’s Night.”
During a 2018 interview with GQ, Paul discussed playing “A Hard Day’s Night” incorrectly. “People aren’t you, and they don’t experience it,” he said.
“People haven’t written 300 songs,” he added. “And that’s just with John. They haven’t written … too many songs. So you don’t remember them.”
Paul revealed his band didn’t know how to play the song’s opening chord either when Paul started playing the song again in 2016. “Nobody knows what that chord is,” he said. “It’s a mystical chord.”
Paul discussed his band’s reaction to this conundrum. “We had to investigate it,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I think it’s this,'” Paul then played his guitar. “That’s sort of like it,” he opined. “But it’s not.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison initially wrote “Cheer Down” for Eric Clapton’s 1989 album, Journeyman. However, director Dick Donner heard the song and snatched it for his 1989 film Lethal Weapon 2.
In 1988, George and Tom Petty became bandmates in The Traveling Wilburys. They also became close friends. George asked Petty to help him write “Cheer Down.”
In a special edition of Rolling Stone, “Remembering George,” Petty explained that he and George based “Cheer Down” on something George’s wife, Olivia, used to say to him when he got overexcited.
“Olivia would say that to George when he got a little too happy,” Petty explained. “He would get a burst of enthusiasm, and she’d say, ‘OK, cheer down, big fellow.'”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
How The Beatles came to use a Riverside-built guitar on the ‘White Album’
The instrument found its way to George Harrison, who played it on the landmark 1968 release.
It seems that a prototype guitar — built in Riverside — was used by George Harrison ofon the 1968 “White Album.”First, how did Riverside get a guitar factory?This story actually starts in the 1920s with a man named Paul Barth. Barth was a quiet, unassuming person who was, in essence, the father of the electric guitar. Starting in the ’20s, he was creating and experimenting with many types of electric methods of amplifying the sound of a guitar, which at the time was being drowned out by other instruments in dance and jazz bands. Barth worked with George Beauchamp in the 1930s to further develop electric guitars and guitar pickups.
Source: L.A. Daily News/headtopics.com
Sir Paul McCartney has joined those offering tributes to Queen Elizabeth II, following her death at 96.
Stars have shared their fondest memories of Her Majesty on social media after Buckingham Palace confirmed that she had died, earlier today.
The Beatles legend was among those, taking to Twitter with a stunning portrait of the monarch.
‘God bless Queen Elizabeth II May she rest in peace Long live The King,’ he captioned the upload.
The 80-year-old wasn’t the only member of the fab four to pay his condolences, with Ringo Starr following suit.
‘God bless Queen Elizabeth peace and love to all the family peace and love Ringo,’ he penned, beside a string of emoji.
Source: Rishma Dosani/Rishma Dosani
George Harrison wrote many songs about the special things in his life, including his wife and son.
The former Beatle began dating Olivia Arias in the mid-1970s, following his separation from his first wife, Pattie Boyd. In 1977, the same year George officially divorced Boyd, Olivia became pregnant with the couple’s only son, Dhani. He was born in 1978, a month before his parents tied the knot.
George and Olivia took a vacation to the Virgin Islands two years before Dhani was born. He had a burst of creativity while away and began a significant songwriting session. Some of the songs he penned on that holiday later appeared on his 1976 album, Thirty Three & ⅓.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
