Beatles News
“Dylan… was really into the whole idea of it for the refugees….” says George Harrison over the restored footage above from 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh. The quiet Beatle’s scouser lilt will surely tug at your heartstrings, as will Harrison and Dylan’s careful rehearsal take of “If Not for You,” a song they did not end up playing together during the concert. It’s a significant shared moment nonetheless. As fans know, “If Not for You” became a keystone song for both artists at the turn of the 70s.
Dylan wrote the song the year previous as the first track on his 1970 New Morning, a record critics heralded as a return to form after the panned double album, Self Portrait. Harrison himself sat in on a session for the song and recorded a “languid early version,” notes Beatles Bible, “at Columbia’s Studio B in New York.”
Source: openculture.com
George Harrison‘s son, Dhani Harrison, worked on the former Beatle’s final album. He made sure one of the songs on the record was track seven for a specific reason. In addition, the song made a famous drummer cry every time he heard it.
Jim Keltner is a drummer who worked with numerous famous musicians. He played on songs by Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Celine Dion, and numerous others. During a 2005 interview with Modern Drummer, he discussed George’s final studio album Brainwashed. He said some of the songs from Brainwashed deeply affected him.
“One that makes me cry every time I hear it, and probably always will, is ‘Stuck Inside a Cloud,'” Keltner revealed. “That’s one of his older one’s that he used to play for me all the time. It had a magical, misty, very English sort of quality to it.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
"You've got as many lives as you like, and more, even ones you don't want." George Harrison once spoke these now iconic words (per Brainy Quote). Regardless of the number of proverbial lives the late Beatles guitarist may or may not have lived, there's no question as to the number of lives he touched. In addition to being a founding member of The Beatles and one of the most sacred portraits of artistry in recent history, Harrison garnered a community of loved ones and fans who will never forget what offered during his life.
Source: Luke Holden
Fans turned out in droves to catch the Fab Four as they shot scenes for A Hard Day’s Night on board
Everywhere The Beatles went there were screaming fans, so in 1964 they headed West in search of quieter locations off the beaten track during filming for A Hard Day’s Night, their highly acclaimed big screen debut.
Regarded as a classic of the period, the musical comedy’s plot mimicked the group’s real life, with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr seen charging through a busy railway station, pursued by dozens of teenage schoolgirls. Then they jumped on a train that, in the story, was transporting them to London for a TV show.
Source: Jackie Butler/devonlive.com
George Harrison and The Beatles‘ producer, George Martin, didn’t always see eye to eye. Initially, Martin didn’t like it when George would come forward with songs. However, George treated the producer with respect and thought of him as a close friend and collaborator until he died in 2001.Martin didn’t like George coming forward with songs either. He wanted “to concentrate on the guys who were giving me the hits,” Martin told CNN. He didn’t like George coming in and thinking he could be just as great. Initially, Martin “kind of tolerated” George’s songs. “Oh, yes, we must have a George song on this thing,” Martin would say condescendingly.
Source: cheatsheet.com
John Lennon revealed two books helped inspire “Imagine.”
He did not see the song as a condemnation of all religion.
“Imagine” was a hit in the 1970s and in the 1980s.
In John Lennon‘s 1971 hit “Imagine,” the former Beatle famously asked listeners to imagine a world with “no religion.” Subsequently, John elaborated on the meaning of that lyric. He also revealed what he thought when a church group wanted to change the lyrics of the song.According to the book All We Are Saying; The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John discussed the origin of “Imagine” in a 1980 interview. “[Activist and comedian] Dick Gregory gave Yoko and me a little kind of prayer book,” John recalled. “It is in the Christian idiom, but you can apply it anywhere. It is the concept of positive prayer. If you want to get a car, get the car keys. Get it? ‘Imagine’ is saying that.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
As awards season in the film and TV industry races to an end, the past weekend was highlighted by some of the last major honors ahead of next weekend’s Academy Awards.
The Producers Guild of America on Saturday was the latest event to honor one of the favorite documentaries of this year’s season, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Directed by first-time filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the doc about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival picked up the PGA’s “Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures” honor for Joseph Patel, David Dinerstein and Robert Fyvolent.
The other nominees in the category were Summer of Soul‘s fellow Oscar nominees Flee, Ascension and Writing With Fire, as well as The First Wave, In the Same Breath, The Rescue and Simple as Water.
Source: Andrew Jeffrey/realscreen.com
George Harrison had many hilarious run-ins with other celebrities, including one with actor Mel Gibson. Even though George wrote a song for Gibson’s Lethal Weapon 2, the pair didn’t meet until years later.
However, Gibson should have known that the “quiet Beatle” wasn’t so quiet. George knew how to give a witty response in any situation, even if he was meeting a famous actor.
George Harrison during The Beatles induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Mel Gibson at the 1997 Golden Globes.
In Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust: Off the Record with The Beatles, Bowie, Elton & So Much More (per the New York Post), Ken Scott, one of the five main engineers for The Beatles, recalled the time George met Gibson.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Sir Paul McCartney is known for his memorable words — so it makes sense that the last ones he spoke to his late wife were meaningful. The Beatles frontman is one of the most successful composers and performers of all time. And he used his way with language to help ease his wife, Linda McCartney, on her death bed. What did he say?Although early Beatles songs were about Jane Asher, McCartney’s first love, Linda Eastman, captured his adult heart. The American photographer attended a Georgie Fame concert at a London nightclub. She met her future husband there, as the book Paul: 50 Years After the British Invasion explains (via Rolling Stone).
Source: cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and his wife Linda had one of the most enduring marriages in rock and roll. The couple tied the knot in March of 1969 and caused the ire of fans of The Beatles who wept after learning McCartney was no longer a single man. However, the couple almost didn’t marry the day they were scheduled to become man and wife. Here’s the reason why.
Paul McCartney met photographer Linda Eastman during a Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames concert at London’s Bag O’Nails club in 1967.
Eastman attended the concert with members of the group The Animals.
Source: cheatsheet.com
